Why did Titian, who loved the present and the physical, endow some of his lucidly representational paintings with a background of tenderest blue? Just one brushstroke of warm, deep blue. Whether it manifests distant mountains or limitless space, one cannot tell. Titian the realist did not himself know. He did not do it for reasons of color harmony, as the art historians would have it. It was his tribute to the ineffable, which was deeply alive in the soul of even this happy, lighthearted man. Art, it seemed to me, had sought in all ages to provide a language for the mute longing of the divine within us.
St. Francis expressed this more beautifully and completely, yet in a more childlike way. Only now did I really understand him. By encompassing the love of earth, plants, stars, animals, storms, and seas in his love of God, he superseded the Middle Ages, even Dante, to discover the language of the eternally human. He calls all creation and natural phenomena his dear brothers and sisters. Later in life, when the doctors ordered that he have his forehead seared by a red-hot iron, he greeted the terrible instrument as his "dear brother, the fire," despite his dread of pain.
As I learned to love nature as if it were a person, to listen to it as if to a comrade or traveling companion speaking a foreign tongue, my melancholy, though not cured, was ennobled and cleansed. My eyes and ears were sharpened, I learned to grasp nuances of tone and subtleties of distinction. I longed to put my ear nearer and nearer to the heartbeat of every living thing, so as to understand perhaps, perhaps one day be granted the gift of expressing this heartbeat in poetry which others would awaken to. This pulse would send them to the springs of all rejuvenation and purification. But this was only a fervent wish, a dream ... I did not know whether it would be fulfilled and concentrated on what was close to hand: I offered my love to every visible thing and set myself to regard nothing with indifference or contempt.
It is impossible to express the revitalizing, soothing effect this had on my somber life. Nothing is nobler or more joyful than an unspoken, constant, dispassionate love, and if I have a heartfelt wish, it is that a few, or even one or two, of my readers be brought to learn this pure and blessed art. Some are born knowing this love and practice it unawares throughout their lives--these are God's favorites, the good children among men. Some learn it at the expense of great suffering, which is evident if you have ever noticed the resolute, quiet, glowing eyes of some cripples or victims of misfortune. If you don't care to listen to me and my poor words, visit those who have overcome and transfigured their suffering through dispassionate love.
I myself am still pitifully far from achieving this state of perfection that I have venerated in many who have suffered. Throughout the years I rarely lacked the consoling belief that I knew the right path. Yet it would be false to say that I never strayed from it, for I rested whenever I could and was not spared many a wrong turn. Two selfish tendencies warred within me against genuine love. I was a drunkard and I was unsociable. Though I cut down considerably on my intake of wine, I would still surrender completely every few weeks to the guile of the god of the vine leaves. Yet it was only rarely that I would spend the night in some drunken escapade or sprawled out on the street--the god of wine loves me and tempts me to drink only when his spirit and mine enter into friendly dialogue. Nonetheless, I would feel guilty for a long stretch after one of my bouts. But, of all things, I could not give up my love of wine, for I had inherited too strong a bent from my father. For years I had fostered this legacy with care and piety, and made it thoroughly my own. So I helped myself out of this predicament by entering into a half-serious, half-mocking pact. My Franciscan song of praise from now on included "my dear brother, wine."
Chapter Six
ANOTHER WEAKNESS OF MINE was even more troublesome: I disliked people generally, and lived as a recluse, inclined to greet any human touch with mockery or disdain.
When I first resolved to lead a new life I did not give this much thought; it seemed proper to leave other people to fend for themselves and to reserve all my tenderness, devotion, and sympathy for mute nature. At night, before going to bed, I would suddenly remember a hill, the edge of a wood, some favorite solitary tree that I had neglected for a long time. Now it stood in the night wind, dreaming, slumbering perhaps, sighing, its branches trembling. What did it really look like at this very moment? I would leave the house, find the tree, and peer at its indistinct shape in the darkness. I regarded it with astonished tenderness, carrying its dusky image back home with me.
You'll smile. This love may have been mistaken, yet it was not wasted. The only question was how I would find my way from a love of nature to love of mankind.
