Chapter V: Purgatory (1)

Hôtel Orfila has a monastic appearance, and is a boarding establishment for Catholic students. It is superintended by a quiet, amiable Abbé, and peace, order, and morality prevail here. What especially comforts me after so many annoyances is, that women are not admitted here. The house is old, the rooms are low, the passages dark, and the wooden staircases wind and twist hither and thither as if in a labyrinth. There is an air of mysteriousness about the whole building, which for a long time has attracted me. My room looks out on a _cul-de-sac_, so that standing in the middle of it, one sees nothing but a moss-grown wall with two small round windows in it. But when I sit at my table close to the window, I have an uncommonly pleasant look-out. Under me there is a circular wall overgrown with ivy surrounding a courtyard, where young girls walk under plane trees and acacias. In the centre there stands a charming Gothic chapel. Somewhat farther on one sees high walls with numerous little barred windows, which remind one of a convent. Still farther away are old, half-hidden houses crowned by a forest of chimneys, and in the extreme distance one sees the tower of Notre-Dame des Champs surmounted by a cross and weathercock. In my room there hangs a faded likeness of St. Vincent de Paul, and a picture of St. Peter looks down on my bed. St. Peter, the opener of the gates of heaven. What an ironical situation for me, who some years ago threw ridicule on the Apostle in a fantastic drama!

Quite contented with my room, I sleep well the first night. I edify myself by reading the book of Job, and arrive at an ever clearer conviction that the Eternal has handed me over to Satan to be tried. This thought comforts me again, and suffering seems to me a mark of confidence on the part of the Almighty.

Now things begin to happen which cannot be explained without the co-operation of the unknown powers. From this point I use the entries in my journal, which have gradually become very numerous, giving them in a condensed form.

* * * * *

For a long while my chemical studies have lain in abeyance. In order to revive my interest, and to make a decisive stroke, I resume the study of the problem of making gold. The starting-point of the investigation consists in the question: Why does sulphate of iron in a solution of choloro-aurate of sodium precipitate gold? The answer is, because iron and sulphur are essential constituents of gold. The proof is that all natural compounds of sulphur and iron contain more or less gold. So I begin to experiment with solutions of sulphate of iron.

One morning I awoke with the idea of making a trip into the country, though it is quite against my tastes and my habits. When I, more by accident than design, reach the station of Montparnasse, I take the train for Meudon. I go into the village itself, which I visit for the first time, traverse the main street, and turn to the right into a narrow alley confined by walls on both sides. Twenty steps before me I see half-buried in the ground the figure of a Roman knight in grey iron armour. It looks very well modelled, but, as I approach, I see that it is only rough metal-smelting.

But I hold my illusion fast, since it pleases me. The knight looks towards the wall, and following the direction of his gaze I notice something written on the mortar with a piece of coal. It looks like the letters F and S interlaced, which are the initials of my wife's name. She loves me still! The next moment I see, as by a flash, that it is the chemical symbol for ferrum (iron) and sulphur, and the secret of gold lies revealed before my gaze. I search the ground and find two leaden seals fastened together by a string. One displays the initials V.P., the other, a king's crown. Without committing myself to a further interpretation of this adventure, I return to Paris with the lively impression of having experienced something bordering on the marvellous.

* * * * *

In my fireplace I burn coals which, because of their round and regular shape, are called "monks' heads." One day when the fire is nearly extinguished I take out a mass of coal of fantastic shape. It resembles a cock's head with a splendid comb joined to what looks like a human trunk with twisted limbs. It might have been a demon from some mediæval witches' sabbath.

The second day I take out again a fine group of two gnomes or drunken dwarfs, who embrace each other while their clothes flutter in the wind. It is a masterpiece of primitive culture.

The third day it is a Madonna and Child in the Byzantine style, of incomparable beauty of outline. After I have drawn copies of all three in black chalk, I place them on my table. A friendly painter visits me; he regards the three statuettes with growing curiosity, and asks who has "made" them. In order to try him, I mention the name of a Norwegian sculptor. "No," he says, "I should rather be inclined to ascribe them to Kittelsen, the famous illustrator of the Swedish legends."

I do not believe in demons, and yet I wish to see the impression which my little figures make on the sparrows who generally take their crumbs from my window-sill. So I place them there. The sparrows are frightened and remain aloof. There is then some likeness in the figures which they can distinguish, and some reality in this conjunction of dead material and fire.

The sun, as it warms my little figures, makes the demon with the cock's head collapse. This reminds me of the country-people's saying that if the dwarfs wait too long till sunrise, they die.

* * * * *

Things happen in the hotel which disquiet me. The morning after my arrival I find on the board where the keys of the rooms are hung up, on the ground-floor, a letter addressed to a Mr. X., a student, who has the same name as my wife. The postmark is "Dornach," the name of the Austrian village where my wife and child live. But since I am certain that there is no post-office at Dornach, the matter remains mysterious. This letter, placed in such a conspicuous position as to challenge the eye, is followed by others. The second bears the postmark "Vienna," and is addressed to a Dr. Bitter; the third displays the Polish pseudonym, "Schmulachowsky."

