“And what answer could I give her? I assured her that Christ had taken her cross upon Him too. Her other questions left me silent. One is so dumb and desperate when a living heart thirsts after truth, and the frozen Christ within would melt into a new day and a new sun. They are even now in purgatory and ask when it will begin. Hidden in blackness, they do not see the dark; consumed by flames, they are unaware of the fire. Where is Satan’s true kingdom--here or elsewhere? And can that elsewhere be upon any star more accursed than this? The poor man is thrust from the wayside, the oppressed of the land creep into hiding; from the cities come the moans of the dying, and the souls of those who are wounded to death cry out. Yet God does not put an end to the iniquity. And is it not written that the Lord said to Satan: ‘From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it.’ “She confessed her sins to me, and begged me to grant her absolution. But nothing that seemed sinful to her seemed so to me. I saw the desolateness and loneliness of the world. I saw the bleak rooms and the barren walls, the streets by night with their flickering lamps, and the men with no compassion in their eyes. That is what I saw and what I thought of, and I took it upon my conscience to absolve her from all guilt. I set her free and promised her Paradise. She smiled at me and grasped my hand, and before I could prevent her she had kissed it. That was yesterday.” Amadeus was silent. “That was yesterday,” he repeated, after a long and meditative pause. “I did not go to-day, out of fear of her dying. Perhaps she is dead even now.” “If you still want to go, I am ready,” said Christian timidly. “I’ll go with you. It’s only an hour’s walk.” “Then let us go,” said Amadeus, with a sigh of relief, and arose. XX An hour later they were in Borsche’s farm yard. The stable door was open. The men servants and the maid servants stood in front of it. An old man held a lantern high up, and they all stared into the shed. In the dim and wavering light, their faces showed a mixture of reverence and amazement. Within, on a pallet of straw, lay the body of Walpurga. Its cheeks were rosy. Nothing in that countenance recalled death, but only a peaceful sleep. On the wooden bench a single candle was burning; but it was near extinction. Amadeus Voss passed through that group of men and women, and kneeled at the dead woman’s feet. The old man who held the lantern whispered something, and all the men and women kneeled down and folded their hands. A cow lowed. After that there was no sound save from the bells of the unquiet cattle. The darkness of the stable, the face of the dead woman, which was like a face in a painting, the faces of the kneeling people, with their blunted foreheads and hard lips, in the yellow glimmer of the light--all these things Christian beheld, and something melted in his breast.