Next to "Adam Homo," the most interesting work of Paludan-Müller
is "Kalanus." It is the positive expression of his ideal, as "Adam
Homo" is the negative. Nowhere is his intellectual tendency more
akin to the native bent of his great contemporary Kierkegaard than
in this work. The problem which "Kalanus" endeavors to solve is
precisely the same as the one whose solution Kierkegaard attacked
in his "Either-Or" (Enten-Eller), namely, that of contrasting two
personalities, one of whom is the direct representative of innate
genius, of the pleasure-loving, extremely energetic view of life; and
the other the incarnation of ethical profundity and moral grandeur,
allowing them to struggle and contend, and convincing the reader of the
decisive defeat of the purely natural views of life. With Kierkegaard
the two opposing modes of contemplation of life are represented by
a follower of æsthetics, and a judge of the supreme court, with
Paludan-Müller by celebrated names in history; no less a man than the
conqueror of the world, Alexander the Great, represents in "Kalanus"
the æsthetic view of life, and the opponent allotted to him is the
philosopher Kalanus. The ideal situation in the presentation of an
intellectual wrestling-match of this sort would be that the author
should succeed in equipping the contending parties with an equal
degree of excellency. The actual situation, in this case, is that with
Kierkegaard the representative of æsthetics is lavishly endowed with
intellectual gifts, while the endowments of the representative of
ethics, on the other hand, appear somewhat wooden and weak; and that
with Paludan-Müller, on the contrary, the representative of ethics
is no less intellectual than inspired, a man of the purest spiritual
beauty, while the great Alexander is not placed upon the pinnacle of
his historic fame. Such an Alexander as that of Paludan-Müller would
never have vanquished Asia. In his enthusiasm for the thinker of India,
our author seems to have lost the vital impression that Alexander
was a genius, not merely heroic like Achilles, but great like Cæsar.
And in the same way as with Alexander, the Grecian mind, as a whole,
is degraded to a lower sphere, while the great representatives of
Grecian philosophy, in the period of its glory, are permitted to make
occasional remarks of so insignificant a nature, and so indicative of
poverty of thought, that the Indian recluse has no difficulty whatever
in overcoming their arguments. Thus, to be sure, the conqueror remains
the only one who is in the slightest degree a worthy opponent of the
ascetic.
The plot represents the Indian hermit Kalanus as believing devoutly
that he has discovered in Alexander, who has just reached India on
his triumphal progress through Asia, a revelation of Brahma's eternal
light. He approaches the king in humble adoration, follows him at
a respectful distance in his march through the desert as far as
Pasargada, where he has the good fortune to be led once more into the
presence of the mighty ruler, and falling upon his bended knee, he
addresses him with the titles, "God, Ruler, Prince of Wisdom, King of
Power." Alexander, recognizing the rare worth of the man, with kindly
purpose attaches him to his person, and permits him to participate
in a festival he holds that same evening. At this celebration, which
the poet has portrayed with marked success, there are present some
beautiful Greek courtesans, who sing the praises of Alexander, and amid
loud rejoicing ransack his jewel-casket. To his profound astonishment
and infinite horror, Kalanus now discovers that the great potentate,
in whom he had seen the incarnate god, is neither inclined to shun
the intoxication slumbering in the dregs of the flowing goblet, nor
is master of the demon that lies concealed behind the mask of female
beauty. In the first moment of consternation he plunges, knife in hand,
at one of the courtesans, but is soon disarmed. Like one paralyzed he
stands rooted to the spot when the banquet is over, not only bitterly
disabused in his faith, but crushed with contrition to think that he
should have confounded Brahma with a weak and mortal man like himself.
Through self-annihilation alone can he hope to atone for his sin, and
return to the god. He resolves, after Indian fashion, to immolate
himself on the flaming pyre.
The next day, however, when Alexander, having slept off his
intoxication, learns the resolution of Kalanus, he fears that he dealt
too sternly the previous evening with his foreign adorer. So he hastens
to Kalanus to gladden the hermit's heart with the assurance that he
still enjoys the favor of Alexander. He arrives at the moment when
Kalanus, thoroughly prepared in spirit for the sacrificial fires, has
just been anointed by his mother for death. The potentate makes an
effort to calm the ascetic, and learns to his surprise that Kalanus has
not been swayed by fear of Alexander's wrath. He implores him to cast
aside his resolve, but in vain. The tyrant in Alexander is aroused; he
threatens Kalanus, he commands him to live; but his menaces rebound
from him who is about to die of his own free will. On the wondering
at the defiance of the Indian follows in the king's heart fury, and
when the quiet thinker, remaining in an unruffled state of composure,
only lays stress on the unworthy attitude of permitting the mind to
be transported with anger, Alexander believes that scorn has followed
in the footsteps of defiance. With the exclamation "slave!" he raises
his hand to smite the ascetic. The blow, however, is parried, and the
bitterness of the monarch, dispelled by the calm, tender efforts at
persuasion, becomes transformed into noble entreaties, magnanimous
promises,--all in vain. Alexander implores Kalanus to live out of
friendship for him, entreats him to share with him his throne, to
accept crown and sceptre from his hand,--his words produce as little
impression as his previous threats. Then follows a sublime scene:
Alexander casts himself upon his knees before Kalanus, and supplicates
him to live.
This scene is the most beautiful, the most dramatic, the most spiritual
that Paludan-Müller ever wrote. It is the crown of his dramatic scenes.
It is the sum total of his thoughts and dreams. In the moment when
Paludan-Müller allows Alexander to sink upon his knees, he casts all
the greatness of the world, its splendor and its honor, genius and
fame as well, at the feet of moral purity. This bending of the knee
outweighs the prostration of Kalanus before Alexander in the first
act. But even the utmost self-abasement of the hero is in vain, and
the drama ends with the ascension from the funeral pyre of the spirit
of Kalanus, purified in the sacred flames, to the heaven of Brahma.
With all that Kierkegaard has to offer of intellectual endeavor, wit,
learning, dialectics, and moral enthusiasm, in his "Either--Or," he has
achieved no such brilliant triumph for the ethical mode of viewing life
as that of Paludan-Müller in this one scene.
And as we must accept the obstinate adherences of Tithon to his
resolution to return to earth as a symptom of the approach of the
brief-lived yet so happy tendency of Paludan-Müller to realism, so we
can see in the equally obstinate adherence of Kalanus to his resolve
to forsake earthly life a symptom of the poet's return to the abstract
poesy of his youth. The heathen mythological element reappears in his
works "Paradise" and "Ahasuerus" as biblical myths. In the works that
follow "Adam Homo," to be sure, there is a far deeper psychology than
in those of the author's first youth; the psychological insight gained
in the years of mature manhood could not possibly be lost; but these
later works no longer treat of life in its breadth and with its motley
coloring. They are works that withdraw from reality, and find vent
in cloister life, in the hermit ideal, in expiatory death, or in the
destruction of the universe; their poetry is that of renunciation, of
the annihilation of self and of the universe.