Confusion Read Online Free PDF Page B

passion from enthusiasm—so look at Shakespeare and his kind first, for they alone will make you young people genuinely young! Enthusiasm first, then diligence—enthusiasm giving you the finest, most extreme and greatest tutorial in the world, before you turn to studying the words.
    â€œWell, that’s enough for today—goodbye to you!” With an abrupt concluding gesture his hand rose in the air and imperiously descended again with an unexpected movement, and he jumped down from the desk at the same time. As if shaken apart, the dense crowd of students dispersed, seats creaked and banged, desks were pushed back, twenty hitherto silent throats suddenly began to speak, to clear themselves, to take a deep breath—only now did I realize how magnetic had been the spell closing all those living lips. The tumultuous discussion in that small space was all the more heated and uninhibited now; several students approached the lecturer with thanks, or some other comment, while the others exchanged impressions, their faces flushed, but no one stood by calmly, no one was left untouched by the electric tension, its contact now suddenly broken, yet its aura and its fire still seeming to crackle in the close air of the room.
    I myself could not move—I felt I had been pierced to the heart. Of an emotional nature myself, unable to grasp anything except in terms of passion, my senses racing headlong on, I had felt carried away for the first time by another human being, a teacher; I had felt a superior force before which it was both a duty and a pleasure to bow. I felt the blood hot in my veins, my breath came faster, that racing rhythm throbbed through my body, seizing impatiently on every joint in it. Finally I gave way to instinct and slowly made my way to the front to see the man’s face, for strange to say, as he spoke I had not perceived his features at all, so indistinct had they seemed, so immersed in what he was saying. Even now I could at first see only the indistinct outline of a shadowy profile; he was standing in the dim light by the window, half turning towards one of the students, hand laid in a friendly manner on his shoulder. Yet even that fleeting movement had an intimacy and grace about it which I would never have thought possible in an academic.
    Meanwhile some of the students had noticed me, and to avoid appearing too much of an unwanted intruder I took a few more steps towards the professor and waited until he had finished his conversation. Only then did I see his face clearly: a Roman head, with a brow like domed marble, and a wave of hair cascading back, a shining white shock, bushy at the sides, the upper part of the face of an impressively bold and intellectual cast—but below the deeply shadowed eyes it was immediately made softer, almost feminine, by the smooth curve of the chin, the mobile lips with the nerves fluttering around the restless line of the sporadic smile. The attractive masculinity of the forehead was resolved by the more pliant lines of the flesh in the rather slack cheeks and mobile mouth; seen at close quarters his countenance, at first imposing and masterful, appeared to make up a whole only with some difficulty. His bearing told a similarly ambiguous story. His left hand rested casually on the desk, or at least seemed to rest there, for little tremors constantly passed over the knuckles, and the slender fingers, slightly too delicate and soft for a man’s hand, impatiently traced invisible figures on the bare wooden surface, while his eyes, covered by heavy lids, were lowered in interest as he talked. Whether he was simply restless, or whether the excitement was still quivering in his agitated nerves, the fidgety movement of his hand contrasted with the quiet expectancy of his face as he listened; he seemed immersed in his conversation with the student, weary yet attentive.
    At last my turn came. I approached him, gave him my name and said what I wanted, and at