"DEMIAN" by HERMANN HESSE

Chapter 5.2 THE BIRD FIGHTS ITS WAY OUT OF THE EGG

For the first time I could see him clearly. He sat at a table in the far corner of the small room. He wore a black felt hat. A jug of wine stood before him. His face looked as I suspected it would. He was ugly and a little wild, inquisitive and pigheaded, capricious and determined, yet his mouth had a soft childlike quality. All his masculinity and strength were concentrated in eyes and forehead, while the lower part of the face was sensitive and immature, uncontrolled and somehow very soft. The irresolute, boyish chin appeared to contradict the forehead and eyes--which I liked, those dark-brown eyes, full of pride and hostility.I sat down opposite him without saying a word. We were the only two guests in the tavern.

He gave me a look as though he wanted to shoo me away. But I did not budge, and stared back unmoved until he grumbled morosely: "What on earth are you staring at? Is there something you want?"

"No, I don't want anything from you, " I said. "You've given me a great deal already. " He knitted his brows. "So, you're a music lover. I find it nauseating to be crazy about music. " I did not let him intimidate me. "I have listened to you often, back there in the church, " I said. "But I don't want to trouble you. I thought I might find something, something special; I really don't know what. But don't pay any attention to me. I can listen to you in church. "

"But I always lock it. "

"Not very long ago you forgot and I sat inside. Usually I stand outside or sit on the curb. "

"Really? Next time you can come inside, it's warmer. All you have to do is knock at the door. But you have to bang hard and not while I'm playing. Go ahead now--what did you want to tell me? You're quite young yet, probably a student of some sort. Are you a musician?"

"No. I like listening to music, but only the kind you play, completely unreserved music, the kind that makes you feel that a man is shaking heaven and hell. I believe I love that kind of music because it is amoral. Everything else is so moral that I'm looking for something that isn't. Morality has always seemed to me insufferable. I can't express it very well. --Do you know that there must be a god who is both god and devil at one and the same time? There is supposed to have been one once. I heard about it. " The musician pushed his wide hat back a little and shook the hair out of his eyes, all the while peering at me. He lowered his face across the table.

Softly and expectantly he asked: "What's the name of the god you mentioned?"

"Unfortunately I know next to nothing about him, actually only his name. He is called Abraxas. " The musician blinked suspiciously around him as though someone might be eavesdropping. Then he moved closer to me and said in a whisper: "That's what I thought. Who are you?"

"A student at the prep school. "

"How did you happen to hear about Abraxas?"

"By accident. " He struck the table so that wine spilled out of his glass. "By accident! Don't talk shit, young fellow! One doesn't hear about Abraxas by accident, and don't you forget it. I will tell you more about him. I know a little. " He fell silent and moved his chair back. When I looked at him full of expectation, he made a face. "Not here. Some other time.There, take these. " He reached in his coat, which he had not taken off, and drew out a few roasted chestnuts and threw them to me. I said nothing, took them, ate and felt content.

"All right, " he whispered after a moment. "Where did you find out about--Him?" I did not hesitate to tell him. "I was alone and desperate a tone time, " I began. "Then I remembered a friend I had had several years back who I felt knew much more than I did. I had painted something, a bird struggling out of the globe. I sent him this painting. After a time I found a piece of paper with the following words written on it: "The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas. '" He made no reply.

We shelled our chestnuts and drank our wine. "Another glass?" he asked."No, thanks. I don't like drinking. " He laughed, a little disappointed. "As you like. It's different with me. I'll stay but you can run along if you want. " When I joined him the next time, after he had played the organ, he was not very communicative. He led me down an alley and through an old and impressive house and up to a large, somewhat dark and neglected room. Except for a piano, nothing in it gave a hint of his being a musician--but a large bookcase and a desk gave the room an almost scholarly air. "How many books you have!" I exclaimed.

"Part of them are from my father's library--in whose house I live. Yes, young man, I'm living with my parents but I can't introduce you to them. My acquaintances aren't regarded very favorably in this house. I'm the black sheep. My father is fabulously respectable and an important pastor and preacher in this town. And I, so that you know the score at once, am his talented and promising son who has gone astray and, to some extent, even mad. I was a theology student but shortly before my state exams I left this very respectable department; that is, not entirely, not in so far as it concerns my private studies, for I'm still most interested to see what kinds of gods people have devised for themselves. Otherwise, I'm a musician at present and it looks as though I will receive a small post as an organist somewhere. Then I'll be back in the employ of the church again. " As much as the feeble light from the small table lamp permitted, I glanced along the spines of the books and noticed Greek, Latin, and Hebrew titles.

Meanwhile my acquaintance had lain down on the floor and was busying himself with something. "Come, " he called after a moment, "we want to practice a bit of philosophy. That means: keep your mouth shut, lie on your stomach, and meditate. " He struck a match and lit paper and wood in the fireplace in front of which he sprawled. The flames leapt high, he stirred and fed them with the greatest care. I lay down beside him on the worn-out carpet. For about an hour we lay on our stomachs silent before the shimmering wood, watching the flames shoot up and roar, sink down and double over, flicker and twitch, and in the end brood quietly on sunken embers. "Fire worship was by no means the most foolish thing ever invented, " he murmured to himself at one point. Otherwise neither of us said a word.

I stared fixedly into the flames, lost myself in dreams and stillness, recognized figures in the smoke and pictures in the ashes. Once I was startled. My companion threw a piece of resin into the embers: a slim flame shot up and I recognized the bird with the yellow sparrow hawk's head. In the dying embers, red and gold threads ran together into nets, letters of the alphabet appeared, memories of faces, animals, plants,worms, and snakes. As I emerged from my reveries I looked at my companion, his chin resting on his fists,staring fanatically into the ashes with complete surrender.

"I have to go now, " I said softly. "Go ahead then.Good-by. " He did not get up. The lamp had gone out: I groped my way through the dark rooms and hallways of the bewitched old house. Once outside, I stopped and looked up along its façade. Every window was dark.A small brass plate on the front door gleamed in the light from a street lamp. On it I read the words: "Pistorius, pastor primarius. " Not until I was at home and sat in my little room after supper did it occur to me that I had not heard anything about either Abraxas or Pistorius--we'd exchanged hardly a dozen words.

But I was very satisfied with my visit. And for our next meeting he had promised to play an exquisite piece of old music, an organ passacaglia by Buxtehude. Without my being entirely aware of it, the organist Pistorius had given me my first lesson when we were sprawled on the floor before the fire in his depressing hermit's room. Staring into the blaze had been a tonic for me, confirming tendencies that I had always had but never cultivated. Gradually some of them were becoming comprehensible to me. Even as a young boy I had been in the habit of gazing at bizarre natural phenomena, not so much observing them as surrendering to their magic, their confused, deep language.