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Title: Demian
Author: Hermann Hesse
Release date: August 10, 2024 [eBook #74222]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Boni and Liveright, 1923
Credits: Steve Mattern and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEMIAN ***
DEMIAN
_By_ HERMANN HESSE
[Illustration]
BONI AND LIVERIGHT
PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK
Copyright, 1923
by
BONI & LIVERIGHT, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
DEMIAN
_The Story of Emil Sinclair’s Youth_
By HERMANN HESSE
_I wanted only to try to live in obedience to the promptings which
came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?_
In order to tell my story, I must begin far back. If it were possible,
I should have to go back much further still, to the earliest years of
my childhood, and even beyond, to my distant ancestry.
Authors, in writing novels, usually act as if they were God, and could,
by a broadness of perception, comprehend and present any human story as
if God were telling it to Himself without veiling anything, and with
all the essential details. That I cannot do, any more than can the
authors themselves. But I attach more importance to my story than can
any other writer to his: because it is my own, and it is the story of
a human being--not that of an invented, possible, ideal or otherwise,
non-existent creature, but that of a real, unique, living man. What
that is, a real living man, one certainly knows less to-day than ever.
For men are shot down in heaps--men, of whom each one is a precious,
unique experiment of nature. If we were nothing more than individuals,
we could actually be put out of the world entirely with a musket-ball,
and in that case there would be no more sense in relating stories. But
each man is not only himself, he is also the unique, quite special,
and in every case the important and remarkable point where the world’s
phenomena converge, in a certain manner, never again to be repeated.
For that reason the history of everyone is important, eternal, divine.
For that reason every man, so long as he lives at all and carries out
the will of nature, is wonderful and worthy of every attention. In
everyone has the spirit taken shape, in everyone creation suffers, in
everyone is a redeemer crucified.
Few to-day know what man is. Many feel it, and for that reason die the
easier, as I shall die the easier, when I have finished my story.
I must not call myself one who knows. I was a seeker and am still,
but I seek no more in the stars or in books; I am beginning to listen
to the promptings of those instincts which are coursing in my very
blood. My story is not pleasant, it is not sweet and harmonious like
the fictitious stories. It smacks of nonsense and perplexity, of
madness and dreams, like the lives of all men who do not wish to delude
themselves any longer.
The life of everyone is a way to himself, the search for a road,
the indication of a path. No man has ever yet attained to
self-realization; yet he strives thereafter, one ploddingly, another
with less effort, each as best he can. Each one carries the remains
of his birth, slime and eggshells of a primeval world, with him to
the end. Many a one will remain a frog, a lizard, an ant. Many a one
is top-part man and bottom-part fish. But everyone is a projection
of nature into manhood. To us all the same origin is common, our
mothers--we all come out of the womb. But each of us--an experiment,
one of nature’s litter, strives after his own ends. We can understand
one another; but each one is able to explain only himself.
CHAPTER ONE
TWO WORLDS
I will begin my story with an event of the time when I was ten or
eleven years old and went to the Latin school of our little town. Much
of the old-time fragrance is wafted back to me, but my sensations
are not unmixed, as I pass in review my memories--dark streets and
bright houses and towers, the striking of clocks and the features of
men, comfortable and homely rooms, rooms full of secrecy and dread of
ghosts. I sense again the atmosphere of cosy warmth, of rabbits and
servant-girls, of household remedies and dried fruit. Two worlds passed
there one through the other. From two poles came forth day and night.
The one world was my home, but it was even narrower than that, for it
really comprised only my parents. This world was for the most part
very well known to me; it meant mother and father, love and severity,
good example and school. It was a world of subdued lustre, of clarity
and cleanliness; here were tender friendly words, washed hands, clean
clothes and good manners. Here the morning hymn was sung, and Christmas
was kept.
In this world were straight lines and paths which led into the future;
here were duty and guilt, evil conscience and confession, pardon and
good resolutions, love and adoration, Bible texts and wisdom. To this
world our future had to belong, it had to be crystal-pure, beautiful
and well ordered.
The other world, however, began right in the midst of our own
household, and was entirely different, had another odor, another
manner of speech and made different promises and demands. In this
second world were servant-girls and workmen, ghost stories and breath
of scandal. There was a gaily colored flood of monstrous, tempting,
terrible, enigmatical goings-on, things such as the slaughter house and
prison, drunken men and scolding women, cows in birth-throes, plunging
horses, tales of burglaries, murders, suicides. All these beautiful and
dreadful, wild and cruel things were round about, in the next street,
in the next house. Policemen and tramps passed to and fro, drunken
men beat their wives, crowds of young girls flowed out of factories
in the evening, old women were able to bewitch you and make you ill,
robbers dwelt in the wood, incendiaries were rounded up by mounted
policemen--everywhere seethed and reeked this second, passionate world,
everywhere, except in our rooms, where mother and father were. And
that was a good thing. It was wonderful that here in our house there
were peace, order and repose, duty and a good conscience, pardon and
love--and wonderful that there were also all the other things, all
that was loud and shrill, sinister and violent, yet from which one
could escape with one bound to mother.
And the oddest thing was, how closely the two worlds bordered each
other, how near they both were! For instance, our servant Lina, as
she sat by the sitting-room door at evening prayers, and sang the
hymn with her bright voice, her freshly washed hands laid on her
smoothed-out apron, belonged absolutely to father and mother, to us,
to what was bright and proper. Immediately after, in the kitchen or in
the woodshed, when she was telling me the tale of the headless dwarf,
or when she quarreled with the women of the neighborhood in the little
butcher’s shop, then she was another person, belonged to the other
world, and was enveloped in mystery. It was the same with everything
and everyone, especially with myself. To be sure, I belonged to the
bright, respectable world, I was my parents’ child, but the other
world was present in everything I saw and heard, and I also lived in
it, although it was often strange and foreign to me, although one had
there regularly a bad conscience and anxiety. Sometimes I even liked
to live in the forbidden world best, and often the homecoming into the
brightness--however necessary and good it might be--seemed almost like
a return to something less beautiful, to something more uninteresting
and desolate. At times I realized this: my aim in life was to grow
up like my father and mother, as bright and pure, as systematic and
superior. But the road to attainment was long, you had to go to school
and study and pass tests and examinations. The road led past the other
dark world and through it, and it was not improbable that you would
remain there and be buried in it. There were stories of prodigal sons
to whom that had happened--I was passionately fond of reading them.
There the return home to father and to the respectable world was always
so liberating and so sublime, I quite felt that this alone was right
and good and desirable. But still that part of the stories which dealt
with the wicked and profligate was by far the most alluring, and if one
had been allowed to acknowledge it openly, it was really often a great
pity that the prodigal repented and was redeemed. But one did not say
that, nor did one actually think it. It was only present somehow or
other as a presentiment or a possibility, deep down in one’s feelings.
When I pictured the devil to myself, I could quite well imagine him
down below in the street, openly or in disguise, or at the annual fair
or in the public house, but I could never imagine him with us at home.
My sisters also belonged to the bright world. It often seemed to me
that they approached more nearly to father and mother; that they were
better and nicer mannered than myself, without so many faults. They had
their failings, they were naughty, but that did not seem to me to be
deep-rooted. It was not the same as for me, for whom the contact with
evil was strong and painful, and the dark world so much nearer. My
sisters, like my parents, were to be treated with regard and respect.
If you had had a quarrel with them, your own conscience accused you
afterwards as the wrongdoer and the cause of the squabble, as the
one who had to beg pardon. For in opposing my sisters I offended my
parents, the representatives of goodness and law. There were secrets
which I would much sooner have shared with the most depraved street
urchins than with my sisters. On good, bright days when I had a good
conscience, it was often delightful to play with my sisters, to be
gentle and nice to them, and to see myself under a halo of goodness.
That was how it must be if you were an angel! That was the most sublime
thing we knew, to be an angel, surrounded by sweet sounds and fragrance
like Christmas and happiness. But, oh, how seldom were such days and
hours perfect! Often when we were playing one of the nice, harmless,
proper games I was so vehement and impetuous, and I so annoyed my
sisters that we quarreled and were unhappy. Then when I was carried
away by anger I did and said things, the wickedness of which I felt
deep and burning within me, even while I was doing and saying them.
Then came sad, dark hours of remorse and contrition, the painful moment
when I begged pardon, then again a beam of light, a peaceful, grateful
happiness without discord, for minutes or hours.
I used to go to the Latin school. The sons of the mayor and of the head
forester were in my class and sometimes used to come to our house. They
were wild boys, but still they belonged to the world of goodness and of
propriety. In spite of that I had close relations with neighbors’ boys,
children of the public school, whom in general we despised. With one of
these I must begin my story.
One half-holiday--I was little more than ten at the time--I went
out with two boys of the neighborhood. A public-school boy of about
thirteen years joined our party; he was bigger than we were, a coarse
and robust fellow, the son of a tailor. His father was a drunkard, and
the whole family had a bad reputation. I knew Frank Kromer well, I
was afraid of him, and was very much displeased when he joined us. He
had already acquired manly ways, and imitated the gait and manner of
speech of the young factory hands. Under his leadership we stepped down
to the bank of the stream and hid ourselves from the world under the
first arch of the bridge. The little bank between the vaulted bridge
wall and the sluggishly flowing water was composed of nothing but
trash, of broken china and garbage, of twisted bundles of rusty iron
wire and other rubbish. You sometimes found there useful things. We
had to search the stretch under Frank Kromer’s direction and show him
what we found. He then either kept it himself or threw it away into the
water. He bid us note whether the things were of lead, brass or tin.
Everything we found of this description he kept for himself, as well as
an old horn comb. I felt very uneasy in his company, not because I knew
that father would have forbidden our playing together had he known of
it, but through fear of Frank himself. I was glad that he treated me
like the others. He commanded and we obeyed; it seemed habitual to me,
although that was the first time I was with him.
At last we sat down. Frank spat into the water and looked like a full
grown man; he spat through a gap in his teeth, directing the sputum in
any direction he wished. He began a conversation, and the boys vied
with one another in bragging of schoolboy exploits and pranks. I was
silent, and yet, if I said nothing, I was afraid of calling attention
to myself and inciting Kromer’s anger against me. My two comrades had
from the beginning turned their backs on me, and had sided with him;
I was a stranger among them, and I felt my clothes and manner to be
a provocation. It was impossible that Frank should like me, a Latin
schoolboy and the son of a gentleman, and the other two, I felt, as
soon as it came to the point, would disown me and leave me in the lurch.
At last, through mere fright, I also began to relate a story. I
invented a long narration of theft, of which I made myself the hero. In
a garden by the mill on the corner, I recounted, I had one night with
the help of a friend stolen a whole sack of apples, and those none of
the ordinary sorts, but russets and golden pippins, the very best. In
the danger of the moment I had recourse to the telling of this story,
which I invented easily and recounted readily. In order not to have to
finish off immediately, and so perhaps be led from bad to worse, I gave
full scope to my inventive powers. One of us, I continued, always had
to stand sentinel, while the other was throwing down apples from the
tree, and the sack had become so heavy that at last we had to open it
again and leave half the apples behind; but we returned at the end of
half an hour and took the rest away with us.
I hoped at the end to gain some little applause, I had warmed to my
work and had let myself go in my narration. The two small boys waited
quiet and expectant, but Frank Kromer looked at me penetratingly
through half-closed eyes and asked me in a threatening tone:
“Is that true?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Really and truly?”
“Yes, really and truly,” I asserted defiantly, though inwardly I was
stifling through fear.
“Can you swear to it?”
I was terribly frightened, but I answered without hesitation: “Yes.”
“Then say: ‘I swear by God and all that’s holy’!”
I said: “I swear by God and all that’s holy!”
“Aw, gwan!” said he and turned away.
I thought that everything was now all right, and was glad when he got
up and made for the town. When we were on the bridge I said timidly
that I must now go home. “Don’t be in such a hurry,” laughed Frank,
“we both go the same way.” He dawdled on, and I dared not tear myself
away, especially as he was actually taking the road to our house. As we
arrived, I looked at the heavy brass-knocker, the sun on the window and
the curtains in my mother’s room, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Home
at last! What a blessing it was to be at home again, to return to the
brightness and peace of the family circle!
As I quickly opened the door and slipped inside, ready to shut it
behind me, Frank Kromer forced his way in as well. He stood beside
me in the cool, dark stone corridor which was only lighted from the
courtyard, held me by the arm and said softly: “Not so fast, you!”
Terrified, I looked at him. His grip on my arm was one of iron. I tried
to think what he had in his mind, whether he was going to maltreat me.
I wondered, if I should scream, whether anyone would come down quickly
enough to save me. But I gave up the idea.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “What d’you want?”
“Nothing much. I only want to ask you something--something the others
needn’t hear.”
“Well, what do you want me to tell you? I must go upstairs, you know.”
“You know, don’t you, whose orchard that is by the mill on the corner?”
said Frank softly.
“No, I don’t know; I think it’s the miller’s.”
Frank had wound his arm round me, and he drew me quite close to him, so
that I had to look up directly into his face. His look boded ill, he
smiled maliciously, and his face was full of cruelty and power.
“Now, kid, I can tell you whose the garden is. I have known for a long
time that the apples had been stolen, and I also know that the man said
he would give two marks to anyone who would tell him who stole the
fruit.”
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed. “But you won’t tell him anything?” I felt
it was useless to appeal to his sense of honor. He came from the other
world; for him betrayal was no crime. I felt that for a certainty. In
these matters people from the “other” world were not like us.
“Say nothing?” laughed Kromer. “Look here, my friend, d’you think I am
minting money and can make two shilling pieces myself? I’m a poor chap,
and I haven’t got a rich father like yours, and when I get the chance
of earning two shillings I must take it. He might even give me more.”
Suddenly he let me go free. Our house no longer gave me an impression
of peace and safety, the world fell to pieces around me. He would
report me as a criminal, my father would be told, perhaps even the
police might come for me. The terror of utter chaos menaced me, all
that was ugly and dangerous was aligned against me. The fact that I
had not stolen at all did not count in the least. I had sworn to it
besides. O dear, O dear!
I burst into tears. I felt I must buy myself off. Despairingly I
searched all my pockets. Not an apple, not a penknife, absolutely
nothing. All at once I thought of my watch. It was an old silver one
which wouldn’t go. I wore it for no special reason. It came down to me
from my grandmother. I drew it out quickly.
“Kromer,” I said, “listen, you mustn’t give me away, that wouldn’t be
nice of you. Look here, I will give you my watch; I haven’t anything
else, worse luck! You can have it, it’s a silver one; the mechanism is
good, there is one little thing wrong, that’s all, it needs repairing.”
He smiled and took the watch in his big hand. I looked at his hand and
felt how coarse and hostile it was, how it grasped at my life and peace.
“It’s silver,” I said, timidly.
“I wouldn’t give a straw for your silver and your old watch!” he said
with deep scorn. “Get it repaired yourself!”
“But, Frank,” I exclaimed, quivering with fear lest he should go away.
“Wait a minute. Do take the watch! It’s really silver, really and
truly. And I haven’t got anything else.” He gave me a cold and scornful
look.
“Very well, then, you know who I am going to; or I can tell the police.
I know the sergeant very well.”
He turned to go. I held him back by the sleeve. I could not let that
happen. I would much rather have died than bear all that would take
place if he went away like that.
“Frank,” I implored, hoarse with emotion, “please don’t do anything
silly! Tell me it’s only a joke, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, a joke, but it might cost you dear.”
“Do tell me, Frank, what to do. I’ll do anything!” He examined me
critically through his screwed-up eyes and laughed again.
“Don’t be silly,” he said with affected affability. “You know as well
as I do. I’ve got the chance of earning a couple of marks, and I’m not
such a rich fellow that I can afford to throw it away, you know that
well enough. But you’re rich, why, you’ve even got a watch. You need
only give me just two marks and everything will be all right.”
I understood his logic. But two marks! For me that was as much, and
just as unobtainable, as ten, as a hundred, as a thousand marks. I
had no money. There was a money box that my mother kept for me, with a
couple of ten and five pfennig pieces inside which I received from my
uncle when he paid us a visit, or from similar sources. I had nothing
else. At that age I received no pocket-money at all.
“I have nothing,” I said sadly. “I have no money at all. But I’ll give
you everything I have. I’ve got a book about red Indians, and also
soldiers, and a compass. I’ll get that for you.”
But Kromer only screwed up his evil mouth, and spat on the ground.
“Quit your jawing,” he said commandingly. “You can keep your old trash
yourself. A compass! Don’t make me angry, d’you hear? And hand over the
money!”
“But I haven’t any. I never get money. I can’t help it.”
“Very well, then, you’ll bring me the two marks in the morning. I shall
wait for you in the market after school. That’s all. If you don’t bring
any money, look out!”
“Yes; but where shall I get it, then? Good Lord! if I haven’t any----”
“There’s enough money in your house. That’s your business. To-morrow
after school, then. And I tell you: If you don’t bring it----”
His eyes darted a terrible look at me, he spat again and vanished like
a shadow.
I could not go upstairs. My life was ruined. I wondered if I should
run away and never come back, or go and drown myself. But these
thoughts were not clearly formulated. I sat crouched in the dark on the
bottom step and I surrendered myself to my misfortune. There Lina found
me in tears as she came down with a basket to get wood.
I begged her to say nothing on her return and I went up. My father’s
hat and my mother’s sunshade hung on the rack near the glass door. All
these things reminded me of home and tenderness, my heart went out to
them imploringly and, grateful for their existence, I felt like the
prodigal son when he looked into his old homely room and sensed its
familiar atmosphere. All this, the bright father-and-mother world, was
mine no longer, and I was buried deeply and guiltily in the strange
flood, ensnared in sinful adventures, beset by enemies and dangers,
menaced by shame and terror. The hat and sunshade, the good old
sandstone floor, the big picture over the hall cupboard, and the voice
of my elder sister in the living-room, all this was dearer and more
precious to me than ever, but it was no longer consolation and secure
possession. All of it was now a reproach. All this belonged to me no
more, I could share no more in its cheerfulness and peace. I carried
mud on my shoes that I could not wipe off on the mat, I brought shadows
in with me, of which the home-world had no knowledge. How many secrets
had I already had, how many cares--but that was play, a mere nothing
compared with what I was bringing in with me that day.
Fate was overtaking me, hands were stretched out after me, from which
even my mother could not protect me, of which she was to be allowed no
knowledge. It was all the same, whether my offense was thieving, or
a lie (had I not taken a false oath by God?). My sin was not this or
that, I had tendered my hand to the devil. Why did I follow him? Why
had I obeyed Kromer, more than ever I did my father? Why had I falsely
invented the story of the theft? Why had I plumed myself on having
committed a crime, as if it had been a deed of heroism? Now the devil
had me by the hand, now the evil one was pursuing me.
For a moment I felt no further dread of the morrow, but I had the
terrible certainty that my way was leading me further and further
downhill and into the darkness. I realized clearly that from my
wrongdoing other wrongdoings must result, that the greetings and kisses
I gave to my parents would be a lie, that a secret destiny I should
have to conceal hung over me.
For an instant confidence and hope came to me like a lightning flash
as I gazed at my father’s hat. I would tell him everything, would
accept his judgment and the punishment he might mete out; he would
be my confidant and would save me. Confession was all that would be
necessary, as I had made so many confessions before--a difficult
bitter hour, a serious, remorseful plea for forgiveness.
How sweetly that sounded! How tempting that was! But nothing came of
it. I knew that I should not do it. I knew that I had now a secret,
that I was burdened with guilt for which I myself would have to bear
the responsibility alone. Perhaps I was at this very moment at the
cross-roads, perhaps from this hour henceforth I should have to belong
to the wicked, forever share secrets with the bad, depend on them, obey
them, and become as one of themselves. I had pretended to be a man and
a hero, now I had to take the consequences.
I was glad that my father, as he entered, found fault with my wet
boots. It diverted his attention from something worse, and I allowed
myself to suffer his reproach, secretly thinking of the other. That
gave birth to a peculiar new feeling in me, an evil cutting feeling
like a barbed hook. I felt superior to my father! I felt, for an
instant’s duration, a certain scorn of his ignorance; his scolding over
the wet boots seemed to me petty. “If you only knew!” I thought, and
looked upon myself as a criminal who is being tried for having stolen a
loaf of bread, while he ought to confess to having committed murder. It
was an ugly and repugnant feeling, yet strong and not without a certain
charm, and it chained me to my secret and my guilt more securely than
anything else. Perhaps Kromer has already gone to the police and given
me away, I thought, and a storm is threatening to break over my head,
while here I am looked upon as a mere child!
This was the important and permanent element of the whole event up to
this point of my narration. It was the first cleft in the sacredness of
parenthood, it was the first split in the pillar on which my childhood
had reposed, and which everyone must overthrow, before he can attain to
self-realization. The inward, fundamental basis of our destiny is built
up from these events, which no outsider observes. Such a split or cleft
grows together again, heals up and is forgotten, but in the most secret
chamber of the soul it continues to live and bleed.
I myself felt immediate terror in the presence of this new feeling, I
would have liked to embrace my father’s feet there and then, to beg his
forgiveness. But one cannot beg pardon for something fundamental, and a
child knows and feels that as well and as deeply as any adult.
I felt the need to think over the affair and to consider ways and means
for the morrow; but I did not get around to it. My whole evening was
taken up solely in accustoming myself to the changed atmosphere of our
living-room. Clock and table, Bible and looking-glass, bookcase and
pictures seemed all to be saying good-bye to me. With freezing heart I
had to stand by and watch my world, the good happy time of my life,
sever itself from me, to be relegated to the past. I was forced to
realize that I was being held fast to new sucking roots in the darkness
of the unfamiliar world outside. For the first time I tasted death, and
death tasted bitter, for it is birth, with the terror and fear of a
formidable renewal.
I was glad to be lying at last in bed. But first I had passed through
purgatory in the form of evening prayers, and we had sung a hymn, one
of my favorite ones. Alas! I did not join in, and each note was gall
and poison for me. I did not join in the common prayer, either, when
my father gave the blessing, and when he finished: “Be with us all!”
I tore myself convulsively from the circle. The grace of God was with
them all, but with me no longer. Cold and very tired, I went away.
After I had lain awhile in bed, wrapped around in warmth and safety,
my troubled heart strayed back once again, and fluttered uneasily in
the past. Mother had wished me good-night, as she always did, her step
sounded yet in the room, the light of her candle gleamed through the
crack in the door. Now, I thought, now she will come back again--she
has felt my need, she will give me a kiss and will ask, in tones kind
and full of promise, what is the matter. Then I can weep, the lump in
my throat will melt away, I will throw my arms about her and will tell
her, and everything will be right--I shall be saved! And when the crack
in the door had become dark again I still listened for a while and
thought--she must come, she must.
Then I came back to reality, and looked my enemy in the face. I saw him
clearly, he had one eye closed, his mouth laughed uncouthly. While I
gazed at him and the inevitable gnawed at my heart, he became bigger
and more ugly, and his wicked eye lit up devilishly. He was close
beside me, until I dropped off to sleep. But I did not dream of him,
nor of the day’s events. I dreamed instead that we were in a boat, my
parents, my sisters and I, lapped in peace and the brightness of a
holiday. I woke up in the middle of the night, with the aftertaste of
bliss. I still saw the white summer dresses of my sisters glistening in
the sun, and then fell from my paradise back to reality, and the enemy
with the wicked eye stood opposite me.
I looked ill when mother came in quickly in the morning and told me how
late it was and wanted to know why I was still in bed, and when she
asked what was the matter with me, I vomited.
But I seemed to have gained a point. I rather liked to be somewhat ill
and to be allowed to spend the morning in bed drinking chamomile tea,
to listen to mother clearing-up in the next room, and to hear Lina
outside in the corridor opening the door to the butcher. To stay away
from morning school was rather like a fairy-story, and the sun which
played in the room was not the same you saw through the green curtains
at school. But to-day all this had lost its charm for me. It had a
false ring about it.
If I had died! But I was only slightly ill, as I had often been before,
and nothing was gained by that. It prevented me from going to school,
but it did not protect me in any way from Kromer, who would be waiting
for me in the market at eleven o’clock. And mother’s friendliness
was this time without comfort; it was burdensome and painful. I soon
pretended to be asleep again, and thought the matter over, but all
to no purpose--I had to be in the market at eleven o’clock. For that
reason I got up at ten, and said that I was better. As usual in such
cases I was told that either I must go back to bed or go to school in
the afternoon. I said I would rather go to school. I had formed a plan.
I dared not go to Kromer without money. I had to get possession of the
little savings box which belonged to me. There was not enough money in
it, far from enough, I knew; but it was still a little, and something
told me that a little was better than nothing; for at least Kromer had
to be appeased.
I felt horrible as I crept in my socks into my mother’s room and took
my box from her writing table; but it was not so horrible as the
previous day’s experience. My heart beat so fast I nearly died, and
it was no better when I found, at the first look, down below on the
stairs, that the box was locked. It was easy to break it open, it
was only necessary to cut through a thin plate of tin; but the action
caused me pain, for only in doing this was I committing theft. Up to
then I had only taken lumps of sugar and fruit on the sly. Now I had
stolen something, although it was my own money. I realized I had taken
a step nearer Kromer and his world, that I was slipping gradually
downwards--and I adopted an attitude of defiance. The devil could run
away with me if he liked, there was no way out. I anxiously counted
the money, it had sounded so much in the box, now in my hand it was
miserably little. There were sixty-five pfennigs. I hid the box in the
basement, held the money in my closed fist and went out of the house,
with a feeling different from any with which I had ever left the portal
before. Someone called to me from above, I thought, but I went quickly
on my way.
There was still plenty of time. I sneaked by a roundabout way through
the streets of a changed town, beneath clouds I had never seen before,
by houses which seemed to spy on me, and people who suspected me. On
the way I recollected that one of my school friends had once found a
thaler in the cattle market. I would have liked to pray to God to work
a miracle and allow me to make such a treasure-trove. But I had no
longer the right to pray. And even then the box would not be made whole
again.
Frank Kromer saw me in the distance. However, he came along very
slowly and seemed not to be looking out for me. As he approached me he
beckoned me commandingly to follow. He passed on tranquilly, without
once looking round, went down Straw Street and over the bridge, and
stopped on the outskirts of the town in front of a new building. No
one was working there, the walls stood bare, without doors or windows.
Kromer looked round and then went through the doorway. I followed him.
He stepped behind the wall, beckoned to me and stretched out his hand.
“That makes sixty-five pfennigs,” he said and looked at me.
“Yes,” I said timidly. “That’s all I have--it’s too little, I know, but
it’s all. I haven’t any more.”
“I thought you were cleverer than that,” he exclaimed, blaming me in
what were almost mild terms. “Between men of honor there must be honest
dealing. I will not take anything from you, except what is right.
You know that. Take your pfennigs back, there! The other--you know
who--doesn’t try to beat me down. He pays.”
“But I have absolutely nothing else. That was my money box.”
“That’s your affair. But I don’t want to make you unhappy. You still
owe me one mark thirty-five pfennig. When can I have it?”
“Oh, you will soon have it, certainly, Kromer. I don’t know
yet--perhaps to-morrow, or the day after, I shall have some more. You
understand that I can’t tell my father, don’t you?”
“That’s no concern of mine. I don’t want to harm you. If I liked, I
could get the money before noon, you see, and I’m poor. You wear nice
clothes, and you get something better to eat for dinner than I do. But
I won’t say anything. I am willing to wait a few days. The day after
to-morrow, in the afternoon, I will whistle for you, then you will
bring it along. You can recognize my whistle?”
He gave me a whistle that I had often heard before.
“Yes,” I said, “I know it.”
He went away, as if I didn’t belong to him. It had been only a
transaction between us, nothing further.
Even to-day, I believe, Kromer’s whistle would terrify me if I heard
it again suddenly. From then on I heard it often. It seemed I heard it
continually and always. No place, no game, no work, no idea in which
this whistle would not sound. I was dependent on it, it was now the
messenger of my fate. On mild, glowing autumn afternoons I was often in
our little flower garden, which I loved dearly. A peculiar impulse made
me take up again boyish games which I had played formerly. I played, as
it were, that I was a boy who was younger than I, who was still good
and free, innocent and secure. But in the middle of the game, always
expected and yet always terribly disturbing and surprising sounded
Kromer’s whistle, destroying the picture my imagination had painted.
