Beyond the Threshold
Deathbed scenes
- Scene 4 -
A dandy
5 August 1847
This is the last hour and the early death of a dandy, who apart from tobacco smoking, gambling, gluttony, drink, paying court to all the better looking females and being an excellent dancer and player of waltzes for the sake of this beautiful world, did not know much, although he had spent almost all his time at colleges and universities. The dandy demonstrated here was the son of rather wealthy parents, who, of course, allowed their promising, enormously spoilt son to take up all sorts of
studies as soon as he had mastered the ABC.
So that the tender boy during the difficult learning of the Latin language should not do too badly, he was given into a very good boarding-house, where he had plenty to eat and could grow; however, not in wisdom and in favor with God and men, but only in body. And so that he should not waste away with all this heavy learning, he was allowed to repeat each year in case he could not finish - naturally in the easiest manner - a grade in one year. For this purpose the professors, particularly in the lower grades, were heavily bribed and for every subject a goodhearted instructor was taken on.
In this way our student narrowly made it through the lower grades, only his head benefited little or nothing in this manner. As a consequence, he continually failed to pass in the higher grades. And since he had no great liking for learning, he applied himself mainly to the above mentioned free arts, namely smoking, gambling, gluttony, drinking etc.
Having gone through his studies and passed everywhere with just fair marks, he tried his hand in lawyer's offices, but the air reeking of paper and ink did not agree with him. He was always given so much money by his mother, that he could live the life of a gentleman also without a lawyer's office. At the same time, he courted all the daughters of better houses and proposed to many, so that with all the prospects of matrimony held out to them, many a sweet girl ended up "expecting" without the marriage bond.
Apart from these beauties, whom he instilled with disagreeable, but living "hope", our "government official" also favored other females, whom he could have at any time for little money, without the promise of marriage and the fear of impregnating these beauties.
And so it sometimes happened that he was infected with Syphilis in all degrees, finally so much so that even the most experienced doctors in this field could no longer help him. The consequence of this disorderly conduct was a general drying up of the natural vital juices, for which evil I, the Lord, at the creation of the world, alas, had completely forgotten to create a "healing herb". And so our dandy nolens, volens had to prepare himself for death. Certainly a rather disagreeable procedure for a fashionable man, who loved the world and its sweet pleasures. But as it so happens, everyone must go the way of the flesh. And finally also this dandy, whose greatest earthly bliss was the flesh, was all the more forced to walk the true "way of the flesh".
Just look towards his smelly bed, where he twists and turns gasping for air and water. But he is no longer able to get any into his stomach, for all the ligaments of his gullet are dried out and unable to draw even a drop of water into the stomach. His breath is short and very painful, since the lungs are almost completely dry. His voice is also quite broken. He is only able to utter a few painful, half-expressed words, the sound of which is like that of a bassoon in the hands of a pupil. And although he tries to curse like a dandy and to stammer a few learned phrases from Voltaire or Sir Walter Scott, the general dryness of his system does not allow it and the strong pains in all his vital parts leave him not even the time to concentrate his thoughts once more on one point. Therefore, he lies there gasping, only sometimes uttering a piercing, rasping bassoon sound from his completely dried out throat.
You see, this is how the end of such libertines often turns out in this world! However, since there is nothing more to be observed with this dandy in this world and, as you express it, death is about to claim him any moment, we will turn at once to the beyond and see how our man will arrive there.
Look, his bed is exactly like the one he had in the world. He still lies there like before, but at the same time you see by his bed only an angel with a flaming torch, destroying the dandy's last vital drops with its spiritual flame!
The reason why there is only one angel with such people is because their soul and spirit are completely dead. Only the angel of death, who governs the flesh and the nerve spirit, is here to torment and burn the flesh and the nerve spirit, thereby collecting the scattered remnants of the soul and the equally scattered spirit in the nerve spirit, in this way preventing the dying person from eternal death.
He (the angel) will not speak to this man, but will only burn him with his torch from the natural world into the spirit world. This usually happens, and must happen, with such people, for without this last act of grace they would lose their whole being.
This act is like the distorted pagan act in the fable of Prometheus. For the more spiritual original people observed such performances in the spirit world which, to be sure, were indescribably rarer than in this time, which is far more voluptuous than Sodom and Gomorrah. So a few of their fables survived, only distorted beyond measure after a few thousand years. Here the same Prometheus appears - as he acted in reality. But look, now the solitary angel has brought his work to a good end.
The flesh of our dandy is burnt to ashes through and through, and observe, out of the ashes, quite slowly and idly - not a glorious, rejuvenated bird Phoenix, oh no, but look - only a silly monkey, looking like an old decrepit baboon, is rising! He is quite dumb, but he can see a little.
The animal form is due to the fact that such people during the course of their debauched life totally waste the finer human soul specific particles through their lust, retaining only the coarser animal ones. In this case at least the monkey soul remained. But there are others, who have spoilt themselves down to the ugliest of amphibians.
With this man the "water of his life" cannot be determined as yet, for he must now, as you say, "go into pasture". There he will be handed over to spirits, who are placed in charge of such degenerated animal souls. Perhaps they will achieve that, with all diligence in a hundred years, this soul will again attain a human form. It is not possible to say more of this.