Zones of the Spirit
The History of the Blue Book
(Prefixed to the Third Swedish Edition)
I had read how Goethe had once intended to write a Breviarium Universale, a book of edification for the adherents of all religions. In my Historical Miniatures I have attempted to trace God’s ways in the history of the world; I included Christianity in my survey by commencing with Israel, but perhaps I made the mistake of ranging other religions by the side of Christianity, while they ought to have stood below it.
A year passed. I felt myself constrained by inward impulses to write a fairly unsectarian breviary; a word of wisdom for each day in the year. For that purpose I collected the sacred books of all religions, in order to extract from them “sayings” on which to write. But the books did not open themselves to me! The Vedas and Zend-Avesta were sealed, and did not yield a single saying; only the Koran gave one, but that was a lion! (page 45). Then I determined to alter my design. I formed the plan of writing apothegms of simply worldly wisdom regarding men, and of calling the book Herbarium Humane. But I postponed the work since I trembled at the greatness of the task and the crudity of my plan. Then came June 15, 1906. As I took my morning walk, the first thing I saw was a tramcar with the number 365. I was struck by this number, and thought of the 365 pages which I intended to write.
As I went on, I entered a narrow street. A cart went along by my side carrying a red flag; it was a powder-flag. The cart kept parallel with me and began to disturb me. In order to escape the sight of the powder-flag, I looked up in the air, and there an enormous red flag (the English one) flaunted conspicuously before my eyes. I looked down again, and a lady dressed in black, with a fiery-red hat, was crossing the street in a slanting direction.
I hastened my steps. Immediately my eyes fell on the window of a stationer’s shop; in it a piece of cardboard was displayed, bearing the word “Herbarium.”
It was natural that all this should make an impression on me. My resolution was now taken; I laid down the plan of my powder-chamber, which was to become the Blue Book. A year passed, slowly, painfully. The most remarkable thing that happened was this. They began to rehearse my drama, the Dream Play, in the theatre; simultaneously, a change took place in my daily life. My servant left me; my domestic arrangements were upset; within forty days I had six changes of servants—one worse than the other. At last I had to serve myself, lay the table and light the stove. I ate black broken victuals out of a basket. In short, I had to taste the whole bitterness of life without knowing why.
One morning during this fasting period I passed by a shop window in which I saw a piece of tapestry which attracted and delighted me. I thought I saw my dream-play in the design woven on the tapestry. Above was the “growing castle,” and underneath the green island over-arched by a rainbow, and with Alpine summits illumined by the sun. Round it was the sea reflecting the stars and a great green sea-snake partly visible; low down in the border was a row of fylfots—the symbol Swastika, signifying good-luck. That was, at any rate, my meaning; the artist had intended something else which does not belong here.
Then came the dress-rehearsal of the Dream Play. This drama I wrote seven years ago, after a period of forty days’ suffering which were among the worst which I had ever undergone. And now again exactly forty days of fasting and pain had passed. There seems, therefore, to be a secret legislature which promulgates clearly defined sentences. I thought of the forty days of the flood, the forty years of wandering in the desert, the forty days’ fast kept by Moses, Elijah, and Christ.
My journal thus records my impressions:
“The sun shines. A certain quiet resigned uncertainty reigns within me. I ask myself whether a catastrophe will not prevent the performance of the piece, which perhaps ought not to be played. In it I have, at any rate, spoken men fair, but to advise the Ruler of the Universe is presumption, perhaps blasphemy. The fact that I have laid bare the comparative nothingness of life (with Buddhism), its irrational contradictions, its wickedness and lawlessness, may be praiseworthy if it teaches men resignation. That I have shown the comparative innocence of men in this life, which of itself involves guilt, is not indeed wrong, but....”
Just now comes a telephone message from the theatre: “The result of this is in God’s hand.” “Exactly what I think,” I answer, and ask myself again whether the piece ought to be played. (I believe it is already determined by the higher powers what the issue of the first performance will prove.)
I feel as though it were Sunday. The “White Shape” appears outside on the balcony of the “growing castle.”
My thoughts have lately been occupied with death and with the life after this. Yesterday I read Plato’s Timæus and Phædo. At present I write a work called The Island of the Dead. In it I describe the awakening after death, and what follows. But I hesitate, for I am frightened at the boundless misery of mere life. Lately I burned a drama; it was so sincere, that I shuddered at it. What I do not understand is this: ought one to hide the misery, and flatter men? I wish to write cheerfully and beautifully, but ought not, and cannot. I conceive it as a terrible duty to be truthful, and life is indescribably hideous.
Now the clock strikes eleven, and at twelve o’clock is the rehearsal.
The same day at 8 P.M. I have seen the rehearsal of the Dream Play, and suffered greatly. I received the impression that this piece ought not to be played. It is presumptuous, and certainly blasphemous (?). I am disturbed and alarmed.
