I leave the Rue Thouin, joyful as a school-boy who has escaped a hard
task because the teacher is ill. As I pass by the Pantheon, I find
the great gate wide open in a sort of challenging way, as if to say,
"Come in!" As a matter of fact, in spite of my long residence in Paris
I have never visited this church, chiefly because people have told me
lies about the wall-paintings, and said that they dealt with certain
modern subjects which I strongly dislike. One may imagine my delight
as I enter and find myself in a shower of radiance falling from the
central dome, and surrounded by a golden legend--the sacred history of
France, which closes immediately before the time of Protestantism. The
ambiguous inscription without--"_Aux grands hommes,_" had also misled
me. There are few kings, still fewer generals, and not a single deputy;
I breathe again. On the other hand, there are St Denis, St Geneviève,
St. Louis, Joan of Arc. Never would I have believed that the Republic
was Catholic to such a degree. There is only wanting the Altar and
Tabernacle. In place of the Crucified and the Virgin is the statue of a
woman of the world, set up here by women who admire her; but I comfort
myself with the thought that this celebrity will finally descend to
the gutter like so many more honoured ones have done before. It is
pleasant and interesting to roam about this temple which is dedicated
to sanctity, but it is sad to see at the same time how the virtuous
and benevolent have been beheaded. Must one not out of reverence to
God believe that all the evil treatment which has fallen to the lot
of the just and merciful is only an apparent wrong, and that, however
discouraging the path of virtue may appear, it leads to some good
end, which is hidden from our view? Otherwise these infernal stakes
and scaffolds, where executioners triumph over saints, must suggest
blasphemous thoughts regarding the goodness of the supreme Judge who
only seems to hate and persecute the saints below, in order to reward
them in a higher world. "Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy."
Meanwhile, as I leave the Pantheon, I cast a look at the Rue Thouin
and wonder that the road to Swedenborg has led me to the Church of
St. Geneviève. Swedenborg, my guide and prophet, has hindered me from
going to his modest chapel. Has he then rejected himself and become
better instructed, so that he has been converted to Catholicism. While
I studied the works of the Swedish seer, it has struck me how he sets
himself up as an opponent to Luther, who valued faith alone. In fact,
Swedenborg is more Catholic than he has wished to appear, since he
preaches faith in conjunction with works, just like the Catholic Church.
If it is so, then he is at war with himself, and I, his disciple, will
be crushed between anvil and hammer.
* * * * *
One evening, after a day filled with pangs of conscience and doubts, I
betook myself, after I had taken my lonely midday meal, to the garden
which draws me like a Gethsemane where unknown sufferings await me.
I have a foreboding of torments, and cannot escape them; I long for
them almost as a wounded man wishes to subject himself to a cruel
operation, which will bring him cure or death. Reaching the Fleurus
Gate, I find myself at once upon the racecourse which is terminated
by the Pantheon surmounted by the Cross. Two years ago this temple
signified to my worldly mind the honour paid to "great men," now I look
upon it as dedicated to the martyrs and the sufferings which they have
endured; so greatly has my point of view changed. The fact that the
Unknown remains absent causes me to feel an oppression of the chest.
Lonely, and prepared for controversy, I feel myself weary for want of
a visible opponent. To fight with phantoms and shadows is worse than
to contend with dragons and lions. Terror seizes me, and urged on by
the courage of the coward, I go forward with firm steps on the slippery
ground between the plane trees. A close smell of dirty cod-fish mixed
with that of tar and tallow chokes me; I hear the slapping of waves
against the sides of ships and the quay; I am led into the courtyard
of a yellow brick building; I mount upstairs, traverse enormous halls
and countless galleries, passing between showcases and glass cabinets
full of animals stuffed or preserved in tins. Finally, an open door
invites me into a hall of strange appearance; it is dark, but faintly
illuminated by patches of light reflected from a number of coins and
medals in well-arranged showcases. I stop before a glass-covered case
near a window, and my eye is attracted among the gold and silver
medals by one of another metal, which is as dark as lead. It bears
the picture of myself, the type of an ambitious criminal with hollow
cheeks, hair erect, and an ugly mouth. The reverse of the medal bears
the inscription, "Truth is always ruthless".[3] Oh! Truth! which is
so veiled from mortals, and which I was bold enough to believe I had
unveiled, when I despised the Holy Communion, the miracle of which I
now recognise. The medal is a godless memorial to the dishonour of
the godlessness of blasphemous friends. It is true I have always been
ashamed of this glorification of brutality, and not taken the trouble
to keep this memorial. I have thrown it to the children to play with,
and it has disappeared without my missing it. Similarly, by a fateful
"coincidence," the artist who made the medal, went out of his mind
soon afterwards, having deceived his publisher and committed forgery.
