AUGUST STRINDBERG (continued 3)

Not far from us is a convent which serves as a penitentiary and rescue home. It is a real prison, in which the strictest rules prevail. In the winter when the thermometer registers twenty degrees of frost, the penitents must sleep on the cold stone pavement of their cells, and their hands and feet, which they cannot warm, are covered with chilblains.

Among the others is a woman who has sinned with a priest, which is a deadly sin. Tortured by pangs of conscience, she flies in her despair to her confessor, who, however, refuses her absolution and the sacrament. A deadly sin entails damnation. Then the wretched creature loses her reason, imagines that she is dead, wanders from village to village and implores the priests to be merciful and to bury her in consecrated ground. Shunned and driven away everywhere, she wanders about, howling like a wild beast, and those who see her cross themselves and exclaim, "She is damned!" No one doubts but that her soul is already in hell, while her shadow, a wandering corpse, wanders about as a terrible warning.

They tell me of a man who, possessed by the Devil, has so altered his personality that the Evil One can make him utter blasphemies against his will. After long search they discover a suitable exorcist in a young Franciscan monk of acknowledged purity of life. He prepares himself by fast and penance; the great day comes, and the possessed man makes his confession in church before the people. Thereupon the young monk sets to work and succeeds, after prayers and conjurations which last an entire day, in driving out the Devil. The alarmed spectators have not ventured to relate the details of the affair. A year later the young monk dies. These and still more tragic narratives confirm me in my conviction that this district has been marked out as a place for penance, and there must be some mysterious connection between this neighbourhood and Swedenborg's hell. Has he perhaps visited this part of upper Austria, and, just as Dante describes the region south of Naples, drawn from nature in his account of hell?

After a couple of weeks have passed in work and study I am again unsettled, as with the setting in of autumn my aunt and mother-in-law wish to live together in Klam. We therefore break up our camp. In order to preserve my independence, I hire a cottage consisting of two rooms, so as to be quite close to my little daughter.

The first evening after settling in my new quarters I am overcome by a terrible depression, as though the air were poisoned. I go to my mother-in-law: "If I sleep up there you will find me dead in bed to-morrow. Shelter a pilgrim for this night, my good mother!"

The rose-coloured room is at once placed at my disposal, but, good heavens! how it has altered since my aunt's departure! There is black furniture in it; the empty pigeon-holes of a bookcase gape like so many jaws; a tall iron oven, ornamented with ugly devices of salamanders and dragons, confronts me like a spectre. In a word, there reigns such a disharmony in the room as makes me feel poorly. Moreover, every irregularity upsets my nerves, for I am a man of ordered habits who does everything at stated hours. In spite of my efforts to conceal my dissatisfaction, my mother-in-law reads my thoughts.

"Always dissatisfied, my child?"

She does her best to allay my discontent, but when the spirit of dissension is once aroused, everything is in vain. She tries to remember my favourite dishes, but everything goes wrong. There is nothing I dislike more than calf's head with brown butter.

"Here is something nice," she says to me, "expressly for you," and sets calf's head with brown butter before me. I understand that it is an unconscious mistake on her part, but can only eat with scarcely-concealed repugnance and simulated appetite.

"You are not eating anything!"

It is too much! Formerly I attributed these annoyances to feminine malice; now I acquit everyone and say, "It is the Devil!"

From my early days I am accustomed to plan out the day's work during my morning walk. No one, not even my wife, has ever been allowed to accompany me on it. And, as a matter of fact, in the morning my mind rejoices in a feeling of harmony and happy elevation which borders on ecstasy. My corporeal part seems to have disappeared, my griefs to have fled; I am all soul. The early morning is my time of self-collection, my hour of prayer, my matins.

Now I must sacrifice it all, and give up my most innocent pleasure. The powers compel me to renounce this last and purest enjoyment. My little daughter wishes to accompany me. I embrace her tenderly, and tell her why I wish to be alone, but she does not understand it. She cries, and I have not the heart to sadden her to-day, but make a firm resolve not to allow her again to misuse her rights. She is certainly thoroughly fascinating as a child, with her originality, her cheerfulness, her gratitude for trifles, that is, when one has leisure to be occupied with her. But when one is absent-minded and distracted, it is intensely annoying to be plagued with endless questions and changes of mood about mere nothings.

My little one is as jealous as a lover about my thoughts; she seems to watch for the exact opportunity to destroy a carefully-woven web of thought with her prattle—but no, it is not she who does it; she is only an instrument, but I seem to be the object of deliberate attacks by a poor little innocent. I go on with slow steps; I don't seek to escape any more, but my soul is a prisoner, and my brain exhausted by the effort of continually having to descend to a child's level. What, however, pains me intensely is the deep, reproachful look she casts at me when she thinks I find her a nuisance, and imagines that I love her no longer. Then her open joyous little face falls, her looks are averted, her heart is closed to me, and I feel myself bereft of the light which this child had brought into my dark soul. I kiss her, take her on my arm, look for flowers and pretty pebbles for her, cut a switch for her, and pretend to be a cow which she is driving to the meadow. She is contented and happy, and life smiles at me again.

I have sacrificed my morning hour. So do I atone for the evil which in a moment of madness I had wished to conjure down on this angel's head. What a penance—to be loved! Truly the powers are not so cruel as we are!

IX

EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF A DAMNED SOUL

October, November, 1896

The Brahmin has fulfilled his duty as regards life when he has begotten a child. Then he goes into the desert, to dedicate himself to solitude and asceticism.

My mother-in-law.—"What have you done in your former human existence that Fate deals so hardly with you?"

I.—"Think! Remember a man who was first married to another man's wife, like myself, and who separated from her in order to marry an Austrian, like myself! Then his little Austrian is torn from him, as mine has been from me, and their only child is kept in the Bohemian mountains as mine is. Do you remember the hero of my romance, On the Open Sea, who commits suicide on an island——"

M.—"Enough! Enough!"

I.—"You don't know that my father's mother was called Neipperg——"

M.—"Stop! Unhappy man!"

I.—"And that my little Christina resembles the greatest murderer of the century to a hair. Only look at her, the little tyrant, the man-tamer at two and a half!"

M.—"You are mad."

I.—"Yes! And what sins have you women formerly committed, since your lot is still harder than ours? See how justly I have called woman our evil angel. Each has his or her deserts."

M.-"To be a woman is a twofold hell."

I.—"And so woman is a twofold devil. As regards reincarnation, that is a Christian doctrine which has been maintained by some of the clergy. Christ said that John the Baptist was Elijah reborn on earth. Is that an authority or not?"

M.—"Yes, but the Roman Church forbids inquiry into secrets."

I.—"And science permits it, as soon as science itself is tolerated."

The spirits of discord are abroad, and despite of the fact that we are quite aware of their game and our freedom from blame in the matter, our repeated misunderstandings leave a bitter wish for revenge behind them. Moreover, both sisters suspect that my evil wishes caused their mother's mysterious illness, and remembering that it is to my interest to have my separation from my wife terminated, they cannot suppress the fairly reasonable thought that the death of the old lady would cause me joy. The mere existence of this wish makes me hateful in their eyes, and I do not venture any more to ask how their mother is because I fear to be regarded as a hypocrite.

The situation is strained, and my two former friends exhaust themselves in endless discussions regarding my person, my character, my feelings, and the sincerity of my love for the little one. At one time they regard me as a saint, and the scars in my hands as wound-prints. And certainly the marks on my palms resemble large nail-holes. But in order to put an end to all ideas of saintship, I designate myself the penitent thief, who has come down from the cross and started on his pilgrimage to Paradise.