I have had no midday meal; at seven o’clock I ate some cold food out of the basket in the kitchen.
During the religious broodings of my last forty days I read the Book of Job, saying to myself certainly at the same time that I was no righteous man like him. Then I came to the 22nd chapter, in which Eliphaz the Temanite unmasks Job: “Thou hast taken pledges of thy brother for nought, and stripped the naked of their clothing; thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry.... Is not thy wickedness great and thine iniquities infinite?”
Then the whole comfort of the Book of Job vanished, and I stood again forlorn and irresolute. What shall a poor man hold on to? What shall I believe? How can he help thinking perversely?
Yesterday I read Plato’s Timæus and Phædo. There I found so much self-contradictory wisdom, that in the evening I threw my devotional books away and prayed to God out of a full heart. “What will happen now? God help me! Amen.”
The stage-manager visited me yesterday evening. We both felt, in despair.... The night was quiet.
April 16, 1907.—Read the proof of the Black Flags,1 which I wrote in 1904. I asked myself whether the book was a crime, and whether it ought to be published. I opened the Bible, and came on the prophet Jonah, who was compelled to prophesy although he hid himself. That quieted me. But it is a terrible book!
April 17.—To-day the Dream Play will be performed for the first time. A gentle fall of snow in the morning. Read the last chapter of Job: God punishes Job because he presumed to wish to understand His work. Job prays for pardon, and is forgiven.
Quiet grey weather till 3 P.M. Then G. came with a piece of good news.
Spent the evening alone at home. At eight o’clock there was a ring at the door. A messenger brought a laurel-wreath with the inscription: “Truth, Light, Liberation.” I took the wreath at once to the bust of Beethoven on the tiled stove and placed it on his head, since I had so much to thank him for, especially just now for the music accompanying my drama.
At eleven o’clock a telephone from the theatre announces that everything has gone well.
May 29.—The Black Flags come out to-day. I make very satisfactory terms with the publisher regarding the Blue Book (and I had thought it would not be printed at all). So I determined to remain in my house, which I had determined to leave on account of poverty.
August 20.—I read this evening the proofs of the Blue Book. Then the sky grew coal-black with towering dark clouds. A storm of rain fell; then it cleared up, and a great rainbow stood round the church, which was lit up by the sun.
August 22.—I am reading now the proofs of the Blue Book, and I feel now as though my mission in life were ended. I have been able to say all I had to say.
I dreamt that I was in the home of my childhood at Sabbatsberg, and saw that the great pond was dried up. This pond had always been dangerous to children because it was surrounded by a swamp; it had an evil smell, and was full of frogs, hedgehogs, and lizards. Now in my dream I walked about on the dry ground, and was astonished to find it so clean. I thought now that I have broken with the Black Flags the frog-swamp is done with.
September 1.—Read the last proofs of the Blue Book.
September 2.—Came across tramcar 365, which I had not seen since I began to write the Blue Book on June 15, 1906.
September 12.—The Blue Book appears to-day. It is the first clear day in summer. I dreamt I found myself in a stone-quarry, and could neither go up nor down. I thought quite quietly, “Well, I must cry for help!”
The German motto to-day on the tear-off calendar is: “What is to be clarified must first ferment.”
To-day I got new clothes which fitted. My old ones had been too tight to the point of torture.
My little daughter visited me. I took her home again in a chaise.
September 14.—The whole day clear. Towards evening, however, about a quarter to six, the sky became covered with most portentous-looking clouds, with black outlines like obliquely hanging theatre-flies. Afterwards these were driven out by a storm over the sea.
This evening my Crown Bride was performed. Thus, then, the Blue Book had appeared. It looked well with its blue and red binding, which resembled that of my first book, the Red Room, but in its contents differed as much from it as red from blue. In the first I had, like Jeremiah, to pluck up, break down, and destroy; but in this book I was able to build and to plant. And I will conclude with Hezekiah’s song of praise:
“I said, in the noontide of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave:
“My age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd’s tent:
“I have rolled up like a weaver my life; he will cut me off from the loom.
“From day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.
“Like a swallow or a crane, so did I chatter; I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward.
“Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me.
“What shall I say? He hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it.
“Behold, it was for my peace that I had great bitterness;
“Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption.
“The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day.
“The father to the children shall make known thy truth.”
I saw beforehand what awaited me if I broke with the Black Flags. But I placed my soul in God’s hands, and went forwards. I affix as a motto to the following book, “He who departeth from evil, maketh himself a prey.”
The strangest thing, however, is that from this moment my own Karma began to complete itself. I was protected, things went well with me, I found better friends than those I had lost. Now I am inclined to ascribe all my former mischances to the fact that I served the Black Flags. There was no blessing with them!
Notes
1 A roman à clef in which Strindberg fiercely attacks the Bohemians and emancipated women of Stockholm.