Then I had to go, I had to follow my tormentor to evil and ugly places,
had to render an account and let myself be dunned. The whole business
may have lasted a few weeks, but it seemed to me like a year, or an
eternity. I seldom had money--a five or ten pfennig piece stolen from
the kitchen table when Lina left the market basket standing there.
Each time I was blamed by Kromer, and heaped with abuse; it was I who
deceived him and kept back what was his due, it was I who robbed him
and made him unhappy! Seldom in life has need so oppressed me, seldom
have I felt a greater helplessness, a greater dependence.
I had filled up the savings box with toy money--no one made any
enquiries. But that as well could be discovered any day. I was even
more afraid of mother than of Kromer’s harsh whistle, especially when
she stepped up to me softly--was she not going to ask me about the
money box?
As I presented myself to my evil genius several times without money he
began to torment and to make use of me after a different fashion. I
had to work for him. He had to see to various things for his father.
I did that for him or he made me do something more difficult, hop on
one leg for ten minutes, or fasten a scrap of paper on to the coat of
a passer-by. Many nights these torments realized themselves in my
dreams, and I wept and broke out in a cold sweat in my nightmare.
For a time I was ill. I often vomited and felt cold, but at night I
lay in a fever, bathed in perspiration. Mother felt that something was
wrong and displayed much sympathy on my behalf, but this tortured me
because I could not respond by confiding in her.
One evening, after I had already gone to bed, she brought me a piece
of chocolate. This action was a souvenir of former years when, if I
had been good, I was often rewarded in this way before going off to
sleep. Now she stood there and held the piece of chocolate out to me.
This so pained me that I could do nothing but shake my head. She asked
what was the matter with me and stroked my hair. I could only sob out:
“Nothing! nothing! I won’t have anything.” She put the chocolate on my
bed table and went away. When she wished subsequently to question me
on the matter I made as if I knew nothing about it. Once she brought
the doctor to me, who examined me and prescribed cold ablutions in the
morning.
My state at that time was a sort of insanity. I was shy and lived in
torment like a ghost in the midst of the well-ordered peace of our
house. I had no part in the others’ lives, and could seldom, even for
as much as an hour, forget my miserable existence. In the presence of
my father, who often took me to task in an irritated fashion, I was
reserved and wrapped up in myself.
CHAPTER TWO
CAIN
Deliverance from my troubles came from quite an unexpected quarter, and
with it something new entered into my life, which has up to the present
day exercised a strong influence.
A short time before we had had a new boy at our Latin school. He was
the son of a well-to-do widow who had moved to our town. He was in
mourning and wore a crape band round his sleeve. His form was above
mine, and he was several years older, but I soon began to take notice
of him, as did all of us. This remarkable boy impressed one as being
much older than he looked. He made on no one the impression of being a
mere schoolboy. With us childish youngsters he was as distant and as
mature as a man, or rather, as a gentleman. He was by no means popular,
he took no part in the games, much less in the fooling. It was only the
self-conscious and decided tone which he adopted towards the masters
that pleased the others. His name was Max Demian.
One day it happened, as it occasionally did in our school, that for
some cause or other, another class was sent into our large schoolroom.
It was Demian’s form. We little ones were having Biblical history, the
big ones had to write an essay. While we were having the story of Cain
and Abel knocked into us, I kept looking across at Demian, whose face
fascinated me strangely, and saw his wise, bright, more than ordinarily
strong features bent attentively and thoughtfully over his task. He did
not look at all like a schoolboy doing an exercise, but like a research
worker solving a problem. I did not find him really agreeable. On the
contrary, I had one or two little things against him. With me he was
too distant and superior, he was much too provokingly sure of himself,
and the expression of his eyes was that of an adult--which children
never like--rather sad with occasional flashes of scorn. Yet I could
not resist looking at him, whether I liked him or not. But the minute
he looked in my direction I looked away, somewhat frightened. If to-day
I consider what he looked like as a schoolboy, I can say that he was
in every respect different from the others, and bore the stamp of a
striking personality and therefore attracted attention. But at the same
time he did everything to prevent himself from being remarked--he bore
and conducted himself like a disguised prince who finds himself among
peasant boys and makes every effort to appear like them.
He was behind me on the way home from school. When the others had run
on, he overtook me and said: “Hello!” Even his manner of greeting,
although he imitated our schoolboy tone of voice, was polite and like
that of a grown-up person.
“Shall we go a little way together?” he questioned in a friendly way. I
was flattered and nodded. Then I described to him where I lived.
“Oh, there?” he said laughingly. “I know the house already. There is a
remarkable work of art over your door, which interested me at once.”
I did not guess immediately to what he was referring, and was
astonished that he seemed to know our house better than I did. There
was indeed a sort of crest which served as a keystone over the arch of
the door, but in course of time it had become faint and had often been
painted over. As far as I knew, it had nothing to do with us, or with
our family.
“I don’t know anything about it,” I said timidly. “It’s a bird, or
something like it; it must be very old. They say that the house at one
time belonged to the abbey.”
“Very likely,” he nodded. “We’ll have another good look at it. Such
things are often interesting. It is a hawk, I think.”
We continued our way. I was considerably embarrassed. Suddenly Demian
laughed, as if something funny had struck him.
“Oh, I was present at your lesson,” he said with animation. “The story
of Cain, who carried the mark on his forehead, was it not? Do you like
it?”
Generally I used not to like anything of all the things we had to
learn. But I did not dare to say so--it was as though a grown-up person
were talking to me. I said I liked the story very much.
Demian tapped me on the shoulder. “No need to impose on me, old fellow.
But the story is really rather remarkable. I think it is much more
remarkable than most of the others we get at school. The master didn’t
say very much about it, only the usual things about God and sin, et
cetera. But I believe----” he broke off, smiled, and questioned: “But
does it interest you?”
“Well,” he continued, “I think one can conceive this story of Cain
quite differently. Most things we are taught are certainly quite true
and right, but one can consider them all from a different standpoint
from the master’s, and most of them have a much better meaning then.
For instance, we can’t be quite content with the explanation given us
with regard to this fellow Cain and the mark on his forehead. Don’t
you find it so, too? It certainly might happen that he should kill
one of his brothers in a quarrel, it is also possible that he should
afterwards be afraid, and have to come down a peg. But that he should
be singled out into the bargain with a decoration for his cowardice,
which protects him and strikes terror into everyone else, that is
really rather odd.”
“Certainly,” I said, interested. The case began to interest me. “But
how else should one explain the story?” He clapped me on the shoulder.
“Quite simply! The essential fact, and the point of departure of the
story, was the sign. Here was a man who had something in his face which
terrified other people. They did not dare to molest him, he made a big
impression on them, he and his children. Perhaps, or rather certainly,
it was not really a sign on his forehead like an office stamp--things
are not as simple as that in real life. I would sooner think it was
something scarcely perceptible, of a peculiar nature--a little more
intelligence and boldness in his look than people were accustomed to.
This man had power, other people shrank from him. He had a ‘sign.’
One could explain that as one wished. And one always wishes what is
convenient and agrees with one’s opinions. People were afraid of Cain’s
children, they had a ‘sign.’ And so they explained the sign not as it
really was, a distinction, but as the contrary. The fellows with this
sign were said to be peculiar, and they were courageous as well. People
with courage and character are always called peculiar by other people.
That a race of fearless and peculiar men should rove about was very
embarrassing. And so people attached a surname and a story to this
race, in order to revenge themselves on it, in order to compensate
themselves more or less for all the terror with which it had inspired
them. Do you understand?”
“Yes--that means to say, then--that Cain was not at all wicked? And the
whole story in the Bible isn’t really true?”
“Yes and no. Such ancient, primitive stories are always true, but they
have not always been recorded and explained in the proper manner. In
short, I mean that Cain was a thundering good fellow, and this story
got attached to his name simply because people were afraid of him. The
story was merely a report, something people might have set going in a
gossiping way, and it was true in so far as Cain and his children did
actually wear a sort of ‘sign’ and were different from most people.”
I was much astonished.
“And do you believe then, that the affair of the murder is absolutely
untrue?” I asked, much impressed.
“Not at all! It is certainly true. The strong man killed a weak one.
One may doubt of course whether it was really his brother or not. It
is not important, for, in the end, all men are brothers. A strong man,
then, has killed a weak one. Perhaps it was a deed of heroism, perhaps
it was not. But in any case the other weak people were terrified,
they lamented and complained, and when they were asked: ‘Why don’t
you simply kill him as well?’ they did not answer, ‘Because we are
cowards,’ but they said instead: ‘You can’t. He has a sign. God has
singled him out!’ The humbug must have arisen something after this
style---- Oh, I am keeping you from going in. Good-bye, then!”
He turned into Old Street and left me alone, more astonished than I
had ever been before. Scarcely had he gone when everything that he
had said seemed to me quite unbelievable! Cain a noble fellow, Abel a
coward! Cain’s sign a distinction! It was absurd, it was blasphemous
and infamous. What was God’s part in the matter? Had he not accepted
Abel’s sacrifice, did he not love Abel? Demian’s story was nonsense!
I suspected him of making fun of me and of wishing to mislead me. The
devil of a clever fellow, and he could talk, but--well----
Still, I had never thought so much about any of the Biblical or other
stories before. And for some time past I had never so completely
forgotten Frank Kromer, for hours, for a whole evening. At home I
read through the story once again, as it stands in the Bible, short
and clear. It was quite foolish to try to find a special, secret
meaning. If it had one, every murderer could look upon himself as a
favorite of God! No, it was nonsense. But Demian had a nice way of
saying such things, so easily and pleasantly, as if everything were
self-evident--and then his eyes!
My ideas were certainly a little upset, or rather they were very much
confused. I had lived in a bright, clean world, I myself had been a
sort of Abel, and now I was so firmly fixed in the other and had
sunk so deeply, but really what could I do to help it? What was my
position now? A reminiscence glowed in me which for the moment almost
took away my breath. I remembered that wretched evening, from which my
present misery dated, when I looked for an instant into the heart of my
father’s bright world and despised his wisdom! Then I was Cain and bore
the sign; I imagined that it was in no way shameful, but a distinction,
and in my wickedness and unhappiness I stood on a higher level than my
father, higher than good and pious people.
It was not in such a clear-thinking way that my experience then
presented itself to me, but all this was contained therein. It was only
a flaming up of feeling, of strange emotions which caused me pain and
yet filled me with pride.
When I considered the matter, I saw how strangely Demian had spoken of
the fearless and the cowards! How curiously he had explained the mark
on Cain’s forehead. How singularly his eyes had lit up, those peculiar
eyes of a grown person! And indistinctly it shot through my brain: Is
not he himself, this Demian, a sort of Cain? Why did he defend him, if
he did not feel like him? Why had he this force in his gaze? Why did he
speak so scornfully of the “others,” of the fearsome, who are really
the pious and the well-considered of God?
This thought led me to no definite conclusion. A stone had fallen into
the well, and the well was my young soul. And this business with Cain,
the murder and the sign, was for a long, a very long, time the point
from which my seekings after knowledge, my doubts and my criticisms
took their departure.
I noticed that the other boys also occupied themselves a good deal with
Demian. I had not told anyone of his version of the story of Cain,
but he appeared to interest the others as well. At least, many rumors
concerning the “new boy” became current. If only I still knew all of
them, each would help to throw fresh light on him, each would serve
to interpret him. I only remember the first rumor was that Demian’s
mother was very rich. It was also said that she never went to church,
nor the son either. Another rumor had it that they were Jews, but they
could just as easily have been, in secret, Mohammedans. Furthermore,
tales were told of Max Demian’s strength. So much was certain, that the
strongest boy in his form, who challenged him to a fight, and who at
his refusal branded him coward, suffered a terrible humiliation at his
hands. Those who were there said that Demian had simply taken him by
the nape of the neck with one hand and had brought such a pressure to
bear that the boy went white and afterwards crawled away, and that for
several days he was unable to use his arm. For a whole evening a rumor
even ran that he was dead. For a time everything was asserted and
believed, everything that was exciting and wonderful. Then there was
a satiety of rumors for a while. A little later new ones circulated,
which asserted that Demian had intimate relations with girls and “knew
everything.”
Meanwhile my affair with Frank Kromer took its inevitable course. I
could not get away from him, for although he left me in peace for
days together, I was still bound to him. In my dreams he lived as my
shadow, and thus my fantasy credited him with actions which he did not,
in reality, do; so that in dreams I was absolutely his slave. I lived
in these dreams--I was always a deep dreamer--more than in reality.
These shadowy conceptions wasted my strength and my life force. I often
dreamed, among other things, that Kromer ill-treated me, that he spat
on me and knelt on me and, what was worse, that he led me to commit
grave crimes--or rather I was not led, but simply forced, through his
powerful influence. The most terrible of these dreams, from which I
woke up half mad, presented itself as a murderous attack on my father.
Kromer whetted a knife and put it in my hand, as we were standing
behind the trees of a lane, and lying in wait for someone--whom I knew
not; but when someone came along and Kromer through a pressure of the
arm informed me that this was the man, whom I was to stab, it turned
out to be my father! Then I woke up.
With all these troubles, I still thought a great deal about Cain and
Abel, but much less about Demian. It was, strangely enough, in a dream
that he first came in contact with me again. I dreamed once more, of
assault and ill-treatment which I suffered, but instead of Kromer,
this time it was Demian who knelt upon me. And, what was quite new and
profoundly impressive, everything that I suffered resistingly and in
torment at the hands of Kromer, I suffered willingly from Demian, with
a feeling which was composed as much of joy as of fear. I had this
dream twice, then Kromer occupied his old position in my thoughts.
For a long time I have not been able to separate what I experienced in
these dreams from what I underwent in reality. But in any case my evil
relation with Kromer took its course, and was by no means at an end,
when I had at last, by petty thefts, paid the boy the sum owed. No, for
now he knew of these thefts, as he always asked me where the money came
from, and I was more in his hands than ever. He frequently threatened
to tell my father everything, and my terror then was scarcely as
great as the profound regret that I had not myself done that in the
beginning. However, miserable as I was, I did not repent of everything,
at least not always, and sometimes felt, I thought, that things could
not have helped being as they were. The hand of fate was upon me, and
it was useless to want to break away.
I conjecture that my parents suffered not a little in these
circumstances. A strange spirit had come over me, I no longer fitted
into our community which had been so intimate, and for which I often
felt a maddening homesickness, as for a lost paradise. I was treated,
particularly by mother, more like a sick person than like a miserable
wretch. But the actual state of affairs I was able to observe best
in the conduct of my two sisters. It was quite evident from their
behavior, which was very considerate and which yet caused me endless
pain, that I was a sort of person possessed, who was more to be pitied
than blamed for his condition, but yet in whom evil had taken up
residence. I felt that I was being prayed for in a different way from
formerly, and realized the fruitlessness of these prayers. I often felt
burning within me an intense longing for relief, an ardent desire for
a full confession, and yet I realized in advance that I should not be
able to tell everything to father and mother properly, in explanation
of my conduct. I knew that I should be received in a friendly way,
that much consideration and compassion would be shown me, but that I
should not be completely understood. The whole affair would have been
looked upon as a sort of backsliding, whereas it was really the work of
destiny.
I know that many people will not believe that a child scarcely eleven
years old could feel thus. But I am not relating my affairs for their
benefit. My narration is for those who know mankind better. The
grown-up person who has learned to convert part of his feelings into
thoughts, feels the absence of these ideas in a child, and comes to
believe that the experiences are likewise lacking. But they have seldom
been so vivid and not often in my life have I suffered as keenly as
then.
One rainy day I was ordered by my tormentor to Castle Place, and there
I stood, waiting and digging my feet in the wet chestnut leaves, which
were still falling regularly from the black, dripping branches. Money
I had none, but I had brought with me two pieces of cake that I had
stolen in order at least to be able to give Kromer something. I had
long since been accustomed to stand about in any odd corner waiting for
him often for a very long time, and I put up with the unalterable.
Kromer came at last. That day he did not stay long. He poked me several
times in the ribs, laughed, took the cake, and even offered me a mouldy
cigarette, which however I did not accept. He was more friendly than
usual.
“Oh,” he said, as he went away, “before I forget--next time you can
bring your sister along, the elder one. What’s her name? Now tell the
truth.”
I did not understand, and gave no answer. I only looked at him
wonderingly.
“Don’t you get me? You must bring your sister along.”
“But Kromer, that won’t do. I mustn’t do that, and besides she wouldn’t
come.”
I thought this was only another pretext for vexing me. He often did
that, requiring me to do something impossible, and so terrifying me.
And often, after humiliating me, he would by degrees become more
tractable. I then had to buy myself off with money or with some other
gift.
This time he was quite different. He was really not at all angry at my
refusal.
“Well,” he said airily, “you’ll think about it, won’t you? I should
like to make your sister’s acquaintance. It will not be so difficult.
You simply take her out for a walk, and then I come along. To-morrow
I’ll whistle for you, and then we can talk more about it.”
When he had gone, a glimpse of the meaning of his request dawned on me.
I was still quite a child, but I knew by hearsay that boys and girls,
when they were somewhat older, did things which were forbidden, things
of a secret and scandalous nature. And now I should also have to--it
was suddenly quite clear to me how monstrous it was! I immediately
resolved never to do that. But I scarcely dared think of what would
happen in that case and how Kromer would revenge himself on me. A new
torment began, I had not yet been tortured enough.
I walked disconsolately across the empty square, my hands in my
pockets. Fresh torments, a new servitude!
Suddenly a fresh, deep voice called to me. I was terrified and began to
run on. Someone ran after me, a hand gripped me from behind. It was Max
Demian.
I let myself be taken prisoner. I surrendered.
“It’s you?” I said uncertainly. “You frightened me so!”
He looked at me, and never had his glance been more like that of an
adult, of a superior and penetrating person. For a long time past we
had not spoken with one another.
“I am sorry,” he said in his courteous and at the same time very
determined manner. “But listen, you mustn’t let yourself be frightened
like that.”
“Oh, that can happen sometimes.”
“So it appears. But look here: If you shrink like that from someone
who hasn’t hurt you, then this someone begins to think. It makes him
curious, he wonders what can be the matter. This somebody thinks to
himself, how awfully frightened you are, and he thinks further: one is
only like that when one is terrified. Cowards are always frightened;
but I believe you aren’t really a coward. Ain’t I right? Of course, you
aren’t a hero either. There are things of which you are afraid. There
are also people of whom you are afraid. And that should never be. No
one should ever be afraid of other people. You aren’t afraid of me? Or
are you, perhaps?”
“Oh no, of course not.”
“There, you see. But there are people you are afraid of?”
“I don’t know ... let me go, what do you want of me?”
He kept pace with me--I was going quicker with the idea of escaping--I
felt his look directed on me from the side.
“Just assume,” he began again, “that I mean well with you. In any
case you needn’t be afraid of me. I would very much like to try
an experiment with you--it’s funny, and you can learn something
that’s very useful. Listen: I often practise an art which is called
mind-reading. There’s no witchcraft in it, but it seems very peculiar
if one doesn’t know how to do it. You can surprise people very much
with it. Well, let us try it. I like you, or I interest myself in
you, and I would like to find out what your real feelings are. I have
already made the first step towards doing that. I have frightened
you--you are, then, easily frightened. There are things and people of
which and of whom you are afraid. Why is it? One need be afraid of no
one. If you fear somebody then it is due to the fact that he has power
over you. For example, you have done something wrong, and the other
person knows it--then he has power over you. D’you get me? It’s clear,
isn’t it?”
I looked helplessly into his face, which was serious and prudent as
always, and kind as well, but without any tenderness--his features were
rather severe. Righteousness or something akin lay therein. I was not
conscious of what was happening; he stood like a magician before me.
“Have you understood?” he questioned again.
I nodded. I could not speak.
“I told you mind-reading looked rather strange, but the process is
quite natural. I could for example tell you more or less exactly what
you thought about me when I once told you the story of Cain and Abel.
But that has nothing to do with the matter in hand. I also think it
possible that you have dreamed of me. But let’s leave that out! You’re
a clever kid, most of ’em are so stupid. I like talking now and then
with a clever fellow whom I can trust. You have no objections, have
you?”
“Oh, no! Only I don’t understand.”
“Let’s keep to our old experiment! We have found that: the boy S. is
easily frightened--he is afraid of somebody--he apparently shares a
secret with this other person, which causes him much disquietude. Is
that about right?”
As in a dream I lay under the influence of his voice, of his
personality. I only nodded. Was not a voice talking there, which could
only come from myself? Which knew all? Which knew all in a better,
clearer way than I myself?
Demian gave me a powerful slap on the shoulder.
“That’s right then. I thought so. Now just one question more: Do you
know the name of the boy who has just gone away?”
I sank back, he had the key to my secret, this secret which twisted
back inside me as if it did not want to see the light.
“What sort of a fellow? There was no one there, except myself.”
He laughed.
“Don’t be afraid to tell me,” said he laughingly. “What’s his name?”
I whispered: “Do you mean Frank Kromer?”
He nodded contentedly.
“Bravo! You’re a smart chap, we shall be good friends yet. But now I
must tell you something else: this Kromer, or whatever his name is, is
a nasty fellow. His face tells me he’s a rascal! What do you think?”
“Oh yes,” I sobbed out, “he is nasty, he’s a devil! But he mustn’t know
anything! For God’s sake, he mustn’t know anything. D’you know him?
Does he know you?”
“Don’t worry! He’s gone, and he doesn’t know me--not yet. But I should
like to make his acquaintance. He goes to the public school?”
“Yes.”
“In which standard?”
“In the fifth. But don’t say anything to him! Please, don’t say
anything to him!”
“Don’t worry, nothing will happen to you. I suppose you wouldn’t like
to tell me a little more about this fellow Kromer?”
“I can’t! No, let me go!”
He was silent for a while.
“It’s a pity,” he said, “we might have been able to carry the
experiment still further. But I don’t want to bother you. You know,
don’t you, that it is not right of you to be afraid of him? Such fear
quite undermines us, you must get rid of it. You must get rid of it, if
you want to become a real man. D’you understand?”
“Certainly, you are quite right ... but it won’t do. You don’t know....”
“You have seen that I know a lot, more than you thought. Do you owe him
any money?”
“Yes, I do, but that isn’t the essential point. I can’t tell, I can’t!”
“It won’t help matters, then, if I give you the amount you owe him? I
could very well let you have it.”
“No, no, that is not the point. And please: don’t say anything to
anybody! Not a word! You are making me miserable!”
“Rely on me, Sinclair. Later you can share your secrets with me.”
“Never, never!” I exclaimed vehemently.
“Just as you please. I only mean, perhaps you will tell me something
more later on. Only of your own free will, you understand. Surely you
don’t think I shall act like Kromer?”
“Oh no--but you don’t even know anything about it!”
“Absolutely nothing. But I think about it. And I shall never act like
Kromer, believe me. Besides, you don’t owe me anything.”
We remained a long time silent, and I became more tranquil. But
Demian’s knowledge became more and more of a puzzle to me.
“I’m going home now,” he said, and in the rain he drew his coat more
closely about him. “I should only like to repeat one thing to you,
since we have gone so far in the matter--you ought to get rid of this
fellow! If there is nothing else to be done, then kill him! It would
impress me and please me, if you were to do that. Besides, I would help
you.”
I was again terrified. I suddenly remembered the story of Cain. I had
an uncanny feeling and I began to cry softly. So much that was weird
seemed to surround me.
“All right,” Max Demian said, smilingly. “Go home now! We will put
things square, although murder would have been the simplest. In such
matters the simplest way is always the best. You aren’t in good hands,
with your friend Kromer.”
I came home, and it seemed to me as if I had been away a year.
Everything looked different. Between myself and Kromer there now stood
something like future freedom, something like hope. I was lonely no
longer! And then I realized for the first time how terribly lonely I
had been for weeks and weeks. And I immediately recollected what I had
on several occasions turned over in my mind: that a confession to my
parents would afford me relief and yet would not quite liberate me. Now
I had almost confessed, to another, to a stranger, and as if a strong
perfume had been wafted to me, sensed the presentiment of salvation!
Still my fear was far from being overcome, and I was still prepared for
long and terrible mental wrestlings with my evil genius. So it was all
the more remarkable to me that everything passed off so very secretly
and quietly.
Kromer’s whistle remained absent from our house for a day, two days,
three days, a whole week. I dared not believe my senses, and lay
inwardly on the watch, to see whether he would not suddenly stand
before me, just at that moment when I should expect him no longer. But
he was, and remained, away! Distrustful of my new freedom, I still
could not bring myself to believe in it whole-heartedly. Until at
last I met Frank Kromer. He was coming down the street, straight in
my direction. When he saw me, he drew himself together, twisted his
features in a brutal grimace, and turned away without more ado, in
order to avoid meeting me.
That was a wonderful moment for me! My enemy ran away from me! My devil
was afraid of me! Surprise and joy shook me through and through!
In a few days Demian showed himself once again. He waited for me
outside school.
“Hullo,” I said.
“Good morning, Sinclair. I only wanted to hear how you’re getting on.
Kromer leaves you in peace, doesn’t he?”
“Did you manage that? But how did you do it? How? I don’t understand
it. He hasn’t come near me.”
“Splendid. If he should come again--I don’t think he will, but he’s a
cheeky fellow--then simply tell him to remember Demian.”
“But what does it all mean? Have you had a fight with him and thrashed
him?”
“No, I’m not so keen on that. I simply talked to him, as I did to you,
and I made it clear to him that it is to his own advantage to leave you
in peace.”
“Oh, but you haven’t given him any money?”
“No, kid. You have already tried that way yourself.”
I attempted to pump him on the matter, but he disengaged himself. The
old, embarrassed feeling concerning him came over me--an odd mixture of
gratitude and shyness, of admiration and fear, of affection and inward
resistance.
I had the intention of seeing him again soon, and then I wanted to talk
more about everything, about the Cain affair as well. But I did not see
him. Gratitude is not one of the virtues in which I believe, and to
require it of a child would seem to me wrong. So I do not wonder very
much at the complete ingratitude which I evinced towards Max Demian.
To-day I believe positively that I should have been ruined for life if
he had not freed me from Kromer’s clutches. At that time also I already
felt this release as the greatest event of my young life--but I left
the deliverer on one side as soon as he had accomplished the miracle.
As I have said, ingratitude seems to me nothing strange. Solely, the
lack of curiosity I evinced is odd. How was it possible that I could
continue for a single day my quiet mode of life without coming nearer
to the secrets with which Demian had brought me in contact? How could
I restrain the desire to hear more about Cain, more about Kromer, more
about the thought-reading?
It is scarcely comprehensible, and yet it is so. I suddenly saw myself
extricated from the demoniacal toils, saw again the world lying
bright and cheerful before me. I was no longer subject to paroxysms
of fear. The curse was broken, I was no longer a tormented and
condemned creature, I was a schoolboy again. My temperament sought
to regain its equilibrium and tranquillity as quickly as possible,
and so I took pains above all things to put behind me all that had
been ugly and menacing, and to forget it. The whole, long story of my
guilt, of my terrifying anxiety, slipped from my memory wonderfully
quick, apparently without having left behind any scars or impressions
whatsoever.
The fact that I likewise tried as quickly to forget my helper and
deliverer, I understand to-day as well. Instinctively my mind turned
from the damning recollection of my awful servitude under Kromer, and
I sought to recover my former happy, contented mental outlook, to
regain that lost paradise which opened once more to me, the bright
father-and-mother world, where my sisters dwelt in the fragrant
atmosphere of purity, in loving kindness such as God had extended to
Abel.
On the very next day after my short conversation with Demian, when I
was at last fully convinced of my newly-born freedom and feared no
longer a relapse to my condition of slavery, I did what I had so often
and so ardently desired to do--I confessed. I went to mother and showed
her the little savings box with the broken lock, filled with toy mark
pieces instead of with real money, and I told her how long I had been
in the thrall of an evil tormentor, through my own guilt. She did not
understand everything, but she saw the money box, she saw my altered
look and heard my changed voice--she felt that I was healed, that I had
been restored to her.
And then with lofty feelings I celebrated my readmission into the
family, the prodigal son’s return home. Mother took me to father, the
story was repeated, questions and exclamations of wonder followed in
quick succession, both parents stroked my hair and breathed deeply, as
in relief from a long oppression. It was all lovely, like the stories
I had read, all discords were resolved in a happy ending.
I surrendered myself passionately to this harmonious state of affairs.
I could not have enough of the idea that I was again free and trusted
by my parents. I was a model boy at home and played more frequently
than ever with my sisters. At prayers I sang the dear, old hymns with
the blissful feeling of one converted and redeemed. It came straight
from my heart, it was no lie this time.
