"Thou art he who has followed me for two years. What would'st thou of
me?"
Without opening his mouth the Unknown answered me with a kind of smile
full of super-human kindness, forbearance, and urbanity,--
"Why dost thou ask me since thou knowest the answer thyself?"
And, as if within me, I hear thy voice sound again, "I wish to raise
thee to a higher life, to lift thee out of the mire."
"Born as I am out of mire, created for baseness, feeding on decay,
how shall I be freed from earthly grossness except by death? Take my
life then! Thou wilt not? It must be the infliction of punishment
which is to educate me? But let me assure thee that humiliations make
me proud; being denied the little enjoyments of life produces desire
for them; fasting occasions gluttony, which is not my besetting sin;
chastity whets the edge of lust; enforced loneliness produces love of
the world and its unwholesome delights; poverty gives birth to greed;
and the evil companionship to which I am relegated instils contempt
of humanity into me, and produces unawares the suspicion that justice
is maladministered. Yes, at certain moments it seems to me as though
Providence was not kept sufficiently informed by its satraps to whom it
has intrusted the rule over mankind; that its prefects and sub-prefects
allow themselves to be guilty of malversations, falsifications,
baseless denunciations. Thus it has happened to me, that I have been
punished where others have sinned; suits have been brought against me,
in which I was not only innocent, but actually the defender of right
and the accuser of crime. All the same the punishment has lighted on me
while the guilty triumphed.
"Allow me a plain question: Have women been admitted to a share in
the rule? For the present method of government seems so irritable, so
petty, so unjust, yes,--unjust. Is it not the case that every time
when I have brought a righteous and lawful case against a woman, she,
however unworthy she may have been, has been acquitted, and I have been
condemned?
"Thou wilt not answer? And then thou demandest from me that I should
love criminals, soul-murderers who poison the mind and falsify truth,
and perjurers! No, a thousand times no! 'O Eternal! should I not hate
them that hate thee? Should I not abhor them that rise up against thee.
I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them mine enemies.' So speaks
the Psalmist, and I add, 'I hate the wicked as I hate myself'; and my
prayer is this, 'Punish, O Lord, those who persecute me with lies and
malice as Thou hast punished me when I was false and malicious! Have
I now blasphemed the Eternal, the Father of Jesus Christ, the God of
the Old and New Testament? Of old time He listened to the reproaches
of mortals, and permitted the accused to defend themselves. Listen
to the way in which Moses defended himself before the Lord when the
Israelites were tired of the manna, "Wherefore hast Thou afflicted Thy
servant? and wherefore have I not found favour in Thy sight, that Thou
layest the burden of all this people upon me? Have I conceived all this
people? have I begotten them, that Thou shouldest say unto me, Carry
them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, unto
the land which Thou swearest unto their fathers? Whence should I have
flesh to give unto all this people? for they weep unto me, saying Give
us flesh, that we may eat. I am not able to bear all this people alone,
because it is too heavy for me."'
"Is not this plain speaking on the part of a mortal? Is it quite
befitting, this speech of an angry servant? Yet consider, the Lord does
not smite the bold speaker with a thunderbolt, but lightens his load by
choosing seventy leaders to share the burden of the people with Moses.
The way in which the Eternal grants the prayer of the people when they
clamour for flesh to eat, is only slightly contemptuous, like that of a
kindly father when he grants the wishes of his unreasonable children.
'Therefore the Lord will give you flesh and ye shall eat. Ye shall not
eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days nor twenty
days, but even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and
it be loathsome to you.'
"That is a God after my ideal, the same God to whom Job cries, 'Oh
that one might plead with God as a man pleadeth with his friend.' But
without waiting for this, the sufferer takes the liberty of demanding
explanations from the Lord regarding the evil treatment to which he is
exposed. 'I will say to God, "Condemn me not; show me wherefore Thou
goest against me in judgment. Doth it please Thee to oppress me, to
overthrow the work of Thine own hands, and to further the devices of
the wicked?"' These are reproaches and imputations which the good God
accepts without anger, and which He answers without using thunderbolts.
