A few weeks had elapsed since the above-named events. The sea-side places had become empty; the Regierungsrath was seated behind his documents, but Miranda was still at the fisherman's cottage by the sea; she had to nurse Eva, who was taken dangerously ill immediately after her arrival in Warnicken. She was seized with a nervous fever, and wild delirious fancies chased her frightened spirit about in mad career.

Blanden had not set out for his estate; he had retired to the Chief Forester's house, in the deepest woodland solitude; he felt most at home with his father's worthy friend--and he needed the comfort of friendship. It is true that the old gentleman never led the conversation to Blanden's late experiences, but in his fresh, sterling nature, in his devotion to his profession, lay a power which was capable of holding enthralled the evil spirits of a distracted life.

Often they strolled together through the woods, rejoiced at the young, flourishing growth, at the tall oaks, in whose shade Romove's bloody recollections still seemed to dwell, at the sunny glades, across which stags and hinds wandered, visible from afar.

But he loved best to go alone, in a tempest that whirled through the tops of the trees, broke off boughs and branches, and hurled them to the ground, and when all other voices were rendered mute before that of the hurricane, then he believed to hear in it the cry of that almighty destiny before which nothing can exist, and that pursues its own course above the head of man.

But what enchained him most was the vicinity to Warnicken. He knew of Eva's illness, intelligence which had thrown him into a state of feverish excitement. The doctor, to whom he often rode over to make enquiries, prohibited him from visiting the sick bed as it would be dangerous for the patient's life. But how often Blanden stood upon the wooded cliffs, and gazed with intense anguish as they gleamed in the evening light upon the simple attic windows, behind which the beloved, to him lost, maiden lay in fever's delirious phantasies!

On several occasions, as he returned home at a late hour from Warnicken, he fancied that footsteps were following him, as though the bushes behind him rustled; but he did not think of danger, and when on casting a cursory glance round he perceived nothing, he deemed it beneath him to make any exertions to discover who might dog his steps.

Once he was returning home on a stormy evening, and the rustling in the forest, the groaning and cracking of the boughs accompanied his steps. He had learned from the doctor that Eva had passed all danger, and was now on the way towards recovery. He felt a sensation of pain, mingled with pleasure, at this. Did not life lie joylessly before the convalescent girl? And had he the power to alter it? His love still often rebelled with brilliant sophisms against the resolution of renunciation; it was a course of tempest's triumphant passion, which hoped to destroy as mere prejudice the resistance of an invincible feeling. But always in vain. The feeling remained impervious to all attacks.

The storm had died away. Blanden could not sleep, and looked out into the moonlight night, which silvered the gloomy forest, and upward to the transparent, starry sky. Venus stood on the horizon, higher still, yellow, sparkling Mars, like an envious orb, that seemed to cast a hostile light upon the soft planet of love. An image of his life; an envious fate did not vouchsafe the peaceful bliss to him, for which his soul had striven with such ardent longing.

The window was situated in the basement story of the house, and led into a little garden, with shrubs and turf growing as nature planted them. There, again, was a rustle in the nearest thorn hedge, and Blanden thought to perceive a gay-coloured dress behind the thorny bushes. At the same moment the Forester's yard dog began to bark, and the dress, clutched together in alarm, disappeared behind the fence. Blanden sprang out of the window and went towards the apparition. Through an opening in the hedge two great eyes peered at him, as in strange astonishment, and, scratched and bleeding from the thorns, the idiot fisher girl crouched behind the fence.

When she perceived him, she pushed right through the prickly bushes, threw herself down at his feet, and kissed his hands; she clung to his knees, and looked up beseechingly at him.

"What do you want? Have you often followed me?" he asked the girl; she shook her head in alarm.

"Do not deny it; you have probably already passed many a night upon this meadow? Only lately I remarked a bright coloured dress here about midnight; but I imagined it was hung up there to dry. Do not deny it!"

He spoke the last words in a firm, loud voice.

KÄtchen considered for a moment, then nodded her head, while she clasped her hands imploringly.

"Have you any message for me? Have you anything to say to me?"

The girl was silent.

"Why do you rove about here alone at night? Why do you not remain in Warnicken?"

"She is ill--she will die--KÄtchen lives!" said the little one, as she suddenly rose and extended her arms, as though she would press Blanden to her heart.

