“Super-earthly certainly, but not super-cosmic. Whoever feels and makes any one feel so happy, so superhuman, works in the service of a cosmic factory. There a magnificent material is woven from star to star, from eternity to eternity out of fine glittering threads. These threads are called ecstasies, pleasures, joys, the very greatest and likewise the very tiniest joys. Every living thing experiencing this serves as a shuttle for this loom.”
“And what becomes of the material, oh, my metaphorical poet?”
“God makes his royal mantle out of it.”
“Lovely!” exclaimed Franka. “Still,” she added, shaking her head gently; “you employ very old material for hewing your images: God as king—in that figure I do not recognize my bold modern thinker.”
“Solid material is required for hewing images. The new thoughts are for the most part as yet lacking in consistency, gaseous, so to speak; one cannot make any images out of them. But, dearest, let us not talk any more about generalities now, when we are breathing in the midst of such concrete beauty touching us both; at this moment when everything lying outside of ‘thee and me’ sinks into nothingness. For heaven’s sake, let us not indulge in subtleties and let us not be deep! We have the right to lose ourselves in the regions of the higher folly! We have the still higher right to be—silent!”
“I will not be silent,” cried Franka. “I must shout it out that I am happy, happy, happy!” And in saying this she flung her arms up into the air. “Oh how many times have I heard that word, read it, spoken it, and—to-day, for the first time, I know what it means.”
Approaching voices and steps were heard. Their moment of blessed solitude was past.
Franka hastily snatched up her hat from the ground. “Come, let us go before these odious persons find us here.”
“May the cuckoo fly off with them!” cried Helmer in vexation.
“But, Chlodwig,” exclaimed Franka reproachfully, “how can you put such a burden on our beloved bird?”