"What an expressive title," said Wilhelm, breaking the silence first.
"Admirably adapted for a comic song," remarked Mayboom, with a melancholy air. Barinskoi laughed loudly, while Dorfling looked blandly at him. The comic poet sighed deeply and began to eat.
"But why Rheinthaler?" asked Paul.
"I at first wanted the book to appear anonymously; but the public is accustomed now to see a proper name on the title page. If it does not find one, its curiosity is excited, and what I particularly wished to avoid comes to pass, namely, the diversion of attention from the essential to the unessential."
"That does not explain why you have not put your own name to it," said Paul.
"My own name? What for? What is a name? What is an individuality, which a name symbolizes? The thoughts which I have put down in this book are not from me, the transient accident called Dorfling, but from the absolute everlasting thing which thinks in my brain. I am merely the carrier of the truth, appointed by it. What would you say if a postman put his name on all the letters he delivers?"
"I should not be capable of such self-effacement," said Paul. "If I had devoted the best years of my life to any work I should be unable to renounce the recognition I had earned."
"Recognition, Herr Haber. What sort of word is that? One does what one does, not because one wills, but because one must; not on account of an operation aimed at, but because of a compelling cause. He who reckons on any kind of reward for his works is on the same footing as a silly woman who claims men's approbation because she is pretty or an unreasoning child, who wants to be praised and petted because he has eaten his dinner. A mature perception arrives at this idea of the duty which one must fulfill, and in no hope of the gratification of individual vanity or self-seeking. Recognition! Does the wind hope for recognition from the ships it helps to sail? Is it blamed if it dashes the ship to pieces? It blows, as it must, and is perfectly indifferent about what men say, and as to its effect on trees, and chimney-pots, and ships. My brain is now thinking just as the wind blows. There is no difference between my organism and what goes on in the atmosphere. Both obey the laws of nature, and I merely fulfill these when I write a book."
"I quite agree with you," said Wilhelm.
The oysters had been eaten, and some wonderful Markobrunner drunk. The waiter now brought some Printaniere soup. The conversation halted, as everyone had involuntarily opened his copy of the book, some of them perhaps really curious to read, the others out of sympathy for the writer.