My Life and My Efforts Part 2

But you would want to be the steel, a blade That glistens in the paraklet's [a] own fist.

Be quiet, thus!

"He rips you from the fire - - He casts you on the anvil - - holds you tight.

It clangs and cracks on you in every pore.

The pain will start its work, the smith, the expert.

He spits into his fists, and then he grasps, Lifts with both hands, the giant hammer up - - - The blows do strike. Each blow is like a murder, A murder killing you. You think you're crushed.

Hot sc.r.a.ps spew widely, everywhere around.

Your self gets thinner, smaller, even smaller, And yet, you must go back into the fire - - Again - - and yet again, until the smith Will see the spirit in h.e.l.l's agony, Through all the gloom of soot and hammers' blows, Who smiles at him in calm and grateful joy.

This one is fixed into the vice and ground.

The file does screech, and eats away from you Whatever still - - -"

"Desist! It is enough!"

"It does go on, for now the drill is used, It spirals deeply - - -"

"Silence! Oh, for G.o.d's sake!"

etc. etc.

[a] parakletos (Greek): a person called to one's aid, especially to intercede before G.o.d, used in John 14-16 for the Holy Spirit (the King James version translates it as "comforter"

here) and in 1John 2:1 for Jesus Christ (the King James version translates it as "advocate" here).

So this is how Maerdistan is like, and this is what is going on inside the "spirits' furnace of Kulub"! Every inhabitant of Sitara knows the tale which says that the souls of all important people, who are to be born, are sent down from heaven. Angels and devils are waiting for them. A soul who is so fortunate to come across an angel will be born in Jinnistan, and all of its paths are smoothened. But the poor soul who falls into the hands of a devil will be dragged to Ardistan by him, and hurled into an even deeper misery, the higher the task was which the soul had been given from above. The devil wants it to perish and rests neither day nor night to turn him, who was destined to be gifted or ingenious, into a rotten and doomed individual. All resistance and rebellion is futile; the poor soul is doomed. And even if he succeeded in escaping from Ardistan, he would still be apprehended in Maerdistan and dragged to the spirits' furnace, to be tortured and tormented, until he loses his last bit of courage to resist.

Only rarely, the heavenly strength, given to such a soul hurled to Ardistan, is thus great and thus inexhaustible that it could bear even the strongest pain of the spirits' furnace and face the smith and his fellows "through all the gloom of soot and hammers' blows, and smile at him in calm and grateful joy." Even the greatest pain is powerless against such a heavenly child, it is immune; it is saved. It will not be destroyed by the fire, but rather purified and fortified. And once all the dross has fallen off, the smith has to keep his distance, because there is nothing left that would belong to Ardistan. Therefore, neither man nor devil can prevent it now, and may all of the lowland burst out in an roar of rage, from rising up to Jinnistan, where everyone is his neighbour's angel. - - -

II. My Childhood

I was born in the lowest and deepest part of Ardistan, a favourite of distress, worry, and sorrow. My father was a poor weaver.

Both of my grandfathers had met with fatal mishaps. My mother's father died at home, my father's father in the forest. On Christmas day, he had gone to a neighbouring village, to fetch some bread. Nightfall came suddenly. In a raging snowstorm he lost his way and plunged into the ravine of "Krahenholz" <>< p="">

Wood>, which used to be rather steep, and could not struggle his way out again. His tracks were blown away. He was searched for a long time in vain. Not until the snow had disappeared, his corpse, and also the bread, was found. Generally, Christmas has very often been, for myself as well as my family, not so much a joyous time, but rather a time of tragic misfortune.

I was born on February the 25th, 1842, in the tiny town of Ernstthal in the Erzgebirge [a], which was a very poor and small town then, mostly populated by weavers. Now, it has been incorporated into the slightly larger Hohenstein . There were nine of us: my father, my mother, both grandmothers, four sisters, and me, the only boy.

My mother's mother scrubbed floors for other people and span cotton. On some occasions, she earned more than 25 pfennig per day. Then, she became generous and gave us five children two tiny rolls of bread, which only cost four pfennig, because they were extremely hard and stale, often even moldy. She was a kind, hard working, silent woman, who never complained. She died, as one would say, of old age. The real reason for her death was probably what is nowadays discretely termed as "being underfed".

About my other grandmother, my father's mother, there is more to tell, but not here, at this point. My mother was a martyr, a saint, always quiet, infinitely hard working, constantly willing to make a sacrifice for other, even poorer people in spite of our own poverty. Never ever, I have heard her speak a bad word. She was a blessing for everyone she met, and a special blessing for us, her children. No matter how hard she suffered, she would never let anyone know about it. But at night, when she sat, busily knitting, by the light of the small, smoking oil-lamp and thought no one was watching, it happened that a tear came to her eye to run down her cheek, vanishing even faster than it had appeared. With one movement of the fingertips this trace of her sufferings was instantly wiped away.

