Demian
only a single, really harmless word, but nevertheless it was the
moment when an illusion between us fell in colored pieces.
The presentiment had for some time already oppressed me, but one Sunday
in his scholarly old room this presentiment changed to a definite
feeling. We were lying on the floor before the fire. He was speaking
of mysteries and religious forms which he was studying, and on which
he was meditating. He occupied himself with trying to picture their
possible future. To me all this seemed curious and interesting, but
scarcely of vital importance. It smacked of erudition. It was like a
fatiguing search among the ruins of former worlds. And all at once I
felt an aversion from the whole business, from this cult of mythology,
from this sort of piecing together, this mosaic work of religious forms
which had been handed down to posterity.
“Pistorius,” I said suddenly, in a malicious outburst which surprised
and frightened even myself, “relate a dream, a real dream, one that you
have had in the night. What you have just been talking about is so--so
cursedly antiquarian!”
He had never heard me speak thus. With shame and terror I realized
the very same moment that the arrow I had shot at him, and which had
entered his heart, was taken from his own quiver--I realized that I had
heard him reproach himself in an ironical tone on this very account,
and that now I had maliciously turned one of his own reproaches
against him like a resharpened arrow.
He felt it instantly, and was silent. I looked at him with terror in my
heart and saw that he had become very pale.
After a long, heavy pause he put some wood on the fire and said
quietly: “You are quite right, Sinclair. You’re a wise fellow. I will
spare you all this antiquarian business.”
He spoke very quietly, but his tone told me how deeply he had been
wounded. What had I done!
I was on the point of tears. I wanted to beg his pardon with all my
heart, to assure him of my affection and gratitude. Moving words came
into my mind--but I could not utter them. He was silent as well, and so
we lay there, while the flames leaped up and then sank, and with each
flame that paled fell something beautiful and fervid that ceased to
glow and had vanished--never again to come back.
“I fear you have misunderstood me,” I said at last, much crushed,
and with a dry, hoarse voice. The silly, senseless words came as if
mechanically from my lips, as if I had been reading them out of a news
sheet.
“I understood you perfectly,” said Pistorius softly. “You are quite
right.” We waited. Then he continued slowly: “So far as one man can be
right in his judgment of another.”
No, no, a voice inside me said, I am wrong; but I could not say
anything. I knew that I had aimed my single little word at his one
essential weakness. I had touched the point of which he himself
was distrustful. His idea was “antiquarian.” He was a seeker, but
retrogressive, he was a romantic. And suddenly I realized that it was
just what he had been to me and had given me that he could not be and
give to himself. He had guided me to a point on the road, beyond which
he, the guide, could not go.
God knows how I could have uttered such a word! I had not meant it
badly. I had had no idea it would lead to a catastrophe. I had uttered
something, the import of which I did not myself realize at the moment
of utterance. I had surrendered myself to a somewhat witty, somewhat
malicious inspiration, and fate used it as her instrument. I had been
guilty of a little thoughtlessness, crudeness, and he had accepted it
as a judgment.
Oh, how much I wished then that he would have got angry, have defended
himself, have shouted at me! But he did nothing. I had all that to do
within myself. He would have smiled, had he been able. The fact that he
could not, showed me more than anything else how hard I had hit him.
And because Pistorius took the blow from me, his presumptuous and
ungrateful pupil, so quietly, because he silently agreed with me,
because he recognized my word as a judgment of fate, he caused me to
hate myself, he made my thoughtlessness seem a thousand times greater
than it was. As I struck, I had thought to hit a strong man, capable of
defending himself--now he was a meek, suffering creature, defenseless,
who surrendered in silence.
We remained a long time lying before the dying fire, in which each
glowing figure, each crumbling ash heap called to my memory happy,
beautiful, rich hours, making my guilt and my obligation to Pistorius
greater and greater. Finally I could bear it no longer. I got up and
went. A long time I stood before his door, a long time I listened on
the dark staircase, a long time I stood outside in front of the house,
waiting to see whether perhaps he would come out to me. Then I went on,
walking for hours and hours through town and suburbs, park and wood,
until evening fell. At that moment I felt for the first time the mark
of Cain on my forehead.
I fell to pondering and rumination. I had every intention, in thinking
matters over, to accuse myself and to defend Pistorius. But all ended
to the contrary. A thousand times I was ready to repent of my rash word
and to withdraw it--but it had been true, nevertheless. Now I succeeded
in understanding Pistorius, in building up his whole dream. This dream
had been to be a priest, to proclaim a new religion, to invent new
forms of exultation, of love, of worship, to set up new symbols. But
this was not within his province. He lingered too long in the past, he
knew too much of what had been, he knew too much of Egypt, of India,
of Mithras, of Abraxas. His love was attached to ideas with which
the world was already familiar. And in his inmost self he probably
recognized that the new religion had to be different, that it had to
spring from fresh sources and not be drawn out of collections and
libraries. His office was, perhaps, to help men to find themselves, as
he had done with me. But to found a new doctrine, to give new gods to
the world, was not his function in life.
