Recollections of My Childhood and Youth Part 7

The first of these was a type of the student of the time. Vilsing was from Jutland, tall, dark, neither handsome nor plain, remarkable for his unparalleled facility in speaking. He owed his universal popularity to the fact that at students' Parties he could at any time stand up and rattle off at a furious rate an apparently unprepared speech, a sort of stump speech in which humorous perversions, distortions, lyric remarks, clever back-handed blows to right and left, astonishing incursions and rapid sorties, were woven into a whole so good that it was an entertaining challenge to common sense.

The starting point, for instance, might be some travesty of Sibbern's whimsical definition of life, which at that time we all had to learn by heart for the examination. It ran:

"Life altogether is an activity and active process, preceding from an inner source and working itself out according to an inner impulse, producing and by an eternal change of matter, reproducing, organising and individualising, and, since it by a certain material or substratum const.i.tutes itself a certain exterior, within which it reveals itself, it simultaneously const.i.tutes itself as the subsisting activity and endeavour in this, its exterior, of which it may further be inquired how far a soul can be said to live and subsist in it, as a living ent.i.ty-- appearing in such a life."

It is not difficult to conceive what delightful nonsense this barbaric elucidation might suggest, if a carouse, or love, woman or drunkenness were defined in this vein; and he would weave in amusing attacks on earlier, less intrepid speakers, who, as Vilsing put it, reminded one of the bashful forget-me-not, inasmuch as you could read in the play of their features: "Forget me not! I, too, was an orator."

Vilsing, who had been studying for some years already, paid a freshman a compliment by desiring his acquaintance and seeking his society. He frequented the Students' Union, was on terms of friendship with those who led the fashion, and was a favourite speaker. It was a species of condescension on his part to seek out a young fellow just escaped from school, a fellow who would have sunk into the earth if he had had to make a speech, and who had no connection with the circle of older students.

Vilsing was a young man of moods, who, like many at that time, like Albrecht, the chief character in Schandorph's [Footnote: Sophus Schandorph, b. 1820, d. 1901; a prominent Danish novelist, who commenced his literary activity in the sixties.--[Translator's note.]] _Without a Centre_, would exhibit all the colours of the rainbow in one morning. He would give himself, and take himself back, show himself affectionate, cordial, intimate, confidential, full of affectionate anxiety for me his young friend, and at the next meeting be as cursory and cool as if he scarcely remembered having seen me before; for he would in the meantime have been attacked by vexation at his too great friendliness, and wish to a.s.sert himself, as knowing his own value.

He impressed me, his junior, by revealing himself, not precisely as a man of the world, but as a much sought after society man. He told me how much he was asked out, and how he went from one party and one ball to another, which, to me, with my hankering after experiences, seemed to be an enviable thing. But I was more struck by what Vilsing told me of the favour he enjoyed with the other s.e.x. One girl--a charming girl!--he was engaged to, another loved him and he her; but those were the least of his erotic triumphs; wherever he showed himself, he conquered. And proofs were to hand. For one day, when he had dragged me up to his room with him, he bewildered me by shaking out before my eyes a profusion of embroidered sofa-cushions, fancy pillows, cigar-cases, match-holders, crocheted purses, worked waistcoats, etc.; presents from every description of person of the feminine gender. In every drawer he pulled out there were presents of the sort; they hung over chairs and on pegs.

I was young enough to feel a certain respect for a man so sought after by the fair s.e.x, although I thought his frankness too great. What first began to undermine this feeling was not doubt of the truth of his tales, or the genuineness of the gifts, but the fact that one after another of my comrades, when the first cool stages of acquaintance were pa.s.sed, invariably found a favourable opportunity of confidentially informing me--he could not explain why it was himself, but it was a fact--that wherever he showed himself women were singularly fascinated by the sight of him; there must be something about him which vanquished them in spite of him. When at last one evening the most round-backed of all of them, a swain whose blond mustache, of irregular growth, resembled an old, worn- out toothbrush more than anything else, also confided in me that he did not know how it was, or what could really be the cause of it, but there must be something about him, etc.,--then my belief in Vilsing's singularity and my admiration for him broke down. It must not be supposed that Vilsing regarded himself as a sensual fiend. He did not pose as cold and impudent, but as heartfelt and instinct with feeling.