Oh, this disgrace, which cannot be wiped out, but must for ever be
preserved in memory, as the law orders this indictment to be kept in
the State museum! Here one sees what "honour" comes to! But what have
I to complain of, since Providence has only granted fulfilment to an
unholy prayer which I addressed to it in my youth?
I was about fifteen years old when, weary of useless conflicts against
the young hot blood that longed to satisfy its passions, exhausted by
the religious doubts which devastated my soul, which was eager to solve
the riddle of existence, surrounded by pietists who worried me under
the plea of winning my soul to love the God-like, I roundly asserted
to an old lady friend who had lectured me to death, "I pitch morality
overboard, provided I can be a great genius and universally admired!"
I was, moreover, strengthened in my views by Thomas Henry Buckle, who
taught us that morality was "a nothing," incapable of development, and
that intelligence was everything. Later on, when I was twenty, I learnt
from Taine that evil and good were indifferent matters, possessed of
unconscious and irresponsible qualities, like the acidity of acids, and
the alkalinity of alkalis. And this phrase, which was quickly caught up
and developed by George Brandes, has stamped an impress of immorality
on Scandinavian literature. A sophism, that is a weak syllogism which
has missed the mark, has seduced a whole generation of freethinkers.
Weak indeed it is! For if we analyse Buckle's epigram, "Morality is
incapable of development, and therefore does not matter," it is easy to
discover that the inference should rather be, "Morality, which remains
invariably the same, thereby proves her divine and everlasting origin."
When my wish was finally attained, I became an acknowledged and admired
genius, and the most despised of all men born in my country in this
century. Banished from the better circles, neglected by the smallest
of the small, disavowed by my friends, I received the visits of my
admirers by night, or in secret. Yes, all do homage to morality,
and a minority reverence talent, a fact which gives rise to various
reflections concerning the essence of morality.
Still worse is the reverse of the medal! Truth! As though I had never
given myself over to the power of falsehood, in spite of my pretence
to be more truthful and sincere than others. I do not dwell on the
petty falsehoods of childhood, which signify so little, occasioned
as they mostly were by fear or the incapacity of distinguishing
between fact and imagination, and because they were counterbalanced by
punishments unjustly inflicted and based upon false accusations of my
schoolfellows. But there are other falsehoods, and more serious ones
because of the injurious consequences which evil example and excuse for
grievous wrongdoing involve. For example, the untrue description in my
autobiography, "The Son of a Servant," with regard to the crisis of
puberty. When I wrote that youthful confession, the liberal tendency of
that period seems to have induced me to use too bright colours with the
pardonable object of freeing from fear young men who have fallen into
precocious sin.
As I bring these bitter reflections to a close, the coin-cabinet
contracts, the medal retreats to a distance, and diminishes to the size
of a lead button,--and I see myself in a dormitory in a school for
boys in the country on the bank of the Malar in 1861. Children born of
unlawful unions, children of parents who had tied from their country,
badly brought-up children who in too many families were in the way,
live here together huddled in a loft, without oversight, tyrannising
over and ill-treating each other, in order to revenge themselves for
the cruelty of life. A hungry herd of little evil-doers, ill-clothed
and ill-nourished, a terror to the country people and especially to
the gardeners.
Pains of conscience follow immediately on a fall, and I see myself in
the twilight of a summer evening sitting at a table in my night-dress
with a prayer-book before me, stung by conscience and shame, although
wholly unacquainted with the nature of sin. Innocent because I was
ignorant, and yet a criminal. Led astray, and afterwards leading
others astray, suffering remorse and relapsing, doubting the justice
of my accusing conscience, and doubting the mercy of God who allows an
innocent child to be exposed to the most terrible temptations. Unhappy
victim without strength to stand first in the unequal strife with
all-powerful Nature 1 Meanwhile the infernal fire is lit which will
burn till the grave.
I burn with desire to accuse myself and to defend myself at the same
time, but there is no judgment-seat and no judge, and I devour myself
here in solitude.
As I cried out in my despair towards all quarters of heaven, I became
enveloped in a dark mist, and when I began to see again clearly I
found myself standing in the Fleurus Avenue with my head leant against
a chestnut tree. It was the third tree counting from the entrance gate,
and the avenue has forty-seven on each side. Nine seats are placed
between the trees to rest on. Thus there are forty-four halting places
for me before I reach the first Station.
For a moment I remain quite depressed, watching the path of tears
stretch before me. Suddenly under the leafless trees a ball of light
approaches, borne along by two birds' wings. It stops before me on a
level with my eyes, and in the clear light which the ball radiates I
see a white sheet of paper ornamented like a menu-card. At the top I
read in smoke-coloured letters, "Eat!" Then in a second the record of
my whole past life is enrolled like a micrographic reproduction on an
enormous placard. Everything is there! All the horrors, the most secret
sins, the most loathsome scenes in which I have played the chief part
Alas! I could die with shame as I see those scenes depicted, which my
eye, which seems to grow in size, takes in at once, without needing to
read and interpret them.
