"Yet in me also lively doubts were kindled as to how he could control those fundamental powers of everything living. The revelation of light which had been proclaimed to me, was not lost; I interpreted it in my own way, and brought it into unison with the delights of Nature which had often enraptured me; but the beautiful woman had greater power over me than the priestess; in her eyes I forgot the Millennium, and all its apostles in her seraph's kisses. The pious and solemn greeting at meeting and parting, burned for me like earthly fire, and I could not conceal from myself that an unholy passion had taken possession of me; unholy because it was a misuse of holy forms, because it broke distractingly into all circles of my thoughts and feelings. "One day, Pauline, for I knew her Christian name already, and might use it with a brother's right, announced to me that she could not decide whether I belonged to the natures of light or of darkness; it was the minister's wish that I should visit the Gräfin at the Castle, and make a full confession of my sins to her. "It was the period when in France a Saint Simon's and Pére Enfantin's doctrine of the priesthood of woman found extensive propagation, and in large assemblies of the Paris street _Taitbout_ was taught by inspired women. I could not avoid thinking of that intelligence in the newspapers, when I was invited by the Gräfin to the Castle. There was repeated in pious garb the same performance, but only in doctrine, not in deed. Here the priestly office was already exercised by an aristocratic woman, and that woman boasted of lofty revelation, and could even spread her angel's wings protectingly over the minister of the community. "Not without hesitation I entered the inner castle yard; the gloomy old masonry of the large quadrangle overlooked by lofty towers did not act soothingly upon my temperament; I felt like those unfortunate men to whom once in those gloomy apartments, which were still known as those of criminal justice, the sword of the German knights was placed at their throats, so that they should confess Christ, or else incur the penalty of death. It was a horrible trial of faith, and I felt as if I were one of those unhappy followers of Perkunos. "Certainly the drawing-rooms into which I was conducted, did not bear the remotest resemblance to those dread vaults. The view from that high stronghold of Ottokar extended far over the town, which with its church towers and high gabled houses, and at the same time windowless warehouse quarters, surrounded and traversed with glistening branches of the river, lay as if cowering at its feet. There was something soothing and alleviating to the mind in that free prospect; with my heart throbbing less violently, I awaited the entrance of the woman who was considered to be the superior nature of light in the elect circle.