Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth by Hermann Hesse (Eng. version)

3-Among Thieves

  If I wanted to, I could recall many delicate moments from my childhood: the sense of being protected that myparents gave me, my affectionate nature, simply living a playful, satisfied existence in gentle surroundings.But my interest centers on the steps that I took to reach myself. All the moments of calm, the islands of peacewhose magic I felt, I leave behind in the enchanted distance. Nor do I ask to ever set foot there again. That iswhy--as long as I dwell on my childhood--I will emphasize the things that entered it from outside, that werenew, that impelled me forward or tore me away.

These impulses always came from the "other world" and wereaccompanied by fear, constraint, and a bad conscience. They were always revolutionary and threatened thecalm in which I would gladly have continued to live. Then came those years in which I was forced torecognize the existence of a drive within me that had to make itself small and hide from the world of light. Theslowly awakening sense of my own sexuality overcame me, as it does every person, like an enemy andterrorist, as something forbidden, tempting and sinful. What my curiosity sought, what dreams, lust and fearcreated--the great secret of puberty--did not fit at all into my sheltered childhood. I behaved like everyone else.I led the double life of a child who is no longer a child.

My conscious self lived within the familiar andsanctioned world, it denied the new world that dawned within me. Side by side with this I lived in a world ofdreams, drives, and desires of a chthonic nature, across which my conscious self desperately built its fragilebridges, for the childhood world within me was falling apart. Like most parents, mine were no help with thenew problems of puberty, to which no reference was ever made. All they did was take endless trouble insupporting my hopeless attempts to deny reality and to continue dwelling in a childhood world that wasbecoming more and more unreal. I have no idea whether parents can be of help, and I do not blame mine.

Itwas my own affair to come to terms with myself and to find my own way, and like most well-brought-upchildren, I managed it badly. Everyone goes through this crisis. For the average person this is the point whenthe demands of his own life come into the sharpest conflict with his environment, when the way forward hasto be sought with the bitterest means at his command. Many people experience the dying and rebirth--which isour fate--only this once during their entire life. Their childhood becomes hollow and gradually collapses,everything they love abandons them and they suddenly feel surrounded by the loneliness and mortal cold ofthe universe. Very many are caught forever in this impasse, and for the rest of their lives cling painfully to anirrevocable past, the dream of the lost paradise--which is the worst and most ruthless of dreams.

But let mereturn to my story. The sensations and dream images announcing the end of my childhood are too many to berelated in full. The important thing was that the "dark world, " the "other world, " had reappeared. What FranzKromer had once been was now part of myself. Several years had gone by since the episode with Kromer.That dramatic time filled with guilt lay far in the past and seemed like a brief nightmare that had quicklyvanished. Franz Kromer had long since gone out of my life, I hardly noticed when I happened to meet him inthe street. The other important figure in my little tragedy, Max Demian, was never to go out of my life againentirely.

Yet for a long time he merely stood at its distant fringes, visible but out of effective range. Onlygradually did he come closer, again radiating strength and influence. I am trying to see what I can rememberof Demian at that time. It is quite possible that I didn't talk to him once for a whole year or even longer. Iavoided him and he did not impose himself on me in any way. The few instances that we met, he merelynodded to me. Sometimes it even seemed as though his friendliness was faintly tinged with derision or withironic reproach--but I may have imagined this.

The experience that we had shared and the strange influence hehad exerted on me at that time were seemingly forgotten by both of us. I can conjure up what he looked likeand now that I begin to recollect, I can see that he was not so far away from me after all and that I did noticehim. I can see him on his way to school, alone or with a group of older students, and I see him strange, lonely,and silent, wandering among them like a separate planet, surrounded by an aura all his own, a law untohimself. No one liked him, no one was on intimate terms with him, except his mother, and this relationship,too, seemed not that of a child but of an adult. When they could, the teachers left him to himself; he was agood student but took no particular trouble to please anyone.