Another time, they try to solve the riddle by regarding me as Robert the Devil. At that time many incidents occurred, sufficient to give ground for fearing that I might be stoned by the inhabitants of the place. Here is a simple fact. My little Christina has an extraordinary dread of chimney sweeps. One evening, at supper, she suddenly begins to scream, points at someone invisible behind my chair, and cries, "The chimney sweep!"

My mother-in-law, who believes in the clairvoyance of children and animals, turns pale; and I become alarmed all the more as I see my mother-in-law make the sign of a cross over the child's head. A dead silence ensues, which puts a stop to all cheerfulness.

The autumn with its storms, heavy rains, and dark nights has come. In the village and the poorhouse the number of the sick, dying, and dead increases. In the night one hears the choir-boy ring the bell before the Host. All through the day the church bell is tolling, and one funeral follows another. Death and life have grown into a single horror. My night attacks recommence. Prayers are said for me, beads are told, and the holy water vessel in my room is filled by the priest himself. "The hand of the Lord rests heavily on thee!" with these words my mother-in-law crushes me. But slowly I recover myself. My mental elasticity and an inborn scepticism free me again from these black thoughts, and after the perusal of certain occult writings, I believe myself to be persecuted by spirits of the elements, incubi and Lamias[1] who wish to hinder me in the completion of my great work on Alchemy. Instructed by the initiated in such matters, I procure a Dalmatian dagger, and consider myself well-armed against evil spirits.

In the village a shoemaker dies, who was an atheist and blasphemer. He had a jackdaw, who now left to himself lives on the roof of a neighbouring house. While watch is being kept by the dead, they suddenly discover the jackdaw in the room without anyone being able to explain how it got there. On the day of the burial, the black bird accompanies the funeral procession, and perches on the coffin in the churchyard before the ceremony. Every morning this creature follows me in my walk, a fact which really disquiets me because of the superstitious nature of the people. One day, which is destined to prove its last, the jackdaw accompanies me with horrible screams and words of abuse, which the blasphemer had taught him, through the streets of the village. Then there come two little birds, a robin and a yellow wagtail, and follow the jackdaw from roof to roof. The jackdaw flies outside the village and perches on the roof of a cottage. At the same moment a black rabbit springs up before the cottage, and disappears in the grass. Some days afterwards we hear of the jackdaw's death. It had been killed by the street boys because of its propensity for stealing.

During the day I work in my little house. But for some time past it seems that the powers are no longer well intentioned towards me. When I enter the house I find the air thick, as if it had been poisoned, and have to open doors and windows. Wrapped in a thick cloak, with a fur cap on my head, I sit at the table and write, and resist the so-called electric attacks which compress my chest and seize me in the back. Often I feel as though someone were standing behind my chair. Then I stab with the dagger behind me, and imagine I am fighting an enemy. So it goes on till five o'clock in the afternoon. If I remain sitting longer, the conflict becomes terrific, until, feeling wholly exhausted, I light my lantern and go to my mother-in-law and my child. On one occasion, as early as two or three o'clock, I find my room full of the thick and choking atmosphere I have spoken of. But I continue the struggle till six o'clock in order to finish an article on chemistry. On a bunch of flowers sits a lady-bird marked with yellow and black—the Austrian colours. It clambers about, gropes, and seeks for a flying-off place. At last it falls on my paper, spreads out its wings exactly like the weathercock on the church of Notre-Dame des Champs in Paris, then crawls along the manuscript and up my right hand. It looks at me, and then flies towards the window; the compass on the table points towards the north.

"Very well!" I say to myself, "to the north then; but not before I choose; till I am summoned again, I remain where I am."

Six o'clock strikes, and it is impossible to remain in this haunted house. Unknown forces lift me from my chair and I must leave the place.

It is All Souls' Day, about three o'clock in the afternoon; the sun shines and the air is clear. The villagers are going in a procession led by the clergy, with banners and music, to the church-yard, to greet the dead. The bells begin to ring. Then, without a warning, without even one cloud appearing as precursor in the pale blue sky, a storm breaks loose. The banners flap violently against the poles, the festal robes of the men and women are a prey of the winds. Dust-clouds rise and whirl; trees bend. It is a real wonder.

I feel afraid of the next night, and my mother-in-law knows it. She has given me a charm to wear round my neck. It is a Madonna and a cross made out of consecrated wood—the timber of a church which is more than a thousand years old. I accepted it as a valuable present offered in good will, but a lingering respect for the religion of my fathers prevents my wearing it round my neck.

It is about eight o'clock, and we are having our evening meal; the lamp burns and a weird stillness reigns in our little circle. Outside it is dark; there is no wind in the trees; all is quiet. All at once a single gust of wind blows through the crevices of the window with a curious humming noise like that of a Jew's-harp. Then it is past. My mother-in-law throws a look of alarm at me and folds the child in her arms. In a second I interpret what her look means: "Leave us, O damned soul, and do not bring avenging demons on our innocent heads." Everything goes to pieces; my last remaining happiness, the companionship of my little daughter, is taken from me, and in the gloomy silence I mentally bid the world adieu.

After the evening meal I withdraw to the once rose-coloured—now black—room and prepare, since I feel myself threatened, for a night-battle. With whom? I know not, but challenge the Invisible, be it diabolic or divine, and will wrestle with It, like Jacob with the angel. There is a knock at the door. It is my mother-in-law, who forebodes a bad night for me, and invites me to sleep on the sofa in her sitting-room. "The presence of the child will safeguard you," she says. I thank her and assure her there is no danger, and that nothing can frighten me so long as my conscience is untroubled. With a smile she wishes me good-night.

I put on my martial cloak, boots and cap again, determined to lie down dressed and ready to die like a brave warrior who despises life and challenges death. About eleven o'clock the air in the room begins to grow dense, and a deadly fear masters my courageous heart. I open the window. The draught threatens to blow out the lamp. I close it again. The lamp begins to make a sound between a sigh and a moan; then all is still again.

A dog in the village howls. According to popular superstition, this is a sign of death. I look out of the window; only the Great Bear is visible. Down there in the poorhouse a light is burning; an old woman is sitting bent over her work, as though she were waiting for her release; perhaps she fears sleep and its dreams. Weary, I lie down again on the bed, and try to sleep. At once the old game recommences. An electric stream seeks my heart; my lungs cease to work; I must rise or die. I sit down on a chair, but am too exhausted to be able to read, and spend half an hour thus in listless vacancy. Then I resolve to go for a walk till daybreak. I leave the house. The night is dark and the village asleep, but the dogs are not. One attacks me, and then the whole band surrounds me; their wide-open jaws and fiery eyes compel me to retreat.

When I open the door of my room and enter, it seems to me as though it were full of hostile living creatures through whom I must force my way in order to reach my bed. Resigned, and resolved to die, I throw myself upon it. But at the last moment, when the invisible vulture is about to stifle me under its wings, someone lifts me up, and the pursuit of the furies is at an end. Conquered, hurled to the earth, beaten down, I quit the scene of an unequal battle and yield to the invisible. I knock at the door on the other side of the passage. My mother-in-law, who is still at prayer, opens the door. The expression of her face as she looks at me makes me feel afraid of myself.

"What do you wish, my child?"

"I wish to die, and then to be burnt, or rather, burn me alive!"

She does not answer. She has understood me, and sympathy and pity conquer her fear, so that she prepares the sofa for me with her own hand. Then she retires to her own room where she sleeps with the child. Through a chance—always this Satanic chance!—the sofa stands opposite the window, and the same chance has willed that it has no curtains, so that the black window opening gapes at me. Moreover, it is the very same window through which the wind gust came when we were at supper. With all my powers exhausted, I sink on the sofa. I curse this ever-present, unavoidable "chance" which persecutes me with the obvious purpose of making me fall a victim to persecution-mania. For five minutes I have rest, while my eyes are fastened on the black square of the window; then an invisible something glides over my body, and I stand up. I remain standing in the middle of the room like a statue for hours, half-conscious, turned to stone, I know not whether awake or asleep.

