One of Martin’s companions stood beside him and made the introduction, “Doctor Markel.”
Doctor Markel had come there with an older brother of Billfelt’s. They had come from Uppsala that day, eaten dinner at Hasselbacken, and then invited themselves to share the student supper. The elder Billfelt was giving a talk inside at the moment. Martin heard something about “Uppsala” and “alma mater.”
Doctor Markel sat down beside Henrik and Martin without further ceremony.
“Two young poets, eh?” he asked. “I venture to assume so, since the gentlemen sit here by themselves apart from the vulgar throng and talk about the stars. May I ask what your attitude toward life is? Do you believe in God?”
Henrik Rissler looked at the stranger in surprise, and Martin shook his head.
Doctor Markel looked entirely serious, except that there was a slight mist over his eyes, which were large and mournful.
Some of the others had come up and were now listening to the conversation. Planius and Tullman presented the same docile countenances with which they had listened in class to the exposition of the instructor. Gabel simpered sarcastically with his fine aristocratic face, and behind him Josef Marin pressed up. Josef Marin was short and slight; he looked pale and overworked. The two or three glasses of punch he had drunk had already made him a bit convivial; but now when he heard a serious question proposed and could not see that there was any joke behind it, he broke in with all the earnestness he could summon up at the moment: “I believe in God. But I don’t conceive Him as a personal being.”
Doctor Markel seemed pleasantly surprised.
“Oh, you are a pantheist, charming! That’s what you must be too”—he turned to Martin—“you who are studying to be a poet. For poets and those who want to seduce girls—and that all poets wish—I cannot sufficiently recommend the pantheistic conception. Nothing can be more suited for turning the head of a young girl than the pantheistic rhapsodizing with which Faust answers Gretchen’s simple question, ‘Do you believe in God?’ If he had answered as simply and unaffectedly as she asked, ‘No, my child, I don’t believe in God,’ you may be sure the girl would have crossed herself, run home to her quiet chamber, and turned the key twice in the lock. Instead he answers that he both believes and disbelieves—which gives the impression of deep spiritual conflict—and that God is really a name for the feeling that two lovers have when they lie in the same bed. This he says with much feeling and in beautiful language, so that it does not shock her modesty; on the contrary, she thinks he talks like a priest, and the rest we know—And for a poet—But first allow me as an elder student. …”
With easy familiarity Doctor Markel drank brotherhood with all who were within range and then continued:
“For a poet, pantheism is a pure godsend, a regular goldmine. If he is a churchman, he will be given the Order of Charles XIII and a good income, but will only be read by missies and be ridiculed by the liberal papers, which have the largest circulation. If he is an atheist, he will be considered a shallow and superficial fellow, a poor sort, and he will have a hard time to borrow money. No, a poet should believe in God, but in a god who is out of the ordinary run, something not yet existent, never before shown in any circus, that one can never really get hold of, for then the game would be up. The pantheistic god is exactly the raw material needed for such a being. That is the ideal for a god. Each and every one can carve him to his own taste, he is never without humor, he never punishes and of course never rewards either, he takes the whole show easily, which comes from the fact that he lacks a small characteristic that even the simplest of the town rowdies possesses to some extent: namely, personality. That’s just the choice thing about him. To a personal god one must stand in a personal relation; that is, one must become a religionist. To be a religionist is excellent if one has just come out of Langholm jail and needs to be rehabilitated in society. Otherwise it is unnecessary. You see my drift, gentlemen: to stick to a personal god entails a lot of unnecessary trouble, to be without a god entirely is ticklish. Therefore one must have an impersonal god. Such a god sets the imagination going and comes out finely in poetry without in return entailing any obligation. With such a god one will be regarded by cultured circles as a person of noble and enlightened thought and may become pretty nearly anything from an archbishop to the editor of a radical newspaper.
“In formal style this god may be called the Allfather, in common speech the Lord. As a matter of fact he doesn’t need any name, it is with him as with that star off there: no matter how one calls him, he won’t come.”
The gesture with which Doctor Markel sought and, as it were, beckoned to the star met only a dark and sullen firmament, for great clouds had gathered, the star was gone, it had grown dusky as an autumn evening, and some big raindrops now began to fall on the railing.
Doctor Markel’s lecture was not well received. Josef Marin, who had been drinking more punch meanwhile and had become even paler than before, muttered something to the effect that he ought to have a smack on the jaw. The others got up in groups and discussed whether they should go home.
The elder Billfelt took in the situation, rang for the waiter and ordered champagne. He raised
