He loved. According to his passport, he was called Max Z. But as it wasstated in the same passport that he had no special peculiaritiesabout his features, I prefer to call him Mr. N+1. He represented along line of young men who possess wavy, dishevelled locks,straight, bold, and open looks, wellformed and strong bodies, andvery large and powerful hearts. All these youths have loved and perpetuated their love. Some ofthem have succeeded in engraving it on the tablets of history, likeHenry IV; others, like Petrarch, have made literary preserves ofit; some have availed themselves for that purpose of thenewspapers, wherein the happenings of the day are recorded, andwhere they figured among those who had strangled themselves, shotthemselves, or who had been shot by others; still others, thehappiest and most modest of all, perpetuated their love by enteringit in the birth records--by creating posterity. The love of N+1 was as strong as death, as a certain writer putit; as strong as life, he thought. Max was firmly convinced that he was the first to havediscovered the method of loving so intensely, so unrestrainedly, sopassionately, and he regarded with contempt all who had lovedbefore him. Still more, he was convinced that even after him no onewould love as he did, and he felt sorry that with his death thesecret of true love would be lost to mankind. But, being a modestyoung man, he attributed part of his achievement to her--to hisbeloved. Not that she was perfection itself, but she came veryclose to it, as close as an ideal can come to reality. There were prettier women than she, there were wiser women, butwas there ever a better woman? Did there ever exist a woman onwhose face was so clearly and distinctly written that she alone wasworthy of love--of infinite, pure, and devoted love? Max knew thatthere never were, and that there never would be such women. In thisrespect, he had no special peculiarities, just as Adam did not havethem, just as you, my reader, do not have them. Beginning withGrandmother Eve and ending with the woman upon whom your eyes weredirected--before you read these lines--the same inscription is tobe clearly and distinctly read on the face of every woman at acertain time. The difference is only in the quality of the ink. A very nasty day set in--it was Monday or Tuesday--when Maxnoticed with a feeling of great terror that the inscription uponthe dear face was fading. Max rubbed his eyes, looked first from adistance, then from all sides; but the fact was undeniable--theinscription was fading. Soon the last letter also disappeared--theface was white like the recently whitewashed wall of a new house.But he was convinced that the inscription had disappeared not ofitself, but that some one had wiped it off. Who? Max went to his friend, John N. He knew and he felt sure thatsuch a true, disinterested, and honest friend there never was andnever would be. And in this respect, too, as you see, Max had nospecial peculiarities. He went to his friend for the purpose oftaking his advice concerning the mysterious disappearance of theinscription, and found John N. exactly at the moment when he waswiping away that inscription by his kisses. It was then that therecords of the local occurrences were enriched by anotherunfortunate incident, entitled "An Attempt at Suicide."
........ It is said that death always comes in due time. Evidently, thattime had not yet arrived for Max, for he remained alive--that is,he ate, drank, walked, borrowed money and did not return it, andaltogether he showed by a series of psycho-physiological acts thathe was a living being, possessing a stomach, a will, and amind--but his soul was dead, or, to be more exact, it was absorbedin lethargic sleep. The sound of human speech reached his ears, hiseyes saw tears and laughter, but all that did not stir a singleecho, a single emotion in his soul. I do not know what space oftime had elapsed. It may have been one year, and it may have beenten years, for the length of such intermissions in life depends onhow quickly the actor succeeds in changing his costume. One beautiful day--it was Wednesday or Thursday--Max awakenedcompletely. A careful and guarded liquidation of his spiritualproperty made it clear that a fair piece of Max's soul, the partwhich contained his love for woman and for his friends, was dead,like a paralysis-stricken hand or foot. But what remained was,nevertheless, enough for life. That was love for and faith inmankind. Then Max, having renounced personal happiness, started towork for the happiness of others. That was a new phase--he believed. All the evil that is tormenting the world seemed to him to beconcentrated in a "red flower," in one red flower. It was butnecessary to tear it down, and the incessant, heart-rending criesand moans which rise to the indifferent sky from all points of theearth, like its natural breathing, would be silenced. The evil ofthe world, he believed, lay in the evil will and in the madness ofthe people. They themselves were to blame for being unhappy, andthey could be happy if they wished. This seemed so clear and simplethat Max was dumfounded in his amazement at human stupidity.Humanity reminded him of a crowd huddled together in a spacioustemple and panicstricken at the cry of "Fire!" Instead of passing calmly through the wide doors and savingthemselves, the maddened people, with the cruelty of frenziedbeasts, cry and roar, crush one another and perish--not from thefire (for it is only imaginary), but from their own madness. It isenough sometimes when one sensible, firm word is uttered to thiscrowd--the crowd calms down and imminent death is thus averted.Let, then, a hundred calm, rational voices be raised to mankind,showing them where to escape and where the danger lies--and heavenwill be established on earth, if not immediately, then at leastwithin a very brief time. Max began to utter his word of wisdom. How he uttered it youwill learn later. The name of Max was mentioned in the newspapers,shouted in the market places, blessed and cursed; whole books werewritten on what Max N+1 had done, what he was doing, and what heintended to do. He appeared here and there and everywhere. He wasseen standing at the head of the crowd, commanding it; he was seenin chains and under the knife of the guillotine. In this respectMax did not have any special peculiarities, either. A preacher ofhumility and peace, a stern bearer of fire and sword, he was thesame Max--Max the believer. But while he was doing all this, timekept
