Legends

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Hunted by the furies, I found myself finally in December 1896 fixed fast in the little university town Lund, in Sweden. A conglomeration of small houses round a cathedral, a palace-like university building and a library, forming an oasis of civilisation in the great southern Swedish plain. I must admire the refinement of cruelty which has chosen this place as my prison. The University of Lund is much prized by the natives of Schonen, but for a man from the north like myself the fact that one stays here is a sign that one has come to an inclined plane and is rolling down. Moreover, for me who am well advanced in the forties, have been a married man for twenty years and am accustomed to a regular family life, it is a humiliation to be relegated to intercourse with students, bachelors who are given to a life of riot and carousing, and who are all more or less in ill odour with the fatherly authorities of the university because of their radical way of thinking.

Of the same age, and formerly a companion of the professors, who now no longer tolerate me, I am compelled to find my friends among the students, and so to take upon myself the r?le of an enemy of the seniors and of the social circles of solid respectability. Come down, indeed! That is just the right word, and why? Because I scorned to submit myself to the laws of social life and domestic slavery. I have regarded the conflict for the upholding of my personality as a sacred duty, quite irrespective of the fact of its being a good or bad one.

Excommunicated, regarded with suspicion, denounced by fathers and mothers as a corrupter of youth, I am placed in a situation which reminds one of a snake in an ant-heap, all the more as I cannot leave the town through pecuniary embarrassment.

Pecuniary embarrassment! That has now been my lot for three years, and I cannot explain how all my resources were dried up, as soon as my profits were exhausted. Four-and-twenty dramas of my composing are now laid up in a corner, and not a single one performed any more; an equal number of novels and tales, and not one in a second edition. All attempts to borrow a loan have failed and continue to fail. After I had sold all that I possessed, need compelled me at last to sell the letters which I had received in the course of years, i.e. other people's property.

This constant condition of poverty seems to me so clearly to depend upon some special purpose of Providence that I finally endure it willingly as a part of my penance and do not try to resist it any more. As regards myself, I want of means signifies nothing to me as an independent author, but it is disgraceful not to have the wherewithal to support my children. Very well! I make up my mind to bear the disgrace though it involve pains like hell. I will not yield to the temptation to pay for false honour with my life. Prepared for anything, I endure resolutely to the uttermost the most extraordinary humiliations and observe how my expiatory pangs commence. Well-educated youths of good family treat me one night to a serenade of caterwauling in my corridor. I take it as something I have deserved without disturbing myself. I try to hire a furnished lodging. The landlord refuses with transparent excuses, and the refusal is flung in my face. I pay visits and am not received. These are mere trifles. But what really wounds me is the sublime irony shown in the unconscious behaviour of my young friends when they try to encourage me by praising my literary works, "so fruitful in liberating ideas, etc." And this to me, who have just flung these so-called ideas on the dust-heap, so that those who entertain these views are now my opponents! I am at war with my former self, and while I oppose my friends and those once of the same mind with me, I lay myself prostrate in the dust.

This is irony indeed; and as a dramatist I must admire the composition of this tragi-comedy. In truth, the scenes are well-arranged.

Meanwhile people, taking into consideration the way in which old and new views become entangled with each other in a period of transition, do not reckon too rigidly with a veteran like myself. They do not prick up their ears so solemnly at my arguments, but rather ask after novelties in the world of ideas. I open for them the vestibule to the temple of Isis, and say, by way of preliminary, that occultism is going to be the vogue. Then they rage, and cut me down with the same weapons which during twenty years I have been forging against superstition and mysticism.

Since these debates always take place in garden-restaurants to the accompaniment of wine-drinking, one avoids violent arguments, and I confine myself to relating facts and real occurrences, assuming the mask of an enlightened sceptic. It can certainly not be said that people are opposed to everything new-quite the contrary; but they become conservative as regards ideals which have been won by hard fighting and which one is not inclined to desert. Still less are they disposed to abjure a faith which has been purchased by a baptism of blood. It falls to my share to strike out a path between naturalism and supernaturalism, by expounding the latter as a development of the former.

For this purpose, I address myself to the problem of giving, as just indicated, natural and scientific explanation for all the mysterious phenomena which appear to us. I split up my personality and show to the world a rationalistic occultist, but I keep my innermost individuality unimpaired and cherish the germ of a creedless religion. Often my outer r?le gets the upper hand; my two natures become so intricately intermixed that I can laugh at my newly won belief. This helps my theories to find entrance into the most oppositely constituted minds.

