“It was hard,” I said, as if in sleep, “it was hard, until the dream
came.”
She nodded and looked at me penetratingly.
“Yes, one must find one’s dream, then the way is easy. But there is
no dream which endures for always. Each sets a new one free, to none
should one wish to cleave.”
I started. Was that already a warning? Was that already a warding-off?
But no matter, I was ready to let myself be led by her, and not enquire
after the end.
“I do not know,” I said, “how long my dream is to last. I wish it would
be forever. My fate received me under the picture of the bird, like a
mother, and like a mistress. To it I belong and to no one else.”
“As long as the dream is your fate, so long must you remain true to
it,” she said, in earnest confirmation of my remark.
I was very sad, and I wished ardently to die in this hour of
enchantment; I felt the tears--for what an interminably long time had I
not wept--rise irresistibly and overmaster me. I turned violently away
from her. I stepped to the window, and looked out, my eyes blinded with
tears, away over the flower-pots.
I heard her voice behind me; it rang out calmly and yet was so full of
tenderness, like a cup filled to the brim with wine.
“Sinclair, what a child you are! Of course your fate loves you. One day
it will belong to you entirely, just as you dreamt it, if you remain
true to it.”
I had composed myself and turned my face to her again. She gave me her
hand.
“I have a few friends,” she said, smiling, “very few, very close
friends, who call me Mother Eve. You may call me so as well, if you
like.”
She led me to the door, opened it and indicated the garden. “You will
find Max out there, I think.”
I stood under the tall trees, stunned and stupefied. I knew not whether
I was more awake or more dreaming than ever. Softly the rain dripped
from the branches. I went slowly through the garden, which stretched
far along the river bank. At last I found Demian. He stood in an open
summer house. Naked to the waist, he was doing boxing exercises with a
little sack of sand hung from a beam.
Astonished, I remained standing there. Demian looked magnificent; his
broad chest, the firm manly head, the uplifted arms were strong and
sturdy. The movements came from the hips, the shoulders, the joints of
the arm, as easily as if they bubbled out of a spring of strength.
“Demian!” I called. “What are you doing there?”
He laughed gaily.
“I am exercising. I have promised to box with the little Jap; the
fellow is as agile as a cat, and naturally just as sly. But he won’t be
able to manage me. I owe him just one little beating.”
He drew on shirt and coat.
“You have already seen mother?” he asked.
“Yes, Demian, what a marvellous mother you have! Mother Eve! The name
suits her perfectly; she is like the mother of all being.”
He gazed for an instant musingly in my face.
“You know her name already? You ought to be proud, young friend.
You are the only one to whom she has said it in the first hour’s
acquaintance.”
From this day on I went in and out of the house like a son and a
brother, but also like a lover. When I closed the gate behind me, even
when I saw the tall trees of the garden emerge in the distance, I was
happy. Outside was “reality,” outside were streets and houses, human
beings and institutions, libraries and lecture rooms--here inside were
love and the life of the soul, here was the kingdom of fairy stories
and dreams. And yet we lived by no means shut off from the world. In
thought and word we often lived in its midst, only on another plane. We
were not separated from the majority of creatures by boundaries, but
rather by a different sort of vision. Our task was to be, as it were,
an island in the world, perhaps an example, in any case to proclaim
that it was possible to live a different sort of life. I, who had been
isolated for so long, learned to what extent community of feeling is
possible between people who have experienced complete loneliness. I no
longer desired to be back at the tables of the happy, at the feasts
of the merry. I no longer felt envious or homesick when I saw others
living in community. And slowly I was initiated into the mystery of
those who bore “the sign.”
We, who bore the sign, were probably justly considered by the world
as peculiar--yes, mad even, and dangerous. For we were awake, or were
waking, and our endeavor was to be more and more completely awake,
whereas the others strove to be happy, attaching themselves to the
herd, the opinions and ideals of which they made their own, taking
up the same duties, making their life and happiness depend on common
interests. True, there was a certain greatness, a vigorousness, in
their endeavor. But whereas, from our point of view, we who bore the
sign carried out the will of nature as individuals and as men of the
future, the others persisted in a stubbornness which hindered all
progress. For them mankind, which they loved just as we did--was
something already complete, which must be maintained and protected. For
us mankind was a distant future, to which we were all on the way. No
one could image this future, neither did its laws stand written in any
book.
