Demian
the conversation with my father in his study, unpleasant the greeting
of a couple of relations, unpleasant above all things 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
and embarrassing. 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 sisters 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 and
Christmas tree. The ginger-bread smelt 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 passed 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. Well it made no difference to me.
I had a special grudge against Max Demian, whom I had not seen for the
whole of this period. In my first term at St. ---- 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, she belonged 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 deep or 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 reproduction 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, I read gladly, 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.
I cannot think of that time without a certain emotion. With earnest
striving, I 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 flying back 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 in this sacred fire to spirit and devotion. The grim and
horrible would 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 to
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 and more 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 paint-brush. I made
ready my palette, porcelain bowls, glass and pencils. The fine water
colors in little tubes which I had bought captivated me. There was a
bright chromic green 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 blond 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,
half man, 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 rôle for a while, sharing 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 to 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.
Just at that 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.
And 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 with
the 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 the 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, but still decidedly, and from
this twitching I recognized the picture....
How was it that I had found it out so late? It was Demian’s face. Later
I often and often compared the picture with Demian’s real features, as
they had remained in my memory. They were not quite the same, although
there was a resemblance. But it was Demian, 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,