"Real happiness? I only know because I have never tasted it. Real happiness can be nothing but to sacrifice ourselves without losing ourselves, because we find ourselves again in something better than we are; to forget self in another, without fear of being ashamed of it, because that other at the same moment is thinking only of what we ourselves forget. You'll not understand me, and no matter if you don't. I'll light the lamp."
"You speak of love," he said quietly. "I understand you, because the same happiness you hope to find in earthly love, opens before us children of God in the bliss of eternity. Did I not tell you just now, that you must forget yourself to find yourself again in God, that there was no other redemption? Now you come to meet me half way."
"But I shall never be able to traverse the other half," she said bitterly. "Pray don't let us recur to that conversation. Once more--it's late. I've work to do."
Still he did not move from his crouching position on the sofa.
"Don't be narrow-minded," he said quietly. "It doesn't suit you. You have a larger nature than ordinary women; what's the use of these half allusions, this shame-faced, prudish reserve, where the point in question is the happiness of your life? If I could only really help you?"
"You? No one can help me."
"Except God, and he who leads you to Him."
"I do not understand you. Have I not told you plainly enough, that I feel no longing for your God and his pardoning grace? All I can do for him, is not to hate him; though he has placed me in this world as I am."
"As you are? And how are you?"
"You've just said it yourself: I'm no ordinary woman. I don't know what could be more sad for a girl. And really: ever since the tale of a dear God became improbable, ever since it dawned upon me that we poor human animals only move about in the great throng of creation and have no more claim to any special tenderness, than the thistles in the field, which the donkey gnaws, or the donkey that the miller's boy cudgels, I've become somewhat calmer. No one is to blame because I'm a joyless, ugly, lonely woman, with a man's face, except perhaps my parents, who died long ago and couldn't atone for it; the good people certainly did not know what they were doing, when they gave me life."