“Do you call it only madness?”
“I said: human madness. But it is you who are concerned in this, Wondergood: how do you like it? I am off to work. In the meantime, devote yourself to discerning the boundary of the human, which you are now willing to accept in its entirety, and then tell me about it. You have not changed your intention, I hope, of remaining with us?”
He laughed and went away, patronizingly polite. And I remained to think. And so I think: where is the boundary?
I confess that I have begun to fear Magnus somewhat...or is this fear one of the gifts of my complete human existence? But when he speaks to me in this fashion I become animated with a strange confusion, my eyes move timidly, my will is bent, as if too great and strange a load had been put upon it. Think, man: I shake his big hand with reverence and find joy in his caress! This is not true of me before, but now, in every conversation, I perceive that this man can go further than I in everything.
I fear I hate him. If I have not yet experienced love, I know not hatred either, and it will be strange indeed if I should be compelled to begin by hating the father of Maria!... In what a fog we do live, man! I have just merely mentioned the name of Maria, her clear gaze has only touched my soul and already my hatred of Magnus is extinguished (or did I only conjure it up?) and extinguished also is my fear of man and life (or did I merely invent it?) and great joy, great peace has descended upon me.
It is as if I were again a white schooner on the glassy ocean; as if I held all answers in my hand and were merely too lazy to open it and read therein, as if immortality had returned to me...ah, I can speak no more, oh, man! Let me press your hand?
April 6, 1914.
The good Toppi approves all my actions. He amuses me greatly, this good Toppi. As I expected, he has completely forgotten his true origin: he regards all my reminders of our past as jests. Sometimes he laughs but more often he frowns as if he were hurt, for he is religious and considers it an insult to be compared with a “horny” devil, even in jest: he himself is now convinced that devils have horns. His Americanism, at first pale and weak, like a pencil sketch, has now become filled with color, and I, myself, am ready to believe all the nonsense given out by Toppi as his life—it is so sincere and convincing. According to him, he has been in my service about fifteen years and particularly amusing it is to hear his stories of his youth.
Apparently he, too, has been touched by the charms of Maria: my decision to surrender all my money to her father astonished him much less than I expected. He merely chewed his cigar for a moment and asked:
“And what will he do with your money?”