Well, once you've made a beginning, the rest always follows on its own. The idea of my great poetic creation hovered before my mind's eye; it seemed even more possible than before. And what if my love of nature should enable me to speak the language of woods and streams--for whom would I be doing this? Not solely for those I was fondest of, but really for the sake of a mankind I wanted to lead toward love, even teach to love. Yet with most people I was uncouth, scornful, and unloving. I felt this split within myself and knew I must struggle against unfriendliness. This was difficult because my isolation and personal circumstances made me harsh and mean, especially in social relations. It was not enough to be a little less severe at home or at the tavern, or occasionally to greet a passer-by on the street. Besides, as soon as I tried this I realized how thoroughly my relationships with people had deteriorated: even when my gestures were not hostile, they were greeted with coolness or suspicion--people thought I was mocking them. The worst of it was that for over a year I had avoided the home of the scholar, my only real acquaintance. I realized I would have to call there first if I wanted to have an entree into social life as lived in this town.
It was ironic that the milk of human kindness, which I despised so thoroughly, finally helped me in this endeavor. As soon as I thought of the scholar's house, a picture of Elizabeth came to my mind, as beautiful as she had looked standing before the Segantini cloud. I realized what a large role she had played in my longing and melancholy. For the first time in my life I gave serious thought to marriage. Until now I had been so convinced of my complete unsuitability for married life that I had capitulated to this fact with feelings of caustic self-derision. I was a poet, wanderer, drunkard, lone wolf! Now I felt that my destiny was taking shape as a love match linking me to humanity. It all seemed so tempting and certain! Elizabeth, I had noticed, was receptive to me, and she was a noble person. I remembered how vivid her beauty was when I had told her about San Clemente and when she had stood in front of the Segantini. Over the years I had gathered a great treasure from nature and art which would enable me to reveal to her what was beautiful in all things; I would surround her with everything true and beautiful. Her face and her soul would shed all their sadness and unfold all their potentialities.
Oddly enough, I was completely unaware of the comic aspect of my sudden transformation. I, a recluse who went wholly his own way, overnight had turned into an infatuated fool who dreamed of married bliss and setting up house.
At the first opportunity I called at the house that had always treated me so hospitably, and I was now received with the friendliest of reproaches. I went several times in rapid succession and eventually saw Elizabeth again. Truly, she was beautiful! She looked just as I imagined she would look as my mistress: beautiful and happy. And for a while I just basked in the beauty of her presence. She greeted me in a kindly manner, even affectionately, and with a certain air of intimate friendliness that delighted me.
Do you remember the evening on the lake in the boat, the evening decked out with Japanese lanterns and music, when my declaration of love was nipped in the bud? That had been the pathetic story of a boy in love.
Even more pathetic and sad is the story of Peter Camenzind as a man in love.
Someone mentioned in passing that Elizabeth had just become engaged. I congratulated her, and made the acquaintance of her fiance when he came to t
ake her home. I congratulated him too. Throughout the evening I wore a smile of benign good will, as irksome to me as a mask. Afterward I did not dash off to the woods or a tavern but sat down on my bed and watched the lamp until it began to smoke and went out. I sat stunned and crushed until finally I came to again. Then grief and despair spread their black wings over me once more and I lay there small and weak and sobbed like a boy.
Whereupon I packed my rucksack, went to the station, and took the morning train home. I felt like climbing mountains again. I wanted to revisit my childhood and find out whether my father was still alive.
We had grown apart. Father's hair had turned completely gray; he no longer carried himself upright and no longer looked very imposing. He treated me shyly, asked no questions, wanted me to take his bed, and seemed embarrassed as well as surprised at my visit. He still owned the little house but had sold the meadows and cattle. He received a small annuity and did a few odd jobs here and there.
After he left the room, I went to the spot where my mother's bed had stood and the past flowed by me like a broad calm stream. No longer an adolescent, I thought how swiftly the years would follow each other from now on and how soon I too would be a bent, gray man, ready to lie down and die a bitter death. In the old, shabby room, almost unchanged since I had lived there as a boy and learned my Latin and witnessed my mother's death, these thoughts seemed so natural they actually calmed me. Gratefully I remembered the abundance of my youth. A stanza of Lorenzo de Medici's that I had learned in Florence came to mind:
Quant' e bella giovenezza,
Ma si fugge tuttavia.
Chi vuol esser lieto, sia:
Di doman non c'e certezza.
Simultaneously I was surprised to find myself bringing memories from Italy, from history, and from the realm of learning into this old and familiar room.
