VII.
Next to "Adam Homo," the most interesting work of Paludan-Müller is "Kalanus." It is the positive expression of his ideal, as "Adam Homo" is the negative. Nowhere is his intellectual tendency more akin to the native bent of his great contemporary Kierkegaard than in this work. The problem which "Kalanus" endeavors to solve is precisely the same as the one whose solution Kierkegaard attacked in his "Either-Or" (Enten-Eller), namely, that of contrasting two personalities, one of whom is the direct representative of innate genius, of the pleasure-loving, extremely energetic view of life; and the other the incarnation of ethical profundity and moral grandeur, allowing them to struggle and contend, and convincing the reader of the decisive defeat of the purely natural views of life. With Kierkegaard the two opposing modes of contemplation of life are represented by a follower of æsthetics, and a judge of the supreme court, with Paludan-Müller by celebrated names in history; no less a man than the conqueror of the world, Alexander the Great, represents in "Kalanus" the æsthetic view of life, and the opponent allotted to him is the philosopher Kalanus. The ideal situation in the presentation of an intellectual wrestling-match of this sort would be that the author should succeed in equipping the contending parties with an equal degree of excellency. The actual situation, in this case, is that with Kierkegaard the representative of æsthetics is lavishly endowed with intellectual gifts, while the endowments of the representative of ethics, on the other hand, appear somewhat wooden and weak; and that with Paludan-Müller, on the contrary, the representative of ethics is no less intellectual than inspired, a man of the purest spiritual beauty, while the great Alexander is not placed upon the pinnacle of his historic fame. Such an Alexander as that of Paludan-Müller would never have vanquished Asia. In his enthusiasm for the thinker of India, our author seems to have lost the vital impression that Alexander was a genius, not merely heroic like Achilles, but great like Cæsar. And in the same way as with Alexander, the Grecian mind, as a whole, is degraded to a lower sphere, while the great representatives of Grecian philosophy, in the period of its glory, are permitted to make occasional remarks of so insignificant a nature, and so indicative of poverty of thought, that the Indian recluse has no difficulty whatever in overcoming their arguments. Thus, to be sure, the conqueror remains the only one who is in the slightest degree a worthy opponent of the ascetic.
The plot represents the Indian hermit Kalanus as believing devoutly that he has discovered in Alexander, who has just reached India on his triumphal progress through Asia, a revelation of Brahma's eternal light. He approaches the king in humble adoration, follows him at a respectful distance in his march through the desert as far as Pasargada, where he has the good fortune to be led once more into the presence of the mighty ruler, and falling upon his bended knee, he addresses him with the titles, "God, Ruler, Prince of Wisdom, King of Power." Alexander, recognizing the rare worth of the man, with kindly purpose attaches him to his person, and permits him to participate in a festival he holds that same evening. At this celebration, which the poet has portrayed with marked success, there are present some beautiful Greek courtesans, who sing the praises of Alexander, and amid loud rejoicing ransack his jewel-casket. To his profound astonishment and infinite horror, Kalanus now discovers that the great potentate, in whom he had seen the incarnate god, is neither inclined to shun the intoxication slumbering in the dregs of the flowing goblet, nor is master of the demon that lies concealed behind the mask of female beauty. In the first moment of consternation he plunges, knife in hand, at one of the courtesans, but is soon disarmed. Like one paralyzed he stands rooted to the spot when the banquet is over, not only bitterly disabused in his faith, but crushed with contrition to think that he should have confounded Brahma with a weak and mortal man like himself. Through self-annihilation alone can he hope to atone for his sin, and return to the god. He resolves, after Indian fashion, to immolate himself on the flaming pyre.
