"No, it was an attack of nightmare."
"Incubus!"
"Yes, indeed! It squeezed my lungs together, something like angina
pectoris."
I gave him a glass of milk; he lights a cigar, and I return to my
room. But now all my chance of sleep is gone. What I had seen was too
terrible, and till the morning my companions continue their conflict
with the invisible.
We meet at breakfast, and make a joke of the adventures of the night.
But our host does not laugh, a circumstance which I ascribe to his
religious way of thinking, which makes him hold the hidden Powers in
awe. The delicate position in which I find myself between the seniors
whom I admire, and the juniors whom I have no right to blame, makes me
hasten my departure. As we rise from table the master of the house asks
the doctor for a special consultation, and they retire for half an hour.
"What is the matter with the old man?" I ask, when the doctor returns.
"He cannot sleep,--has heart attacks at night."
"He also! That good and pious man! Then it is an epidemic which spares
no one."
I will not deny that this circumstance restored my courage, and the
old spirit of rebellion and scepticism took possession of my soul. To
challenge the demons, to defy the invisible, and finally to subdue
it,--that, was the task I proposed to myself as I left this hospitable
family in order to proceed upon my projected excursion in Schonen.
* * * * *
Reaching the town Höganäs the same evening, I take my evening meal
in the large dining-hall of the hotel, and have a journalist for my
companion. As soon as we have sat down to table, the usual noise is
heard overhead. In order to guard against any possibility of illusion
on my part, I let the journalist describe the phenomenon, and find him
convinced of its reality. As we went out after finishing our meal, the
unknown woman who had accosted me before my departure from Lund, stood
motionless before the door, and let me and my companion pass by. I
forget the demons and the invisible, and begin again to suspect that I
am persecuted by visible foes. Terrible doubts gnaw at my brain, fever
my blood, and make me feel disgusted with life.
But the night has a surprise in store for me which alarms me more than
all the last days together. Tired with my journey, I go to bed at
eleven o'clock. All is silent in the hotel, and no noise audible. My
courage rises, and I fall into a deep sleep, but to be awoken in half
an hour by a tremendous noise overhead. There seems to be at least a
score of young people who sing, stamp on the ground, and push chairs
about. The disturbance lasts till morning. Why don't I complain to the
manager? Because never once in my life have I succeeded in obtaining
justice. Being born and predestinated to suffer injustice, I have
ceased to complain.
In the morning I continue my journey in order to visit the coal mines
near Höganäs. At the very moment that I enter the inn, to order a
carriage, the usual witches' Sabbath commences overhead. Under some
pretext or other, I don't remember what, I ascend the stairs, only to
find a large empty room above. Since the mines cannot be visited before
twelve o'clock, I have myself driven to a fishing village some miles
north, where there is a celebrated view over the Sound. As the carriage
drives through the turnpike gate before the village, I feel a violent
compression of the chest, just as though someone pressed his knees into
my back. The illusion is so complete that I turn round to see the enemy
who is sitting behind me. Then a number of crows raise a loud croaking,
and fly over the head of the horse. He is frightened, rears, pricks his
ears, and large drops of sweat roll down his flanks. He champs the bit,
and the driver has to get down to quiet him. I ask why the horse is so
unreasonably nervous, and the answer is legible in the look which the
driver directs towards the crows, who follow us for some minutes. It is
a quite natural occurrence, but of an unfortunate kind, and, according
to popular belief, of evil omen.
After spending two useless hours, because a fog cuts off the view over
the Sound, we drive into the village Mölle. Determined to scale the
summit of the Kulle on foot, I dismiss the driver, and tell him to
await my return in the inn. After my mountain walk I return to the
village to look for him. But I have no knowledge of the place, and
I look for some one to ask the way. Not a living soul is to be seen
on the street or anywhere else. I knock at doors, but get no answer.
Although it is eleven o'clock in the morning, and I am in a village of
two hundred inhabitants, there is not a man, woman, child, or even a
dog to be seen. Driver, horse, and carriage have disappeared. I roam
about the streets, and after half an hour find the inn. Sure of finding
the driver there, I order breakfast, and, after I have eaten it, ask
them to send the driver to me.