I gave my father some money and in the evening we went to the inn. Everything appeared to be just as it was the last evening we had spent there, except that I paid for the wine. When my father boasted about champagne and described the wine that produced a star-shaped foam, he cited me as his authority and acknowledged that my capacity for drink was now greater than his. I inquired about the wizened peasant over whose bald pate I had poured wine the last time I'd been in the inn, he who had been so full of tricks. I learned he had died long ago and even his jokes had been forgotten. I drank Vaud wine, listened in on the conversations, and told a few stories myself. When I walked home with my father in the moonlight and he continued rambling and gesticulating in his intoxication, I felt a peculiar enchantment I had never felt before. Images from the past pressed upon me--Uncle Konrad, Rosi Girtanner, my mother, Richard, and Erminia. They seemed to me like a picture book whose content surprises you because everything is so beautiful and well made, whereas in reality it was not half so lovely. How fast everything had rushed past me into forgetfulness! Yet it was now engraved clearly and distinctly within me: --half a lifetime that my memory had stored without conscious effort on my part.
Only after we were home and my father finally quieted down and fell asleep did I think of Elizabeth. It had been yesterday that she greeted me and I admired her and congratulated her fiance. So much seemed to have happened since then--my grief awoke and mingled with the flood of memories to beat against my selfish and ill-protected heart like the Fohn against a trembling and fragile Alpine hut. I could not bear to stay in the house. I climbed out the window, walked to the lake, unfastened the boat, which had been badly neglected, and rowed quietly out into the pale night. The mountains, veiled in silvery mist, kept solemn watch; the moon, which was almost full, seemed to be suspended just above the peak of the Schwarzenstock. It was so quiet I could hear the Sennalpstock waterfall rushing in the distance. The ghosts of my homeland and of my youth touched me with their pale wings, crowded upon me in my small boat, and pointed entreatingly with outstretched hands. They made painful and incomprehensible gestures.
What was the meaning of my life? Why had so many joys and sorrows passed over me? Why had I thirsted for the true and the beautiful and why was my thirst still unquenched? Why had I been in love and suffered so much for these women--I whose head was bowed again in shame for an unfulfilled love. And why had God placed the burning need to be loved in my heart when in fact he had destined me to live the life of a recluse whom no one loved?
The water gurgled dully against the bow and trickled like silver from the oars; the mountains stood close and silent; the cool moonlight shifted from one mist-filled ravine to the other. The ghosts of my youth stood silently about me and gazed at me from deep eyes, silent and searching. It seemed to me I could make out the beautiful Elizabeth among them. She would have loved me and become mine if I had only come at the right time.
I felt it would be best if I were to sink quietly into the pale lake and if no one would ever ask what had become of me. Yet I rowed more swiftly when I noticed the rotten old boat drawing water. Suddenly I felt a chill and hastened to get home.
When I got there, I lay in bed exhausted yet wide awake. I reflected upon my life, seeking to find out what I lacked that would lead me to a happier and more genuine existence. I was well aware that the heart of love is goodness and gladness. I would have to begin to love mankind despite my fresh grief. But how and whom?
Then I thought of my old father and I realized for the first time that I had never loved him as I should have. I had made life difficult for him when I was young; I had gone away and left him alone after my mother's death. I had often been angry with him and finally almost forgotten him completely. The image of him lying on his deathbed began to haunt me: I stood beside it watching his soul slowly ebb away--this soul I had never known and whose love I had never sought to win.
And so I embarked on the difficult yet sweet task of learning from a cantankerous old drunkard instead of from a beautiful and beloved woman. My replies to him became more considerate, I spent as much time with him as I could, read him stories from the almanac, told him about French and Italian wines. I let him continue the little work he had to do, as he would have lost all hold on himself without it. But I never succeeded in getting him to take his measure of wine at home instead of at the inn. We tried it a few times. I fetched wine and cigars and went to some lengths to amuse him at home. The fourth or fifth evening of the experiment, he was silent and stubborn. When I asked what bothered him, he finally complained: "I'm afraid you're never going to let your father set foot in the tavern again."
"Nonsense," I said. "You're my father and it's for you to decide what we'll do."
He looked at me quizzically. Then he picked up his cap and we marched off to the tavern.
It was obvious that my father disliked being alone with me for any length of time, though he did not say so. Besides, I felt the urge to let my wounds heal in a foreign land. "What would you think if I left you again one of these days?" I asked him. He scratched his head, shrugged his shoulders, and laughed slyly and expectantly: "As you like." Before leaving, I called on a few neighbors and on the monks and asked them to keep an eye on him.