Who gives me the strength to suffer? Who denies me the power, and delivers me over to torments? Is it He, the Lord of life and death, Whose wrath I have provoked, when, influenced by the pamphlet The Joy of Dying, I tried to die, and considered myself already ripe for eternal life? Am I Phlegyas doomed to the pains of Tartarus for his pride, or Prometheus, who, because he revealed the secret of the powers to mortals, was torn by the vulture?

(While I am writing this, I think of the scene in the sufferings of Christ when the soldiers spit in His face, some buffet Him and others strike Him with rods and say to Him, "Tell us, who is he that smote thee?"

Perhaps my old companions in Stockholm remember that orgy when the author of this book played the rôle of the soldier?)

Who has struck thee? A question without an answer. Doubt, uncertainty, mystery—there is my hell! Oh that my enemy would reveal himself, that I might do battle with him, and defy him! But that is just what he avoids doing, in order to afflict me with madness and make me feel the scourge of conscience, which causes me to suspect enemies everywhere, enemies, i.e., those injured by my evil will. Indeed, my conscience smites me every time that I come on the track of a new foe.

Awoken the next morning after a few hours' sleep by the prattle of my little Christina, I seem to forget all, and go to my usual work, which is not unsuccessful. Everything that I write is immediately accepted and printed—a proof that my senses and understanding are unimpaired.

Meanwhile the papers spread the report that an American scientific man has discovered a method of converting silver into gold. This saves me from being suspected of being an adept in the black art, a fool, or a swindler. My theosophical friend, who has hitherto furnished me with the means of livelihood, tries to enrol me in his sect. He sends me one of Madame Blavatsky's occult treatises and ill conceals his anxiety that I should pronounce a favourable verdict upon it. I also am embarrassed, for I see that the continuance of our friendly relations will depend upon my answer.

Madame Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine is plagiarised from all the so-called occult theories; it is a hash-up of all ancient and modern scientific heresies. Her book is worthless as regards her own presumptuous claims, interesting through its quotations from little-known authors, repellent through its conscious or unconscious fabrications regarding the Mahatmas. It is the work of a mannish woman, who, in order to put man to shame, undertook to overthrow science, religion, and philosophy, and to set a priestess of Isis on the altar of the Crucified.

With all the reserve and moderation which is due to a friend, I let my friend know that the collective god, Karma, does not please me, and that it is impossible for me to belong to a sect which denies a personal God, Who alone can satisfy my religious needs. It is a confession of faith which is demanded from me, and although I know that my answer entails a breach in our friendship, and the cessation of my means of support, I speak it out freely.

Then my faithful friend turns into a demon of vengeance. He hurls an excommunication against me, threatens me with occult powers, tries to intimidate me by vulgar accusations, and storms at me like a heathenish sacrificial priest. Finally, he summons me before an occultist tribunal, and swears to me that I shall never forget the 13th of November. My situation is painful; I have lost a friend and am nearly destitute. By a diabolical chance during our paper war, the following incident takes place: L'Initiation publishes an article by me which criticises the current astronomical system. A few days after its appearance Tisserand, the head of the Paris observatory, dies. In an access of mischievous humour I trace a connection between these two things, and mention also that Pasteur died the day after I published Sylva Sylvarum.[2] My friend, the theosophist, does not know how to take a joke, and being superstitious above the average, and perhaps, more deeply initiated in black magic than I, gives me clearly to understand that he regards me as a wizard.

One may imagine my consternation when, after the last letter of our correspondence, the most famous of the Swedish astronomers dies of a fit of apoplexy. I am alarmed, and with reason. To be accused of witchcraft is a very serious matter, and "even after death one will not escape punishment."

Further calamities follow. In the course of a month about five well-known astronomers die, one after another. I fear my fanatical friend, whom I credit with the cruelty of a Druid and with the power of the Hindu yogis who can kill at a distance.

Here is a new hell of anxieties. From this day onwards I forget the demons, and direct all my attention to the unwholesome ranks of the theosophists and their magicians, the Hindu sages, supposed to be gifted with incredible powers. I now feel myself condemned to death, and keep sealed my papers, in which, in case of my sudden death, I have specified the murderers. Then I wait.

A few miles eastward on the bank of the Danube, lies the little chief town of the district Grein. There, I am told, a stranger from Zanzibar has arrived at the end of November in midwinter. That is enough to rouse doubts and dark thoughts in a morbid mind. I try to obtain information regarding the stranger, whether he is really an African, whence he has come, and what is his object?

I can learn nothing; a mysterious veil envelops the unknown, who, like a spectre, stands day and night before my anxious mind. I always find my best comfort in the Old Testament, and I invoke the protection of the Eternal and His vengeance against my enemies. The psalms of David best express my soul's deepest needs, and Jehovah is my God. The 86th Psalm has made a special impression on my mind, and I gladly repeat it.

"O God, the proud have set themselves against me, and tyrants seek after my soul, and have not thee before their eyes. Show me a token for good; that all they which hate me may see it, and be ashamed; because thou, Lord, hast holpen me, and comforted me."

That is the "token" I ask for, and notice well, reader, how my prayer will be heard.

X

THE ETERNAL HAS SPOKEN

Winter, with its grey-yellow skies is here; no ray of sunlight has lit up the sky for weeks. The muddy roads hinder us from taking walks; the leaves fall from the trees and rot; all nature is dissolving in decay.

The usual autumn butchery of dumb animals has begun. All day long the cries of the victims rise against the dark vault of heaven; one steps in blood and among corpses. It is terribly depressing, and I feel sad for the two, good, kind-hearted sisters who tend me like a sick child. Besides this, my poverty, which I must conceal from them, depresses me, together with the futility of my attempts to avert approaching beggary. For my own good they wish for my departure, since such a lonely life is not good for a man; moreover, they believe that I need a doctor. In vain I wait for the necessary money to be sent from Sweden, and prepare to depart, even though I have to tramp the high roads. "I have become like a pelican of the wilderness, and like an owl in the desert." My presence is a trial to my relatives, and but for my love to the child, they would have hurried me away. Now that mud or snow makes walking difficult, I carry the little one along the paths on my arms, climb hills, and clamber up rocks, so that both the old ladies say, "You will make yourself ill, you will get giddy, you will kill yourself."

"And a beautiful death that would be!" I reply.

On the 20th of November, a grey, gloomy, dreary day, we sit at the mid-day meal. Altogether worn-out after a sleepless night and new conflicts with the Invisible, I curse life, and lament that no sun shines.

My mother-in-law has prophesied that I will not be well till Candlemas (February 2nd), when the sun returns again. "That is my only ray of sunlight," I answer, pointing to my little Christina who sits opposite to me. At this moment the clouds, which have been massed together for weeks, part, and through the cleft a ray of light shines into the room and illuminates my face, the table-cover, the glasses.

"See, papa! see! there is the sun!" exclaims the child, and clasps her hands together. I rise in confusion, a prey to the most conflicting feelings. "A chance? No!" I say to myself. Is it the wonder, the sign I prayed for? But that would be too much to grant to one fallen into disfavour like me. The Eternal does not interfere in the little affairs of earth-worms. And yet this ray of light abides in my heart like a happy smile on a discontented face. During the couple of minutes which I take in walking to my little house, the clouds have formed themselves into strange-shaped groups, and in the east, where the veil has lifted, the sky is as green as an emerald, or a meadow in mid-summer. I stand in my room and wait in a state between reverie and mild compunction, which has no fear in it, for something which I cannot exactly define.

