She looked at him, as she said this, and he at her.
Then he stood up and laid his hand on the back of her chair and bent close down to her:
“How far estranged from each other we have become!” he said.
And Fru Adelheid nodded sadly and Cordt crossed the room and stood by the fire again:
“In vain I pitch my call in every key,” he said. “It has availed me nothing that my ancestor built this room ... his heirs have borne witness here, generation after generation, to no purpose.”
A gust of wind came and blew the balcony-door open.
Fru Adelheid shuddered and looked that way, while Cordt went and closed it. Then he remained standing by the celestial globe and pressed the spring:
“I so often think of the poor man who placed this toy up here,” he said. “He was a man who could not be content with the circle in which he moved. So he lost his reason and devoted himself to playing with the stars.... For us modern people it is different ... the other way round. We go mad because the circle in which we move is too large. We leave the stars to the babies. We play ball with bigger things. We try a fall with God Himself, if the fancy takes us ... provided that we have not outgrown that plaything too! We dare not speak of love and we smile at marriage. We despise courage and do not believe in honesty and each of us has his own opinion about virtue.”
She heard what he said even as people listen to music when it does not so very much matter if they catch every note.
“Then it happens that we long for a fixed point in our lives ... just one point. Something that cannot be pulled to pieces and discussed. And something that is not past.”