Demian
live in close communion with those things, since they opened up a large
and broad perspective, leading to Abraxas. 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,
governing me and shaping my life.
I was secure in so far as the outside world was concerned. I was afraid
of no one. My schoolfellows 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 which occupied my attention, 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 at the next
corner, she will call to me from the next window. Sometimes all this
seemed to torture me unbearably, and I was quite prepared to take my
own life some day.
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 wanderings 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 a 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 tapped
and knocked 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 Reger.
The church was almost completely dark, only a very narrow beam of light
shone 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 preceding. Everything he played was pious, expressing faith
and devotion. But not pious like church-goers and clergymen, but
like pilgrims and beggars of the Middle Ages, pious with a reckless
surrender 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, a 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. I could 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.”
“Why, 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’ve
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 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 and tensely 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. His name’s Abraxas.”
The musician looked distrustfully around, as if someone might be
eavesdropping. Then he bent towards me and said in a whisper: “I
thought so. Who are you?”
“I’m a student from the school.”
“How do you know about Abraxas?”
“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 Abraxas
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 to me.
I said nothing. I took and ate 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 Abraxas.’”
He answered nothing. We peeled our chestnuts and ate them, and drank
our wine.
“Shall 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 where,
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 back-slidings, and, to a certain extent,
mad. I was studying theology, and deserted this worthy faculty shortly
before 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 and found 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 stared 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
tranquillity 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 hawk’s 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.