I was a free man, bound neither by many duties nor by harassing
responsibilities; my friend, on the contrary, was never free from the grip of
urgent duties and anxious fears for the fate of those in peril. If, as was
invariably the case, he had performed some dangerous operations in the
morning, he would ring up on the telephone, immediately before we got into
the boat, to enquire after the condition of the patients about whom he was
worried; I could see how deeply concerned he was for the lives entrusted to
his care. It was marvellous that this shackled outward existence did not clip
the wings of his soul; his imagination and his sense of humour were
irrepressible. He never became the typical conscientious North German,
whom the Italians in the days of their freedom used to call bestia seriosa. He
was sensitive as a youth to the tonic beauty of the lakes and woods of
Brandenburg, and as he sailed the boat with an expert hand through these
beloved and familiar surroundings he opened the secret treasure-chambe 2 replies
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