Part 11

One evening when we had met, but it was not yet midnight, we entered the Café de la Fregata in the Rue du Bac. Talking energetically, we took the first place that offered, and asked for absinthe. The conversation continued, but all of a sudden my companion stopped and, looking round him, broke out, "Have you ever seen such a collection of bandits? They are all criminal types."

When I looked round I was startled, for there were not the usual occupants of the café, but a collection of ruffians, most of whom seemed disguised and made grimaces. My companion had leant himself against an iron pillar which looked as though it grew out of his back: "And you are in the pillory!" I exclaimed.

It seemed to us that they were all watching us; we became morose, depressed, and stood up, without finishing our drink.

That was the last time that I drank absinthe with my friend. I made another attempt to drink it alone, but I did not repeat it. Waiting for some friends to come to dinner I took a seat on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, exactly opposite Cluny, and ordered a glass of absinthe. Immediately three figures came forward, I know not from where, and stood before me. Two fellows with torn clothes, spattered with dirt, as if they had been dragged out of sewers; beside them a woman, bareheaded, with unkempt hair and traces of beauty, drunken, dirty; they all looked at me scornfully and boldly, with a cynical air as though they knew me and expected to be invited to my table. I have never seen such types in Paris or Berlin, though I may have done so near London Bridge, where the people really have a weird appearance. I try to tire them out by lighting cigarettes, but in vain. Then the thought strikes me, "These are not real people at all, but half-visions." I stand up, and since then I have not ventured to touch absinthe.

* * * * *

Amid all my vacillations one thing seems certain to me, and that is that an invisible hand has undertaken my education, for it is not the logic of circumstances which is operating here. It is not, for instance, a natural result that a chimney should take fire, or that figures previously non-existent should appear when I drink absinthe. Nor is it natural that I should be taken out of bed at night if I have spoken evil about any one in the day. But in all these dealings there is revealed a conscious, planning, all-knowing intelligence with a good purpose. It is, however, difficult for me to obey it, for my experience of so-called kindness and disinterestedness have been unfortunate. Meanwhile it has fashioned a regular system of signalling, which I begin to understand, and whose correctness I have proved.

Thus, for six weeks I had made no chemical experiments, and there had been to smoke in the room. One morning I took out my apparatus for producing gold and prepared the chemical baths. Immediately the room filled with smoke; it rose from the ground, from behind the mantelpiece mirror, everywhere. When I summoned the landlord, he declared it was incomprehensible, because it was coal smoke, and coals were not used in the house at all! This meant that I was not to make experiments in alchemy.

The wooden concertina, mentioned above, betokens peace, for I have noticed when it is absent there is always trouble. A whimpering child's voice, which is often heard in the chimney and cannot be accounted for on material grounds, signifies "You must be industrious," and, in addition, "You must write this book and not occupy yourself with another."

If I am rebellious in thoughts, words, or writing, or approach improper subjects, I hear a deep base note as though it came from an organ or the trunk of an elephant when he trumpets and is angry.

I mention two proofs which show that these are not mere subjective impressions on my part. The American, the French poet, and I, were dining at the "Place de la Bastille." The conversation for a couple of hours had turned upon art and literature, when, during dessert, the American proceeded to tell some stories of bachelor life. Immediately there was heard in the wall the trumpeting of an elephant. I made as though I heard nothing, but my companions noticed it, and changed the topic of their talk with a certain vexation. Another time I was breakfasting with a Swede in quite another café. Towards the end of the dessert he talked about Huysmans' La Bas and was proceeding to describe the Black Mass. Immediately there was the sound of a trumpet, but this time in the middle of the hall, which was empty.

"What was that?" he asked, breaking of.

I did not answer, and he continued the terrible description. Again there was the sound of a trumpet, so powerful this time that the narrator stopped short, first poured out a wineglass, upset the whole of the creamjug over his clothes, and quitted the topic which annoyed me.

[1] An earlier work by Strindberg.

[2] Wagner.

[3] Strindberg had been prosecuted for assailing the doctrine of the Holy Communion; he was acquitted, and the medal in question seems to have been struck on the occasion.

[4] One of Strindberg's autobiographical works is called _Inferno_.

NOTE

As the reader has probably perceived, the second part of this book, called "Wrestling Jacob," is an attempt to give a symbolical description of the religious struggles of the author, and as such it is a failure. Therefore it has only remained a fragment, and, like all religious crises, has ended in a chaos. The inference seems to be that all investigation of the secrets of Providence, like all attempts to take heaven by storm, are struck with confusion, and that every attempt to approach religion by the way of argument leads to absurdities. The reason is that religion like science begins with axioms, whose peculiarity is that they do not need to be proved, and _cannot_ be proved, so that when we try to prove self-evident necessary pre-suppositions we fall into absurdities.

When the author, in 1894, gave up his scepticism, which threatened to make havoc of the whole of his intellectual life, and began to place himself experimentally at the stand-point of a believer, there opened to him a new spiritual life, which is described in the _Inferno_ and in these _Legends_. As time went on, and the author had given up all resistance, he found himself attacked by influences and powers which threatened to destroy him. Feeling himself sinking, he clutched at lighter objects which might keep him afloat; but these also began to give way, and it was only a question of time when he would perish. At such moments the terror of the drowning man takes a straw for a support, and then the faith, to which he is compelled, lifts him out of the waves in which he is sinking, so that he can walk upon the water. Credo quia absurdum. I believe, because the absurdity which reasoning leads to, shows me that I was trying to prove an axiom. And thus we are linked to what is above us.