Klein and Wagner

Klein and Wagner, a novel with deep psychological themes from the early works of the Swiss-born, German-origin writer, Nobel laureate in literature Hermann Hesse, and it serves as a prelude to his subsequent novels. Man fears thousands of things; he fears pain, and the judges who condemn him, fears the pain in his heart, fears sleep and wakefulness, fears being alone, fears the cold, madness, and death, and especially fears death, which is the greatest terror. But all these things are nothing but masks and veils hiding one thing only that we should fear, which is our fear of abandoning what we possess, to fear the leap, a daring leap into the unknown, and to take one step beyond all the deceptive appearances of certainty that surround us.