Beneath the Wheel by Hermann Hesse Page B

resounded with noise and activity. A thick layer of finely leafed ice-flowers blossomed on the windowpanes. The water in the washbasin was frozen and a keen wind cut across the cloister yard, but this did not bother anyone. In the dining hall large tureens steamed with coffee, and soon afterward the boys, insulated in thick coats and shawls, wandered in dark clumps across the white fields and through the hushed forest toward the remote railroad station. They were all chattering, joking and laughing loudly, and yet each boy’s unexpressed thoughts turned to secret wishes, joys and expectations. Throughout the entire land—in towns, villages and isolated farmhouses—they knew that parents and brothers and sisters were expecting them in warm, festively decorated rooms. For most of them this was their first experience of taking a trip home for Christmas and most of them were aware of being awaited with love and pride.
    They waited on the bitterly cold platform of the little railroad station in the middle of the forest and at no time had they been as united, tolerant and cheerful as now. Only Heilner remained by himself and silent, and when the train pulled into the station he waited until his fellow students had mounted before he found a compartment where he could be alone. Hans saw him once more as they changed trains at the next station, but his feeling of shame and regret vanished beneath the excitement and joy of the trip home.
    There he was met by a satisfied delighted father and a table richly decked with gifts. However, the Giebenrath household could not produce a genuine Christmas atmosphere. There were no Christmas songs, no spontaneous joy in the festivities; there was no mother and no Christmas tree. Giebenrath senior lacked the art of celebrating a feast. But he was proud of his boy and he had not been stingy with presents. And Hans was used to the situation and did not feel that anything was lacking.
    People felt that he did not look well, or well fed, and was far too pale and they doubted whether he got enough to eat at the monastery. He denied this emphatically and assured everyone that he was in good shape except for his frequent headaches. The pastor assured him in this matter by telling him that he had suffered the same headaches while he was young, and thus all problems were solved.
    The river was frozen clear across, and during the holidays it was covered with ice-skaters from morning till night. Hans spent almost every day entirely out of doors wearing a new suit and the green academy cap. He had outgrown his former schoolmates and lived in a much-envied higher realm.

Chapter Four
    I T IS COMMON knowledge that one or more students will drop out during the course of their four years at the academy. Occasionally one of them will die and be buried while the other students sing hymns, or be taken home with a cortege of friends. At other times a boy will run away or be expelled because of some outrageous misdemeanor. Occasionally—though rarely, and then only in the senior classes—it happens that a boy in despair will find an escape from his adolescent agonies by drowning or shooting himself.
    Hans’ class, too, was to lose several of its members, and by a strange coincidence it happened that all of them had roomed in Hellas.
    One of the occupants of Hellas was a modest, flaxen-haired little fellow named Hindinger, whom they called Hindu. He was the son of a tailor from predominantly Catholic Allgäu, and was so quiet that only his departure made people take notice of him, and even then not for long. As the desk-neighbor of the parsimonious Lucius, Hindu had had, in his own friendly and unassuming way, a little more to do with him than with the others, but he had had no real friends. Not until they actually missed him did his roommates realize that they were fond of him as a good neighbor who had been undemanding and had represented a calm point in the often excited life of Hellas.
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