Free Gertrude by Hermann Hesse Page B

satisfactory, I would soon get to know the better side of his nature.
    â€œBut how could you recommend me in any case?” I asked. “You don’t even know if I am any good.”
    â€œThat’s your affair. I thought you would be all right—and you will be too. You’re such an unassuming fellow that if someone didn’t give you a push at times, you would never get anywhere. That was a push—now you go ahead! You need not be afraid. Your predecessor wasn’t much good.”
    We spent the evening in his rooms. Here again he had rented some rooms in a remote district where there was a large garden and it was quiet. His powerful dog sprang forward to greet him. We had hardly sat down and warmed ourselves when the bell was rung and a tall, very beautiful woman came in and kept us company. It was the same atmosphere as previously, and his mistress was again a splendid aristocratic person. He seemed to take lovely women very much for granted and I looked at this latest lady love with sympathy and with the embarrassment that I always felt in the presence of attractive women. It was indeed not without envy, for with my lame leg it seemed to me I was unloved and without hope of love.
    As in the past, we enjoyed ourselves and drank a great deal at Muoth’s. He dominated us with his extreme but moody gaiety, which nevertheless charmed us. He sang for us enchantingly and also sang one of my songs. The three of us became very friendly; a feeling of warmth spread among us and drew us close. We were natural with each other and remained close as long as the warmth in us endured. The tall lady, who was called Lottie, was friendly toward me in a gentle way. It was not the first time that a beautiful and affectionate woman had treated me in this sympathetic and extremely confiding way. It hurt me this time too, but I now recognized this recurrent form of behavior and did not take it too much to heart. Sometimes I have even known women who have shown special friendship toward me. They all regarded me as incapable of jealousy as of love. In addition, there was that insufferable pity they had for me which evinced itself in an almost maternal trust.
    Unfortunately, I still had no experience of such affairs and could not look on the happiness of love at close quarters without thinking about myself a little and feeling that I should also have liked to indulge in something similar. It spoiled my pleasure to some extent, but on the whole it was a pleasant evening in the company of this generous and beautiful woman and the fiery, vigorous and temperamental man who liked me and took an interest in me and yet could not show his affection in any different way than he did with women, namely in a forceful and moody fashion.
    As we clinked glasses for the last time before I left, he nodded to me and said: “I really ought to drink to our good friendship, shouldn’t I? I should certainly like to do so. But never mind, it will be all right just the same. At one time, whenever I met anyone I liked, I always addressed him immediately in an intimate fashion, but it isn’t a good thing, least of all among colleagues. I quarreled with them just the same.”
    This time I did not have the bittersweet pleasure of having to accompany my friend’s lady love home. She remained there and it was better so. The journey, the visit to the conductor, the suspense about the following morning and the renewed association with Muoth had all done me good. Only now did I see how forgotten, ill at ease and remote from people I had become during my long, lonely year of waiting, and with a sense of enjoyment and healthy anticipation, I was again alert and active among people, again belonging to the world.
    *   *   *
    The next morning I reported to Rössler in good time. I found him in his dressing gown and with his hair uncombed, but he made me welcome and, in a friendlier fashion than the previous day, he