Beneath the Wheel by Hermann Hesse Read Free Book Online

the first time in his life Hans was allowed to sit on the little leather sofa between the lectern and the window. The pastor was more than friendly. In a most comradely fashion he told Hans about the academy and how one lived and studied there.
    â€œThe most important new experience that you will have there is the introduction to the Greek of the New Testament,” he said at the end. “This will open up an entirely new world to you, rich in work and pleasure. At first you will find the language difficult because it is no longer the Attic Greek with which you are familiar but a new idiom, created by a different spirit.”
    Hans listened attentively and proudly felt himself drawing nearer to true science.
    â€œThe academic introduction into this new world,” the pastor continued, “will of course rob it of some of its magic. The study of Hebrew may also make rather one-sided demands on you at first. If you like, we can make a small beginning during your vacation. You’ll be glad once you get to the academy to have time and energy left over for other things. We could read a few chapters of Luke together, and you would pick up the language almost unintentionally. I can lend you a dictionary. You would have to spend an hour or two a day at most. But no more than that because, more than anything else, you should be able to enjoy the period of relaxation you so highly deserve. It’s only a suggestion of course, the last thing I want to do is spoil your holiday.”
    Hans of course agreed to the proposal. Although this Luke lesson looked to him like a small cloud in the promising blue vacation sky, he was too ashamed to say no. And to learn a new language, just like that, during his vacation certainly was more like pleasure than work. In any case, he was somewhat anxious about the many new things he would have to learn at the academy, especially Hebrew.
    So he was not displeased when he left the pastor and made his way up the path lined with larches to the forest. The slight doubt he had felt had passed and the more he thought about the proposition the more acceptable it seemed to him. For he was aware that in the academy he would have to be even more ambitious if he wanted to outstrip his new fellow students. Why did he want to surpass them actually? He didn’t really know himself. For three years now he had been the object of special attention. The teachers, the pastor, his father and particularly the principal had egged and urged him on and had never let him catch his breath. All these years from grade to grade he had been first in his class, until it had gradually become a matter of pride for him to come in first and brook no rivals. At least his stupid fear of the state examination was behind him.
    Still, to be on vacation was actually the best thing in the world. How unusually beautiful the forest was in the morning without anyone walking through it but him, column after column of spruce, a vast hall with a blue-green vault. There was little real underbrush, only an occasional raspberry thicket and a broad felt of moss dotted with bilberries and heather. The dew had evaporated. Between the bolt-straight trunks there hovered a mugginess characteristic of forests in the morning, a mixture compounded of the sun’s warmth, mist, the smell of moss and resin, fir needles and mushrooms which caresses all one’s senses like a gentle anesthetic. Hans flung himself on the moss, picked the generous bilberry bushes clean, heard here and there a woodpecker hammer against a tree trunk and the call of the envious cuckoo. The spotless deep blue sky was visible between the blackish spruce crowns and in the distance thousands upon thousands of vertical columns crowded together into a single solemn brown wall. Here and there a yellow spot of sun gleamed warm, strewn opulently on the moss.
    Actually Hans had wanted to go on a long ramble, at least as far as Lützeler Hof or the crocus meadow. Now he