retain the memory of them for a moment, but the impression remains and
becomes irresistibly alive again. Thus there comes to my mind something
which took place in the doctor's waiting-room during my night visit.
He went to fetch wine; left alone I contemplated a cupboard with carved
panels of walnut or alderwood, I forget which. As usual, the veins in
the wood formed figures in my imagination. Among them I saw in lively
presentment a head with a goat's beard, and immediately turned my back
upon it. It was Pan in person, as depicted by the ancients and as
metamorphosed later into the Devil of the Middle Ages. I content myself
by noting the fact; the owner of the cupboard, the doctor, would be
doing occult sciences a great service if he would allow the panel to be
photographed. In the _Initiation_ for November, 1896, Dr. Marc Haven
has treated of this phenomenon, which is common in all the kingdoms of
nature, and I recommend the reader to regard attentively the face on
the shell of the tortoise.
* * * * *
After this adventure, open hostility breaks out between my friend and
me. He gives me to understand that I am an idler, and that my presence
is superfluous. To this I rejoin that I must wait for the arrival of
important letters, but that I am ready at any time to go to an hotel.
He now plays the rôle of the injured party. As a matter of fact, I
cannot leave for want of money. For the rest, I anticipate that a
turning-point in my destiny is at hand. My health is now restored
again; I sleep quietly and work diligently. The wrath of Providence
seems to have spent itself, for my exertions are crowned with success
in all quarters. If I take a book at haphazard out of the doctor's
library, it always gives the explanation I was looking for. Thus I find
in an old chemical treatise the secret of my process for making gold,
and I can now prove by metallurgic calculations and analogies that I
have made gold, and that gold has always been obtained when one has
gone to work in the same way. An essay on matter which I have written
and sent to a French review is immediately published. I show the
article to the doctor, who betrays his annoyance, since he cannot deny
the fact. Then I say to myself, "How can that man be my friend, who is
vexed at my _success_?"
_August_ 12_th_.--I buy an album at the book-shop. It is a kind
of note-book with a gilt leather cover. The design on it attracts
my attention, and constitutes, strange as it may sound, a kind of
prophecy, the interpretation of which will appear in the sequel. It
is as follows: On the left is the waxing moon in the first quarter,
surrounded by a branch in blossom; three horses' heads (trijugum)
project from the moon; above is a branch of laurel; beneath three
pillars; on the right hand, a bell out of which flowers appear; a wheel
like a sun, etc.
_August_ 13_th_.--The day announced by the clock on the Boulevard St.
Michel has arrived. I wait for something to happen, but in vain; none
the less. I am certain that somewhere something is happening, the
result of which I shall hear in a short time.
_August_ 14_th_.--On the street I pick up a leaf out of an old office
calendar; in large type there is printed on it "August 13th" (the same
date which was on the clock). Underneath in smaller type is a sentence,
"Do nothing secretly which thou canst not do also openly."
_August_ 15_th_.--A letter from my wife. She bewails my lot; she still
loves me, and with our child is waiting for a change in the melancholy
situation. Her parents, who formerly hated me, are full of sympathy
for my sufferings, and what is more, they invite me to visit my little
angel of a daughter, who lives with her grandparents in the country.
That calls me back to life. My child, my daughter is more than my wife.
Only to think of embracing the harmless, innocent creature, whom I
wished to injure,[1] to ask her forgiveness, to brighten her life by
little paternal attentions, after having longed for years to show the
love which has been repressed! I live again, wake up as if out of a
long bad dream, and revere the stern will of the Lord, whose hard but
wise hand has smitten me. "Blessed is he whom God chastens." Blessed,
for he does not trouble about others.
While it is still uncertain whether I shall meet my wife on the Danube,
a matter to which, because of an undefined grudge against her, I am
quite indifferent, I prepare for my pilgrimage, perfectly aware that it
is a penance, and that new mortifications await me.
After thirty days of misery, at last the doors of my torture-chamber
open. I part from my friend--my executioner--without bitterness. He has
only been the scourge in the hand of Providence. Behold, blessed is the
man whom the Lord chasteneth.
[1] See above, page 38.