I do not die, however. On the contrary, for a minute which is
forty-eight years long, I review my whole life from early childhood
to this day. My bones are dried up to the marrow, my blood ceases to
circulate, and, consumed by fiery pangs of conscience, I fall to the
ground with the cry, "Mercy! Mercy! I must cease to justify myself
before the Eternal, and I must cease to accuse my neighbours."
When consciousness returned I found myself on the Rue de Luxembourg,
and as I looked through the trellis-gate I saw the garden blooming,
while a choir of little mocking-birds greeted me from the bushes and
trees.
The next evening there was h knock at my door about six o'clock, and
there stepped in the American painter whom, in my book _Inferno_, I
have identified with Francis Schlatter. As we had parted from each
other quite indifferently, without friendship or enmity, our meeting
was quite cordial. I notice that the man is somewhat altered. He seems
physically smaller than I remember him, and I cannot get him as before
to smile at the vexations of life and at sorrows already endured,
which are so easily borne when they are happily over. But he treats
me with a surprising respect which contrasts strongly with his former
cameraderie. Meanwhile this meeting rouses me from my lethargy, partly
because I have some one to speak to who understands every word I say,
partly because he forms a link with a period when the development of my
life, belief, and growth was strongest. I feel as if the clock had been
put back two years, and feel a wish to get free, to spend half a night
on the Boulevard pavement in talk, with our glasses before us.
We agree to have our lunch at Montmartre, and take that direction. The
noise of the street somewhat interrupts the current of conversation,
and I notice in myself an unusual difficulty in hearing and
understanding his words.
At the entrance to the Avenue de l'Opéra the crowd is great, and we
are constantly separated by those who meet us. It happens that a man
carrying some cotton wool stumbles against my companion so that he is
covered over with white. With my head full of Swedenborgs symbols, I
try to remember what this should signify, but can only think of the
opening of the grave at St. Helena, when Napoleon's body looked as
though it were covered with white down.
In the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin I am already so tired and nervous
that we resolve to take a carriage. Since it is dinner-time the street
is very full, and when we have driven for some minutes the carriage
suddenly stands still. Simultaneously I receive such a blow in the back
that I rise from my seat, and as I turn round there are three horses'
heads opposite me,--an omnibus with a shouting driver on the top of it.
This puts me out of humour, and I ask myself if it is intended for a
warning.
We alight at the Place Pigalle and dine. Here I am reminded of my
residence in Paris in the seventies, when I was young, but it makes me
sad, for the changes are great. My lodging-house in the Rue Douai is
no more. The "Black Cat" which stood there then is closed, and Rodolphe
Salis has been buried this year. The "Café de l'Ermitage" is only a
recollection, and the "Tambourin" has changed its name and title. The
friends of those days are dead, married, scattered, and the Swedish
colony has transferred its quarters to Mont Parnasse. I feel that I
have grown old.
The dinner is not so lively as I expected. The wine is of the bad
kind that puts one out of humour. My having got out of the habit
of listening and speaking makes the conversation disjointed and
exhausting. The hope of recovering our former cheerful mood with the
coffee is not realised, and soon that terrible silence begins which
betrays a desire to get away from each other.
For a long while we struggle against the growing embarrassment, but in
vain. As early as nine o'clock we rise from table, and my companion,
guessing my mood, takes his own way, under the pretext of having an
appointment to keep. As soon as I am alone I feel an indescribable
relief; my discomfort ceases, my headache disappears, and I feel as
though the convolutions of my brain, and the network of my nerves
which had become entangled, were slowly returning to their normal
state. In truth, solitude has made my personality so sensitive that I
cannot bear the contact of a stranger.
Quietly, but with an illusion the less, I return home, glad to be in my
cell again; but I notice that the room has undergone a change; it is
no longer the same, and a sort of domestic discomfort seems to pervade
it. The furniture and small articles are in their places, but give a
strange impression. Some one has been here and left traces of himself
behind. I am undone!
The next day I go out to seek for society, but find none. The third
day I go by appointment to my friend the artist to see his etchings.
He lives in Marais. I ask the porter whether he is at home. "Yes," he
answered, "but he is in the café, with a lady." Since I have nothing to
say to the lady I go away again. The next day I go again to Marais,
and since he is at home I proceed to mount the six flights of stairs,
which wind narrowly like stairs in a tower. When I have ascended
three I begin to remember a dream and a reality. The dream which is
often repeated has to do with just such narrow cork-screw stairs up
which I crawl till I am stifled, as they grow ever narrower. The
first time I remembered this dream was in the tower at Putbus, and I
immediately went down again. Now I stand here squeezed, panting, my
heart palpitating, but determine to ascend. I manage to get up, enter
the studio, and find my friend with a lady. After I have sat for five
minutes I get a severe headache and say, "My good friend, it seems as
though I must renounce your society, for your stairs kill me. Just now
I have a distinct conviction that if I come up here again I shall die."
