I could describe scenes of my childhood, spent in peaceful security at
the side of father and mother, relate how I passed this period of my
life, playing contentedly in the midst of surroundings brightened by
love and tenderness. But others have done that. I am only interested
in the steps I took in life, in order to attain self-realization. All
the pretty resting-places, happy isles and children’s paradises, whose
charm is not unknown to me, I leave lying behind me in the shimmer of a
distant horizon, and I have no desire to set foot there again.
For that reason I will speak, so far as I intend to dwell on the period
of my childhood, only of new events which overtook me, of what impelled
me forward enabling me to throw off my shackles.
These impulses always came from the “other” world, they always brought
fear, coercion and a bad conscience in their train, they were always
of a revolutionary tendency and a danger to the peace in which I would
willingly have been allowed to remain.
There came the years in which I had to discover anew that there was
within me an instinct which had to lie close and concealed in the
bright world of moral sanction. As to every man, the slowly awakening
sense of sex came to me as an enemy and a destroyer, as something
forbidden, as seduction and sin. What my curiosity sought to know, what
caused me dreams, desire and fear, the great secret of puberty, that
was not at all in keeping with the guarded happiness of my peaceful
childhood. I did as everyone else. I led the double life of a child,
who is yet a child no longer. My conscious self lived under the
conditions sanctioned at home; it denied the existence of the new world
whose dawn glimmered before me. But I lived as well in dreams, impelled
by desires of a secret nature, upon which my conscious self anxiously
attempted to build a new fabric, as the world of my childhood fell in
ruins about me. Like almost all parents, my own did nothing to help
the awakening life-instincts, about which not a syllable was uttered.
They only aided, with untiring care, my hopeless attempts to deny the
reality, and to continue my existence in a child-like world which was
ever becoming more unreal and more mendacious. I do not know whether
parents can do much in such a case, and I make mine no reproach. It
was my own affair, to settle my difficulties and to find my way, and
I carried through the business badly, like most of those who are well
brought up.
Every man passes through this difficulty. For the average person, this
is the point in his life where the demands of his own life come most
in conflict with his surroundings, where the road forward has to be
attained through the bitterest fighting. For many people this is the
only time in their lives that they experience the sequence of death
and rebirth that is our fate, when they become conscious of the slow
process of the decay and breaking up of the world of their childhood,
when everything beloved of us leaves us, and we suddenly feel the
loneliness and deathly cold of the universe around us. And for very
many this pitfall is fatal. They cling their whole life long painfully
to the irrevocable past, to the dream of a lost paradise, the worst and
most deadly of all dreams.
But to return to the story. The sensation and dream pictures in which
the close of childhood presented itself to me are not important
enough to be described. The important point was that I was once again
conscious of the existence of the “dark” world, the “other” world. What
Frank Kromer had once been to me, was now present within myself. And
so, from the outside as well, the other world once more gained power
over me.
Several years had passed since my affair with Kromer. That dramatic
and guilty time of my life lay far behind me at that time and seemed
to have passed like a quick nightmare into nothingness. Frank Kromer
had long since disappeared from my life; I scarcely gave it a moment’s
thought if I chanced to meet him. But the other important figure in my
tragedy, Max Demian, never entirely disappeared from my life. However,
for a long time he stood on the far horizon, visible, but not affecting
me. Only by degrees he approached me again, and I came once more under
the ray of his power and influence.
I will try to recollect what I know of Demian in that period. Perhaps
for a year, or longer, I did not have a single conversation with him.
I avoided him, and he in no wise forced himself on me. Once or twice,
when we met, he nodded to me in friendly greeting. Then it seemed to
me at times that there was a note of scorn or ironical reproach in his
friendliness, but that might only have been imagination on my part. My
relation with him, and the strange influence he had exercised over me,
were as if forgotten, by him as well as by me.
I try to recall his face--as I recollect him, I see that I was
conscious of his existence after all, and took notice of him. I can
see him going to school, alone or with some of the other big boys. I
see him walking among them like a stranger, lonely and still like a
celestial body, enveloped in a different atmosphere and subject to
his own laws. No one liked him, he was intimate with no one, except
his mother, and his relations with her did not seem like those of a
child, but those of a grown-up person. The masters left him as much as
possible in peace. He was a good pupil, but he did not go out of his
way to please them. From time to time we heard, in gossip, of a word, a
comment or a retort he had made to a master, and which left nothing to
be desired in the way of blunt challenge or irony.