The Devil certainly has a share in this game, for this name is a false one, and I understand well for whom the letter is intended--for a deadly enemy of mine who lives in Berlin. At last there arrives a letter with the postmark "Vienna," which, according to the printed envelope, comes from the chemical bureau of Dr. Eder. So they are trying to spy out my gold-making experiments! Without doubt a plot is on foot here, but the Devil has mixed these sharpers' cards. These duffers do not consider that I keep my eyes open towards all quarters of the compass.

I have made inquiries of the waiter regarding Mr. X., but he gives me in all simplicity to understand that he is an Alsatian--nothing more. One fine morning I return from my work and see in the letter-rack quite close to my keys a post card. For a moment I feel tempted to solve the riddle by looking at the post card, but my good angel paralysed my hand, just as the young man came out of his hiding-place behind the door. I look him in the face and am startled; he is exactly like my wife. We greet each other silently, and each goes his way.

I have never been able to unravel this conspiracy, since I did not know the actors in this drama. Moreover, my wife has neither brothers nor cousins. This undefined threatening spectre of a continuous vengeance tortured me for half a year. I bore it like everything else as a punishment for known and unknown sins.

* * * * *

At the New Year a stranger turned up in our restaurant. He was an American artist, and came exactly at the right time to put new life into our depressed society. But though he was an active and bold spirit with cosmopolitan ideas and good company too, he inspired me with an undefined mistrust. In spite of his confident air his demeanour revealed to me his real position. The crash came quicker than one expected.

One evening the unfortunate man came into my room and asked for permission to remain there a short time. He looked like a lost man, and such in fact he was. His landlord had driven him out of his studio, his grisette had left him, he was head over ears in debt, and his creditors were dunning him; he was insulted in the streets by the supporters of his unpaid models. But what depressed him most of all was that the cruel landlord had retained his picture intended for the Champ de Mars Exhibition. The originality of its subject had given him good grounds to hope for its success. It displayed an "emancipated woman" crucified and cursed by the mob.

Since he was also heavily in debt to the restaurant, he had to go about the streets, hungry. Among other things he confessed that he had taken morphia enough to kill two people, but death apparently did not yet want him. After an earnest discussion, we agreed to go to another quarter, and there eat our meals in some obscure cook-shop. I said I would not desert him, and that he should pluck up new courage and begin a new picture for the exhibition of independent artists.

* * * * *

This man becomes now my sole companion, and his misfortunes cause me a double share of suffering, so closely do I identify myself with him. I do so in a spirit of defiance, but presently gain an interesting experience thereby.

He reveals to me his whole past. He is a German by birth, but partly because of family disagreements, partly because of a lampoon for which he had been brought into court, he has spent seven years in America. I discover in him intelligence above the average, a melancholy temperament, and unbridled sensuality. But behind this mask of a cosmopolitan I begin to divine another character which disquiets me, and the full discovery of which I postpone to a favourable opportunity.

Thus pass two months, while I live in union with this stranger and with him go through all the troubles of an unfortunate artist over again, without remembering that I am a made man, yes, and rank among the dramatic celebrities of Paris, though, as a chemical discoverer, I think little of it now. Moreover, my companion loves me only when I conceal my successes. If I am obliged to refer to them in passing, he is annoyed, and assumes the rôle of an unfortunate nonentity, so that at last, out of sympathy, I put on the air of an old decayed wreck. This imperceptibly depresses me, while he, who has his future still before him, elevates himself again at my expense. I am like a corpse buried at the root of a tree which sucks nutriment out of the decomposing life, and grows upwards.

At this time I study Buddhist books, and wonder at the self-denial with which I mortify myself for another. But good works deserve a reward, and mine did not remain wanting.

One day the _Revue des Revues_ comes with a likeness of the American prophet and empiric doctor, Francis Schlatter, who in the year 1895 cured five thousand sick persons and then disappeared without ever being seen again. Now this man's features resembled in a remarkable way those of my new companion. To confirm my supposition, I show the _Revue_ to a Swedish sculptor with whom I have an appointment in the Café de Versailles. He notices the resemblance at once, and reminds me of a remarkable coincidence of circumstances. Both the doctor and my friend were Germans by birth, and worked in America. Still further, the disappearance of Schlatter coincided with the appearance of our friend in Paris. Since I am initiated a little into the use of occultist expressions, I start the hypothesis that Francis Schlatter is the "double" who leads an independent life, without being aware of it.

When I mentioned the word "double" my sculptor was startled, and drew my attention to the fact that our friend always occupied two houses, one on the right and the other on the left bank of the river. Moreover, I learn that my mysterious friend lives a double life in this sense, that, after he has spent the evening in half-philosophic, half-religious discussions with me, he is always seen late at night in Bullier's dancing-saloon.

There is a sure means of proving the identity of these two "doubles," as the _Revue des Revues_ contains a facsimile letter of Francis Schlatter. "Come to dinner to-night," I suggested. "I will dictate to him Schlatter's letter; if the two handwritings, and especially the signatures, resemble each other, it will be a proof."

At dinner the same evening everything is confirmed, the handwriting and signatures are identical. A little surprised, the artist submits to our examination; at last he asks: "What is your object in this?"

