and forth until the hinges fairly screeched. But
hereupon he took his leave.

"Well, now I must go in," he said. "Good-by, Tonio. Next time I'll go
home with you, be sure of that."

"Good-by, Hans," said Tonio, "it was nice to go walking."

The hands they clasped were quite wet and rusty from the garden gate.
But when Hans looked into Tonio's eyes, something like penitent
reflection came into his handsome face.

"And by the way, I'm going to read _Don Carlos_ pretty soon," he said
quickly. "That about the king in his cabinet must be fine." Then he put
his school-bag under his arm and ran off through the front yard. Before
he disappeared into the house he turned once more and nodded.

And Tonio Kroeger went away quite transfigured and on wings. The wind
was at his back, but that was not the only reason why he moved away so
lightly.

Hans would read _Don Carlos_, and then they would have something in
common, about which neither Immerthal nor any one else could talk with
them. How well they understood each other. Who could tell--perhaps he
might even bring him to the point of writing verses too ... No, no, he
did not want to do that. Hans must not become like Tonio, but remain as
he was, so bright and strong, just as everybody loved him, and Tonio
most of all. But to read _Don Carlos_ wouldn't hurt him, just the
same ... And Tonio went through the old, square-built gate, along the
harbor, and up the steep, draughty, and wet Gable Street to the house
of his parents. That was when his heart lived; there was longing in it
and melancholy envy and a tiny bit of contempt, and an unalloyed chaste
blissfulness.

II

Fair-haired Inga, Ingeborg Holm, daughter of Doctor Holm who lived on
the market-place where the Gothic fountain stood, lofty, many-pointed,
and of varied form, she it was whom Tonio Kroeger loved at sixteen.

How did that happen? He had seen her a thousand times; but one
evening he saw her in a certain light, saw how in conversing with a
girl friend she laughingly tossed her head in a certain saucy fashion,
and carried her hand, a little-girl's hand, by no means especially
slender or dainty, up to her back hair in a certain fashion, so that
the white gauze sleeve slipped down from her elbow; heard how she
pronounced a word, an insignificant word, in a certain fashion, with a
warm ring in her voice,--and a rapture seized upon his heart, far
stronger than that which he had f