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it at once. I had to sit down and accompany him and so I heard my song sung properly for the first time. It was sad and moved me against my will, for he did not sing it at full singing strength but softly, as if to himself. The text, which I had read in a magazine the previous year and had copied, was as follows:
    When the south wind blows
    The avalanche tumbles
    And death’s dirge rumbles.
    Is that God’s will?
    Through the lands of men
    I wander alone,
    Ungreeted and unknown.
    Is that God’s will?
    Pain is my lot,
    My heart is like lead.
    I fear God is dead.
   —Shall I then live?
    From the way he sang it, I could tell that he liked the song.
    We were silent for a short time; then I asked him if he could point out any mistakes and suggest any corrections.
    Muoth gave me one of his keen looks and shook his head.
    â€œThere is nothing to correct,” he said. “I don’t know whether the composition is good or not. I don’t understand anything about that. There is experience and feeling in the song, and because I don’t write poetry myself, or compose, I am glad when I find something that seems individual and that I want to sing.”
    â€œBut the text is not mine,” I exclaimed.
    â€œIsn’t it? Well, it doesn’t matter; the text is of secondary importance. You must have experienced it, otherwise you could not have written the music.”
    I offered him the copy which I had had ready for some days. He took it, rolled it up and pushed it into his coat pocket.
    â€œCome and visit me sometime, if you want,” he said and gave me his hand. “I know you lead a quiet life. I don’t want to disturb it, but now and then one is glad to look a good fellow in the face.”
    When he had gone, his last words and his smile remained with me. They were in keeping with the song he had sung and with everything that I knew of the man. The longer I pondered upon it, the clearer it became to me, and in the end I felt I understood this man. I understood why he had come to me, why he liked my song, why he almost presumptuously intruded upon me, and why he seemed half shy, half bold to me. He was unhappy, an inward pain gnawed at him, and his loneliness had become intolerable to him. This unhappy man had been proud and had tasted solitude. He could no longer endure it; he was searching for people, for a kind look and a little understanding, and he was ready to sacrifice himself for them. That is what I thought at the time.
    My feelings toward Heinrich Muoth were not clear. I sensed his desires and unhappiness, yet I feared he could be a cruel, ruthless man who might use and then discard me. I was too young and my experience of people too limited to understand and accept the fact that he almost revealed himself naked to people and, in doing so, hardly seemed to know any shame. Yet I also saw that here was a sensitive passionate man who was suffering and who was alone. Involuntarily, I remembered rumors I had heard about Muoth, vague, disjointed, students’ talk, the exact details of which I had forgotten but the echo and pattern of which I had preserved in my memory. There were wild tales of women and adventure, and without remembering one of them, I seemed to recall something about bloodshed—the linking of his name to a story of suicide or murder.
    When I conquered my shyness and asked one of my colleagues about it, the matter seemed less serious than I had thought. Muoth, it was said, had had a love affair with a young woman of good family, and the latter had, in fact, committed suicide two years ago, not that anyone ventured to speak of the singer’s involvement in this affair in anything but cautious allusions. Evidently it was my own imagination, stirred by the encounter with this unique and faintly ominous person, that had created that aura of dread around him. All the same, he must have suffered over that love affair.
    I did not have the courage to go to