“I have kept my word: to-day is an eventful day in your life; you have risen from want and degradation--you have mounted the first rounds of the ladder of your greatness and power. You are the mistress of this house.” “How did you know it?” asked Wilhelmine, astonished. With a pitying smile he answered: “I know every thing that I will, and I see many things that I would willingly close my eyes upon. I see your future, and my soul pities you, unhappy one; you are lost if you do not seize the hand extended to you. You see not the abyss which opens before you, and you will fall bleeding and with broken limbs.” “Mercy, mercy!” she groaned--“stretch out your hand and protect me.” Wilhelmine sank as if crushed to the earth. Cagliostro bent over her, and stroked her cold, pale face, breathing upon her the hot breath of his lips. “I will pity you--I will protect you. Rise, my daughter!” He assisted her to rise, and imprinted a passionate kiss upon her hand. “From this hour I count you as one of mine,” he said; “you shall be received into the holy band of spirits! You shall be consecrated, and enter the Inner Temple. Are you prepared?” “I am, master,” she humbly replied. “To-morrow the Temple brothers will open the temple of bliss to you. You shall hear, see, and be silent.” “I will see, hear, and be silent,” she murmured. “When evening sets in, send away your servants,” commanded Cagliostro. “Let the doors stand open; they shall be guarded, that no one may enter but the summoned. Art thou prepared?” “I am, master!” “Withdraw now to your room, Wilhelmine, and elevate your thoughts in devotion and contrition, and await the future. Kneel, my daughter, kneel!” She sank upon her knees. “Bless me, master, bless me!” “I bless you!” She felt a hot, burning sensation upon her forehead, and suddenly a bright light shone in the obscure room. Wilhelmine screamed, and covered her eyes. When she ventured to look up, only soft moonlight penetrated from the high window into the apartment, and she was alone. “To-morrow--to-morrow, at midnight!” she murmured, shuddering, and casting a timid look around. BOOK II. ROSICRUCIANS AND POWERFUL GENIUSES CHAPTER X. GOETHE IN BERLIN. “I wish I only knew whether it were a man, or whether the god Apollo has really appeared to me in human form,” sighed Conrector Moritz, as he paced his room--a strange, gloomy apartment, quite in keeping with the singular occupant--gray walls, with Greek apothegms inscribed upon them in large letters--dirty windows, pasted over with strips of paper; high, open book-shelves, containing several hundred books, some neatly arranged, others thrown together in confusion. In the midst of a chaos of books and papers stood a colossal bust of the Apollo-Belvedere upon a table near the window, the whiteness and beauty of which were in singular contrast, to the dust and disorder which surrounded it.