No, no, a voice inside me said, I am wrong; but I could not say anything. I knew that I had aimed my single little word at his one essential weakness. I had touched the point of which he himself was distrustful. His idea was “antiquarian.” He was a seeker, but retrogressive, he was a romantic. And suddenly I realized that it was just what he had been to me and had given me that he could not be and give to himself. He had guided me to a point on the road, beyond which he, the guide, could not go.
God knows how I could have uttered such a word! I had not meant it badly. I had had no idea it would lead to a catastrophe. I had uttered something, the import of which I did not myself realize at the moment of utterance. I had surrendered myself to a somewhat witty, somewhat malicious inspiration, and fate used it as her instrument. I had been guilty of a little thoughtlessness, crudeness, and he had accepted it as a judgment.
Oh, how much I wished then that he would have got angry, have defended himself, have shouted at me! But he did nothing. I had all that to do within myself. He would have smiled, had he been able. The fact that he could not, showed me more than anything else how hard I had hit him.
And because Pistorius took the blow from me, his presumptuous and ungrateful pupil, so quietly, because he silently agreed with me, because he recognized my word as a judgment of fate, he caused me to hate myself, he made my thoughtlessness seem a thousand times greater than it was. As I struck, I had thought to hit a strong man, capable of defending himself—now he was a meek, suffering creature, defenseless, who surrendered in silence.
We remained a long time lying before the dying fire, in which each glowing figure, each crumbling ash heap called to my memory happy, beautiful, rich hours, making my guilt and my obligation to Pistorius greater and greater. Finally I could bear it no longer. I got up and went. A long time I stood before his door, a long time I listened on the dark staircase, a long time I stood outside in front of the house, waiting to see whether perhaps he would come out to me. Then I went on, walking for hours and hours through town and suburbs, park and wood, until evening fell. At that moment I felt for the first time the mark of Cain on my forehead.
I fell to pondering and rumination. I had every intention, in thinking matters over, to accuse myself and to defend Pistorius. But all ended to the contrary. A thousand times I was ready to repent of my rash word and to withdraw it—but it had been true, nevertheless. Now I succeeded in understanding Pistorius, in building up his whole dream. This dream had been to be a priest, to proclaim a new religion, to invent new forms of exultation, of love, of worship, to set up new symbols. But this was not within his province. He lingered too long in the past, he knew too much of what had been, he knew too much of Egypt, of India, of Mithras, of Abraxas. His love was attached to ideas with which the world was already familiar. And in his inmost self he probably recognized that the new religion had to be different, that it had to spring from fresh sources and not be drawn out of collections and libraries. His office was, perhaps, to help men to find themselves, as he had done with me. But to found a new doctrine, to give new gods to the world, was not his function in life.
And at this point the realization came upon me that everyone has an “office,” a charge. But to no one is it permitted to choose his office for himself, and to discharge it as he likes. It was wrong to want new gods, it was entirely wrong to wish to give the world anything. A man has absolutely no other duty than this: to seek himself, to grope his own way forward, no matter whither it leads. That thought impressed itself deeply on me; that was the fruit of this new event for me. Often had I pictured the future. I had dreamed of filling rôles which might be destined for me, as poet perhaps or as prophet, as painter, or some such rôle. All that was of no account. I was not here to write, to preach, to paint, neither I nor anyone else was here for that purpose. All that was secondary. The true vocation for everyone was only to attain to self-realization. He might end as poet or as madman, as prophet or as criminal—that was not his affair, that was of no consequence in the long run. His business was to work out his own destiny, not any destiny, but his own, to live for that, entirely and uninterruptedly. Everything else was merely an attempt to shun his fate, to fly back to the ideals of the masses, to adapt himself to circumstances. It was fear of his own inner being. There rose before me this new picture, terrible and sacred, suggested to me a hundred times ere this, perhaps often already expressed, but now for the first time lived. I was a throw from nature’s dice box, a projection into the unknown, perhaps into something new, perhaps into the void, and my sole vocation was to let this throw-up from primeval depths work itself out in me, to feel its will in me and to make it mine. That solely!
I had already known what it was to be very lonely. Now I felt I could be lonelier still, and that I could not escape from it.
I made no attempt to reconcile myself with Pistorius. We remained friends, but our relation towards one another had changed. Only one single time did we mention it, or rather, it was only he who spoke of the matter. He said: “I want to be a priest, you know that. I would best of all like to be the priest of the religion of which we have so many presentiments. I can never be that, I know. I have known it already for some time, without fully admitting it. I will do some other priestly service, perhaps at the organ, perhaps in another way. But I must always be surrounded by something which I find beautiful and sacred, organ music and mysteries, symbol and myth, I need that and cannot persuade myself to leave it—that is my weakness. I often realize, Sinclair, that I should not have such desires, that they are a luxury and a weakness. It would be greater, it would be more right, if I placed myself quite simply at the disposition of fate, without pretensions. That is the sole thing I cannot do. Perhaps you will some time be able to do it. It is hard, it is the only thing really hard there is, my friend. I have often dreamed of it, but I cannot do it, I tremble at the thought of it. I cannot stand so completely naked and alone. I am a poor, weak hound, who needs a little warmth and food, who occasionally likes to feel the proximity of his own kind. He whose only desire it is to work out his own destiny has no kith or kin, but stands alone and has only the cold world space around him. Do you know, that is Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane? There have been martyrs who willingly let themselves be nailed to the cross, but even they were not heroes, they were not free, they also wished for something to which they had been accustomed, which they had loved; with which they had felt at home. They had examples or ideals. He who will fulfill his destiny has neither examples nor ideals, he has nothing dear to him, nothing to comfort him. And one really ought to go this way. People like you and I are certainly very lonely, but we still have each other, we have the secret satisfaction of being different, of revolting, of wanting the unusual. But we must drop that, too, if we would go the whole way. We must not wish to be revolutionaries, or examples, or martyrs. To think the thought to its logical end——”
No, one could not think beyond that. But one could dream of it, could sense it, could anticipate it. A few times I realized something of this, in a very quiet hour. Then I looked straight into the open, staring eyes of my fate. They could have been full of wisdom, or full of madness, they could be full of love or full of wickedness, it was all one. One was to choose nothing of all that; one was to want nothing, one was only to want oneself, one’s destiny. In that way had Pistorius served me, for a time, as guide.