VII
BEATRICE
In Berlin, I drive from the Stettin to the Anhalt Station. The
half-hour's drive becomes a real way of thorns for me, so many are
the memories which painfully revive in me. At first we pass through
the street in which my friend Popoffsky, as an unknown, but yet
misunderstood, man fought his first battles with poverty and passion.
Now his wife and child are both dead; they died in this house on the
left; and our friendship has turned into bitter hatred.
Here, on the right, are the restaurants frequented by artists and
authors, the scenes of so many intellectual and erotic orgies. Here is
the Cantina Italiana, where I used to meet with my fiancée three years
ago, and where the first honorarium I received from Italy was spent in
Chianti. There is the Schiffbauerdamm with the Pension Fulda, which we
lived in when a young married pair. Here is my theatre, my book-seller,
my tailor, my chemist.
What unhappy instinct leads the cabman to drive me through this _via
dolorosa_ full of buried memories, which at this late hour of the night
rise again like ghosts? Why does he choose just the street in which
is the restaurant, the "Black Pig," well known as a favourite resort
of Heine and E.T.A. Hoffmann? The restaurant keeper himself stands
on the steps under the grotesque sign-board. He looks at me without
recognition. For a second the candelabrum within darts coloured rays
through the numerous bottles in the window, and makes me live again a
year of my life which abounded in grief and joy, friendship and love.
At the same time, I feel keenly that it is all over, and must be buried
to make place for something new.
I spent the night in Berlin. The next morning a deep rose-red flush in
the East greeted me over the roofs. I remember having seen this rosy
colour in Malmö on the evening of my departure. I leave Berlin, my
second home, where I have spent my "second spring," that is, my last.
At the Anhalt Station, full of these memories, I give up all hope of
the renewal of a spring and a love which can never return.
After a night in Tabor, whither the rosy glow followed me, I travel
through the Bohemian mountains to the Danube. There the railway ends,
and I traverse the Danube plain, which extends to Grein, in a carriage.
We pass between orchards of apple and pear trees, cornfields and green
meadows. At last, on a hill on the other side of the river, I discover
the little church in which I never was, but which I know well as the
central point of the landscape which extends before the house where my
child was born. It is now two years since that unforgettable month of
May. I pass through villages and convents; along the road there rise
innumerable penitential chapels, hills crowned with crucifixes, votive
pictures, monuments, reminding one of accidents and sudden deaths
by lightning, and in other ways. At the end of my pilgrimage there
certainly await me the twelve stations of the Cross. Every hundred
paces the Crucified meets me with His crown of thorns, and instils into
me courage to bear scourging and crucifixion. I painfully convince
myself beforehand, that _she_, as I might have known, will not be there.
Now, since my wife can no more divert the domestic storm, I must
expect tit-for-tat from the old parents, whom I left under unpleasant
circumstances, though against my will. I come accordingly for the sake
of peace to be punished, and when I have passed the last village and
the last crucifix, my feelings are something like those of a condemned
man awaiting execution.
* * * * *
I had left an infant six weeks old, and I found a little girl of two
and a half. She turned on me a searching look, but not one of dislike,
as though she wished to find out whether I had come for her own or her
mother's sake. After she had assured herself of the former, she let
herself be embraced, and put her little arms round my neck. I am in a
mood like Faust's when he exclaims, "the earth has me again," but more
tender and purer. I am delighted in taking the little one on my arm,
and feeling her heart beat against mine. Love for a child turns a man
into a woman; it is sexless and heavenly, as Swedenborg says. This
is the beginning of my education for heaven. But I have not yet done
penance enough.
Briefly put, the situation is as follows: My wife is staying with her
married sister, for her grandmother, who is in possession of the family
property, has vowed that our marriage shall be dissolved, so intensely
does she hate me, on account of my ingratitude and other matters.
So I with my child remain as a welcome guest of my mother-in-law,
and contentedly accept the hospitality offered me, under present
circumstances, for an indefinite time. My mother-in-law, with the
placable and submissive mind of a deeply religious woman, has forgiven
me all.
