II

Cain

Deliverance from my troubles came from quite an unexpected quarter, and with it something new entered into my life, which has up to the present day exercised a strong influence.

A short time before we had had a new boy at our Latin school. He was the son of a well-to-do widow who had moved to our town. He was in mourning and wore a crape band round his sleeve. His form was above mine, and he was several years older, but I soon began to take notice of him, as did all of us. This remarkable boy impressed one as being much older than he looked. He made on no one the impression of being a mere schoolboy. With us childish youngsters he was as distant and as mature as a man, or rather, as a gentleman. He was by no means popular, he took no part in the games, much less in the fooling. It was only the self-conscious and decided tone which he adopted towards the masters that pleased the others. His name was Max Demian.

One day it happened, as it occasionally did in our school, that for some cause or other, another class was sent into our large schoolroom. It was Demian’s form. We little ones were having Biblical history, the big ones had to write an essay. While we were having the story of Cain and Abel knocked into us, I kept looking across at Demian, whose face fascinated me strangely, and saw his wise, bright, more than ordinarily strong features bent attentively and thoughtfully over his task. He did not look at all like a schoolboy doing an exercise, but like a research worker solving a problem. I did not find him really agreeable. On the contrary, I had one or two little things against him. With me he was too distant and superior, he was much too provokingly sure of himself, and the expression of his