About the strengthening mine own soul’s powers.

But thereupon the spirit disappeared.’—

There are a few more words,—but I cannot

Decipher them—a chaos covers them

By weaving in a veil of active thought.

(Ahriman appears; Benedictus sees him.)

(There is no longer any illusion about Ahriman. His form is much more inhuman; his right arm is bone, his right hand a claw, and he has a cloven hoof.)

Benedictus:

Who art thou, who dost take a shadowed life,