When Oswald came to his room, after the painful scene with Emily von Breesen,--for he found it impossible to return to the company,--he found on his table a parcel, which must have been placed there during his absence. The words: "Enclosed the books, with many thanks. Your faithful B.," told him at a glance who had brought the parcel and what it contained. And, strange! he hesitated to open it. He felt as if he had no right to Melitta's letters, since his heart was no longer entirely hers, as if, above all, she, who had never entirely given him her heart, had no right to give him this sign of her love. At last, almost mechanically, he opened the package. There were three books within. From the middle one fell two letters--one from Melitta and one from Bemperlein. Melitta's letter contained only a few cordial words, complaining "of the long separation, during which, besides the long distance, other disturbing elements also might come to stand between their hearts," and finally expressed the hope of a speedy reunion. The letter had no signature. "It might fall into wrong hands," said Oswald, bitterly. "I will be still more generous; I will destroy this witness of a love of which she begins to be ashamed." He burnt the paper in the flame of his candle. Bemperlein's letter was fuller, but it spoke almost exclusively of Professor Berger. Bemperlein had, during his residence in Grunwald, seen very much of Professor Berger, to whom he had carried letters from Oswald, and had become as enthusiastically fond of him as the professor had become attached to himself. His dismay, therefore, was great when Doctor Birkenhain informed him one day that Professor Berger had just been brought to the asylum. Bemperlein wrote Oswald that he had at once asked permission to visit Berger; the permission had been granted, and he had since spent daily several hours with the patient, who preferred his company to any other. Berger, he said, spoke reasonably on all subjects except his fixed idea of the Nothing. He was perfectly reconciled to being in an asylum, "for," he said, "the difference between the people inside and the people outside is only this, that the latter may and probably will soon become what the people inside already are. If, for instance, Doctor Birkenhain would just have the kindness to take his head to pieces, he would perceive its utter emptiness with his own eyes, and choose a nice, sunny room in his house, in order to meditate undisturbed on the great Original Nothing." Bemperlein wrote that Berger's aberration of mind was considered only temporary, and that Doctor Birkenhain hoped to be able to restore the great man very soon to his friends and pupils.

"As for us," concluded Bemperlein, "the baroness will have told you all that is of interest. I only add that we shall (God willing) not remain here much longer. Baron Berkow is sinking fast; the consumption makes rapid progress. Birkenhain gives him only a few days more. We shall stay here, at all events, until all is settled. I anticipate that moment with some impatience, which is perfectly disinterested. The death of this unfortunate man, who has for long years already ceased to live, will give new life to two persons--two persons who are unspeakably dear to me."

"Really," said Oswald, letting the letter drop in his lap, "are you quite sure of that, good Bemperlein? To be sure, your innocent heart knows nothing of most noble treason and baronial cunning! And yet: Why does he also say nothing of Oldenburg's presence? Why does he keep it secret, when he knows of how much interest it must be for me? Is he too in the plot? Well, then I will henceforth trust no one except myself. We must howl among the wolves, and he is a fool who would be honest among cheats and liars. If you deceive, I can do so too; if you play a farce, I won't sit in the pit; if you laugh at others, I do not mean to cry, and all's well that ends well. Ha, ha, ha!"

"I am glad to find you in such excellent humor," said a voice behind him.

Oswald started up from his chair and stared, frightened at the tall, slim form which seemed to have come out of the ground.

It was Baron Oldenburg.

"I beg your pardon," he said, offering Oswald his hand, which the latter took with some hesitation, "that I present myself thus unannounced, and coming, like Nicodemus, by night. But I have this moment returned from my journey, and learnt from a servant who passed me in the hall, with a waiter full of glasses and cups, that you had gone up to your room. The man had just time to tell me the way, and to go on with his glasses.--And here I am, and, as I said, delighted to find you so merry; otherwise I should hardly have the courage to tell you what brings me here. Do you know where we were a month ago this day? It is the night which the Brown Countess appointed for our rendezvous. If you are still sufficiently interested in myself and our little ward to follow me, we can go to the appointed place."

"I shall be at your disposal in a few minutes," said Oswald; "permit me only to change my dress."

He took one of the two candles that stood on the table and went into the adjoining room.

"Dress yourself warm," cried Oldenburg after him; "it is very cool now towards morning, especially in the woods."

