This leaning of Zues' nature towards religious ecstasy and contemplation had once gained her the profound and respectful affection of a young bookbinder, a man who read every book he bound and who was, besides, both ambitious and enthusiastic. Whenever he brought his bundle of soiled linen to Zues' mother, he deemed himself to be in paradise, for he swallowed greedily all of the maiden's thoughts, and her boldest figures of speech now and then, he shyly said, would remind him of things he had dared to think himself, but which he had never had the skill and the courage to frame into words. Bashfully and humbly he approached this talented virgin, who was by turns severe and eloquent, and she deigned to suffer this modest intercourse and held him in leading-strings for a whole year, not, however, without making the hopelessness of his suit plain to him, gently but determinedly. For inasmuch as he was nine years her junior, poor as a church mouse and awkward in gaining a living, men of his calling not being in clover in Seldwyla anyhow, since people there do not read much and, consequently, have few books to bind, she never for a moment hid from herself the impossibility of a union. She merely found it pleasant to develop his mind and character and to furnish her own as a model to strive after. Her own powers of resignation were all the time for him to take pattern by, and so she embalmed his aspirations in an iridescent cloud of phrases. And he on his part would listen modestly, and once or twice find heart to risk a beautiful sentence himself. This she invariably answered by instantly killing his observation with a finer one. That year, when she calmly received the adoration of this youth, was reckoned by her the most ethereal and noblest of her existence, since it was not disturbed by a single breath from the lower and material spheres, and the young man during it bound anew all her books, and with infinite pains wrought night after night toward the ultimate completion of an artful and precious monument of his adoration for her. This was, to be plain, a huge Chinese temple of pasteboard, containing innumerable tiny compartments and secret receptacles, and which might be entirely taken apart and reconstructed on following carefully previous instructions. This miracle was pasted all over with the finest samples of varicolored and glazed paper, and everywhere ornamented with gilt borders. Minute mirrors inside colonnaded halls of state reflected the gay colors, and by removing one section of the structure or opening another one there were more mirrors and hidden pictures, nosegays of paper or loving couples. The curving or shelving roofs were everywhere hung with little bells. Even a small stand for a lady's watch was there, with hooks to hang it up on and with other hooks to trail a slender meandering chain through. Only up to now no watchmaker had yet offered a pretty watch or a chain to decorate this altar with. An