you
once for all--"

"Thank you, Marquard. Adieu!"

So saying, Edwin left the doctor standing on the dark stairs and
hastily ran up again, without hearing the expression of astonishment
which the latter sent after him.

When he returned to the tun, he endeavored to assume a cheerful
expression, and even laughed heartily, as if Marquard had told him some
comical story.

"It's all right," he said to Balder. "The tragi-comedy is to have an
after piece. What do you say to that, child? We'll recommend the
subject to Mohr for a fantastic story, the title will be promising:
'The Ghost in Rosenstrasse.'"

"All will yet be well," replied Balder gently, repressing a sigh. "Such
a parting was unnatural, and who knows whether you both would not have
suffered too severely in the trial. Now no harm is done except that she
too must have suffered in having been deprived of you a week."

"Oh! you flatterer!" exclaimed Edwin, who was pacing up and down the
room with his hands in his pockets. "Deprived of me? And what compelled
hex to be deprived of me, except her own free ducal will? Oh! child,
child, don't let us call X, U to each other! The matter stands simply
thus: I knew nothing of her, and she neither wished nor wishes to know
anything of me. And now see, my dear child, what a pitiful weakling
man, and especially your wise brother is! Instead of being satisfied
that this fortnight's silence is meant as a discharge, he will not be
content to rest until he has received his dismissal in due form, if in
any way he can obtain another audience.

"You see," he continued, while Balder was silently trying to calm his
fears at this new turn in the state of affairs, "we have our boasted
free will and the admirable categorical imperative mood, the standard
specifics for all attacks of moral fevers. I can solemnly assure you,
Balder, I'm no coward, no such pitiful weakling, that I would not
swallow the bitterest medicine, if I knew it would cure me. 'You can,
because you ought!' Certainly, I can force myself not to steal, murder,
commit adultery, or break any other of the ten commandments, because I
know they are in themselves half holy, half salutary, and the world
would be out of joint if we did not hold in check certain desires for
our neighbor's purse, life, wife, or anything else that is his. But
_here_, in my case--what do you command, Herr Imperative Mood? What do
you desire, Herr Free Will? That it looks ill for _meum esse
co