I was so bewildered by this address, and still more by the glance with which she seemed to illumine my inmost heart, and read my most secret thoughts, that at first I could only stammer a few unmeaning words. She seemed to pity my awkwardness. "Yes," she repeated, "you really played very finely. Where did you learn? Our organ sounds well, doesn't it? Do you play on the piano too?" I answered that I had taken lessons at college, but had never made much progress on the piano, which required greater dexterity. Besides, there were no such beautiful, solemn melodies for the piano as for the organ. She again looked at me with so strange an expression that I lowered my eyes. "Do you love music only when it is solemn?" she asked, and turned away as if to leave me. But I was determined to speak freely and compel her to confess her grudge against me. "I thought you would be of the same opinion on this point," I answered, hastily. "At least I have only heard you sing slow, solemn melodies." "Me? Oh, yes! You are my neighbor in the tower." She smiled faintly, but instantly grew grave again. "Well, would you like to know why I sing nothing else? Because I have a heavy voice that does not suit gay airs. Yet 'Bloom, dear Violet,' and 'When I on my Faded Cheek,' or anything still more light and cheerful, can touch the feelings as much as the most devout choral, if it only comes from a merry heart and a pure voice. True, we can not win artistic renown or be considered specially pious by singing such things; though I think God has the same pleasure in the chirp of the cricket as in the trills of the nightingale." "You wound me, Fraeulein," I answered, crimson with emotion. "You do me great injustice if you believe that what I do or leave undone is for the sake of external effect. Who gave you so bad an opinion of me?" She stopped and looked at me again, not into my eyes, but at my hair, whose parting had meanwhile daily moved farther to the left. "Do you really care to know what I think of you? Well, I believe you vain and weak, a man who no longer reflects upon anything because he imagines he has made himself familiar, once for all, with all the enigmas of life, though he does not yet know even the first word of them. I don't blame you, for I know that this is the case with most of those who have pursued your path. But, as I have different ideas of the one thing needful, we certainly have nothing to share with each other." I felt a keen pang at these words, but was resolved at any cost to know more, to know everything. "And what is your idea of the one thing needful?" I asked, trembling with emotion. "You say such hard things to me. Are you perfectly sure that you have a right to do so? Are you certain that you are yourself in possession of the right knowledge?"