Bronnen departed, leaving her in the dark.
Irma was again alone.
The last stay left her was broken. Had she imagined that Bronnen had picked up fragments of a torn letter which he had found on the road, and that they were now in his pocket, she would have cried out for very shame.
One idea constantly possessed her. What good would it do her to see the sun rise so many thousand times more? Every eye would make the writing stand out more clearly, and certain words had become undying torments to her. Father--daughter! Who would banish these words from the language, so that he might nevermore hear them, nevermore read them?
Her ideas seemed to move in an unfathomable void. Turn it as she might, the one and only thought was ever returning with crushing weight. It seemed exhausting and yet inexhaustible.
Then ensued that numbness of the mind which is best described as the entire absence of thought. Chaos reigned, and what lay beyond surpassed conception. "Let what will come, I shall submit, like the beast led out for the sacrifice, and upon whose head the uplifted axe of the high priest is about to descend. Your destiny must be accomplished; you can do nothing but submit without shrinking."
Irma lay thus for hours.
The great clock in the hall was ticking, and seemed to be saying: Father--daughter; daughter--father. For hours, she could hear nothing but the pendulum, which seemed to utter those words again and again. She was about to give orders that the clock should be stopped, but forebore. She tried to force herself not to hear these words, but did not succeed. The pendulum still kept saying: Father--daughter; daughter--father.
What had once been subject to her caprice, now ruled her.
"What have you seen of the world?" she asked herself. "A mere corner. You must travel round the earth, and let it be a pilgrimage in which you may escape from yourself. You must become acquainted with the whole planet on which these creatures who call themselves men creep about; creatures who dig and plant, preach and sing, chisel and paint, simply to drown the thought that death awaits them all. All is drowned in stupor--"