I call him to mind, as I close my eyes, and I see his picture emerge.
Where was it? Ah, now I have it again. It was in the street, in front
of our house. There one day I saw him standing, a note book in his
hand. I saw that he was drawing. He was drawing the old crest with the
bird over the door of our house. And I stood at a window, concealed
behind a curtain, and gazed at him. I saw with astonishment his
attentive, cool, bright features turned to the crest, the features
of a man, of a research worker, or an artist, superior and full of
will-power, oddly bright and cool, with knowing eyes.
And again I can see him. It was a little later, in the street; we had
come out of school and were all standing round a horse that had fallen
down. It lay, still harnessed to the shaft, in front of a peasant’s
cart, and sniffed the air pitifully with open nostrils, while blood
flowed from an invisible wound, so that the white dust in the street
darkened as it became slowly saturated. As I, with a feeling of nausea,
turned my gaze away, I saw Demian’s face. He had not pressed forward,
he stood furthest back of all, rather elegant, quite at his ease, as
was proper to him. His gaze seemed to be directed at the horse’s
head, and expressed again that deep, quiet, almost fanatical and yet
calm attentiveness. I could not resist watching him some considerable
time, and I remember feeling, though quite unconsciously, that there
was something very peculiar about him. I saw Demian’s face, I saw not
only that he had not the face of a boy, but that of a man; I saw still
more, I thought I saw, or felt, that it was not the face of a man
either but something else besides. There seemed to be also something
of the woman in his features, and particularly it seemed to me for a
moment, not manly or boyish, nor old or young, but somehow or other a
thousand years old, not to be measured by time, bearing the stamp of
other epochs. Animals could look like that, or trees, or stones--I did
not realize that precisely, I did not experience the exact sensation
which I, a grown-up person, am now describing, but what I felt then
approximated in some way to what I have just related. Perhaps he was
beautiful, perhaps he pleased me, perhaps even he was repugnant--I
could not then determine. I saw only that he was different from us, he
was like an animal, or a spirit, or a picture, I know not what he was
like, but he was different, inconceivably different from us all.
My reminiscence tells me nothing more, and perhaps even what has been
described has arisen, in part, from later impressions.
Until I was several years older, I did not come into close contact
with him again. Contrary to custom, Demian had not been confirmed with
the boys of his year, and in consequence fresh rumors concerning him
were set afloat. In school they were again saying that he was really
a Jew, or no, a heathen, and others pretended to know that he and his
mother professed no religion, or that they belonged to a bad sect in
mythology. In connection with this I seem to remember that he was
suspected of living with his mother as with a mistress. Presumably
the facts were that he had been, up to that time, brought up without
any denominational creed, and that it was now thought that this might
be disadvantageous for his future career. In any case, his mother now
decided after all to allow him to be prepared for confirmation, two
years later than the boys of his own age. Hence it came about that for
months he was my classmate in the confirmation class.
For a time I kept out of his way, I did not want to have anything to do
with him; too many mysterious rumors had become attached to his name.
But above all things I was worried by a sense of obligation, implanted
in me since my affair with Kromer. And just at that time I had enough
to do with my own secrets. For the confirmation class coincided with
the period when I was definitively enlightened on matters of sex, and
in spite of my good will, my interest in the pious instruction was on
that account greatly diminished. The things of which the clergyman
spoke lay far from me in a still, sacred unreality; they may have been
quite beautiful and valuable, but in no way real and stirring, as were
in the highest degree, these other things.
The more indifferent I became, under these conditions, to our spiritual
instruction, the more was my interest drawn towards Max Demian again.
Something or other seemed to unite us. As nearly as I remember it began
in class early one morning, while the light was still burning in the
schoolroom. The clergyman taking the confirmation class happened to be
talking about Cain and Abel. I hardly paid any attention, I was sleepy
and scarcely listened. Then with raised voice the clergyman began to
speak fervently of Cain’s sign. At this moment I felt a sort of contact
or exhortation and looking up I saw Demian’s face turned toward me from
a row of desks in front, with a bright speaking look, which could have
expressed scorn as much as seriousness. He looked at me for a moment
only, and suddenly I was listening intently to the clergyman’s words.
I heard him speak of Cain and the mark on his forehead, and suddenly I
felt deep within me the knowledge that the story could have a different
signification, that it could be looked at from another view, that it
was possible to be critical.