He was studying theology, and cherished no dearer wish than eventually to become a priest. He constantly alternated between contrition and self-satisfaction, arrogance and repentance, enjoyed the consciousness of being exceptionally clever, an irresistible charmer, and a true Christian. It seemed to him that, in the freshman whom he had singled out from the crowd and given a place at his side, he had found an intellectual equal, or even superior, and this attracted him; he met with in me an inexperience and unworldliness so great that the inferiority in ability which he declared he perceived was more than counterbalanced by the superiority he himself had the advantage of, both in social accomplishments and in dealing with women.

It thus seemed as though many of the essential conditions of a tolerably permanent union between us were present. But during the first conversation in which he deigned to be interested in my views, there occurred in our friendship a little rift which widened to a chasm.

Vilsing sprang back horrified when he heard how I, greenhorn though I was, regarded life and men and what I considered right. "You are in the clutches of Evil, and your desire is towards the Evil. I have not time or inclination to unfold an entire Christology now, but what you reject is the Ideal, and what you appraise is the Devil himself. G.o.d! G.o.d! How distressed I am for you! I would give my life to save you. But enough about it for the present; I have not time just now; I have to go out to dinner."

This was our last serious conversation. I was not saved. He did not give his life. He went for a vacation tour the following Summer holidays, avoided me on his return, and soon we saw no more of each other.

IV.

The theory, the intimation of which roused Vilsing to such a degree, bore in its form witness to such immaturity that it could only have made an impression on a youth whose immaturity, in spite of his age, was greater still. To present it with any degree of clearness is scarcely possible; it was not sufficiently clear in itself for that. But this was about what it amounted to:

The introspection and energetic self-absorption to which I had given myself up during my last few years at school became even more persistent on my release from the restraint of school and my free admission to the society of grown-up people.

I took advantage of my spare time in Copenhagen, and on the restricted travels that I was allowed to take, to slake my pa.s.sionate thirst for life; firstly, by pondering ever and anon over past sensations, and secondly, by plunging into eager and careful reading of the light literature of all different countries and periods that I had heard about, but did not yet myself know at first hand.

Through all that I experienced and read, observed and made my own, my att.i.tude towards myself was, that before all, I sought to become clear as to what manner of man I really, in my inmost being, was. I asked myself who I was. I endeavoured to discover the mysterious word that would break the charm of the mists in which I found myself and would answer my fundamental question, _What_ was I? And then at last, my ponderings and my readings resulted in my finding the word that seemed to fit, although nowadays one can hardly hear it without a smile, the word _Daemonic_.

I was daemonic in giving myself this reply it seemed to me that I had solved the riddle of my nature. I meant thereby, as I then explained it to myself, that the choice between good and evil did not present itself to me, as to others, since evil did not interest me. For me, it was not a question of a choice, but of an unfolding of my ego, which had its justification in itself.

That which I called the _daemonic_ I had encountered for the first time outside my own mind in Lermontof's hero. Petsjorin was compelled to act in pursuance of his natural bent, as though possessed by his own being. I felt myself in a similar manner possessed. I had met with the word _Daimon_ and _Daimones_ in Plato; Socrates urges that by _daemons_ the G.o.ds, or the children of the G.o.ds, were meant. I felt as though I, too, were one of the children of the G.o.ds. In all the great legendary figures of the middle ages I detected the feature of divine possession, especially in the two who had completely fascinated the poets of the nineteenth century, Don Juan and Faust. The first was the symbol of magic power over women, the second of the thirst for knowledge giving dominion over humanity and Nature. Among my comrades, in Vilsing, even in the hunch-backed fellow with the unsuccessful moustache, I had seen how the Don Juan type which had turned their heads still held sway over the minds of young people; I myself could quite well understand the magic which this beautiful ideal of elementary irresistibility must have; but the Faust type appealed to me, with my thirst for knowledge, very much more. Still, the main thing for me was that in the first great and wholly modern poets that I made acquaintance with, Byron and his intellectual successors, Lermontof and Heine, I recognised again the very fundamental trait that I termed _daemonic_, the worship of one's own originality, under the guise of an uncompromising love of liberty.

I was always brooding over this idea of the _daemonic_ with which my mind was filled. I recorded my thoughts on the subject in my first long essay (lost, for that matter), _On the Daemonic, as it Reveals Itself in the Human Character_.

