Withered Leaves Volume Ii Part 3

CHAPTER III.

THE FALL OF MAN.

"One day a note from Frau Salden, intimated to me that I was now considered strong enough to be present at one of those secret sittings, in which the great act of salvation was taught and practised, and invited me to one of those gatherings.

"It was a tolerably large room, but dimly lighted. Men and women were a.s.sembled, their devoutness appeared more fervent than usual, yet a spirit of secresy pervaded the gathering, which had shut itself off from the outside world. Lengthy and solemn was the preacher's discourse, urging his hearers, by the power of a higher consciousness, to shake off all sin, successfully to resist all temptations, to despise all earthly charms.

"And the spiritual instruction was followed by spiritual exercises.

"I can here only relate what I felt and what a flash of lightning was launched into my soul on that evening. Mephistopheles might feel himself at home in the cla.s.sical Walpurgis night, he had been educated to it on the Blocksberg; but a man who has only seen female beauty in a statuary of antiques is internally stirred by it at first as by something strange, divine; yet the sacred fire transforms itself into a brand that it casts into his soul.

"Thus it befell me also! Another perhaps would have turned away from the incredible, as if from some hypocritical doings, and have condemned the leader of this _divina comedia_. Again another would have condemned the excesses of extravagant piety which played a serious game with sin.

"The veil of Sais which hung before my life was torn; for the first time I saw in all its glory the disguised wonder of my dreams, woman.

"But the Millennium also sank into ruins with one blow!

"I was sufficiently used to intoxicated rapture not to condemn with the mind of the sober man that which was unusual, over which the uninitiated must break a lance. That which was done, was not done in the service of sin, it was a holy sacrifice, and how could the exalted lights of the community be thus extinguished in the fog and mist of what was common? If the limitless audacity of these believers made me shudder--it was only the curse of sin, the temptation of the devil, it was the unatonable crime of beauty, against which the power of blessed resistance might strive in vain.

"And this marvel of creation should be a work of the devil, this paradise of beauty only conceal the serpent within itself!

"Fools who drew to light the secret dispositions of the primeval powers, because ruin and sin creep about in darkness, but in light beauty triumphs. No uneasiness, no thought of mockery and desecration arose within me; I felt so strange amongst these men and women, for only in the service of higher powers could they overcome that which without in unsanctified circles was esteemed citizen-like custom. Their sanctification consisted in crossing themselves before beauty, and drawing near to it in blindness that could see, and with a loathing that struggled to suppress delight.

"Thus had the preacher taught; in such sanct.i.ty I, too, made my essay, but much too great was the power of beauty over me who had hitherto seen so little. I felt that its contemplation sanctified me otherwise than the secret doctrine desired. Like an electric flash of enlightenment, it poured over all recollections of my school days; the dreary lecture-room was transformed into Mount Ida with its G.o.ddesses, and Venus appeared before my eyes as she arises in immortal beauty out of the ocean's billows.

"A heretic was begotten in me, secession from the dark doctrine proclaimed itself in my heart. A princ.i.p.al figure of those revelations which illumine the creation of the world with mysterious light, stood before my soul, and I had the temerity to compare myself with it. It was that Eloah of light, that Lucifer who suddenly perceived that the powers of light which flowed from him became diminished, and now retained them defiantly within himself, in opposition to the plan of creation. Thus I felt within me the spirit of revolt, the individual power which receives the light of revelation in itself merely for its own defiant illumination.

"And on that evening the Grfin from the Castle led Frau Salden to me as my spiritual bride. Spiritual bride!--profound significance lay in this word, a significance which extended far away beyond the span of earthly life; it contained a consecration for this and for that other world.

"Yet I was no longer capable of grasping that import--earthly love had laid hold of my heart; now I no longer recognised the barriers, as I did after that confession to the Grfin; like a tempest in spring, I felt it rage within me: the spring of love and beauty had for the first time made their entry into my soul.

"I visited Frau Salden, but how changed everything appeared to me in those cosy rooms! All rest, all peace had vanished from them. The lines in the splendid open Bible ran confusedly into one another, the Magdalene on the wall seemed to rise from her couch, throw the Bible aside, and be wafted towards us in that seductive beauty in which she once wandered on the sh.o.r.es of the Sea of Galilee, and, as if in mockery of my feverish unrest, the windmill sails on yonder side of the river moved with irritating regularity.

"But the seraphic kisses of my spiritual bride burned upon my lips.

"She was gentle and calm before my pa.s.sionate fervour. I acknowledged to her that I loved her; she replied that such was my right and my duty, and that this love was reciprocated by her; certainly it might not be of a perishable form, not like children of the world must we love one another, but with imperishable spiritual love. My heart, all my feelings were bound up in her. Nevertheless, it was not merely indistinctness, but hypocrisy on my part when I still spoke of such spiritual love, for I loved her with all fervour, as mortals love who do not belong to the elect and chosen.

"I still frequently attempted to attune my mind to those emotions which filled me when woman still stood before me sublime, unknown; but that magic was broken, and as I previously, probably more than all others of that circle, had been capable of the purest spiritual love, so was I now, when since that fatal evening on which the unhemmed waves of pa.s.sion broke over me, more incapable of it than all others.

"What to the others appeared to be the hermit's grotto of Saint Anthony, who resisted the allurements of the spirit of beauty, had become a mount of Venus for me, and like a modern Tannhuser, I lay beneath the spell of the immortal G.o.ddess.

