it in the paternal home, for Jonathan Leverkühn did not send his children to the village school, and the chief factor in this decision was, I believe, not so much social ambition as the earnest wish to give them a more careful education than they could get from instruction in common with the cottage children of Oberweiler. The schoolmaster, a still young and sensitive man, who never ceased to be afraid of the dog Suso, came over to Buchel afternoons when he had finished his official duties, in winter fetched by Thomas in the sleigh. By the time he took young Adrian in hand he had already given the thirteen-year-old George all the necessary foundation for his further training as agronomist. But now he, schoolmaster Michelson, was the very first to declare, loudly and with a certain vehemence, that the boy must “in God’s name,” go to high school and the university, for such a learning head and lightning brain he, Michelson, had never seen, and it would be a thousand pities if one did not do everything to open to this young scholar the way to the heights of knowledge. Thus or something like it, certainly rather like a seminarist, did he express himself, speaking indeed of ingenium, of course in part to show off with the word, which sounded droll enough applied to such childish achievements. Yet obviously it came from an awed and astonished heart.
I was never present at these lesson-hours and know only by hearsay about them; but I can easily imagine that the behaviour of my young Adrian must sometimes have been a little hard on a preceptor himself young, and accustomed to drive his learning with whip and spurs into dull and puzzled or rebellious heads. “If you know it all already,” I once heard him say to the boy, “then I can go home.” Of course it was not true that the pupil “knew it all already.” But his manner did suggest the thought, simply because here was a case of that swift, strangely sovereign and anticipatory grasp and assimilation, as sure as easy, which soon dried up the master’s praise, for he felt that such a head meant a danger to the modesty of the heart and betrayed it easily to arrogance. From the alphabet to syntax and grammar, from the progression of numbers and the first rules to the rule of three and simple sums in proportion, from the memorizing of little poems (and there was no memorizing, the verses were straightway and with the utmost precision grasped and possessed) to the written setting down of his own train of thought on themes out of the geography—it was always the same: Adrian gave it his ear, then turned round with an air that seemed to say: “Yes, good, so much is clear, all right, go on!” To the pedagogic temperament there is something revolting about that. Certainly the young schoolmaster was tempted again and again to cry: “What is the matter with you? Take some pains!” But why, when obviously there was no need to take pains?
As I said, I was never present at the lessons; but I am compelled to conclude that my friend received the scientific data purveyed by Kerr Michelson fundamentally with the same mien, so hard to characterize, with which under the lime tree he had accepted the fact that if a horizontal melody of nine bars is divided into three sections of three bars each, they will still produce a harmonically fitting texture. His teacher knew some Latin; he instructed Adrian in it and then announced that the lad—he was now ten years old—was ready if not for the fifth, then certainly for the fourth form. His work was done.
Thus Adrian left his parents’ house at Easter 1895 and came to town to attend our Boniface gymnasium, the school of the Brethren of the Common Life. His uncle, Nikolaus Leverkühn, his father’s brother, a respected citizen of Kaisersaschern, declared himself ready to receive the lad into his house.
CHAPTER VI
A nd as for Kaisersaschern, my native town on the Saale, the stranger should be informed that it lies somewhat south of
I was never present at these lesson-hours and know only by hearsay about them; but I can easily imagine that the behaviour of my young Adrian must sometimes have been a little hard on a preceptor himself young, and accustomed to drive his learning with whip and spurs into dull and puzzled or rebellious heads. “If you know it all already,” I once heard him say to the boy, “then I can go home.” Of course it was not true that the pupil “knew it all already.” But his manner did suggest the thought, simply because here was a case of that swift, strangely sovereign and anticipatory grasp and assimilation, as sure as easy, which soon dried up the master’s praise, for he felt that such a head meant a danger to the modesty of the heart and betrayed it easily to arrogance. From the alphabet to syntax and grammar, from the progression of numbers and the first rules to the rule of three and simple sums in proportion, from the memorizing of little poems (and there was no memorizing, the verses were straightway and with the utmost precision grasped and possessed) to the written setting down of his own train of thought on themes out of the geography—it was always the same: Adrian gave it his ear, then turned round with an air that seemed to say: “Yes, good, so much is clear, all right, go on!” To the pedagogic temperament there is something revolting about that. Certainly the young schoolmaster was tempted again and again to cry: “What is the matter with you? Take some pains!” But why, when obviously there was no need to take pains?
As I said, I was never present at the lessons; but I am compelled to conclude that my friend received the scientific data purveyed by Kerr Michelson fundamentally with the same mien, so hard to characterize, with which under the lime tree he had accepted the fact that if a horizontal melody of nine bars is divided into three sections of three bars each, they will still produce a harmonically fitting texture. His teacher knew some Latin; he instructed Adrian in it and then announced that the lad—he was now ten years old—was ready if not for the fifth, then certainly for the fourth form. His work was done.
Thus Adrian left his parents’ house at Easter 1895 and came to town to attend our Boniface gymnasium, the school of the Brethren of the Common Life. His uncle, Nikolaus Leverkühn, his father’s brother, a respected citizen of Kaisersaschern, declared himself ready to receive the lad into his house.
CHAPTER VI
A nd as for Kaisersaschern, my native town on the Saale, the stranger should be informed that it lies somewhat south of
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