He was only dimly aware that it had something to do with that mysterious quality his soul had of being pounced upon by inanimate objects, mere things, as though by a hundred silent, questioning eyes.

So Törless sat very still, rigid, forever glancing across towards Basini, entirely engrossed in the mad whirl within him. And again and again a single question arose: What is that special quality that I have? As time passed he could no longer see Basini, nor the hot, glowing lamps, nor did he feel the animal warmth all around, nor the humming roar that rises from a crowd of people, even if they are only whispering. Like a hot, darkly glowing mass it all emitted an undifferentiated vibration in a circle around him. Only in his ears did he feel a burning sensation, and an icy cold in his fingertips. He was in that state more of mental than of physical fever which he so loved. That atmosphere grew more and more intense, mingled with impulses of tenderness. In the past, when he was in that state, he had liked to devote himself to memories. And that same languid warmth awoke in him now. There it was: a memory ... He had been travelling ... in a little Italian town ... he was staying with his parents in an inn not far from the theatre. Every evening they performed the same opera in that town, and every evening he heard every word, every note wafting across to him. He did not know the language. And yet each evening he sat by the open window and listened. In this way he fell in love with one of the actresses, although he had never seen her. The theatre had never again moved him as it did in those days; he felt the passion in the melodies like the wing beats of great dark birds, as though he could follow the lines that their flight drew in his soul. What he heard were no longer human passions, no, these were passions that had escaped from human beings, as though from cramped and ordinary cages. In his excitement he could never think of the people over there who were - invisibly - acting out his passions; whenever he tried to imagine them, at that moment dark flames shot up before his eyes, or unimaginably gigantic dimensions appeared before him, just as in darkness human bodies grow and human eyes gleam like the reflections of the deepest wells. In those days he had loved those dark flames, those eyes in the dark, those dark wing beats, he had loved them under the name of that actress of whom he knew nothing.

And who had written the opera? He had no idea. Perhaps it was based on a trite, sentimental love story. Had its creator ever felt that the music would transform it into something else?

One thought concentrated Törless’s whole body. Are adults like that, too? Is the world like that? Is it a universal law that there is something within us that is stronger, bigger, more beautiful, more passionate, darker than we are ourselves? Something over which we are so powerless that we can only aimlessly scatter a thousand seeds until suddenly one of them sprouts forth like a dark flame that finally towers over us? ... And every nerve in his body quivered with the impatient answer: Yes.

Törless looked around, eyes gleaming. The lamps, the warmth, the light, the industrious boys were still there. But in the midst of all this he felt as though he had been chosen. He felt like a saint who has heavenly visions — because he knew nothing of the intuition of the great artists.

Hurriedly, with the speed of fear, he reached for his pen and jotted down a few lines about his discovery; once again, something like a light seemed to burst forth within him - then an ash-grey rain broke over his eyes, and the brilliance within his spirit was extinguished.

 

But the episode with Kant was by now almost entirely over and done with. By day Törless no longer gave it a thought; he was too vividly convinced that he himself was close to solving his riddles to give a thought to how anyone else might go about it. Since the previous evening he had felt as though the handle to the door into that further place had been in his hand, and had slipped away from him once more. But having seen that he must do without the help of philosophy books, and having no real trust in them, he had no idea how he would be able to clutch that handle once again.