The Bride of Dreams

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"If I use my discrimination, father, I call ignoble what my father
calls natural."

My father arrested the conversation a moment to reflect. Then he
realized that in order not to lose more ground, he must turn from the
general to the particular.

"Let us beware, son, lest we become entangled in words. I have happily
established that we both have an aversion from the vile and low. Take
care then, that is all I wished to say, that you do not come into
contact with it."

"But the vile and low in me desires contact with the vile and low in
others," said I, bitterly.

My father grew impatient and said:

"I don't believe in this baseness and vileness in you. The popes surely
talked you into that when you were a child. I understand that you have
to deal with desires and passions that are absolutely not unnatural or
bad, but very common at your age. But do not seek relief from them with
unworthy, licentious persons. Of the great danger I have already warned
you, have I not? Do not forget that in a few moments you can, through
defilement, devastate your entire life."

"I do not forget that, father."

"Very well, but you should also be too proud to trouble yourself about
such low-graded creatures."

"I would gladly have reason to be proud. But what is passing on in me
is well suited to keep me humble. Can you deliver me from all this
lowness and ugliness? You yourself have aroused it in me."

"I?" my father called, frowning angrily.

"By your scientific explanations. Before that time I had comparative
peace. Now I am desperate, like a captive and tormented cat. It will
end badly with me, father, that is certain. I foresee it, and can do
nothing to prevent it. I can put out my eyes and chop off my hands, but
I cannot control my thoughts and drive away these visions. That is
beyond human power. I shall go to the bad, that is certain, and then
the sooner the better. There's not so much lost with me."

With an anxious, painful eagerness my father listened to these first
outspoken words. Then he said with a little laugh, half pitying, half
scornful:

"One thing is plain to me now, my boy, that you must get married soon.
Well, happily you need not seek long or fear a refusal. You can get of
the very finest that wears a petticoat. Don't be bashful, Vico! You
have a noble name, pure blood, a handsome face, and a fine, strong,
healthy body. I shall supply the money. Be calm, my boy, you can have
what you want for the asking."

I got up, deeply indignant. I believe that I laughed a theatrical laugh.

"Most decidedly your meaning is that I should make use of a pure and
holy being, whose name I am not worthy to pronounce, as a safety valve,
a preservative, a drain for my own foul and low passions. I assure you
that, had it not been my father who had spoken such words to me, I
would have challenged the man."

My father attempted a pitying smile, but it was artificial and painful:

"Good heavens, Vico! what exaggerated, impossible, fanatical nonsense!
Then were all mothers who bore children drains for their husbands? Do
be calm and reasonable, lad! You are not unworthy, your passions are
not foul and low, whoever got that into your head? Your mother, surely,
and her black friends. It's terrible how a mother can early poison the
thoughts of her child."

"If one of my parents poisoned my thoughts, then it was not my mother.
I realize my unworthiness through my own consciousness, not through
outside persuasion. But my father cannot understand that, because he is
a stranger to my deepest and most sacred feelings. Even though your
advice had been good, father, your manner of expressing it would
already have repelled me. But, moreover, your advice is idle. An
English girl of twenty does not marry a young man of seventeen, and in
three years from now I'll be lost anyway, hopelessly lost. I foresee
that positively. And oh! what does it matter? It's only I, after all!"
Scornfully shrugging my shoulders, I ran about the room. My father
lifted both hands to his forehead and stared into vacancy with a look
full of gloom, long-nurtured wrath and desperation. I still remember
that look and wonder that I was not more painfully struck by it at the
time. After a while he got up, sighed, and with the words, "We shall
see!" he walked out of the room.

Again the poor man had brought about the contrary of what he wished to
attain. One impression, above all, I retained from the conversation -
it was that my mother would surely understand me and perhaps save me. I
knew that she still lived and I also knew the name of our country seat.
For the first time since our departure from home the thought of writing
to her entered my mind. Amid many tears I composed a long, passionate
letter to her that night, in which I told of all my tortures, my
raptures, my struggles, my wondrous love and my deep self-degradation
and self-contempt. I gave no facts, for young, sensitive, passionate
letter writers seldom do, but prefer keeping to general terms. Nor did
I employ a single religious expression, because I had really completely
forgotten the brief maternal education, and simply translated elemental
feeling of the heart into language most current to me.

