We continued our way. I was considerably embarrassed. Suddenly Demian laughed, as if something funny had struck him.
“Oh, I was present at your lesson,” he said with animation. “The story of Cain, who carried the mark on his forehead, was it not? Do you like it?”
Generally I used not to like anything of all the things we had to learn. But I did not dare to say so—it was as though a grown-up person were talking to me. I said I liked the story very much.
Demian tapped me on the shoulder. “No need to impose on me, old fellow. But the story is really rather remarkable. I think it is much more remarkable than most of the others we get at school. The master didn’t say very much about it, only the usual things about God and sin, et cetera. But I believe—” he broke off, smiled, and questioned: “But does it interest you?”
“Well,” he continued, “I think one can conceive this story of Cain quite differently. Most things we are taught are certainly quite true and right, but one can consider them all from a different standpoint from the master’s, and most of them have a much better meaning then. For instance, we can’t be quite content with the explanation given us with regard to this fellow Cain and the mark on his forehead. Don’t you find it so, too? It certainly might happen that he should kill one of his brothers in a quarrel, it is also possible that he should afterwards be afraid, and have to come down a peg. But that he should be singled out into the bargain with a decoration for his cowardice, which protects him and strikes terror into everyone else, that is really rather odd.”
“Certainly,” I said, interested. The case began to interest me. “But how else should one explain the story?” He clapped me on the shoulder.
“Quite simply! The essential fact, and the point of departure of the story, was the sign. Here was a man who had something in his face which