I also reserved one day to climb the Sennalpstock. From its broad, half-round summit I could look across mountain ranges and valleys, glistening lakes, and the haze of distant cities. These sights had filled me with such powerful longings as a boy. I had gone out to conquer the beautiful wide world for myself; now it lay spread out before me as beautiful and enigmatic as ever. I was ready to go forth and seek my luck once more.
I had long ago decided that it would benefit my studies if I were to spend some time in Assisi. First I returned briefly to Basel, where I took care of a few pressing matters, packed my few belongings, and sent them ahead to Perugia. I myself took the train only as far as Florence and from there hiked south in a leisurely fashion. In this region you do not need to resort to artifice to get along well with people. The life they lead is so naive, open, and free that on your way from one town to the next you can make as many friends as you want. I felt safe agai
n and at home. Later on, in Basel, I knew I would not seek the comfort of human company in "society" but among the ordinary people.
The mere fact of being alive was a joy in Perugia and Assisi. My interest in historical studies revived, my wounded soul began to heal, and I threw out new bridges to life. My concierge in Assisi, a voluble and devout grocer, entered into a deep friendship with me on the basis of several conversations we had about St. Francis--that was how I acquired the reputation of being a "good Catholic." As undeserved as this honor was, it made it possible for me to become more intimately acquainted with the people; I was no longer suspected of being a heathen, a taint attached to most foreigners in this region. Annunziata Nardini, my concierge, was thirty-four years old, a widow of colossal girth and exquisite manners. On Sundays, attired in cheerful flowery dresses, earrings, a golden chain that dangled on her bosom a collection of hammered-gold medallions tinkling and glistening, she looked the very embodiment of the holiday spirit. She carried about a heavy breviary embossed with silver (whose use, no doubt, would have given her some difficulty) and a beautiful black-and-white rosary with slender silver links (which she could handle much more dexterously). Between church services she would return to her loggetta to hold forth to her awed neighbors on the sins of absent friends. Her round pious face would acquire the poignant expression of a soul at peace with God.
Since my name was too difficult to pronounce correctly, I was simply called Signor Pietro. On golden evenings Signora Nardini and I would sit together in the tiny loggetta, surrounded by neighbors, children, cats, and dogs. In the store itself, amid fruit, baskets of vegetables, seed boxes, and the smoked sausages dangling from the ceiling, we recounted our experiences to each other, discussed harvest prospects; I smoked a cigar, or we both sucked melon slices. I told them about St. Francis, the story of Portiuncula and the saint's church, about St. Clare and the first Franciscan friars. Everyone listened intently, put a thousand questions to me, praised the saint, and gradually entered into a discussion of more recent and more sensational events, with particular preference for stories about robberies and political feuds. Cats, children, and dogs caterwauled around our feet. From personal inclination and to maintain my reputation, I ransacked the saintly legends for edifying and touching anecdotes, and was pleased to have brought along Arnold's Lives of the Patriarchs and Other Saintly Persons, among several other books. These frank and simple stories I translated, with little variations, into idiomatic Italian. Passers-by would stop and listen and then join in our talk; in this way, the audience changed three or four times an evening. Signora Nardini and I were the only permanent fixtures and were never absent. I would always have a bottle of red wine beside me, and the frugal people were impressed by my lordly consumption Gradually, even the bashful neighborhood girls began to trust me and take part in the conversations from the doorstep. They allowed me to make them presents of small pictures and began to take me for a saint because I did not tease them with suggestive jokes or seem to make an effort to gain their confidence. Among them there were several big-eyed, dreamy beauties who could have been models for Perugino. I was fond of them all and enjoyed their playful, good-natured company. Yet I did not fall in love with any of them, for their beauty was so much the same that it seemed a racial rather than a personal quality. Someone else who joined us was Matteo Spinelli, a young fellow, son of a baker, a witty and wily joker who could imitate any number of animals, knew all the latest scandal, and was fairly bursting with impudent and clever ruses. He would listen with exemplary piety and humility as I recounted my legends; then, by naively asking a serious or a malicious question, or by comparing or speculating, he would ridicule the holy friars, to the dismay of the grocer's widow and the undisguised delight of most of the audience.