Once, on an evening in early summer the red sun shone obliquely through my window, which looked towards the west. In the room the dusk was gathering. I suddenly had the idea of pinning the picture of Beatrice, or of Demian, to the crossbar of the window and of gazing at it, while the evening sun was shining through. The whole outline of the face disappeared, but the reddish ringed eyes, the brightness of the forehead and the strong red mouth glowed deeply and wildly from the surface of the paper. I sat opposite it for a long time, even after the light had died away. And by degrees the feeling came to me that this was not Beatrice or Demian but—myself. The picture did not resemble me—it was not meant to, I felt—but there was that in it which seemed to be made up of my life, something of my inner self, of my fate or of my daemon. My friend would look like that, if I ever found another. My mistress would look like that, if ever I had one. My life and death would be like that. It had the ring and rhythm of my fate.
In those weeks I had begun to read a book which made a deeper impression on me than anything I had read before. Even in later years I have seldom chanced upon books which have made such a strong appeal to me, except perhaps those of Nietzsche. It was a volume of Novalis, containing letters and apothegms. There was much that I did not understand. But the book captivated me and occupied my thoughts to an extraordinary degree. One of the aphorisms now occurred to me. I wrote it with a pen under the picture: “Fate and soul are the terms of one conception.” That I now understood.
I frequently used to meet the girl I called Beatrice. I felt no emotion on seeing her, but I was often sensible of a harmony of sentiment, which seemed to say: we are connected, or rather, not you and I, but your picture and I; you are a part of my destiny.
My longing for Max Demian was again eager. I had had no news of him for several years. On one occasion only I had met him in the holidays. I see now that I have failed to mention this short meeting in my narrative, and I see that this was owing to shame and self-conceit on my part. I must make up for it now.
So then, once in the holidays, I was parading my somewhat tired, blasé self through the town. As I was sauntering along, swinging my stick and examining the old, unchanged features of the bourgeois Philistines whom I despised, I met my onetime friend. Scarcely had I caught sight of him when I started involuntarily. With lightning rapidity my thoughts were carried back to Frank Kromer. I hoped and prayed Demian had really forgotten the story! It was so disagreeable to be under this obligation to him—simply owing to a silly, childish affair—still, I was under an obligation. …
He seemed to be waiting to see whether I would greet him. I did, as calmly as possible under the circumstances, and he gave me his hand. That was indeed his old handshake! So strong, warm and yet cool, so manly!
He looked me attentively in the face and said: “You’ve grown a lot, Sinclair.” He himself seemed quite unchanged, just as old, just as young as ever.
He proposed we should go for a walk, and we talked of secondary matters, not of the past. I remembered that I had written to him several times, without having received an answer. I hoped he had forgotten this as well, those silly, silly letters. He made no mention of them.
At that time there was no Beatrice and no picture, I was still in the period of my dissipation. Outside the town I invited him to come with me into an inn. He came. With much ostentation I ordered a bottle of wine and filled a couple of glasses. I clinked glasses with him, showing him how conversant I was with student drinking customs, and I emptied my first glass at a gulp.
“Do you frequent public houses often?” he asked me.
“Oh yes,” I said with a drawl, “what else is there to do? It’s certainly more amusing than anything else; after all.”
“You think so? Perhaps. It may be so. There’s certainly something very pleasing about it—intoxication, bacchanalian orgies! But I find, with most people who frequent public houses, this sense of abandon is lost. It seems to me there is something typically Philistine, bourgeois, in the public house habit. Of course, for just one night, with burning torches, to have a proper orgy and drunken revel. But to do the same thing over and over again, drinking one glass after another—that’s hardly the real thing. Can you imagine Faust sitting evening after evening drinking at the same table?”
I drank, and looked at him with some enmity.
“Yes, but everyone isn’t a Faust,” I said curtly.
He looked at me with a somewhat surprised air.
Then he laughed, in his old superior way. “What’s the good of quarreling about it? In any case the life of a toper, of a libertine, is, I imagine, more exciting than that of a blameless citizen. And then—I have read it somewhere—the life of a profligate is one of the best preparations for a mystic. There are always such people as Saint Augustine, who become seers. Before, he was a sort of rake and profligate.”
I was distrustful and wished by no means to let him take a superior attitude towards me. So I said, with a blasé air: “Well, everyone according to his taste! I haven’t the slightest intention of doing that, becoming a seer or anything.”
Demian flashed a glance at me from half-closed eyes.
“My dear Sinclair,” he said slowly, “it wasn’t my intention to hurt your feelings. Besides—neither of us
