“His son died yesterday morning. His only son. Didn’t you hear the women lamenting?”
“I heard nothing. Nothing.”
“They had him in the inner room. They must have muffled their laments to keep you from hearing and being disturbed. . . . Pleasant journey!”
My eyes had filled with tears.
“What are you crying for!” exclaimed the old man in astonishment. “Oh, I see: you’re young, you haven’t got used to death yet. Pleasant journey!”
It’s fine to be in Crete, but only to gain momentum. In a few months’ time I felt constricted again. The roads narrowed, my family home shrank, the basil and marigolds in the yard lost their fragrance. Observing how my old friends had settled in, I was seized with terror. I vowed never to shut myself up inside the four walls of an office, never to come to terms with the good life, never to sign an agreement with necessity. I used to go down to the harbor and gaze at the sea. It seemed a doorway to freedom. O to open it and flee!
I began to pace up and down the house in sullen silence. My father watched me and knit his brow. One day I overheard him say to my mother, “What’s wrong with this son of yours? What bug is eating him? Instead of looking in front of him to grasp what is in arm’s reach, he looks beyond to the unobtainable. For him, two birds in the bush are worth one in the hand. Call me a liar if our son isn’t like those lunatics you read about in fairy tales, the ones who go to the ends of the earth supposedly to find the Fountain of Youth.”
But he was crying over spilt milk. He expected me to open an office and begin acting as sponsor in village baptisms and weddings in order to win friends who would elect me to the legislature; also to write articles in the local newspaper and to bring out a pamphlet saying that the place was going to the dogs and that it was necessary by all means for new people to emerge and take over the helm.
One day, unable to restrain himself, he demanded, “Why do you go about doing nothing? When do you plan to open an office and get down to work?”
“I’m still not ready.”
“What more do you need?”
I needed nothing, and yet I needed everything. I was still tormented by youth’s insolence and greed; the Theban eremites with their yearning for the absolute were at work inside me (perhaps they still are), as were also the great voyagers who had enlarged the earth by traveling.
Gathering up courage, I repeated, “I’m still not ready. The University of Athens isn’t enough. I have to pursue higher studies.”
“And that means?”
I hesitated. My father was sitting in his usual corner on the couch, next to the courtyard window. He kept rolling and unrolling a cigarette, without looking at me. It was Sunday afternoon; the rays entering through the panes cast their light on his stern sunburned face and thick mustache, and on the scar across his forehead, which must have been caused by a Turkish sword.
“And that means?” he asked again, raising his head now to glance at me. “Do you want to go abroad?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
I think my voice was trembling. “To Paris.”
My father remained silent for a few moments.
“All right,” he said at last. “Go.”
My father was wild and uneducated, but he never denied me anything when it was a question of my intellectual development. Once I overheard him say to a friend when he was in a good mood, “Who cares about the bloody vineyards, or the raisins, wine, and olive oil! Let my whole harvest turn into paper and ink for my son! I have faith in him.” He made every sacrifice, seemingly hanging on me all his hopes for his own salvation, for if I were saved, he would be saved as well, and so would our entire obscure lineage.
While I was still a child, I once told him I wanted to learn Hebrew in order to read the Old Testament in the original. There were Jews in Megalo Kastro at that time; my father called the Rabbi, and they agreed that I should go to him three times a week to receive lessons in Hebrew. But the moment our friends and relatives heard, their hair stood on end and they ran to my father. “What are you doing!” they shrieked. “Have you no feelings for your son? Don’t you know that on Good Friday those crucifiers put Christian children in a spike-lined trough and drink their blood?” My father finally grew weary of their screams and my mother’s weeping. “We’ve got ourselves into a fine kettle of fish,” he said to me one day. “Forget the Hebrew; you’ll learn it when you grow up.”
Whenever I told him I wanted to learn a foreign language, he said, “Fine, go ahead and learn it. But only on one condition: that you wear another undershirt.” It seems I was delicate, and he must have been afraid. I learned three foreign languages before I left Crete, and was thus obliged to wear three additional undershirts. When I went to the university at Athens, I discarded them.
