The minister dismissed me with a kiss and shake of the hand.

"I hastened to my aunt; there Frau Salden was awaiting me; she knew the time and hour of my appointment with the minister. Much delighted, she heard my news; her features became animated, her eye was radiant.

"When my aunt was called away by some domestic concern, Frau Salden rose, came towards me with a grave, inspired countenance, greeted me as a member of the congregation, as her brother, and pressed a kiss upon my lips.

"It was the holy kiss of a sister, the seraphic kiss, the consecration of the bond of saints! Did not male and female cousins and indifferent relatives kiss one another according to the right of cousinship; how much higher stood the right of spiritual relationship! Certainly, for many such a kiss would only be a pious symbol, for many, a form of but little significance. It was different with me, different with this woman! Until now, I had remained a stranger to all intercourse of affection and love; how unapproachable all womankind had appeared to me!

"This kiss was the first kiss of initiation; but not the secret of the community did it reveal to me, the secret of life itself. It metamorphosed me inwardly; every feeling of estrangement it swept away from me; woman no longer stood before me as a far-removed saint; she appeared to be desirable, to promise felicity.

"And could it be otherwise?

"How long in worldly circles must hesitating affection wait ere love presses the seal of the first kiss upon it in token of acquiescence? But this woman had already first occupied my inmost emotions before I approached her under the eyes of the saints; now she came towards me with open arms, with the pious greeting of love, for which, with worldly affection, I might long have striven. Must not this intoxicate me, and kindle an unknown ardour within my soul?

"Certainly Frau Salden did not share it; she only cherished sisterly feelings for me, yes, I might almost say maternal; distantly and coldly, she commenced an extensive examination of my inner nature.

"The bright smile had vanished from her lips; even the gaze of her large eyes was proud and stern. An incomprehensible contradiction, and a something almost solemnly strange, lay in such close intimacy. I stood her examination with calmness and without reserve, for pride stirred itself within me, and I would not recognise the superiority that she assumed. Nevertheless, I drew an immediate advantage from my position towards the select community, and begged for permission to visit her, which she readily granted.

"She lived in the east suburb, in a couple of cosy rooms, elegantly furnished. The one seemed to be dedicated to pious reflections. A large book-shelf contained the works of our poets and thinkers, at the same time a large number of religious writings. The walls were covered with representations of Christ, as well as with pictures of the prophet and the preacher, which hung on a level, as it seemed, accurately measured line with His.

"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.

"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