EXTRACTS FROM MY DIARY, 1897
Feb. 12th.—Pulled out of bed after I have heard a woman's voice. St. Chrysostom, the misogynist, says: "What is woman? The enemy of friendship, the punishment that cannot be escaped, the necessary evil, the natural temptation, the longed for misery, the fountain of tears which is never dry, the worst masterpiece of creation in white and dazzling array."
"Since the first woman made an agreement with the Devil, why should her daughters not do so likewise? Created as she was from a crooked rib, her whole turn of mind is crooked, and inclined towards evil."
Well said! St. Chrysostom, the Golden mouthed!
Feb. 28th.—The chaffinches warble, the blue glimpses of the sea in the distance invite me, but as soon as I reach after my carpet-bag I am attacked by the invisible powers. Flight is in fact cut off from me. I am imprisoned here. In order to distract my mind I try to work at my book Inferno, but that is not permitted me. As soon as I take up the pen my power of recollection seems to be extinguished. I can remember nothing, or only such events as have no significance.
April 2nd.—A German author asks my opinion of Count Bismarck for a paper which is collecting adverse and favourable opinions of the Chancellor. My own was this: "I must admire a man who has understood how to dupe his contemporaries so well as Bismarck. His work was supposed to be the unification of Germany, and yet he has divided the great kingdom in two, with one Emperor in Berlin and another in Vienna."
In the evening there is a scent of jasmine blossoms in my room, a gentle feeling of peace take possession of my mind, and this night I sleep quietly (Swedenborg says that the presence of a good spirit or angel is known by a balmy perfume. The theosophists maintain the same, but call angels "Mahatmas").
April 5th.—I hear that a great piece of sculpture by Ebbe, representing a crucified woman, has been broken during its passage to the Stockholm Exhibition. On the other hand, my friend H.'s picture of the crucified woman has been seized for debt, and hung up in a courtyard over the dustbin.
April 10th.—Read a good deal of sorts—Chateaubriand's Mémoires d'outre-tombe; Las Casas' Diary of St. Helena. Who was Napoleon? Of whom was he the re-incarnation?
He was born in Ajaccio, of Greek colonists who derive their name from Ajax. 1. Ajax, the son of Telamon, was conquered by Odysseus, and maddened by fury he slaughtered the flocks of the Greeks in the belief that he was spreading death among his enemies. One day when one of the patron gods of Troy had enveloped both armies in a cloud in order to help the flight of the Trojans, he cried, "O Zeus! give us light, though thou slay us in the light!" 2. Ajax, son of Oileus, suffered shipwreck on the home voyage from the siege of Troy, but saved himself by climbing a cliff where he obstinately defied the gods, and was, as a punishment, drowned in the depths of the sea. "Ajax defying the gods" has become a proverb. Napoleon was prematurely born on a mat adorned with scenes from the Iliad. Paola a Porta said one day to the young Napoleon, "There is nothing modern about thee; thou art a man out of Plutarch."
Before Napoleon's birth, Rousseau had interested himself in Corsica, and its inhabitants wished to have him as a ruler. "There is still a land in Europe," he said, "where it is possible to give laws: that is the island of Corsica. I have a foreboding that this little island will fill Europe with wonder."
Nordille Bonaparte in the year 1266 pledged his honour for Konradin von Schwaben, who was executed by Charles of Anjou. The Franchini branch of the Bonaparte family bore on its shield of arms three golden lilies, like the Bourbons.
Napoleon was related to Orsini. Orsini was the name of the assassin who attempted the life of Napoleon in. On three islands Napoleon spent his days of adversity,—Corsica, Elba, and St. Helena. In a geography which he composed in his youth he mentions the last, with the two words "little island." (Too little indeed he found it afterwards!) During the war with England, he sent a cruiser without any obvious cause to the neighbourhood of St. Helena.
The death of Napoleon affords plenty of material to the imagination of an occultist.
"There was a terrible storm, the rain fell without intermission, and the wind threatened to sweep everything away. The willow-tree under which Napoleon had been accustomed to take the air had been broken; the trees of the plantation had been tom up and scattered about. A single indiarubber still stood erect, till a whirlwind seized it, tore it up, and hurled it in the mud. Nothing that the Emperor loved could survive him."
The patient could not bear the light; he had to be kept in a dark room. When at the point of death he sprang out of bed in order to go out into the garden.
"Spasmodic twitchings of the navel and the stomach, deep sighs, out-cries, convulsive movements which during the death-struggle terminate in a loud and painful sobbing." Noverrez, who had been ill, became delirious. "He imagines that the Emperor is threatened, and calls for help."
After Napoleon had given up the ghost, a smile of peace lay on his lips, and the corpse retained this look of calm in the funereal vault for nineteen years. When the grave was opened in 1840, the body was in a state of perfect preservation. The soles of the feet were white. (White soles of the feet, according to Swedenborg, signify the forgiveness of sins.)
The hands were well preserved (the left, however, was not white), soft, and still retained their beautiful shape. The whole body was dead-white, as though one saw it through thick lace. In the upper jaw were only three teeth. (A strange coincidence—the Duke of Enghiem[1] had only three teeth when he was shot.) And in parenthesis it may be added the Duke was borne after parturition-pangs of forty-eight hours. He was dark blue, and without a sign of life. Having been wrapped in a cloth that had been steeped in spirits, he was held too close to a light and took fire. Not till then did he begin to live.
