Chapter Five

   Meanwhile, I had not thought about Muoth's holidays and love of traveling. He was very pleased about my plans for an opera and promised to help me as much as possible, but he was occupied with traveling plans and could only promise to go through his part for the autumn. I copied it out for him as far as it was ready. He took it with him and as usual I did not hear anything from him all those months.
   So we had a respite. A very pleasant relationship now existed between Gertrude and me. I believe that, since that time at the piano, she knew quite well what was going on inside me, but she never said a word and was not different with me in any way. She did not like only my music, she liked me too, and felt as I did, that there was a natural bond between us and a feeling of mutual understanding and affection. Her behavior toward me was therefore kind and friendly, but without passion. At times that was sufficient for me and I spent quiet, contented days in her company, but passion always soon arose as the additional factor between us, and her friendliness then seemed only like charity to me and it tormented me to see that the waves of love and desire that overpowered me were alien and disagreeable to her. Often I deceived myself and tried to persuade myself that she had a placid, unemotional temperament. Yet in my heart I felt it was not true, and I knew Gertrude well enough to know that love would also bring her hazards and a tumult of emotions. I often thought about it later and felt that if I had taken her by storm, fought for her, and drawn her to me with all my strength, she would have followed me and gone with me for good. But I mistrusted her pleasant manner toward me, and when she was gentle and showed affection for me, I attributed it to the usual undesired sympathy. I could not rid myself of the thought that if she had liked a healthy, attractive man as much as she liked me, she could not have maintained the relationship on this quiet, friendly basis for so long. It was then not rare for me to spend hours feeling that I would have exchanged my music and all that was of value to me for a straight leg and a gay disposition.
   About that time Teiser drew closer to me again. He was indispensable for my work, and so he was the next one to learn my secret and become familiar with the libretto and my plans for an opera. He was very discreet about it all and took the work home to study. When he came again, his childlike face with its fair beard beamed with pleasure and excitement about the music.
   "That opera of yours is going to be something!" he exclaimed with excitement. "I can already feel the overture in my fingertips. Now, let's go and have a drink, you rascal. If it were not too presumptuous, I would suggest that we drink a pledge of brotherhood -- but I don't want to force it on you."
   I willingly accepted the invitation and we had a pleasant evening together. For the first time Teiser took me home with him. His sister, who had been left alone at her mother's death, had recently come to live with him. Teiser could not speak highly enough of the comfort of his changed household after his long bachelor years. His sister was a quiet, pleasant girl, with the same bright, childlike eyes as her brother. She was called Brigitte. She brought us cakes and clear Austrian wine, also a box of long Virginia cigars. We drank the first glass of wine to her health and the second to our good friendship, and while we ate cakes, drank wine and smoked, Teiser moved delightedly about the room. First he sat down by the piano, then on the settee with a guitar, then at the end of the table with his violin, and played anything pleasant that was going through his head. He sang too and his bright eyes sparkled and it was all a tribute to me and to the opera. It seemed that his sister had the same blood in her veins and swore no less by Mozart than he did. Arias from The Magic Flute and excerpts from Don Giovanni, interrupted now and then by conversation and the clinking of glasses, echoed through the little house, beautifully accompanied by her brother on the violin, piano or guitar, or even just by whistling.
   I was still engaged as a violinist in the orchestra for the short summer season, but had asked for my release in the autumn, as I wished to devote all my time and energy to my work. The conductor, who was annoyed because I was leaving, was very rude to me toward the end, but Teiser helped me greatly to defend myself and to rise above it.
   With the help of this loyal friend, I worked at the orchestration of my opera. While respecting my ideas, he rigorously put his finger on all the technical errors. Often he became quite annoyed and rebuked me like an outspoken conductor, until the doubtful part which I had liked and wished to retain was crossed out and altered. He was always ready with examples whenever I was in doubt. When I presented something unsatisfactorily or was not venturesome enough, he came running to me with scores and showed me how Mozart or Lortzing would have handled it, and proved to me that my hesitation was cowardice, or my obstinacy audacious stupidity. We bellowed at each other, disputed and grew excited, and if it occurred in Teiser's house, Brigitte listened to us attentively, came to and fro with wine and cigars, and smoothed out many crumpled sheets of music carefully and sympathetically. Her admiration for me was equal to her affection for her brother; to her I was a maestro. Every Sunday I was invited to lunch at the Teisers'. After the meal, even if there was only a tiny blue patch in the sky, we took the tram to the outskirts of town. Then we walked over the hills and through the woods, talked and sang, and the Teisers frequently yodeled in their native fashion.
   We once stopped for a light meal in the garden of a village inn, where the merry music of a country dance drifted across to us through the wide-open windows. When we had eaten and sat resting over our cider, Brigitte slipped across to the house and went inside. We watched her do this and soon after we saw her dance past the window, as fresh and sparkling as a summer morning. When she returned, Teiser shook his finger at her and said she should have asked him to go along too. She then blushed and became embarrassed, shook her head protestingly and looked at me.
   "What's the matter?" asked her brother.
   "Nothing," she said, but by chance I saw how she made him realize the significance of her glance, and Teiser said: "Oh, of course!"
   I did not say anything, but it seemed strange to me to see her embarrassed because she had danced while I was there. For the first time it occurred to me that their walks also would have been quicker and longer if I had not been there to restrict them, and after that I only joined them occasionally on their Sunday excursions.
   When he had gone through the soprano part as far as possible, Gertrude noticed that I was reluctant to give up my frequent visits to her and our pleasant times together at the piano, and that yet I was too shy to make excuses for their continuation. Then she surprised me with the suggestion that I should visit her regularly to accompany her singing, and I now went to her house two or three times a week in the afternoons. Her father was pleased at her friendship with me. Gertrude had lost her mother when she was still young; she was mistress of the house and her father let her have her own way in everything.
   The garden was in its full splendor. It abounded with flowers, and birds sang around the quiet house. When I entered the garden from the road and went past the old, darkened statues in the drive toward the house, which was surrounded by greenery, it was for me each time like entering a sanctuary, where the voices and things of the world could only penetrate to a slight degree. The bees hummed among the flowering bushes in front of the windows, sunshine and the soft shadows of the foliage dappled the room, and I sat at the piano and heard Gertrude sing. I listened to her voice, which rose easily and without effort, and when after a song we looked at each other and smiled, it was in a united and confiding way as if between brother and sister. I often felt at these times that I had only to stretch out my hands to grasp my happiness and have it for good, and yet I did not do so, because I wanted to wait until she also showed some sign of desire and longing. But Gertrude seemed to be contented and not to wish for anything else. Indeed, it often seemed to me that she did not wish to shatter this peaceful relationship and disturb the springtime of our friendship.
   If I was disappointed about this, it was a consolation to me to know how deeply she cared for my music, how well she understood and was proud of it.
   This state of affairs lasted until June. Then Gertrude and her father went off into the mountains. I remained behind, and whenever I went past her house, I saw it standing empty behind the plane trees, with the gate locked. The pain returned, grew and followed me into the night.
   In the evenings I went to the Teisers, almost always with music in my case, and shared their quiet, contented way of life. I drank their Austrian wine and played Mozart with them. Afterwards I walked back in the mild night, saw couples walking about in the parks, went home wearily to bed but could not sleep. It was now inconceivable to me that I could have behaved in such a brotherly fashion toward Gertrude and that I had never broken down the barrier, drawn her to me, taken her by storm and won her. I could imagine her in her light-blue or gray dress, merry or serious; I could hear her voice, and could not conceive ever having heard it without being filled with passion and a desire to make love to her. Restless and agitated, I rose, switched on the light and threw myself into my work. I made human voices and instruments woo, plead and threaten. I repeated the song of yearning in new, feverish melodies. Often this comfort also was lacking to me, and afterwards, when I lay in bed, ardent and restless, in a state of wretched sleeplessness, I uttered her name, "Gertrude, Gertrude," wildly and senselessly, thrust comfort and hope aside and surrendered myself despairingly to the dreadful prostration of desire. I cried out to God and asked him why he had made me this way, why he had made me a cripple, and why instead of the happiness that was the lot of the poorest of mortals, he had given me nothing but the terrible solace of living in a whirl of sounds where, in the face of my desires, I continually depicted the unattainable in strange fantasies.
   During the day I was more successful in controlling my emotions. I clenched my teeth, sat at my work from the early hours of the morning, calmed myself by taking long walks and refreshed myself with cold shower baths. In the evenings I fled from the shadows of the approaching night to the cheerful company of the Teisers, with whom I obtained a few hours of rest and sometimes pleasure. Teiser noticed that I was ill and suffering and put it down to all the work. He advised me to rest awhile, although he himself was full of enthusiasm and inwardly was as excited and impatient as I was to see the opera growing. Sometimes I also called for him and spent an evening with him alone in the cool garden of some inn, but even then I was disturbed by the sight of young lovers, Chinese lanterns and fireworks, and the fragrance of desire in the air which always hovers over towns on summer evenings.
   It was worst of all when Teiser also went away to spend his holidays with Brigitte walking among the mountains. He invited me to come along too, and he meant it seriously, although my inability to move about easily would have spoiled his pleasure; but I could not accept his invitation.
   For two weeks I remained in town alone, miserable and unable to sleep, and I did not make any further progress with my work.
   Then Gertrude sent me a small box full of Alpine roses from a village in Wallis. When I saw her handwriting and unpacked the brownish, fading flowers, it was like a glance from her dear eyes and I felt ashamed of my agitation and lack of confidence. I decided it was better for her to know how I felt, and the next morning I wrote her a short letter. I told her half jokingly that I could not sleep and that it was through longing for her, and that I could no longer just be friendly with her, as I was in love with her. While writing, I was again overcome by my emotions, and the letter, which had started mildly and almost jestingly, ended impetuously and ardently.
   Almost every day the post brought me greetings and picture postcards from the Teisers, who naturally could not know that their cards and letters brought me disappointment each time, for I was waiting to hear from someone else.
   It came at last, a gray envelope with Gertrude's clear, flowing handwriting on it, and inside was a letter.

My dear friend,
   Your letter has embarrassed me. I realize that you are suffering, otherwise I would scold you for attacking me in this way. You know I am very fond of you, but I am quite contented with my present state and have as yet no desire to change it. If I thought there was any danger of losing you, I would do everything possible to prevent it. But I can give no reply to your ardent letter. Be patient, let things remain between us as they were until we can see each other again and talk things over. Everything will then be easier.
   Yours affectionately,
      GERTRUDE

