 Chapter 8, the final chapter of Damien by Herman Hess. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by Michelle Fry, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in April 2019. Beginning of the End. It had been decided that I should remain in H for the summer semester. Instead of staying in the house, we were almost always in the garden by the river. The Japanese, who by the way had been thoroughly beaten in the boxing match, was away and the disciple of Tolstoy was also missing. Damien had procured a horse and went for long rides every day. I was often alone with his mother. Sometimes I wondered greatly at the peaceableness of my life. I had been so long accustomed to being alone, to practice renunciation, to fight toilfully my battles that these months in age seemed to me like a time passed on a dream island, where I might live tranquilly in beautiful, enchanted surroundings. I felt like this was a foretaste of that new, higher community on which we meditated. And now and then I was seized by a deep feeling of sadness, for I knew that this happiness could not last. I was not destined to breathe in the fullness of peace and comfort. I needed torment to spur me on. I felt that one day I should wake up from these dreams of beautiful love pictures to find myself standing once more alone in the cold world of others, where for me there would be only loneliness and fighting, no peace, no community of spirit. Then I yielded myself to the charms of Mother Eve's presence. My feeling for her was now doubly tender. I was glad that my fate bore still these beautiful tranquil features. The summer weeks passed quickly and easily. Already the semester was drawing to a close, leave taking was near. I dared not think of it and did not, but clung to the beautiful days like a butterfly to a honeyed flower. That was my period of happiness, the first fulfillment of my life's wishes, and my reception into the league. What was to come next? I would again have to fight my battles, be consumed by longing, have dreams, be alone. At this time the feeling, the foretaste of separation, came over me so strongly that my love for Mother Eve blazed up suddenly, causing me pain. My God, how soon would the time come to say goodbye, and I should see her no more, no more hear her firm step in the house, should find no more her flowers on my table. And what had I attained? I had dreamed, and had lulled myself in comfort, instead of winning her, instead of fighting for her and drawing her to me for always. All that she had said to me about genuine love crossed my mind. Hundreds of fine, suggestive words, a hundred tender invitations, promises perhaps, and what had I made of them? Nothing, nothing. I took up a position in the middle of my room, collected my whole conscious self together, and thought of Eve. I wished to concentrate the forces of my soul in order to let her feel my love, in order to draw her to me. She was to come, longing for my embrace. My kisses were to suck insatiably the ripe fruit of her lips. I stood tense until fingers and feet became stiff with cold. I felt force was going out of me. For a few seconds something seemed to take shape with me, something bright and cool. I had for a moment the sensation as if I carried a crystal in my heart, and I knew that was myself, a cold chill pierced to my heart. As I woke out of my fearful state of tension, I felt something was approaching. I was exhausted to the point of death, but I was prepared to see Eve step into the room, burning with passion, ravished. The sound of horses' hooves clattering down the long street rang nearer and nearer, then suddenly ceased. I sprang to the window, below, Damien was dismounting. What is the matter, Damien? Something can have happened to your mother. He did not listen to my words. He was very pale, and perspiration ran down both sides of his forehead over his cheeks. His horse was flecked with foam. He tied the range to the garden fence, then he took my arm and walked with me down the street. Have you already heard the news? I had heard nothing. Damien pressed my arm and turned his face to me with a dark, compassionate, singular look. Yes, old man, now we're in for it. You know of the strained relations with Russia? What? Is it war? I had never believed it. He spoke in an undertone, although no one was near. It is not yet declared, but it's war, rely on it. I haven't worried you lately, but I have seen three new omens since. It will be no foundering of the world, no earthquake, no revolution, it's war. You will see how that strikes everybody. It will be a joy to people. Everyone already rejoices that hostilities are about to commence. So insipid has life become for them. But you will see now, Sinclair, that it is only the beginning. This will perhaps be a great war, a very great war. The new dispensation commences, and for those who adhere to the old, the new will be terrible. What will you do? I was perplexed. Everything sounded so strange and improbable. I don't know. And you? He shrugged his shoulders. As soon as mobilization orders are out, I join up. I am a lieutenant. You? I had no idea of that. Yes, it was one of my adaptations. You know, I have never wanted to appear out of the ordinary, and have rather done too much in order to be correct, to do the right