Strange News from Another Star by Hermann Hesse

Author:Hermann Hesse
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2015-05-28T16:00:00+00:00

A Dream Sequence

IT SEEMED to me that I had already spent a vast amount of turgid, unprofitable time in that stuffy salon through whose northern windows shone the false sea and the imitation fiords, and where nothing attracted or held my attention save the presence of the beautiful, suspect lady whom I took to be a sinner. In vain I longed to have just one good look at her face. That face floated dimly amid loose dark hair, a cloud of sweet pallor and nothing more. Possibly her eyes were dark brown, I felt some inner reason to expect that; but if so her eyes would not match the face I was trying to read into that indeterminate pallor, whose shape I knew lay buried in deep, inaccessible levels of my memory.

Finally something happened. The two young men entered. They greeted the lady with elaborate courtesy and were introduced to me. Monkeys, I thought, and was annoyed at myself because the pretty, stylish cut and fit of the reddish-brown jacket one of them was wearing filled me with shame and envy. A horrible feeling of envy toward the irreproachable, unabashed smiler! “Pull yourself together!” I commanded inwardly. The two young men reached indifferently for my extended hand—why had I offered it?—wearing derisive smiles.

Then I realized that something was wrong about me and felt a disturbing chill creeping up my legs. I glanced down and grew pale on seeing that I stood in my stocking feet, shoeless. Again and again these shabby, miserable, sordid frustrations and disadvantages! It never happened to others that they appeared naked or half naked in salons before a company of the irreproachably correct! Disheartened, I tried at least to conceal my left foot with my right; as I did, my eyes strayed through the window and I saw the steep wild blue ocean cliffs threatening with false and sinister colors and demonic intent. Worried and seeking help, I looked at the two strangers, full of hatred for these people and full of a greater hatred for myself—nothing turned out right for me, that was the trouble. And why did I feel responsible for that stupid sea? Well, if that was the way I felt, then I was responsible. Beseechingly I looked the reddish-brown one in the face, his cheeks shone with health and careful grooming, and I knew perfectly well that I was exposing myself to no purpose, that he could not be influenced.

At that moment he noticed my feet in their coarse dark-green socks—oh, I could still be thankful there were no holes in them—and smiled disagreeably. He nudged his comrade and pointed at my feet. The other, too, grinned in derision.

“Just look at the sea!” I shouted, gesturing toward the window.

The man in the reddish-brown jacket shrugged his shoulders; it did not occur to him to so much as turn toward the window, and he said something to the other which I only half understood, but it was aimed at me and had to do with fellows in stocking feet who really ought not to be tolerated in such a salon.

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