Demian
But I had not the faintest desire ever to broach the subject.
CHAPTER FIVE
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, unfolded 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. The egg is the world. Whoever
will be born must destroy a world. The bird flies to God. The name of
the god is Abraxas.”
I sank into deep meditation after I had read the words through several
times. It admitted of no doubt: this was Demian’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
Abraxas mean? I had never read or heard of the word. “The name of the
god is Abraxas!”
The hour passed without my hearing anything of the lesson. The next
lesson began, the last of the morning. It was taken by quite a young
assistant master, fresh from the University, to whom we had already
taken a liking, because he was young and pretended to no false dignity
with us.
We were reading Herodotus under Doctor Follen’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 Demian
had said to me in the confirmation class was right. If you willed 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, then
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 Demian 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 “Abraxas” fell from his
lips.
Continuing his explanation, the beginning of which had escaped me,
Doctor Follen said: “We must not imagine the ideas of those sects and
mystical corporations of antiquity to be as naïve 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
therefrom, and often led to fraud and crime. But none the less, magic
had a noble origin and was inspired by deep thought. So it was with the
teaching of Abraxas, 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 to-day. But it appears that Abraxas 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 Demian in the very last period of our friendship. Demian 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 Abraxas 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
farther, without success. In addition, I rummaged through a whole
library to find out more about Abraxas, 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 into my 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 recurred 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 shone
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
Demian 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 the memory of Max Demian 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 Abraxas.
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
Abraxas. 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--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 and 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 to be 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 some day, 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 Demian. 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 tranquillity 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 did 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 unstilled
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 Demian, with the hawk, with my picture of the
big dream-figure, which was my fate and my mistress. It sufficed to