thing. In eight days, I think, I shall be already in the field. For God's sake! Look here, old fellow, you mustn't take things so sentimentally. At bottom it certainly won't give me pleasure to order machine gunfire to be turned on living creatures, but that is a secondary matter. Now each one of us will be seized by the great wheel of fate. You as well. You will certainly be called up. And your mother, Damien? Then for the first time, I recollected what I was doing a quarter of an hour before. How the world had changed. I had summoned together all my force in order to conjure up the sweetest picture, and now fate had suddenly put on a new, horrible mask. My mother, we need have no cares for her safety. She is safe, safer than anyone else in the world today. You love her so very much? You knew it, Damien. He laughed brightly and without any embarrassment. You child, naturally I knew it. No one has yet called my mother Mother Eve without loving her. By the way, how was that? You have called to either her or myself today, haven't you? Yes, I called. I called to Mother Eve. She felt it. She suddenly sent me away. I was to come to you. I had just told her the news about Russia. We turned back, scarcely speaking, he untied his horse and mounted. I first realized in my room how exhausted I was by Damien's message, and even more so by my previous spiritual exertions. But Mother Eve had heard me. My thoughts had reached her. She would have come herself if, oh, how wonderful all this was, and how beautiful. Now it was to be war. Now what we had so often spoken of was about to happen, and Damien had known so much in advance. How strange that the world's stream would no longer flow somewhere or other by us, that now it was suddenly flowing through us, that fate and adventure called us, and that now, or soon, the moment would come when the world would need us, and it would be transformed. Damien was right, one should not be sentimental over it, only it was strange that I was now to experience that lonely thing, fate, with so many, with the whole world. Good then, I was ready. In the evening, when I went through the town, every corner was alive with bustle and excitement, everywhere the word war. I went to Mother Eve's house. We had supper in the summer house. I was the only guest. No one spoke a word about the war. But later, shortly before I left, Mother Eve said, Dear Sinclair, you called me today. You know why I didn't come myself. But don't forget, you know the call now, and if ever you need someone who bears the sign, call me again. She rose and went out through the gloaming into the garden. Tall and cleanly, invested with mystery, she stepped between the trees. The foliage ceased its whispering at her approach, and over her head glimmered tenderly the many stars. I am coming to the end. Events marched quickly. War was declared. Damien, who'd looked strange in uniform with a silver gray cloak, went away. I brought his mother home. Soon after, I also said goodbye to her. She kissed me on the lips and held me a moment on her breast, and her large eyes burned steadily close to mine. And all men were like brothers. They had in mind their country and their honor. But it was fate. They peeped for a moment into the unveiled face. Young men came out of barracks, stepped into trains, and on many a face I saw a sign, not ours, a beautiful and dignified sign, signifying love and death. I as well was embraced by people I had never seen before. I understood and responded gladly. It was an atmosphere of intoxication in which they moved, not that of a fated will. But the intoxication was sacred. It was due to the fact that they had all looked into the rousing eyes of destiny. It was already nearly winter when I went to the front. At first, in spite of the sensation of the bombardment, I was disappointed with everything. Formerly, I had often wondered why people so seldom were able to live for an ideal. Now I saw that many, yes, all men are capable of dying for an ideal, provided that such an ideal is not personal, not chosen of their own free will. For them, it had to be an ideal accepted by and common to a great number. But with time I saw that I had underestimated men. Although service and a common danger renders them uniform, I saw many living and dying approach fate magnificently, not only in an attack, but the whole time, many, very many of them had a fixed, faraway look, rather like that of a person possessed, a look which indicates entire ignorance of the end pursued and a complete surrender of self to the unknown. No matter what they might believe and think, they were ready. They were there in case of need, out of them would the future be formed. And however strongly the world's attention appeared to be focused on war and heroic deeds, on honor and other old ideals, however distantly and unnaturally saying the voices of humanity, all this was merely the surface, just as the question with regard to the foreign and political aims of the war was superficial. Deep down below the surface of human affairs, something was in process of forming, something which might be a new order of humanity. For I could see many, many such died at my side to whom the understanding was brought home that hate and rage, murder and destruction had no connection with the real