Besides Mother Eve, Max and myself, there belonged to our circle in
a greater or lesser degree of intimacy many seekers of very various
sorts. Many of them were going along their own special paths, had set
up special aims and adhered to special opinions and duties. Amongst
these were astrologers and cabbalists, also an adherent of Count
Tolstoy, and all kinds of tender, timid, sensitive people, followers of
new sects, men who practised Indian cults, vegetarians and others. With
all these we had really nothing of a spiritual nature in common, except
the esteem which each accorded the secret life-dream of the other.
Some were in closer contact with us, such as those who traced the
searchings of mankind after gods and new ideals in the past, and whose
studies often reminded me of my friend Pistorius. They brought books
with them, translated for us texts from ancient tongues and showed us
illustrations of ancient symbols and rites. They taught us to see how
all the ideals of mankind up to the present have their origin in dreams
of the subconscious soul, dreams in which humanity is, as it were,
feeling its way forward into the future, guided by premonitions of the
future’s potentialities. So we went through the religious history of
the ancient world with its thousand gods, to the dawn of Christianity.
The confessions of the isolated saints were known to us, and the
changes of religion from race to race. And from all the knowledge
we thus acquired resulted a criticism of our era and of present-day
Europe, of this continent which through enormous exertions had created
powerful new weapons for humanity, only to fall finally into a deep
spiritual devastation, the effects of which were at last being felt.
For it had gained the whole world, only to lose its own soul.
There were with us believers as well, advocates of doctrines of
salvation, in the efficacy of which they were very hopeful. There were
Buddhists who wished to convert Europe, and disciples of Tolstoy, and
of other confessions. We in our narrow circle listened, but accepted
none of these doctrines except as symbols. We who bore the sign had no
cares as regarded the formation of the future. To us every confession,
every doctrine of salvation appeared in advance dead and useless. Our
whole duty, our destiny, was, we felt, to attain to self-realization,
in order that in us nature might find scope for its full activities,
and that the unknown future might find us ready to fill any rôle which
should be allotted us.
Whether we expressed our opinion in so many words or not, it was clear
to all of us that a break-up of the present-day world was approaching,
to be followed by a new birth. Demian said to me on more than one
occasion: “What will come is beyond conception. The soul of Europe
is an animal which has been chained up for an immeasurably long
period. When it is set free, its first movements will not display much
amiability. But the way it will take, whether direct or indirect, is
not of importance, provided that the soul’s true need is realized,
this soul which has been deluded and dulled for so long. Then our day
will come, then we shall be needed, not as guides or new law-givers--we
shall not live to see the new laws--but rather as volunteers, as those
who are ready to follow and to stand wherever fate shall call us. Look,
all men are ready to perform the incredible, when their ideals are
threatened. But no one comes forward when a new ideal, a new, perhaps
dangerous and uncanny impulse of spiritual growth declares itself. We
shall be of those few who are there, ready to go forward. For that
purpose have we been singled out just as Cain was marked with the sign
to inspire fear and hate, to drive the men of his time out of a narrow
idyllic existence into the broad pastures of a greater destiny. All men
whose influence has affected the march of humanity, all such, without
differentiation, owe their capabilities and their efficacy to the fact
that they were ready to do the bidding of destiny. That applies to
Napoleon and Bismarck. The immediate purpose to which they direct their
energies does not lie within their choice. If Bismarck had understood
the social democrats and had thrown in his lot with them, he would have
been a prudent fellow, but he would never have been the instrument of
fate. The same applies to Napoleon, to Caesar, to Loyola, to all of
them! One must always look at such things from the point of view of
biology and evolution! When the changes which took place in the earth’s
surface transferred to the land animals which lived in water, and vice
versa, then those specimens which were ready to fulfill their functions
as instruments of fate, brought new and unheard-of things to pass and
were able, through new adaptations, to save their kind. Whether these
specimens were the same that had previously been conservatives and
preservers of the status quo or the eccentrics and revolutionaries, is
not known. They were ready to be used by fate, and for that reason were
able to help their race through a new stage of evolution. That we do
know. For that reason we want to be ready.”