Then suddenly there is a single thunder-clap over my head. No flash has preceded it. At first I feel alarmed, and wait for the usual rain and storm to follow. But nothing happens; all is perfectly quiet, and it is over. "Why," I ask myself, "have I not sunk down in humility before the voice of the Eternal?" Because, when the Almighty with majestic condescension allowed an insect to hear His voice, this insect felt elevated and puffed up by such an honour, considering itself in its pride to be possessed of some special desert. To speak freely, I felt myself almost on a level with the Lord, as an integral part of His personality, an emanation of His being, an organ of His organism. He needed me in order to reveal Himself; otherwise he would have sent a thunderbolt and struck me dead upon the spot. But whence springs this monstrous arrogance in a mortal? Must I trace my origin to the primeval Titans who revolted against a despot who delighted in ruling over slaves? Is this why my earthly pilgrimage has become a mere running the gauntlet, while the dregs of humanity delight to strike, spit on, and defile me? There is no imaginable humiliation which I have not endured, yet the more I am crushed the more my pride asserts itself. I am like Jacob wrestling with the angel, and though a little lamed, maintaining the conflict manfully; or Job, chastised, and yet steadily justifying himself in the face of undeserved punishments.

Attacked by so many conflicting thoughts, I relapse from my megalomania, and feel so insignificant, that the incident dwindles down to a mere nothing—a thunder-clap in November.

But the echo of the thunder reverberates, and once more in a sort of religious ecstasy I open the Bible at haphazard, and pray the Lord to speak more plainly that I may understand Him. My eyes immediately fall upon this verse in Job: "Wilt thou disannul my judgment? Wilt thou condemn me that thou mayest be justified? Hast thou an arm like God? Or canst thou thunder with a voice like Him?"

I doubt no more. The Eternal has spoken! O Eternal! What demandest Thou of me? Speak, for thy servant heareth!

No answer!

Good! I will humble myself before the Eternal Who has humbled Himself to speak to His servant. But bow my knee before the mob and the mighty? Never!

In the evening my good mother-in-law receives me with a manner that is enigmatic. She casts a searching look at me sideways, as though she wished to ascertain what sort of impression the stupendous occurrence had made on me. "You have heard it?" she asks.

"Yes, it is strange—a clap of thunder in November." She at any rate no longer considers me damned.

XI

HELL LET LOOSE

Meanwhile, in order to entirely bewilder me regarding the real nature of my illness, a current number of L'Événement contains the following notice:

"The unhappy Strindberg, who brought his misogyny to Paris, was quickly compelled to take himself off. Since then his partisans are dumb and confounded before the feminist flag. They do not wish to undergo the fate of Orpheus, whose head was torn off by the Thracian Bacchanals."

So they actually did lay a plot against me in the Rue de la Clef, and the morbid symptoms from which I still suffer are the result of that murderous attempt. Oh, these women! Certainly my articles on the feminist pictures of my Danish friend were not calculated to please them. But, at any rate, here is a fact, a tangible occurrence which dissipates my terrible doubts regarding my mental soundness.

I hasten with the good news to my mother-in-law. "You see that I am not out of my mind!"

"No, you are not, but only ill, and the doctor will recommend physical exercise for you—wood-chopping, for instance."

"Is that of any use against women, or not?"

My too hasty retort makes a breach between us. I had forgotten that a female saint is still a woman, i.e., man's enemy.

All is forgotten, the Russians, the Rothschilds, the dabblers in black magic, the theosophists, and the Eternal Himself. I am the innocent sacrifice, blameless Job, Orpheus whom the women want to kill, the author of Sylva Sylvarum, the reviver of dead science. Lost in a labyrinth of doubt, I abandon the new-born idea of providential interposition with a spiritual purpose, and absorbed in the bare fact that a plot has been laid against me, I forget to think of the original Plotter. Thirsting for vengeance, I prepare to send notices to the police-offices and papers in Paris, when a timely change of affairs puts an end to the sorry drama, which would have degenerated into a farce.

One grey-yellow winter day, about an hour after the mid-day meal, my little Christina insists on following me to my house, where I generally have my afternoon siesta. I cannot resist her, and give way to her request, When we get to my room Christina asks for pen and paper; then she demands picture-books, and I must remain, show, and explain.

"You must not go to sleep, papa!"

Although feeling weary and exhausted, I obey my child, I don't know why myself, but there is a tone in her voice which I cannot resist.

Outside, before the door, an organ-grinder is playing a waltz tune. I propose to the little one to dance with the nurse who has accompanied her. Attracted by the music, the neighbours' children come, the organ-grinder is invited into the kitchen, and we improvise a dance. This goes on for an hour, and my sadness is dispelled. In order to distract myself and to keep off sleep, I take the Bible, my oracle, and open it at haphazard. "But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. And Saul's servants said unto him, 'Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee. Let our lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man, who is a cunning player on the harp, and it shall come to pass when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well.'"

An evil spirit! That is what I am always suspecting! While the children are dancing, my mother-in-law comes in in order to fetch the little one, and when she sees them, she stands still, astonished. Then she tells me that just now, down in the village, a lady of good family has been seized with an attack of frenzy.

"What is the matter with her?"

"She dances without stopping, has dressed herself as a bride and fancies she is Burger's Lenore."

"She dances, and then?"

"She weeps in terror of death, who she believes will come and take her."

What lends a darker shade to this tragedy is that the lady has occupied the same house I live in now, and that her husband died in the same room where the children are noisily dancing.

Explain me that, O doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, or acknowledge the bankruptcy of science!

My little daughter has exorcised the evil spirit who, driven out by her innocence, has entered into an old lady who used to boast of being a free thinker.

The death-dance lasts the whole night. The lady is guarded by friends, who she says, are to ward off the attack of death. She calls it "death" because she does not believe in the existence of evil spirits. And yet she often asserted that her deceased husband tormented her.

My departure is postponed, but, in order to recruit my strength after so many sleepless nights, I remove to my aunt's house on the other side of the street, and leave the "rose-red" room. It is a curious fact that in the good old times the torture chamber in Sweden was called the "Chamber of Roses."

At last I spend a night again in a quiet room. The walls are painted white and covered with pictures of saints. Over my bed hangs a crucifix. But when night comes the spirits begin their tricks again.

I light the candles in order to kill the time with reading. There is a weird stillness in which I can hear my heart beating. Then a slight noise startles me, like an electric spark.

What is that?

A large piece of wax has dropped from the candle on the ground. Nothing more, but the people here believe it is a sign of death! It may be, as far as I am concerned. After reading for half an hour, I want to take my handkerchief from under my pillow. It is not there, and when I look for it, I find it on the ground. I stoop to pick it up. Something falls on my head, and when I extricate it from my hair, I find it is another piece of wax. Instead of being alarmed, I cannot help smiling; the whole thing seems a piece of practical joking.

Smiling at death! How could that be possible, were not life essentially comic. Such a fuss about nothing! Perhaps in the depth of our souls there lurks a shadowy consciousness that everything down here is all humbug, a masquerade, a mere pretence, and that all our sufferings afford mirth to the gods.

High over the hill on which the castle is built there towers another, from which a more commanding view over the Inferno-like landscape can be gained than from any other. The way thither lies through the remains of an ancient oak forest, which, according to tradition, was a scene of Druidic worship, and where mistletoe grows luxuriantly on the apple and lime trees. Above this wood the path mounts steeply through pines.

