demian

too, had been sent to me, that from him, too, came back whatever I gave him, in double measure; he, too, was
a leader for me--or at least a guidepost. The occult books and writings he brought me and in which he sought
his salvation taught me more than I realized at the time. Later Knauer slipped unnoticed out of my life. We
never came into conflict with each other; there was no reason to. Unlike Pistorius, with whom I was still to
share a strange experience toward the end of my days in St. On one or on several occasions in the course of
their lives, even the most harmless people do not altogether escape coming into conflict with the fine virtues
of piety and gratitude. Sooner or later each of us must take the step that separates him from his father, from his
mentors; each of us must have some cruelly lonely experience--even if most people cannot take much of this
and soon crawl back. I myself had not parted from my parents and their world, the "luminous" world in a
violent struggle, but had gradually and almost imperceptibly become estranged. I was sad that it had to be this
way and it made for many unpleasant hours during my visits back home; but it did not affect me deeply, it was
bearable. But where we have given of our love and respect not from habit but of our own free will, where we
have been disciples and friends out of our inmost hearts, it is a bitter and horrible moment when we suddenly
recognize that the current within us wants to pull us away from what is dearest to us. Then every thought that
rejects the friend and mentor turns in our own hearts like a poisoned barb, then each blow struck in defense
flies back into one's own face, the words "disloyalty" and "ingratitude" strike the person who feels he was
morally sound like catcalls and stigma, and the frightened heart flees timidly back to the charmed valleys of
childhood virtues, unable to believe that this break, too, must be made, this bond also broken. With time my
inner feelings had slowly turned against acknowledging Pistorius so unreservedly as a master. My friendship
with him, his counsel, the comfort he had brought me, his proximity had been a vital experience during the
most important months of my adolescence. God had spoken to me through him. From his lips my dreams had
returned clarified and interpreted. He had given me faith in myself. And now I became conscious of gradually
beginning to resist him. There was too much didacticism in what he said, and I felt that he understood only a
part of me completely. No quarrel or scene occurred between us, no break and not even a settling of accounts.
I uttered only a single--actually harmless--phrase, yet it was in that moment that an illusion was shattered. A
vague presentiment of such an occurrence had oppressed me for some time; it became a distinct feeling one
Sunday morning in his study. We were lying before the fire while he was holding forth about mysteries and
forms of religion, which he was studying, and whose potentialities for the future preoccupied him. All this
seemed to me odd and eclectic and not of vital importance; there was something vaguely pedagogical about it;
it sounded like tedious research among the ruins of former worlds. And all at once I felt a repugnance for his
whole manner, for this cult of mythologies, this game of mosaics he was playing with secondhand modes of
belief. "Pistorius, " I said suddenly in a fit of malice that both surprised and frightened me. "You ought to tell
me one of your dreams again sometime, a real dream, one that you've had at night. What you're telling me
there is all so--so damnedantiquarian. " He had never heard me speak like that before and at the same moment
I realized with a flash of shame and horror that the arrow I had shot at him, that had pierced his heart, had
come from his own armory: I was now flinging back at him reproaches that on occasion he had directed
against himself half in irony. He fell silent at once. I looked at him with dread in my heart and saw him
turning terribly pale. After a long pregnant pause he placed fresh wood on the fire and said in a quiet voice:
"You're right, Sinclair, you're a clever boy. I'll spare you the antiquarian stuff from now on. " He spoke very
calmly but it was obvious he was hurt. What had I done? I wanted to say something encouraging to him,
implore his forgiveness, assure him of my love and my deep gratitude. Touching words came to mind--but I
could not utter them. I just lay there gazing into the fire and kept silent. He, too, kept silent and so we lay
while the fire dwindled, and with each dying flame I felt something beautiful, intimate irrevocably burn low
and become evanescent. "I'm afraid you've misunderstood me, " I said finally with a very forced and clipped
voice. The stupid, meaningless words fell mechanically from my lips as if I were reading from a magazine
serial. "I quite understand, " Pistorius said softly. "You're right. " I waited. Then he went on slowly:
"Inasmuch as one person can be rightagainst another. " No, no! I'm wrong, a voice screamed inside me--but I
could not say anything. I knew that with my few words I had put my finger on his essential weakness, his
affliction and wound. I had touched the spot where he most mistrusted himself. His ideal way "antiquarian, "
he was seeking in the past, he was a romantic. And suddenly I realized deeply within me: what Pistorius had
been and given to me was precisely what he could not be and give to himself. He had led me along a path that
would transcend and leave even him, the leader, behind. God knows how one happens to say something like
that. I had not meant it all that maliciously, had had no idea of the havoc I would create. I had uttered