demian

few friends, " she said with a smile, "a few very close friends who call me Frau Eva. You shall be one of them
if you wish. " She led me to the door, opened it, and pointed into the garden. "You'll find Max out there. " I
stood dazed and shaken under the tall trees, not knowing whether I was more awake or more in a dream than
ever. The rain dripped gently from the branches. Slowly I walked out into the garden that extended some way
along the river. Finally I found Demian. He was standing in an open summer house, stripped to the waist,
punching a suspended sandbag. I stopped, astonished. Demian looked strikingly handsome with his broad
chest, and firm, manly features; the raised arms with taut muscles were strong and capable, the movements
sprang playfully and smoothly from hips, shoulders, and wrists. "Demian, " I called out. "What are you doing
there?" He laughed happily. "Practicing. I've promised the Japanese a boxing match, the little fellow is as
agile as a cat and, of course, just as sly, but he won't be able to beat me. There's a very slight humiliation for
which I have to pay him back. " He put on his shirt and coat. "You've seen my mother?" he asked. "Yes,
Demian, what a wonderful mother you have! Frau Eva! The name fits her perfectly. Sheis like a universal
mother. " For a moment he looked thoughtfully into my face. "So you know her name already? You can be
proud of yourself. You are the first person she has told it to during the first meeting. " From this day on I went
in and out of the house like a son or brother--but also as someone in love. As soon as I opened the gate, as
soon as I caught sight of the tall trees in the garden, I felt happy and rich. Outside was reality: streets and
houses, people and institutions, libraries and lecture halls--but here inside was love; here lived the legend and
the dream. And yet we lived in no way cut off from the outside world; in our thoughts and conversations we
often lived in the midst of it, only on an entirely different plane. We were not separated from the majority of
men by a boundary but simply by another mode of vision. Our task was to represent an island in the world, a
prototype perhaps, or at least a prospect of a different way of life. I, who had been isolated for so long, learned
about the companionship which is possible between people who have tasted complete loneliness. I never again
hankered after the tables of the fortunate and the feasts of the blessed. Never again did envy or nostalgia
overcome me when I witnessed the collective pleasures of others. And gradually I was initiated into the secret
of those who wear the sign in their faces. We who wore the sign might justly be considered "odd" by the
world; yes, even crazy, and dangerous. We wereaware or in the process of becoming aware and our striving
was directed toward achieving a more and more complete state of awareness while the striving of the others
was a quest aimed at binding their opinions, ideals, duties, their lives and fortunes more and more closely to
those of the herd. There, too, was striving, there, too, were power and greatness. But whereas we, who were
marked, believed that we represented the will of Nature to something new, to the individualism of the future,
the others sought to perpetuate the status quo. Humanity--which they loved as we did--was for them
something complete that must be maintained and protected. For us, humanity was a distant goal toward which
all men were moving, whose image no one knew, whose laws were nowhere written down. Apart from Frau
Eva, Max, and myself, various other seekers were more or less closely attached to the circle. Quite a few had
set out on very individual paths, had set themselves quite unusual goals, and clung to specific ideas and duties.
They included astrologers and cabalists, also a disciple of Count Tolstoi, and all kinds of delicate, shy, and
vulnerable creatures, followers of new sects, devotees of Indian asceticism, vegetarians, and so forth. We
actually had no mental bonds in common save the respect which each one accorded the ideals of the other.
Those with whom we felt a close kinship were concerned with mankind's past search for gods and ideals--their
studies often reminded me of Pistorius. They brought books with them, translated aloud texts in ancient
languages, showed us illustrations of ancient symbols and rites and taught us to see how humanity's entire
store of ideals so far consisted of dreams that had emanated from the unconscious, of dreams in which
humanity groped after its intimations of future potentialities. Thus we became acquainted with the wonderful
thousand-headed tangle of gods from prehistory to the dawn of the Christian conversion. We heard the creeds
of solitary holy men, of the transformations religions undergo in their migrations from one people to another.
Thus, from everything we collected in this manner, we gained a critical understanding of our time and of
contemporary Europe: with prodigious efforts mighty new weapons had been created for mankind but the end
was flagrant, deep desolation of the spirit. Europe had conquered the whole world only to lose her own soul.
Our circle also included believers, adherents of certain hopes and healing faiths. There were Buddhists who
sought to convert Europe, a disciple of Tolstoi who preached nonresistance to evil, as well as other sects. We
in the inner circle listened but accepted none of these teachings as anything but metaphors. We, who bore the
mark, felt no anxiety about the shape the future was to take. All of these faiths and teachings seemed to us
already dead and useless. The only duty and destiny we acknowledged was that each one of us should become