THE S.S.
'Wohlgeborne, gesunde Kinder bringen viel mit....
'Wenn die Natur verabscheut, so spricht sie es laut aus: das Geschoepf,das falsch lebt, wird frueh zerstoert. Unfruchtbarkeit, kuemmerlichesDasein, fruehzeitiges Zerfallen, das sind ihre Flueche, die Kennzeichenihrer Strenge.' GOETHE. [Footnote: 'Well-made, healthy children bringmuch into the world along with them....
'When Nature abhors, she speaks it aloud: the creature that lives witha false life is soon destroyed. Unfruitfulness, painful existence,early destruction, these are her curses, the tokens of herdispleasure.']
[Greek: Argos de andron echaerothae outo, oste oi douloi auton eschonpanta ta praegmata, archontes te kai diepontes, es ho epaebaesan hoiton apolomenon paides.] HERODOTUS. [Footnote: 'And Argos was sodepleted of Men (i.e. _after the battle with Cleomenes_) that theslaves usurped everything--ruling and disposing--until such time as thesons of the slain were grown up.']
To say that there are epidemics of suicide is to give expression towhat is now a mere commonplace of knowledge. And so far are they frombeing of rare occurrence, that it has even been affirmed that everysensational case of _felo de se_ published in the newspapers is sure tobe followed by some others more obscure: their frequency, indeed, isout of all proportion with the _extent_ of each particular outbreak.Sometimes, however, especially in villages and small townships, thewildfire madness becomes an all-involving passion, emulating in itsfury the great plagues of history. Of such kind was the craze inVersailles in 1793, when about a quarter of the whole populationperished by the scourge; while that at the _Hotel des Invalides_ inParis was only a notable one of the many which have occurred during thepresent century. At such times it is as if the optic nerve of the mindthroughout whole communities became distorted, till in the noseless andblack-robed Reaper it discerned an angel of very loveliness. As abrimming maiden, out-worn by her virginity, yields half-fainting to thedear sick stress of her desire--with just such faintings, wanton fires,does the soul, over-taxed by the continence of living, yield voluntaryto the grave, and adulterously make of Death its paramour.
'When she sees a bank Stuck full of flowers, she, with a sigh, will tell Her servants, what a pretty place it were To bury lovers in; and make her maids Pluck 'em, and strew her over like a corse.'
[Footnote: Beaumont and Fletcher: _The Maid's Tragedy_.]
The _mode_ spreads--then rushes into rage: to breathe is to beobsolete: to wear the shroud becomes _comme il faut_, this cereclothacquiring all the attractiveness and _eclat_ of a wedding-garment. Thecoffin is not too strait for lawless nuptial bed; and the sweet clodsof the valley will prove no barren bridegroom of a writhing progeny.There is, however, nothing specially mysterious in the operation of apestilence of this nature: it is as conceivable, if not yet asexplicable, as the contagion of cholera, mind being at least assensitive to the touch of mind as body to that of body.
It was during the ever-memorable outbreak of this obscure malady in theyear 1875 that I ventured to break in on the calm of that deep Silencein which, as in a mantle, my friend Prince Zaleski had wrapped himself.I wrote, in fact, to ask him what he thought of the epidemic. Hisanswer was in the laconic words addressed to the Master in the house ofwoe at Bethany:
'Come and see.'
To this, however, he added in postscript: 'but what epidemic?'