"Hm!" he murmured, when Oswald had left him; "he looks pale and haggard, and was less friendly than usual. I hope he has heard nothing of my having been at Fichtenau. I wanted to keep it from him. I must try to find it out. It would be unpleasant, for I do not like to talk to anybody about Melitta and myself, and least of all to him."

In the mean time Oswald said, while dressing, to himself:

"Now, be wise as the serpent. If you play with me, I can play with you."

He came back to Oldenburg.

"I am ready."

"Then let us go.--My carriage is at the door," said the baron, as they went down the staircase that led into the garden. "The Czika is sitting inside, wrapped in my cloak. Don't you agree with me that it is better to take the child with us to the interview? If the gypsy woman is really the child's mother, we owe her at least this attention. At all events she can see that the child is alive and well, and tolerably well contented with her new home.--But what does all this stir mean at the chÂteau? Anna Maria is not ordinarily a friend of festivities. Did Malte run away and come back, and is this the feast of the fatted calf?"

"The question is not about a lost son but upon a returning daughter," said Oswald, forcing himself into a light tone; "Miss Helen has come back from school. Since then there has been no end of festivities."

"Tempora mutantur," Oldenburg said, laughing, as they were crossing the lawn; "I am exceedingly curious to see this marvel. I hope nobody will notice us."

He went towards the steps which led up to the terrace. The doors were now closed, as the air had cooled off outside; the windows likewise; but the curtains had not been let down, and one could see from the outside all that was going on in the brilliantly lighted rooms.

As they approached the window, they saw Helen sit just opposite to them at the piano. Felix was standing behind her chair. He bent over her and seemed eagerly to speak to her. Oldenburg's sharp eye had instantly caught the group.

"Who is that young man?" he asked.

As Oswald made no reply, the baron looked at him and saw that he was biting his under lip, while his eyes were fixed upon the two at the piano. Felix was bending still lower; Oswald bit his lip till the blood trickled down. Suddenly Helen rose and walked through the group of dancers, who were startled by the sudden ceasing of the music, straight to the window where Oldenburg and Oswald were standing. They moved back into the shade. When she reached the window she remained quiet, crossing her arms on her bosom and fixing her large gray eyes on the moon, whose golden disc was floating in the deep blue night sky. It was a face of irresistible power, mysteriously lovely and fatally beautiful.--A gentleman--Adolphus--approached her and spoke to her. She answered briefly, without changing her position, without scarcely moving her lips. He bowed and went away. Then, as if she had reconsidered, she turned round, went back to the piano, sat down and began to play again. As if touched by a magic wand, the dancers resumed their dance, and the gay picture which Oldenburg and Oswald had seen at first was quite restored.

"Who was the fool who caused this intermezzo?" asked Oldenburg, as they were going down the garden.

"Felix Grenwitz, her cousin."

"A nice little puppy; and the young beauty is to have him for her husband--is that so?"

"I believe so."

"And what do you say to that?"

"What Hamlet said: 'Weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of the world!'"

"My evil anticipations are about to be fulfilled," said Oldenburg, through his teeth.

"You said?"

"I was wondering whether Charles had raised the top of the carriage, so that my little Czika does not sit quite in the open air. I believe, however, she would like it best if she never had any other ceiling above her. During our journey she always was delighted when we travelled at night, and she could see her beloved stars on high."

"And may I ask what took you away so suddenly from our neighborhood?" asked Oswald, and his voice trembled.

"A matter of business which interests me only indirectly. The illness of a man whose death may be of the utmost importance to two persons who are dear to me."

The baron waited to see if Oswald would reply.

"I was vain enough to fancy that my departure would make some noise in our society here," he added, when Oswald remained silent; "this seems, however, not to have been the case."

"Everybody has been so accustomed for years to see you come and go of a sudden that they no longer wonder," said Oswald; "but I think there is the carriage!"

"Where is Czika, Charles?" asked the baron.

"She is fast asleep in the carriage, sir," replied the coachman, who had come down from his seat to let down the steps. "I have covered her carefully."

"We will take her between us, as the other day when we found her on the high-road on our return from Barnewitz."

The baron was already inside.

"Is that you, master?" asked the child, awaking.

"Yes, my darling!"

"Who is the man with you?"

"Your friend, the man with the blue eyes."

