A casual observer of the progress of Otto Kreisler’s life might have said that the chief events, the crises, consisted of his love affairs—such as that unfortunate one with his present stepmother.—But, in the light of a careful analysis, this would have been an inversion of the truth. When the events of his life became too unwieldy or overwhelming, he converted them into love, as he might have done, with specialized talent, into some art or other. He was a sculptor—a German sculptor of a mock-realistic and degenerate school—in the strange sweethearting of the “free-life.” The two or three women he had left about the world in this way—although perhaps those symbolic statues had grown rather characterless in Time’s weather and perhaps lumpish—were monuments of his perplexities. After weeks of growing estrangement, he would sever all relations suddenly one day—usually on some indigestible epigram, that worried the poor girl for the rest of her days. Being no adept in the science of his heart, there remained a good deal of mystery for him about the appearance of “Woman” in his life. He felt that she was always connected with its important periods; he thought, superstitiously, that his existence was in some way implicated with _dem Weib_. She was, in any case, for him, a stormy petrel. He would be killed by a woman, he sometimes thought. This superstition had flourished with him before he had yet found for it much _raison d’être_.—A serious duel having been decided on in his early student days, this reflection, “I am quite safe; it is not thus that I shall die,” had given him a grisly coolness. His opponent nearly got himself killed, because he, for his part, had no hard and fast theory about the sort of death in store for him. This account, to be brought up to date, must be modified. Since knowing Volker, no woman had come conspicuously to disturb him. Volker had been the ideal element of balance in his life. But between this state—the minimum degree of friendship possible—a distant and soothing companionship—and more serious states, there was no possible foothold for Kreisler. Friendship usually dates from unformed years. But Love still remains in full swing long after Kreisler’s age at that time; a sort of spurious and intense friendship. * * * * * An uncomfortable thing happened now. He realized suddenly all the possibilities of this chance acquaintanceship, plainly and cinematographically.—He was seized with panic.—He must make a good impression.—From that moment he ran the risk of doing the reverse. For he was unaccustomed to act with calculation.—There he was like some individual who had gone nonchalantly into the presence of a prince; who—just in the middle of the audience—when he would have been getting over his first embarrassment—is overcome with a tardy confusion, the imagination in some way giving a jump. It is the imagination, repressed and as it were slighted, revenging itself.