Now and again we heard of some word, somesarcastic comment or retort he was rumored to have made to a teacher, and which--as gems of provocation andcutting irony--left little to be desired. As I close my eyes to recollect I can see his image rise up: where wasthat? Yes, I have it now: in the little alley before our house. One day I saw him standing there, notebook inhand, sketching. He was drawing the old coat of arms with the bird above our entrance. As I stood at thewindow behind the curtain and watched him, I was deeply astonished by his perceptive, cool, light-skinnedface that was turned toward the coat of arms, the face of a man, of a scientist or artist, superior and purposeful,strangely lucid and calm, and with knowing eyes. And I can see him on another occasion. It was a few weekslater, also in a street. All of us on our way home from school were standing about a fallen horse.

It lay in frontof a farmer's cart still harnessed to the shaft, snorting pitifully with dilated nostrils and bleeding from a hiddenwound so the white dust on one side of the street was stained. As I turned away nauseous I beheld Demian'sface. He had not thrust himself forward but was standing farthest back, at ease and as elegantly dressed asusual. His eyes seemed fixed on the horse's head and again showed that deep, quiet, almost fanatical yetdispassionate absorption. I could not help looking at him for a time and it was then that I felt a very remoteand peculiar sensation. I saw Demian's face and I not only noticed that it was not a boy's face but a man's; Ialso felt or saw that it was not entirely the face of a man either, but had something feminine about it, too.

Yetthe face struck me at that moment as neither masculine nor childlike, neither old nor young, but somehow athousand years old, somehow timeless, bearing the scars of an entirely different history than we knew; animalscould look like that, or trees, or planets--none of this did I know consciously, I did not feel precisely what Isay about it now as an adult, only something of the kind. Perhaps he was handsome, perhaps I liked him,perhaps I also found him repulsive, I could not be sure of that either.All I saw was that he was different fromus, he was like an animal or like a spirit or like a picture, he was different, unimaginably different from therest of us. My memory fails me and I cannot be sure whether what I have described has not to some extentbeen drawn from later impressions.

Only several years later did I again come into closer contact with him.Demian had not been confirmed in church with his own age group as was the custom, and this again made himthe object of wild rumors. Boys in school repeated the old story about his being Jewish, or more likely aheathen, and others were convinced that both he and his mother were atheists or belonged to some fabulousand disreputable sect. In connection with this I also remember having heard him suspected of being hismother's lover. Most probably he had been brought up without any religious instruction whatever, but now thisseemed to be in some way ominous for his future. At rate, his mother decided to let him take Confirmationlessons after all, though two years later than his age group.

So it came about that he went to the sameConfirmation class as I did. For a time I avoided him entirely. I wanted no part of him; he was surrounded bytoo many legends and secrets, but what bothered me most was a feeling of being indebted to him that had notleft me since the Kromer affair. I now had enough trouble with secrets of my own, for the Confirmationlessons coincided with my decisive enlightenment about sex, and despite all good intentions, my interest inreligious matters was greatly diminished. What the pastor discussed lay far away in a very holy but unrealworld of its own; these things were no doubt quite beautiful and precious, but they were by no means as timelyand exciting as the new things I was thinking about. The more indifferent this condition made me to theConfirmation lessons, the more I again became preoccupied with Max Demian.

There seemed to be a bondbetween us, a bond that I shall have to trace as closely as possible. As far as I can remember, it began earlyone morning while the light still had to be turned on in our classroom. Our scripture teacher, a pastor, hadembarked on the story of Cain and Abel. I was sleepy and listened with only half an ear. When the pastorbegan to hold forth loudly and urgently about Cain's mark I felt almost a physical touch, a warning, andlooking up I saw Max Demian's face half turned round toward me from one of the front rows, with a gleamingeye that might express scorn as much as deep thought, you could not be sure. He looked at me for only amoment and suddenly I listened tensely to the pastor's words, heard him speak about Cain and his mark, anddeep within me I felt the knowledge that it was not as he was teaching it, that one could look at it differently,that his view was not above criticism.

