This self-belittlement, for which neither Ulrich’s behavior nor even Hagauer’s painful letter had provided sufficient cause, was a temperamental outburst. Everything that Agathe, in the not very long time since she had been a child, had felt to be her failure to meet the demands of society had been brought about by her living, throughout that period, in disregard or even in opposition to her deepest inclinations. These inclinations were towards devotion and trust, for she had never become as much at home in solitude as her brother; and if until now she had found it impossible to give herself wholeheartedly to a person or a cause, it was because she bore within herself the possibility of a greater devotion, whether it stretched out its arms to the world or to God! One well-known path of devotion to all of humanity consists in not getting along with one’s neighbors; in the same way a hidden and fervent longing for God may arise when a social misfit is endowed with great love. The religious criminal, in this sense, is no more absurd a phenomenon than the religious old woman who never found a husband, and Agathe’s behavior toward Hagauer, which had the completely senseless form of a self-serving action, was just as much the outburst of an impatient will as was the violence with which she accused herself of having been awakened to life by her brother and now losing it because of her weakness.

She soon lost patience with sitting in the sedately rolling streetcar; when the houses by the side of the road became lower and more rural, she got out and continued on foot. The courtyards were open; through gateways and across low fences she saw artisans, animals, and children at play. The air was filled with a peace in whose vastness voices spoke and tools tapped; these sounds stirred in the bright air with the irregular, soft movements of a butterfly, while Agathe felt herself gliding past them like a shadow toward the nearby rising ground of vineyards and woods. But she halted at one point, outside a yard where coopers were at work, and listened to the good sound of mallets knocking against barrel staves. All her life she had felt pleasure in watching the modest, sensible, well-thought-out actions of hands performing such labor. This time, too, she could not have enough of the rhythmic thuds and the slow striding motions of the men circling the barrel. It allowed her to forget her grief for a moment and plunged her into a pleasant unthinking accord with the world. She always felt admiration for people who could do things like this that had evolved so variously and naturally out of a need that was universally acknowledged. Only she herself did not wish to be active, even though she had a number of mental and practical talents. Life was already complete without her. And suddenly, before the connection became clear to her, she heard bells ringing and could barely prevent herself from weeping again. The two bells of the little suburban church had prob­ably been tolling all along, but Agathe noticed them only now and was instantly overcome by how these useless sounds, shut out from the good, abounding earth and flying passionately through the air, were related to her own existence.