"Poor child, you must not stay here! The night-dew will make you ill; I will see about a night's quarters for you with the maidservant. But you must not return here again; I forbid it--the dogs here are let loose upon uninvited, nocturnal visitors."

Blanden knocked at the bedroom door of the Forester's servant, and pretended KÄtchen was a messenger who had come at night, and must have some place to rest in.

"The idiot child loves me," he said to himself, "her frog's eyes receive a gleam of intellect when she looks at me! And then she crouches behind the sloe hedge, treated in as step-motherly a manner as that unhappy fruit which would gladly be a plum, but which tarries for ever in sour immaturity. Nothing is more touching than these half-human beings, with their distorted souls! An evidence of the poverty of Creation's plan! It may be vast and grand upon the whole, but it can value the human mind but little which it can thus embitter! Certainly it often seems as if the comprehension of the world and of life creeps with astounding suddenness into the twilight of such minds."

On the following day, a rainy one, which drew a melancholy grey net over the whole sky, Blanden sat lost in thought beneath the eaves of the forest house; he was stroking the bull-dog which had placed itself at his feet, listening contentedly to the monotonous plashing from the water pipes, while it only reminded Blanden of the everlasting sameness of human life, and a sensation of as infinite weariness overcame him, at the regular fall of the drops, as he should have felt at the tick-tack of an old clock on a wall. All measurement of time oppressed him; life at such moments only appeared to him to be a nervous struggle to avoid hearing the beats marking its flight, the pulse-like throb of the seconds, the chiming of the hours, and like a clock's hands passing away over the thin and thick lines, over that empty scheme of time, whose laws we are to carry out, well or ill, often when our heart's blood is being shed.

He thought of Paulina, of Eva--and when he wished to forget the inevitable, other cares of life arose to his mind; he had been without news from Kulmitten for some time, and the election to the Provincial Diet must have taken place within the last few days; perhaps his participation in public life could console him for the miscarriage of the hopes of his heart.

He was awoke out of these dreams by the noise of an approaching carriage; in the woodland solitude of the forest house, the arrival of visitors was quite an event.

Two men sat in the conveyance; the one in a dripping mackintosh was his friend von Wegen; in the other, who on descending lifted a ponderous chest with care out of the carriage and deposited it immediately in safety beneath the verandah, he recognised the strange amber merchant.

Wegen shook himself like a dog coming out of the water.

"Desperate weather! Heaven opens its sluices--a perfect deluge; the roads abominable--one longs to make the Landrath drive upon them from morning to night. If they are thus already in summer, one ought to make one's will in winter before trusting oneself to these causeways of logs."

"You are heartily welcome," cried Blanden to his friend, and shaking him by the hand. "What brings you hither in this tropical downpour of rain?"

"A very ungratifying piece of news, which I must explain; besides, I bring a dealer with me, who went to find you at Kulmitten; he brings costly goods, which he says were ordered by you, and which he would be loth to place in other hands; I therefore considered it best to bring him with me."

The amber merchant stepped forward and announced that he had punctually executed Herr von Blanden's orders.

The latter nodded and signed to him to open the box.

The toilet casket of amber, the billing little doves, the bracelets and necklaces, everything gleamed in perfect workmanship, so that Blanden rejoiced at sight of the beautifully formed works of art, and expressed ready admiration of the delicate, exquisite ornaments.

Then only did the melancholy feeling assert itself completely and fully that his amber-nymph, whom he would have decked with all the treasures of the deep, was lost to him. He turned aside in order to conceal a tear in his eye.

Wegen felt for his friend, but sought as quickly as possible to overcome the most painful sadness.

"You might hand over that rubbish to me," said he. "I shall be engaged some day--I quite lost my heart at that dance beneath the pear-tree, and the lucky finder thereof knows my address. Even if it cost all my rye-harvest--what will one not do, when any especial happiness in life befalls one?"

"I shall not part with these ornaments," replied Blanden. "Yes; who knows I may yet deck my lost bride with them, as I could not adorn her whom I had won. She shall preserve these jewels for a lasting recollection of a spring-time in her life which was all too soon destroyed by tempests. Should she cease to be my friend, because she may not be my wife? It is folly that we must fly from one another like criminals, as though lightning had struck the earth between us, because no inward change--because only external fate separated our hearts."