This one minute reestablished the link between me and Demian. Andhow strange--hardly was I aware of a certain spiritual affinity, when I saw it translated into physical closeness.I had no idea whether he was able to arrange it this way himself or whether it happened only by chance--I stillbelieved firmly in chance at that time--but after a few days Demian suddenly switched seats in Confirmationclass and came to sit in front of me (I can still recall it precisely: in the miserable poorhouse air of theovercrowded classroom I loved the scent of fresh soap emanating from his nape) and after a few days he hadagain changed seats and now sat next to me. There he stayed all winter and spring.

The morning hours hadchanged completely. They no longer put me to sleep or bored me. I actually looked forward to them.Sometimes both of us listened to the pastor with the utmost concentration and a glance from my neighborcould draw my attention to a remarkable story, an unusual saying. A further glance from him, a special one,could make me critical or doubtful. Yet all too frequently we paid no attention. Demian was never rude to theteacher or to his fellow students. I never saw him indulge in the usual pranks, not once did I hear him guffawor gossip during class, and he never incurred a teacher's reprimand.

But very quietly, and more with signs andglances than whispering, he contrived to let me share in his activities, and these sometimes were strange. Forinstance, he would tell me which of the students interested him and how he studied them. About some of themhe had very precise knowledge. He would tell me before class: "When I signal with my thumb So-and-so willturn round and look at us, or will scratch his neck.

" During the period, when it had almost completely slippedmy mind, Max would suddenly make a significant gesture with his thumb. I would glance quickly at thestudent indicated and each time I saw him perform the desired movement like a puppet on a string. I beggedMax to try this out on the pastor but he refused. Only once, when I came to class unprepared and told him thatI hoped the pastor would not call on me that day, he helped me. The pastor looked for a student to recite anassigned catechism passage and his eyes sweeping through the room came to rest on my guilty face. Slowly heapproached me, his finger pointing at me, my name beginning to form on his lips--when suddenly he becamedistracted or uneasy, pulled at his shut collar, stepped up to Demian, who was looking him directly in the eyeand seemed to want to ask him something.

But he turned away again, cleared his throat a few times, and thencalled on someone else. Even though these tricks amused me, I began to notice gradually that my friendfrequently played the same game with me. It would happen on my way to school that I would suddenly feelDemian walking not far behind me and when I turned around he was there in fact. "Can you actually makesomeone think what you want him to?" I asked him. He answered readily in his quiet, factual, and adultmanner. "No, " he said, "I can't do that. You see, we don't have free will even though the pastor makes believewe do.

A person can neither think what he wants to nor can I make him think what I want to. However, onecan study someone very closely and then one can often know almost exactly what he thinks or feels and thenone can also anticipate what he will do the next moment. It's simple enough, only people don't know it. Ofcourse you need practice. For example, there is a species of butterfly, a night-moth, in which the females aremuch less common than the males.The moths breed exactly like all animals, the male fertilizes the female andthe female lays the eggs. Now, if you take a female night-moth--many naturalists have tried thisexperiment--the male moths will visit this female at night, and they will come from hours away.

From hoursaway! Just think! From a distance of several miles all these males sense the only female in the region. Onelooks for an explanation for this phenomenon but it is not easy. You must assume that they have a sense ofsmell of some sort like a hunting dog that can pick up and follow a seemingly inperceptible scent. Do you see?Nature abounds with such inexplicable things. But my argument is: if the female moths were as abundant asthe males, the latter would not have such a highly developed sense of smell. They've acquired it only becausethey had to train themselves to have it. If a person were to concentrate all his will power on a certain end, thenhe would achieve it.

That's all. And that also answers your question. Examine a person closely enough and youknow more about him than he does himself. " It was on the tip of my tongue to mention "thought reading" andto remind him of the scene with Kromer that lay so far in the past. But this, too, was strange about ourrelationship: neither he nor I ever alluded to the fact that several years before he had intruded so seriously intomy life. It was as though nothing had ever been between us or as though each of us banked on it that the otherhad forgotten. On one or two occasions it even happened that we caught sight of Kromer somewhere in thestreet. Yet we neither glanced at each other nor said a word about him.