   It had altered the position very little and yet the letter made me happier. After all, it was a greeting from her; she had permitted me to make a declaration of love and had not snubbed me. The letter also seemed to bring some of her personality with it, some of her almost cool sweetness, and instead of the image of her which my longing had created, she was again in my thoughts as her real self. Her words seemed to ask for confidence from me. I felt as if she were near me and immediately I was aware of both shame and pride. It helped me to conquer my tormenting longings and to suppress my burning desires. Uncomforted, but strengthened and more in command of myself, I held my head high. I obtained accommodation in a village inn, two hours' traveling distance from the town, and took my work with me. I sat meditating a great deal in a cool, already faded lilac bower, and thought quite often about my life. How strange and lonely was my path and how uncertain my destination! Nowhere did I have any roots and a place I could really call home. I kept up only a superficial relationship with my parents by means of polite letters. I had even given up my occupation in order to indulge in creating hazardous fantasies, which did not completely satisfy me. My friends did not really understand me. Gertrude was the only person with whom I could have had complete understanding and a perfect relationship. And was I not just chasing shadows and building castles in the air with the work for which I lived and which should have given meaning to my life? Could it really have a meaning and justify and fill a person's life, this building up of sound patterns and the exciting play with images, which at the best would help other people to pass a pleasant hour?
   Nevertheless, I worked fairly hard again during that summer. I completed the opera inwardly, even though there was still much detail lacking and only a small part of the work had been written out. Sometimes it gave me great pleasure and I thought with pride how my work would have power over people, how singers and musicians, conductors and choruses would have to act in accordance with my wishes, and how the opera would have an effect on thousands of people. At other times it seemed even ominous and nightmarish to me that all this power and emotion should arise from the restless dreams and imagination of a poor lonely man whom everyone pitied. At other times I lost courage and felt that my opera would never be performed, that it was all unreal and exaggerated. But this feeling was rare; in my heart I was convinced of the quality and strength of my work. It was sincere and ardent; it had been experienced and had blood in its veins. If I do not want to hear it any more nowadays and write quite a different kind of music, nevertheless all my youth is in that opera. Whenever I hear melodies from it, it is as if a mild spring storm drifts across to me from the abandoned valleys of youth and passion. And when I think that all its strength and power over people was born of weakness, privation and longing, I no longer know whether my whole life at that time, and also at present, can be called happy or sad.
   Summer was approaching its end. One dark night, during a heavy, tempestuous downpour of rain, I finished writing the overture. The following morning, the rain was slight and cool, the sky an even gray, and the garden had become autumnal. I packed my possessions and went back to town.
   Among my acquaintances, Teiser and his sister were the only ones who had already returned. They both looked very well and tanned by the mountain sun. They had had a surprising number of experiences on their tour and yet they were very interested and excited to know how my opera was progressing. We went through the overture and it was quite a moment for me when Teiser put his hand on my shoulder and said: "Look, Brigitte, here is a great musician!"
   Despite all my yearning and ardor, I awaited Gertrude's return with great eagerness, as I had a large amount of work to show her. I knew that she would take a keen interest in it, and understand and enjoy it all as if it were her own. Above all, I was anxious to see Heinrich Muoth whose help was essential to me and from whom I had not heard for months.
   Finally Muoth arrived before Gertrude did and walked into my room one morning. He looked at me searchingly.
   "You look terrible," he said, shaking his head. "Well, when one composes music like that!"
   "Have you looked at your part?"
   "Looked at it? I know it by heart and will sing it as soon as you wish. It's extraordinary music!"
   "Do you really think so?"
   "I do. You have been doing your finest work. Just wait! Your moderate fame will be a thing of the past when your opera is performed. Well, that's your affair. When do you want me to sing? There are one or two points that I want to mention. How far are you with the whole opera?"
   I showed him my work and he then took me to his rooms. There, for the first time, I heard him sing the part for which I had always had him in mind during the play of my own emotions, and I felt the power of my music and his singing. Only now could I visualize the whole opera on the stage, only now could my own flame reach me and let me feel its warmth. It was as if the opera did not belong to me, as if it had never been my work but had its own life and the effect of an external power over me. For the first time I felt this sense of detachment of a work from its creator, in which I had not previously really believed. My work began to stand up, move and show signs of life. A moment ago I had still held it in my hand; now it was no longer mine; it was like a child that had grown taller than its father; it lived and acted of its own accord and looked at me independently through its own eyes; yet it bore my name and my imprint. I experienced the same conflicting, sometimes frightening, sensation when my works were performed later on.
   Muoth had learned the part very well, and I was easily able to give my agreement to the slight alterations he desired. He then inquired about the soprano part, which he knew only partly, and wished to know whether a singer had yet tried it. For the first time I had to tell him about Gertrude, and I managed to do so quietly and casually. He knew the name quite well, although he had never been to Imthor's house. He was surprised to hear that Gertrude had studied the part and could sing it.
   "She must have a good voice," he said approvingly, "high and sweet. Will you take me there sometime?"
   "I intended in any case to ask them if you could come. I should like to hear you sing with Miss Imthor once or twice; some corrections will be necessary. As soon as the Imthors are back in town, I will ask them."
   "You're a lucky fellow really, Kuhn. And Teiser will be able to help you with the orchestration. The opera will be a success, you'll see."
   I did not say anything. I had as yet no thoughts about the future and the fate of my opera; first of all, it must be finished. But since I had heard him sing it, I also believed in the power of my work.
   When I told Teiser about it, he said grimly: "I can believe you. Muoth has tremendous energy. If only he weren't such a faker. He never really cares about the music, only about himself. He is a complete egoist."
   On the day that I went to see Gertrude, who had at last returned, my heart beat more quickly as I walked through the garden of the Imthors' house in its autumnal garb, with the leaves already beginning to fall. But she came toward me smiling, looking a little sunburned and more beautiful and graceful than ever. She held out her hand to me, and her dear voice, her bright eyes and her whole charming, natural manner immediately bewitched me anew. I gladly put my sorrows and desires aside and was happy to be in her soothing presence again. She did not press me, and as I could not bring myself to mention my letter and the nature of it, she also remained silent about it, and in no way indicated by her behavior that our friendship was in any way spoiled or in danger. She did not try to avoid me; she was often alone with me, as she was confident that I would respect her wishes and not repeat my declaration of love unless she encouraged me. Without wasting any time, we went through my work of the last few months and I told her that Muoth had learned his part and praised it. I asked her permission to bring him there, as it was essential for me to go through both principal parts with them together, and she gave her agreement.
   "I am not doing so willingly," she said. "You know that I never sing for strangers, and before Heinrich Muoth it will be doubly painful, and not just because he is a famous singer. There is something about him that frightens me, at least on the stage. Anyway, we'll see how it goes."
   I did not venture to defend and praise my friend. I did not want to make her feel more embarrassed and I was convinced that, after the first time, she would willingly sing with him again.
   Several days later, Muoth and I went to the Imthors' and were received by our host with great politeness and reserve. He had never shown the slightest objection to my frequent visits and my friendship with Gertrude and would have laughed if anyone had said anything against it. He was less pleased about Muoth coming, but the latter's manner was very polished and correct and both Imthors were agreeably disappointed. The forceful, arrogant singer with a bad reputation could behave irreproachably. Also he was not vain and decided in his opinions, but modest.
   "Shall we sing?" asked Gertrude after a while. We stood up and went across to the music room. I sat down at the piano, said a few words about the introduction and scene, gave some directions and then asked Gertrude to begin. She did so, singing softly in a restrained and careful manner. On the other hand, when it was Muoth's turn to sing, he did so aloud without hesitation or self-consciousness, captivated us both and made us enter the spirit of the music so that Gertrude now also sang without restraint. Muoth, who was used to treating ladies of good family very formally, now paid attention to her, listened to her singing with interest, and expressed his admiration in encouraging but not exaggerated words.
   From then on all prejudices vanished; the music drew us together and we were of one mind. And my work that lay there half dead in imperfectly connected parts continued to assume the shape of a whole and living thing. I now knew that the chief part of the work was done, that there was nothing of importance that could spoil it, and it seemed good to me. I did not conceal my pleasure and gratefully thanked both my friends. Muoth and I left the house in a festive mood and he treated me to an unexpected celebration at the inn where he was staying. While we drank champagne, he did something that he was a little afraid to do; he addressed me as an intimate friend and continued to do so. This pleased me and had my approval.
   "Here we are enjoying ourselves and celebrating," he said, laughing, "and I think it is a good idea to do it in advance. That is the best time. Afterward things seem different. You are going to be in the limelight, young fellow, and I hope it doesn't spoil you as it does most people."
   Gertrude was still ill at ease with Muoth for a long time, and only while singing with him was she natural and unrestrained. He was very polite and considerate, and gradually Gertrude was glad to see him and invited him each time in a friendly fashion to come again, just as she did with me. The occasions on which the three of us were alone together became less frequent. The parts had been learned and discussed and, moreover, the Imthors, now that it was winter, had resumed their conviviality, with regular musical evenings. Muoth often appeared at these gatherings but without ever singing.
   At times I thought that Gertrude was beginning to be more reserved with me and that she was to some extent drawing away from me. However, I always reproached myself for these thoughts and was ashamed of my suspicions. Gertrude was very much in demand as the mistress of a house where much entertaining was done, and it often gave me pleasure to see her move about and act as hostess among her guests, looking so young, charming and gracious.
   The weeks passed by very quickly for me. I worked at my opera, which I hoped to finish during the winter. I had meetings with Teiser, and spent many evenings with him and his sister. Then there were all sorts of letters and arrangements, as my songs were sung at different places and all the string music I had composed was played in Berlin. There were inquiries and newspaper reviews, and suddenly everyone seemed to know that I was working on an opera, although, apart from Gertrude, the Teisers and Muoth, I had not said a word about it to anyone. It did not really matter and inwardly I was happy about these signs of success. It seemed as if at last, and yet soon enough, a path lay open before me.
   I had not been to my parents' house for a whole year and I went there for Christmas. My mother was affectionate, but there was the old reserve between us, which on my side was a fear of being misunderstood, and on her side a lack of faith in my career as a musician and disbelief in the seriousness of my endeavors. She now talked animatedly about what she had heard and read about me, but more to give me pleasure than from conviction, for inwardly she mistrusted these apparent successes as much as she did my art as a whole. It was not that she did not like music -- indeed at one time she used to sing a little -- but in her opinion a musician was a poor sort of person. She had also heard some of my music and did not understand or care for it.
   My father had more faith. As a merchant he thought above all of my material success, and although he had always given me a generous allowance without grumbling and had again continued to support me fully when I left the orchestra, he was glad to see that I was beginning to earn money and that there were prospects of my making a living by my own efforts. Having made money himself, he regarded this as an essential basis for a respectable existence. He was in bed when I arrived. He had had a fall the day before my arrival and had injured his foot.
   I found him tending toward slightly philosophical conversations. I came closer to him than ever and took delight in his practical outlook on life. I was able to tell him many of my troubles, which I had never done before because of a sense of bashfulness. Something Muoth had once said occurred to me and I repeated it to my father. Muoth had said, not really in earnest, that he thought youth was the most difficult time of life and he found that most old people were much more serene and contented than young people. My father laughed at that and said thoughtfully: "Naturally we old people say just the opposite, but there is some truth in what your friend said. I think one can draw quite a distinct division between youth and maturity. Youth ends when egotism does; maturity begins when one lives for others. That is what I mean. Young people have many pleasures and many sorrows, because they have only themselves to think of, so every wish and every notion assumes importance; every pleasure is tasted to the full but also every sorrow, and many who find that their wishes cannot be fulfilled, put an end immediately to their lives. That is being young. To most people, however, there comes a time when the situation changes, when they live more for others, not for any virtuous reasons, but quite naturally. A family is the reason with most people. One thinks less about oneself and one's wishes when one has a family. Others lose their egotism in a responsible position, in politics, in art or in science. Young people want to play; mature people want to work. A man does not marry just to have children, but if he has them they change him, and finally he sees that everything has happened just for them. That links up with the fact that young people like to talk about death but do not really think about it. It is just the other way round with old people. Life seems long to young people and they can therefore concentrate all their wishes and thoughts on themselves. Old people are conscious of an approaching end, and that everything one has and does solely for oneself finally falls short and lacks value. Therefore a man requires a different kind of continuity and faith; he does not work just for the worms. That is why one has a wife and children, business and responsibility, so that one knows for whom one endures the daily toil. In that respect your friend is quite right, a man is happier when he lives for others than when he lives just for himself, but old people should not make it out to be such an act of heroism, because it isn't one really. In any case, the most lively young people become the best old people, not those who pretend to be as wise as grandfathers while they are still at school."
   I remained at home for a week and sat a great deal at my father's bedside. He was not a patient invalid; besides, except for the small injury to his foot, he was in excellent health. I told him I was sorry that I had not confided in him more and drawn closer to him before, but he remarked that that could be said for both sides, and our relationship in the future would be better than if we had made premature attempts to understand each other, which rarely succeed. In a discreet and kind way, he asked me whether I'd had any luck with women. I did not want to say anything about Gertrude; what I did tell him was very brief.
   "Don't worry," said my father, smiling. "You are the type to make a really good husband; intelligent women will soon notice that. Only be wary of women of small means who may be after your money. And if you do not find the one that you envisage and think you would like, it is still not disastrous. Love between young people and love after many years of marriage is not the same thing. When one is young, one has only oneself to think of and care for, but when there is a household, there are other things to attend to. That is how it was with me, as you well know. I was very much in love with your mother; it was a real love match. But it only lasted a year or two; then our passion died down and was almost spent and we hardly knew where we stood in relation to each other. Then the children came, your two elder sisters, who died when they were young, and we had them to look after. Our demands on each other were consequently less, the coolness between us came to an end, and suddenly love was there again; to be sure, it was not the old love, but something quite new. This has lasted without needing much reviving for more than thirty years. Not all love matches turn out as well. Indeed, very few do."
   To me, all these observations served no purpose, but the new cordial relationship with my father encouraged me and made me again enjoy my home, toward which I had felt almost indifferent during the past few years. When I departed, I did not regret the visit and decided to keep in more frequent contact with the old people in the future.
   Work and traveling for performances of my string music prevented me from visiting the Imthors for a while. When I went there again, I found that Muoth, who had previously gone there only in my company, was now among the most frequently invited guests. Mr. Imthor still treated him coolly and rather distantly, but Gertrude seemed to have become good friends with him. I was glad about that. I saw no grounds for jealousy and was convinced that two people who were as dissimilar as Muoth and Gertrude would interest and attract each other but could not love and make each other happy. So I was not at all suspicious when he sang with her and their beautiful voices mingled. They looked attractive together; they were both tall and well-formed, he morose and serious, she bright and serene. Eventually, however, it seemed to me that she found some difficulty in maintaining her old innate serenity, and she sometimes seemed tired and distracted. Quite often she looked at me seriously and searchingly, with curiosity and interest, in the way that worried and depressed people look at each other, and when I smiled at her and responded with a friendly look, her features relaxed into a smile so slowly and in such a forced manner that I was disturbed.
