Happily and hesitantly Kohn agreed to her suggestion. They sat into the night in Lisel Liblichlein's little room. They talked about souls, humps, love.-From that day on the writer Schulz was missing. An acquaintance had last seen him in the evening, in front of the display window of a shoe store. "Hot Heroes"—a journal for romantic decadence—received a special-delivery letter, in which Schulz reported that, for pyschological
reasons, he was on the point of taking his own life. Some people regarded this as nothing really new. Most people were excited. The newspapers carried exciting notices. A fund to find Schulz' body was established. An owner of a factory donated a tasteful coffin.
Woods and fields were searched. All the lakes were probed with long poles. No trace of Schulz was found. They already wanted to give up the search, when they found him disfigured, in a middle-level hotel in a distant suburb. On a windy pond he had contracted influenza, which had kept him in bed for a week. He was found on the creaky steps of the hotel, covered with many blankets and shawls, experimenting with the idea of carrying out his intention of committing suicide. It was not difficult to dissuade him, and he was brought in triumph back to the city. The coffin was sold off. From the profits and the remainder of the fund to find Schulz' body a party for Bohemians was organized-Gottschalk Schulz himself was enthroned as Faust, world-weary, in a corner. The gifted Doctor Berthold Bryller appeared as one of the wealthy literati. Lutz Laus played the Pope. The high school teacher Spinoza Spass—the clown of the Cafe Kloesschen—had wrapped a Siegfried-costume around his belly, and given himself a Goethe haircut. The lyric poet Mueller soon lay like a green, drunken corpse. Kuno Kohn, who had made a formal reconciliation with Schulz, came as himself. Lisel Liblichlein also came with him, wearing a rustic outfit. The others scuttled back and forth wildly among themselves, screeching like Chinese, chimpanzees, Gods, nightwatchmen, sophisticates. The whole crowd from the Cafe Kloesschen was present.
Lisel Liblichlein danced on this tumultuous, screaming night only with the hunch-backed poet. Many people watched the strange pair, but there was no laughing. Kohn's hump pressed hard and heedlessly, like the edge of a table, against the delicate others. It seemed as though he had the constant desire to press his hump against a dancer. He never failed to say, in a falsetto voice, "pardon," with unashamed courtesy, when a crazy woman cried out or someone blissfully snarled "damn." Lisel Liblichlein held on to the poet with one hand holding the hump like a handle, and with the other had she pressed Kohn's square head gently to her breast. In this way they danced like possessed people for many hours.
Kohn's hump became steadily more painful for the other dancers. They tried to express outrage. The people in charge of the party informed Kohn that he was requested to refrain from dancing. With this kind of hump one should not dance. Kohn did not resist. Lisel Liblichlein watched as his face became grey.
She led him to a hidden recess. There she said to him: "From now on I shall tutoyer you." Kuno Kohn did not answer, but he accepted her sympathetic soul like a gift in his water-blue troubadour's eyes. Trembling, she said that she suddenly loved him so much that it was incomprehensible.., she would never again let his arm go… she had not know that one could be so wildly happy… Kuno Kohn invited her to visit him the next evening. She accepted gladly.
Kuno Kohn and Lisel Liblichlein were the first to leave the giddy celebration. They moved through the heaven-bright moonlit streets, whispering. The poet in love cast fantastic shadows with giant humps on the pavement.
When they parted, Lisel Liblichlein lowered her head and kissed Kohn's mouth several times. Thus Kuno Kohn and Lisel Liblichlein parted… He said that he was pleased that she would visit him the next evening. She said, very quietly, "I… oh… also…"
On the well cared-for streets, the carefully arranged houses stood like books on shelves. The moon had scattered bright blue dust on them. Few windows were lit, shining peacefully, like the eyes of lonely people, with the same gold-colored look. Kuno Kohn went home thoughtfully. His body was dangerously bent forward. His hands lay firmly at the end of his back. His head was hanging low. The hump towered above, an adventurous, sharp stone. At this time Kuno Kohn was no longer a man; he had his own form.
He thought: "I wish to avoid being happy. That would mean giving up the longing that transcends all fulfillment, which is my most exquisite meaning. To degrade the holy hump, with which a friendly destiny has endowed me, through which I have experienced existence much more deeply, more unhappily, more wonderfully, than people perceive, to a burdensome superficiality. I wish to develop out of Lisel Liblichlein her higher being. I want to make her utterly unhappy…"