"He must stay with us," Czika murmured, overcome by sleep and pressing close up to Oswald, who had taken his seat. "Czika is tired; Czika wants to sleep in your arms!"

"I believe," said the baron, when the carriage was in motion, "you have made an indelible impression upon the child. She often speaks of you, and asks why the man with the blue eyes does not come back again? She always calls you so. The human heart is, after all, a curious thing. The wisest of the wise has no key to it. What trouble I have taken to win the heart of this child! I should like so much to call some one being in this wide world my own! And have I succeeded? I hardly know. She follows me, but only as a child would do when the mother has said: Go with that gentleman, and behave well! I have surrounded her with the tenderest affection, and yet I am to her now only what I was to her the first day. She accepts everything, like a gift which we do not refuse merely because we do not wish to offend the giver."

"But is not that more or less the way with all children?" replied Oswald. "Is it not their privilege to be loved without being specially grateful for it? And then: what is a love which counts upon a reward? Is it not here also true, that he who asks for a reward has already his reward?"

"I hope you may never experience that in your own case," said the baron, with much feeling. "And may others never learn it through your agency! You would not say so if you knew what hopeless love is; what it means to carry about in you the feeling that your love, true, warm love, is returned with indifference and coldness! No, no! A heart that loves us is a treasure which we must not despise, and if we owned every heart in the world; to have pained a heart that loves us is a recollection which sears our conscience, and which no new love can ever extinguish."

"And have you had such experience?"

"Unfortunately I have! I have formed and broken many ties of love, without feeling any remorse about it. I knew too well that I would not break the dear hearts! Only once--I was quite young yet, and that must be my excuse, if there can be one--only once I became guilty of the crime of rewarding a woman, who I knew loved me truly and faithfully, with vile ingratitude. The story would be ever present to my mind, even if the Brown Countess had not recalled it to me in a strange way. Did I not tell you how I met, quite accidentally, many years ago and far away in Hungary, a gypsy girl----"

"Yes," said Oswald, "I recollect your story very well. Baron Cloten's arrival interrupted you. I forgot afterwards to ask you for the continuation. Was it not this way? You were on a visit to a friend whom you had known in Vienna. You found the girl in a gypsy camp, as you were roaming through the woods far from the house. The band had gone away and left her behind. To see her and to love her was one. You spent several days with her in romantic bliss. The story ended with the following tableau: A gypsy encampment in the forest--sunset--under the overhanging shelter of a broad, branching beech-tree, a loving pair on a soft moss carpet----"

"You have a good memory," said the baron, "and you have reproduced my state of mind at that time very faithfully. I was sitting then with the Zingarella--Xenobia was her sweet name--in the manner mentioned by you. I was singing the old song of love which would never end, and the poor little bird trusted the false old melody, and came closer and closer to my heart. Suddenly horses' tramp was heard in the silent woods, and laughing and talking of a merry cavalcade. I had hardly time to push the little one rudely from my lap and to rise, when the troop came galloping from under the tall trees into the clearing. They were my friends: the young Count Cryvanny, with his sisters, and several ladies and gentlemen from the neighborhood. You may imagine the scene that followed--I was at once surrounded and overwhelmed with questions. Where had I been? How did I get there?--I thought you had been torn by wolves! said one--or you had killed yourself from unrequited love! cried another.--I have the key to the secret! Love is the cause, but by no means unrequited love.--Look there! and he pointed with the handle of his riding-whip at my poor Xenobia, who had crept behind the trunk of the tree. Universal laughter rewarded the witty man. One face only looked black. It was the youngest and prettiest of the three sisters, whom I had courted last, and who, I believe, honored me with her favor in her way--which, to be sure, did not amount to much. I was suddenly very much ashamed of my poor Xenobia, and had only one wish, to get out of this embarrassment without offending the proud Georgiana. I pretended to be indignant; I said I had wandered about in the woods, and that I had but just reached the encampment. 'But where does the girl get the gold chain from around her neck, which we admired only the other day, when you wore it?' asked Georgiana.--'She must have stolen it from me,' I said, 'while I slept here, tired by my wanderings.'--Then take it back.--I could have murdered Georgiana, but I had bound myself by my bold falsehood. I could not recall it. Xenobia anticipated me.--Here, sir! she said; take what I have stolen! and she handed me the chain. I shall never in my life forget the trembling hand, the face disfigured by pain and indignation. Let us get back home! cried Count Cryvanny, there is a storm coming up!--I took the horse of one of the servants, and off we went through the darkening forest. I dared not look back at Xenobia. Georgiana, by whose side I was riding, would never have forgiven me. I had fully reconquered her favor, but at what cost? On the evening of the following day--I could not get away sooner I hastened to the forest to make amends for my wrong, but I found, after a long search, only the place of the encampment. Xenobia was gone. The band had no sooner found their retreat discovered than they had broken up their tents and moved, no one knew where? I have never seen a trace again of Xenobia."

