TORN TO PIECES
John's entrance into the boarding-house secured for him intercourse
with a large and varied circle,--perhaps too varied. There were
students of all ages, of all subjects, and from all districts, from
clergymen who were reading for their last examination to young medical
and law students. There were also ladies in the house, and John was
for the eighth time in love. Again the object of his affections
was unattainable, being engaged to another. The variety of this
social intercourse overloaded his brain with impressions from all
circles; his personality became relaxed and distracted through the
self-adaptation and compromises with other people's views which are
necessary in society. Besides this a great deal of drinking went on
nearly every evening. On one of the first days after his arrival
appeared a criticism of his play in one of the evening papers. It was
very sharp but just, and therefore hit John hard. He felt stripped
and seen through. The critic said that the author had concealed his
insignificant personality behind a great name--Thorwaldsen--but
that the disguise did not avail him and so on. John felt altogether
bankrupt. In such cases one tries to defend oneself, and he compared
his own with other bad plays, which the same severe critic had
praised. He felt treated unjustly, and indeed when compared with others
it was so, but not when he was regarded by himself alone. The fact that
the critic was worse did not make his piece better.
John became shy and averse to company. This was increased by the
students' club starting a paper in which they made merry over him and
his play. He fancied he saw grimaces and contempt everywhere, and went
preferably by back streets on his walks.
Then there came a yet severer blow. A friend had, on his own account,
published one of John's first plays,--the _Free-thinker_. While he was
spending an evening with Rejd an acquaintance brought in the hated
evening paper. It contained a scathing article on the play, which was
mocked at and cut to pieces. John was obliged to read the article in
the presence of his friends. He had, against his will, to admit that
the critic was not unjust, but it upset him terribly.
Why is it so hard to hear the truth from others, while at the same
time one can be so severe against oneself? Probably because the social
masquerade in which we all take part makes every one fear being
unmasked, probably also because responsibility and unpleasantness are
involved in it. One feels oneself overreached and cheated. The critic
who sits at ease and unmasks others would feel himself equally scourged
and exposed if his secrets were betrayed. Social life is honeycombed
with falsity, but who likes to be discovered? That is why at times of
solitude, when the past rises up unescapably, we do not feel remorse
for our faults, but for our follies and necessary cruelties. Mistakes
were necessary and had some use, but follies were merely injurious and
should have been avoided. It is for this reason that men pay greater
honour to intelligence than to morality, for the former is a reality,
the latter an idea.
Meanwhile John felt the same pains which he imagined a criminal must
feel. He felt impelled to obliterate as soon as possible the impression
made by his stupidity. But he felt also that a kind of injustice
had been done him since he had been criticised simply and solely as
a writer, although his production was a year old, and he himself,
therefore, maturer than it, by a year. But it was not the fault of the
critic that there was an incongruity between the criticism and the
_corpus delicti_.
He began to compose another tragedy, _The Assistant at the Sacrifice_.
This was intended to deal with Christendom in artistic form, and to
handle the same problem and the same questions as his former play. By
"artistic form" at that period was meant the laying of the scene of
the play in a past epoch. John wrote the piece under the influence of
Oehlenschläger and the Icelandic sagas which he had lately read in the
original.
He had, however, a severe struggle with his conscience, for his father
had exacted a promise from him not to write for the stage till he had
passed his examination. It was, therefore, an act of deceit to take
help from his father and not to fulfil the conditions on which it was
granted. But he silenced his scruples by saying to himself, "Father
will be pleased enough if I have a speedy and great success." In that
he was not far wrong.
But another element now entered into his life, and had a decided
influence both on his views of things and his work. This was his
acquaintance with two men,--an author and a remarkable personality.
Unfortunately they were both abnormal and therefore had only a
disturbing effect upon his development.
The author was Kierkegaard,[1] whose book, _Either--Or_, John had
borrowed from a member of the Song Club, and read with fear and
trembling. His friends had also read it as a work of genius, had
admired the style, but not been specialty influenced by it,--a proof
that books have little effect, when they do not find readers in
sympathy with the author. But upon John the book made the impression
intended by the author. He read the first part containing "The
Confessions of an Æsthete." He felt sometimes carried away by it, but
always had an uncomfortable feeling as though present at a sick-bed.
The perusal of the first part left a feeling of emptiness and despair
behind it. The book agitated him. "The Diary of a Seducer" he regarded
as the fancies of an unclean imagination. Things were not like that in
real life. Moreover John was no sybarite, but on the contrary inclined
to asceticism and self-torment. Such egotistic sensuality as that of
the hero of Kierkegaard's work was absurd because the suffering he
caused by the satisfaction of his desires necessarily involved him in
suffering and, therefore, defeated his object.
