I do not propose to give you dramatic surprises, dear reader, and you
must not look for thrilling excitement in the story of my life. Elsje's
parentage has always remained unknown to me and the pretty motive for a
romance of the foundling is left unused. For that sort of thing you
have your well-stocked public libraries and Mr. Conan Doyle and his
colleagues.
So I will rather tell you directly that my trip to America resulted in
what everyone, and I myself too at first, considered a complete failure.
But I wish to make you distinctly realize that man may fare as the
soldier, who, ordered to maintain a position without knowing that the
position is untenable, faithfully perseveres in his charge, though
aware that the endeavor is a hopeless failure - later to learn that his
perseverance and his failure were foreseen in the great plan of the
general and have helped to bring about the victory and peace.
It is possible that, even though it seemed otherwise, my efforts were
after all beneficial and fruitful, that I sowed seeds that are still in
a state of germination and only long after I am gone will shoot up as
plants. I do not know this and I need not trouble about it. I have
carried out the order, as I understood it, to the best of my abilities.
But I do know what I have gained in new knowledge and understanding.
And this has made me so rich that I regret none of my sacrifices and
repent none of my actions. And this alone also lets me find peace and
contentment in this quiet lonely life, because here I can write down
what has enchanted and stirred me go strongly, and the assurance never
forsakes me that my words shall find their way and, like a mighty
ferment, work on in the heads of those who as you, dear reader, have
experienced the painful blessing of originality, and know what it is to
live in immediate contact with Christ, the Genitive Spirit of humanity.
Through all the dark confusion of my vain efforts and painful
experiences, through the continued terrible anguish of mankind, ever
increasing and void of beauty and sublimity, one light shone out with
an ever steadier and brighter glow the wonder of the true marriage.
This is so difficult to describe, because every one professes to know
it and to respect it, and insincere eloquence and insincere enthusiasm
have poured themselves out over it in riotous streams. So that one
scruples to employ any word wherewith to indicate the true wonder,
because all words have been polluted and defiled through a horrible
misuse.
The true wonder is so great that the man of original spirit who has
found it would, if he had the power, not hesitate for a moment to
destroy all domestic happiness and domestic peace among the great human
herd, as long as these rest only on a conventional imitation, a
miserable substitute, of the true glory. I have lived in what to all
the world seemed a happy union. I have endured the terrible anguish of
a violent rupture of firmly-knit bonds of attachment and affection -
but how insignificant is all this, how sorry this apparent happiness,
how slight the anguish compared to the mighty and transcendent things
that were gained - the perfect tenderness, the real intimacy of true
conjugal love, the complete melting into one of two cells in the great
body of humanity.
I have good reason to believe that most marriages - oh! by far the most
- are of inferior quality and falser than my own false union. And also
that in this matter with most men - oh! by far the most - the elemental
susceptibility to true conjugal happiness is still inborn, that even
the weakest conventionalist and herd-man would in this respect turn
back to this deep elemental instinct, if he were left free to do so -
that with the majority Christ herein still works directly and
immediately, because it is the most deep seated, most absorbing passion
with which he has equipped us.
And even with a clear vision of the ocean of grief, confusion and
disaster that would arise were the herd to apply itself to follow the
lead of the Originals and in fanatic zeal break all untrue bonds - even
with this appalling knowledge I would not hesitate to lead them on to
such a crusade against the matrimonial lie, since I know the glory and
the riches of the promised land to be regained. Many would perish on
the road and pine away, many would be trampled on and perhaps curse my
name and denounce what they had began; but the prize is worth the
sacrifice.
Marriage is without doubt one of the most sacred human institutions,
but only sacred through inward truth, and no civic formula or churchly
ritual can make it sacred if the inward truth is wanting in it. And
better a thousand dissolved and broken false marriages than one true
marriage prevented or one untrue one with the semblance of sincerity
and sacredness upheld.
But Christ is yet in distress and anguish. He is yet in the throes of
birth, in the pains of growth. Our world is as my brother Hebbel said:
a wound of God. But as I add: a healing wound; therefore not less
painful. And what distinguishes the true marriage from the untrue is
this very quality of pain. Never did I suffer through Lucia what I
suffered through Elsje. In the apparent happiness there is contentment
and complacency, in the real an everlasting gnawing and torturing
longing, a desire for more, more - the desire to express oneself more
fully, the desire to be more closely united, to be bound together more
firmly, more indissolubly, more everlastingly. Elsje and I were
constantly tormented by our powerlessness to express to one another the
depth of our emotion, by our anxiety for each other's welfare and
happiness, by our uncertainty in regard to what life and death would
bring us, by our wish never to be parted and to experience constantly
the blessing of each other's company.
Even when, in the serenest, most peaceful moments, I sat by her side
gazing at her with devout attention so that Moricke's words arose in me:
"Wenn ich von deinem Anschaun tief gestillt