Where is He, the Heavenly Father, who can smite at the follies of His
children and pardon after He has punished them? Where does He hide
Himself, the Master of the house who kept it in good order, and watched
the overseers in order to prevent injustice?"
During my disconnected speech the Unknown regarded me with the
same indulgent smile, without betraying impatience. But when I
had finished, he disappeared. I found myself breathing a stifling
atmosphere of carbonic oxide, and standing alone on the gloomy, dirty,
autumnal-looking Rue Medici. While I went down the Boulevard Saint
Michel I felt vexed with myself, that I had neglected the opportunity
of speaking out everything. I had still many shafts in my quiver, if
only the Unknown had waited to answer, or to direct an accusation
against me.
But as soon as the crowd again presses round me in the glaring light
of the gas lamps, and all the exposed wares in the shops remind me
of the trivialities of life, the scene in the garden appears like a
miracle, and I hasten in alarm to my lodging, where meditation plunges
me into an abyss of doubt and anxiety. There is a ferment going on in
the world, and men are waiting for something new, of which a glimmering
has already appeared. France is preparing for a return to the Middle
Ages,--the period of faith and of dogma, to which it has been led
over the downfall of an empire, and of a miniature Augustus, just as
at the time of the decay of the power of Rome and the invasion of the
barbarians. One has seen Paris--Rome in flames, and the Goths crowning
themselves in the capitol, Versailles. The great heathen Taine and
Renan have gone down to perdition, and taken their scepticism with
them, but Joan of Arc has again woken to life. The Christians are
persecuted, their processions dispersed by gens d'armes; saturnalias
are held on carnival days, and shameful orgies take place in the open
streets under the protection of the police, and with the aid of money
grants from the Government, which to satisfy the discontented offers
shows, with or without gladiatorial encounters. "Panem et Circenses"
(Dear)--bread and games. All is readily bought with money, honour,
conscience, fatherland, love, administration of justice,--truly the
infallible and regular symptoms of decay in a community, whence Virtue,
both in name and reality, has been banished for thirty years. Yet for
all that we are in the Middle Ages. Young men assume monkish cowls,
wear the tonsure and dream of convent life. They compose legends and
perform miracle-plays, paint Madonnas and carve images of Christ,
drawing their inspiration from the magician,[2] who has bewitched
them with Tristan and Isolde, Parzival and the Holy Grail. Crusades
against Jews and Turks begin afresh; the Anti-Semites and Philhellenes
see to that. Magic and alchemy have already been re-established, and
they only wait for the first proved case of witchcraft in order to
erect a funeral pile to burn witches on. Middle Ages indeed! Witness
the pilgrimages to Lourdes, Tilli-sur-Seine, Rue Jean Goujon. Heaven
also gives the sleepy world signs to be ready. The Lord speaks through
water-spouts, cyclones, floods, and thunder-storms.
Mediæval also is the leprosy which has just appeared again, and against
which the doctors of Paris and Berlin have combined.
But they were beautiful, the Middle Ages, when men knew how to enjoy
and to suffer, when strength and love and beauty in colour, in
line, and harmony were revealed for the last time, before they were
drowned and sabred by the renaissance of heathenism which is called
Protestantism.
* * * * *
The evening has come, and I burn with desire to renew my meeting
with the Unknown, well prepared, as I now am, to confess all and to
defend myself before I am condemned. After I have taken my melancholy
meal alone I go up the Via Dolorosa, the Rue Bonaparte. This street
has never appeared to me so monstrous as this evening; the shop
windows yawn like abysses in which Christ is portrayed in many forms
--half-martyred, half-triumphant. I go on and on, while the sweat runs
in great drops down my face, and the soles of my boots burn my feet,
yet I do not seem to advance a step. Am I the Wandering Jew who refused
the Redeemer a drink of water? and am I, now that I wish to follow and
imitate Him, unable to approach Him?
Finally, and without myself knowing how, I find myself before the
Fleurus Gate, and in the next moment within the garden, which lies
there, dark, damp, and still. Immediately a gust of wind sets the
skeletons of the trees in motion, and the Unknown takes up his position
quicker as he approaches in his summer-like garment of light. With the
same smile as before he invites me to speak.
