Kroll (getting up). Is that speaking as befits a clergyman?
Rosmer. I am a clergyman no longer.
Kroll. Yes, but—what of the faith you were brought up in?
Rosmer. I have it no longer.
Kroll. You have it no longer?
Rosmer (getting up). I have given it up. I had to give it up, Kroll.
Kroll (controlling his emotion). I see. Yes, yes. The one thing implies the other. Was that the reason, then, why you left the service of the Church?
Rosmer. Yes. When my mind was clearly made up—when I felt the certainty that it Was not merely a transitory temptation, but that it was something that I would neither have the power nor the desire to dismiss from my mind—then I took that step.
Kroll. So it has been fermenting in your mind as long as that. And we—your friends—have never been allowed to know anything of it. Rosmer, Rosmer—how could you hide the sorrowful truth from us!
Rosmer. Because I considered it was a matter that only concerned myself; and therefore I did not wish to cause you and my other friends any unnecessary pain. I thought I should be able to live my life here as I have done hitherto—peacefully and happily. I wanted to read, and absorb myself in all the works that so far had been sealed books to me—to familiarise myself thoroughly with the great world of truth and freedom that has been disclosed to me now.