arrived and Kohn climbed in. He said quietly: "A seeker without a
goal... a man drift...... unknown to everyone... One has a
frightening longing. O that one might know for what."

The streets glimmered whitely when he opened the door of the house in
which he lived. In his room he looked silently, with a solemn
sadness, at the pictures of men, all of whom were dead, which were
fastened to the wall. Then he began to remove the articles of
clothing from his hump. When he was wearing only undershorts, a
shirt, and socks, he said, murmuring and sighing, "Gradually one goes
insane..."

In bed his mind slowly emptied. The reddish brown eyes of the girl
in the Cafe Kloesschen came into his mind as he fell asleep.

Strangely, on the days that followed, these eyes also shone often in
his brain. That surprised him. Frightened him. His relationship to
women was odd. In general he had an aversion to them; his urges
drove him to boys. But in certain summer months, when his soul was
shattered and inconsolable, he often fell in love with a young,
childlike woman. Since he was rejected and mocked most of the time
because of his hump, the memory of these women and girls was terrible.
Therefore he was cautious at these times. He went to a prostitute
when he felt danger.

Lisel Liblichlein had taken him by surprise, without his having had
any premonition of it. In vain he thought of the pain of failure.
In vain he imagined that Lisel Liblichlein might be one of the many
delicate creatures, confused in their wonderful ignorance and longing
for happiness, who can be found everywhere on earth, resembling one