Peter Camenzind by Hermann Hesse Read Free Book Online Page B

people like you there are on this earth. Look, in a year or so you’ll know all about Nietzsche and more and you’ll know it much better than I ever will, because you’re more thorough and brighter than I. But I like you the way you are now. You don’t know Nietzsche and Wagner but you’ve climbed mountains and you have such a sturdy mountain face. And there’s absolutely no doubt that you’re a poet. I can see it from your glance and your forehead.”
    I was amazed that he should look at me so directly and express his views with such frankness and lack of embarrassment. It struck me as most unusual. I was even more astonished and delighted when a week later, in a very crowded beer-garden, he swore eternal friendship, jumped up and embraced me and kissed me in front of all the customers, and then danced me around the table as though he were mad.
    â€œWhat will people think?” I tried to admonish him.
    â€œThey’ll think: those two are extraordinarily happy or more than extraordinarily drunk. But most of them won’t give it any thought at all.”
    Though he was older, cleverer, better brought up, and better versed in everything than I, he seemed often a mere child in comparison. On the street, for instance, he would suddenly flirt half-mockingly with teenage girls or he would interrupt the most serious piece of music with a childish joke. On one occasion when we had gone to church he suddenly whispered to me in the middle of the sermon: “Don’t you find that the priest looks like a wizened rabbit?” The comparison was perfect but I felt he could just as well have pointed it out after church and I later told him so.
    â€œBut it was true, wasn’t it?” he grumbled. “I probably would not have remembered it afterward.”
    It did not bother me or others when his jokes fell flat or were little more than quotes from a book. What we liked about him was not his wit and intelligence, but his free and lighthearted air and the irrepressible gaiety of his transparently childish nature, which could break forth at any moment.
    Richard often took me along when he went to meet other people our age—students, musicians, painters, writers, and foreigners of all sorts. All the interesting, art-loving, unusual persons in town eventually made his acquaintance. Among them there were very serious, deeply committed people—philosophers, aestheticians, socialists—and I was able to learn something from all of them. Bits of knowledge from a wide variety of fields came my way and I tried to supplement them by much reading on the side. I gradually gained a fairly clear notion of what fascinated and tormented the liveliest spirits of the day and, moreover, gained stimulating insights into the wishes, premonitions, achievements, and ideals of the intellectuals. These attracted me and I understood them, but I myself lacked any strong urge to take sides on any of the issues, either pro or con. I discovered that in most cases the intellectual fervor was directed at analyzing the conditions and the structure of society and the state, at the sciences, the arts, and at teaching methods. Yet only a small minority seemed aware of the need to develop their own selves and to clarify their personal relationship to time and eternity. And in my case, the awareness of this need was not very great at that time.
    I made no further friends because of my exclusive and jealous affection for Richard. This was so exclusive that I even tried to draw him away from the many women he knew. When we arranged to meet, I was always scrupulously punctual, however unimportant the event, and I was very touchy if he kept me waiting. Once he asked me to call for him at a certain hour to go rowing. I did not find him home and waited three hours. The next day I reproached him bitterly.
    â€œWhy didn’t you go rowing by yourself?” he laughed. ‘I’d completely forgotten about it. That