Wegen nodded approvingly; the two guest chambers in the forest house were assigned to him and to the amber merchant, who, according to Blanden's desire, had brought his account with him.

Wegen returned to his friend, after having assumed dry clothes; he began to feel comfortable once more over a glass of negus and a cigar.

Nevertheless, he hesitated with the communication which he had to make, and moved about uneasily upon the sofa while puffing vast clouds of smoke into the air.

"Well, and the election?" began Blanden.

"What a pity about that splendid election-dinner," replied Wegen.

"I am not returned?" asked Blanden, excitedly.

"Alas, no!" replied his friend, while shaking his hand. "Now it is out! Now let us talk it over quietly."

"Tell me about it," said Blanden. The words forced themselves out with difficulty. At that moment he had become poorer by one great hope.

"It is always the old story, which ever remains new," said Wegen. "Since the dinner all was running most smoothly; even the sheep-breeder was well-disposed, and only Frau Baronin von Fuchs moved Heaven and earth to circumvent the election of a man with such a dubious past. You know woman's indefatigability when she wishes to carry a point; she offered me 'check' on every side with admirable persistency. No sooner had my brown pair left the gates, before her dappled greys appeared. She was like the evil fairy in the tale. She did not turn to the men but to the women, and she holds a position amongst them, because she possesses an imposing mind, in the presence of which one like ourselves does not feel comfortable, that outrageous decision of thought and action which allows no contradiction to arise. To marry such a woman requires courage; I am sorry for poor Baron von Fuchs. He is a well-bred, pleasant gentleman, but he is not equal to his wife's eloquence. If women possess intellect, which sometimes happens, it is sure to be of an amazing quality, and can inspire one of us with alarm."

"Well, CÄcilie von Dornau possesses intellect also. Take care of yourself!" said Blanden, playfully, hoping thus to overcome his mournful mood.

"That is quite different! Hers is intellect of a most refined kind; those are the golden threads of esprit with which they entangle us; but with Frau von Fuchs they are ship ropes of logic with which she flogs us."

"But, to the matter, friend!"

"The victory was in no wise certain for her; because, even if she did gain the women, the men steadily held their ground. Then came two pieces of intelligence which made their triumph quite complete. The rumour of your engagement in Neukuhren, of the commotion which Frau von Salden's arrival called forth suddenly arose on the shores of our Masuren lakes, and was circulated most inexplicably, naturally improved in the most appalling manner! How the people in that killing monotony thirst after any tale of scandal, and live upon it for long, like the camel of the desert upon the water that it collects in the store-closets of its interior! You should have seen the Frau Baronin's dapple-greys then, they absolutely flew along the forest roads and pawed the flags of every gentleman's courtyard with their hoofs! Wherever I went--and this time I followed her tracks--all was in flames, and I arrived too late with my fire buckets. I could reduce the exaggerations of the rumour to their true value, but the fact remained, and I could not refute it. The evil of it was, that this most recent event brought the past into broad daylight, and it was even difficult for those who were well-disposed to pass on to the business of the day, taking no more notice of it than they would of a dark legend whose moth-like flight they do not wish to rouse again."

"Withered leaves!" cried Blanden, "beneath their foliage they choke up every flower of spring that ventures forth into light; the arch enemy of our future is our past. Are we not like galley-slaves, who are seared with an ineffaceable brand? The spectral clatter of the chains accompanies us through life."

"But most unfortunately it must just happen that now at this especial moment the verdict of the second court upon the leading ministers of that community should be given after a delay of many years. It was far, far milder than the verdict of the first court, but it brought the affair forward again. Public opinion was busied with it; even in our circle the discussion was renewed of that story, long since forgotten, which was suddenly served up again as freshly as champagne in ice. And, in the midst of this disturbance of the ghosts, fell our election day! That you were not present displeased many, although, under the circumstances, they considered it only natural. You had many votes, even Baron Fuchs voted for you; it was a daring deed, and evil tongues maintained that a matrimonial divorce hovered in the air; the Landrath, too, with his nearest dependants, stood upon your side. But you could not attain a majority; that voting against you was a sort of trial by ordeal, that declared the principal landowner in the neighbourhood to be excommunicated."