From that instant the bond of communication between Demian and myself
was again established. And oddly enough, scarcely had this sense of
a certain solidarity between us presented itself to my mind, than I
saw it transferred as if by magic from the ideal world to the world of
space. I did not know whether he had been able to arrange it himself,
or whether it was pure chance--at that time I believed firmly in
chance--but a few days after I noticed Demian had suddenly changed his
place and was now sitting directly in front of me. (I recollect still
how pleasant it was, in the midst of the miserable workhouse atmosphere
of the overcrowded schoolroom, to sense the delicate, fresh aroma of
soap from his neck in the morning.) A few days later he had changed
again, and now sat next to me. And there he stayed, occupying the same
place through the whole of that winter and spring.
Morning lessons had quite changed. They were no longer sleepy and
boring. I looked forward to them. Sometimes we both listened to the
clergyman with the greatest attention. A glance from my neighbor would
suffice, calling my attention to a strange story or a peculiar text.
And another glance from him, a very decided one, acted on me as an
admonition, arousing criticism and doubt.
But very often we were bad pupils and heard nothing of the lesson.
Demian was always courteous towards masters and schoolfellows. I never
saw him commit a schoolboy prank, never heard him laugh out loud or
talk in class; he never drew on himself the master’s blame. But
noiselessly, rather by signs and glances than by whispered words, he
knew how to let me share in his own occupations. These were, in part,
of a peculiar nature.
For instance, he told me which of the fellows interested him; and in
what manner he studied them. He judged many of them with accuracy.
He used to say to me before the lesson: “When I signal to you with
my thumb, so and so will look round at us, or will scratch his neck,
etc.” Then during the lesson, when I scarcely gave a thought to what
he had told me, Max would attract my attention by suddenly bending
his thumb. I would look up quickly at the boy already designated, and
every time, as if attached to a wire, the fellow would make the gesture
required of him. I bothered Max to try this on the master, but he did
not want to do it. But once, when I came into class and told him I
had not done my preparation, and that I hoped the clergyman would not
question me that day, he helped me. The master looked round for a boy
to recite a portion of the catechism, and his roving eye rested on me.
He approached me slowly, stretched out his finger in my direction, and
already had my name on his lips--when suddenly he became absent-minded
or uneasy, put his hand to his collar, stepped up to Demian who looked
fixedly into his face. He seemed to want to ask him something but he
turned away, to our surprise, coughed a little, and put his question to
another boy.
These jokes amused me very much, but only gradually did I notice that
my friend frequently played the same game with me. It would happen
that on my way home from school I had suddenly the feeling Demian was
a little way behind me, and when I turned round, there he was, sure
enough.
“Can you really make another person think what you want him to?” I
asked him.
He gave me information on the subject readily enough, quietly and
pertinently, in his grown-up manner.
“No,” he said, “that can’t be done. That is to say, one hasn’t a free
will, even if the person acts that way. Neither can the other person
think as he will, nor can I make him think what I want him to. But you
can observe someone well, and then you can say fairly exactly what he
thinks or feels; in this way you can generally predict what he will do
the moment after. It’s quite simple, but people merely do not know it.
Naturally it requires practice. To take an example from the butterfly
world, there is a certain species of moth, of which the female is much
rarer than the male. The moths reproduce like other animals, the male
impregnates the female, who then lays the egg. Suppose you have in your
possession a female of this type of moth--naturalists have often made
the experiment--then the male moths fly in the night to this female,
they even make a flight of several hours’ duration! Think of it! For
many miles around all the males are conscious of the whereabouts of the
only female moth in the district. People have tried to explain that,
but it is not easy. Moths must have a sense of smell, or something like
it, which allows them to pick up and follow an almost imperceptible
scent, like a good hound. You understand? There are such things, nature
is full of them, and no one can explain them. Now I draw the conclusion
that if among this class of moths the females were as abundant as
the males, then these latter would not have such a refined sense of
smell! They have it simply because they have been trained like that.
If an animal or a man concentrates his whole attention and his whole
will-power on a certain thing then he attains it. That’s all. And it is
just the same with what you have asked me. Observe a man sufficiently
well, and you will know more about him than he does himself.”
