Part 6

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

X

EXTRACTS FROM MY DIARY, 1897

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

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

Well said! St. Chrysostom, the Golden mouthed!

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

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

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

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

_April_ 10_th_.--Read a good deal of sorts--Chateaubriand's _Mémoires d'outre-tombe_; Las Casas' _Diary of St. Helena_. Who was Napoleon? Of whom was he the re-incarnation?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_May_ 3_rd_.--I begin to work at the Inferno.

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

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

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

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

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

"_Woglinde_: Least of all he,--the amorous imp. * * * * * "_Alberich_ (stretching his hand after the gold): I tear the gold from the cleft and forge the avenging ring, for--let the stream hear it!--I curse love!"

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

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

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

_May_ 13_th_.--The woman has made the most horrible coffee imaginable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[1] Executed by Napoleon's orders.

XI

IN PARIS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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