passing on. His nerves were shattered; his wavy locks becamethin and his head began to look like that of Elijah the Prophet;here and there he felt a piercing pain.... The earth continued to turn light-mindedly around the sun, nowcoming nearer to it, now retreating coquettishly, and giving theimpression that it fixed all its attention upon its householdfriend, the moon; the days were replaced by other days, and thedark nights by other dark nights, with such pedantic Germanpunctuality and correctness that all the artistic natures werecompelled to move over to the far north by degrees, where the devilhimself would break his head endeavouring to distinguish betweenday and night--when suddenly something happened to Max. Somehow it happened that Max became misunderstood. He had calmedthe crowd by his words of wisdom many a time before and had savedthem from mutual destruction but now he was not understood. Theythought that it was he who had shouted "Fire!" With all theeloquence of which he was capable he assured them that he wasexerting all his efforts for their sake alone; that he himselfneeded absolutely nothing, for he was alone, childless; that he wasready to forget the sad misunderstanding and serve them again withfaith and truth--but all in vain. They would not trust him. And inthis respect Max did not have any special peculiarities, either.The sad incident ended for Max in a new intermission. ........ Max was alive, as was positively established by medical experts,who had made a series of simple tests. Thus, when they pricked aneedle into his foot, he shook his foot and tried to remove theneedle. When they put food before him, he ate it, but he did notwalk and did not ask for any loans, which clearly testified to thecomplete decline of his energy. His soul was dead--as much as thesoul can be dead while the body is alive. To Max all that he hadloved and believed in was dead. Impenetrable gloom wrapped hissoul. There were neither feelings in it, nor desires, nor thoughts.And there was not a more unhappy man in the world than Max, if hewas a man at all. But he was a man. According to the calendar, it was Friday or Saturday, when Maxawakened as from a prolonged sleep. With the pleasant sensation ofan owner to whom his property has been restored which had wronglybeen taken from him, Max realised that he was once more inpossession of all his five senses. His sight reported to him that he was all alone, in a placewhich might in justice be called either a room or a chimney. Eachwall of the room was about a metre and a half wide and about tenmetres high. The walls were straight, white, smooth, with noopenings, except one through which food was brought to Max. Anelectric lamp was burning brightly on the ceiling. It was burningall the time, so that Max did not know now what darkness was. Therewas no furniture in the room, and Max had to lie on the stonefloor. He lay curled together, as the narrowness of the room didnot permit him to stretch himself.
His sense of hearing reported to him that until the day of hisdeath he would not leave this room.... Having reported this, hishearing sank into inactivity, for not the slightest sound came fromwithout, except the sounds which Max himself produced, tossingabout, or shouting until he was hoarse, until he lost hisvoice. Max looked into himself. In contrast to the outward light whichnever went out he saw within himself impenetrable, heavy, andmotionless darkness. In that darkness his love and faith wereburied. Max did not know whether time was moving or whether it stoodmotionless. The same even, white light poured down on him--the samesilence and quiet. Only by the beating of his heart Max could judgethat Chronos had not left his chariot. His body was aching evermore from the unnatural position in which it lay, and the constantlight and silence were growing ever more tormenting. How happy arethey for whom night exists, near whom people are shouting, makingnoise, beating drums; who may sit on a chair, with their feethanging down, or lie with their feet outstretched, placing the headin a corner and covering it with the hands in order to create theillusion of darkness. Max made an effort to recall and to picture to himself whatthere is in life; human faces, voices, the stars.... He knew thathis eyes would never in life see that again. He knew it, and yet helived. He could have destroyed himself, for there is no position inwhich a man can not do that, but instead Max worried about hishealth, trying to eat, although he had no appetite, solvingmathematical problems to occupy his mind so as not to lose hisreason. He struggled against death as if it were not his deliverer,but his enemy; and as if life were to him not the worst of infernaltortures--but love, faith, and happiness. Gloom in the Past, thegrave in the Future, and infernal tortures in the Present--and yethe lived. Tell me, John N., where did he get the strength forthat? He hoped.