"Do you know Francis Schlatter?"

"I have never heard the name."

"Don't you remember that doctor in America last year."

"Oh, yes! that quack!"

He remembers, and I show him the portrait and facsimile.

He laughs sceptically, and remains quite calm and indifferent. That is all.

* * * * *

Some days later I am sitting with my mysterious friend, with our glasses of absinthe, on the terrace of the Café de Versailles, when a fellow in workman's clothes, with a malicious aspect, suddenly stops before the café, then rushes through the customers, and bawls at my friend in his loudest voice: "At last I have you, you sharper, who fleeced me! What is the meaning of it? First of all, you order a cross for thirty francs, and then you disappear. Son of a dog! Do you think a cross like that makes itself?"

He continued to rage. The café waiters vainly attempted to remove him; he threatened to fetch the police, while the unfortunate accused, motionless, dumb, and prostrate, like a condemned man, remained exposed to the gaze of a circle of artists who all knew him more or less. When the commotion was over, I asked him with a bewildered mind, as if I had witnessed a witches' sabbath: "What cross worth thirty francs? I don't understand a word of the business?"

"It was a model of Joan of Arc's cross which I was going to use for my picture of the crucified woman."

"He certainly was a devil, that workman."

After a pause, I continue: "It is odd, but one does not play unpunished either with the Cross or with Joan of Arc."

"You believe in them?"

"I don't know!--But the thirty pieces of silver!"

"Enough! Enough!" he exclaims in a tone of vexation.

From this evening a certain coldness ensues between us. Our acquaintance had now lasted four terrible months. My companion had studied in quite a new school, and had time to strike out new paths in his art, so that he could finally throw aside "the crucified woman" as an old toy. He had learned to regard suffering as the only real joy in life, and so had attained to resignation. He was a hero in his poverty. I admired him when twice in the same day he measured on foot the distance between Montrouge and the Market Halls with boots worn down at the heel, and without food. In the evening, when he had visited the offices of seventeen illustrated papers, and sold three drawings, without however being paid for them at once, he quickly swallowed two sous' worth of bread and hurried to the Bal Bullier.

At last, in silent agreement, we dissolved the partnership we had entered on for mutual help. We both felt that it was enough, and that our destinies must go on to separate fulfilments. When we exchanged our last farewells, I knew that they were our last. I have never seen the man again, nor heard what has become of him.

* * * * *

In the course of the spring, while I was feeling depressed by my own and my friend's untoward destiny, I received a letter from the children of my first marriage, informing me that they had been very ill in hospital. When I compared the time of their illness with my mischievous attempt at magic, I was alarmed. I had frivolously played with hidden forces, and now my evil purpose, guided by an unseen Hand, had reached its goal, and struck my heart. I do not excuse myself, and only ask the reader to remember this fact, in case he should ever feel inclined to practise magic, especially those forms of it called wizardry, or more properly witchcraft, and whose reality has been placed beyond all doubt by De Rochas.[1]

One Sunday before Easter I went very early through the Jardin de Luxembourg, crossed the street, and passed under the arcades of the Odeon; I stood still before an edition of Balzac in a blue binding, and by chance picked out his novel _Séraphita_. Why just that one? Perhaps it is an unconscious recollection of reading a criticism of my book, _Sylva Sylvarum_, in the periodical _Initiation_, in which I was called "a countryman of Swedenborg." When I got home I opened the book, which was almost entirely unknown to me, for so many years had passed between my first acquaintance with it and this second reading. It was like a new work to me, and now my mind was prepared for it, I swallowed down the contents of this extraordinary book wholesale. I had never read anything of Swedenborg, for in his own native land and mine he passed for a charlatan, dreamer, and quack. But now I was seized with enthusiastic admiration, as I heard this heavenly giant of the last century speak by the mouth of such a genial French interpreter.

I read now with religious attention, and found on page 16 the 20th of March given as the day on which Swedenborg died. I stopped, considered, and consulted the almanac; it was exactly the 20th of March, and also Palm Sunday. It was then that Swedenborg entered into my life, in which he was to play such a great part as judge and master, and on the anniversary of his death he brought me the palm, whether of the victor or the martyr--who could say?

_Séraphita_ became my gospel, and caused me to enter into such a close connection with the other world, that I felt sick of life, and an irresistible homesickness for heaven seized me. Doubtless, I was being prepared for a higher existence. I despised the earth, the impure earth, its inhabitants and their doings. I felt like a perfectly righteous man, whom the Eternal was testing, and whom the purgatory of this world would soon make fit for deliverance. The courage produced by the consciousness of my confidential relation to the powers was always increased, when I saw my scientific experiments crowned with success. According to my computations and the observations of the metallurgists, I had succeeded in making gold, and I believed I could prove it. I sent my proofs to Rouen to a friendly chemist. He opposed me with counter-arguments, and for eight days I could find no flaw in them. Then turning over by chance the _Chemistry_ of my Master Orfila, I learned the secret of my mistake.

This old, forgotten, and despised chemical treatise of 1830 helped me at the critical moment, and became my oracle. My friends Orfila and Swedenborg protected, encouraged, and chastised me. They did not appear to me in dreams or waking visions, but in small daily occurrences showed me that they did not leave me alone in the vicissitudes of my life. The spirits had become naturalistic like the times, which were no longer content with visions.