“All right, go,” he said once more.
I could not contain my joy. I bent over to clasp his hand and kiss it, but he anticipated me and drew it back.
“I’m not a priest!” he exclaimed.
The next day I kissed my mother’s hand. Bending over, she gave me her blessing and instructed me for the love of God not to turn Catholic. Then she hung an amulet around my neck. It contained a piece of the True Cross. It seems my grandfather had worn it in the wars and no bullet had touched him.
My father accompanied me to the harbor, glancing at me with uneasiness and curiosity from time to time out of the corner of his eye. He could not understand who I was, what I wanted, and why I shifted about, first here then there, instead of settling down in Crete.
“I think you’re like your grandfather,” he suddenly said to me as we were arriving at the waterfront. “I don’t mean your mother’s father, but mine, the pirate.”
After a moment’s silence, he continued. “But he rammed ships, killed and looted, amassed property. What about you! What ships are you ramming?”
We reached the harbor. He squeezed my hand.
“Goodbye, good luck, and mind what you’re about!” He shook his head, not at all satisfied with his only son.
And truly, what ships was I ramming?
23
PARIS. NIETZSCHE THE GREAT MARTYR
DAWN. A fine gentle drizzle was falling. My face glued to the carriage window, I could see Paris passing in back of the rain’s diaphanous net—passing, laughing amidst its tears, and welcoming me. I saw the bridges go by, and the multistoried soot-covered buildings, the parks and churches, the stark, leafless chestnut trees, the people walking hurriedly along the wide gleaming streets. Through the rain’s hanging filaments I could see all of Paris’s charmingly playful face, smiling and shining dimly, just as we glimpse the weaver behind the threads of the loom.
I asked myself what could be in store for me in this long-coveted city, and I took man’s soul to task for its inability to predict the future, not even one hour in advance. In order to see ahead could the soul do nothing but wait for the unborn to be born? Was it drab and infirm, just like the flesh? I wondered if I would find in this great city what I was looking for. But what was I looking for? What did I wish to find? Did this mean that the guide with the crown of thorns was not enough for me, the guide who stood as a landmark on the elevated summit of a mountain made all of stones and blood, and showed me the way? Or could Father Joachim have been correct in urging me to pass through the entire earthly inferno and purgatory if I wished to reach paradise—to experience joy, pain, and sin, and afterwards to transcend joy, pain, and sin if I wished to be saved?
The light had lifted its head a little; a glabrous sun suspended itself in this strange sky composed of fog, melancholy, and inexpressible tenderness. How plucked the long-maned charioteer of Greece was in these foreign parts! Far away in his homeland he stripped everything and dressed it again in his light, making the soul gleam as secretless and visible as the body. The demons emerged from their dark cellars there; the light penetrated to the black marrow of their bones and turned them into creatures guileless and sweet of speech, like men. But here the sun was
different, which is to say that the faces of the earth and the soul were different. We had to learn to love the new beauty’s half-illumined forehead, discreet smile, and hidden significance.
This is God’s new countenance, I reflected as I gazed avidly at the trees and houses, the mascaraed women, the somber churches. This is God’s new countenance. I fall and worship His grace!
My first contact with this new earthly countenance was an intoxication which lasted for days, for weeks. The streets, parks, libraries, museums, the Gothic churches, the men and women in the theaters and on the streets, the fine snow that had begun to fall—all were intoxicated too, and they reeled in front of my enraptured soul until finally the drunkenness wore off and the world steadied itself once more and grew stable.
One day while I was bent over a volume in the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, a girl came up to me. She was holding a book containing a man’s photograph and she had covered the bottom of the page with her hand in order to hide his name. Bending over and gazing at me in amazement, she pointed to the photograph.
“Who is he?” she asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. “How should I know?”
