A Dark Muse: A History of the Occult (41 page)

As I started to run, rain and slushy snow fell. In the background, at the end of a short street, I saw outlined against the sky a dark archway, an enormous, cyclopean structure. There was no place behind, only a sea of light. I asked a policeman where I was.

`At the Porte Saint-Martin, monsieur.'

A few steps more and I was out in the great boulevards and walking along them. It was a quarter past six by the theatre clock. Absinthe time, and my friends would be waiting as usual at the Cafe Napolitain. Quickening my pace, I pressed on, forgetting the hospital, my grief, and my poverty. But outside the Cafe du Cardinal I happened to bump against a table at which a gentleman was sitting. I knew him only by name, but he recognized me and in an instant his eyes had told me what he was thinking: `You here? So you are not in hospital after all! Fine humbug, that appeal for help!'

I was sure that this man must be one of my unknown benefactors, one of those who had given me alms, and I realized that to him I was a beggar who had no right to go to cafes. A beggar! Just the right word. It kept ringing in my ears, and drove a burning flush to my cheeks, a flush of shame, mortification, and rage.

To think that only six weeks before I had sat at this same table with the director of the theatre where my play was being performed. I had been his host and he had addressed me as `dear master'. Reporters had tumbled over one another to interview me; photographers had begged for the honour of selling my portrait. And now, a beggar, a branded man, an outcast from society.

Whipped, played out, hunted to death, I slunk along the boulevards like a night-bird and crept back to my hole among the pest-ridden. There I shut myself into my room. This was now my home.

When I reflect upon my fate I can see the hand of the Unseen at work, disciplining me, driving me on towards a goal that I myself was still unable to discern. He had granted me glory and at the same time He had denied me worldly honours. He had humbled me and simultaneously He had raised me up. He had made me grovel in the dust in order to exalt me.

The idea again occurred to me that Providence must have some mission which it intended me to carry out in this world, and that this was the beginning of my education for it.

I left the hospital in February, not cured of my illness, but proof against the temptations of the world. At our parting I had wanted to kiss the hand of our kind mother who, without preaching at me, had taught me the way to the Cross, but I had been held back by a feeling of veneration for something that must not be defiled.

May her spirit receive this tribute of gratitude from a stranger who had gone astray and who now dwells concealed in a distant land!

2

SAINT LOUIS INTRODUCES ME TO THE CHEMIST ORFILA

I pursued my chemical investigations throughout the winter in a modestly furnished house I had rented. I stopped at home all day, but in the evening I went out to eat my dinner at a cremerie, where artists of various nationalities had formed a club. After my dinner I usually visited the family whose house I had once quitted in a fit of puritanism. Their home was a meeting place for the whole circle of artistanarchists, and I felt that I was doomed to endure there all the things I should have preferred not to see or hear: free and easy manners, loose morals, deliberate godlessness. There was much talent among them and infinite wit. Only one of them was a genius, a wild fellow, who has since made a great name for himself.

Nevertheless, it was a family circle. They loved me there and I was indebted to them, so I shut my eyes and closed my ears to their little private affairs, which were no concern of mine.

If it had really been unjustified pride that had made me shun these people my punishment would have been logical, but as my aloofness had arisen from my efforts to purify my individuality and refine my spirit by contemplation in solitude, I find it difficult to understand the workings of Providence in this matter. I am by nature flexible and very willing to adapt myself to my surroundings, out of pure affability and the fear of appearing ungrateful; so, as I was excluded from society by my pitiable and scandalous poverty, I was thankful to find some place of refuge in the long winter evenings, even though the very free tone of the conversation there cut me to the quick.

After it had been revealed to me that an unseen hand was guiding my steps along this rough path I no longer felt alone. I kept strict watch over my actions and my words, though in this I sometimes failed. But as soon as I sinned I was instantly caught, and the punishment administered was so punctual and so exactly suited to the crime that it left no room for doubts about the intervention of a power who chastised in order to reform.

I felt that I was personally acquainted with this unknown power, I talked to him, I thanked him, I asked his advice. Sometimes I imagined him to be my servant, the counter-part of Socrates' daimon, and consciousness that I could count on his assistance restored to me an energy and a feeling of confidence that spurred me on to exertions of which I had not thought myself capable.

Looked upon by society as a bankrupt, I was born again in another world where no one could follow me. Things that would previously have lacked significance now attracted my attention. The dreams I had at night assumed the guise of prophecies. I thought of myself as one of the dead, passing my life in another sphere.

I had already demonstrated the presence of carbon in sulphur. Analogy would suggest that hydrogen and oxygen were there too, but this I had still to prove. I spent two months making calculations and studying problems, but I lacked the apparatus for carrying out experiments. A friend advised me to go to the research laboratory at the Sorbonne to which even foreigners have access. But I was too timid and too frightened of crowds to dare to take such a step, so my work came to a standstill and a brief period of rest ensued. One beautiful spring morning I got up in a good mood, walked down the Rue de la Grande Chaumiere and reached the Rue de Fleurus, which leads to the Luxembourg Gardens. The lovely little street lay before me perfectly quiet, its wide avenue of chestnuts a brilliant green and straight as a racecourse, with David's column like a winning post at the far end. In the distance the dome of the Pantheon towered above everything else, while the golden cross that crowned it was almost lost in the clouds,

I stood still, entranced by this symbolic sight, but when I at last lowered my gaze I became aware of a dye-house sign on my right, in the Rue Fleurus. Ha! here I saw something undeniably real. Painted on the window of the shop were my own initials, A.S., poised on a silvery-white cloud and surmounted by a rainbow. Omen accipio. The words of Genesis came into my mind:

`I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.'

