 Chapter 3, Part 2 of Damien by Herman Hess. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by Michelle Frye, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Chapter 3, The Thief on the Cross, Part 2. Several times I attempted to imitate Damien's example by concentrating my willpower 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 Damien. 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 Damien, I was to be distinguished from those of my school fellows 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 today. 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 Damien 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 today, and in the actus tragicus, the essence of all poetry and of all artistic expression. At the conclusion of the lesson Damien 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 the 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, makesh and mendacious, lauded with emotion and having a most edifying background. If today you had to choose one of the two thieves as your friend, or if you consider which of the two you would sooner have trusted, it would most certainly not be this weeping convert. No, it's the other one, 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. Damien'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 in 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 home 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 Damien 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 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 had 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 it another time, he said considerably. I say 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 begun 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. 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 today, 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. Today 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 today. 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 the 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 Damien 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 Damien'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 was surely existed somewhere 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 the world of ideas with which I had become acquainted through Damien. 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 talked too much, he said, with unwanted 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 school room immediately thereafter. The lesson began. I took pains to listen and Damien 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 around. There I saw my friend sitting upright 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 are 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 Damien, the Damien who was in the habit of walking and talking with me. That was only one side of him, a half. Damien, who from time to time played a part, who accommodated himself to circumstances out of mere complacence. But the real Damien 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 beside 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 lustrous and fatigued, as it were. In the days following, I practiced 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. Wood 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 fell 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 a special tenderness, a sort of preliminary goodbye, endeavouring to charm me with a love from which I should go with home sickness and unforgetfulness in my heart. Damien had gone away. I was alone. Chapter 4 Beatrice, Part 1 Without having seen my friend again I travelled at the end of the holidays to St. Blank. 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. They 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 Damien. 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 cynicism. 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 the 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, ghost-like in the fog. At the end of the drive I stood still and undecided, staring into the black foliage, senting 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 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 housemaster, 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 thought's autumn inspires in one. And one writes poetry about dying nature, of course, and spent youth, which is very much like it. Red Heinrich Heine? I'm 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 school-fellows, 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 18 years old, was already a man of experiences. Among other things he told me the girls liked boys to play the galant 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 copy books 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 the 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 lights 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, whereby 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. Damien 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 Damien's thoughts so I appeared a filthy pig to be clasped 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 a version just 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 of 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 youngster I soon rose to be considered as a leader and a star I was renowned as a daredevil who 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 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 cynicism 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 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. Jagald'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 school fellows whom I liked very much but they belonged to the good set and my vices had for a long time 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 life 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 maiming 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. Blank 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 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 grey and ravaged by dissipation with flabby features and inflamed rings around the eyes my 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 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 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 sister 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 Christmas tree the gingerbread smelled 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 past 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 it made no difference to me I had a special grudge against Max Damien whom I had not seen for the whole of this period in my first term at St. Blank 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 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 deeper 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 production 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 sadly 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 end of chapter four part one Beatrice chapter four part two of Damien by Herman Hess this LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by Michelle Fry Baton Rouge, Louisiana chapter four Beatrice part two I cannot think of that time without a certain emotion with earnest striving and 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 a black 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 into this sacred fire to spirit and devotion the grim and horrible 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 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 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 paintbrush I made ready my palette porcelain bowls, glass and pencils the fine watercolors in little tubes which I had bought captivated me there was a bright chroma-cagreen 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 blonde 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 a 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 role for a while in 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 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 at the 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 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 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 this 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 decidedly and from this twitching I recognized the picture how was it that I had found it out so late it was Damien's face later I often and often compared the picture with Damien's real features as they had remained in my memory they were not quite the same although there was a resemblance but it was Damien 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 Damien to the crossbar 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 wasn't Beatrice or Damien 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 my demon 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 except perhaps those of Nietzsche it was a volume of Novaks containing letters and apathems 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 Damien 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 scenes 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 Cromer I hoped and prayed Damien 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 where I would greet him I did as calmly as possible under the circumstances and he gave me his hand this was indeed his old handshake so strong warm and yet cool so manly he looked at me attentively in the face and said you've run a lot Sinclair he himself seemed quite unchanged just as old just as young as ever he proposed we should go for a walk 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 draw what else is there to do it's certainly more amusing than anything else after all you think so maybe so there's certainly something very pleasing about it intoxication Buccaneleon 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 drunk and 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 St. Augustine who becomes seers before he was a sort of rake and profligate I was distrustful and wished