The following, for instance, cannot be explained by the word, "coincidence."

I had succeeded in producing spots of gold on paper, and I wished now to do the same on a large scale in the furnace. A couple of hundred experiments failed, and I laid the blow-pipe aside in despair. One morning, I walked to the Observatory Avenue, where I often used to admire the group of the four quarters of the world, for the secret reason that the most graceful of the female figures resembled my wife. It stood under the armillary sphere and the sign Pisces, and a pair of sparrows had built their nest behind her back. At the foot of the monument I found two pieces of cardboard cut in an oval shape, one stamped with the number 207, the other with the number 28. These are the signs for the atomic weight of lead, and of silicium. I made a note of the discovery, and when I got home began a series of experiments with lead, leaving silicium for another time. As I was aware, from my knowledge of metallurgy, that lead refined in a furnace, fed with bone-ashes, always produces a recognisable amount of silver, and this silver, a little gold, I drew the conclusion that phosphate of lime, being the chief constituent of bone-ashes, must be an important element in the gold produced from lead.

And, as a matter of fact, molten lead poured upon a deposit of chalk containing phosphate of lime, also assumed on its under-side a golden colour. The powers, being unpropitious, did not allow me to finish my experiments. A year later, in Lund, a sculptor, who made experiments in his own potteries, gave me some glaze composed of lead and silicium, by means of which I for the first time produced in the furnace mineralised gold of great beauty. Out of gratitude, I showed him the two pieces of cardboard numbered 207 and 28. Is one to call it "accident" or "coincidence," this sign of an irrefragable logic?

* * * * *

I repeat that I have never been plagued by visions, but actual objects sometimes seem to me to assume a human shape in a grandiose style. Thus, one day the cushion which my head has been pressing during a mid-day siesta, looks like a marble head carved in the style of Michael Angelo. One evening when I return home in the company of the "double" of the American empiric doctor, I discover, in the half-shadow of the alcove where my bed is, what looks like a gigantic Zeus reposing on it. Before this unexpected sight my friend remains seized with an almost religious fear. His artistic eye comprehends at once the beauty of the outline. "There is a great forgotten art," he says, "born again! That is where we ought to learn drawing!"

The more one looks at it, the more lifelike and terrible it appears. Obviously, the spirits have become realists like the rest of us mortals. It is no mere accident, for on certain days the cushion takes the shape of terrible monsters, such as Gothic dragons and serpents; and one night after I have spent a hilarious evening, I am greeted on my return by a mediæval demon, a devil with horned head and other appurtenances. I was not at all frightened; it looked so natural, but it also made on my mind the impression of something abnormal and unearthly.

When I invited my friend the sculptor to look at it, he was not at all astonished, and called me into his studio, where a pencil sketch hanging on the wall surprised me by its grace of outline.

"Where have you got that from?" I asked. "A Madonna, is n't it?

"Yes, a Madonna of Versailles, copied from the floating plants in a Swiss lake!"

A new-discovered art of nature! Naturalistic clairvoyance! Why blame naturalism when it introduces a new art full of capacities of growth and development. The old gods return, and the watchword of the poets and artists, "Back to Pan!" has roused such a strong echo that nature has awoken from her long sleep of centuries. Nothing can exist on earth without the concurrence of the powers. Now naturalism did once exist, therefore it ought to be, and what ought it obviously to be--a new-born harmony of matter and spirit.

The sculptor is a seer. He tells me that he has seen Orpheus and Christ side by side in a block of stone, and adds that he intends to return there and use them as models for a group for the Salon.

As I went down the Rue de Rennes one evening with the same seer, he drew my attention to a book-shop window where coloured lithographs were exhibited. They represented fantastic scenes with human bodies whose heads were replaced by pansies. In spite of my botanical observations, I had never before seen the likeness between the pansy and the human face. My friend seemed greatly surprised at it.

"Only think!" he said. "When I came home last evening the pansies in my window-box looked at me like so many human faces. I thought it was a hallucination of my overexcited nerves. And here are these pictures drawn a long time ago. It is then a fact and no illusion, for this unknown artist has made the same discovery before me."

We make progress in the art of vision, and this time it is I who discover a Napoleon with his marshals on the cupola of the dome of the Hôtel des Invalides. When one comes from Montparnasse to the Boulevard des Invalides, one sees above the Rue Oudinot the cupola, the corbels, and cornices of the substructure of the cupola displayed in the full light of the setting sun, and apparently assuming human forms which appear more or less distant according to the point of observation from which they are viewed. There are Napoleon, Bernadotte, Berthier, and my friend copies them, "after nature."

"How would you explain this phenomenon?" he asks.

"Explain? Has one ever explained anything by replacing one heap of words with another heap of words?"

"You don't think, then, that the architect has worked according to a hidden plan?"

"Listen, my friend. Jules Mansard, who built the dome in 1706, could not well have foreseen the silhouette of Napoleon who was born in 1769. That is a sufficient answer!"

