XIV
Tribulations
Interned in this little university town, without hope of getting out of it, I engage in the terrible fight against my worst enemy—myself. Every morning, when I go for a walk on the wall under the plane trees, the large red lunatic asylum reminds me of the danger I have escaped, and of that which still awaits me, if I relapse. Swedenborg, by explaining to me the true character of my terrors during the last year, has delivered me from the fear of electricians, “black” magicians, wizards, the ambition of the gold-maker, and from madness. He has pointed out the only way to salvation: to seek out the demons in their dens within myself, and there to slay them by—repentance. Balzac, the Prophet’s assistant, has taught me in Séraphita that “Pain of conscience is a weakness which does not put an end to sin; repentance is the only power which makes a decisive end of all.” Very well, let us repent! But is not that equivalent to criticising Providence, which has chosen me for its scourge? and to saying to the powers: “You have guided my destiny ill; you have made me and commissioned me to chastise, to overthrow idols, to stir up revolt, and then you withdraw your protection from me and disown me in an absurd way, telling me to creep to the cross and repent!”
Strange circulus vitiosus, which I already foresaw in my twentieth year, when I wrote my drama Meister Olaf, and which has constituted the tragedy of my life. Why be tormented during thirty years in order to be taught by experience what one had already foreboded? When young I was sincerely pious, and you have made me a freethinker. Out of the freethinker you have made an atheist, and out of the atheist a religious man. Inspired by humanitarian ideas, I have been a herald of socialism. Five years later, you have shown me the absurdity of socialism; you have made all my prophecies futile. And supposing I become again religious, I am sure that, in another ten years, you will reduce religion to an absurdity.
Ah! what a game the gods play with us poor mortals! And therefore, in the most tormented moments of life, we too can laugh with self-conscious raillery.
How is it that you wish us to take earnestly what is nothing but a huge bad joke?
For whom was Christ the Saviour? Consider the most Christian of all Christians, our pious Scandinavians, these anaemic, wretched, timid creatures, who look as though they were possessed. They seem to carry an evil spirit in their hearts, and observe how most of their leaders have ended in prison as criminals. Why has their master delivered them over to the enemy? Is religion a punishment, and Christ an Avenger?
The sun shines, everyday life proceeds on its usual course, the cheerful bustle of business raises the spirits. Then one feels rebellious, and challenges heaven with doubts. But when night, silence, and loneliness reign, the heart beats, and the breast suffers from constriction. Then one jumps out of window into a hedge of thorns, and humbly begs a physician for help, and seeks someone to share the sleeping chamber.
Go again into your room, and you will find someone is there; he is invisible, but you feel his presence. Then go to the asylum, and ask the doctor; he will talk to you about neurasthenia, paranoia, angina pectoris, and stories of that kind, but will never heal you. Whither, then, will you go, all ye who, sleepless, wander through street after street, waiting for the dawn? “The mills of the universe,” “The mills of God,” are two expressions in common use. Have you had that roaring in your ears which is like the noise of a waterwheel? Have you in the solitude of night or in broad daylight observed how memories of the past stir and arise, singly or in groups? Memories of all your faults, crimes, and follies which make your ears tingle, your brows perspire, your spine shudder? You relive your life from your birth to the present day, you suffer over again all the sorrows you have endured; you empty again all the cups which you have drunk to the dregs so often; you crucify your skeleton when there is no more flesh left to crucify; you consume your soul when your heart is reduced to ashes!
You know all that?
Those are the “mills of God” which grind slowly but exceeding small. You are ground to powder, and think it is over. But no! You are brought again to the mill. Be thankful! That is hell upon earth, as Luther knew it, and reckoned it a special grace to be pulverised on this side of the grave.
Think yourself happy and be thankful!
What is one to do then? Humble oneself?
If you humble yourself before men, you will arouse their pride, for all will think themselves, no matter how guilty they may be, better than you.
Well, then, is one to humble oneself before God? But is it not disgraceful to degrade the Highest by conceiving of Him as the overseer of a slave plantation?
Shall we pray? What! Presume to try to alter the will and decision of the Eternal by flattery and crawling? I look for God and find the Devil! That is my destiny! I have repented and reformed myself.
I renounce alcohol, and come about nine o’clock soberly home to drink milk. The room is filled with all kinds of demons, who drag me out of bed and try to stifle me under the blankets. But if I come home at midnight intoxicated, I sleep like an angel and wake up strong as a young god, and ready to work like a galley-slave.
I live a chaste life, and am troubled by unwholesome dreams. I accustom myself to think only good of my friends, entrust my secrets and my money to them, and am betrayed. If I show offence at such treachery, it is always I who am punished.
I try to love mankind in the mass; I shut my eyes to their faults, and with inexhaustible patience endure their meanesses and slanders, and one fine day I find myself a sharer of their crimes. Whenever I withdraw from society which I consider injurious, the demons of solitude attack me, and when I look for better friends, I come on the track of the worst. Yes, after I have conquered my evil inclinations and through loneliness have attained to a certain degree of inward peace, I am caught in the snare of self-satisfaction and despising my neighbour. And self-conceit is the deadliest of sins, which is instantly punished.
How is one to explain the fact that every step of progress in virtue gives rise to a fresh sin?
Swedenborg solves the puzzle by declaring that sins are punishments inflicted on men in requital for sins of the more heinous class. Thus those who are greedy of power are condemned to the hell of the Sodomites. Supposing this theory to be true, we must endure the burden of our wickedness and rejoice at the pangs of conscience which accompany it, as at the payment of fees at a tollgate. To seek virtue, accordingly, resembles an attempt to escape from prison and its punishments. That is what Luther asserts in article xxix against the Romish bull, when he declares that “souls in purgatory sin continually, because they seek for peace, and try to avoid torments.” Similarly, in article xxxiv, he says, “To fight with the Turks is equivalent to rebellion against God, whose instrument the Turks are, in order to punish our sins.” It is therefore obvious “that all our good works are deadly sins,” and that “the world must become guilty before God, and learn that no one is justified except through grace.”
Let us therefore suffer without hoping for any real joy in life, for, my brothers, we are in hell. And do not let us accuse the Lord, when we see our little innocent children suffer. No one knows why, but divine justice gives us a ground for surmising that it is on account of sins committed by them before their birth. Let us rejoice in our torments, as though they were the paying off of so many debts, and let us count it a mercy that we do not know the real reason why we are punished.