Tonio Krger

"The narrative follows the course of a man's life from his schoolboy days to his adulthood. The son of a north German merchant and an Italian artist, Tonio inherited qualities from both sides of his family. As a child, he experiences conflicting feelings for the bourgeois people around him. He feels both superior to them in his insights and envious of their innocent vitality. This conflict continues into Tonio's adulthood, when he becomes a famous writer living in southern Germany. 'To be an artist, ' he comes to believe, 'one has to die to everyday life'"--Wikipedia.