_September_ 1_st_.--I occupy the room in which my wife has spent her
two years of separation. Here she has suffered, while I suffered in
Paris. Poor, poor woman! Are we so severely punished, because we have
trifled with love?
During the evening meal the following incident happens. In order to
help my little daughter, who cannot yet help herself, I touch her hand
quite gently and kindly. The child utters a cry, draws her hand back,
and casts at me a glance full of alarm. When her grandmother asks what
is the matter, she answers, "He hurts me." In my confusion I am unable
to utter a word. How many persons have I deliberately hurt, and hurt
still, though without intending it. At night I dream of an eagle which
tears at my hand for some unknown crime.
In the morning my daughter visits me; her manner is gentle and coaxing.
She drinks coffee with me, and remains standing by my writing-table
while I show her pictures. We are already good friends, and my
mother-in-law is glad that she has someone to help her in educating the
little one. In the evening I accompany her going to bed, and hear her
prayers. She is a Catholic, and when she bids me pray and make the sign
of the cross, I remain silent, for I am a Protestant.
_September_ 2_nd_.--Everything is in confusion. My mother-in-law's
mother, who lives not far from here on the bank of the stream, intends
to have an expulsion order made out against me. She wants me to go
at once, and threatens if I disobey to disinherit her daughter. My
mother-in-law's sister, a good woman, who is separated from her
husband, invites me to stay with her in the neighbouring village till
the storm has blown over. She comes herself to fetch me. From the top
of a hill about a mile off, one looks into a circular valley, like the
crater of a volcano, out of which rise many smaller hills covered with
pines. In the middle of this crater lies the village with its church,
and above, on a precipitous height, a castle built in the mediæval
style; between, lie fields and meadows watered by a stream which rushes
into a ravine below the castle.
This peculiar and unique landscape makes a strange impression on me,
and the thought arises: "I must have seen it somewhere before, but
where, where?"
In the zinc bath in the Hôtel Orfila, traced out in oxide of iron!
Without question, it is the same landscape!
My aunt goes down with me into the village, where she owns a
three-storeyed house. The capacious edifice also contains a baker's and
butcher's shop, and a restaurant. It has a lightning-conductor, because
the store was a year ago struck by lightning. When my good aunt, who is
as rigidly religious as her sister, conducts me to the room assigned
for my use, I remain fixed on the threshold as if arrested by a vision.
The walls are painted a rose-colour, which reminds me of the flush of
the dawns which accompanied me on my journey. The curtains are also
rose-coloured, and the windows so full of flowers that the daylight is
subdued by them. Everything is spotlessly clean, and the bed with its
canopy supported by four pillars is like that of a maiden. The whole
room with its appurtenances is a poem, and speaks of a soul which only
half lives upon earth. The Crucified is not there, but the Blessed
Virgin is, and a vessel of holy water guards the entrance against evil
spirits.
A feeling of shame seizes me, and I fear to sully the ideal of a pure
heart which has erected this temple to the Virgin over the grave of her
only love, who has been dead ten years, and in confusion I attempt to
decline the kindly offer. But the good lady insists: "It will do you
good, if you sacrifice your earthly love to the love of God, and of
your child. Believe me, this thornless love will preserve your peace of
mind and cheerfulness of spirit, and under the protection of the Virgin
you will sleep quietly."
I kiss her hand as a sign of gratitude for her sacrifice, and consent
with a feeling of humility of which I had not thought myself capable.
The powers seem to be gracious to me, and to have arranged the
sufferings they have ordained for my improvement. Still, for some
reason or other, I wish to sleep another night in Saxen, and put off
my change of residence till the next day. So I return with my aunt to
my child. Looking at the house from the street, I discover that the
lightning-conductor is fastened exactly above my bed.
What an infernal coincidence! It makes me think again that I am the
subject of a personal persecution. I also notice that my window
commands a pleasant prospect, looking out as it does on a poorhouse
occupied by released criminals and sick people, among whom several are
dying. A sorry spectacle truly, to have continually before one's eyes!
In Saxen I pack my things and prepare for departure. I part with sorrow
from my child, who has become so dear to me. The cruelty of the old
woman, who has succeeded in separating me from wife and child, enrages
me. Angrily I shake my fist against a painting of her which hangs
over my bed, and utter an imprecation against her. Two hours later a
terrible storm breaks over the village. One lightning flash succeeds
another, the rain pours in torrents, the sky is pitch dark.
