Oh, there was time enough. But he had been to some lectures—agronomy and inorganic chemistry…. You have to begin with inorganic chemistry if you want to go in for organic. And the latter was agricultural chemistry which was what concerned him.
He made these instructive remarks with a serious air and poured down glass after glass of Madeira. His cheeks began to glow, his heart expanded. "But that's all piffle, Herr von Niebeldingk, … all this book-worm business can go to the devil…. Life—life—life—that's the main thing!"
"What do you call life, Fritz?"
With both hands he stroked the velvety surface of his close-cropped skull.
"Well, how am I to tell you? D'you know how I feel? As if I were standing in front of a great, closed garden … and I know that all Paradise is inside … and occasionally a strain of music floats out … and occasionally a white garment glitters … and I'd like to get in and I can't. That's life, you see. And I've got to stand miserably outside?"
"Well, you don't impress me as such a miserable creature?"
"No, no, in a way, not. On the coarser side, so to speak, I have a good deal of fun. Out there around Philippstrasse and Marienstrasse there are women enough—stylish and fine-looking and everything you want. And my friends are great fellows, too. Every one can stand his fifteen glasses … I suppose I am an ass, and perhaps it's only moral katzenjammer on account of this past week. But when I walk the streets and see the tall, distinguished houses and think of all those people and their lives, yonder a millionaire, here a minister of state, and think that, once upon a time, they were all crude boys like myself—well, then I have the feeling as if I'd never attain anything, but always remain what I am."
"Well, my dear Fritz, the only remedy for that lies in that 'book-worm business' as you call it. Sit down on your breeches and work!"
"No, Herr von Niebeldingk, it isn't that either … let me tell you. Day before yesterday I was at the opera…. They sang the Götterddmmerung…. You know, of course. There is Siegfried, a fellow like myself, … not more than twenty … I sat upstairs in the third row with two seamstresses. I'd picked them up in the Chausseestrasse—cute little beasts, too…. But when Brunhilde stretched out her wonderful, white arms to him and sang: 'On to new deeds, O hero!' why I felt like taking the two girls by the scruff of the neck and pitching them down into the pit, I was so ashamed. Because, you see, Siegfried had his Brunhilde who inspired him to do great deeds. And what have I? … A couple of hard cases picked up in the street."
"Afterwards, I suppose, you felt more reconciled?"