Several times I have tried to reach the summit, but something unforeseen has always hindered me. One time it was a deer which broke the silence with an unexpected leap, another time a hare, which resembled no hare which I had ever seen, and yet another time a magpie with its deafening chatter. But on the last morning, the day before my departure, I pressed in spite of all hindrances through the dark melancholy pine wood up to the summit, whence I obtained a splendid view of the valley of the Danube and the Styrian Alps. I breathe freely for the first time now that I have at last emerged from the gloomy, funnel-shaped valley below. The sun illuminates the landscape to the farthest horizon, and the white crests of the Alps melt into the clouds. The whole scene is one of heavenly beauty. Does the earth comprise at the same time heaven and hell, and is there no other place of punishment and reward? Perhaps. Certainly, the most beautiful moments of my life seem to me heavenly, and the worst, hellish. Has the future still in reserve for me hours or minutes of that happiness which can be won only by tribulation and a tolerably clean conscience?

I feel little inclination to descend into the valley of sorrows again, and walk about on the mountain plateau, wondering at the beauty of the earth. On the summit is a rock shaped by nature like an Egyptian Sphinx. On its gigantic head is a heap of stones in which stands a stick bearing a white piece of linen attached, like a flag. Without troubling myself about its significance, an uncontrollable desire to seize the flag takes possession of me. Despising death, I clamber up the steep rock, and lay hold of it. At the same moment the sound of a bridal march sung by triumphant voices arises from the Danube below. It is a marriage party; I cannot see it, but the musket shots customarily fired on such occasions place it beyond a doubt. Childish enough and unhappy enough to give a poetical colouring to the most ordinary occurrences, I take this as a good omen.

Reluctantly and slowly I descend again into the valley of sorrows, of death, of sleeplessness, and of demons, where my little Beatrice awaits me and the promised piece of mistletoe, the green branch in the midst of the snow, which really ought to be cut with a golden sickle.

For a long time past the grandmother had expressed a wish to see me, whether it were to bring about a reconciliation or for occultist reasons, because she is a clairvoyante and visionary. I had postponed the visit under various pretexts, but now that my departure was resolved on, my mother-in-law obliged me to visit the old lady and bid her farewell, probably for the last time on this side of the grave. On November 26th, a cold, clear day, my mother-in-law, the child, and I made the pilgrimage to the bank of the Danube, where the family residence is. We alighted at the inn, and while my mother-in-law went to announce my visit to her mother, I wandered through the meadows and woods, which I had not seen for two years. Recollections overpowered me, and in all of them was interwoven the figure of my wife. And now everything is blighted by autumnal frosts; there is now not a single flower, nor a green blade of grass where we both plucked all the flowers of spring, summer, and autumn!

After the mid-day meal I am taken to the old lady who occupies the annex to the villa, the little house in which my child was born. Our meeting is, considering the circumstances, a cold one; they seem to expect that I should appear as the prodigal son, but I have no wish to act that rôle. I confine myself to indulging in reminiscences of our lost paradise. She and I had painted the door-and window-panels in honour of the little Christina's arrival in the world. The roses and clematis which adorn the front of the house were planted by my own hands. I had cut out the path through the garden. But the walnut tree which I planted the morning after Christina's birth has disappeared. The "life-tree," as we called it, is dead. Two years, two eternities, have elapsed since the farewell between her on the shore and me on the ship, in which I went to Linz in order to proceed thence to Paris.

Who has caused the breach between us? I, for I have murdered my own love and hers. Farewell, my white house, where grew thorns and roses. Farewell, Danube! I say to comfort myself, "You were a dream, short as summer, too sweet to be real, and I do not regret it."

The night comes. My mother-in-law and my child have, at my request, taken up their quarters in the inn, in order to protect me against the deadly attacks, which I forebode by means of a sixth sense which has been developed in me during the six months of persecution which I have suffered.

About ten o'clock in the evening a gust of wind begins to shake the door of my room, which is on the ground-floor. I make it fast with wooden wedges; it is no use; the door shakes still more. The windows rattle; there is a dog-like howling in the stove; the whole house reels like a ship. I cannot sleep; at one time my mother-in-law groans, at another the child cries. The next morning my mother-in-law, exhausted by sleeplessness and something else, which she conceals from me, says: "Depart, my child; I have enough of this hellish stench!" And I travel northwards, a restless pilgrim, into the fire of a new purgatory.

XII

PILGRIMAGE AND PENANCE

There are ninety towns in Sweden, and the powers have condemned me to go to the one which I most dislike. First of all, I visit the doctors. The first speaks of neurasthenia, the second of angina pectoris, the third of paranoia, a mental disease, the fourth of emphysema. This is enough to ensure me against being put into a lunatic asylum. Meanwhile, in order to procure the means of livelihood, I am forced to write articles for a newspaper. But whenever I sit at the table to write, hell is let loose. A new discovery comes to make me wild. Whenever I take up my quarters in an hotel there breaks out a fiendish noise, just as there did in the Rue de la Grande Chaumière in Paris; I hear shuffling footsteps and the moving of furniture. I change my room, I go into another hotel, and still there is the noise over my head. I visit the restaurants, but as soon as I sit down to a meal the noise begins there also. And it should be observed that whenever I ask those present whether they hear the same noise too, they say "yes," and their description of it tallies with mine.

It is then no acoustic hallucination from which I suffer; everywhere there are plots, I say to myself. But one day, as I go by chance into a shoemaker's shop, the noise instantaneously breaks out. It is no plot, then! It is the Devil himself! Hunted from hotel to hotel, pursued everywhere by electric wires even to my bed, attacked everywhere by electric currents which lift me from my chair, or out of bed, I deliberately set about planning my suicide. The weather is terrible, and in my depression I seek distraction in drinking bouts with friends.

One dreary day, after such a bout, I have just finished my early breakfast in my room. I turn round towards the table on which the breakfast things are standing. A slight noise attracts my attention, and I see that a knife has fallen on the ground. I lift it up and place it so that it cannot do so again. The knife moves and falls.

So it is electricity!

The same morning I write a letter to my mother-in-law, and complain of the bad weather and life in general. As I write the sentence, "The earth is dirty, the sea is dirty, and dirt rains from the sky," imagine my astonishment, as I see a clear drop of water fall upon the paper. No electricity! A miracle! In the evening as I am still working at the table, a noise from the washing-stand startles me. I look in that direction, and see that a wax-cloth, which I use in my morning ablutions, has fallen down. In order to get at the rights of the matter, I hang it up, so that it cannot fall down again.

It falls again!

What is that? My thoughts now revert to the occultists and their secret powers. I leave the town with my written indictment of them in my pocket, and betake myself to Lund, where there are old friends of mine: doctors, specialists in mental disease, and even theosophists on whose aid I reckon.

How have I come to settle down in this little university town, this place of rustication and penance for the students of Upsala, when they have lived too freely at the cost of their purses and their health? Is this my Canossa, where I must retract my false doctrines before the same set of youths who between 1880 and 1890 regarded me as their standard-bearer? I understand my position exactly, and know well that I am under the ban of most of the professors as a seducer of youth, and that the fathers and mothers fear me like the Evil One himself.

Moreover, I have made personal enemies here, and have contracted debts under circumstances which set my character in a dubious light. Here Popoffsky's sister-in-law and her husband live, and both of these, who have an influential position in society, are able to stir up powerful enemies against me. I have also here relations who ignore me, and friends who have left me to become my enemies. In a word, it is the worst place I could have chosen for a quiet residence; it is hell, but a hell contrived with masterly logic and divine ingenuity. Here I must drain the cup of humiliation, and reconcile the youth of Lund with the alienated powers. By a picturesque accident, I buy myself a mantle with cape and cowl, of a flea-brown colour, like a Franciscan's. Thus, after a six years' banishment, I return to Sweden in a penitent's costume.

