"My heart is open to every light, mother. I am willing to hear and to consider everything. But though I would ever so gladly, I cannot obey and accept unless what I am told and advised seems acceptable to me."
"May G.o.d break your self-conceit!" my mother sighed.
What I have written here is an average and collective type of many hundreds of conversations which I had with my mother during the ten years following. With the indefatigable zeal of flies incessantly buzzing up and down and striking against a window pane, we two tenacious and autocratic persons tried to thrust upon one another our own peculiar individuality. My mother with a more aggressive love, I more on the defensive, but in my self-a.s.sertion, none the less militant. Possessed by the universal conceit of the reasonableness of our feelings and convictions, neither one of us noticed that this was simply a struggle between two natures whereof one was trying to subject the other. And accustomed as almost all the human herd to the idolatry of the true word, we both imagined that by merely talking, talking we could finally make the word which we ourselves considered true the idol of our fellow-man too, like two missionaries of different faith holding up their symbol before one another until one of the two falls on his knees.
And the mother now said that it was the father"s education that made me refractory, just as the father had thought to oppose the maternal influence: as though they continued the old feud about me and through me.
The four hours of anxious suspense on the capsized boat, my father"s curse ringing in my ears, his grim sinking face before my eyes, had struck such a deep gash into my young and tender soul that at first I would awaken every morning from a dream, in which the whole thing was lived through again, crying for help in a voice hoa.r.s.e from screaming as I had cried so long across the lonely dusky sea. Only very gradually did these evil memory dreams cease, and till late in my life they would recur whenever my power of resistance was weakened.
These dreams acted upon me like warnings, repeating the stern lesson of the terrible event. "You have repelled your father and chosen your mother"s side. You have rejected his ideas and thereby driven him to death. And what if he had been right now? Are you sure that your mother deserved this sacrifice? Are you sure that your life was worth saving?
What have you - really - of that life which you so desperately defended? By your defiance you have taken a heavy responsibility upon yourself. You must now seek this a.s.surance: the a.s.surance that your father was in the wrong and that you are doing right by continuing to live and adhering to your mother."
These were the warnings that beset me every morning when the morning light had once more dispelled the fearful vision. In vain I sounded the depths of my soul - to find whence issued these compelling and distressing thoughts. A power dwelt within me which seemed to possess a mighty voice, and a strong coercive force when I did not want to listen. And I soon observed that this power increased in proportion as I felt weaker and more discouraged. Was it the voice of the herd, which my father had taught me to despise, but which he no more than I could infallibly distinguish from his own voice? Who was this speaker, this tyrant?
There existed a bridge of heartiness and affection between my mother and myself which always remained practicable even when the flood of controversy raged highest. When it seemed as though we would never understand each other, we would simply stay the structure of our phrases and without detour approach one another through the ever open door of our love, without troubling ourselves about logic or consistency.
And Lucia was much less averse to theology than Emmy. Supplied by my mother with shining words of authority and bombastic arguments, and no less anxious than my mother herself to let the son partic.i.p.ate in the joy of her conviction, she eagerly granted any request for engaging in deep conversation. We did not go walking alone together, as this did not agree with her principles of education, but when we three were together the origin and prospect of our life was discussed more, and with greater fervor, than anywhere probably in all the little seaside town, perchance in all the little land.
And it is good that people do not act as reasonably as they imagine, otherwise we should see all mankind engaged in such conversations: they would forget to reap the harvest, to start the trains, to keep the fires of the factories going.
For it is strange to see everyone making the greatest efforts and wearing himself out and hardly anyone trying to render account to himself of the why and wherefore. Especially the so-called thoughtful people cut a strange figure, as usually they all disagree, or only agree about their own ignorance; and yet they go on living complacently without earnestly persevering in their efforts of reaching a conclusion. They all pretend to believe in the true word, but they do not manifest much faith in their idol, because words concerning the most important truths have but little power to attract them. It is good so, for otherwise, from sheer uncertainty, the entire machinery would come to a standstill and the truly free, such as you, dear reader, and I, would find no opportunity to gather the leading truths for them, and, wrapped in glowing formula, so dexterously to throw them before their feet that they perceive them and pick them up as their own discoveries.
