Ulrich enlarged on it: “The social instincts expand in the sun like mercury in the thermometer, at the expense of the egotistic instincts, which ordinarily balance them out!”

Now brother and sister were tired of feeling; it happened from time to time that while talking of nothing but their feelings they neglected feeling itself. Also, because the profusion of feeling, when it found no outlet, was actually painful, they sometimes requited it with a little ingratitude. But after they had both spoken in this manner, Agathe looked at her brother sidelong once again and hastened to revoke what she had said: “And yet! It’s certainly not like truant schoolchildren who want to hug the whole world and have no idea why!”

And the moment she exclaimed those words, they both felt again that they were not subjected to a mere fantasy but to something unknowable and unpredictable. Hovering within the overflowing emotion, there was truth; beneath the semblance, there was reality; peering out from the world were the shadowy outlines of a world being transformed. To be sure, it was a peculiarly coreless, only half-tangible reality they were divining, a half-truth as familiar as it was familiarly uncompletable that was wooing credibility: not a reality for the world’s daily use nor indeed a truth for all the world, just a secret one for lovers. But obviously it was not mere caprice or illusion either; and its most secret insinuation whispered: Surrender yourself to me without reserve, and you will know the whole truth! But there were no clearly spoken words that said this: for the language of love is a cryptic language and in its highest perfection as mute as an embrace.

Smiling, Agathe knitted her brows and peered into the crowd; Ulrich followed suit, and together they gazed into the stream of people that flowed beside them and streamed toward them. Did they feel the forgetfulness of self and the power, the happiness, the goodness, the deep and high constraint that prevail within a brotherhood of human beings, even if it is only the accidental brotherhood of a busy street, so that one cannot believe there could be anything wrong or divisive in it? Their own existence, sharply bounded and set down heavily into that glory, stood out in wondrous contrast to it, as did the existence of every other person walking darkly through this cloudburst and loosed flood of tenderness whose radiance shone reflected in their eyes. At this moment, when a single vivid impression reprised and completely answered all questions concerning the “kingdom of love” and the meaning of the love of one’s neighbor and the doubts surrounding that notion, Ulrich leaned over to his sister to see her face and asked her: “Do you think you can love someone in more than a vague sort of way when neither moral conviction nor sensual desire is involved?”

It was the first time since they had started going on these outings that he asked her this question so directly.