This conclusion was completely unprovable, Ulrich knew that; indeed, to most people it would probably appear as perverse, and that did not trouble him. He himself really ought not to have thought it either: The scientific procedure—which he had just a short while ago described as legitimate—consists, aside from in logic, in immersing the concepts it has gained from the surface, from “experience,” into the depths of phenomena and explaining the latter by the former; everything on earth is leveled and laid waste in order to gain mastery over it, and it seemed not unreasonable to object that this ought not to be extended to that which is not of this earth. But Ulrich now contested this objection: the desert is not an objection, it has always been a birthplace of celestial visions; and furthermore, prospects that have not yet been attained cannot be foreseen either! But it escaped him that perhaps he was in a second kind of opposition to himself, or had gone in a direction that veered away from his own. Saint Paul calls faith the confident expectation of things hoped for and the conviction of things unseen, a definition that, with its focus on grasping, has become the conviction of educated people, and Ulrich’s opposition to it was among his most strongly held convictions. Faith as a diminutive form of knowledge was repugnant to his nature, it is always “against one’s better knowledge”; conversely, it had been given to him to recognize in the presentiment of what lies beyond “the best of our knowledge” a special condition and a realm for adventurous minds to explore. That his opposition had now weakened would cause him much trouble later on, but for the moment he was not aware of it, as a swarm of ancillary considerations had come to engage and amuse him.

He singled out examples. Life was becoming increasingly uniform and impersonal. Something stereotypical, mechanical, statistical, and serial was insinuating itself into every entertainment, excitement, recreation, even into the passions. The will to life was becoming broad and shallow, like a river hesitating before it meets the sea. The will to art was already putting itself in doubt. It seemed as though the age was already beginning to devalue the individual person, but without being able to make up the loss through new collective achievements. That was its face. And this face, which was so hard to understand; which he had once loved and had tried to recast as the muddy crater of a deeply rumbling volcano, because he felt young like a thousand others; and from which, like those thousands, he had turned away, because he could not bear seeing it so horribly deformed; this face was becoming transfigured, becoming placid, slyly beautiful, and shining from within, by dint of a single idea! For what if it were God Himself who was devaluing the world? Would the world not thereby suddenly regain meaning and pleasure? And would He not have to be devaluing it if He were coming closer to it by even the smallest step? And would it not already be the one true adventure to sense just the annunciatory shadow of this?! These considerations had the unreasoning consistency of a series of adventures and felt so foreign in Ulrich’s head that he thought he was dreaming. Now and then he cautiously looked over to his sister, as if fearful that she might perceive what he was up to, and several times he caught sight of her blond head like light on light against the sky, and saw the air that was toying with her hair also playing with the clouds.