AUGUST STRINDBERG (continued 2)

"Oh yes!" I said, relieved after feeling a pang pass through me, "I am in F.'s" (the wine shop).

The officer's face was distorted with alarm, and he wept.

"What is the matter?" I said to him.

"That was dreadful," he answered.

"What?"

When I have related this story to others, they have objected that it was a fainting fit or an attack of giddiness, words which say little and explain nothing. First and foremost, fainting fits and giddiness are accompanied by loss of consciousness. Nor was it a case of amyosthenia (depression of muscular action), as I remained sitting on my chair, and spoke consciously about my partial unconsciousness.

At that time I was unaware of the phenomenon itself, and did not know the expression "exteriorisation of sensibility." Now that I know it, I am sure that the soul possesses the power of expansion which it exercises in a very high degree during ordinary sleep, and at death to such an extent that it leaves the body, and is by no means extinguished.

Some days ago, as I was going along the pavement, I saw an inn-keeper before his door, loudly abusing a knife-grinder who was standing in the street. I did not want to cut off the connection between the two, but it could not be avoided, and I felt a keen feeling of discomfort as I passed between the two quarrelling men. It was as though I divided a cord which was stretched between them, or rather as though I crossed a street which was being sprinkled on both sides with water.

The connection between friends, relatives, and especially between husband and wife, is a real bond and has a palpable actuality. We begin to love a woman, and deposit our soul piece-meal, so to speak, with her. We double our personality, and the loved one, who was formerly indifferent and neutral, begins to clothe herself in our other "I," and becomes our counterpart. When she takes it into her head to depart with our soul, the pain which it causes us is perhaps the most violent that there is, only to be compared to that of a mother who has lost her child. There is a painful sense of emptiness and woe to the man who has not strength enough to begin to divide himself again and to find another vessel to fill. Love is an act through which the masculine blossom attains to fruit, because it is the man who loves, and it is a sweet illusion to suppose that he is loved by his wife, his other self, a creation of his own.

Between a married pair the invisible bond often develops itself in a mediumistic fashion. They can call each other from a distance, read each other's thoughts, and practise mutual "suggestion" when they like. They no longer feel the need of speech; the mere presence of the beloved gives joy, her soul radiates warmth. When they are divided the bond between them expands; the sense of longing and pining increases with distance, sometimes to such a degree as to involve the breaking of the bond, and thereby death.

For many years I have taken notes of all y dreams, and have arrived at the conviction lat mail leads a double life, that imaginations, fancies, and dreams possess a kind of reality.

So that we are all of us spiritual somnambulists, and in dreams commit acts which, according to their varying character, accompany us when we are awake with feelings of satisfaction or an evil conscience and fears of the consequences. And from reasons, which I reserve the right to explain some other time, I believe that the so-called persecution-mania really springs from pains of conscience after evil deeds which one has committed in sleep, and of which vague recollections haunt us. The imaginations of the poet, which prosaic, souls so despise, are realities.

"And what about death?" you ask.

To the brave man who does not set too great a value on life, I would at an earlier stage of my experience have recommended the following experiment, which I have repeatedly made, not without troublesome, but in all cases easily cured, physical results.

After closing windows, doors, and the stove-flue, I place an open bottle containing cyan-kalium on the table and lie down on the bed. The carbonic acid in the air liberates in a little time the cyanic acid in the bottle, and the well-known physical symptoms follow—a slight throbbing of the throat, and an indescribable taste in the mouth, which I might by analogy call "cyanic," paralysis of the biceps-muscle, and pain in the stomach. The deadly effect of cyanic acid remains still a mystery. Different authorities ascribe different methods of operation to this poison. One says, "paralysis of the brain"; another, "paralysis of the heart"; a third, "suffocation as a secondary consequence of the medulla oblongata being attacked," etc.

But since the effect may show itself at once, before absorption has taken place, the method of operation must be regarded much more as psychical, especially when one has regard to the use of cyanic acid in medicine as a quieting remedy in so-called nervous diseases.

As regards the condition of the soul under this experiment, I would say the following: It does not seem to undergo a slow extinction, but rather a dissolution during which the pleasant sensations far outweigh the trifling pains. The mental capacities gain in clearness, exactly contrary to their condition at the approach of sleep; one is in full possession of one's will, and I can break off the experiment by corking the bottle, opening the window, and inhaling chlorine or ammonia.

I do not lay much stress upon it, but supposing that we could obtain satisfactory proofs of the temporary condition of death into which Indian fakirs can throw themselves, the experiment might be prolonged without danger. In case of an accident one must proceed with the various methods which are used to resuscitate a person who has been choked. The fakirs use warm compresses on the brain, the Chinese warm the pit of the stomach and cause sneezing. In his remarkable book, Positive and Negative (1890), Vial relates, following Trousseau and Piloux: "In the year 1825 Carrero stifled and drowned a large number of animals, which he afterwards resuscitated a long time after death by simply inserting needles into their brain."

In my book Inferno, I have spoken of my brother in misfortune the German-American painter, and of the quack Francis Schlatter who was suspected of being his "double." The time has come when I am obliged to compromise my friend with the sole object of helping the investigation into the relation between them.

My friend's name was H., whether real or assumed. When I had returned to Paris in August 1897, I was turning over, one day, the Revue Spirite for the year 1859. I found there an article, headed "My Friend H." Under this title a certain Herr H. Lugner had published in the feuilleton of the Journal des Débats for 26th November 1858 a narrative which he asserted to be fact, and offered to witness to, if necessary, as he himself was a friend of the hero of the adventure. The latter was a young man, aged five and twenty, of irreproachable morals and thoroughly amiable character.

H. could not keep awake as soon as the sun went down. An irresistible weariness came over him, and he sank gradually in a deep sleep, from which nothing could rouse him. In brief, H. lived a double life, so that at night he committed criminal acts in Melbourne under the name William Parker. When, later on, Parker was executed, H., in Germany, was simultaneously found dead in his bed.

Whether the story was true or a product of the imagination, it interested me, because of the coincidence of names, and also of some of the circumstances. Modern literature has already dealt with the phenomenon of the Doppelgänger (double) in the famous romance Trilby, and in another by Paul Lindau. It would be interesting to know whether the authors have based their narrative on facts or no.

Meanwhile we return to friend Martin. In order to obtain some distraction, he undertook a cruise to Norrland and Norway, and expected to derive from it a real feeling of freedom and much pleasure. After some weeks I meet him in a street in Lund.

"Have you had a pleasant journey?" I ask.

"No; a devil's journey! I don't know what to believe. There is certainly some one who challenges me, and the fight is unequal. Listen! I went to Stockholm to amuse myself at the great exhibition, and though I have hundreds of friends there, I did not meet one. They were all in the country, and I found myself alone. I only stayed in my room one day, and was then turned out of it by a stranger to whom my brother, by mistake, had previously promised it. Ill-luck made me so stupid that I did not go and see the exhibition, and as I wandered about alone in the streets, suddenly a heavy hand fell on my shoulder. It was a very seriously disposed uncle of mine, whom I had not seen twice in my life, and who was the last man I wished to see. He invited me to spend the whole evening with him and his wife. I had to swallow everything I disliked. It was like witchcraft.

Then I went on alone in a railway carriage for hundreds of miles, through scenery that was deadly dull. At Areskutan, the principal object of my excursion, there was only one hotel, and in this hotel all my antipathies had appointed a rendezvous. The Free Church pastor was feeding his flock there, and they were singing psalms morning, noon, and evening. It was enough to drive one wild, and yet it seemed quite natural. There was only one thing which seemed to me somewhat strange, or with a smack of the occult about it. That was, that in this quiet and well-kept hotel they were hammering up large boxes at night."

"Over your head?"

"Yes; just over! And, strangely enough, this hammering followed me to Norway. When I ask the hotel manager for an explanation, he declared he had heard nothing." "That is just like my own experience."

"Yes."

I would not have related these trivial and in themselves repellent stories, did not their very absurdity suggest the existence of a reality, which yet is neither real objectively nor a mere vision, but a phantasmagoria called up by the invisible powers, to warn, to teach, or to punish.

This condition, called by the theosophists "Astralplanet," is also described by Swedenborg in the last part of his Arcana, "Visiones et Visa."

There are two kinds of visionary states which are beyond nature, and in which I have been placed merely to experience what they are like, and what is to be understood by the expressions to be "rapt from the body," and "to be carried by the spirit" to another place.

1. A man is placed in a condition between sleep and waking; when he is in this state he seems to himself to be fully awake. This is the condition of being "rapt from the body," when one does not know whether one is in the body or out of the body.

2. Wandering through the streets of a city and over the fields, and holding converse with spirits, I seemed to myself to be as much awake and alert as on ordinary occasions. Thus I wandered without quitting the road. Yet all the while I was in a vision, and saw woods, rivers, palaces, houses, men, and other things. But after I had wandered thus for some hours, I fell suddenly into a state of corporeal hallucination, and was aware that I was in another place. At this I was greatly surprised, and saw that I was in such a condition as those are who are said to be "carried by the Spirit to another place."

