The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Malady of the Century, by Max Nordau

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Title: The Malady of the Century

Author: Max Nordau

Posting Date: July 23, 2009 [EBook #4231]
Release Date: July, 2003
First Posted: December 12, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE MALADY OF THE CENTURY

BY

MAX NORDAU

Author of "THE COMEDY OF SENTIMENT," "HOW WOMEN LOVE," Etc., Etc.

CONTENTS.

I. Mountain and Forest
II. Vanity of Vanities
III. Heroes
IV. It was not to be
V. A Lay Sermon
VI. An Idyll
VII. Symposium
VIII. Dark Days
IX. Results
X. A Seaside Romance
XI. In the Horselberg
XII. Tannhauser's Plight
XIII. Consummation
XIV. Uden Horizo

THE MALADY OF THE CENTURY

CHAPTER I.

MOUNTAIN AND FOREST.

"Come, you fellows, that's enough joking. This defection of yours,
melancholy Eynhardt, combines obstinacy with wisdom, like Balaam's ass!
Well! may you rest in peace. And now let us be off."

The glasses, filled with clear Affenthaler, rang merrily together, the
smiling landlord took up his money, and the company rose noisily from
the wooden bench, overturning it with a bang. The round table was only
proof against a similar accident on account of its structure, which
some one with wise forethought had so designed that only the most
tremendous shaking could upset its equilibrium. The boisterous group
consisted of five or six young men, easily recognized as students by
their caps with colored bands, the scars on their faces, and their
rather swaggering manner. They slung their knapsacks on, stepped
through the open door of the little arbor where they had been sitting,
on to the highroad, and gathered round the previous speaker. He was a
tall, good-looking young man, with fair hair, laughing blue eyes, and a
budding mustache.

"Then you are determined, Eynhardt, that you won't go any further?"
asked he, with an accent which betrayed him as a Rhinelander.

"Yes, I am d