Demian
that. They always get restive. If you want to get something out of a
person, and you fix him unexpectedly with your eyes, and if he doesn’t
get restive, then give it up! You won’t get anything out of him, ever!
But that happens seldom. I know only one single person with whom this
trick won’t help me.”
“Who is that?” I asked quickly.
He looked at me, with eyes somewhat closed; as his fashion was when he
meditated. Then he looked away and gave no answer, and in spite of my
lively curiosity I could not bring myself to repeat the question.
But I believe he was referring to his mother. He seemed to live on
very intimate terms with her, but he never spoke about her, never
invited me to his house. I scarcely knew what his mother looked like.
* * * * *
Several times I attempted to imitate his example by concentrating my
will-power on something so firmly that I would have to attain it. I had
desires which seemed to me sufficiently pressing. But nothing came of
it. I could not bring myself to talk matters over with Demian. I should
not have been able to make him understand what I wanted. He did not
ask, either.
My faith in matters of religion had meanwhile suffered many a breach.
Yet in my manner of thinking, which was entirely under the influence of
Demian, I was to be distinguished from those of my schoolfellows who
professed an entire disbelief. There were a few such who let occasional
phrases be overheard, to the effect that it was laughable and unworthy
of man’s dignity to believe in a God, and that stories such as those
of the Trinity and the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary were
simply a joke. It was disgraceful, they said, that such rubbish was
peddled about to-day. This was by no means my way of thinking. Even
where I had doubts, the whole experience of my childhood taught me to
believe in the efficacy of a godly life such as that led by my parents,
which I knew to be neither contemptible nor hypocritical. On the
contrary, now as before, I had the greatest reverence for the spirit
of religion. Only Demian had accustomed me to consider and explain the
stories and articles of belief from a more liberal and more personal
point of view, a point of view in which fantasy and imagination had
their share. At least, I always took great pleasure and enjoyment in
the interpretations he suggested to me. To be sure much seemed to me
too crude; such as the affair of Cain. And once, during the preparation
for confirmation, I was terrified by a conception, which, if that were
possible, seemed to me even still more daring. The master had been
speaking of Golgotha. The Biblical account of the Passion and Death of
Christ had, from my earliest years, made a deep impression on me. As a
little boy, on such days as Good Friday, after my Father had read out
to us the story of the Passion, I had lived in imagination and with
much emotion in Gethsemane and on Golgotha, in that world so poignantly
beautiful, pale and ghostlike, and yet so terribly alive. And when I
listened to the Passion according to St. Matthew by Bach, I felt the
mystical thrills of this dark, powerful, mysterious world of passion
and suffering. I find in this music, even to-day and in the “actus
tragicus,” the essence of all poetry and of all artistic expression.
At the conclusion of the lesson Demian said to me contemplatively:
“There’s something in this, Sinclair, which I don’t like. Read through
the story, consider it, there’s something there which sounds insipid. I
mean this business of the two thieves. It’s sublime, the three crosses
standing side by side on the hill! But what about this sentimental
story of the honest thief, which reads more like a tract? First he was
a criminal who had perpetrated crimes, and God knows what, and now
he breaks out in tears and is consumed by feelings of contrition and
repentance. I ask you what’s the sense of such a repentance two steps
from the grave? It’s nothing but a real parson’s story, mawkish and
mendacious, larded with emotion, and having a most edifying background.
If to-day you had to choose one of the two thieves as your friend, or
if you consider which of the two you would the sooner have trusted, it
would most certainly not be this weeping convert. No, it’s the other,
who’s a real fellow with plenty of character. He doesn’t care a straw
about conversion, which in his case can mean simply nothing more than
pretty speeches. He goes his way bravely to the end, without being
such a coward as to renounce the devil in the last moment who up to
that point has had to help him. He is a character, and in Biblical
history people of character always come off second best. Perhaps he’s a
descendant of Cain. Don’t you think so?”
I was dismayed. I had believed myself to be quite familiar with the
story of the crucifixion, and now I saw for the first time what
little personal judgment I had brought to bear on it, with what little
force of imagination and of fantasy I had listened to it and read
it. Demian’s new ideas, therefore, were quite annoying, threatening
to overthrow conceptions, the stability of which I had believed it
necessary to maintain. No, one could not deal with anything and
everything like that, certainly not with the All Holiest.
As always, he noticed my opposition immediately, even before I had
spoken a word.
“I know,” said he, in a tone of resignation, “it’s the old story.
Everything is all right until you’re serious about it! But I’ll tell
you something: this is one of the points where one can clearly see
the shortcomings of this religion. The fact is that this God, of the
old and of the new dispensation, may be an excellent conception, but
He is not what He really ought to be. He is everything that is good,
noble, fatherly, beautiful, sublime and sentimental certainly! But the
world consists of other things which are simply ascribed to the devil.
