My father has put the mark of Cain upon my brow; a mark that can never be effaced.
Nevermore dare I look upon my face or permit the eyes of strangers to behold it.
Can I escape from myself? My thoughts will follow me everywhere.
I am an outcast, forlorn, ruined.
Such was the dreary monotone that rang through Irma's soul, again and again.
She lay in the darkened chamber from which every ray of light was excluded. She was alone with herself and darkness. Her thoughts were like strange voices, calling her now here, now there. And it often seemed to her as if, with finger pointed at her, her father's fiery hand shone through the darkness.
She could hear Bruno's voice and Gunther's. Bruno wanted to ask her about many things, and Gunther wished to return to the city. Irma answered that she could see no one, and charged Gunther with a thousand greetings to all who loved her. Gunther cautioned the family doctor and the maid to keep a careful watch on Irma, and also sent a messenger to Emma at the convent.
Irma remained in darkness and solitude.
The tempter came to her, and said:
"Why grieve yourself to death? You are young, and the world, with all its beauty and splendor, lies before you. There is not the faintest trace of a mark upon your brow. The hand that left it is cold and stiff in death. Rise up and be yourself again! The whole world is yours! Why pine away? Why mortify yourself? Everything lives for itself; everything lives out its allotted time. Your father completed his life; do you complete yours. What is sin? The dead have no claims on the living; the living alone have rights."