"What is all this about the will?" Iasked. "On the one hand, you say our will isn't free. Then again you say we only need to concentrate our willfirmly on some end in order to achieve it. It doesn't make sense. If I'm not master of my own will, then I'm inno position to direct it as I please. " He patted me on the back as he always did when he was pleased with me. "Good that you ask, " he said, laughing. "You should always ask, always have doubts. But the matter is verysimple. If, for example, a night-moth were to concentrate its will on flying to a star or on some equallyunattainable object, it wouldn't succeed.

Only--it wouldn't even try in the first place. A moth confines itssearch to what has sense and value for it, on what it needs, what is indispensable to its life. And that's how amoth achieves the incredible--it develops a magic sixth sense, which no other creature has. We have a widerscope, greater variety of choice, and wider interests than an animal. But we, too, are confined to a relativelynarrow compass which we cannot break out of. If I imagined that I wanted under all circumstances to get tothe North Pole, to achieve it I would have to desire it strongly enough so that my whole being was ruled by it.

Once that is the case, once you have tried something that you have been ordered to do from within yourself,then you'll be able to accomplish it, then you can harness your will to it like an obedient nag. But if I were todecide to will that the pastor should stop wearing his glasses, it would be useless. That would be making agame of it. But at that time in the fall when I was resolved to move away from my seat in the front row, itwasn't difficult at all. Suddenly there was someone whose name preceded mine in the alphabet and who hadbeen away sick until then and since someone had to make room for him it was me of course because my willwas ready to seize the opportunity at once. " "Yes, " I said. "I too felt odd at that time. From the moment thatwe began to take an interest in each other you moved closer and closer to me. But how did that happen?

Youdid not sit next to me right away, first you sat for a while in the bench in front of me. How did you manage toswitch once more?" "It was like this: I didn't know myself exactly where I wanted to sit but I wanted to shiftfrom my seat in the front row. I only knew that I wanted to sit farther to the back. It was my will to come to sitnext to you but I hadn't become conscious of it as yet. At the same time your will accorded with mine andhelped me. Only when I found myself sitting in front of you did I realize that my wish was only half fulfilledand that my sole aim was to sit next to you.

" "But at that time no one fell ill, no one who had been illreturned, no new student joined the class. " "You're right. But at the time I simply did as I liked and sat downnext to you. The boy with whom I changed seats was somewhat surprised but he let me do as I pleased. Thepastor, too, once noticed that some sort of change had occurred. Even now something bothers him secretlyevery time he has to deal with me, for he knows that my name is Demian and that something must be wrong ifI, a D, sit way in back in the S's.

But that never penetrates his awareness because my will opposes it andbecause I continuously place obstacles in his path. He keeps noticing that there's something wrong, then helooks at me and tries to puzzle it out. But I have a simple solution to that. Every time his eyes meet mine Istare him down. Very few people can stand that for long. All of them become uneasy. If you want somethingfrom someone and you look him firmly in both eyes and he doesn't become ill at ease, give up. You don't havea chance, ever! But that is very rare. I actually know only one person where it doesn't help me. " "Who isthat?" I asked quickly. He looked at me with narrowed eyes, as he did when he became thoughtful.

Then helooked away and made no reply. Even though I was terribly curious I could not repeat the question. I believehe meant his mother. He was said to have a very close relationship with her, yet he never mentioned her nameand never took me home with him. I hardly knew what his mother looked like. Sometimes I attempted toimitate Demian and fix my will with such concentration on something that I was certain to achieve it. Therewere wishes that seemed urgent enough to me. But nothing happened; it didn't work. I could not bring myselfto talk to Demian about it. I wouldn't have been able to confess my wishes to him.

And he didn't ask either. Meantime cracks had begun to appear in my religious faith. Yet my thinking, which was certainly muchinfluenced by Demian, was very different from that of some of my fellow students who boasted completeunbelief. On occasion they would say it was ridiculous, unworthy of a person to believe in God, that storieslike the Trinity and Virgin Birth were absurd, shameful. It was a scandal that we were still being fed suchnonsense in our time. I did not share these views.

