The Bride of Dreams | Page 7

purpose thereby? Will something very pleasant
follow? Or will these hardships continue until we die? Is all this God
plaguing us, as he says? Why does God do it, and should we let
ourselves be tormented so?"
Then, after hours of silent wandering, I put a question:
"Is there justice, father?"
By this I meant, whether for all this footsoreness, this thirst and this
exertion, I would be rewarded by proportional pleasure. My father did
not reply. He evidently had need of all his energies to walk on.
But when we had finally reached the seaport and had washed ourselves
with seawater, he said abruptly: "There is only power!"
That answer did not please me. It was pleasure I wanted. Power could
not avail me.
III
Consider well, dear reader, the purpose of these writings. It is not to
occupy ourselves with the recital and attendance of thrilling and
glowing adventures, but to try to what extent my words can clear up
and illumine for you the dark background of these adventures. Illusion
is the all-powerful word of the philosophers, with which they seek to
destroy the things happening about us. But I have already worn out that
word. At times it is in my hands as a foul tattered rag, it has lost its old
use for me. I can also say - there is no illusion - there are only known
and unknown things, truths revealed and unrevealed, very rapidly
moving and very slowly flowing vital realities. And all my life it has
been my constant and passionate desire to penetrate from the known to

the unknown, from the revealed to the unrevealed, from the fleeting to
the lasting, from the swiftly moving to the more slowly flowing - like a
swimmer who from the centre of a wild mountain stream struggles
toward the quiet waters near the shore. And wherefore this hard
struggle? Because the still waters also hold blessings of consolation, of
joy, of happiness. There is the pleasure, the real pleasure, that I as a boy
expected from justice, the fair wages for trouble and pain, the
equivalent reward.
My father did not believe in justice, but he did believe in power. But
thus he did exactly what he wished not to do, he let himself be deceived
and tried also to deceive me. But even when only a small boy, I would
not let myself be cheated by counterfeit coin. "Go along with your
power!" I thought. "I want pleasure. What can power or might avail me
without pleasure?" I wanted wares for my money, for I believed in
justice.
The Dutch merchants, who built my pretty and substantial house, were
not very far-sighted fellows and on their hunt for happiness sailed
straight into the bog. But they demanded wares for their money, and
that was right. Now I, as an old man, live on the beautiful ruins of their
glory overgrown with the immature buds of a newer, grander splendor
of life; but I have continued to believe in justice, so firmly, that I quite
dare to assume the responsibility of expounding this faith to you, dear
reader, with all my might. And this faith teaches that you must not let
yourself be cheated, and must demand wares for your money. That is -
good, righteous, solid wares. We will not let some inane gaieties, some
paltry and miserable pleasures, some tinsel be passed off on us as the
real golden happiness. This one tries to coax you with tempting food
and drink, another with the pleasures of being rich and mighty, still
others with the comfort of a good conscience or perhaps with the
flattery of honors and the satisfaction of duty fulfilled - or finally with
the promise of reward hereafter, a brief on eternity with the privilege
for your ghost of making complaint to the magistracy in case the ruler
of the universe does not honor them. Nothing in my old age affords me
such melancholy amusement as the foolishness of these persons, who
deem themselves so wise, especially those practical, rational,

matter-of-fact and epicurean persons, who go to such a vast amount of
trouble and suffer themselves to be put off with such hackneyed,
transitory, unreal, hollow stuff.
And I know not what is worse, the deception of the priests or that of the
philosophers, who scaling to a height upon a ladder of oratory write a
big word upon a piece of paper, flaunting it before you as the legal
tender for all your pains. With a beaming countenance the good citizens
go home with their strip of paper on which is written, "pure reason," or
"will for might," and are as contented as the so-styled freed peoples of
Europe liberated by the hosts of the French revolution and honestly