* * * * *

Often I have dreams at night, and these dreams prognosticate my future, warn me against dangers, and reveal to me secrets. For instance, a long-deceased friend appears to me in a dream, and shows me a piece of money of uncommon size. On my asking where this remarkable piece came from, he answers, "From America," and disappears.

The next day I receive a letter from America from a friend whom I had heard nothing of for twenty years, informing me that an order in connection with the Chicago Exhibition had been following me in vain all over Europe. It carried with it an honorarium of 12,000 francs, an enormous sum for me in my desperate circumstances, which I could very easily find use for. This 12,000 francs would have secured my future, and no one besides myself would have guessed that the loss of this money was a punishment for an evil deed which I had committed out of anger at the treachery of a literary colleague.

In another dream of wider significance I saw Jonas Lie,[2] with a gilt bronze clock curiously ornamented. Some days later, when I went to walk on the Boulevard St. Michel, a watch-maker's shop-window attracted my attention. "Jonas Lie's clock!" I exclaimed aloud.

It was indeed the same. It was crowned by a celestial globe on which two female figures leaned; the works were supported by four pillars, and on the globe a date-indicator pointed to the 13th of August. In a future chapter I will explain what the fateful 13th of August brought with it. This and other occurrences took place during my stay in the Hôtel Orfila between 6th February and 19th July, 1896. Concurrently with them a larger adventure pursued its often interrupted course till, with my exit from the hotel, a new section of my life began.

Spring has returned; the valley of tears and sighs under my window is green and blossoming. Foliage hides the bare ground and its unsightliness. The Gehenna has turned into a Vale of Sharon full of lilies, lilacs, and acacias. I feel very melancholy, but the merry laughter of the girls who play unseen beneath the trees, reaches me and rouses me again to life. Life hurries by and old age approaches: Wife, children, home, dispersed and wrecked; without is spring, within is autumn.

The Book of Job and the Lamentations of Jeremiah comfort me, for, at any rate, there is a certain resemblance between Job's lot and mine. Am I not smitten with incurable boils? Am I not visited with poverty and forsaken by my friends? "I go blackened, but not by the sun; I am a brother to dragons and a companion to ostriches; my skin is black and falleth from me, and my bones are burned with heat. My harp is turned to mourning, and my pipe unto the voice of them that weep."

Thus Job. And Jeremiah with two words fathoms the depth of my sadness: "I forgat prosperity."

In this mood I sit one oppressive afternoon bent over my work, when, all of a sudden, behind the foliage of the garden in front of me, I hear the playing of a piano. Like a war-horse at the sound of the trumpet, I prick up my ears, straighten myself, and in a great state of excitement struggle for breath. Someone is playing Schumann's _Aufschwung_; and what is more, _he_ is playing--he, my Russian friend, my pupil who called me "Father," because he owed all his culture to me, my assistant who called me "Master" and kissed my hands, whose life began where mine ended. He has come from Vienna to Paris to ruin me, as he ruined me in Vienna--and why? Because Fate has arranged that his present wife, before he knew her, was my sweetheart. Was it my fault that matters so fell out? Surely not, and yet he hated me with a deadly hatred, hindered my plays from being accepted, wove intrigues, and deprived me of the barest means of subsistence. Then, in a fit of rage, I reversed the spear and struck him, indeed, in such a brutal and cowardly way, that it made me feel like a murderer. The fact that he has come to kill me comforts me, for death alone can deliver me from my pangs of conscience.

It was he, then, who lurked behind those letters with false addresses which I always saw near the porter's lodge. Well, let him strike! I will not defend myself. For he is right, and my life is nothing to me. He continues to play the _Aufschwung_, which no one can play so well. He plays invisible behind the green wall, and his magic harmonies rise above its blossoming creepers like butterflies flying towards the sun.

But why is he playing? Is it to inform me of his coming to frighten me and drive me to flight? Perhaps I shall find out in the restaurant where the other Russians have long been talking about the arrival of their countryman.

I go for my evening meal there, and already at the doorway encounter hostile glances. The whole company, informed of my conflict with the Russian, has turned against me. In order to disarm them, I open fire myself.

"Popoffsky is in Paris?" I ask.

"No, not yet," one of them answers.

"Yes," says another, "he has been seen in the office of the _Mercure de France_."

They disagree with each other, and at the end I am as wise as before, but I pretend to believe all I am told. But the obvious enmity with which I am regarded in the restaurant makes me swear not to go there again. I am sorry, for some of them were really congenial to me. Thus, once more, this cursed enemy drives me into loneliness and exile. My hatred against him is again aroused, and torments and poisons me. I don't look forward to death now! Shall the hand of an inferior man crush me? The humiliation for me and the honour for him would be too great. I will accept the challenge and defend myself. In order to obtain clear information I go to find a Danish painter, a friend of Popoffsky, in the Rue de la Santé behind the Val de Grâce. Six weeks before he had come to Paris, and, although formerly a friend of mine, had at our first meeting greeted me in almost a hostile way. The next day, however, he visited me, invited me to his studio, and said so many kind things to me that I could not help doubting the genuineness of his friendship. When I asked him about Popoffsky, he answered evasively, but confirmed the rumour of his being about to come shortly to Paris.