I had momentarily lost sight of the fact that Zaleski had so absolutelycut himself off from the world, that he was not in the least likely toknow anything even of the appalling series of events to which I hadreferred. And yet it is no exaggeration to say that those events hadthrown the greater part of Europe into a state of consternation, andeven confusion. In London, Manchester, Paris, and Berlin, especiallythe excitement was intense. On the Sunday preceding the writing of mynote to Zaleski, I was present at a monster demonstration held in HydePark, in which the Government was held up on all hands to the popularderision and censure--for it will be remembered that to many minds themysterious accompaniments of some of the deaths daily occurringconveyed a still darker significance than that implied in mereself-destruction, and seemed to point to a succession of purposelessand hideous murders. The demagogues, I must say, spoke with somewildness and incoherence. Many laid the blame at the door of thepolice, and urged that things would be different were they but placedunder municipal, instead of under imperial, control. A thousandpanaceas were invented, a thousand aimless censures passed. But thepeople listened with vacant ear. Never have I seen the populace soagitated, and yet so subdued, as with the sense of some impending doom.The glittering eye betrayed the excitement, the pallor of the cheek thedoubt, the haunting _fear_. None felt himself quite safe; menrecognised shuddering the grin of death in the air. To tingle withaffright, and to know not why--that is the transcendentalism of terror.The threat of the cannon's mouth is trivial in its effect on the mindin comparison with the menace of a Shadow. It is the pestilence thatwalketh _by night_ that is intolerable. As for myself, I confess tobeing pervaded with a nameless and numbing awe during all those weeks.And this feeling appeared to be general in the land. The journals hadbut one topic; the party organs threw politics to the winds. I heardthat on the Stock Exchange, as in the Paris _Bourse_, businessdecreased to a minimum. In Parliament the work of law-threshingpractically ceased, and the time of Ministers was nightly spent inanswering volumes of angry 'Questions,' and in facing motion aftermotion for the 'adjournment' of the House.
It was in the midst of all this commotion that I received PrinceZaleski's brief 'Come and see.' I was flattered and pleased: flattered,because I suspected that to me alone, of all men, would such aninvitation, coming from him, be addressed; and pleased, because many atime in the midst of the noisy city street and the garish, dusty world,had the thought of that vast mansion, that dim and silent chamber,flooded my mind with a drowsy sense of the romantic, till, from veryexcess of melancholy sweetness in the picture, I was fain to close myeyes. I avow that that lonesome room--gloomy in its lunar bath of softperfumed light--shrouded in the sullen voluptuousness of plushy,narcotic-breathing draperies--pervaded by the mysterious spirit of itsbrooding occupant--grew more and more on my fantasy, till theremembrance had for me all the cool refreshment shed by amidsummer-night's dream in the dewy deeps of some Perrhoebian grove ofcornel and lotos and ruby stars of the asphodel. It was, therefore, inall haste that I set out to share for a time in the solitude of myfriend.
Zaleski's reception of me was most cordial; immediately on my entranceinto his sanctum he broke into a perfect torrent of wild, enthusiasticwords, telling me with a kind of rapture, that he was just thenlaboriously engaged in co-ordinating to one of the calculi certain newproperties he had discovered in the parabola, adding with infinitegusto his 'firm' belief that the ancient Assyrians were acquainted withall our modern notions respecting the parabola itself, the projectionof bodies in general, and of the heavenly bodies in particular; andmust, moreover, from certain inferences of his own in connection withthe Winged Circle, have been conversant with the fact that light is notan ether, but only the vibration of an ether. He then galloped on tosuggest that I should at once take part with him in his investigations,and commented on the timeliness of my visit. I, on my part, was anxiousfor his opinion on other and far weightier matters than the concerns ofthe Assyrians, and intimated as much to him. But for two days he wasfirm in his tacit refusal to listen to my story; and, concluding thathe was disinclined to undergo the agony of unrest with which he wasalways tormented by any mystery which momentarily baffled him, I was,of course, forced to hold my peace. On the third day, however, of hisown accord he asked me to what epidemic I had referred. I then detailedto him some of the strange events which were agitating the mind of theoutside world. From the very first he was interested: later on thatinterest grew into a passion, a greedy soul-consuming quest after thetruth, the intensity of which was such at last as to move me even topity.
I may as well here restate the facts as I communicated them to Zaleski.The concatenation
of incidents, it will be remembered, started with theextraordinary death of that eminent man of science, ProfessorSchleschinger, consulting laryngologist to the Charite Hospital inBerlin. The professor, a man of great age, was on the point ofcontracting his third marriage with the beautiful and accomplisheddaughter of the Herr Geheimrath Otto von Friedrich. The contemplatedunion, which was entirely one of those _mariages de convenance_ socommon in good society, sprang out of the professor's ardent desire toleave behind him a direct heir to his very considerable wealth. By hisfirst two marriages, indeed, he had had large families, and was at thisvery time surrounded by quite an army of little grandchildren, fromwhom (all his direct descendants being dead) he might have been contentto select his heir; but the old German prejudices in these matters arestrong, and he still hoped to be represented on his decease by a son ofhis own. To this whim the