pieces in my pocket and withdrew through the narrow door.

My real intention was to seat myself at once on the floor in the corridor and play the game for hours, for whole eternities; but I was no sooner in the bright light of the circular theatre passage than a new and irresistible current carried me along. A dazzling poster flashed before my eyes:

Marvellous Taming Of The Steppenwolf

Many different emotions surged up in me at the sight of this announcement. My heart was painfully contracted by all kinds of fears and repressions from my former life and the reality I had left behind. With trembling hand I opened the door and found myself in the booth of a Fair with an iron rail separating me from a wretched stage. On the stage I saw an animal-tamer⁠—a cheap-jack gentleman with a pompous air⁠—who in spite of a large moustache, exuberantly muscular biceps and his absurd circus getup had a malicious and decidedly unpleasant resemblance to myself. The strong man led on a leash like a dog⁠—lamentable sight⁠—a large, beautiful but terribly emaciated wolf, whose eyes were cowed and furtive; and it was as disgusting as it was intriguing, as horrible as it was all the same secretly entertaining, to see this brutal tamer of animals put the noble and yet so ignominiously obedient beast of prey through a series of tricks and sensational turns.