"Help me, dearest mother," I wrote. "Help me. I know that you alone can
do it. I have never forgotten you, and every day and night have thought
of you. I still see you as distinctly as though I had left you only
yesterday. I am a strange and terrible riddle to myself, and father,
alas! cannot understand me. He speaks of nature that is always good,
and says that my desires are natural and therefore good. But to me
these desires seem ugly and despicable and the nature that drives me to
them not at all good. He cannot understand this. Nature torments and
tortures me. And no matter how I battle I see no deliverance. And at
the same time, I adore a wondrous being, an angel of purity. And my
father says that I must transfer the desires which I consider
despicable to this sacred beloved. And that is a terrible thought to
me. I love her with a passionate, boundless love, but I tremble to
touch her with my impure lips. I harbor thoughts that would make me die
of shame in her presence. And with my sordid depravities I am fit only
for the low creatures, just as unhappy as I, whom I see running about
here and who address me occasionally. Tell me, dearest mother, is there
still help for me, is there still redemption? What is that nature of
which my father speaks? Is it a thing or a thinking being, and how can
it be good, always good, and bring me into such terrible straits and
make me so unhappy?"

In this strain I wrote many pages and sent them off at a venture
without much hope. And for two weeks I vainly went to the post-office
every day, toward the last without the least hope.

But the answer came after all and I hid myself with it in my room,
securely bolted, and with trembling hands I tore the envelope and
kissed the paper and for a long time could not read for the tears that
streamed from my eyes.

And when the contents, like a warm flood of tender benediction, seemed
to pour itself out over my benumbed and tormented heart, of course I
cried and kissed all the more and with greater fervor. We Italians are
always a little, what here in my small town would be called, theatrical
and affected, even though we be wholly without witnesses.

VI

I am proud of it that so many years ago I already addressed to my
mother the question which, as far as I know, the best philosophers have
never put to themselves with sufficient stress. Even those who by
preference call themselves natural philosophers, thus those who have
offered their lives to the service of Nature, who have sacrificed
everything to understand her, who never speak of her without reverence
and admiration and never cease praising her beauty, her bounty and the
peace she bestows upon her scholars and admirers - even they, with
amazing carelessness, forget to apprise us whether they consider her
dead or living, a being or a thing, a thinking, feeling, clearly
conscious and responsible Deity, or a blind, senseless force; and
finally to teach us how we can persist in our praise and homage in the
face of so much torture, so many monstrous faults, so much relentless
cruelty.

Nature worship is the religion which unobserved makes the most
proselytes nowadays. Even the druggist of my little town, who is a
clever botanist, has gradually renounced his slack Protestantism for an
ardent and devout nature worship. When he accompanies me to my nursery
occasionally, on his search for plants, he can be stirred to truly
southern enthusiasm at the sight of insects, birds, plants, trees,
meadows, - all the wonders of his adored "Nature." His Bible had to
make place for a periodical entitled "Living Nature," but dead nature -
the clouds, the sea and the stars - inspires in him no slighter
enthusiasm. This is all very lovable, but I often find it quite
difficult not to cause the good man embarrassment by asking him where
he considers that his beloved Nature ends and something else begins.
Whether he counts man and their products also as a part of nature, and
if so, why his admiration should make a sudden turn before the slums of
Amsterdam; and if not, or only partly, what peculiar something it then
is that has created so curious a product as man, and yet should be the
opponent and enemy of, and debarred from, the great good and beautiful
unity of all other things.

Yes, yes, dear reader, I know that men do a great deal of thoughtless
babbling, and in a vague and careless way prate of Mother Nature, and
beautiful Nature and human nature, and so on and so forth, without even
knowing or distinguishing with the slightest degree of exactness what
they really say or mean. But yet there have also been those among my
fellows and good friends, like my amiable comrade Spinoza, and my
greatly beloved friend Goethe, who did not care in the least for hollow
phrases and also well-nigh constantly thought about these things, and
who yet never proved with sufficient force men's right to praise Nature
as much as they do, to bring all that is knowable into her domain and
yet to judge of some of her products, as let us say: baboons, tyrants,
grand inquisitors, drunkards, philistines, modern buildings and bad
verses, in an ethically and aesthetically disapproving sense and,
moreover, to call this opinion natural.

