And suddenly Lindner looked up, for while dreaming his thoughts he was still riding in the streetcar; he felt irritable and vaguely anxious, as one does from being irresolute and inhibited, and for a moment he had the confused impression that all along he had been thinking of Agathe. She was accorded the additional honor that a vexation that had innocently begun with pleasure in Goethe now fused with her, even though no reason for this could be discerned. From habit, Lindner admonished himself, whispering with mute lips: “Dedicate part of your solitude to quiet reflection on your fellow man, especially if you are not in accord with him; perhaps then you will learn to better understand and utilize what repels you, and will know how to be forbearing toward his weaknesses and encourage his virtue, which may simply be intimidated!” It was one of the key statements he had coined against the dubious activities of so-called culture and in which he usually found the composure to bear them; but the words failed to achieve their purpose, and righteousness was apparently not what he lacked this time. He pulled out his watch. It confirmed that he had granted Agathe more time than he had been allotted. But he would not have been able to do so if his daily schedule had not allowed twenty minutes for unavoidable slippage; and it turned out that this deficit account, this emergency supply of time, whose precious drops were the oil that lubricated his daily work, would even on this unusual day still hold a reserve of ten minutes when he stepped into his house. Did this cause his courage to grow? He remembered another of his life maxims, for the second time today: “The more unshakable your patience becomes,” Lindner said to Lindner, “the more surely you will strike to the other’s heart!” And to strike to the heart, this gave him a pleasure that corresponded to the heroic in his nature; the fact that people struck in this manner never strike back was immaterial.

25

THE SIBLINGS THE NEXT MORNING