She paused, overpowered by the sacredness of the moment. There are times when our own words influence us like some unknown force, because they express something which has been so deeply concealed in our hearts that we ourselves were ignorant of its existence. This was the case now with the countess. Freyer stood silently with clasped hands, as if in church.
It seemed as though some third person was addressing them--an invisible person whom they must hold their very breath to understand.
It had grown late. The waning moon floated high above the low window and brightened the little room with its cheering rays. The countess nodded. "It is fulfilled!" Then she laid her hands in Freyer's: "For the first time since my childhood I place my soul in the keeping of a human being! For the first time since my childhood, I strip off all the arrogance of reason, for a higher perception is hovering above me, drawing nearer and nearer with blissful certainty! Is it love, is it faith? Whichever it may be--God dwells in both. And--if philosophy says: 'I think, therefore I am,' I say: 'I love, therefore I believe!'"
She humbly bowed her head. "And therefore I beseech you. Bless me, you who are so divinely endowed, with the blessing which is shed upon and emanates from you!"
Freyer raised his eyes to Heaven as if to call down the benediction she implored, and there was such power in the fervid gaze that Madeleine von Wildenau experienced a thrill almost of fear, as if in the presence of some supernatural being. Then he made the sign of the cross over her: "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
A tremor of foreboding ran through her limbs as if the finger of God had marked her for some mysterious destination and, with this rune, she had been enrolled in the pallid host of those consecrated by sorrow as followers of the deity.
With sweet submission she clasped the hand which had just imprinted the mournful sign on brow and breast: "In the name of God, if only you are near me!" Her head drooped on her bosom. Some one knocked at the door, the countess' brain reeled so much that she was forced to cling to Freyer for support.
Josepha timidly asked if she wanted a light.
"Light! Was it dark?"
"Very well," she answered absently.