And yet it was not at all as it should have been. And this is the point
which alone can truly explain my forgetfulness of Demian. I ought to
have made a confession _to him_! The confession would have been
less touching and less specious, but for me it would have borne more
fruit. I was now clinging fast to my former paradisaical world, I had
returned home and had been received in grace. But Demian belonged in no
wise to this world, he did not fit into it. He also--in a different way
from Kromer--but nevertheless he also was a seducer, he too bound me to
the second, evil, bad world, and of this world I never wanted to hear
anything more. I could not now, and I did not wish to give up Abel and
help to glorify Cain, now when I myself had again become an Abel.
So much for the outward correlation of events. But inwardly it was like
this: I had been freed from the hands of Kromer and the devil, but not
through my own strength and effort. I had ventured a footing on the
paths of the world, and they had been too slippery for me. Now that
the grasp of a friendly hand had saved me, I ran back, without another
glance round, to mother’s lap, to the protecting, godly and tender
security of childhood. I made myself younger, more dependent on others,
more childlike than I really was. I had to replace my dependence on
Kromer by a new one, since I was powerless to strike out for myself.
So I chose, in the blindness of my heart, the dependence on father
and mother, on the old, beloved, “bright world,” on this world which
I knew already was not the sole one. Had I not done this, I should
have had to hold to Demian, to entrust myself to him. The fact that I
did not, appeared to me then to be due to justifiable distrust of his
strange ideas; in reality it was due to nothing else than fear. For
Demian would have required more of me than did my parents, much more.
By stimulation and exhortation, by scorn and irony he would have tried
to make me more independent. Alas, I know that to-day: nothing in the
world is so distasteful to man as to go the way which leads him to
himself!
And yet, about half a year later, I could not resist the temptation to
ask my father while we were out for a walk, what was to be made of the
fact that many people declared Cain to be better than Abel.
He was much surprised, and explained to me that this was a conception
by no means novel. It had even emerged in the early Christian era, and
had been professed by sects, one of which was called the “Cainites.”
But naturally this foolish doctrine was nothing else than an attempt of
the devil to undermine our belief. For, if one believes that Cain was
right and Abel was wrong, then it follows that God has erred, and that
the God of the Bible is not the true and only God, but a false one. The
Cainites really used to profess and preach something approximating this
doctrine; but this heresy vanished from among mankind a long time ago
and he wondered the more that a school friend had been able to learn
something on the subject. Nevertheless, he earnestly exhorted me not to
let these ideas occupy my attention.
CHAPTER THREE
THE THIEF ON THE CROSS
I could describe scenes of my childhood, spent in peaceful security at
the side of father and mother, relate how I passed this period of my
life, playing contentedly in the midst of surroundings brightened by
love and tenderness. But others have done that. I am only interested
in the steps I took in life, in order to attain self-realization. All
the pretty resting-places, happy isles and children’s paradises, whose
charm is not unknown to me, I leave lying behind me in the shimmer of a
distant horizon, and I have no desire to set foot there again.
For that reason I will speak, so far as I intend to dwell on the period
of my childhood, only of new events which overtook me, of what impelled
me forward enabling me to throw off my shackles.
These impulses always came from the “other” world, they always brought
fear, coercion and a bad conscience in their train, they were always
of a revolutionary tendency and a danger to the peace in which I would
willingly have been allowed to remain.
There came the years in which I had to discover anew that there was
within me an instinct which had to lie close and concealed in the
bright world of moral sanction. As to every man, the slowly awakening
sense of sex came to me as an enemy and a destroyer, as something
forbidden, as seduction and sin. What my curiosity sought to know, what
caused me dreams, desire and fear, the great secret of puberty, that
was not at all in keeping with the guarded happiness of my peaceful
childhood. I did as everyone else. I led the double life of a child,
who is yet a child no longer. My conscious self lived under the
conditions sanctioned at home; it denied the existence of the new world
whose dawn glimmered before me. But I lived as well in dreams, impelled
by desires of a secret nature, upon which my conscious self anxiously
attempted to build a new fabric, as the world of my childhood fell in
ruins about me. Like almost all parents, my own did nothing to help
the awakening life-instincts, about which not a syllable was uttered.
They only aided, with untiring care, my hopeless attempts to deny the
reality, and to continue my existence in a child-like world which was
ever becoming more unreal and more mendacious. I do not know whether
parents can do much in such a case, and I make mine no reproach. It
was my own affair, to settle my difficulties and to find my way, and
I carried through the business badly, like most of those who are well
brought up.
Every man passes through this difficulty. For the average person, this
is the point in his life where the demands of his own life come most
in conflict with his surroundings, where the road forward has to be
attained through the bitterest fighting. For many people this is the
only time in their lives that they experience the sequence of death
and rebirth that is our fate, when they become conscious of the slow
process of the decay and breaking up of the world of their childhood,
when everything beloved of us leaves us, and we suddenly feel the
loneliness and deathly cold of the universe around us. And for very
many this pitfall is fatal. They cling their whole life long painfully
to the irrevocable past, to the dream of a lost paradise, the worst and
most deadly of all dreams.
But to return to the story. The sensation and dream pictures in which
the close of childhood presented itself to me are not important
enough to be described. The important point was that I was once again
conscious of the existence of the “dark” world, the “other” world. What
Frank Kromer had once been to me, was now present within myself. And
so, from the outside as well, the other world once more gained power
over me.
Several years had passed since my affair with Kromer. That dramatic
and guilty time of my life lay far behind me at that time and seemed
to have passed like a quick nightmare into nothingness. Frank Kromer
had long since disappeared from my life; I scarcely gave it a moment’s
thought if I chanced to meet him. But the other important figure in my
tragedy, Max Demian, never entirely disappeared from my life. However,
for a long time he stood on the far horizon, visible, but not affecting
me. Only by degrees he approached me again, and I came once more under
the ray of his power and influence.
I will try to recollect what I know of Demian in that period. Perhaps
for a year, or longer, I did not have a single conversation with him.
I avoided him, and he in no wise forced himself on me. Once or twice,
when we met, he nodded to me in friendly greeting. Then it seemed to
me at times that there was a note of scorn or ironical reproach in his
friendliness, but that might only have been imagination on my part. My
relation with him, and the strange influence he had exercised over me,
were as if forgotten, by him as well as by me.
I try to recall his face--as I recollect him, I see that I was
conscious of his existence after all, and took notice of him. I can
see him going to school, alone or with some of the other big boys. I
see him walking among them like a stranger, lonely and still like a
celestial body, enveloped in a different atmosphere and subject to
his own laws. No one liked him, he was intimate with no one, except
his mother, and his relations with her did not seem like those of a
child, but those of a grown-up person. The masters left him as much as
possible in peace. He was a good pupil, but he did not go out of his
way to please them. From time to time we heard, in gossip, of a word, a
comment or a retort he had made to a master, and which left nothing to
be desired in the way of blunt challenge or irony.
I call him to mind, as I close my eyes, and I see his picture emerge.
Where was it? Ah, now I have it again. It was in the street, in front
of our house. There one day I saw him standing, a note book in his
hand. I saw that he was drawing. He was drawing the old crest with the
bird over the door of our house. And I stood at a window, concealed
behind a curtain, and gazed at him. I saw with astonishment his
attentive, cool, bright features turned to the crest, the features
of a man, of a research worker, or an artist, superior and full of
will-power, oddly bright and cool, with knowing eyes.
And again I can see him. It was a little later, in the street; we had
come out of school and were all standing round a horse that had fallen
down. It lay, still harnessed to the shaft, in front of a peasant’s
cart, and sniffed the air pitifully with open nostrils, while blood
flowed from an invisible wound, so that the white dust in the street
darkened as it became slowly saturated. As I, with a feeling of nausea,
turned my gaze away, I saw Demian’s face. He had not pressed forward,
he stood furthest back of all, rather elegant, quite at his ease, as
was proper to him. His gaze seemed to be directed at the horse’s
head, and expressed again that deep, quiet, almost fanatical and yet
calm attentiveness. I could not resist watching him some considerable
time, and I remember feeling, though quite unconsciously, that there
was something very peculiar about him. I saw Demian’s face, I saw not
only that he had not the face of a boy, but that of a man; I saw still
more, I thought I saw, or felt, that it was not the face of a man
either but something else besides. There seemed to be also something
of the woman in his features, and particularly it seemed to me for a
moment, not manly or boyish, nor old or young, but somehow or other a
thousand years old, not to be measured by time, bearing the stamp of
other epochs. Animals could look like that, or trees, or stones--I did
not realize that precisely, I did not experience the exact sensation
which I, a grown-up person, am now describing, but what I felt then
approximated in some way to what I have just related. Perhaps he was
beautiful, perhaps he pleased me, perhaps even he was repugnant--I
could not then determine. I saw only that he was different from us, he
was like an animal, or a spirit, or a picture, I know not what he was
like, but he was different, inconceivably different from us all.
My reminiscence tells me nothing more, and perhaps even what has been
described has arisen, in part, from later impressions.
Until I was several years older, I did not come into close contact
with him again. Contrary to custom, Demian had not been confirmed with
the boys of his year, and in consequence fresh rumors concerning him
were set afloat. In school they were again saying that he was really
a Jew, or no, a heathen, and others pretended to know that he and his
mother professed no religion, or that they belonged to a bad sect in
mythology. In connection with this I seem to remember that he was
suspected of living with his mother as with a mistress. Presumably
the facts were that he had been, up to that time, brought up without
any denominational creed, and that it was now thought that this might
be disadvantageous for his future career. In any case, his mother now
decided after all to allow him to be prepared for confirmation, two
years later than the boys of his own age. Hence it came about that for
months he was my classmate in the confirmation class.
For a time I kept out of his way, I did not want to have anything to do
with him; too many mysterious rumors had become attached to his name.
But above all things I was worried by a sense of obligation, implanted
in me since my affair with Kromer. And just at that time I had enough
to do with my own secrets. For the confirmation class coincided with
the period when I was definitively enlightened on matters of sex, and
in spite of my good will, my interest in the pious instruction was on
that account greatly diminished. The things of which the clergyman
spoke lay far from me in a still, sacred unreality; they may have been
quite beautiful and valuable, but in no way real and stirring, as were
in the highest degree, these other things.
The more indifferent I became, under these conditions, to our spiritual
instruction, the more was my interest drawn towards Max Demian again.
Something or other seemed to unite us. As nearly as I remember it began
in class early one morning, while the light was still burning in the
schoolroom. The clergyman taking the confirmation class happened to be
talking about Cain and Abel. I hardly paid any attention, I was sleepy
and scarcely listened. Then with raised voice the clergyman began to
speak fervently of Cain’s sign. At this moment I felt a sort of contact
or exhortation and looking up I saw Demian’s face turned toward me from
a row of desks in front, with a bright speaking look, which could have
expressed scorn as much as seriousness. He looked at me for a moment
only, and suddenly I was listening intently to the clergyman’s words.
I heard him speak of Cain and the mark on his forehead, and suddenly I
felt deep within me the knowledge that the story could have a different
signification, that it could be looked at from another view, that it
was possible to be critical.
From that instant the bond of communication between Demian and myself
was again established. And oddly enough, scarcely had this sense of
a certain solidarity between us presented itself to my mind, than I
saw it transferred as if by magic from the ideal world to the world of
space. I did not know whether he had been able to arrange it himself,
or whether it was pure chance--at that time I believed firmly in
chance--but a few days after I noticed Demian had suddenly changed his
place and was now sitting directly in front of me. (I recollect still
how pleasant it was, in the midst of the miserable workhouse atmosphere
of the overcrowded schoolroom, to sense the delicate, fresh aroma of
soap from his neck in the morning.) A few days later he had changed
again, and now sat next to me. And there he stayed, occupying the same
place through the whole of that winter and spring.
Morning lessons had quite changed. They were no longer sleepy and
boring. I looked forward to them. Sometimes we both listened to the
clergyman with the greatest attention. A glance from my neighbor would
suffice, calling my attention to a strange story or a peculiar text.
And another glance from him, a very decided one, acted on me as an
admonition, arousing criticism and doubt.
But very often we were bad pupils and heard nothing of the lesson.
Demian was always courteous towards masters and schoolfellows. I never
saw him commit a schoolboy prank, never heard him laugh out loud or
talk in class; he never drew on himself the master’s blame. But
noiselessly, rather by signs and glances than by whispered words, he
knew how to let me share in his own occupations. These were, in part,
of a peculiar nature.
For instance, he told me which of the fellows interested him; and in
what manner he studied them. He judged many of them with accuracy.
He used to say to me before the lesson: “When I signal to you with
my thumb, so and so will look round at us, or will scratch his neck,
etc.” Then during the lesson, when I scarcely gave a thought to what
he had told me, Max would attract my attention by suddenly bending
his thumb. I would look up quickly at the boy already designated, and
every time, as if attached to a wire, the fellow would make the gesture
required of him. I bothered Max to try this on the master, but he did
not want to do it. But once, when I came into class and told him I
had not done my preparation, and that I hoped the clergyman would not
question me that day, he helped me. The master looked round for a boy
to recite a portion of the catechism, and his roving eye rested on me.
He approached me slowly, stretched out his finger in my direction, and
already had my name on his lips--when suddenly he became absent-minded
or uneasy, put his hand to his collar, stepped up to Demian who looked
fixedly into his face. He seemed to want to ask him something but he
turned away, to our surprise, coughed a little, and put his question to
another boy.
These jokes amused me very much, but only gradually did I notice that
my friend frequently played the same game with me. It would happen
that on my way home from school I had suddenly the feeling Demian was
a little way behind me, and when I turned round, there he was, sure
enough.
“Can you really make another person think what you want him to?” I
asked him.
He gave me information on the subject readily enough, quietly and
pertinently, in his grown-up manner.
“No,” he said, “that can’t be done. That is to say, one hasn’t a free
will, even if the person acts that way. Neither can the other person
think as he will, nor can I make him think what I want him to. But you
can observe someone well, and then you can say fairly exactly what he
thinks or feels; in this way you can generally predict what he will do
the moment after. It’s quite simple, but people merely do not know it.
Naturally it requires practice. To take an example from the butterfly
world, there is a certain species of moth, of which the female is much
rarer than the male. The moths reproduce like other animals, the male
impregnates the female, who then lays the egg. Suppose you have in your
possession a female of this type of moth--naturalists have often made
the experiment--then the male moths fly in the night to this female,
they even make a flight of several hours’ duration! Think of it! For
many miles around all the males are conscious of the whereabouts of the
only female moth in the district. People have tried to explain that,
but it is not easy. Moths must have a sense of smell, or something like
it, which allows them to pick up and follow an almost imperceptible
scent, like a good hound. You understand? There are such things, nature
is full of them, and no one can explain them. Now I draw the conclusion
that if among this class of moths the females were as abundant as
the males, then these latter would not have such a refined sense of
smell! They have it simply because they have been trained like that.
If an animal or a man concentrates his whole attention and his whole
will-power on a certain thing then he attains it. That’s all. And it is
just the same with what you have asked me. Observe a man sufficiently
well, and you will know more about him than he does himself.”
It lay on the tip of my tongue to mention the word “mind-reading,” and
so to remind him of the scene with Kromer, now relegated to such a
distant past. But the odd thing between us both was that neither he nor
I ever made the slightest reference to the fact that several years ago
he had intervened so decisively in my life. It was as if formerly there
had been nothing between us, or as if each of us reckoned that the
other had forgotten the affair. It even happened once or twice when we
were together that we met Frank Kromer in the street, but we exchanged
no look, neither did we speak of him.
“But what has that got to do with will-power?” I asked. “You said there
was no such thing as free will. And then you said one only had to
concentrate one’s will on something to be able to attain one’s ends.
That doesn’t agree! If I am not master of my will, then I can’t direct
it here or there as I wish.”
“A good question!” he said, laughing. “You should always ask questions,
you must always doubt. But the explanation is very simple. If a moth
for instance wants to concentrate his will-power on a star or something
like that, he can’t do it. Only--he doesn’t try. He seeks only what
has sense and value for him, satisfies his needs, he gets what he
absolutely must have. And it is just there that the unbelievable
succeeds--he develops a marvelous sixth sense, that no other animal
besides him has! People in our position have more elbow-room,
certainly, and more interests than an animal. But even we are confined
to a comparatively small space, beyond which we cannot go. To be sure,
I can imagine this or that, or make myself believe that I absolutely
want to get to the North Pole or somewhere, but I can only carry that
out and wish it strongly enough when the desire lies right in myself,
when my whole being is really filled with it. As soon as that is the
case, as soon as you try to carry out an inward command, then you
succeed, then you can harness your will as you would a good nag. If
for instance I resolved that our good Mr. Parson shall not wear his
spectacles for the future, then that wouldn’t work. That is merely
play. But when last autumn I had the fixed intention of getting myself
moved to another desk, I succeeded. Someone suddenly arrived who came
before me in the alphabet and who up to then had been ill. Because
someone had to make room for him, it was naturally I who did it,
because my willing it had made me ready to seize the opportunity.”
“Yes,” I said, “that seemed to me very strange at the time. From the
moment we began to get interested in one another, you managed to get
nearer and nearer to me. But how was that? You did not immediately take
a place next to me; for a few lessons at first you were sitting in the
row of desks in front of me, weren’t you? How did that come about?”
“It was like this. I wasn’t quite certain where I wanted to go when
I wished to move from my first place. I only knew that I wanted to
sit further back. It was my wish to move towards you, but I was not
conscious of this at the time. Simultaneously your own will was working
with mine and helped me. It was only when I sat in front of you that I
realized my wish was only half fulfilled--I noticed that really I had
desired nothing else than to sit next to you.”
“But on that occasion no newcomer arrived.”
“No, but then I simply did what I wished, and sat next to you without
hesitation. The boy with whom I changed places was simply surprised,
and let me do it without further say. And the parson indeed noticed
once that a change had taken place--in fact, whenever he looks at me
something worries him secretly. That is to say, he knows my name is
Demian, and that something must be wrong that I, whose initial is D,
am sitting back there among the S’s! But that does not penetrate his
consciousness because my will is against it, because I prevent him
again and again from becoming conscious of it. He notices now and
then that something is wrong. He looks at me and begins to study the
question, the good fellow. But I have a simple means at my disposal.
I look at him very, very fixedly in the eyes. Hardly anyone can bear
that. They always get restive. If you want to get something out of a
person, and you fix him unexpectedly with your eyes, and if he doesn’t
get restive, then give it up! You won’t get anything out of him, ever!
But that happens seldom. I know only one single person with whom this
trick won’t help me.”
“Who is that?” I asked quickly.
He looked at me, with eyes somewhat closed; as his fashion was when he
meditated. Then he looked away and gave no answer, and in spite of my
lively curiosity I could not bring myself to repeat the question.
But I believe he was referring to his mother. He seemed to live on
very intimate terms with her, but he never spoke about her, never
invited me to his house. I scarcely knew what his mother looked like.
* * * * *
Several times I attempted to imitate his example by concentrating my
will-power on something so firmly that I would have to attain it. I had
desires which seemed to me sufficiently pressing. But nothing came of
it. I could not bring myself to talk matters over with Demian. I should
not have been able to make him understand what I wanted. He did not
ask, either.
My faith in matters of religion had meanwhile suffered many a breach.
Yet in my manner of thinking, which was entirely under the influence of
Demian, I was to be distinguished from those of my schoolfellows who
professed an entire disbelief. There were a few such who let occasional
phrases be overheard, to the effect that it was laughable and unworthy
of man’s dignity to believe in a God, and that stories such as those
of the Trinity and the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary were
simply a joke. It was disgraceful, they said, that such rubbish was
peddled about to-day. This was by no means my way of thinking. Even
where I had doubts, the whole experience of my childhood taught me to
believe in the efficacy of a godly life such as that led by my parents,
which I knew to be neither contemptible nor hypocritical. On the
contrary, now as before, I had the greatest reverence for the spirit
of religion. Only Demian had accustomed me to consider and explain the
stories and articles of belief from a more liberal and more personal
point of view, a point of view in which fantasy and imagination had
their share. At least, I always took great pleasure and enjoyment in
the interpretations he suggested to me. To be sure much seemed to me
too crude; such as the affair of Cain. And once, during the preparation
for confirmation, I was terrified by a conception, which, if that were
possible, seemed to me even still more daring. The master had been
speaking of Golgotha. The Biblical account of the Passion and Death of
Christ had, from my earliest years, made a deep impression on me. As a
little boy, on such days as Good Friday, after my Father had read out
to us the story of the Passion, I had lived in imagination and with
much emotion in Gethsemane and on Golgotha, in that world so poignantly
beautiful, pale and ghostlike, and yet so terribly alive. And when I
listened to the Passion according to St. Matthew by Bach, I felt the
mystical thrills of this dark, powerful, mysterious world of passion
and suffering. I find in this music, even to-day and in the “actus
tragicus,” the essence of all poetry and of all artistic expression.
At the conclusion of the lesson Demian said to me contemplatively:
“There’s something in this, Sinclair, which I don’t like. Read through
the story, consider it, there’s something there which sounds insipid. I
mean this business of the two thieves. It’s sublime, the three crosses
standing side by side on the hill! But what about this sentimental
story of the honest thief, which reads more like a tract? First he was
a criminal who had perpetrated crimes, and God knows what, and now
he breaks out in tears and is consumed by feelings of contrition and
repentance. I ask you what’s the sense of such a repentance two steps
from the grave? It’s nothing but a real parson’s story, mawkish and
mendacious, larded with emotion, and having a most edifying background.
If to-day you had to choose one of the two thieves as your friend, or
if you consider which of the two you would the sooner have trusted, it
would most certainly not be this weeping convert. No, it’s the other,
who’s a real fellow with plenty of character. He doesn’t care a straw
about conversion, which in his case can mean simply nothing more than
pretty speeches. He goes his way bravely to the end, without being
such a coward as to renounce the devil in the last moment who up to
that point has had to help him. He is a character, and in Biblical
history people of character always come off second best. Perhaps he’s a
descendant of Cain. Don’t you think so?”
I was dismayed. I had believed myself to be quite familiar with the
story of the crucifixion, and now I saw for the first time what
little personal judgment I had brought to bear on it, with what little
force of imagination and of fantasy I had listened to it and read
it. Demian’s new ideas, therefore, were quite annoying, threatening
to overthrow conceptions, the stability of which I had believed it
necessary to maintain. No, one could not deal with anything and
everything like that, certainly not with the All Holiest.
As always, he noticed my opposition immediately, even before I had
spoken a word.
“I know,” said he, in a tone of resignation, “it’s the old story.
Everything is all right until you’re serious about it! But I’ll tell
you something: this is one of the points where one can clearly see
the shortcomings of this religion. The fact is that this God, of the
old and of the new dispensation, may be an excellent conception, but
He is not what He really ought to be. He is everything that is good,
noble, fatherly, beautiful, sublime and sentimental certainly! But the
world consists of other things which are simply ascribed to the devil.
All this part of the world, a good half, is suppressed and hushed up.
Just the same as they praise God as the Father of all life, but pass
over the whole sex-life, on which all life depends, and declare it to
be sinful and the work of the devil! I have nothing to say against
honoring this God Jehovah, nothing at all. But I think we should
reverence everything and look upon the whole world as sacred, not
merely this artificially separated, official half of it! We ought then
to worship the devil as well as God. I should find that quite right.
Or we ought to create a God, who would embody the devil as well, and
before whom we should not have to close our eyes, when the most natural
things in the world take place.”
Contrary to his custom, he had become almost vehement, but he smiled
again immediately and pressed me no further.
But in me these words encountered the riddle of my whole boyhood,
which I had hourly carried with me, but of which I had never spoken
to anyone. What Demian had said about God and the devil, about the
official godly world and the suppressed devil’s world, that was exactly
my own idea, my own myth, the idea of the two worlds or two halves of
the world--the light and the dark. The realization that my problem
was a problem of humanity as a whole, of life and thought in general,
suddenly dawned on me, and this recognition inspired me with fear and
awe as I suddenly felt to what an extent my own innermost personal
life and thought were part of the eternal stream of great ideas. The
realization was not joyful, although it confirmed my mode of thought
and made me happy to a certain extent. It was hard and tasted raw,
because a hint of responsibility lay therein, telling me to put away
childish things and to stand alone.
I told my friend--the first time in my life I had revealed so deep a
secret--of my conception of the “two worlds,” a conception which had
been formed since the earliest years of my childhood. He at once saw
that I was in thorough agreement with him. But he was not the kind to
make the most of this. He listened with greater attention than he had
ever given me, and looked me in the eyes until I had to turn away. I
again noticed in his look this odd, animal-like timelessness, this
inconceivably old age.
“We will talk more about that another time,” he said considerately: “I
see that you think more than you can express. But if that is so, then
you also know that you have never lived in experience all that you have
thought, and that is not good. Only the thought that we live through in
experience has any value. You knew that your ‘world of sanction’ was
simply one-half of the world, and yet you tried to suppress the other
half in you, as do the parsons and teachers. You will not succeed. No
one succeeds who has once began to think.”
This impressed me deeply.
“But,” I almost shouted, “there _are_ horrible things which are
really and actually forbidden--you can’t deny that fact. And they are
forbidden once for all, and so we must renounce them. I know of course
that there are such things as murder, and all possible kinds of vice,
but shall I then, simply because such things exist, go and become a
criminal?”
“We shan’t be able to finish our discussion to-day,” said Max, in a
milder tone. “You must certainly not commit murder or rape, no. But you
haven’t yet reached that point where one can see what is ‘permitted’
and what is really ‘taboo.’ You have realized only a part of the truth.
The remainder will come after, rely on it. For instance, for the past
year or so you have had in you an instinct which is stronger than
all the others, and which is held to be ‘taboo.’ The Greeks and many
other people, on the contrary, made a sort of divinity out of this
instinct, and honored it by great celebrations. What is now ‘taboo’ is
therefore not eternally so, it can change. To-day everyone is permitted
to sleep with a woman as soon as he has been with her to a parson and
has gone through the ceremony of marriage. With other races it is
different, even to-day. For that reason each one of us must find out
for himself what is permitted and what is forbidden--forbidden, that
is, to himself. You need never do anything that is forbidden and yet be
a thorough rascal. And vice versa. It is really merely a question of
convenience. Whoever is too lazy to think for himself and to constitute
himself his own judge simply conforms to the taboos, whatever they
happen to be. He has an easy time of it. Others realize they carry laws
in themselves. For them things are forbidden which every man of honor
does daily. On the other hand things are permitted them which are
otherwise taboo. Everyone must stand up for himself.”
Suddenly he seemed to regret having said so much, and broke off. I felt
I could understand to a certain extent what his sentiment was. That
is to say, however agreeably he used to present his ideas (apparently
in a cursory manner) he could on no account tolerate a conversation
made simply “for the sake of talking,” as he once said. He realized
in my case that, although my interest was genuine enough, I was too
much inclined to look upon discussion as a game, too fond of clever
talking--in short I was lacking in perfect seriousness.
* * * * *
As I read again the words I have just written--“perfect
seriousness”--another scene suddenly comes into my mind, the most
impressive experience I lived through with Max Demian in those still
half-childlike times.
Our confirmation classes were drawing to an end, and the closing
lessons were devoted to the Last Supper. The clergyman thought this
very important, and he took pains to make us feel something of the
inspiration and sacred character of his teaching. However, precisely
in those last few lessons, thoughts were diverted to another object,
to the person of my friend. Looking forward to my confirmation, which
was explained to us as being our solemn admission into the community
of the Church, the thought presented itself imperatively to me that
the value of this half-year’s religious instruction did not lie for
me in what I had learned in class, but rather in Demian’s presence and
influence. It was not into the Church that I was ready to be received,
but into something else, into an order of ideas and of personalities
which surely existed somewhere or other on earth, and of which I felt
my friend was the representative or messenger.
I tried to repress this thought. In spite of everything, I earnestly
intended to go through the ceremony of confirmation with a certain
dignity, and the new notions I was forming seemed scarcely compatible
with this. Yet do what I would, the idea was there, and gradually
identified itself with the approaching religious ceremony. I was ready
to celebrate it in a different fashion from the other confirmation
candidates. For me it would mean admission into a world of ideas, with
which I had become acquainted through Demian.
In those days it happened that I had another discussion with him; it
was just before a lesson. My friend was wrapped up in himself and took
little pleasure in my talk, which was perhaps rather precocious and
bombastic.