Friend Martin since his return from his excursion lives alone in his parents' house, because the family have scattered in different directions for their summer holiday. I will not say that he is afraid, but he is uncomfortable. Sometimes he hears steps and other sounds from the room of his absent sister, sometimes sneezing. Some days ago he heard in the middle of the night a sharp metallic sound, like that of a scythe being sharpened. "Taking it all in all," he concluded, "wonderful things do occur, but if I once began to engage in dealings with the invisible powers I should be lost."

That was his last word, as autumn approached with great strides.

VII

STUDIES IN SWEDENBORG

While all these occurrences went on in every-day life, I continued my studies in Swedenborg—that is to say, his works, which are hard to procure, fell into my hands one after the other, at very long intervals.

In the Arcana Coelestia, hell is represented as everlasting, without any hope of an end, and bare of every word of comfort. The Apocalypses Revelata expounds a method of systematic penance, and the result was that I lived under its spell till the spring. Sometimes I shook it off while I entertained the hope that the Prophet was deceived in details, and that the Lord of Life and Death would show Himself more merciful. But what cannot be denied is the startling coincidence between Swedenborg's visions, and all events great or small which have happened to me and my friends during this year of terror.

It was not till March that I found in an antiquarian bookseller's shop The Wonders of Heaven and Hell and Conjugal Love. Not till then was I freed from the spiritual burden that had secretly oppressed me ever since I first became aware of the Invisible. In them I learned that God is Love. He does not reign over slaves, and has therefore bestowed on mortals the gift of free will. Evil has no independent power, but is a servant of God, fulfilling the functions of a disciplinary force. Punishments are not endless; every one is free to expiate by patience the wrongs which he has done. The sufferings which are, imposed upon us are intended to improve our character. The operations which constitute the preparation for a spiritual life begin with "Devastation" (vastatio), and consist in constriction of the chest, difficulty of breathing, symptoms of suffocation, heart affections, terrible attacks of fear, sleeplessness, nightmare. This process, which Swedenborg underwent in the years 1744 and 1745, is described in his book Dreams.

The diagnosis of this kind of illness corresponds in every point to the ailments which are just now so common, so that I do not shrink from drawing the conclusion that we are approaching a new era in which there will be spiritual awakening, and it will be a joy to live. Angina pectoris, sleeplessness, nightly terrors, all these symptoms which doctors wish to class as epidemic, are nothing else but the work of unseen powers. For how can the systematic persecution of healthy men by unprecedented bizarre occurrences, disturbances and annoyances be regarded as an epidemic sickness? An epidemic of coincidences? That is certainly absurd.

Swedenborg has become my Virgil, who guides me through hell, and I follow him blindly. He certainly is a terrible chastiser, but he knows also how to comfort, and he seems to me less severe than the Protestant theologians. "A man may amass riches, if he does so honestly and uses them honestly; he may clothe himself and live according to his means; he may hold intercourse with people of the same social standing as himself, enjoy the innocent pleasures of life, look joyful and contented, and not morose. He can, in a word, live and act like a rich man in this world, and after he dies go straight to heaven, if only in his heart he has faith in God and love to Him, and behaves as he should towards his neighbour."

"I have met several of those who, before they died, had renounced the world and retired into solitude, in order to devote themselves to the contemplation of heavenly things, and thereby to make themselves a surer path to heaven. They nearly all had a gloomy and depressed appearance, seemed to be annoyed that others were not like them, and that they themselves were not rewarded with greater honour and a happier lot. They live in hidden places, like hermits, almost in the same way as they had lived in our world. Man is created to live in harmony with others; in society and not in solitude he finds numerous opportunities of exercising Christian mildness towards his neighbours."

In solitude one only contemplates oneself, forgetting all others. Consequently one thinks only of oneself, or of the world, in order to avoid it or to feel the want of it, which is the opposite of Christian love.

As regards the so-called everlasting punishments, at the last moment, the seer appears as a deliverer, and allows a ray of hope to dawn on us. He says, "Those among them, for whose deliverance one may hope, are set in waste places, which only afford a picture of desolation. They are left there till their sorrow has darkened into despair, because this is the only means to conquer the evil and falsehood which rule them. Arrived at this point, they cry out that they are no better than animals, that they are full of hate and all kinds of abomination, and that they are damned. These exclamations are pardoned them, as being cries of despair, and God softens their mood, so that their expressions of reproach and abuse do not transgress the assigned limits. When they have suffered all that can be suffered, so that their bodies are also dead, they are troubled no more about it, and are prepared for deliverance. I have seen some of them taken to heaven after they have been visited with all the sufferings of which I have spoken. When they were admitted, they displayed such great joy that I was moved to tears." What the Catholics call "conscientia scrupulosa," a tender conscience, is caused by malicious spirits, who induce pangs of conscience for nothing at all. They delight in laying a load on the conscience, and this state has nothing to do with the improvement of the sinner. In a similar way there are unwholesome temptations. Evil spirits evoke in the depth of the soul all the evil it has committed since childhood, and bring its worst side uppermost. But the angels discover all the good and true which they can in the exhausted soul. That is the strife which is revealed under the name, "pangs of conscience."

I stop here, because I do my Master an injustice by tearing asunder the web which he has so well woven together, and by exhibiting the fragments as samples. Swedenborg's work is one of enormous compass, and he has answered all my questions, however presumptuous they may have been. Disquiet soul, suffering heart, "Take up and read."

VIII

CANOSSA

Exhausted by these mysterious persecutions, I have for a long time undertaken a careful examination of my conscience, and, true to my new resolve not to justify myself as against my neighbour, I find my past life abominable and am disgusted at my own personality.

"It is true that I have incited the younger generation to rebel against law and order, against religion, authority, morality. That is my godlessness, for which I am now I punished, and which I now retract."

So I say to myself, and after a pause in the current of my thoughts I reverse the question, and ask, "And the others, the opposers of my revolutionary views, the pious defenders of morality, of the State, of religion, can they sleep at night? and have the Powers prospered them in their worldly affairs?"

When I pass in review the pillars of society and their various fortunes, I am compelled to answer, "No!"

The brave champion of the Ideal in poetry and in life, the poet popular with the steady and respectable bourgeois class, cannot now sleep at night owing to violent attacks of hysteria. To add to his troubles, his guardian angel left him in the lurch, so that his affairs became embarrassed from his engaging in speculations which nearly reduced him to beggary. It is no joy for me to remember this, for it increases my depression when I see how the noblest efforts only lead to beggary.

What of my opponent in religion? He who wished to have me imprisoned for blasphemy has himself been arrested for falsification in the transfer of property. But don't think, reader, that I make his sin an excuse for my blasphemies. It is a trouble to me not to be able to keep my belief in the purifying effect of Christianity, in view of such a startling example, to the contrary.

Then the lady who took morality under her protection, the friend of oppressed women, the prophetess who in fiery and candid essays preached celibacy to young men—what has become of her? No one knows it, but on her there rests a dark and terrible suspicion. Edifying, is it not? As to the other pillars of moral and religious order, I pass them over, whether they have put a bullet through their brains, or decamped to avoid an ominous investigation. Speaking briefly, judgment seems to strike the just and unjust alike, and one may prove as good as another.

What is it then that is taking place in the world to-day? Is it the irrevocable doom pronounced against Sodom? Must all perish? Are there none righteous? Not one!

May we then be friends and suffer in common as fellow-sinners, without exalting ourselves, one above another.

I have apologised for my culpable actions, and abjure my past. Let me now say a word in self-defence. It is a common characteristic of youth in all ages to be in revolt, frivolous, disorderly. Am I the first inventor of revolt or sin? Formerly I was the youth led astray, the child of my time, the disciple of my teachers, the victim of seduction. Whose is the fault, and why have they made me a scapegoat? Suppose that it was a lie, and that I am not the person for whom men take me?

But here the accusation of "black magic" comes in to turn the scales.

But it was out of ignorance that I had recourse to that.

Well then, what about the revolt against the Invisible?

Yes, I did revolt. But how about the others who spent their lives on their knees in devotion and self-denial, and who have all been disowned?

Let us acknowledge that the state of affairs is desperate, and that we are all handed over to the power of the Prince of this world to be bowed in the dust and humbled till we are disgusted with ourselves, in order that we may feel homesick for heaven. Self-contempt, anger at one's own personality, the result of vain endeavours to improve oneself—that is the way to a higher life.

And remember one thing: the way to Rome, the imperial route lay through Canossa!

IX

THE SPIRIT OF CONTRADICTION

In spite of all the sufferings which I have endured, the spirit of rebellion in me is still erect, and suggests doubts as to the benevolent designs of my invisible guide. An accident (?) has brought into my hands Schikaneder's text of the opera of the Magic Flute. The sufferings and temptations of the young pair suggest to me the thought that I have let myself be duped by misleading voices, and that I had bowed myself and submitted, simply because I could not endure the pains and difficulties.

Immediately I remember Prometheus who storms at the gods while the vulture gnaws his liver. And at last the rebel is admitted to the circle of the Olympians without making an open recantation.

The fire is now kindled, and immediately evil spirits add fuel to it.