The gloomy December days drag on lazily under a dark-grey smoky sky. Although I have discovered Swedenborg's explanation regarding the character of my sufferings, I cannot bring myself once for all to bend under the hand of the Powers. My disposition to make objections asserts itself, and I continually refer the real causes of my suffering to external things, especially the malice of men. Attacked day and night by "electric streams," which compress my chest and stab my heart, I quit my torture-chamber, and visit the tavern where I find friends. Fearing sobriety, I drink ceaselessly, as the only way of procuring sleep at night. Shame and disgust, however, combined with restlessness, compel me to give this up, and for some evenings I visit the Temperance Café called the "Blue Band." But the company one meets with there depresses me,-bluish, pale, and emaciated faces, terrible and malicious eyes, and a silence which is not the peace of God.

When things go wrong, wine is a benefit, and refraining from it a punishment. I return to the half-sober tavern, without, however, transgressing the bounds of moderation, after having disciplined myself for several evenings by drinking tea.

Christmas is approaching, and I regard the children's festival with a cool bitterness that I can hardly dignify with the name of resignation. For six years I have had all kinds of sufferings, and am now prepared for anything. Loneliness in an hotel! That has long been my nightmare, and I have become accustomed to it. It seems as though the very thing that I dislike is forced upon me.

Meanwhile a closer intimacy has sprung up between me and a friendly circle, so that they begin to make confidences to me. The fact is that during the last months so many things have happened, so many unusual unexpected things. "Let me hear them," I say. "They tell me that the head of the revolutionary students, the freest of freethinkers, after having come out of a temperance hospital and taking the pledge, has been now converted, so that he forthwith--"

"Well, what?"

"Sings penitential psalms."

"Incredible!"

In fact the young man, who was unusually gifted, had for the present spoilt his prospects by attacking the views prevalent at the university, including the misuse of strong drink. When I arrived in the town he kept a little aloof from me on the ground of his temperance principles, but it was he who lent me Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia, which he had taken from his father's library. I remember that after I had begun to read the work I gave him an account of Swedenborg's theories, and suggested to him to read the prophet in order to gain light, but he interrupted me with a gesture of alarm.

"No! I will not! Not now! Later!"

"Are you afraid?"

"Yes, for the moment."

"But read it merely as a literary curiosity."

"No."

I thought at first he was joking, but later on it became clear to me that he was quite in earnest. So there seems to be a general awakening going on through the world, and I need not conceal my own experiences.

"Tell me, old fellow, can you sleep at night?"

"Not much. When I lie awake my whole past life comes in review before me; all the follies which I have committed, all my sufferings and unhappiness pass by, but especially the follies. And when the procession ends, it commences all over again."

"You also?"

"What do you mean by 'also'?"

"That is the disease of our time. They call it 'the mills of God.'"

At the word "God" he makes a grimace and answers, "Yes, it is a queer age we live in; the world turns round and round."

"Or rather it is the re-entrance of the Powers."

* * *

The Christmas week is over. In consequence of the holidays my table companions are scattered over the neighbourhood of Lund. One fine morning my friend, the doctor and psychologist, comes and shows me a letter from our friend the poet, containing an invitation to his parents' house, a country property a few miles from the town. I decline to go as I dislike travelling.

"But he is unhappy," says the doctor.

"What is the matter with him?"

"Sleeplessness; you know he has lately been keeping Christmas."

I take shelter behind the excuse of having some business to do, and the question remains undecided. In the afternoon I get another letter, to say that the poet is ill and wants his friend's medical advice.

"What is he suffering from now?" I ask.

"He suffers from neurasthenia and believes himself persecuted--"

"By demons?"

"Not exactly that, but anyhow--"

An access of grim humour elicited by the fact of having a brother in misfortune makes me determine to go with him. "Very well then, let us start," I say; "you see to the medicine and I will see to the exorcism." When the matter is settled, I pack my portmanteau, and as I go down the hotel steps I am unexpectedly accosted by an unknown female.

"Excuse me, are you Dr. Norberg?"

"No, I am not," I answer, not exactly politely, for I thought she was a disreputable person.

"Could you tell me what time it is?" she continued.

"No!"

And I go off.