About the year 1885 there was formed in Lund a Students' Association called "The Old Boys," whose literary, scientific, and social programme was best expressed by the word "Radicalism." It was coloured by modern ideas; it was first socialistic, then nihilistic, and tended finally to a general dissolution of society. It had besides a fin de siècle flavouring of Satanism and decadence. The head of that party, the most conspicuous of their champions, a friend of mine, whom I have not seen for three years, pays me a visit. Dressed like myself in a monkish-looking mantle of a grey colour, grown old, lean, with melancholy aspect, he shows his history in his face.

"You also?" I ask him.

"Yes! It is all up with us."

On my inviting him to take a glass of wine, he declares himself a teetotaller.

"How are the 'Old Boys'?" I ask.

"Dead, come croppers, turned into Philistines and steady members of society."

"It is a case of Canossa, then!"

"Canossa all along the line."

"Then it is Providence Itself which has brought me here."

"Providence! That is the right word."

"Do they know the 'powers' in Lund?"

"The 'powers' are preparing to return."

"Do people sleep well here?"

"No; they complain of nightmares, constrictions of the breast and heart."

"My arrival is appropriate, then; for that is precisely my case."

We talk for some hours over the strange times we are living in, and my friend relates to me some extraordinary occurrences which have recently happened. Finally, he gives a brief account of the minds of the present young generation, who are looking out for something new.

People want a religion; a reconciliation with the "powers" (that is the phrase), a new approach to the invisible. The fruitful and important epoch of naturalism is past. One cannot say anything against it, nor regret it, for the powers willed that we should pass through it. It was an experimental epoch, the negative results of which have disproved certain theories when they were put to the test. A God, unknown at present, seems to be developing, growing, and revealing Himself from time to time. In the intervals, so it seems, He leaves the world to itself, like the farmer, who lets the tares and wheat grow together till the harvest. Each epoch of revelation shows Him animated with new ideas, and practically improving His methods. Thus Religion will return, but under new aspects, for a compromise with the old religions seems impossible. We do not await an epoch of reaction, nor a return to out-worn ideals, but an advance towards something new. But of what sort? Let us wait!

At the end of our conversation a question escapes my lips like an arrow which flies sky-wards, "Do you know Swedenborg?"

"No; but my mother has his works, and has found wonderful things in them."

From atheism to Swedenborg is only a step!

I beg him to lend me Swedenborg's works, and my friend, that Saul among the young prophets, brings me the Arcana Cœlestia. Moreover, he introduces a young man to me who has been highly gifted by the powers. The latter relates to me events in his life which only too closely resemble my own. When we compare our trials, we find a new light thrown upon them, and we gain deliverance by the help of Swedenborg. I thank Providence which has sent me into this small despised town to expiate my sin and to be delivered.

XIII

THE DELIVERER

When Balzac introduced me to my noble countryman, "The Buddha of the North," by means of his book Séraphita, he showed me the evangelistic side of the Prophet. Now it is the Law which encounters, crushes, and releases.

A single word suffices to illuminate my soul, and to scatter my doubts and vain fancies regarding supposed enemies, electricians, black magic, etc., and this single word is "Devastation."[1] All my sufferings I find described by Swedenborg—the feelings of suffocation (angina pectoris), constrictions of the chest, palpitations, the sensation which I called the "electric girdle"—all exactly correspond, and these phenomena, taken together, constitute the spiritual catharsis (purification) which was already known to St. Paul, "Whom," he says speaking of someone, "I have determined to hand over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus," and "Among whom are Hymenæus and Alexander, whom I have delivered over to Satan, that they may be taught not to blaspheme."

When I read the visions of Swedenborg belonging to the year 1744, the year preceding his establishment of relations with the spiritual world, I discover that the Prophet has endured the same nightly tortures as I have, and what astonishes me still more is the complete identity of the symptoms, which leave me no longer room for doubting the real nature of my illness. In the Arcana Cœlestia, the mysterious occurrences of the last two years are explained with such convincing exactness, that I, a child of the renowned nineteenth century, am firmly convinced that there is a hell—a hell, however, on earth, and that I have just come out of it.

Swedenborg explains to me the reason of my detention in the Hospital St. Louis thus:

"Alchemists are attacked by leprosy and scratch the scurf off like fish-scales. It is an incurable skin disease." The apparition of the chimney sweep which my daughter saw in Austria is also explained: "Among the spirits, there is a kind called 'chimney sweeps,' because they actually have faces blackened by smoke, and seem to wear soot-coloured clothes.... One of these 'chimney sweep' spirits came to me, and begged me earnestly to pray for his admission into heaven. 'I don't think,' he said, 'I have done anything on account of which I should be excluded. I have often rebuked the inhabitants of earth, but after rebuke and punishment, I have always given them instruction.'

"The chastising, reforming, or instructing spirits approach a man from the left side, lean on his back, consult his book of memory, and read his deeds and even his thoughts in it. For when a spirit enters a man, he first of all takes possession of his memory. If they behold an evil deed or the intention to commit one, they punish him with a pain in the foot or in the hand, or the neighbourhood of the stomach, and they do this with unexampled dexterity. A shudder announces their approach.

"Besides inflicting pains in the limbs, they employ a painful pressure against the navel, which gives the sensation of being surrounded with a prickly girdle; moreover, they sometimes cause constrictions of the chest, which they intensify to a terrible degree; finally, they inspire a disgust of all food except bread, which continues for days.

"Other spirits try to convince their victims of the opposite to that which the instructing spirits have said. These spirits of contradiction were, during their earthly existence, men who had been expelled from society on account of some crime. Their approach is heralded by a flickering flame, which seems to hover about one's face; their place is above the back, whence they make themselves felt to the extremities." (These flickering flames or sparks have appeared to me twice, and both times on occasions when I resisted my better self, and rejected all apparitions as idle dreams.)

"These spirits of contradiction tell men not to believe what the instructing spirits have been commissioned by the angels to say, and not to rule their lives accordingly, but to live in all licence and wantonness as they choose. Usually the former come as soon as the latter have gone. Men know what to expect from them, and do not trouble much about them, but they learn through their assaults to distinguish between good and evil. For the knowledge of good is first gained through that of its opposite, just as every perception or idea of a matter is obtained by carefully observing what distinguishes it from its contrary." The reader may remember the faces like antique sculptures which I saw formed by the white cover of my pillow in the Hôtel Orfila. Swedenborg speaks regarding them as follows:

"Two signs show that they (the spirits) dwell with a man; one is an old man with a white face. This sign will signify to him that he is always to speak the truth, and to act justly.... I myself have seen such an antique human face. There are faces of pure whiteness and great beauty, from which uprightness and modesty beam."

(In order not to alarm the reader, I have purposely concealed the fact, that all the above relates to the inhabitants of the planet Jupiter. My surprise may be imagined when one spring morning they bring me a French review containing a picture of Swedenborg's house in the planet Jupiter, drawn by Victorien Sardou. Why on Jupiter? What a remarkable coincidence! And has the master and doyen of the Théâtre Français observed that the left façade of the building seen from a sufficient distance forms an antique human face? This face is the same as that which was formed by my cushion-cover. But in Sardou's drawing there are more of such silhouettes formed by the lines of the building. Has the master's hand been guided by another hand, so that he produced more than he knew?)

Where has Swedenborg seen his heaven and hell? Are they visions, intuitions, inspirations? I hardly know, but the correspondence of his hell to that of Dante, and of the Greek, Roman, and German mythologies, leads to the idea that the powers have generally used similar means to realise their purposes. And what are these purposes? The completion of the human type; the production of the higher Man—the Superman, as Nietzsche, that rod of chastisement prematurely used and cast into the fire, has announced him. So the problem of good and evil is again set up for us to solve, and Taine's moral indifference seems insipid before these new demands.