The second part of the work containing the philosopher's "Discourse on
Life as a Duty," made a deeper impression on John. It showed him that
he himself was an "æsthete" who had conceived of authorship as a form
of enjoyment. Kierkegaard said that it should be regarded as a calling.
Why? The proof was wanting, and John, who did not know that Kierkegaard
was a Christian, but thought the contrary, not having seen his
_Edifying Discourses_, imbibed unaware the Christian system of ethics
with its doctrine of self-sacrifice and duty Along with these the idea
of sin returned. Enjoyment was a sin, and one had to do one's duty.
Why? Was it for the sake of society to which one was under obligations?
No! merely because it was duty. That was simply Kant's categorical
imperative. When he reached the end of the work _Either--Or_ and found
the moral philosopher also in despair, and that all this teaching about
duty had only produced a Philistine, he felt broken in two. "Then," he
thought, "better be an æsthete." But one cannot be an æsthete if one
has been a Christian for five-sixths of one's life, and one cannot be
moral without Christ. Thus he was tossed to and fro like a ball between
the two, and ended in sheer despair.
Had he now read Kierkegaard's discourses, he might possibly have
come a step nearer to Christianity--possibly--for it is difficult to
decide that now, but to receive Christianity again seemed to him like
replacing a tooth which had been torn out, and joyfully thrown into the
fire, along with the accompanying toothache. It was also possible that
if he had known that the book _Either--Or_ was intended to scourge one
to the Cross he might have thrown it away as a jesuitical writing and
been saved from his embarrassment. All that he felt now, however, was
a terrible discord. He had to choose and make the jump between ethics
and æsthetics, but choose how? and jump whither? He could not jump
out in space to embrace a paradox or Christ,--that would have been
self-destruction or madness. But Kierkegaard preached madness? Was
it the despair of the over-self-conscious at finding himself always
self-conscious? Was it the longing of one who sees too deeply for the
unconsciousness of intoxication?
John knew well what the battle between his own will and the will of
others meant. He had given his father trouble enough when he crossed
his plans; but the trouble was mutual; the whole of life consisted of
a web of wills crossing one another. The death of one was life-breath
to another; no one could gain an advantage without hurting the one
he passed by. Life was a perpetual interchange and struggle between
pleasure and pain. His sensuality or desire for enjoyment had not
injured others nor caused them trouble. He had never seduced the
innocent, and had never enjoyed himself without paying the price. He
was moral from habit; from instinct, from fear of the consequences,
from good taste or from education, but the very fact that he did
not feel himself immoral, was a defect and a sin. After reading
_Either--Or_ he felt sinful. The categorical imperative stole on him
under a Latin name and without a cross on its back, and he let himself
be beguiled by it. He did not see that it was a two-thousand-years-old
Christianity in disguise.
Kierkegaard would not have made so deep an impression on him, if a
number of concurrent circumstances had not contributed to that result.
In the letters of the æsthete, Kierkegaard expounded suffering as
enjoyment. John suffered from public contumely; he suffered from his
hard work; he suffered from unrequited affection; he suffered from
unsatisfied desires; he suffered from drink, for he was intoxicated
nearly every evening; he suffered as an artist from mental struggles
and doubts; he suffered from the ugly scenery of Upsala; he suffered
from the discomfort of his rooms; he suffered from examination-books;
he suffered from a bad conscience because he did not study but wrote
plays. But something else lay at the bottom of all this. He had been
brought up to fulfil hard tasks and duties. Now he lived well amid ease
and enjoyment. Study was an enjoyment; authorship, in spite of all its
pains, was a wonderful enjoyment; the life with his comrades was sheer
festivity and jollity. But his plebeian consciousness awoke and told
him that it was not right to enjoy while others worked; _his_ work was
an enjoyment, for it brought him a good deal of honour, and perhaps
money. This accounted for his persistently uneasy conscience which
persecuted him without a cause. Was it that he felt already the signs
of this awakening consciousness of tremendous guilt as regards the
lower classes, the slaves who toiled, while he enjoyed? Did he already
have a foreboding of that sense of justice, which in our days has laid
so strong a hold on many of the upper classes that they have restored
capital which was not quite honestly earned, have expended time and
toil for the liberation of the lower classes, and have worked from
impulse and instinct against their own interests, in order to do right?
Possibly.
But Kierkegaard was not the man to resolve the discord. It was reserved
for the evolutionary philosophers to make peace between passion and
reason, between enjoyment and duty. They cancelled the deceptive
_Either_--_Or_, and substituted _Both--And,_ giving both flesh and
spirit their due. The real significance of Kierkegaard became clear
to John many years later. Then he saw in him the simple pietist, the
ultra-Christian who wished to realise in modern society oriental ideals
of two thousand years ago. But Kierkegaard was right in one point: if
we were to have Christianity, we ought to have it thoroughly; but his
_Either--Or_ was only valid for the priests of the church who called
themselves Christians.