"In order to murder me," I added.

"Yes; take care!"

On the morning on which I wished to return the Dane's visit, by a curious chance I found my way barred by an enormous Danish dog, which reposed in all its hideousness on the ground of the courtyard. For a moment I hesitated, then I turned back, and on arriving at home thanked the powers for their warning, for I had certainly escaped some unknown danger.

Some days afterwards, when I wished to repeat my visit, on the threshold of the open door there sat a child with a playing-card in its hand. I glanced at the card superstitiously; it was the ten of spades. "They are playing an evil game in this house," I said to myself, and turned back again.

In the evening, after the scene in the restaurant, I was almost determined to carry out my plan, in spite of dog and card, but fate willed it otherwise. In the restaurant of the Lilas brewery I met my man. He was delighted to see me, and we sat down on the terrace. We recalled our common experiences in Vienna; he seemed to be the same good friend that he was before, narrated his stories with enthusiasm, forgot our former small disagreements, and confessed the truth of some things which he had before publicly denied. Suddenly he appeared to remember his duty or some promises which he had given; he became taciturn, cold, hostile, and obviously vexed that he had been betrayed into disclosing secrets. He answered my direct question whether Popoffsky was in Paris with a brief "No," which was plainly false, and we parted.

Here I must remark that the Dane had been Frau Popoffsky's lover before me, and that from the time she had given him up on my account, he cherished a grudge against me. Now he played the rôle of family friend with Popoffsky, who knew nothing of his former relation with his wife.

* * * * *

Schumann's _Aufschwung_ sounds over the deep-leaved trees, but the musician remains invisible and leaves me doubtful as before as to the exact house in which he lives. For a whole month the music continues from four to five in the afternoon.

One morning, as I go down the Rue de Fleurs, in order to comfort myself by looking at my rainbow in the dyer's window, and enter the Jardin de Luxembourg, which, with all its trees in blossom, is as beautiful as a fairy-tale, I find on the ground two dry twigs which have been broken off by the wind. They formed the two Greek letters "p" and "y," the first and last letters of Popoffsky. He _was_, then, persecuting me, and the powers wished to guard me against the danger. I felt uneasy in spite of these signs of grace from the unseen. I invoked the protection of Providence, I read the imprecatory psalms, I hated my enemy with an Old Testament hatred, while I lacked the courage to use the black magic which I had recently studied. "Make haste O God, to deliver me; make haste to help me, O Lord. Let them be ashamed and confounded that seek after my soul. Let them be turned back and put to confusion that desire my hurt. Let them be turned back as a reward of their shame that say, 'Aha! Aha!'"

This prayer seemed to me at that time right, and the mercy inculcated in the New Testament like cowardice. To what unknown power my iniquitous prayer found its way I do not know. The sequel of this narrative will, at any rate, show that it was heard.

EXTRACTS FROM MY JOURNAL

1896

_May_ 13_th_.--A letter from my wife. She has learned from the papers that a Mr. S. is about to journey to the North Pole in an air-balloon. She feels in despair about it, confesses to me her unalterable love, and adjures me to give up this idea, which is tantamount to suicide. I enlighten her regarding her mistake. It is a cousin of mine who is risking his life in order to make a great scientific discovery.

_May_ 14_th_.--Last night I had a dream. A head which had been cut off was set on the trunk of a man who looked like an actor come down in the world through drink. The head began to speak. I was frightened, and knocked my bed-screen down while I, as I thought, pushed a policeman before me to protect me from the madman's attack.

_May_ 17_th and the following days_.--The glass of absinthe at six o'clock, and the terrace of the Brewery of Lilas behind the statue of Marshal Ney, are my only remaining sin and delight. There, after finishing the day's work, when soul and body are exhausted, I refresh myself with the green drink, a cigarette, the _Temps_, and the _Débuts_. How sweet is life after all, when the mist of a mild intoxication casts its veil over the miseries of existence. Probably the powers envy me this hour of a visionary happiness, for from this evening onwards it is disturbed by a series of annoyances which cannot be attributed to chance. On May 17th, I find my place, which has been reserved for me daily for nearly two years, occupied; all the other chairs are also taken. Deeply annoyed, I have to go to another café.

_May_ 18_th_.--My old corner in Lilas is again vacant, and I am again under my chestnut behind the Marshal, feeling contented, even happy. My well-concocted absinthe is there, my cigarette lighted, and the _Temps_ spread out. Then a drunken man passes; a hateful-looking fellow, whose mischievous, contemptuous air annoys me. His face is red, his nose blue, his eyes malicious. I taste my absinthe, and feel happy not to be like this sot.... There! I don't know how, but my glass is upset and empty. Without sufficient money to order another, I pay for this and leave the café. Certainly it was again the Evil One who played me this trick.

_May_ 19_th_.--I don't venture to go to the café.

_May_ 20_th_.--I have slunk round the terrace of the Lilas, and at last found my corner unoccupied. One must fight the evil spirits and begin the war oneself. The absinthe is made, the cigarette glows, and the _Temps_ has important news. Then (I speak the truth, reader), a chimney of the café over my head takes fire! There is a universal panic. I remain sitting, but a stronger will than mine directs a cloud of soot with such a good aim on me, that two large flakes settle on my glass. Disconcerted, but as unbelieving and sceptical as ever, I depart.

