ssion,
and he felt it daily with renewed pangs of conscience. But he also felt
that he was paying a high price for his salvation. How she crept round
him with her soft footsteps, making the circles smaller and smaller.
Had she not brushed past him in the passage the day before, and
whispered so close to his ear that her breath had tickled him, "Are you
coming?" If she were to repeat that again and again, would he continue
to have sufficient strength of will not to follow her? She knew how to
talk and make excuses. How sweetly she could talk. Had she no anxiety
about her own salvation? On thinking it over, he could not remember
ever having heard her say anything irreverent or impure. When she sat
opposite him at table, quieter now than she had ever been before, and
mutely raised her big eyes to the ceiling, she looked exactly like the
pictures of the Virgin Mary whose heart is pierced with seven swords
owing to her grief for her Son. Oh, no, she was no bad woman, she was a
good woman--and still, it was a sin to remain near her any longer.

Martin had lain awake a long time the night before, for the words, "Are
you coming?" still rung in his ears and made his blood course through
his veins like fire. There was such a pricking restlessness about him,
that he felt as if he could not remain in bed any longer. But when he
had at last fallen asleep after tossing about for a long time, he
had dreamt of his dead mother. She had appeared to him, and that [Pg
288] portended something. And she had held up her finger as if in
warning--or had he only thought of that later on? He could not be sure,
but next morning, when he felt as tired, as heavy, and as worn-out as
though he had been dragging something that had been too heavy for him,
it came over him like a divine inspiration; this could go on no longer,
he would have to leave at once and not wait for the time that had been
fixed. His mother had come to fetch him, her anxiety for her child left
her no peace at the throne of God.

And Martin felt that he would have to go away secretly, without any
leave-taking. If she were press her lips to his, if her tearful eyes
were to implore him with a look like that of a wounded hind, if she
were to say, "My sun, my love, remain in my sky. It is God's will that
the sun shall remain in the sky, for otherwise it would be dark night,
and then I should die"--then he would not go. He would remain, and
then--well, then? He uttered an incoherent pr