"And thus I look upon it," cried Blanden. "All my hopes are destroyed! A domestic hearth, a busy, active life, political labour for the welfare of the Province for the honour of my name--all lies in ruin and ashes. Nothing else remains to me, save only to plough my acres, to bury myself in my forest loneliness, and even, like an outlaw, to shirk my neighbour's glance. Can I endure it? Or shall I venture forth again into a world of adventures from which an internal lack of contentment drove me back? Truly the old adage applies to me, that we are the forgers of our own destinies; but the forms into which they have once been wrought upon the anvil, are maintained for evermore, and when we would re-mould them the hammer becomes paralysed in our hands."

Wegen sought to console his friend in a good-natured manner; he should stand firmly by Blanden in good and evil times--they, and those who held similar views, were still a considerable party; but Blanden hardly listened to those words of consolation; he relapsed into deep melancholy, so that Wegen deemed it best to leave him to his own thoughts.

Blanden had all the sensation of having lost a decisive game upon the chess-board of life; the ashen-grey sky without, the unceasing drip of the rain, were in unison with the internal fatigue that had paralysed all his mental motives of incitement. Nothing now seemed worth wishing, worth struggling for; did not everything turn against him; he comprehended the Nirvana of the Buddhists.

The amber merchant departed on the following morning; then Blanden was particularly struck with the man's rugged, furrowed features; his whole demeanour told of a ruined, wasted life. When he had received the heavy price for his goods, and had the door-latch in his hand, he turned suddenly round once more, and while closely contracting his bushy eyebrows, and darting evil-boding flashes from his glowing eyes, he asked--

"You can probably tell me, Herr von Blanden, where the Signora now lives whom you once visited on Lago Maggiore?"

"Why do you ask this question?"

"I have a reason for interesting myself in that lady."

"She does not owe you anything? Certainly in those days you did not deal in amber?"

"My interest in her is of another kind, and in addition my secret."

"But how do you know--"

"I stood on the shore of the Lago as you and she stepped out of the gondola; I stood at the gate of the garden whence you issued at an early morning hour."

"Ah! now I recollect--you followed me even, so that I might have taken you for a hired bravo."

"You would have been mistaken. I am an honest man."

"But the right to ask questions lies with me. You know that lady, who is she?"

"If she chooses to envelop herself in mystery, I am the last who should like to betray it."

"You are a political agent?"

"Perhaps! At all events I am very anxious to speak to her, and I have reason to suppose that you know where she may be found."

"Then you are mistaken."

"People say they saw her here in Prussia."

"That is quite possible; but--I do not know where she is staying."

The conversation on both sides was conducted curtly and antagonistically. As the amber merchant turned to go, Blanden called after him.

"You are in possession of a secret; chance made you acquainted with that nocturnal meeting."

"Chance?" said the amber merchant, turning round, "chance? Do you know if it was chance?"

His countenance looked menacing, he clenched his hand as if convulsively.

"It is all the same," said Blanden, shortly, "I shall expect you to be silent about it."

"Who would trouble themselves about an adventure on Lago Maggiore?" said the amber merchant, with a scoffing smile. "And yet--I know someone for whom this adventure has its price. However, we have just had a deal together, and I am amiable towards my customers, I shall betray you to no one. Farewell!"

Blanden felt as though relieved from some weight when the strangely disagreeable guest had left room and house. Although this man's face bore traces of wild good-looks, yet the decay of his features, their malign, sly expression, had something repellant about them.

Blanden was quite in the mood to seek on every side for hostile powers that interfered in his life, and this stranger possessed the power so to do, and of his ill-will there was no doubt. One thing was unquestionable, that the fairy of Lago Maggiore was at present staying in Prussia; her visit to the Ordensburg proved that. Was it by chance that her weird shadow also, which had accompanied her on Lago Maggiore, had followed her hither? What were his intentions, what was his connection with her? And what had driven her here to these remote districts?

Blanden exhausted himself in conjectures, each of which lacked any firm foundation; but it was the wandering of a mind taking counsel of itself; the picture of that seductive beauty only passed like a veil before his spirit, because the latter was wholly filled with another, with the picture of that unfortunate girl whom he loved so fondly, and yet must repel so coldly.

