"Is what people _do_ nothing in your eyes?" she asked, anxious to know what he thought on this point. "What people do? What do you mean?" "I mean if some one takes care of a person and comforts him in his dying hour, or if a mother sacrifices herself to her children." "No, no," he cried passionately--"all those things are mere details. Thought, thought is what counts! Knowledge is the only thing that makes a man. Then only is he glad and strong--when he's learned how to think for himself. Then only is he alive!" She was intoxicated with his words, and the tenderest feeling which can spring up in a human heart came to life in her. She, with her so much younger soul, stretched out her hands to his, longing to love it and to care for it. She hardly understood him as yet; but she was full of a mother's feeling for his soul, thinking and studying how to help him. The glances her suitors had cast at him hurt her to remember. They did not understand him; they did not even realize that he was a living man. It was remarkable, the way she pierced searchingly into his mind, longingly, acutely, gravely and sincerely. He appeared to himself a man with considerable self-respect, a solitary, tried, and well-tempered character. And he thought, "She's a pretty creature. It's too bad--why does she bother her head with thoughts which are of no use to a woman!" He was a little impatient with her. The habit of solitude had laid its hand heavily upon him; and now he was not conscious how a young, hardly awakened spirit sought, anxiously and full of friendship, to approach his soul. Her senses were still asleep. It was something not of the earth that he was going through without realizing it. If he had understood it, who knows whether the thick skin which had formed on him through renunciation and struggle would have allowed him to feel it? He could not help realizing that chance had brought him to the most important decision of his life; for he could no longer doubt that he had won complete mastery over the heart of the loving girl. He had never thought of bettering his condition; he had never even wished such a thing, for a life without needs is a happy life, good for body and soul. He loved his freedom; he was exactly what he wanted to be. And yet fate seemed to intend that he should burden himself with a wife, with duties to others than himself, and with the comforts which he had hitherto neglected. He meant not to defend himself, but to let the thing develop as it would, whatever were the consequences. On this day he strolled down to Weimar, which had been the goal of his pilgrimage, in order to tread the streets and roads which the old man was accustomed to walk. He went to the theatre, and came back to the Ettersberg and the farm late in the evening. The whole place was asleep; only the Raven-mother came to bring him some supper.