An occult magazine, sent by post, encourages my cowardice by propounding subversive theories, such as the following: "As is well known, in the old books of the Veda, Creation is represented as a single act of sacrifice, in which God, both Priest and Victim, offers Himself by dividing Himself." That is the very idea which I have expressed in the Mystery Play appended to "Meister Olof."

Further: "All the elements, which conjointly constitute the universe, are nothing else than fallen divinities, which, through the stone, plant, animal, human, and angelic kingdoms, climb up to heaven, only to fall down again." This idea was characterised by the famous Alexander von Humboldt and the historian Cantu as sublime.

(Yes, it is sublime.)

"As is well known, the Greek and Roman gods were originally men. Jupiter himself, the greatest of all, was born in Crete, where he was suckled by the she-goat Amalthea. He thrust his father from the throne, and took all possible precautions not to be dethroned himself. When the giants attacked him, and most of the gods left him in the lurch, in a cowardly way, and hid themselves under the shapes of plants in Egypt, he had the good luck, with the help of the bravest gods, to remain victor. But it was not without considerable difficulty."

"In Homer, the gods fight against men and are sometimes wounded. Our Gallic forefathers also fought against heaven, and shot arrows against it when they believed themselves threatened by it. The Jews were animated by the same feelings as the heathen. They had Jehovah (God), but they also had Elohim (Gods). The Bible begins thus: 'He who is, who was, and who will be—the One in the many.'"

"When Adam had committed the 'beata culpa,' which, so far from being a fall, was a sublime step upwards, as the snake had prophesied, God said, 'Behold, Adam has become as one of us, to know good and evil.' And He added, 'Now, therefore, lest he put forth his hand, and take of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.'"

The ancients accordingly saw in the gods men who had elevated themselves to despotic power, and sought by an overthrow of the constitution to maintain that power, while preventing others from raising themselves in their turn. Hence sprang the conflict, men endeavouring to drive away the usurping deities, and the latter struggling to maintain the power they had arrogated to themselves.

"Now the flood-gates are opened with a vengeance! Only consider! We are gods!"

"And the sons of the gods descended to earth and married the daughters of men, and they brought forth children. From this inter-mixture came the giants, and all famous men, warriors, statesmen, authors, artists."

This was fine seed to sow in a refractory mind, and the Ego inflated itself again, "Only think! We are gods!"

The same evening when all in the restaurant were in high spirits, a circle was formed round a doctor of music. My friend the philosopher, to whom I had imparted the discovery of our relationship to the gods, asked to hear Mozart's Don Juan, especially the finale of the last act.

"What is that about?" asked one, who was not at home in the classical repertory of music.

"The devil comes and carries away the Sybarite."

The abysmal torment, so well described by Mozart—who very likely knew pangs of conscience of this kind, as the husband of a woman he had seduced committed suicide on his account—is unrolled in a succession of melancholy tones like a cutting neuralgia. The laughter stops, the jests cease, and when the piece is finished there is a painful silence.

"Here's to your health!" says some one.

They drink. But the cheerfulness is at an end, the Olympic mood is quenched, for the night is coming on and the terrible chromatic successions of notes echo like innumerable waves which rise and fall, and hurl human derelicts aloft in the air in order to swallow them the next moment.

While the descendants of the gods make vain attempts to assume a tone becoming their high birth, night has come, and the restaurant is closed. The party must break up and go, each to his lonely bed. As we pass the Cathedral veiled in the shadows of the night, a white light suddenly flashes on the façade, on which are depicted saints and sinners kneeling before the throne of the Lamb.

"What is that?" we ask, for there is no thunderstorm. We are startled, and remain standing, only to find that it is a photographer working in his shop by the magnesium light. We are annoyed at our nervousness, and for my part I involuntary think of the theatrical lightning when Don Juan is carried off.

As I enter my room I feel a kind of alarm, chilly and feverish, at the same moment. When I have taken off my overcoat, I hear the wardrobe door open of itself. "Is any one there?"

No answer. My courage sinks, and for a moment I feel inclined to go out again and spend the night in the dark and dirty streets. But weariness and despair hamper me, and I prefer to die in a comfortable bed.

While I undress I look forward to a bad night, and once happily in bed I take up a book to distract my thoughts. Then my toothbrush falls from the washing-stand on to the ground without any visible cause. Immediately afterwards the cover of my jug rises and falls again with a clash before my eyes. Nothing has occurred to shake the room, the night being perfectly still.

The universe has no secrets veiled from giants and geniuses, and yet reason is helpless before a jug cover which defies the law of gravitation. Fear of the unknown makes a man who thought he had solved the riddle of the Sphinx tremble!

I was nervous, terribly nervous; I would not, however, quit the battlefield, but continued to read. Then there fell a spark, or a small will-o'-the-wisp, like a snowflake from the ceiling, and was quenched on my book. Yet, reader, I did not go mad!

Sleep, sacred sleep, assumes the form of an ambush in which murderers lurk. I dare not sleep any more, and yet have no power to keep myself awake. This is really hell! As I feel the torpor of sleep stealing over me, a galvanic shock like a thunderbolt strikes me, without, however, killing me.

Hurl thy shafts, proud Gaul, against heaven! Heaven in its turn never stops hurling.

Since all resistance is useless, I lay down my arms although after relapses into refractoriness. During this last unequal strife I see will-o'-the-wisps even in broad daylight, but I attribute this to an affection of the eyes. Then I find in Swedenborg an explanation of the meaning of these flickering flames which I have never seen since:—

"Other spirits try to convince me of the opposite of what the instructing spirits have said to me. These spirits of contradiction were upon earth men who were banished from society for their criminality. One recognises their approach by a flickering flame which seems to drop before one's face. They settle on people's backs, and their presence is felt in the limbs. They preach that one should not believe what the instructing spirits, together with the angels, have said, nor behave himself in accordance with their teaching, but live in licence and liberty as he chooses. These spirits of contradiction generally come when the others have gone. Men know what they are worth, and trouble themselves little about them; but through them they learn to distinguish between good and evil, for the quality of good is learnt through acquaintance with its opposite."

X

EXTRACTS FROM MY DIARY, 1897

Feb. 12th.—Pulled out of bed after I have heard a woman's voice. St. Chrysostom, the misogynist, says: "What is woman? The enemy of friendship, the punishment that cannot be escaped, the necessary evil, the natural temptation, the longed for misery, the fountain of tears which is never dry, the worst masterpiece of creation in white and dazzling array."

"Since the first woman made an agreement with the Devil, why should her daughters not do so likewise? Created as she was from a crooked rib, her whole turn of mind is crooked, and inclined towards evil."

Well said! St. Chrysostom, the Golden mouthed!

Feb. 28th.—The chaffinches warble, the blue glimpses of the sea in the distance invite me, but as soon as I reach after my carpet-bag I am attacked by the invisible powers. Flight is in fact cut off from me. I am imprisoned here. In order to distract my mind I try to work at my book Inferno, but that is not permitted me. As soon as I take up the pen my power of recollection seems to be extinguished. I can remember nothing, or only such events as have no significance.

April 2nd.—A German author asks my opinion of Count Bismarck for a paper which is collecting adverse and favourable opinions of the Chancellor. My own was this: "I must admire a man who has understood how to dupe his contemporaries so well as Bismarck. His work was supposed to be the unification of Germany, and yet he has divided the great kingdom in two, with one Emperor in Berlin and another in Vienna."

In the evening there is a scent of jasmine blossoms in my room, a gentle feeling of peace take possession of my mind, and this night I sleep quietly (Swedenborg says that the presence of a good spirit or angel is known by a balmy perfume. The theosophists maintain the same, but call angels "Mahatmas").

April 5th.—I hear that a great piece of sculpture by Ebbe, representing a crucified woman, has been broken during its passage to the Stockholm Exhibition. On the other hand, my friend H.'s picture of the crucified woman has been seized for debt, and hung up in a courtyard over the dustbin.

April 10th.—Read a good deal of sorts—Chateaubriand's Mémoires d'outre-tombe; Las Casas' Diary of St. Helena. Who was Napoleon? Of whom was he the re-incarnation?

He was born in Ajaccio, of Greek colonists who derive their name from Ajax. 1. Ajax, the son of Telamon, was conquered by Odysseus, and maddened by fury he slaughtered the flocks of the Greeks in the belief that he was spreading death among his enemies. One day when one of the patron gods of Troy had enveloped both armies in a cloud in order to help the flight of the Trojans, he cried, "O Zeus! give us light, though thou slay us in the light!" 2. Ajax, son of Oileus, suffered shipwreck on the home voyage from the siege of Troy, but saved himself by climbing a cliff where he obstinately defied the gods, and was, as a punishment, drowned in the depths of the sea. "Ajax defying the gods" has become a proverb. Napoleon was prematurely born on a mat adorned with scenes from the Iliad. Paola a Porta said one day to the young Napoleon, "There is nothing modern about thee; thou art a man out of Plutarch."

Before Napoleon's birth, Rousseau had interested himself in Corsica, and its inhabitants wished to have him as a ruler. "There is still a land in Europe," he said, "where it is possible to give laws: that is the island of Corsica. I have a foreboding that this little island will fill Europe with wonder."

