Demian
quiet fervor. I thought I felt her hand in mine and my lips pressed
to hers. Or I was at her house, gazing up into her face, talking with
her and listening to her voice; and I did not know whether it was
really she, or whether it was a dream. I began to foresee how one can
have a lasting and immortal love. In reading a book I had acquired new
knowledge, and it was the same feeling as a kiss from Mother Eve. She
stroked my hair and smiled at me, I sensed the perfume of her warm ripe
mouth, and I had the same feeling as if I had been making progress
within myself. All that was important and fateful for me seemed to be
contained in her. She could transform herself into each of my thoughts,
and every one of my thoughts was transformed into her.
I feared that it would be torture to spend the two weeks of the
Christmas holidays, separated from Mother Eve, with my parents at home.
But it was no torture, it was lovely to be at home and to think of her.
When I returned to H---- I remained away from her house another two
days, in order to enjoy the security and independence of her actual
presence. I also had dreams in which my union with her was accomplished
by way of allegory. She was a sea, into which I, a river, flowed. She
was a star, and I myself was a star on my way to her. We felt drawn to
one another. We met, and remained together always, turning blissfully
round one another in close-lying orbits, to the music of the spheres.
I related this dream to her, when I visited her again after the
holidays.
“It is a beautiful dream,” she said softly. “See that it comes true!”
There came a day in early spring that I shall never forget. I entered
the hall. A window stood open and the heavy scent of hyacinths, wafted
by a warm breath of air, permeated the room. As no one was to be seen,
I went upstairs to Max Demian’s study. I knocked softly on the door and
entered without waiting for permission, as I was in the habit of doing
with him.
The room was dark. The curtains were all drawn. The door to a little
room adjoining stood open, where Max had set up a chemical laboratory.
From there came the bright, white light of the spring sun, shining
through rain clouds. I thought no one was there and pulled back one of
the curtains.
There I saw Max Demian, sitting on a stool by a curtained window. His
attitude was cramped and he was oddly changed. The thought flashed
through me: You have seen him like this once before! His arms were
motionless at his side, his hands in his lap; his face inclined
slightly forward, with open eyes, was without sight, as if dead. In the
eyes there glimmered dully a little reflex of light, as in a piece of
glass. The pale face was self-absorbed and without any expression, save
that of great rigidity. He looked like a very ancient mask of an animal
at the door of a temple. He appeared not to be breathing.
The recollection came to me--thus, exactly thus, had I once seen
him, many years ago, when I was still quite a boy. Thus had his eyes
stared inwards, thus his hands had been lying motionless, close to one
another, a fly had been crawling over his face. And he had then, six
years ago perhaps, looked just as old and as ageless, not a wrinkle in
his face had changed.
I was frightened, and went softly out of the room and down the stairs.
In the hall I met Mother Eve. She was pale and seemed tired: I had not
seen her like that before. A shadow came through the window, the bright
white sun had suddenly disappeared.
“I went into Max’s room,” I whispered hastily. “Has anything happened?
He is asleep, or absorbed, I don’t know what; I once saw him like that
before.”
“But you didn’t wake him?” she asked quickly.
“No. He did not hear me. I came out immediately. Mother Eve, tell me,
what is the matter with him?”
She passed her hand over her forehead.
“Don’t worry, Sinclair, nothing has happened to him. He has retired
into himself. It will not last long.”
She got up and went out into the garden, although it had begun to rain.
I felt that I must not follow her. So I walked up and down in the hall,
inhaling the scent of the hyacinths which dulled my senses, and gazing
at my picture of the bird over the door. I felt oppressively the odd
shadow which seemed to fill the house that morning. What was it? What
had happened?
Mother Eve came back soon. Rain drops hung in her dark hair. She sat
down in her easy chair. She was very tired. I went to her, bent down
and kissed the raindrops in her hair. Her eyes were bright and soft,
but the raindrops tasted like tears.
“Shall I go and see how he is?” I asked in a whisper.
She smiled weakly.
“Don’t be a child, Sinclair!” she admonished loudly, as if to relieve
her own feelings. “Go now and come back later, I cannot talk to you
now.”
I went. I walked out of the house and out of the town, towards the
mountains. The thin rain was falling obliquely, and clouds were driving
at a low altitude under heavy pressure, as if in fear. Down below there
was hardly any breeze, but on the heights above a storm seemed to be
raging. Several times the sun, pale and bright, broke for an instant
through the steely grey of the clouds.
There came a fleecy, yellow cloud driving across the sky. It collided
with the grey cloud wall, and in a few seconds the wind formed a
picture of the yellow and blue, of a bird of giant size, which tore
itself free from the blue mêlée and with wide fluttering wings
disappeared in the sky. Then the storm became audible and rain mixed
with hail rattled down. A short burst of thunder with an unnatural and
terrific sound cracked over the whipped landscape. Immediately after
the sun broke through and on the mountains close at hand above brown
woods glistened, pale and unreal, the fresh snow.
When I returned after several hours, wet from the rain and wind, Demian
himself opened the front door to me.
