Then they sat down to table, impressed by his charming manner.  Dorfling put Schrotter on his right hand, and Wilhelm and Paul on his left; near Schrotter was Barinskoi and a friend of Dorfling’s, named Mayboorn.  This man was, like Dorfling, a Rhinelander, he combined a successful career as a writer of comic verses with a confirmed pessimism.  When he had written one of his merriest couplets, he would stop his work and sigh with Dorfling over the tragedy of life.  The papers treated his farces as rubbish, but the public adored them.  The earnest critic would hardly touch his name with a pair of tongs, but the theatre managers fought for possession of his work.  He had a beautiful wife who worshiped him, two wonderful children, and the appearance and bearing of Timon of Athens.

At Dorfling’s summons two waiters came in; one of them put a large dish of oysters on the table, while the other placed a thick octavo volume before each guest.

“The last of the season,” cried Barinskoi gayly, and helped himself to oysters.

“The book!  Bravo!” said Paul, and held out his hand to Dorfling.

There was a short silence, while they all, even the cynical Barinskoi, contemplated the book before them, On the pearl-gray cover they read;

“The Philosophy of Deliverance, by X. Rheinthaler.”

“What an expressive title,” said Wilhelm, breaking the silence first.

“Admirably adapted for a comic song,” remarked Mayboom, with a melancholy air.  Barinskoi laughed loudly, while Dorfling looked blandly at him.  The comic poet sighed deeply and began to eat.

“But why Rheinthaler?” asked Paul.

“I at first wanted the book to appear anonymously; but the public is accustomed now to see a proper name on the title page.  If it does not find one, its curiosity is excited, and what I particularly wished to avoid comes to pass, namely, the diversion of attention from the essential to the unessential.”

“That does not explain why you have not put your own name to it,” said Paul.

“My own name?  What for?  What is a name?  What is an individuality, which a name symbolizes?  The thoughts which I have put down in this book are not from me, the transient accident called Dorfling, but from the absolute everlasting thing which thinks in my brain.  I am merely the carrier of the truth, appointed by it.  What would you say if a postman put his name on all the letters he delivers?”

“I should not be capable of such self-effacement,” said Paul.  “If I had devoted the best years of my life to any work I should be unable to renounce the recognition I had earned.”