The next day, however, when Alexander, having slept off his intoxication, learns the resolution of Kalanus, he fears that he dealt too sternly the previous evening with his foreign adorer. So he hastens to Kalanus to gladden the hermit's heart with the assurance that he still enjoys the favor of Alexander. He arrives at the moment when Kalanus, thoroughly prepared in spirit for the sacrificial fires, has just been anointed by his mother for death. The potentate makes an effort to calm the ascetic, and learns to his surprise that Kalanus has not been swayed by fear of Alexander's wrath. He implores him to cast aside his resolve, but in vain. The tyrant in Alexander is aroused; he threatens Kalanus, he commands him to live; but his menaces rebound from him who is about to die of his own free will. On the wondering at the defiance of the Indian follows in the king's heart fury, and when the quiet thinker, remaining in an unruffled state of composure, only lays stress on the unworthy attitude of permitting the mind to be transported with anger, Alexander believes that scorn has followed in the footsteps of defiance. With the exclamation "slave!" he raises his hand to smite the ascetic. The blow, however, is parried, and the bitterness of the monarch, dispelled by the calm, tender efforts at persuasion, becomes transformed into noble entreaties, magnanimous promises,—all in vain. Alexander implores Kalanus to live out of friendship for him, entreats him to share with him his throne, to accept crown and sceptre from his hand,—his words produce as little impression as his previous threats. Then follows a sublime scene: Alexander casts himself upon his knees before Kalanus, and supplicates him to live.
This scene is the most beautiful, the most dramatic, the most spiritual that Paludan-Müller ever wrote. It is the crown of his dramatic scenes. It is the sum total of his thoughts and dreams. In the moment when Paludan-Müller allows Alexander to sink upon his knees, he casts all the greatness of the world, its splendor and its honor, genius and fame as well, at the feet of moral purity. This bending of the knee outweighs the prostration of Kalanus before Alexander in the first act. But even the utmost self-abasement of the hero is in vain, and the drama ends with the ascension from the funeral pyre of the spirit of Kalanus, purified in the sacred flames, to the heaven of Brahma. With all that Kierkegaard has to offer of intellectual endeavor, wit, learning, dialectics, and moral enthusiasm, in his "Either—Or," he has achieved no such brilliant triumph for the ethical mode of viewing life as that of Paludan-Müller in this one scene.
And as we must accept the obstinate adherences of Tithon to his resolution to return to earth as a symptom of the approach of the brief-lived yet so happy tendency of Paludan-Müller to realism, so we can see in the equally obstinate adherence of Kalanus to his resolve to forsake earthly life a symptom of the poet's return to the abstract poesy of his youth. The heathen mythological element reappears in his works "Paradise" and "Ahasuerus" as biblical myths. In the works that follow "Adam Homo," to be sure, there is a far deeper psychology than in those of the author's first youth; the psychological insight gained in the years of mature manhood could not possibly be lost; but these later works no longer treat of life in its breadth and with its motley coloring. They are works that withdraw from reality, and find vent in cloister life, in the hermit ideal, in expiatory death, or in the destruction of the universe; their poetry is that of renunciation, of the annihilation of self and of the universe.
VIII.
The most vigorous product of this last period is the dramatic poem "Ahasuerus," an emphatic prologue of the Last Judgment. We experience, with the cobbler of Jerusalem, the last day of the world, learn from him of the course of earthly life since Christianity redeemed humanity, are informed how beastliness followed close upon the heels of humanity until the rule of the animal nature was followed by the Antichrist, as described in the poem. It is a drama to which Joseph de Maistre might with rapture have signed his name, and its attacks on constitutionalism and tolerancy form a versified commentary on the syllabus of the Vatican. The poem denotes, in common with some of the later writings of Kierkegaard, the crisis of the reaction in Danish literature against the eighteenth century. In its monologue there are some very tedious portions; but it has some dazzlingly superb, and at the same time, exceedingly touching passages in the songs of the choruses, which express the anguish of mortals in the contemplation of the coming misfortune, and no less in the exquisite song of the angels who lull Ahasuerus into eternal repose. Yet the most individual part of the poem, a passage which displays an almost Michael-Angelo-like grandeur, is that where the trumpet tones evoke annihilation in all that is finite. Let me cite the first three stanzas:—
"The Trumpet (from the clouds).
"Kneel, kneel, O earth! in sack-cloth clad and ashes,
Discard the mask with boastful pride that flashes!
The angel hosts in the sky are now appearing;
Your doom is nearing!
"Down, down to dust, ye vanities resplendent,
Ye stones of nature, works of art transcendent!
Each crowned turret, and each lofty tower,
Destroyed your power.
"Down, down to dust, the cup of death there draining,
From dreams of honor, schemes of pride refraining,
Down, down, and learn the worth, all steeped in degradation,
Of reputation."