He was waiting for something, just as, when he stood in front of those paintings, he had always been waiting for something that never happened. What was it . . . ? It must be something surprising, something never beheld before, some monstrous sight of which he could not form the lightest notion; something of a terrifying, beast-like sensuality; something that would seize him in its claws and rend him, starting with his eyes; an experience that in some still utterly obscure way seemed to be associated with these women's soiled petticoats, with their roughened hands, with the low ceilings of their little rooms, with . . . with a besmirching of himself with the filth of these yards . . . No, no . . . Now he no longer felt anything but the fiery net before his eyes; the words did not say it; for it is not nearly so bad as the words make it seem; it is something mute-a choking in the throat, a scarcely perceptible thought, and only if one insisted on getting it to the point of words would it come out like that. And then it has ceased to be anything but faintly reminiscent of whatever it was, as under huge magnification, when one not only sees everything more distinctly but also sees things that are not there at all. . . . And yet, for all that, it was something to be ashamed of.

* *

“Is Baby feeling homesick?” lie was suddenly asked, in, mocking tones, by von Reiting, that tall boy two years older than himself, who had been struck by Törless's silence and the darkness over his eyes. Törless forced an artificial and rather embarrassed smile to his lips; and he felt as though the malicious Reiting had been eavesdropping on what had been going on within him.

He did not answer. But meanwhile they had reached the little town's church square, with its cobbles, and here they parted company.

Törless and Beineberg did not want to go back yet, but the others had no leave to stay out any longer and returned to the school.

The two boys had gone along to the cake shop.

Here they sat at a little round table, beside a window overlooking the garden, under a gas candelabrum with its flames buzzing softly in the milky glass globes.

They had made themselves thoroughly comfortable, having little glasses filled up now with this liqueur, now with another, smoking cigarettes, and eating pastries between whiles, enjoying the luxury of being the only customers. Although in one of the back rooms there might still be some solitary visitor sitting over his glass of wine, at least here in front all was quiet, and even the portly, aging proprietress seemed to have dozed off behind the counter.

Törless gazed-but vaguely-through the window, out into the empty garden, where darkness was slowly gathering.

Beineberg was talking-about India, as usual. For his father, the general, had as a young officer been there in British service. And he had brought back not only what any other European brought back with him, carvings, textiles, and little idols manufactured for sale to tourists, but something of a feeling, which he had never lost, for the mysterious, bizarre glimmerings of esoteric Buddhism. Whatever he had picked up there, and had come to know more of from his later reading, he had passed on to his son, even from the boy's early childhood.

For the rest, his attitude to reading was an odd one. He was a cavalry officer and was not at all fond of books in general. Novels and philosophy he despised equally. When he read, he did not want to reflect on opinions and controversies, but, from the very instant of opening the book, to enter as through a secret portal into the midst of some very exclusive knowledge. Books that he read had to be such that the mere possession of them was as it were a secret sign of initiation and a pledge of more than earthly revelations. And this he found only in books of Indian philosophy, which to him seemed to be not merely books, but revelations, something real-keys such as were the alchemical and magical books of the Middle Ages.

With them this healthy, energetic man, who observed his duties strictly and exercised his three horses himself almost every day, would usually shut himself up for the evening.

Then he would pick out a passage at random and meditate on it, in the hope that this time it would reveal its inmost secret meaning to him.