Hyperion to Bellarmin
I was sitting with Alabanda on a nearby hill, in pleasantly warming sun, and around us played the wind with the fallen leaves. The land lay still; only here and there from the forest there came the sound of a toppling tree, felled by the landman, and beside us the ephemeral rain- stream murmuring down to the tranquil sea.
I was as good as free of worry; I hoped now soon to see my Diotima, soon to live with her in quiet happiness. Alabanda had talked me out of all my doubts; so sure was he himself about it. He too was blithe; but in another sense. The future had no power over him any more. Oh, I didn’t know it; he was at the end of his joys; with all his claims on the world, with all his conquering nature, he saw himself useless, ineffectual and isolated, and took it just as if he’d played some trivial game and lost.
A messenger now approached us. He brought us the discharge from war service that we’d both requested from the Russian fleet, since for us there was nothing more to do that seemed worth the effort. I could now
leave Paros when I pleased. And I was now fit enough to travel. I didn’t want to wait for Diotima’s answer, I wanted away, to her; it was as if a god propelled me to Calauria. When Alabanda heard this his colour changed, and he looked at me in sadness. ‘Is it so easy for my Hyperion,’ he cried, ‘to leave his Alabanda?’
‘Leave,’ I said, ‘how so?’
‘Oh, you dreamers!’ he cried, ‘can’t you see that we must part?”
‘How should I see it?’ I replied; ‘you never speak of it; and if now and then I noticed anything about you that might have hinted at a parting, I took it readily for whimsy, abundance of the heart —’
‘Oh, I know it well,’ he cried, ‘this divine game of affluent love that creates want for itself so as to unburden itself of its own fullness, and I would it were so with me, good Hyperion! but this is meant in earnest!’
‘In earnest?’ I cried, ‘and why then?’
‘Because, my Hyperion,’ he said gently, ‘I wouldn’t wish to disturb your future happiness, that’s why; because I must fear Diotima’s nearness. Believe me, it’s a parlous thing to live around lovers, and a deedless heart, such as mine now is, will hardly be able to bear it.’
‘O good Alabanda!’ I said with a smile, ‘how you mistake yourself! You're not made of wax, and your steadfast soul won’t so lightly leap beyond its bounds. For the first time in your life you’re being capricious. You played the sick-nurse here for me, and one sees how little you're made for the part. Sitting still has made you skittish —’
‘You see,’ he said, ‘that’s just the point. Shall I be any more active living with the two of you? and if it were any other woman! but this Diotima! can I do otherwise? can I feel her with half my soul? she who’s through and through so wholly one, one single divinely undivided life? Believe me, it’s childish folly to seek to see this being without love. You're staring at me as if you didn’t know me? Well, I’ve become alien to myself these past few days, ever since her being came so alive in me.’
‘Oh, why can’t I give her to you?’ I cried.
‘Stop it!’ he said. ‘Don’t try to comfort me, for here there can be no comfort. I’m alone, alone, and my life’s running out like an hourglass.’
‘Great soul!’ I cried, ‘must it come to this with you?’
‘Put your mind at rest!’ he said. ‘I was already beginning to wither when we found each other in Smyrna. Yes! when I was still a ship’s boy, and my spirit and all my limbs became quick and strong on rude
fare and brave toil! when in the clear air after a stormy night I’d cling to the top of the mast, beneath the fluttering flag, and gaze out after the seabirds across the shining deep, when in battle our wrathful ships often churned up the sea like the boar’s tusk the earth, and I’d stand bright-eyed by my captain’s side — then I was alive, oh, then I was alive! And long afterwards, when the young Tiniot crossed my path on the Smyrna shore, with his earnestness, his love, and my hardened soul thawed again under the glances of the youth and learned to love and hold holy all that’s too good to be governed, when with him I began a new life, and there burgeoned within me new and more soulful energies for enjoying and battling the world, then I hoped again — oh! and all that I hoped and had was chained to you; I pulled you to me, tried to drag you forcibly into my fate, lost you, found you again, our friendship alone was my world, my worth, my fame; now that too is over, for ever, and my whole existence is in vain.’
‘Is that really true?’ I replied with a sigh.
‘True as the sun,’ he cried, ‘but never you mind! it’s all taken care of.’
‘How so, my Alabanda?’ I said.
‘Let me tell you,’ he said. ‘There’s something I’ve never fully spoken to you about. And then — it will calm you and me a little too, if we speak about the past.
