Johanna sat at the opposite window, through which the sunlight that she sought shone in. Her little face had grown thin. Her beautifully curved mouth with its sweet sadness lost its charm on account of her homely nose. “You might get employment as a lay reader,” she said impudently, and dangled her legs like a schoolgirl. “Or do you think it’s a Protestant business? Of course, every one is Protestant here. Why don’t you convert the unbelievers? You let your most solid talents go to waste.”
Voss made a grimace. With dragging steps he went through the large studio-like room. “To your kind of free thought all faith is an object of barter,” he said bitterly. “Why do you mock even at yourself? See to it lest the light that is in you be not darkness! That is the monition of the Gospel. But what does that word ‘Gospel’ mean to you? A cultured phrase, or something to buy and sell.”
Johanna, supporting her head on her hand, whispered inaudibly, “No one knows how it came that Rumpelstilzkin is my name.” Aloud she said: “I’m getting a bad report, I see. I’m resuming my seat, teacher. I know that my laziness is obvious even from your exalted seat.”
Amadeus stopped in front of her. “Have you never believed? Has the inscrutable never touched your heart? Have you never trembled before Him? Have you no reverence? What kind of a world do you come from?”
She answered with biting sarcasm. “We spent our days dancing around the golden calf—all of us, great-grandmother, grandmother, mother and child. Fancy that! It’s dizzying.”
Impervious to the mockery through which she expressed the fragile charm of her clever mind, Voss fixed on her a look of sombre passion. “Do you at least believe in me?” he asked, and grasped her shoulders.
She resisted and withdrew herself. She thrust her hands against his chest and bent back her head. “I believe in nothing, nothing.” Her whole body throbbed and shook. “Not in myself nor you nor God nor anything. You are quite right. I don’t.” Her brows contracted with pain. Yet she melted, as always, before his glow. It was her ultimate of earth and life, her last anodyne, her weakness yearning for destruction. Her lips grew soft and her lids closed.
With savage strength Amadeus lifted her in his arms. “Neither in yourself nor God nor me,” he murmured. “But in him! Or perhaps you do not believe in him either? Tell me!”
She opened her eyes again. “In whom?” she asked astonished.
“In him!” His utterance was tormented. She understood him, and with an infinitely sinuous movement glided from his arms.