The Perfectionist

Chapter One

The bourne of man commenced his journey on a fine spring evening, when he boarded the overnight train, selected a little car, and rested on his seat, with the pangs of fatigue already overtaking him. His destination obliged him to carry with him no luggage, but 'arrive as he was', with no adornments to his default appearance except for a coat and hat. He set his eyes outside the car casement: the night had not yet set in, and, from what he could distinguish through the darkening scenes, saw with certainty several villages and large forests, rushing past him and disappearing quickly from his sight, only to be immediately replaced by new spectacles of the same nature. The train moved rapidly, storming down on the trembling earth beneath it, huffing, wailing, and exhaling large bursts of smoke, to its next destination. Through plains and fields, forests and mountains, did it pass, in an anxious hurry, to that region of space in which it intended to cease its motion, and relieve itself by the discontinuation of its exhausting exertions. It was a strange thing to Dieter Siedemann: the increasing distance between his known home and life was a matter difficult for him to comprehend, and its realization harder. He thought with uneasiness of his mission to quit the realm of the certain and the beloved, and enter into the new and undiscovered realm, unattached to any degree of familiarity or connection. During the journey, to pacify his worry, he would often single out a house from the rest of the stony multitude, and now think about its cozy occupants and their hearty discourses, now about their restful naps and leisures, now about their promises of security and eternal companionship, etc. etc.

Dieter frowned, and was visibly displeased: it did not come to him easily that he was to pass the subsequent days and nights in discomfort, and when the confirmation of this knowledge came, a few days before this present situation, he was thrown into the deepest doubts and fears, and ardently wished to undo his decision. It was not the nature of the destination to which he was bourne, but rather the profound uncertainty and mystery of it all, which he dreaded with bitter ardour. So much hesitation did he feel, that the possibility of this event occurring was, during that suspenseful period, a mere fantasy and dream. ''Nevertheless,'' he thought to himself, gazing softly on the moth that stuck onto the bottom corner of the casement, ''It is an inevitable action: man must experience great things to become a great thing himself. Catherine the Great earned her title only by seizing the power forbidden her. Alexander of Macedon became not a king by gliding unnoticed through the Asian continent! Yes, it is difficult, and one must acknowledge this, but one must also acknowledge that a transitory period is essential for every creature on this earth, and I am no exception. Though my inner self rejects this change, I must accept it, and stand courageously as it passes completely over me. It is required of every creature to be thus while it is transformed by the tide of events in its life, and I, as a constituent of nature, shall submit to her laws.''

A note on our hero Dieter Siedemann, for he shall be stripped of his concealment in the following chapters, and we must share his fundamental person and history at the present moment: Dieter Siedemann was, at this time, a bright young man of twenty-four years, with a clear mind and conscience, a cordial, youthful, yet hasty heart, and with a propensity to dislike the new and uncertain: he preferred, really, to remain in the regions of life that he knew so well, and not shiver in the cold and dark void of incertitude. All that was new and unknown he dreaded and hated, and he clung with desperation unto what he knew so well and for so long. This trait often went unnoticed by him and his companions, though, when he was obliged to serve his Kaiser, in the second year of the Great War, he was thrown into the most hysterical fears, and avoided his duty with all the effort he could manage. It was not particularly the war and its horrors that he feared, for he knew nothing of them then, but the obligation of flying into a vague and unknown disposition paralyzed him with fear. Having communicated this to his father, who was adamant that he should fight proudly for his country, his father scoffed indignantly and demanded that he neglect his fantasies. ''You must display your patriotism and love for the Kaiser'', he would often demand. Dieter eventually yielded to his father's orders, and, walking himself hesitantly into war, served the Kaiser for three years...