The belief in spirits follows as a natural consequence. What are spirits? As soon as we admit the immortality of the soul, we see that the dead are still alive and continue their relationships with the living. "Evil spirits," then, are not evil, for their object is good, and it would be better to call them, with Swedenborg, "corrective spirits," than to abandon oneself to fear and to despair. Accordingly, there exists no Satan, as an autonomous personality opposed to God, and the undeniable apparitions of the Evil One in his traditional form must be regarded as a scarecrow conjured up by Providence—Providence the Supreme and Good, which carries on its government by means of an enormous comprehensive staff, consisting of departed souls.

Be comforted, and be proud of the grace bestowed upon you, all ye who suffer from sleeplessness, nightmares, apparitions, palpitations, and fears of death! Numen adest! God is seeking for you!

XIV

TRIBULATIONS

Interned in this little university town, without hope of getting out of it, I engage in the terrible fight against my worst enemy—myself. Every morning, when I go for a walk on the wall under the plane trees, the large red lunatic asylum reminds me of the danger I have escaped, and of that which still awaits me, if I relapse. Swedenborg, by explaining to me the true character of my terrors during the last year, has delivered me from the fear of electricians, "black" magicians, wizards, the ambition of the gold-maker, and from madness. He has pointed out the only way to salvation: to seek out the demons in their dens within myself, and there to slay them by—repentance. Balzac, the Prophet's assistant, has taught me in Séraphita that "Pain of conscience is a weakness which does not put an end to sin; repentance is the only power which makes a decisive end of all." Very well, let us repent! But is not that equivalent to criticising Providence, which has chosen me for its scourge? and to saying to the powers: "You have guided my destiny ill; you have made me and commissioned me to chastise, to overthrow idols, to stir up revolt, and then you withdraw your protection from me and disown me in an absurd way, telling me to creep to the cross and repent!"

Strange "circulus vitiosus," which I already foresaw in my twentieth year, when I wrote my drama Meister Olaf, and which has constituted the tragedy of my life. Why be tormented during thirty years in order to be taught by experience what one had already foreboded? When young I was sincerely pious, and you have made me a freethinker. Out of the freethinker you have made an atheist, and out of the atheist a religious man. Inspired by humanitarian ideas, I have been a herald of socialism. Five years later, you have shown me the absurdity of socialism; you have made all my prophecies futile. And supposing I become again religious, I am sure that, in another ten years, you will reduce religion to an absurdity.

Ah! what a game the gods play with us poor mortals! And therefore, in the most tormented moments of life, we too can laugh with self-conscious raillery.

How is it that you wish us to take earnestly what is nothing but a huge bad joke?

For whom was Christ the Saviour? Consider the most Christian of all Christians, our pious Scandinavians, these amæmic, wretched, timid creatures, who look as though they were possessed. They seem to carry an evil spirit in their hearts, and observe how most of their leaders have ended in prison as criminals. Why has their master delivered them over to the enemy? Is religion a punishment, and Christ an Avenger?

The sun shines, everyday life proceeds on its usual course, the cheerful bustle of business raises the spirits. Then one feels rebellious, and challenges heaven with doubts. But when night, silence, and loneliness reign, the heart beats, and the breast suffers from constriction. Then one jumps out of window into a hedge of thorns, and humbly begs a physician for help, and seeks someone to share the sleeping chamber.

Go again into your room, and you will find someone is there; he is invisible, but you feel his presence. Then go to the asylum, and ask the doctor; he will talk to you about neurasthenia, paranoia, angina pectoris, and stories of that kind, but will never heal you. Whither, then, will you go, all ye who, sleepless, wander through street after street, waiting for the dawn? "The mills of the universe," "The mills of God," are two expressions in common use. Have you had that roaring in your ears which is like the noise of a water-wheel? Have you in the solitude of night or in broad daylight observed how memories of the past stir and arise, singly or in groups? Memories of all your faults, crimes, and follies which make your ears tingle, your brows perspire, your spine shudder? You re-live your life from your birth to the present day, you suffer over again all the sorrows you have endured; you empty again all the cups which you have drunk to the dregs so often; you crucify your skeleton when there is no more flesh left to crucify; you consume your soul when your heart is reduced to ashes!

You know all that?

Those are the "mills of God" which grind slowly but exceeding small. You are ground to powder, and think it is over. But no! You are brought again to the mill. Be thankful! That is hell upon earth, as Luther knew it, and reckoned it a special grace to be pulverised on this side of the grave.

Think yourself happy and be thankful!

What is one to do then? Humble oneself?

If you humble yourself before men, you will arouse their pride, for all will think themselves, no matter how guilty they may be, better than you.

Well, then, is one to humble oneself before God? But is it not disgraceful to degrade the Highest by conceiving of Him as the overseer of a slave plantation?

Shall we pray? What! Presume to try to alter the will and decision of the Eternal by flattery and crawling? I look for God and find the Devil! That is my destiny! I have repented and reformed myself.

I renounce alcohol, and come about nine o'clock soberly home to drink milk. The room is filled with all kinds of demons, who drag me out of bed and try to stifle me under the blankets. But if I come home at midnight intoxicated, I sleep like an angel and wake up strong as a young god, and ready to work like a galley-slave.

I live a chaste life, and am troubled by unwholesome dreams. I accustom myself to think only good of my friends, entrust my secrets and my money to them, and am betrayed. If I show offence at such treachery, it is always I who am punished.

I try to love mankind in the mass; I shut my eyes to their faults, and with inexhaustible patience endure their meanesses and slanders, and one fine day I find myself a sharer of their crimes. Whenever I withdraw from society which I consider injurious, the demons of solitude attack me, and when I look for better friends, I come on the track of the worst. Yes, after I have conquered my evil inclinations and through loneliness have attained to a certain degree of inward peace, I am caught in the snare of self-satisfaction and despising my neighbour. And self-conceit is the deadliest of sins, which is instantly punished.

How is one to explain the fact that every step of progress in virtue gives rise to a fresh sin?

Swedenborg solves the puzzle by declaring that sins are punishments inflicted on men in requital for sins of the more heinous class. Thus those who are greedy of power are condemned to the hell of the Sodomites. Supposing this theory to be true, we must endure the burden of our wickedness and rejoice at the pangs of conscience which accompany it, as at the payment of fees at a toll-gate. To seek virtue, accordingly, resembles an attempt to escape from prison and its punishments. That is what Luther asserts in article xxix. against the Romish bull, when he declares that "souls in purgatory sin continually, because they seek for peace, and try to avoid torments." Similarly, in article xxxiv., he says, "To fight with the Turks is equivalent to rebellion against God, whose instrument the Turks are, in order to punish our sins." It is therefore obvious "that all our good works are deadly sins," and that "the world must become guilty before God, and learn that no one is justified except through grace."

Let us therefore suffer without hoping for any real joy in life, for, my brothers, we are in hell. And do not let us accuse the Lord, when we see our little innocent children suffer. No one knows why, but divine justice gives us a ground for surmising that it is on account of sins committed by them before their birth. Let us rejoice in our torments, as though they were the paying off of so many debts, and let us count it a mercy that we do not know the real reason why we are punished.

XV

WHITHER?

Six months have passed, and I still go daily walking on the city wall and survey the lunatic asylum, and catch glimpses of the blue sea in the distance. Thence will the new epoch, the new religion, come of which the world is dreaming.

Gloomy winter is buried, the meadows are green, the trees are in blossom, the nightingale sings in the garden of the observatory, but a wintry sadness still weighs upon our spirits, for so many weird and inexplicable things have happened, that even the most incredulous waver. The general sleeplessness increases, nervous breakdowns are common, apparitions are matters of every day, and real miracles happen. People are expecting something.

A young man pays me a visit, and asks, "What must one do in order to sleep quietly at night?"

"Why?"

