The Bride of Dreams
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Frederik van Eeden >> The Bride of Dreams
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"Thus a non-political organization? An ethical corporation?"
"A business proposition, judge, a business proposition. But a great and
holy business. A business for making money, for accumulating as much
and as quickly as possible. The herd must eat, must have a good time,
must have abundance and must have its future assured. What kind of
business is indifferent. Every kind that is possible. If the group only
learns that it can obtain enough and much more even than before - much
greater wealth and much more happiness and content - by no longer
pilfering one another and squandering, but by intelligent mutual
agreement and by restriction of personal boundless liberty for the sake
of the whole common welfare."
"And your own part in this affair? How do you imagine that?"
"As the part of a match at a forest fire. For myself full of profound
satisfaction, for the outer world absolutely obscure. I shall come to
talk with you now and then. Judge Elkinson is the man, the benefactor
of his people, the liberator of mankind."
"And for you - nothing? No money, no glory, no honor?"
"This disinterestedness seems incredible to you. But it is a natural
outcome of our different functions. Every different function involves
different passions and desires. Practical work involves a love of glory
and honor. We are so organized that we find enjoyment only in what our
own peculiar endowment can yield. A very sensible organization which
you may take as an example. My work is contemplative, speculative and
affords enjoyment through the satisfaction of correct discoveries and
clear vision. In practical life I am unhappy, with money, honor, glory
and all. But you, Judge Elkinson, have need of me for this very
quality. Humanity must not only act organizedly but also think
organizedly. No greater folly than to imagine that the safe way for the
herd shall be found by its own blind instinct, or that as a mass it can
itself think out what it must do. No greater nonsense than the work of
these sages who sling a few formulas at the masses, and then, with the
aid of these uncomprehended and incorrectly interpreted terms and
abstractions, would let them find the way alone. Humanity would and
must think, and advance by the light of contemplation and reflection,
but it must think organizedly, so that each in this great thinking
process exercises his own peculiar function - the scholar, the
business-man, the statesman, the artist, the poet. And only when this
organization for the good of all is completed, is there a chance that
every member of the herd will participate more and more in the thinking
functions, and thus also in the delights of the others, that we obtain
a world of free men and majors, a truly mature and full-grown humanity,
the flaming ideal in which the poor anarchistic moths now still scorch
their wings."
"My dear Mr. Muralto, in a way I really feel that you are placing me in
the position of Dr. Faustus, to whom every imaginable glory was held
out, all that human ambition could desire, if he would but sign his
name. You will pardon the comparison, I hope."
"Certainly, but you will probably have something more to do than sign
your name. And I will gladly give you every occasion to search your
deepest conscience whether I should be counted among the good or the
bad demons."
"Until now, my friend, I considered myself capable of getting on
without guiding spirits."
"But after all that was only an opinion, as all other opinions very
open to criticism."
"That is possible! - At any rate I am very grateful to you for the most
interesting conference. I hope that we may continue it another time."
"I gave you my address. I shall be at your disposal there at any
moment."
"Much obliged! - I feel myself, honored by your confidence and by the
high opinion you seem to entertain of me. Once more - many thanks."
With these ceremonious courtesies we parted from one another.
Then I went back to my little house where Elsje awaited me. I had the
dissatisfied and well-nigh angry feeling of one who has not been able
to do himself and his ideas justice. The process of realizing our ideas
is always full of surprises and disappointments, like the performing of
a play or the developing of a photograph.
Elsje awaited me, with everything in readiness that the little house
could offer of comfort and of cheer - and best of all, with eager
interest in that which stirred my heart so deeply. She knew that this
was my first stroke in the campaign and she participated in it, with
all her soul, as I gratefully read by her looks and her attitude when I
came home.
"How was it?" she asked.
"So, so! dearest. - I did what I could. But I do not know whether I
said just what I should have to make the most impression. It isn't
enough to say the right thing, but one must say it in such a way and so
often that it makes an impression and takes effect. You can never do
that all at once. But nevertheless I am not dissatisfied with my first
attack."
And I told her how my words had been received.
"You dear, good man! You do your best so faithfully. If only they knew
what I know, how good you are, and how sincere your intentions."
