/lit/ - Literature

>wake up
>angst
>sleep
>repeat

Soon our life together in Vienna showed its drawbacks because of the different subjects that
Adolf and I were studying. In the morning, when I was at the Conservatory, my friend was still
asleep; and in the afternoon when Adolf wanted to work, my practicing disturbed him. This led to
frequent friction.

Conservatory, fiddlesticks! What did he have his books for? He wanted to prove to me that, even
without the Conservatory he could equal my achievements in the musical field. For it was not the
Professor's wisdom that counted, he said, but genius.

This ambition led him to a most extraordinary experiment and I am still at a loss to say whether
this experiment was of any value or not. Adolf harked back to the elementary possibilities of
musical expression. Words seemed to him too complicated for this purpose, and he tried to
discover how isolated sounds could be linked to notes of music; and with this musical language
he combined certain colours. Sound and colour were to become one and form the foundation of
that which would finally appear on the stage as an opera. I, myself, convinced of the truth of what
I had learnt at the Conservatory, rejected these experiments somewhat disdainfully, which
annoyed him very much. He busied himself for some time with these abstract experiments,
perhaps because he hoped to strike at the roots of my superior academic knowledge, I was
reminded of my friend's essays in composition when a few years later a Russian composer
caused some sensation in Vienna by similar experiments.

In those weeks Adolf wrote a lot, mainly plays, but also a few stories. He sat at his table and
worked until dawn, without telling me very much about what he was doing. Only now and then
would he throw onto my bed some closely written sheets of paper or would read out to me a few
pages of his work, written in a strangely exalted style.

diy looks good