   Yet it was quite rare that I noticed this; at other times Gertrude looked as cheerful and radiant as ever, so that I attributed these observations to imagination or a passing indisposition. Only once was I really shocked. While one of her guests was playing some Beethoven, she leaned back in the semi-darkness, probably thinking that she was quite unobserved. Earlier, while receiving her guests in the full light, she had appeared bright and cheerful, but now, withdrawn into herself and clearly unmoved by the music, her face relaxed and assumed an expression of weariness, anxiety and fear, like that of an exasperated child. It lasted several minutes and I was stunned when I saw it. Something was troubling her. That alone was bad, but it worried me that she should pretend to be cheerful and conceal everything from me. As soon as the music was finished, I went up to her, sat down beside her and began a casual conversation. I said that she had had a busy winter and that I had also had a trying time, but my remarks were made in light and half-jesting tones. Finally, I mentioned that period in the spring when we had discussed the beginnings of my opera and had played and sung them together.
   She then said: "Yes, those were happy times." She said no more than that, but it was a confession, for she said it with great earnestness. I read in it hope for myself and in my heart I was thankful.
   I longed to repeat the question I had asked her during the summer. I believed with all due modesty that I could venture to interpret the change in her manner, the embarrassment and uncertain fears which she revealed at times, as signs favorable to me. I found it touching to see how her girlish pride seemed wounded and hard to disguise. I did not dare say anything; her uncertainty hurt me and I felt I ought to keep my unspoken promise. I have never known how to behave with women. I made the same mistake as Heinrich Muoth, the other way round: I treated women as if they were friends.
   As I eventually could not consider my observations to be illusions, and yet only half understood Gertrude's changed manner, I became rather reserved, visited her less frequently and avoided intimate conversations with her. I wanted to show her consideration and not make her more shy and fearful, as she seemed to be suffering and in a state of conflict. I think she noticed the change in my behavior and did not seem displeased that I should keep my distance. I hoped that we should again have a quiet, peaceful time after the winter and the repeated entertaining, and I wanted to wait until then. But I was often very sorry for her, and gradually I also felt disturbed and thought there must be something serious pending.
   I was restless under the tension of the circumstances. February arrived and I began to long for spring. Muoth had not been to see me very much. He had, indeed, had a strenuous winter at the Opera House and had recently received two important offers from well-known theaters, about which he had to make a decision. He did not seem to have another lady friend; at least, since the break with Lottie I had not seen any other woman at his house. We had recently celebrated his birthday. Since then I had not seen him.
   I now felt an urge to go and see him. I was beginning to feel the strain of my changed relationship with Gertrude, overwork and the long winter, and I dropped by to have a chat with him. He gave me a glass of sherry and talked to me about the theater. He seemed tired and distracted and unusually gentle. I listened to him, looked around the room and was just going to ask him whether he had been to the Imthors again, when I accidentally saw an envelope with Gertrude's handwriting on it lying on the table. Before I could really take it in, a feeling of horror and bitterness welled up in me. It could have been an invitation, a simple formality, yet I could not believe this, however much I tried.
   I was able to compose myself and left soon afterward. Almost unwillingly, I realized that I knew everything. It could have been an invitation, a triviality, something quite casual -- yet I knew that it was not. Suddenly I clearly understood everything that had happened recently. I made up my mind to wait and make sure, but all my thoughts in this connection were nothing but pretexts and excuses. The arrow had pierced deeply and festered in my blood. When I reached home and sat in my room, my confusion was slowly replaced by a feeling of almost terrible calmness, which finally prevailed, and I knew that my life had been shattered and faith and hope had been destroyed.
   For several days I could neither shed a tear nor feel any grief. Without thinking it over, I had decided not to go on living. In any case, the will to live had abandoned me and seemed to have disappeared. I thought about dying as a piece of work that had to be done unhesitatingly, without thinking whether it was pleasant or not.
   Among the things I wanted to do beforehand was first of all to go and visit Gertrude -- to a certain extent for the sake of order -- to receive the necessary confirmation of my suspicions. I could have had this from Muoth, but although he appeared to be less to blame than Gertrude, I could not bring myself to go to him. I went to see Gertrude but did not find her in. I went again the following day and talked to her and her father for a few minutes, until the latter left us alone together, thinking we wished to practice some music.
   She then stood alone before me and I looked at her curiously. She seemed a little changed but no less beautiful than ever.
   "Forgive me, Gertrude," I said firmly, "if I trouble you once more. I wrote you a letter during the summer -- could I now have an answer to it? I have to go on a journey, perhaps for a long time. Otherwise I should have waited until you yourself. . ."
   As she went pale and looked at me in surprise, I helped her and spoke again: "Your answer is no, isn't it? I thought so. I only wanted to be certain."
   She nodded sadly.
   "Is it Heinrich?" I asked.
   She nodded again, and suddenly she seemed frightened and seized my hand. "Please forgive me and don't do anything to him."
   "I don't intend to, you can rest assured," I said and had to smile, for I thought of Marian and Lottie, who had also been so attached to him and whom he had beaten. Perhaps he would also beat Gertrude and destroy her lofty pride and trusting nature.
   "Gertrude," I began again, "think it over! Not for my sake. I know now how things stand with me. But Muoth will not make you happy. Goodbye, Gertrude."
   My feeling of numbness and unnatural calm persisted. Only now, when Gertrude talked to me this way, in the same tone that I recalled Lottie using, and looked at me so anxiously and said: "Don't go like that. I don't deserve this from you," did I feel as if my heart were breaking, and I had difficulty controlling myself.
   I held out my hand to her and said: "I don't want to hurt either you or Heinrich. But wait a little. Don't let him exercise his power over you. He destroys everyone he is fond of."
   She shook her head and released my hand. "Goodbye!" she said quietly. "It is not my fault. Think kindly of me and also of Heinrich."
   It was over. I went home and proceeded with my plan as if it were a piece of work to be done. It was true that while I did this my heart was heavy and filled to the brim with sorrow, but I was aware of it in a remote way and had no spare thoughts for it. It was all the same to me whether the days and hours that were left went well or not. I put in order the pile of sheets on which my half-finished opera was written, and wrote a letter to Teiser to go with it, so that my work should, if possible, be preserved. Then I seriously considered the manner in which I should die. I wished to spare my parents, but could think of no manner of dying that would make this possible. In the long run, it did not matter so much. I finally decided to use a revolver. All these questions occurred to me only in a shadowy and unreal fashion. I had only one fixed idea and that was that I could not go on living, for I sensed through the icy shell of my decision the horror of the life that would have been mine. It gazed at me hideously through vacant eyes and it seemed much more ugly and terrifying than the dark and quite unemotional conception I had of death.
   In the afternoon, two days later, I was ready with my preparations. I still wanted to have a walk through the town. I had to take a couple of books back to the library. It was a comfort to me to know that in the evening I would no longer be alive. I felt like a man who has had an accident and is still partly under anesthetic and does not feel the pain, but has a foretaste of excruciating torture. He only hopes that he will sink into complete oblivion before the suspected pain becomes real. That is how I felt. I suffered less from an actual pain than from an agonizing fear that I might return to consciousness and have to empty the whole glass that death, which called me, was to take away from me. That was why I hurried through my walk, attended to what was necessary and went straight back. I made just a short detour in order not to go past Gertrude's house, for I felt, without being able to analyze it, that if I saw the house, the intolerable pain from which I was seeking escape would overwhelm and prostrate me.
   So, breathing a sigh of relief, I went back to the house in which I lived, opened the gate and went immediately up the stairs, feeling lighter of heart. If the grief was still pursuing me and stretching out its claws toward me, if somewhere within me the frightful pain should begin to gnaw again, there were only a few stairs and seconds between me and liberation.
   A man in uniform came down the stairs toward me. I moved aside and hastened to pass him, fearing I might be stopped. He then touched his cap and pronounced my name. I looked at him in dismay. Being addressed and stopped, which I had feared, caused me to tremble. Suddenly a feeling of exhaustion overpowered me. I felt that I was going to fall and there would be no hope of making the few necessary paces to reach my room.
   Meanwhile, I stared in distress at the stranger. As the feeling of weakness grew, I sat down on one of the stairs. The man asked me if I was ill and I shook my head. He was holding something in his hand which he wanted to give me and which I would not take, until he almost forced it into my hand. I made a gesture of refusal and said: "I don't want it."
   He called for the landlady but she was not there. He then took me by the arm in order to help me up. As soon as I saw that there was no escape and that he would not leave me alone, I suddenly pulled myself together. I stood up and walked toward my room, and he followed me. As I felt that he looked at me suspiciously, I pointed to my injured leg and pretended it was hurting me, and he believed me. I took out my purse and gave him a coin. He thanked me and finally pushed into my hand the thing that I knew I did not want to take. It was a telegram.
   Wearily, I stood by the table. Someone had now stopped me and broken the spell. What was it? A telegram. From whom? It was all the same to me. It was irritating to receive a telegram just now. I had made all my preparations and at the last moment someone sends me a telegram. I looked around. A letter lay on the table.
   I put the letter in my pocket; it did not tempt me. But I was intrigued by the telegram. I could not get it out of my thoughts and it disturbed me. I sat down and looked at it on the table and wondered whether to read it or not. It was, of course, an attack on my freedom; of that I had no doubt. Someone wanted to try to stop me, begrudged me my flight, wanted me to accept my sorrow and taste it to the full without being spared any twinge, stab or spasm of pain.
   Why the telegram caused me so much anxiety, I do not know. I sat at the table a long time and did not dare to open it, feeling that it concealed some power that would draw me back and compel me to bear the unbearable from which I wanted to escape. When I finally did open it, my hand shook. I could only decipher the telegram slowly, as if I were translating the contents from an unfamiliar foreign language. It read: "Father dying. Please come at once. Mother."
   I gradually realized what it meant. Only yesterday I had thought about my parents and regretted that I should have to give them pain, and yet it had only been a superficial consideration. Now they created obstacles, dragged me back and made claims upon me. I immediately thought of the conversations I had had with my father at Christmas. Young people, he had said, with their egotism and feeling of independence, can be brought to the point of ending their lives on account of an unfulfilled wish, but when one's life is bound up with those of others, one does not consider one's own desires to the same degree. And I was also tied by such a bond! My father was dying. My mother was alone with him and called me. The thought of his dying and her need for me did not at the moment affect me so deeply. I thought I knew of even greater griefs, but I fully realized that I could not now give them an extra burden to bear, ignore my mother's request and run away from them.
   In the evening I was at the railway station ready for my journey, and automatically yet consciously did what was necessary. I obtained my ticket, put the change in my pocket, went on to the platform and entered the train. I sat in a corner of a compartment, prepared for a long night journey. A young man entered the compartment, looked around, greeted me and sat down opposite me. He asked me something, but I just looked at him, only wishing that he would leave me alone. He coughed and stood up, picked up his yellow leather traveling bag and left to look for another seat.
   The train traveled through the night in blind, senseless haste, just as insensate and conscientious as I, as though there were something that would be missed or saved. Some hours later, when I put my hand in my pocket, I felt the letter. That is still there, I thought, and I opened it.
   My publisher had written to me about concerts and fees, and he informed me that my affairs were going well and improving. A well-known critic had written about me and he congratulated me on it. Enclosed with the letter was a newspaper article with my name as the heading, and a long discourse on the position of present-day music and of Wagner and Brahms; then there was a review of my string music and songs, with high praise and good wishes. As I read the small black letters, I gradually realized that it was about me, that fame and the world were holding out their hands to me. For a moment I had to laugh.
   The letter and the article had loosened the bandage from my eyes, and unexpectedly I looked back into the world and saw that I was not beaten and finished but that I was in the middle of it and belonged to it. I had to go on living as well as I could. Was it possible? Then everything about the past five days came back to me and all that I had felt as if in a stupor, and from which I had hoped to escape -- it was all horrible, bitter and humiliating. It was all a death sentence that I had not executed, and I must leave my task undone.
   I heard the train rattling along. I opened the window, and as we flew past I saw the gloomy stretches of country, dismal-looking bare trees with black branches, large farmhouses and distant hills. They all seemed unwilling to exist, to express sorrow and resentment. Some people might think all this was beautiful, but to me it only seemed sad. I recalled the song "Is that God's will?"
   However much I tried to look at the trees and fields and roofs outside, however earnestly I tried to concentrate my thoughts on remote subjects and on anything I could think of without distress, I was unable to do so for long. I could not even think about my father; he had become remote with the trees and the countryside at night, and against my will and despite my efforts, my thoughts drifted back to forbidden things. I saw a garden with old trees in it, and among them a house with palm trees at the entrance, and inside on all the walls there were old, dark paintings. I went in and walked up the stairs past all the old pictures and no one saw me. I walked through like a ghost. There was a slim lady there with dark hair, who turned her back on me. I saw the man too and they embraced. I saw my friend Heinrich Muoth smile sadly and dejectedly, as he did sometimes, as if he already knew that he would abuse and ill-treat this fair lady too, and that there was nothing that could be done about it. It was stupid and senseless that this unhappy man, this reprobate, should attract the most charming women, and that all my love and good intentions should be in vain.
   Awakening from a sleep or doze, I saw the gray of morning and a pale light in the sky through the window. I stretched out my stiff limbs and felt sad and sober; the course that lay before me seemed gloomy and vexatious. First of all I now had to think of my father and mother.
   It was still gray and early morning when we approached the bridges and houses of my home town. In the smell and noise of the railway station I felt so weary and exasperated that I did not want to leave the train. However, I picked up my luggage and climbed into the nearest cab, which first traveled over smooth asphalt, then over slightly frosty ground, then crunched along a rough track and stopped at the large gate of our house, which I had never seen closed.
   But now it was closed and when, dismayed and frightened, I pulled the bell, no one came and there was no response. I looked up at the house and felt as if I were having an unpleasant wild dream. The driver looked on in surprise and waited. Feeling wretched, I went to the other door, which was seldom used and which I had not gone through for years. This was open. When I went in, I found my father's office staff sitting there wearing gray coats as usual, and they were quiet and subdued. They rose at my entrance, for I was my father's heir. Klemm, the bookkeeper, who did not look any different than he had twenty years before, gave a short bow and looked at me inquiringly with a sad expression on his face.
   "Why is the front door locked?" I asked.
   "There is no one there."
   "Where is my father ?"
   "In the hospital. Your mother is also there."
   "Is he still alive?"
   "He was still alive this morning, but they think. . ."
   "Tell me what has happened."
   "Oh, of course, you don't know! It is still his foot. We all say he had wrong treatment for it. Suddenly he had severe pains and screamed terribly. Then he was taken to the hospital. Now he is suffering from blood poisoning. Yesterday at half past two we sent you a telegram."
   "I see. Thank you. Could you please have a sandwich and a glass of wine brought to me quickly and order a cab for me."
   My wishes were whispered to someone and then there was silence again. Someone gave me a plate and a glass. I ate a sandwich, drank a glass of wine, went out and climbed into a cab; a horse snorted, and soon we stood at the hospital gate. Nurses with white caps on their heads, and attendants wearing blue-striped linen suits passed along the corridors. Someone took me by the hand and led me into a room. Looking around, I saw my mother nod to me with tears in her eyes, and in a low, iron bed lay my father, changed and shrunken, his short gray beard standing out oddly.
   He was still alive. He opened his eyes and recognized me despite his fever.
   "Still composing music?" he asked quietly, and his voice and glance were kind as well as mocking. He gave me a wink which expressed a tired, ironic wisdom that had nothing more to impart, and I felt that he looked into my heart and saw and knew everything.
   "Father," I said, but he only smiled, glanced at me again half mockingly, though already with a somewhat distracted look, and closed his eyes.
   "You look terrible!" said my mother, putting her arm around me. "Was it such a shock?"
   I could not say anything. Just then a young doctor came in, followed by an older one. The dying man was given morphine, and the clever eyes that had looked so understanding and omniscient a moment ago did not open again. We sat beside him and watched him lying there; we saw his face change and become peaceful, and we waited for the end. He lived for several hours and died late in the afternoon. I could feel nothing but a dull sorrow and extreme weariness. I sat with tear-stained eyes and toward evening fell asleep sitting by the deathbed.