One usually attaches little value to a loving woman's judgment upon the
man she loves. But the perfect faith of a pure spirit is not alone a
wondrous comfort and consolation, but also a mighty creative power for
the good. And it is not confusing and blinding, but calming and
beneficial to see oneself reflected in a clear glass, in a favorable
light.
XXX
I shall never admit that the plan of my campaign was unpracticable or
ill contrived. I remain firmly convinced that the main idea was correct
and will be of service to future combatants. But it had one fault which
I could not be aware of and which could only reveal itself in the
practice. It is not impossible to inoculate men like Elkinson with an
original and to them new idea, and even to impress it. On them in such
a manner that they come to conceive of it as their own idea and are
driven to action by it.
But then this operation must be performed as skilfully and carefully as
a botanical or surgical grafting, so that the idea becomes one with
their own nature, and continues to grow, nourished by their own life.
Now in my case the grafting did not succeed - just as the first
botanical graftings did not succeed - because I was not sufficiently
experienced and practised in it and had not yet found the right method.
Still this does not prove the impossibility of the principle.
One can never remind oneself too often that no one, not even the most
sagacious, broadest mind, is led to assume different fundamental ideas
solely by reasonable arguments. The element of faith is always
indispensable, even in purely scientific questions.
What I said to Judge Elkinson would have been entirely sufficient to
convince him and to stir his powers into action, had it been told him
in the same words but under more favorable circumstances; or if he had
heard it oftener, from different persons and in different words.
The unfavorable, hampering circumstance was that because of my poverty
and my illegitimate marriage I now stood outside the circle of
Elkinson's social intercourse. I had foreseen this to be sure, but
thought nevertheless that he would confer with me in secret and private
interviews often enough to afford me the opportunity of keeping in
contact with him and in the end convincing him. I did indeed see him
now and then too, once also he came to me and evinced as much interest,
kindliness and broad mindedness as could be expected of a man in his
position. But illogical as it may seem, the influence of my words was
much slighter because we no longer stood on an equal footing. Had he,
as formerly, met me everywhere in the distinguished circles, had he
there, in club or salon, parried on the same conversations with me, and
above all, had he not gained the impression that I spoke intentionally
and with the purpose of rousing him to action, he would then, I am
sure, have assimilated these same ideas and seemingly on his own
initiative would have commenced to act upon them.
But the arguments that upon the lips of a man of position and
distinction are convincing lose their persuasive power when spoken by
an erratic or eccentric, even though they may be exactly as logical,
because the element of faith and of trust are wanting.
Thus the release from social convention, which liberated my spirit and
gave me the courage to honestly assert and maintain myself, at the same
time had a crippling effect upon my powers. When the knight had buckled
his coat of mail he could no longer move his arms.
I did not stop at this first attempt, but continued working restlessly,
trying to provide a living for us and seeking a fertile ground for the
seed of my thoughts. I tried to find pupils to take lessons in
languages and strove to gain admission to the editors of magazines and
newspapers. I composed short articles in which I endeavored to make
ideas of great importance and value interesting and readable. Urged by
necessity I even attempted to write short stories, which were complete
failures however, and caused me miserable hours of struggle and inward
shame. For purposely manufactured art is just as insipid, unworthy and
humiliating as true art is sacred and exalting. The last is divine
worship, the first waste of time.
I also tried to engage the interest of other influential persons
besides Judge Elkinson. But I had rightly selected him as the most
available, and with all the others met with less success. I had used up
my best powder at the first onslaught. Now I ran great danger of being
looked upon as one of the many harmless, but troublesome and tiresome
fools, who are called "cranks" over there, and who seem to flourish in
America. People who go about everywhere and pursue everyone with an
infallible system, an ingenious invention, a gigantic scheme. They have
calculated everything and only want a millionaire or an influential
person to realize their idea - to reform the world and make it happy or
to amass fabulous riches.
Once counted in that category and my chance was lost, that I knew.
People would warn one another against me and no one in this
hastily-living world would have even one minute to spare to listen to
me.