Kierkegaard saw no further, and from him who wrote his book in 1843,
and had a clerical education, one could not expect that he should say:
"Either a Christianity like this, or none!" In that case people would
probably have chosen none. Instead of that Kierkegaard said: "Whether
you are æsthetical or ethical you must cast yourself into the arms
of Christ." His mistake was to oppose ethics and æsthetics to each
other, for they can go very well together. But John did not succeed
in harmonising them till, after endless struggles, at the age of
thirty-seven, he attempted a compromise when he discovered that work
and duty are forms of enjoyment, and that enjoyment itself, well-used,
is a duty.
But at that time, the book weighed on him like a nightmare. He was
angry when his friends wished to regard it as mere literature. He was
not pacified by their regarding it superior in richness, depth and
style to Goethe's _Faust_, which it certainly did surpass by far. John
could not at that time understand that the pillar-saint Kierkegaard had
himself known what enjoyment was when he wrote the first part, and that
the seducer and Don Juan were the author himself, who satisfied his
desires in imagination. No, he thought it was poetry.
John had been already predisposed to receive Kierkegaard's influence,
and now came the other acquaintance, which would not have played a
great rôle in his life if circumstances had not prepared him for
that also. His companions merely regarded the person in question as
ludicrous.
It came about in the following way. Thurs the Jew came one day and told
John that he had made the acquaintance of a genius who wished to join
their Song Club.
"Ah, a genius!"
None of the members of the club believed that they were geniuses, not
even John, and it is doubtful whether any poet has really believed
or felt that he was one. One can, when one makes comparisons, find
that one has produced better work than others, and a clever man
will naturally feel that he understands better than others, but
genius,--that is something else. This title is not generally bestowed
on any one till after death and is now dropping out of common use,
since the secret of the evolution of genius has been discovered.
The novelty aroused attention, and the stranger was elected to the
club under the name of Is. He was not a poet, they were told, but very
learned and a powerful critic.
One evening when the club-meeting was at Thurs' rooms he came--a
little thin person, without an overcoat, dressed like a labourer on
his holiday. His clothes looked as though they were borrowed, for
their elbows and knees were not in the right places. John, who used
to succeed to his elder brother's clothes, noticed this at once. In
his hand he held a dirty beer-soup-coloured hat, such as is only worn
by organ-grinders. His face looked like that of a southern rat-trap
seller. His black hair hung on his shoulders and a black beard fell on
his breast.
"Is it possible?" they asked themselves. "Can he be a student?" He
looked forty, but was only thirty. He stood with his hat in his hand
at the door like a beggar, and hardly ventured to come forward. After
Thurs had drawn him into the room and introduced him, the meeting was
declared open. Is began to speak and they listened. His voice was like
a woman's and sank sometimes, without apology, to a whisper, as though
the speaker demanded perfect silence or spoke for his own satisfaction.
It would be difficult to repeat what he spoke of, for his speech ranged
over everything that he had read, and since he had read for ten years
more than the youths of twenty, they found his learning wonderful.
After that, another member of the club read a poem. Is had to deliver
an opinion on it. He began with Kant, quoted Schopenhauer and
Thackeray, and finished with a lecture on George Sand. No one noticed
that he said nothing about the poem.
Then they went into a restaurant to eat. Is talked philosophy,
æsthetics and history. He spoke sometimes with a melancholy expression
in his dark unfathomable eyes, which never rested on those present, as
though he sought an unseen audience far in the distance, in unknown
space. The club listened reverently with absorbed attention.
John was to hear this man's opinion on his work. He, as well as one of
the most poetical members of the club, began to have serious doubts as
to their vocation. Often, when they had drunk a good deal, they asked
whether they still believed--meaning whether each thought the Other
called to be a poet. It was just the same sort of doubt which John had
felt when he had wondered whether he was a child of God. Is was to
read John's drama, _The Assistant at the Sacrifice_, and to give his
opinion.
One morning John went up to his room to hear his verdict. Is spoke
till noon. About what? About everything. But he had now taken hold of
John's soul. Through conversations with Thurs, he know which strings to
pull, and did so, as he chose. He burrowed in John's mind, not out of
sympathy, but from a spider-like curiosity. He did not speak directly
of John's play but suggested the plan of a new one after his own ideas.
He had the effect of a mesmeriser, and John was magnetised. But he
felt in a state of despair when he left him, as though his friend had
taken his soul, picked it to pieces and thrown them away after he had
satisfied his curiosity.
But John came again, sat on the wise man's sofa, listened to his words
as though they were an oracle, and felt himself completely under his
power. Sometimes he thought it was a ghost who walked on the carpet
when his body disappeared in clouds of tobacco-smoke. The man exercised
what is called a "demonic" influence, _i.e_. inexplicable at first
sight. He had no blood in his veins, no feelings, no will, no desires.
