VI

_Swan Songs_

It cannot be doubted that _When We Dead Awake_ is one of the most

autobiographical of Ibsen's plays. Nearly all his dramas reveal

striking traces of his personal experience; their most valuable

quality, even, is the possibility of following out in them the

history of the author's inward struggle. But there is a particular

significance in _When We Dead Awake,_ which comes from the fact that

it was conceived and written by the author in his old age. Those who

are interested in overhearing what is said and watching what is done

on the outskirts of life set an extraordinary value on the opportunity

of communing with very old men, with the dying, and generally with

men who are placed in exceptional conditions, above all when they are

not afraid to speak the truth, and have by past experience developed

in themselves the art and the courage--the former is as necessary as

the latter--to look straight into the eyes of reality. To such men

Ibsen seems even more interesting than Tolstoi. Tolstoi indeed has not

yet betrayed his gift; but he is primarily a moralist. Now, as in his

youth, power over men is the dearest thing of all to him, and more

fascinating than all the other blessings of the world. He still gives

orders, makes demands, and desires at all costs to be obeyed. One may,

and one ought, to consider this peculiarity of Tolstoi's nature with

attention and respect. Not Tolstoi alone, but many a regal hermit of

thought has to the end of his life demanded the unconditional surrender

of mankind. On the day of his death, an hour before end, Socrates

taught that there was only one truth and that the one which he had

discovered. Plato in his extreme old age journeyed to Syracuse to plant

the seeds of wisdom there. It is probable that such stubbornness in

great men has its explanation and its deep meaning.

Tolstoi, and also Socrates and Plato, and the Jewish prophets, who

in this respect and in many others were very like the teachers of

wisdom, probably had to concentrate their powers wholly upon one

gigantic inward task, the condition of its successful performance

being the illusion that the whole world, the whole universe, works

in concert and unison with them. In Tolstoi's case I have elsewhere

shown that he finds himself at present on the brink of Solipsism in

his conception of the world. Tolstoi and the whole world are to him

synonymous. Without such a temporary delusion of his whole being--it

is not an intellectual delusion, of the head, for the head knows well

that the world is by itself, and Tolstoi by himself--he would have to

give up his most important work. So it is with us, who know since

Copernicus that the earth moves round the sun, that the stars are not

clear, bright, golden rings, but huge lumps of various composition,

that there is not a firm blue vault overhead. We know these things:

nevertheless we cannot and do not want to be so blind as not to take

delight in the lie of the optical illusions of the visible world. Truth

so-called has but a limited value. Nor does the sacrifice of Galileo

by any means refute my words. _E pur si muove,_ if ever he uttered the

phrase, might not have referred to the movement of the earth, though

it was spoken of the earth. Galileo did not wish to betray the work of

his life. Who will, however, stand surety to us that not only Galileo

is capable of such sacrifice, but his pupil also, even the most devoted

and courageous, who has gained the new truth not by his own struggle

but from the lips of his master. Peter in one night thrice denied

Christ. Probably we could not find a single man in all the world who

would consent to die to demonstrate and defend the idea of Galileo.

Evidently great men are very little inclined to initiate the outsider

into the secret of their great deeds. Evidently they cannot themselves

always give a clear account of the character and meaning of the tasks

which they set themselves. Socrates himself, who all his life long so

stubbornly sought clarity and invented dialectics for the purpose, and

introduced into general use definitions designed to fix the flowing

reality; Socrates, who spent thirty days without interruption in

persuading his pupils that he was dying for the sake of truth and

justice; Socrates himself, I say, perhaps, most probably even, knew as

little why he was dying as do simple people who die a natural death, or

as babes born into the world know by what beneficent or hostile power

they have been summoned from nonentity into being. Such is our life:

wise men and fools, old men and children march at random to goals which

have not yet been revealed by any books, whether worldly or spiritual,

common or sacred. It is by no means with the desire to bring dogmatism

into contempt that I recall these considerations. I have always been

convinced, and am still certain, that dogmatists feel no shame, and

are by no means to be driven out of life; besides, I have lately come

to the conclusion that the dogmatists are perfectly justified in their

stubbornness. Belief, and the need of belief, are strong as love, as

death. In the case of every dogmatist I now consider it my sacred

duty to concede everything in advance, even to the acknowledgment

of the least, and least significant, shades of his convictions and

beliefs. There is but one limitation, one only, imperceptible and

almost invisible: the dogmatist's convictions must not be absolutely

and universally binding, that is, not binding upon the whole of

mankind without exception. The majority, the vast majority, millions,

even tens of millions of people, I will readily allow him, on the

understanding that they themselves desire it, or that he will show

himself skilful enough to entice them to his side--violence is surely

not to be admitted in matters of belief. In a word, I allow him almost

the whole of humankind, in consideration whereof he must agree that

his convictions are not intrinsically binding upon the few units or

tens that remain. I agree to an outward submission. And the dogmatist,

after such a victory--my confession is surely a complete victory for

him--must consider himself satisfied in full.