Nordille Bonaparte in the year 1266 pledged his honour for Konradin von Schwaben, who was executed by Charles of Anjou. The Franchini branch of the Bonaparte family bore on its shield of arms three golden lilies, like the Bourbons.

Napoleon was related to Orsini. Orsini was the name of the assassin who attempted the life of Napoleon in. On three islands Napoleon spent his days of adversity,—Corsica, Elba, and St. Helena. In a geography which he composed in his youth he mentions the last, with the two words "little island." (Too little indeed he found it afterwards!) During the war with England, he sent a cruiser without any obvious cause to the neighbourhood of St. Helena.

The death of Napoleon affords plenty of material to the imagination of an occultist.

"There was a terrible storm, the rain fell without intermission, and the wind threatened to sweep everything away. The willow-tree under which Napoleon had been accustomed to take the air had been broken; the trees of the plantation had been tom up and scattered about. A single indiarubber still stood erect, till a whirlwind seized it, tore it up, and hurled it in the mud. Nothing that the Emperor loved could survive him."

The patient could not bear the light; he had to be kept in a dark room. When at the point of death he sprang out of bed in order to go out into the garden.

"Spasmodic twitchings of the navel and the stomach, deep sighs, out-cries, convulsive movements which during the death-struggle terminate in a loud and painful sobbing." Noverrez, who had been ill, became delirious. "He imagines that the Emperor is threatened, and calls for help."

After Napoleon had given up the ghost, a smile of peace lay on his lips, and the corpse retained this look of calm in the funereal vault for nineteen years. When the grave was opened in 1840, the body was in a state of perfect preservation. The soles of the feet were white. (White soles of the feet, according to Swedenborg, signify the forgiveness of sins.)

The hands were well preserved (the left, however, was not white), soft, and still retained their beautiful shape. The whole body was dead-white, as though one saw it through thick lace. In the upper jaw were only three teeth. (A strange coincidence—the Duke of Enghiem[1] had only three teeth when he was shot.) And in parenthesis it may be added the Duke was borne after parturition-pangs of forty-eight hours. He was dark blue, and without a sign of life. Having been wrapped in a cloth that had been steeped in spirits, he was held too close to a light and took fire. Not till then did he begin to live.

Napoleon was placed in a coffin in a green uniform (green clothes are a favourite dress of wizards).

Chateaubriand writes: "Napoleon's commission as a captain was signed by Louis xvi. on the 30th of August 1792, and the King abdicated on August 10th.

"Explain this who can. What protector furthered the schemes of this Corsican? The Eternal."

April 18th, Easter day.—On a fire-brand in the oven I saw the letters I.N.R.I. (Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews).

May 3rd.—I begin to work at the Inferno.

I am told that a very well-known journalist has been suddenly attacked by nightly visitations of the now common nervous disease which I have described. The occultists connect this with an inconsiderate obituary notice which he wrote of a worthy man recently dead.

In reading Wagner's Rheingold, I discover a great poet, and understand now why I have not comprehended the greatness of this musician, whose music is the only proper accompaniment to his words. Moreover, Rheingold has a special message for me:—

"Wellgunde: Knowest thou not who alone is permitted to forge the gold?

"Woglinde: Only he who renounces the might of love and drives the joy of it away, obtains the magic power of moulding the gold into a ring.

"Wellgunde: Well then, we are safe and free of care, for all that live loves. Love none can avoid.

"Woglinde: Least of all he,—the amorous imp.

"Alberich (stretching his hand after the gold): I tear the gold from the cleft and forge the avenging ring, for—let the stream hear it!—I curse love!"

May 12th.—With dull resignation I have for five months drunk coffee made of chicory without complaining. I wanted to see if there was any limit to the enterprising spirit of the dishonest woman who makes my morning coffee. For five months I have suffered, now I will for once enjoy the divine drink with the intoxicating aroma. For this purpose I buy a pound of the dearest coffee in the middle of the day. In the evening I read in Sar Peladan's L'Androgyne, p. 107, the following anecdote of an old missionary: "At the end of a missionary journey, during an important sermon, I am struck with powerlessness as soon as I have pronounced the words 'my brothers,'—not a thought in my brain, not a word on my lips. 'Holy Virgin!' I prayed secretly, 'I have only retained one weakness, my cup of coffee, I offer it up to Thee.' Immediately my elasticity of mind returned, I outdid myself and benefited many souls."

What a rôle coffee has played in my family as a disturber of domestic peace! I am ashamed to think of it, all the more as a happy result does not depend on goodwill or cleverness, but on circumstances out of our control.

Accordingly to-morrow I shall have the greatest enjoyment or the greatest chagrin.

May 13th.—The woman has made the most horrible coffee imaginable.

I sacrifice it to the Powers, and henceforth drink chocolate without murmuring.

May 26th.—Excursion to the beech-wood. Some hundreds of young people have collected there. They sing melodies belonging to the time when I was young, thirty years ago. They play the games and dance the dances of my youth. Melancholy overcomes me, and suddenly my whole past life unrolls before the eyes of my spirit. I can survey the path I have traversed, and feel dazzled. Yes, it will soon end; I am old, and the path descends to the grave. I cannot restrain my tears,—I am old.

June 1st.—A young doctor of a gentle nature, and such a sensitive disposition that the mere fact of his existence causes him suffering, spends the evening in my company. He also is plagued by qualms of conscience; be bewails the past which cannot be altered, though not worse than that of others. He explains to me the Mystery of Christ. "We cannot do again what has once been done, we cannot obliterate a single evil deed; and this thought leads to pure despair. Then it is that Christ reveals Himself. He alone can wipe out the debt which cannot be paid, perform a miracle, and lift off the burden of an evil conscience and of self-reproach. 'Credo quia absurdum' and I am saved.

"But that I cannot, and I prefer to pay my own debts by my sufferings. There are hours when I long for a cruel death, to be burnt alive at the stake, and to feel the joy of injuring my own body—this prison of a soul which strives upwards. The kingdom of heaven for me means to be freed from material needs, to see enemies again in order to pardon them and to press their hands. No more enemies! No malice! That is my kingdom of heaven. Do you know what makes life bearable for me? The fact that I sometimes imagine it to be only half real, an evil dream inflicted on us as a punishment, and that in the moment of death we awake to the real reality and come to see that it was only a dream,—all the evil that one has done, only a dream! So the pangs of conscience vanish together with the act that was never committed. That is redemption and deliverance."

June 25th.—I have now finished writing Inferno. A lady-bird has settled on my hand. I await an omen for the journey for which I am preparing. The lady-bird flies off towards the south. Very well, let us go south.

From this moment I resolve on going to Paris. But it seems to me doubtful how far the Powers will agree with me. A prey to inner conflicts I let July pass, and with the commencement of August I wait for a sign to determine me. Sometimes it appears to me that the guides of my destiny are not agreed among themselves, and that I am the object of a protracted discussion. One urges me on, and another holds me back. Finally, on the morning of the 24th August, I get out of bed, pull up the window-blind, and see a crow standing on the chimney of a very high house. It stands just like the cock on the tower of Nôtre Dame, and looks as though it were about to fly towards the south.

I open the window. The bird rises, keeps close to the wind, flies straight towards me, and disappears. I take the omen, and pack my things.

XI

IN PARIS

Once more,—is it for the last time? I get out at the Northern Station. I do not ask now, "What have I to do here?" as I feel at home in the chief city of Europe. Gradually a resolve has been ripening in me, not quite clear I confess, to take refuge in the Benedictine cloister at Solesmes.

But first I go and visit my old haunts with their painful, and yet such pleasant, memories,—the garden of the Luxembourg, the Hotel Orfila, the churchyard of Mont Parnasse, and the Jardin des Plantes. In the Rue Censier I remain standing a moment in order to cast a stolen look into the garden of my hotel on the Rue de la Clef. Great is my emotion at the sight of the pavilion containing the room where I escaped death in that terrible night when I unconsciously wrestled with it. My feelings may be imagined as I turned my steps to the Jardin des Plantes and perceived the traces of the waterspout which devastated my favourite walk before the bears' and bisons' houses. On my return, in the street Saint Jacques I discover a spiritualist bookshop and buy Allan Kardec's Book of Spirits, hitherto unknown to me. I read it, and find it is Swedenborg and Blavatsky over again; and as I find my own "case" treated of everywhere, I cannot conceal from myself that I am a spiritualist. I, a spiritualist! Could I have believed I should end as one when I laughed at my former chief in the royal library at Stockholm because he was an adherent of spiritualism! One knows not into what harbour one will finally run.

While I continue my studies in Allan Kardec, I notice a gradual reappearance of the symptoms which disquieted me before. The noises over my head recommenced, I am again attacked by compression of the chest, and feel afraid of everything. I do not, however, succumb, and continue to read the spiritualistic magazines while I keep a careful watch over my thoughts and acts. Then, after quite plain warnings, I am woken up one night exactly at two o'clock by a heart attack.

I understand the hint. It is forbidden to penetrate into the secrets of the Powers, I throw away the forbidden books, and peace immediately returns—a sufficient proof for me that I have followed the Higher Will. On the following Sunday I am present at vespers in Nôtre Dame. Deeply impressed by the ceremony, although I do not understand a word of it, I burst into tears, and leave the cathedral with the conviction that here, in the Mother Church, is the harbour of salvation. But no! It was not so! For the next day I read in La Presse that the Abbot of the Solesmes Convent has just been deposed for immorality.