How unmeaningful this scene was, it did nevertheless leave me with me an unsettling impression.

In the evening we stay in a village, to pass the night there. I have just entered my room, on the first floor, and washed up a little, when the usual sounds reach my ears; someone moves furniture around and I hear dance-steps.

This time I don't leave it with a suspicion, but run in the company of my comrades up the servants' stairs, to get certainty. But upstairs nothing suspicious can be found, because above my room, under the roofpanes, there's nobody living.

After a bad night with little sleep, we continue our journey and a couple of hours later we are in the parental home of the Poet, who almost appears as a prodigal son before religious parents, good and honest man. The day is spent with walks in a beautiful country-side and innocent conversations. The evening descends and brings an indescribable peace in a very homely environment, in which the doctor and I seem completely lost to ourselves, he even more than I, because he's an atheist.

Late in the evening we retire to the room that was assigned to the Doctor and me. When I'm searching for something to read, I lay hands upon "Magic of the Middle Ages" by Viktor Rydberg. Again this writer, whom I avoided, as long as he lived, and who keeps pursuing me after his death!

I page through the book, and my eye is caught by the part about Incubi and Succubi. The author doesn't believe in such things and ridiculizes the thought of devils. But I cannot laugh; I'm offended by what I'm reading, and I console myself with the thought that by now the author may have altered his views.

In the mean time, reading about things magical and weird isn't very suitable to induce any sleep, and I experience a certain nervous restlessness.

Therefore, the proposal to come along to the sanitary rooms is taken as a welcome distraction and a hygienic preliminary for the night, which I fear.

Provided with a lantern, we walk over the inner court, where, under a cloudy sky, the skeletons of frosted trees crash under the playful and capricious whirlwind.

"I think you're afraid of your own shadows my good fellows," laughs the doctor contemptuously. We give no answer, for the violence of the wind nearly throws us down. When we reach the place which is near the stable and under the hayloft, we are greeted by a noise over our heads, and, strange to say, it is exactly the noise which has followed me for half a year.

"Listen!" I said; "don't you hear something?"

"Yes, it is only the farm servants feeding the cattle."

I do not deny the fact, but why must they do it just as I enter the place? And how comes it that the disturbance always takes an acoustic form? There must be some unseen agent who arranges these serenades for me, and it is no mere illusion of my ears, for others hear them too. When we return to our bedroom, all is still. The poet who has behaved quietly all day, and who sleeps in an attic begins to look uneasy, and finally confesses that he cannot sleep alone, as he suffers from nightmare. I give him up my bed, and go into a large room close by, where there is an enormous one. This room, unwarmed, without blinds, and almost unfurnished, makes me feel a depression which is increased by the damp and cold. In order to distract myself, I look for books, and find on a small table a Bible illustrated by Gustave Doré, together with a number of books of devotion. Then I remember that I am an intruder into a religious home, that I, the friend of the prodigal son, am regarded as a corrupter of youth. What a humiliating r?le for a man of eight and forty!

I understand the young man's discomfort at being penned up with excellent and pious people. He must feel like a devil obliged to attend mass. And it is to drive out devils with devils that I have been invited hither. I have come in order to make this rarefied air possible to breathe by defiling it, since the young man cannot bear it, pure.

With such thoughts I retire to bed. Sleep was formerly my last and surest refuge whose pity never failed me. But now my comforter has left me in the lurch and the darkness alarms me. The lamp is lit and there is stillness after the storm. Then a strange buzzing noise rivets my attention and rouses me from my drowsiness. I observe an insect flying hither and thither in the upper part of the room. But I am astonished to find that I cannot identify it, though I am well up in entomology, and flatter myself that I know all the winged insects in Sweden. This is not a butterfly or a moth, but a fly, long and black, which makes a sound like a wasp. I get up to chase it. Chasing flies at the end of December! It disappears. I creep again under the bedclothes and resume my meditations.

But the cursed insect flies out from under my cushion cover, and, after having rested and warmed itself in my bed, it flies in all directions, and I let it go, feeling sure that I shall soon catch it by the lamp, whose flame will attract it. I have not long to wait; as soon as the fly gets within the lamp-shade a match scorches its wings. It dances its death-dance and lies lifeless on its back. I convince myself by ocular demonstration that it is an unknown winged insect, about an inch long, and of a black colour, with two fiery red spots on its wings.