He was a talking head. His standpoint was nothing and all at the same
time. He was a decoction of books, and the type of a book-worm who had
never lived.
Often when the other members of the club were alone, they talked
about Is. Thurs was already tired of him and wondered whether he
had committed some crime, for he seemed driven about by a constant
restlessness. Then it was reported that he was a poet, but never would
show his poems, for he had such a high idea of the poetic art. They
also wondered why no one ever saw a book in the learned man's rooms.
It was also strange that he should seek the company of these youths,
to whom he was so superior, and whose poetry he must despise. They who
were themselves in the full bloom of romanticism did not detect the
anæmic romantic who had lost his footing on firm ground. They did not
see in his long hair and shabby hat the copy of Murger's Bohemian; they
did not know that this dilapidated condition was a Parisian fashion;
that this hollow wisdom was a web woven out of German metaphysics; that
this experimental psychology was derived from a peep into Kierkegaard;
and that that interesting air of hinting at uncommitted crimes and
secret griefs was Byronic in origin. All this they did not understand.
Therefore Is could play with John's soul and catch him in his snare.
Yes, John was so thoroughly taken by him that in a speech he called
himself Gamaliel, who sat at Paul's Is's feet to learn wisdom.
The upshot of it all was that Julm, one fine evening, burnt his new
play. It was the work of three months which went up in flames. As he
collected the ashes, he wept. Is, without saying so directly, had shown
him that he was no poet. So everything was a mistake, this also! Then
he felt in despair, because he had deceived his father and could take
no work home to justify his neglect of his wishes. In a fit of remorse,
and in order to be able to point to some definite result, he entered
his name for the written examination in Latin, without, however, having
written any of the requisite preliminary exercises or essays. The Latin
professor saw his name in the list and did not know it. One Sunday
evening, when John had returned to his rooms in good spirits after a
supper, the university bedell appeared to summon him. John went boldly
to the professor and asked what he wanted.
"You wish to take the written examination in Latin?"
"Yes."
"But I do not see your name on my list."
"I entered myself before for the medical examination."
"That has nothing to do with this. You must go by the rules."
"I know no rules about the three essays."
"I think you are impertinent, sir."
"It may seem so----"
"Out with you, sir!--or----"
The door was opened, and John was ejected. He swore to himself he
would still go up for the written examination, but the next morning he
overslept himself.
So even that last straw failed.
Shortly afterwards one morning a friend came and woke him.
"Do you know that W. is dead?" (W. sat at the same table in the
boarding-house.)
"No!"
"Yes! he has cut his throat."
John started up, dressed himself, and hurried with his friend to the
Jernbrogatan where W. lived. They rushed up the stairs and came to a
dark attic.
"Is it here?"
"No, here!"
John felt for a door; the door gave way and fell upon him. At the same
moment he saw a pool of blood on the ground. He turned round, let go
of the door, and was at the bottom of the stairs before the door fell
on the ground. This scene shook him terribly and woke his memory. Some
days previously John had gone into the Carolina Park to work at his
play in solitude. W. came up, greeted him, and asked whether he might
bear him company or whether he disturbed him. John answered sincerely
that he did disturb him, and W. went away with a melancholy air. Was
it a case of a lonely drowning man who sought a companion and was
repulsed? John felt almost guilty of his death. But he was not intended
for a comforter. Now the dead man seemed to haunt him; he dared not go
to his room, but slept with his friend. One night he slept with Rejd.
The latter had to keep a light burning and was woken several times in
the night by John, who could not sleep.
One day Rejd found John with a bottle of prussic acid. He apparently
approved the idea of suicide, but first asked him to take a farewell
drink with him. They went to the restaurant and ordered eight glasses
of whisky, which were brought in on a tray. Each of them drank four
glasses in four pulls, with the desired result that John became dead
drunk. He was carried home, but since the house door was locked, he was
carried over an empty piece of ground and thrown over a fence. There he
remained lying in a snow-drift, till he recovered his senses, and crept
up into his room.
The last night which he spent in Upsala some days later he slept on a
sofa in Thurs' rooms; his friends kept watch over him, and the room
was lighted up. They watched good-naturedly till morning, then they
accompanied him to the station, and put him in the coupé. When the
train had passed Bergsbrunna, John breathed again. He felt as though
he had left something dreadful and weird, like a northern winter night
with thirty degrees of cold, behind him, and registered a vow never
again to settle in this town, where men's souls, banished from life and
society, grew rotten from over-production of thought, were corroded
by stagnant waters which had no outlet, and took fire like millstones
which revolved without having anything to grind.
[1] Danish theologian.