“We talk too much,” he said with unwonted gravity. “Wise speeches have
no value at all, absolutely none. You only escape from yourself. To
escape from yourself is a sin. You should be able to creep right into
yourself, like a tortoise.”
We entered the schoolroom immediately after. The lesson began. I took
pains to listen, and Demian did not disturb me in my effort. After a
while I began to feel something peculiar at my side where his place
was, a sort of emptiness or coolness or something like that, as if his
seat had suddenly become vacant. The feeling became oppressive and I
turned round.
There I saw my friend sitting, upright and in his customary attitude.
But he looked quite different from usual. Something I did not know
went out from him, enveloped him. I thought his eyes were closed,
until I saw he held them open. But they were stiff as if gazing within
or directed to an object a great way off. He sat there perfectly
motionless; he seemed not to be breathing and his mouth was as if
carved out of wood or stone. His face was white, uniformly white, as
stone. His brown hair showed more signs of life than did any other
feature. His hands lay before him on the desk, without life, as still
as inanimate objects, like stones or fruit, white and motionless, yet
not relaxed, but as if controlling the secret springs of a powerful
life force.
The sight made me tremble. He is dead, I thought. I almost said it out
loud. But I knew he was not dead. Mesmerized, I hung on his look; my
eyes were riveted to this white, stone mask. I felt it was the real
Demian. The Demian who was in the habit of walking and talking with me,
that was only one side of him, a half. Demian, who from time to time
played a part, who accommodated himself to circumstances out of mere
complacence. But the real Demian looked like this, with just this look
of stone, prehistorically old, like an animal, beautiful and cold, dead
yet secretly full of fabulous life force. And around him this still
emptiness, this infinite ethereal space, this lonely death!
“Now he has quite retired into himself,” I felt with a shudder. Never
had I been so isolated. I had no part in him, he was unattainable, he
was further from me than if he had been on the most distant isle in the
world.
I scarcely understood why no one besides myself noticed it. I thought
that everyone would have to remark him, that everyone would shudder.
But no one gave him any attention. He sat like a picture and, as I
could not prevent myself from thinking, as stiff as a strange idol.
A fly settled on his forehead, moved slowly down over his nose and
lips--not a muscle, not a nerve in his face twitched.
Where, where was he now? What was he thinking, what was he feeling? Was
he in heaven or in hell?
It was impossible for me to question him. When I saw him at the end of
the lesson living and breathing again, when his glance met mine, was he
as he formerly had been? Where did he come from? Where had he been? He
seemed tired. His face had its normal color, his hands moved again,
but his brown hair was lustreless and fatigued, as it were.
In the days following I practised a new exercise in my bedroom several
times. I sat stiffly on a chair, kept my eyes fixed, and held myself
perfectly motionless. I waited to see how long I could maintain this
attitude, and what the sensation would be like. However, I merely got
very tired, and suffered from a violent twitching of the eyelids.
The confirmation took place soon after, of which no important
recollections remain with me.
Everything was now quite changed. Childhood fell about me in ruins. My
parents used to look at me with a certain embarrassment. My sisters had
become quite strange in their conduct towards me. A disillusionment
falsified and weakened the old sentiments and pleasures, the garden was
without fragrance, the wood was no longer inviting, the world around
me seemed like a clearance-sale of old articles, insipid and without
charm, books were merely paper, music a noise. The leaves fall thus
from a tree in autumn, the tree feels it not, rain drips on it, sun
comes and frost, and the life in it recedes slowly into the narrowest
and most inward recess. The tree is not dying. It is waiting.
It was decided that after the holidays I should go to another school,
leaving home for the first time. My mother meanwhile approached me
with especial tenderness, a sort of preliminary good-bye, endeavoring
to charm me with a love from which I should go with homesickness and
unforgetfulness in my heart. Demian had gone away. I was alone.
CHAPTER FOUR
BEATRICE
Without having seen my friend again, I traveled at the end of the
holidays to St. ----. Both my parents came with me, and handed me over
with all possible care to the protection of a master of the school, in
whose house I was to board. They would have been numb with horror, had
they only known to what sort of fate they were leaving me.
It still hung in the balance whether I should become with time a good
son and a useful citizen, or whether my nature would break out in other
directions. My last attempt to be happy under the roof of my father’s
house and the spirit prevailing there had lasted for a considerable
period, and at times had almost succeeded, only in the end to fail
completely.
The curious emptiness and isolation which I had begun to feel for
the first time in the holidays after my confirmation (how I learned
to know it later, this emptiness, this thin atmosphere) did not pass
immediately. The parting from home was for me peculiarly easy. I was
really rather ashamed of not being sadder--my sisters wept without
reason, I could not. I was astonished at myself. I had always been
an emotional child, and at bottom, tolerably good. Now I was quite
changed. I was completely indifferent towards the outside world. For
days together my sole occupation was hearkening to my inner self,
listening to the flood of dark, forbidden instincts which roared
subterraneously within me. I had grown very quickly in that last
half-year, and appeared lanky, thin and immature. The amiability of
boyhood had completely disappeared from my character; I realized myself
that it was impossible to like me thus, and I by no means loved myself.
I had often a great longing for Max Demian; on the other hand, I hated
him not seldom, and looked upon him as responsible for the moral
impoverishment of my life, to which I resigned myself as to a sort of
nasty disease.
In the beginning I was neither liked nor respected in our school
boarding house. First they ragged me, then kept out of my way, looking
upon me as a rotter and an eccentric character; I was pleased with
myself and I even overplayed my part, withdrawing into my solitary
self, growling occasional cynicisms. Superficially I appeared to
despise the world in most manly fashion, whereas in reality I was
secretly consumed by melancholy and despair. In school I could fall
back on a knowledge amassed at home. The form I was in was not so
advanced as the same form in the school I had just left, and so I
acquired the habit of despising my school contemporaries, regarding
them as mere children.
This attitude lasted a year and longer. My first holiday visits at home
brought no change, I went gladly away again.
It was in the beginning of November. I had formed the habit of taking
short, meditative walks in all kinds of weather, during which I often
experienced a sort of joy, a joy full of melancholy, contempt of the
world and contempt of self. I was sauntering thus one evening through
the damp, foggy twilight in a suburb of the town. The broad drive of a
public park stood completely deserted, inviting me to enter. The road
lay thick with fallen leaves, into which I dug voluptuously with my
feet. It smelt damp and bitter; in the distance the trees stood up tall
and shadowy, ghostlike in the fog.
At the end of the drive I stood still and undecided, staring into the
black foliage, scenting eagerly the damp odor of decomposition and
death, which seemed to be in harmony with my own mood. Oh, how insipid
life tasted!
A man, with the collar of his raincoat blowing about him, came out of a
side path. I was just going on when he called to me.
“Hello, Sinclair!”
It happened to be Alphonse Beck, the senior boy of the house. I was
always glad to see him and had nothing against him, except that he
always treated me as he did all the younger boys, in an ironical and
grandfatherly manner. He passed for being as strong as a bear, was
said to have great influence on the house master, and was the hero of
many school stories.
“What are you doing here?” he asked affably, in the tone the seniors
always used when they condescended on occasion to talk to us.
“Composing verse, I bet?”
“Shouldn’t dream of it,” I disclaimed gruffly.
He laughed, came up to me, and we chatted together in a manner to which
I had not been accustomed for some time past.
“You needn’t be afraid, Sinclair, that I shouldn’t understand. I know
the feeling, when one goes for a walk on a foggy evening--the thoughts
autumn inspires in one. And one writes poetry about dying nature, of
course, and spent youth; which is very much like it. Read Heinrich
Heine?”
“I am not so sentimental,” I said in self-defense.
“Oh, all right. But in this weather, I think, it does a man good to
find a quiet place where one can take a glass of wine or something. Are
you coming with me for a bit? I happen to be quite alone. Or wouldn’t
you care to? I wouldn’t like to lead you astray, old man, if you are
one of those model boys.”
A little while after we sat clinking our thick glasses in a little
tavern in the suburbs, drinking wine of a doubtful quality. At first
I wasn’t much pleased, still it was rather a novelty for me. But
unaccustomed to wine, I soon became talkative. It was as if a window
had been flung open within me, and the world shining in--for how long,
how terribly long, had I not eased my heart by talking. I gave full
play to my imagination, and once started, I related the story of Cain
and Abel.
Beck listened to me with pleasure--someone at last, to whom I was
giving something! He clapped me on the shoulder, told me I was
the devil of a good fellow and a clever rascal. How I reveled in
communicating my opinions, as I relieved myself of all the pent-up
thought of the past months! My heart swelled with pride at finding my
talents recognized by someone older than I was. When he called me a
clever rascal the effect was like a sweet, strong wine running through
me. The world lit up in new colors, thoughts came to me as from a
hundred sources, wit and fire blazed up in me. We spoke of masters and
schoolfellows, and I thought we understood one another wonderfully
well. We talked of Greeks and of pagans, and Beck wished absolutely
to draw me out on the subject of women. But on this point I could not
converse. I had no experience, nothing to relate. True, all that I
had felt and imagined was burning within me, but I could not impart
my thoughts, not even under the influence of wine. Beck knew much
more about girls, and I listened to his tales with glowing eyes. The
things I heard were unbelievable. What I should never have conceived
to be possible entered the sphere of commonplace reality and seemed
self-evident. Alphonse Beck, who was perhaps eighteen years old, was
already a man of experiences. Among other things, he told me that
girls liked boys to play the gallant with them, but in general were
too frightened to go any further. You could hope for more success with
women. Women were much cleverer. For instance, there was Mrs. Jaggelt,
who sold pencils and copybooks, who was much easier to deal with. All
that had happened behind the counter in her shop was unprintable in any
book.
I sat on captivated; my head was swimming. To be sure, I could not
exactly have loved Mrs. Jaggelt, but still, it was unheard of. It
seemed as if things happened, at least to older people, of which I had
never dreamed. There was a false ring about it, to be sure, everything
seemed more trivial and commonplace, and did not coincide with my own
ideas about love, but still, it was reality, it was love and adventure,
someone sat next to me who had lived it in experience, to whom it
seemed a matter of course.
Our conversation had reached a lower level, had deteriorated. I was
no longer a clever little fellow, I was just a mere boy listening
to a man. But even then--in comparison with what my life had been
for months and months, this was delicious, this was heaven. Besides,
as I gradually began to realize, all this was forbidden, absolutely
forbidden, everything from sitting in a public house, down to the
subject of our conversation. In any case, I thought I was showing
spirit; I was in revolt.
I can recollect that night with the greatest clearness. We both of us
wended our way home at a late hour under the dimly burning gas lamps
through the cool, damp night, and for the first time in my life I was
drunk. It was not agreeable, it was in the highest degree unpleasant,
but there was a sort of charm about it, a sweetness--it smacked of
orgy and revolt, of spirit and life. Beck bravely took me in hand, and
although he grumbled at me as being a bloody novice, he half carried,
half dragged me home, where, by good fortune, he was able to smuggle us
both through a window which stood open on the ground floor.
But a maddening pang accompanied the sobering up as I painfully awoke
after a short heavy sleep. I sat up in bed and saw that I was still
wearing my shirt. My clothes and shoes lay round about on the floor,
smelling of tobacco and vomit. And between headache, nausea and a
maddening thirst, a picture came before my mind on which I had not
set eyes for many a long day. I saw my home, the house where dwelt my
parents. I saw father and mother, my sisters and the garden. I saw
my peaceful, homely bedroom, the school and the marketplace. Demian
and the confirmation class--and all this was bright, lustrous, all
was wonderful, godly and pure, all that, I realized now, had until
yesterday belonged to me, had waited for me. But now, in this hour, it
was mine no longer, it spurned me and looked upon me with disgust. All
that was loving and intimate, all that I had received from my parents
since the first golden days of my childhood, each kiss mother had given
me, each Christmas, each godly bright Sunday morning there at home,
each flower in the garden, all that was laid waste, I had trampled on
it all with my foot! If the police had come for me then and had bound
me and led me away to the gallows as a desecrator and as the scum of
humanity, I should have acquiesced; should have gone gladly. I would
have found it right and fitting.
That was the state of my feelings. I, who had gone about despising the
world! I, who had been so proud in spirit and who had shared Demian’s
thoughts! So I appeared a filthy pig, to be classed with the scum of
the earth, drunk and befouled, disgusting and common, a dissolute
beast, carried away by abominable instincts. So I appeared, I who came
from those gardens whose bright flowers had been purity and sweet
gentleness, I who had loved Bach’s music and beautiful poetry! I could
still hear, with aversion and disgust, my own laugh, the drunken,
uncontrolled, convulsive and silly laugh which escaped me. That was I!
But in spite of everything there was a certain enjoyment in suffering
these torments. I had lived for so long a blind, dull existence, for
so long had my heart been silent, impoverished and shut up, that
even this self-accusation, this self-aversion, this entirely dreadful
feeling was welcome. At least it was feeling; flowers were flaring up,
emotion was quivering therein. I experienced in the midst of my misery
a confused sensation of liberation, of the approach of spring.
However, as far as outward appearances went, I was going fast down
the hill. The first debauch was soon followed by others. There was
much drinking at school, and other things not in accord with study.
I was among the youngest who carried on in this way, but from being
just tolerated and looked upon as a mere youngster, I soon rose to be
considered as a leader and a star. I was renowned as a daredevil and
could drink with the best. Once again I belonged entirely to the dark
world, to the devil, and I passed in this world for being a splendid
fellow.
But at the same time I was in a pitiful state of mind. I lived in a
whirl of self-destroying debauchery, and while I was looked up to by
my friends as a leader and the devil of a good fellow, as a cursed
witty and spirited drinking companion, my anxious soul was full of
apprehension. I remember on one occasion tears started to my eyes when,
on coming out of a tavern one Sunday morning, I saw children playing
in the street, bright and contented, with freshly combed hair, and
in their Sunday clothes. And while I amused and often terrified my
friends with monstrous cynicisms, as we sat at dirty tables stained
with puddles of beer, in low public houses, I had in my heart a secret,
deep reverence for everything at which I scoffed--inwardly I was
weeping bitterly at the thought of my past life, of my mother, of God.
There is a good reason for the fact that I was never one with my
companions, that I remained lonely even in their midst, that I suffered
in the manner above described. I was a hero of drinking bouts, with
the roughest of them, I was a scoffer after their own heart. I showed
courage and wit in my ideas and in my talks about masters, school,
parents, the church--I listened to their smutty stories unflinchingly
and even ventured one or two myself--but I was never about when my
boon companions went off with girls. I remained behind alone, filled
with an ardent desire for love, a hopeless longing, whereas to judge
from my conversation I must have been a hardened rake. No one was more
vulnerable, no one more chaste than I. And when from time to time I saw
young girls pass by in the town, pretty and clean, bright and charming,
they seemed to me like wonderful, pure dream women, a thousand times
too good and too pure for me. For a long time I could not bring myself
to enter Mrs. Jaggelt’s stationery shop, because I blushed when I saw
her and thought of what Alphonse Beck had told me about her.
The more I realized how different I was from the members of my new
set, how isolated I was in their midst, the less easy was it for that
very reason to break with them. I do not really know whether the
toping and bragging ever caused me much pleasure, and I could never
so accustom myself to hard drinking that I did not feel the painful
consequences after each bout. I was as if coerced into doing this. I
did it because I had to, because I was otherwise absolutely ignorant of
a course to follow, I knew not where to begin. I was afraid of being
long alone. I was frightened of the many tender, chaste, intimate moods
to which I constantly felt myself inclined, I was afraid of the tender
notions of love which so often came to me.
One thing I lacked most of all--a friend. There were two or three
schoolfellows whom I liked very much. But they belonged to the good set
and my vices had for a long time been a secret to no one. They avoided
me. With all I passed for a hopeless gamester under whose feet the very
earth quaked. The masters knew much about me, severe punishments were
several times inflicted on me, my final expulsion from the school was
waited for with more or less certainty. I knew that myself; for a long
time I had ceased to be a good pupil; I got through my work by hook or
by crook, with the feeling that the state of affairs could not last
much longer.
There are many ways by which God can make us feel lonely and lead us
to a consciousness of ourselves. With me it was in this way: it was
like a bad dream, in which I saw myself ostracized, foul and clammy,
creeping restlessly and painfully over broken beer glasses, down an
abominably unclean road. There are such dreams, when you imagine you
have set out to find a beautiful princess, but you stick in stinking
back streets full of rubbish and dirty puddles. So it was with me. In
this scarcely refined way I was destined to become lonely and to put
between myself and my childhood a locked door of Eden over against
which stood merciless sentinels on guard in beaming rays of light. It
was a beginning, an awakening of that homesickness, that longing to
return to my true self.
I was terribly frightened when my father, alarmed by a letter from my
house master, appeared for the first time in St. ---- and faced me
unexpectedly. When he came for the second time, towards the end of that
winter, I was hard and indifferent, I let him heap blame on me, I let
him beg me to think of my mother, I was unmoved. Finally he grew very
angry and said that if I did not turn over a new leaf he would have me
disgraced and chased out of the school, and would have me placed in a
reformatory. Little I cared! When he went away I felt sorry for him,
but he had accomplished nothing; he had found no approach to me, and
for a few moments I felt that it served him right.
I was indifferent as to what might become of me. In my peculiar and
unlovely manner, with my carrying on and my frequenting of public
houses, I was at odds with the world--this was my way of protesting.
I was ruining myself thereby, but what of it? Sometimes the case
presented itself to me in this wise: If the world had no use for such
as me, if there was no better place for us, if there were no higher
duties, then people like myself simply went to the devil. So much the
worse for the world.
The Christmas holidays of that year were exceedingly unpleasant. My
mother was terrified when she saw me again. I had grown taller, and
my thin face looked gray and ravaged by dissipation, with flabby
features and inflamed rings round the eyes. The first indications
of a moustache, and the spectacles which I had but lately taken to
wearing, made me look stranger still. My sisters started back and
giggled when they saw me. It was all very pleasant. Unpleasant was
the conversation with my father in his study, unpleasant the greeting
of a couple of relations, unpleasant above all things was Christmas
night. That has been since my birth the great day of our house, the
evening of festivity and love, of gratitude, of the renewal of the bond
between my parents and myself. This time everything was depressing
and embarrassing. As usual my father read the portion of the gospel
about the shepherds in the field “keeping watch over their flock by
night”; as usual my sisters stood radiantly before the table on which
the presents were laid out. But my father’s voice was sad, and he
looked old and constrained. Mother was unhappy; for me everything was
equally painful and unwished for, presents and good wishes, Gospel and
Christmas tree. The ginger-bread smelt delicious and exhaled thick
clouds as of sweet remembrances. The Christmas tree was fragrant and
told of things which existed no longer. I longed for the end of the
evening and of the holidays.
So passed the whole winter. It was not long before I was severely
reprimanded by the faculty and threatened with expulsion. It could not
last much longer. Well it made no difference to me.
I had a special grudge against Max Demian, whom I had not seen for the
whole of this period. In my first term at St. ---- I had written to him
twice, but had received no reply; for that reason I had not paid him a
visit in the holidays.
* * * * *
In the same park, where I had met Alphonse Beck in the autumn, it
chanced that in the first days of spring, just as the thorn hedges were
beginning to turn green, a girl attracted my attention. I was out for a
walk by myself, full of gnawing cares and thoughts, for my health was
bad. Besides that I was in continual financial embarrassment. I owed
various sums to my friends and had to invent excuses to procure some
money from home. In several shops I had run up accounts for cigars and
such things. Not that these cares were very pressing--if the end of my
school career was approaching, and if I drowned myself or was sent to
a reform school, these trifles would not make much difference either.
But I was nevertheless constantly facing these unpleasant things and I
suffered from it.
On that spring day in the park I met a girl who had a strong attraction
for me. She was tall and slender, elegantly dressed, and had a wise,
boyish face. She pleased me at once, she belonged to the type that I
loved, and she began to work upon my imagination. She was scarcely
older than I, but she was more mature; she was elegant and possessed
a good figure, already almost a woman, but with a touch of youthful
exuberance in her features, which pleased me exceedingly.
It was never my good fortune to approach a girl with whom I could
have fallen in love, neither was it my luck in this case. But the
impression was deeper than all the former ones, and the influence of
this infatuation on my life was powerful.
Suddenly I had again a picture standing before me, a revered
picture--ah, and no need, no impulse was so deep or so strong in me
as the desire to revere, to adore. I gave her the name of Beatrice,
of whom, without having read Dante, I knew something from an English
painting, a reproduction of which I had in my possession. The picture
was of an English pre-Raphaelite girlish figure, very long-limbed and
slender, with a small, long head and spiritualized hands and features.
My beautiful young girl did not completely resemble this, although
she had the same slenderness and boyish suppleness of figure, which I
loved, and something of the spiritualization of the face, as if her
soul lay therein.
I never spoke a single word to Beatrice. Yet at that time she exercised
the deepest influence over me. Her picture fastened itself on my mind;
in my imagination she opened a sanctuary for me, she caused me to
pray in a temple. From one day to another I remained absent from the
drinking bouts and the nightly excursions. Once more I could bear being
alone, I read gladly, I liked to go for walks again.
I was much scoffed at for my sudden conversion. But I had now something
to love and to worship, I had again an ideal, life was once more full
of suggestion, of gaily colored secret nuances, that made me insensible
to the jeers of my companions. I again felt at home with myself,
although I was now the servant and slave of a picture which I revered.
I cannot think of that time without a certain emotion. With earnest
striving, I again endeavored to build a “bright world” out of the ruins
of that period of my life which had broken up around me, I again lived
entirely and single-mindedly in the desire to put away the dark and
the bad, and to dwell completely in the light, on my knees before my
gods. Still, this “bright world” I built up was to a certain extent my
own creation. It was not the action of flying back or of crawling back
to mother, to a security without responsibilities. It was a new service
upon which I entered, invented by myself for my own requirements, with
responsibilities and discipline of self. The sex consciousness from
which I suffered and before which I was in constant flight was now
transmuted in this sacred fire to spirit and devotion. The grim and
horrible would disappear, I should groan through no more agonizing
nights, there would be no more heart-beatings in front of lewd
pictures, no more listening at forbidden doors, no more lasciviousness.
Instead of all this, I set up my altar, with the picture of Beatrice,
and in dedicating myself to her I dedicated myself to the spirit and
to the gods. That part of myself which I withdrew from the powers of
darkness I brought as a sacrifice to the powers of light. Not lust was
my aim, but purity; not happiness, but beauty and spirituality.
This cult for Beatrice completely changed my life. A precocious cynic
but a short while before, I had now become a servant in the temple,
whose aim it was to be a saint. I not only renounced the evil life to
which I had accustomed myself, but I endeavored to change everything,
to set myself a standard of purity, nobility and dignity, which I even
applied to eating and drinking, to my manner of speech and dress. I
began each morning to wash with cold water, to the use of which I had,
in the beginning, to force myself. I behaved with gravity and dignity,
carried myself erect and acquired a slower and more dignified gait. To
an observer it might have seemed rather ludicrous, but to me it was the
performance of a divine worship.
Of all the ways in which I sought to find expression for my new faith,
one bore fruit. I began to paint. To start with, the English picture of
Beatrice I had in my possession did not bear a sufficient resemblance
of Beatrice. I wanted to try to paint her for myself. Full of new
pleasure and hope I carried into my room--I had recently been given
a room to myself--beautiful paper, colors, and a paint-brush. I made
ready my palette, porcelain bowls, glass and pencils. The fine water
colors in little tubes which I had bought captivated me. There was a
bright chromic green which I think I can see yet as it flashed out for
the first time from the little white tube.
I began with caution. To paint a face was difficult; I wished first
of all to try something else. I painted ornaments, flowers, and small
landscapes from imagination, a tree near a chapel, a Roman bridge with
cypresses. I often lost myself completely in this pastime, I was
as happy as a child with a box of paints. At last I began to paint
Beatrice.
The first few attempts were abortive, and I threw them away. The more
I tried to conjure up in my mind the face of the girl, whom I met from
time to time in the street, the less I seemed able to transfer my
impressions to paper. Finally I gave up the idea, and began simply to
paint a face according to the guidance of my imagination, a face which
gradually grew out of the one already begun, as if by itself, at the
mercy of color and brush. The result was a face I had dreamed of, and I
was not ill pleased with it. Yet I made another essay immediately, and
each new picture was clearer, and approached more nearly to the type,
but was by no means like the reality.
More and more I accustomed myself, in a dreamy sort of way, to draw
lines with my brush, to fill in surfaces. My sketches grew out of a
few strokes of the brush, out of the unconscious. At last one day I
finished a face, almost unconsciously, which made a stronger appeal to
me than the former ones. It was not the face of the girl, for I had
long since given up the idea of trying to paint my Beatrice to the
life. It was something else, something unreal, and yet not of less
value for me on that account. It looked more like the head of a youth
than of a girl. The hair was not blond like that of my pretty girl,
but brown with a tinge of red; the chin was strong and firm, but the
mouth was red as a blossom. The features were rigid, like a mask, but
impressive and full of secret life.
As I sat before the finished sketch, it made a peculiar impression on
me. It seemed to me a sort of picture of a god or of a sacred mask,
half man, half woman, ageless, the expression being at once dreamy
and strong-willed, stiff and yet secretly alive. This face seemed to
have something to say to me, it belonged to me; its look was rather
imperative, as if requiring something of me. And there was a certain
resemblance to someone or other, to whom I knew not.
The picture played an important rôle for a while, sharing my thoughts
and my life. I kept it concealed in a drawer, in order that one should
not get possession of it and so be able to sneer at me. But as soon
as I found myself alone in my little room I took out the picture and
communed with it. Each evening I pinned it on to the wall over against
my bed, and gazed at it until I dropped off to sleep. In the morning it
was the first object which met my gaze.
Just at that time I began again to dream a great deal, as I had
constantly done when a child. It seemed to me that for years I had had
no more dreams. Now they came again, quite a new kind of pictures,
and often and often the painted image appeared therein, living and
speaking, friendly or inimical, with the features sometimes twisted
into a grimace, sometimes infinitely beautiful, harmonious and noble.
And one morning, as I awoke out of such a dream, I suddenly realized
who was the original of the picture, I recognized it. It gazed at me
in such a fabulously well-known way, and seemed to be calling my name.
It seemed to know me, like a mother, seemed to love me as if since the
beginning of time. With beating heart I stared at the paper, at the
thick brown hair, at the half-womanly mouth, the strong forehead with
the wonderful brightness (it had dried that way of itself) and more and
more I felt in me the knowledge, the certainty of having somewhere met
the original of the picture.
I sprang out of bed, placed myself in front of the face, and gazed at
it from the closest proximity, straight into the wide open, greenish,
staring eyes, the right eye somewhat higher than the other. And all at
once this right eye twitched perceptibly, but still decidedly, and from
this twitching I recognized the picture....
How was it that I had found it out so late? It was Demian’s face. Later
I often and often compared the picture with Demian’s real features, as
they had remained in my memory. They were not quite the same, although
there was a resemblance. But it was Demian, nevertheless.
Once, on an evening in early summer the red sun shone obliquely through
my window, which looked towards the west. In the room the dusk was
gathering. I suddenly had the idea of pinning the picture of Beatrice,
or of Demian, to the cross-bar of the window and of gazing at it,
while the evening sun was shining through. The whole outline of the
face disappeared, but the reddish ringed eyes, the brightness of the
forehead and the strong red mouth glowed deeply and wildly from the
surface of the paper. I sat opposite it for a long time, even after the
light had died away. And by degrees the feeling came to me that this
was not Beatrice or Demian but--myself. The picture did not resemble
me--it was not meant to, I felt--but there was that in it which seemed
to be made up of my life, something of my inner self, of my fate or of
my dæmon. My friend would look like that, if I ever found another. My
mistress would look like that, if ever I had one. My life and death
would be like that. It had the ring and rhythm of my fate.
In those weeks I had begun to read a book which made a deeper
impression on me than anything I had read before. Even in later years
I have seldom chanced upon books which have made such a strong appeal
to me, except perhaps those of Nietzsche. It was a volume of Novalis,
containing letters and apothegms. There was much that I did not
understand. But the book captivated me and occupied my thoughts to an
extraordinary degree. One of the aphorisms now occurred to me. I wrote
it with a pen under the picture: “Fate and soul are the terms of one
conception.” That I now understood.
I frequently used to meet the girl I called Beatrice. I felt no emotion
on seeing her, but I was often sensible of a harmony of sentiment,
which seemed to say: we are connected, or rather, not you and I, but
your picture and I; you are a part of my destiny.