Even though I had my doubts about certain points, I knewfrom my childhood the reality of a devout life, as my parents led it, and I knew also that this was neitherunworthy nor hypocritical. On the contrary, I still stood in the deepest awe of the religious. Demian, however,had accustomed me to regard and interpret religious stories and dogma more freely, more individually, evenplayfully, with more imagination; at any rate, I always subscribed with pleasure to the interpretations hesuggested. Some of it--the Cain business, for instance--was, of course, too much for me to stomach. And onceduring Confirmation class he startled me with an opinion that was possibly even more daring.

The teacher hadbeen speaking about Golgotha. The biblical account of the suffering and death of the Savior had made a deepimpression on me since my earliest childhood. Sometimes, as a little boy, on Good Friday, for instance, deeplymoved by my father's reading of the Passion to us, I would live in this sorrowful yet beautiful, ghostly, pale,yet immensely alive world, in Gethsemane and on Golgotha, and when I heard Bach's St. Matthew Passion thedark mighty glow of suffering in this mysterious world filled me with a mystical sense of trembling. Eventoday I find in this music and in his Actus Tragicus the essence of all poetry.

At the end of that class Demiansaid to me thoughtfully: 'There's something I don't like about this story, Sinclair. Why don't you read it oncemore and give it the acid test? There's something about it that doesn't taste right. I mean the business with thetwo thieves. The three crosses standing next to each other on the hill are most impressive, to be sure. But nowcomes this sentimental little treatise about the good thief. At first he was a thorough scoundrel, had committedall those awful things and God knows what else, and now he dissolves in tears and celebrates such a tearfulfeast of self-improvement and remorse!

What's the sense of repenting if you're two steps from the grave? I askyou. Once again it's nothing but a priest's fairy tale, saccharine and dishonest, touched up with sentimentalityand given a highly edifying background. If you had to pick a friend from between the two thieves or decidewhich of the two you had rather trust, you most certainly wouldn't select that sniveling convert. No, the otherfellow, he's a man of character. He doesn't give a hoot for 'conversion, ' which to a man in his position can't beanything but a pretty speech. He follows his destiny to its appointed end and does not turn coward andforswear the devil, who has aided and abetted him until then.

He has character, and people with character tendto receive the short end of the stick in biblical stories. Perhaps he's even a descendant of Cain. Don't youagree?" I was dismayed. Until now I had felt completely at home in the story of the Crucifixion. Now I sawfor the first time with how little individuality, with how little power of imagination I had listened to it and readit. Still, Demian's new concept seemed vaguely sinister and threatened to topple beliefs on whose continuedexistence I felt I simply had to insist. No, one could not make light of everything, especially not of the mostsacred matters. As usual he noticed my resistance even before I had said anything. "I know, " he said in aresigned tone of voice, "it's the same old story: don't take these stories seriously! But I have to tell yousomething: this is one of the very places that reveals the poverty of this religion most distinctly.

The point isthat this God of both Old and New Testaments is certainly an extraordinary figure but not what he purports torepresent. He is all that is good, noble, fatherly, beautiful, elevated, sentimental--true! But the world consistsof something else besides. And what is left over is ascribed to the devil, this entire slice of world, this entirehalf is suppressed and hushed up. In exactly the same way they praise God as the father of all life but simplyrefuse to say a word about our sexual life on which it's all based, describing it whenever possible as sinful, thework of the devil.

I have no objection to worshiping this God Jehovah, far from it. But I mean we ought toconsider everything sacred, the entire world, not merely this artificially separated half! Thus alongside thedivine service we should also have a service for the devil. I feel that would be right. Otherwise you mustcreate for yourself a God that contains the devil too and in front of which you needn't close your eyes whenthe most natural things in the world take place. " It was most unusual for him to become almost vehement.

