“What about my music, Kai? There is nothing to it. Shall I travel round and give concerts? In the first place, they wouldn’t let me; and in the second place, I should never really know enough. I can play very little. I can only improvise a little when I am alone. And then, the travelling about must be dreadful, I imagine. It is different with you. You have more courage. You go about laughing at it all--you have something to set against it. You want to write, to tell wonderful stories. Well, that _is_ something. You will surely become famous, you are so clever. The thing is, you are so much livelier. Sometimes in class we look at each other, the way we did when Petersen got marked because he read out of a crib, when all the rest of us did the same. The same thought is in both our minds--but you know how to make a face and let it pass. I can’t. I get so tired of things. I’d like to sleep and never wake up. I’d like to die, Kai! No, I am no good. I can’t want anything. I don’t even want to be famous. I’m afraid of it, just as much as if it were a wrong thing to do. Nothing can come of me, that is perfectly sure. One day, after confirmation-class, I heard Pastor Pringsheim tell somebody that one must just give me up, because I come of a decayed family.” “Did he say that?” Kai asked with deep interest. “Yes; he meant my Uncle Christian, in the institution in Hamburg. One must just give me up--oh, I’d be so happy if they would! I have so many worries; everything is so hard for me. If I give myself a little cut or bruise anywhere, and make a wound that would heal in a week with anybody else, it takes a month with me. It gets inflamed and infected and makes me all sorts of trouble. Herr Brecht told me lately that all my teeth are in a dreadful condition--not to mention the ones that have been pulled already. If they are like that now, what will they be when I am thirty or forty years old? I am completely discouraged.” “Oh, come,” Kai said, and struck into a livelier gait. “Now you must tell me something about your playing. I want to write something marvellous--perhaps I’ll begin it to-day, in drawing period. Will you play this afternoon?” Hanno was silent a moment. A flush came upon his face, and a painful, confused look. “Yes, I’ll play--I suppose--though I ought not. I ought to practise my sonatas and études and then stop. But I suppose I’ll play; I cannot help it, though it only makes everything worse.” “Worse?” Hanno was silent. “I know what you mean,” said Kai after a bit, and then neither of the lads spoke again. They were both at the same difficult age. Kai’s face burned, and he cast down his eyes. Hanno looked pale and serious; his eyes had clouded over, and he kept giving sideways glances. Then the bell rang, and they went up.