The doctor's information, meanwhile, became steadily more satisfactory; Eva had almost quite recovered; might go out walking in the open air, and soon, so it was said, leave the sea-side again, and return to the capital.

Then Blanden believed that the moment had arrived for him to take leave of the girl, or to transform the lover into the friend. He had not followed Dr. Kuhl's advice to write to her; he had, indeed, seated himself before the writing-table, but he had been obliged to tear up four or five sheets of paper after the first few lines, so little did he succeed in saying what he felt, or in confiding the compulsory cause of their separation to tell-tale paper. He therefore gave up the idea of coming to an understanding with Eva by letter; he would see and speak to her. Meanwhile she must surely have learned from her mother that which he could not tell her himself. Her indisposition had, until now, prevented him seeing her; now this obstacle was removed, he might approach the convalescent.

He had made the firm resolution, appointed the day, and set out upon the road with his friend. They traversed the forest on foot; the box containing his amber treasures, which he intended to give to Eva to-day, was entrusted to some safe conveyance, and had been already delivered up at the Warnicken hotel, before the wanderers' arrival.

It was a trying walk for Blanden, but in his soul dwelled the hope of being able to hold out the hand of friendship to his beloved one, across that chasm which divided their love. What was left to them but painful renunciation; but is not the life of most mortals doomed to it?

Wegen was in a most cheerful mood; he sang and leaped, and described CÄcilie's advantages to his friend with inexhaustible loquacity.

Olga was obliged to retire far into the background; her ponderous nature, her Turkish beauty, the sensual expression of her lips and eyes--how could she compare with that graceful figure, with the mental activity and refinement of her sister?

And when Blanden suggested that CÄcilie loved Dr. Kuhl, Wegen broke out into triumphant laughter.

"No fear of that, my dear friend! She may like him for the sake of his strange ideas, but she thinks, like Homunculus, he only loves the fair sex in the plural; she prefers the singular, and all girls must vote for that! I do not remember now what sort of a part Homunculus played--."

"He lives in the bottle," said Blanden, "and that is a new point of resemblance to Dr. Kuhl."

"All the same," replied Wegen, "I use that term of mockery for him now, and I do not fear him."

"He who offers his heart and hand to a girl, has an advantage over the lover who goes out in search of casual adventures. CÄcilie knows that my intentions are honest; I am certainly not so intellectual as the Doctor, but a few acres of good soil are worth more than a whole orbis pictus of genius that floats up aloft in the air--girls are more practical than we think."

"You may be right," replied Blanden, "many only make use of the throbs of their hearts to enable them to learn addition; but there are many exceptions, brilliant exceptions: there are girlish hearts which live and die in their love."

With this last melancholy turn the conversation was interrupted for some time.

Blanden thought of his Eva, and of the pain of seeing her again, and Wegen would not disturb his friend in such gloomy dreams.

Blanden's heart beat violently when the roof of the homely inn gleamed forth beneath the trees.

How often had he been there lately; but only sorrow for the dangerously sick girl then had filled his mind; to-day it was the anxious anticipation of a half longed-for, half-dreaded meeting that caused his spirit to be in such a state of vacillation.

In the hope of encountering her on the forest paths, in the Wolfs-schlucht, or upon the Fuchs-spitze, he wandered along the shaded walks, but his hopes had been in vain.

Arrived at the summit, he directed his glance towards the little fisherman's-cottage; the attic window, usually covered with curtains, stood open, and the afternoon sun streamed in with all its force. Eva had left the sick room.

All around was silence, all seemed to be dead! What should he do? To seek the RegierungsrÄthin, and ask her about her daughter, was to him the most unwelcome course, because in that lady's eyes he must appear like a criminal, and he would not expose himself to her reproachful glance.

It seemed best to contrive to get a little note conveyed to the daughter's hands, and to invite her to a walk to the Fuchs-spitze; half-witted KÄtchen might serve as an unsuspected messenger.

Thus the two friends sat in undecided consultation. The more slanting rays of the sun fell through the tops of the oaks. Alternating in light and shade, the ocean waves played in manifold colours; it was as though a broken rainbow had sunk down into them; here they appeared light green, there deep blue, alternating with violet and reddish tints. A black bank of clouds hung in the west, swallowing up the setting sun more and more, but yonder, where lighter fleecy clouds broke away in smaller portions, it enframed the orb of day in a glowing triumphal portal that cast its radiant reflection into the billows.