It lay on the tip of my tongue to mention the word “mind-reading,” and
so to remind him of the scene with Kromer, now relegated to such a
distant past. But the odd thing between us both was that neither he nor
I ever made the slightest reference to the fact that several years ago
he had intervened so decisively in my life. It was as if formerly there
had been nothing between us, or as if each of us reckoned that the
other had forgotten the affair. It even happened once or twice when we
were together that we met Frank Kromer in the street, but we exchanged
no look, neither did we speak of him.
“But what has that got to do with will-power?” I asked. “You said there
was no such thing as free will. And then you said one only had to
concentrate one’s will on something to be able to attain one’s ends.
That doesn’t agree! If I am not master of my will, then I can’t direct
it here or there as I wish.”
“A good question!” he said, laughing. “You should always ask questions,
you must always doubt. But the explanation is very simple. If a moth
for instance wants to concentrate his will-power on a star or something
like that, he can’t do it. Only--he doesn’t try. He seeks only what
has sense and value for him, satisfies his needs, he gets what he
absolutely must have. And it is just there that the unbelievable
succeeds--he develops a marvelous sixth sense, that no other animal
besides him has! People in our position have more elbow-room,
certainly, and more interests than an animal. But even we are confined
to a comparatively small space, beyond which we cannot go. To be sure,
I can imagine this or that, or make myself believe that I absolutely
want to get to the North Pole or somewhere, but I can only carry that
out and wish it strongly enough when the desire lies right in myself,
when my whole being is really filled with it. As soon as that is the
case, as soon as you try to carry out an inward command, then you
succeed, then you can harness your will as you would a good nag. If
for instance I resolved that our good Mr. Parson shall not wear his
spectacles for the future, then that wouldn’t work. That is merely
play. But when last autumn I had the fixed intention of getting myself
moved to another desk, I succeeded. Someone suddenly arrived who came
before me in the alphabet and who up to then had been ill. Because
someone had to make room for him, it was naturally I who did it,
because my willing it had made me ready to seize the opportunity.”
“Yes,” I said, “that seemed to me very strange at the time. From the
moment we began to get interested in one another, you managed to get
nearer and nearer to me. But how was that? You did not immediately take
a place next to me; for a few lessons at first you were sitting in the
row of desks in front of me, weren’t you? How did that come about?”
“It was like this. I wasn’t quite certain where I wanted to go when
I wished to move from my first place. I only knew that I wanted to
sit further back. It was my wish to move towards you, but I was not
conscious of this at the time. Simultaneously your own will was working
with mine and helped me. It was only when I sat in front of you that I
realized my wish was only half fulfilled--I noticed that really I had
desired nothing else than to sit next to you.”
“But on that occasion no newcomer arrived.”
“No, but then I simply did what I wished, and sat next to you without
hesitation. The boy with whom I changed places was simply surprised,
and let me do it without further say. And the parson indeed noticed
once that a change had taken place--in fact, whenever he looks at me
something worries him secretly. That is to say, he knows my name is
Demian, and that something must be wrong that I, whose initial is D,
am sitting back there among the S’s! But that does not penetrate his
consciousness because my will is against it, because I prevent him
again and again from becoming conscious of it. He notices now and
then that something is wrong. He looks at me and begins to study the
question, the good fellow. But I have a simple means at my disposal.
I look at him very, very fixedly in the eyes. Hardly anyone can bear
that. They always get restive. If you want to get something out of a
person, and you fix him unexpectedly with your eyes, and if he doesn’t
get restive, then give it up! You won’t get anything out of him, ever!
But that happens seldom. I know only one single person with whom this
trick won’t help me.”
“Who is that?” I asked quickly.
He looked at me, with eyes somewhat closed; as his fashion was when he
meditated. Then he looked away and gave no answer, and in spite of my
lively curiosity I could not bring myself to repeat the question.
But I believe he was referring to his mother. He seemed to live on
very intimate terms with her, but he never spoke about her, never
invited me to his house. I scarcely knew what his mother looked like.
* * * * *
Several times I attempted to imitate his example by concentrating my
will-power on something so firmly that I would have to attain it. I had
desires which seemed to me sufficiently pressing. But nothing came of
it. I could not bring myself to talk matters over with Demian. I should
not have been able to make him understand what I wanted. He did not
ask, either.
My faith in matters of religion had meanwhile suffered many a breach.