See then, the answer I received from my mother was quite as plausible
to a young mind. She really seemed to have a nail for every hole and a
hole for every nail.

"Nature, my dear son," she wrote, "is blind and subject to sin. Through
a Divine decree which we cannot penetrate she has been delivered over
to Satan. But to offset nature there is the miracle. That is the wonder
of Divine grace, through which we can find redemption from sin. The
blood of Christ is the medium of redemption, and nothing more is
required of us than to believe in Christ and in the redeeming power of
his blood. Then the Miracle of Grace shall be performed in us and none
can fall so deeply into sin, but faith in Christ can bring him
salvation, and powerfully as nature works toward corruption, the
miracle has wrought things

'a che natura

non scaldo ferro mai, ne batta incude.'"

The letter whereof this is a fragment made a profound impression on me.
In the first place it came as a tangible, living token of the mother,
so greatly venerated and adored - well-nigh as a departed saint; then,
too, it awakened old, tender, childish feelings by the familiar tones
of piety, which now struck my more experienced ears as something
entirely new. And with the eager enthusiasm natural to me I thankfully
and reverently accepted each of these proffered thoughts, fitting and
arranging them until they seemed exactly to fill the gap which I had
discovered in my spiritual life.

Exactly! Nature's trend is downward through the influence of Satan who
draws us. This was just what I had felt. On the other side is God, who
also draws us - but upward. That, too, I had felt. Thus at times nature
is left to its own desires and Satan free to allure. Why? You must not
ask. Divine decree. To a certain extent this is perhaps transferring
the difficulty, but once thus firmly pronounced, - the door shuts
unhesitatingly - the spirit becomes reconciled to it. Of course,
something impenetrable may remain!

And now the salvation: Christ.

It was the first time this word was brought into the field of my
vision, like a new plant that I saw sprouting in the garden of my life.
Now, after fifty years, it is not yet full grown, but gives promise of
blossom and fruit. Marvellous are the transformations it has undergone.

First I seemed to hear a word devoid of sense, and knew not what to do
with it. A man, a God, a human-God, a Divine Man - all well and good,
but what was that to me? Words, words. Satan who drew me downward I had
felt, God who drew me upward I had felt. Of Christ I felt nothing. The
assurance that he had lived, died and was risen again, did not affect
me as long as he remained imperceptible to me.

Now I had gained the impression that Emmy knew more of him. It was
customary in her family to offer morning prayers, and when I heard her
pronounce the words: "Jesus Christ, our Lord," she did it with such
expressive fervor that I could not doubt but that she positively knew
whereof she spoke. At the time I had not yet learned the creative power
of the suggested word.

So, in the course of a merry morning gallop, I, queer suitor that I
was, began to theologize with the dear girl and asked her squarely:
"Emmy, who is Christ?"

Now in my artlessness I had thought that anyone questioned by an
earnest and not indifferent person, about a good acquaintance and dear
friend, would manifest pleasure and gladly and heartily give the
desired information. But Emmy seemed exceedingly surprised and even
alarmed, as though the question did not at all please her, but more
evidently distressed her.

"Don't you know that?" she said in a somewhat sullen and reserved tone
of voice. "I thought you were religious."

"I surely am, Emmy, but that is why I want to know more of him."

"But aren't you Catholics taught that?" Emmy asked.

"To be sure, Emmy, but that does not satisfy me. It tells me nothing. I
also want to feel that Christ is and what he is."

"Do you wish to turn Protestant?

"That makes no difference to me. I only do not want to use words
without knowing what they mean. When you say, 'Jesus Christ, our Lord,'
it seems as though you really knew what you meant with it."

"Of course I know!" said Emmy, the least bit crossly.

"Can't you make it clear to me, then?"

To my continued astonishment Emmy seemed to think this an unpleasant
topic of conversation. It seemed as though she wanted to get it over
with. She began, as though unwillingly, about God who had been born a
man, had died for our sins, had risen again.

