# Third scene

(Felix Balde and Mrs. Balde appear, coming down a mountain path).  
(Felix Balde speaks to Mrs. Balde):

FELIX BALDE: I could accompany you this far. Any further is impossible. I love Strader, but he seems to me to be seducing all his companions. He must always remain distant from spiritual life, because he wants to bring into everyday life what must blossom as a secret in the innermost depths of the soul. The world must be left behind by those who seek the spirit.

MRS. BALDE: I would like to understand Strader. People have distanced themselves from nature and its spirit in their actions. Why shouldn't we find our way back to it, as Strader suggests?

FELIX BALDE: Try having your fairy tales performed with puppets and you will see how far removed everything will be from what you have in mind.

MRS. BALDE: I often long to see what I imagine in front of me in real life. I think I could really enjoy such a puppet show.

FELIX BALDE: Any representation of what springs so beautifully from your soul would seem ugly to me. Everything that Strader wants to realize also seems almost doll-like to me when I think of the higher worlds to which the inner powers of the soul can ascend. There is nothing in external life that can correspond to them. What I see has no counterpart in the external world.

MRS. BALDE: That may be so in your world, my dear Felix. But I would like to design all my fairy-tale creatures as beautiful dolls; and rejoice with children when they dance and jump.

(Felix Balde and Mrs. Balde exit).