Every day of the campaign on which I had so bravely entered, I saw more
distinctly the fatal difficulty I was facing. In order to be able to
carry out anything I should have to "make a name," as it is called. And
making a name, the forming of a centre of suggestive influence working,
not through essential worth but through idle sound, - this is in
conflict with a contemplative nature and a lover of reality as I am.
The man of action will make a name, he will work for it unashamed, he
finds unadulterated pleasure in being honored and celebrated and
renowned. For in his capacity the power of a name, a personality, is
indispensable. Wisely he has been equipped with the suitable instincts
for this.
But I myself had an insurmountable horror of anything that would tend
to bring my own personality, my most transitory, spectral unimportant
being into the limelight. To see my name printed or to hear it
discussed was quite indifferent to me, even very disagreeable. I should
be willing to bear it for Christ's sake, if I realized that I could
only thus serve him and that he demanded it of me. But it was
impossible for me to exert myself to that end. It is harder for the
Original than for anyone else to act contrary to his natural
disposition. To uphold the important truths whereof I knew myself to be
the sole and responsible supporter, I was always ready to make any
sacrifice. But to fight for my person, my career, my name, did not
attract me in the least and thus also rarely met with success.
So for days, weeks, and months I worked without the slightest result. A
pupil, sent to me by Elkinson, stayed away after a few weeks without
paying me - perhaps because he may have heard something about my
illegitimate marriage. Some journalists who had known me in former days
received me with superficial friendliness and promised to do something
for me. But they did nothing - speedily absorbed again in their own
interests. Of Elkinson, I heard that he had been brought into
consideration for the presidential candidacy; sufficient reason for him
to forget hundreds of conversations with a Muralto, shipwrecked through
his own folly.
Just as prosperity again begets prosperity, so also does misery grow
like a snowball rolling down hill. The great, tremendous, busy world
about me rushed restlessly onward in the fog - striving, seeking,
building up and demolishing, urged on by uncomprehended impulses - and
considered we no more than any of the thousand lost creatures that are
crushed under its blind and heavy tread, cruel as the machine that
catches the careless worker in its wheels. And yet I knew that this
tremendous structure was the obedient tool of the same power that had
entrusted me with its most precious gifts, that had urged me on my way,
that was responsible for my strength and for my weakness.
And in proportion as the want that reigned in my little house grew more
and more real and the struggle for existence more and more anxious, in
the same proportion this humble home also began to grow dearer to me. I
was approaching the age when a man, even though not yet tired and worn
out, still, more than ever before, longs for a resting place, a small
intimate sphere of quiet and rest, of cherishing love and peace, a
home. What had formerly been my home had always remained inwardly
strange to me. It afforded me every comfort and physical ease, but my
heart found no happiness there. And now I had more than I had ever
expected to find. I found the true domestic happiness more beautiful,
more sublime and holy than I had imagined - but its beauty was touched
with anguish and its joy with anxious sorrow because it was so
transitory.
We needed so little - a couple of tidy rooms with few ugly things and
one or two objects of beauty, a small garden plot with flowers, some
sunlight by day, some lamplight cheer at night, enough to eat, and
quiet and serenity for study - and all the hours spent together were
completely satisfying in their measure of glory and every minute of
separation became endurable through the prospect of finding each other
again.
Elsje had the child-like power of enjoyment, that in a trifle - an
opening flower, a new piece of furniture, an ornament or decoration, a
song, a few fine lines of poetry - can find gratification and delight
for hours and days. She had the pure taste that, above all, fears
overloading and over-excitement, and takes pleasure only in what is
simple and what is truly enjoyed.
How little I would have needed to make her life a constant joy. But
even that little I was not able to give. The poverty from which I had
wished to teach men to escape, the poverty falsely, proclaimed as
Jesus' friend and the bride of the devout, - in truth Christ's fiercest
enemy and a horror and terror to every truly devout man - this poverty
slunk into my house and with a grim laugh of scorn revenged herself
upon me who had dared assail her sacredness and sublimity. And she
struck the most beautiful and the dearest that life had offered me, she
menaced my greatest treasure, won but so shortly and at such great
sacrifice.
