conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first four paragraphs for a book with the title 'Doctor Faustus'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Doctor Faustus
  In other words, under cover of the bourgeois propriety she had so nostalgically longed for as a refuge, Inez Institoris lived in adultery with a man in years, a youth in mental constitution and behaviour, a ladies' pet who made her suffer and doubt, just as a frivolous woman will cause anguish to a serious and loving man. In his arms then, her senses, aroused by an unloving marriage, found satisfaction. She lived thus for years, from a time which if I am right was not long after her marriage up to the end of the decade; and when she no longer so lived, it was because he whom she sought with all her strength to hold escaped her. It was she who, while playing the part of exemplary housewife and mother, managed the affair, manipulated and concealed the daily artifices and the double life, which naturally gnawed at her nerves and terrified her by threatening the precarious loveliness of her looks: for instance, it deepened the two furrows between her blond brows until she looked almost maniacal. And then, despite all the caution, cunning, and self-control used to hide such devious ways from society's eyes, the will to do so is never, on either side, quite clear or consistent. As for the man, of course it must flatter him if his good fortune is at least suspected; while for the woman it is a point of secret sexual pride to have it guessed that she need not content herself with the caresses, by nobody very highly rated, of her husband. So I scarcely deceive myself when I assume that knowledge of Inez Institoris's side-slip was fairly widespread in her Munich circle, although I have never, except with Adrian Leverkühn, exchanged a word with anybody on the subject. Yes, I would go so far as to reckon with the possibility that Helmut himself knew the truth: a certain admixture of cultured decency, deprecating and regretful toleration, and – love of peace, speaks for the supposition, and it does happen far from seldom that society takes the spouse for the only blind one, while he thinks that except for himself no one knows anything. This is the comment of an elderly man who has observed life.
  I had not the impression that Inez troubled herself overmuch about what people knew. She did her best to prevent their knowing, but that was more to preserve the convenances; whoever actually must know, let them, so long as they left her alone. Passion is too much taken up with itself to be able to conceive that anyone would be seriously against it. At least, it is so in matters of love, where feeling claims for itself every right in the world and, however forbidden and scandalous, quite involuntarily reckons on understanding. How could Inez, if she considered herself otherwise quite unperceived, have taken my own knowledge so completely for granted? But she did so, as good as regardless, except that no name was mentioned, in an evening conversation which we had – it would be in the autumn of 1916 – and which obviously was of moment to her. At that time, unlike Adrian, who when he had spent the evening in Munich used to stick to his eleven-o'clock train back to Pfeiffering, I had rented a room in Schwabing, Hohenzollernstrasse, not far behind the Siegesthor, in order to be independent and on occasion to have a roof over my head in the city. So when as a near friend I was asked to the Institorises' for the evening meal, I could readily accept the invitation given by Inez at table and seconded by her husband to keep her company after supper, when Helmut, who was to play cards at the Allotria Club, should have left the house. He went out shortly after nine, wishing us a pleasant evening. Then the mistress of the house and her guest sat alone in the family living-room. It was furnished with cushioned wicker chairs, and a bust of Inez, in alabaster, made by an artist friend, stood on a pedestal: very like, very piquant, considerably under life-size, but an uncommonly speaking likeness, with the heavy hair, the veiled glance, the delicate, outstretched neck, the mouth pursed in a disdainful sort of mischief.
  And again I was the confidant, the "good" man, rousing no emotion, in contrast to the world of the irresistible, which was incorporated for Inez in the youth about whom she longed to talk to me. She said it herself: the things happening and having happened, the joy, the love and suffering, did not come into their own if they remained wordless, were only enjoyed and suffered. They were not satisfied in night and silence. The more secret they were, the more they required a third party, the intimate friend, the good man, to whom and with whom one could talk about them – and that was I. I saw it and took my role upon myself.
  For a while after Helmut left, as it were while he was within hearing, we spoke of indifferent things. Then suddenly, almost abruptly, she said:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide four more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: He raised his arm as he turned to go. He never again saw the traveller whom the train bore away. He only received a letter from him – a letter to which he denied all answer.
  The next time I was with him, ten or eleven days later, the letter was already in his hands and he announced to me his definite decision not to answer it. He looked pale and made the impression of a man who has had a heavy blow. A tendency, which indeed I had noticed in him some time back, to walk with his head and torso slightly bent to one side was now more marked. Still he was, or purported to be, perfectly calm, even cool, and seemed almost to need to excuse himself for his shoulder-shrugging composure over the treachery he had been the victim of.
  If only I could have met his self-reproaches with a little more conviction! But the truth was that I agreed with him. His whole attitude, the whole set-up with the second-hand wooing, and Rudolf of all people as go-between: I found it forced, devious, unseemly. I needed only to imagine that instead of speaking myself to my Helene, instead of using my own tongue, I had sent some attractive friend of mine to tell her my love, to see the whole equivocal absurdity of what he had done. But why then object to his remorse – if remorse it was that spoke in his words and manner? He had lost friend and beloved at one blow. And by his own fault, one must admit. If only one could have been quite certain – if only I myself had been certain – that we were dealing with a fault, an unconscious false step, a fatal lack of judgment! If only the suspicion had not stolen into my brooding mind that he had to some extent foreseen what would happen and that it had come about as he wanted it to! Could he have seriously conceived the idea that what Rudolf "gave out" – in other words the young man's undeniable sexual appeal – could be made to work and woo for him, Adrian? Was it credible that he had counted on it? Sometimes the speculation arose in my mind that while putting it as though urging the other to a sacrifice, he had elected himself as the actual victim; that he deliberately brought together what really did belong together, in an affinity of "niceness" and charm in order to abdicate and retreat again into his fastness. But such an idea was more like me than it was like him. Such a motive, so soft and sacrificial, such abnegation might have sprung from my reverence for him and lain at the bottom of an apparent gaucherie, a so-called stupidity that he was supposed to have committed. But events were to bring me face to face with a reality harsher, colder, crueller than my good nature would have been capable of without stiffening in icy horror. That was a reality without witness or proof; I recognized it only by its staring gaze; and for all of me it shall remain dumb, for I am not the man to give it words.
  I am certain that Schwerdtfeger, so far as he knew himself, went to Marie Godeau with the best and most correct intentions. But it is no less certain that these intentions had never from the first been very firm on their feet. They were endangered from within, prone to relax, to melt, to change their character. His vanity had been flattered by what Adrian had been at pains to impress upon him about his personal significance for the life and humanity of his great friend; he had accepted the interpretation, so skilfully instilled, that his present mission arose out or this significance. But jealousy worked against those first feelings. He resented the fact that Adrian, after the conquest he had made of him, had changed his mind; that he, Rudolf, now counted for nothing except as a tool and instrument. I believe that in his secret heart he now felt free, in other words not bound to repay with good faith the other's disloyalty and egotism. This is fairly clear to me. And it is clear, too, that to go wooing for another man is an intriguing enterprise, particularly for a fanatical male coquette, whose morale must have been prone to relax in the anticipation of a flirtation even if only a vicarious one.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last paragraph.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Germany, the hectic on her cheek, was reeling then at the height of her dissolute triumphs, about to gain the whole world by virtue of the one pact she was minded to keep, which she had signed with her blood. Today, clung round by demons, a hand over one eye, with the other staring into horrors, down she flings from despair to despair. When will she reach the bottom of the abyss? When, out of uttermost hopelessness – a miracle beyond the power of belief – will the light of hope dawn? A lonely man folds his hands and speaks: "God be merciful to thy poor soul, my friend, my Fatherland!"