He did not love the memory of unpleasant events.
He did not like to speak of the past, whether it was pleasant or not.
Nor did it please him to turn back upon a path. If ever it became
necessary he soon grew weary.
He did not care for people whose faces showed the strain of
intellectual labour, nor such as discoursed of books or of the
sciences. Nor did he love the pale or the hectic or the over-eager or
those who argued or insisted on the rightness of their opinions. If any
one defended an opinion opposed to his own he smiled as courteously as
though no difference existed. And it was painful to him to be asked
concerning his opinion directly, and rather than bear the burden of a
speech of explanation he did not hesitate to feign ignorance.
If in large cities he was forced to walk or ride through the quarters
inhabited by the proletarian poor, he hastened as much as possible,
compressed his lips, breathed sparingly, and his vexation would give
his eyes a greenish glitter.
Once on the street a crippled beggar had caught hold of his great coat.
He returned home and presented the coat to his valet. Even in his
childhood he had refused to pass places where ragged people were to be
seen, and if any one told of misery or need among men he had left the
room, full of aversion for the speaker.
He hated to speak or to hear others speak of the functions or needs
of the body--of sleep or hunger or thirst. The sight of a human being
asleep was repulsive to him. He did not like emphatic leavetakings
or the ceremonious greetings of those who had been absent long. He
disliked church bells and people who prayed and all things that have to
do with the exercise of piety. He was quite without understanding for
even the very moderate Protestantism of his father.
He made no demand in words, but instinctively he chose to bear no
company but that of well-clad, care-free, and clear-seeing people.
Wherever he suspected secrets, hidden sorrows, a darkened soul, a
brooding tendency, inner or outer conflicts, he became frosty and
unapproachable and elusive. Therefore his mother said: “Christian is a
child of the sun and can thrive only in the sunlight.” She had made an
early cult of keeping far from him all that is turbid, distorted, or
touched with pain.
On her desk lay the marble copy of a plaster-cast of Christian’s
hand--a hand that was not small, but sinewy and delicately formed,
capable of a strong grasp, but unused and quiet.