"I dared not confess my heresy to the beloved one; perhaps she would have turned angrily away from me for ever, and I could justify my silence, because I too had moments in which I could join in my spiritual bride's fervent prayers, but they were merely moments. My internal estrangement from the faith of the elect community increased.

I only ventured to express the faintest doubts, then she looked at me with an expression of infinite love; her large tender eye rested upon me with such soul-felt meaning; verily her love for me was different from mine for her: she appeared to watch over my whole life, she felt that we must all be prepared to welcome the coming hour of the Millennium; atonement, forgiveness, purification spoke from out her looks, infinite desire to rescue, to sanctify the sinner.

"I came frequently, I came daily; she withheld all tokens which love demands, although her saintly eyes expressed an increasing, more intense emotion. I became a hypocrite, I required these tokens in the name of salvation, of spiritual exercises; could my spiritual bride deny me them?

"Serious and devout conversations must accompany the work of sanctification.

"She urged me with great sternness, and blamed my lack of holy strength, when my eyes told more of pa.s.sion than of sacred self-conquest; yet her eyes, too, were not always so stern as her words; sometimes they were filled with a tenderness the eloquence of which was very different from that which flowed from her lips; it was as if they would atone for the unavoidably harsh word which sacred duty imposed; yes this word, too, lost its victorious decision, it quivered with internal conflict, and sometimes she closed her weary eye, and tears hung on her eyelashes.

"It was on a quiet evening, we alone as usual; I came overwhelmed with conflicting feelings, because I was wanting in all the qualifications of a hypocrite; my heart rebelled against the opposition which threatened to destroy my life.

"The wings of the windmill went round beneath the evening sky; it seemed like a mockery of all my thoughts and deeds, that everlasting monotony of the beating of wooden wings, that interminable game of those arms stretching out in vain.

"I was more daring, she softer than usual; she would even on that day deny me the right of devout exercise. Then I a.s.sumed the stern tone of a spiritual bridegroom, and she obeyed hesitatingly; the spirit of grace seemed to have left her, she seemed to be seized with a tremor before the might of pa.s.sion, with rapture into which her own beauty transported her. And, indeed, I thought her more beautiful than ever on that day; pious words died upon her lips; I covered them with glowing kisses, and folded her in my arms.

"The spiritual bride had become a mortal woman, the grey ashes of penitence had been wafted away by all the winds of heaven, and the Vulcan of earthly affection had obstructed the Paradise of those Saints with red-hot lava.

"She released herself from my arms, and rushed, sobbing, upon her knees before the _prie dieu_, to which she clung convulsively.

"I explained to her that, from that day, I should look upon her as my betrothed, and begged her to accept my heart and hand.

"She looked up at me with a glance full of emotion and love, as it appeared to me, for she uttered no word, nor did she rise from her knees.

"With equal decision, however, I told her that we must both leave the circle of saints, that for long already my heart had rebelled against the doctrine of sanct.i.ty and this playing with sin; that I no longer believed in the marriage of souls, but that now I perceived the goal of that love which takes possession of the entire man, in giving up mind and body.

"Then the penitent arose, and, with clasped bands, gazed at me with a look of pity.

"'There is one atonement for sin,' said she, 'if the right spirit of sanct.i.ty dwells within us; but he who renounces that spirit is lost; he destroys the bond of the community of souls, for this and for the next life.'

"'Paulina,' cried I, 'you have heard my offer, and you would still thus refuse to be mine?'

"'Why shall marriage,' replied she, 'not be the pillar of lasting communion of souls? Even our princ.i.p.al children of light, even the Witnesses of the Revelation are united, and gladly would I traverse the path of life with you. But never shall I sacrifice the incorruptible to the corruptible! You shut yourself out from the companions of our union, as soon as you release yourself from our faith. Then I shall no longer be your spiritual bride, and it would be impious to become your earthly wife.'

"I still spoke to her in the imploring language of pa.s.sion; I folded her ardently in my arms, she did not repel me, yet she remained cold, and the pupils of her eyes dilated with a strange wandering light.

"'You are too agitated to-day,' I said to her. 'Recover yourself, I will come again to talk more quietly.'

"'It will not make any difference,' said she, coldly. 'I have sinned, I know it, but for such sin there is forgiveness; I will go to him who occupies a high position in the spiritual kingdom, to the perfect man; I will confess to him, and he will pardon my guilt! But there is no atonement for those who draw back from the earnestness of sanctification, and return into the darkness of the world and their ruin, because the shadow of death, will fall upon them, and they are faithless and have succ.u.mbed to the devil. Return to us,' she cried, imploringly, 'then I will be your wife upon earth, as some day in heaven; believe once more in the sanctification which you have impiously desecrated with unbelief, because the acknowledgment of the truth has power to sanctify everything.'

"'Never,' said I now. 'I shall not return, and just as little shall I tolerate that my wife be sanctified by the witnesses and angels.'

"She replied that she should never separate herself from a community in which she had found her soul's eternal salvation.

"My heart seemed to be pierced and torn; was it possible that she, in whom I had found the delight of my life, was lost to me? Was it credible that now we parted coldly and distantly?

"It had become late; I descended the dark staircase of the house, when I heard a merry, childish voice, and touched a nurse's dress in pa.s.sing.

"'The little Salden?' asked I.

"'Yes, my Herr,' was the reply.

"I stroked the hair and cheeks of the little one, who seemed to nestle against her companion in alarm.

"'Do not be afraid,' said I, 'go play with your dolls; it is the same game that the saints indulge in with theirs.'