He took me with him up to his room. A gas flame burned in the
laboratory, paper lay about, he appeared to have been working.
“Sit down,” he invited, “you must be tired, it was a terrible storm;
it’s evident, you were overtaken by it. Tea is coming at once.”
“Something is the matter to-day,” I began hesitatingly, “it can’t only
be that bit of a storm.”
He looked at me penetratingly.
“Have you seen anything?”
“Yes. I saw a picture clearly in the clouds, for an instant.”
“What sort of a picture?”
“It was a bird.”
“The hawk? Was it that? The bird of your dream?”
“Yes, it was my hawk. It was yellow and of giant size, it flew up into
the blue-black heaven.”
Demian took a deep breath. Someone knocked at the door. The aged
servant brought in tea.
“Take a cup, Sinclair, do. I don’t think it was by chance you saw the
bird.”
“Chance? Does one see such things by chance?”
“Well, no. It means something. Do you know what?”
“No. I only feel, it means a violent shock, the approach of fate. I
think it will affect all of us.”
He walked violently up and down.
“The approach of fate!” he exclaimed loudly. “I dreamed the same
thing myself last night, and my mother yesterday had a premonition,
portending the same thing. I dreamed I was going up a ladder, placed
against a tree trunk or a tower. When I reached the top I saw the whole
country. It was a wide plain, with towns and villages burning. I cannot
yet relate everything, because it isn’t all quite clear to me.”
“Do you interpret the dream as affecting you?” I asked.
“Me? Naturally. No one dreams of what does not concern him. But it
does not concern me alone, you are right. I distinguish tolerably
well between the dreams which indicate agitation of my own soul, and
the others, the rare ones, which bear on the fate of all humanity. I
have seldom had such dreams, and never one of which I can say that it
was a prophecy, and that it has been fulfilled. The interpretations
are too uncertain. But this I know for a certainty, I have dreamed of
something which does not concern me alone. For the dream belongs to
others, former ones I have had; this is the continuation. These are the
dreams, Sinclair, in which I had the premonitions which I have already
mentioned to you. We know that the world is absolutely rotten, but
that is no reason to prophesy its ruin, or to make a prophecy of a like
nature. But for several years past I have had dreams, from which I
conclude, or feel, or what you will, which, then, give me the feeling
that the break-up of an old world is drawing near. At first they were
simply faint presentiments, but since they have become more and more
significant. Even now I know nothing more than that something big and
terrible is approaching, which will concern me. Sinclair, we shall go
through the experiences of which we have so often talked. The world is
about to renew itself. It smacks of death. Nothing new comes without
death. It is more terrible than I had thought.”
Frightened, I looked at him fixedly.
“Can’t you tell me the rest of your dream?” I begged timidly.
He shook his head.
“No.”
The door opened and Mother Eve entered.
“There you are, sitting together! Children, I hope you aren’t sad?”
She looked fresh, her fatigue had quite vanished. Demian smiled at her,
she came to us as a mother comes to frightened children.
“We aren’t sad, mother. We were simply trying to solve the riddle of
these new signs. But that is of no importance; what is to come, will
be here all of a sudden, and then we shall learn what we need to know.”
But I did not feel happy. When I said good-bye and went down alone
through the hall, I felt that the hyacinths were faded and withered,
reminding me of corpses. A shadow had fallen over us.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BEGINNING OF THE END
It had been decided that I should remain in H---- for the summer
semester. Instead of staying in the house, we were almost always in the
garden by the river. The Japanese, who by the way had been thoroughly
beaten in the boxing match, was away, and the disciple of Tolstoy was
also missing. Demian had procured a horse, and went for long rides
every day. I was often alone with his mother.
Sometimes I wondered greatly at the peaceableness of my life. I had
been so long accustomed to being alone, to practise renunciation, to
fight toilfully my own battles, that these months in H---- seemed to me
like a time passed on a dream island, where I might live tranquilly in
beautiful, enchanted surroundings. I felt that this was a foretaste of
that new, higher community, on which we meditated. And now and then I
was seized by a deep feeling of sadness, for I knew that this happiness
could not last. I was not destined to breathe in the fulness of peace
and comfort, I needed torment to spur me on. I felt that one day I
should wake up from these dreams of beautiful love-pictures to find
myself standing once more alone, in the cold world of others, where for
me there would be only loneliness and fighting, no peace, no community
of spirit.
Then I yielded myself to the charms of Mother Eve’s presence. My
feeling for her was now doubly tender. I was glad that my fate bore
still these beautiful, tranquil features.
The summer weeks passed quickly and easily. Already the semester was
drawing to a close. Leave-taking was near, I dared not think of it, and
did not, but clung to the beautiful days like a butterfly to a honeyed
flower. That was my period of happiness, the first fulfillment of my
life’s wishes, and my reception into the league--what was to come next?
I would again have to fight my battles, be consumed by longing, have
dreams, be alone.
At this time the feeling, the foretaste of separation, came over me
so strongly that my love for Mother Eve blazed up suddenly, causing
me pain. My God! how soon would the time come to say good-bye, and