Where was he going? He felt as though the direction which he was taking had some connection with his melancholy and strangely remorseful dreams of the night. … He came to the market, passed under the arches of the town hall where butchers were weighing their wares with bloody hands, out on to the marketplace where the Gothic well stood high, complex, and pointed. Then he stopped before a house, a plain narrow house, like many others, with a curved, fretwork gable—and he was lost in the contemplation of it. He read the nameplate on the door, and let his eyes rest for a time on each of the windows. Then he turned slowly to leave.
Where was he going? Home. But he took a roundabout way, went for a walk out beyond the gate, since he had time. He went over the Mill-wall and the Holsten-wall, and held his hat tight from the wind which moaned and whistled in the trees. Then he left the walls near the railroad station, watched a train puffing by in clumsy hastiness, counted the cars for a pastime, and peered after the man who was sitting in the rear of the very last one. And on the Lindenplatz he stopped before one of the pretty villas that stood there, gazed for a long time into the garden and up at the windows; and finally he got the idea of swinging the garden gate back and forth on its hinges, so that it creaked. Then for a time he observed his hand, which was cold and covered with rust, and walked on, walked through the old low gate along the harbour and up the steep windy street to the house of his parents.
It stood, grey and sober as it had been for three hundred years, its gable overtowering the neighbouring houses which surrounded it; and Tonio Kröger read the pious aphorism that stood over the entrance in half-obliterated letters. Then he took a deep breath and entered.
His heart beat anxiously, for he almost expected his father, in his office coat and with his pen behind his ear, to come out through one of the doors on the ground floor as he was passing, stop him, and bring him resolutely to account for his extravagant life—which he would have found very reasonable. But he got by unmolested. The storm door was not closed, but only pushed to, and this seemed reprehensible to him; while at the time he felt like in certain light dreams in which the obstacles give way to us of their own accord, and we press forward unhindered, graced by a marvellous well-being. … The broad entrance, paved with large rectangular flagstones, resounded with his steps. Opposite the kitchen, in which all was silent, a scaffolding of ungainly but neatly varnished rafters thrust out from the wall, supporting the servants’ quarters above; these could be reached only by a sort of ladder which led up to them from the passage. But the large closets and the carved chest that had stood here were no longer there. … The son of the house mounted the heavy stairs, and supported himself with his hand on the white-enamelled, carved wooden banister, while he pulled himself up at each step and on the next let himself sink down again softly, as though he were testing timidly whether his former intimacy with this old solid handrail could be restored. … But on the landing he stopped before the entrance to the entresol. On the door a white placard was fastened, on which he could read in black letters: “Public Library.”
“Public Library?” Tonio Kröger thought, for he found that neither the public nor literature had any business here. He knocked on the door. … He heard a “Come in,” and went in its direction. Tense and melancholy, he looked in upon some extremely unsightly alterations.
The floor was three rooms deep, with its connecting doors standing open. The walls were covered almost to the ceiling with uniformly bound books which stood on dark shelves in long rows. In each room an indigent man sat writing behind a kind of counter. Two of them merely turned their heads towards Tonio Kröger, but the first stood up hastily, at the same time supporting himself with both hands on the tabletop, shoving his head forward, pursing his lips, raising his brows, and observing the visitor with diligently blinking eyes. …
“Pardon,” Tonio Kröger said, without turning his eyes from the many books. “I am a foreigner here; I am seeing the sights of the town. So this is the Public Library? Would you permit me to look around a bit at the collection?”
“Gladly!” the official said, and blinked still more violently. … “Certainly, that is free to everyone. Do you simply want to look around? … would you like a catalogue?”
“No, thank you,” Tonio Kröger answered. “I can easily find my way.” Then he began walking slowly along the walls, while he acted as though he were studying the titles on the books. Finally he took down one volume, opened it, and stepped over to the window with it.
This had been the breakfast room. In the mornings they had breakfasted here, not up there in the large dining-hall where the white forms of gods were stepping out of the blue tapestry. … That room there had served as a bedroom. His father’s mother had died there, old as she was, amid violent spasms, for she was a pleasure-loving woman of the world and clung to life. And later his father himself had breathed out his last sigh there, the tall, correct, somewhat melancholy and thoughtful gentleman with the wild flower in his buttonhole. … Tonio had sat at the foot of his deathbed, with hot eyes, completely and reverently given over to powerful, dumb feelings, to love and pain. And his mother too had knelt by the bed, his beautiful emotional mother, completely lost in hot tears, whereupon she went off into the blue distance with the southern artist. … But