Yet in my manner of thinking, which was entirely under the influence of
Demian, I was to be distinguished from those of my schoolfellows who
professed an entire disbelief. There were a few such who let occasional
phrases be overheard, to the effect that it was laughable and unworthy
of man’s dignity to believe in a God, and that stories such as those
of the Trinity and the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary were
simply a joke. It was disgraceful, they said, that such rubbish was
peddled about to-day. This was by no means my way of thinking. Even
where I had doubts, the whole experience of my childhood taught me to
believe in the efficacy of a godly life such as that led by my parents,
which I knew to be neither contemptible nor hypocritical. On the
contrary, now as before, I had the greatest reverence for the spirit
of religion. Only Demian had accustomed me to consider and explain the
stories and articles of belief from a more liberal and more personal
point of view, a point of view in which fantasy and imagination had
their share. At least, I always took great pleasure and enjoyment in
the interpretations he suggested to me. To be sure much seemed to me
too crude; such as the affair of Cain. And once, during the preparation
for confirmation, I was terrified by a conception, which, if that were
possible, seemed to me even still more daring. The master had been
speaking of Golgotha. The Biblical account of the Passion and Death of
Christ had, from my earliest years, made a deep impression on me. As a
little boy, on such days as Good Friday, after my Father had read out
to us the story of the Passion, I had lived in imagination and with
much emotion in Gethsemane and on Golgotha, in that world so poignantly
beautiful, pale and ghostlike, and yet so terribly alive. And when I
listened to the Passion according to St. Matthew by Bach, I felt the
mystical thrills of this dark, powerful, mysterious world of passion
and suffering. I find in this music, even to-day and in the “actus
tragicus,” the essence of all poetry and of all artistic expression.
At the conclusion of the lesson Demian said to me contemplatively:
“There’s something in this, Sinclair, which I don’t like. Read through
the story, consider it, there’s something there which sounds insipid. I
mean this business of the two thieves. It’s sublime, the three crosses
standing side by side on the hill! But what about this sentimental
story of the honest thief, which reads more like a tract? First he was
a criminal who had perpetrated crimes, and God knows what, and now
he breaks out in tears and is consumed by feelings of contrition and
repentance. I ask you what’s the sense of such a repentance two steps
from the grave? It’s nothing but a real parson’s story, mawkish and
mendacious, larded with emotion, and having a most edifying background.
If to-day you had to choose one of the two thieves as your friend, or
if you consider which of the two you would the sooner have trusted, it
would most certainly not be this weeping convert. No, it’s the other,
who’s a real fellow with plenty of character. He doesn’t care a straw
about conversion, which in his case can mean simply nothing more than
pretty speeches. He goes his way bravely to the end, without being
such a coward as to renounce the devil in the last moment who up to
that point has had to help him. He is a character, and in Biblical
history people of character always come off second best. Perhaps he’s a
descendant of Cain. Don’t you think so?”
I was dismayed. I had believed myself to be quite familiar with the
story of the crucifixion, and now I saw for the first time what
little personal judgment I had brought to bear on it, with what little
force of imagination and of fantasy I had listened to it and read
it. Demian’s new ideas, therefore, were quite annoying, threatening
to overthrow conceptions, the stability of which I had believed it
necessary to maintain. No, one could not deal with anything and
everything like that, certainly not with the All Holiest.
As always, he noticed my opposition immediately, even before I had
spoken a word.
“I know,” said he, in a tone of resignation, “it’s the old story.
Everything is all right until you’re serious about it! But I’ll tell
you something: this is one of the points where one can clearly see
the shortcomings of this religion. The fact is that this God, of the
old and of the new dispensation, may be an excellent conception, but
He is not what He really ought to be. He is everything that is good,
noble, fatherly, beautiful, sublime and sentimental certainly! But the
world consists of other things which are simply ascribed to the devil.
All this part of the world, a good half, is suppressed and hushed up.
Just the same as they praise God as the Father of all life, but pass
over the whole sex-life, on which all life depends, and declare it to
be sinful and the work of the devil! I have nothing to say against
honoring this God Jehovah, nothing at all. But I think we should
reverence everything and look upon the whole world as sacred, not
merely this artificially separated, official half of it! We ought then
to worship the devil as well as God. I should find that quite right.
Or we ought to create a God, who would embody the devil as well, and
before whom we should not have to close our eyes, when the most natural
things in the world take place.”
Contrary to his custom, he had become almost vehement, but he smiled
again immediately and pressed me no further.
