I woke up late in the morning from a deep sleep. The day broke for me as a solemn festal day, such as I had not experienced since the Christmas celebrations of my boyhood. I was full of a deep unrest, yet entirely without fear. I felt that an important day had broken for me. I saw and felt the world around me changed: it was full of secret portent, expectant and solemn. Even the gently falling autumn rain was beautiful, full of the quiet, glad, serious music of a festal day. For the first time the outer world was in tune with my inner world⁠—then it is a feast-day for the soul, then living is worth while! No house, no shop window, no face in the street disturbed me. Everything was as it had to be, but did not wear the empty features of every day and of the habitual. It was like expectant nature, standing full of awe to meet its fate. Thus, as a little boy, I used to see the world on the morning of a great feast-day, at Christmas or at Easter. I had not known that this world could still be so beautiful. I had been accustomed to living shut up in myself, and to content myself with the idea that my understanding for the outside world had been lost, that the loss of glistening colors was inevitably connected with the loss of childish vision.

So the hour came when I found again that garden in the suburbs, at the gate of which I had taken leave of Max Demian the night before. Concealed behind trees in a grey mist of rain stood a little house, bright and homely, tall flowers stood behind a big glass partition, and behind shining windows were dark room walls with pictures and bookcases. The front door led immediately into a little hall, and a silent old servant, black, with white apron, showed me in and took my raincoat from me.

She left me alone in the hall. I looked about me. I looked round; and immediately I was in the middle of my dream. On the dark wood wall