But one day in November a gust of wind swept over him; a cold, damp,
bleak wind that blighted the blooming flowers in his heart and covered
the sun rays with a black cloud and filled his heart with sadness. No
more hope for a chair at a university, no prospect of a life of
contemplation and peace and song. The Jesuits had stronger influence
than his friends. And as if designing to annihilate him completely the
Jesuits had attacked him with all their forces.
His third volume was nearly completed when the latest affront reached
him. He had quite forgotten his Hebraic strain. In the land of Virgil,
with the echo of Homer from the neighboring shores, he thought himself
more Greek than Hebrew, but suddenly the evaporated fumes of his
smouldering agony were driven back into his heart. He was consumed by a
thirst for vengeance. Since his enemies would not let him forget his
Hebraism he would be like the God of the ancient Hebrews. No whining,
cowering for him! Even as the Macabees of old, his progenitors, he would
meet the enemy with piercing arrows and devastating rocks. He was no
preacher of love for those that hated him; hate for hate! There was
scornful laughter in his heart. His enemies—the Preachers of Love—had
hated even those who loved them!
He was then in Florence, that dreary November day, the skies
a-drizzling, thick mist screening the banks of the Arno, a severe cold
in his head. He had spent six weeks, rambling, dreaming, drinking from
the fountain of beauty. With all the quaint narrow streets, the art
treasures around him, the buildings mellowed with age, his imagination
astir with a thousand memories of antiquity, a thousand raptures to
enthrall his soul, his romantic love for Catholic mysticism returned,
the slumbering sensuous love he felt in his childhood. Even while he
smiled at the faded Madonnas and was provoked to laughter by the hideous
saints of early Tuscan conception his heart glowed with reverence and
deep emotion. But that day only rancor filled his heart.
He left his lodgings and wandered along the bank of the Arno, unmindful
of the cold and the pain in his head. The water of the flowing river did
not reflect the azure of the Italian skies. The drizzling rain had
stirred the placid surface and, like his heart, was turgid and muddy.
Nothing was beautiful around him now. All was grim. For not only woman’s
beauty but all beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. He wished to think
of other things—he said to himself he would dismiss the “filth and
stupidity” of the “congregation” at Munich—but his brain would admit no
other thought. But for his birthright—or was it his birth-curse?—he
would have been now on his way to assume the duties of a professor of
literature and devote the rest of his life to his beloved fatherland. He
shuddered, then a cynical smile appeared on his tightly closed mouth. He
remembered that morning at the Franciscan school, when he revealed to
Christian Lutz the fact that his father’s father had been a little Jew
with long whiskers. Every time the world recalled that revelation there
was a mob to jeer at him and a Father Scher to shower blows upon him!
He continued along the bank, one moment serious, his eyes closed, the
next moment a strange smile on his lips.
When he reached the Ponte Grazie and made his way across the little
stone bridge toward the Uffizi, his heart felt lightened. He saw the
sublime jest of life; everybody laughing at everybody else. The world
was a great lazaretto where every suffering inmate was laughing at the
infirmities of the other. Was he not himself a suffering patient mocking
the other patients? The irony of it all amused him and made him forget
the drizzling rain and the pain in his head.
Presently a priest passed him, a sorry spectacle of a man; pale,
emaciated, bent, his bony hands quivering, his lips muttering something.
The poor fellow had spent so much time in praying that his lips moved
even when not at prayer. What a face! All the pains and sorrows that
human flesh was heir to were mirrored in it. Albert’s heart was wrung
with pity; there was no mockery in his heart. No, he would not even
reply to the attacks of his enemies. Love those that hate you! He now
understood that sublime utterance. The great Jew of Galilee must have
understood the jest of life, and when one understands one can only pity,
not mock.
Then he passed an old church. A woman, her head and shoulders covered
with a black cashmere shawl, pulled open the heavy church door and
entered. He followed her in. The woman did not turn right or left but
walked up to the altar, knelt on the stone steps and began to pray. He
stood in the rear, his eyes gazing blankly in front of him. The church
was deserted, gloomy, a strange sombre light sifting in through the many
colored window-panes, leaving the long archways in twilight dimness; a
swinging oil lamp in front of the beautiful image of the Madonna
accentuated the nocturnal shadows beyond the reach of this glimmering
light. It was noiseless yet there sounded in his ears dying echoes. Now
and then a soft murmur came from somewhere as if the great organ, weary
of prolonged silence, emitted a soft sigh. A thousand invisible phantoms
seemed to people this empty, age-smelling church. The kneeling, praying
woman, the stone images of saints, the indefinable forms flitting here
and there back of the pillars, the murmuring from the side chapel, the
emaciated priests outside, the Jesuits at Munich, all the religious
controversies—Oh, God, what a travesty, what a jest! He wondered which
was the greater jest, the festive gods of Olympus, who went about their
business merrily and drank toasts from golden goblets and made love to
the goddesses and slew their rivals, or the solemn, abstemious gods
surrounded by shaven monks who fretfully cajoled and fawned upon their
Jupiter, sadly rolling their eyes, praying for favors.
He suddenly rushed out of the church and proceeded through a narrow
alley which afforded a short cut to the Uffizi. At present everything
appeared farcical to him; nothing was serious. Politics, religion, love,
spaghetti, literature, painting, the Seven Sins—or was it the Seven
Wonders?—amusing jests all! As he entered the _Palazzo degli Uffizi_,
walking past marble statues, Florentine tapestries, Satyrs, Wrestlers,
Fauns, Madonnas, Venuses, Popes, Cupids, the Flight from Egypt and the
Flight into Egypt, the _Weltschmerz_—the soul-weariness—of it all
seized him and almost choked him with Satanic laughter. At a glance he
beheld the Sublime Jesters of all ages!—Michael Angelo, Raphael,
Titian, Correggio, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, da Vinci—the sublimest
jester of all—each one busy with the jest of life in his own way.
He traversed vestibules and corridors, lofty vaulted chambers and
frescoed palaces, and suddenly halted before a relief of the Sacrifice
of Iphigeneia and close beyond it the Martyrdom of St. Justina by Paul
Veronese. Were these jests, too?
He passed his hand over his eyes, then rubbed his forehead. Was he
insane or had the rest of the world lost their wits? again passed
through his mind. If he was sane the rest of the world could not be
sane. The rest of the world took all this seriously, almost
tragically—the Satyrs and the Fauns and the Madonnas and the
Martyrs—and did not see the jest of it all.
His eyes dimmed by fugitive thoughts, he walked without seeing anything
around him. He was feeling for the pillars, a prayer in his heart—O
Lord God, I pray Thee, strengthen me, O God, that I may be avenged of
the Philistines. The jeering laughter of the Philistines was in his
ears. Dagon, their god, towered over him; he felt the fetters of brass
against his flesh.
He returned to his lodging and plunged into work. He meant to jest but
his jesting now was bitter. He was avenging himself on the Philistines.
And no one ever avenged himself on the Philistines without falling with
them.