“You think so? Perhaps. It may be so. There’s certainly something very pleasing about it--intoxication, bacchanalian orgies! But I find, with most people who frequent public houses, this sense of _abandon_ is lost. It seems to me there is something typically Philistine, bourgeois, in the public house habit. Of course, for just one night, with burning torches, to have a proper orgy and drunken revel. But to do the same thing over and over again, drinking one glass after another--that’s hardly the real thing. Can you imagine Faust sitting evening after evening drinking at the same table?” I drank, and looked at him with some enmity. “Yes, but everyone isn’t a Faust,” I said curtly. He looked at me with a somewhat surprised air. Then he laughed, in his old superior way. “What’s the good of quarreling about it? In any case the life of a toper, of a libertine, is, I imagine, more exciting than that of a blameless citizen. And then--I have read it somewhere--the life of a profligate is one of the best preparations for a mystic. There are always such people as Saint Augustine, who become seers. Before, he was a sort of rake and profligate.” I was distrustful and wished by no means to let him take a superior attitude towards me. So I said, with a blasé air: “Well, everyone according to his taste! I haven’t the slightest intention of doing that, becoming a seer or anything.” Demian flashed a glance at me from half-closed eyes. “My dear Sinclair,” he said slowly, “it wasn’t my intention to hurt your feelings. Besides--neither of us knows to what end you drink. There is that in you, which orders your life for you, and which knows why you are doing it. It is good to realize this; there is someone in us who knows everything, wills everything, does everything better than we do ourselves. But excuse me, I must go home.” We did not linger over our leave-taking. I remained seated, very dejected, and emptied the bottle. I found, when I got up to go, that Demian had already paid for it. That made me more angry still. * * * * * This little event recurred to my thoughts, which were full of Demian. And the words he had spoken in the inn came back to my mind, retaining all their old freshness and significance: “It is good to know there is one in us who knows everything!” I looked at the picture hanging in the window, now quite dark. The eyes glowed still. It was Demian’s look. On it was the look of the one inside me, who knows all. Oh, how I longed for Demian! I knew nothing of his whereabouts, for me he was unattainable. I knew only that he was supposed to be studying somewhere or other, and that after the conclusion of his school career his mother had left the town.