"The Refuge", by Hermann Hesse (1917)

Hermann Hesse

The Refuge

(1917)

The Refuge

MANY YEARS a favorite wish has accompanied me — or rather it has not so much “accompanied” as been rooted in me, nourished itself on me, drawn strength from me in the way certain relatives and friends “accompany” us by letting themselves be favored and led by us and by making our home and our strength their own.

This favorite wish was a pretty one, and not especially immodest if looked at from the outside. Its object was — a refuge. This refuge took very different forms at different times. Sometimes it was a small house on Lake Lucerne with a rowboat at the landing place ? Then again it was a woodsman’s hut in the Alps with a bunk to sleep in and four hours away from the nearest neighbors. Or it was a cave or a little ruin among the rocks in southern Ticino, close to the airy chestnut forest, placed as high as the highest vineyards, with or without a window and door. Another time the refuge was a steamship ticket good for a small cabin on a ship with no other passengers, for a voyage of three months, no matter whither. And occasionally it was even more modest, only a hole in the ground, a little grave, well or ill dug, with or without flowers above, with or without a coffin.

The meaning and principal point were always exactly the same. Whether a house in the country or a ship’s cabin, whether an Alpine hut or a garden in Tuscany, a rocky cave in Ticino or a hole in the ground in a cemetery, the meaning was always — a refuge. As superscription to this wish there always stood the verse of that Swabian pastor, that lovable, ailing eccentric who sat in a tiny village, deserted by the world, with nothing to do, and wrote the line:

Leave, O world, leave me in peace !

Thereby, it seemed, all was to be achieved if somewhere I had a hideaway and a refuge, if I knew of a retreat safe and quiet, with a forest or lake nearby, but in any case no people, no messengers of grief and thieves of thought, no letters, no telegrams, no newspapers, no traveling salesmen of culture. There might be a brook prattling nearby, a waterfall, or the sun falling hot on brown rock, there might be butterflies fluttering or goats grazing, lizards incubating or gulls nesting — no matter, but one thing I was determined to have there, peace, my sleep and my dream. No one would dare enter this refuge unless I summoned him, no one would even know about it, no one there would be acquainted with me or want anything from me, no one would compel me to anything. I would be on no list of addresses, no tax roll.

That was an agreeable wish and dream of mine; it sounded sweet and modest and in its favor there was the precedent of some famous poets. And how well justified it was ! For a man who did not seek power, who tried to meet the world’s claims on him as well as he could, who was a poet and peaceable citizen — a man like me — was there a more proper, more understandable wish than for a retreat, a spot in the South, a rocky nook in the mountains, a cave, a hiding place, a grave ? If perchance a house in the country or a ship’s cabin were too pretentious, this certainly could not be said of a bed of straw in a hut or a small nameless grave.

During many hours over many years I elaborated this dream; while walking, working in the garden, before going to sleep, after waking up, on railway trains, and during sleepless nights I turned to it. I constructed it with care, painted and adorned it, made it ever more beautiful through music, more delicate, more noble. I drew it in the shadow of the forest, imagined an accompaniment of goat bells, wove yearning around it, poured love into it. I illuminated my darling tenderly, stroked it with maternal care, wooed and cosseted it. When I pause to think about it, I can say that perhaps I have never devoted so much love to any one thing on earth, or to very few, so much care, so much warmth from my own blood, so much strength and longing. And how at times that darling dream shone before me, stimulating and comforting, what profound inner echoes it awakened, how rosily it glowed ! How enmeshed it was in the most delicate golden threads, how ardently and lovingly painted with colors a thousand times refined !

Now and then in the course of the years it happened that other voices reached me, here and there a warning came my way, an insight that damaged the dream, opened little cracks in its precious painted surface, put one of its strings out of tune, revealed a wilted leaf in its wreath. Instantly I set about mending it, pouring into it new love, deeply deploring the disturbance, giving it new blood to resuscitate it. Soon it was pretty and whole again. And, to be honest, even today it can revive, can glow once more, can win back what it has lost.