He answered, "But you lately ascended the Montmartre and the stairs at
the church of the Sacred Heart."
"Yes," I reply, "it is very strange."
"Well," he said, "then I will come to you, and we will dine in the
evening together."
So the next day we actually have our meal together, and fall into the
pleasant mood which is desirable at such times. We treat each other
with respect, avoid saying unpleasant things, put ourselves at each
other's point of view, and obtain the illusion of being of one mind in
all matters. After our meal, since the evening is mild, we continue our
conversation, and cross the river, proceeding to the Boulevards till
we finally reach the Café du Cardinal. It is now midnight, but we are
far from being tired, and now begin those wonderful hours when the soul
gets free from her wrappings, and the spiritual faculties, which would
ordinarily be employed in dreaming, are roused to waking, and clear
conceptions and keen glances into the past and future. During these
night hours, my spirit seems to hover over and outside my body, which
sits there like a stranger. Our drinking is merely a secondary matter
which serves to keep sleep away, perhaps also to open the flood-gates
of memory whence all the occurrences of my life flow forth, so that at
every moment I can call up facts, dates, years, scenes, and pictures.
That is the attraction and power of vinous excitement over me, but a
religious-minded occultist has told me that it is a sin, for it is
wrongfully antedating salvation, which consists in the liberation of
the soul from matter. Therefore this trespass is punished with terrible
subsequent tortures.
Meanwhile they begin to disturb us by giving signs of closing the
Boulevard cafés, but as I do not want to finish, I name the word
"Baratte," and my friend is ready at once. Café Baratte, near the
"Halls," has always had a wonderful attraction for me, without my
exactly knowing why. It may be the proximity of the "Halls." When it is
night on the Boulevard, it is morning in them--all through the night
in fact--which with its enforced want of occupation and dark dreams is
banished. The mind which has become intoxicated in immaterial worlds
descends to eating, sin, and noise. This scent of fish, flesh, and
vegetables, over the refuse of which we step, seems to me an effective
contrast to the lofty themes which we have just been discussing.
That is the stuff out of which we are created and re-created three
times a day, and when one enters from the darkness, dirt, and knots
of seedy figures outside, into the comfortable café, one is greeted
by light, warmth, song, mandolines, and guitars. At this hour of the
day all class distinctions are wiped out. Here sit artists, students,
authors, drinking at long tables, and in a sort of waking trance. Or
have they fled from the sad sleep which, perhaps, has ceased to visit
them? There is no sparkling hilarity, but a kind of stupor broods over
the whole, and it seems to me as if I had entered into a realm of
shadows peopled by half-real phantoms.
I know an author who used to sit there at night and write. I have seen
strangers there dressed as though they came from a brilliant supper
at Parc Monceau. I have seen a public man, with the appearance of a
foreign ambassador, stand up and sing a solo. I have seen people who
looked like disguised princes and princesses drinking champagne, and
I really don't know whether they are real mortals, all these shadows,
or the projected "astral" bodies of sleepers outside who hallucinate
those drunk with sleep who sit there. The remarkable thing is that no
coarseness prevails in the company packed together in the narrow café.
The songs are mostly sentimental, and the melancholy guitars heal the
needle-pricks with which the sharp steel-strung mandoline pricks the
brain.
Now in the night, after my long course of loneliness, I feel happy in
the crowd, which seems to radiate warmth and sympathy. For the first
time after a long interval I am seized with a sentimental pity for the
unhappy women of the night. Near our table sit half a dozen of them
looking depressed, and not having ordered anything. They are most of
them ugly, despised, and probably unable to order anything. I suggest
to my friend, who is as disinterested as myself, to invite two of the
ugliest who sit near us. He agrees; and I invite two, asking if they
will have anything to drink, adding at the same time that they must
have no other designs and behave with propriety.
They seem to understand the part they have to play, and ask first
for food. My friend and I continue our philosophical conversation
in German, now and then speaking a word to the women, who are not
presuming, and who seem more anxious to eat than to be attended to.
For a moment the thought strikes me, "Suppose one of your acquaintances
saw you now?" Yes, I know what he would say, and I know what I would
answer: "You have thrust me out of society, condemned me to solitude,
and I am compelled to purchase the companionship of pariahs, outcasts
like myself, and hungry as I have been. My simple pleasure is to be
able to see these despised ones plume themselves on a conquest which is
no conquest, to sec them eat and drink, and to hear their voices, which
are at any rate those of women. Moreover, I have not paid them in any
way, not even in order to append a moral exhortation."
I simply find a pleasure in sitting together with human beings, and in
being able to give out of my momentary superfluity, for in a month I
may be as poor as they are.
It is now morning; the clock strikes five, and we go. But my companion
demands fifteen francs for having given me her society, a demand which
from her point of view I find quite comprehensible, for my society is
as worthless as my power to protect her against the police. But I do
not believe that will increase my self-respect, rather the opposite.