"Which driver?"
"My own."
"I haven't seen one."
"Haven't you seen a carriage drawn by a chestnut horse, and driven by a
man with a dark complexion?"
"No, indeed I have not."
"Yet I told him to wait here in the inn."
"Oh, then he will be sitting in the bait-house close by."
The servant girl shows the way and I set off. But I am doomed to be
unfortunate, and mistake my way, so that I cannot find the inn again.
Nor is anyone to be seen. Then I get nervous,--nervous in broad
daylight! The village is bewitched. I cannot walk any more, but stand
still as if spellbound. What is the good of seeking when the devil has
a finger in the pie?
After I have had a great deal of trouble the driver at last turns
up. I am ashamed to tell him of my annoyances or to demand from him
explanations which explain nothing. We drive back to Höganäs and when
we reach the hotel the horse falls suddenly, as though someone were
standing before the door who frightened it.
I now ask the way to the coal-mines, and this time, in order to make no
mistake, I go the "five minutes' walk" which has been pointed out to
me on foot. I walk for ten minutes, quarter of an hour, half an hour,
till I come to an open plain, without a sign of buildings or chimneys
to indicate the presence of a coal-mine. The plain, which is under
cultivation, seems to stretch to infinity; there is not even a hut,
and no one of whom to ask the way. It is the Devil who has played me
this trick! I remain standing as though fast-bound and blinded, without
being able to move a step forwards or backwards. Finally I return to
the village, take a room, and have a good rest on a sofa.
After quarter of an hour I am roused out of my sad thoughts by a
disturbance--a sound like that of hammering nails. Incredulous as to
spirit-rappings, I attribute the phenomenon to malicious people or to
greater ill-luck than usual. I ring, pay my bill, and betake myself to
the station.
I have three hours to wait! That is a great deal when one is impatient,
but there is no help for it. After I have spent two hours on a seat,
a well-dressed female figure passes me, in order to enter into the
first-class waiting-room. In the gait and manner of this lady and in
her whole bearing was something that aroused vague recollections in me.
Anxious to see her aspect from the front I watch the door, waiting
for her reappearance. After waiting a long time I venture into the
waiting-room. There is no one there at all, nor is there any other
exit nor dressing-room. There are double windows, so that there is no
possibility of her having gone out by them.
Do I suffer from optical delusion? Has anyone got the power to tamper
with my faculty of sight? Can one make oneself invisible? These are
unsolved questions which make me feel near despair. Am I mad? No, the
doctors say I am not. There is inducement enough to believe in miracles.
If one may believe Swedenborg, I am a damned soul in hell and the
Powers punish me ceaselessly and mercilessly. The spirits which I
conjure up have no wish to enter the flask which I have unsealed.
I spend the evening of the same day in a good first-class hotel in
the town of Malmö. At half-past ten they begin to split wood in the
corridor without anyone objecting to it, and that in a continental
hotel full of tourists! This is followed by dancing. Later on they
turn a machine with wheel-work. I get up, pay my reckoning, and
determine to continue my journey the whole night. Absolutely alone, in
the cold January night, I drag myself on, with my carpet bag, under a
pitch black sky. For a moment I think the best thing would be to lie
down in the snow, and die. But the next moment I collect my strength,
and turn into a deserted back street where I find an unpretending
hotel. After making sure that I am not watched, I slink in through the
door. Without taking off my clothes I stretch myself upon the bed,
firmly resolved rather to let myself be killed than obliged to get up
again.
There is a death-like silence in the house, and delightful sleep
approaches. Suddenly I hear a sound as though an invisible paw was
scratching in the paper covering of the ceiling immediately over my
head. It cannot be a mouse, for the loosely hanging paper does not
move; besides, it seems to be a fairly large paw, like that of a hare,
or a dog. Till the grey of morning I lie awake, expecting to feel the
claws in my flesh, but in vain, for anxiety is more painful than death.
Why do I not become ill after such tortures as these? Because I have to
empty the cup of suffering to the dregs, in order that the punishments
undergone may be equivalent to the wrongs committed. And it is really
remarkable how I manage to endure the tortures; I swallow them down
with a kind of grim joy in order to get done with them.