18 Jun I felt unable to go upstairs (HERMAN HESSE)
I felt unable to go upstairs. My life was wrecked. I
thought vaguely of running away and never returning or
of drowning myself. I sat down in the dark on the
bottom step of our outside staircase, withdrew into myself
and abandoned myself to my misery. Lina found
me there weeping when she came down with a basket
to collect some firewood.
I begged her to say nothing about it, and went upstairs.
On the right of the glazed door hung father’s hat
and mother’s sunshade; an atmosphere of homeliness
and affection hung about all these things; my heart
warmed to them gratefully as that of the Prodigal Son
must have done when he was confronted with the sight
and smell of the old familiar rooms of his house. But
none of this was mine any longer; it all belonged to the
world of my parents and I was deeply and guiltily engulfed in the alien tide.
I was involved in excitement and
wrong-doing, threatened by the enemy, beset by dangers,
fear and scandal. The hat and the sunshade, the good
old sandstont” floor, the large picture over the hall cupboard
and the voices of my elder sistets coming from the living-room,
it was all more moving and precious
than ever but it had ceased to be a comfort and something
I could rely on and had become a kind of reproach.
This was no longer my world; I could have no
part in its cheerfulness and peace. My feet were defiled;
I could not wipe them on the mat; I was accompanied
by shadows of which this world of home knew nothing.
I had had plenty of secrets, plenty of scares before but
it had all been light-hearted compared with what I was
bringing back with me that day.
Fate was tracking me
down, hands were reaching for me from which my
mother could not protect me; of which she knew nothing. What my crim~ was-theft or lying-(had I not
sworn a false oath by God and everything that was
sacred?)-did not come into it. l\!Y sin was not this or
that; my sin was that I was in league with the Devil. Why
had I associated with him? Why had I listened to Kromer
more than I had ever done to my father? Why had I
lied about that theft, fathered myself with crime as if it
had been a heroic deei? And now the Devil held me in
his clutches, the enemy was at my shoulder.
I was glad that my father upbraided me about my
muddy shoes. It side-stepped the issue, the graver sin
passed unnoticed and I got away with a reproach which
I secretly transferred to the other affair. In so doing, a
strange new feeling ht up inside me, an unpleasant,
ruthless feeling, full of barbs-I felt superior to my
father! For the moment I despised his ignorance.
One night she brought a piece of chocolate up to me
when I was in bed. It •as an echo of earlier years when
I had often been vouchsafed similar little treats at night
if I had been good. Now she stood there, holding out the
chocolate. I felt so ill that I could only shake my head.
She asked me what was the matter and stroked my hair.
But I could only jerk out, “No. No I I don’t want anything I ”
She deposited the chocolate on the bedside-table
and left me. When she tried to find out the reason for
my behaviour next day, I pretended not to understand.
I lived in the midst of the ordered peace of our house,
nervous and tormented like a ghost, with no part in the
life of the others.
DEMIAN
HERMAN HESSE
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