that looked like twigs. We had plenty of farmyard creatures, as, for example, rabbits, the most oval animal of all, if you know what I mean; and choleric turkeys with carbuncular caruncles (I made a gobbling sound) and darling little kids and many, many others.
“Then my parents lost all their money and died, and the lovely garden vanished; and it is only now that happiness seems to have come my way once more: I have lately managed to acquire a bit of land on the edge of a lake, and there will be a new garden still better than the old one. My sappy boyhood was perfumed through and through with all those flowers and fruits, whereas the neighboring wood, huge and thick, cast over my soul a shadow of romantic melancholy.
“I was always lonely, Felix, and I am lonely still. Women … No need to talk of those fickle and lewd beings. I have traveled a good deal; just like you, I love to rove with a bag strapped to my shoulders, although, to be sure, there were always certain reasons (which I wholly condemn) for my wanderings to be more agreeable than yours. It is really a striking thing: have you ever pondered over the following matter?—two men, alike poor, live not alike; one say, as you, frankly and hopelessly leading a beggar’s existence, while the other, though quite as poor, living in a very different style—a carefree, well-fed fellow, moving among the gay rich.…
“Why is it so? Because, Felix, those two belong to different classes; and speaking of classes, let us imagine a man who travels fourth-class without a ticket and another who travels first, without one either: X sits on a hard bench; Mr. Y lolls on a cushioned seat; but both have empty purses—or, to be precise, Mr. Y has got a purse to show, though empty, whereas X has not even that and can show nothing but holes in the lining of his pocket.
“By speaking thus I am trying to make you grasp the difference between us: I am an actor, living generally on air, but I have always elastic hopes for the future; they may be stretched indefinitely, such hopes, without bursting. You are denied even that; and you would have always remained a pauper, had not a miracle occurred; that miracle is my meeting you.
“There is not a thing, Felix, that one could not exploit. Nay, more: there is not a thing that one could not exploit for a very long time, and very successfully. Maybe in the more fiery of your dreams you saw a number of two figures, the limit of your aspirations. Now, however, the dream does not only come true, but at once runs into three figures. None too easy for your fancy to comprehend, is it, for didn’t you feel you were nearing a hardly thinkable infinity when you reckoned above ten? And now we are turning the corner of that infinity, and a century beams at you, and over its shoulder—another; and who knows, Felix, maybe a fourth figure is ripening; yes, it makes the head swim, and the heart beat, and the nerves tingle, but it is true nevertheless. See here: you have grown so used to your miserable fate that I doubt whether you catch my meaning; what I say seems dark to you, and strange; what comes next will seem still darker and stranger.”
I spoke a long while in that vein. He kept glancing at me with distrust; quite likely, he had gradually acquired the notion that I was making fun of him. Fellows of his kind remain good-natured up to a certain point only. As it dawns upon them that they are about to be put upon, all their goodness comes off, there appears in their eyes a vitreous glint, they work themselves heavily into a state of solid passion.
I spoke obscurely, but my object was not to infuriate him. On the contrary, I wished to curry favor with him; to perplex, but at the same time to attract; in a word, to convey to him vaguely but cogently the image of a man of his nature and inclinations. My fancy, however, ran riot and that rather disgustingly, with the weighty playfulness of an elderly but still smirking lady who has had a drop
“Then my parents lost all their money and died, and the lovely garden vanished; and it is only now that happiness seems to have come my way once more: I have lately managed to acquire a bit of land on the edge of a lake, and there will be a new garden still better than the old one. My sappy boyhood was perfumed through and through with all those flowers and fruits, whereas the neighboring wood, huge and thick, cast over my soul a shadow of romantic melancholy.
“I was always lonely, Felix, and I am lonely still. Women … No need to talk of those fickle and lewd beings. I have traveled a good deal; just like you, I love to rove with a bag strapped to my shoulders, although, to be sure, there were always certain reasons (which I wholly condemn) for my wanderings to be more agreeable than yours. It is really a striking thing: have you ever pondered over the following matter?—two men, alike poor, live not alike; one say, as you, frankly and hopelessly leading a beggar’s existence, while the other, though quite as poor, living in a very different style—a carefree, well-fed fellow, moving among the gay rich.…
“Why is it so? Because, Felix, those two belong to different classes; and speaking of classes, let us imagine a man who travels fourth-class without a ticket and another who travels first, without one either: X sits on a hard bench; Mr. Y lolls on a cushioned seat; but both have empty purses—or, to be precise, Mr. Y has got a purse to show, though empty, whereas X has not even that and can show nothing but holes in the lining of his pocket.
“By speaking thus I am trying to make you grasp the difference between us: I am an actor, living generally on air, but I have always elastic hopes for the future; they may be stretched indefinitely, such hopes, without bursting. You are denied even that; and you would have always remained a pauper, had not a miracle occurred; that miracle is my meeting you.
“There is not a thing, Felix, that one could not exploit. Nay, more: there is not a thing that one could not exploit for a very long time, and very successfully. Maybe in the more fiery of your dreams you saw a number of two figures, the limit of your aspirations. Now, however, the dream does not only come true, but at once runs into three figures. None too easy for your fancy to comprehend, is it, for didn’t you feel you were nearing a hardly thinkable infinity when you reckoned above ten? And now we are turning the corner of that infinity, and a century beams at you, and over its shoulder—another; and who knows, Felix, maybe a fourth figure is ripening; yes, it makes the head swim, and the heart beat, and the nerves tingle, but it is true nevertheless. See here: you have grown so used to your miserable fate that I doubt whether you catch my meaning; what I say seems dark to you, and strange; what comes next will seem still darker and stranger.”
I spoke a long while in that vein. He kept glancing at me with distrust; quite likely, he had gradually acquired the notion that I was making fun of him. Fellows of his kind remain good-natured up to a certain point only. As it dawns upon them that they are about to be put upon, all their goodness comes off, there appears in their eyes a vitreous glint, they work themselves heavily into a state of solid passion.
I spoke obscurely, but my object was not to infuriate him. On the contrary, I wished to curry favor with him; to perplex, but at the same time to attract; in a word, to convey to him vaguely but cogently the image of a man of his nature and inclinations. My fancy, however, ran riot and that rather disgustingly, with the weighty playfulness of an elderly but still smirking lady who has had a drop
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