As I turned round with a light heart, I saw on the pavement a tin-coated piece of iron, in the shape of a clover-leaf, and superstitiously picked it up. Simultaneously a recollection sprang to life in my mind. The year before, on the 2nd November in the terrible year 1896, as I was walking one morning in Klam in Austria, the sun disappeared behind a wall of cloud shaped like an arch, with clover-shaped outlines surrounded by blue and white rays. This cloud and my tinned iron-plate resembled each other as closely as two drops of water. My diary, in which I made a sketch of the former, can verify this fact.
What does that signify? The Trinity, that is clear. And further?—
I leave the Rue Thouin, joyful as a school-boy who has escaped a hard task because the teacher is ill. As I pass by the Pantheon, I find the great gate wide open in a sort of challenging way, as if to say, "Come in!" As a matter of fact, in spite of my long residence in Paris I have never visited this church, chiefly because people have told me lies about the wall-paintings, and said that they dealt with certain modern subjects which I strongly dislike. One may imagine my delight as I enter and find myself in a shower of radiance falling from the central dome, and surrounded by a golden legend—the sacred history of France, which closes immediately before the time of Protestantism. The ambiguous inscription without—"Aux grands hommes," had also misled me. There are few kings, still fewer generals, and not a single deputy; I breathe again. On the other hand, there are St Denis, St Geneviève, St. Louis, Joan of Arc. Never would I have believed that the Republic was Catholic to such a degree. There is only wanting the Altar and Tabernacle. In place of the Crucified and the Virgin is the statue of a woman of the world, set up here by women who admire her; but I comfort myself with the thought that this celebrity will finally descend to the gutter like so many more honoured ones have done before. It is pleasant and interesting to roam about this temple which is dedicated to sanctity, but it is sad to see at the same time how the virtuous and benevolent have been beheaded. Must one not out of reverence to God believe that all the evil treatment which has fallen to the lot of the just and merciful is only an apparent wrong, and that, however discouraging the path of virtue may appear, it leads to some good end, which is hidden from our view? Otherwise these infernal stakes and scaffolds, where executioners triumph over saints, must suggest blasphemous thoughts regarding the goodness of the supreme Judge who only seems to hate and persecute the saints below, in order to reward them in a higher world. "Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy." Meanwhile, as I leave the Pantheon, I cast a look at the Rue Thouin and wonder that the road to Swedenborg has led me to the Church of St. Geneviève. Swedenborg, my guide and prophet, has hindered me from going to his modest chapel. Has he then rejected himself and become better instructed, so that he has been converted to Catholicism. While I studied the works of the Swedish seer, it has struck me how he sets himself up as an opponent to Luther, who valued faith alone. In fact, Swedenborg is more Catholic than he has wished to appear, since he preaches faith in conjunction with works, just like the Catholic Church.
If it is so, then he is at war with himself, and I, his disciple, will be crushed between anvil and hammer.
One evening, after a day filled with pangs of conscience and doubts, I betook myself, after I had taken my lonely midday meal, to the garden which draws me like a Gethsemane where unknown sufferings await me. I have a foreboding of torments, and cannot escape them; I long for them almost as a wounded man wishes to subject himself to a cruel operation, which will bring him cure or death. Reaching the Fleurus Gate, I find myself at once upon the racecourse which is terminated by the Pantheon surmounted by the Cross. Two years ago this temple signified to my worldly mind the honour paid to "great men," now I look upon it as dedicated to the martyrs and the sufferings which they have endured; so greatly has my point of view changed. The fact that the Unknown remains absent causes me to feel an oppression of the chest. Lonely, and prepared for controversy, I feel myself weary for want of a visible opponent. To fight with phantoms and shadows is worse than to contend with dragons and lions. Terror seizes me, and urged on by the courage of the coward, I go forward with firm steps on the slippery ground between the plane trees. A close smell of dirty cod-fish mixed with that of tar and tallow chokes me; I hear the slapping of waves against the sides of ships and the quay; I am led into the courtyard of a yellow brick building; I mount upstairs, traverse enormous halls and countless galleries, passing between showcases and glass cabinets full of animals stuffed or preserved in tins. Finally, an open door invites me into a hall of strange appearance; it is dark, but faintly illuminated by patches of light reflected from a number of coins and medals in well-arranged showcases. I stop before a glass-covered case near a window, and my eye is attracted among the gold and silver medals by one of another metal, which is as dark as lead. It bears the picture of myself, the type of an ambitious criminal with hollow cheeks, hair erect, and an ugly mouth. The reverse of the medal bears the inscription, "Truth is always ruthless".[3] Oh! Truth! which is so veiled from mortals, and which I was bold enough to believe I had unveiled, when I despised the Holy Communion, the miracle of which I now recognise. The medal is a godless memorial to the dishonour of the godlessness of blasphemous friends. It is true I have always been ashamed of this glorification of brutality, and not taken the trouble to keep this memorial. I have thrown it to the children to play with, and it has disappeared without my missing it. Similarly, by a fateful "coincidence," the artist who made the medal, went out of his mind soon afterwards, having deceived his publisher and committed forgery. Oh, this disgrace, which cannot be wiped out, but must for ever be preserved in memory, as the law orders this indictment to be kept in the State museum! Here one sees what "honour" comes to! But what have I to complain of, since Providence has only granted fulfilment to an unholy prayer which I addressed to it in my youth?
I was about fifteen years old when, weary of useless conflicts against the young hot blood that longed to satisfy its passions, exhausted by the religious doubts which devastated my soul, which was eager to solve the riddle of existence, surrounded by pietists who worried me under the plea of winning my soul to love the God-like, I roundly asserted to an old lady friend who had lectured me to death, "I pitch morality overboard, provided I can be a great genius and universally admired!"
I was, moreover, strengthened in my views by Thomas Henry Buckle, who taught us that morality was "a nothing," incapable of development, and that intelligence was everything. Later on, when I was twenty, I learnt from Taine that evil and good were indifferent matters, possessed of unconscious and irresponsible qualities, like the acidity of acids, and the alkalinity of alkalis. And this phrase, which was quickly caught up and developed by George Brandes, has stamped an impress of immorality on Scandinavian literature. A sophism, that is a weak syllogism which has missed the mark, has seduced a whole generation of freethinkers.
Weak indeed it is! For if we analyse Buckle's epigram, "Morality is incapable of development, and therefore does not matter," it is easy to discover that the inference should rather be, "Morality, which remains invariably the same, thereby proves her divine and everlasting origin."
When my wish was finally attained, I became an acknowledged and admired genius, and the most despised of all men born in my country in this century. Banished from the better circles, neglected by the smallest of the small, disavowed by my friends, I received the visits of my admirers by night, or in secret. Yes, all do homage to morality, and a minority reverence talent, a fact which gives rise to various reflections concerning the essence of morality.