"Am I, then, always to be the plaything and sport of the invisible Powers?" I exclaimed, struck by so well-aimed a blow. Then I was silent, and suppressed unseemly criticism, determined to await the end.

The next book which accidentally falls into my hands allows me to catch a glimpse of the purposes of my Guide. It is Haubert's Temptation of St. Anthony. "All those who are tormented by longing for God I have devoured," says the Sphinx. This book makes me ill, and I am alarmed when I recognise in it the thoughts which I have expressed in my mystery-play mentioned above—regarding the admission of evil into the kingdom of the good God. After reading it, I threw it away like a temptation of the Devil, who is the author of it. "Anthony makes the sign of the cross, and resumes his prayers." So the book ends, and I follow his example.

After that, and at the propitious moment, I come across Huysmans' En route. Why did not this confession of an occultist fall into my hands before? Because it was necessary that two analogous destinies should be developed on parallel lines, so that one might be strengthened by the other. It is the history of an over-curious man, who challenges the Sphinx and is devoured by her, that his soul may be delivered at the foot of the Cross. Well, as far as I am concerned, a Catholic may go to the Trappists and confess to the priest; for my part, however, it is enough that my sin be publicly acknowledged in writing. Besides, the eight weeks which I have spent in Paris writing the present book may well be the equivalent and more of entering a convent, because I have lived a thorough hermit's life. A little room, not larger than a monk's cell, with a barred window high up under the ceiling, has been my dwelling. Through the bars of the window, which looks into a deep courtyard, I can see a fragment of the sky and a grey wall overgrown with ivy which climbs upward to the light. My loneliness, which I find terrible in itself, is still more oppressive in the restaurant among a noisy crowd of people twice a-day. Add to this the cold—a perpetual draught through the room which has given me violent neuralgia,—pecuniary anxieties with no means of relieving them, the daily increasing bill, and it may be imagined what the total effect is!

And then the pangs of conscience! Formerly when I regarded myself as responsible, it was only the remembrance of committed follies that pained me. Now it is the evil itself, my sinful acts, which constitute my scourge. To crown all, my past life appears to me merely as a network of crime, a skein composed of godlessness, wickednesses, blunders, brutalities in word and act Whole scenes out of my past unrolled before my gaze. I see myself in this and that situation, and always a preposterous one. I am astonished that anyone has ever been able to love me. I accuse myself of every possible crime; there is not a meanness, not a disagreeable act, which is not marked in black chalk on a white slate. I am filled with terror at myself, and would like to die.

There are moments when shame sends the blood to my cheeks and to my ear-tips. Selfishness, ingratitude, malice, envy, pride—all the deadly sins weave their ghostly dance before my awakened conscience.

While my mind thus tortures itself, my health deteriorates, my strength decreases, and, together with the emaciation of the body, the soul begins to have a presentiment of her deliverance, from the mire.

At present I read Töpffer's Le Presbytere and Dickens's Christmas Tales, and they impart to me an indescribable inward calm and joy. I return to the ideals of the best period of my youth, and recover the treasures which I had squandered in the game of life. Faith returns, and with it, trust in the natural goodness of men; faith in innocence, unselfishness, virtue.

Virtue! This word has disappeared from modern use; it has been declared null and void and thoroughly false.

Just now I see in the papers that my drama, Herr Bengt's Wife, has been acted in Copenhagen. In this play love and virtue triumph just as in the Secret of Gilde. The drama has not pleased the public any more than when it was first acted in 1882. Why? Because this fuss about virtue is considered idle talk.

I have again read Maupassant's Horla. That is the finale out of Don Juan over again. Some one steals unseen into the bedroom in the middle of the night. He drinks water and milk, and finishes by sucking the blood of the wretched Don Juan, who, hunted to death, is forced to lay hands on himself.

That is a real experience. I recognise myself in it, and 1 confess that my senses are disturbed; but some one has a hand in it.

My health constantly gets worse, for there are cracks in the wall so that smoke penetrates into my room. To-day when I walked in the street the pavement moved under my feet like the deck of a ship swaying up and down. Only with considerable difficulty can I make the ascent to the Garden of the Luxembourg. My appetite grows continually less, and I only eat in order to still the pangs of hunger.

An occurrence which has often happened since my arrival in Paris has caused me to make various reflections. Inside my coat, on the left side, exactly over the heart, there is heard a regular ticking; it reminds me of the ticking noise in walls produced by the insect called, in Sweden, "the carpenter" and also the "death-watch," believed to presage somebody's death. I thought at first it was my watch, but found it was not so, as the ticking continued after I had laid the watch aside. It is not the buckle of my suspenders, nor the lining of my vest. I accept the explanation of the death-watch, as it suits me best.

A few nights ago I had a dream which again aroused my longing to be able to die, by holding out the hope of a better existence, where there is no danger of a relapse into the misery of life. Having gone too far on a projecting ledge bounded by a steep precipice hid in darkness, I fell head foremost in an abyss. But strangely enough I fell upwards instead of downwards. I was closely surrounded by a dazzling halo of light, and I saw——. What I saw gave me two simultaneous ideas, "I am dead, and I am delivered." A feeling of the greatest happiness overcame me, together with the consciousness that the other life was now over. Light, purity, freedom, filled my spirit, and as I cried, "God!" I obtained the certainty that I had won forgiveness, that hell was behind me, and that heaven was open. Since that night I feel still more homeless than before in this world, and like a tired, weary child, I long to be able to "go home" to rest my heavy head on a mother's bosom, to sleep on the lap of a mother, the pure spouse of an infinite God, who calls Himself my Father, and whom I dare not approach.

But this wish is connected with another—to see the Alps, and more especially the Dent du Midi in the Canton Valais. I love this mountain more than the other Alps, without being able to say why. Perhaps it is the remembrance of my residence on the Lake of Geneva, where I wrote Real Utopias, and of the scenery there which reminded me of heaven. There I have spent the most beautiful hours of my life, there have I loved,—loved wife, children, humankind, the universe, God. "I lift up my hands to God's mountain and house."

Paris, October 1897.

XII

WRESTLING JACOB

(A FRAGMENT)

After my return to Paris at the end of August 1897, I found myself suddenly isolated. My friend the philosopher, whose daily companionship had been a moral support for me, and who had promised to follow me to Paris in order to spend the winter there, has delayed in Berlin. He is not able to explain what detains him in Berlin, as Paris is the goal of his journey, and he is very eager to see the City of Light.

I have waited for him three months, and receive the impression that Providence wishes to have me alone, in order to separate me from the world and to drive me into the desert, that the chastising spirits may thoroughly shake and sift my soul. In this Providence has done right, for solitude has educated me by compelling me to hold aloof from my social pleasures, which had considerably increased, and by depriving me of every friendly support. I have grown accustomed to speak to the Lord, to confide only in Him, and have as good as ceased to feel the need of men; an attitude which has always seemed to me to be the ideal one of independence and freedom.

I am obliged to renounce even the convent in which I expected to find the protection of religion and of harmony with one's fellows. The life of the eremite was imposed upon me, and I have received it as a chastisement and an education, regardless of the fact that at the age of forty-eight it is difficult to change one's rooted habits for new ones.

I live, as mentioned above, in a small room, narrow as a convent cell, with a barred window high up under the ceiling, which looks out on a courtyard and a stone wall overgrown with an immense quantity of ivy.

In the evening I go out for my meal, and go straight to the restaurant, without first taking a liqueur to provoke an appetite,—a thing I dislike doing now. Why I choose the little restaurant on the Boulevard St. Germain it would be difficult for me to explain. Perhaps it is the recollection of the two terrible evenings I spent there last year with my occultist friend, the German-American, which fascinates and draws me thither, to such a degree that every attempt to go to another restaurant results in a degree of discomfort which might be called unfair, and which drives me back to this one, which I hate. The reason is that my former friend has left unpaid debts here, and that I have been recognised as his companion. For this reason, and because we have been heard speaking German, I am treated as a Prussian, that is to say, I am served very badly. It is no use for me to make silent protests by leaving my visiting cards behind, or purposely forgetting letters bearing the Swedish postmark. I sec myself compelled to suffer and to pay for the guilty. No one but I sees the logic in this position, nor that it is an atonement for a crime. It is simply a piece of justice which cannot be objected to, and for two months I chew the horribly bad food which reeks of the dissector's knife.

The manageress, who, pale as a corpse, sits installed at the cashier's desk, greets me with a triumphant air, and I am accustomed to say to myself, "Poor old woman, she has certainly had to eat rats during the siege of Paris in 1871!"

But it seems as though she begins to feel sympathy with me when she sees my dull submission and endurance. There are moments when she seems to me to look paler,—when she sees me come alone, always alone, and always thinner. It is the bare truth that after passing two months in this way, when I buy new collars I must buy them nearly two inches smaller. My cheeks have become hollow and my clothes hang in folds.

