The Inferno, August Strindberg [classic english novels TXT] 📗

Guided into this new world in which no one can follow me, I conceived an aversion to social intercourse, and have an unconquerable desire to free myself from my surroundings. I therefore informed my friends that I wished to go to Meudon to write a book which required solitude and quiet.

At the same time insignificant disagreements led to a breach with the circle which met at the Restaurant, so that one day I found myself entirely isolated. The first result was an extraordinary expansion of my inner sense; a spiritual power which longed to realise itself. I believed myself in the possession of unlimited strength, and pride inspired me with the wild idea of seeing whether I could perform a miracle.

At an earlier period, in the great crisis of my life, I had observed that I could exercise a telepathic influence on absent friends. In popular legends writers have occupied themselves with the subjects of telepathy and witchcraft. I wish neither to do myself an injustice, nor altogether to acquit myself of wrongdoing, but I believe that my evil will was not so evil as the counterstroke which I received. A devouring curiosity, an outbreak of perverted love, caused by my frightful loneliness, inspired me with an intense longing to be reunited with my wife and child, both of whom I still loved. But how was this to be brought about, as divorce proceedings were already on foot? Some extraordinary event, a common misfortune, a thunderbolt, a conflagration⁠ ⁠… in brief, some catastrophe which unites two hearts, just as in novels two persons are reconciled at the sickbed of a third. Stop! there I have it! A sickbed! Children are always more or less ill; a mother’s fear exaggerates the danger; a telegram follows, and all is said.

I had no idea of practising magic, but an unwholesome instinct suggested I must set to work with the picture of my dear little daughter, who later on was to be my only comfort in a cursed existence.

Further on in this work I will relate the results of my manoeuvre, in which my evil purpose seemed to work with the help of symbolical operations. Meantime the results had to be waited for, and I continued my work with a feeling of undefined uneasiness and a foreboding of fresh misfortune.

One evening, as I sat alone before my microscope, an occurrence happened which made all the deeper impression on me because I did not understand it. For four days I had let a nut germinate, and now detached the germ. This had the shape of a heart, not much larger than the core of a pear. Standing between two cotyledons it looked like a diminutive human brain. One may imagine my surprise when I saw on the glass-slide of the microscope two tiny hands, white as alabaster, folded as if in prayer. Was it a vision, an hallucination? Oh, no! It was a crushing reality which made me shudder. The little hands were stretched out towards me, immovable, as if adjuring me. I could count the five fingers, the thumb shorter than the others⁠—real woman’s or child’s hands.

I made a friend, who surprised me watching this astonishing sight, witness it also. He required to be no clairvoyant in order to see two clasped hands which besought the sympathy of the beholder.

What was it? Nothing but the two first rudimentary leaves of a walnut tree, the Juglans regia⁠—nothing else. Yet the fact was undeniable that ten human fingers were clasped in a beseeching gesture as if expressing, “De profundis clamavi ad te.” But as a still too incredulous empiric, I passed by the occurrence callously.

The fall has happened. I feel the mercilessness of the unknown powers weigh heavily upon me. The hand of the invisible is lifted and the blows fall thickly upon my head.

In the first place, my anonymous friend who has supported me hitherto, feels insulted and deserts me, because I had written him a presumptuous letter. So I am left without means.

Moreover, when I receive the proofs of my work Sylva Sylvarum, I find the text in complete confusion. Not only are the pages mixed and wrongly numbered, but the different parts are confused, so that in an ironical way they represent the great disorder which rules in nature. After endless hesitations and delays, the pamphlet is at last printed, but when the printer sends me the bill, I find that it amounts to more than double the sum originally agreed upon. I am obliged, to my regret, to pawn my microscope, my black suit, and some remaining ornaments, but, at any rate, my work is printed, and I have for the first time in my life the conviction that I have said something original, great, and beautiful. In a mood of exultation, easy to understand, I carry the packet to the post, and making a contemptuous gesture towards the hostile heavens, I throw it in the letter-box with the thought, “Listen, Sphinx, I have solved thy riddle, and defy thee!”

On my return to the house the hotel bill is handed to me. Irritated by this unexpected stroke, for I have already lived a year here, I begin to notice trifles which I had formerly overlooked. For instance, in three adjoining rooms pianos are being played. I am convinced it is a plot of some Scandinavian ladies whose company I have avoided.

Three pianos! and I cannot leave the hotel, for I have no money. Cursing heaven, these ladies, and my fate, I go to sleep. The next morning I am awoken by an unexpected noise. They are hammering nails in the room which is near my bed; then more hammering begins on the other side. A silly trick quite in keeping with the character of these female pianists, nothing more! But when after supper I lie down to sleep as usual, there