The next day I am in Klam, where the rose-coloured room awaits me. Over
my aunt's house there hangs a cloud in the shape of a dragon. They tell
me that a house quite close by has been struck by lightning, and that
the torrents of rain have injured haystacks and carried away bridges.
On the 10th of September a cyclone has devastated Paris, and that under
most extraordinary circumstances. Without any warning, it suddenly
rises behind St. Sulpice in the Jardin de Luxembourg, grazes the
Théâtre du Châlet and the police station, and disappears behind the
St. Louis hospital, after it has torn up iron gratings for fifty yards
round. Regarding this cyclone and the one in the Jardin des Plantes, my
theosophical friend asks me, "What is a cyclone? Is it an ebullition of
hatred, the eruption of some passion, the effluence of some spirit?"
It must be a coincidence, or rather, more than a coincidence, that in
a letter which crosses his, I have asked him as one initiated in the
occult doctrines of the Hindus, "Can the philosophers of Hindustan
cause cyclones?"
I began to suspect the adepts in magic of persecuting me on account of
my gold-making or my obstinacy, and of wishing to bring me in complete
subjection to their society. In the _German Mythology_ of Rydberg and
in _Wärend och Widarne_ of Hilten-Cavallius, I had read that witches
were in the habit of appearing in a storm or in short and violent gusts
of wind. I mention this to show my mental condition before I fell in
with Swedenborg's teaching.
* * * * *
The sanctuary shines in white and rose, and the saint will soon join
his disciple, who summons him from their common fatherland in order
to revive the memory of the man who was more highly equipped with
spiritual gifts than any born of woman in these modern times. France
sent Anskar[1] in the early middle ages to baptise Sweden; a thousand
years later Sweden sent Swedenborg to re-baptise France by means of
his disciple Saint-Martin. The Martinist orders, who know the rôle
they have to play in the founding of a new France, will not undervalue
the purport of these words, and still less the significance of the
above-mentioned millennium.
[1] French missionary (801-865 A.D.).
VIII
SWEDENBORG
My mother-in-law and my aunt completely resemble each other in
character, tastes, and inclinations, and each sees in the other her
counterpart. On the first evening of my stay I narrate to them my
mysterious adventures, doubts, and sufferings. They both exclaim,
with a certain look of satisfaction in their faces, "You are where
we have already been." Both starting from a neutral point of view
as regards religion had begun to study occultism. From that moment
onwards they suffered from sleepless nights, mysterious accidents
accompanied by terrible fears, and at last, attacks of madness. The
invisible furies pursue their prey up to the very gates of the city
of refuge--religion. But before they have got so far the protecting
angel reveals himself--and that is Swedenborg. The good ladies wrongly
suppose that I have a thorough acquaintance with the writings of my
fellow-countrymen. Astonished at my ignorance, they give me, with a
certain air of reserve, however, an old volume in German, saying, "Take
it, read, and don't be afraid."
"Afraid? Why should I be?" I answer.
Returning to the rose-coloured room, I open the book at haphazard and
read. The reader may conceive my astonishment when my eyes fall on the
description of one of Swedenborg's hells which exactly reproduces the
landscape of Klam, as I saw it in the zinc bath. The crater-shaped
valley, the pine-crowned hill, the ravine with the stream, the heaps of
dung, the pig-sty--they are all there.
Hell? But I have been brought up in the profoundest contempt of the
doctrine of hell, as one consigned to the rubbish-heap of out-worn
ideas. And yet I cannot deny the fact--and that is the novelty in
this exposition of the doctrine of so-called eternal punishment--we
are already in hell. Earth, earth is hell? the dungeon appointed by
a superior power, in which I cannot move a step without injuring the
happiness of others, and in which others cannot remain happy without
hurting me. Thus Swedenborg depicts hell, and perhaps without knowing
it, earthly life, at the same time.
