VIII

Beginning of the End

It had been decided that I should remain in H⁠⸺ for the summer semester. Instead of staying in the house, we were almost always in the garden by the river. The Japanese, who by the way had been thoroughly beaten in the boxing match, was away, and the disciple of Tolstoy was also missing. Demian had procured a horse, and went for long rides every day. I was often alone with his mother.

Sometimes I wondered greatly at the peaceableness of my life. I had been so long accustomed to being alone, to practise renunciation, to fight toilfully my own battles, that these months in H⁠⸺ seemed to me like a time passed on a dream island, where I might live tranquilly in beautiful, enchanted surroundings. I felt that this was a foretaste of that new, higher community, on which we meditated. And now and then I was seized by a deep feeling of sadness, for I knew that this happiness could not last. I was not destined to breathe in the fullness of peace and comfort, I needed torment to spur me on. I felt that one day I should wake up from these dreams of beautiful love-pictures to find myself standing once more alone, in the cold world of others, where for me there would be only loneliness and fighting, no peace, no community of spirit.

Then I yielded myself to the charms of Mother Eve’s presence. My feeling for her was now doubly tender. I was glad that my fate bore still these beautiful, tranquil features.

The summer weeks passed quickly and easily. Already the semester was drawing to a close. Leave-taking was near, I dared not think of it, and did not, but clung to the beautiful days like a butterfly to a honeyed flower.