Free Peter Camenzind by Hermann Hesse Page A

powers. It made me into a hardened drinker, and the effect of drink on my life has been more lasting than anything I have described so far. The strong sweet god of wine became my faithful friend, as he remains even today. Who is as mighty as he? Who as beautiful, as fantastic, lighthearted, and melancholy? He is hero and magician, tempter and brother of Eros. He can do the impossible; he imbues impoverished hearts with poetry. He transformed me, a peasant and a recluse, into a king, a poet, and a sage. He fills the emptied vessels of life with new destinies and drives the stranded back into the swift currents of action.
    Such is the nature of wine. Yet, as with all delightful gifts and arts, it must be cherished, sought out, and understood at great cost and effort. Few can accomplish this feat and the god of wine vanquishes thousands upon thousands; he ages them, destroys them, or extinguishes the spirit’s flame. However, he invites those who are dear to him to feast and builds them rainbow bridges to blissful isles. When they are weary, he cushions their heads; he embraces and comforts them like a mother when they become melancholy. He transforms the confusions of life into great myths and plays the hymn of creation on a mighty harp.
    At other times he is childlike, with long, silky curls, narrow shoulders, and delicate limbs. He will nestle against your heart, raise his innocent face up to you, and gaze at you dreamily, astonished, out of big, fond eyes in whose depths memories of paradise and kinship with a god surge and sparkle like a forest spring. The sweet god also resembles a stream wandering with deep rushing sounds through the spring night; and resembles an ocean that cradles sun and storms in its cool waves.
    When he communes with his favorites, the storm tide of secrets, memories, poetry, and premonitions floods and intoxicates them. The known world shrinks and vanishes, and the soul hurls itself with fear and joy into the uncharted distances of the unknown where everything is strange and yet familiar, and the language of music, of poets, and of dreams is spoken.
    I must first recount how I discovered this secret.
    Sometimes I would forget myself for hours and be perfectly happy—I would study, write, or listen to Richard play the piano. Yet not one day passed without some slight unhappiness. At times it would not overwhelm me until I had gone to bed, so that I moaned and leaped up, only to fall asleep late at night, sobbing. Or it would stir within me after I had seen Erminia Aglietti. But usually it would come upon me in the late afternoon, at the onset of those beautiful, wearisome summer evenings. I would walk down to the lake, untie one of the boats, and row until I was tired and hot, but then I would find it impossible to return home. Into a tavern then or a beer-garden. There I sampled various wines, and drank and brooded. The next day I occasionally felt half sick. A dozen times I was overcome by such ghastly misery and self-disgust that I resolved to stop drinking altogether. Yet then I would go out and drink again and again. Gradually, as I learned to distinguish among the wines and their effects, I began to enjoy them with a genuine awareness. Finally I decided in favor of the dark-red Veltliner. The first glass tasted harsh and provocative, but then it clouded my thoughts, so that they became calm and dreamy; as I continued to drink, it cast its spell over me and began to compose poems as if by itself. Then I would behold myself surrounded by all the landscapes I had ever loved, bathed in a delicious light, and I could see myself wandering through them, singing, dreaming. Then I sensed life coursing through me. This whole experience resolved itself into comfortable melancholy, as though I heard folksongs played on a violin, and knew of some fortune somewhere that I had been close to and that had passed me by.
    It so happened that I gradually drank less often by myself, and now did so in the