* * * * *
My longing for Max Demian was again eager. I had had no news of him
for several years. On one occasion only I had met him in the holidays.
I see now that I have failed to mention this short meeting in my
narrative, and I see that this was owing to shame and self-conceit on
my part. I must make up for it now.
So then, once in the holidays, I was parading my somewhat tired, blasé
self through the town. As I was sauntering along, swinging my stick and
examining the old, unchanged features of the bourgeois Philistines whom
I despised, I met my one-time friend. Scarcely had I caught sight of
him when I started involuntarily. With lightning rapidity my thoughts
were carried back to Frank Kromer. I hoped and prayed Demian had really
forgotten the story! It was so disagreeable to be under this obligation
to him--simply owing to a silly, childish affair--still, I was under an
obligation....
He seemed to be waiting to see whether I would greet him. I did, as
calmly as possible under the circumstances, and he gave me his hand.
That was indeed his old handshake! So strong, warm and yet cool, so
manly!
He looked me attentively in the face and said: “You’ve grown a lot,
Sinclair.” He himself seemed quite unchanged, just as old, just as
young as ever.
He proposed we should go for a walk, and we talked of secondary
matters, not of the past. I remembered that I had written to him
several times, without having received an answer. I hoped he had
forgotten this as well, those silly, silly letters. He made no mention
of them.
At that time there was no Beatrice and no picture, I was still in the
period of my dissipation. Outside the town I invited him to come with
me into an inn. He came. With much ostentation I ordered a bottle
of wine and filled a couple of glasses. I clinked glasses with him,
showing him how conversant I was with student drinking customs, and I
emptied my first glass at a gulp.
“Do you frequent public houses often?” he asked me.
“Oh yes,” I said with a drawl, “what else is there to do? It’s
certainly more amusing than anything else; after all.”
“You think so? Perhaps. It may be so. There’s certainly something very
pleasing about it--intoxication, bacchanalian orgies! But I find, with
most people who frequent public houses, this sense of _abandon_
is lost. It seems to me there is something typically Philistine,
bourgeois, in the public house habit. Of course, for just one night,
with burning torches, to have a proper orgy and drunken revel. But
to do the same thing over and over again, drinking one glass after
another--that’s hardly the real thing. Can you imagine Faust sitting
evening after evening drinking at the same table?”
I drank, and looked at him with some enmity.
“Yes, but everyone isn’t a Faust,” I said curtly.
He looked at me with a somewhat surprised air.
Then he laughed, in his old superior way. “What’s the good of
quarreling about it? In any case the life of a toper, of a libertine,
is, I imagine, more exciting than that of a blameless citizen. And
then--I have read it somewhere--the life of a profligate is one of
the best preparations for a mystic. There are always such people as
Saint Augustine, who become seers. Before, he was a sort of rake and
profligate.”
I was distrustful and wished by no means to let him take a superior
attitude towards me. So I said, with a blasé air: “Well, everyone
according to his taste! I haven’t the slightest intention of doing
that, becoming a seer or anything.”
Demian flashed a glance at me from half-closed eyes.
“My dear Sinclair,” he said slowly, “it wasn’t my intention to hurt
your feelings. Besides--neither of us knows to what end you drink.
There is that in you, which orders your life for you, and which knows
why you are doing it. It is good to realize this; there is someone in
us who knows everything, wills everything, does everything better than
we do ourselves. But excuse me, I must go home.”
We did not linger over our leave-taking. I remained seated, very
dejected, and emptied the bottle. I found, when I got up to go, that
Demian had already paid for it. That made me more angry still.
* * * * *
This little event recurred to my thoughts, which were full of Demian.
And the words he had spoken in the inn came back to my mind, retaining
all their old freshness and significance: “It is good to know there is
one in us who knows everything!”
I looked at the picture hanging in the window, now quite dark. The
eyes glowed still. It was Demian’s look. On it was the look of the one
inside me, who knows all.
Oh, how I longed for Demian! I knew nothing of his whereabouts, for me
he was unattainable. I knew only that he was supposed to be studying
somewhere or other, and that after the conclusion of his school career
his mother had left the town.
I called up in my mind all my reminiscences of Max Demian, from the
Kromer affair onwards. A great deal he had formerly said came back
to me. To-day everything still had a meaning, all was of real concern
to me! And what he had said at our last, not very agreeable, meeting,
about the libertine and the saint, suddenly crossed my mind. Was it not
just so with me? Had I not lived in filth and drunkenness, my senses
blunted by dissipation, until a new life impulse, the direct contrary
of the old, awoke in me, namely the desire for purity, the longing to
be saintly?
So I went on, from reminiscence to reminiscence. Night had long since
fallen, and outside it was raining. In recollection, as well, I heard
it rain; it was the hour under the chestnut trees when he first
questioned me concerning Frank Kromer, so guessing my first secrets.
One after another these souvenirs came to mind, conversations on the
way to school, the confirmation class. And then I recollected my very
first meeting with Max Demian. What had we been talking about? I could
not for the moment recollect, but I took my time, I thought deeply. At
last I remembered. We were standing in front of our house; after he
had imparted to me his opinion about Cain. Then he spoke to me about
the old, almost obliterated crest which stood over the door, in the
keystone which widened as it got higher. He said it interested him and
that one ought not to let such things escape one’s notice.
That night I dreamt of Demian and of the crest. It changed perpetually,
now Demian held it in his hands, now it was small and grey, now very
large and multicolored, but he explained to me that it was always one
and the same. But at last he forced me to eat the crest. As I swallowed
it, I felt with terror that the bird on the crest was alive inside me,
my stomach was swollen and the bird was beginning to consume me. With
the fear of death upon me, I commenced to struggle. Then I woke up.
I felt relieved. It was the middle of the night, and I heard the rain
blowing into the room. I got up to close the window; and in doing
so trod on a bright object which lay on the floor. In the morning I
found it was my painting. It was lying there in the wet and had rolled
itself up. In order to dry it I stretched it out between two sheets of
blotting paper and placed it under a heavy book. When I looked at it
the next day it was dry. But it had changed. The red mouth had paled
and had become smaller. Now it was exactly Demian’s mouth.
I now began to paint a new picture, namely, that of the bird on the
crest. I could not recollect any more what it really looked like,
neither could I form a clear image of the whole, as even if one stood
directly in front of our door, the crest was scarcely recognizable, it
was so old and had several times been painted over. The bird stood or
sat on something, perhaps on a flower, or on a basket or nest, or on a
tree-top. I did not bother about that, and began with the part I could
picture clearly. In answer to a confused prompting, I began straight
away with strong colors; on my paper the head of the bird was golden
yellow. I continued my work at intervals, when I was in the mood for
it, and after a few days the thing was completed.
Now it was a bird of prey, with a sharp, bold hawk’s head. The lower
half of the body was fixed in a dark terrestrial globe, out of which
it was working to escape, as if out of a giant egg. The background was
sky-blue. The longer I gazed at the sheet, the more it seemed to me
this was the colored crest which I had visualized in my dream.
It would not have been possible for me to have written a letter to
Demian, even if I had known where to send it. But I decided, acting
under a suggestion which came to me in a dreamy sort of way, as under
all my promptings of that period, to send him the picture with the
hawk--whether it would reach him or not. I wrote nothing thereon, not
even my name. I carefully cut the border, bought a large paper cover
and wrote on it my friend’s former address. Then I sent it off.
The approach of an examination caused me to work harder than usual
in school. The masters had again received me into grace, since I had
suddenly changed my vile conduct. I was not, even now, by any means a
good pupil, but neither I nor anyone else seemed to remember that, half
a year before, my expulsion from the school had been imminent.
My father now wrote to me as formerly, adopting his old cheerful tone,
without reproaches or threats. Yet I had no impulse to explain to him
or to anyone how the change was brought about. It was merely chance
that this change coincided with the wishes of my parents and the
masters. It did not bring me into closer contact with the others but
isolated me still more. I myself was ignorant of the tendency of the
change in me, it might be leading me to Demian, to a distant fate. It
had begun with Beatrice, but for some time past I had been living in
quite an unreal world with my paintings and my thoughts of Demian, so
that she quite disappeared from my mind, as she did from my view. I
should not have been able to say a word to anyone of my dreams, of my
expectations, of the inner change realized in me, not even if I had
wished to do so.
But I had not the faintest desire ever to broach the subject.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE BIRD FIGHTS ITS WAY OUT OF THE EGG
My painted dream-bird was on its way, searching out my friend. An
answer came to me in the most curious manner.
In my classroom in school I found at my desk, in the interval between
two lessons, a piece of paper slipped between the pages of my book. It
was folded in the manner we used for passing notes to one another in
class. I wondered who could have sent me such a note, as I was not so
intimate with any of the boys that one of them should wish to write to
me. I thought it was a summons to participate in some school rag or
other, in which however I should not have taken part, and I replaced
the note unopened in my book. During the lesson it fell by chance into
my hands again.
I toyed with the paper, unfolded it without thinking, and discovered a
few words written thereon. I threw a glance at the writing, one word
riveted my attention. Terrified, I read on, while my heart seemed to
become numb with a sense of destiny.
“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever
will be born must destroy a world. The bird flies to God. The name of
the god is Abraxas.”
I sank into deep meditation after I had read the words through several
times. It admitted of no doubt: this was Demian’s answer. None could
know of the bird, except our two selves. He had received my picture. He
had understood and helped me to explain its significance. But where was
the connection in all this? And--what worried me above all--what did
Abraxas mean? I had never read or heard of the word. “The name of the
god is Abraxas!”
The hour passed without my hearing anything of the lesson. The next
lesson began, the last of the morning. It was taken by quite a young
assistant master, fresh from the University, to whom we had already
taken a liking, because he was young and pretended to no false dignity
with us.
We were reading Herodotus under Doctor Follen’s guidance. This was
one of the few school subjects which interested me. But this time my
attention wandered. I had mechanically flung open my book, but I did
not follow the translation, and remained lost in thought. For the
rest, I had already several times had the experience that what Demian
had said to me in the confirmation class was right. If you willed a
thing strongly enough, it happened. If during the lesson I was deeply
immersed in thought, I need not fear that the master would disturb my
peace. Certainly, if you were absent-minded or sleepy, then he stood
suddenly there; that had already happened to me several times. But if
you were really thinking, if you were genuinely sunk in thought, then
you were safe. And I had already put to the test what he had said to me
about fixing a person with one’s eyes. When at school with Demian I had
never been successful in this attempt, but now I often realized that
you could accomplish much simply by a fixed look and deep thinking.
So I was sitting now, my thoughts far from Herodotus and school.
But the master’s voice unexpectedly fell on my consciousness like a
thunder-crash, so that I started with fright. I listened to his voice,
he was standing quite close to me, I thought he had already called me
by name. But he did not look at me. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Then I heard his voice again. Loudly the word “Abraxas” fell from his
lips.
Continuing his explanation, the beginning of which had escaped me,
Doctor Follen said: “We must not imagine the ideas of those sects and
mystical corporations of antiquity to be as naïve as they appear from
the standpoint of a rationalistic outlook. Antiquity knew absolutely
nothing of science, in our sense of the word. On the other hand more
attention was paid to truths of a philosophical, mystical nature, which
often attained to a very high stage of development. Magic in part arose
therefrom, and often led to fraud and crime. But none the less, magic
had a noble origin and was inspired by deep thought. So it was with the
teaching of Abraxas, which I have just cited as an example. This name
is used in connection with Greek charm formulas. Many opinions coincide
in thinking it is the name of some demon of magic, such as some savage
people worship to-day. But it appears that Abraxas had a much wider
significance. We can imagine the name to be that of a divinity on
whom the symbolical task was imposed of uniting the divine and the
diabolical.”
The learned little man continued his discourse with much seriousness,
no one was very attentive, and as the name did not recur, I was soon
immersed in my own thoughts again.
“To unite the divine and the diabolical,” rang in my ears. Here was a
starting-point. I was familiar with that idea from my conversations
with Demian in the very last period of our friendship. Demian told me
then, we had indeed a God whom we revered, but this God represented
part of the world only, the half which was arbitrarily separated from
the rest (it was the official, permitted, “bright” world). But one
should be able to hold the whole world in honor. One should either have
a god who was at the same time a devil, or one should institute devil
worship together with worship of God. And now Abraxas was the god, who
was at the same time god and devil.
For a long time I zealously sought to follow up the trail of ideas
farther, without success. In addition, I rummaged through a whole
library to find out more about Abraxas, but in vain. However, it was
not my nature to concentrate my energies on a methodical search after
knowledge, a search which would reveal truths of a dead, useless,
documentary kind.
The figure of Beatrice, which had for a certain time occupied so much
of my attention, vanished by degrees from my mind, or rather receded
slowly, drawing nearer and nearer to the horizon, becoming paler, more
like a shadow, as it retreated. She satisfied my soul no longer. A new
spiritual development now began to take place in the dreamy existence I
led, this existence in which I was strangely wrapped up in myself. The
longing for a full life glowed in me, or rather the longing for love.
The sex instinct, which for a time had been merged into my worship
of Beatrice, required new pictures and aims. Fulfillment was denied
me, and it was more impossible than ever for me to delude myself by
expecting anything of the girls who seemed to have the happiness of my
comrades in their keeping. I again dreamed vividly, even more by day
than by night. Images presented themselves to me, desires in the shape
of pictures rose up in my imagination, withdrawing me from the outside
world, so that my relations with these pictures, with these dreams
and shadows, were more real and more intimate than with my actual
surroundings.
A certain dream, or play of fantasy, which recurred to me, was full of
significance. This dream, the most important and the most enduring of
my life, was as follows: I returned home--over the front door shone
the crest with the yellow bird on the blue ground--my mother came to
meet me--but as I entered and wished to embrace her, it was not she,
but a shape I had never before seen, tall and powerful, resembling Max
Demian and my painting, yet different, and quite womanly in spite of
its size. This figure drew me towards it, and held me in a quivering,
passionate embrace. Rapture and horror were mixed, the embrace was a
sort of divine worship, and yet a crime as well. Too much of the memory
of my mother, too much of the memory of Max Demian was contained in the
form which embraced me. The embrace seemed repulsive to my sentiment
of reverence, yet I felt happy. I often awoke out of this dream with
a deep feeling of contentment, often with the fear of death and a
tormenting conscience as if I were guilty of a terrible sin.
It was only gradually and unconsciously that I realized the connection
between this mental picture and the hint which had come to me from
outside concerning the god of whom I was in search. However, this
connection became closer and more intimate, and I began to feel that
precisely in this dream, this presentiment, I was invoking Abraxas.
Rapture and horror, man and woman, the most sacred things and the
most abominable interwoven, the darkest guilt with the most tender
innocence--such was the dream picture of my love, such also was
Abraxas. Love was no longer a dark, animal impulse, as I had felt
with considerable anxiety in the beginning. Neither was it a pious
spiritualized form of worship any longer, such as I had bestowed upon
the picture of Beatrice. It was both--both and yet much more, it was
the image of an angel and of Satan, man and woman in one, human being
and animal, the highest good and lowest evil. It was my destiny, it
seemed that I should experience this in my own life. I longed for it
and was afraid of it, I followed it in my dreams and took to flight
before it; but it was always there, was always standing over me.
The next spring I was to leave school and go to some university to
study, where and what I knew not. A small moustache grew on my lip,
I was a grown man, and yet completely hopeless and aimless. Only one
thing was firm: the voice in me, the dream picture. I felt it my duty
to follow this guidance blindly. But it was difficult, and daily I was
on the point of revolting. Perhaps I was mad, I often used to think;
perhaps I was not as other men? But I could do everything the others
did; with a little pains and industry I could read Plato, I could solve
a trigonometrical problem or work out a chemical analysis. Only one
thing I could not do: Discover the dark, concealed aim within me and
make up my mind, as others did--others, who knew well enough whether
they wanted to be professors or judges, doctors or artists. They knew
what career to follow and what advantages they would gain by it. But I
was not like that. Perhaps I would be like them some day, but how was
I to know? Perhaps I should have to seek and seek for years, and would
make nothing of myself, would attain no end. Perhaps I should attain an
end, but it might be wicked, dangerous, terrible.
I wanted only to try to live in obedience to the promptings which came
from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?
I often made the attempt to paint the powerful love-figure of my dream.
But I never succeeded. If I had been successful I would have sent the
picture to Demian. Where was he? I knew not. I only knew there was a
bond of union between us. When should I see him again?
The pleasant tranquillity of those weeks and months of the Beatrice
period was long since gone. I thought at that time I had reached a
haven and had found peace. But it was ever so--scarcely did I begin to
adapt myself to circumstances, scarcely had a dream done me good, when
it faded again. In vain to complain! I now lived in a fire of unstilled
desires, of tense expectation, which often rendered me completely wild
and mad. I frequently saw before me the picture of my dream-mistress
with extraordinary clearness, much more clearly than I saw my own
hand. I spoke to it, wept over it, cursed it. I called it mother and
knelt before it in tears. I called it my beloved and felt its ripe kiss
of fulfilled desire. I called it devil and whore, vampire and murderer.
It invited me to the tenderest dreams of love and to the most horrible
abominations--nothing was too good and precious for it, nothing too bad
and vile.
I passed the whole of that winter in a state of inward tumult difficult
to describe. I had long been accustomed to loneliness--that did not
depress me. I lived with Demian, with the hawk, with my picture of the
big dream-figure, which was my fate and my mistress. It sufficed to
live in close communion with those things, since they opened up a large
and broad perspective, leading to Abraxas. But I was not able to summon
up these dreams, these thoughts, at will. I could not invest them in
colors, as I pleased. They came of themselves, taking possession of me,
governing me and shaping my life.
I was secure in so far as the outside world was concerned. I was afraid
of no one. My schoolfellows had learned to recognize that, and observed
a secret respect towards me, which often caused me to smile. When I
wished, I could penetrate most of them with a look, thereby surprising
them occasionally. Only, I seldom or never wanted to do this. It was my
own self which occupied my attention, always myself. And yet I longed
ardently to live a bit of real life, to give something of myself to
the world, to enter into contact and battle with it. Sometimes as I
wandered through the streets in the evening and could not, through
restlessness, return home before midnight, I thought to myself: Now
I cannot fail to meet my beloved, I shall overtake her at the next
corner, she will call to me from the next window. Sometimes all this
seemed to torture me unbearably, and I was quite prepared to take my
own life some day.
At that time I found a peculiar refuge--by “chance,” as one says. But
really such happenings cannot be attributed to chance. When a person
is in need of something, and the necessary happens, this is not due to
chance but to himself; his own desire leads him compellingly to the
object of which he stands in need.
Two or three times during my wanderings through the streets I had heard
the strains of an organ coming from a little church in the suburbs,
without, however, stopping to listen. The next time I passed by the
church I heard it again, and recognized that Bach was being played.
I went to the door, which I found to be locked. As the street was
practically empty I sat down on a curb-stone close to the church,
turned up the collar of my coat and listened. It was not a large organ,
but a good one nevertheless. Whoever was playing played wonderfully
well, almost like a virtuoso, but with a peculiar, highly personal
expression of will and perseverance, which seemed to make the music
ring out like a prayer. I had the feeling that the man who was playing
knew a treasure was shut up in the music and he struggled and tapped
and knocked to get at the treasure, as if his life depended on his
finding it. In the technical sense I do not understand very much
about music, but this form of the soul’s expression I have from my
childhood intuitively understood; I feel music is something which I can
comprehend without initiation.
The organist next played something modern, it might have been Reger.
The church was almost completely dark, only a very narrow beam of light
shone through the window nearest to me. I waited until the end, and
then walked up and down till the organist came out. He was still a
young man, though older than myself, robust and thick-set. He walked
quickly, taking powerful strides, but as if forcing the pace against
his will.
Many an evening thereafter I sat before the church, or walked up and
down. Once I found the door open, and for half an hour I sat shivering
and happy inside, while the organist played in the organ loft by
the dim gas light. Of the music he played I heard not only what he
himself put into it. There seemed also to be a secret coherence
in his repertory, each piece seemed to be the continuation of the
one preceding. Everything he played was pious, expressing faith
and devotion. But not pious like church-goers and clergymen, but
like pilgrims and beggars of the Middle Ages, pious with a reckless
surrender to a world-feeling, which was superior to all confessions of
faith. He frequently played music by the pre-Bach composers, and old
Italian music. And all the pieces said the same thing, all expressed
what the musician had in his soul: longing, a longing to identify
oneself with the world and to tear oneself free again, listening to
the workings of one’s own dark soul, an orgy of devotion and lively
curiosity of the wonderful.
I once secretly followed the organist as he left the church. He
continued his way to the outskirts of the town and entered a little
tavern. I could not resist the temptation to go in after him. For
the first time I had a clear view of him. He sat at the table in the
corner of the little room, a black felt hat on his head, a measure of
wine before him, and his face was just as I had expected it to be.
It was ugly and somewhat uncouth, with the look of a seeker and of
an eccentric, obstinate and strong-willed, with a soft and childish
mouth. The expression of what was strong and manly lay in the eyes
and forehead; on the lower half of the face sat a look of gentleness
and immaturity, rather effeminate and showing a lack of self-mastery.
The chin indicated a boyish indecision, as if in contradiction with
the eyes and forehead. I liked the dark brown eyes, full of pride and
hostility.
Silently I took my place opposite him. There was no one else in the
tavern. He glared at me, as if he wished to chase me away. Nevertheless
I maintained my position, looking at him unflinchingly, until at last
he growled testily: “What the deuce are you staring at me for? Do you
want anything of me?”
“I don’t want anything,” I said. “You have already given me much.”
He wrinkled his forehead.
“Ah, you’re a music enthusiast, are you? I think it’s disgusting to go
mad over music.”
I did not let myself be intimidated.
“I have so often listened to your playing, there in the church,” I
said. “But I don’t want to bother you. I thought perhaps I should
discover something in you, something special, I don’t know exactly
what. But please don’t mind me. I can listen to you in the church.”
“Why, I always lock the door!”
“Just lately you forgot, and I sat inside. Otherwise I stand outside or
sit on the curb-stone.”
“Is that so? Another time you can come inside, it’s warmer. You’ve
simply got to knock on the door. But loudly, and not while I’m playing.
Now--what did you want to say? But you’re quite young, apparently a
schoolboy or student. Are you a musician?”
“No. I like music, but only the kind you play, absolute music, where
one feels that someone is trying to fathom heaven and hell. I like
music so much, I think, because it is not concerned with morals.
Everything else is a question of morals, and I am looking for something
different. Whatever has been concerned with morals has caused me only
suffering. I don’t express myself properly. Do you know that there must
be a god who is at the same time god and devil? There must have been
one, I have heard so.”
The organist pushed back his broad hat and shook the dark hair from
his forehead. He looked at me penetratingly and bent forward his face
towards me over the table.
Softly and tensely he questioned:
“What’s the name of the god of whom you are talking?”
“Unfortunately I know practically nothing about him really, only his
name. His name’s Abraxas.”
The musician looked distrustfully around, as if someone might be
eavesdropping. Then he bent towards me and said in a whisper: “I
thought so. Who are you?”
“I’m a student from the school.”
“How do you know about Abraxas?”
“By chance.”
He thumped on the table, so that his wine spilled over.
“Chance! Don’t talk nonsense, young man! One doesn’t know of Abraxas
by chance, mark you. I will tell you something more of him. I know a
little about him!”
He ceased talking and pushed back his chair. I looked at him
expectantly, and he made a grimace.
“Not here! another time. There, take these!”
He dug his hand into the pocket of his overcoat, which he had not taken
off, and pulled out a couple of roasted chestnuts, which he threw to me.
I said nothing. I took and ate them, and was very contented.
“Well,” he whispered after a while. “How do you know about--him?”
I did not hesitate to tell him.
“I was lonely and perplexed,” I related. “I called to mind a friend of
former years who, I think, knows a great deal. I had painted something,
a bird coming out of a terrestrial globe. I sent this to him. After a
time, when I had begun to lose hope of a reply, a piece of paper fell
into my hands. On it was written: ‘The bird fights its way out of the
egg. The egg is the world. Whoever will be born must destroy a world.
The bird flies to God. The name of the god is Abraxas.’”
He answered nothing. We peeled our chestnuts and ate them, and drank
our wine.
“Shall we have another drink?” he asked.
“Thanks, no. I don’t care much for drinking.”
He laughed, somewhat disappointedly.
“As you wish! I am different. I am staying here. You can go now!”
The next time I saw him after the organ recital, he was not very
communicative. He conducted me through an old street to an old, stately
house and upstairs into a large, somewhat gloomy and untidy room where,
besides a piano, there was nothing to indicate that its occupant was a
musician. Instead, a huge bookcase and writing table gave the room a
somewhat scholarly air.
“What a lot of books you have!” I said appreciatively.
“A part of them belongs to the library of my father, with whom I
live. Yes, young man, I live with my father and mother, but I cannot
introduce you to them, as I and my acquaintances meet with but scant
respect at home. I am a prodigal son, you see. My father is very much
looked up to, he is a well-known clergyman and preacher in this town.
And I, to let you know at once, am his talented and promising son, who,
however, is guilty of many back-slidings, and, to a certain extent,
mad. I was studying theology, and deserted this worthy faculty shortly
before my final examination, although really I am still in the same
line, as far as concerns my private studies. For me it is still of the
highest importance and interest what sort of gods people have invented
for themselves at various times. I am a musician into the bargain, and
shall soon get a post as organist, I think. Then I shall be in the
church again.”
I glanced over the backs of the books and found Greek, Latin, Hebrew
titles, as far as I could see by the feeble light of the lamp on the
table. My acquaintance, meanwhile, had taken up a position on the floor
in the dark by the wall.
“Come here,” he called after a while, “we will practice a little
philosophy. That means keeping one’s mouth shut, lying on one’s stomach
and thinking.”
He struck a match and applied it to the paper and wood in the
fireplace, in front of which he was lying. The flame leapt up; he poked
and blew the fire with great skill. I lay down near him on the ragged
carpet. He stared into the flames, which drew my attention as well, and
we lay silent for perhaps a whole hour stretched out in front of the
flaring wood fire. We watched it flame and roar, die down and flicker
up again, until finally it settled down into a subdued glow.
“Fire worship was not by any means the silliest form of worship
invented,” he murmured without looking up. Those were the only words
spoken. With staring eyes I gazed into the fire. Lulled by the
tranquillity of the room, I sank in dreams, seeing shapes in the smoke
and pictures in the ashes. Once I started up. My companion had thrown
a little bit of resin into the glow. A little slender flame shot up,
I saw in it the bird with the gold hawk’s head. In the glow which
died away in the fireplace, golden glittering threads wove themselves
together into a net, letters and pictures, memories of faces, of
animals, of plants, of worms and serpents. When I woke from my reveries
and looked across at my companion, he was absorbed, staring at the
ashes with the fixed gaze of a fanatic, his chin in his hands.
“I must go now,” I said softly.
“Well, go then, good-bye!”
He did not get up, and as the lamp had gone out, I had to feel my way
across the dark room, through dark corridors and down the stairs, and
so out of the enchanted old dwelling. Once in the street I stopped and
looked up at the house. In not one of the windows was a light burning.
A little brass-plate shone in the gleam of the gas-lamp before the door.
“Pistorius, vicar,” I read thereon. As I sat in my little room after
supper I remembered that I had learnt nothing about Abraxas, or
anything else from Pistorius. We had scarcely exchanged ten words.
But I was quite contented with the visit I had paid him. And he had
promised to play next time an exquisite piece of organ music, a
Passacaglia by Buxtehude.
Without my having realized it, the organist Pistorius had given me a
first lesson, as we lay on the floor in front of the fireplace of his
melancholy hermit’s room. Staring into the fire had done me good, it
had confirmed and set in activity tendencies which I had always had,
but had never really followed. Gradually and in part I saw light on the
subject.
When quite a child I had from time to time the propensity to watch
bizarre forms of nature, not observing them closely, but simply
surrendering myself to their peculiar magic, absorbed by the
contemplation of their curling shapes. Long dignified tree-roots,
colored veins in stone, flecks of oil floating on water, flaws in
glass--all things of a similar nature had had great charm for me
at that time, above all, water and fire, smoke, clouds, dust, and
especially the little circulating colored specks which I saw when I
closed my eyes. In the days following my first visit to Pistorius this
began to come back to me. I noticed that I was indebted solely to
staring into the open fire for a certain strength and pleasure, for
the increase in my depth of feeling which I had felt since. It was
curiously beneficial and enriching--dreaming and staring into the fire!