Chapter Six
   
   That life is difficult , I have often bitterly realized. I now had further cause for serious reflection. Right up to the present I have never lost the feeling of contradiction that lies behind all knowledge. My life has been miserable and difficult, and yet to others, and sometimes to myself, it has seemed rich and wonderful. Man's life seems to me like a long, weary night that would be intolerable if there were not occasionally flashes of light, the sudden brightness of which is so comforting and wonderful that the moments of their appearance cancel out and justify the years of darkness.
   The gloom, the comfortless darkness, lies in the inevitable course of our daily lives. Why does one repeatedly rise in the morning, eat, drink, and go to bed again? The child, the savage, the healthy young person does not suffer as a result of this cycle of senseless automatic activities. If a man does not think too much, he rejoices at rising in the morning, and at eating and drinking. He finds satisfaction in them and does not want them to be otherwise. But if he ceases to take things for granted, he seeks eagerly and hopefully during the course of the day for moments of real life, the radiance of which makes him rejoice and obliterates the awareness of time and all thoughts on the meaning and purpose of everything. One can call these moments creative, because they seem to give a feeling of union with the creator, and while they last, one is sensible of everything being necessary, even what is seemingly fortuitous. It is what the mystics call union with God. Perhaps it is the excessive radiance of these moments that makes everything else appear so dark, perhaps it is the feeling of liberation, the enchanting lightness and the suspended bliss that make the rest of life seem so difficult, cloying and oppressive. I do not know. I have not traveled very far in thought and philosophy.
   However, I do know that if there is a state of bliss and a paradise, it must be an uninterrupted sequence of such moments, and if this state of bliss can be attained through suffering and dwelling in pain, then no sorrow or pain can be so great that one should seek escape from it.
   A few days after my father's funeral -- I was still in a state of bewilderment and mental exhaustion -- I found myself walking aimlessly in a suburban street. The small, attractive houses awakened vague memories in me, until I recognized the house and garden of my old teacher, who had tried to convert me to the faith of the theosophists some years ago. I knocked at the door and he appeared, recognized me and led me in a friendly manner into his study, where the pleasant smell of tobacco smoke hovered around his books and plants.
   "How are you?" asked Mr. Lohe. "Oh, of course, you have just lost your father. You look wretched. Has it affected you so deeply?"
   "No," I said. "My father's death would have affected me more deeply if I had still been on cool terms with him, but during my last visit I drew closer to him and rid myself of the painful feeling of guilt that one has toward good parents from whom one receives more love than one can give."
   "I am glad about that."
   "How are you going on with your theosophy? I should like you to talk to me, because I am unhappy."
   "What is wrong?"
   "Everything. I can't live and I can't die. Everything seems meaningless and stupid."
   Mr. Lohe puckered up his kind, peaceful-looking face. I must confess that even his kind, rather plump face had put me in a bad humor, and I did not expect to obtain any kind of comfort from him and his wisdom. I only wanted to hear him talk, to prove his wisdom of no avail and to annoy him because of his happy state and optimistic beliefs. I was not feeling amicably disposed toward him or anyone else.
   But the man was not as self-satisfied and absorbed in his doctrines as I had thought. He looked at me with real concern and sadly shook his fair head.
   "You are ill, my dear fellow," he said firmly. "Perhaps it is only physical, and if so, you can soon find a remedy. You must then go into the country, work hard and not eat any meat. But I don't think it is that. You are mentally sick."
   "Do you think so?"
   "Yes. You are suffering from a sickness, one that is fashionable, unfortunately, and that one comes across every day among sensitive people. It is related to moral insanity and can also be called individualism or imaginary loneliness. Modern books are full of it. It has insinuated itself into your imagination; you are isolated; no one troubles about you and no one understands you. Am I right?"
   "Almost," I admitted with surprise.
   "Listen. Those who suffer from this illness need only a couple of disappointments to make them believe that there is no link between them and other people, that all people go about in a state of complete loneliness, that they never really understand each other, share anything or have anything in common. It also happens that people who suffer from this sickness become arrogant and regard all other healthy people who can understand and love each other as flocks of sheep. If this sickness were general, the human race would die out, but it is only found among the upper classes in Central Europe. It can be cured in young people and it is, indeed, part of the inevitable period of development."
   His ironic professor's tone of voice annoyed me a little. As he did not see me smile or look as if I was going to defend myself, the kind, concerned expression returned to his face.
   "Forgive me," he said kindly. "You are suffering from the sickness itself, not the popular caricature of it. But there really is a cure for it. It is pure fiction that there is no bridge between one person and another, that everyone goes about lonely and misunderstood. On the contrary. What people have in common with each other is much more and of greater importance than what each person has in his own nature, what makes him different from others."
   "That is possible," I said. "But what good does it do me to know all this? I am not a philosopher and I am not unhappy because I cannot find truth. I only want to live a little more easily and contentedly."
   "Well, just try! There is no need for you to study any books or theories. But as long as you are ill, you must believe in a doctor. Will you do that?"
   "I will try."
   "Good! If you were physically ill and a doctor advised you to take baths or drink medicine or go to the seaside, you might not understand why this or that remedy should help, but you would try it and obey his instructions. Now do the same with what I advise you. Learn to think more about others than yourself for a time. It is the only way for you to get better."
   "How can I do that? Everyone thinks about himself first."
   "You must overcome that. You must cultivate a certain indifference toward your own well-being. Learn to think, what can I do? There is only one expedient. You must learn to love someone so much that his or her well-being is more important than your own. I don't mean that you should fall in love. That would give the opposite result!"
   "I understand, but with whom shall I try it?"
   "Begin with someone close to you, a friend or a relation. There is your mother. She has had a great loss; she is now alone and needs someone to comfort her. Look after her and try to be of some help to her."
   "My mother and I don't understand each other very well. It will be difficult."
   "If your good intentions stop short, it will indeed be difficult. It's the old story of not being understood! You don't always want to be thinking that this or that person does not fully understand you and is perhaps not quite fair to you. Try yourself to understand other people, try to please them and be just to them. You do that and begin with your mother. Look, you must say to yourself: Life does not give me much pleasure in any case, so why shouldn't I try it this way for once? You have lost interest in your own life, so don't give it much thought. Give yourself a task, inconvenience yourself a little."
   "I will try. You are right. It is all the same to me whatever I do. Why shouldn't I do what you advise me."
   What impressed me about his remarks was the similarity between them and the views on life that my father had expounded at our last meeting: "Live for others! Don't take yourself so seriously!" This outlook was quite at variance with my feelings. It also had a flavor of the catechism and confirmation instruction which, like every healthy young person, I thought of with aversion and dislike. Yet it was really not a question of opinions and a philosophy of life but a practical attempt to make my unhappy life tolerable. I would try it.
   I looked with surprise at this man, whom I had never taken quite seriously and whom I was now permitting to act as my adviser and doctor. But he really seemed to show toward me some of that love which he recommended. He seemed to share my suffering and sincerely to wish me well. In any case, I felt that I had to take some drastic measure to continue living and breathing like other people. I had thought of a long period of solitude among the mountains or of losing myself in hard work, but instead I would obey my friendly adviser, as I had no more faith in my experience and wisdom.
   When I told my mother that I did not intend to leave her by herself and hoped she would turn to me and share her life with me, she shook her head sadly.
   "What are you thinking of?" she protested gently. "It would not be so easy. I have my own way of life and could not make a fresh start. In any case, you ought not to be burdened with me. You ought to be free."
   "We could try it," I said. "It may be more successful than you think."
   At the beginning I had enough to do to prevent me from brooding and giving way to despair. There was the house and an extensive business, with assets in our favor and bills to be paid; there were books and accounts, money loaned and money received, and it was a problem to know what was to become of all these things. At the beginning I naturally wanted to sell everything, but that could not be done so quickly. My mother was attached to the old house, my father's will had to be executed and there were many difficulties. It was necessary for the bookkeeper and a notary to assist. The days and weeks passed by with arrangements, correspondence about money and debts, and plans and disappointments. Soon I could not cope with all the accounts and official forms. I engaged a solicitor to help the notary and left them to disentangle everything.
   In this process my mother did not always receive what was her due. I tried to make things as easy as possible for her during this period. I relieved her of all business matters, I read to her and took her for drives. Sometimes I felt an urge to tear myself away and leave everything, but a sense of shame and a certain curiosity as to how it would turn out prevented me from doing so.
   My mother thought of nothing but the deceased, and showed her grief in small feminine acts that seemed strange and often trivial to me. At the beginning I had to sit in my father's place at the table; then she considered it unfitting and the place had to remain empty. Sometimes I could not talk to her enough about my father; at other times she became quiet and looked at me sadly as soon as I mentioned his name. Most of all, I missed my music. At times I would have given much to be able to play my violin for an hour, but only after many weeks had passed did I venture to do so and even then she sighed and seemed offended. She appeared to be little interested in my joyless efforts to draw closer to her and win her friendship.
   This often made me suffer and made me want to give up my attempts, but I continued to persevere and grew accustomed to the succession of cheerless days. My own life lay broken and dead. Only occasionally did I hear a dim echo of the past when I heard Gertrude's voice in a dream, or when melodies from my opera suddenly came back to me during a quiet hour. When I made a journey to R. to give up my rooms there and to collect my possessions, everything connected with the place seemed extremely remote. I only visited Teiser, who had been so loyal to me. I did not venture to inquire about Gertrude.
   I gradually began to fight a secret battle against my mother's reserved and resigned behavior, which for a long time distressed me extremely. I often asked her to tell me what she would like and whether I displeased her in any way. She would then stroke my hand and with a sad smile would say: "Don't worry, my child. I am just an old woman." I then began to make investigations elsewhere and did not disdain to make inquiries of the bookkeeper and the servants.
   I discovered many things. The chief one was this: my mother had one close relation and friend in the town; she was an unmarried cousin. She did not go about a great deal but she was very friendly with my mother. This Miss Schniebel had not liked my father much and she had a real dislike for me, so she had not been to our house recently. My mother had once promised Miss Schniebel she could come and live with her if she outlived my father, and this hope appeared to have been shattered by my presence. When I gradually learned all this, I visited the old lady and tried to make myself as agreeable as possible to her. Being involved in eccentricities and little intrigues was new to me and I almost enjoyed it. I managed to persuade the lady to come to our house again, and I perceived that my mother was grateful to me for this. To be sure, they now both tried to dissuade me from selling the house, as I had wished, and they were successful in doing so. Then the lady tried to usurp my place in the house and obtain the long-desired place of my father, from which I barred her with my presence. There was room for both of us, but she did not want a master in the house and refused to come and live with us. On the other hand, she visited us frequently, made herself indispensable as a friend in many small things, treated me diplomatically, as though I were a dangerous power, and acquired the position of an adviser in the household, which I could not contest with her.
   My poor mother did not take either her part or mine. She was weary and suffered a great deal as a result of the change in her life. Only gradually did I realize how much she missed my father. On one occasion, on going into a room in which I did not expect to see her, I found her occupied at a wardrobe. It startled her when I came in, and I went out quickly. I had noticed, however, that she had been handling my father's clothes, and when I saw her later, her eyes were red.
   In the summer a new battle commenced. I wanted to go away with my mother. We both needed a holiday, and I also hoped it would cheer her up and draw her closer to me. She showed little interest at the thought of traveling, but raised no objection. On the other hand, Miss Schniebel was very much in favor of my mother remaining and my going alone, but I had no intention of giving way in this matter. I expected to gain a great deal from this holiday. I was beginning to feel ill at ease in the old house with my restless, sorrowful mother. I hoped to be of more help to her away from the place, and also hoped to control my own thoughts and moods better.
   So I arranged that we should set off on our journey at the end of June. We moved on day by day; we visited Constance and Zürich and traveled over the Brünig Pass to the Bernese Oberland. My mother remained quiet and listless, bore patiently with the journey and looked unhappy. At Interlaken she complained that she could not sleep, but I persuaded her to come on to Grindenwald, where I hoped we should both feel at peace. During this long, senseless, joyless journey, I realized the impossibility of running away and escaping from my own misery. We saw beautiful green lakes reflecting magnificent old towns, we saw mountains which appeared blue and white, and bluish-green glaciers glistening in the sunlight, but we viewed everything unmoved and without pleasure. We felt ashamed, but we were only depressed and weary of everything. We went for walks, looked up at the mountains, breathed the pure, sweet air, heard the cowbells ringing in the meadows, and said, "Isn't it lovely?" but dared not look each other in the face.
   We endured it for a week at Grindelwald. Then one morning my mother said: "It is no use; let us go back. I should like to be able to sleep again at night. If I become ill and die, I want to be at home."
   So I quietly packed our trunks, silently agreeing with her, and we traveled back quicker than we had come. But I felt as if I were not going back home, but to a prison, and my mother also displayed little satisfaction.
   On the evening of our return home, I said to her: "How would you feel if I now went off alone? I should like to go to R. I would willingly remain with you if it served any purpose, but we both feel ill and miserable and only have a bad effect on each other. Ask your friend to come and live with you. She can comfort you better than I."
   She took my hand and stroked it gently as was her wont. She nodded and smiled at me, and her smile distinctly said: "Yes, go by all means!"
   Despite all my efforts and good intentions, the only results were that we had harassed each other for a couple of months and she was more estranged from me than ever. Although we had lived together, each of us had borne his own burden, not sharing it with the other, and had sunk deeper into his own grief and sickness. My attempts had been in vain and the best thing for me to do was to go and leave the way open for Miss Schniebel.
   I did this without delay, and not knowing where else to go, I went back to R. On my departure it occurred to me that I no longer had a home. The town in which I was born, in which I had spent my youth and had buried my father, did not matter to me any more. It had no more ties for me and had nothing to give me but memories. I did not tell Mr. Lohe on taking my leave from him, but his advice had not helped.
   By chance, my old rooms in R. were still vacant. It seemed like a sign to me that it is useless to try to break off associations with the past and escape from one's destiny. I again lived in the same house and rooms in the same town. I unpacked my violin and my work, and found everything as it had been, except that Muoth had gone to Munich and he and Gertrude were engaged to be married.
   I picked up the parts of my opera as if they were the ruins of my previous life from which I still wished to try to build something, but the music returned very slowly to my benumbed soul and only really burst forth when the writer of all my texts sent me the words for a new song. It arrived at a time when the old restlessness frequently returned to me, and with feelings of shame and a thousand misgivings I would walk around outside the Imthors' garden. The words of the song were:

