the sea opened out
he saw from afar the shore on which as a boy he had been privileged
to listen to the summer dreams of the sea; saw the gleam of the
light-house and the lights of the seashore hotel where he had stayed
with his parents ... The Baltic! He leaned his head against the strong
salt breeze that came to him free and unchecked, enveloped his ears,
and produced in him a gentle vertigo, a slight stupefaction, in which
the recollection of all evil, of torment and erring ways, of great
plans and arduous labors, became lazily and blissfully submerged. And
in the roaring, splashing, foaming, and groaning round about him he
fancied he heard the rustling and creaking of the old walnut-tree, and
the screeching of a garden gate ... It grew darker and darker.

"De stars, my gracious, just look at de stars," suddenly remarked in a
ponderous sing-song a voice that seemed to come from inside a barrel.
He knew the voice. It belonged to a reddish-blond, simply dressed man
with reddened eyelids and a clammy look, as if he had just taken a
bath. At supper in the cabin he had been Tonio Kroeger's neighbor and
with hesitant and modest motions he had taken unto himself astonishing
quantities of lobster-omelette. Now he was leaning against the rail
beside his new acquaintance and looking up at the sky, holding his chin
with thumb and forefinger. Without doubt he was in one of those
extraordinary and solemnly contemplative moods in which the barriers
between men fall away, in which the heart opens even to strangers, and
the mouth utters things which would otherwise close it in modesty ...

"Look, sir, just look at de stars. Dere dey stand and twinkle, upon my
word de whole sky is full of dem. And now let me ask you, when we look
up and reflect dat many of dem are supposed to be a hundred times
bigger dan de eart', how do we feel? We men have invented de telegraph
and de telephone, and so many achievements of modern life, yes, dat we
have. But when we look up dere, den we have to recognize and understand
dat after all we're only vermin, miserable vermin and not'ing else--am
I right or wrong, sir? Yes, we are vermin," he answered himself, and
nodded up at the firmament, humble and crushed.

Ouch ... no, he has no literature in him, thought Tonio Kroeger. And
forthwith something that he had recently been reading occurred to him,
an article by a famous French author on cosmological and psychological
philosophy; it had been very elega