Socrates was right, Plato, Tolstoi, the prophets were right: there is

only one truth, one God; truth has the right to destroy lie, light

to destroy darkness. God, omniscient, most gracious and omnipotent,

will like Alexander of Macedon conquer nearly all the known world, and

will drive out from his possessions, amid the triumphant and delighted

shouts of his millions of loyal subjects, the devil and all those who

are disobedient to his divine word. But he will renounce his claim to

power over the souls of his few opponents, according to the agreement,

and a handful of apostates will gather together on a remote isle,

invisible to the millions, and will there continue their free, peculiar

life. And here--to return to the beginning--among these few disobedient

will be found Ibsen as he was in the last years of his life, as he is

seen in his last drama. For in _When We Dead Awake_ Ibsen approves and

glorifies that which Gogol actually did fifty years ago. He renounces

his art, and with hatred and mockery recalls to mind what was once

the business of his life. On April 15, 1866, Ibsen wrote to King Karl:

'I am not fighting for a careless existence; I am fighting for the

work of my life, in which I unflinchingly believe, and which I know

God has given me to do.' By the way, you will hardly find one of the

great workers who has not repeated this assertion of Ibsen's, whether

in the same or in another form. Evidently, without such an illusion,

temporary or permanent, one cannot compass the intense struggle and the

sacrifices which are the price of great work. Evidently, illusions of

various kinds are necessary even for success in small things. In order

that a little man should fulfil his microscopical work, he too must

strain his little forces to the extreme. And who knows whether it did

not seem to Akaky Akakievitch that God had assigned to him the task

of copying the papers in the office and having a new uniform made? Of

course he would never dare to say so, and he would never be able to,

first because of his timidity, and then because he has not the gift of

expression. The Muses do not bring their tribute to the poor and weak:

they sing only Croesus and Caesar. But there is no doubt that the first

in the village consider themselves as plainly designated by fate as the

first in Rome. Caesar felt this, and not mere ambition alone spoke in

him when he uttered the famous phrase. Men do not believe in themselves

and always yearn to occupy a position wherein the certainty, whether

justified or mistaken, may spring up within them that they stand in the

sight of God. But with years all illusions vanish, and among them the

illusion that God chooses certain men for his particular purposes and

puts on them particular charges. Gogol, who had thus long understood

his task as an author, burnt his best work before his death. Ibsen did

almost the same. In the person of Professor Rubek he renounces his

literary activity and jeers at it, though it had brought him everything

that he could have expected from it, fame, respect, riches.... And

think why! Because he had to sacrifice the man in him for the sake of

the artist, to give up Irene whom he loved, to marry a woman to whom he

was indifferent. Did Ibsen at the end of his life clearly discover that

God had appointed him the task of being a male? But all men are males,

while only individuals are artists. Had this been said, not by Ibsen,

but by a common mortal, we would call it the greatest vulgarity. On

the lips of Ibsen, an old man of seventy years, the author of _Brand,_

from which the divines of Europe draw the matter for their sermons, on

the lips of Ibsen who wrote _Emperor and Galilean_ such a confession

acquires an unexpected and mysterious meaning. Here you cannot escape

with a shake of the head and a contemptuous smile. Not anybody, but

Ibsen himself speaks--the first, not in the village, not in Rome even,

but in the world. Here surely is the human law at work: 'Forswear not

the prison nor the beggar's wallet!'

Perhaps it is opportune to recall the swan songs of Turgeniev.

Turgeniev, too, had high ideals which he probably thought he had

received direct from God. We may with assurance put into the mouth

of Brand himself the phrase with which his remarkable essay, _Hamlet

and Don Quixote,_ concludes: 'Everything passes, good deeds remain.'

In these words is the whole Turgeniev, or better, the whole conscious

Turgeniev of that period of his life to which the essay belongs. And

not only in that period, but up to the last minutes of his life, the

conscious Turgeniev would not recant those words. But in the _Prose

Poems_ an utterly different motive is heard. All that he there relates,

and all that Ibsen tells in his last drama, is permeated with one

infinite, inextinguishable anguish for a life wasted in vain, for a

life which had been spent in preaching 'good.' Yet neither youth, nor

health, nor the powers that fail are regretted. Perhaps even death has

no terrors.... What the old Turgeniev cannot away with are his memories

of 'the Russian girl.' He described and sang her as no one in Russian

literature before him, but she was to him only an ideal; he, like

Rubek, had not touched her. Ibsen had not touched Irene; he went off

to Madame Viardo. And this is an awful sin, in no wise to be atoned,

a mortal sin, the sin of which the Bible speaks. All things will be

forgiven, all things pass, all things will be forgotten: this crime

will remain for ever. That is the meaning of Turgeniev's _senilia_;

that is the meaning of Ibsen's _senilia._ I have deliberately chosen

the word _senilia,_ though I might have said swan songs, though it

would even have been more correct to speak of swan songs. 'Swans,' says

Plato, 'when they feel the approach of death, sing that day better

than ever, rejoicing that they will find God, whom they serve.' Ibsen

and Turgeniev served the same God as the swans, according to the Greek

belief, the bright God of songs, Apollo. And their last songs, their

_senilia,_ were better than all that had gone before. In them is a

bottomless depth awful to the eye, but how wonderful! There all things

are different from what they are with us on the surface. Should one

hearken to the temptation and go to the call of the great old men,

or should he tie himself to the mast of conviction, verified by the

experience of mankind, and cover his ears as once the crafty Ulysses

did to save himself from the Syrens? There is a way of escape: there

is a word which will destroy the enchantment. I have already uttered

it: _senilia._ Turgeniev wished to call his _Prose Poems_ by this

name--manifestations of sickness, of infirmity, of old age. These are

terrible; one must run away from these! Schopenhauer, the philosopher

and metaphysician, feared to revise the works of his youth in his old

age. He felt that he would spoil them by his mere touch. And all men

mistrust old age, all share Schopenhauer's apprehensions. But what if

all are mistaken? What if _senilia_ bring us nearer to the truth?

Perhaps the soothsaying birds of Apollo grieve in unearthly anguish

for another existence; perhaps their fear is not of death but of life;

perhaps in Turgeniev's poems, as well as in Ibsen's last drama, are

already heard, if not the last, then at least the penultimate words of

mankind.