uty--by the Lord above! I should run
about joyously, in full consciousness of my powers, letting not a
single hour of the day be lost. I should taste my youth with all its
feelings and thoughts, its sins and its glories. And when old age came
on, I should throw myself on the ground and rage and moan and tear my
clothes and strew ashes upon my head, and die of grief. But you others,
because you don't think and don't know, you are able to live through a
dull, proper youth and a comfortable old age. If people knew what a
thing youth is, there'd be no holding the world. All that was young
would be brewing and fermenting to such a point that no ruler in the
world would be able to keep it down."

"Then the world doesn't seem to be made for thinking?" asked the girl
seriously.

"No," he answered passionately. "If everybody thought, instead
of only one in hundreds of thousands, it would be an impossible
place. Just imagine, fair lady, what would happen if women began to
think! It's inconceivable. The greatest revolution in history would
break out; a volcanic eruption would convulse society. It's quite
right--only the few are supposed to think. There must be dead bodies
without will, to live mechanically, to do mechanically what they are
told. A thinking world--no, thank you! No, Mamsell, we'll stick to the
old system."

So they walked along through the splendor of spring, until music
sounded in their ears. "Where does it come from?" asked the engraver.

"From Roedchen," said she, absent-mindedly.

"Let us go there. Dance-music ... I shouldn't mind ... among the
peasant-folk ... How would it be?"

"These are not peasants," she said. "They're Weimar people who come out
to amuse themselves in the woods. I wonder what's going on ..."

"We'll go and see," he answered. So they went down a narrow path
through the thick woods. The music sounded more clearly amidst the May
green. And now they stood near the forester's low house, and saw the
long gray benches set all about, and people dancing under the trees in
the last rays of the sun. Beate greeted the forester's family, and
introduced her guest to them.

"Who are all these people?" asked Herr Kosch.

"Oh, nothing but a bowling party."

"Would they allow us to join their dance?"

Herr Kosch led his fair hostess to the board-floored dancing-place
under the trees, threw his arm about her, and drew her in among the
other couples. He danced in a way that was like his whole na