   The south wind roars at night,
   Curlews hasten in their flight,
   The air is damp and warm.
   Desire to sleep has vanished now,
   Spring has arrived in the night
   In the wake of the storm.

   I, too, at night no longer sleep,
   My heart feels young and strong.
   Memory takes me by the hand to peep
   Again at days of joy and song,
   But frightened at so bold a deed
   It does not linger long.

   Be still, my heart, away with pain!
   Though passion stirs again
   In blood that now flows slowly
   And leads to paths once known,
   These paths you tread in vain
   For youth has flown.

   These verses affected me deeply and reawakened life and music in me. Reopened and smarting severely, the long-concealed wound was converted into rhythms and sounds. I composed the music to this song and then picked up the lost threads of my opera, and after my long spell of inaction I again plunged deeply into the swift creative current with feverish intoxication, until I finally emerged to the free heights of feeling, where pain and bliss are no longer separate from each other and all passion and strength in the soul press upward in one steady flame.
   On the day that I wrote my new song and showed it to Teiser, I walked home in the evening past an avenue of chestnut trees, with a feeling of renewed strength for work. The past months still gazed at me as if through masked eyes, and appeared empty and without comfort, but my heart now beat more quickly and I no longer conceived why I should want to escape from my sorrow. Gertrude's image arose clearly and splendidly from the dust. I looked into her bright eyes without fear and left my heart unprotected to receive fresh pain. It was better to suffer because of her and to thrust the thorn deeper into the wound than to live far away from her and to waste away far from her and my real life. Between the dark, heavily laden treetops of the spreading chestnut trees could be seen the dark blue of the sky, full of stars, all solemn and golden, which extended their radiance unconcernedly into the distance. That was the nature of the stars. And the trees bore their buds and blossoms and scars for everyone to see, and whether it signified pleasure or pain, they accepted the strong will to live. Flies that lived only for a day swarmed toward their death. Every life had its radiance and beauty. I had insight into it all for a moment, understood it and found it good, and also found my life and sorrows good.
   I finished my opera in the autumn. During this time I met Mr. Imthor at a concert. He greeted me warmly and was rather surprised that I had not let him know that I was in town. He had heard that my father had died and that since then I had been living at home.
   "How is Miss Gertrude?" I asked as calmly as possible.
   "Oh, you must come and see for yourself. She is going to be married in November, and we are counting on you to be there."
   "Thank you, Mr. Imthor. And how is Muoth?"
   "He is well. You know, I am not too happy about the marriage. I have long wanted to ask you about Mr. Muoth. As far as I know him, I have no complaints to make, but I have heard so many things about him. His name is mentioned in connection with different women. Can you tell me anything about it?"
   "No, Mr. Imthor. It would serve no purpose. Your daughter would hardly change her mind because of rumors. Mr. Muoth is my friend and I wish him well if he finds happiness."
   "Very well. Will you be coming to see us soon?"
   "I think so. Goodbye, Mr. Imthor."
   It was not long before that I would have done everything to place obstacles between the two of them, not because of envy or in the hope that Gertrude would still be drawn toward me, but because I was convinced and felt in advance that things would not go well with them, because I was aware of Muoth's self-tormenting melancholy and excitability and of Gertrude's sensitiveness, and because Marian and Lottie were so vivid in my memory.
   Now I thought differently. The shattering of my whole life, half a year of loneliness, and the realization that I was leaving my youth behind me had changed me. I was now of the opinion that it was foolish and dangerous to stretch out one's hand to alter other people's destinies. I also had no reason to think that my hand was skillful or that I could regard myself as one who could help and understand other people, after my attempts in this direction had failed and discouraged me. Even now I strongly doubt the ability of people to alter and shape their own lives and those of other people to any appreciable extent. One can acquire money, fame and distinction, but one cannot create happiness or unhappiness, not for oneself or for others. One can only accept what comes, although one can, to be sure, accept it in entirely different ways. As far as I was concerned, I would make no more strenuous endeavors to try and find a place in the sun but would accept what was allotted to me, try to make the best of it and, if possible, turn it into some good.
   Although life continues independent of such reflections, sincere thoughts and resolutions leave the soul more at peace and help one to bear the unalterable. At least, it subsequently appeared to me that since I had become resigned and indifferent toward my personal fate, life had treated me more gently.
   That one sometimes unexpectedly achieves without effort what one has previously been unable to attain, despite all endeavors and good will, I soon learned through my mother. I wrote to her every month, but had not heard from her for some time. If there had been anything wrong, I should have learned about it, so I did not give her much thought and continued to write my letters, brief notes as to how things were going for me, in which I always included kind regards to Miss Schniebel.
   These greetings were recently no longer delivered. The two women had done as they desired but their friendship had not survived the fulfillment of their wishes. Improved conditions had inflated Miss Schniebel's ego. Immediately after my departure she triumphantly occupied the seat of conquest and settled down in our house. She now shared the house with her old friend and cousin and, after long years of want, regarded it as a well-deserved turn of luck to be able to reign and give herself airs as one of the mistresses of a dignified household. She did not acquire expensive habits or prove wasteful -- she had been in straitened circumstances and semi-poverty too long to do that. She neither wore more expensive clothes nor slept between finer linen sheets. On the contrary, she really began to scrimp and collect only now that it was worthwhile and there was something to save -- but she would not renounce authority and power. The two maids had to obey her no less than my mother, and she also dealt with servants, workmen and postmen in an imperious manner. And very gradually, since passions are not extinguished by their fulfillment, she also extended her domineering sway over things that my mother would not so readily concede. She wanted my mother's visitors to be her visitors too and would not suffer my mother to receive anyone except in her presence. She did not want only to hear extracts from letters that were received, particularly those from me, but wanted to read the letters herself. Finally, she formed the opinion that many things in my mother's house were not looked after and conducted as she thought they ought to be. Above all, she considered that the discipline of the domestic servants was not strict enough. If a maid went out in the evening, or talked too long to the postman, or if the cook asked for a free Sunday, she strongly reproved my mother for her leniency and delivered long lectures to her on the correct way to conduct a household. Furthermore, it hurt her very much to see how often her rules of economy were grossly ignored. Too much coal was ordered, and too many eggs were unaccounted for by the cook! She bitterly opposed things of that nature, and that was how discord arose between the friends.
   Until then my mother had taken the line of least resistance although she did not agree with everything, and was in many ways disappointed with her friend, whose relationship toward her she had imagined to be different. Now, on the other hand, when old respected customs in the house were in danger, when her everyday comforts and the peace of the house were at stake, she could not refrain from objecting and putting up some resistance, which, however, she could not do as forcefully as her friend. There were differences of opinion and little arguments in a friendly way, but when the cook gave notice -- and it was only with difficulty, after many promises and almost apologies, that my mother persuaded her to stay -- the question of authority in the house began to lead to a real battle.
   Miss Schniebel, proud of her knowledge, experience, thrift and organizing abilities, could not understand why all these qualities were not appreciated, and she felt justified in criticizing the previous household economy, in finding fault with my mother's housekeeping and in showing her disdain for the customs and traditions of the house. Then my mother mentioned my father, under whose management everything in the house had gone so well for many years. He had not tolerated trivialities and petty economies; he had given the servants freedom and privileges; he had hated disputes with the maids and incidents of a disagreeable nature. But when my mother mentioned my father, whom she had previously criticized occasionally, but who since his death had become holy to her, Miss Schniebel could no longer contain herself and reminded my mother pointedly how she had often expressed her opinion about the deceased; it was high time to abandon the old ways and let reason reign. Out of consideration for her friend, Miss Schniebel had not wanted to spoil her memory of the deceased, but now that he had been mentioned, she had to confess that many things which were unsatisfactory in the house were due to the old master, and she did not see why, now that my mother was free, things should continue in the same way.
   That was a blow which my mother could never forgive her cousin. Previously it had been a need and pleasure to grumble to her confidential friend and find fault with the master of the house; now she would not suffer the slightest shadow to be cast upon his sacred memory. She began to feel that the incipient revolution in the house was not only disturbing but, above all, a sin against the deceased.
   This state of affairs continued without my knowledge. When for the first time my mother mentioned in a letter this lack of harmony, even though she did so carefully and discreetly, it made me laugh. In my next letter I omitted greetings to the spinster but did not refer to my mother's allusions. I thought that the women would settle the affair better without me. Besides, there was another matter which was occupying my mind much more.
   October had arrived and the thought of Gertrude's forthcoming marriage was constantly on my mind. I had not been to her house again and had not seen her. After the wedding, when she would be away, I thought of making contact with her father again. I also hoped that in time a good, friendly relationship would be established between Gertrude and me. We had been too close to each other to be able to cancel out the past so easily, but I did not yet have the courage for a meeting which, knowing her, she would not have tried to avoid.
   One day someone knocked at my door in a familiar way. Full of misgivings, I jumped up and opened it. Heinrich Muoth stood there and held out his hand to me.
   "Muoth!" I cried, and gripped his hand tightly, but I could not look into his eyes without everything coming back to me and hurting me. I again saw the letter lying on his table, the letter in Gertrude's handwriting, and saw myself taking leave from her and wanting to die. Now he stood there looking at me keenly. He seemed a little thinner but as handsome and proud as ever.
   "I did not expect you," I said quietly.
   "Didn't you? I know that you do not go to Gertrude's house any more. As far as I am concerned -- let us not talk about it! I have come to see how you are and also how your work is progressing. How is the opera going?"
   "It is finished. But first of all, how is Gertrude?"
   "She is well. We are being married soon."
   "I know."
   "Well, aren't you going to visit her sometime soon?"
   "Later. I first want to see if things go well for her in your hands."
   "Hm. . ."
   "Heinrich, forgive me, but sometimes I cannot help thinking about Lottie, whom you treated so badly."
   "Forget about Lottie. It served her right. No woman is beaten if she doesn't want to be."
   "Oh! About the opera, I don't really know where I should submit it first. It would have to be a good theater, although I don't know, of course, whether it will be accepted."
   "Oh, yes, it will. I wanted to talk to you about that. Bring it to Munich. It will most likely be accepted there; people are taking an interest in you. If necessary, I will risk my job for you. I don't want anyone else to sing my part before I do."
   That was very helpful. I gladly agreed and promised to arrange for copies to be made as soon as possible. We discussed details and continued to talk with some embarrassment, as if it were a matter of life and death to us, and yet we only wanted to pass the time and close our eyes to the chasm that had appeared between us.
   Muoth was the first to bridge the gap.
   "Do you remember the first time you took me to the Imthors?" he said. "It is a year ago now."
   "I know," I said. "You don't need to remind me. It would be better if you went now!"
   "No, not yet, my friend. So you still remember. Well, if you were in love with the girl then, why didn't you say: 'Leave her alone, leave her for me!' It would have been enough. I would have understood the hint."
   "I couldn't do that."
   "You couldn't? Why not? Who told you to look on and say nothing until it was too late?"
   "I did not know whether she cared for me or not. And then -- if she prefers you, I can't do anything about it."
   "You are a child! She might have been happier with you. Every man has the right to woo a woman. If you had only said a word to me at the beginning, if you had just given me a hint, I should have kept away. Afterwards, it was naturally too late."
   This conversation was painful to me.
   "I think differently about it," I said, "but you need not worry. Now leave me in peace! Give her my regards and I will come and visit you in Munich."
   "Won't you come to the wedding?"
   "No, Muoth, that would be in bad taste. But -- are you being married in church?"
   "Yes, of course, at the church."
   "I am glad about that. I have composed something for the occasion, an organ piece. Don't worry, it is quite short."
   "You are a good fellow! It's hell for me to bring you so much bad luck!"
   "I think you should say 'good luck,' Muoth."
   "Well, we won't quarrel. I must go now; there are still things to buy and goodness knows what to do. You will send the opera soon, won't you? Send it to me and I will take it to the right people myself. And before the wedding the two of us must spend an evening together. Perhaps tomorrow! Yes? Well, goodbye."
   So I was drawn into the old circle again and passed the night with thoughts and sorrows that had recurred a hundred times. The following day I visited an organist whom I knew and asked him to play my music at Muoth's wedding. In the afternoon I went through my overture with Teiser for the last time, and in the evening I went to the inn where Heinrich was staying.
   I found a room prepared for us with an open fire and candles. There was a white cloth on the table with flowers and silver plate. Muoth was already there waiting for me.
   "Now, my friend, this is a farewell celebration, more for me than for you. Gertrude sends her regards. Today we shall drink to her health."
   We filled our glasses and silently emptied the contents.
   "Now let us think only about ourselves. Youth is slipping away, my dear friend, don't you feel it also? It should be the best time of one's life. I hope that is false, like all these well-known sayings. The best should still lie ahead, otherwise the whole of life isn't worthwhile. When your opera is produced, we'll talk again."
   We relaxed and drank some heavy Rhine wine. Afterwards, we sank back into the easy chairs with cigars and champagne, and for an hour it reminded us both of old times when we used to take pleasure in discussing plans and chatting lightly. We looked at each other pensively but frankly and felt happy to be in each other's company. At times like these, Heinrich was kinder and more gracious than usual. He knew how fleeting these pleasures were and clung to them fondly as long as his mood endured. Quietly, with a smile, he talked to me about Munich, told me little incidents about the theater, and practiced his old art of describing people and situations in a few concise words.
   After he had sketched his conductor, his future father-in-law and others amusingly and clearly but without malice, I drank to his health and said: "What about me? Can you describe people of my type, too?"
   "Oh, yes," he said calmly with a nod and gazed at me with his dark eyes. "You are the artist type in every way. The artist is not, as ordinary people think, a gay sort of person who flings off works of art here and there out of sheer exuberance. Unfortunately he is usually a poor soul who is being suffocated with surplus riches and therefore has to give some of them away. It is a fallacy that there are happy artists; that is just philistines' talk. Lighthearted Mozart kept up his spirits with champagne and was consequently short of bread, and why Beethoven did not commit suicide in his youth instead of composing all that wonderful music, no one knows. A real artist has to be unhappy. Whenever he is hungry and opens his bag, there are only pearls inside it."
   "But if he desires a little pleasure and warmth and sympathy in life, a dozen operas and trios and things like that don't help him much."
   "I suppose not. An hour like this with a glass of wine and a friend, if he has one, and a pleasant chat about this remarkable life is about the best thing he can expect. That's how it is, and we should be glad to have that at least. Just think how long it takes a poor devil to make a good skyrocket, and the pleasure it gives scarcely lasts a minute! In the same way, one has to conserve joy and peace of mind and a good conscience to enrich a pleasant hour here and there. Good health, my friend!"
   I did not at all agree with his philosophy, but what did it matter? I was glad to spend an evening like this with the friend I feared I was going to lose and who was equally uncertain about me, and I meditated upon the past that still lay so close to me and yet encircled my youth with its carefree days that would return no more.
   Eventually the evening came to an end and Muoth offered to walk home with me, but I told him not to trouble. I knew that he did not like walking with me outside; my slow, halting walk irritated him and made him bad-tempered. He did not like being inconvenienced and little things like that are often the most annoying.
   I was pleased with my organ piece. It was a kind of prelude, and for me it was a detachment from the past, thanks and good wishes to the betrothed couple and an echo of happy times spent with both of them.
   On the day of the wedding I went to the church early and, concealed by the organ, looked down at the ceremony. When the organist began to play my music, Gertrude looked up and smiled at her fiancé. I had not seen her all this time and she looked even taller and slimmer than usual in her white dress. Gracefully, with a serious expression on her face, she walked along the narrow, adorned path to the altar by the side of the proud-looking, erect man. It would not have made such a splendid picture if instead of him, I, a cripple with a crooked leg, had walked along this solemn path.

