Inferno

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• Publisher: The Floating Press
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781776534890

Swedish novelist and playwright August Strindberg led a tumultuous life defined by giddy heights and despairing depths. One of his most intense periods of depression resulted in profound psychological and existential distress that Strindberg later came to refer to as his "e;Inferno"e; crisis. In this gripping memoir, he recounts his spiritual turmoil and awakening, along with his experiments in the occult and black magic.

V - Purgatory

*

Hôtel Orfila has a monastic appearance, and is a boarding establishment for Catholic students. It is superintended by a quiet, amiable Abbé, and peace, order, and morality prevail here. What especially comforts me after so many annoyances is, that women are not admitted here. The house is old, the rooms are low, the passages dark, and the wooden staircases wind and twist hither and thither as if in a labyrinth. There is an air of mysteriousness about the whole building, which for a long time has attracted me. My room looks out on a cul-de-sac, so that standing in the middle of it, one sees nothing but a moss-grown wall with two small round windows in it. But when I sit at my table close to the window, I have an uncommonly pleasant look-out. Under me there is a circular wall overgrown with ivy surrounding a courtyard, where young girls walk under plane trees and acacias. In the centre there stands a charming Gothic chapel. Somewhat farther on one sees high walls with numerous little barred windows, which remind one of a convent. Still farther away are old, half-hidden houses crowned by a forest of chimneys, and in the extreme distance one sees the tower of Notre-Dame des Champs surmounted by a cross and weathercock. In my room there hangs a faded likeness of St. Vincent de Paul, and a picture of St. Peter looks down on my bed. St. Peter, the opener of the gates of heaven. What an ironical situation for me, who some years ago threw ridicule on the Apostle in a fantastic drama!

Quite contented with my room, I sleep well the first night. I edify myself by reading the book of Job, and arrive at an ever clearer conviction that the Eternal has handed me over to Satan to be tried. This thought comforts me again, and suffering seems to me a mark of confidence on the part of the Almighty.

Now things begin to happen which cannot be explained without the co-operation of the unknown powers. From this point I use the entries in my journal, which have gradually become very numerous, giving them in a condensed form.

*

For a long while my chemical studies have lain in abeyance. In order to revive my interest, and to make a decisive stroke, I resume the study of the problem of making gold. The starting-point of the investigation consists in the question: Why does sulphate of iron in a solution of choloro-aurate of sodium precipitate gold? The answer is, because iron and sulphur are essential constituents of gold. The proof is that all natural compounds of sulphur and iron contain more or less gold. So I begin to experiment with solutions of sulphate of iron.

One morning I awoke with the idea of making a trip into the country, though it is quite against my tastes and my habits. When I, more by accident than design, reach the station of Montparnasse, I take the train for Meudon. I go into the village itself, which I visit for the first time, traverse the main street, and turn to the right into a narrow alley confined by walls on both sides. Twenty steps before me I see half-buried in the ground the figure of a Roman knight in grey iron armour. It looks very well modelled, but, as I approach, I see that it is only rough metal-smelting.

But I hold my illusion fast, since it pleases me. The knight looks towards the wall, and following the direction of his gaze I notice something written on the mortar with a piece of coal. It looks like the letters F and S interlaced, which are the initials of my wife's name. She loves me still! The next moment I see, as by a flash, that it is the chemical symbol for ferrum (iron) and sulphur, and the secret of gold lies revealed before my gaze. I search the ground and find two leaden seals fastened together by a string. One displays the initials V.P., the other, a king's crown. Without committing myself to a further interpretation of this adventure, I return to Paris with the lively impression of having experienced something bordering on the marvellous.

*

In my fireplace I burn coals which, because of their round and regular shape, are called "monks' heads." One day when the fire is nearly extinguished I take out a mass of coal of fantastic shape. It resembles a cock's head with a splendid comb joined to what looks like a human trunk with twisted limbs. It might have been a demon from some mediæval witches' sabbath.

The second day I take out again a fine group of two gnomes or drunken dwarfs, who embrace each other while their clothes flutter in the wind. It is a masterpiece of primitive culture.

The third day it is a Madonna and Child in the Byzantine style, of incomparable beauty of outline. After I have drawn copies of all three in black chalk, I place them on my table. A friendly painter visits me; he regards the three statuettes with growing curiosity, and asks who has "made" them. In order to try him, I mention the name of a Norwegian sculptor. "No," he says, "I should rather be inclined to ascribe them to Kittelsen, the famous illustrator of the Swedish legends."

I do not believe in demons, and yet I wish to see the impression which my little figures make on the sparrows who generally take their crumbs from my window-sill. So I place them there. The sparrows are frightened and remain aloof. There is then some likeness in the figures which they can distinguish, and some reality in this conjunction of dead material and fire.