_June_ 1_st_.--After long abstinence, the longing for my chestnut again awakes. My table is occupied, and I sit down at a vacant one standing somewhat apart. Then there comes a middle-class family, and sits near me. There seems to be no end of them. Women push against my chair, children do their little businesses before my eyes, young men take away my matches without asking leave. Thus I sit in the midst of a noisy, shameless throng, but do not waver nor yield. Then occurs something which, without any doubt, shows the skilful hand of the unseen, for there is no room for suspecting these people to whom I am entirely unknown.

A young man lays with an unmistakable gesture a sou on my table. A stranger, and alone among a crowd of people, I let it happen, but, blind with anger, I seek for an explanation.

He gives me a sou, as if to a beggar! Beggar! that is the dagger which I drive into my breast. Beggar! for thou deservest nothing, and----

The waiter offers me a more comfortable place, and I leave the money lying. What a disgrace! He brings it after me, and informs me politely that the young man had found it under my table, and thought it was mine. I feel ashamed, and in order to calm my anger, order another absinthe.

The absinthe comes, and I feel quite comfortable, when a pestilential smell of ammonia almost stifles me. Again a miracle or some evil purpose! An escape-pipe flows out at the edge of the pavement, exactly where my seat is. I begin to understand that the good spirits wish to heal me of a sin, which at last leads to the madhouse. Blessed be Providence which has saved me!

_May_ 25_th_.--In spite of the regulations of the house which exclude women, a family has taken up its quarters next my room. For a day and a night crying babies afford me much pleasure, and remind me of the good old times when I was between thirty and forty and life was pleasantest.

_May_ 26_th_.--The family quarrel together and the children howl. How similar it is, and yet how pleasant it is for me--_now_!

_May_ 29th.--A letter from the children of my first marriage informs that a telegram had come for them bidding them to be present in Stockholm at the farewell feast which was to celebrate my departure for the North Pole. They understand nothing about it, and I just as little. What a fatal error!

_June_ 2_nd_.--In the Avenue de l'Observatoire I find two pebbles shaped exactly like hearts. In the evening, in the garden of a Russian painter, I found a third heart of the same size, exactly like the two others. The playing of Schumann's _Aufschwung_ has ceased, and I am again calm.

_June_ 9_th_.--I visit the Danish painter in the Rue de la Santé. The great dog has disappeared; the entrance is free. We go to dine on a terrace in the Boulevard Port-Royal. My friend is cold and uncomfortable, and as he has forgotten his overcoat I lay mine over his shoulders. At first this quiets him; he feels himself dominated by me, and does not struggle against it. We are agreed on all points; he does not venture any more to oppose me. He admits that Popoffsky is a scoundrel, and that all my misfortunes are due to him. Suddenly a strange fit of nervousness takes hold of him; he trembles like a medium under the influence of the hypnotiser, gets excited, shakes off the overcoat, stops eating, lays his fork on one side, stands up and goes off. What is the meaning of it? Does he feel my coat to be a Nessus robe? Has my nervous fluid become stored up in it, and through its opposite polarity subjugated him? Does Ezekiel, chap. xiii., ver. 18, refer to something similar? "Woe to you that sew pillows upon all armholes, and make kerchiefs for the heads of persons of every stature, to catch souls.... I will tear your kerchiefs, and I will deliver my people out of your hand, and they shall no more be in your hand to be hunted; and ye shall know that I am the Lord."

Have I become a wizard without knowing it?

_June_ 7_th_.--I visited my Danish friend in order to look at his pictures. When I arrived he seemed well and cheerful, but after half an hour he had a nervous attack, which increased so much that he had to undress and go to bed. What was the matter with him? Had he a bad conscience?

_June_ 14_th, Sunday_.--In the Jardin du Luxembourg I found a fourth heart-shaped pebble, like the three former ones. The stone has a piece of gold tinsel adhering to it; altogether it remains a puzzle, but seems to foreshadow something. I compare the four stones together before the open window, as the bells of St. Sulpice begin to ring; then the great bell of Notre-Dame commences, and through these usual sounds, there comes a heavy solemn peal, as though it issued from the bowels of the earth. I ask the waiter who brings my letters what it is. He says, "The great bell of the Church Sacré Cœur of Montmartre."

It is then the festival of the Sacred Heart? And I contemplate these four hard stone hearts, curiously moved by this striking coincidence.

In the direction of Notre-Dame des Champs I hear a cuckoo, and yet it is impossible; or have my ears become so extra-sensitive that they can hear as far as the wood of Meudon?

June 15_th_.--I go to the city to change a cheque into bank-notes and gold. To my astonishment, the Quai Voltaire sways under my feet; certainly the Carrousel Bridge trembles under the weight of the carts. But to-day, this movement continues past the Tuileries to the Avenue de l'Opéra. There is always vibration in a town, but in order to notice it one must have very sensitive nerves.

