g. The smell of
the stove, which clung to me still, was quickly dissipated by it. I
wrapped my shawl around me, turned down a side street, and was soon in
the heart of the old part of the town, where all Roman Catholic churches
were, the quarter lying near the river and wharves and bridge of boats.

I liked to go to the Jesuiten Kirche, and placing myself in the
background, kneel as others knelt, and, without taking part in the
service, think my own thoughts and pray my own prayers.

Here none of the sheep looked wolfish at you unless you kept to a
particular pen, for the privilege of sitting in which you paid so many
marks _per quartal_ to a respectable functionary who came to collect
them. Here the men came and knelt down, cap in hand, and the women
seemed really to be praying, and aware of what they were praying for,
not looking over their prayer-books at each other's clothes.

I entered the church. Within the building it was already almost dark. A
reddish light burned in a great glittering censer, which swung gently to
and fro in the chancel.

There were many people in the church, kneeling in groups and rows, and
all occupied with their prayers. I, too, knelt down, and presently as
the rest sat up I sat up too. A sad-looking monk had ascended the
pulpit, and was beginning to preach. His face was thin, hollow, and
ascetic-looking; his eyes blazed bright from deep, sunken sockets. His
cowl came almost up to his ears. I could dimly see the white cord round
his waist as he began to preach, at first in a low and feeble voice,
which gradually waxed into power.

He was in earnest--whether right or wrong, he was in earnest. I listened
with the others to what he said. He preached the beauties of
renunciation, and during his discourse quoted the very words which had
so often haunted me--_Entbehren sollst du! sollst entbehren!_

His earnestness moved me deeply. His voice was musical, sweet. His
accent made the German burr soft; he was half Italian. I had been at the
instrumental concert the previous night, for old association's sake, and
they had played the two movements of Schubert's unfinished symphony--the
B minor. The refrain in the last movement haunted me--a refrain of seven
cadences, which rises softly and falls, dies away, is carried softly
from one instrument to another, wanders afar, returns again, sinks lower
and lower, deeper and deeper, till at last the 'celli (if I mistake not)
takes it up for the last time