The sun, as it warms my little figures, makes the demon with the cock's head collapse. This reminds me of the country-people's saying that if the dwarfs wait too long till sunrise, they die.

*

Things happen in the hotel which disquiet me. The morning after my arrival I find on the board where the keys of the rooms are hung up, on the ground-floor, a letter addressed to a Mr. X., a student, who has the same name as my wife. The postmark is "Dornach," the name of the Austrian village where my wife and child live. But since I am certain that there is no post-office at Dornach, the matter remains mysterious. This letter, placed in such a conspicuous position as to challenge the eye, is followed by others. The second bears the postmark "Vienna," and is addressed to a Dr. Bitter; the third displays the Polish pseudonym, "Schmulachowsky."

The Devil certainly has a share in this game, for this name is a false one, and I understand well for whom the letter is intended—for a deadly enemy of mine who lives in Berlin. At last there arrives a letter with the postmark "Vienna," which, according to the printed envelope, comes from the chemical bureau of Dr. Eder. So they are trying to spy out my gold-making experiments! Without doubt a plot is on foot here, but the Devil has mixed these sharpers' cards. These duffers do not consider that I keep my eyes open towards all quarters of the compass.

I have made inquiries of the waiter regarding Mr. X., but he gives me in all simplicity to understand that he is an Alsatian—nothing more. One fine morning I return from my work and see in the letter-rack quite close to my keys a post card. For a moment I feel tempted to solve the riddle by looking at the post card, but my good angel paralysed my hand, just as the young man came out of his hiding-place behind the door. I look him in the face and am startled; he is exactly like my wife. We greet each other silently, and each goes his way.

I have never been able to unravel this conspiracy, since I did not know the actors in this drama. Moreover, my wife has neither brothers nor cousins. This undefined threatening spectre of a continuous vengeance tortured me for half a year. I bore it like everything else as a punishment for known and unknown sins.

*

At the New Year a stranger turned up in our restaurant. He was an American artist, and came exactly at the right time to put new life into our depressed society. But though he was an active and bold spirit with cosmopolitan ideas and good company too, he inspired me with an undefined mistrust. In spite of his confident air his demeanour revealed to me his real position. The crash came quicker than one expected.

One evening the unfortunate man came into my room and asked for permission to remain there a short time. He looked like a lost man, and such in fact he was. His landlord had driven him out of his studio, his grisette had left him, he was head over ears in debt, and his creditors were dunning him; he was insulted in the streets by the supporters of his unpaid models. But what depressed him most of all was that the cruel landlord had retained his picture intended for the Champ de Mars Exhibition. The originality of its subject had given him good grounds to hope for its success. It displayed an "emancipated woman" crucified and cursed by the mob.

Since he was also heavily in debt to the restaurant, he had to go about the streets, hungry. Among other things he confessed that he had taken morphia enough to kill two people, but death apparently did not yet want him. After an earnest discussion, we agreed to go to another quarter, and there eat our meals in some obscure cook-shop. I said I would not desert him, and that he should pluck up new courage and begin a new picture for the exhibition of independent artists.

*

This man becomes now my sole companion, and his misfortunes cause me a double share of suffering, so closely do I identify myself with him. I do so in a spirit of defiance, but presently gain an interesting experience thereby.

He reveals to me his whole past. He is a German by birth, but partly because of family disagreements, partly because of a lampoon for which he had been brought into court, he has spent seven years in America. I discover in him intelligence above the average, a melancholy temperament, and unbridled sensuality. But behind this mask of a cosmopolitan I begin to divine another character which disquiets me, and the full discovery of which I postpone to a favourable opportunity.

Thus pass two months, while I live in union with this stranger and with him go through all the troubles of an unfortunate artist over again, without remembering that I am a made man, yes, and rank among the dramatic celebrities of Paris, though, as a chemical discoverer, I think little of it now. Moreover, my companion loves me only when I conceal my successes. If I am obliged to refer to them in passing, he is annoyed, and assumes the rôle of an unfortunate nonentity, so that at last, out of sympathy, I put on the air of an old decayed wreck. This imperceptibly depresses me, while he, who has his future still before him, elevates himself again at my expense. I am like a corpse buried at the root of a tree which sucks nutriment out of the decomposing life, and grows upwards.

At this time I study Buddhist books, and wonder at the self-denial with which I mortify myself for another. But good works deserve a reward, and mine did not remain wanting.