‘T was once walking helpless by the harbour of Trieste. The privateer I used to serve on had foundered some years before, and together with a few others I'd barely been able to save myself, washing ashore at Seville. My captain had drowned, and my life and my sopping clothes were all I had left. I undressed and rested in the sun, drying my clothes on the bushes. Then I walked on along the road towards the town. Before I’d reached the gates Isaw a merry company in the gardens, went in and sang a cheerful Greek ditty. I didn’t know a sad one. It made me burn with shame and pain, displaying my misfortune in this way. I was an eighteen-year-old lad, wild and proud, and hated like death to be the object of people’s attention. “Forgive me,” I said, when I was done with my song; “I’ve just been shipwrecked and for the moment can’t think of anything better to do for the world than sing.” I’d said this in Spanish as best I could. A man with a distinguished face came up to me, gave me money, and said in our tongue with a smile: “Here! use that to buy yourself a whetstone and learn to sharpen knives, and make your wandering way on solid earth.” The advice pleased me. “Sir! that’s indeed what I'll do,” I replied. Having
also been generously rewarded by the others, I went and did as the man had advised, and for some time roved about Spain and France.
‘What I experienced during this time, how on the thousandfold forms of bondage my love of liberty honed itself, and how from the many hardships my mettle and my shrewdness grew, I’ve often relished telling you.
‘I pursued my innocent wandering work with pleasure, but in the end it became soured for me.
‘People took it for a mask, because I can’t have looked suitably vulgar; they imagined I was covertly engaged in some dangerous activity, and I was in fact arrested twice. That induced me then to give it up, and with what little money I’d earned I set out on the journey back to the home from which I’d once run away. I’d got as far as Trieste, and was about to move on, down through Dalmatia. Then the rigours of travel caused a sickness that laid me low, and with that my little wealth was all used up. And so, half recovered, I came to be walking sadly by the harbour of Trieste. Suddenly there stood before me the man who'd once helped me out when I was cast ashore at Seville. He was peculiarly glad to see me again, told me he often thought of me and asked me how I’d fared the while. I told him everything. “I see,” he cried, “that it wasn’t in vain to send you for a little to the school of fate. You’ve learned to endure, now if you wish you shall act.”
‘The words, his tone, the clasp of his hand, his mien, his glance — with the force of a god all this struck my being, made now more flammable than ever by much suffering, and I gave myself up to it.
‘The man I’m speaking about, Hyperion, was one of those you saw with me in Smyrna. The very next night he inducted me into a solemn society. A shudder ran through me when I stepped into the hall and, as I entered, my companion pointed to the grave men and said: “this is the League of Nemesis.” Drunk with the grand sphere of action that opened up before me, I solemnly made over my blood and my soul to these men. Soon afterwards the gathering was adjourned, to be resumed years later elsewhere, and each of us set out on the allotted path he was to take through the world. I was assigned to those you found with me in Smyrna some years after.
‘The constraint under which I lived often tormented me, I saw precious little of the grand actions of the League, and my lust for deeds found scant nourishment. Yet none of this sufficed to make me fall away.
It was my passion for you that finally seduced me. I’ve often told you, I was as if without air and sun when you were gone; and I had no other choice; I had to give up either you or my League. What I chose you see.
‘But all of the works of men have in the end their punishment, and it’s only gods and children whom Nemesis doesn’t strike.
‘I preferred the divine right of the heart. For the sake of my darling I broke my oath. Was that not right? must not the noblest longing be the freest? — My heart has taken me at my word; I gave it freedom and, as you see, it’s putting it to use.
‘Pay homage to the genius but once, and he'll heed no mortal hindrance any more and tear in two all life’s bonds for you.
‘Obligation I broke for the sake of the friend, friendship I would break for the sake of love. For Diotima’s sake I would betray you, and in the end murder myself and Diotima because we should still not be one. But that’s not the way it’s going to be; if I’m to atone for what I did, then I will do it with freedom; I shall choose my own judges; those whom I’ve failed shall have me.’
‘You mean your brothers of the League?’ I cried; ‘O my Alabanda! don’t!’
‘What can they take from me but my blood?’ he replied. Then he gently grasped my hand. ‘Hyperion!’ he cried, ‘my time is up, and all that’s left for me is a noble end. Leave me be! Don’t belittle me, put faith in my word! I know as well as you do that I could still fabricate an existence for myself, could, since the banquet of life is all consumed, still play with the crumbs, but that’s not my way; nor is it yours. Need I say more? Do I not speak from your soul? I thirst for air, for a cooling breeze, Hyperion! My soul wells over of itself and will no longer be held in the old circle. Soon the beautiful winter days will come when the dark earth is nothing more than the foil to shining heaven; then would be a good time, then the islands of light more liberally sparkle besides! — you wonder at my words? Dearest! those taking leave of life all speak like drunken men and like to put on a festive manner. When the tree begins to wither, don’t its leaves all wear the red hues of dawn?’