The sunset was premature, and a sensation of evil portent lay over land and sea. The surf broke more impetuously down below, it was the last echo of a distant storm that beneath the heavy clouds of night winged its flight seawards.

How strange was the chattering of the waves upon the shore, and their varied dance. The one dashes upward like a spring of life in vernal green, while the next, heavy as a blue-black monster of the night, rushes over it, and in the whirling foam the lights of the evening sky are blended in a nosegay of tints, which the one wave offers to the other, and which the recipient scatters ruthlessly in the breakers which expire upon the sand of the shore.

There, see--a boat leaves the strand, and floats over the foam in the surf.

Two girls sit within it; Blanden has recognised Eva.

How can she, who has barely recovered from a fever, venture out on the evening tide?

And how she sits there, pale, deadly pale, her hands folded, staring into the waves.

Then the sun suddenly breaks through the clouds once more, and sheds a bright rosy radiance upon her features.

Ave Maria! She resembles the Virgin in the picture, gliding in a boat over the silent mountain lake, and while the bells are pealing in the churches on the coast, folds her hands.

But here no bells are ringing--here no Ave Maria is sounded--half-witted KÄtchen rows them out to sea.

Does she not perceive the stormy clouds on the horizon?

But the voice from the heights above can still reach the women sailors, and with all his might Blanden cries--

"Eva!" and, in a warning tone, he calls it once again.

She has heard it; she turns to the other side of the boat, she stretches her arms out towards that summit, and then presses them firmly upon her heart; her looks hang as if spell-bound upon the tall oaks, and upon the figure of that friend who stands beneath them.

But KÄtchen rows on; no sign from Eva bids her turn the skiff; like a rigid marble statue Eva stands erectly in the boat.

What her eyes speak he cannot see at that distance; perhaps fresh tears are wrung from them; but he can see that she remains motionless, that no desire to turn hastily fills her soul. It is not the obstinacy of the idiot sailor girl that guides the skiff ever farther out into the sea; it is the mute, proud will of the other, who rejects all chance of meeting him.

Can he follow her then, as he once followed her, when he conquered the bride with daring corsair courage?

Is that figure, pale as marble, the same as that of the blooming girl, who, once adorned with the wreath of woodland flowers, greeted him with merry smiles?

Between then and now lies an abyss--that campanula had withered in his hands, old love had become new guilt.

He had no longer the right to follow her; only with his eyes, with his spirit he followed the retreating skiff, until the girls' figures, became smaller and smaller, the boat dwindled shapelessly into a speck, to lose itself entirely in the distant atmosphere in the shadow of the clouds.

It is true that lightning quivered on the horizon, but Blanden felt no anxiety about the breaking of a storm. Half-witted KÄtchen understood the skies and the earth, and if she ventured fearlessly farther over the waves, no coming terror, no storm, no hurricane could be expected; then one might be sure that the herd of fiery flashes would remain upon the horizon, and the tempest clouds not flood the heavens.

The boat had, despite his spectacles, long since disappeared from Wegen's short sight, when, by straining every nerve, Blanden's eye still clung firmly to the floating speck in the distance.

"We must have patience until they return," said his friend, lighting himself a cigar, "the girl is thoughtless thus to venture out to sea. The evenings are too cool for a convalescent. Frau RegierungsrÄthin keeps a negligent watch over her."

Louder became the breaking of the waves upon the shore, higher rose the sea. Blanden gazed impatiently into the distance. Will the boat not return? He felt as though he must jump into the skiff that lay below on the strand, and row after the girl.

Oppressive sultriness pervaded nature; through a gap in the broad bank of clouds the glow of the parting sun became visible once more. A shower of golden sparks fell into the ocean, for which the waves seemed to struggle, soon again increasing night spread her wings over it.

Blanden felt oppressed, why he knew not his friend chatted all the more briskly.