[a] Erzgebirge: the mountain range which forms the border of Saxony with Bohemia.

The name of the town is spelled "Ernsttal" throughout most of the original book. In 1901, there had been a reform of the German spelling system, changing "th" into "t" in all words where it does not transliterate the Greek letter theta. Thus "Thal" became "Tal". But this change should not be applied to names of places and persons.

My father was a man of two souls: One soul of infinite tenderness and one of tyrannic proportions, knowing no limits in his rage, incapable to control himself. He possessed outstanding talents, all of which remained undeveloped on account of our immense poverty. He had never attended any school, but had learnt through his own efforts to read fluently and to write very well. He was naturally handy in all crafts necessary for daily life. Whatever his eyes saw, his hands could reproduce. Though being just a weaver, he was nevertheless capable to tailor his own coats and trousers, and to sole his own boots. He enjoyed whittling and sculpting, and what he achieved in these field had some appeal and was not too bad. When I wanted a violin, and he did not have the money to buy the bow as well, he swiftly made one himself. Its shape was not so beautifully curved, and it lacked in elegance, but it was entirely fit for its job. Father liked to busy himself with his work, but all of his work was always done in a hurry.

What took another weaver fourteen hours, took him only ten. He then used the other four to do things he enjoyed more. During those ten hours of immense strain, he was very bad company, everyone had to keep quiet, no one was allowed to stir. At these times, we lived in constant fear of arousing his rage. Then, woe on us! Attached to his loom, there was a threefold woven rope, which left blue marks on the flesh, and behind the oven, he kept the well known "birch-wood Hans", whom we children particularly feared, because father loved to soak it in the large "oven-pot"

before every chastis.e.m.e.nt, to make it more elastic and therefore more penetrating. But on the other hand, when the ten hours were over, we had nothing to fear any more. We all sighed in relief, and father's other soul smiled at us. He could be downright endearing then, but even in most joyous and peaceful moments, we felt like standing on an active volcano, which might errupt at any given moment. Then we got the rope or the "Hans", until father's strength wore out. Our oldest sister, a highly gifted, kind, happy, conscientious girl, was still disciplined by slaps to the face after she was engaged, because she had come home from a walk with her fiance just slightly later than she had been permitted.

Here, I have to interrupt, to interject a serious, more important remark. I am not writing this book for my opponents' sake, to respond to them or to defend myself against them. I am rather of the opinion that the manner in which I am being attacked renders any kind of response or defence impossible. Nor am I writing this book for my friends, because they know, understand, and comprehend me, so that I have no need to inform them about myself. I rather write it only FOR MY OWN SAKE, to become certain of myself and to account to myself what I have done up to now and what I am still planning to do. Thus I write in order to confess. But I am not confessing to people; after all, they would also never think of admitting their sins to me, but rather I am confessing to my G.o.d and myself, and whatever these two will say after I have ended, will bear upon me. Thus, these are not ordinary, but sacred, hours in which I write these pages. I am not just talking here for this life, but also for the other life I believe in and I am yearning for. In making this confession, I put myself into this ent.i.ty and existence as which I will persist after death. Thus, it can be truly, truly irrelevant to me, what my friends or foes will say about this, my book. I place it in very different hands, the right hands, the hands of destiny, of omniscient providence, which knows neither favour nor disfavour, only justice and truth.

Here, nothing can be concealed or embellished. Here, everything has to be said and admitted honestly as it is, no matter how unrespectful it may seem or how much it might hurt. Someone had invented the expression "Karl-May-problem". Well then, I accept it and let it stand. This problem will not be solved by any of these people, who have not even read my books or did not understand them and nevertheless pa.s.s judgement upon them. The Karl-May-problem is mankind's most fundamental problem, transposed from the huge, all encompa.s.sing plural into the singular, into the single individual. And the same way this problem of mankind is to be solved, the Karl-May-problem is also to be solved, there is no other way! Whoever turns out to be incapable of solving the Karl-May-puzzle in a satisfactory, humane manner, shall for G.o.d's sake keep his feeble hand and inadequate ideas from grasping beyond his own self and to deal with more difficult questions that concern all of mankind! The key for all of these puzzles exists for a long time. The Christian church calls it "original sin" [a]. To know the forefathers and foremothers is to understand the children and grandchildren; and only with a humane att.i.tude, a truly n.o.ble spirit, one will be enabled to be truthful and honest concerning one's ancestors, in order to be able to be just as truthful and honest concerning the descendants. To bring the influence of the deceased on later generations to light, is, on the one hand, a bliss and, on the other hand, a redemption for both parts. And therefore, I too have to describe my family just as they have been in reality, whether this might be regarded as being contrary to child's duty or not. I do not only have to be truthful concerning them and me, but also concerning all of my fellow-men. Perhaps someone else could learn from our example to do the right thing in his own affairs. - -