"Upon my word, I cannot say, but my bed-room has become a terror to me, and I give it up to-morrow."

"Young man, atheist, naturalist, why?"

"The Devil must be in it! When I open the door of my room at night and enter, someone seizes me by the arms and shakes me."

"Then there is someone in your room?"

"No, when I light a candle there is no one to be seen."

"Young man, there is someone who cannot be seen by candle-light!"

"Who is that?"

"The invisible, young man! Have you taken sulphonal, bromkali, morphium, chloral?"

"I have tried all."

"And the invisible does not quit the field. Very well! You want to sleep at night, and wish me to tell you how. Listen, young man, I am neither a physician nor a prophet, I am an old sinner, who does penance. Demand therefore neither preaching nor prophecy from an old gallows-bird, who wants all his leisure time to preach to himself. I have also suffered from sleeplessness and paralysis of the arms; I have wrestled eye to eye with the invisible, and finally recovered sleep and health. Do you know how? Guess!"

The young man guesses my meaning, and casts his eyes down. "You guess it! Go in peace, and sleep well!"

Yes! I must be silent and let my meaning be guessed, for if I began to play the preaching monk, they would turn their backs on me at once.

A friend asks me, "Whither are we going?"

"I cannot say, but as regards myself personally, it seems that the way of the Cross leads me back to the faith of my fathers."

"To Catholicism?"

It appears so. Occultism has played its part, by giving a scientific explanation of miracles and demonology. Theosophy, the forerunner of religion, has fulfilled its function, when it has revived belief in a world-order which punishes and rewards, Karma will be replaced by God, and the Mahatmas will be revealed as the new-born powers, the chastising and instructing spirits. Buddhism in Young France has preached renunciation of the world and the worship of sorrow, which leads direct to Golgotha.

As regards the homesick longing I feel for the bosom of the Mother Church, that is a long story, which I may summarise as follows:

When Swedenborg taught me that it is unlawful to quit the religion of one's ancestors, he said that with reference to Protestantism, which is treason against the Mother Church. Or, to put it better, Protestantism is a punishment inflicted on the barbarians of the North. Protestantism is the Exile, the Babylonish Captivity, but the Return seems near, the Return to the promised land. The immense progress which Catholicism makes in America, England, and Scandinavia seems to point towards a great reconciliation, in which the Greek Church, which has already stretched out her hand towards the West, is not to be forgotten.

That is the dream of the socialists regarding the restoration of the United States of the West, but taken in a spiritual sense. But I beg you not to think that it is a political theory which takes me back to the Roman Church. I have not sought Catholicism; it has found a place in me, after following me for years. My child, who became a Catholic against my will, has shown me the beauty of a cult which has maintained itself unaltered from the first, and I have always preferred the original to the copy. The considerable time I spent in my child's native country gave me opportunity to observe and admire the sincerity of the religious life there. I have been also influenced by my stay in the St. Louis Hospital, and finally by the occurrences of the last few weeks. After contemplating my life, which has whirled me round like some of the damned in Dante's hell, and after discovering that my existence in general had no other object but to humble and to defile me, I determined to anticipate my executioner, and take in hand my own torture. I determined to live in the midst of sufferings, dirt, and death-agonies, and with this object I prepared to seek a post as attendant on the sick in the Hôpital des Frères St. Jean de Dieu in Paris. This idea occurred to me on the morning of April 29th, after I had met an old woman with a head resembling a skull. When I return home, I find Séraphita lying open on my table, and on the right page a splinter of wood, which points to the following sentence: "Do for God what you would do for your own ambitious plans, what you do when you devote yourself to your art, what you have done when you love someone more than Him, or when you have investigated a secret of science! Is God not Science Itself?..."

In the afternoon the newspaper L'Éclair arrived, and, strange to say, the Hôpital des Frères St. Jean de Dieu is twice mentioned in it.

On May 1st I read for the first time in my life Sar Peladan's Comment on devient un Mage.

Sar Peladan, hitherto unknown to me, overcomes me like a storm, a revelation of the higher man, Nietzsche's Superman, and with him Catholicism makes its solemn and victorious entry into my life.

Has "He who should come" come already in the person of Sar Peladan. The Poet-Thinker-Prophet—is it he, or do we wait for another?

I know not, but after I have passed through these antechambers of a new life, I begin on May 3rd to write this book.

May 5th.—A Catholic priest, a convert, visited me.

May 9th.—I saw the figure of Gustavus Adolphus in the ashes of the stove.

On May 14th I read in Sar Peladan: "About the year 1000 A.D. it was possible to believe in witchcraft; to-day, as the year 2000 A.D. approaches, it is an established fact that such and such an individual has the fatal peculiarity of bringing trouble to those who come into collision with him. You deny him a request, and your dearest friend deceives you; you strike him, and illness makes you keep your bed; all the harm you do to him recoils on you in twofold measure. But, say people, that signifies nothing; 'chance' can explain these inexplicable coincidences. Modern determinism sums itself up in the expression 'chance.'"

On May 17th I read what the Dane, Jorgensen, a convert to Catholicism, says about the Beuron convent.

On May 18th a friend whom I have not seen for six years comes to Lund, and takes a room in the house where I am staying. Who can picture my emotion when I learn that he also has just been converted to Catholicism? He lends me his breviary (I had lost mine a year ago), and as I read again the Latin hymns and chants, I feel myself once more at home.

May 21th.—After a series of conversations regarding the Mother Church, my friend has written a letter to the Belgian convent, where he was baptised, requesting them to find a place of refuge for the author of this book.

May 28th.—There is a vague rumour in circulation that Mrs. Annie Besant has become a Catholic.

I am waiting the answer from the Belgian convent. By the time this book is printed, the answer will have arrived. And then? After that? A new joke for the gods, who laugh heartily when we shed bitter tears.

Lund, May 3rd-June 25th, 1897.

[Translator's Note.—Strindberg never actually entered the Roman Church.]

EPILOGUE

I had finished this book with the exclamation, "What humbug! What wretched humbug life is!" But after some reflection I found the sentiment unworthy, and struck it out. My mind swayed irresolute, and at last I took refuge in the Bible, to find the explanation I needed. And thus the Holy Book, more inspired with prophetic qualities than any other, answered me: "And I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people, and ye shall know that I am the Lord. And if that prophet be deceived, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel."—Ezek. xiv., 8, 9.

Such then is my life; a sign, an example to serve for the betterment of others; a proverb to set forth the nothingness of fame and of celebrity; a proverb to show the younger generation how they should not live; yes! I am a proverb, I who regarded myself as a prophet, and am revealed as a braggart. Now the Eternal has led this false prophet to speak empty words, and the false prophet feels irresponsible since he has only played the rôle assigned to him.

Here you have, my brothers, the picture of a human destiny, one among so many, and now confess that a man's life may seem—a bad joke!

Who is the Prince of this world, who condemns mortals to their wickedness, and rewards virtue with the cross, the stake, sleeplessness, and dreadful dreams? The Punisher of our unknown sins committed somewhere else or forgotten? And who are Swedenborg's reforming spirits, the guardian angels who protect us from the evil ones?

What a Babel-like confusion!

St. Augustine pronounced it effrontery to doubt the existence of demons. St. Thomas Aquinas declared that demons produce storms and thunderbolts, and can delegate their power to human hands. Pope John XXII. complained of the unlawful devices of his enemies, who pierced portraits of him with needles. Luther believed that all accidents, such as breaking bones, falls, conflagrations, and most illnesses were traceable to the machinations of devils. He also asserted that some individuals have already had their hell upon earth.

Have I not, then, rightly named my book Inferno? If any reader holds it for mere invention, he is invited to inspect my journal, which I have kept daily since 1895, of which this book is only an elaborated and expanded extract.

THE END