I no longer trod upon the ground, I floated through the air, and it was with winged footsteps that I entered the gardens, where there was not a soul about. At this early hour of the morning the place was mine. The rose-garden was mine. I recognized all my friends in the borders, the daisies, the verbenas, and the begonias.

After making my way along the course I reached the winning post and passed out through the iron gateway into the Rue Soufflot, turned towards the Boulevard Saint-Michel, and stopped beside the stall of second-hand books outside Blanchard's shop. Without thinking what I was doing, I picked up an old chemistry book by Orfila, opened it at random and read: `Sulphur has been included among the elements. Nevertheless, the ingenious experiments made by H. Davy and the younger Bertholet seem to prove that it contains hydrogen, oxygen and some special base which no one has so far succeeded in isolating.'

You may imagine the feeling of almost religious ecstasy that gripped me when confronted by this seemingly miraculous revelation. Davy and Bertholet had demonstrated the presence of oxygen and hydrogen, I of carbon. It had fallen to me therefore to provide the formula for sulphur.

A few weeks later I was enrolled as a student in the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the Sorbonne (St Louis's Sorbonne!) with the right to work in the research laboratory there.

The morning on which I betook myself to the Sorbonne was for me a holy day. Although I had no illusions about the possibility of convincing the professors there, who had received me with the chilly politeness accorded to foreigners who push themselves in, I yet experienced a calm joy, from which I derived the sort of courage a martyr must possess when he takes up the struggle against a multitude of enemies - because, of course, for me at my age, the young were my natural enemies.

When I arrived at the open space in front of the little church that is part of the Sorbonne I found the door open and went in, without really knowing why I did so. The Holy Mother and Child greeted me with a gentle smile. The figure on the cross, incomprehensible as always, left me cold.

My new acquaintance, St Louis, friend of all those smitten by poverty and disease, caused some young theological students to introduce themselves to me. Was it possible that St Louis was my patron saint, my good angel, and that he had driven me to the hospital, there to pass through the fire of agony before I could attain the glory that leads to dishonour and scorn? Was it he who had sent me to Blanchard's bookstall, who had drawn me here?

It was remarkable that, from being an atheist, I had sunk into a state of almost complete credulity.

The sight of the votive offerings, presented by candidates who had been successful in their examinations, made me swear a solemn oath that, supposing I should succeed, I would under no circumstances accept worldly recognition of my merits.

The hour had struck. I had to run the gauntlet between lines of merciless young people who, already informed of my chimerical task, were waiting to mock and insult me.

After about two weeks I had obtained incontrovertible evidence that sulphur is a ternary compound, composed of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen.

I proffered my thanks to the Director of the laboratory, who pretended to take no interest in what I had been doing, and I left this new purgatory feeling at heart the most inexpressible delight.

Whenever I did not visit the Luxembourg Gardens I took my morning walk in the Cemetery of Montparnasse. A few days after I had concluded my investigation at the Sorbonne I happened to catch sight of a monument of classical loveliness near the circular open space in the cemetery. On a medallion of white marble I beheld the noble features of a wise old man. The inscription on the socle revealed to me who he was: Orfila, Chemist and Toxicologist. None other than my friend and protector, who has many times since then been my guide through the labyrinth of chemical operations.

A week later, as I was walking down the Rue d'Assas, I came to a halt in front of a house that looked like a monastery. A large signboard told me what manner of building it was: Hotel Orfila.

Again and yet again Orfila!

In the following chapters I shall relate all that occurred in this old house, to which the unseen hand drove me that I might be chastised, instructed, and - why not? - enlightened.

From The Occult Diaries

1901

January 3rd

Have been plagued for a couple of months by a smell of celery. Everything tastes and smells of celery. When I take off my shirt at night it smells of celery. What can it be? My (chastity), my celibacy?

January 5th

Finished The Bridal Crown and in doing so had a feeling that there would be a pause in my work as a dramatist.

Longing for Paris; planning a visit.

January 8th

Met (Bonnier) who dissuaded me from the Paris project. Read Echo de Paris sent by Courier de la Presse, and was frightened off. Had a message from (Bosse) saying that I must not go. Saw in the paper that 9 people had frozen to death in Paris. Decided not to go, for on the previous day I had (begged God) to signify (his will).

January 9th

Reading Balzac. `Lucien, in short, was loved absolutely, and in a way in which women very rarely love a man.' (Woman does not love; it is man who loves and woman who is loved.)

January 13th, Sunday

(B), who read Creditors and Simoon on the 12th, haunted me on the 12th. This haunting grew more intense on the 13th, and at night she persecuted me. (First telepathic `intercourse' with B.) When she appeared telepathically during the night I `possessed' her. Incubus.

The whole thing seemed to me quite ghastly and I (begged God to deliver me) from (this passion).

January 14th, Monday

Passed two ladies in the street; it was 6 degrees below zero and a fresh wind. A smell of celery (lasciviousness).

Passed two ladies again in the evening, and there was a smell of celery.

January 15th, Tuesday

What is all this leading to? I want to flee to Berlin, but I cannot.

Last year (Fru Ge~erstam) felt she was in telepathic communication with (Arvid Odman) or that he was hypnotizing her from a distance. She had, in fact, been in love with him in her youth.

January 25th

I saw a flag flying this morning from a house in Strandvagen. It made me happy. Coming closer I saw it was the `clean' Norwegian flag, at half-mast, with a wreath of laurel round a coat of arms, and something in the centre. What could it mean? But, of course! They were flying the English flag in honour of Queen Victoria who died recently!

(Aversion to B)

It is evening now, I am sitting alone at home while they perform The Saga of the Folkungs. The excitement of it all with me, though from time to time it relaxes, probably when the curtain falls.

Going over in my mind what my life has been I wonder whether all the horrible things I have experienced have been staged for me to enable me to become a dramatist, and depict all mental states and all possible situations.