Mother Eve was often present when such conversations took place, but
she did not join in. For each of us who chose to express his thoughts
she was as it were a listener and an echo, full of confidence, full
of understanding. It appeared as if our ideas all emanated from her
and returned to her again. My happiness consisted in sitting near her,
in hearing her voice from time to time, and in participating in that
atmosphere of maturity and of the soul, which surrounded her.
She felt immediately when a change was taking place in me, when my soul
was troubled, or when a renewal was in progress. It seemed to me as if
the dreams I had in my sleep were inspired by her. I often related
them to her. She found them quite comprehensible and natural, there
were no peculiarities which she could not follow clearly. For a time
I had dreams which were like reproductions of the day’s conversation.
I dreamed that the whole world was in revolt, and that I, alone or
with Demian, tensely waited the signal of fate. Fate remained half
concealed, but bore somehow or other the traits of Mother Eve--to be
chosen or rejected by her, that was fate.
Sometimes she said with a smile: “Your dream is not complete, Sinclair,
you have forgotten the best part”--and it sometimes happened that I
recalled it then, and I could not understand how I had come to forget
any of it.
At times I was discontented and was tormented by desire, I thought I
could not bear to see her near me any longer without taking her in my
arms. She noticed that immediately. Once, when I had stayed away for
several days and had returned distraught, she took me aside and said:
“You should not give yourself up to wishes in which you do not believe,
I know what you wish. You must give up these desires, or else surrender
yourself to them completely. If one day you are able to ask, convinced
that your wishes will be fulfilled, then you will find satisfaction.
But you wish, and repent again, and are afraid. You must overcome all
that. I will tell you a fairy-tale.”
And she told me of a youth who was in love with a star. He stood on the
sea-shore, stretched out his hands, and prayed to the star. He dreamed
of it and all his thoughts were of it. But he knew, or thought he
knew, that a star could not be embraced by a man. He held it to be his
fate to love a star without hope of fulfillment, and he created from
this thought a whole life-poem about renunciation, and mute, faithful
suffering which should better him and purify him. But his dreams all
went up to the star. Once again he stood at night by the sea-shore,
on a high cliff. He gazed at the star, and his love for it flamed up
within him. And in a moment of great longing he made a spring, throwing
himself into space to meet the star. But at the moment of leaping,
the thought flashed through his mind: it is impossible! And so he was
dashed to pieces on the rocks below. He did not know how to love. Had
he had the strength of soul, at the moment of leaping, to believe in
the fulfillment of his wish, he would have flown up and have been
united with the star.
“Love must not beg,” she said, “nor demand either. Love must have the
force to be absolutely certain of itself. Then it is attracted no
longer, but attracts. Sinclair, I am attracting your love. As soon as
you attract my love, I shall come. I do not want to make a present of
myself. I want to be won.”
On a later occasion she told me another fairy-story. There was a lover,
who loved without hope of success. He withdrew entirely into himself
and thought his love would consume him. The world was lost to him, he
saw the blue sky and the green wood no longer, he did not hear the
murmuring of the stream, or the notes of the harp; all that meant
nothing to him, and he became poor and miserable. But his love grew,
and he would much rather have died and have made an end of it all than
renounce the chance of possessing the beautiful woman whom he loved.
Then he suddenly felt that his love had consumed everything else in
him, it became powerful and exercised an irresistible attraction, the
beautiful woman had to follow, she came and he stood with outstretched
arms to draw her to him. But as she stood before him, she was
completely transformed, and with a thrill he felt and saw that he had
drawn into his embrace the whole world, which he had lost. She stood
before him and surrendered herself to him, sky and wood and brook, all
was decked out in lovely new colors, all belonged to him, and spoke
his tongue. And instead of merely winning a woman, he had taken the
whole world to his heart, and each star in the heaven glowed in him,
and twinkling, communicated desire to his soul. He had loved, and
thereby had found himself. But most people love only to lose themselves
thereby.
My whole life seemed to be contained in my love for Mother Eve. But
every day she looked different. Many times I felt decidedly that it was
not her person for which my whole being was striving, but that she was
a symbol of my inward self, and that she wished only to lead me to see
more deeply into myself. I often heard words fall from her lips, which
sounded like answers to the burning questions asked by my subconscious
self. Then again there were moments when in her presence I burnt with
desire, and afterwards kissed objects she had touched. And by degrees
sensual and unsensual love, reality and symbol merged into one another.
