with the patches of rust on the lid, the bed with the rickety posts and the paint peeling off the wooden frame, the dirty blankets showing through holes in the worn counterpane; Bozena with her shift slipping off one shoulder, the common, glaring red of her petticoat, and her broad, cackling laughter; and finally Beineberg, whose behaviour by contrast with other times struck Törless as like that of a lecherous priest who had taken leave of his senses and was weaving equivocal words into the solemn formulae of a prayer: all this was urgent in one and the same direction, invading him and violently turning his thoughts back again and again.
Only at one place did his gaze, which fled nervously from one thing to another, find rest. That was above the little curtain over the lower half of the window. There the sky looked in, with the clouds travelling across it, and the unmoving moon.
Then he felt as if he had suddenly stepped out of doors into the fresh, calm air of the night. For a while all his thoughts grew still. A pleasant memory came back to him: that of the house they had taken in the country the previous summer. . . nights in the silent grounds . . . a velvety dark firmament tremulous with stars . . . his mother's voice from the depths of the garden, where she was strolling on the faintly glimmering gravel paths, together with his father . . . songs that she hummed quietly to herself . . . But at once-a cold shudder went through him-there was again this tormenting comparison. What must the two of them have been feeling then? love? The thought came to him now for the first time. But no, that was something entirely different. That was nothing for grown-up people, and least of all for his parents. Sitting at the open window at night and feeling abandoned by everyone, feeling different from the grown-ups, misunderstood by every laugh and every mocking glance, being unable to explain to anybody what one already felt oneself to be, and yearning for her, the one who would understand-that was love! But in order to feel that one must be young and lonely. With them it must have been something different, something calm and composed. Mamma simply hummed a little song there in the evening, in the dark garden, and was cheerful. - -.
But that was the very thing Törless could not understand. The patient plans that for the adult imperceptibly link the days into months and years were still beyond his ken. And so too was that blunting of perception which makes it cease to be anything of a problem when yet another day draws to its close. His life was focused on each single day. For him each night meant a void, a grave, extinction. The capacity to lay oneself down to die at the end of every day, without thinking anything of it, was something he had not yet acquired.
That was why he had always supposed there was something behind it that they were keeping from him. The nights seemed to him like dark gateways to mysterious joys that were kept a secret from him, so that his life remained empty and unhappy.
He recalled the peculiar ring of his mother's laughter and how, as he had observed on one of those evenings, she had clung more tightly, as though jokingly, to her husband's arm. There seemed to be no doubt. There must be a gate leading hither even out of the world of those calm and irreproachable beings. And now, since he knew, he could think of it only with that special smile of his, expressing the malicious mistrust against which he struggled in vain ...
Meanwhile Bozena had gone on talking. Törless began to listen with half an ear. She was talking about somebody who also came almost every Sunday. “Let me see now, what's his name? He's in your class.”
“Reiting?”
“What does he look like?”
“He's about as tall as him over there,” Bozena said with a jerk of her head in Törless's direction, “only his head is a bit too big.”
“Oh, Basini?”
“Yes, that's right, that's what he said his name was. He's really
Only at one place did his gaze, which fled nervously from one thing to another, find rest. That was above the little curtain over the lower half of the window. There the sky looked in, with the clouds travelling across it, and the unmoving moon.
Then he felt as if he had suddenly stepped out of doors into the fresh, calm air of the night. For a while all his thoughts grew still. A pleasant memory came back to him: that of the house they had taken in the country the previous summer. . . nights in the silent grounds . . . a velvety dark firmament tremulous with stars . . . his mother's voice from the depths of the garden, where she was strolling on the faintly glimmering gravel paths, together with his father . . . songs that she hummed quietly to herself . . . But at once-a cold shudder went through him-there was again this tormenting comparison. What must the two of them have been feeling then? love? The thought came to him now for the first time. But no, that was something entirely different. That was nothing for grown-up people, and least of all for his parents. Sitting at the open window at night and feeling abandoned by everyone, feeling different from the grown-ups, misunderstood by every laugh and every mocking glance, being unable to explain to anybody what one already felt oneself to be, and yearning for her, the one who would understand-that was love! But in order to feel that one must be young and lonely. With them it must have been something different, something calm and composed. Mamma simply hummed a little song there in the evening, in the dark garden, and was cheerful. - -.
But that was the very thing Törless could not understand. The patient plans that for the adult imperceptibly link the days into months and years were still beyond his ken. And so too was that blunting of perception which makes it cease to be anything of a problem when yet another day draws to its close. His life was focused on each single day. For him each night meant a void, a grave, extinction. The capacity to lay oneself down to die at the end of every day, without thinking anything of it, was something he had not yet acquired.
That was why he had always supposed there was something behind it that they were keeping from him. The nights seemed to him like dark gateways to mysterious joys that were kept a secret from him, so that his life remained empty and unhappy.
He recalled the peculiar ring of his mother's laughter and how, as he had observed on one of those evenings, she had clung more tightly, as though jokingly, to her husband's arm. There seemed to be no doubt. There must be a gate leading hither even out of the world of those calm and irreproachable beings. And now, since he knew, he could think of it only with that special smile of his, expressing the malicious mistrust against which he struggled in vain ...
Meanwhile Bozena had gone on talking. Törless began to listen with half an ear. She was talking about somebody who also came almost every Sunday. “Let me see now, what's his name? He's in your class.”
“Reiting?”
“What does he look like?”
“He's about as tall as him over there,” Bozena said with a jerk of her head in Törless's direction, “only his head is a bit too big.”
“Oh, Basini?”
“Yes, that's right, that's what he said his name was. He's really
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