[a] "Erbsunde": the German expression for "original sin"

suggests rather a meaning of "inherited sin". Actually, the idea of Adam's original sin being inherited by every human being at birth is rather common among Catholics and Protestants (but is rejected by Orthodox Christians). I have been told that this belief is based on a misinterpretation of Romans 5:12 by St. Augustine, who interpreted the words for "sin" and "death" as synonymous in this verse: "as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death pa.s.sed upon all men".

Entirely unexpectedly, mother had inherited a house as well as a few small, linen money-pouches from a distant relative. One of these money-pouches contained lots of two-pfennig-pieces, another one lots of tree-pfennig-pieces, and a third one lots of groschen [a]. A fourth one contained three score of fifty-pfennig-pieces, and in the fifth and last pouch, ten old pieces of six from Schaffhausen, ten eight-groschen-pieces, five gulden [b], and four taler [c] were found. This was really a fortune! In our poverty, it seemed almost like a million!

Granted, the house was just as wide as three small windows and largely built of wood, but on the other hand, it was three storeys high and had on the very top, right under the ridge of the roof, a pigeonry, which is, of course, not so commonly found.

Grandmother, my father's mother, moved into the ground floor, which only consisted of one room with two windows and the entrance. Behind the room was a chamber with an old mangle, which was rented to other people at two pfennig per hour. There were happy Sat.u.r.days, when this mangle earned us ten, twelve, yes even fourteen pfennig. This increased our standard of living quite extensively. On the first floor, the parents lived with us.

There stood the loom with its reel. On the second floor, we slept with a colony of mice and some larger rodents, who usually lived in the pigeonry and only visited us at night. There also was a cellar, but it was always empty. Once, it held a few bags of potatoes, but they did not belong to us, but rather to a neighbour, who did not have his own cellar. Grandmother remarked that it would be much better, if the cellar belonged to him and the potatoes to us. The yard was just big enough for us five children to stand in it without crowding each other. It adjoined the garden, which contained an elder-bush, an apple-tree, and a plum-tree, as well as small pond, which we called our "lake". The elder-bush supplied us with the tea, we drank in order to get into a sweat, whenever we had caught a cold. But it did not last very long, because as soon as one of us children had caught a cold, all others started coughing as well and wanted to sweat along. The apple-tree always blossomed very beautifully and amply. But since we knew just too well that apples taste best right after the blossoms were gone, all apples were usually harvested as early as the beginning of June. The plums, on the other hand, were taboo to us. Grandmother enjoyed them far too much. They were counted daily, and n.o.body dared to touch them. Nevertheless, we children got more, much more of them, than what was our rightful share. As far as the "lake" is concerned, it was full of life, but unfortunately not with fish, but with frogs. We knew all of them individually, even by their voices. There were always between ten and fifteen of them. We fed them with earth-worms, flies, beetles, and all kinds of other nice things we could not enjoy ourselves for gastronomic or aesthetic reasons, and they always responded very gratefully. They knew us. They left the water, whenever we approached them. Some even allowed us to hold and pet them. But the full measure of their grat.i.tude could be heard at night, when we were falling asleep. No dairymaid could enjoy her zither more, then we enjoyed our frogs. We knew precisely, which one it was, making his noise, whether it was Arthur, Paul, or Fritz, and when they even began to sing in a duet or in a chorus, we jumped out of our beds, opened the windows, to join the croaking, until mother or grandmother came and put us back where we belonged. Unfortunately, one day, a so-called district-physician came to our small town, to conduct a so-called health-survey. Everywhere, he found something objectionable.

This equally weird and callous man clapped his hands over his head, as soon as he saw our garden and our beautiful pond, and declared that his cesspool of pestilence and cholera had to disappear at once. The next day, the policeman Eberhardt brought a note from the town's Judge Layritz, stating that within three days the pond had to be filled in and the population of frogs had to be killed, otherwise a fine of fifteen "good groschen" [d] had to be payed. We children were outraged. To murder our frogs!

