The Sleepwalkers - pg. 325

And he forgave the malignant rage of men, for he saw quite well that it sprang from fear that was always at their backs, telling them they must die. A stupid and thoughtless orchestra player he might be, but he could play sonatas from memory, and, versed in all kinds of knowledge, in spite of his sadness he could smile at the fact that human beings in their thirst for the absolute yearn for eternal love, imagining that then their lives can never come to an end, but will endure for ever. They might despise him because he had to play potpourris and polkas; nevertheless he knew that these hunted creatures, seeking the imperishable and the absolute in earthly things, would always find no more than a symbol and a substiute for the thing which they sought, and whose name they did not know: for they could watch others dying without regret or sorrow, so completely were they mastered by the thought of their own death; they furiously strove for the possession of some woman that they might in turn be possessed by her, for in her they hoped to find something steadfast and unchangeable which would own and guard them, and they hated the woman whom in their blindness they had chosen, hated her because she was only a symbol which they longed to destroy in their anger when they found themselves once more delivered over to fear and death.