Then all of a sudden they seem disposed to give me better food, and the manageress smiles at me. At the same time the feeling of being bewitched ceases, and I go my way without rancour, and as if freed from a burden, with the assurance that for my part the penance is over, and perhaps also for my absent friend. If it was mere fancy on my part that I was badly treated, and if the manageress was quite blameless, I ask her pardon. In that case it was I who punished myself with a well-deserved chastisement.

"The chastising spirits take possession of the imagination of the man who deserves punishment, and effect his moral improvement by letting him see everything distorted" (Swedenborg).

How often it has happened to me that when I really wished to enjoy a meal, all the dishes inspired disgust in me as though they were bad, while my companions were enthusiastically unanimous in praising the good food. The man "continually discontent" is an unfortunate under the scourge of the invisible Powers, and it is with very good reason that people avoid him, for he is condemned to be a disturber of the peace, who, doomed to solitude and suffering, atones for secret misdoings.

Accordingly I go about alone, and when, after not hearing my own voice for weeks at a time, I seek any one's company, I so overpower him with my loquacity that he is bored and retires, and involuntarily gives me to understand that he does not wish for another meeting. There are other moments when the longing to see a human being drives me into bad society. Then it happens that in the midst of conversation a feeling of discomfort, accompanied by headache, seizes me. I become dumb, unable to bring out another word. And I find myself compelled to leave the circle, who always show that they are glad to be rid of an intolerable person who had no business there.

Condemned to isolation, outlawed among men, I take refuge in the Lord, who for me has become a personal Friend. He is often angry with me, and then I suffer; often He seems absent, engaged with some one else, and then it is much worse. But when He is gracious, then my life is sweet, especially when I am alone. By a curious accident I have taken up my abode in the Rue Bonaparte, the Catholic street. I live exactly opposite the École des Beaux Arts, and when I go out, I walk between rows of plateglass windows filled with Puvis de Chavanne's Legends, Botticelli's Madonnas, Raphael's Virgins, which accompany me to the upper part of the Rue Jacob, whence the Catholic bookshops with their prayer-books and missals follow me to the church St. Germain des Prés. From that point the shops with their objects of devotion form a line of Saviours, Madonnas, Archangels, Demons, and Saints, all the fourteen stations of the Passion of Christ, and Christmas mangers on the right hand. On the left there is a series of devotional picture-books, rosaries, clerical vestments, and altar vessels, as far as the Saint Sulpice market-place, where the four lions of the church, with Bossuet at their head, guard the noblest religious edifice in Paris. After I have passed observantly through this repertory of sacred history, I often enter the church in order to strengthen myself by looking at Eugene Delacroix's picture of Jacob wrestling with the angel. The fact is that this picture always sets me thinking, by rousing irreligious ideas in me, in spite of the religious character of the subject. And when I pass out again, through the kneeling worshippers, I keep remembering the wrestler who holds himself upright although lamed in the sinew of his thigh. Afterwards I pass by the Seminary of the Jesuits, a kind of terrible Vatican, from which emanate floods of psychic force, whose effect may be felt from far, if one may believe the Theosophists. I have now reached my goal, the Garden of the Luxembourg. From the time of my first visit to Paris in 1876, this park has exercised a mysterious influence over me, and it was my day-dream to be able to live near it. This idea was realised in 1893, and from that time on, although with interruptions, this garden has become part of my recollections, and so to speak, of my personality. Although actually of moderate extent, it seems in my imagination of immeasurable size. It has twelve gates, just like the Holy City in the Book of Revelation, and in order to complete the resemblance, "On the east, three gates; on the north, three gates; on the south, three gates; on the west, three gates" (Rev. xxi. 13). Every entrance gives me a different impression, derived from the arrangement of the plants, buildings, and statues, and perhaps also from personal reminiscences connected with them.

So I feel quite glad as I enter by the first gate after the Rue de Luxembourg as one comes from Saint Sulpice. The ivy-grown cottage of the gatekeeper, with a duckpond close by, seems like an unpublished idyll. Further on is the building containing pictures, by living artists, in clear bright colours. The thought that the friends of my youth, Karl Larsson, the sculptor Ville Vallgren, and Fritz Thaulow, have there deposited, so to speak, parts of their souls, strengthens and makes me feel younger, and I seem to feel the irradiation of their spirit pierce through the walls, and bid me take courage, since my friends are close by. Further on we have Eugene Delacroix, whose right to his laurels is questioned by contemporaries, and will be by posterity. The second gate of the pair which open on the Rue de Fleurus leads me to the racecourse, which is as broad as a hippodrome, and ends with a flower-terrace where a marble Victory stands as a boundary pillar, and from which one sees in the distance the Pantheon surmounted by a cross. The third gate forms the continuation of the Rue Vanneau, and leads me to a dusky alley which, on the left, merges itself into a sort of Elysian field where the children have chosen for themselves spots to play in and amuse themselves with wooden horses which go in pairs with lions, elephants, and camels, just as in Paradise; further on is the tennis ground, the children's theatre among flower-beds, the Golden Age, Noah's Ark. Here the springtime of life meets me in the autumn of my own.

On the south side, past the Rue d'Assas, the vegetable and nursery garden present a picture of midsummer; the blossoming time is over. It is the season of fruit, and the beehives close by, with their citizen-like inhabitants who collect gold dust for the winter, strengthen the impression of maturity which this part of the garden makes. The second gate, immediately opposite the Lyceum "Louis le Grand," opens up a paradisal prospect; velvet-like meadows with ever fresh green; here and there a rose bush and a single peach tree. I shall never forget how one spring this last, arrayed in its dawn-coloured blossoms, enticed me to spend a whole half-hour in contemplation, or rather in adoration, of its slim, youthful, virginal form.

The Observatory Avenue leads to the gate of the main entrance, which with its gilded "fasces" looks really majestic. But, as it is really too majestic for me, I generally remain standing outside—in the morning admiring the palace, in the evening the bright outline of Montmartre showing above the roofs, and in clear weather the Great Bear and the Polar Star circling above the great barred gate, which serves me in my astrological observations as a mural quadrant.

On the east side the only gate that attracts me is that which opens on the Rue Soufflot. From that point I discovered my favourite garden, with the charming outlines of the giant plane trees, and in the blue distance hinting at mysteries, as I did not yet know the Rue de Fleurus, which later on became dear to me as the entrance to a new life. Thence I am accustomed to look back over the path I have traversed, which is interrupted on one side by the pool, and on the other by the little statue of David with the broken sword.

One morning in early autumn the fountain presented the spectacle of a rainbow, which reminded me of the dyer's shop in the Rue de Fleurus where "my rainbow" expanded as a sign of my covenant with the Eternal (vide Inferno[1]). When I go on to the descent of the terrace I have to pass by the row of statues of women who were more or less queens or sinners, and I remain standing at the top of the great flight of stairs where, in springtime, a hedge of red hawthorn acts as a framework to the outspread panorama of flowers.

The last gate, that by the museum, makes a mixed impression, with the vulture that for no apparent cause has swooped down on the head of the Sphinx, and with Hero kissing Leander, overtaken by an early death, which might have been easily predicted. Passing it, I increase my topographical knowledge by skirting the gallery of contemporary paintings, and burying myself in the rose garden avenue with its thousands of roses.

This constitutes my morning walk, and I tune my mood to whatever pitch I like, according to the gate through which I enter. For my return route I use the Boulevard Saint Michel, and keep the top of the steeple of the Sainte Chapelle in sight. This serves as a cynosure to guide me between the vain attractions spread out in the shop windows and exhibited on the pavement in the shape of filles de joie and children of the world. Arrived at the Saint Michel market-place, I feel myself protected by the statue of the noble archangel who kills the dragon. The feeling that this emblem displays the spirit of evil is not derived from its lizard-like tail, nor the ram's horns, nor the lifted eyebrows, but from its mouth, which does not close at the corners, while the lips are drawn forward so as to hide the four front teeth. The tusks cannot be hidden, and its hideous sidelong smile displays the deathless evil, which still grins contempt, with the spearpoint in its breast.

Three times in my life I have met this mouth, in an actor, a female painter, and another woman, and I have never been deceived in my feeling about it.

I have now reached the crowded opening of the Rue Bonaparte. This narrow road forms a discharge outlet for the Mont Parnasse quarter, Luxembourg, and part of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. One has to manoeuvre skilfully to make one's way into the outflowing torrent, hemmed in as it is by foot-passengers and vehicles, while the firm ground is represented by a pavement a yard broad.

Meanwhile nothing makes me so nervous as these omnibuses drawn by three white horses, because I have seen them in dreams, and, moreover, these white horses remind me, perhaps, of a certain "pale horse" mentioned in the Book of Revelation. Especially in the evening, when they follow one another three abreast with the red lantern suspended above, I imagine that they turn their heads towards me, look at me maliciously, and say, "Wait a little; we will soon have you."

In brief, this is my "vicious circle" which I traverse twice a day, and my life is so thoroughly enclosed in the frame of this circuit, that if I once take the liberty to go another way, I go wrong, as if I had lost fragments of myself, my recollections, my thoughts, and feelings of self-coherence.

