Read Online Beneath the Wheel by Hermann Hesse - Free Book Online Page A

tugged at strings and then, after deciding on the most efficient placement of each article, distributed everything as neatly and practically as possible in the closet. Admonitions, advice and tender remarks accompanied this flow of laundry.
    â€œYou’ll have to take extra care of your shirts. They cost three-fifty apiece.”
    â€œYou should send the laundry home every four weeks by rail. If you need it in a hurry, send it parcel post. The black hat is for Sundays only.”
    A comfortably fat woman sat perched on top of a high chest teaching her son the art of sewing on buttons.
    â€œIf you become homesick,” another mother was saying, “all you have to do is write. And remember, it’s not so long until Christmas.”
    A pretty woman, who was still quite young, took a last look at her son’s overstuffed closet and passed her hand lovingly over the piles of linen, jackets and pants. When she was done with this, she began to caress her son, a broad-shouldered, chubby-cheeked boy who was ashamed and tried to fend off his mother. He laughed with embarrassment and then, so as not to appear touched, stuck both hands in his pockets. Their leavetaking seemed to affect the mother much more strongly than her son.
    With other students just the opposite was the case. They stared dumbly and helplessly at their busy mothers, and looked as if they would just as soon return home immediately. But the fear of separation and the heightened tenderness and dependency were waging a bitter struggle in all their hearts with their shyness before on-lookers and the first proud signs of their defiant masculinity. Many a boy who wanted nothing more than to burst into tears assumed an artificially careless expression and pretended that none of this mattered to him. The mothers, noticing this, merely smiled.
    Most boys, in addition to essentials, had also brought a number of luxury articles. A sackful of apples, a smoked sausage, a basket of baked goods, or something on that order would appear from their chests. Many had brought ice-skates. One skinny, sly-looking fellow drew everyone’s attention to himself when he unpacked a whole smoked ham, which he made no attempt to conceal.
    It was easy to tell which boys had come straight from home and which had been to boarding school before. Yet even the latter, it was obvious, were excited and tense.
    Herr Giebenrath helped his son unpack and set about it in an intelligent and practical fashion. He was done earlier than most other parents and for a while he stood bored and helpless beside Hans. Because everywhere he could see fathers instructing and admonishing, mothers consoling and advising, sons listening in rapt bewilderment, he felt it was only fitting that he too should start Hans out in life with a few golden words of his own. He reflected for a long time and walked in awkward silence beside his son until he suddenly opened fire with a priceless series of pious clichés—which Hans received with dumb amazement. That is, until he saw a nearby deacon break out in an amused smile over his father’s speech; then he felt ashamed and drew the speaker aside.
    â€œAgreed, you’ll be a credit to the good name of the family? You’ll obey your superiors?”
    â€œOf course.”
    His father fell silent and breathed a sigh of relief. Now he began to get seriously bored. Hans, too, began to feel lost. He looked with perplexed curiosity through the window down into the quiet cloister, where old-fashioned peace and dignity presented a curious contrast to the life upstairs. Then he glanced timidly at his fellow students, not one of whom he knew so far. His Stuttgart examination companion seemed not to have passed, despite his clever Göppingen Latin. At least Hans could see him nowhere around. Without giving it much real thought, Hans inspected his classmates. They were as similar in kind and number as their accouterments, and it was easy to tell