I acknowledge to you, seeing you before me, that I
admire the undisturbed unity of your being from which comes the
Catholic law of celibacy as a dogma, and I allow myself to claim that
we have reached the same ideal stand-point. Yes, honored sir, I say to
myself, he who wishes to live for a great idea, whether he is artist,
scholar, priest, he can need no family, he must renounce its joys,
apart by himself without any hinderance, that he may fulfil his mission
in the perpetual service of thought."

"Divisus est! divisus est!" repeated the ecclesiastic. "The holy
apostle says that he who has a wife is divided, and he will be yet more
divided, whilst the lot of his children becomes his own. The
ecclesiastic has no changes of lot."

A smile passed over the countenance of the priest, as he continued:--

"Only imagine a priest married to a quarrelsome wife--there are also
peaceable women, gentle and self-sacrificing, and it is certain that
there are quarrelsome ones too--and now the priest is to mount the
pulpit in order to proclaim the word of peace and love, when an hour
before in dispute and scolding--"

The ecclesiastic suddenly ceased, placed the forefinger of his left
hand on his lips, and bethought himself, that he was wandering from the
real point. Did not Fraeulein Perini inform him that Eric had visited
the convent before he came to this place? He looked at Eric, who had
led him from the direct inquiry, wondering whether he had done it from
prudence, or whether it was really from excitement. He hoped, indeed,
to attain his end in some different way; and, apparently in a very
natural manner, but yet with a lurking circumspection, he now asked
whether Eric really felt confident, from his position, of being able to
train a boy like Roland.

When Eric answered in the affirmative, the ecclesiastic further
asked:--

"And what do you mean to give him first, and in preference to
everything else?"

"To sum it up in few words," replied Eric, "I wish to give Roland joy
in the world. If he has this, he will furnish joy to the world; that is
to say, he will desire to benefit it; if I teach him to despise the
world, to undervalue life, he will come to misuse the world and the
powers entrusted to him in it."

"I regret," said the priest in a gentle tone, "that you are not a
believer; you are on the way to salvation, but you turn aside into a
by-path. Do you know what riches are? I will tell you. Riches are a
great tem