Meanwhile I go home with a good conscience after a well-spent night,
sleep till ten o'clock, awake well rested, and spend the day in work
and meditation. But the following night I have an attack of the
terrible kind which Swedenborg describes in his _Dreams_. So that was
the punishment! What for? I really don't understand. I thought that
this was a new lesson in the art of life,--that I should learn that
all men alike are good cabbage-eaters, and had actually for a moment
imagined that the part I had played in the night-café was rather
that of a philanthropist than of a sinner, or at any rate morally
indifferent. During the following days I was much depressed, and one
evening I looked forward to passing a night of terror. At nine o'clock
I had Cicero's _Natura Deorum_ before me, and was so pleased with
Aristotle's doctrine that the gods quite ignored our world, and would
pollute themselves if they had anything to do with this filth, that I
determined to copy it out. At the same time I noticed that blood had
broken out on the back of my right hand without any apparent cause.
When I wiped it off, I found no mark of a scratch. But I forgot it, and
went to bed. About half-past twelve I awoke with the fully developed
symptoms of what I have called "the electric girdle." Notwithstanding
that I know its nature and inner significance, I am compelled to seek
the cause of it outside myself. I made an effort and lighted the lamp.
As the Bible lay close by I determined to consult it, and it gave the
answer: "I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way that thou
shalt go; I will guide thee with Mine eye: be not like to horse and
mule, whose mouths must be drawn with bit and bridle, else they will
not come near thee."
That was an answer, and I went to sleep again, satisfied that it was
not anything evil, but a benignant power that spoke to me, though
somewhat ambiguously.
After I had quieted myself with some days' solitude, I went out again
one evening with the American and a young Frenchman who corrects my
manuscripts. It was somewhat tedious, and I returned home shortly
before midnight with a bad conscience, because, being drawn into a
heated conversation, I had been compelled to speak evil of some one
absent. What I said was in self-defence against a liar, and absolutely
true. About two o'clock I awoke and heard some one stamping in the
room above me, and then come down the stairs and go into the room
by the side of mine. Am I then watched? I had already had the same
experience here in the hotel in September, when I lived on the third
storey. So it cannot be an accident If now, as is probable, my unseen
mentor wishes to punish me, how cunning it is to keep me uncertain
whether they are human beings who persecute me or not! Though I have
convinced myself that no one persecutes me, I am again drawn into
the old circle of the self-torturing belief that some one does. When
once the question is raised, there begins a dance of conjectures kept
up by my conscience, which accuses me even when I have acted in pure
self-defence in rebutting unjust accusations. I feel as though I were
tied backwards to a stake, and that all the passers-by have the right
to spit on me unpunished, but if I spit back, I am scourged, choked,
hunted by furies. The whole world, even the meanest beggar, has rights
against mu. If I only knew why! All the tactics are so feminine that
I cannot get rid of my suspicion. For when a woman for years has done
injury and wrong to a man, and he, out of innate nobility, has not
lifted his hand in return, but at last strikes round him as when one
drives away a fly, the woman raises an outcry, calls the police, and
exclaims, "He defends himself!" Or, when in school an unreasonable
teacher falls on a pupil, who is groundlessly accused, and the latter,
from an injured sense of justice, seeks to defend himself, what does
the teacher do? He proceeds to corporal punishment, exclaiming, "So
you answer back, do you?" I have answered back. And therefore I am
punished. The punishment continues eight days and nights successively.
The consequence is that I become depressed and unfit for social
intercourse. My friend the American, weary of me, quietly withdraws,
and as he has set up a domestic establishment, I find myself again
alone. But it is not entirely a mutual aversion which has a second
time separated us, for we have both noticed that during our last
meeting strange things have happened, which could be only ascribed to
the intervention of conscious powers who intended to arouse aversion
between us. This man, who knows hardly anything of my past life,
seems during our last interview to have had the purpose of wounding
me on all my sore points, and it seemed as though he guessed my most
secret thoughts and intentions, which are yet only known to myself.
As I remarked something of this sort to him, a light seemed to break
upon him, "Is that not the Devil?" he broke out. "I thought there was
something wrong, for the whole evening you could not open your mouth
without wounding me to the quick, but I saw by your quiet face and
friendly expression that you had nothing evil in your mind." We tried
to defy the malefic influence. But for three days in succession my
friend traversed the long road to me in vain. I was not there, nor did
he find me where I usually dine.
Thus loneliness closes round me again like a thick darkness. It is
nearly Christmas-time, and the being without home and family oppresses
me. The whole of life becomes distasteful, and I begin again, in
consequence, to look after what is from above. I buy the _Imitation of
Christ_ and read it.
