Ever since I had been living on such close terms with that lonely couple, I myself had been entirely isolated.

This exclusion would have given me no further cause for concern, since my mind, after all, was entirely bent on intellectual pursuits, except that in the end the constant strain was more than my nerves could stand. You do not live for weeks in a permanent state of intellectual excess with impunity, and moreover in switching too wildly from one extreme to the other I had probably turned my whole life upside down far too suddenly to avoid endangering the equilibrium secretly built into us by Nature. For while my dissolute behaviour in Berlin had relaxed my body pleasantly, and my adventures with women gave playful release to dammed-up instincts, here an oppressively heavy atmosphere weighed so constantly on my irritated senses that they would only churn around in electrical peaks within me. I forgot how to enjoy deep, healthy sleep, although—or perhaps because—I was always up until the early hours of the morning copying out the evening’s dictation for my own pleasure (and burning with puffed-up impatience to hand the written sheets to my beloved mentor at the earliest opportunity). Then my university studies and the reading through which I raced called for further preparation, and my condition was aggravated, not least, by my conversations with my teacher, since I strained every nerve in Spartan fashion so as never to appear to him in a poor light. My abused body did not hesitate to take revenge for these excesses. I suffered several brief fainting fits, warning signs that I was putting an insane strain on Nature—but my hypnotic sense of exhaustion increased, all my feelings were vehemently expressed, and my exacerbated nerves turned inward, disturbing my sleep and arousing confused ideas of a kind I had previously restrained.

The first to notice an obvious risk to my health was my teacher’s wife. I had already seen her concerned glance dwelling on me, and she made admonitory remarks during our conversations with increasing frequency, saying, for instance, that I must not try to conquer the world in a single semester. Finally she spoke her mind. “Now that’s enough,” she said sharply one Sunday when I was working away at my grammar, while it was beautiful sunny weather outside, and she took the book away from me. “How can a lively young man be such a slave to ambition? Don’t take my husband as your example all the time; he’s old and you are young, you need a different kind of life.” That undertone of contempt flashed out whenever she spoke of him, and devoted to him as I was it always roused me to indignation. I felt that she was intentionally, perhaps in a kind of misplaced jealousy, trying to keep me further away from him, countering my extreme enthusiasm with ironic comments. If we sat too long over our dictation in the evening she would knock energetically on the door, and force us to stop work in spite of his angry reaction. “He’ll wear your nerves out, he’ll destroy you completely,” she once said bitterly on finding me in a state of exhaustion. “Look what he’s reduced you to in just a few weeks! I can’t stand by and watch you harming yourself any longer. And what’s more … ” She stopped, and did not finish her sentence. But her lip was quivering, pale with suppressed anger.

Indeed, my teacher did not make it easy for me: the more passionately I served him, the more indifferent he seemed to my eagerly helpful devotion. He rarely gave me a word of thanks; in the morning, when I took him the work on which I had laboured until late at night, he would say, dryly: “Tomorrow would have done.” If my ambitious zeal outdid itself in offering unasked-for assistance, his lips would suddenly narrow in mid-conversation, and an ironic remark would repel me. It is true that if he then saw me flinch, humiliated and confused, that warmly enveloping gaze would be turned on me again, comforting me in my despair, but how seldom, how very seldom that was! And the way he blew hot and cold, sometimes coming so close as to cast me into turmoil, sometimes fending me off in annoyance, utterly confused my unruly feelings which longed—but I was never able to say clearly what it was I really longed for, what I wanted, what I required and aspired to, what sign of his regard I hoped for in my enthusiastic devotion. For if one feels reverent passion even of a pure nature for a woman, it unconsciously strives for physical fulfilment; nature has created an image of ultimate union for it in the possession of the body—but how can a passion of the mind, offered by one man to another and impossible to fulfil, ever find complete satisfaction? It roams restlessly around the revered figure, always flaring up to new heights of ecstasy, yet never assuaged by any final act of devotion. It is always in flux but can never flow entirely away; like the spirit, it is eternally insatiable. So when he came close it was never close enough for me, his nature was never entirely revealed, never really satisfied me in our long conversations; even when he cast aside all his aloofness I knew that the next moment some sharp word or action could cut through our intimacy. Changeable as he was, he kept confusing my feelings, and I do not exaggerate when I say that in my overexcited state I often came close to committing some thoughtless act just because his indifferent hand pushed away a book to which I had drawn his attention, or because suddenly, when we were deep in conversation in the evening and I was absorbing his ideas, breathing them all in, he would suddenly rise—having only just laid an affectionate hand on my shoulder—and say brusquely: “Off you go, now! It’s late. Good night.” Such trivialities were enough to upset me for hours, indeed for days. Perhaps my exacerbated feelings, constantly overstretched, saw insults where none were intended—although what use are explanations thought up to soothe oneself when the mind is so disturbed? But it went on day after day—I suffered ardently when he was close, and froze when he kept his distance, I was always disappointed by his reserve, he gave no sign to mollify my feelings, I was cast into confusion by every chance occurrence.

And oddly enough, whenever he had injured my sensitive feelings it was with his wife that I took refuge. Perhaps it was an unconscious urge to find another human being who suffered similarly from his silent reserve, perhaps just a need to talk to someone and find, if not help, at least understanding—at any rate, I resorted to her as if to a secret ally. Usually she mocked my sense of injury away, or said, with a cold shrug of her shoulders, that I should be used to his hurtful idiosyncrasies by now. Sometimes, however, when sudden desperation reduced me all at once to a quivering mass of reproaches, incoherent tears and stammered words, she would look at me with a curious gravity, with a glance of positive amazement, but she said nothing, although I could see movement like stormy weather around her lips, and I felt it was as much as she could do not to come out with something angry or thoughtless. She too, no doubt, would have something to tell me, she too had a secret, perhaps the same as his; but while he would repel me brusquely as soon as I said something that came too close, she generally avoided further comment with a joke or an improvised prank of some kind.

Only once did I come close to extracting some comment from her. That morning, when I took my teacher the passage he had dictated, I could not help saying enthusiastically how much this particular account (dealing with Marlowe) had moved me.