ed now. Men have become Americans, gruesomely sobered by
the intoxication of doing a big business; women have lost their nicety
of instinct; the cities have become colossal steam engines; everybody,
young and old, is on his belly adoring the so-called wonders of science,
just as if it really meant anything to humanity that a loafer in Paris
can sip his morning coffee and crunch his rolls while reading that the
Pope spent a restful night, or that a gun has been invented which will
send a bullet through fourteen people one after another, whereas the
best record up to the present had been only seven to a shot. Who can
create anything, who can draw anything from his soul under such
conditions? It is madness, it is immoral discipline."

"Oh, I don't know; I think a man can draw something from within his
soul," said the Baron, in whose face a bored, peeved expression gave way
to one of suspense. "It is possible, for example, to conjure the
invisible spirit into visibility."

Daniel, who had not yet suspected that the Baron was, in a way, speaking
from another country and in a strange tongue, continued: "The whole
supply of interest and enthusiasm at the disposal of the nation has been
used up. The venerable creations of days gone by still have nominal
value; that is, they are still gaped at and praised, but creative,
reproductive, and moulding power they no longer have. Otherwise
hocus-pocus alone prospers, and he who does forgive it is not forgiven.
But life is short; I feel it every day; and if you do not attend to the
plant, it soon withers and dies."

"It is not only hocus-pocus," replied Eberhard, who was now completely
transformed, though he did not grasp the painful indignation of the
musician. "You see, I have associated but very little with men. My
refuge has been the realm of departed and invisible spirits who take on
visible form only when a believing soul makes an unaffected appeal to
them. It was my task to de-sensualise and de-materialise myself; then
the spirits took on shape and form."

Daniel straightened up, and saw how pale the Baron had become. It seemed
to him that they were both quite close together, and at the same time
poles removed from each other. He could not refrain however from taking
up the thread of his thought. "Yes, yes," he exclaimed with the same
short, jerky laugh that accompanied the beginning of the conversation,
"my little spirits also demand faith, credulity, and whine and cry for
f