“Oh, then you are on a false track! One can only perfect one’s inner forces if one remains entirely continent. I have done it, for two whole years. Two years and a little more than a month! It’s so hard. Often I can scarcely hold out any longer.” “Listen, Knauer, I don’t believe that continency is so terribly important.” “I know,” he parried, “they all say that. But I did not expect to hear it from you. Whoever will go the higher spiritual way must remain pure, unconditionally!” “Well, then, do so! But I don’t understand why one man should be purer than another, because he represses his sex instincts. Or can you switch off all sexual matters from your thoughts and dreams?” He looked despairingly at me. “No, that’s just it. God! and yet it must be. At night I have dreams which I couldn’t relate even to myself. Terrible dreams, terrible!” I recollected what Pistorius had said to me. But however much I felt his words to be right I could not pass them on. I could not give advice which did not result from my own experience, advice the observance of which I did not yet feel myself equal to. I was silent and felt humiliated that someone should come to me for counsel when I had none to give. “I have tried everything!” wailed Knauer beside me. “I have done all that a man can do, with cold water, with snow, with gymnastic exercises and running, but all that doesn’t help a bit. Each night I wake up out of dreams on which I dare not think. And most dreadful of all, I am by degrees losing everything that I had gained spiritually. It is almost impossible for me any longer to concentrate my thoughts or to lull myself to sleep. Often I lie awake the whole night through. I shall not be able to bear that much longer. Finally, when I can carry on the struggle no further, when I give in and make myself impure again, then I shall be worse than all the others who have never struggled against it. You understand that, don’t you?” I nodded, but could say nothing to the point. He began to bore me, and I was horrified at myself, because his obvious need and despair made no deep impression on me. My only sentiment was: I can’t help you. “Then you know nothing that would help me?” he asked at last, exhausted and sad. “Nothing at all? There must be some way! How do you manage?” “I cannot tell you anything, Knauer. People can’t help one another in this case. No one has helped me, either. You must think of something yourself, and you must obey the prompting which really comes from your own nature. There is nothing else. If you cannot find yourself, you won’t find any spirits, either.” Disappointed, and suddenly become dumb, the little fellow looked at me. Then his look suddenly glowed with hate, he made a grimace at me and cried with rage: “Ah, you’re a nice sort of saint! You have your vice as well, I know! You pretend to wisdom, and secretly you stick in the same filth as I and all of us! You’re swine, swine, like myself. We are all swine!”