The baron was silent, and puffed the smoke of his cigar in mighty clouds high into the air.

"You see," he began again, after a long pause, "I am pious enough, or superstitious enough, if you prefer it, to believe that this wicked deed of mine has brought upon me a curse which no repentance can remove. That curse is fulfilled in my aimless life. From that day it has been my fate to sow love and to reap indifference. And now you will also understand what Czika is to me--an angel in the highest sense of the word, a sweet messenger from on high, who sings Peace! Peace! to my sick heart. The child's face, you know, has been for years before my mind's eye, and I have told you how I thought twice to be near the realization of my dreams. Here is the red rose Xenobia once more, but in the morning dew of sweetest innocence. The red rose has no doubt long since faded and withered amid the storms of life, and even if I had kept it at that time--what would the world, the cold, impudent, slandering world have said of the romantic love of a baron and a zingarella! I was too young then, and could not have defended my poor wife against the world: now I am a man, and have to protect a child only, a foundling. I shall give the gypsy whatever she may ask, and my warmest, sincerest thanks into the bargain. I hope she has not forgotten the appointment--stop, Charles!--We must get out here and walk through the woods. I know the way from of old. This is the hour appointed by the Brown Countess. We are just in time."

"Had we not better leave the child here," said Oswald.

"Why?" inquired the baron, who had left the carriage.

"The child is so very much attached to the woman, who, after all, may be her mother. Perhaps when she sees her again her old love of the forest life may awake, and we shall at the very least have a painful scene."

Oswald spoke in a low voice, for Czika was moving in his arms.

"Czika wants to go too," she said suddenly. "Czika wants to go into the woods and see the moon and the stars dance in the branches. Czika knows every tree and every bush."

She was standing on the damp wood-soil and clapped her hands with delight, and danced and laughed and said:

"Come! come! You, master, and you man with the blue eyes! Czika will show you a beautiful place; Czika knows every tree and every bush along the whole road."

She slipped ahead on a narrow path, which left the road where the carriage was standing, to enter the forest sideways, and then she ran on, gliding through the bushes like a wild cat. The two men had much trouble to follow. Czika was not to be persuaded to moderate her zeal. Her only answer to all the Not so fast! of the two men was the clear merry cry of the young falcon, which she uttered again and again, louder and shriller each time. Suddenly an answer came through the forest, the same proud cry which Oldenburg and Oswald remembered so well from that morning when the gypsy woman answered the child's cry from a great distance.

Now a rosy sheen became visible through the trees, which grew brighter and brighter at every step. "We shall soon be there," said the baron, who walked ahead.

In a few minutes they really came out upon the clearing, which Oswald had seen on the afternoon when he saw Melitta for the first time at her house. At the same place, near the edge of the pool, where the gypsies were then cooking their meal, a fire was now burning, but large and bright, as if to throw a flood of light upon the scene. The tops of the mighty trees glowed in rich purple or were lost in dark shade as the flames of the pile of wood blazed up or sank low; on the black mirror of the pool another fire shone in dim glow, and surrounded by this magic illumination the Brown Countess was seen on her knees before Czika, whom she overwhelmed with kisses and caresses. The child tried in vain to draw her up, and at last threw herself down by her side, hiding her head in the bosom of the woman. This was the sight that greeted the two men when they reached the clearing at last, completely out of breath.

They stood there silent and motionless, almost overawed by the strange, touching spectacle.

Then the gypsy rose, and taking the child by the hand she came up to the two, and said to Oldenburg, who stared at her with his eyes wide open:

"Do you know me, master?"

At that moment the flames blazed high up and fell with the brightness of daylight upon every feature in the noble, proud face of the Egyptian woman, and upon every line of her slight, lofty figure.

"Xenobia!" cried the baron, opening his arms, "Xenobia!"