It is not the first time that this wonderful book has fallen into my
hands, but this time it finds the ground prepared. Its purport is to
die, while yet alive, to the world,--the contemptible, wearisome,
filthy world. The unknown author has the remarkable faculty of
not preaching or reproaching, but he speaks in a friendly way,
convincingly, logically, and invitingly. He regards our sorrows not
as punishments but tests, and thereby arouses in us the ambition
to endure. Now I have Jesus again, not Christ this time, and He
steals softly in to me, as though He came in velvet sandals. And the
Christmas-displays in the Rue Bonaparte help towards the belief: there
is the Christ-child in the manger, the Jesus-child with royal mantle
and crown, the Child-redeemer on the Virgin's arm, the Child playing,
lying, and on the cross. Yes, the Child! Him I can understand. The God
who has so long heard the lamentations of men over the misery of mortal
life that He finally resolved to descend, to let Himself be born and
to live, in order to prove how hard it is to drag oneself about with a
human life. _Him_ I comprehend.
One Sunday morning I passed by the Church Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois.
This building has always exercised a strong influence on me, because
it looks so familiar; the vestibules with their paintings have an
inviting air, and the congregations are so small that one is not
crushed or lost. As I pass in at the door, there are twilight and organ
music, coloured pictures and wax candles. Whenever I enter a Catholic
church I remain standing at the door and feel embarrassed, restless,
and outside the pale. When the gigantic Swiss guard approaches with
his halberd, my conscience feels uneasy, and I expect him to drive
me out as a heretic. Here in Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois I feel a
certain anxiety, for I remember that it was in this tower that the
bell for some unknown reason began to sound at two o'clock in the
night of St. Bartholomew. To-day ray position as a Huguenot makes me
more uncomfortable than usual, for two mornings ago I read in the
_Osservatore Romano_ congratulations sent by the Catholic priests
to the persecutors of the Jews in Russia and Hungary, followed by a
highly coloured comparison with the great days of the St. Bartholomew
massacre, the return of which the writer evidently wished for.
The organ, which was out of sight, plays tunes which I have never heard
before, but which seem to me like memories--memories of the times of
my ancestors, or still further back. When I hear fine music, I always
ask myself, "Where did the composer find it?" Not in nature and in
life, for in music there are no models, as in the other arts. The only
remaining conjecture is, to consider music as the recollection of a
condition, which every man in his best moments longs for. And that very
longing shows a vague consciousness of having lost something which one
has formerly possessed.
There are six lighted candles on the altar. The priest, arrayed in
white, red, and gold, says nothing, but his hand hovers with the
graceful movements of a butterfly over a book. Behind him come two
little children dressed in white, and bend their knees. The priest
washes his hands, and proceeds to do something which I do not
understand. Something rare, beautiful, and wonderful is taking place
there in the distance amid the gold ornaments, incense-smoke, and light
I understand nothing, but feel an easily explicable fear and reverence,
and am convinced that I have gone through the same experience before.
This is succeeded by the feeling of shame of the outcast, the heathen,
who has nothing to do here. And then the whole truth is apparent:
a Protestant has no religion,--for Protestantism is free-thinking,
revolt, separation, dogmatism, theology, heresy. And the Protestant is
under the ban of excommunication. This is the curse which rests over
us and makes us dissatisfied, melancholy, restless. At this hour I
feel the curse, and I understand why the victor at Lützen was cut off,
and why his own daughter contradicted him; why Protestant Germany was
devastated, while Austria remained untouched. And what was won for us?
The freedom to be cast out, the freedom to separate ourselves and to
split off, in order to end finally without a creed.
The surging congregation moves out through the doors, and I remain
alone, enduring, as it seems to me, their looks of disapproval. It
is dark at the door where I stand, but I see all those who pass out
touch the holy water in the stoup and cross themselves, and as I
stand directly in front of it, it seems as though they were crossing
themselves in defence against me. I know what that means, as in Austria
I was exposed to the danger of those who met me on the roads crossing
themselves against the "Protestant."
At last, as I am left alone, I approach the consecrated font out of
curiosity or some other motive. It is made out of yellow marble in
the form of a conch-shell, and over it hangs a winged cherub's head.
The face of the child has a lively and radiant expression such as one
only sees in good, beautiful, and well-cared-for children. The mouth
is open, and the corners of it show a suppressed smile. The large fine
eyes arc cast down, and one sees how the little rogue contemplates his
image in the water, but under the protection of his eyelids, as though
he were conscious of doing something wrong, but yet he is not afraid of
his chastiser, whom he knows he can disarm with a single look. That is
the child, which still keeps the impress of our distant origin, a gleam
of the supernatural, which belongs to heaven. So then it is possible
to smile in heaven, and not only to bear the cross! How often in my
self-reproachful hours, when everlasting punishments have seemed to me
objective realities, have I not put to myself the question which many
would consider irreverent, "Can God smile?"--smile at the folly and
over-daring of human ants? If He can, then He can also forgive.
The cherub's face smiles at me and looks at me under its eyelids, and
open mouth says banteringly, "Try it; the water is not dangerous."