Well, if Judge Layritz had been a frog, then we would have done it with pleasure! We discussed the matter, and as we decided, so it was carried out. The water was scooped from the pond, until we could catch the frogs. They were put into the large basked, which had a lid, and carried to the large pond of the coal-pit behind the rifle-house, grandmother marching ahead, we followed. There, every frog was individually taken from the basket, lovingly petted, and put into the water. How many sighs could be heard, how many tears were shed, and how many condemning judgements were pa.s.sed on that so-called district-physician, I can no longer say with certainty now, after more than sixty years have pa.s.sed. But I still know quite definitely that grandmother a.s.sured us, to put an end to our immense sorrow, every one of us would, after precisely ten years had pa.s.sed, inherit a three times larger house with a garden, five times as large, which would contain a ten times larger lake with twenty times larger frogs. This brought an equally sudden and pleasant change to our disposition.

Cheerfully, we marched home with grandmother and the empty basket.

[a] Groschen: a coin worth 10 pfennig.

[b] Gulden, a.k.a. guilder: a coin worth 20 groschen.

[c] Taler (outdated spelling: Thaler), a.k.a. dollar: a coin worth 30 groschen. (The American currency was named after this coin.) [d] "Guter Groschen" (good groschen): an older type of groschen, worth slightly more (1.25) than the Neugroschen (new-groschen).

This happened at a time, when I was no longer blind and was already able to walk. I was neither born blind, nor was I inflicted with some kind of an inherited physical defect. Father and mother were indeed vigorous and healthy by nature. They have never been sick throughout their lives. To accuse me of atavistic frailties is an act of malice, I have to reject most decisively.

That I fell seriously ill shortly after my birth, lost my eyesight, and was ailing for entire four years, was not the consequence of inheritance, but rather only due to the local conditions, the poverty, ignorance, and harmful quackery, the victim of which I became. As soon as I came into the hands of a capable physician, my eyesight returned, and I became a most sound and robust boy, who was strong enough to take on any other boy.

But, before I talk about myself, I have to devote some more time to the surroundings, in which I have spent my earliest childhood.

Along with the house, mother had also inherited the debts, a.s.sociated with it. Interests had to be paid on them. Therefore, all we got out of it was that we had to pay interests instead of rent. Mother was economical, and father was so too in his own way. But just as he was excessive in everything, in his love, his rage, his work, his praise, his reprimand, so he was here as well in is a.s.sessment of that small inheritance, which could only be an incentive to continue saving money and to remove the debt from the house. But though he did not take to the belief he had suddenly become rich, he nonetheless presumed he could adopt a different lifestyle, now. He stopped spending his entire life toiling at the loom. After all, he had a house now, and he had money, lots of money. He could turn to something else, which was less strenuous, more worth while than weaving. While lying in his bed, being unable to sleep, and thinking about what he should do, he heard the rats rumbling upstairs in the empty pigeonry. This rumble was repeated day by day, and so, in that manner well known to any psychologist, the decision ripened in him, to drive out the rats and to buy pigeons. He wanted to become a pigeon-dealer, though he knew nothing at all about this trade. He had been told that a lot of money could be made in this business, and was convinced that, even without the necessary special knowledge, he would possess enough intelligence to outsmart any other dealer.

The rats were driven out and pigeons were bought.

Unfortunately, this purchase could not be made without spending some money. Mother had to sacrifice one of her pouches, perhaps even two. She did it just reluctantly. The pigeons did not give her the same joy, they gave us children. Our greatest pleasure was to watch the dear animals changing their tender plumage.

Father had bought two pairs of very expensive "blue-striped"

pigeons. He brought them home and showed them to us. He hoped to make at least three taler of them. Some days later, the blue feathers lay on the ground: they had not been real, but had been glued on. The precious "blue-striped" pigeons turned out to be entirely worthless, common, white ones. Father purchased a very pretty, young, grey c.o.c.k pigeon for one taler and fifteen good groschen. After a short time, the pigeon turned out to be blind of old age. He never left the pigeonry, his value was zero. Such and similar incidents occurred increasingly. The consequence of this was that mother had to sacrifice another pouch to really get the pigeon-trade going. Of course, father also tried his best.

He took no leisure-time. He attended all markets, all inns and bars in order to buy or to find buyers. One time he bought peas, another time vetches, he had obtained "almost for free". He was always on the move, from one village to another, from one farmer to another. He constantly brought home cheese, eggs, and b.u.t.ter, we did not even need. He had bought them over price, just entice the farmers' wives into a deal, and could only unload them with difficulties and at a loss. This restless, unprofitable life yielded no gain, but devoured the happiness of our home. It even ravaged the remaining linen pouches. Mother talked to him kindly, in vain. She worried and kept quiet, until it would have been a sin to bear it any longer. Then, she arrived at a decision and went to Judge Layritz, who turned out to be much, much more reasonable in this case, than at that other time with our frogs.

