Demian by Hermann Hesse — Read

It had been decided that I should remain in H -- -- for the summer / semester. Instead of staying in the house, we were almost always in the / garden by the river. The Japanese, who by the way had been thoroughly / beaten in the boxing match, was away, and the disciple of Tolstoy was / also missing. Demian had procured a horse, and went for long rides / every day. I was often alone with his mother.

Sometimes I wondered greatly at the peaceableness of my life. I had / been so long accustomed to being alone, to practise renunciation, to / fight toilfully my own battles, that these months in H -- -- seemed to me / like a time passed on a dream island, where I might live tranquilly in / beautiful, enchanted surroundings. I felt that this was a foretaste of / that new, higher community, on which we meditated. And now and then I / was seized by a deep feeling of sadness, for I knew that this happiness / could not last. I was not destined to breathe in the fulness of peace / and comfort, I needed torment to spur me on. I felt that one day I / should wake up from these dreams of beautiful love-pictures to find / myself standing once more alone, in the cold world of others, where for / me there would be only loneliness and fighting, no peace, no community / of spirit.