When he had gone she pounced eagerly on the books that he had left for her. Some were printed in Roman characters and looked at a first glance terribly scientific. But they proved readable. She dipped first into one, and then into another, and what she read made her blood flame and rise to her head like sweet wine. In all, there was a great deal about the "power to will," the "super-man," the "right to live," and the "gospel of passion." In all, the purely beautiful was lauded as the end and aim of human endeavour. In all, the word "individuality" occurred over and over again, and in every conceivable connection. They all taught you to look down with vindictive pride on your fellow-creatures, and to despise them as a debased, tortured, and enslaved race. You wandered in glorious isolation, accompanied, perhaps, now and then by one or two kindred souls of lofty superiority, on storm-swept mountain-tops, breathing an eternally rarefied ether. In these pages was an unending offering-up of incense to self, an insatiable self-conceit, a glorification of murder and arson, paeans sung on such themes as lusts of the flesh, chambering and wantonness. Thus Lilly's soul became enveloped in a veil of intoxication and ravishing dreams. She felt as if she were seated in a sapphire-blue haze, which a far-off glow shot with purple threads. She heard music, hot and wild, storming on in angry dissonances like armies of maenads tearing down all obstacles in their way. She felt herself climbing steep craggy rocks, getting higher and ever higher. She fought against dizziness, and dared not look back for fear of being dashed to pieces in the abyss below. But she did not lose her footing; she cut and tore her hands in clinging to the sharp edges and swinging herself up--up! Now she was at the top and laughed. Oh, how she laughed down on the poor scum of humanity who crept about down there in misery and wretchedness, letting themselves be trampled on and crushed for the sake of their crumbs of daily bread! ... And then, again, a great pity overwhelmed her. Why should she alone stand on these wild, gold-shrouded summits, while all those others had no prospect of a near salvation? She would have liked to hold out her hand to her poor oppressed and hungry brothers and sisters, and help them to climb up too. But they would not be able to understand her or her message of redemption. Yes, that was what _he_ had called it, a "message of redemption." She saw their emaciated faces wet with the cold sweat of death, their glazed fixed eyes, that still could not turn their gaze from the glittering coin of their wretched living wage. She saw women in the last stage of pregnancy, thin and distended at the same time. She thought of the poor factory girl in Richard's packing-room, whose feverish hands made the doll that she wrapped in paper sway and dance. She thought of the others who had glanced at her with shy hate and hopeless envy in their weary eyes.