But at once he smiled and did not probe any further. His words, however, touched directly on the whole secretof my adolescence, a secret I carried with me every hour of the day and of which I had not said a word toanyone, ever. What Demian had said about God and the devil, about the official godly and the suppresseddevilish one, corresponded exactly to my own thoughts, my own myth, my own conception of the world asbeing divided into two halves--the light and the dark. The realization that my problem was one that concernedall men, a problem of living and thinking, suddenly swept over me and I was overwhelmed by fear and respectas I suddenly saw and felt how deeply my own personal life and opinions were immersed in the eternal streamof great ideas.

Though it offered some confirmation and gratification, the realization was not really a joyfulone. It was hard and had a harsh taste because it implied responsibility and no longer being allowed to be achild; it meant standing on one's own feet. Revealing a deep secret for the first time in my life, I told myfriend of my conception of the "two worlds. " He saw immediately that my deepest feelings accorded with hisown. But it was not his way to take advantage of something like that. He listened to me more attentively thanhe had ever before and peered into my eyes so that I was forced to avert mine. For I noticed in his gaze againthat strange animal-like look, expressing timelessness and unimaginable age. "We'll talk more about it someother time, " he said forbearingly.

"I can see that your thoughts are deeper than you yourself are able toexpress. But since this is so, you know, don't you, that you've never lived what you are thinking and that isn'tgood. Only the ideas that we actually live are of any value. You knew all along that your sanctioned world wasonly half the world and you tried to suppress the second half the same way the priests and teachers do. Youwon't succeed. No one succeeds in this once he has begun to think. " This went straight to my heart. "Butthere are forbidden and ugly things in the world!" I almost shouted. "You can't deny that.

And they areforbidden, and we must renounce them. Of course I know that murder and all kinds of vices exist in the worldbut should I become a criminal just because they exist?" "We won't be able to find all the answers today, "Max soothed me. "Certainly you shouldn't go kill somebody or rape a girl, no! But you haven't reached thepoint where you can understand the actual meaning of 'permitted' and 'forbidden. ' You've only sensed part ofthe truth. You will feel the other part, too, you can depend on it. For instance, for about a year you have had tostruggle with a drive that is stronger than any other and which is considered 'forbidden. ' The Greeks and manyother peoples, on the other hand, elevated this drive, made it divine and celebrated it in great feasts.

What isforbidden, in other words, is not something eternal; it can change. Anyone can sleep with a woman as soon ashe's been to a pastor with her and has married her, yet other races do it differently, even nowadays. That iswhy each of us has to find out for himself what is permitted and what is forbidden--forbidden for him. It'spossible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard. And vice versa. Actually it's only aquestion of convenience. Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their ownjudges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them; things are forbidden to them that everyhonorable man will do any day in the year and other things are allowed to them that are generally despised.Each person must stand on his own feet.

" Suddenly he seemed to regret having said so much and fell silent. Icould already sense what he felt at such moments. Though he delivered his ideas in a pleasant and perfunctorymanner, he still could not stand conversation for its own sake, as he once told me. In my case, however, hesensed--besides genuine interest--too much playfulness, too much sheer pleasure in clever gabbing, orsomething of the sort; in short, a lack of complete commitment.

As I reread the last two words I have justwritten--complete commitment--a scene leaps to mind, the most impressive I ever experienced with MaxDemian in those days when I was still half a child. Confirmation day was approaching and our lessons had theLast Supper for their topic. This was a matter of importance to the pastor and he took great pains explaining itto us. One could almost taste the solemn mood during those last hours of instruction. And of all times it had tobe now that my thoughts were farthest from class, for they were fixed on my friend.

While I looked ahead tobeing confirmed, which was explained to us as a solemn acceptance into the community of the church, I couldnot help thinking that the value of this religious instruction consisted for me not in what I had learned, but inthe proximity and influence of Max Demian. It was not into the church that I was ready to be received but intosomething entirely different--into an order of thought and personality that must exist somewhere on earth andwhose representative or messenger I took to be my friend.