One Sunday afternoon in November I betook myself to the restaurant to eat alone. Two little tables are set out on the pavement of the Boulevard St. Germain, flanked by two green oleander pots, and shaded by two fibre-mats, which form an enclosure. The air is warm and still; the street lamps, which have been lit, illuminate a vivid kinematographic picture, as omnibuses, chaises and cabs drive home from the parks, filled with holiday-makers in their best clothes, who sing, blow horns, and shout at the passers-by.

As I sit down to eat, both my friends, two cats, come and take their usual places on both sides of me, waiting till the meat appears. As I have not heard my own voice for weeks, I make them a short address without getting any answer. Condemned to this dumb and hungry companionship, because I have abandoned evil companionship where my ear was vexed by irreligious and coarse language, I feel rebellious against such injustice. For I abominate animals, cats as well as dogs, as it is my right to hate the animal within myself.

Why is it that Providence, which takes the trouble to educate me, always banishes me to evil companionship when good companionship would be more adapted to improve me by the power of example?

At this very moment there comes a black poodle with a red collar and drives my feline friends away. After he has swallowed their portions, he makes his acknowledgments by defiling the foot of my seat, and then the ungrateful cynic takes up a sitting position on the asphalt and turns his back on me. From the frying-pan into the fire! It is no use complaining, for swine might come instead of him and offer me their society, as they did to Robert the Devil or Francis of Assissi. One can ask so little of life: So little! and yet it is too much for me.

A flower-seller offers me pinks. Why must it be pinks, which I dislike because they resemble raw flesh and smell of a chemist's shop? To please her I take a handful at my own price, and since it was a generous one, the old woman rewards me with a "God bless the gentleman for giving me such a fine douceur to-night!" Although I know the dodge, the blessing sounds pleasantly in my ears, for I have great need of one after so many curses.

About half-past eight the news-vendors cry La Presse, and that is a signal for me to go. If I remain sitting to eat some dessert, and to drink an extra glass of wine, I am certain to be annoyed in some way or other, either by a troop of cocottes, who sit down exactly opposite me, or by roaming street urchins, who abuse me. There is no mistake about it; I am put upon diet, and if I take more than three courses and half a flask of wine, I am punished. After my first attempts to transgress the limits at meal-times have been frustrated in this way, I give up making any more, and finally find myself contented to be put on half rations. So I get up from table, in order to betake myself to the Rue Bonaparte and from thence up to the Luxembourg.

At the corner of the Rue Gozlin I buy cigarettes, and pass the "Gold Pheasant" restaurant. At the corner of the Rue du Four I pause by a strikingly realistic picture of Christ. The spiritually minded artists during their campaign against the Zola-literature have not been able to avoid the contagion of realism, and with the help of one devil seek to drive out another. It is impossible to pass such pictures without pausing to contemplate them, drawn as they are after living models and painted with the glaring colours of the impressionists.

The shop is closed and veiled in shadow, and the Redeemer stands there in His royal robe lit by the street lamp, showing His bleeding heart and head crowned with thorns. For more than a year I have been persecuted and followed by the Redeemer, whom I do not understand and whose help I should like to dispense with by bearing my own cross if possible. This is due to a remnant of manly pride which finds something repulsive in the cowardice of casting one's sins on the shoulders of the innocent.

I have seen the Crucified everywhere—in the toy shops, at the picture dealers', at the Art Exhibitions particularly, in the theatre, and in literature. I have seen Him on the cover of my cushion, in the burning logs in the oven, in the snow over there in Sweden, on the coast cliffs of Normandy. Is He preparing for His return, or has He arrived? What does He want? Here in the shop window in the Rue Bonaparte He is no longer the Crucified. He comes from heaven as Victor, adorned with gold and jewels. Is He the "Good Tyrant" which youth dreams of, a Prince of Peace, a glorious hero?

He has cast away His cross and resumed His sceptre, and, as soon as His temple on the Mont de Mars (formerly called "Mount of Martyrs") is ready, He will come and rule the world Himself, and hurl from the throne the false usurper, who finds the eleven thousand rooms known as the infamia Vaticani loca too narrow for him, laments over his luxurious imprisonment, and kills the time with small excursions into the field of poetry.

Leaving the picture of the Redeemer, as I arrived at the Saint Sulpice market, I am astonished to find that the Church seems removed to a great distance. It has gone back at least half a mile, and the fountains proportionably. Have I then lost the sense for distances? As I pass along the seminary wall it seems as though it would never end, so interminable does it appear this evening. I spend half an hour in traversing this small portion of the Rue Bonaparte, which generally takes only five minutes. And before me there walks a figure, whose gait and manner remind me of some one whom I know. I quicken my steps, I run, but the Unknown presses forward with exactly corresponding celerity, so that I never succeed in shortening the distance between us. At last I have reached the trellis-gate of the Luxembourg. The garden which was closed at sunset is sunk in silence and solitude, the trees are bare, and the border-beds laid waste by frost and autumn storms. But there is a good wholesome smell of dry leaves and fresh earth.

Following the enclosing wall I go up the Rue de Luxembourg, and always see in front of me the Unknown, who begins to interest me. Clad in a traveller's mantle, which resembles mine, but is of opaline whiteness, slight and tall like myself, he goes forward when I do, remains standing when I remain standing, so that it seems as if I were his guide and he depended on my movements. But one circumstance particularly draws my attention to him, viz. that his mantle flutters in a strong breeze which is quite imperceptible to me. In order to clear up the matter I light a cigar, and as I perceive the smoke rise steadily upward without wavering, my conviction that there is no air-current, is strengthened. Moreover, the trees and bushes in the garden are motionless. After we have reached the Rue Vavin I turn off to the right, and at the same moment find myself transported from the pavement to the middle of the garden without understanding how it has happened, as the gates are closed.

Before me, at a distance of twenty steps, stands my companion turned towards me. Round his beardless face of dazzling whiteness spreads a luminous ring in the shape of an ellipse with the Unknown in the centre. After he has given me a sign to follow him, he goes further. The crown of rays accompanies him, so that the gloomy, cold, and squalid garden is lit up as he goes. Moreover the trees, the bushes, the plants grow green and blossom just as far as the rays of his halo reach, but fade again when he has passed. I recognise the great flowering canes with leaves like elephant's ears hanging over the statuary group of Adam and his family, also the bed of Salvia fulgens, the fire-red sage, the peach tree, the roses, the banana plants, the aloes,—all my old acquaintances, each in his own place. The only strange thing is that the seasons of the year seem to be mingled together, so that the spring and autumn flowers are blooming simultaneously.

But what surprises me more than anything is that nothing of all this seems strange to me; it all appears quite natural and inevitable. So as I walk along the bee-garden, a swarm of bees buzzes about the plants and settles on the flowers, but in such an exactly defined circle that the insects disappear as soon as they fly into the shadow. The illuminated part of a sage-plant is covered with leaves and blossoms, while the part in shadow is withered and blighted with hoar frost.

Under the chestnut trees there is a fascinatingly beautiful sight, as, under the foliage, an empty dove's nest is suddenly taken possession of by a cooing pair of doves.

At last we have reached the Fleurus Gate, and my guide signs to me to remain standing. Within a second he is at the other end of the garden, at the Gay-Lussac Gate, at a distance which appears to me immense, although it is only about a quarter of a mile. In spite of the distance I can see the Unknown surrounded by his oval halo. Without speaking a word or moving a muscle of his mouth he bids me approach. I seem to divine his purpose as I traverse the long avenue, the racecourse well known to me for years bounded at the end by the cross of the Pantheon, which stands in blood-red relief against the dark sky.

The Way of the Cross and, perhaps, the fourteen Stations, if I am not mistaken. Before I begin it, I make a sign that I wish to speak, question, and receive explanation. My guide answers with an inclination of the head that he is ready to hear what I have to say. At the same moment the Unknown changes his position without the slightest perceptible movement or rustle. The only thing I notice is, that as he approaches me the air is filled with a perfume as of balsam, which makes my heart and lungs swell, and gives me courage to dare the contest.

I commence my questioning—

"Thou art he who has followed me for two years. What would'st thou of me?"

Without opening his mouth the Unknown answered me with a kind of smile full of super-human kindness, forbearance, and urbanity,—

"Why dost thou ask me since thou knowest the answer thyself?"

And, as if within me, I hear thy voice sound again, "I wish to raise thee to a higher life, to lift thee out of the mire."

"Born as I am out of mire, created for baseness, feeding on decay, how shall I be freed from earthly grossness except by death? Take my life then! Thou wilt not? It must be the infliction of punishment which is to educate me? But let me assure thee that humiliations make me proud; being denied the little enjoyments of life produces desire for them; fasting occasions gluttony, which is not my besetting sin; chastity whets the edge of lust; enforced loneliness produces love of the world and its unwholesome delights; poverty gives birth to greed; and the evil companionship to which I am relegated instils contempt of humanity into me, and produces unawares the suspicion that justice is maladministered. Yes, at certain moments it seems to me as though Providence was not kept sufficiently informed by its satraps to whom it has intrusted the rule over mankind; that its prefects and sub-prefects allow themselves to be guilty of malversations, falsifications, baseless denunciations. Thus it has happened to me, that I have been punished where others have sinned; suits have been brought against me, in which I was not only innocent, but actually the defender of right and the accuser of crime. All the same the punishment has lighted on me while the guilty triumphed.

