"Why should we disguise ourselves?" she said, after a pause. "It is not worth the trouble to deceive the thoughtless masses, and we cannot fool the wise few. Let us drop our masks, dear friend. I think exactly as you do, only perhaps I feel it even more keenly because I am a woman. For me, too, music is merely a bath. But I enjoy it more passionately because a woman, who is much more restricted than you men, is more grateful for every opportunity to cast off all her chains and fetters, and plunge her soul in a great excited and exciting element. To me such an element is music; of course not all music--not that shallow kind that merely bubbles and murmurs pleasantly, yet scarcely rises to my knees, but that fathomless music whose billows break over my head. To me Sebastian Bach is like a shoreless sea, 'and it is sweet to plunge into its depths.' But do not let us talk of the petty souls, the bunglers and the underlings! With you great men--you yourself have said as much--does the material make such a great difference? When you see a work of Phidias, does not your whole being sink as if into divinely cool waters? And that is the main thing in the end. The few moments in life that satisfy our innermost desires are, after all, those only in which we almost believe we are dying. Enjoyment of art, enthusiasm, a great deed, a passion--in the main they all have the same ending. Or do not you agree, dear friend?" He indicated his assent by a gesture, though he had only caught a few stray words. This woman interested him so little that his thoughts, even when he was at her side, secretly flew away to her whose image filled his heart. She took his silence as a sign that she had made a deep impression upon him.