“To you, Maria.... I will not make myself out to you to be better than I am. I want to come to you, Maria—and I want you.... I love mankind, not for its own sake, but for your sake—because you love it. I do not want to help mankind for its own sake, but for your sake—because you wish it. Yesterday I did good to two men; I helped one whom my father had dismissed. And I did the work of the man, whose uniform I have on.... That was my way to you.... God bless you....” His voice failed him. The girl stepped up to him. She took his hands in both her hands. She gently turned the palms upward, and considered them, looked at them with her Madonna-eyes, and folded her hands tenderly around his, which she carefully laid together. “Maria,” he said, without a sound. She let his hands fall and raised hers to his head. She laid her finger-tips on his cheeks. With her finger-tips she stroked his eyebrows, his temples, twice, three times. Then he snatched her to his heart and they kissed each other.... He no longer felt the stones under his feet. A wave carried him, him and the girl whom he held clasped to him as though he wished to die of it—and the wave came from the bottom of the ocean, roaring as though the whole sea were an organ; and the wave was of fire and flung right up to the heavens. Then sinking ... sinking ... endlessly gliding down—right down to the womb of the world, the source of the beginning.... Thirst and quenching drink ... hunger and satiation ... pain and deliverance from it ... death and rebirth.... “You ...” said the man to the girl’s lips. “You are really the great mediatress.... You are all that is most sacred on earth.... You are all goodness.... You are all grace.... To doubt you is to doubt God.... Maria—Maria—you called me—here I am!” * * * * * Behind them, in a vault that was shaped like a pointed devil’s-ear, one man leant towards another man’s ear. “You wanted to have the Futura’s face from me.... There you have your model....” “Is that a commission?” “Yes.” * * * * * “Now you must go, Freder,” said the girl. Her Madonna-eyes looked at him. “Go—and leave you here?” She turned grave and shook her head. “Nothing will happen to me,” she said. “There is not one, among those who know this place, whom I cannot trust as though he were my blood brother. But what is between us is nobody’s affair; it would vex me to have to explain—” (and now she was smiling again)—“what is inexplicable.... Do you see that?” “Yes,” he said. “Forgive me....” * * * * * Behind them, in a vault that was shaped like a pointed devil’s-ear, a man took himself away from the wall. “You know what you have to do,” he said in a low voice. “Yes,” came the voice of the other, idly, sleepily, out of the darkness. “But wait a bit, friend.... I must ask you something....” “Well?” “Have you forgotten your own creed?”