And I speak, "What demandest thou of me, and wherefore plaguest thou me
with thy Christ? A few days ago in some mysterious manner thou placedst
the _Imitation of Christ_ in my hand, and I read it as in my youth when
I learned to despise the world. How can I have the right to despise
the creation of the Eternal and the beautiful earth? And whither has
thy wisdom led me? To neglect my affairs, till I have become a burden
for my fellow-men, and ended as a beggar. This book, which forbids
friendship, which lays worldly intercourse under a ban, which demands
solitude and renunciation, is written for a monk, and I have not the
right to be a monk and expose myself to the danger of letting my
children die of want. See whither the love for a lonely life has led
me. On the one hand thou enjoinest the life of a hermit, and as soon as
I withdraw myself from the world I am attacked by the evil spirits of
madness, my affairs fall into confusion, and in my isolation I do not
possess a single friend from whom I can ask help. On the other hand, as
soon as I seek out men, I meet the worst kind, who annoy me with their
arrogance, and that in proportion to my humility. For I am humble, and
treat all as my equals, till they trample me under their feet, when I
behave like a worm which raises its head but cannot bite.
"What then demandest thou of me? Is it to make me a martyr at all
costs, whether I do thy will or disregard it? Wilt thou make me a
prophet? That is too great an honour for me, and I lack the vocation
to be one. Besides I cannot take up that attitude, for all prophets
which I have known have been finally unmasked as half-charlatans,
half-lunatics, and their prophecies have always failed.
"Moreover, if thou pressest upon me this vocation, I must be favoured
with electing grace, so that I become free from all destructive
passions which are degrading for a preacher; I must have adequate
support for my life instead of being, as I am, besmirched with poverty,
which makes one's character deteriorate and ties one's hands. It is
certainly true, and I grant it, that contempt of the world has led
me to despise myself and to neglect my calling through undervaluing
honour. I confess that I have been a sorry guardian of my own person,
but that is because of the superiority of my better self which despised
the unclean sheath in which thou hast immured my immortal soul. From
my earliest years I have loved purity and virtue--verily I have. Yet my
life has dragged itself dong in filth and wickedness, so that I often
suppose my sins to be punishments inflicted upon me, with the object
of arousing in me a permanent disgust of life. Why hast thou condemned
me to ingratitude, which I hate more than any other sin? Thou hast
entangled me, who am naturally grateful, in snares, in order to compel
me to feel obligation to the first benefactor who came in my way. So
I have become involved in dependence and slavery, since benefactors
demand as compensation control over the thoughts, wishes, inclinations,
and devotion,--in a word, the whole soul, of those whom they benefit.
Always I have been compelled to withdraw myself, laden with debt and
ungrateful, in order to preserve my individuality and manly worth; I
have been forced to tear asunder the bonds which threatened to strangle
my immortal soul. And that, too, with the spiritual torment and
pangs of conscience of a thief who goes his way with some one else's
property.
"As a matter of fact, by choosing the royal road of the Cross I have
entangled myself in the thorny thicket of theology, so that doubts more
terrible than ever have taken possession of me, and whispered plainly
in my ear that all unhappiness, all injustice, and the whole work of
redemption is only an enormous temptation which one must manfully
resist. Often I believe that Swedenborg, with his terrifying hells,
is only a fire and water-ordeal which must be undergone. And although
I owe a debt of gratitude, which I cannot pay to this prophet, who
has saved me from madness, I feel rise again and again in my heart a
burning desire to overthrow him, to defy him as an evil spirit who
always plots to ensnare my soul in order to enslave me, after he has
driven me to despair and suicide. Yes, he has insinuated himself
between me and my God, whose place he has wished to take. It is he who
tyrannises over me with terrors of the night and threatens me with
madness. Though possibly he has only fulfilled his task in drawing me
back to the Lord and making me submit to the Eternal. It may be that
his hells are only a scarecrow; I take them as such, but believe no
more in them, for I cannot believe in them without slandering the good
God who demands that we should forgive, because He can Himself forgive.
