“Your skill,” continued Klaus Heinrich, “must be a source of great pleasure to you—an ideal recreation. What is your calling, Herr Martini?”
Herr Martini showed that he did not understand, by describing a note of interrogation with the upper half of his body.
“I mean your main calling. Are you in the Civil Service?”
“No, Royal Highness, I have no calling; I occupy myself exclusively with poetry….”
“None at all…. Oh, I understand. So unusual a gift deserves that a man's whole powers be devoted to it.”
“I don't know about that, Royal Highness. Whether it deserves it or not, I don't know. I must own that I had no choice. I have always felt myself entirely unsuited to every other branch of human activity. It seems to me that this undoubted and unconditional unsuitability for everything else is the sole proof and touchstone of the poetical calling—indeed, that a man must not see in poetry any calling, but only the expression and refuge of that unsuitability.”
It was a peculiarity with Herr Martini that when he talked tears came into his eyes just like a man who comes out of the cold into a warm room and lets the heat stream through and melt his limbs.
“That's a singular idea,” said Klaus Heinrich.
“Not at all, Royal Highness. I beg your pardon, no, not singular at all. It's an idea which is very generally accepted. What I say is nothing new.”
“And for how long have you been living only for poetry? I suppose you were once a student?”