And at this point the realization came upon me that everyone has an
“office,” a charge. But to no one is it permitted to choose his office
for himself, and to discharge it as he likes. It was wrong to want new
gods, it was entirely wrong to wish to give the world anything. A man
has absolutely no other duty than this: to seek himself, to grope his
own way forward, no matter whither it leads. That thought impressed
itself deeply on me; that was the fruit of this new event for me.
Often had I pictured the future. I had dreamed of filling rôles which
might be destined for me, as poet perhaps or as prophet, as painter,
or some such rôle. All that was of no account. I was not here to
write, to preach, to paint, neither I nor anyone else was here for
that purpose. All that was secondary. The true vocation for everyone
was only to attain to self-realization. He might end as poet or as
madman, as prophet or as criminal--that was not his affair, that was
of no consequence in the long run. His business was to work out his
own destiny, not any destiny, but his own, to live for that, entirely
and uninterruptedly. Everything else was merely an attempt to shun his
fate, to fly back to the ideals of the masses, to adapt himself to
circumstances. It was fear of his own inner being. There rose before
me this new picture, terrible and sacred, suggested to me a hundred
times ere this, perhaps often already expressed, but now for the first
time lived. I was a throw from nature’s dice box, a projection into the
unknown, perhaps into something new, perhaps into the void, and my sole
vocation was to let this throw-up from primeval depths work itself out
in me, to feel its will in me and to make it mine. That solely!
I had already known what it was to be very lonely. Now I felt I could
be lonelier still, and that I could not escape from it.
I made no attempt to reconcile myself with Pistorius. We remained
friends, but our relation towards one another had changed. Only one
single time did we mention it, or rather, it was only he who spoke of
the matter. He said: “I want to be a priest, you know that. I would
best of all like to be the priest of the religion of which we have
so many presentiments. I can never be that, I know. I have known it
already for some time, without fully admitting it. I will do some
other priestly service, perhaps at the organ, perhaps in another way.
But I must always be surrounded by something which I find beautiful
and sacred, organ music and mysteries, symbol and myth, I need that
and cannot persuade myself to leave it--that is my weakness. I often
realize, Sinclair, that I should not have such desires, that they are
a luxury and a weakness. It would be greater, it would be more right,
if I placed myself quite simply at the disposition of fate, without
pretensions. That is the sole thing I cannot do. Perhaps you will some
time be able to do it. It is hard, it is the only thing really hard
there is, my friend. I have often dreamed of it, but I cannot do it,
I tremble at the thought of it. I cannot stand so completely naked
and alone. I am a poor, weak hound, who needs a little warmth and
food, who occasionally likes to feel the proximity of his own kind.
He whose only desire it is to work out his own destiny has no kith or
kin, but stands alone and has only the cold world space around him.
Do you know, that is Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane? There have
been martyrs who willingly let themselves be nailed to the cross, but
even they were not heroes, they were not free, they also wished for
something to which they had been accustomed, which they had loved; with
which they had felt at home. They had examples or ideals. He who will
fulfill his destiny has neither examples nor ideals, he has nothing
dear to him, nothing to comfort him. And one really ought to go this
way. People like you and I are certainly very lonely, but we still
have each other, we have the secret satisfaction of being different,
of revolting, of wanting the unusual. But we must drop that, too, if
we would go the whole way. We must not wish to be revolutionaries, or
examples, or martyrs. To think the thought to its logical end----”
No, one could not think beyond that. But one could dream of it, could
sense it, could anticipate it. A few times I realized something of
this, in a very quiet hour. Then I looked straight into the open,
staring eyes of my fate. They could have been full of wisdom, or full
of madness, they could be full of love or full of wickedness, it
was all one. One was to choose nothing of all that; one was to want
nothing, one was only to want oneself, one’s destiny. In that way had
Pistorius served me, for a time, as guide.
In those days I walked about as if I were blind, storms roared within
me, every step meant danger. I was conscious of nothing but the
precipitous darkness in front of me, down to which all the roads I
had trodden hitherto seemed to lead. And in my inward self I saw the
picture of the guide, who resembled Demian, and in whose eyes stood my
fate.
I wrote on a sheet of paper: “A guide has left me. I stand in complete
darkness. I cannot take a step alone. Help me!”
I wished to send that to Demian. Yet I omitted to do this, for each
time I wished to do it, it seemed foolish and meaningless. But I
knew that little prayer by heart, and often said it to myself. It
accompanied me hourly. I began to realize what prayer is.
* * * * *
My school career was over. My father had arranged that during the
holidays I was to travel and then I was to go to the University. In
which faculty, I knew not. I was to be allowed to take philosophy for
one semester. I should have been equally content with anything else.