THE DESCRIPTION OF ADRIAN'S STUDIES contributes to the reader's understanding of how Adrian is sorting out his basic approach to creating a democratic music. This is in fact what Adrian is doing, as he reports to Zeitblom in his letter from Leipzig in chapter 16. The account of his visit to the brothel is a funny anecdote that precedes a serious discussion of his intellectual development. Zeitblom diverts the attention of the reader from this important discussion by the simple expedient of devoting the entire following chapter to a fanciful elaboration of the visit to the brothel. The episode in chapter 17, where Zeitblom implies that Adrian contracts syphilis, falls into the category of Zeitblom's speculations about things he cannot know and is not part of the story from Adrian's point of view. It is necessary, as always, to follow what Adrian is doing separately from what Zeitblom says he is doing.

As he writes to Zeitblom in chapter 16, Adrian is beginning his further study with Kretzschmar and finds that harmony bores him, because it is not socially relevant: “… da das Dominospiel mit den Akkorden ohne Thema mein Bedünken nach der Welt weder zu sieden noch zu braten taugt” (DF, 188).