"Allow me a plain question: Have women been admitted to a share in the rule? For the present method of government seems so irritable, so petty, so unjust, yes,—unjust. Is it not the case that every time when I have brought a righteous and lawful case against a woman, she, however unworthy she may have been, has been acquitted, and I have been condemned?

"Thou wilt not answer? And then thou demandest from me that I should love criminals, soul-murderers who poison the mind and falsify truth, and perjurers! No, a thousand times no! 'O Eternal! should I not hate them that hate thee? Should I not abhor them that rise up against thee. I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them mine enemies.' So speaks the Psalmist, and I add, 'I hate the wicked as I hate myself'; and my prayer is this, 'Punish, O Lord, those who persecute me with lies and malice as Thou hast punished me when I was false and malicious! Have I now blasphemed the Eternal, the Father of Jesus Christ, the God of the Old and New Testament? Of old time He listened to the reproaches of mortals, and permitted the accused to defend themselves. Listen to the way in which Moses defended himself before the Lord when the Israelites were tired of the manna, "Wherefore hast Thou afflicted Thy servant? and wherefore have I not found favour in Thy sight, that Thou layest the burden of all this people upon me? Have I conceived all this people? have I begotten them, that Thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, unto the land which Thou swearest unto their fathers? Whence should I have flesh to give unto all this people? for they weep unto me, saying Give us flesh, that we may eat. I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me."'

"Is not this plain speaking on the part of a mortal? Is it quite befitting, this speech of an angry servant? Yet consider, the Lord does not smite the bold speaker with a thunderbolt, but lightens his load by choosing seventy leaders to share the burden of the people with Moses. The way in which the Eternal grants the prayer of the people when they clamour for flesh to eat, is only slightly contemptuous, like that of a kindly father when he grants the wishes of his unreasonable children. 'Therefore the Lord will give you flesh and ye shall eat. Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days nor twenty days, but even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome to you.'

"That is a God after my ideal, the same God to whom Job cries, 'Oh that one might plead with God as a man pleadeth with his friend.' But without waiting for this, the sufferer takes the liberty of demanding explanations from the Lord regarding the evil treatment to which he is exposed. 'I will say to God, "Condemn me not; show me wherefore Thou goest against me in judgment. Doth it please Thee to oppress me, to overthrow the work of Thine own hands, and to further the devices of the wicked?"' These are reproaches and imputations which the good God accepts without anger, and which He answers without using thunderbolts. Where is He, the Heavenly Father, who can smite at the follies of His children and pardon after He has punished them? Where does He hide Himself, the Master of the house who kept it in good order, and watched the overseers in order to prevent injustice?"

During my disconnected speech the Unknown regarded me with the same indulgent smile, without betraying impatience. But when I had finished, he disappeared. I found myself breathing a stifling atmosphere of carbonic oxide, and standing alone on the gloomy, dirty, autumnal-looking Rue Medici. While I went down the Boulevard Saint Michel I felt vexed with myself, that I had neglected the opportunity of speaking out everything. I had still many shafts in my quiver, if only the Unknown had waited to answer, or to direct an accusation against me.

But as soon as the crowd again presses round me in the glaring light of the gas lamps, and all the exposed wares in the shops remind me of the trivialities of life, the scene in the garden appears like a miracle, and I hasten in alarm to my lodging, where meditation plunges me into an abyss of doubt and anxiety. There is a ferment going on in the world, and men are waiting for something new, of which a glimmering has already appeared. France is preparing for a return to the Middle Ages,—the period of faith and of dogma, to which it has been led over the downfall of an empire, and of a miniature Augustus, just as at the time of the decay of the power of Rome and the invasion of the barbarians. One has seen Paris—Rome in flames, and the Goths crowning themselves in the capitol, Versailles. The great heathen Taine and Renan have gone down to perdition, and taken their scepticism with them, but Joan of Arc has again woken to life. The Christians are persecuted, their processions dispersed by gens d'armes; saturnalias are held on carnival days, and shameful orgies take place in the open streets under the protection of the police, and with the aid of money grants from the Government, which to satisfy the discontented offers shows, with or without gladiatorial encounters. "Panem et Circenses" (Dear)—bread and games. All is readily bought with money, honour, conscience, fatherland, love, administration of justice,—truly the infallible and regular symptoms of decay in a community, whence Virtue, both in name and reality, has been banished for thirty years. Yet for all that we are in the Middle Ages. Young men assume monkish cowls, wear the tonsure and dream of convent life. They compose legends and perform miracle-plays, paint Madonnas and carve images of Christ, drawing their inspiration from the magician,[2] who has bewitched them with Tristan and Isolde, Parzival and the Holy Grail. Crusades against Jews and Turks begin afresh; the Anti-Semites and Philhellenes see to that. Magic and alchemy have already been re-established, and they only wait for the first proved case of witchcraft in order to erect a funeral pile to burn witches on. Middle Ages indeed! Witness the pilgrimages to Lourdes, Tilli-sur-Seine, Rue Jean Goujon. Heaven also gives the sleepy world signs to be ready. The Lord speaks through water-spouts, cyclones, floods, and thunder-storms.

Mediæval also is the leprosy which has just appeared again, and against which the doctors of Paris and Berlin have combined.

But they were beautiful, the Middle Ages, when men knew how to enjoy and to suffer, when strength and love and beauty in colour, in line, and harmony were revealed for the last time, before they were drowned and sabred by the renaissance of heathenism which is called Protestantism.

The evening has come, and I burn with desire to renew my meeting with the Unknown, well prepared, as I now am, to confess all and to defend myself before I am condemned. After I have taken my melancholy meal alone I go up the Via Dolorosa, the Rue Bonaparte. This street has never appeared to me so monstrous as this evening; the shop windows yawn like abysses in which Christ is portrayed in many forms —half-martyred, half-triumphant. I go on and on, while the sweat runs in great drops down my face, and the soles of my boots burn my feet, yet I do not seem to advance a step. Am I the Wandering Jew who refused the Redeemer a drink of water? and am I, now that I wish to follow and imitate Him, unable to approach Him?

Finally, and without myself knowing how, I find myself before the Fleurus Gate, and in the next moment within the garden, which lies there, dark, damp, and still. Immediately a gust of wind sets the skeletons of the trees in motion, and the Unknown takes up his position quicker as he approaches in his summer-like garment of light. With the same smile as before he invites me to speak.

And I speak, "What demandest thou of me, and wherefore plaguest thou me with thy Christ? A few days ago in some mysterious manner thou placedst the Imitation of Christ in my hand, and I read it as in my youth when I learned to despise the world. How can I have the right to despise the creation of the Eternal and the beautiful earth? And whither has thy wisdom led me? To neglect my affairs, till I have become a burden for my fellow-men, and ended as a beggar. This book, which forbids friendship, which lays worldly intercourse under a ban, which demands solitude and renunciation, is written for a monk, and I have not the right to be a monk and expose myself to the danger of letting my children die of want. See whither the love for a lonely life has led me. On the one hand thou enjoinest the life of a hermit, and as soon as I withdraw myself from the world I am attacked by the evil spirits of madness, my affairs fall into confusion, and in my isolation I do not possess a single friend from whom I can ask help. On the other hand, as soon as I seek out men, I meet the worst kind, who annoy me with their arrogance, and that in proportion to my humility. For I am humble, and treat all as my equals, till they trample me under their feet, when I behave like a worm which raises its head but cannot bite.

"What then demandest thou of me? Is it to make me a martyr at all costs, whether I do thy will or disregard it? Wilt thou make me a prophet? That is too great an honour for me, and I lack the vocation to be one. Besides I cannot take up that attitude, for all prophets which I have known have been finally unmasked as half-charlatans, half-lunatics, and their prophecies have always failed.

"Moreover, if thou pressest upon me this vocation, I must be favoured with electing grace, so that I become free from all destructive passions which are degrading for a preacher; I must have adequate support for my life instead of being, as I am, besmirched with poverty, which makes one's character deteriorate and ties one's hands. It is certainly true, and I grant it, that contempt of the world has led me to despise myself and to neglect my calling through undervaluing honour. I confess that I have been a sorry guardian of my own person, but that is because of the superiority of my better self which despised the unclean sheath in which thou hast immured my immortal soul. From my earliest years I have loved purity and virtue—verily I have. Yet my life has dragged itself dong in filth and wickedness, so that I often suppose my sins to be punishments inflicted upon me, with the object of arousing in me a permanent disgust of life. Why hast thou condemned me to ingratitude, which I hate more than any other sin? Thou hast entangled me, who am naturally grateful, in snares, in order to compel me to feel obligation to the first benefactor who came in my way. So I have become involved in dependence and slavery, since benefactors demand as compensation control over the thoughts, wishes, inclinations, and devotion,—in a word, the whole soul, of those whom they benefit. Always I have been compelled to withdraw myself, laden with debt and ungrateful, in order to preserve my individuality and manly worth; I have been forced to tear asunder the bonds which threatened to strangle my immortal soul. And that, too, with the spiritual torment and pangs of conscience of a thief who goes his way with some one else's property.