All this part of the world, a good half, is suppressed and hushed up.
Just the same as they praise God as the Father of all life, but pass
over the whole sex-life, on which all life depends, and declare it to
be sinful and the work of the devil! I have nothing to say against
honoring this God Jehovah, nothing at all. But I think we should
reverence everything and look upon the whole world as sacred, not
merely this artificially separated, official half of it! We ought then
to worship the devil as well as God. I should find that quite right.
Or we ought to create a God, who would embody the devil as well, and
before whom we should not have to close our eyes, when the most natural
things in the world take place.”
Contrary to his custom, he had become almost vehement, but he smiled
again immediately and pressed me no further.
But in me these words encountered the riddle of my whole boyhood,
which I had hourly carried with me, but of which I had never spoken
to anyone. What Demian had said about God and the devil, about the
official godly world and the suppressed devil’s world, that was exactly
my own idea, my own myth, the idea of the two worlds or two halves of
the world--the light and the dark. The realization that my problem
was a problem of humanity as a whole, of life and thought in general,
suddenly dawned on me, and this recognition inspired me with fear and
awe as I suddenly felt to what an extent my own innermost personal
life and thought were part of the eternal stream of great ideas. The
realization was not joyful, although it confirmed my mode of thought
and made me happy to a certain extent. It was hard and tasted raw,
because a hint of responsibility lay therein, telling me to put away
childish things and to stand alone.
I told my friend--the first time in my life I had revealed so deep a
secret--of my conception of the “two worlds,” a conception which had
been formed since the earliest years of my childhood. He at once saw
that I was in thorough agreement with him. But he was not the kind to
make the most of this. He listened with greater attention than he had
ever given me, and looked me in the eyes until I had to turn away. I
again noticed in his look this odd, animal-like timelessness, this
inconceivably old age.
“We will talk more about that another time,” he said considerately: “I
see that you think more than you can express. But if that is so, then
you also know that you have never lived in experience all that you have
thought, and that is not good. Only the thought that we live through in
experience has any value. You knew that your ‘world of sanction’ was
simply one-half of the world, and yet you tried to suppress the other
half in you, as do the parsons and teachers. You will not succeed. No
one succeeds who has once began to think.”
This impressed me deeply.
“But,” I almost shouted, “there _are_ horrible things which are
really and actually forbidden--you can’t deny that fact. And they are
forbidden once for all, and so we must renounce them. I know of course
that there are such things as murder, and all possible kinds of vice,
but shall I then, simply because such things exist, go and become a
criminal?”
“We shan’t be able to finish our discussion to-day,” said Max, in a
milder tone. “You must certainly not commit murder or rape, no. But you
haven’t yet reached that point where one can see what is ‘permitted’
and what is really ‘taboo.’ You have realized only a part of the truth.
The remainder will come after, rely on it. For instance, for the past
year or so you have had in you an instinct which is stronger than
all the others, and which is held to be ‘taboo.’ The Greeks and many
other people, on the contrary, made a sort of divinity out of this
instinct, and honored it by great celebrations. What is now ‘taboo’ is
therefore not eternally so, it can change. To-day everyone is permitted
to sleep with a woman as soon as he has been with her to a parson and
has gone through the ceremony of marriage. With other races it is
different, even to-day. For that reason each one of us must find out
for himself what is permitted and what is forbidden--forbidden, that
is, to himself. You need never do anything that is forbidden and yet be
a thorough rascal. And vice versa. It is really merely a question of
convenience. Whoever is too lazy to think for himself and to constitute
himself his own judge simply conforms to the taboos, whatever they
happen to be. He has an easy time of it. Others realize they carry laws
in themselves. For them things are forbidden which every man of honor
does daily. On the other hand things are permitted them which are
otherwise taboo. Everyone must stand up for himself.”
Suddenly he seemed to regret having said so much, and broke off. I felt
I could understand to a certain extent what his sentiment was. That
is to say, however agreeably he used to present his ideas (apparently
in a cursory manner) he could on no account tolerate a conversation
made simply “for the sake of talking,” as he once said. He realized
in my case that, although my interest was genuine enough, I was too
much inclined to look upon discussion as a game, too fond of clever
talking--in short I was lacking in perfect seriousness.
* * * * *
As I read again the words I have just written--“perfect
seriousness”--another scene suddenly comes into my mind, the most
impressive experience I lived through with Max Demian in those still
half-childlike times.
Our confirmation classes were drawing to an end, and the closing
lessons were devoted to the Last Supper. The clergyman thought this
very important, and he took pains to make us feel something of the
inspiration and sacred character of his teaching. However, precisely
in those last few lessons, thoughts were diverted to another object,