Chapter Seven

   It was ordained that I should not dwell for long on my friends' wedding and that my reflections, desires and self-torture should not be directed along this channel.
   I had given little thought to my mother during this time. I knew, indeed, from her last letter that the peace and comfort of the house was not all that it might be, but I had neither reason nor desire to interfere in the strife between the two ladies and accepted it, just a little maliciously, as one of those things in which my judgment was unnecessary. Since then I had written to her without receiving any reply. I had enough to do with the provision and examination of copies of my opera without thinking about Miss Schniebel.
   Then I received a letter from my mother which surprised me by its unusual bulk alone. It was a letter of distress, complaining of her companion, whose transgressions in the house and against my mother's peace of mind I now learned about in detail. She found it hard to write to me about the matter but did so with dignity and discretion. It was simply a confession of the disillusionment she had suffered in connection with her old friend and cousin.
   Now my mother not only completely understood why my late father and I disliked Miss Schniebel, but she was agreeable to the sale of the house if I still wished it; she would go and live somewhere else, if only to escape from this Schniebel woman.
   "It might be a good thing for you to come here. Lucie, of course, already knows what I am thinking and planning -- she is very sharp -- but relations are too strained for me to be able to tell her what I have to say without offending her. She ignores my hints that I would prefer to be alone in the house again and that I could manage without her, and I do not want an open quarrel. I know that she would reproach me and put up a strong resistance if I asked her outright to leave. It would therefore be better if you would come and deal with the matter. I do not want any unpleasantness and I do not want her to be put to any expense, but she must clearly and definitely be told to go."
   I would even have been prepared to slay the dragon if my mother had desired it. With great amusement I made preparations for the journey and set off for home. As soon as I entered the old house, I was aware of the invasion of a new spirit. The large, comfortable sitting room, in particular, had assumed a gloomy, cheerless and impoverished appearance. Everything looked carefully guarded and tended to. There were so-called "runners" on the old solid floor, long, dark strips made from cheap, ugly material, to protect the floorboards and save cleaning. The old piano that had stood unused in the drawing room for years was also enveloped in a protective cover, and although my mother had tea and cakes ready for me and had tried to make things look as pleasant as possible, there was such an atmosphere of old maid's meticulousness and naphthalene about the place that as soon as I came in I smiled at my mother and wrinkled up my nose. She understood immediately.
   I had hardly sat down when the dragon came in, trotted along the runners toward me and did me the honor of asking at great length how I was getting on. I inquired in detail as to how she was keeping and apologized for the old house that did not perhaps offer every comfort to which she was accustomed. Taking the lead in the conversation away from my mother, she adopted the role of mistress of the house, saw to the tea, eagerly replied to my polite remarks and seemed rather flattered, but also uneasy and distrustful, by my excessive friendliness. Her suspicions were aroused but she had no option but to accept my courtesies and respond with her own store of somewhat antiquated polite phrases. Displaying apparent mutual devotion and esteem, we went on throughout the evening. We heartily wished each other a good night's sleep and left each other like diplomats of the old school. Yet, despite the sweetmeat, I think the demon did not sleep much that night, while I rested contentedly, and my poor mother, after perhaps many nights passed in a state of annoyance and depression, again slept for the first time with a feeling of being the sole mistress in her own house.
   At breakfast the following morning, we began the same polite game. My mother, who had only listened quietly and intently the previous evening, now participated with enjoyment, and we overwhelmed Schniebel with polite phrases that drove her into a corner and even made her sad, for she realized quite well that these fine phrases did not come from my mother's heart. I almost felt sorry for the old maid as she became anxious, tried to humble herself and praised everything, but I thought of the dismissed housemaid, of the discontented-looking cook who had only remained for my mother's sake. I thought of the covered piano and the whole wretched atmosphere in my father's hitherto pleasant house, and I remained adamant.
   After the meal I told my mother to go and lie down a little, and I remained alone with her cousin.
   "Are you accustomed to having a nap after a meal?" I inquired politely. "If so, don't let me disturb you. I wanted to talk to you about something, but it is not so urgent."
   "Oh, please go on. I never sleep during the day. Thank goodness I am not so old yet. I am quite at your service."
   "Thank you very much, Miss Schniebel. I wanted to express my gratitude to you for the kindness you have shown toward my mother. She would have been very lonely without you in this large house. However, things are going to be changed now."
   "What!" she cried, rising to her feet. "How are things going to be changed?"
   "Don't you know yet? My mother has at last decided to fulfill my wish for her to come and live with me. Naturally we cannot leave the old house empty, so it will soon be put up for sale."
   The lady gazed at me disconcertedly.
   "Yes, I am sorry too," I continued regretfully. "This has been a very tiring time for you. You have taken such a kind and practical interest in the house that I cannot thank you enough."
   "But what shall I -- where shall I -- ?"
   "Oh, we shall find a solution to that. You will of course have to look for somewhere else to live, but there is no great hurry. You will be glad yourself to take things easier."
   She had remained standing. She was still polite but her tone of voice had become considerably sharper.
   "I don't know what to say," she cried bitterly. "Your mother, sir, promised to let me live here; it was a permanent arrangement. Now, after I have taken an interest in the house and helped your mother with everything, I am turned out into the street."
   She began to sob and wanted to run away, but I took hold of her thin hand and pressed her back into the easy chair.
   "It is not as bad as all that," I said, smiling. "It does alter circumstances a little that my mother wants to move from here. However, the sale of the house was not decided by her, but by me, as I am the owner. My mother will see to it that you are not pressed in your search for a new home and she will make the necessary arrangements for it herself. You will thus be more comfortable than you were previously and you will still, so to speak, be a guest of hers."
   Then came the expected reproaches, arrogance, weeping, alternate pleading and boasting, but in the end the sullen woman realized that the wisest thing to do was to accept the situation. She then withdrew to her room and did not even appear for coffee.
   My mother thought we ought to send it up to her room, but I wanted to have my revenge after all this polite play and let Miss Schniebel stay there in her mood of independence until the evening, when, although quiet and sulky, she punctually appeared for dinner.
   "Unfortunately, I have to go back to R. tomorrow," I said during the meal, "but if you should need me for anything, Mother, I could always come again quickly."
   As I said this, I did not look at her but at her cousin, and she realized what I meant. My parting from her was brief but almost cordial.
   "My dear," said my mother later, "you settled that very well. Thank you very much. Won't you play me something from your opera?"
   That was something I left undone for the time being, but a barrier had been broken down and a new relationship began to be established between the old lady and me. That was the best that had come out of this business. She now had confidence in me and I was pleased at the thought of setting up a small household with her after my long spell of being homeless. I left my kind regards to Miss Schniebel and departed with a feeling of contentment. Shortly after my return, I began to look around here and there, wherever there were small, attractive houses to let. Teiser helped me in this respect, and his sister usually came along, too. They both rejoiced with me and hoped that the two small families would live happily near each other.
   In the meantime, I had sent the score of my opera to Munich. Two months later, shortly after my mother's arrival, Muoth wrote to me that it had been accepted but that it could not be rehearsed that season. It would, however, be performed at the beginning of the next winter. So I had good news to tell my mother. When Teiser heard about it, he danced for joy and arranged a celebration.
   My mother wept when we moved into our attractive little house, and said it was not good to be transplanted in one's old age, but I thought it was a very good move, as did the Teisers, and it pleased me to see how much Brigitte helped my mother. The girl had few acquaintances in the town and while her brother was at the theater she often felt lonely at home, although she did not admit it. Now she often came to see us and not only helped us to get organized and settle in but also helped my mother and me along the difficult path of living together harmoniously. She knew how to make it apparent to the old lady when I had the need to be quiet and alone; she was often at hand to help me out. She also pointed out to me many of my mother's needs and wishes which I had never guessed at and of which my mother had never told me. So we soon settled down in our peaceful little home, which was different and more modest than my previous conception of a home, but which was good and pleasant enough for one who had not progressed any further than I had.
   My mother now became familiar with some of my music. She did not like every piece and withheld comment about most of them, but she saw and believed that it was not just a sport and a pastime but demanding work that was to be taken seriously. Above all, she was surprised to find that the musician's life, which she had considered to be very capricious, was hardly less strenuous than the business life that my late father had led. We now found it easier to talk about him and gradually I heard numerous tales about them both, about my grandparents and about my own childhood. I enjoyed hearing about the past and the family, and I no longer felt as if I did not belong. On the other hand, my mother learned to let me go my own way and to have confidence in me, even when I locked myself in my room during working hours, or when I was irritable. She had been very happy with my father and this had made her trials and tribulations with the Schniebel woman all the harder to bear. She now gained confidence again and gradually stopped talking about becoming old and lonely.
   In the midst of all this comfort and modest happiness, the feeling of grief and dissatisfaction with which I had lived so long became submerged. It did not sink to unfathomable depths but lingered deep down in my soul. It confronted me on many a night and maintained its rights. The more remote the past seemed, the more was I aware that my love and my sorrow were ever with me as a quiet reminder. Occasionally, in the past, I had thought I was in love. When I was still a youth, infatuated with pretty, carefree Liddy, I thought I knew about love; then again, when I first saw Gertrude and felt that she was the answer to my questions and obscure wishes, when the pain began and passion and unknown depths succeeded friendship and understanding, and finally when she was lost to me, I thought I knew what love was. My love for her had persisted and was always with me and I knew that I would never desire another woman or wish to kiss another woman's lips, for Gertrude had won my heart.
   Her father, whom I visited from time to time, now seemed to know about my feelings toward her. He asked me for the music of the prelude I had written for her wedding, and displayed a quiet good will toward me. He must have sensed how glad I was to have news of her and how reluctant I was to ask, and he passed on to me much of the contents of her letters. They often had something in them about me, particularly in regard to the opera. She wrote that a good singer had been found for the soprano part, and how pleased she would be to hear this much beloved work in its entirety at last. She was also glad that I now had my mother with me. I did not know what she wrote about Muoth.
   My life proceeded peacefully; the undercurrents no longer forced their way to the surface. I was working on a Mass and had ideas for an oratorio, for which I still needed the text. When I was obliged to think about the opera, it was like an alien world to me. My music was developing along other lines; it was becoming more simple and more peaceful; its aim was to soothe, not to excite.
   During this time the Teisers were a great comfort to me. We saw each other almost every day. We read, made music, went for walks together and joined each other on free days and outings. Only in the summer, when I did not wish to hinder these strenuous walkers, did we part for a few weeks. The Teisers again wandered around the Tirol and Voralberg, and sent me small boxes of edelweiss. I, however, took my mother to relatives in North Germany, whom she visited every year. I settled down by the shore of the North Sea. There, day and night, I heard the old song of the sea and in the sharp, fresh air it accompanied my thoughts and melodies. From here I had the courage to write to Gertrude in Munich for the first time, not to Mrs. Muoth, but to my friend Gertrude whom I told about my music and my dreams. Perhaps it will give her pleasure, I thought, and a few kind words and a friendly greeting can do no harm. Against my own will I could not help but mistrust my friend Muoth, and I was always a little worried on Gertrude's account. I knew him too well, this self-willed melancholy man who was accustomed to giving way to his moods and never made sacrifices for anyone, who was carried away by powerful urges and who, in more thoughtful hours, saw his whole life as a tragedy. If it really was an illness to be lonely and misunderstood, as my good friend Mr. Lohe had declared, then Muoth suffered more from this illness than anyone else.
   I had no news from him. He did not write. Even Gertrude sent me only a short note of thanks, asking me to come to Munich early in the autumn, as rehearsals for my opera would commence at the beginning of the season.
   At the beginning of September, when we were all in town again and back to our everyday life, the Teisers came to my house one evening to have a look at the work I had done during the summer. The most important work was a short lyrical piece for two violins and the piano. We played it. Brigitte sat down at the piano; above my music I could see her head and her thick braided fair hair, the top of which gleamed like gold in the candlelight. Her brother stood beside me and played the first-violin part. It was simple, lyrical music which softly pined and faded away like a summer evening, neither happy nor sad, but hovering in the mood of a twilight that is ending, like a cloud aglow at sunset. The Teisers liked this short piece, particularly Brigitte. She rarely said anything about my music; she quietly maintained a kind of girlish awe toward me, regarding me with admiration, for she considered me to be a great maestro. This day she took courage and expressed her particular pleasure. She looked at me frankly with her light blue eyes and nodded so that the light glimmered on her blond braids. She was very pretty, almost beautiful.
   In order to please her, I took her piano part and wrote a dedication in pencil above the music: "To my friend Brigitte Teiser," and handed it back to her.
   "That will always be over this little piece now," I said gallantly and bowed. She read the dedication slowly and blushed. She held out her small strong hand to me and suddenly her eyes filled with tears.
   "Are you serious?" she asked quietly.
   "Oh, yes," I said, and laughed. "And I think this piece of music suits you very well, Miss Brigitte."
   Her gaze, which was still veiled with tears, astonished me, it was so serious and ungirlish -- but I did not pay further attention to the matter. Teiser now put his violin away, and my mother, who already knew what he liked, filled the glasses with wine. The conversation became lively. We argued about a new operetta which had been produced a few weeks earlier, and I only remembered the little incident with Brigitte later in the evening, when they both departed and she again looked at me strangely.
   In the meantime, rehearsals of my opera had commenced in Munich. As one of the principal parts was in Muoth's good hands and Gertrude had praised the soprano, the orchestra and the chorus became my chief concern. I left my mother in the care of my friends and traveled to Munich.
   The morning after my arrival I walked along the attractive broad streets to Schwabing and to the quietly situated house where Muoth lived. I had almost completely forgotten about the opera. I only thought about him and Gertrude and how I would find them. The cab stopped at an almost rural byroad in front of a small house that stood among autumnal-looking trees. Yellow maple leaves lay on both sides of the road, swept into heaps.
   With some trepidation I went in. The house gave me the impression of being comfortable and prosperous. A servant took my coat.
   In the large room into which I was led I recognized two large old paintings that had been brought from the Imthors' house. On one wall there was a new portrait of Muoth that had been painted in Munich, and while I was looking at it Gertrude came in.
   My heart beat quickly at seeing her again after such a long time. She had changed into a more serious, mature woman, but she smiled at me in the old friendly way and held out her hand to me.
   "How are you?" she asked in a friendly manner. "You have grown older but you look well. We have expected you for a long time."
   She inquired about all her friends, about her father and my mother, and as she became interested and overcame her first shyness, I regarded her in the same light as I had in the past. Suddenly my embarrassment disappeared and I talked to her as to a good friend, told her how I had spent the summer by the sea, about my work, the Teisers, and finally even about poor Miss Schniebel.
   "And now," she exclaimed, "your opera is going to be performed! You will be very pleased about it."
   "Yes," I said, "but I am even more pleased at the thought of hearing you sing again."
   She smiled. "I shall be pleased, too. I sing quite often, but almost always for myself alone. I shall sing all your songs. I have them here and I do not let the dust settle on them. Stay for a meal with us. My husband will be coming soon and he can go along with you to see the conductor in the afternoon."
   We went into the music room and she sang my songs. I became quiet and found it difficult to remain calm. Her voice had become more mature and sounded more confident, but it soared as easily as ever and transported me in my memory to the best days of my life, so that I looked at the piano keys as if bewitched, quietly played the well-known notes and, listening with closed eyes, could not for moments distinguish between the present and the past. Did she not belong to me and my life? Were we not as near to each other as brother and sister, and very close friends? To be sure, she would have sung differently with Muoth!
   We sat chatting for a while, feeling happy and not having much to say to each other, for we knew that no explanations were necessary between us. How things were with her and what relations were like between her and her husband, I did not think about then. I would be able to observe that later. In any event, she had not swerved from her path and become untrue to her nature, and if she had a load to bear, she certainly bore it with dignity and without bitterness.
   An hour later Heinrich, who had heard that I had arrived, came in. He immediately began to talk about the opera, which seemed more important to everyone else than it did to me. I asked him how he was and how he liked being in Munich.
   "Like everywhere else," he said seriously. "The public does not like me because it feels that I do not care about it. I am hardly ever favorably received at my first entrance. I always have to hold people first and then carry them away with me. I thus succeed without being popular. Sometimes I also sing badly, I must admit that myself. Well, your opera will be a success -- you can count on that -- for you and for me. Today we shall go and see the conductor; tomorrow we shall invite the soprano to come and see us and whoever else you wish to meet. Tomorrow morning there is an orchestral rehearsal. I think you will be satisfied."
   During lunch I observed that he was exceptionally polite toward Gertrude, which made me suspicious. It was like that the whole time I was in Munich, and I saw them both every day. They were an extremely handsome couple and made an impression wherever they went. Yet they were cool toward each other, and I thought that only Gertrude's strength of character and superior nature made it possible for her to mask this coolness with a polite and dignified veneer. It appeared as if she had not long before awakened from her passion for this handsome man and still hoped to recover her inward stillness. In any event, she acted in accordance with good form. She was too well bred and fine a person to play the part of the disillusioned and misunderstood woman before friends or to show her secret sorrow to anyone, even if she could not hide it from me. But she could also not have endured any look or gesture of understanding or sympathy from me. We spoke and acted all the time as if there were no cloud over her marriage.
   How long this state of affairs would be maintained was uncertain and depended on Muoth, whose incalculable nature I saw kept under restraint by a woman for the first time. I was sorry for both of them but I was not very surprised to find this situation. They had both enjoyed their passion; now they had to learn resignation and preserve this happy time in their memory or they must learn to find their way to a new kind of happiness and love. Perhaps a child would bring them together again, not back to the abandoned Paradise garden of love's ardor, but to a new will to live together and to draw closer to each other. Gertrude had the strength and serenity of character for it, I knew. I did not dare to think whether Heinrich had the same capacity. However sorry I was that the fierce storm of their first passion and pleasure in each other had already passed, I was pleased at the way both of them behaved, preserving their dignity and respect not only in front of people but also in each other's company.
   Meanwhile, I did not accept the invitation to stay at Muoth's house, and he did not press me. I went there every day and it gladdened me to see that Gertrude liked me to come and enjoyed chatting and making music with me, so that the pleasure was not only mine.
   It was now definite that my opera would be performed in December. I stayed in Munich two weeks, was present at all the orchestral rehearsals, made alterations and adjustments here and there, but saw the work in good hands. It seemed strange to see the singers, the violinists and flautists, the conductor and the chorus occupied with my work, which had now become alien to me and had life and breath that were no longer mine.
   "Just wait," said Heinrich Muoth. "You will soon have to breathe the accursed air of publicity. I almost wish for your sake that the opera will not be a success, for you will then have the mob after you. Then you will have to deal with locks of hair and autographs, and taste the approbation and kindness of the admiring public. Everyone is already talking about your crippled leg. Anything like that makes one popular!"
   After the necessary rehearsals I took my departure, arranging to come back a few days before the performance. Teiser asked me endless questions about the rehearsals. He thought of numerous orchestral details that I had scarcely considered and he was more excited and anxious about the whole affair than I was. When I invited him and his sister to come with me to the performance, he jumped for joy. On the other hand, my mother did not welcome the winter journey and all the excitement, and I agreed that she should stay behind. Gradually, I began to feel more excited and had to take a glass of port at night to help me sleep.
   Winter came early, and our little house and garden lay deep in snow when, one morning, the Teisers called for me in a cab. My mother waved goodbye to us from the window, the cab drove off, and Teiser, with a thick scarf round his neck, sang a traveling song. During the whole long journey he was like a boy going home for the Christmas holidays, and pretty Brigitte was glowing, expressing her pleasure more quietly. I was glad of their company, for I was no longer calm, and awaited the events of the next few days like one under sentence.
   Muoth, who was waiting for me at the railway station, noticed it immediately. "You are suffering from stage fright, young man," he said and laughed with pleasure. "Thank goodness for that! After all, you are a musician and not a philosopher."
   He seemed to be right, for my excitement lasted until the performance took place, and I did not sleep during those nights. Muoth was the only calm person among us all. Teiser burned with excitement; he came to every rehearsal and made endless criticisms. Huddled up and attentive, he sat beside me during rehearsals, beat time with his clenched hand during difficult passages, and alternately praised or shook his head.
   "There's a flute missing!" he cried out at the first orchestral rehearsal he attended, so loudly that the conductor looked across at us with annoyance.
   "We have had to omit it," I said, smiling.
   "Omit a flute? Why? What a crazy thing to do! Be careful, or they will ruin the whole overture."
   I had to laugh and hold him back forcibly because he was so critical. But during his favorite part, where the violas and cellos came in, he leaned back with closed eyes, pressed my hand from time to time, and afterward whispered to me, abashed: "That almost brought tears to my eyes. It is beautiful!"
   I had not yet heard the soprano part sung. It now seemed strange and sad to hear it sung for the first time by another singer. She sang it well, and I thanked her as soon as she had finished, but inwardly I thought of the afternoons when Gertrude had sung those words, and I had a feeling of unadmitted discontent, as when one gives a precious possession away and sees it in strange hands for the first time.
   I saw little of Gertrude during those days. She observed my excitement with a smile and let me alone. I had visited her with the Teisers. She received Brigitte very warmly, and the girl was full of admiration for the beautiful, gracious woman. From that time she was most enthusiastic about Gertrude and praised her volubly, and her brother did likewise.
   I can no longer remember the details of the two days preceding the performance; everything is confused in my mind. There were additional reasons for excitement: one singer became hoarse, another was annoyed at not having a larger part and behaved very badly during the last rehearsals. The conductor became cooler and more formal as a result of my directions. Muoth came to my aid at opportune moments, smiled calmly at all the tumult, and during this time was of more value to me than Teiser, who ran here and there like a demon, making criticisms everywhere. Brigitte looked at me with reverence but also with some sympathy when, during quieter periods, we sat together in the hotel, weary and rather silent.
   The days passed and the evening of the performance arrived. While the audience was entering the theater, I stood backstage without having anything more to do or to suggest. Finally, I stayed with Muoth, who was already in his costume and in a small room away from all the noise was slowly emptying half a bottle of champagne.
   "Will you have a glass?" he asked sympathetically.
   "No," I said. "Doesn't it overexcite you?"
   "What? All the activity outside? It is always like that."
   "I mean the champagne."
   "Oh no, it soothes me. I always have to have a glass or two before I want to do anything. But go now, it is nearly time."
   I was led by an attendant into a private box, where I found Gertrude and both the Teisers, as well as an important personage from the management of the theater, who greeted me with a smile.
   Directly afterward we heard the second bell. Gertrude gave me a friendly look and nodded to me. Teiser, who sat behind me, seized my arm and pinched it with excitement. The theater became dark, and the sounds of my overture solemnly rose to me from below. I now became calmer.
   Then my work appeared before me, so familiar and yet so alien, which no longer needed me and had a life of its own. The pleasures and troubles of past days, the hopes and sleepless nights, the passion and longing of that period confronted me, detached and transformed. Emotions experienced in secret were transmitted clearly and movingly to a thousand unknown people in the theater. Muoth appeared and began singing with some reserve. Then his voice grew stronger; he let himself go and sang in his deeply passionate manner; the soprano responded in a high, sweet voice. Then came a part which I could so well remember hearing Gertrude sing, which expressed my admiration for her and was a quiet confession of my love. I averted my glance and looked into her bright eyes, which acknowledged me and greeted me warmly, and for a moment the memory of my whole youth was like the sweet fragrance of a ripe fruit.
   From that moment I felt more calm and listened like any other member of the audience. There was a burst of applause. The singers appeared before the curtain and bowed. Muoth was recalled a number of times and smiled calmly down into the now illuminated theater. I was also pressed to appear, but I was far too overcome by emotion and had no desire to limp out of my pleasant retreat.
   Teiser, on the other hand, laughed with a face like the rising sun, put his arm through mine and also impetuously shook both hands of the important personage from the theater management.
   The banquet was ready and would have been held even if the opera had been a failure. We traveled to the banquet in cabs, Gertrude with her husband, and the Teisers and I together. During the short journey Brigitte, who had not yet said a word, suddenly began to weep. At first she tried to restrain herself, but she soon covered her face with her hands and let the tears flow. I did not like to say anything and was surprised that Teiser was likewise silent and asked no questions. He just put his arm around her and murmured a few kind, comforting words as one would to a child.
   Later, during the shaking of hands, the good wishes and toasts, Muoth winked at me sarcastically. People inquired with interest about my next work and were disappointed when I said that it would be an oratorio. Then they drank to my next opera, which has never been written to this day.
   Only much later in the evening, when we had departed and were on our way to bed, was I able to ask Teiser what was the matter with his sister, why she had wept. She herself had long since gone to bed. My friend looked at me searchingly and with some surprise, shook his head and whistled, until I repeated my question.
   "You are as blind as a bat," he then said reproachfully. "Have you not noticed anything then?"
   "No," I said with a growing suspicion of the truth.
   "Well, I will tell you. The girl has been fond of you for a long time. Naturally she has never told me so, any more than she has you, but I have noticed it, and to tell the truth, I should be very happy if something came of it."
   "Oh dear!" I said with real sadness. "But what was the matter this evening?"
   "You mean, why did she weep? You are a child! Do you think we did not see?"
   "See what?"
   "Good heavens! You don't need to tell me anything, and you were right to be silent about it in the past; but then you should not have looked at Mrs. Muoth like that. Now we understand quite clearly."
   I did not ask him to keep my secret. I knew I could trust him. He gently placed his hand on my shoulder.
   "I can now well imagine, my dear friend, all that you have gone through during these years without telling us anything. I once had a similar experience myself. Let us stay together now and make good music, shall we? And also see that the girl is consoled. Give me your hand! It has been wonderful! Well, goodbye until I see you again at home. I am traveling back with Brigitte tomorrow morning."
   We then parted, but he came running back a few moments later and said with great seriousness: "The flute must be included again in the next performance. Don't forget!"
   That was how the day of rejoicing ended, and we all lay awake for a long time thinking about it. I thought about Brigitte, too. I had seen a great deal of her all this time and I was a good friend of hers, which was all I desired, just as Gertrude had been a good friend of mine, and when Brigitte had guessed my love for another, it was the same for her as it was for me when I had discovered the letter at Muoth's house and had later loaded my revolver. Although this made me feel sad, I could not help but smile.
   I spent most of the remainder of my days in Munich with the Muoths. It was no longer like those afternoons in the past when the three of us first used to sing and play together, but in the afterglow of the performance of the opera there was an unspoken mutual remembrance of that time, and also an occasional rekindling of former feelings between Muoth and Gertrude. When I finally said goodbye to them, I gazed back for a while at the peaceful-looking house among the bare trees. I hoped to return there some day and would gladly have given my little success and happiness away in order to help those two inside to draw close to each other again and for always.

