That had not been Wilhelm’s first sexual experience. On his fourteenth birthday his father had called him into his study to announce that Wilhelm would be having a party, and to request a list of girls that might be invited. He’d been pleased when his son had been able to name two immediately: Emmy Virchov, who knew so much about poetry and always teased him; and Rose Siedhoff, a Jewess keen on music and painting, very soft-spoken and a great favorite of his mother’s. Herr Plumpe had asked for more names. Emmy and Rose had been an acceptable beginning but also oversensitive and odd. And neither was pretty.

Wilhelm had had no more names. Additional names had been provided by his brothers. The evening had not been a success: a gathering of solitaires politely weathering the noise until they could again be left alone with their books.

That summer his parents took him to the island of Juist in the North Sea, partly for a change of air, and also to stop his hiding indoors and reading. He was by then officially delicate. There was less conflict at the beach, because he loved the dunes, and swimming.

On that island, to the astonishment of his family, he formed an acquaintance with a fisherman who every day crossed back and forth in a ketch in front of the beach. The fisherman put in at a nearby inlet, and young Wilhelm walked over to him and struck up a conversation. The fisherman took him sailing. Herr Plumpe was openmouthed. When the boat rounded the headland and the beach fell out of sight, the fisherman dropped the sail, let the boat drift, and opened the buttons of his pants. He showed Wilhelm what he wanted. As if paralyzed, Wilhelm lay in the thwarts. He noticed that one of his hands remained outspread throughout. He saw stars. He wanted to do this every day.

On their return, they ran their boat aground a few feet from Herr Plumpe’s lounge-chair. The fisherman told Herr Plumpe that the boy had a talent for sailing. Every day afterwards, until the family left the island, he and Wilhelm would sail around the headlands, drop the sail, and pull each other free of their pants, letting themselves drift.

Following their kiss, they spent the day in Wilhelm’s room embracing and kissing in passionate fits and starts but refraining from anything else. In situations like this, Hans said, he imagined a man hiding in the wardrobe, ready to make him pay through the nose for the rest of his life. When Wilhelm broached the subject of amorous adventures in general, he declared both his pity for the ravages of passion and his revulsion at hypocrisy. They both spoke as seasoned men of the world, between kisses that made them tilt and lean on an unsteady floor.