Then it happened that I could think of her at home in my room with
quiet fervor. I thought I felt her hand in mine and my lips pressed
to hers. Or I was at her house, gazing up into her face, talking with
her and listening to her voice; and I did not know whether it was
really she, or whether it was a dream. I began to foresee how one can
have a lasting and immortal love. In reading a book I had acquired new
knowledge, and it was the same feeling as a kiss from Mother Eve. She
stroked my hair and smiled at me, I sensed the perfume of her warm ripe
mouth, and I had the same feeling as if I had been making progress
within myself. All that was important and fateful for me seemed to be
contained in her. She could transform herself into each of my thoughts,
and every one of my thoughts was transformed into her.
I feared that it would be torture to spend the two weeks of the
Christmas holidays, separated from Mother Eve, with my parents at home.
But it was no torture, it was lovely to be at home and to think of her.
When I returned to H---- I remained away from her house another two
days, in order to enjoy the security and independence of her actual
presence. I also had dreams in which my union with her was accomplished
by way of allegory. She was a sea, into which I, a river, flowed. She
was a star, and I myself was a star on my way to her. We felt drawn to
one another. We met, and remained together always, turning blissfully
round one another in close-lying orbits, to the music of the spheres.
I related this dream to her, when I visited her again after the
holidays.
“It is a beautiful dream,” she said softly. “See that it comes true!”
There came a day in early spring that I shall never forget. I entered
the hall. A window stood open and the heavy scent of hyacinths, wafted
by a warm breath of air, permeated the room. As no one was to be seen,
I went upstairs to Max Demian’s study. I knocked softly on the door and
entered without waiting for permission, as I was in the habit of doing
with him.
The room was dark. The curtains were all drawn. The door to a little
room adjoining stood open, where Max had set up a chemical laboratory.
From there came the bright, white light of the spring sun, shining
through rain clouds. I thought no one was there and pulled back one of
the curtains.
There I saw Max Demian, sitting on a stool by a curtained window. His
attitude was cramped and he was oddly changed. The thought flashed
through me: You have seen him like this once before! His arms were
motionless at his side, his hands in his lap; his face inclined
slightly forward, with open eyes, was without sight, as if dead. In the
eyes there glimmered dully a little reflex of light, as in a piece of
glass. The pale face was self-absorbed and without any expression, save
that of great rigidity. He looked like a very ancient mask of an animal
at the door of a temple. He appeared not to be breathing.
The recollection came to me--thus, exactly thus, had I once seen
him, many years ago, when I was still quite a boy. Thus had his eyes
stared inwards, thus his hands had been lying motionless, close to one
another, a fly had been crawling over his face. And he had then, six
years ago perhaps, looked just as old and as ageless, not a wrinkle in
his face had changed.
I was frightened, and went softly out of the room and down the stairs.
In the hall I met Mother Eve. She was pale and seemed tired: I had not
seen her like that before. A shadow came through the window, the bright
white sun had suddenly disappeared.
“I went into Max’s room,” I whispered hastily. “Has anything happened?
He is asleep, or absorbed, I don’t know what; I once saw him like that
before.”
“But you didn’t wake him?” she asked quickly.
“No. He did not hear me. I came out immediately. Mother Eve, tell me,
what is the matter with him?”
She passed her hand over her forehead.
“Don’t worry, Sinclair, nothing has happened to him. He has retired
into himself. It will not last long.”
She got up and went out into the garden, although it had begun to rain.
I felt that I must not follow her. So I walked up and down in the hall,
inhaling the scent of the hyacinths which dulled my senses, and gazing
at my picture of the bird over the door. I felt oppressively the odd
shadow which seemed to fill the house that morning. What was it? What
had happened?
Mother Eve came back soon. Rain drops hung in her dark hair. She sat
down in her easy chair. She was very tired. I went to her, bent down
and kissed the raindrops in her hair. Her eyes were bright and soft,
but the raindrops tasted like tears.
“Shall I go and see how he is?” I asked in a whisper.
She smiled weakly.
“Don’t be a child, Sinclair!” she admonished loudly, as if to relieve
her own feelings. “Go now and come back later, I cannot talk to you
now.”