If the unhappiness and trouble I meet with are not punishments, then
they are initial tests. I am inclined to explain them in this way, and
it is likely that Christ is the Example, because He has suffered much,
although I do not understand what end such great sufferings serve,
except to throw into relief future blessedness. I have said what I had
to say. Give me now an answer."
But the Unknown, who had listened with wonderful patience, answered
only with a gesture of gentle irony, and vanished.
When I found myself back in the street, I was, as usual, angry at
having forgotten the best arguments, which always turn up when it is
too late. A whole long speech presents itself to me now, while my heart
swells and my courage rises again. The awe-inspiring and sympathetic
Unknown has, at any rate, heard me without crushing me. He has also
waited to hear my grounds of complaint, and he will now consider the
injustice to which I have been a sacrifice. Perhaps I have succeeded in
convincing him, as he stood there and did not answer me.
The old idea that I am Job comes into my mind, I have really lost
my property; they have taken my movable goods and books, means of
existence, wife, and children. Hunted from one land to another, I am
condemned to a lonely life in the desert. Is it I who have written
these lamentations, or is it Job: "My neighbours have forsaken me,
and my friends have forgotten me. My wife makes herself strange to
me, and my prayers reach not the sons of my mother. Little children
also despise me. He has made me a by-word among the people, and I
have become their music. I find only slanderers, and my eye wakes
the whole night while they persecute my soul. My skin breaks and is
dissolved. When I say, 'My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease
my complaint,' then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me
through visions." This fits me exactly; the cracks in the skin, the
dreams and the visions. But there is an over-plus on my side. I have
endured the extremest sufferings, as circumstances brought about by
invisible powers which hemmed me in, in order to compel me to leave
unfulfilled the simplest duty of a man,--to support his children. Job
retired from the game with his honour unaffected; for me all was lost,
even honour, and yet I overcame the temptation to suicide; I possessed
the courage to live without honour.
* * * * *
For three months I seek in vain to come into personal connection with
the Swedenborg Society in Paris. For a whole week I go every morning
past the Pantheon to reach the Rue Thouin, where the chapel and the
library of the Swedish prophet are situated. Finally I find some one
who says that the librarian only receives strangers in the afternoon,
just the time when I wish to be alone with my thoughts, and am too
tired to walk. However, time after time I make the attempt to reach
the Rue Thouin. The first time I felt uncomfortably depressed as I wont
out, and at the end of the bridge of Saint Michel this feeling amounted
to a positive fear, which compelled me to return home. A second time
it is Sunday, and they are going to have service in the Swedenborgian
chapel. I arrive an hour too soon, and do not feel strong enough to
wait an hour in the street. The third time I find the pavement taken
up in the Rue Thouin, and workman blocking the way with their planks
and tools. Then I conclude that Swedenborg is not destined to be my
leader on the right path, and under this impression I retrace my steps.
But when I get home, it occurs to me that I have allowed myself to be
deceived by Swedenborgs invisible enemies, and that I must fight them.
My last attempt I make in a carriage. This time the street is
barricaded, as it expressly to frustrate my purpose. I get out of the
carriage and clamber over the obstructions, but when I reach the door
of the Swedenborgian chapel I find the pavement and steps have been
taken away. In spite of all I manage to reach the door, pull the bell,
and am told by a stranger that the librarian is ill.
With a kind of feeling of relief I turn my back on the gloomy, shabby
little chapel with its dark window panes soiled with rain and dust.
This edifice, built in the severe barbaric depressing Methodist
style, had always repelled me. Its want of beauty reminded me of
the Protestantism of the north, and it cost my pride a struggle to
bring myself to seek to enter it. I did it as a pious duty towards
Swedenborg, nothing more.
As I turned round with a light heart, I saw on the pavement a
tin-coated piece of iron, in the shape of a clover-leaf, and
superstitiously picked it up. Simultaneously a recollection sprang
to life in my mind. The year before, on the 2nd November in the
terrible year 1896, as I was walking one morning in Klam in Austria,
the sun disappeared behind a wall of cloud shaped like an arch, with
clover-shaped outlines surrounded by blue and white rays. This cloud
and my tinned iron-plate resembled each other as closely as two drops
of water. My diary, in which I made a sketch of the former, can verify
this fact.