ormerly felt at times when he looked
at Hans Hansen, in those days when he was a small, silly boy.

On this evening he took away with him an image of her, with the thick
blond braid, the elongated, laughing blue eyes, and a delicately marked
saddle of freckles on her nose, and could not sleep for hearing the
ring in her voice, softly trying to imitate the intonation with which
she had uttered the insignificant word, and quivering as he did so.
Experience taught him that this was love. But although he knew
perfectly that love must inevitably bring him much pain, affliction,
and humiliation, that it moreover destroys peace and overfills the
heart with sweet melodies, without giving a man peace enough to round
off any one thing and calmly weld it into a unified whole, yet he
entertained it with joy, surrendered wholly to it, and nursed it with
all the powers of his spirit; for he knew that it gives life and
riches, and he longed to be alive and rich, instead of calmly welding
anything into a unified whole.

This loss of Tonio Kroeger's heart to merry Inga Holm occurred in the
empty drawing-room of Mrs. Consul Husteede, whose turn it was that
evening to have the dancing class; for it was a private class, to which
only members of the first families belonged, and they assembled in turn
in the parental houses in order to receive instruction in dancing arid
deportment. For this special purpose dancing-master Knaak came over
every week from Hamburg.

Francois Knaak was his name, and what a man he was! "_J'ai l'honneur
de me vous representer_," he would say, "_mon nom est_ Knaak ... And
this one does not say while one is bowing, but when one is again
standing upright--not loudly and yet clearly. One is not every day in a
position where one must introduce oneself in French, but if one can do
so correctly and flawlessly in that language, then one will certainly
not fail in German." How wonderfully the silky black frock-coat
clung about his fat hips! In soft folds his trousers fell to his
patent-leather pumps, which were adorned with broad satin bows, and his
brown eyes looked about with a satiated happiness at their own beauty.

Every one was crushed by the excess of assurance and decorum in him. He
would glide--and none could glide like him, elastic, rocking, swaying,
royal--up to the mistress of the house, bow, and wait for her to extend
her hand to him. When he had received it, he would thank her in a low
voice, step back sp