Chapter Eight

   On my return home I was greeted, as Heinrich had predicted, with the notoriety of my success and many of its unpleasant but, in part, slightly ridiculous consequences. It was easy to dispose of the burden of commercial matters; I simply put the opera in the hands of an agent. But there were visitors, newspaper people, publishers and foolish letters, and it took time to grow accustomed to the smaller burdens of sudden fame and to recover from initial disillusionment. People have a peculiar way of claiming a hold on a well-known name, with no distinction made among infant prodigies, composers, poets, thieves and murderers. One person wants a photograph, another an autograph, a third begs for money; every young colleague submits his work, asks for an opinion and is extremely flattering, but if one does not reply, or really tells him what one thinks, the admirer suddenly turns bitter, uncivil and vengeful. Magazines want the famous man's picture, newspapers describe his life, origins and appearance; school friends remind him of their existence, and distant relatives declare they said years ago their cousin would become famous one day.
   Among the harassing letters of this kind, there was one from Miss Schniebel that amused me. There was also one from someone I had not thought about for a long time: the fair Liddy, who wrote without mentioning our toboggan ride, and in the tone of an old faithful friend. She had married a music teacher in her home town and gave me her address so that I could soon send all my compositions with a flattering dedication to her. She enclosed a photograph, however, that showed the well-known features grown older and coarsened. I replied to her in very cordial terms.
   But these little things concerned minor issues that left no important trace behind. Even the good and refreshing fruits of my success, such as making the acquaintance of cultured and distinguished people who had music in their souls and did not just talk about it, did not belong to my real life, which later, as in the past, remained detached and has changed very little since then. All that remains is for me to tell you of the turn of events in the lives of my closest friends.
   Old Mr. Imthor did not entertain as much as when Gertrude had been there, but every three weeks, among the numerous pictures at his house, he held a musical evening with selected chamber music, which I regularly attended. I sometimes brought Teiser along with me, but Imthor pressed me to come and see him apart from these visits. So I sometimes went there in the evening, which was his favorite time, and kept him company in his simply furnished study, where there was a portrait of Gertrude on one of the walls. The old gentleman and I, although outwardly reserved with each other, gradually came to a good understanding and felt the need to talk to each other, and it was therefore not rare for us to talk about what occupied our minds most. I had to tell him about Munich and I did not conceal the impression I had received of the relationship between the couple. He nodded understandingly.
   "Everything may yet turn out all right," he said, sighing, "but we can't do anything. I am looking forward to the summer, when I shall have my child with me for two months. I rarely visit her in Munich and do not care to go there. Besides, she behaves so bravely that I do not want to disturb her and make her weaken."
   Gertrude's letters did not bring anything new. But when she visited her father round Easter, and also came to our little house, she looked thin and tense, and although she tried to be natural with us and to cover things up, we often saw an expression of unaccustomed hopelessness on her face, which had become serious. I played my latest music to her, but when I asked her to sing something for us, she gently shook her head and refused.
   "Another time," she said uncertainly.
   We could all see that she was unhappy, and her father confessed to me later that he had suggested she remain with him for good, but she had refused.
   "She loves him," I said.
   He shrugged his shoulders and looked at me with distress. "I don't know. Who can analyze this misery? But she said she was staying with him for his sake. He is so bewildered and unhappy and needs her more than he thinks. He does not say anything to her, but it is written on his face."
   Then the old man lowered his voice and said quite softly and with shame: "She means he drinks."
   "He has always done that a little," I said, trying to comfort him, "but I have never seen him drunk. He keeps himself under control in that way. He is a nervous type of person who is not used to self-discipline, but perhaps causes himself more suffering than he does other people."
   None of us knew how terribly these two fine people suffered in secret. I do not think that they ever stopped loving each other, but deep down in their natures they did not belong to one another; they only drew closer through passion and in the intoxication of exalted hours. A calm acceptance of life and a tacit understanding of his own nature were things that Muoth had never known and Gertrude could only be patient with and regret his outbursts and depressions, his swift change of moods, his continual desire for self-forgetfulness and intoxication; but she could not change or live with them. So they loved each other and yet were never quite close to each other, and while he saw himself cheated of all his hopes of finding peace and happiness through her, Gertrude realized, and suffered in this knowledge, that all her good intentions and efforts were in vain, and that she could not comfort him and save him from himself. Thus they both had their secret dream and dearest wish shattered. They could only remain together by making sacrifices and showing forbearance, and it was brave of them to do this.
   I saw Heinrich again in the summer when he brought Gertrude to her father. He was more gentle and attentive to her and to me than I had ever seen him before. I perceived how much he feared to lose her, and I also felt that he would never be able to bear such a loss. But she was weary and desired nothing but rest and quiet in order to compose herself and recover her strength and tranquillity. We spent one mild evening together in our garden. Gertrude sat between Brigitte and my mother, whose hand she held. Heinrich walked quietly to and fro among the roses, and I played a violin sonata with Teiser on the terrace. The way Gertrude rested there and enjoyed the peace of those hours, how Brigitte affectionately pressed close to the sad, beautiful woman, and how Muoth walked about quietly in the shadows with his head bowed and listened for us, are things that are indelibly stamped on my mind. Afterwards Heinrich said somewhat jokingly but with sad eyes: "Just look at the three women sitting there together; the only one among them who looks happy is your mother. We should also try to grow old like her."
   After this, we all parted ways. Muoth traveled alone to Bayreuth, Gertrude went with her father into the mountains, the Teisers to Steiermark, and my mother and I went to the coast of the North Sea again. There I often walked along the shore, listened to the sea, and thought as I had done in my youth, with amazement and horror, about the sad and senseless confusion of life, that one could love in vain, that people who meant well toward each other should work out their destinies separately, each one going his own inexplicable way, and how each would like to help and draw close to the other and yet was unable to do so, as in troubled meaningless dreams. I often thought of Muoth's remarks about youth and old age, and I was curious whether life would ever seem simple and clear to me. My mother smiled when I mentioned this during conversation and looked really peaceful. She made me feel ashamed by reminding me of my friend Teiser, who was not yet old but was old enough to have had his share of experiences, and yet went on living in a carefree way like a child, with a Mozart melody on his lips. It had nothing to do with age, I saw that clearly, and perhaps our suffering and ignorance was only the sickness about which Mr. Lohe had talked to me. Or was that wise man another child like Teiser?
   However it may be, thinking and brooding did not change anything. When music stirred my being, I understood everything without the aid of words. I was then aware of pure harmony in the essence of life and felt that there must be a meaning and a just law behind everything that happened. Even if this was an illusion, it helped me to live and was a comfort to me.
   Perhaps it would have been better if Gertrude had not parted from her husband for the summer. She had begun to recover, and when I saw her again in the autumn, after my journey, she looked much better and capable of managing again. But the hopes we had built on this improvement were destined for disappointment.
   Gertrude had felt better while staying with her father for a few months. She had been able to indulge in her need for rest, and with a feeling of relief could remain in this quiet state without a daily battle, just as a tired person yields to sleep when left alone. It appeared, however, that she was more exhausted than we had thought and than she herself knew, for now that Muoth was to come for her soon, she became dispirited again, did not sleep, and entreated her father to let her stay with him a little longer.
   Imthor was naturally rather alarmed at this, as he thought she would be glad to return to Muoth with renewed strength and determination, but he did not argue with her and even cautiously suggested a longer separation for the time being, with a view to a divorce later. She protested against this with great agitation.
   "But I love him," she cried vehemently, "and I will never be disloyal to him. Only it is so difficult to live with him! I just want to rest a little longer, perhaps another couple of months, until I feel stronger."
   Mr. Imthor tried to comfort her. He himself had no objection to having his child with him a little longer. He wrote to Muoth telling him that Gertrude was still not well and wished to remain with him for some time yet. Unfortunately, Muoth did not receive this news well. During the time they had been separated, his longing for his wife had become very great. He had looked forward to seeing her again and was full of good resolutions for completely regaining her love.
   Imthor's letter came as a great disappointment to him. He immediately wrote an angry letter full of suspicions about his father-in-law. He felt that the latter had influenced her against him as he desired a dissolution of the marriage. He demanded an immediate meeting with Gertrude, whom he hoped to win over again. Mr. Imthor came to me with the letter and for a long time we considered what should be done. We both thought it would be best for a meeting between the couple to be avoided at the moment, as Gertrude obviously could not stand any outbursts of emotion. Imthor was very concerned and asked me if I would go to see Muoth and persuade him to leave Gertrude in peace for a while. I know now that I should have done that. At the time I had some misgivings and thought it would be unwise to let my friend know that I was his father-in-law's confidant and acquainted with things in his life that he himself did not wish to disclose to me. So I declined, and all that transpired was that Mr. Imthor wrote another letter, which of course did not help matters.
   Finally, Muoth arrived without warning and alarmed us all with the scarcely restrained vehemence of his love and suspicions. Gertrude, who did not know about the short exchange of letters, was quite astonished and confused by his unexpected appearance and his almost violent emotions. There was a painful scene, the details of which I did not learn. I only know that Muoth urged Gertrude to return with him to Munich. She declared she was ready to do as he wished, if there was no alternative, but asked to be allowed to remain with her father a little longer, as she was weary and still needed rest. He then accused her of wanting to forsake him and insinuated that she had been instigated by her father to do so. He became even more suspicious when she gently tried to explain, and in a fit of anger and bitterness he was so foolish as to command her abruptly to return to him. Her pride then asserted itself. She remained calm but refused to listen to him further and declared that she would now remain with her father in any event. The morning following this scene, Muoth tried to conciliate her, and ashamed and repentant, he now granted all her wishes. He then traveled back to Munich without coming to see me.
   I was alarmed when I heard about it and saw the trouble lying ahead which I had feared from the beginning. After that ugly and foolish scene, I thought, it might now be a long time before she would feel calm and strong enough to return to him, and meanwhile there was a danger of his becoming reckless, and despite all his longings, he might become even more estranged from her. He would not long be able to endure being alone in the house in which he had been happy for a time. He would give way to despair, drink and perhaps go with other women who still ran after him.
   In the meantime, all was quiet. He wrote to Gertrude and again asked her forgiveness. She answered his letter and in a sympathetic and friendly manner urged him to be patient. I saw little of her at this time. Occasionally I tried to persuade her to sing, but she always shook her head. Yet several times I found her at the piano.
   It seemed strange to me to see this beautiful, proud woman, who had always been so strong, cheerful and serene, now timid and shaken to her very being. She sometimes came to see my mother, inquired how we were keeping, sat beside the old lady on the gray settee for a short time, and made an attempt to chat with her. It grieved me to hear her and to see how difficult she found it to smile. Appearances were kept up as if neither I nor anyone else knew of her sorrow, or regarded it as a nervous state and physical weakness. So I could hardly look into her eyes, in which her unconfessed grief, about which I was not supposed to know, was so clearly written. We talked and lived and met as if everything was the same as it had always been, and yet we felt uncomfortable in each other's presence and avoided each other. In the midst of this sad confusion of feelings, I was now and then seized by the notion, causing me sudden excitement, that her heart no longer belonged to her husband and that she was free, and it was now up to me not to lose her again, but to win her for myself and shelter her by my side from all storms and sorrows. I then locked myself in my room, played the passionate and yearning music of my opera, which I suddenly loved and understood again, lay awake at nights full of longing, and again suffered all the former laughable torments of youth and unfulfilled desires, no less intensely than in the past when I had first desired her and given her that single, unforgettable kiss. I felt it burn on my lips again and in a few hours it destroyed the peace and resignation of years.
   Only in Gertrude's presence did my passion subside. Even if I had been foolish and ignoble enough to pursue my desires and, without consideration for her husband, who was my friend, had tried to win her heart, I should have been ashamed to show anything but sympathy and consideration when faced by this sad, gentle woman, who was so completely wrapped up in her sorrow. The more she suffered and seemed to lose hope, the prouder and more unapproachable did she become. She held her fine dark head as erect and as proud as ever and did not allow any of us to make the slightest attempt to approach and help her.
   These long weeks of ominous silence were perhaps the most difficult in my life. Here was Gertrude, close to me yet unapproachable, with no way for me to reach her, and wishing to remain alone; there was Brigitte, who I knew loved me and with whom, after I had avoided her for some time, a tolerable relationship was slowly being established. And among us all there was my old mother, who saw us suffering, who guessed everything but did not trust herself to say anything, as I myself maintained an obstinate silence and felt I could not tell her anything about my own state. But worst of all was the horror of being compelled to look on with the helpless conviction that my best friends were heading for disaster, without my being able to reveal that I knew the reason why.
   Gertrude's father seemed to suffer most of all. I had known him for years as a clever, vigorous, self-possessed man, but he had now aged and changed; he spoke more quietly and less calmly; he no longer joked, and looked worried and miserable. I went to see him one day in November, chiefly to hear any news and be cheered up myself rather than to comfort him.
   He received me in his study, gave me one of his expensive cigars and began to talk to me in a light, polite manner. He did this with an effort and soon abandoned it. He looked at me with a troubled smile and said: "You want to know how things are, don't you? Very bad, my dear friend. The child has suffered more than we knew, otherwise she would have dealt with the situation better. I am in favor of a divorce but she will not hear of it. She loves him, at least she says so, and yet she is afraid of him. That is bad. The child is ill; she closes her eyes, will not listen to reason any more, and thinks everything will be all right if people will only wait and leave her in peace. That is just nerves, of course, but her illness seems to be more deeply rooted. Just think, she sometimes even fears that her husband might ill-treat her if she returns to him, and yet she professes to love him."
   He did not seem to understand her and watched the course of events with a feeling of helplessness. To me, her sufferings were quite conceivably the result of conflict between love and pride. She was afraid not that he would beat her but that she would no longer respect him, and while anxiously temporizing, she hoped to regain her strength. She had been able to control and steady him but by doing this had so exhausted herself that she no longer had confidence in her powers; that was her illness. She longed for him and yet feared that she would lose him completely if a fresh attempt at a reconciliation did not prove successful. I now saw clearly how futile and illusory my bold speculations about winning her love had been.
   Gertrude loved her husband and would never care for anyone else.
   Mr. Imthor avoided talking to me about Muoth, as he knew I was a friend of his, but he hated him and could not understand how he had been able to attract Gertrude. He regarded him as a kind of wicked sorcerer who captured innocent people and never released them. Passion is always a mystery and unaccountable, and unfortunately there is no doubt that life does not spare its purest children and often it is just the most deserving people who cannot help loving those who destroy them.
   During this troubled state of affairs, I received a short letter from Muoth, which relieved the tension. He wrote:

Dear Kuhn,
   Your opera will now be performed everywhere, perhaps better than here. However, I should be very glad if you would come down again, say next week, when I sing the role in your opera twice. You know that my wife is ill and I am here alone. You could thus stay with me without standing on ceremony.
   Kind regards,
      MUOTH

