Part 47 (1/2)

I sank down upon the ground as I heard that voice. I was shuddering with fear; and I moaned aloud: ”I don't want to die! I want to live, I want to do my work!”--And then I heard the voice say, ”You hound!”

And so I shut my hands like a vise; and I panted: ”No, no! Come! Take me!

I will go!” I think it must have been hours that I lay there, wrestling in horrible agony. I cried again and again: ”Yes, yes,--I will do it! I will do it!” I fled on breathlessly, whispering, panting to myself. Before I knew it I was saying part of The Captive--the first fearful lines of the struggle:

Spirit or fiend that led me to this way!

Oh, tell me, was ever poet so taken at his word before?

I thought of that then, and I shook like a leaf with the pain of it. Again and again I faced it, again and again I failed. It was physical pain, it was a thing that I could feel like a clutch at my heart. Was it not tearing out my very soul?

But the voice cried out to me: ”You have been a slave to the world! You have been a slave to life! You have been crucified upon the cross of Art!”--Yes, and all things a man may sacrifice to Art but one thing; he may not sacrifice his soul!

”What!” it rushed on. ”Have you so much faith in your art, and no faith in your G.o.d? Is it for _Him_ that you have so much need to fear, to crouch and tremble, to plot and to plan--for _Him_? And when he made you, when he gave you your inspiration--his soul was faint?”

”He that sendeth forth the surging springtime, and covereth all the earth with new life! He that is the storm upon the sea, the wind upon the mountains, the sun upon the meadows! He that poureth the races from his lap! He that made the ages, the suns and the systems throughout all s.p.a.ce--he that maketh them forever and smiteth them into dust again for play! He that is infinite, unthinkable, all-glorious, all-sufficient--_He hath need of thee_!

”He hath need that thy wonderful books should be written, that mankind should hear thy wonderful songs! Thy books, thy songs, that are to last through the ages! And when this earth shall have withered, when the sun shall have touched it with his fiery finger, when it shall roll through s.p.a.ce as silent and bare as the desert, when the comet shall have smitten it and hurled it into dust, when the systems to which it belongs--the sun into which it melted--shall be no more known to time--_where then will be thy books and thy songs_? Where then will be these things for which thou didst crouch and tremble, didst plot and plan? For which thou didst lick the feet of vile men--_for which thou didst give up thy G.o.d_!”

And then I leaped up and stretched out my arms. ”No! No!” I cried aloud: ”I have done with it! Have I not fought this fight once, and did I not win it--this fight of The Captive? And can I not fight it and win it again?

Away, away with you, world, for I am a free man again, and no slave! Soul am I, _will_ am I, unconquerable, all-defying! In His arms I lie, in His breath I breathe, in His life I live--I am _He_! Fear I know not, death I know not, slavery and sin and doubt and fear I will never know again!”

Nay,--nay. Go thy road, proud world, and I go mine!--

In dem wogenden Schwall, in dem tonenden Schall, in des Welt-Athems wehendem All!-- ertrinken-- versinken-- unbewusst-- hochste l.u.s.t!

Oh, think not of that poetry! Think of the music! The surging, drunken, overwhelming waves of music! Do you not hear them--do you not hear them?--

Wie sie schwellen, mich umrauschen!

Soll ich athmen, soll ich lauschen!

So the thing went; and I panted and throbbed, and sank down upon the ground for weakness. There came to me all that mad poetry that I had written myself, all that victory that I had won, that freedom, that vision, that glory! It came to me ten times over, for was it not everything to me now?

It was more than I could bear, it split my brain.

And it would not leave me. All through the long, long night I prayed and wept with it; and in the morning I reeled through the street with it, and men stared at me.

But here was one time when I did not fear men! I was free--I was a soul at last. I had won the victory, I went my way as a G.o.d. I had renounced, I had given up fear, I had given up my _self_. My mind was made up, and I never change my mind. I had pa.s.sed the death-sentence upon myself, I walked through the streets as a disembodied soul--as the Captive dragged to the banquet-hall.

But no, I went to my torture of myself.

I went to the store. It was early Sunday morning, and the place was just open.--I got my papers and put them under my arm--my original draft of The Captive, and all my journal. I went down the street and came to a place where a man was burning some trash.