To the few experiences I had gained on the road to the attainment of my
proper ends in life was added this new one: The contemplation of such
shapes, the surrendering of oneself to these irrational, twisting, odd
forms of nature, engenders in us a feeling of the harmony of our inner
being with the will which brought forth these shapes; we soon feel the
temptation to look upon them as our own creations, as if made by our
own moods; we see the boundary between ourselves and nature waver and
vanish; we learn to know the state of mind by outside impressions, or
by inward. In no way so simply and so easily as by this practice do we
discover to what a great extent we are creators, to what a great extent
our souls have part in the continual creation of the world. Or rather,
it is the same indivisible godhead, which is active in us and in
nature. If the outside world fell in ruins, one of us would be capable
of building it up again, for mountain and stream, tree and leaf, root
and blossom, all that is shaped by nature lies modeled in us, comes
from the soul, whose essence is eternity, of whose essence we are
ignorant, but which is revealed to us for the most part as love-force
and creative power.
Many years later I found this observation confirmed in a book, one of
Leonardo da Vinci’s, who in one passage remarks how good and deeply
moving it is to look at a wall on which many people have spat. He felt
the same sensation before those spots on the wet wall as Pistorius and
I before the fire.
At our next meeting the organist enlightened me still further on the
subject.
“We confine our personality within much too narrow bounds. We count as
composing our person only that which distinguishes us as individuals,
only that which we recognize as irregular. But we are made up from
the entire world stock, each one of us, and just as in our body is
displayed the genealogical table of development back to the fish
stage and still further, so we have accumulated in our souls all the
experiences through which a human soul has ever lived. All the gods and
devils which have ever been, whether those of the Greeks or Chinese
or Zulus, all are in us, are there as potentialities, as desires,
as starting points. If all mankind died out, with the exception of
a single moderately gifted child, who had not enjoyed the slightest
instruction, so would this child rediscover the whole process of
things; it would be able to produce gods, demons, paradises, the
commandments and prohibitions, old and new testaments--everything.”
“Well and good,” I objected; “but then what does the worth of the
individual consist of? Why do we continue to strive if everything has
already been achieved in us?”
“Stop!” exclaimed Pistorius vehemently. “There is a great difference
between whether one merely carries the world in oneself, or whether one
is conscious of that as well. A madman can have ideas which remind one
of Plato, and a pious little boy in a Moravian boarding school will
recreate in his thought profound mythological ideas which occur in the
gnostics or in Zoroaster. But he does not realize it! He is a tree or
a stone, at best an animal, as long as he does not know it. But, when
the first spark of this knowledge glimmers in him he becomes a man. You
will not consider all the two-legged creatures who walk out there in
the street as human beings, simply because they walk erect and carry
their young nine months in the womb? Look how many of them are fish or
sheep, worms or leeches, how many are ants or bees. Well, in reach of
them are the possibilities of becoming human creatures, but only when
they feel this, it is only when, if even in part, they learn to make
them conscious, that these potentialities become theirs.”
Our conversations were somewhat after this style. They seldom taught
me anything completely new, anything absolutely surprising. But all,
even the most banal, hit like a light persistent hammer-stroke on the
same point in me, all helped in my development, all helped to peel
off skins, to break up eggshells, and after each talk I held my head
somewhat higher, I was more sure of myself until my yellow bird pushed
his beautiful bird-of-prey crest through the ruins of the world-shell.
We frequently related our dreams to one another. Pistorius knew how
to interpret them. A curious example comes to my mind. I dreamed I
was able to fly. I was flung through the air, so to speak--impelled
by a great force over which I had not the mastery. The sensation of
this flight was exhilarating, but soon changed to fear as I saw myself
snatched up involuntarily to risky heights. There I made the saving
discovery that I could control my rise and fall by arresting my breath
and by breathing again.
Pistorius interpreted it as follows: “The swing, which sent you
up into the air, is the great property of mankind, which everyone
possesses. It is the feeling of close relationship with the springs
of every force, but it soon causes anxiety. It is cursedly dangerous!
For that reason most people willingly renounce flying, preferring to
walk according to prescribed laws along the footpath. But not you. You
fly higher, as befits an intelligent fellow. And behold, you make a
wonderful discovery there, namely, you gradually get the mastery over
the impelling force. In other words, you acquire a fine little force of
your own, an instrument, a rudder. That is splendid. Without that one
goes floating into the air without any will of one’s own; madmen, for
instance, do that. They have deeper presentiments than the people on
the footpath. But they have no key and no rudder, they fall whistling
through the air, down into the fathomless depths. But you, Sinclair,
you manage all right! And how, pray? You probably don’t even know.
You manage with a new instrument, with a breath regulator. And now
you can see, that your soul isn’t really ‘personal’ at bottom. I mean
that you didn’t invent this regulator. It isn’t new. It is a loan, it
has existed for thousands of years. It is the balancing organ fish
have--the air-bladder. Even to-day we actually still have a few very
rare kinds of fish whose air-bladder is at the same time a sort of
lung; and on occasion can use it to breathe with. In your dream you
made use of your lungs in exactly the same way as these fish do their
air-bladder.”
He even brought me a volume on zoölogy, and showed me the original
drawings of these ancient fish. And with a peculiar thrill I felt an
organ of early evolutionary epochs functioning in me.
CHAPTER SIX
JACOB WRESTLES WITH GOD
I cannot relate in brief all that I learned from the singular musician
Pistorius about Abraxas. The most important result of his teaching was
that I made a further step forward on the road to self-realization. I
was then about eighteen years old. I was a young man rather out of the
ordinary, precocious in a hundred things, in a hundred other things
backward and helpless. When from time to time I used to compare myself
with others, I was often proud and conceited, but just as frequently
I felt depressed and humiliated. I had often looked upon myself as a
genius, often as half mad. I could not share the pleasures and life of
the fellows of my age, and often I heaped reproaches on myself and was
consumed with cares, thinking I was hopelessly cut off from them, and
that life was closed to me.
Pistorius, himself full-grown and an eccentric, taught me to preserve
my courage and my self-esteem. In constantly finding some value in my
words, in my dreams, in the play of my imagination and in my ideas, in
taking them seriously and discussing them, he set me an example.
“You have told me,” he said, “that you like music because it is not
moral. Well, all right. But you should be no moralist yourself! You
should not compare yourself with others. If nature had created you to
be a bat, you ought not to want to make yourself into an ostrich. You
often consider yourself as singular, you reproach yourself with going
ways different from most people. You must get out of that habit. Look
in the fire, look at the clouds, and as soon as you have presentiments,
and the voices of your soul begin to speak, yield to them and don’t
first ask what the opinion of your master or your father would be, or
whether they would be pleasing to some god or other. One spoils oneself
that way. In doing that one treads the common road, becomes a fossil.
Sinclair, my dear fellow, the name of our god is Abraxas. He is God
and he is Satan; he has the light and the dark world in him. Abraxas
has no objection to urge against any of your ideas or against any of
your dreams. Never forget that. But he deserts you if you ever become
blameless and normal. He deserts you and seeks out another pot in order
to cook his ideas therein.”
Of all my dreams, that dark love-dream recurred most frequently. Often,
often have I dreamed of it; often I stepped under the crest with the
bird on it into our house, and wished to draw my mother to me, but
instead of her I found I was embracing the tall, manly, half-motherly
woman, of whom I was afraid, and yet to whom I was drawn by a most
ardent desire. And I could never relate this dream to my friend. I kept
it back, although I had opened my heart to him on everything else. It
was my secret, my retreat, my refuge.
When I was depressed, I used to beg Pistorius to play me the
Passacaglia of old Buxtehude. I sat in the dark church in the evening,
engrossed in this singularly intimate music, which seemed to be
hearkening to itself, as if entirely self-absorbed. Each time it did me
good and made me more ready to follow the promptings of my inward self.
Sometimes we stayed awhile in the church after the strains of the organ
had died away. We sat and watched the feeble light shine through the
high lancet window; the light seemed to lose itself in the body of the
church.
“It sounds funny,” said Pistorius, “that I once did theology and almost
became a parson. But it was only an error in form that I committed.
To be a priest, that is my vocation and my aim. Only I was too easily
satisfied, and gave myself to the service of Jehovah before ever I knew
Abraxas. Ah, every religion is beautiful! Religion is soul. It is all
one whether you take communion as a Christian or whether you make a
pilgrimage to Mecca.”
“Then really you might have been a clergyman,” I suggested.
“No, Sinclair, no. I should have had to have lied in that case. Our
religion is so practised, as if it were none. It is carried on as if it
were a work of the understanding. A Catholic I could well be, if need
were, but a Protestant clergyman--no! There are two kinds of genuine
believers--I know such--who hold gladly to the literal interpretation.
I could not say to them that for me Christ was not a mere person, but a
hero, a myth, a wonderful shadow-picture, in which mankind sees itself
painted on the wall of eternity. And what should I find to say to the
other sort, those who go to church to hear wise words, to fulfill a
duty, in order to leave nothing undone, etc.? Convert them, you think,
perhaps? But that is not at all my idea. The priest does not wish to
convert. He only wants to live among the believers, among those of his
own kind, so that through him they may find expression for that feeling
out of which we make our gods.”
He broke off. Then he continued: “Our new faith, for which we have now
chosen the name of Abraxas, is beautiful, my friend. It is the best we
have. But it is still a nestling. Its wings have not yet grown. Alas, a
lonely religion, that is not yet the true one. It must become an affair
of many, it must have cult and orgy, feasts and mysteries....”
He was sunk in reflection.
“Can one not celebrate mysteries alone, or in a very small circle?” I
asked hesitatingly.
“Yes, one can,” he nodded. “I have been celebrating them for a long
time past. I have celebrated cults for which I should have been
imprisoned for years in a convict station, if they had been found out.
But I know it is not the right thing.”
He suddenly clapped me on the shoulder, making me jump. “Young friend,”
he said impressively, “you also have mysteries. I know that you must
have dreams of which you make no mention to me. I don’t wish to know
them. But I tell you: Live them, these dreams, play your destined
part, build altars to them! It is not yet the perfect religion, but
it is a way. Whether you and I and a few other people will one day
renew the world remains to be seen. But we must renew it daily within
us, otherwise we are of no account. Think over it! You are eighteen,
Sinclair, you don’t go with loose women, you must have love-dreams,
desires. Perhaps they are such that you are frightened by them! They
are the best you have! Believe me! I have lost a great deal by doing
violence to these love-dreams when I was your age. One should not do
that. When one knows of Abraxas, one should do that no more. We should
fear nothing. We should hold nothing forbidden which the soul in us
desires.”
Frightened, I objected: “But you can’t do everything which comes into
your mind! You can’t murder a man because you can’t tolerate him.”
He pressed closer to me.
“There are cases where you can. Only, generally it’s a mistake. I don’t
mean that you can simply do everything which comes into your mind. No,
but you shouldn’t do injury to those ideas in which there is sense, you
shouldn’t banish them from your mind or moralize about them. Instead of
getting oneself crucified or crucifying others, one can solemnly drink
wine out of a cup, thinking the while on the mystery of sacrifice. One
can, without such actions, treat one’s impulses and one’s so-called
temptations with esteem and love. Then you discover their meaning, and
they all have meaning. Next time the idea takes you to do something
really mad and sinful, Sinclair, if you would like to murder someone
or to do something dreadfully obscene, then think a moment, that it is
Abraxas who is indulging in a play of fancy. The man you would like to
kill is never really Mr. So and So, that is really only a disguise.
When we hate a man, we hate in him something which resides in us
ourselves. What is not in us does not move us.”
Never had Pistorius said anything to me which went home so deeply as
this. I could not reply. But what moved me most singularly and most
powerfully was that Pistorius in this conversation had struck the same
note as Demian, whose words I had carried in my mind for years and
years past. They knew nothing of one another, and both said to me the
same thing.
“The things we see,” said Pistorius softly, “are the same things which
are in us. There is no reality except that which we have in ourselves.
For that reason most people live so unreally, because they hold the
impressions of the outside world for real, and their own world in
themselves never enters into their consideration. You can be happy like
that. But if once you know of the other, then you no longer have the
choice to go the way most people go. Sinclair, the road for most people
is easy, ours is hard. Let us go.”
A few days later, after I had on two occasions waited for him in vain,
I met him late one evening in the street. He came stumbling round a
corner, blown along by the cold night wind. He was very drunk. I did
not like to call him. He passed by without noticing me, staring in
front of him with strange, glowing eyes, as though he were moving in
obedience to a dark call from the unknown. I followed him down one
street. He drifted along as if drawn by an invisible wire, with the
swaying gait of a fanatic, or like a ghost. Sadly I went home, to the
unsolved problems of my dreams.
“Thus he renews the world in himself!” I thought, and felt instantly
that my thought was base and moral. What did I know of his dreams?
Perhaps in his intoxication he was going a surer way than in my anxiety.
* * * * *
In the intervals between lessons it struck me once or twice that a
boy who had never before attracted my notice was hovering about in
my proximity. It was a little, weak-looking, slim youngster with
reddish-blond thin hair, who had something peculiar in his look and
behavior. One evening as I came home he was on the watch for me in the
street. He let me pass by, then walked behind me; and remained standing
in front of the door of the house.
“Can I do anything for you?” I asked.
“I only want to speak to you,” he said timidly. “Be good enough to come
a few steps with me.”
I followed him, observing that he was deeply excited and full of
expectation. His hands trembled.
“Are you a Spiritualist?” he asked quite suddenly.
“No, Knauer,” I said, laughing. “Not a bit. How did you get hold of
that idea?”
“But you are a Theosophist?”
“No again.”
“Oh, please don’t be so reserved. I feel with absolute certitude there
is something singular about you. It is in your eyes. I thought it
certain you communed with spirits. I am not asking out of curiosity,
Sinclair, no! I am myself a seeker, you know, and I am so lonely.”
“Tell me, then!” I encouraged him. “I know absolutely nothing of
ghosts. I live in my dreams: that is what you have felt about me.
Other people live in dreams as well, but not in their own, that is the
difference.”
“Yes, perhaps so,” he whispered. “Only it depends on the sort of dreams
you live in. Have you ever heard of white magic?”
I had to admit my ignorance.
“It’s when you learn to get the mastery over yourself. You can be
immortal, and have magical powers as well. Have you never practised
such experiments?”
On my evincing curiosity with regard to those practices, he was
mysteriously silent, but when I turned to go he burst out in
explanation.
“For example, when I go to sleep or when I wish to concentrate my
thoughts I do such exercises. I think of something or other, a word
for instance, or a name, or a geometrical figure. Then I think it into
myself, as strongly as I can. I try to get it into my head, until I
feel it is there. Then I think it in my neck, and so on, until I am
quite full of it. Then my thoughts are concentrated and nothing more
can disturb my repose.”
I understood to a certain degree what he meant. Yet I felt he had
something else in his mind, he was oddly excited and hasty. I tried to
make the questions easy for him, and he soon gave me an indication of
what immediately concerned him.
“You are also continent?” he asked me anxiously.
“What do you mean by that? Do you mean it from the sex point of view?”
“Yes, yes. I have been continent for two years, since I knew of what I
have told you. Before that I practised a vice, you know what. You have
never been with a woman, then?”
“No,” I said. “I haven’t found the right one.”
“But if you should find her, the one you consider the right one, then
would you sleep with her?”
“Yes, naturally. If she had nothing against it,” I said with some scorn.
“Oh, then you are on a false track! One can only perfect one’s inner
forces if one remains entirely continent. I have done it, for two whole
years. Two years and a little more than a month! It’s so hard. Often I
can scarcely hold out any longer.”
“Listen, Knauer, I don’t believe that continency is so terribly
important.”
“I know,” he parried, “they all say that. But I did not expect to hear
it from you. Whoever will go the higher spiritual way must remain pure,
unconditionally!”
“Well, then, do so! But I don’t understand why one man should be purer
than another, because he represses his sex instincts. Or can you switch
off all sexual matters from your thoughts and dreams?”
He looked despairingly at me.
“No, that’s just it. God! and yet it must be. At night I have dreams
which I couldn’t relate even to myself. Terrible dreams, terrible!”
I recollected what Pistorius had said to me. But however much I felt
his words to be right I could not pass them on. I could not give advice
which did not result from my own experience, advice the observance
of which I did not yet feel myself equal to. I was silent and felt
humiliated that someone should come to me for counsel when I had none
to give.
“I have tried everything!” wailed Knauer beside me. “I have done all
that a man can do, with cold water, with snow, with gymnastic exercises
and running, but all that doesn’t help a bit. Each night I wake up out
of dreams on which I dare not think. And most dreadful of all, I am by
degrees losing everything that I had gained spiritually. It is almost
impossible for me any longer to concentrate my thoughts or to lull
myself to sleep. Often I lie awake the whole night through. I shall
not be able to bear that much longer. Finally, when I can carry on the
struggle no further, when I give in and make myself impure again, then
I shall be worse than all the others who have never struggled against
it. You understand that, don’t you?”
I nodded, but could say nothing to the point. He began to bore me, and
I was horrified at myself, because his obvious need and despair made
no deep impression on me. My only sentiment was: I can’t help you.
“Then you know nothing that would help me?” he asked at last, exhausted
and sad. “Nothing at all? There must be some way! How do you manage?”
“I cannot tell you anything, Knauer. People can’t help one another in
this case. No one has helped me, either. You must think of something
yourself, and you must obey the prompting which really comes from your
own nature. There is nothing else. If you cannot find yourself, you
won’t find any spirits, either.”
Disappointed, and suddenly become dumb, the little fellow looked at me.
Then his look suddenly glowed with hate, he made a grimace at me and
cried with rage: “Ah, you’re a nice sort of saint! You have your vice
as well, I know! You pretend to wisdom, and secretly you stick in the
same filth as I and all of us! You’re swine, swine, like myself. We are
all swine!”
I went away and left him standing there. He made two, three steps in my
direction, then he stopped, turned round and ran away. I felt sick from
a feeling of pity and horror. I could not get rid of the feeling until
I got home to my little room, and placing my few pictures before me, I
surrendered myself up with passionate fervor to my dreams. My dreams
came back at once, the dream of front door and crest, of mother and the
strange woman, and I saw the features of the woman so very clearly
that I began to draw her picture the same evening.
In a few days this drawing was finished, painted in as if unconsciously
in dreamy quarter-of-an-hour periods. In the evening I hung it on
the wall, put the reading lamp in front of it, and stood before it
as before a spirit with whom I had to fight until victory should be
decided one way or the other. It was a face similar to the former,
resembling my friend Demian, in certain traits even resembling myself.
One eye stood perceptibly higher than the other, the look passed over
me, sunk in a staring gaze, full of destiny.
I stood before it. Such was my inward exertion that I became cold to
the marrow. I questioned the picture, I abused it, I caressed it,
I prayed to it. I called it mother, I called it beloved, called it
strumpet and whore, called it Abraxas. Meanwhile words of Pistorius
crossed my mind, or of Demian? I could not recollect on what occasion
they had been spoken, but I thought I heard them again. They were the
words of Jacob wrestling with the angel of God. “I will not let thee
go, except thou bless me.”
The painted face in the lamplight changed at each appeal. It was bright
and shining, was black and gloomy; it closed pale lids over dead eyes,
opened them again and flashed a burning look. It was woman, man, girl,
was a little child, an animal, vanished to a speck, was again tall and
clear. At last, in response to a strong inward prompting, I closed my
eyes, and saw the picture inwardly in me, stronger and more powerful.
I wished to kneel down before it, but it was so much within me, that I
could separate it from myself no more; it seemed as if it had entirely
identified itself with me.
Then I heard a loud confused roar as of a spring storm. I trembled
in an indescribably new feeling of fear and excitement. Stars darted
before me and died out, recollections even of the first forgotten years
of my childhood, of a time further back still, of a pre-existence
and the early stages of existence, pressed through me. But the
recollections which seemed to piece together my life’s whole history
even to its most secret details did not cease with yesterday and
to-day, they went farther, mirrored the future, tearing me away from
to-day, changing me into new forms of life, of which the pictures were
very bright and blinding. But of none of them could I call up a just
image later.
In the night I woke up out of a deep sleep. I was dressed and lying
transversely across the bed. I struck a light, feeling that I must try
to remember something important that had happened. I knew nothing of
the hours just passed. I turned on the light, and recollection came
back gradually. I looked for the picture. It was not hanging on the
wall, neither was it lying on the table. I thought confusedly that I
must have burned it. Or was it a dream, that I had burned it in my
hands and had eaten the ashes?
A great inquietude convulsed me and drove me forth. I put on my hat,
went out of the house and down the street, as if under coercion.
I walked and walked through streets and squares as if blown along
by a storm, I listened in front of the gloomy church of my friend,
searched in obedience to a blind impulse, without knowing what I was
looking for. I went through a suburb, where brothels stood. Here and
there a light was still shining. Further on stood new buildings and
brick heaps, covered in part with grey snow. I went on through this
wilderness, driven forward by a strange impulse, like a man walking in
a dream. The thought of the new building in my native town crossed my
mind, that building to which my tormentor Kromer had drawn me to settle
accounts with him. In the grey night a similar building stood there in
front of me, its black doorway yawning wide. I was drawn towards it,
but wanted to shun it and stumbled over sand and rubbish. The impulse
was stronger than I, I had to go in.
I staggered over planks and broken bricks into the deserted room. There
was a mouldy smell of damp, cold stones. A heap of sand lay there, a
grey bright speck, otherwise all else was dark.
Suddenly a terrified voice called to me: “In God’s name, Sinclair,
where have you come from?”
And a human figure rose out of the darkness close to me, a little thin
shape like a ghost. I recognized, while yet my hair was standing on
end, my school companion Knauer.
“How did you get here?” he asked, as if mad with excitement. “How have
you been able to find me?”
I did not understand.
“I wasn’t looking for you,” I said, dazed. I spoke with difficulty, the
words came from me painfully, as if from dead, heavy, frozen lips.
“You weren’t looking for me?”
“No. I was drawn here. Did you call me? You must have called. But what
are you doing here? It’s still night.”
He put his thin arms convulsively round me.
“Yes, night. But it must soon be morning. Oh, Sinclair, to think that
you didn’t forget me! Can you ever forgive me?”
“What then?”
“Ah, I was so hateful!”
Then I recollected our conversation. Had that taken place four, five
days ago? It seemed to me like a lifetime. But suddenly I knew all. Not
only what had occurred between us, but also why I had come and what
Knauer wanted to do there.
“You wanted, then, to take your life, Knauer?”
He shuddered through cold and fear.
“Yes, I wanted to. I don’t know whether I could have. I wished to wait
until the morning came.”
I drew him into the open. The first oblique rays of day glimmered
indescribably cold through the grey atmosphere.
I led the boy on my arm a little way. I heard my own voice saying: “Now
go home, and don’t say anything to anybody. You were on a false track,
a false track! And we are not swine, as you think. We are men. We make
gods, and we wrestle with them, and they bless us.”
Silently we went on, and separated. When I came home it was day.
The best that mystery in St. ---- had yet to give me was the hours with
Pistorius at the organ or by the chimney fire. We read a Greek text
about Abraxas together. He read to me portions of a translation of the
Veda and taught me to say the sacred “Om.” However, it was not this
learned instruction which was of service to my inner self, but rather
the contrary. What did me good was the self-progression I made, the
increasing confidence in my own dreams, thoughts and presentiments, and
the consciousness of the power that I carried in me.
I had an excellent understanding with Pistorius in every way. I needed
only to think intently of him, and I could be sure that he, or a
greeting from him, would come to me. I could ask him, just as I could
Demian, something or other, without his being there in person. I
needed only to imagine his presence and to put my questions to him as
intensive thoughts. Then all the soul-force I had put into the question
came back to me as answer. Only it was not the person of Pistorius
which I called up in my imagination; nor that of Max Demian, but it
was the picture I had painted and of which I had dreamed. It was the
half-man, half-woman, dream picture of my dæmon, to which I called. It
lived now not only in my dreams, it was no longer painted on paper, but
it was in me, as a desire-picture and an enhancement of my spiritual
self.
The relation into which the unsuccessful suicide Knauer entered with
me was peculiar and sometimes amusing. Since the night I had been sent
to him, he dogged my steps like a faithful servant or hound, sought
to attach himself to me and followed me blindly. He came to me with
curious questions and wishes. He wanted to see spirits, to learn the
Cabbala, and he did not believe me when I assured him I understood
nothing of all these things. He credited me with being able to do
anything. But it was singular that he often came to me with his queer
and silly questions just at the moment when I myself had a mental knot
to be disentangled. His moody ideas and concerns often gave me the cue,
the impulse which helped me in the solution of my own problems. He was
often tiresome and I imperiously drove him away. I felt, however,
that he had been sent to me, and what I gave to him, I received
twofold in return. He also was a guide, or rather a way. The mad books
and publications he brought me, and in which he sought the key to
happiness, taught me more than I realized at the time.
This Knauer vanished later from my path, neither did I miss him. No
arrangement, no understanding was necessary with him. But it was with
Pistorius. Towards the close of my school career in St. ---- I lived
through another peculiar experience with my friend.
Even innocuous, innocent people are not altogether spared the shock
of a conflict. Even they come once in their lives in conflict with
the beautiful virtues of piety and gratitude. Each must make the step
which parts him from his father, from his teachers. Each must once feel
something of the bitterness of loneliness, though most people cannot
support it for long and soon creep back to their homes again. It was
not a great struggle for me to part from my parents and their world,
the “bright” world of my beautiful childhood. But slowly and almost
imperceptibly I had got further from them and become more of a stranger
to them. I regretted it; it often caused me bitter hours during my
visits home; but it was not deep. I could bear it.
But when we have offered love and reverence of our own accord, and
not out of habit, when we have been disciples and friends with our
innermost feelings--then it is a bitter and terrible moment when the
realization is suddenly brought home to us that the guiding current of
our life is bearing us away from those we love. Then every thought of
ours which rejects our friend and teacher enters our own heart like a
poisoned sting, every blow of self-defense strikes back into our own
face. Then he who felt that the dictates of his own conscience were an
authentic guide reproaches himself with the terms “faithlessness” and
“ingratitude.” Then the terrified heart flees anxiously back to the
valleys of childhood virtues, and cannot believe that the rupture must
take place, that another bond must be severed.
In the course of time a feeling had slowly developed in me which
refused to recognize my friend Pistorius unconditionally as my guide.
What I experienced in the most important moments of my youth was my
friendship with him, his counsel, his consolation, his proximity.
God had spoken to me through him. Through him my dreams returned to
me, from his mouth came their explanation, from him I learned their
significance. He had given me the courage to realize myself. And now,
alas, I felt a growing opposition against him. In his conversation he
evinced too clearly a desire to instruct me. I felt it was only one
side of my nature that he thoroughly understood.
There was no quarrel, no scene between us, no rupture. I said to him
only a single, really harmless word, but nevertheless it was the
moment when an illusion between us fell in colored pieces.
The presentiment had for some time already oppressed me, but one Sunday
in his scholarly old room this presentiment changed to a definite
feeling. We were lying on the floor before the fire. He was speaking
of mysteries and religious forms which he was studying, and on which
he was meditating. He occupied himself with trying to picture their
possible future. To me all this seemed curious and interesting, but
scarcely of vital importance. It smacked of erudition. It was like a
fatiguing search among the ruins of former worlds. And all at once I
felt an aversion from the whole business, from this cult of mythology,
from this sort of piecing together, this mosaic work of religious forms
which had been handed down to posterity.
“Pistorius,” I said suddenly, in a malicious outburst which surprised
and frightened even myself, “relate a dream, a real dream, one that you
have had in the night. What you have just been talking about is so--so
cursedly antiquarian!”
He had never heard me speak thus. With shame and terror I realized
the very same moment that the arrow I had shot at him, and which had
entered his heart, was taken from his own quiver--I realized that I had
heard him reproach himself in an ironical tone on this very account,
and that now I had maliciously turned one of his own reproaches
against him like a resharpened arrow.
He felt it instantly, and was silent. I looked at him with terror in my
heart and saw that he had become very pale.
After a long, heavy pause he put some wood on the fire and said
quietly: “You are quite right, Sinclair. You’re a wise fellow. I will
spare you all this antiquarian business.”
He spoke very quietly, but his tone told me how deeply he had been
wounded. What had I done!