   He wrote so few letters, and never any unnecessary ones, that I immediately decided to go. He must need me. For a moment I thought of telling Gertrude. Perhaps this was an opportunity to break down the barrier. Perhaps she would give me a letter to take to him, or pass on a kind message, ask him to come over or even come with me. It was just an idea, but I did not carry it out. I only visited her father before departing.
   It was late autumn, the weather was wretched, wet and stormy. From Munich one could at times see for an hour the nearby mountains, which were covered with fresh snow. The town was gloomy and wet with rain. I traveled immediately to Muoth's house. Everything there was the same as it had been the year before, the same servant, the same rooms and the same arrangement of furniture, but the place looked uninhabited and empty; it also lacked the flowers that Gertrude had always arranged. Muoth was not in. The servant took me to my room and helped me to unpack. I changed my clothes, and as my host had not yet arrived, I went down into the music room, where I could hear the trees rustling behind the window and had time to think about the past. The longer I sat there looking at the pictures and turning the leaves of books, the sadder I became, as if this household was beyond help. I sat down impatiently by the piano in order to rid myself of these unprofitable thoughts, and I played the wedding prelude that I had composed, as if by doing so I could bring back the happiness of the past.
   At last I heard quick, heavy footsteps close by and Heinrich Muoth came in. He held out his hand and looked at me wearily.
   "Excuse me for being late," he said. "I was busy at the theater. You know that I am singing this evening. Shall we eat now?"
   I followed him out of the room. I found him changed; he was absent-minded and apathetic. He only talked about the theater and seemed unwilling to discuss anything else. Only after the meal, when we sat facing each other in the yellow cane chairs, did he say unexpectedly: "It was very good of you to come. I will make a special effort this evening."
   "Thank you," I said. "You don't look well."
   "Don't I? Well -- we shall soon cheer up. I am a grass-widower. You know that, don't you?"
   "Yes."
   He looked away. "Have you any news about Gertrude?"
   "Nothing special. She is still in a nervous state and does not sleep well -- "
   "Oh well, let us not talk about it. She is in good hands."
   He stood up and walked about the room. I felt that he still wanted to say something. He looked at me keenly and, I thought, distrustfully.
   Then he laughed and left it unsaid. "Lottie has turned up again," he said, changing the subject.
   "Lottie?"
   "Yes, Lottie who once came to see you and told you a tale about me. She has married someone here, and it appears that she still takes an interest in me. She came to visit me here."
   He looked at me again slyly and laughed when he saw that I was shocked.
   "Did you receive her?" I asked with some hesitation.
   "Oh, you think I am capable of it! No, my dear fellow, I had her sent away. But forgive me, I am talking nonsense. I am so terribly tired, and I have to sing this evening. If you don't mind, I will go and lie down for an hour and try to sleep."
   "Certainly, Heinrich, have a good rest. I will go to town for a while. Will you order a cab for me?"
   I could not sit in this house in silence again and listen to the wind in the trees. I traveled to town without any aim, and wandered into the old art museum. I looked at the pictures there for half an hour in the poor light. Then it was time to close and I could think of nothing better to do than read newspapers in a café and look through the large windowpanes on to the wet road. I resolved that I would break through this barrier of coolness at any cost and talk openly to Heinrich.
   But when I returned, I found him smiling and in a good humor.
   "I only needed a good sleep," he said cheerfully. "I feel quite revived now. You must play something for me! The prelude, if you will be so good."
   Pleased and surprised to see such a sudden change in him, I did as he wished. When I had finished playing, he began to talk as he used to, ironically and somewhat skeptically. He let his imagination run riot and completely won my heart again. I thought of the early days of our friendship, and when we left the house in the evening I looked around involuntarily and said: "Don't you keep a dog now?"
   "No -- Gertrude did not like dogs."
   We traveled to the theater in silence. I greeted the conductor and was shown to a seat. I again heard the well-known music, but everything was different from the last time. I sat alone in my box, Gertrude was absent, and the man who acted and sang down there was also changed. He sang with fervor and passion. The public seemed to like him in this role and followed it with enthusiasm from the beginning. But to me his fervor seemed excessive and his voice too loud, almost forced. During the first interval I went down to see him. He was back in his dressing room drinking champagne, and on exchanging a few words with him I saw that his eyes were unsteady, like those of a drunken man.
   Afterwards, while Muoth was changing, I went to see the conductor.
   "Tell me," I asked, "is Muoth ill? It seems to me that he is keeping himself going with champagne. You know that he is a friend of mine, don't you?"
   He looked at me in despair. "I don't know if he is ill, but it is quite evident that he is ruining himself. He has sometimes come on stage almost drunk, and if he ever misses a drink, he acts and sings badly. He always used to have a glass of champagne before appearing, but now he never has less than a whole bottle. If you want to give him some advice -- but there is little you can do. Muoth is deliberately ruining himself."
   Muoth came for me and we went to the nearest inn for supper. He was languid and taciturn again, as he had been at lunchtime, drank large quantities of a heavy red wine, for otherwise he could not sleep, and looked as if he wanted to forget at any price that there were other things in the world than his fatigue and desire for sleep.
   On the way back in the cab he revived for a moment, laughed and said: "My friend, once I'm gone, you can pickle your opera. No one else but me could sing that part."
   The following morning he rose late and was still tired and listless, with unsteady eyes and an ashen face. After he had had his breakfast I took him aside and had a talk with him.
   "You are killing yourself," I said, both anxiously and crossly. "You revive yourself with champagne and afterwards you naturally have to pay for it. I can imagine why you are doing it, and I would not say anything if you did not have a wife. You owe it to her to be respectable and courageous, outwardly and inwardly."
   "Really!" He smiled weakly, evidently amused by my vehemence. "And what does she owe me? Does she act courageously? She stays with her father and leaves me all alone. Why should I pull myself together when she doesn't? People already know there is nothing between us any longer and you know it too, but just the same I have to sing and entertain people. I can't do it with the feeling of emptiness and disgust which I have about everything, particularly about art."
   "All the same, you must turn over a new leaf, Muoth! It is not as if drinking made you happy! You are absolutely wretched! If singing is too much for you at the moment, ask for a leave of absence; you would obtain it immediately. You are not dependent on the money that you earn by singing. Go into the mountains, or to the sea, or wherever you like, and get well again. And give up that stupid drinking! It is not only stupid, it is cowardly. You know that quite well."
   He smiled at that. "Oh yes," he said coolly. "You go and dance a waltz sometime! It would do you good, believe me! Don't always be thinking about your stupid leg. That is just imagination!"
   "Stop it," I cried angrily. "You know quite well that that is different. I would very much like to dance if I could, but I can't. But you can quite well pull yourself together and behave more sensibly. You must definitely give up drinking."
   "Definitely! My dear Kuhn, you make me laugh. It is just as difficult for me to alter and give up drinking as it is for you to dance. I must cling to the things that still keep up my spirits. Do you understand? People who drink are converted when they find something in the Salvation Army or elsewhere that gives them more satisfaction and is more enduring. There was once something like that for me, namely women, but I can no longer take an interest in any other woman since she has been mine and has now forsaken me, so -- "
   "She has not forsaken you! She will come back. She is only ill."
   "That is what you think and that is what she thinks herself, I know, but she will not come back. When a ship is going to sink, the rats abandon it beforehand. Obviously, they do not know that the ship is going under; they only feel touched by a slight sensation of nausea and run away, no doubt with the intention of soon returning."
   "Oh, don't talk like that! You have often despaired in your life and yet things have turned out all right."
   "True! That is because I found some consolation or narcotic. Sometimes it was a woman, sometimes a good friend -- yes, you too once helped me that way -- at other times it was music or applause in the theater. But now these things no longer give me pleasure and that is why I drink. I could never sing without first having a couple of drinks, but now I cannot even think, talk, live or feel tolerably well without first having a couple of drinks. Anyway, you must stop lecturing me, whatever you think. The same situation arose once before, about twelve years ago. Someone lectured me then also and did not let me alone. It was about a girl, and by a coincidence it was my best friend -- "
   "And then?"
   "Then I was obliged to throw him out. After that I did not have a friend for a long time -- as a matter of fact, not until you came along."
   "That is evident."
   "Is it?" he said mildly. "Well, you can drop me too. But I will say that I would be sorry if you left me in the lurch just now. I am attached to you and I have also thought of something to give you pleasure."
   "Have you? What is it?"
   "Listen. You are fond of my wife, or at least you used to be, and I am also fond of her, very much so. Now let us have a celebration tonight, just you and me, in her honor. There is a special reason for it. I have had a portrait of her painted; she had to visit the artist frequently earlier in the year and I often went with her. The portrait was almost ready when she went away. The artist wanted her to sit once more, but I grew tired of waiting and ordered the portrait to be delivered as it is. That was a week ago, and now it is framed and arrived here yesterday. I should have shown it to you at once, but it would be better to have a celebration for it. It would not be much good without a few glasses of champagne. How could I enjoy it otherwise? Do you agree?"
   I sensed the emotion and even the tears behind his joking manner and I cheerfully agreed, although I was not really in the mood for it.
   We made preparations for the celebration in honor of the woman who seemed so completely lost to him, as she was in fact to me.
   "Can you remember which flowers she likes?" he asked me. "I don't know anything about flowers or what they are called. She always had some white and yellow ones, and also some red ones. Do you know what they are?"
   "Yes, I know some of them. Why?"
   "You must buy some. Order a cab. I must go up to town in any case. We shall act as if she were here."
   He did many other things that made me realize how deeply and incessantly he had thought about Gertrude. It made me both happy and sad to observe this. Because of her, he no longer kept a dog and he lived alone, he who previously could never be without women for long. He had had a portrait of her painted. He asked me to buy the flowers she liked. It was as if he had taken off a mask and I saw a child's face behind the hard, selfish features.
   "But," I objected, "we ought to look at the portrait now, or this afternoon. It is always better to look at pictures by daylight."
   "Does it matter? You can look at it again tomorrow. I hope it is a good painting, but in truth that is not so important; we just want to look at her."
   After a meal we traveled to town and made some purchases, first of all flowers, a large bunch of chrysanthemums, a basket of roses and two bunches of white lilac. He also had the sudden idea of having a large quantity of flowers sent to Gertrude in R.
   "There is something lovely about flowers," he said thoughtfully. "I can understand Gertrude being fond of them. I like them too, but I cannot take the trouble to look after anything like that. When there is no woman to attend to them, they always seem to me to be uncared for and do not really give me pleasure."
   In the evening I found that the new portrait had been placed in the music room and was covered with a silk cloth. We had had an excellent meal, after which Muoth wished first to hear the wedding prelude. When I had played it, he uncovered the portrait and we stood facing it for a while in silence. Gertrude had been painted full-length in a light summer dress, and her bright eyes looked across at us trustfully from the portrait. It was some time before we could look at each other and take each other's hand. Heinrich filled two glasses with Rhine wine, bowed to the portrait, and we drank to the woman about whom we were both thinking. Then he carefully picked up the picture and carried it out.
   I asked him to sing something, but he did not wish to.
   "Do you remember," he said smiling, "how we spent an evening together before my wedding? Now I am a bachelor once more and we shall again try to cheer ourselves up with a couple of drinks and have a little pleasure. Your friend Teiser ought to be here; he knows how to make merry better than you and I. Give him my regards when you are back home. He can't bear me, but just the same --"
   With the steadily maintained cheerfulness that had been a characteristic of his best hours, he began to chat and to remind me of things that had taken place in the past, and I was surprised at how much he remembered. Even casual little things that I thought he had long forgotten remained in his memory. He had not even forgotten the very first evening I had spent at his house, together with Marian and Kranzl, and the way we had quarrelled. Only about Gertrude did he remain silent. He did not mention the period in which she had come into our lives and I was glad that he did not do so.
   I felt pleased about this unexpected enjoyable evening and let him help himself liberally to the good wine without admonishing him. I knew how rare these moods were with him, and how he cherished and clung to them when they occasionally came, and they never did come without the aid of wine. I also knew that this mood would not last long and that tomorrow he would again be irritable and unapproachable. Nevertheless it gave me a feeling of well-being and almost cheerfulness to listen to his clever, thoughtful, although perhaps contradictory observations. While talking, he occasionally directed one of his attractive glances at me, which he did only in such hours as these, and they were like the glances of one who had just awakened from a dream.
   Once, when he was silent and sat thinking, I began to tell him what my theosophist friend had said to me about the sickness of lonely people.
   "Oh," he said good-humoredly, "and I suppose you believed him. You should have become a theologian."
   "Why do you say that? After all, there may be something in it."
   "Oh, of course. Wise men continually demonstrate from time to time that everything is only imagination. Do you know, I often used to read such books in the past and I can tell you that they are of no use, absolutely no use. All that these philosophers write about is only a game; perhaps they comfort themselves with it. One philosopher preaches individualism because he can't bear his contemporaries, and another socialism because he can't endure being alone. It may be that our feeling of loneliness is an illness, but one can't do anything about it. Somnambulism is also an illness, and that is why a fellow suffering from it does in fact stand at the edge of a roof, and when someone calls out to him, he falls and breaks his neck."
   "That is quite different."
   "Maybe. I won't say I am right. I only mean that one doesn't get anywhere with wisdom. There are only two kinds of wisdom; all the rest is just idle talk."
   "Which two kinds of wisdom do you mean?"
   "Well, either the world is bad and worthless, as Buddhists and Christians preach, in which case one must do penance and renounce everything -- I believe one can obtain peace of mind in this way -- ascetics do not have such a hard life as people think. Or else the world and life are good and right -- then one can just take part in it and afterwards die peacefully, because it is finished."
   "What do you believe in yourself?"
   "It is no use asking that. Most people believe in both, dependent on the weather, their health, and whether they have money in their purses or not. And those who really believe do not live in accordance with their beliefs. That is how it is with me too. For instance, I believe as Buddha did that life is not worthwhile, but I live for things that appeal to my senses as if this is the most important thing to do. If only it was more satisfying!"
   It was not yet late when we finished. As we went through the adjoining room, where only a single electric light was burning, Muoth took my arm and stopped me, switched on all the lights and removed the cover from Gertrude's portrait, which stood there. We looked once more at her dear, sweet face; then he placed the cover over the picture again and switched out the lights. He came with me to my room and put a couple of magazines on the table in case I should want to read. Then he took my hand and said quietly: "Good night, my dear fellow!"
   I went to bed and lay awake for about half an hour, thinking about him. It had moved me and made me feel ashamed to hear how faithfully he remembered all the small events of our friendship. He, who found it difficult to extend friendship, clung to those he cared for more fervently than I had thought.
   After that I fell asleep and had confused dreams about Muoth, my opera and Mr. Lohe. When I awoke, it was still night. I had been awakened by a fright that had nothing to do with my dreams. I saw the dull gray of approaching dawn framed by the window and had a feeling of deep anguish. I sat up in bed and tried to shake off my sleep and think clearly.
   Then there were heavy rapid knocks on my door. I sprang out of bed and opened it. It was cold and I had not yet switched on the light. The servant stood outside, scantily dressed, and stared at me anxiously with eyes full of terror.
   "Will you please come?" he whispered, panting. "There has been an accident."
   I put on a dressing gown and followed the young man down the stairs. He opened a door, stood back and let me enter. In the room there was a small cane table with a candelabrum on it in which three thick candles were burning. By the side of the table there was a disordered bed and in it, lying on his face, was my friend Heinrich Muoth.
   "We must turn him around," I said softly.
   The servant did not trust himself to do it. "I will fetch a doctor immediately," he said stammering.
   But I compelled him to pull himself together and we turned the recumbent man over. I looked at my friend's face, which was white and drawn.
   His shirt was covered with blood, and when we put him down and covered him up again, his mouth twitched slightly and his eyes could no longer see.
   The servant then began to tell me excitedly what had happened but I did not want to know anything. When the doctor arrived, Muoth was already dead. In the morning I sent a telegram to Imthor. Then I returned to the silent house, sat by the dead man's bed, listened to the wind in the trees outside, and only then realized how fond I had been of this unfortunate man. I could not mourn for him; his death had been easier than his life.
   In the evening I stood at the railway station and saw old Mr. Imthor step out of the train, followed by a tall woman dressed in black. I took them back with me to the dead man, who had now been dressed and placed on his bier among the flowers of the previous day. Gertrude stooped and kissed his pale lips.
   When we stood beside his grave, I saw a tall, attractive woman with a tear-stained face, who held roses in her hand and stood alone, and when I looked across at her curiously, I saw that it was Lottie. She nodded to me and smiled. But Gertrude had not wept; she looked straight ahead of her, attentively and steadfast, in the light rain scattered about by the wind, and held herself like a young tree supported by firm roots. But it was only self-restraint; two days later, when she was unpacking Muoth's flowers, which had meantime arrived at her house, she broke down and we did not see her for a long time.

Chapter Nine

   My Grief, too only came to the fore later and, as is always the case, I thought of numerous instances when I had been unjust to my dead friend. Well, he had inflicted the worst things upon himself, and not only his death. I meditated for a long time about these things and could not find anything vague or incomprehensible about his fate, and yet it was all horrible and a mockery. It was no different with my own life, with Gertrude's, and that of many others. Fate was not kind, life was capricious and terrible, and there was no good or reason in nature. But there is good and reason in us, in human beings, with whom fortune plays, and we can be stronger than nature and fate, if only for a few hours. And we can draw close to one another in times of need, understand and love one another, and live to comfort each other.
   And sometimes, when the black depths are silent, we can do even more. We can then be gods for moments, stretch out a commanding hand and create things which were not there before and which, when they are created, continue to live without us. Out of sounds, words and other frail and worthless things, we can construct playthings -- songs and poems full of meaning, consolation and goodness, more beautiful and enduring than the grim sport of fortune and destiny. We can keep the spirit of God in our hearts and, at times, when we are full of him, he can appear in our eyes and our words, and also talk to others who do not know or do not wish to know him. We cannot evade life's course, but we can school ourselves to be superior to fortune and also to look unflinchingly upon the most painful things.
   So during the years that have passed since Heinrich Muoth's death I have brought him to life again a thousand times, and have been able to talk to him more wisely and affectionately than I did when he was alive. And as time passed, my old mother died, and also pretty Brigitte Teiser, who, after years of waiting and giving the wound time to heal, married a musician and did not outlive her first confinement.
   Gertrude has overcome the pain she suffered when she received our flowers as a greeting and plea from the dead. I do not often speak to her about it although I see her every day, but I believe that she looks back on the springtime of her life as on a distant valley seen during a journey a long time ago, and not a lost garden of Eden. She has regained her strength and serenity and also sings again, but since that cold kiss on the dead man's lips, she has never kissed another man. Once or twice, during the course of the years, when her spirit had recovered and her being radiated the old charm, my thoughts traveled along the old forbidden paths and I asked myself: why not? But I already knew the answer, that no change could be made in our relationship with each other. She is my friend, and after lonely, restless periods, when I emerge from my silence with a song or a sonata, it belongs first and foremost to us both.
   Muoth was right. On growing old, one becomes more contented than in one's youth, which I will not therefore revile, for in all my dreams I hear my youth like a wonderful song which now sounds more harmonious than it did in reality, and even sweeter.

VOLIM ŽENE

Volim žene koje su pre hiljadu godina
voleli pesnici i pevali o njima.

Volim gradove čije prazne zidine
oplakuju kraljeve iz davnih vremena.

Volim gradove koji će tek nići
kad nekoga od nas više ne bude.

Volim žene - zavodljive i vitke
koje budućnost u svom krilu čuva.

Njihova lepota, astralna i bleda,
nalik je onoj koju večno sanjam.

ELIZABET

Na tvoje ruke, usta i čelo
pada bledo prolećno svetlo.
Poznajem tu nežnu čaroliju -
sa starih toskanskih slika.

Majska lepotice, dražesna i vitka,
u nekom drugom životu
za Botičelija si boginja bila
u cveće odevena.

Ti beše ona od čijeg pogleda
uzdrhta mladi Dante
i nesvesno, tvoje belo stopalo
našlo je put u raj.

Kao neki oblak beli,
na nebu visoko,
lepu, nežnu i daleku,
osećam te, Elizabet.

Oblak ide svojim putem
jedva da za tebe zna,
ali u snovima tvojim
odlazi u tamnu noć.

On plovi i srebrom svetluca...
i od tog časa,
za tim nežnim oblakom
uvek će u tebi ostati slatki žal.

TAKO PUTUJU ZVEZDE

Tako putuju zvezde
neshvaćene i uvek iste!
I dok se mi batrgamo u lancima svojim,
ti sve udaljenija blistaš.

Tvoj život je samo svetlost!
Ako iz mojih tmina
pružim prema tebi čežnjive ruke,
ti se smešiš al ti me ne razumeš.

PLAMEN

Bilo da te ples zanese
ili da u srcu patnju nosiš,
ti svakog dana novo čudo stvaraš,
u tebi gori plamen života.

Neko žedji da u trenu sreće
usplamti kratko, opijen sagori,
drugi, dalekovidi i mudri,
svoj nauk potomstvu prenose.

Al samo su onom izgubljeni dani
čiji put kroz mračnu tminu vidi,
ko, zasićen jadom, taj plamen života
nikada ne spozna.

PESMA LJUBLJENOJ
U HLADNO PROLEĆE

Osam, devet, deset,
otkucava u hlanom predvorju.
Ne brojim, slušam kako prolaze sati.

Proleću kao sneg kroz vetar,
kao ptice od snega bele.
Oni me ne raduju,
oni me ne bole,
ali tada nisi pored mene.