I touch the holy water with two fingers,--a ripple passes over the
surface, as though it were the pool of Bethesda, and then 1 make a
motion with my finger from my forehead to my heart and across from left
to right, as I have seen my daughter do. But in the next moment I am
outside the Church, for the cherub laughed, and I--I will not say I was
ashamed, but I had rather no one had seen it.
Outside, on the church door, there is a notice about something, which
informs me that it is Advent. In front of the church an old woman sits
in the terrible cold and sleeps. I lay gently a silver coin in her
lap without her noticing it, and although I would have gladly seen
her awaking, I go my way. What a noble and real joy to be able to act
as the agent of Providence in hearing a request and to give for once,
after having so long received.
* * * * *
Now I read the _Imitation_ and Chateaubriand's _La Genie du
Christianisme_. I have taken the sign of the cross and carry a medal
which I have received at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Montmartre.
But the cross is for me the symbol of sufferings patiently borne, and
not the token that Christ has suffered in my stead, for I must do
that for myself. I have, in fact, framed a theory, as follows: When
we unbelievers did not want to hear any more about Christ, He left us
to ourselves, His vicarious satisfaction for sin ceased, and we must
drag ourselves along with our own misery and consciousness of guilt.
Swedenborg says expressly that Christ's suffering on the cross was not
His work of atonement, but a test which God laid upon Himself rather of
shame than of suffering.
At the same time as the _Imitatio Christi_, I get Swedenborg's _Vera
Religio Christiana_ in two thick volumes. With an attractive power that
defies all resistance he drags me into his gigantic mill and begins
to grind me. At first I lay the book aside and say, "This is not for
me." But I take it up again, for there is so much in it that chimes in
with my observations and experiences, and so much worldly wisdom that
interests me. Again I cast it aside, but have no peace till I take it
up again; and the terrible thing about the matter is that when I read,
I have the distinct impression "This is the truth, but I cannot reach
it." Never! for I will not Then I begin to revolt, and say to myself,
"He has deceived himself, and this is the spirit of falsehood." But
then comes the fear that I have made a mistake.
What is it after all in the book, which is to be a word of life to
me? I find the whole arrangement of grace and eternal hell; childish
recollections of the hell of childhood with its everlasting miseries.
But now I have got my head in the noose, and am held fast. The whole
day and half the night my thoughts revolve round this one theme,--I am
damned, for I cannot speak the word "Jesus" without adding "Christ,"
and according to Swedenborg, this is the shibboleth of evil spirits.
Now a whole abyss opens within me, and the gentle Christ of the
_Imitation_ has become the Tormentor. I am keenly conscious that if
this process continues I shall become a "Reader," but that I will not.
Three days have passed since I have put Swedenborg away again, but
one evening, as I am studying the physiology of plants, I remember to
have seen something especially interesting regarding the position of
plants in the _Vera Religio Christiana_. Cautiously I begin to look
for the well-known passage, but cannot find it; on the other hand, I
find everything else, "the call, the enlightenment, sanctification,
conversion," and, as I turn the page and try to hurry on, my eye is
arrested by the most terrible passages which stab and burn. I hunt
through both volumes twice, but what I seek has disappeared. It is an
enchanted book, and I should like to burn it, but dare not, for night
is approaching and two o'clock will come.
I feel myself becoming a hypocrite, and I have resolved to-morrow, if I
can only sleep this night in peace, to commence a battle against this
soul-destroyer.
I will survey his weaknesses with a microscope. I will pluck his stings
out of my heart, even though it should be torn in the process, and I
will forget that be has saved me from one madhouse in order to conduct
me into another.
* * * * *
After I had slept in the night, although I had expected to be
tormented, I set to work the following morning, not without scruples,
for to take up weapons against a friend is the saddest of all
enterprises. But it must be; it concerns my immortal soul, whether it
is to be destroyed or not.
So long as Swedenborg in the _Arcana_ and the _Apocalypse_ treats of
revelations, prophecies, interpretations, he has a religious effect
upon me, but when in the _Vera Religio_ he begins to reason about
dogmas, he becomes a freethinker and Protestant. When he draws the
sword of reason, he has himself chosen the weapons, and they are likely
to prove bad ones for himself. I wish to have religion as a quiet
accompaniment to the monotonous music of life, but here it is a matter
of professional religion and pulpit-discussion--in brief, a struggle
for power.
Already, while I read the _Apocalypse_, I came across a passage which
repelled me, by betraying a human vanity, which I do not like to see
in a man of God. But out of respect I passed it by, not, however,
without erasing it. The passage is as follows: In heaven Swedenborg
meets an English king, to whom he complains that English newspapers
have not thought it worth while to notice certain of his writings. He
also expresses his vexation against certain bishops and lords, who had
received his writings but given them no attention. The king (George
II.) is astonished, and turns to the unworthy recipients, saying, "Go
your ways! Woe betide him who can remain so indifferent when he hears
of heaven and eternal life."
