a bed, and is
proud and happy. That's the way life is--all a miserable fraud. There's
eating--and most people understand how to do that fairly
well--but outside of that there's little except scratching up the
earth. Have you, for example, ever thought anything, my pretty young
lady? I don't mean whether it's going to be fine today, or whether to
accept Mueller or Meier, or whether the blue dress is more becoming to
you than the pink one, or whether there is an eternal life or not. I
mean, did a real light ever break upon you about anything, contrary to
the opinion of the rest of the world? And did this new light give you
such immeasurable joy that you wanted to do a war-dance with cries of
triumph!"

"No, Herr Kosch, I have never had such a joy," said the girl.

"You see, Mamsell," he laughed--"and you wanted to talk with me!"

"Is what people _do_ nothing in your eyes?" she asked, anxious to know
what he thought on this point.

"What people do? What do you mean?"

"I mean if some one takes care of a person and comforts him in his
dying hour, or if a mother sacrifices herself to her children."

"No, no," he cried passionately--"all those things are mere details.
Thought, thought is what counts! Knowledge is the only thing that makes
a man. Then only is he glad and strong--when he's learned how to think
for himself. Then only is he alive!"

She was intoxicated with his words, and the tenderest feeling which can
spring up in a human heart came to life in her. She, with her so much
younger soul, stretched out her hands to his, longing to love it and to
care for it. She hardly understood him as yet; but she was full of a
mother's feeling for his soul, thinking and studying how to help him.
The glances her suitors had cast at him hurt her to remember. They did
not understand him; they did not even realize that he was a living man.

It was remarkable, the way she pierced searchingly into his mind,
longingly, acutely, gravely and sincerely. He appeared to himself a man
with considerable self-respect, a solitary, tried, and well-tempered
character. And he thought, "She's a pretty creature. It's too bad--why
does she bother her head with thoughts which are of no use to a woman!"
He was a little impatient with her.

The habit of solitude had laid its hand heavily upon him; and now he
was not conscious how a young, hardly awakened spirit sought, anxiously
and full of friendship, to approach his soul. Her senses were stil