It seemed as though Elsje's dauntless efforts to prepare a comforting
home for me, her unfailing patience and brave cheerfulness consumed her
physical being all the more. I saw the battle that she was waging, and
it tortured me with a thousand variations of pain. Her keeping up when
she was well-nigh powerless with exhaustion. Her increased tenderness
when she saw me yield under the heavy pressure of care, whereby I
noticed that she felt herself responsible for my suffering, as it was
for her sake that I had given up my life of prosperity.
Then at the time of our greatest troubles, came that which Elsje had
expected and longed for as the highest blessing - maternity.
I too had desired the child and had longed for it with fervent
tenderness, picturing to myself how I could now bestow all the interest
and fatherly devotion without self-constraint, from natural instinct,
from overpowering love. How I should love this child and delight in the
sight of its development day by day. Recalling with bitter sorrow how
vaguely and distantly the lovely blossoming of Lucia's children had
passed by me, because I had not participated with my entire being in
their growth and their development, I now hoped after all to be father
in the full sense of the word, and with clear perception and unabating
interest to delight in this lovely miracle. Surely no child before it
had yet breathed the air, has ever been an fervently loved, as tenderly
discussed, as devoutly looked forward to as this.
But a dark foreboding dwelt in me with relentless certainty. I knew
that calamity threatened, my dreams betokened it and it became daily
clearer what form this calamity would take. The glad promise had a
diabolically mocking sound, the subtle perceptive faculty of my
insensible being felt the falseness of the sweet announcement. Toward
Elsje as she tranquilly sat by my side sewing at tiny garments and
absorbed in the sweet prospect of her child, toward Elsje I could feign
hopefulness and enter into her sweet phantasies - but myself I could
not deceive. I knew that a picture of happiness was teasingly held out
to me that my eyes would never behold. I knew that the genuineness of
my conviction, the strength of my faith, would be submitted to the
severest test, to the keenest torture.
Then too, through Elsje's peculiar condition, which makes certain
spiritual longings speak so loudly, it became clear to me what she had
so carefully hidden from me.
She always questioned me about my dreams what and whom I had seen,
where I had been. And once the words escaped her:
"Oh, I wish that I could dream like you!"
"Why, Elsje? What would you do?"
"I should try to go to Holland," she said softly.
Then I understood her. It was homesickness that had taken hold upon her.
"Do you long to be back in Holland?"
She nodded mutely, but immediately added in a livelier tone:
"But I don't want you to mind that, my dear husband, as long as you
consider your work here is not yet accomplished. I am patient and can
very well wait a while. But there is a possibility after all, isn't
there, - when our child is a little bigger - that we go back to live in
Holland?"
"If my endeavors meet with no better success than they have so far,
Elsje, we can just as well live in Holland."
Then no longer restraining herself, she said:
"I should have thought it so lovely if my baby had been born in
Holland, amid the green pastures in a bright pretty little Dutch house,
under the lovely Dutch clouds, near our sea. And then I could already
early have shown him all the beautiful things that we have only in
Holland - our quaint little town, and the paintings in the museum, and
the peasant houses, and the dunes. Here everything is so big, so hard,
and so ugly -"
I promised to remain here no longer than I considered strictly
necessary. But I knew that her wish could not be fulfilled. Even had I
had the money, she would not have had the strength at the time to take
the trip. But her mind was constantly occupied with Holland and her
child in Dutch environment. And her growing aversion to the food in the
strange country, her desire for the diet of the land where she had been
brought up, wrought fatally upon her system.
One day when I had again returned home discouraged after a useless
attempt to induce a learned society to apply and test its sociological
and biological knowledge in a practical direction, she said:
"Dearest husband, is it stupid of me to think that Jesus who has drawn
and led you hither, could now so easily also move others to listen to
you, and to translate your thoughts into deeds?"
"No, Elsje. For if I assume that Christ has influenced me in
particular, for his purpose, then I can also think that he influences
others for that purpose. But yet such a thought seems like
superstition. That is to say like the regarding of things divine in a
human way. Yes, if Christ went to work as a man, then we might be
surprised that he did not act as we should.