She presented her case to him. She told him that she did love her husband very, very much, but had to consider primarily her children's well-being. She disclosed to him that she owned an additional pouch, she had not shown, but kept from her husband.

She asked the judge to be so kind to tell her how she should invest this money in order to achieve security for herself and her children. She presented him with the pouch. He opened it and counted. There were sixty hard, shiny, well polished talers.

This caused great astonishment! Judge Layritz thought about it, then he said: "My dear Mrs. May, I know you. You are a good woman, and I will vouch for you. Our midwife is old, we need a younger one. You will go to Dresden and spent your money there on becoming a midwife. I will arrange this! If you'll return with the highest marks, we will hire you right away. I'm giving you my word on this. But if you should return with lesser marks, we will not be able to use you. But now, go back home and tell your husband, he should come and see me right away, I'd have to talk with him!"

So it happened. Mother went to Dresden. She returned with the highest marks, and Judge Layritz kept his word; she was hired.

During her absence, father did all of the housework together with grandmother. This was a hard time, a time of suffering, for all of us. There was an outbreak of small-pox. All of us children became ill. Grandmother did almost more than was humanly possible; but father did so too. One of the sisters' head had turned into a shapeless lump on account of the small-pox.

Forehead, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, and chin had entirely disappeared. The physician had to probe for the lips with a knife, in order to feed the sick girl with at least some milk.

She is still alive today, the most cheerful one of us all, and has never been sick again. The scars are still visible, which resulted from the physician cutting her, while searching for her mouth.

These hard times were not entirely over yet, when mother returned, but her stay in Dresden brought a big stroke of good fortune for me. By her hard work and her quiet, deeply sincere ways, she had gained the favour of the two professors Grenzer and Haase, and had told them about me, her miserable, blinded, and yet spiritually so lively boy. She had been asked to bring me to Dresden, to be treated by these two physicians. This was now done, and with a quite remarkable success. I learnt to see, and returned home healthily in all other respects as well. But all of this required a large, large sacrifice; of course it was only large in respect to our poor conditions. Because of all of the necessary expenses, we had to sell the house, and the small part of the price we were to keep as our own was hardly sufficient to pay for the most urgent things. We moved to a rented place. - -

And now, I will turn to that person, who had the most profound and extensive influence on my development in a spiritual respect.

While our mother's mother had been born in Hohenstein and was therefore called the "Hohensteiner grandmother" by us, my father's mother was from Ernstthal and therefore had to listen to the name "Ernstthaler grandmother". The latter was an entirely peculiar, inscrutable, n.o.ble, and, I might almost say, mysterious character.

She was to me, from my early youth on, a cherished, blissful puzzle, from the depth of which I could scoop up wisdom without ever running out of it. Where had she obtained all this from.

Very simple: She was a soul, nothing but a soul, and modern psychology knows what this means. She was born in the direst need and had grown up in the direst suffering; therefore, she regarded everything with hoping eyes, yearning for deliverance. And whoever is capable to hope and to believe the right way, has already pushed all the misery of earth aside and will only find sunshine and G.o.d's peace ahead. She was the daughter of miserably poor folks, had lost her mother at an early age, and to feed her father, who was neither able to stand nor to lie and was tied and bound to an old leather arm-chair for many years, until he died.

She took care of him with an endless self-denial, which would move a person to tears. Poverty allowed her only the cheapest of accommodations. Her chamber's window let her see only the cemetery, nothing else. She knew all of the graves, and thought there would only be one course for herself and her father, to be carried out of their humble dying chamber in a coffin towards the churchyard. She had one lover, who had decent and honest intentions, but she gave him up. She wanted to devote her entire time only to her father, and the good fellow agreed with her. He said nothing, but he waited and remained faithful to her.

Upstairs, in the attic, stood an old chest, containing even older books. This were heirlooms, bound in leather, of various contents, both religious and secular. It was told that there had been clerics, scholars, and travellers in our family, when it had been prosperous, of whom we are reminded up to this day by those books. Father and daughter were able to read, they had both learnt it by themselves. At nightfall, after the strife and work of the day was done, the Reifrockchen [1] was lit, and one of them read to the other. Once in a while, a pause was made to discuss what had been read. Though having read the books almost twenty times already, they started over again and again, because every time, new ideas were found, which seemed to be better, more beautiful and also truer than those from before. Most frequently, a rather large and very worn-out volume was read, the t.i.tle of which was:

[1] a small oil lamp

_The_Hakawati_ i.e.