‘Great soul,’ I cried, ‘must I bear pity for you?’
By his exaltation I could feel the depth of his suffering. Never in my life had I known such woe. And yet, O Bellarmin! yet I also felt the greatness of all joys, having such an image of divinity in my eyes and
arms. ‘Yes! die then,’ I cried, ‘die! your heart is glorious enough, your life is ripe as grapes on an autumn day. Go, you consummate one! I would go with you, were there no Diotima.’
‘Do I have you now?’ replied Alabanda, ‘do you speak this way? How deep, how soulful all becomes, once my Hyperion grasps it!’
‘He’s flattering me,’ I cried, ‘trying to coax from me a second time my ill-considered word! good gods! and gain my permission for the trip to the blood-tribunal!’
‘I'm not flattering you,’ he replied in earnest, ‘I’ve a right to do what you would hinder, and it’s no mean one! honour that!’
There was a fire in his eyes that struck me down like a god’s command, and I felt ashamed to say another word against him.
‘They won't, I kept telling myself, ‘they can’t. It’s too senseless putting such a glorious life to the slaughter like some sacrificial beast,’ and this conviction served to calm me.
It was a special bonus to hear him still the following night, after each of us had prepared for his own journey and we'd gone out again before daybreak to be alone together once more.
‘Do you know,’ he said, amongst other things, ‘why I’ve never been awed by death? I feel in me a life that no god has created and no mortal man begotten. I believe we owe our being to ourselves and it’s only of our own free desire that we’re so closely bound into the all.’
‘T’ve never heard you talk like this before,’ I answered.
‘And what,’ he continued, ‘what would this world be, were it not a unison of free beings? did not of their own joyous impulse the living join together from the very beginning in one full-voiced life, how wooden would it be, how cold? what a heartless piece of work would it be?’
‘So here in the highest sense it were true,’ I replied, ‘without freedom everything is dead.’
‘Yes indeed,’ he cried, ‘there’s not a blade of grass grows up unless it has its own germ of life within! how much the more in me! and therefore, my dear friend! because I feel myself free in the highest sense, because I feel myself beginningless, therefore I believe that I’m endless, that I’m indestructible. If a potter’s hand has made me, then let him smash his vessel as he pleases. But that which lives within must be unbegotten, must be divine of nature in its germ, sublime beyond all might and all art, and therefore invulnerable, eternal.
‘We each have our mysteries, dear Hyperion! our more secret thoughts; these have been mine; ever since I could think.
‘What lives is indestructible, stays free in its most deeply servile form, stays intact and though you split it to the ground, stays unscathed and though you shatter it to the marrow, and its essence flies away in triumph through your fingers. — But the morning wind stirs; our ships are awake. O my Hyperion! I have overcome; I’ve been able to bring myself to speak my heart’s death sentence and separate you and me, darling of my life! be gentle with me now! spare me the parting pains! let’s be quick! come!’ —
A chill shot through all my bones as he uttered these words.
‘Oh, by your troth, Alabanda!’ I cried, prostrate before him, ‘must it be, must it really be? You fuddled me unfairly, you carried me away and left me reeling. Brother! you took from me even the presence of mind to ask, “where are you going?”
‘I may not name the place, dear heart!’ he replied; ‘yet perhaps we shall meet again one day.’
‘Meet again?’ I replied; ‘so that’s one faith I’m the richer by! and so I'll become ever richer in faith and in the end there'll be nothing but faith for me.’
‘Dearest!’ he cried, ‘where words are no help, let us be still! let us make a manful end! You ruin the last moments for yourself.’
Meanwhile we’d come closer to the harbour.
‘One more thing!’ he said, when we were at his ship. ‘Greet your Diotima! Love each other! be happy, you beautiful souls!’
‘O my Alabanda!’ I cried, ‘why can’t I go in your stead?”
‘Your calling is more beautiful,’ he replied; ‘stay with it! you belong to her, that lovely being is from now on your world — Oh! since there is no happiness without sacrifice, take me as sacrifice, O fate, and leave the loving their joy!’ —
His heart began to overwhelm him, and he tore himself from me and leapt into the ship to shorten the parting for himself and me. I felt this moment like a thunderbolt that’s followed by night and deathly stillness, but in the midst of the desolation my soul reared up to hold him, the dear departing, and my arms darted towards him of their own accord. ‘Woe! Alabanda! Alabanda!’ I cried, and heard from the ship a muffled ‘Farewell’.