Lucia del Bono was not only a beautiful, but also a bright, clever and, as my mother a.s.sured me, good and n.o.ble Italian woman. She had lost her parents, and my mother who had taken her into her home as her adopted daughter, was her saint, her oracle. Whatever mother did was good, whatever mother said was true, what mother wished was the nearest to G.o.d"s will of anything we could know. And soon I perceived that, among other things, mother had long wished Lucia to become my wife. Through Emmy"s loss and through the unchanging persistence of my pa.s.sions, Satan"s voracious pets, I however considered myself peculiarly fitted for a monastery, if I could only once reconcile myself to the doctrines suitable to such a life.
"After all, there is no other way of salvation for me" - I once said to my mother when I was alone with her on the hotel veranda. "Now I may indeed have holy resolves again and make solemn promises, but I look reality too squarely in the face to believe, myself, in these promises.
I can never love a woman more truly and more fervently than Emmy, - and even this love was not strong enough to shield me from the temptations of the low and the vile. If I remain in the world, I shall nowhere escape temptation. I have seen enough to know that there is temptation everywhere for one like myself. It is bitter and humiliating, particularly for one with a proud and haughty nature, and who does not like to turn away from an enemy. I feel myself a match for men and would be willing to fight an overpowering majority, but G.o.d has left me defenceless in the hands of women."
To this mother replied: "There is no life more splendid and lofty than that of the monk who denies and suppresses all the lower, worldly and transitory feelings in order to let the eternal develop the more freely. But it requires a good deal to consecrate yourself wholly to Jesus, Vico dear. If only you are strong enough for that!"
"No, mother! I want to do it just because I am not strong enough to resist the world and my fleshly desires. I must be in an absolutely pure environment and lead an abstemious life, only then will I remain good. I have tried it for three weeks. But then I fell ill and was nursed and petted by kind hands and then Satan again had me in his power."
"You can fall ill in a monastery too, Vico. And Satan will not leave you in peace there either. Think of how even the saints were tormented by demons and temptations."
"Ali, mother, what I have read about that, and seen on paintings, proves that they do not know my temptations. Did you imagine that I would succ.u.mb to the pretty ladies who troubled Antonius of Padua? They are much too pretty, too poetic, I should say. With them I would feel ashamed. And all those monsters and demons, as Teniers paints them, they would not frighten me in the least. I know them well from my dreams. They give you a fright, but you can easily drive them away, much more easily than -"
"Than what, Vico?" my mother asked. But before I could conquer my strong disinclination to give an idea of the true nature of my visitants, Lucia came out of her room.
"What do you say to this, little daughter!" my mother said with grave, almost embarra.s.sed mien, "Vico wants to enter the priesthood."
It was curious to mark the change of expression on Lucia"s face. With a peculiar wide, shining look, her great dark eyes travelled from mother to me, but she cleverly concealed that it was a painful surprise. She could not suppress a deep blush, however, and when she felt it and realized that it could not help betraying an all too deep and painful interest, the blush of shame became yet deeper.
"That is fine!" she said in a voice solemn with emotion.
"If Christ will only accept me," I said; "according to you two I am still half a heathen."
"Oh, he will surely accept you! he will be good to you!" said Lucia, in a tone which betrayed more certainty concerning the being of whom she spoke than Emmy"s "Jesus Christ our Lord."
"How do you know that so surely, Lucia?" I asked, immediately attentive. "Do you know him so well? Can you explain to me what he is?"
"Do I know him?" she cried out pa.s.sionately, with a little comprehensive smile at mother. "What shall I reply, mother? He asks whether we know the dear Lord Jesus."
"What would you yourself reply, Vico, if she asked you whether you knew me, your mother?"
I was silent, and thoughtfully regarded the two women, so obviously convinced. Then Lucia said: "I know him much better, Vico, than you know your mother, for you have not had her near you for very long, nor is she with you all the time. But my Jesus never leaves me. I have always had him near me as long as I can remember day and night."
