“But what is it that happens there?” Agathe asked.

“First you need to get clear about what the usual is, Sister Human!” Ulrich declared, trying to put a brake on the all too rapid momentum of the thought with a quip. “The usual is that a herd of cattle means nothing to us but grazing beef. Or it’s a picturesque subject with a background. Or we hardly notice it at all. Herds of cattle beside mountain paths are part of what mountain paths are, and what one experiences at the sight of them would be noticed only if an apartment building or a giant electrical clock appeared in their place. Otherwise, one’s thoughts turn to the question of whether to stand up or remain seated; one finds the flies that swarm around the herd annoying; one looks to see if there’s a bull among the cows; one wonders where the path leads: these are countless little intentions, worries, calculations, and perceptions that form the paper, as it were, on which the picture of grazing cows can be seen. One isn’t aware of the paper at all, one is only aware of the cows that are on it.”

“And suddenly the paper tears!” Agathe interjected.

“Yes. That is, some network of habit in us tears. Now there is no longer anything edible grazing; or anything paintable; nothing gets in your way. You can no longer even form the words ‘grazing’ or ‘pasture,’ because that involves a great many purposeful, useful ideas which you’ve suddenly lost. What’s left on the picture plane is almost unnamable; maybe the closest one can get is to call it a surge of sensations that rises, sinks, breathes, or glitters, as if filling your whole field of vision without any contours. Of course innumerable individual perceptions are included in this: colors, horns, movements, smells, and everything that makes up reality; but this is already no longer acknowledged, even if it may still be recognized. I’m tempted to say: The details lose their egotism, by which each one claims our attention for itself, and are instead deeply and fondly attuned to each other, like kindred souls. And of course there is no longer a ‘picture plane.’ Instead everything flows into you, without bounds or limits.”

Again Agathe eagerly took up the description: “Now all you need to say instead of the ‘egotism of the details’ is the ‘egotism of people,’” she exclaimed, “and you’ve got what is so hard to express: ‘Love thy neighbor!’ doesn’t mean love him as you and he are. It refers to a kind of dream state!”

“All moral propositions,” Ulrich confirmed, “refer to a kind of dream state that has already escaped the rules that are supposed to define it!”

“Basically, then, there is no good and evil but only faith—or doubt!” cried Agathe, to whom the self-sustaining original state of faith now seemed so close, as did its disappearance in morality, of which her brother had spoken when he said that faith cannot live longer than an hour.