But oftener and oftener I entertained perceptions that could not be reconciled with the dream. Some word in conversation with friends, a sentence in a book, a verse from the Bible, a line from Goethe took hold of me powerfully; lonesomeness, loss of friends, sacrifice of pleasures spoke their own rough language to me; pains came to live with me. Simple challenges, simple warnings, each little heeded in itself but all constantly hitting the same raw spot. And all were opposed to my dream. Shakespeare derided it, Kant attacked, Buddha denounced it. Only the pains again and again brought me back to it. Would they not subside and disappear once I had my refuge ? Would not sleep and hunger, smiles, an open countenance, full lungs, and a longing for action come back to me there in the cave beside the brook in the heart of nature, far from noise, far from bustle ?

But the pains grew more insistent, lasted longer, and turned against my dream: there came hours when I saw that it was worthless. The “refuge” would not cure me, the pains would not disappear in the forest or in the cabin, I would not become one with the world there nor would I achieve harmony with myself.

All this went on slowly and in many narrow spirals, and a hundred times the wishful dream returned: the brook ran comfortingly over golden-brown pebbles and the lake cradled

my deepest, most colorful dreams. But the warnings came more often, and especially the pains, and at times it seemed to me that Job was my brother.

And on one occasion a new realization knocked at my forehead; it was more serious, clearer, more hostile, more threatening. This is what it said: “Your wishful dream has been not simply false, not simply an error, not simply a pretty bit of childishness like a soap bubble. It has been much more than that, much worse, much more dangerous. It has fed upon you. It has drunk your blood, robbed you of life. Have you ever bestowed on your friend, your wife, your child so much as half the love you have given to it, half the care and warmth, half as many days, nights, creative hours ? And your weariness and your pains, your aging, your failing — whom have you to thank for them ? It — it is to blame for them all, that dream, that bloodsucker, that serpent !”

Even this insight did not triumph immediately, and even today, firmly fixed though it is, it is still open to doubts and defeats. Nevertheless, it has persisted. And then came a day that knocked the heart out of my dream.

The dream was put to the final test — it was to be fulfilled. There was a refuge available, a little house, high on a mountain above a southern lake, a retreat and hideaway, a resting place and cradle of dreams. It was to be had, it was offered to me.

Behold, here the dream was caught red-handed ! Caught in all its pretty falsity. To be specific, it took fright just when it was to be fulfilled. It did not want to be fulfilled, it was

cowardly, it searched for objections, it found excuses, it advised against, it drew back shuddering.

Oh, well, there was nothing else it could do. It had been lying for so long, it had been making promises for so long, and promising much too much. Always it had taken and

taken, and now for a change when it was its turn to give, there was nothing it had to offer. It drew back cringing like a swindler who has named a false address and now is being taken there where no one will know him, where he will have to be silent, where he will be unmasked. That was its death blow.

But vampires survive many death blows and revive again, come back and demand to eat again, to feed once more on living blood. This one too is still alive, still has tricks and devices. But now I know it for my enemy.

I have known this since the day I had my final insight. It came like all insights, in a familiar, oft-encountered guise. It was a saying I came upon by accident in a book, an old saying, a quotation from the Bible, and one with which I had been acquainted for many years and knew by rote. But today it was new, today it was full of significance.

The kingdom of God is within you.

Now I have something again to strive for, something that guides me, to which I sacrifice blood. It is no wish or dream, it is a goal.

This goal is once more — a refuge; but not a cave or a ship. I seek and long for a refuge within myself, a place where only I am, whither the world cannot reach and where I alone dwell, safer than mountain or cave, safer and more hidden than coffin or tomb. That is my goal, there nothing shall be able to intrude unless it become completely "I".

Then let there be storms, let there be pains, let blood flow. I am still far from that place, I am still on the first stage of the way, but it is now my way, no longer a dream. O deep refuge ! No storm reaches you, no fire burns you, no war destroys you. Little room within, little coffin, little cradle, you are my goal.

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