"We will live right comfortably together in our Masuren wilderness, for I am seriously inclined to make a home, and then you shall visit me every day. It is true I was always afraid on account of the cooking:--next to love that is the principal thing, and I am convinced that a bad dinner would make me angry with my wife for the whole day, even if I loved her as Romeo does his Juliet. Every one has his own ideal at some time, and a sweetheart or wife must be found in the perihelion of that ideal, else the transfiguring halo is wanting around her; but I should prefer to be buried in the vault of the Capulets to having an unpalatable joint or fish in some impracticable sauce set before me by a Juliet. Well, do you see my friend, it is true that even by the most cunning insinuations I have not been able to find out what my CÄcilie thinks of the culinary art, and if our natures meet in unanimity upon this important point; as yet also I have seen and tasted no practical proofs of her possession of this gift, and the worst is, I am convinced that Frau von Dornau's cuisine offers no opportunity for the development of artistic talents, and that it does not extend beyond the most simple requirements of the needs of the inner man; because, according to General Montecuculi's views, cooking, like war, needs money, money and ever again money, and Frau von Dornau's pension, according to my unprejudiced calculation, suffices at the outside for potatoes, grey peas, and occasionally fish. On the other hand I am firmly convinced that my CÄcilie in the kitchen would always find herself equal to the situation, if her finances permitted her brilliant supplies; to a mind like hers the importance of the culinary art for human life, and especially for mine, cannot remain unknown, and if she does not quite understand the tactics of the roasting-spit, and the strategy of the bill of fare, she has sense enough to select a proper talented kitchen adjutant, and it is quite immaterial whether the field-marshal or his adjutant gain the victory, so long as it be gained. I then crown my wife with the kitchen-laurels, which I do not estimate so lowly as though its leaves were only fitted for the preparation of a boar's head, and in that laurel wreath I entwine the most beautiful myrtle of love, and the olive-branch of domestic peace."

To this complacent communication, which might at the same time claim the merit of being a soliloquy, speaking the deepest thoughts of his mind, Blanden only listened with abstracted understanding; his glance rested inadvertently upon the misty horizon.

A steamboat passed by; its column of smoke disappeared in a heavy, lowering cloud; here and there a white sail became visible that lost itself out at sea, and at last only appeared like a streak of chalk upon a black wall.

Flashes of lightning chased one another like eagles at play, and growling on the horizon announced the awaking of the storm that tossed itself hither and thither in its dense, dark cradle of clouds.

Blanden's anxiety waxed stronger; his confidence in the idiot girl's instinct diminished. Could not the weather-wise determination of that child of Nature fail for once?

There, see! The black speck appeared again on the horizon, and, with the greatest exertion of his ocular powers, Blanden could perceive that it gradually increased and approached the shore.

"God be thanked! Idiot KÄtchen has done her duty," said Blanden. "But now, too, it is certain that we shall not have to wait long for the storm."

And with a lightened heart he added, cheerfully--

"Dear friend, I rejoice that the carpenter's work of your domestic happiness stands so firmly already that you can have a housewarming; I wish Fate may deal more kindly with you than it has with me, and that the lightning may not strike the timbers before the masonry of the house is firm and you can make your entry into it. Good luck to you! I dread my meeting with Eva, and I fear--" Blanden suddenly stopped in the middle of his speech; he stood up, stepped to the railing, and gazed out fixedly.

"What is the matter with you, my friend?"

"It may be caused by the light, or my eye be dazzled from having previously looked too long at the evening sun."

"Why?" asked Wegen, wiping his glasses hastily, so as to assist his friend as much as possible.

"It seems to me--I cannot distinguish properly--let us wait until the boat is nearer."

Blanden did not dare to give utterance to his fears; the words would not pass his lips.

"The boat is drawing nearer," said Wegen quietly. "I even recognise it now, although I am convinced that my glasses in future must be one number lower; too often they leave me in the lurch."

After a pause of terrified expectation, Blanden cried suddenly--

"No, no--I am not mistaken--and yet--it is impossible; I only see one girl now in the boat. Can idiot KÄtchen be making another swimming excursion and Eva be holding the oars?"

"You are right--I only see one living creature in the boat; perhaps Eva has become unwell from the swell of the waves and laid herself down in the bottom of the skiff; the best remedy for sea sickness--I always lie upon deck like a mummy."

"But the boat is not deep; I must in that case see her dress," replied Blanden.

