Now Agathe, who had been listening for a long time without stirring, suddenly said: “It’s like kissing Hagauer.”

She had propped herself up on an elbow, laughing, her legs still stretched out on the couch. And she added: “Of course it was never as beautiful as the way you describe it!” And Ulrich laughed too. It was not quite clear why they were laughing. Somehow this laughter had come upon them from the air or from the house or from the traces of awe and unease left behind by the solemnities of the last days, which had touched so uselessly on the Beyond, or from the uncommon pleasure they found in their conversation; for every human custom that is developed and refined to its fullest bears within it the seed of change, and every excitement that goes beyond the ordinary is soon misted over by a breath of sadness, absurdity, and satiation.

And so, by this roundabout route, they arrived at last and as if for recreation at the more innocuous exchange about I and We and family, and at the realization, wavering between banter and wonder, that together they formed a family. And while Ulrich speaks of his desire for community—now once more with the zeal of a man mortifying his own nature, though he does not know whether it is his true or an assumed nature he is tormenting—Agathe listens to the way his words come near to her and withdraw again, and he notices that for a long time—as is, regrettably, his habit—he has been looking for something in her appearance, which is defenselessly exposed to his view by the bright light and her whimsical garment, that would repel him, but has found nothing, and for this he is thankful with a pure and simple affection that he otherwise never feels. And he is very delighted by the conversation. But when it ends, Agathe asks ingenuously: “Now, are you actually for what you call the family, or are you against it?”

Ulrich replies that this doesn’t really matter, because what he has been talking about is a vacillation in the world, not his personal indecision.

Agathe thinks about this.

Finally, she says abruptly: “I don’t know how to judge that. But I do wish I could be completely at one and in accord with myself for once and also . . . : well, somehow live that way! Wouldn’t you like to try it too?”

*Walter is Clarisse’s husband. See footnote in Chapter 3.

8

AGATHE WHEN SHE CANNOT TALK TO ULRICH

AT THE moment when Agathe had boarded the train and begun the unexpected journey to her father, something happened that bore every resemblance to a sudden rupture, and the two fragments into which the moment of departure burst flew as far apart as if they had never belonged together. Her husband had taken her to the station, he had raised his hat and held it, the stiff, round, black, steadily diminishing hat, at a slant before him in the air, as is proper on occasions of leave-taking, while she drove off in her train, and it seemed to Agathe as if the station were rolling backwards as fast as the train was rolling forwards. At this moment, though only an instant earlier she had still believed that she would not stay away longer than circumstances absolutely required, she decided never to return, and she felt herself inwardly agitated like a heart that suddenly realizes it has escaped a danger of which it had not been aware.