“You remember—” she exclaimed, and gave several well-known examples from literature: “You didn’t tell me if you would pardon a thief—but these murderers you would find good?!”

“Of course!” Ulrich shouted back. “Well—no, wait: Those may just be people with a good disposition, people of value. They won’t lose that, even as criminals. But they don’t continue being good!”

“But why do you love them even after their crime?! Surely not because of their former good inclinations, but because you still like them!”

“It’s always like that,” Ulrich said. “It’s the person who gives character to the act, and not the other way around! We distinguish between good and evil, but within ourselves we know they are inseparable!”

Agathe’s wind-flushed cheeks burned an even deeper red, because the passion of her questions, which was at once explicit and concealed in her words, had been able to find its examples only in books. The abuse of “cultural matters” is so pervasive that it was possible to feel that they are out of place where trees stand and the wind blows, as if human culture were not the sum of all natural formations! But she had fought with herself bravely, had linked her arm in her brother’s, and now replied, close to his ear, so that she no longer needed to shout, her face trembling with a strange, high-spirited glee: “That must be why we exterminate evil people but serve them a hearty breakfast first!”

Ulrich, sensing some of the fervor at his side, leaned down to speak in his sister’s ear, albeit loudly enough: “Everyone readily assumes that he himself couldn’t do anything evil, because after all he’s a good person!”

With these words they had reached the top, where the road no longer climbed but cut through a widespread, treeless plateau. The wind had suddenly abated, and it was no longer cold, but in the pleasant stillness the conversation fell silent and could not immediately be resumed.

“What made you think of Dostoyevsky and Stendhal in the middle of that wind?” Ulrich asked after a while. “If someone had been watching us, he’d have thought we were crazy.”

Agathe laughed. “He wouldn’t have understood us any more than the cries of the birds! . . . By the way, you talked to me about Moosbrugger just the other day.”^*

They walked on with long strides.

After a while Agathe said: “But I don’t like him!”

“I’d almost forgotten about him myself,” Ulrich answered.

After they had again walked on in silence, Agathe stopped. “Tell me,” she said, “You’ve done many irresponsible things, haven’t you? For example, I remember you were in the hospital for a bullet wound once. I’m sure you don’t think everything out beforehand . . . ?”

“The questions you’re asking today!” Ulrich exclaimed. “What do you expect me to say to that?”

“Don’t you ever regret what you’ve done?” Agathe asked quickly. “I have the impression you never regret anything. You once said something like that yourself.”