I was on the point of tears. I wanted to beg his pardon with all my
heart, to assure him of my affection and gratitude. Moving words came
into my mind--but I could not utter them. He was silent as well, and so
we lay there, while the flames leaped up and then sank, and with each
flame that paled fell something beautiful and fervid that ceased to
glow and had vanished--never again to come back.
“I fear you have misunderstood me,” I said at last, much crushed,
and with a dry, hoarse voice. The silly, senseless words came as if
mechanically from my lips, as if I had been reading them out of a news
sheet.
“I understood you perfectly,” said Pistorius softly. “You are quite
right.” We waited. Then he continued slowly: “So far as one man can be
right in his judgment of another.”
No, no, a voice inside me said, I am wrong; but I could not say
anything. I knew that I had aimed my single little word at his one
essential weakness. I had touched the point of which he himself
was distrustful. His idea was “antiquarian.” He was a seeker, but
retrogressive, he was a romantic. And suddenly I realized that it was
just what he had been to me and had given me that he could not be and
give to himself. He had guided me to a point on the road, beyond which
he, the guide, could not go.
God knows how I could have uttered such a word! I had not meant it
badly. I had had no idea it would lead to a catastrophe. I had uttered
something, the import of which I did not myself realize at the moment
of utterance. I had surrendered myself to a somewhat witty, somewhat
malicious inspiration, and fate used it as her instrument. I had been
guilty of a little thoughtlessness, crudeness, and he had accepted it
as a judgment.
Oh, how much I wished then that he would have got angry, have defended
himself, have shouted at me! But he did nothing. I had all that to do
within myself. He would have smiled, had he been able. The fact that he
could not, showed me more than anything else how hard I had hit him.
And because Pistorius took the blow from me, his presumptuous and
ungrateful pupil, so quietly, because he silently agreed with me,
because he recognized my word as a judgment of fate, he caused me to
hate myself, he made my thoughtlessness seem a thousand times greater
than it was. As I struck, I had thought to hit a strong man, capable of
defending himself--now he was a meek, suffering creature, defenseless,
who surrendered in silence.
We remained a long time lying before the dying fire, in which each
glowing figure, each crumbling ash heap called to my memory happy,
beautiful, rich hours, making my guilt and my obligation to Pistorius
greater and greater. Finally I could bear it no longer. I got up and
went. A long time I stood before his door, a long time I listened on
the dark staircase, a long time I stood outside in front of the house,
waiting to see whether perhaps he would come out to me. Then I went on,
walking for hours and hours through town and suburbs, park and wood,
until evening fell. At that moment I felt for the first time the mark
of Cain on my forehead.
I fell to pondering and rumination. I had every intention, in thinking
matters over, to accuse myself and to defend Pistorius. But all ended
to the contrary. A thousand times I was ready to repent of my rash word
and to withdraw it--but it had been true, nevertheless. Now I succeeded
in understanding Pistorius, in building up his whole dream. This dream
had been to be a priest, to proclaim a new religion, to invent new
forms of exultation, of love, of worship, to set up new symbols. But
this was not within his province. He lingered too long in the past, he
knew too much of what had been, he knew too much of Egypt, of India,
of Mithras, of Abraxas. His love was attached to ideas with which
the world was already familiar. And in his inmost self he probably
recognized that the new religion had to be different, that it had to
spring from fresh sources and not be drawn out of collections and
libraries. His office was, perhaps, to help men to find themselves, as
he had done with me. But to found a new doctrine, to give new gods to
the world, was not his function in life.
And at this point the realization came upon me that everyone has an
“office,” a charge. But to no one is it permitted to choose his office
for himself, and to discharge it as he likes. It was wrong to want new
gods, it was entirely wrong to wish to give the world anything. A man
has absolutely no other duty than this: to seek himself, to grope his
own way forward, no matter whither it leads. That thought impressed
itself deeply on me; that was the fruit of this new event for me.
Often had I pictured the future. I had dreamed of filling rôles which
might be destined for me, as poet perhaps or as prophet, as painter,
or some such rôle. All that was of no account. I was not here to
write, to preach, to paint, neither I nor anyone else was here for
that purpose. All that was secondary. The true vocation for everyone
was only to attain to self-realization. He might end as poet or as
madman, as prophet or as criminal--that was not his affair, that was
of no consequence in the long run. His business was to work out his
own destiny, not any destiny, but his own, to live for that, entirely
and uninterruptedly. Everything else was merely an attempt to shun his
fate, to fly back to the ideals of the masses, to adapt himself to
circumstances. It was fear of his own inner being. There rose before
me this new picture, terrible and sacred, suggested to me a hundred
times ere this, perhaps often already expressed, but now for the first
time lived. I was a throw from nature’s dice box, a projection into the
unknown, perhaps into something new, perhaps into the void, and my sole
vocation was to let this throw-up from primeval depths work itself out
in me, to feel its will in me and to make it mine. That solely!
I had already known what it was to be very lonely. Now I felt I could
be lonelier still, and that I could not escape from it.
I made no attempt to reconcile myself with Pistorius. We remained
friends, but our relation towards one another had changed. Only one
single time did we mention it, or rather, it was only he who spoke of
the matter. He said: “I want to be a priest, you know that. I would
best of all like to be the priest of the religion of which we have
so many presentiments. I can never be that, I know. I have known it
already for some time, without fully admitting it. I will do some
other priestly service, perhaps at the organ, perhaps in another way.
But I must always be surrounded by something which I find beautiful
and sacred, organ music and mysteries, symbol and myth, I need that
and cannot persuade myself to leave it--that is my weakness. I often
realize, Sinclair, that I should not have such desires, that they are
a luxury and a weakness. It would be greater, it would be more right,
if I placed myself quite simply at the disposition of fate, without
pretensions. That is the sole thing I cannot do. Perhaps you will some
time be able to do it. It is hard, it is the only thing really hard
there is, my friend. I have often dreamed of it, but I cannot do it,
I tremble at the thought of it. I cannot stand so completely naked
and alone. I am a poor, weak hound, who needs a little warmth and
food, who occasionally likes to feel the proximity of his own kind.
He whose only desire it is to work out his own destiny has no kith or
kin, but stands alone and has only the cold world space around him.
Do you know, that is Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane? There have
been martyrs who willingly let themselves be nailed to the cross, but
even they were not heroes, they were not free, they also wished for
something to which they had been accustomed, which they had loved; with
which they had felt at home. They had examples or ideals. He who will
fulfill his destiny has neither examples nor ideals, he has nothing
dear to him, nothing to comfort him. And one really ought to go this
way. People like you and I are certainly very lonely, but we still
have each other, we have the secret satisfaction of being different,
of revolting, of wanting the unusual. But we must drop that, too, if
we would go the whole way. We must not wish to be revolutionaries, or
examples, or martyrs. To think the thought to its logical end----”
No, one could not think beyond that. But one could dream of it, could
sense it, could anticipate it. A few times I realized something of
this, in a very quiet hour. Then I looked straight into the open,
staring eyes of my fate. They could have been full of wisdom, or full
of madness, they could be full of love or full of wickedness, it
was all one. One was to choose nothing of all that; one was to want
nothing, one was only to want oneself, one’s destiny. In that way had
Pistorius served me, for a time, as guide.
In those days I walked about as if I were blind, storms roared within
me, every step meant danger. I was conscious of nothing but the
precipitous darkness in front of me, down to which all the roads I
had trodden hitherto seemed to lead. And in my inward self I saw the
picture of the guide, who resembled Demian, and in whose eyes stood my
fate.
I wrote on a sheet of paper: “A guide has left me. I stand in complete
darkness. I cannot take a step alone. Help me!”
I wished to send that to Demian. Yet I omitted to do this, for each
time I wished to do it, it seemed foolish and meaningless. But I
knew that little prayer by heart, and often said it to myself. It
accompanied me hourly. I began to realize what prayer is.
* * * * *
My school career was over. My father had arranged that during the
holidays I was to travel and then I was to go to the University. In
which faculty, I knew not. I was to be allowed to take philosophy for
one semester. I should have been equally content with anything else.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MOTHER EVE
In the holidays I went once to the house in which, years before, Max
Demian and his mother had lived. An old lady was walking in the garden.
I entered into conversation and learned that the house belonged to
her. I enquired after the Demians. She remembered them very well. But
she did not know where they were living at that moment. As she felt
my interest, she took me into the house, searched through a leather
album and showed me a photograph of Demian’s mother. I scarcely had any
recollections of what she was like. But when I saw the little picture
my heart stood still. It was my dream picture! There it was, the tall,
almost masculine woman’s figure, resembling her son, with traits
of motherliness, traits which denoted severity, and deep passion,
beautiful and alluring, beautiful and unapproachable, demon and mother,
destiny and mistress. That was she!
I was filled with a wild wonder, when I learned that my dream picture
lived on earth! There was a woman, then, who looked like that, who
bore my fate in her features! Where was she? Where? And she was
Demian’s mother!
I started on my travels soon after. A strange journey! I went
restlessly from place to place as impulse directed, always in search of
this woman. There were days when I met shapes which reminded me of her,
and which resembled her. These shapes led me on through the streets
of strange towns, into railway stations, into trains, as in a tangled
dream. There were other days when I saw how useless my search was. Then
I sat inactive, anywhere, in a park or the garden of a hotel, in a
waiting room; I looked into myself and tried to make the picture live
in me. But it was now shy and elusive. I could not sleep, I only nodded
for a quarter of an hour or so on railway journeys through country
unknown to me. Once in Zürich, a woman followed me, a pretty, rather
forward woman. I scarcely noticed her and went on, as if she were air.
I would rather have died at once, than have shown sympathy for another
woman, even if only for an hour.
I felt that my destiny was leading me on. I felt that fulfillment was
nigh. I was mad with impatience, to think that I could do nothing to
help myself. Once at a station, I think it was at Innsbruck, I saw, at
the window of a train which was just moving out, a form which reminded
me of her, and I was miserable for days. And suddenly the form appeared
again to me at night in a dream. I woke up with a feeling as of shame,
realizing the fruitlessness and senselessness of my chase, and I went
home by the most direct route.
A couple of weeks later I matriculated in the University of H----.
Everything disappointed me. The course of lectures I followed, on the
history of philosophy, was just as vain and mechanical as the common
ground of student life. Everything was so much according to pattern,
one person did as the other, and the boyish faces, although inflamed
with a forced gaiety, looked so distressingly vacant. It was like the
gloss of a ready-made article! But I was free, I had the whole day to
myself, and lived quietly in a beautiful old building outside the town.
I had a couple of volumes of Nietzsche on my table. I lived with him,
feeling the loneliness of his soul, sensing his destiny, which impelled
him onwards unceasingly. I suffered with him, and was happy that there
had been one who had gone his way so inflexibly.
Late one evening I wandered through the town; an autumn wind was
blowing and I heard the student societies singing in their taverns.
Tobacco smoke rose in clouds through the open windows; songs were being
roared out, loudly and tensely; but the noise did not soar up, it fell
dully on the ear, and was lifelessly uniform.
I stood at a street corner and listened. From two cafés the flood of
song rolled forth into the night. Everywhere community, everywhere
this huddling together, everywhere this unloading of the burden of
destiny, this flight into the warm proximity of the herd!
Two men passed me by slowly. I caught a phrase of their conversation.
“Isn’t it just like an assembly of youths in a nigger village?” said
one. “They all do the same things. Even tattooing is in fashion. Look,
that’s the young Europe.”
The voice rang suggestively in my ear. I followed behind the two in the
dark street. One of them was a Japanese, small and elegant. I saw his
yellow smiling face shine under the lamp.
The other spoke again.
“Well, I don’t suppose it’s any better with you in Japan. People who do
not follow the herd are everywhere rare. There are a few here, too.”
Every word went through me. I felt pleasure and dread. I recognized the
speaker. It was Demian.
In the windy night I followed him and the Japanese through the dark
streets, listening to their conversation and enjoying the ring of
Demian’s voice. It had the old tone, the old, beautiful sureness and
tranquillity, and it had the same power over me. Now everything was
right. I had found him.
At the end of a street in the suburbs the Japanese took leave and
closed a house door behind him. Demian took the way back. I had
remained standing, and awaited him in the middle of the street. With
beating heart I saw him approaching erect and walking with an elastic
step. He wore a brown raincoat and carried a thin stick, hanging from
his arm. He advanced without altering his regular stride until he got
right up to me. He took off his hat, displaying his old, bright face
with the determined mouth and the peculiar brightness on the broad
forehead.
“Demian!” I called.
He stretched out his hand to me.
“So it’s you, then, Sinclair? I expected you.”
“Did you know I was here?”
“I did not know for certain, but I hoped it might be true. I saw you
first this evening. You have been behind us the whole time.”
“You recognized me then at once?”
“Of course. You’re very much changed to be sure; but you have the sign.
We used to call it the mark of Cain, if you recollect. It is our sign.
You have always had it; for that reason I became your friend. But now
it is clearer.”
“I did not know. Or rather I did. I once painted a picture of you,
Demian, and was astonished that it was also like me. Was that the sign?”
“That was it. It’s fine that you are here now! My mother will be glad
as well.”
I started.
“Your mother? Is she here? She doesn’t know me a bit.”
“Oh, she knows of you. She will know, without even my asking her, who
you are. You haven’t let me hear from you for a long time.”
“Oh, I often wanted to write, but nothing came of it. For some time
past I have felt I should find you. I was waiting for it every day.”
He pushed his arm through mine and we went on. Tranquillity seemed to
emanate from him and pass on to me. We were soon chatting together as
formerly. We mentioned our schooldays, the confirmation class and that
unlucky meeting of ours in the holidays--only no mention was made of
the earliest and closest bond between us, of the affair with Frank
Kromer.
Unexpectedly we found ourselves in the middle of a singular and ominous
conversation. Having recalled Demian’s discourse with the Japanese,
we spoke of student life in general and from that we had branched
off to something else, which seemed to be rather out of the way of
the former trend of our talk. Nevertheless, from Demian’s manner of
introducing the subject, there seemed to be no lack of coherence in our
conversation.
He spoke of the spirit of Europe, and of modern tendencies. Everywhere,
he said, reigned a desire to come together, to form herds, but nowhere
was freedom or love. All this life in common, from the student clubs
and choral societies to the state, was an unnatural, forced phenomenon.
The community owed its origin to a sense of fear, of embarrassment, to
a desire for flight; inwardly it was rotten and old, and approaching a
general break-up.
“Community,” Demian said, “is a beautiful thing. But what we see
blossoming everywhere is by no means that. It will arise anew from the
mutual understanding of individuals, and after a time the world will be
remodeled. What is now called community is merely a formation of herds.
Mankind seeks refuge together because men have fear of one another--the
masters combine for their own ends, the workmen for theirs, and the
intellectuals for theirs! And why are they afraid? One is only afraid
when one is not at one with oneself. They are afraid because they
have never had the courage to be themselves. A community of men who
are afraid of the unknown in themselves! They all feel that the laws
of their life no longer hold good, that they are living according to
outworn commandments. Neither their religion nor their morals conform
to our needs. For a hundred years and more Europe has simply studied
and built factories. They know exactly how many grams of powder it
takes to kill a man, but they do not know how to pray to God. They
have no idea how to amuse themselves, even for an hour. Look at these
students drinking in their tavern! Or take any place of amusement
where rich people go! Hopeless! My dear Sinclair, no cheerfulness,
no serenity can come of all that. These creatures, who move about so
uneasily in crowds, are full of fear and full of wickedness, no one
trusts the other. They adhere to ideals which have ceased to exist,
and they stone everyone who proposes a new one. I feel that there
are troubles ahead of us. They will come, believe me, they will come
soon! Of course the world won’t be bettered! Whether the workmen kill
the manufacturers, or whether the Russians and Germans shoot at one
another, it will only be a change of proprietors. But it will not be
in vain. It will free the world from the chains of present-day ideals,
there will be a clearing away of Stone-Age gods. The world, as it is
now, wants to die, it wants to perish, and it will.”
“And what will happen to us then?” I asked.
“To us? Oh, perhaps we shall perish as well. They can also murder
people in our position. Only we shall not be entirely wiped out.
The will of the future will realize itself from what remains of our
influence, or with the aid of those of us who survive. The will of
humanity will make itself felt, which our Europe has for a long time
past tried to drown in its sale yard of scientifically manufactured
articles. And then it will be seen that there is nothing in common
between the will of humanity and that of our present-day communities,
of the states and peoples, of the societies and churches. But what
nature wills with man, is written in the individual few, in you and in
me. It is found in Jesus, in Nietzsche. For these (the only important
currents of thought which naturally can alter their course each day)
there will be place when the present-day communities break up together.”
It was late when we made a halt before a garden by the river.
“We live here,” said Demian. “Come and see us soon! We shall expect
you.”
I cheerfully wended my long way home through the night, which had
become cold. Here and there brawling students were lurching through
the town. I had often felt, sometimes with a feeling of privation,
sometimes with scorn, the contrast between their curious sort of
gaiety and my lonely life. But now, tranquil and strong in a sense of
secret power I felt as never before how little that affected me, how
far removed was their world from mine. I reminded myself of officials
of my native town, worthy old gentlemen, who clung to memories of the
semesters they had passed in drinking, as they would to memories of a
blissful paradise, and who practised a cult, calling up reminiscences
of the vanished “freedom” of their University life with all the
seriousness which some poet or other romantic would devote to an
account of his childhood. Everywhere the same! Everywhere they sought
“liberty” and “happiness” behind them, in the past, for fear of being
reminded of their own responsibility, of being warned they were not
striking out for themselves, but merely going the way of all the world.
Two or three years passed in drinking and jollification, and then they
crept under the common shelter and became serious gentlemen in the
service of the state. Yes, it was rotten, our whole system was rotten
and these student sillinesses were less stupid and not so bad as a
hundred others.
However, when I reached my distant dwelling and went to bed, all these
thoughts had flown. Everything else was in suspense as I looked forward
to the fulfillment of the promise made to me that day. As soon as I
wished, in the morning if I liked, I could see Demian’s mother. Let
the students hold their drinking bouts and tattoo their faces, let the
world be rotten and on the brink of ruin--what had that to do with me?
I was waiting for one single thing, that my fate might meet me in a new
picture.
I woke up late in the morning from a deep sleep. The day broke for
me as a solemn festal day, such as I had not experienced since the
Christmas celebrations of my boyhood. I was full of a deep unrest, yet
entirely without fear. I felt that an important day had broken for
me. I saw and felt the world around me changed: it was full of secret
portent, expectant and solemn. Even the gently falling autumn rain was
beautiful, full of the quiet, glad, serious music of a festal day. For
the first time the outer world was in tune with my inner world--then it
is a feast-day for the soul, then living is worth while! No house, no
shop window, no face in the street disturbed me. Everything was as it
had to be, but did not wear the empty features of every day and of the
habitual. It was like expectant nature, standing full of awe to meet
its fate. Thus, as a little boy, I used to see the world on the morning
of a great feast-day, at Christmas or at Easter. I had not known that
this world could still be so beautiful. I had been accustomed to
living shut up in myself, and to content myself with the idea that my
understanding for the outside world had been lost, that the loss of
glistening colors was inevitably connected with the loss of childish
vision.
So the hour came when I found again that garden in the suburbs, at
the gate of which I had taken leave of Max Demian the night before.
Concealed behind trees in a grey mist of rain stood a little house,
bright and homely, tall flowers stood behind a big glass partition,
and behind shining windows were dark room walls with pictures and
bookcases. The front door led immediately into a little hall, and a
silent old servant, black, with white apron, showed me in and took my
raincoat from me.
She left me alone in the hall. I looked about me. I looked round; and
immediately I was in the middle of my dream. On the dark wood wall
above a door, under glass and in a black frame, hung a picture I knew
well, my bird with the golden yellow hawk’s crest, forcing its way out
of the sphere. Much moved, I remained standing. My heart felt glad and
sorry, as if in that moment everything I had done and had experienced
came back to me as answer and fulfillment. Like a lightning flash a
crowd of pictures passed through my soul: my home, the house of my
father, with the old stone crest over the arch of the door, the boy
Demian drawing the crest, myself as a boy, fearsome under the evil
spell of my enemy Kromer, myself, as a youth, at the table in my little
room at school painting the bird of my dream, the soul caught in a web
of its own weaving, and everything, everything up to this moment found
echo in me again, and was confined, answered, approved.
With misty eyes I stared at my picture and read in the book of my soul.
My glance dropped. In the open door under the picture of the bird stood
a tall lady in a dark dress. It was she.
I could not utter a word. The beautiful woman smiled at me in a
friendly way beneath features like her son’s, timeless and without
age, full of an animated will. Her look was fulfillment, her greeting
meant home-coming. In silence I stretched out my hands to her. She
seized both mine with her strong, warm ones.
“You are Sinclair. I knew you at once. I am very glad to see you!”
Her voice was deep and warm, I drank it in like sweet wine. And now I
looked up in her tranquil face, into the black eyes of unfathomable
depth. I looked at her fresh, ripe mouth, queenly forehead, which bore
the sign.
“How glad I am!” I said to her and kissed her hands. “I believe I have
been on my way all my life long--but now I have come home.”
She smiled in a motherly way.
“One never comes home,” she said gently. “But where friendly roads
converge, the whole world looks for an hour like home.”
She gave expression to what I myself had felt on my way to her.
Her voice and her words were like those of her son, and yet quite
different. Everything was more mature, warmer, more assured. But just
as Max in years past had made on no one the impression of being a mere
boy, so his mother did not look like the mother of a grown-up son, so
young and sweet was the breath of her face and hair, so smooth her
golden skin, so blossoming her mouth. More queenly still than in my
dream she stood before me. Her presence was love’s happiness, her look
was fulfillment.
This, then, was the new picture, in which my fate displayed itself, no
longer severe, no longer isolating, but mature and full of promise.
I took no resolutions, I made no vows. I had attained an end, I had
reached a point of vantage on the way, from which the further road
displayed itself, broad and lovely, leading on to lands of promise,
shaded by treetops of happiness near at hand, cooled by gardens of
delight. Come what might, I was happy to know of this woman’s existence
in the world, to drink in her voice, to sense her presence. Whether she
would be to me mother, mistress, goddess--what mattered it as long as
she was present! As long as my way lay near to hers!
She indicated my picture of the hawk.
“You have never given Max more pleasure than by sending this bird,”
she said musingly. “And I was pleased as well. We expected you, and
when the picture arrived we knew that you were on the way to us. When
you were a little boy, Sinclair, my son came one day from school and
said: ‘There’s a boy who has the sign on his forehead, he must be my
friend.’ That was you. You have not had an easy time of it, but we had
confidence in you. Once in the holidays when you were at home, Max met
you again. You were at that time about sixteen years old. Max told
me----”
I interrupted: “Oh, that he should have told you that. It was the most
miserable time I have had!”
“Yes, Max said to me: ‘Now Sinclair has the hardest time before him. He
is making an attempt to escape to the community, he has even taken to
drinking with the others; but he won’t succeed in that. His sign has
become dulled, but it shines secretly.’ Was not that the case?”
“Oh yes, it was, exactly. Then I found Beatrice, and finally a guide
came to me. His name was Pistorius. For the first time it was clear to
me why my boyhood was so bound up with Max’s, why I could not break
away from him. Dear lady--dear mother, at that time I often thought I
should have to take my life. Is the way so hard for everyone?”
She let her fingers stray through my hair, as gently as if a light
breeze were blowing.
“It is always hard, to be born. You know, it is not without effort that
the bird comes out of the egg. Look back and ask yourself: was the way
then so hard?--only hard? Was it not beautiful as well? Could you have
had one more beautiful, more easy?”
I shook my head.
“It was hard,” I said, as if in sleep, “it was hard, until the dream
came.”
She nodded and looked at me penetratingly.
“Yes, one must find one’s dream, then the way is easy. But there is
no dream which endures for always. Each sets a new one free, to none
should one wish to cleave.”
I started. Was that already a warning? Was that already a warding-off?
But no matter, I was ready to let myself be led by her, and not enquire
after the end.
“I do not know,” I said, “how long my dream is to last. I wish it would
be forever. My fate received me under the picture of the bird, like a
mother, and like a mistress. To it I belong and to no one else.”
“As long as the dream is your fate, so long must you remain true to
it,” she said, in earnest confirmation of my remark.
I was very sad, and I wished ardently to die in this hour of
enchantment; I felt the tears--for what an interminably long time had I
not wept--rise irresistibly and overmaster me. I turned violently away
from her. I stepped to the window, and looked out, my eyes blinded with
tears, away over the flower-pots.
I heard her voice behind me; it rang out calmly and yet was so full of
tenderness, like a cup filled to the brim with wine.
“Sinclair, what a child you are! Of course your fate loves you. One day
it will belong to you entirely, just as you dreamt it, if you remain
true to it.”
I had composed myself and turned my face to her again. She gave me her
hand.
“I have a few friends,” she said, smiling, “very few, very close
friends, who call me Mother Eve. You may call me so as well, if you
like.”
She led me to the door, opened it and indicated the garden. “You will
find Max out there, I think.”
I stood under the tall trees, stunned and stupefied. I knew not whether
I was more awake or more dreaming than ever. Softly the rain dripped
from the branches. I went slowly through the garden, which stretched
far along the river bank. At last I found Demian. He stood in an open
summer house. Naked to the waist, he was doing boxing exercises with a
little sack of sand hung from a beam.
Astonished, I remained standing there. Demian looked magnificent; his
broad chest, the firm manly head, the uplifted arms were strong and
sturdy. The movements came from the hips, the shoulders, the joints of
the arm, as easily as if they bubbled out of a spring of strength.
“Demian!” I called. “What are you doing there?”
He laughed gaily.
“I am exercising. I have promised to box with the little Jap; the
fellow is as agile as a cat, and naturally just as sly. But he won’t be
able to manage me. I owe him just one little beating.”
He drew on shirt and coat.
“You have already seen mother?” he asked.
“Yes, Demian, what a marvellous mother you have! Mother Eve! The name
suits her perfectly; she is like the mother of all being.”
He gazed for an instant musingly in my face.
“You know her name already? You ought to be proud, young friend.
You are the only one to whom she has said it in the first hour’s
acquaintance.”
From this day on I went in and out of the house like a son and a
brother, but also like a lover. When I closed the gate behind me, even
when I saw the tall trees of the garden emerge in the distance, I was
happy. Outside was “reality,” outside were streets and houses, human
beings and institutions, libraries and lecture rooms--here inside were
love and the life of the soul, here was the kingdom of fairy stories
and dreams. And yet we lived by no means shut off from the world. In
thought and word we often lived in its midst, only on another plane. We
were not separated from the majority of creatures by boundaries, but
rather by a different sort of vision. Our task was to be, as it were,
an island in the world, perhaps an example, in any case to proclaim
that it was possible to live a different sort of life. I, who had been
isolated for so long, learned to what extent community of feeling is
possible between people who have experienced complete loneliness. I no
longer desired to be back at the tables of the happy, at the feasts
of the merry. I no longer felt envious or homesick when I saw others
living in community. And slowly I was initiated into the mystery of
those who bore “the sign.”
We, who bore the sign, were probably justly considered by the world
as peculiar--yes, mad even, and dangerous. For we were awake, or were
waking, and our endeavor was to be more and more completely awake,
whereas the others strove to be happy, attaching themselves to the
herd, the opinions and ideals of which they made their own, taking
up the same duties, making their life and happiness depend on common
interests. True, there was a certain greatness, a vigorousness, in
their endeavor. But whereas, from our point of view, we who bore the
sign carried out the will of nature as individuals and as men of the
future, the others persisted in a stubbornness which hindered all
progress. For them mankind, which they loved just as we did--was
something already complete, which must be maintained and protected. For
us mankind was a distant future, to which we were all on the way. No
one could image this future, neither did its laws stand written in any
book.
Besides Mother Eve, Max and myself, there belonged to our circle in
a greater or lesser degree of intimacy many seekers of very various
sorts. Many of them were going along their own special paths, had set
up special aims and adhered to special opinions and duties. Amongst
these were astrologers and cabbalists, also an adherent of Count
Tolstoy, and all kinds of tender, timid, sensitive people, followers of
new sects, men who practised Indian cults, vegetarians and others. With
all these we had really nothing of a spiritual nature in common, except
the esteem which each accorded the secret life-dream of the other.
Some were in closer contact with us, such as those who traced the
searchings of mankind after gods and new ideals in the past, and whose
studies often reminded me of my friend Pistorius. They brought books
with them, translated for us texts from ancient tongues and showed us
illustrations of ancient symbols and rites. They taught us to see how
all the ideals of mankind up to the present have their origin in dreams
of the subconscious soul, dreams in which humanity is, as it were,
feeling its way forward into the future, guided by premonitions of the
future’s potentialities. So we went through the religious history of
the ancient world with its thousand gods, to the dawn of Christianity.