The brown woman threw herself, with a cry of mad rapture, on his bosom, and held him as if she would never part again with the man of her love. But the very next moment she tore herself away from him, stepped back, and stood there motionless, her arms crossed on her bosom. Czika was standing between her and the baron, turning her large dark eyes full of amazement from the one to the other.

The baron took her by the hand, and stepping up to the gypsy woman, he said to her, in a tone which, in spite of all his efforts, betrayed his deep emotion:

"Xenobia, is this child----"

He could not continue; in vain he tried to utter the word. At last he stammered:

"Your and my child?"

"Yes, master," said the gypsy, without stirring, but fixing her dark, bright eyes on the baron.

Oldenburg lifted the child in his arms and pressed her to his bosom. Oswald felt he ought to leave the three alone, and went back into the wood. There he sat down near the edge. It was the same place where he had been lying the other day dreaming such glorious things of Melitta, and where he had afterwards heard Czika play the lute, while the Brown Countess was busy with the fire, and sang with her deep, sonorous voice the Hungarian melody. What changes had taken place since that day! How much he had lost and won since! Then his heart beat high with expectation; now his soul was filled with sadness and grief. Why had she made him so indescribably happy if her love was, after all, but the sovereign whim of a moment, only an amusing play to fill up a vacant day? Had he not all the time felt in his soul that she, the haughty aristocrat, would drop him again sooner or later? Had he not, the very first time when he heard Oldenburg's name mentioned, recognized in that man almost instinctively his rival? And he had to confess now that that man possessed everything calculated to kindle a heroic passion in a great lady. Rank and riches, eminent talents, the courage of a knight without fear or reproach, and just enough of the character of a man of the world to captivate the fancy of a woman whose heart is not absolutely pure.

And how attractive even his weariness of the world was, and his air of suffering! One would imagine, hearing him complain as he did, that he was on the point of going into the desert, to live there on locusts. Now he will probably take the gypsy to his solitude, to while away the hours till Melitta returns....

Oswald increased thus wilfully his own troubles of mind. The new passion which inflamed his imagination made him deaf to the voice of his conscience, blind to the evident proofs of the utter groundlessness of his assertions. He had an indistinct consciousness of his own weariness and exhaustion; he felt sick at heart, and perfectly unable to come to any clear conclusions about himself. He pressed his face into his hands, to see nothing, to hear nothing....

A hand, which touched his shoulder, aroused him from his revery. It was Oldenburg. The baron was alone. The fire of the piled-up wood blazed up fitfully, and was on the point of expiring. The moon, half covered by drifting gray clouds, twinkled ghastly in the dark water of the pool. The wind was whispering and wailing through the long reeds near the shore.

"Where is Czika?" asked Oswald.

"Gone," replied the baron. "Let us go. It is late."

"Is she not coming back?"

"I do not know."

"And you have allowed this child, your child, to follow the wild gypsy woman into the wide world?"

"What could I do? Is she not her child a thousand times more than mine? Has she not borne it amid pains, fed it, sheltered it many, many years, in rain and in sunshine, in need and in poverty, in the dark woods and on the open highway? Has she not begged and robbed and done worse things than that perhaps for her child? What have I done for my child? Nothing! Nothing but to stamp the mother as a thief before the eyes of a mob of nobles, nothing but to drive her from me like a lost dog, for the sake of a wretched coquette! No! No! I have no right to the child!"

While the baron was speaking he pushed with his foot the half-consumed, glowing firebrands into the pool, so that they turned black one by one.

"Why did the Brown Countess wish to see you, then? Why did she manage to put the child into your hands? Why did she herself appoint this rendezvous?"

"She wished to see once more the beloved of her youth, the only man she had ever really loved. She wished to put his child into his hands and then dive back into the darkness of the woods. But she cannot live without the child, and the child cannot live without her. I had to let them go both!"

"But why not take them both with you to Cona?"

"Shall I chain the falcon? The falcon is happy only in the immeasurable ether on high; he dies in the foul air of our houses. Come! It is high time for us civilized men to go to bed!"

The baron pushed the last firebrand into the water; the men turned to go.

From between the hurriedly drifting clouds the moon was peeping blear-eyed at the dark water of the pool, and the long reeds that grew near the edges whispered: Here is a pleasant resting-place for all the sorrows of earth!