I went. I walked out of the house and out of the town, towards the
mountains. The thin rain was falling obliquely, and clouds were driving
at a low altitude under heavy pressure, as if in fear. Down below there
was hardly any breeze, but on the heights above a storm seemed to be
raging. Several times the sun, pale and bright, broke for an instant
through the steely grey of the clouds.
There came a fleecy, yellow cloud driving across the sky. It collided
with the grey cloud wall, and in a few seconds the wind formed a
picture of the yellow and blue, of a bird of giant size, which tore
itself free from the blue mêlée and with wide fluttering wings
disappeared in the sky. Then the storm became audible and rain mixed
with hail rattled down. A short burst of thunder with an unnatural and
terrific sound cracked over the whipped landscape. Immediately after
the sun broke through and on the mountains close at hand above brown
woods glistened, pale and unreal, the fresh snow.
When I returned after several hours, wet from the rain and wind, Demian
himself opened the front door to me.
He took me with him up to his room. A gas flame burned in the
laboratory, paper lay about, he appeared to have been working.
“Sit down,” he invited, “you must be tired, it was a terrible storm;
it’s evident, you were overtaken by it. Tea is coming at once.”
“Something is the matter to-day,” I began hesitatingly, “it can’t only
be that bit of a storm.”
He looked at me penetratingly.
“Have you seen anything?”
“Yes. I saw a picture clearly in the clouds, for an instant.”
“What sort of a picture?”
“It was a bird.”
“The hawk? Was it that? The bird of your dream?”
“Yes, it was my hawk. It was yellow and of giant size, it flew up into
the blue-black heaven.”
Demian took a deep breath. Someone knocked at the door. The aged
servant brought in tea.
“Take a cup, Sinclair, do. I don’t think it was by chance you saw the
bird.”
“Chance? Does one see such things by chance?”
“Well, no. It means something. Do you know what?”
“No. I only feel, it means a violent shock, the approach of fate. I
think it will affect all of us.”
He walked violently up and down.
“The approach of fate!” he exclaimed loudly. “I dreamed the same
thing myself last night, and my mother yesterday had a premonition,
portending the same thing. I dreamed I was going up a ladder, placed
against a tree trunk or a tower. When I reached the top I saw the whole
country. It was a wide plain, with towns and villages burning. I cannot
yet relate everything, because it isn’t all quite clear to me.”
“Do you interpret the dream as affecting you?” I asked.
“Me? Naturally. No one dreams of what does not concern him. But it
does not concern me alone, you are right. I distinguish tolerably
well between the dreams which indicate agitation of my own soul, and
the others, the rare ones, which bear on the fate of all humanity. I
have seldom had such dreams, and never one of which I can say that it
was a prophecy, and that it has been fulfilled. The interpretations
are too uncertain. But this I know for a certainty, I have dreamed of
something which does not concern me alone. For the dream belongs to
others, former ones I have had; this is the continuation. These are the
dreams, Sinclair, in which I had the premonitions which I have already
mentioned to you. We know that the world is absolutely rotten, but
that is no reason to prophesy its ruin, or to make a prophecy of a like
nature. But for several years past I have had dreams, from which I
conclude, or feel, or what you will, which, then, give me the feeling
that the break-up of an old world is drawing near. At first they were
simply faint presentiments, but since they have become more and more
significant. Even now I know nothing more than that something big and
terrible is approaching, which will concern me. Sinclair, we shall go
through the experiences of which we have so often talked. The world is
about to renew itself. It smacks of death. Nothing new comes without
death. It is more terrible than I had thought.”
Frightened, I looked at him fixedly.
“Can’t you tell me the rest of your dream?” I begged timidly.
He shook his head.
“No.”
The door opened and Mother Eve entered.
“There you are, sitting together! Children, I hope you aren’t sad?”
She looked fresh, her fatigue had quite vanished. Demian smiled at her,
she came to us as a mother comes to frightened children.
“We aren’t sad, mother. We were simply trying to solve the riddle of
these new signs. But that is of no importance; what is to come, will
be here all of a sudden, and then we shall learn what we need to know.”
But I did not feel happy. When I said good-bye and went down alone
through the hall, I felt that the hyacinths were faded and withered,
reminding me of corpses. A shadow had fallen over us.