“But it’s you—the very image! Look at the forehead, the thick eyebrows, the sunken eyes. The only difference is that he has a large drooping mustache and you don’t.”
I looked at the picture, startled.
“Well, who is he?” I said, trying to push aside the girl’s hand in order to see the name.
“Don’t you recognize him? Is it the first time you’ve seen him? It’s Nietzsche!”
Nietzsche! I had heard of him, but still had not read any of his books.
“Haven’t you read The Birth of Tragedy or Zarathustra? About Eternal Recurrence, the Superman?”
“Nothing, nothing,” I answered shamefully.
“Wait a minute!” exclaimed the girl, and she flew off.
In a few moments she had returned with Zarathustra.
“Here,” she said with a laugh. “Here’s some solid, leonine nourishment for your brain—if you have a brain, and if it’s hungry!”
That was one of the most decisive moments of my life. Owing to the intervention of an unknown university student, my destiny had laid an ambush for me there in the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève. Waiting for me there was the Antichrist, that great fiery warrior all covered with blood.
At first he completely terrified me. Nothing was lacking: Lucifer’s talons, fangs, and wings were all in evidence, as well as the impudence and arrogance, the unyielding mind, the rabid rage for destruction, the sarcasm and cynicism, the impious laugh. But his impetuosity and pride swept me off my feet, the danger intoxicated me, and I plunged into his work with fright and longing, as though entering a bustling jungle full of famished beasts and dizzying orchids.
Each day I could not wait for my classes at the Sorbonne to end and night to fall. I longed to go home and have the landlady come and light the fire so that I could open his books—they were all piled high on my desk—and begin to share his struggle. I had grown accustomed little by little to his voice, his halting breath, his cries of pain. I had not known—only now was I discovering this—that the Antichrist struggles and suffers just as Christ does and that sometimes, in their moments of distress, their faces look the same.
His pronouncements struck me as impious blasphemies, his Superman as the assassin of God. This rebel had a mysterious fascination, however. His words were a seductive spell which dizzied and intoxicated; they made your heart dance. Truly, his thought was a Dionysiac dance, an erected paean raised triumphantly at the most hopeless moment of the human and superhuman tragedy. In spite of myself, I admired his affliction, mettle, and purity, as well as the drops of blood which bespattered his brow as though he too, the Antichrist, were wearing a crown of thorns.
Although I did not have this consciously in mind at all, the two figures, Christ and Antichrist, gradually merged. Was it true, then, that these two were not eternal enemies, that Lucifer was not God’s adversary? Would evil eventually be able to enter the service of good and collaborate with it? In the course of time, as I studied the work of this prophet opposed to God, I mounted step by step to a foolhardy, mystical unity. The first step of initiation, I said, was this: good and evil are enemies. The second and higher step was: good and evil are fellow workers. The highest step, the highest I was able to reach at present, was: good and evil are identical! On this step I halted, shuddering from a terrible suspicion that flashed across my mind: perhaps this Saint Blasphemer was prodding me to join him in his blasphemy!
I passed the entire winter engaged in this battle. The contest became ever more obstinate and close-quartered as time went by; I inhaled the adversary’s panting, deeply anguished breaths from an ever-decreasing distance, until hate began to change, be transformed, and without my knowledge the struggle turned into an embrace. Never in my life had I felt so tangibly and with such astonishment that hate, by passing successively through comprehension, mercy, and sympathy, can be transformed into love. The same can happen when good wrestles with evil, I reflected. It was as though they had formerly been united, were then separated, and now were struggling to meet once more. But the time of perfect reconciliation had apparently not yet arrived. If I could judge from my own experience, however, such a time would most assuredly come; that is, the day when recognition would be given to the adversary and also to his free participation in the great synthesis which is called “cosmos,” in other words “harmony.”
What moved me most of all, O Great Martyr, was your holy, tragic life. Disease served as your great enemy and also your greatest friend, the only one that stayed loyal to the death. It never permitted you to relax or remain where you were, never allowed you to declare: I am fine here, I shall go no further. You were a flame; you flared up, were consumed, left your ashes behind you, and departed.