"No, Emmy, all that means nothing to me. It may all be very true, but
what good is that to me now? If he died, well then, he is dead -"

"He is risen again," Emmy said quickly and almost angrily.

"Then he never died either; then it's folly to speak of dying. Is death
still death when you know you will rise again directly? I'm willing to
be killed three times a day then; no one is so much afraid of the bit
of pain. Thus Christ still lives, - very well! then I ask: How do I
become aware of that? By what am I apprised of it? What is he really
then, and whereby should I know him if I saw him?"

"You must believe in him," Emmy said, still more or less crossly.

The verb "to believe" that Emmy used has an auxiliary with less
favorable meaning. In English "to make believe" is in other words to
impose on a person's credulity. It was as though this thought had made
me suspicious and I began to surmise that Emmy's anxiety and anger were
akin to that of the schoolgirl who is praised for a composition which
she has copied from another. But surely it was in perfect good faith
that the dear girl thought to believe what people had made her believe.
As with everyone under suggestive influence, her deceived personality,
without being clearly conscious of it, repelled any critical pressure
that might bring to light the unreality of the imprinted image. How
sorely I tormented the artless maiden at the time with my naive and
inexorably insistent questioning! And how glad she was when at last I
abandoned the Christ question and began to talk of tennis and croquet!

Although unformulated, yet this conversation positively revealed to me
that Emmy in truth knew nothing of Christ, but used the word on her
parents' and society's authority, and as a corresponding reality
possessed nothing but a vague, fleeting phantom of a good and beautiful
man with long hair and pointed beard, who was dead and yet living, - a
man and yet God, existing everywhere and nowhere, and who on account of
all these contradictory qualities is probably most easily known and
addressed in pictures and images, which cannot and need not resemble
him, with words that are pleasantly ingratiating through the familiar
tones of precious associations.

But I had readily adopted from my father his scorn for this kind of
faith in imprinted unrealities and suggested images, and I still retain
it as the greatest treasure he left to me, covering all his sin toward
me.

Surely there is no illusion - there are only grades of reality; and
what we call phantasmagorias are merely very fleeting realities,
created by man, in comparison to the eternal and immutable realities
which we apprehend with our soul and our senses, and which must be of
higher origin. But we will not give to human creations honors alone due
to the Divine, and will not pronounce hollow words nor adore suggested
phantoms.

Thus the Christ idea of the maternal gift had as yet no value for me -
but even so I was rich with the ideas of God and Satan as the causes of
this sad discord and confusion in my soul. Now all that was necessary
was to fight Satan and to call on God for aid. Mother's advice had
been: "Pray and chastise and subdue the flesh." I tried it immediately
with trusting ardor, and behold! 't was true - it really helped. I
hardly dared believe it myself, it seemed almost too good.

I prayed night and morning in my own, original, upright way, to the
power which I felt as an uplifting influence, calling it God.

I imposed penalties upon myself, denying myself wine and delicate food,
bathing a great deal in ice-cold water, clothing myself insufficiently,
making forced marches on foot, and when Satan again seemed to be
getting the upper hand, even sleeping beside my bed on the hard floor.
For that I would rather go up with God than down with Satan - well I of
that I was most positively convinced. It is strange with what blind
arrogance man can consider himself an exception in this regard, as
though anyone on earth would enjoy and prefer descending into the deep
with Satan than ascending with God on high. And it may be called even
stranger that I went to all this trouble, the while the maternal wisdom
deemed salvation possible only through a miracle, which I, certainly,
could not compel, and by faith in Christ which, though I honestly
desired to, I could not awaken in myself.

The little fish did not see that by these evolutions it had even now
entered the encircling meshes of the net which would land it into the
same suggested faith from which it had once before turned away in alarm.

For the evolutions helped, there was no doubt about that. I soon felt
more cheerful, braver, and above all, purer and stronger. Satan, if not
absolutely routed, yet seemed to be considerably intimidated. I rowed,
played cricket and croquet, studied, rode horseback, went walking in
the country, not in the dangerous parks. I did not consider the infamy
of my fall wiped out and maintained a respectful aloofness from my
beloved, as one unworthy of her. But I saw her often and worshipped and
adored her to my heart's content, without thinking far ahead.

