"I do not understand you."
"Speak openly with me. I know all."
"Your mother has told me no secret."
Manna seized the cross on her breast convulsively, and gazed silently before her for a long time.
With heart-felt earnestness, the Professorin expressed her deep regret at having moved her so greatly, and her desire not to force herself upon her, but to be her true friend.
Manna made no answer. At last she turned and kissed the lips of her startled companion.
"I kiss the lips which have spoken the dreadful words, and all the rest. Yes, I must experience it, I, myself. I believe that I am now first consecrated as the sacrifice."
The Mother stood helpless before this enigmatical being, and Manna at last promised to be quite calm. She seated herself on a bench which stood under a fir-tree, leaned back against the tree, and gazed up at the sky.
"Why," she said to herself, "does there now come no voice to us from the air? Ah, I would so gladly follow it forth over mountain and valley, to darkness and death."
Manna wept; the Professorin reminded her of her promise to be quite calm, but the girl declared she could not, it grieved her so to be torn from this place, which she must leave, since she could not be true in it. She would be living falsely, because people had not been true to her.