Lindner noticed that he had made an impression on her, and this satisfaction appeased him slightly. He saw before him a young woman in whose face excitement and feigned indifference, even insolence, seemed to take turns in an untrustworthy fashion; but as he believed himself to be a connoisseur of the female soul, he did not allow himself to be deterred by this, knowing that the temptation to pride and vanity is extraordinarily great for beautiful women. He was generally unable to contemplate a beautiful face without an admixture of pity. According to his conviction, people distinguished in this way were almost always martyrs of their glossy exterior, which seduced them to conceit and its skulking train of coldheartedness and superficiality. Still, it can also happen that a soul dwells behind a beautiful countenance, and how often then has insecurity not hidden behind arrogance, and despair beneath frivolity! Often these are even particularly noble people who merely lack the support of a true and unshakable conviction. And now Lindner was, little by little, once again completely overcome by the thought that it is the successful man’s duty to put himself in the frame of mind of a person disadvantaged by neglect; and as he thought this, he became aware that the form of Agathe’s face and body possessed that lovely calm that is the very seal of all that is great and noble; and in fact her knee in the draped folds of its covering appeared to him like that of a Niobe.^* He was astonished that this particular simile, which to his knowledge could not be fitting or applicable at all, should urge itself upon him, but apparently the nobility of his moral pain had of its own accord associated itself with the dubious idea of many children, for he felt no less attracted than alarmed. He now noticed her bosom, which was breathing in small, rapid waves. He was aroused, and if his knowledge of the world had not come to his aid again, he might have even felt at a loss: but at this extremely awkward moment it whispered to him that this bosom must enshrine something unspoken, a secret that, given everything that he knew, might well have something to do with the divorce from his colleague Hagauer. This saved him from embarrassing foolishness by instantly offering him the alternative of wishing for the revelation of the secret instead of the uncovering of the breast. He wished this with all his strength, and the link between sin and the chivalric slaying of the dragon of sin hovered before him in glowing colors, much as they glowed in the stained-glass picture in his study.

Agathe interrupted this rumination with a question she addressed to him in a moderate, even restrained tone after she had regained her composure. “You claimed that I am acting under the influence of insinuations, that I am externally controlled. What did you mean by that?”

Disconcerted, Lindner raised his eyes, which had been resting on her heart, to meet her gaze. Something happened that had never happened to him before: he could no longer remember what he had last said. He had seen in this young woman a victim of the spirit that was confounding the age, and his victorious joy had occluded the memory of his own words.