object of the war. No, the object, just as the aims in view was purely a matter of chance. Their deepest and most primitive feelings, even their wildest instincts were not actually directed against the enemy. Their murderous and bloody work was an expression of their own inner being of their cleft soul which wished to rave and kill, to destroy and die in order to be able to be born anew. A giant bird was fighting its way out of the egg and the egg was the world and the world had to go to ruin. One night in early spring, I was doing sentry duty in front of a farm we had occupied. The wind was blowing in fitful gusts, shrieking and moaning according to the vagaries of its mood. Over the high-flanders' sky wrote an army of clouds. Somewhere or other behind was a suspicion of moon. I had been restless throughout the whole of that day, troubled by cares which I could not precisely define. Now at my dark post, I thought with fervor of the picture of my life up to that time of Mother Eve of Damien. I stood leaning against a poplar, staring into the agitated sky, the mysterious quivering brightness of which soon resolved itself into a series of pictures. I felt by the odd slowness of my pulse, by the insensibility of my skin to wind and rain, by the lively wakefulness of my inner being that a guide was near me. In the clouds, a large city could be seen out of which millions of men were streaming, spreading in swarms over the broad countryside. In their very midst there appeared the mighty figure of a god as big as a mountain, with glittering stars in its hair and with the features of Mother Eve. Into it disappeared the processions of men as into a gigantic cave and were lost to view. The goddess shrank down on the ground, a sign on her forehead glittered brightly. She seemed to be under the influence of a dream. She closed her eyes and her large features were twisted in pain. Suddenly she cried out and out of her forehead sprang stars which hurried into lovely arcs and half circles over the black sky. One of the stars rushed noisily through the air to meet me as if seeking me out. With a crash it burst into a thousand sparks lifting me off my feet and hurling me onto the ground. The world broke up thunderously about me. They found me close to the poplar, covered with earth and wounded in several places. I lay in a cellar, guns growled and rumbled overhead. I lay in a cart and was jolted over empty fields. For the most part I was either asleep or unconscious but the more deeply I slept the more strongly I felt I was being drawn that I followed at the will of a force over which I was not master. I lay on straw in a stable. It was dark, someone tried on my hand but my inner self willed to go further. The mysterious force drew me on. Again I lay in a cart and later on a stretcher. Even more strongly I felt in me the command to go forward. I was conscious only of the pressure, the force which seemed to be controlling my journeying thus from place to place. At last I was there. It was night, I was fully conscious and I felt strongly the secret attraction and power which had brought me to that place. Now I was lying in a room, on a bed made up on the floor. I felt I had arrived at the place to which I had been called. I glanced around, close to my mattress was another on which someone was lying, someone who bent over and looked at me. It was Max Damian. I could not speak and he either could not or would not. He only looked at me. A lamp which hung over him on a wall cast a light on his face. He smiled at me. For what seemed an immeasurably long time he gazed unwaveringly into my eyes. Slowly he inclined his face towards me until we almost touched. Sinclair, he said in a whisper. I signaled to him with my eyes that I understood him. He smiled again almost as if in compassion. Little one, he said smiling. His mouth lay now quite close to mine. Softly he continued to speak. Can you still remember Frank Gromer? He asked. I winked at him and could even manage a smile. Sinclair, old man, listen. I shall have to go away. Perhaps you will need me once again on account of Gromer or something. When you call me, I shall not come riding on a horse or in a train. You must target to the voice inside you. Then you will notice it is I that I am in you. Do you understand? And one other thing, Mother Eve said that if you ever were ill, I was to give you a kiss from her, which she gave me. Close your eyes, Sinclair. I obediently closed my eyes. I felt a light kiss on my lips on which there was a trace of blood which never seemed to stop flowing. And then I fell asleep. In the morning I was awakened to have my wounds dressed. When at last I was properly awake, I turned quickly to the mattress by my side. A stranger lay upon it, a man on whom I had never before set eyes. The bandaging hurt me. All that has happened to me since hurt me. But my soul is like a mysterious locked house. And when I find the key and step right down into myself to where the pictures painted by my destiny seem reflected on the dark mirror of my soul. Then I need only to stoop towards the black mirror and see my own picture, which now completely resembles him, my guide and friend. This ends Damien by Herman Hess. This recording is by Michelle Fry, Battenridge, Louisiana. Thank you for listening.