Napoleon was placed in a coffin in a green uniform (green clothes are a favourite dress of wizards).
Chateaubriand writes: "Napoleon's commission as a captain was signed by Louis xvi. on the 30th of August 1792, and the King abdicated on August 10th.
"Explain this who can. What protector furthered the schemes of this Corsican? The Eternal."
April 18th, Easter day.—On a fire-brand in the oven I saw the letters I.N.R.I. (Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews).
May 3rd.—I begin to work at the Inferno.
I am told that a very well-known journalist has been suddenly attacked by nightly visitations of the now common nervous disease which I have described. The occultists connect this with an inconsiderate obituary notice which he wrote of a worthy man recently dead.
In reading Wagner's Rheingold, I discover a great poet, and understand now why I have not comprehended the greatness of this musician, whose music is the only proper accompaniment to his words. Moreover, Rheingold has a special message for me:—
"Wellgunde: Knowest thou not who alone is permitted to forge the gold?
"Woglinde: Only he who renounces the might of love and drives the joy of it away, obtains the magic power of moulding the gold into a ring.
"Wellgunde: Well then, we are safe and free of care, for all that live loves. Love none can avoid.
"Woglinde: Least of all he,—the amorous imp.
* * * * *
"Alberich (stretching his hand after the gold): I tear the gold from the cleft and forge the avenging ring, for—let the stream hear it!—I curse love!"
May 12th.—With dull resignation I have for five months drunk coffee made of chicory without complaining. I wanted to see if there was any limit to the enterprising spirit of the dishonest woman who makes my morning coffee. For five months I have suffered, now I will for once enjoy the divine drink with the intoxicating aroma. For this purpose I buy a pound of the dearest coffee in the middle of the day. In the evening I read in Sar Peladan's L'Androgyne, p. 107, the following anecdote of an old missionary: "At the end of a missionary journey, during an important sermon, I am struck with powerlessness as soon as I have pronounced the words 'my brothers,'—not a thought in my brain, not a word on my lips. 'Holy Virgin!' I prayed secretly, 'I have only retained one weakness, my cup of coffee, I offer it up to Thee.' Immediately my elasticity of mind returned, I outdid myself and benefited many souls."
What a rôle coffee has played in my family as a disturber of domestic peace! I am ashamed to think of it, all the more as a happy result does not depend on goodwill or cleverness, but on circumstances out of our control.
Accordingly to-morrow I shall have the greatest enjoyment or the greatest chagrin.
May 13th.—The woman has made the most horrible coffee imaginable.
I sacrifice it to the Powers, and henceforth drink chocolate without murmuring.
May 26th.—Excursion to the beech-wood. Some hundreds of young people have collected there. They sing melodies belonging to the time when I was young, thirty years ago. They play the games and dance the dances of my youth. Melancholy overcomes me, and suddenly my whole past life unrolls before the eyes of my spirit. I can survey the path I have traversed, and feel dazzled. Yes, it will soon end; I am old, and the path descends to the grave. I cannot restrain my tears,—I am old.
June 1st.—A young doctor of a gentle nature, and such a sensitive disposition that the mere fact of his existence causes him suffering, spends the evening in my company. He also is plagued by qualms of conscience; be bewails the past which cannot be altered, though not worse than that of others. He explains to me the Mystery of Christ. "We cannot do again what has once been done, we cannot obliterate a single evil deed; and this thought leads to pure despair. Then it is that Christ reveals Himself. He alone can wipe out the debt which cannot be paid, perform a miracle, and lift off the burden of an evil conscience and of self-reproach. 'Credo quia absurdum' and I am saved.
"But that I cannot, and I prefer to pay my own debts by my sufferings. There are hours when I long for a cruel death, to be burnt alive at the stake, and to feel the joy of injuring my own body—this prison of a soul which strives upwards. The kingdom of heaven for me means to be freed from material needs, to see enemies again in order to pardon them and to press their hands. No more enemies! No malice! That is my kingdom of heaven. Do you know what makes life bearable for me? The fact that I sometimes imagine it to be only half real, an evil dream inflicted on us as a punishment, and that in the moment of death we awake to the real reality and come to see that it was only a dream,—all the evil that one has done, only a dream! So the pangs of conscience vanish together with the act that was never committed. That is redemption and deliverance."
June 25th.—I have now finished writing Inferno. A lady-bird has settled on my hand. I await an omen for the journey for which I am preparing. The lady-bird flies off towards the south. Very well, let us go south.
From this moment I resolve on going to Paris. But it seems to me doubtful how far the Powers will agree with me. A prey to inner conflicts I let July pass, and with the commencement of August I wait for a sign to determine me. Sometimes it appears to me that the guides of my destiny are not agreed among themselves, and that I am the object of a protracted discussion. One urges me on, and another holds me back. Finally, on the morning of the 24th August, I get out of bed, pull up the window-blind, and see a crow standing on the chimney of a very high house. It stands just like the cock on the tower of Nôtre Dame, and looks as though it were about to fly towards the south.
I open the window. The bird rises, keeps close to the wind, flies straight towards me, and disappears. I take the omen, and pack my things.
[1] Executed by Napoleon's orders.