The other side of the river is, for us dwellers in Montparnasse, a foreign world. It is nearly a year since I visited the Lyons Bank, or the Café de la Régence. On the Boulevard des Italiens, I felt homesick, and I hurried back to the river, where the sight of the Rue des Saints Pères revived me. Near the Church St. Germain des Prés I met a funeral, and after that, two colossal Madonnas, which were being carried on a cart. One of them, with folded hands and eyes directed heavenwards, made a deep impression on me.

_June_ 16_th_.--On the Boulevard St. Michel I bought a paper-weight adorned with a glass globe containing the Madonna of Lourdes in her famous grotto; before her kneels a veiled woman. When I place the figure in the sun, it casts strange shadows. On the back of the grotto the plaster has accidentally formed a head of Christ, though evidently unintended by the artist.

_June_ 18_th_.--My Danish friend rushes in, in a state of excitement and trembling all over, into my room. Popoffsky has been arrested in Vienna on the charge of having murdered his paramour and two illegitimate children. After I recover from the first surprise, and my first feeling of sincere sympathy for a man who at any rate had once been my intimate friend, a deep peace settles on my spirit, which had been tortured for months with long-continued threats. Unable to conceal my real selfishness, I give free vent to my feelings. It is dreadful, and yet I am relieved when I think of the danger from which I have escaped.

What was his motive for the crime? We conjecture as a reason the jealousy which his lawful wife felt against the illegitimate family, and the expense which they involved. Perhaps also....

"What?"

"Perhaps his bloodthirsty instincts have recently been able to find no outlet in Paris, and have sought for satisfaction in some other way, no matter upon whom." To myself I say: "Was it possible that my earnest prayers had averted the dagger, and turned it against the murderer himself?" Then, giving up guessing, I conclude magnanimously like a victor: "Let us at any rate save our friend's literary reputation. I will write an essay on his merits as an author; you draw a flattering portrait, and we will send both to the _Revue Blanche_."

In the Dane's studio (the dog guards it no more) we stand and contemplate a picture of Popoffsky painted two years ago. It represents only his head, with a cloud below it. Underneath are a pair of cross-bones like one sees on tombstones. The decapitated head makes us shudder, and the dream of May 14th steals into my memory like a ghost. "How did you come to think," I asked, "of representing him with a head only?"

"That is hard to say; but there seemed to be a fate brooding over this fine mind, with marks of genius, which dreamed of fame without being willing to pay the price for it. Life lets us choose one of two things--the laurel or luxury."

"You have at last discovered that!"

_June_ 23_rd_,--During these last days since the news of the Russian's arrest, a fresh disquiet seizes me. It appears to me as though someone somewhere were meddling with my destiny, and I tell the Danish painter my suspicion that the hate of the imprisoned Russian makes me suffer like the electric fluid from a dynamo.

There are moments in which I foresee that my stay in Paris will soon be at an end, and that a revolution in my circumstances is at hand.

The weathercock on the cross of Notre-Dame des Champs seems to me to flap its wings as though it wished to fly northwards. Anticipating my speedy departure, I hastily conclude my studies in the Jardin des Plantes. A zinc bath in which I make experiments in alchemy shows on its inner sides a landscape formed by the evaporation of iron salts. I understand it is a presage, but I cannot guess where this landscape is. Hills covered with forests of firs; lying between them, plains covered with fruit trees and cornfields; everything indicates the neighbourhood of a river. One of the hills with precipices of stratified formation is crowned with the ruins of a stately castle. I cannot make out more, but I shall not remain long in uncertainty.

June 20th.--We receive an invitation from the head of the scientific occultists, the editor of the _Initiation_. As the doctor and I arrived at Marolles en Brie we received three pieces of bad news: A weasel had killed the ducks; a servant girl was ill; the third I forget.

On the evening of our return to Paris, I read in a paper the famous history of the haunted house in Valence en Brie. Brie? I begin to fear that the occupants of my hotel will become suspicious, hear of my excursion to Brie, and in consequence of my experiments in alchemy suppose that I have set on foot that humbug or witchcraft.

I have bought myself a rosary. Why? It is pretty, and the evil spirits fear the Cross; besides, I don't worry any more about the motives of my actions. I act, as the humour takes me, and life is much more interesting. There is a sudden change as regards the Popoffsky case. His friend the Dane begins to doubt his having committed the crime, and says the accusation against him was refuted at the inquest. The publishing of my article is put off, and I feel as cold towards him as before. At the same time the monstrous dog reappears--a hint for me to be on my guard.

As I am writing in the afternoon at the table near my window, a thunderstorm bursts. The first drops of rain fall on my manuscript and blot it in such a way that from the obliterated letters the word "Alp"[3] is formed, and also a blot in the shape of an enormous face. I preserve this; it resembles the Japanese god of thunder as portrayed in the _Atmosphère_ of Camille Flammarion.

June 28_th_.--I have seen my wife in a dream; her front teeth were missing. She gave me a guitar, which looked like a Danube boat. This dream threatened me with imprisonment.

In the afternoon I rub together on a piece of paper quicksilver, tin, sulphur, and chlorate of ammonia. When I took off the mixture, the paper retained the impression of a face, which had an extraordinary resemblance to that of my wife in the dream of the past night.