But in me these words encountered the riddle of my whole boyhood,
which I had hourly carried with me, but of which I had never spoken
to anyone. What Demian had said about God and the devil, about the
official godly world and the suppressed devil’s world, that was exactly
my own idea, my own myth, the idea of the two worlds or two halves of
the world--the light and the dark. The realization that my problem
was a problem of humanity as a whole, of life and thought in general,
suddenly dawned on me, and this recognition inspired me with fear and
awe as I suddenly felt to what an extent my own innermost personal
life and thought were part of the eternal stream of great ideas. The
realization was not joyful, although it confirmed my mode of thought
and made me happy to a certain extent. It was hard and tasted raw,
because a hint of responsibility lay therein, telling me to put away
childish things and to stand alone.
I told my friend--the first time in my life I had revealed so deep a
secret--of my conception of the “two worlds,” a conception which had
been formed since the earliest years of my childhood. He at once saw
that I was in thorough agreement with him. But he was not the kind to
make the most of this. He listened with greater attention than he had
ever given me, and looked me in the eyes until I had to turn away. I
again noticed in his look this odd, animal-like timelessness, this
inconceivably old age.
“We will talk more about that another time,” he said considerately: “I
see that you think more than you can express. But if that is so, then
you also know that you have never lived in experience all that you have
thought, and that is not good. Only the thought that we live through in
experience has any value. You knew that your ‘world of sanction’ was
simply one-half of the world, and yet you tried to suppress the other
half in you, as do the parsons and teachers. You will not succeed. No
one succeeds who has once began to think.”
This impressed me deeply.
“But,” I almost shouted, “there _are_ horrible things which are
really and actually forbidden--you can’t deny that fact. And they are
forbidden once for all, and so we must renounce them. I know of course
that there are such things as murder, and all possible kinds of vice,
but shall I then, simply because such things exist, go and become a
criminal?”
“We shan’t be able to finish our discussion to-day,” said Max, in a
milder tone. “You must certainly not commit murder or rape, no. But you
haven’t yet reached that point where one can see what is ‘permitted’
and what is really ‘taboo.’ You have realized only a part of the truth.
The remainder will come after, rely on it. For instance, for the past
year or so you have had in you an instinct which is stronger than
all the others, and which is held to be ‘taboo.’ The Greeks and many
other people, on the contrary, made a sort of divinity out of this
instinct, and honored it by great celebrations. What is now ‘taboo’ is
therefore not eternally so, it can change. To-day everyone is permitted
to sleep with a woman as soon as he has been with her to a parson and
has gone through the ceremony of marriage. With other races it is
different, even to-day. For that reason each one of us must find out
for himself what is permitted and what is forbidden--forbidden, that
is, to himself. You need never do anything that is forbidden and yet be
a thorough rascal. And vice versa. It is really merely a question of
convenience. Whoever is too lazy to think for himself and to constitute
himself his own judge simply conforms to the taboos, whatever they
happen to be. He has an easy time of it. Others realize they carry laws
in themselves. For them things are forbidden which every man of honor
does daily. On the other hand things are permitted them which are
otherwise taboo. Everyone must stand up for himself.”
Suddenly he seemed to regret having said so much, and broke off. I felt
I could understand to a certain extent what his sentiment was. That
is to say, however agreeably he used to present his ideas (apparently
in a cursory manner) he could on no account tolerate a conversation
made simply “for the sake of talking,” as he once said. He realized
in my case that, although my interest was genuine enough, I was too
much inclined to look upon discussion as a game, too fond of clever
talking--in short I was lacking in perfect seriousness.
* * * * *
As I read again the words I have just written--“perfect
seriousness”--another scene suddenly comes into my mind, the most
impressive experience I lived through with Max Demian in those still
half-childlike times.
Our confirmation classes were drawing to an end, and the closing
lessons were devoted to the Last Supper. The clergyman thought this
very important, and he took pains to make us feel something of the
inspiration and sacred character of his teaching. However, precisely
in those last few lessons, thoughts were diverted to another object,
to the person of my friend. Looking forward to my confirmation, which
was explained to us as being our solemn admission into the community
of the Church, the thought presented itself imperatively to me that
the value of this half-year’s religious instruction did not lie for
me in what I had learned in class, but rather in Demian’s presence and
influence. It was not into the Church that I was ready to be received,
but into something else, into an order of ideas and of personalities
which surely existed somewhere or other on earth, and of which I felt
my friend was the representative or messenger.