I tried to suppress this idea--I was anxious toinvolve myself in the Confirmation ceremony with a certain dignity, and this dignity seemed not to agree verywell with my new idea. Yet, no matter what I did, the thought was present and gradually it became firmlylinked with the approaching ceremony. I was ready to enact it differently from the others, for it was to signifymy acceptance into a world of thought as I had come to know it through Demian. On one of those days ithappened that we were having an argument just before class. My friend was tight-lipped and seemed to takeno pleasure in my talk, which probably was self-important as well as precocious.

"We talk too much, " he saidwith unwonted seriousness. "Clever talk is absolutely worthless. All you do in the process is lose yourself.And to lose yourself is a sin. One has to be able to crawl completely inside oneself, like a tortoise. " Then weentered the classroom. The lesson began and I made an effort to pay attention. Demian did not distract me.After a while I began to sense something odd from the side where he sat, an emptiness or coolness orsomething similar, as though the seat next to me had suddenly become vacant. When the feeling becameoppressive I turned to look. There I saw my friend sitting upright, his shoulders braced back as usual.Nonetheless, he looked completely different and something emanated from him, something surrounded himthat was unknown to me.

I first thought he had his eyes closed but then saw they were open. Yet they were notfocused on anything, it was an unseeing gaze--they seemed transfixed with looking inward or into a greatdistance. He sat there completely motionless, not even seeming to breathe; his mouth might have been carvedfrom wood or stone. His face was pale, uniformly pale like a stone, and his brown hair was the part of him thatseemed closest to being alive. His hands lay before him on the bench, lifeless and still as objects, like stones orfruit, pale, motionless yet not limp, but like good, strong pods sheathing a hidden, vigorous life.

I trembled atthe sight. Dead, I thought, almost saying it aloud. My spellbound eyes were fixed on his face, on this palestone mask, and I felt: this is the real Demian. When he walked beside me or talked to me--that was only halfof him, someone who periodically plays a role, adapts himself, who out of sheer complaisance does as theothers do. The real Demian, however, looked like this, as primeval, animal, marble, beautiful and cold, deadyet secretly filled with fabulous life. And around him this quiet emptiness, this ether, interstellar space, thislonely death! Now he has gone completely into himself, I felt, and I trembled.

Never had I been so alone. Ihad no part in him; he was inaccessible; he was more remote from me than if he had been on the most distantisland in the world. I could hardly grasp it that no one besides me noticed him! Everyone should have lookedat him, everyone should have trembled! But no one heeded him. He sat there like a statue, and, I thought,proud as an idol! A fly lighted on his forehead and scurried across his nose and lips--not a muscle twitched. Where was he now? What was he thinking?What did he feel? Was he in heaven or was he in hell? I wasunable to put a question to him.

At the end of the period, when I saw him alive and breathing again, as hisglance met mine, he was the same as he had been before. Where did he come from? Where had he been? Heseemed tired. His face was no longer pale, his hands moved again, but now the brown hair was without luster,as though lifeless. During the next few days, I began a new exercise in my bedroom. I would sit rigid in achair, make my eyes rigid too, and stay completely motionless and see how long I could keep it up, and what Iwould feel.

I only felt very tired and my eyelids itched. Shortly afterwards we were confirmed, an event thatcalls forth no important memories whatever. Now everything changed. My childhood world was breakingapart around me. My parents eyed me with a certain embarrassment. My sisters had become strangers to me. Adisenchantment falsified and blunted my usual feelings and joys: the garden lacked fragrance, the woods heldno attraction for me, the world stood around me like a clearance sale of last year's secondhand goods, insipid,all its charm gone. Books were so much paper, music a grating noise.

That is the way leaves fall around a treein autumn, a tree unaware of the rain running down its sides, of the sun or the frost, and of life graduallyretreating inward. The tree does not die. It waits. It had been decided that I would be sent away to a boardingschool at the end of the vacation; for the first time I would be away from home. Sometimes my motherapproached me with particular tenderness, as if already taking leave of me ahead of time, intent on inspiringlove, homesickness, the unforgettable in my heart. Demian was away on a trip. I was alone.