Yea, I know whence I come.
Insatiable as flame,
I burn and am consumed.
Whatever I touch is turned to light,
Whatever I leave is turned to carbon.
Assuredly lama flame.
When spring arrived and the weather grew a little warmer, I embarked on a pilgrimage to find and follow the drops of your still-warm blood on all the ascents of your heroic struggle and martyrdom.
One rainy morning I wandered through the fog, seeking you in the narrow, muddy lanes of your natal village. Then I found your mother’s house in the small neighboring city with its superb Gothic church. During your periods of high fever you often took refuge there, to find peace in becoming her child once more. Next came the divine streets along the waterfront of Genoa, where you found so much pleasure in the sea, the sweetness of the sky, the humble people. You were so gentle and meek, so poor, so cheerful, that the little old women of the neighborhood called you a saint. And you made plans, you remember, to begin an exceedingly simple and tranquil life: “I resolve to be independent in such a way that my independence offends no one; to have a hidden tender-voiced pride; to sleep without cares, avoid drinking, prepare my own humble meals; to have no illustrious and imposing friends; not to look at women, read newspapers, or seek honors; to associate only with the choicest souls, and if I do not find any that are especially choice, then with the common people.”
How moved I was while searching beneath the springtime sun in Engadine between Sils-Maria and Silvaplana, searching for the pyramidal rock where you were first overwhelmed by the vision of Eternal Recurrence! You cried out amid wailing and lamentation, “Even as bitter and insupportable as my life is, let it be blessed, and may it come again and again, innumerable times.” For you were tasting that bitter joy of heroes, a joy which to paltry souls seems a martyrdom: to see the abyss in front of you and proceed toward it without condescending to feel afraid.
The surrounding peaks steamed bluishly in the sunlight. I heard a noise in the distance and saw a mountain of snow suddenly collapse. I recalled what your friend wrote to you: “In yo
ur books I seem to hear the distant sound of falling water.”
On my way into Sils-Maria I turned to my right with a shudder as I was crossing the small footbridge with the humble cemetery next to it, because just as you had suddenly felt Zarathustra next to you, so I in the same way saw my shadow divide in two as I looked down at it—and there you were, walking at my side.
All of your exploits and tribulations rise into my mind, O Great Martyr. Still full of youth and ardor, you persistently interrogated every hero in order to select one who would subdue your heart. The day came when you encountered Schopenhauer, the Brahman of the North. Seating yourself at his feet, you discovered the heroic, despairing vision of life: The world is my own creation. Everything, both visible and invisible, is a deceptive dream. Nothing exists but will—blind, without beginning or end, purposeless, indifferent, neither rational nor irrational. Nonrational, monstrous. When jammed into time and place it crumbles into innumerable forms. These it obliterates. Then it creates new forms and smashes them again, continuing for all eternity in this same way. There is no such thing as progress; destiny is not governed by reason; religion, morality, and great ideas are worthless consolations good only for cowards and idiots. The strong man, knowing this, confronts the world’s purposeless phantasmagoria with tranquility and rejoices in dissolving the multiform, ephemeral veil of Maya.
All that you had previously divined, O future prophet of the Superman, was being organized now into a strict, well-knit theory, being elevated into a heroic vision. The poet, philosopher, and warrior at odds within your heart were becoming brothers. In music, solitude, and long walks the young ascetic was enjoying happiness for a certain time.
Once when a downpour caught you in the mountains, you wrote, “What do I care about moral precepts—do this, don’t do that? How different are lightning, tempest, and hail—free forces devoid of moral teaching! How happy and vigorous are these forces which remain untroubled by thought!”
Your soul overflowed with heroic bitterness when, one day in the flower of your youth, destiny brought you face to face with your next guide after Schopenhauer, the man who gave you the harshest joy of your life—Wagner.