Of course if they considered it soberly, and surreptitiously they both did, it amounted to little more than a charming accident and should have dissolved into nothing at the next moment or at least with the return of some activity; and yet this did not happen. On the contrary, they left the window, turned on the light, returned to their preparations, but gave them up after a short time; and without their needing to confer with each other, Ulrich went to the telephone and informed the hosts of the party that they were not coming. He was already wearing his evening suit, but Agathe’s dress was still hanging unfastened from her shoulders, and she was only now attempting to impart some civilized order to her hair. The mechanical resonance of his voice in the telephone and the connection to the world that had been established had not sobered Ulrich in the least; he sat down across from his sister, who paused in what she was doing, and when their eyes met, nothing was more certain than that the decision had been made and all prohibitions would now be a matter of indifference to them. Nevertheless, things turned out differently. Their mutual understanding announced itself to them with every breath; it was an agreement, endured in defiance, to release themselves at last from the discontent of longing, and it was an agreement endured with such aching sweetness that the images anticipating the fulfillment of that longing nearly tore themselves loose from them to unite them already in imagination, as a storm whips up a veil of foam ahead of the waves: but a still greater power bade them be calm and they were incapable of touching each other again. They wanted to begin, but the gestures of the flesh had become impossible to them, and they felt an ineffable warning that had nothing to do with the commandments of moral­ity. It seemed that from the world of the more perfect if still shadowy union of which they had already had a foretaste as in a metaphor, a higher imperative had compelled them, and a higher intimation, curiosity, or premonition had breathed upon them.

The siblings now remained perplexed and thoughtful, and after they had calmed their feelings they hesitantly began to speak.

Ulrich said, aimlessly, the way one speaks into the air: “You are the moon—”

Agathe understood it.

Ulrich said: “You flew to the moon and the moon gave you back to me—”

Agathe said nothing: Moon conversations are so wholeheartedly used up.

Ulrich said: “It’s a metaphor. ‘We were beside ourselves,’ ‘We exchanged bodies without touching’ are metaphors too. But what is a metaphor? A little reality with a great deal of exaggeration. And yet I could have sworn, impossible though it truly is, that the exaggeration was very small and the reality had already become quite big.”

He said no more. He thought: “What reality am I talking about? Is there a second one?”