There I saw Max Demian, sitting on a stool by a curtained window. His attitude was cramped and he was oddly changed. The thought flashed through me: You have seen him like this once before! His arms were motionless at his side, his hands in his lap; his face inclined slightly forward, with open eyes, was without sight, as if dead. In the eyes there glimmered dully a little reflex of light, as in a piece of glass. The pale face was self-absorbed and without any expression, save that of great rigidity. He looked like a very ancient mask of an animal at the door of a temple. He appeared not to be breathing.

The recollection came to me⁠—thus, exactly thus, had I once seen him, many years ago, when I was still quite a boy. Thus had his eyes stared inwards, thus his hands had been lying motionless, close to one another, a fly had been crawling over his face. And he had then, six years ago perhaps, looked just as old and as ageless, not a wrinkle in his face had changed.