a good deed it was no different, ultimately, than if I had performed a bad deed. I was like an equals sign through which the algebraic swarm of humanity was passing. I was a rather important, active equals sign, like a general in time of war, but no matter how competent I were to become I could never change into a plus or a minus sign. Nor could any one else, as far as I could determine. Our whole life was built up on this principle of equation. The integers had become symbols which were shuffled about in the interests of death. Pity, despair, passion, hope, courage – these were the temporal refractions caused by looking at equations from varying angles. To stop the endless juggling by turning one’s back on it, or by facing it squarely and writing about it, would be no help either. In a hall of mirrors there is no way to turn your back on yourself. I will not do this… I will do some other thing I Very good. But can you do nothing at all? Can you stop thinking about not doing anything? Can you stop dead, and without thinking, radiate the truth which you know? That was the idea which lodged in the back of my head and which burned and burned, and perhaps when I was most expansive most radiant with energy, most sympathetic, most willing, helpful, sincere, good, it was this fixed idea which was shining through, and automatically I was saying – “why, don’t mention it … nothing at all, I assure you … no, please don’t thank me. it’s nothing,” etc. etc.

From firing the gun so many hundreds of times a day perhaps I didn’t even notice the detonations any more; perhaps I thought I was opening pigeon traps and filling the sky with milky white fowl. Did you ever see a synthetic monster on the screen, a Frankenstein realized in flesh and blood? Can you imagine how he might be trained to pull a trigger and see pigeons flying at the same time? Frankenstein is not a myth: Frankenstein is a very real creation born of the personal experience of a sensitive human being. The monster is always more real when it does not assume the proportions of flesh and blood. The monster of the screen is nothing compared to the monster of the imagination; even the existent pathologic monsters who find their way into the police station are but feeble demonstrations of the monstrous reality which the pathologist lives with. But to be the monster and the pathologist at the same time – that is reserved for certain species of men who, disguised as artists, are supremely aware that sleep is an even greater danger than insomnia. In order not to fall asleep, in order not to become victims of that insomnia which is called “living”, they resort to the drug of putting words together endlessly. This is not an automatic process, they say, because there is always present the illusion that they can stop it at will.

But they cannot stop; they have only succeeded in creating an illusion, which is perhaps a feeble something, but it is far from being wide awake and neither active nor inactive. I wanted to be wide awake without talking or writing about it, in order to accept life absolutely. I mentioned the archaic men in the remote places of the world with who, I was communicating frequently. Why did I think these “savages” more capable of understanding me than the men and women who surrounded me? Was I crazy to believe such a thing? I don’t think so in the least. These “savages” are the degenerate remnants of earlier races of man who, I believe, must have had a greater hold on reality. The immortality of the race is constantly before oar eyes in these specimens of the past who linger on in withered splendour. Whether the human race is immortal or not is not my concern, but the vitality of the race does mean something to me, and that it should be active or dormant means even more. As the vitality of the new race banks down the vitality of the old races manifests itself to the waking mind with greater and greater significance. The vitality of the old races lingers on even in death, but the vitality of the new race which is about to die seems already nonexistent. If a man were taking a swarming hive of bees to the river to drown them… That was the image I carried about in me.

If only I were the man, and not the bee! In some vague, inexplicable way I knew that I was the man, that I would not be drowned in the hive, like the others. Always, when we came forwards in a group I was signalled to stand apart; from birth I was favoured that way, and, no matter what tribulations I went through, I knew they were not fatal or lasting. Also, another strange thing took place in me whenever I was called to stand forth. I knew that I was superior to the man who was summoning me! The tremendous humility which I practised was not hypocritical but a condition provoked by the realization of the fateful character of the situation. The intelligence which I possessed, even as a stripling, frightened me; it was the intelligence of a “savage”, which is always superior to that of civilized men in that it is more adequate to the exigencies of circumstance. It is a life intelligence, even though life has seemingly passed them by. I felt almost as if I had been shot forward into a round of existence which for the rest of mankind had not yet attained its full rhythm.

I was obliged to mark time if I were to remain with them and not be shunted off to another sphere of existence. On the other hand, I was in many ways lower than the human beings about me. It was as though I had come out of the fires of hell not entirely purged. I had still a tail and a pair of horns, and when my passions were aroused I breathed a sulphurous poison which was annihilating. I was always called a “lucky devil”. The good that happened to me was called “luck”, and the evil was always regarded as a result of my shortcomings. Rather, as the fruit of my blindness. Rarely did any one ever spot the evil in me! I was as adroit, in this respect, as the devil himself. But that I was frequently blind, everybody could see that. And at such times I was left alone, shunned, like the devil himself. Then I left the world, returned to the fires of hell – voluntarily. These comings and goings are as real to me, more real, in fact, than anything that happened in between. The friends who think they know me know nothing about me for the reason that the real me changed hands countless times. Neither the men who thanked
me, nor the men who cursed me, knew with whom they were dealing. Nobody ever got on to a solid footing with me, because I was constantly liquidating my personality. I was keeping what is called the “personality” in abeyance for the moment when, leaving it to coagulate, it would adopt a proper human rhythm.

I was hiding my face until the moment when I would find myself in step with the world. All this was, of course, a mistake. Even the role of artist is worth adopting, while marking time. Action is important, even if it entails futile activity. One should not say Yes, No, Yes, No, even seated in the highest place. One should not be drowned in the human tidal wave, even for the sake of becoming a Master. One must beat with his own rhythm – at any price. I accumulated thousands of years of experience in a few short years, but the experience was wasted because I had no need of it. I had already been crucified and marked by the cross; I had been born free of the need to suffer – and yet I knew no other way to struggle forward than to repeat the drama. All my intelligence was against it. Suffering is futile, my intelligence told me over and over, but I went on suffering voluntarily. Suffering has never taught me a thing; for others it may still be necessary, but for me it is nothing more than an algebraic demonstration of spiritual inadaptability. The whole drama which the man of today is acting out through suffering does not exist for me: it never did, actually. All my Calvaries were rosy crucifixions, pseudo-tragedies to keep the fires of hell burning brightly for the real sinners who are in danger of being forgotten.

Another thing … the mystery which enveloped my behaviour grew deeper the nearer I came to the circle of uterine relatives. The mother from whose loins I sprang was a complete stranger to me. To begin with, after giving birth to me she gave birth to my sister, whom I usually refer to as my brother. My sister was a sort of harmless monster, an angel who had been given the body of an idiot. It gave me a strange feeling, as a boy, to be growing up and developing side by side with this being who was doomed to remain all her life a mental dwarf. It was impossible to be a brother to her because it was