When a shrewdly intelligent young fellow of my own age criticised my work from the a.s.sumption that the _daemonic_ did not exist, I thought him ridiculous. I little dreamt that twenty-five years later Relling, in _The Wild Duck_, would show himself to be on my friend's side in the emphatic words: "What the Devil does it mean to be daemonic! It's sheer nonsense."

V.

The "daemonic" was also responsible for the mingled attraction that was exerted over me at this point by a young foreign student, and for the intercourse which ensued between us. Kappers was born somewhere in the West Indies, was the son of a well-to-do German manufacturer, and had been brought up in a North German town. His father, for what reason I do not know, wished him to study at Copenhagen University, and there take his law examination. There was coloured blood in his veins, though much diluted, maybe an eighth or so. He was tall and slender, somewhat loose in his walk and bearing, pale-complexioned, with dark eyes and negro hair. His face, though not handsome, looked exceedingly clever, and its expression was not deceptive, for the young man had an astonishing intellect.

He was placed in the house of a highly respected family in Copenhagen, that of a prominent scientist, a good-natured, unpractical savant, very unsuited to be the mentor of such an unconventional young man. He was conspicuous among the native Danish freshmen for his elegant dress and cosmopolitan education, and was so quick at learning that before very many weeks he spoke Danish almost without a mistake, though with a marked foreign accent, which, however, lent a certain charm to what he said. His extraordinary intelligence was not remarkable either for its comprehensiveness or its depth, but it was a quicker intelligence than any his Copenhagen fellow-student had ever known, and so keen that he seemed born to be a lawyer.

Kappers spent almost all his day idling about the streets, talking to his companions; he was always ready for a walk; you never saw him work or heard him talk about his work. Nevertheless, he, a foreigner, who had barely mastered the language, presented himself after six months--before he had attended all the lectures, that is,--for the examination in philosophy and pa.s.sed it with _Distinction_ in all three subjects; indeed, Rasmus Nielsen, who examined him in Propaedeutics, was so delighted at the foreigner's shrewd and ready answers that he gave him _Specially excellent_, a mark which did not exist.

His gifts in the juridical line appeared to be equally remarkable. When he turned up in a morning with his Danish fellow-students at the coach's house it might occasionally happen that he was somewhat tired and slack, but more often he showed a natural grasp of the handling of legal questions, and a consummate skill in bringing out every possible aspect of each question, that were astonishing in a beginner.

His gifts were of unusual power, but for the externalities of things only, and he possessed just the gifts with which the sophists of old time distinguished themselves. He himself was a young sophist, and at the same time a true comedian, adapting his behaviour to whomsoever he might happen to be addressing, winning over the person in question by striking his particular note and showing that side of his character with which he could best please him. Endowed with the capacity of mystifying and dazzling those around him, exceedingly keen-sighted, adaptable but in reality empty, he knew how to set people thinking and to fascinate others by his lively, unprejudiced and often paradoxical, but entertaining conversation. He was now colder, now more confidential; he knew how to a.s.sume cordiality, and to flatter by appearing to admire.

With a young student like myself who had just left school, was quite inexperienced in all worldly matters, and particularly in the chapter of women, but in whom he detected good abilities and a very strained idealism, he affected ascetic habits. With other companions he showed himself the intensely reckless and dissipated rich man's son he was; indeed, he amused himself by introducing some of the most inoffensive and foolish of them into the wretched dens of vice and letting them indulge themselves at his expense.

Intellectually interested as he was, he proposed, soon after our first meeting, that we should start a "literary and scientific" society, consisting of a very few freshmen, who, at the weekly meetings, should read a paper one of them had composed, whereupon two members who had previously read the paper should each submit it to a prepared criticism and after that, general discussion of the question. All that concerned the proposed society was carried out with a genuine Kappers-like mystery, as if it were a conspiracy, and with forms and ceremonies worthy of a diplomat's action.

