swered kindly, "if I had had the honor of a
longer acquaintance with you, you would expect me to be able to solve
so easy an enigma without such aid. The author of that book, believe
me, with all his atheism, knew more of God than you do--at least at
this time, for he knew that which alone leads to Him, and which so far
as I see, has hitherto remained unknown to you, and therefore renders
the natural estrangement from God you share with countless others, so
harsh and apparently necessary: _sin_. You need not answer yes or no.
I'm sure of it: whatever errors and weaknesses have entered your life,
you have never known sin, _that_ sin which alone arouses in the wilful
heart the need, the longing for redemption, the burning sense of our
own weakness and baseness, which makes us thirst for God and is at last
stilled by the dew of mercy. Do you smile, Fraeulein? This language
seems to exaggerated to express the naked truth. Some day you will
remember it, and no longer smile.

"No," he continued as if in sudden agitation, pacing up and down the
room with hasty strides. "I will not give you up. I have felt too
strongly attracted toward you, from the first words that fell from your
lips, to be able to go away now and say to myself: this strong,
beautiful soul will never find the way to the holy of holies. Even such
a powerful guide as music will only lead you to the threshold. Believe
me, my dear Fraeulein, I too have had similar experiences; I too once
said like you: the God who has created heaven and earth and myself, is
too great for my love, too distant for my longing, too silent for my
confidence. And why should I have desired to approach him? What did I
lack, so long as I had _myself_, my virtue, my worldly pleasure, my
good works? Not until the day when I first became familiar with sin,
when I had lost _myself_, did I learn how near this far off being can
come, how eloquently he can console, how lovingly he can draw you to
himself. Since that time all the sorrows of the world, of which that
bewildering book speaks, have seemed to me mere child's play in
comparison to the misfortune of being sufficient to ourselves and
attempting to fight our way through the unconquerable horrors of
existence, by means of common place honesty, courage, and innocence,
the trivial 'always practice truth and justice.'"

He remained standing before her and held out both hands, but she
continued to keep her arms folded over her breast.

"I d