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lines the not very complicated obligation that such an opening en–
tails; they suppress the independent clause, switch to a new con–
struction, and it is only the best of them who attempt to hide the
scandal behind a dash or to attenuate
it
through the connecting link
of a series of dots. You know, sir, that this dash is a part of your
armory too. Once, years ago, it was poison to me, I hated it, but
things have now come to such a pass that today I greet it with
emotion whenever
it
appears; I am deeply grateful to you for every
one of these dashes, for after all they are a remnant of former times,
an evidence of culture, of bad conscience, they are abbreviated,
coded confessions on the writer's part that he is aware of a certain
obligation toward the laws of language, that he is in some measure
repentant and regretful when, as too often happens, he is compelled
by harsh necessity to sin against the holy spirit of our tongue."
The editor, who had closed his eyes during this dissertation and
had gone on with the calculations which his caller had interrupted,
now opened his eyes, allowed them to rest brightly on Johannes,
smiled benignly and said, slowly, ingratiatingly, visibly at pains to
formulate his thoughts properly out of consideration for the old man:
"Look here, Johannes, you are absolutely right; I've always
gladly admitted that to you before. You are right: that language
of a bygone time, that cultivated, beautifully groomed language
which two or three decades ago was still practiced or at least approx–
imated by a number of writers, that language has perished. It
perished as the monuments of the Egyptians and the systems of the
Gnostics perished, as Athens and Byzantium had to perish. That is
sad, dear friend, it is tragic-" (at this word the compositor winced
and opened his lips as though to cry out, but controlled himself and
sank resignedly back into his former posture) "-but it is our destiny
and must be our endeavor, don't you think, to accept what fate
brings to pass, however sad that may be. As I have said to you before,
it
is a fine thing to preserve a certain loyalty toward the past, and
in your case I not only understand this loyalty I am compelled to
admire it. But this clinging to things and circumstances that are
once and for all doomed to destruction must be kept within bounds.
Life itself imposes those bounds, and when we transgress them, when
we attach ourselves too firmly to the old, we come into conflict with
life, which is stronger than we are. I understand you very well,
