>On the following morning, December 24, Adolf came to my house. He looked worn out, as though any minute he might collapse. He seemed to be desperate, quite empty, with no spark of life in him. As he felt how worried my mother was about him, he explained that he had not slept for days. My mother asked him where he was going to spend Christmas Eve. He said that the Raubals had invited him and his sister; Paula had already left, but he had not made up his mind yet whether he would go or not. My mother exhorted him to help to make Christmas a peaceful occasion, now that all the members of the family had suffered the same loss, Adolf listened to her in silence. But when we were alone he said to me brusquely: "I shall not go to Raubal's."
>"Where else will you go?" I asked him impatiently. "After all, it's Christmas Eve." I wanted to ask him to join us. But he did not even let me finish, and shut me up quite energetically, in spite of his sorrow. Suddenly he pulled himself together and his eyes became bright. "Perhaps I shall go to Stefanie," he said.
Stefanie was the girl he liked yet never dared to talk to outside of formal talk. August stated that he may have remained in love with her well into late adulthood, maybe even his entire life.
>This answer was doubly characteristic of my friend: first, because he was capable of forgetting completely in such moments that his relationship with Stefanie was nothing but wishful thinking, a beautiful illusion, and secondly, because even when he realised this he would, after sober reflection, prefer to stick to his wishful thinking rather than unbosom himself with real people.
>Later he confessed to me that he had really been determined to go to Stefanie, although he knew very well that such a sudden visit, without a previous appointment, without even having been introduced to her, and moreover on Christmas Eve, was contrary to good manners and social convention and would probably have meant the end of his relationship with her. But, he told me, on his way he had seen Richard, Stefanie's brother, who was spending his Christmas holiday in Linz. This unexpected meeting had made him give up the idea, for it would have been painful for him if Richard, as was inevitable, had been present at the interview.
>I did not ask any more questions; it really did not matter whether Adolf was deceiving himself with this pretext, or whether he only offered it to me as an excuse for his behaviour. Certainly I, too, had seen Stefanie at the window, and the sympathy which showed on her face was undoubtedly genuine. However, I doubt very much if she recognised Adolf at all in his extraordinary attire and in these peculiar circumstances. But of course I did not express this doubt to him, because I knew that it would only have robbed my friend of his last hope.
>I can well imagine what Adolf's Christmas Eve in the year 1907 was really like. That he did not want to go to Raubal I could understand. I could also understand that he did not want to disturb our quiet little family celebration, to which I had invited him. The serene harmony of our home would have made him feel his loneliness even more. Compared with Adolf, I considered myself fortune's favourite, for I had everything that he had lost: a father who provided for me, a mother who loved me and a quiet home which welcomed me into its peace.
>But he? Where should he have gone that Christmas Eve? He had no acquaintances, no friends, nobody who would have received him with open arms. For him the world was hostile and empty.
>So he went – to Stefanie. That is to say – to his dream.
>All he ever told me of that Christmas Eve was that he had wandered around for hours. Only towards morning had he returned to his mother's home and gone to sleep. What he thought, felt and suffered, I never knew.