I gazed at the volume she handed me--I was holding a copy of the Christian Bible translated six centuries previous by Martin Luther. It was indeed the very text from which as a boy I had acquired much of my reading knowledge of the language. But I decided that I had best not reveal to Marguerite my familiarity with it, and so I sat down and turned the pages with assumed perplexity.
"It is a very odd book," I remarked presently. "Have you read it?"
"Oh, yes," exclaimed Marguerite. "I often read it; I think it is more interesting than all these modern books, but perhaps that is because I cannot understand it; I love mysterious things."
"There is too much of it for a man as busy as I am to hope to read," I remarked, after turning a few more pages, "and so I had better not begin. Will you not choose something and read it aloud to me?"
Marguerite declined at first; but, when I insisted, she took the tattered Bible and turned slowly through its pages.
And when she read, it was the story of a king who revelled with his lords, and of a hand that wrote upon a wall.
Her voice was low, and possessed a rhythm and cadence that transmuted the guttural German tongue into musical poetry.
Again she read, of a man who, though shorn of his strength by the wiles of a woman and blinded by his enemies, yet pushed asunder the pillars of a city.
At random she read other tales, of rulers and of slaves, of harlots and of queens--the wisdom of prophets--the songs of kings.
Together we pondered the meanings of these strange things, and exulted in the beauty of that which was meaningless. And so the hours passed; the day drew near its close and Marguerite read from the last pages of the book, of a voice that cried mightily--"Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils and the hold of every foul spirit."
FINDING THEREIN ONE RIGHTEOUS MAN I HAVE COMPASSION ON BERLIN
My first call upon Marguerite had been followed by other visits when we had talked of books and read together. On these occasions I had carefully suppressed my desire to speak of more personal things. But, constantly reminded by my own troubled conscience, I grew fearful lest the old doctor should discover that the books were the lesser part of the attraction that drew me to Marguerite's apartment, and my fear was increased as I realized that my calls on Zimmern had abruptly ceased.