I said nothing, but looked at her encouragingly, intimating that she should go on and tell me more of Jesus. And she did it gladly, - far more eagerly than Emmy, - and though it was not all clearly and absolutely lucidly expressed, not entirely connected and too long, to repeat it all to you here, yet it was captivating and instructive and, to me, implied the existence of a firm and neither weak nor transitory reality.
Suggestion is a very convenient word with a meaning easily adaptable to all sorts of explanations; but if there were no bounds and no end to this explaining by suggestion, we might as well rub out from our suggested slate of life, with a suggested sponge, the whole beautiful world of clear and eternal realities. No, the Christ of Lucia and my mother was no suggested fancy, but a living reality.
But what was he?
Of the Bible the two women knew very little. My mother, despite her Northern origin, had had an Italian Catholic education as well as Lucia. In this, for valid reasons, the Bible is forbidden. They did not speak much of the life of Jesus as an historical person, nor of his adventures, nor of his teachings. It was his suffering, his martyrdom, and his death that to them seemed to be above all deserving of meditation.
And if I had not known it - if the Nazarene of whom the New Testament narrates had borne another name, it might perhaps never have occurred to me to identify him with the Deity worshipped by my mother.
But now that I must needs a.s.sume that all information regarding the being, personally wholly unknown to me, that so occupied the lives of these two women and of millions of human beings besides, was to be found in these ancient writings, the English translation of which, contrary to my mother"s wishes, I faithfully kept - now I began to read with renewed and even closer attention.
But I found nothing to give me light. I found a very beautiful and touching narrative full of dramatic power, written by the hand of a master, but to its detriment four times retold with embellishments and obvious falsifications. And the hero of this narrative was a very human mortal, more delicate, more sensitive and nearer akin to us than Hiob: just as bold in the flight of his thought, just as fanatic and even immoderate in his declarations, and certainly less strong, less resolute, his character less unmoved by the lot threatening him than the mighty hero of the older drama. I was deeply stirred by the reading of this wonderful creation, by the thoroughly human truth of his struggle, his disappointments, waverings and weaknesses, his courage and self-denial, his alternately proud and discouraged bearing, his very explainable self-deception, caused by the influence of his childish followers and worshippers, his fatal and truly tragic ending, not desired but foreboded, and manfully not evaded, - immutable necessary result of human weakness in human heroic strength.
But what did all this have to do with the wonderful reality in which my mother and millions with her found all their joy and their security, with which, through which, for which, in which they lived as fish live in the water?
I found nothing but a little outward resemblance, the name, the death he suffered. But for the rest it seemed to me that they might as well have named any other hero of tragedy - Prometheus for example - as the mighty and loving being that, even now, directed all their steps and shed light upon their path.
And through many careful and attentive conversations with the fair Lucia, in the presence of my mother, who was for her the living fountain from which she gratefully drew when her wisdom threatened to forsake her, I became convinced that had Lucia been taught that the divine reality she felt in herself was named Spinoza, because Spinoza was a G.o.d, incarnate in human form, who had lived in Rynsburg as a man, had proclaimed many words of living wisdom and therefore suffered scorn and contempt and finally, after a life of simplicity and chast.i.ty, had died in loneliness and poverty for our salvation - the pious maiden would just as readily have accepted it and would have found exactly as much strength, happiness and contentment in it.
Do not lose patience, my reader, because I tell you such commonplace things. Of course as an independently thinking and observing person, you know all this just as well as I. But for the herd it is all new, absolutely new. And it will still be so when you read this and I am dead and for many, many years after. Do not forget that we too belong to the herd, you and I, and that an accurate comprehension of our relations does not exclude a loving understanding and a wise affection.
There is joy in my pride only because it rests on an immutable estimation of worth. I know that the herd thinks and feels slavishly and I do not, and that it is therefore necessarily subject to me; but my joy would rot and wither in my pride, did I not know the comforting and refreshing humility, the humility that by patient deeds of love unites me to the herd, and gives me full measure of comfort in this faithful, sincere and patient record for the good of all, so that I have found peace, tranquillity of mind and a foretaste of bliss in the utmost spiritual loneliness, in this dead life.
