The Bride of Dreams

by Frederik van Eeden

Therefore abiding in the demon-sphere is never without danger. If, with a little too much self-confidence, I let myself be induced to assume a less haughty and reserved manner, if I associated a little more familiarly with the bold tribe, I soon repented, for I was carried along by their wantonness and folly, I could no longer subdue the laughter and extravagances, nor could I, to my own disgrace and sorrow, restrain myself in my wrath toward them.

And this most especially applies to licentiousness, of which they are particularly ready to take advantage. They are past masters in lascivious pranks and practised on my weakness with much success. I soon noticed that they are sexless and can alternately appear as man or woman. As long as I clearly realize this I have power over them. But when the clearness of my consciousness and memory is dimmed they get the better of me.

Thus you must understand me rightly, dear reader, as regards the salutary effect resulting from this demon fight. Struggling with demons is not struggling with passions. Demons are enemies and stand outside our own individual domain. But passions are our friends, the useful domestic animals belonging to our own household, to the economy of our own personal nature. The passions and emotions should be tamed, never combatted. And this taming is accomplished by day, for at night they are more difficult to master, and the body invisible to the senses, that which can remain after the fading and wasting away of our material body, has no longer the power to tame. It only harvests what is sown by day.

Yet this nocturnal life of struggle with the demon brood is extremely stimulating to the soul, above all through the knowledge, the clearer comprehension, the deeper insight with regard to our own obscure being and its no less obscure besiegers.

In the better, the higher or deeper dream-spheres impure lust and base lasciviousness do not occur. Love transports of unknown splendor do, however. But it is an almost unfailing characteristic of everything pertaining to the joy-sphere, that it passes over sexual matters with a curious disregard, and never carries with it any suggestion of that lust for which we feel shame and humiliation. Yet there are in it unions and raptures very similar to the love-life of day, though more beautiful and tranquil. But the peculiar quality that is vile and leaves behind aversion and disgust, is eliminated with subtle separation.

XIII

The things I related to you in the preceding chapter are necessary for the comprehension of my subsequent life. But they are the issues of an entire lifetime, and in the years previous to my marriage, when I lived with my mother and her protégée, I was only at the beginning and knew yet very little of all this. I did not speak of it either, and in all my later life I mentioned it to only one person.

As my plan of entering the priesthood had come to naught, we were all three glad to leave the sultry city of Rome. We went to Como, occupying our villa at the lake. It was an old house with wainscotings of yellow stucco and a sad air of ruined stateliness, of a splendor that even in its prime had pretended to more than it really was. It was quite different than my memory had pictured it. Much humbler, smaller - a weak and feeble reflection of the solid marble splendor of antique and renaissance which it affected to imitate. But this very decay now spread over it an involuntary charm. For the garden with its cypresses, mimosas, magnolias and roses had grown all the more beautiful in its neglected wilderness, and we inhabited only a few rooms of the great still house, making ourselves at home in the nooks and corners as though we were caretakers instead of owners. And directly in front of the garden was the lake, with its smooth extent of deep blue, with satin or moiré sheen according as it was touched by the gentle breeze, - and behind were the mountains with thousands of primulas, the purple erica, and the pink and white Christmas rose. The brooklet was still there - and the old pillared portico, where the stone showed from under the crumbling stucco and the roses had pushed their way through the stone paving and entwined the columns.

Into this abode I withdrew, gathering books about me, and by study and a quiet, temperate life endeavored to attain by myself the consecration which I could not find in Rome. Lucia with her maid continued to live with us, and I saw her and my mother at the meals, but aside from that not often.

They were rigorous, tranquil, secluded years, which may probably be reckoned among the good years of my life. I quietly went my own way and studied, following only the guidings of my inner thirst for knowledge.