This success was not the result of a miracle, nor of faith in Christ,
but probably of the glad shock produced by mother's letter and of a
strong auto-suggestion. But it seemed to confirm her wisdom and thus
prepared the susceptibility to deeper suggestions.

During these exercises of virtue Satan's image through its
countervailing influence became ever clearer to me. The crafty, evil
power, whose existence I had officially recognized by my declaration of
war, was obviously flattered and manifested itself with stronger
reality. At the time I did not yet know that suggestion can engender
reality, and that all actions are also auto-suggestions.

Satan retreated, hid himself, surreptitiously arose again, awaited his
chance, taking advantage of unguarded and weak moments, and in one word
demeaned himself as a very live and sagacious Satan.

His cleverest artifice consisted in finally taking advantage of my
excess of virtue. After a few weeks of self-torture, over-fatigue,
scant food, little sleep and insufficient clothing, I naturally fell
ill, and the kind Tenders family would not hear of it that I should be
tended elsewhere than in their own home.

Behold Satan's splendid chance, which he turned to excellent account.
He kept still as a mouse; no impure thoughts, no visions, no
troublesome dreams annoyed me. The hungry dogs which I had now come to
look upon as Satan's faithful domestic pets were hushed, first by the
auto-suggestion, subsequently by my illness, and finally by the promise
clearly betrayed in my actions, that I would grant them nobler prey.
Indeed, though I did not acknowledge it to myself, to what else could
it lead - these daily more tender and ardent relations between the
desperately enamored and speedily recuperating patient and the dear
nurse, assuredly not insensitive to his adoration? The flame of
martyrdom was swiftly quenched with beef tea, soft-boiled eggs and
sweet malaga wine, and I could not possibly recognize Satan's voice in
these gentle commands to self-indulgence, nor could I think to honor
God by disobedience to such a charming mistress.

What a time! what a time! all the way from my nursery to my house I
have been smiling in anticipation of my afternoon hours of literary
activities, smiling and smiling in sweet remembrance. The children by
the wayside got nickels instead of pennies, and the fisherman who lay
caulking his boat hauled up on shore in the little harbor peered out
from under the scow with an attentive expression as though he would
say: "Well, bless my heart, and if the old gentleman ain't gone and got
a jag on this morning!"

I am indeed blissfully intoxicated with the heady aroma of these long
past days of young love! the sound of her approaching footsteps in the
morning, the rustling of her gown before I beheld her, as she came to
bring me some dainty which she had concocted for my regalement. And the
merry little chats, when she would at first sit on the chair beside my
bed, but later perchance also on the edge of the bed. And once at the
very end, when I was to get up the following day, and thanked her for
all her loving care, she bent over me, and before either of us really
knew what we were about - so it seemed to me at least, perhaps her
consciousness was clearer - we had kissed each other on the lips. And
the blessed tears I shed when she had gone, - for the undeserved grace
of this happiness, which yet never could endure, - these are things,
are they not, dear reader? which we usually look upon as the very
highest summits of our earthly joys, that still shine most radiantly
when our sun is near its setting. But know then too that joy and bliss
are of more imperishable matter than rock and glacier, and that very
sublime beauty is more clearly perceived from a distance. Long ago, I
have observed that most happiness can be valued best when it lies a
certain distance behind us, and one must grow old to taste the full
flavor of beauty at the very moment of perception.

There still followed a few lovely days of glorious summer weather,
which I spent in a hammock stretched above the smooth green turf
between the oaks. I saw the round sun shadows upon the grass, the
sparkling, gently flowing Thames, the white swans, the gaily crowded
boats, the kindly, happy people about me, and in their midst, as the
sunny kernel of joy, the wavy, golden hair of her whom I loved best,
and who only lent the true radiance to all this summer glory. I read
Heine and listened to Schumann, and I breathed the subtle penetrating
fragrance of the linden blossoms, the wonderful fragrance full of
poignant melancholy and sweet longing that does not touch our senses
ere love has deeply nestled in our Heart. I had travelled through so
many lands and yet had never smelled the perfume of the linden
blossoms, so that it was as though the great linden tree had become
fragrant through Emmy's wondrous power just as she made the golden
summer sun truly to shine.

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