"On a lectern lay a magnificently bound Bible with a golden cross upon the cover; above it on the wall hung a copy of Correggio's Magdalene. The windows opened towards the river and the green meadows, which there enframed its bed; farther off, two solitary windmills moved their wings in wearisome regularity. "The front room was of a more worldly character; in the one corner stood a small doll's room, and other girlish playthings, but the little bird had always flown from its nest at the hour when I usually came; it was the time when with her governess, she went down to the next story to her favourite playfellow. Beside it upon a writing table lay account books, which I immediately recognised as such; a later communication from Frau Salden confirmed my idea that they were the accounts of the management of her estate; she possessed a small property, which she only occupied during a short period in the summer, as a lengthy separation from the community would have been too great a trial for her. "All this still stands so vividly before my mind, that I could paint those two rooms down to the veriest trifle, ebony table and chair, every picture on the wall; for who would ever forget the stage on which such important events were acted, and just now I feel an urgent need to bury myself in these recollections, and ah! that little doll's room to-day fills me with mournful emotion, yes with silent despair. "I now frequently visited Frau Salden; we talked much of worldly and spiritual affairs; she was alternately merry and unembarrassed, or grave, solemn and reserved. Then again, from time to time, it was as though she were not speaking in her own name, but on the part of the community; it was in order to induct me ever deeper into the secrets of the new doctrine; this I perceived soon enough, and it was particularly attractive, to me it was indeed a new religion, which only appeared before the world in biblical guise. "Zoroaster could, just as well as Christ, stand godfather to the doctrine of the two primordial beings, fire and water, the element of darkness, its opposite and its union by means of Lucifer, the scintillant serpent-spirit, and thus through all life extended the contradiction of the two-headed principle. Did not the minister himself, in the circle of the elect, pronounce that the old law had outlived itself, and proclaim the approach of the Millennium.