When George came in the young man looked up with ardent eyes from a paper that he was holding in his restless and not very well-kept hands.
"Am I disturbing you?" said George.
"Oh, not a bit of it," replied the young man, with a crazy laugh, "the larger the audience the better."
"Herr Winternitz," explained Heinrich, as he shook hands with George, "was just reading me a series of his poems, but we will break off now." Slightly touched by the disappointed expression of the young man George assured him that he would be delighted to hear the poems if he might be permitted to do so.
"It won't last much longer," explained Winternitz gratefully. "It is only a pity that you missed the beginning. I could——"
"What! Does it all hang together?" said Heinrich in astonishment.
"What, didn't you notice?" exclaimed Winternitz, and laughed again crazily.
"I see," said Heinrich. "So it's always the same woman character whom your poems deal with. I thought it was always a different one."
"Of course it is always the same one, but her special characteristic is that she always seems to be a fresh person."
Herr Winternitz read softly but insistently, as though inwardly consumed. It appeared from his series that he had been loved as never a man had been loved before, but also deceived as never a man had been deceived before, a circumstance which was to be attributed to certain metaphysical causes and not at all to any deficiencies in his own personality. He showed himself, however, in his last poem completely freed of his passion, and declared that he was now ready to enjoy all the pleasures, which the world could offer him. This poem had four stanzas; the last verse of every stanza began with a "hei," and it concluded with the exclamation: "Hei, so career I through the world."