The fire of hell is the wish to rise in the world; the powers awaken
this wish and allow the damned souls to get all they want. But as
soon as the goal is reached, and the wish is fulfilled, everything is
seen to be worthless and the victory is null and void. Oh, vanity of
vanities! Then, after the first disappointment, the powers rekindle
the flame of ambition and desire; and satisfied greed and satiety are
still a worse torment than unquenched appetite. Thus the Devil suffers
everlasting punishment, for he gets all he wants at once, so that he
cannot enjoy it.
When I compare the Swedenborgian hells with the punishments described
in the _German Mythology_, I find an obvious likeness, but for me the
bare fact that both these books have fallen into my hand exactly at
the right moment is the essential point. I am in hell, and damnation
weighs upon me like a heavy burden. When I go over my past, my
childhood already appears to me like a prison house or torture chamber.
In order to explain the sufferings inflicted upon innocent children,
one has only to suppose an earlier existence, out of which we have
been cast down in order to bear the consequences of forgotten sins.
With a docile mind, which is my chief weakness, I receive a deep and
sombre impression from my reading of Swedenborg. And the powers let
me rest no more. Walking along the little brook in the neighbourhood
of the village, I reach the so-called ravine path between the two
mountains. The entrance between fallen and precipitous rocks has a
wonderful attraction for me. The almost perpendicular hill, crowned by
the deserted castle, forms the gate of the ravine, in which the stream
drives a water-mill. A freak of nature has given the rock the form of
a Turk's head, a fact well known in the neighbourhood. Underneath, the
miller's shed leans against the wall of rock. Upon the latch of the
door hangs a goat's horn smeared over with fat, and by it stands a
broom. This is certainly quite natural and ordinary, yet I cannot help
asking myself what devil has put these two symbols of witchcraft, the
goat's horn and the broom, just this morning in my way? I press farther
on up the damp, dark, and uneven path, and come to a wooden building,
the strange aspect of which makes me stop. It is a long, low erection,
with six openings like oven doors. Oven doors! Ye gods, where am I then?
The image of Dante's hell, the red-glowing tombs of the heresiarchs,
rises before me--and the six oven doors! Is it a bad dream? No,
commonplace fact, for a frightful stench, a stream of dirt, and a
chorus of grunting reveals to me immediately that I have a pig-sty in
front of me.
Between the miller's house and the hill, just under the Turk's head,
the path contracts to a narrow passage. As I go farther along it,
I find myself confronted by a large, wolf-coloured Danish dog, a
counterpart of the monster which guarded the studio in the Rue de la
Santé in Paris. I retreat two steps, but immediately remember Jacques
Cœur's motto, "To a brave heart nothing is impossible," and press
onward into the ravine. Cerberus appears not to notice me, and so I
pursue the path which now winds between low and gloomy houses. On one
side, a black, tailless fowl with a red comb is running about, on the
other a woman wearing a red crescent-shaped ornament on her forehead
comes out of a house. She looks beautiful at first, but as she comes
nearer, I see that she is toothless and ugly.
The waterfall and the mill combined make a noise like that roaring in
the ears which I had during my first period of disquiet in Paris. The
white-powdered miller's men, who control the machinery, look like
angels or executioners, and the never-ceasing stream of water rushes
from under the great never-resting wheel. Then I reach the smithy
with its bare-armed, blackened workmen armed with tongs, choppers,
screw-vices, and hammers; amid the flames and sparks of the furnace
there lie red-glowing iron and molten lead. There is a frightful din,
which makes my brain vibrate and my heart leap. Farther on groans the
great saw of the saw-mill, and tortures with gnashing teeth the giant
tree-trunks which lie on the block, while the sawdust trickles down on
the damp ground.
The ravine-path, terribly devastated by cyclones and storms, continues
along the stream; the subsiding overflow has left a greyish-green layer
of mud behind, covering the sharp pebbles on which my feet continually
slip. I wish to cross the water, but since the little bridge has been
swept away, I halt under a precipice whose overhanging rock threatens
to fall on an image of the Virgin, who seems to support the sinking
hill on her tender shoulders.
Meditating on this combination of coincidences, which, taken together,
without being supernatural, form a remarkable whole, I return home.
* * * * *