One day the Revue des Revues comes with a likeness of the American prophet and empiric doctor, Francis Schlatter, who in the year 1895 cured five thousand sick persons and then disappeared without ever being seen again. Now this man's features resembled in a remarkable way those of my new companion. To confirm my supposition, I show the Revue to a Swedish sculptor with whom I have an appointment in the Café de Versailles. He notices the resemblance at once, and reminds me of a remarkable coincidence of circumstances. Both the doctor and my friend were Germans by birth, and worked in America. Still further, the disappearance of Schlatter coincided with the appearance of our friend in Paris. Since I am initiated a little into the use of occultist expressions, I start the hypothesis that Francis Schlatter is the "double" who leads an independent life, without being aware of it.

When I mentioned the word "double" my sculptor was startled, and drew my attention to the fact that our friend always occupied two houses, one on the right and the other on the left bank of the river. Moreover, I learn that my mysterious friend lives a double life in this sense, that, after he has spent the evening in half-philosophic, half-religious discussions with me, he is always seen late at night in Bullier's dancing-saloon.

There is a sure means of proving the identity of these two "doubles," as the Revue des Revues contains a facsimile letter of Francis Schlatter. "Come to dinner to-night," I suggested. "I will dictate to him Schlatter's letter; if the two handwritings, and especially the signatures, resemble each other, it will be a proof."

At dinner the same evening everything is confirmed, the handwriting and signatures are identical. A little surprised, the artist submits to our examination; at last he asks: "What is your object in this?"

"Do you know Francis Schlatter?"

"I have never heard the name."

"Don't you remember that doctor in America last year."

"Oh, yes! that quack!"

He remembers, and I show him the portrait and facsimile.

He laughs sceptically, and remains quite calm and indifferent. That is all.

*

Some days later I am sitting with my mysterious friend, with our glasses of absinthe, on the terrace of the Café de Versailles, when a fellow in workman's clothes, with a malicious aspect, suddenly stops before the café, then rushes through the customers, and bawls at my friend in his loudest voice: "At last I have you, you sharper, who fleeced me! What is the meaning of it? First of all, you order a cross for thirty francs, and then you disappear. Son of a dog! Do you think a cross like that makes itself?"

He continued to rage. The café waiters vainly attempted to remove him; he threatened to fetch the police, while the unfortunate accused, motionless, dumb, and prostrate, like a condemned man, remained exposed to the gaze of a circle of artists who all knew him more or less. When the commotion was over, I asked him with a bewildered mind, as if I had witnessed a witches' sabbath: "What cross worth thirty francs? I don't understand a word of the business?"

"It was a model of Joan of Arc's cross which I was going to use for my picture of the crucified woman."

"He certainly was a devil, that workman."

After a pause, I continue: "It is odd, but one does not play unpunished either with the Cross or with Joan of Arc."

"You believe in them?"

"I don't know!—But the thirty pieces of silver!"

"Enough! Enough!" he exclaims in a tone of vexation.

From this evening a certain coldness ensues between us. Our acquaintance had now lasted four terrible months. My companion had studied in quite a new school, and had time to strike out new paths in his art, so that he could finally throw aside "the crucified woman" as an old toy. He had learned to regard suffering as the only real joy in life, and so had attained to resignation. He was a hero in his poverty. I admired him when twice in the same day he measured on foot the distance between Montrouge and the Market Halls with boots worn down at the heel, and without food. In the evening, when he had visited the offices of seventeen illustrated papers, and sold three drawings, without however being paid for them at once, he quickly swallowed two sous' worth of bread and hurried to the Bal Bullier.

At last, in silent agreement, we dissolved the partnership we had entered on for mutual help. We both felt that it was enough, and that our destinies must go on to separate fulfilments. When we exchanged our last farewells, I knew that they were our last. I have never seen the man again, nor heard what has become of him.

*

In the course of the spring, while I was feeling depressed by my own and my friend's untoward destiny, I received a letter from the children of my first marriage, informing me that they had been very ill in hospital. When I compared the time of their illness with my mischievous attempt at magic, I was alarmed. I had frivolously played with hidden forces, and now my evil purpose, guided by an unseen Hand, had reached its goal, and struck my heart. I do not excuse ...

Table of contents

• THE INFERNO
• Contents
• I - The Hand of the Invisible
• II - St. Louis Leads Me to Orfila
• III - Paradise Regained
• IV - The Fall and Paradise Lost
• V - Purgatory
• VI - Hell
• VII - Beatrice
• VIII - Swedenborg
• IX - Extracts from the Diary of a Damned Soul
• X - The Eternal Has Spoken
• XI - Hell Let Loose
• XII - Pilgrimage and Penance
• XIII - The Deliverer
• XIV - Tribulations
• XV - Whither?
• Epilogue
• Endnotes