Laws were drafted for the society, although it eventually consisted only of five members, and elaborate minutes were kept of the meetings. Among the members was V. Topsoe, afterwards well known as an editor and author, at that time a cautious and impudent freshman, whose motto was: "It is protection that we people must live by." He read the society a paper _On the Appearance_, dealing with how one ought to dress, behave, speak, do one's hair, which revealed powers of observation and a sarcastic tendency. Amongst those who eagerly sought for admission but never secured it was a young student, handsome, and with no small love of study, but stupid and pushing, for whom I, who continued to see myself in Lermontof's Petsjorin, cherished a hearty contempt, for the curious reason that he in every way reminded me of Petsjorin's fatuous and conceited adversary, Gruchnitski. Vilsing was asked to take part in the society's endeavours, but refused. "What I have against all these societies," he said, "is the self-satisfaction they give rise to; the only theme I should be inclined to treat is that of how the modern Don Juan must be conceived; but that I cannot do, since I should be obliged to touch on so many incidents of my own life."

This was the society before which I read the treatise on _The Daemonic_, and it was Kappers who, with his well-developed intelligence, would not admit the existence of anything of the sort.

The regular meetings went on for six months only, the machinery being too large and heavy in comparison with the results attained. Kappers and his intimate friends, however, saw none the less of each other. The brilliant West Indian continued to pursue his legal studies and to carry on his merry life in Copenhagen for some eighteen months. But his studies gradually came to a standstill, while his gay life took up more and more of his time. He was now living alone in a flat which, to begin with, had been very elegantly furnished, but grew emptier and emptier by degrees, as his furniture was sold, or went to the p.a.w.nbroker's. His furniture was followed by his books, and when Schou's "_Orders in Council_" had also been turned into money, his legal studies ceased of themselves. When the bookshelves were empty it was the turn of the wardrobe and the linen drawers, till one Autumn day in 1861, an emissary of his father, who had been sent to Copenhagen to ascertain what the son was really about, found him in his shirt, without coat or trousers, wrapped up in his fur overcoat, sitting on the floor in his drawing- room, where there was not so much as a chair left. Asked how it was that things had come to such a pa.s.s with him, he replied: "It is the curse that follows the coloured race."

A suit of clothes was redeemed for Kappers junior, and he was hurried away as quickly as possible to the German town where his father lived, and where the son explained to everyone who would listen that he had been obliged to leave Copenhagen suddenly "on account of a duel with a gentleman in a very exalted position."

VI.

My first experiences of academic friendship made me smile in after years when I looked back on them. But my circle of acquaintances had gradually grown so large that it was only natural new friendships should grow out of it.

One of the members of Kappers' "literary and scientific" society, and the one whom the West Indian had genuinely cared most for, was a young fellow whose father was very much respected, and to whom attention was called for that reason; he was short, a little heavy on his feet, and a trifle indolent, had beautiful eyes, was warm-hearted and well educated, had good abilities without being specially original, and was somewhat careless in his dress, as in other things.

His father was C.N. David, well known in his younger days as a University professor and a liberal politician, who later became the Head of the Statistical Department and a Member of the Senate. He had been in his youth a friend of Johan Ludvig Heiberg, [Footnote: J.L. Heiberg, to whom such frequent allusion is made, was a well-known Danish author of the last century (1791-1860). Among many other things, he wrote a series of vaudevilles for the Royal Theatre at Copenhagen, Of which he was manager. In every piece he wrote there was a special part for his wife, Johanne Luise Heiberg, who was the greatest Danish actress of the 19th century.] and had been dramatic contributor to the latter's paper.

He was a very distinguished satirist and critic and his influence upon the taste and critical opinion of his day can only be compared with that of Holberg in the 18th century.

Now, in concert with Bluhme and a few other of the elder politicians, he had formed a Conservative Fronde, opposed to the policy of the National Liberals. One day as we two young men were sitting in his son's room, drafting the rules for the freshmen's society of five members, the old gentleman came through and asked us what we were writing. "Rules for a society; we want to get them done as quickly as we can." "That is right.

That kind of const.i.tution may very well be written out expeditiously.

There has not been very much more trouble or forethought spent on the one we have in this country."

It was not, however, so much the internal policy of the National Liberals that he objected to--it was only the Election Law that he was dissatisfied with--as their att.i.tude towards Germany. Whenever a step was taken in the direction of the incorporation of Slesvig, he would exclaim: "We are doing what we solemnly promised not to do. How can anyone be so childish as to believe that it will turn out well!"