I may remark in passing that I do not like the way in which both Dante
and Swedenborg send their enemies and friends to hell, while they
themselves scale the heights; and I praise myself a little like Paul,
were it the proper time to remember the fact that I, in contrast to the
great masters, have placed myself alone in the furnaces of hell,[4] and
have at any rate set the rest above me in Purgatory.
In the _Vera Religio_ the matter is still more uncomfortable, for there
one finds Calvin in a brothel, because he has taught that faith is
everything and works nothing, as in the case of the crucified thief.
Luther and Melanchthon, in spite of their Protestantism, are exposed
to coarse scorn and mockery. But no! it disturbs me to seek out
these flaws in the picture of a noble mind. And I hope it has fared
with Swedenborg in his spiritual experience as he says it fared with
Luther: "When he entered the spirit world he made strenuous efforts to
propagate his dogmas, but as these were not rooted in the innermost
depth of his mind, but only imbibed from his infancy, he soon obtained
greater illumination, so that he finally shared the new heavenly faith."
Is my Teacher angry that I have written this? I cannot believe it:
perhaps he shares my opinions now, and has come to find that there are
no theological disputes over there. His description of life in the
spiritual world, with pulpits and hearers, objectors and answerers, has
prompted in me the irreverent question, "Is God a theologian?"
I had now locked away Swedenborg and taken leave of him with gratitude,
as of one who, although with alarming pictures, had frightened me like
a child back to God. And now the White Christ, the Child who can
smile and play, approaches with the Advent season. At the same time I
can view life with more happiness and confidence, that is, as long as
I keep watch over my acts, words, and even thoughts, which it seems
cannot be kept secret from the Guardian and Avenging Angel who follows
me everywhere.
Enigmatic occurrences continue to happen, but not in such a threatening
way as before. I have abandoned Swedenborg's Christianity because it
was ugly, revengeful, petty, slavish, but I keep to the Imitation with
certain reservations, and a quiet religion of compromise has sprung out
of that ominous condition which accompanies the search for Jesus.
One evening I sit at dinner with a young French poet, who has just
read my _Inferno_, and from the occultist point of view wishes to find
an explanation for the assaults to which I have been exposed and have
endured.
"Have you no talisman against them?" he asked. "You must have a
talisman."
"Yes, I have the _Imitation_" I answered. He looked at me, and I,
somewhat embarrassed because I had just deserted from the ranks of
the freethinkers, took out my watch, in order to have something to
occupy myself with. At the same moment the medal of the Sacred Heart
with the picture of Christ fell from my watchchain. I felt still more
embarrassed, but said nothing.
We soon got up, and went to a café to drink a glass of beer. The hall
was large, and when we entered we took our places at a table exactly
opposite the door. There we sat for a time, and the conversation turned
on Christ and what He signifies.
"He has certainly not suffered for us," I said; "for, if He had, our
sufferings would have been diminished. They have not been lessened,
however, but are as severe as ever."
Just then a waiter made an exclamation, and with a broom and sawdust
began to sweep the ground between us and the door, though no one had
come in since we had entered. On the white inlaid floor there was a
circle of red drops, and as the waiter turned away he looked at us
askance as if we were guilty. I asked my companion what it was.
"It is something red."
"Then we have done it, for no one has stepped there after us, and when
we entered the floor was clean."
"No," answered my friend, "we have not done it, for the mark is not
that of a foot, but as if some one had bled; and we are not bleeding."
This was weird and also uncomfortable, because we were attracting the
attention of the other occupants of the café in an embarrassing way.
The poet read my thoughts, though he had not seen what had happened
with the medal. Therefore, in order to relieve my mind, I said finally,
"Christ persecutes me." He made no answer, although he would have
gladly found a natural explanation of the occurrence, but could not.
* * * * *
Before I leave my friend the American, whom I have provisionally
identified with the doctor, Francis Schlatter, I must relate some
incidents which increase the suspicion that this man had a "double."
When we recently renewed our acquaintanceship, I told him exactly all
my opinions on the subject, and showed him the number of the _Revue
Spirite_ in which was the article "My friend H." He appeared undecided,
but inclined to be sceptical.
After some days, when he came to dinner, he was quite disturbed, and
related, with a good deal of emotion, that his mistress had disappeared
without leaving any information, and without bidding him farewell. She
remained some days absent and then returned. On being questioned, she
acknowledged that she was afraid of her master, for whom she acted as
housekeeper. Further questioning elicited the fact that once when she
awoke in the night, and he was asleep, his face appeared as white as
chalk and irrecognisable, and this frightened her indescribably.
Moreover, he said, he did not dare to go to sleep before midnight, for
if he did he was tortured as though he were stuck on a roasting skewer
which turned him slowly round, so that he had to leave his bed.