and painted cheeks, who came out of their doors and
cried out to him, filled him with fear; and he fled
in horror from the rough hands that sought to detain
him. He yearned above all things for experience
and felt himself ridiculous because at his age he
had not enjoyed that which all fiction taught him was
the most important thing in life; but he had the unfortunate
gift of seeing things as they were, and the reality
which was offered him differed too terribly from the
ideal of his dreams.
He did not know how wide a country, arid and precipitous,
must be crossed before the traveller through life
comes to an acceptance of reality. It is an illusion
that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have
lost it; but the young know they are wretched, for
they are full of the truthless ideals which have been
instilled into them, and each time they come in contact
with the real they are bruised and wounded. It
looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for
the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection,
and the conversation of their elders, who look back
upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness,
prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover
for themselves that all they have read and all they
have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery
is another nail driven into the body on the cross
of life. The strange thing is that each one who
has gone through that bitter disillusionment adds to
it in his turn, unconsciously, by the power within
him which is stronger than himself. The companionship
of Hayward was the worst possible thing for Philip.
He was a man who saw nothing for himself, but only
through a literary atmosphere, and he was dangerous
because he had deceived himself into sincerity.
He honestly mistook his sensuality for romantic emotion,
his vacillation for the artistic temperament, and his
idleness for philosophic calm. His mind, vulgar
in its effort at refinement, saw everything a little
larger than life size, with the outlines blurred, in
a golden mist of sentimentality. He lied and never
knew that he lied, and when it was pointed out to
him said that lies were beautiful. He was an
idealist.
XXX
Philip was restless and dissatisfied. Hayward’s
poetic allusions troubled his imagination, and his
soul yearned for romance. At least that was how
he put it to himself.
And it happened that an incident was taking place
in Frau Erlin’s house which increased Philip’s
preoccupation with the matter of sex. Two or
three times on his walks among the hills he had met
Fraulein Cacilie wandering by herself. He had
passed her with a bow, and a few yards further on
had seen the Chinaman. He thought nothing of it;
but one evening on his way home, when night had already
fallen, he passed two people walking very close together.
Hearing his footstep, they separated quickly, and
though he could not see well in the darkness he was
