He looked at her, but said nothing.
“Cordt ... when you speak like that ... it is true ... true for me also.... It is all so good and so beautiful....”
He pushed back his chair and rose to his feet:
“Be very careful what you do, Adelheid,” he said. “I am not a fashionable preacher, working up your nerves and quieting them again ... not a poet, reading his last work to you. I am your husband, calling you to account.”
He crossed the room and then returned and stroked her hair:
“It is beyond our strength, Adelheid,” he said, sorrowfully. “God help us!”
She took his hand and laid it over her eyes, so firmly that it hurt her.
“If the old God were still here, then we could go down on our knees and fold our hands together, as they did who built this room. Would that not be good, Adelheid?”
“Yes.”
“I call upon Him, Adelheid.... And upon everything in the world that is greater than my own power.... And upon the little child downstairs....”