by no means to let him take his 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 Damien fleshed 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 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 Damien had already paid for it that made me more angry still this little event occurred to my thoughts which were full of Damien and the words he had spoken and in came back to my mind retaining all their old freshness and significance it is good to know that there is one in us who knows everything I looked at the picture hanging in the window now quite dark still it was Damien's look on it was the look of the one inside me who knows all oh how I longed for Damien 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 the reminiscences of Max Damien and the Cromer Affair onwards a great deal he had formerly said came back to me today 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 Cromer 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 Damien 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 Damien and of the crest it changed perpetually now Damien held it in his hands now it was small and gray now very large and multicolored but he explained to me there 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 I tried 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 become smaller exactly Damien's mouth I now began to paint a new picture namely that of the bird on the crest I could not recollect anymore what it really looked like neither could I form a clear image of the whole as even if once to 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 a nest or on a tree top I did not bother about that I 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 hawks 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 Damien even if I had known where to send it but I decided acting under a suggestion 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 there on 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 master's head 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 master's 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 Damien to a distant fate it had begun with Beatrice but for some time past I had been living in quite an unreal world and my thoughts of Damien 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 interchange realized in me not even if I had wished to do so but I had not the faintest desire ever to broach the subject End of Chapter 4 Beatrice Chapter 5 of Damien by Herman Hess This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by Michelle Fry Battenridge, Louisiana Chapter 5 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 unfolding 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 is the world whoever will be born must destroy a world the bird flies to God the name of the God is a Brexit I sank into deep meditation after I had read the words through several times it admitted of no doubt this was Damien'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 a Brexit mean I had never read or heard of the word the name of the God is a Brexit the hour passed without my hearing anything of the lesson the next lesson began the last of the morning and it was taken by quite a young assistant master fresh from the university he had already taken a liking because he was young and pretended to no false dignity with us we were reading Herodotus under Dr. Fallon'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 Napoleon had said to me in the confirmation class was right if you wield 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 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 Damien 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 a braxis fell from his lips continuing his explanation the beginning of which had escaped me Dr. Fohlen said we must not imagine the ideas of those sects and mystical corporations of antiquity to be as naive 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 there from and often led to fraud and crime but nonetheless magic had a noble origin and was inspired by deep thought so it was with the teaching of a braxis 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 today but it appears that a braxis 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 Damien in the very last period of our friendship Damien 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 a braxis 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 further without success in addition I rummaged through the whole library to find out more about a braxis 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 the 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 occurred 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 shown 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 Damien 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 a memory of Max Damien 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 a braxis 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 a braxis 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 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 in 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 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 someday 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 Damien 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 tranquility 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 that 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 unstealed 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 Damien with the hawk with my picture a 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 a braxis 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 life I was secure in so far as the outside world was concerned I was afraid of no one my school fellows 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 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 in the next corner she will call me from the next window sometimes all this seemed to torture me unbearably and I was quite prepared to take my own life someday 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 wandering 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 the 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 nocked 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 reggae the church was almost completely dark only a very narrow beam of light shown 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 proceeding everything he played was pious expressing faith and devotion but not pious like churchgoers and clergymen but like pilgrims and beggars of the middle ages pious with the reckless surrendered 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 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 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 quiet 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 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 a 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 intensely 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 a braxis the musician looked distrustfully around as if someone might be eavesdropping then he bent toward me and said in a whisper I thought so who are you I'm a student from the school how do you know about a braxis 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 a braxis 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 at me I said nothing I looked at 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 a braxis he answered nothing we peeled our chestnuts and ate them and drank our wine 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 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 backsliding and to a certain extent mad I was studying theology and deserted this wholly worthy faculty for 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 of the 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 was staring 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 tranquility 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 hawks 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 goodbye 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 one of the windows was a light burning the little brass plate shown in the gleam of the gas lamp before the door Pistorius, vicar I read there on as I sat in my little room after supper I remembered that I had learned nothing about a braxis or anything else from Pistorius we had scarcely exchanged ten words but I was quite contented with the visit I had paid him he had promised to play next time an exquisite piece of organ music a Pasacaglia by Buxihood 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 inactivity 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 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, waiver 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 pastorious and I before the fire at our next meeting the organist enlightened me still further on the subject we can find 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 one of us and just as in our body is displayed the genealogical table of development back through 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 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 as the worth of the individual consists 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 Morovian boarding school will recreate in his thought profound mythological ideas which occur in the Gnostics or in Zaraster 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 egg shells 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 impaled 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 voluntarily 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 cursively 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 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 alone it has existed for thousands of years it is the balancing organ fish have the air bladder even today we actually still have 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 monzology 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 end of chapter 5 the bird fights its way out of the egg