Again an anxious pause ensued; then with a loud cry he shouted out Eva's name and rushed down the mountain path to the landing-place.

Wegen followed, shrugging his shoulders.

Soon both friends stood below on the strand.

The boat approached, with regular strokes of the oars; more quickly rolled the thunder across the western sky.

Blanden's pulses throbbed feverishly.

"Where is Eva?" cried he to the idiot boat-woman across the mighty roar of the surf.

No reply. KÄtchen was occupied in bringing the boat safely to the shore. She sprang into the water, drew her skiff nearer, and bound it firmly to the post.

"Where is Eva?" repeated Blanden, now in a supreme state of excitement, while he grasped the girl and held her firmly.

"There," said the idiot girl, with imperturbable composure, and pointed to the sea.

"Dead then, dead!"

KÄtchen nodded her head; Blanden sobbed, burying his face in his hands.

Then she flung herself down before him, clung to his knees, kissed his hands.

Like a flash of lightning, a fearful thought passed through Blanden's mind.

"Murderess!" cried he, "you have murdered her; you have hurled her into the sea!"

KÄtchen was mute. No change was apparent in her features. It seemed as though she looked up at him with a triumphant smile.

"Misery of miseries!" cried Blanden, wringing his hands; "the victim of an idiot's passion! Yes, Wegen, this creature, this half-human being, this female Caliban loves me; she has pursued me with her passion even into the Forester's house; I found her several times beneath my windows; she cherished a moody, dull hatred for Eva! Heavens! Why did I not warn her! It is horrible--the girl has killed her!"

Wegen seized the girl with all the energy of a gens d'arme.

"She must be arrested--she must give information."

Unconcernedly KÄtchen allowed all to pass over her; she replied to no questions. Her frog-like eyes only rested upon Blanden with an expression of silent beatitude.

The girl was conducted to the fisherman's cottage.

Miranda, when she heard the news, fell into a swoon. How she had cautioned Eva against spending an evening on the sea; the latter had escaped secretly in order to indulge her unhappy love for the ocean.

The RÄthin acknowledged this when she had recovered again, and Blanden and Wegen could hardly protect the idiot girl from the gigantic lady's maltreatment, who felt constrained to let her boundless excitement vent itself upon some victim or other.

A rural policeman chanced to be stopping just before the inn; he was summoned in order to take KÄtchen with him to the district town to undergo what certainly promised to be a futile examination, because only seldom did a sudden gleam of light flash through her obscured mind.

Then Miranda, whose anguish indeed needed some outlet for its anger, turned with the most unjust reproaches upon Blanden, who, by his recklessness, had plunged mother and daughter into ruin, and had put both into the pillory before the whole of Neukuhren, before the capital, and before the entire Province; Eva had become ill in consequence of that disgrace, and since her illness had not been able to cast off a state of intense melancholy. KÄtchen certainly should be arrested, but who knows if not she, but others, for whom there were no policemen, were perhaps the murderers of her unhappy child?

Blanden left the ignoble woman who, like hundreds of others, had transformed herself into a MegÆra, when, in the heat of excitement, the lacquer of the gloss of cultivation melts away from them; yet he left her with a dagger in his heart! Was she right, could Eva have taken her own life? But no word of farewell, not a line indicated such a thing.

Must he be accountable for the victim whom the sea had swallowed up?

Who should solve that mystery?

Blanden stared at the storm that now discharged itself with terrific blows, and ignited an old Perkunos oak upon the height, like a beacon for ships in danger.

In his heart surged a tempestuous, agitated uproar, as great as the conflict of the elements without.

Two hours later the full moon shone from out a cloudless sky; the ocean still gasped in short breaths after the spasm that had shaken it. But it became calmer, and at last displayed a smooth mirror-like surface.

A boat glided over it.

"Farewell my amber nymph," cried Blanden, "I send your jewels after you, that you may remember me in those subterranean halls, and one portion of my life I bury with you in the deep."

With a loud noise the chest and its jewels sank into the sea; but still for a long time the boat of the solitary nocturnal sailor was driven about upon the waves.

Peace dwells in its unfathomable lap, but just as unfathomable is the grief of that human life, the grief which rends the heart of that nocturnal sailor, and which he pours out in plaints to the mysterious planets.