What is it? I don't know, but in the morning I will give the others the opportunity of ratifying its existence.

Meanwhile, after accomplishing this auto-da-fé, I go to sleep. In the middle of the night I am awakened by a sound of whining and chattering of teeth which comes from the next room. I kindle a light and go in. My friend the doctor has thrown himself half out of bed, and writhes in terrible convulsions, with his mouth wide open. In a word, he shows all the signs of hysteria described in Charcot's treatise, which calls the stage he is in now "possession." And he a man of conspicuous intelligence and good heart, not morally worse than others, of full growth, with regular and pleasant features, now disfigured to such a degree that he looks like the picture of a medi?val devil.

In alarm, I wake him up, "Have you been dreaming, old fellow?"

"No, it was an attack of nightmare."

"Incubus!"

"Yes, indeed! It squeezed my lungs together, something like angina pectoris."

I gave him a glass of milk; he lights a cigar, and I return to my room. But now all my chance of sleep is gone. What I had seen was too terrible, and till the morning my companions continue their conflict with the invisible.

We meet at breakfast, and make a joke of the adventures of the night. But our host does not laugh, a circumstance which I ascribe to his religious way of thinking, which makes him hold the hidden Powers in awe. The delicate position in which I find myself between the seniors whom I admire, and the juniors whom I have no right to blame, makes me hasten my departure. As we rise from table the master of the house asks the doctor for a special consultation, and they retire for half an hour.

"What is the matter with the old man?" I ask, when the doctor returns.

"He cannot sleep,-has heart attacks at night."

"He also! That good and pious man! Then it is an epidemic which spares no one."

I will not deny that this circumstance restored my courage, and the old spirit of rebellion and scepticism took possession of my soul. To challenge the demons, to defy the invisible, and finally to subdue it,-that, was the task I proposed to myself as I left this hospitable family in order to proceed upon my projected excursion in Schonen.

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Reaching the town H?gan?s the same evening, I take my evening meal in the large dining-hall of the hotel, and have a journalist for my companion. As soon as we have sat down to table, the usual noise is heard overhead. In order to guard against any possibility of illusion on my part, I let the journalist describe the phenomenon, and find him convinced of its reality. As we went out after finishing our meal, the unknown woman who had accosted me before my departure from Lund, stood motionless before the door, and let me and my companion pass by. I forget the demons and the invisible, and begin again to suspect that I am persecuted by visible foes. Terrible doubts gnaw at my brain, fever my blood, and make me feel disgusted with life.

But the night has a surprise in store for me which alarms me more than all the last days together. Tired with my journey, I go to bed at eleven o'clock. All is silent in the hotel, and no noise audible. My courage rises, and I fall into a deep sleep, but to be awoken in half an hour by a tremendous noise overhead. There seems to be at least a score of young people who sing, stamp on the ground, and push chairs about. The disturbance lasts till morning. Why don't I complain to the manager? Because never once in my life have I succeeded in obtaining justice. Being born and predestinated to suffer injustice, I have ceased to complain.

In the morning I continue my journey in order to visit the coal mines near H?gan?s. At the very moment that I enter the inn, to order a carriage, the usual witches' Sabbath commences overhead. Under some pretext or other, I don't remember what, I ascend the stairs, only to find a large empty room above. Since the mines cannot be visited before twelve o'clock, I have myself driven to a fishing village some miles north, where there is a celebrated view over the Sound. As the carriage drives through the turnpike gate before the village, I feel a violent compression of the chest, just as though someone pressed his knees into my back. The illusion is so complete that I turn round to see the enemy who is sitting behind me. Then a number of crows raise a loud croaking, and fly over the head of the horse. He is frightened, rears, pricks his ears, and large drops of sweat roll down his flanks. He champs the bit, and the driver has to get down to quiet him. I ask why the horse is so unreasonably nervous, and the answer is legible in the look which the driver directs towards the crows, who follow us for some minutes. It is a quite natural occurrence, but of an unfortunate kind, and, according to popular belief, of evil omen.

After spending two useless hours, because a fog cuts off the view over the Sound, we drive into the village M?lle. Determined to scale the summit of the Kulle on foot, I dismiss the driver, and tell him to await my return in the inn. After my mountain walk I return to the village to look for him. But I have no knowledge of the place, and I look for some one to ask the way. Not a living soul is to be seen on the street or anywhere else. I knock at doors, but get no answer. Although it is eleven o'clock in the morning, and I am in a village of two hundred inhabitants, there is not a man, woman, child, or even a dog to be seen. Driver, horse, and carriage have disappeared. I roam about the streets, and after half an hour find the inn. Sure of finding the driver there, I order breakfast, and, after I have eaten it, ask them to send the driver to me.

