“Yes, the moment one slips out of the inessential life, everything is in a new relationship to everything else,” Ulrich agreed. “I would almost say, in no relationship at all. Because this kind is completely unknown to us, we have no experience with it, and all other relationships are extinguished; but this one is so obvious, despite its obscurity, that it can’t be denied. It is strong, but it is inconceivably strong. And there’s also this: Usually one looks at something, and that glance or gaze is like a fine rod or a taut thread by which the eye and what is seen mutually support each other, and every moment is supported by some great weaving of that sort; but at this other moment it’s more as though something painfully sweet were drawing our eye-beams apart.”

“One owns nothing in the world, one no longer holds on to anything, one is not held by anything,” Agathe said. “It’s all like a tall tree with no leaf stirring. And one can’t do anything base in this condition.”

“It has been said that nothing can happen in this condition that is not in harmony with it,” Ulrich added. “A desire ‘to be part of it’ is the sole reason, the loving purpose, and the only form, of all doing and thinking that take place within it. It is something infinitely tranquil and encompassing, and everything that happens within it increases its quietly mounting significance. Or else it doesn’t increase it, in which case it’s bad, and yet the bad cannot happen, because at the instant it happens the stillness and clarity are torn and the miraculous condition ceases to be.”

Ulrich gave his sister a searching look which she was not meant to notice; he had a persistent feeling that they ought to stop soon. But Agathe’s face was expressionless; she was thinking of things long past. She answered: “I’m surprised at myself, but there really was a brief period when I knew nothing of envy, malice, vanity, greed, and things like that; it’s hard to believe, but it seems to me that all of a sudden they disappeared not only from my heart but from the world! In that state it’s not just oneself who can’t do anything base, but others can’t either. A good person makes everything that comes in contact with him good, no matter what action others may take against him: the moment that action enters his sphere, it’s already transformed!”

“No,” Ulrich interjected, “it’s not quite like that; on the contrary, the way you put it is one of the oldest misconceptions! A good person doesn’t make the world good in the least, he doesn’t affect the world at all, he just separates himself from it!”

“But he doesn’t leave the world, does he? He stays right in the midst of it!?”

“He stays in the midst of it, but he feels as if space had been drawn out of things or as if something imaginary were happening: it’s difficult to say!”