wn into its gloomy depths. "This man, to whom everything seems
to work together for good, because as a well trained child of God, he
believes in time and eternity; who is satisfied with everything, his
mediocrity, his weakness, his skill and want of skill, who makes
a virtue of every necessity, even the heart-sorrow of his only
child,--does he deserve honor or detestation? Is not this yearning for
God, which ennobles everything to him, and shows him a paradise behind
every face, in reality only selfishness in disguise? Is not even this
piety, viewed apart from intellectual blindness, a fondling of self at
the expense of others? I, who enter this house for the first time, can
scarcely see the lovely girl without compassion and indignation at her
fate, and her own father, trusting that his dear God will again lead
the stray sheep back to the fold when the wolf has once been made
harmless, reconciles himself to see the beautiful, talented, patient
creature waiting away because her proper nourishment is withheld from
her. Really, we savages are the better men! If I should ever have a
daughter--"

He did not finish the sentence. The wind suddenly dashed such a whirl
of snow flakes into his face, that he was forced for a time to close
his eyes and mouth and cling involuntarily to the railing. When he
again looked around him, the storm seemed to have raged itself calm,
the moon even cast a misty light through the black clouds, and for a
moment revealed the houses on the opposite side of the canal, from
which, as it was now almost midnight, only a few lights gleamed.

"It's time to go home," murmured the young man. "Every one in the boats
below is already asleep. I wonder how a man feels who's born in the
cabin of a boat on the Spree and dies there, after gazing for sixty
years through his window into this _Cloaca maxima_!"

He had not walked a hundred paces along the bank of the river, when he
saw on one of the largest boats, loaded with wood, a crowd of people
pressing in excited but silent eagerness around a dark object on the
deck. From time to time the rays of a ship's red lantern flashed over
the group, revealing the broad faces of the fair haired men and women,
who were standing around something lying at their feet, and seemed to
be discussing what was to be done with it, but in suppressed voices, as
if it were a matter of great importance to settle the affair among
themselves.

On one of the boat landings, directly