"But though he is a thinking, feeling being, that loves us, still he
acts toward us individuals with the exalted greatness and seeming
ruthlessness of a natural force, of a divine power. He can love us and
know us, better than we know the cells of our own body, and yet take no
account of our little worries, because he knows how insignificant they
are. And he always acts through great, universal things, instincts and
impulses, that must serve for all, but under which the individual must
often suffer. His laws are good, good for us all, but not perfect, any
more than human laws. Cannot all impulses degenerate? Are not all our
tendencies full of danger? Is not our body full of defects? Must we not
help and improve continuously? And nevertheless is not everything again
compiled with an ingenuity incomprehensible to us? Think what it means
to heal a slight wound or, a thousand times more wonderful still, to
give birth to a new human being!"
"But new plants and animals are born too, and the construction of a
plant or an animal is just as ingenious. Is that all the work of Jesus?
Let me say Jesus instead of Christ, I love that name better."
"Yes, there is perhaps something more intimate in this name. When in my
dream I asked my father about Christ, he pointed out to me the
beautiful markings on the wings of a butterfly. And with this in mind I
began to suspect what Jesus is. It is really so simple, so perfectly
obvious. One or the other: either this butterfly decoration originated
accidentally, or it was made with intention, feeling and thoughtful
consideration. For centuries God, the Supreme Omnipotence, has been
held responsible for it. And when the scholars finally could no longer
believe in so many contradictions and so many imperfections in an
almighty, perfect Being, then they tried their best to prove that the
beautiful markings of the butterfly had originated quite accidentally;
which is even more foolish than to think that an etching by Rembrandt
or a statue by Phidias is an accidental formation. And absolutely to
prove the contrary is impossible. One can merely speak of extreme
improbability. But I know nothing more improbable than this - that a
butterfly, a flower or a human being should be the accidental product
of blind forces, supposing that one may speak of blind or unconscious
forces. That the sun and the stars revolve around the earth, that the
Egyptian hieroglyphics are accidental scratches on the granite - all
this is even a great deal less improbable. But then they must also be
living, thinking, feeling and reasoning beings that have created
butterfly, flower and man and are still constantly creating and
changing them, with infinite skill, with incomprehensible ingenuity,
but nevertheless with ever-recurring imperfection. And probably beings
who are by no means always in harmony with one another, that fight and
struggle among them, supplanting and replacing one another, whose
desires, endeavors, joys and sorrows are far beyond the comprehension
of insignificant individuals as we - but whose expressions of life we
nevertheless clearly discern as separate entities, as races and species
struggling side by side, sometimes with, sometimes sharply opposite to
one another. The being that has created us, whose spirit, mind, will
and sensibility binds us together, as does our body its cells, into one
great unity, outwardly imperceptible, but perfectly evident to our
inner sensibility, is the Spirit of Humanity, the Primal Reason, the
Genitive Soul of Mankind - Christ."
"Thus every species of animal and plant then must have its Jesus?"
"Certainly, every species must have its genitive Soul, - and every cell
in every individual has its own. How these entities are connected and
how they are separated from one another - that the biologists will
learn gradually. They are scarcely at the beginning of their knowledge."
"But God the Supreme Omnipotence nevertheless just calmly tolerates all
this struggle, this suffering and this imperfection."
"Certainly - for it is."
"Why? Wherefore? Isn't that just as unsatisfactory?"
" Dearest wife, the difficulty is ever merely transferred; this will
continue so, until we possess higher insight. I shall not pretend that
as Milton I can justify God's ways before mankind, nor yet that as
Dante I can say everything there in to be said concerning God and the
Universe, nor even that as Spinoza, Hegel or Schopenhauer I can build
up a complete system. That is unscientific, all true science is
assuming and computing. Of the highest Power we know next to nothing:
but nevertheless enough for our life. We know that his laws obtain
everywhere as far as our perception reaches, and we know that He works
equally in the living and in the apparently not living, in the smallest
and in the greatest, and that our life rests on faith in him, that our
peace lies in His will. But of Jesus we know much more, for,
scientifically, we see his expressions of life and we feel his effect
upon our spirit. And that is over and above sufficient to comfort us in
all our suffering and all our troubles. But future generations will
know much more, will go much more surely, will lead much more beautiful
lives and die much happier."
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