I tried to repress this thought. In spite of everything, I earnestly
intended to go through the ceremony of confirmation with a certain
dignity, and the new notions I was forming seemed scarcely compatible
with this. Yet do what I would, the idea was there, and gradually
identified itself with the approaching religious ceremony. I was ready
to celebrate it in a different fashion from the other confirmation
candidates. For me it would mean admission into a world of ideas, with
which I had become acquainted through Demian.
In those days it happened that I had another discussion with him; it
was just before a lesson. My friend was wrapped up in himself and took
little pleasure in my talk, which was perhaps rather precocious and
bombastic.
“We talk too much,” he said with unwonted gravity. “Wise speeches have
no value at all, absolutely none. You only escape from yourself. To
escape from yourself is a sin. You should be able to creep right into
yourself, like a tortoise.”
We entered the schoolroom immediately after. The lesson began. I took
pains to listen, and Demian did not disturb me in my effort. After a
while I began to feel something peculiar at my side where his place
was, a sort of emptiness or coolness or something like that, as if his
seat had suddenly become vacant. The feeling became oppressive and I
turned round.
There I saw my friend sitting, upright and in his customary attitude.
But he looked quite different from usual. Something I did not know
went out from him, enveloped him. I thought his eyes were closed,
until I saw he held them open. But they were stiff as if gazing within
or directed to an object a great way off. He sat there perfectly
motionless; he seemed not to be breathing and his mouth was as if
carved out of wood or stone. His face was white, uniformly white, as
stone. His brown hair showed more signs of life than did any other
feature. His hands lay before him on the desk, without life, as still
as inanimate objects, like stones or fruit, white and motionless, yet
not relaxed, but as if controlling the secret springs of a powerful
life force.
The sight made me tremble. He is dead, I thought. I almost said it out
loud. But I knew he was not dead. Mesmerized, I hung on his look; my
eyes were riveted to this white, stone mask. I felt it was the real
Demian. The Demian who was in the habit of walking and talking with me,
that was only one side of him, a half. Demian, who from time to time
played a part, who accommodated himself to circumstances out of mere
complacence. But the real Demian looked like this, with just this look
of stone, prehistorically old, like an animal, beautiful and cold, dead
yet secretly full of fabulous life force. And around him this still
emptiness, this infinite ethereal space, this lonely death!
“Now he has quite retired into himself,” I felt with a shudder. Never
had I been so isolated. I had no part in him, he was unattainable, he
was further from me than if he had been on the most distant isle in the
world.
I scarcely understood why no one besides myself noticed it. I thought
that everyone would have to remark him, that everyone would shudder.
But no one gave him any attention. He sat like a picture and, as I
could not prevent myself from thinking, as stiff as a strange idol.
A fly settled on his forehead, moved slowly down over his nose and
lips--not a muscle, not a nerve in his face twitched.
Where, where was he now? What was he thinking, what was he feeling? Was
he in heaven or in hell?
It was impossible for me to question him. When I saw him at the end of
the lesson living and breathing again, when his glance met mine, was he
as he formerly had been? Where did he come from? Where had he been? He
seemed tired. His face had its normal color, his hands moved again,
but his brown hair was lustreless and fatigued, as it were.
In the days following I practised a new exercise in my bedroom several
times. I sat stiffly on a chair, kept my eyes fixed, and held myself
perfectly motionless. I waited to see how long I could maintain this
attitude, and what the sensation would be like. However, I merely got
very tired, and suffered from a violent twitching of the eyelids.
The confirmation took place soon after, of which no important
recollections remain with me.
Everything was now quite changed. Childhood fell about me in ruins. My
parents used to look at me with a certain embarrassment. My sisters had
become quite strange in their conduct towards me. A disillusionment
falsified and weakened the old sentiments and pleasures, the garden was
without fragrance, the wood was no longer inviting, the world around
me seemed like a clearance-sale of old articles, insipid and without
charm, books were merely paper, music a noise. The leaves fall thus
from a tree in autumn, the tree feels it not, rain drips on it, sun
comes and frost, and the life in it recedes slowly into the narrowest
and most inward recess. The tree is not dying. It is waiting.
It was decided that after the holidays I should go to another school,
leaving home for the first time. My mother meanwhile approached me
with especial tenderness, a sort of preliminary good-bye, endeavoring
to charm me with a love from which I should go with homesickness and
unforgetfulness in my heart. Demian had gone away. I was alone.