“Always as it is today? Always a world only for politicians, profiteers, waiters and pleasure-seekers, and not a breath of air for men?”
“Well, I don’t know. Nobody knows. Anyway, it is all the same. But I am thinking now of your favourite of whom you have talked to me sometimes, and read me, too, some of his letters, of Mozart. How was it with him in his day? Who controlled things in his times and ruled the roost and gave the tone and counted for something? Was it Mozart or the business people, Mozart or the average man? And in what fashion did he come to die and be buried? And perhaps, I mean, it has always been the same and always will be, and what is called history at school, and all we learn by heart there about heroes and geniuses and great deeds and fine emotions, is all nothing but a swindle invented by the schoolmasters for educational reasons to keep children occupied for a given number of years. It has always been so and always will be. Time and the world, money and power belong to the small people and the shallow people. To the rest, to the real men belongs nothing. Nothing but death.”
“Nothing else?”
“Yes, eternity.”
“You mean a name, and fame with posterity?”
“No, Steppenwolf, not fame. Has that any value? And do you think that all true and real men have been famous and known to posterity?”
“No, of course not.”