The confessions of the isolated saints were known to us, and the
changes of religion from race to race. And from all the knowledge
we thus acquired resulted a criticism of our era and of present-day
Europe, of this continent which through enormous exertions had created
powerful new weapons for humanity, only to fall finally into a deep
spiritual devastation, the effects of which were at last being felt.
For it had gained the whole world, only to lose its own soul.
There were with us believers as well, advocates of doctrines of
salvation, in the efficacy of which they were very hopeful. There were
Buddhists who wished to convert Europe, and disciples of Tolstoy, and
of other confessions. We in our narrow circle listened, but accepted
none of these doctrines except as symbols. We who bore the sign had no
cares as regarded the formation of the future. To us every confession,
every doctrine of salvation appeared in advance dead and useless. Our
whole duty, our destiny, was, we felt, to attain to self-realization,
in order that in us nature might find scope for its full activities,
and that the unknown future might find us ready to fill any rôle which
should be allotted us.
Whether we expressed our opinion in so many words or not, it was clear
to all of us that a break-up of the present-day world was approaching,
to be followed by a new birth. Demian said to me on more than one
occasion: “What will come is beyond conception. The soul of Europe
is an animal which has been chained up for an immeasurably long
period. When it is set free, its first movements will not display much
amiability. But the way it will take, whether direct or indirect, is
not of importance, provided that the soul’s true need is realized,
this soul which has been deluded and dulled for so long. Then our day
will come, then we shall be needed, not as guides or new law-givers--we
shall not live to see the new laws--but rather as volunteers, as those
who are ready to follow and to stand wherever fate shall call us. Look,
all men are ready to perform the incredible, when their ideals are
threatened. But no one comes forward when a new ideal, a new, perhaps
dangerous and uncanny impulse of spiritual growth declares itself. We
shall be of those few who are there, ready to go forward. For that
purpose have we been singled out just as Cain was marked with the sign
to inspire fear and hate, to drive the men of his time out of a narrow
idyllic existence into the broad pastures of a greater destiny. All men
whose influence has affected the march of humanity, all such, without
differentiation, owe their capabilities and their efficacy to the fact
that they were ready to do the bidding of destiny. That applies to
Napoleon and Bismarck. The immediate purpose to which they direct their
energies does not lie within their choice. If Bismarck had understood
the social democrats and had thrown in his lot with them, he would have
been a prudent fellow, but he would never have been the instrument of
fate. The same applies to Napoleon, to Caesar, to Loyola, to all of
them! One must always look at such things from the point of view of
biology and evolution! When the changes which took place in the earth’s
surface transferred to the land animals which lived in water, and vice
versa, then those specimens which were ready to fulfill their functions
as instruments of fate, brought new and unheard-of things to pass and
were able, through new adaptations, to save their kind. Whether these
specimens were the same that had previously been conservatives and
preservers of the status quo or the eccentrics and revolutionaries, is
not known. They were ready to be used by fate, and for that reason were
able to help their race through a new stage of evolution. That we do
know. For that reason we want to be ready.”
Mother Eve was often present when such conversations took place, but
she did not join in. For each of us who chose to express his thoughts
she was as it were a listener and an echo, full of confidence, full
of understanding. It appeared as if our ideas all emanated from her
and returned to her again. My happiness consisted in sitting near her,
in hearing her voice from time to time, and in participating in that
atmosphere of maturity and of the soul, which surrounded her.
She felt immediately when a change was taking place in me, when my soul
was troubled, or when a renewal was in progress. It seemed to me as if
the dreams I had in my sleep were inspired by her. I often related
them to her. She found them quite comprehensible and natural, there
were no peculiarities which she could not follow clearly. For a time
I had dreams which were like reproductions of the day’s conversation.
I dreamed that the whole world was in revolt, and that I, alone or
with Demian, tensely waited the signal of fate. Fate remained half
concealed, but bore somehow or other the traits of Mother Eve--to be
chosen or rejected by her, that was fate.
Sometimes she said with a smile: “Your dream is not complete, Sinclair,
you have forgotten the best part”--and it sometimes happened that I
recalled it then, and I could not understand how I had come to forget
any of it.
At times I was discontented and was tormented by desire, I thought I
could not bear to see her near me any longer without taking her in my
arms. She noticed that immediately. Once, when I had stayed away for
several days and had returned distraught, she took me aside and said:
“You should not give yourself up to wishes in which you do not believe,
I know what you wish. You must give up these desires, or else surrender
yourself to them completely. If one day you are able to ask, convinced
that your wishes will be fulfilled, then you will find satisfaction.
But you wish, and repent again, and are afraid. You must overcome all
that. I will tell you a fairy-tale.”
And she told me of a youth who was in love with a star. He stood on the
sea-shore, stretched out his hands, and prayed to the star. He dreamed
of it and all his thoughts were of it. But he knew, or thought he
knew, that a star could not be embraced by a man. He held it to be his
fate to love a star without hope of fulfillment, and he created from
this thought a whole life-poem about renunciation, and mute, faithful
suffering which should better him and purify him. But his dreams all
went up to the star. Once again he stood at night by the sea-shore,
on a high cliff. He gazed at the star, and his love for it flamed up
within him. And in a moment of great longing he made a spring, throwing
himself into space to meet the star. But at the moment of leaping,
the thought flashed through his mind: it is impossible! And so he was
dashed to pieces on the rocks below. He did not know how to love. Had
he had the strength of soul, at the moment of leaping, to believe in
the fulfillment of his wish, he would have flown up and have been
united with the star.
“Love must not beg,” she said, “nor demand either. Love must have the
force to be absolutely certain of itself. Then it is attracted no
longer, but attracts. Sinclair, I am attracting your love. As soon as
you attract my love, I shall come. I do not want to make a present of
myself. I want to be won.”
On a later occasion she told me another fairy-story. There was a lover,
who loved without hope of success. He withdrew entirely into himself
and thought his love would consume him. The world was lost to him, he
saw the blue sky and the green wood no longer, he did not hear the
murmuring of the stream, or the notes of the harp; all that meant
nothing to him, and he became poor and miserable. But his love grew,
and he would much rather have died and have made an end of it all than
renounce the chance of possessing the beautiful woman whom he loved.
Then he suddenly felt that his love had consumed everything else in
him, it became powerful and exercised an irresistible attraction, the
beautiful woman had to follow, she came and he stood with outstretched
arms to draw her to him. But as she stood before him, she was
completely transformed, and with a thrill he felt and saw that he had
drawn into his embrace the whole world, which he had lost. She stood
before him and surrendered herself to him, sky and wood and brook, all
was decked out in lovely new colors, all belonged to him, and spoke
his tongue. And instead of merely winning a woman, he had taken the
whole world to his heart, and each star in the heaven glowed in him,
and twinkling, communicated desire to his soul. He had loved, and
thereby had found himself. But most people love only to lose themselves
thereby.
My whole life seemed to be contained in my love for Mother Eve. But
every day she looked different. Many times I felt decidedly that it was
not her person for which my whole being was striving, but that she was
a symbol of my inward self, and that she wished only to lead me to see
more deeply into myself. I often heard words fall from her lips, which
sounded like answers to the burning questions asked by my subconscious
self. Then again there were moments when in her presence I burnt with
desire, and afterwards kissed objects she had touched. And by degrees
sensual and unsensual love, reality and symbol merged into one another.
Then it happened that I could think of her at home in my room with
quiet fervor. I thought I felt her hand in mine and my lips pressed
to hers. Or I was at her house, gazing up into her face, talking with
her and listening to her voice; and I did not know whether it was
really she, or whether it was a dream. I began to foresee how one can
have a lasting and immortal love. In reading a book I had acquired new
knowledge, and it was the same feeling as a kiss from Mother Eve. She
stroked my hair and smiled at me, I sensed the perfume of her warm ripe
mouth, and I had the same feeling as if I had been making progress
within myself. All that was important and fateful for me seemed to be
contained in her. She could transform herself into each of my thoughts,
and every one of my thoughts was transformed into her.
I feared that it would be torture to spend the two weeks of the
Christmas holidays, separated from Mother Eve, with my parents at home.
But it was no torture, it was lovely to be at home and to think of her.
When I returned to H---- I remained away from her house another two
days, in order to enjoy the security and independence of her actual
presence. I also had dreams in which my union with her was accomplished
by way of allegory. She was a sea, into which I, a river, flowed. She
was a star, and I myself was a star on my way to her. We felt drawn to
one another. We met, and remained together always, turning blissfully
round one another in close-lying orbits, to the music of the spheres.
I related this dream to her, when I visited her again after the
holidays.
“It is a beautiful dream,” she said softly. “See that it comes true!”
There came a day in early spring that I shall never forget. I entered
the hall. A window stood open and the heavy scent of hyacinths, wafted
by a warm breath of air, permeated the room. As no one was to be seen,
I went upstairs to Max Demian’s study. I knocked softly on the door and
entered without waiting for permission, as I was in the habit of doing
with him.
The room was dark. The curtains were all drawn. The door to a little
room adjoining stood open, where Max had set up a chemical laboratory.
From there came the bright, white light of the spring sun, shining
through rain clouds. I thought no one was there and pulled back one of
the curtains.
There I saw Max Demian, sitting on a stool by a curtained window. His
attitude was cramped and he was oddly changed. The thought flashed
through me: You have seen him like this once before! His arms were
motionless at his side, his hands in his lap; his face inclined
slightly forward, with open eyes, was without sight, as if dead. In the
eyes there glimmered dully a little reflex of light, as in a piece of
glass. The pale face was self-absorbed and without any expression, save
that of great rigidity. He looked like a very ancient mask of an animal
at the door of a temple. He appeared not to be breathing.
The recollection came to me--thus, exactly thus, had I once seen
him, many years ago, when I was still quite a boy. Thus had his eyes
stared inwards, thus his hands had been lying motionless, close to one
another, a fly had been crawling over his face. And he had then, six
years ago perhaps, looked just as old and as ageless, not a wrinkle in
his face had changed.
I was frightened, and went softly out of the room and down the stairs.
In the hall I met Mother Eve. She was pale and seemed tired: I had not
seen her like that before. A shadow came through the window, the bright
white sun had suddenly disappeared.
“I went into Max’s room,” I whispered hastily. “Has anything happened?
He is asleep, or absorbed, I don’t know what; I once saw him like that
before.”
“But you didn’t wake him?” she asked quickly.
“No. He did not hear me. I came out immediately. Mother Eve, tell me,
what is the matter with him?”
She passed her hand over her forehead.
“Don’t worry, Sinclair, nothing has happened to him. He has retired
into himself. It will not last long.”
She got up and went out into the garden, although it had begun to rain.
I felt that I must not follow her. So I walked up and down in the hall,
inhaling the scent of the hyacinths which dulled my senses, and gazing
at my picture of the bird over the door. I felt oppressively the odd
shadow which seemed to fill the house that morning. What was it? What
had happened?
Mother Eve came back soon. Rain drops hung in her dark hair. She sat
down in her easy chair. She was very tired. I went to her, bent down
and kissed the raindrops in her hair. Her eyes were bright and soft,
but the raindrops tasted like tears.
“Shall I go and see how he is?” I asked in a whisper.
She smiled weakly.
“Don’t be a child, Sinclair!” she admonished loudly, as if to relieve
her own feelings. “Go now and come back later, I cannot talk to you
now.”
I went. I walked out of the house and out of the town, towards the
mountains. The thin rain was falling obliquely, and clouds were driving
at a low altitude under heavy pressure, as if in fear. Down below there
was hardly any breeze, but on the heights above a storm seemed to be
raging. Several times the sun, pale and bright, broke for an instant
through the steely grey of the clouds.
There came a fleecy, yellow cloud driving across the sky. It collided
with the grey cloud wall, and in a few seconds the wind formed a
picture of the yellow and blue, of a bird of giant size, which tore
itself free from the blue mêlée and with wide fluttering wings
disappeared in the sky. Then the storm became audible and rain mixed
with hail rattled down. A short burst of thunder with an unnatural and
terrific sound cracked over the whipped landscape. Immediately after
the sun broke through and on the mountains close at hand above brown
woods glistened, pale and unreal, the fresh snow.
When I returned after several hours, wet from the rain and wind, Demian
himself opened the front door to me.
He took me with him up to his room. A gas flame burned in the
laboratory, paper lay about, he appeared to have been working.
“Sit down,” he invited, “you must be tired, it was a terrible storm;
it’s evident, you were overtaken by it. Tea is coming at once.”
“Something is the matter to-day,” I began hesitatingly, “it can’t only
be that bit of a storm.”
He looked at me penetratingly.
“Have you seen anything?”
“Yes. I saw a picture clearly in the clouds, for an instant.”
“What sort of a picture?”
“It was a bird.”
“The hawk? Was it that? The bird of your dream?”
“Yes, it was my hawk. It was yellow and of giant size, it flew up into
the blue-black heaven.”
Demian took a deep breath. Someone knocked at the door. The aged
servant brought in tea.
“Take a cup, Sinclair, do. I don’t think it was by chance you saw the
bird.”
“Chance? Does one see such things by chance?”
“Well, no. It means something. Do you know what?”
“No. I only feel, it means a violent shock, the approach of fate. I
think it will affect all of us.”
He walked violently up and down.
“The approach of fate!” he exclaimed loudly. “I dreamed the same
thing myself last night, and my mother yesterday had a premonition,
portending the same thing. I dreamed I was going up a ladder, placed
against a tree trunk or a tower. When I reached the top I saw the whole
country. It was a wide plain, with towns and villages burning. I cannot
yet relate everything, because it isn’t all quite clear to me.”
“Do you interpret the dream as affecting you?” I asked.
“Me? Naturally. No one dreams of what does not concern him. But it
does not concern me alone, you are right. I distinguish tolerably
well between the dreams which indicate agitation of my own soul, and
the others, the rare ones, which bear on the fate of all humanity. I
have seldom had such dreams, and never one of which I can say that it
was a prophecy, and that it has been fulfilled. The interpretations
are too uncertain. But this I know for a certainty, I have dreamed of
something which does not concern me alone. For the dream belongs to
others, former ones I have had; this is the continuation. These are the
dreams, Sinclair, in which I had the premonitions which I have already
mentioned to you. We know that the world is absolutely rotten, but
that is no reason to prophesy its ruin, or to make a prophecy of a like
nature. But for several years past I have had dreams, from which I
conclude, or feel, or what you will, which, then, give me the feeling
that the break-up of an old world is drawing near. At first they were
simply faint presentiments, but since they have become more and more
significant. Even now I know nothing more than that something big and
terrible is approaching, which will concern me. Sinclair, we shall go
through the experiences of which we have so often talked. The world is
about to renew itself. It smacks of death. Nothing new comes without
death. It is more terrible than I had thought.”
Frightened, I looked at him fixedly.
“Can’t you tell me the rest of your dream?” I begged timidly.
He shook his head.
“No.”
The door opened and Mother Eve entered.
“There you are, sitting together! Children, I hope you aren’t sad?”
She looked fresh, her fatigue had quite vanished. Demian smiled at her,
she came to us as a mother comes to frightened children.
“We aren’t sad, mother. We were simply trying to solve the riddle of
these new signs. But that is of no importance; what is to come, will
be here all of a sudden, and then we shall learn what we need to know.”
But I did not feel happy. When I said good-bye and went down alone
through the hall, I felt that the hyacinths were faded and withered,
reminding me of corpses. A shadow had fallen over us.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BEGINNING OF THE END
It had been decided that I should remain in H---- for the summer
semester. Instead of staying in the house, we were almost always in the
garden by the river. The Japanese, who by the way had been thoroughly
beaten in the boxing match, was away, and the disciple of Tolstoy was
also missing. Demian had procured a horse, and went for long rides
every day. I was often alone with his mother.
Sometimes I wondered greatly at the peaceableness of my life. I had
been so long accustomed to being alone, to practise renunciation, to
fight toilfully my own battles, that these months in H---- seemed to me
like a time passed on a dream island, where I might live tranquilly in
beautiful, enchanted surroundings. I felt that this was a foretaste of
that new, higher community, on which we meditated. And now and then I
was seized by a deep feeling of sadness, for I knew that this happiness
could not last. I was not destined to breathe in the fulness of peace
and comfort, I needed torment to spur me on. I felt that one day I
should wake up from these dreams of beautiful love-pictures to find
myself standing once more alone, in the cold world of others, where for
me there would be only loneliness and fighting, no peace, no community
of spirit.
Then I yielded myself to the charms of Mother Eve’s presence. My
feeling for her was now doubly tender. I was glad that my fate bore
still these beautiful, tranquil features.
The summer weeks passed quickly and easily. Already the semester was
drawing to a close. Leave-taking was near, I dared not think of it, and
did not, but clung to the beautiful days like a butterfly to a honeyed
flower. That was my period of happiness, the first fulfillment of my
life’s wishes, and my reception into the league--what was to come next?
I would again have to fight my battles, be consumed by longing, have
dreams, be alone.
At this time the feeling, the foretaste of separation, came over me
so strongly that my love for Mother Eve blazed up suddenly, causing
me pain. My God! how soon would the time come to say good-bye, and
I should see her no more, no more hear her firm step in the house,
should find no more her flowers on my table! And what had I attained?
I had dreamed and had lulled myself in comfort, instead of winning
her, instead of fighting for her and drawing her to me for always! All
that she had said to me about genuine love crossed my mind, hundreds
of fine, suggestive words, a hundred tender invitations, promises
perhaps--and what had I made of them? Nothing! Nothing!
I took up a position in the middle of my room, collected my whole
conscious self together and thought of Eve. I wished to concentrate the
forces of my soul, in order to let her feel my love, in order to draw
her to me. She was to come, longing for my embrace. My kisses were to
suck insatiably the ripe fruit of her lips.
I stood tense, until fingers and feet became stiff with cold. I felt
force was going out of me. For a few seconds something seemed to take
shape with me, something bright and cool; I had for a moment the
sensation as if I carried a crystal in my heart, and I knew that was
myself. A cold chill pierced to my heart.
As I woke out of my fearful state of tension I felt something was
approaching. I was exhausted to the point of death, but I was prepared
to see Eve step into the room, burning with passion, ravished.
The sound of horse’s hoofs clattering down the long street rang nearer
and nearer, then suddenly ceased. I sprang to the window. Below Demian
was dismounting.
“What is the matter, Demian? Nothing can have happened to your mother?”
He did not listen to my words. He was very pale, and perspiration ran
down both sides of his forehead over his cheeks. His horse was flecked
with foam. He tied the reins to the garden fence, then he took my arm
and walked with me down the street.
“Have you already heard the news?” I had heard nothing.
Demian pressed my arm and turned his face to me, with a dark,
compassionate, singular look.
“Yes, old man, now we’re in for it. You know of the strained relations
with Russia----”
“What? Is it war? I had never believed it.”
He spoke in an undertone, although no one was near.
“It is not yet declared. But it’s war. Rely on it. I haven’t worried
you lately, but I have seen three new omens since. It will be no
foundering of the world, no earthquake, no revolution. It’s war. You
will see how that strikes everybody. It will be a joy to people;
everyone already rejoices that hostilities are about to commence. So
insipid has life become for them. But you will see now, Sinclair, that
is only the beginning. This will perhaps be a great war, a very great
war. The new dispensation commences and for those who adhere to the
old, the new will be terrible. What will you do?”
I was perplexed, everything sounded so strange and improbable.
“I don’t know--and you?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“As soon as mobilization orders are out, I join up. I am a lieutenant.”
“You? I had no idea of that.”
“Yes. It was one of my adaptations. You know, I have never wanted to
appear out of the ordinary, and have rather done too much, in order to
be correct, to do the right thing. In eight days, I think, I shall be
already in the field.”
“For God’s sake!”
“Look here, old fellow, you mustn’t take things so sentimentally. At
bottom it certainly won’t give me pleasure to order machine gunfire to
be turned on living creatures, but that is a secondary matter. Now each
one of us will be seized by the great wheel of fate. You as well. You
will certainly be called up.”
“And your mother, Demian?”
Then for the first time I recollected what I was doing a quarter of an
hour before. How the world had changed! I had summoned together all my
force in order to conjure up the sweetest picture, and now fate had
suddenly put on a new, horrible mask.
“My mother? We need have no cares for her safety. She is safe, safer
than anyone else in the world to-day. You love her so very much?”
“You knew it, Demian?” He laughed brightly and without any
embarrassment.
“You child! Naturally I knew it. No one has yet called my mother Mother
Eve without loving her. By the way, how was that? You have called to
either her or myself to-day, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I called--I called to Mother Eve.”
“She felt it. She suddenly sent me away, I was to come to you. I had
just told her the news about Russia.”
We turned back, scarcely speaking, he untied his horse and mounted.
I first realized in my room how exhausted I was by Demian’s message,
and even more so by my previous spiritual exertions. But Mother Eve had
heard me! My thoughts had reached her. She would have come herself,
if--how wonderful all this was, and how beautiful! Now it was to be
war. Now what we had so often spoken of was about to happen. And Demian
had known so much in advance. How strange that the world’s stream would
no longer flow somewhere or other by us--that now it was suddenly
flowing through us, that fate and adventure called us, and that now, or
soon, the moment would come when the world would need us, when it would
be transformed. Demian was right, one should not be sentimental over
it. Only it was strange that I was now to experience that lonely thing,
“fate,” with so many, with the whole world. Good then!
I was ready. In the evening, when I went through the town, every corner
was alive with bustle and excitement. Everywhere the word “war”!
I went to Mother Eve’s house. We had supper in the summer house. I was
the only guest. No one spoke a word about the war. But later, shortly
before I left, Mother Eve said: “Dear Sinclair, you called me to-day.
You know why I did not come myself. But don’t forget, you know the call
now and if ever you need someone who bears the sign, call me again.”
She rose and went out through the gloaming into the garden. Tall and
queenly, invested with mystery, she stepped between the trees, the
foliage ceased its whispering at her approach, and over her head
glimmered tenderly the many stars.
* * * * *
I am coming to the end. Events marched quickly. War was declared.
Demian, who looked strange in uniform, with a silver-grey cloak, went
away. I brought his mother home. Soon after I also said good-bye to
her. She kissed me on the lips and held me a moment on her breast, and
her large eyes burned steadily close to mine.
And all men were like brothers. They had in mind their country and
their honor. But it was fate, they peeped for a moment into the
unveiled face. Young men came out of barracks, stepped into trains, and
on many a face I saw a sign--not ours--a beautiful and dignified sign,
signifying love and death. I as well was embraced by people I had never
seen before. I understood and responded gladly. It was an atmosphere
of intoxication in which they moved, not that of a fated will. But the
intoxication was sacred, it was due to the fact that they had all
looked into the rousing eyes of destiny.
It was already nearly winter when I went to the front.
At first, in spite of the sensation of the bombardment, I was
disappointed with everything. Formerly I had often wondered why people
so seldom were able to live for an ideal. Now I saw that many, yes, all
men, are capable of dying for an ideal, provided that such an ideal is
not personal, not chosen of their own free will. For them it had to be
an ideal accepted by and common to a great number.
But with time I saw that I had underestimated men. Although service and
a common danger renders them uniform, I saw many, living and dying,
approach fate magnificently. Not only in an attack, but the whole time,
many, very many of them had a fixed, far-away look, rather like that
of a person possessed, a look which indicates entire ignorance of the
end pursued, and a complete surrender of self to the unknown. No matter
what they might believe and think they were ready, they were there in
case of need, out of them would the future be formed. And, however
strongly the world’s attention appeared to be focused on war and heroic
deeds, on honor and other old ideals, however distantly and unnaturally
sang the voices of humanity--all this was merely the surface, just
as the question with regard to the foreign and political aims of the
war was superficial. Deep down, below the surface of human affairs,
something was in process of forming. Something which might be a new
order of humanity. For I could see many--many such died at my side--to
whom the understanding was brought home that hate and rage, murder and
destruction had no connection with the real object of the war. No, the
object, just as the aims in view, was purely a matter of chance. Their
deepest and most primitive feelings, even their wildest instincts were
not actually directed against the enemy, their murderous and bloody
work was an expression of their own inner being, of their cleft soul,
which wished to rave and kill, to destroy and die, in order to be able
to be born anew. A giant bird was fighting its way out of the egg, and
the egg was the world, and the world had to go to ruin.
One night in early spring I was doing sentry duty in front of a farm
we had occupied. The wind was blowing in fitful gusts, shrieking and
moaning according to the vagaries of its mood; over the high Flanders
sky rode an army of clouds, somewhere or other behind was a suspicion
of moon. I had been restless throughout the whole of that day, troubled
by cares which I could not precisely define. Now, at my dark post,
I thought with fervor of the picture of my life up to that time, of
Mother Eve, of Demian. I stood leaning against a poplar, staring into
the agitated sky, the mysterious quivering brightness of which soon
resolved itself into a series of pictures. I felt by the odd slowness
of my pulse, by the insensibility of my skin to wind and rain, by the
lively wakefulness of my inner being, that a guide was near me.
In the clouds a large city could be seen, out of which millions of men
were streaming, spreading in swarms over the broad countryside. In
their very midst there appeared the mighty figure of a god, as big as
a mountain, with glittering stars in its hair, and with the features
of Mother Eve. Into it disappeared the processions of men, as into a
gigantic cave, and were lost to view. The goddess shrank down on the
ground, the sign on her forehead glittered brightly. She seemed to
be under the influence of a dream. She closed her eyes and her large
features were twisted in pain. Suddenly she cried out, and out of her
forehead sprang stars, which hurried in lovely arcs and half-circles
over the black sky.
One of the stars rushed noisily through the air to meet me, as if
seeking me out. With a crash it burst into a thousand sparks, lifting
me off my feet and hurling me on to the ground. The world broke up
thunderously about me.
They found me close to the poplar, covered with earth and wounded in
several places.
I lay in a cellar, guns growled and rumbled overhead, I lay in a cart,
and was jolted over empty fields. For the most part I was either asleep
or unconscious. But the more deeply I slept, the more strongly I felt
that I was being drawn, that I followed at the will of a force over
which I was not master.
I lay on straw in a stable, it was dark, someone trod on my hand. But
my inner self willed to go further, the mysterious force drew me on.
Again I lay in a cart, and later on a stretcher. Even more strongly
I felt in me the command to go forward, I was conscious only of the
pressure, the force which seemed to be controlling my journeying thus
from place to place.
At last I was there. It was night. I was fully conscious and I felt
strongly the secret attraction and power which had brought me to that
place. Now I was lying in a room, on a bed made up on the floor. I
felt I had arrived at the place to which I had been called. I glanced
around, close to my mattress was another, on which someone was lying,
someone who bent over and looked at me. It was Max Demian.
I could not speak, and he either could not or would not. He only looked
at me. A lamp which hung over him on the wall cast a light on his face.
He smiled at me.
For what seemed an immeasurably long time he gazed unwaveringly into my
eyes. Slowly he inclined his face towards me, until we almost touched.
“Sinclair!” he said in a whisper.
I signaled to him with my eyes that I understood him.
He smiled again, almost as if in compassion.
“Little one!” he said, smiling.
His mouth lay now quite close to mine. Softly he continued to speak.
“Can you still remember Frank Kromer?” he asked.
I winked at him, and could even manage to smile.
“Sinclair, old man, listen: I shall have to go away. Perhaps you will
need me once again, on account of Kromer, or something. When you call
me, I shall not come riding on a horse, or in a train. You must hearken
to the voice inside you, then you will notice it is I, that I am in
you. Do you understand? And one other thing: Mother Eve said that if
ever you were ill I was to give you a kiss from her, which she gave
me.... Close your eyes, Sinclair!”
I obediently closed my eyes. I felt a light kiss on my lips, on which
there was a trace of blood, which never seemed to stop flowing. And
then I fell asleep.
In the morning I was awakened to have my wounds dressed. When at last
I was properly awake, I turned quickly to the mattress by my side. A
stranger lay upon it, a man on whom I had never before set eyes.
The bandaging hurt me. All that has happened to me since hurt me. But
my soul is like a mysterious, locked house. And when I find the key
and step right down into myself, to where the pictures painted by my
destiny seem reflected on the dark mirror of my soul, then I need
only stoop towards the black mirror and see my own picture, which now
completely resembles Him, my guide and friend.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
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