"Which driver?"

"My own."

"I haven't seen one."

"Haven't you seen a carriage drawn by a chestnut horse, and driven by a man with a dark complexion?"

"No, indeed I have not."

"Yet I told him to wait here in the inn."

"Oh, then he will be sitting in the bait-house close by."

The servant girl shows the way and I set off. But I am doomed to be unfortunate, and mistake my way, so that I cannot find the inn again. Nor is anyone to be seen. Then I get nervous,-nervous in broad daylight! The village is bewitched. I cannot walk any more, but stand still as if spellbound. What is the good of seeking when the devil has a finger in the pie?

After I have had a great deal of trouble the driver at last turns up. I am ashamed to tell him of my annoyances or to demand from him explanations which explain nothing. We drive back to H?gan?s and when we reach the hotel the horse falls suddenly, as though someone were standing before the door who frightened it.

I now ask the way to the coal-mines, and this time, in order to make no mistake, I go the "five minutes' walk" which has been pointed out to me on foot. I walk for ten minutes, quarter of an hour, half an hour, till I come to an open plain, without a sign of buildings or chimneys to indicate the presence of a coal-mine. The plain, which is under cultivation, seems to stretch to infinity; there is not even a hut, and no one of whom to ask the way. It is the Devil who has played me this trick! I remain standing as though fast-bound and blinded, without being able to move a step forwards or backwards. Finally I return to the village, take a room, and have a good rest on a sofa.

After quarter of an hour I am roused out of my sad thoughts by a disturbance-a sound like that of hammering nails. Incredulous as to spirit-rappings, I attribute the phenomenon to malicious people or to greater ill-luck than usual. I ring, pay my bill, and betake myself to the station.

I have three hours to wait! That is a great deal when one is impatient, but there is no help for it. After I have spent two hours on a seat, a well-dressed female figure passes me, in order to enter into the first-class waiting-room. In the gait and manner of this lady and in her whole bearing was something that aroused vague recollections in me. Anxious to see her aspect from the front I watch the door, waiting for her reappearance. After waiting a long time I venture into the waiting-room. There is no one there at all, nor is there any other exit nor dressing-room. There are double windows, so that there is no possibility of her having gone out by them.

Do I suffer from optical delusion? Has anyone got the power to tamper with my faculty of sight? Can one make oneself invisible? These are unsolved questions which make me feel near despair. Am I mad? No, the doctors say I am not. There is inducement enough to believe in miracles.

If one may believe Swedenborg, I am a damned soul in hell and the Powers punish me ceaselessly and mercilessly. The spirits which I conjure up have no wish to enter the flask which I have unsealed.

I spend the evening of the same day in a good first-class hotel in the town of Malm?. At half-past ten they begin to split wood in the corridor without anyone objecting to it, and that in a continental hotel full of tourists! This is followed by dancing. Later on they turn a machine with wheel-work. I get up, pay my reckoning, and determine to continue my journey the whole night. Absolutely alone, in the cold January night, I drag myself on, with my carpet bag, under a pitch black sky. For a moment I think the best thing would be to lie down in the snow, and die. But the next moment I collect my strength, and turn into a deserted back street where I find an unpretending hotel. After making sure that I am not watched, I slink in through the door. Without taking off my clothes I stretch myself upon the bed, firmly resolved rather to let myself be killed than obliged to get up again.

There is a death-like silence in the house, and delightful sleep approaches. Suddenly I hear a sound as though an invisible paw was scratching in the paper covering of the ceiling immediately over my head. It cannot be a mouse, for the loosely hanging paper does not move; besides, it seems to be a fairly large paw, like that of a hare, or a dog. Till the grey of morning I lie awake, expecting to feel the claws in my flesh, but in vain, for anxiety is more painful than death.

Why do I not become ill after such tortures as these? Because I have to empty the cup of suffering to the dregs, in order that the punishments undergone may be equivalent to the wrongs committed. And it is really remarkable how I manage to endure the tortures; I swallow them down with a kind of grim joy in order to get done with them.

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