There is neither contentment nor happiness in unshared wisdom.
Therefore I make bold once more to speak plainly of such commonplace things. If we would build our towers higher and higher, we must seek to broaden the foundations, otherwise we topple over with our individual wisdom just as we had imagined heaven attained. The herd does not need our leading more urgently than we its following.
True, it must have been a great and ingenious Jew, who, now more than eighteen hundred years ago, wisely responding to the cry of anguish from his enslaved countrymen for a redeemer, as king, as Christ, pointed out to them the new man, the meek, the "Chrestus," with whom the whole earth felt herself pregnant.
No one can have known the divine reality, which so many millions have called Christ, so profoundly, and have felt it more clearly living in himself than he, when flown from his subdued and desolate country to Alexandria, be created the mighty and tragic heroic figure and chose the name that for so many centuries was to be accepted by mankind, as the personification and epithet of this same reality.
But I charge him gravely that with Jewish fearfulness he withdrew his own person from the struggle in which he let his hero perish, and suffered or even wished his n.o.ble and true work of art to be changed into a false piece of history. What might have gladdened and elevated poor suffering and blinded humanity as a wonderful masterpiece of art, like the book of Hiob, or the Iliad, or Prometheus Vinctus, or the Athene of the Parthenon, or the Zeus of Olympus, showing how man in the creations of the artist rises highest above personal pettiness and weakness, how the genius in fiction creates the highest perfection, such as has never been seen in flesh and blood, - has now, as an invented historical occurrence, driven the whole world to the rudest falsifications of truth and impossible efforts of imitation.
The glorious shapes of Phidias, more beautiful than any living human race has ever actually been, have still brought us joy and inspiration after a miserable barbaric Christian world bad mutilated and neglected them, - but the beautiful figure of Jesus, which as a work of art might have been immortal and beneficent, embellished with Pauline metaphysics and mixed in the Byzantine sorcerer"s pot with Egyptian and Chaldean hodgepodge, has become an evil spirit for wretched human kind.
For eighteen hundred years the world has been the dupe of this marvellous dramatic genius and his work, changed in a fatal hour from fiction to history. I know no stronger proof for the existence of a malicious devil who takes pleasure in our amusing errors.
And many a night, when it is warm and the sea calm and the doves coo in the softly whispering elms on the city walls, I wander out of my quiet little city and gaze over the smooth extent of water, musing for hours on the beauty and the joy that would now reign on earth if, unprejudiced and unconfounded, men had asked what G.o.d it was that so mightily revealed himself in them and urged them with such perceptible will and pressure, and spoke in so audible a voice: if they had earnestly and attentively hearkened to the constant whisperings and warnings of their deep true nature, if they had borne and learned to follow the bridle of this faithful warner in their own soul, who strongly desires and alone has power to give us peace, - instead of worshipping the true word, and looking for outward signs and miracles, and through the beautiful creations of a human genius letting themselves be seduced to human deification, to stupid imitation, to fanaticism, to falsification of word and reality, to a sickly pursuit of pain, glorification of poverty, fear of knowledge, scorn of the world, hatred of beauty, poor stray sheep!
Then the great and good works of Greeks and Romans, of Indians and Saracens would have been thoughtfully carried on, art preserved, knowledge esteemed, - and the garden of peace made verdant with clear springs of beauty from these two pure fountains. While now, alas! again and again, in thousands of hearts, the true Christ must die the bitter death upon the cross because the truest word that he inspired one of his dearest favorites to utter was besmirched by a flat lie, and his most beautiful poetical image destroyed by a grossly sensuous error.
But be of good cheer, my reader; the devil made a good move, but shall lose the game nevertheless. The falsehood poison has soon spent itself, and the powers of the sick increase. No longer do the shepherdless dogs drive the flock asunder in a hundred different directions. You live, my reader, and hear the voice of me, the dead, - and as though heralded forth by trumpets, you learn that the crucified in you and in me is also victoriously and gloriously risen again.
XI