The son, whose home impressions in politics had been Conservative, was a happy young man with a somewhat embarra.s.sed manner, who sometimes hid his uncertainty under the cloak of a carelessness that was not altogether a.s.sumed. Behind him stood his family, to whom he hospitably introduced those of his companions whom he liked, and though the family were not gentle of origin, they belonged, nevertheless, to the highest circles in the country and exercised their attraction through the son.

I, whom Ludvig David was now eagerly cultivating, had known him for many years, as we had been school-fellows and even cla.s.smates, although David was considerably older. I had never felt drawn to him as a boy, in fact, had not liked him. Neither had David, in our school-days, ever made any advances to me, having had other more intimate friends. Now, however, he was very cordial to me, and expressed in strong terms his appreciation of my industry and abilities; he himself was often teased at home for his lack of application.

C.N. David was the first public personality with whom, as a student, I became acquainted and into whose house I was introduced. For many years I enjoyed unusual kindness and hospitality at the hands of the old politician, afterwards Minister of Finance.

VII.

I had hitherto been only mildly interested in politics. I had, of course, as a boy, attentively followed the course of the Crimean war, which my French uncle, on one of his visits, had called the fight for civilisation against barbarism, although it was a fight for Turkey! now, as a student, I followed with keen interest the Italian campaign and the revolt against the Austrian Dukes and the Neapolitan Bourbons. But the internal policy of Denmark had little attraction for me. As soon as I entered the University I felt myself influenced by the spirit of such men as Poul Moller, J.L. Heiberg, Soren Kierkegaard, and distinctly removed from the belief in the power of the people which was being preached everywhere at that time. This, however, was hardly more than a frame of mind, which did not preclude my feeling myself in sympathy with what at that time was called broad thought (i.e., Liberalism). Although I was often indignant at the National Liberal and Scandinavian terrorism which obtained a hearing at both convivial and serious meetings in the Students' Union, my feelings in the matter of Denmark's foreign policy with regard to Sweden and Norway, as well as to Germany, were the same as those held by all the other students. I felt no intellectual debt to either Sweden or Norway, but I was drawn by affection towards the Swedes and the Nors.e.m.e.n, and in Christian Richardt's lovely song at the Northern Celebration in 1860, _For Sweden and Norway_, I found the expression of the fraternal feelings that I cherished in my breast for our two Northern neighbours. On the other hand, small as my store of knowledge still was, I had already acquired some considerable impression of German culture. Nevertheless, the increasingly inimical att.i.tude of the German people towards Denmark, and the threatenings of war with Germany, together with my childish recollections of the War of 1848-50, had for their effect that in the Germany of that day I only saw an enemy's country. A violent affection that I felt at sixteen for a charming little German girl made no difference to this view.

VIII.

The old men, who advocated the greatest caution in dealing with the impossible demands of the German Federation, and were profoundly distrustful as to the help that might be expected from Europe, were vituperated in the press. As _Whole-State Men_, they were regarded as unpatriotic, and as so-called _Reactionaries_, accused of being enemies to freedom. When I was introduced into the house of one of these politically ill-famed leaders, in spite of my ignorance, I knew enough of politics, as of other subjects, to draw a sharp distinction between that which I could in a measure grasp, and that which I did not understand; I was sufficiently educated to place Danish const.i.tutional questions in the latter category, and consequently I crossed, devoid of prejudice, the threshold of a house whence proceeded, according to the opinion of the politically orthodox, a pernicious, though fortunately powerless, political heterodoxy.

It must not be supposed that I came into close touch with anything of the sort. The old Minister never opened his mouth on political matters in the bosom of his family. But the impression of superior intelligence and knowledge of men that he conveyed was enough to place him in a different light from that in which he was depicted in _The Fatherland_, the paper whose opinions were swallowed blindly by the student body. And my faith in the infallibility of the paper was shaken even more one day, when I saw the Leader of the Reactionary Party himself, Privy Councillor Bluhme, at the house, and sat unnoticed in a corner, listening to his conversation. He talked a great deal, although, like the master of the house, he did not allude to his public work. Like a statesman of the old school, he expressed himself with exquisite politeness and a certain ceremony. But of the affectation of which _The Fatherland_ accused him, there was not a trace. What profoundly impressed me was the Danish the old gentleman spoke, the most perfect Danish. He told of his travels in India--once upon a time he had been Governor of Trankebar--and you saw before you the banks of the Ganges and the white troops of women, streaming down to bathe in the river, as their religion prescribed.