“It’s practically all contemporary trash,” he said drily, and pointed to the books. “Stories like tangled thread, utterly confused, without beginning or end. If you’ve read one page, you know a thousand. There are descriptions of manners with a delight in what is common and mean. The emotions riot like weeds, and the style is so noisy that you lose all perception. Love, love, love! That’s one theme. And the other is wretchedness! There are histories and memoirs, too. Sheer gossip! The poems are empty rhymings by people with inflated egos. There’s popular philosophy--self-righteous twaddle. A sincere parson’s talk were more palatable. What is it for? Reading is a good thing, if a real spirit absorbs me, and I forget and lose myself in it. But the unspiritual has neither honesty nor imagination; he is a thief and a swindler.”
“Burn it, burn it!” Christian repeated, and sat down at the other side of the room.
Amadeus went to the marble fire-place, which was so large that a man could easily have lain down in it, and opened the gates of brass. Then he carried the books there--one pile after another, and heaped them on the flat stones. When he had thrown them all in, he set fire to the pages of one book, and lowered his head and watched the flames spread.
“You know that I am going to leave Christian’s Rest,” Christian said, turning to him. It had grown quite dark now.
“I don’t know for how long,” Christian continued. “It may be very long before I return.”
“What are you going to do, Amadeus?” Christian asked him.
Voss shrugged his shoulders. Involuntarily he pressed his hand against the inner pocket in which lay the letters of the unknown woman.
“It is dark and oppressive in the forester’s house,” said Christian. “Won’t you come and live here? I’ll give the necessary orders at once.”
“Don’t make me a beggar with your alms, Christian Wahnschaffe,” Voss answered. “If you were to give me the house, with all its forests and gardens, you would but rob me, and leave me poorer by so much.”
“I don’t understand that,” said Christian.
Voss walked up and down. The carpet muffled his sturdy tread.
“You are far too passionate, Amadeus,” Christian said.
Amadeus stopped in front of a lectern that had been placed in a niche. Upon it lay the great Bible that Christian had bought. It was open. The flames of the burning books flared so brightly that he could read the words. For a space he read in silence. Then he took the book, and going nearer to the fire, sat down opposite Christian, and read aloud: