es invited to neighboring castles. Now, however, even
strangers couldn't fail to notice, that in the midst of the gayest mood
her features would become terribly rigid and stony, and she either
turned her horse and dashed off home, or left her partner standing on
the ball room floor, and without the slightest reason or excuse ordered
her horses to be harnessed. There were a great many discussions and
consultations about the matter; the family physician, an old and
tolerably skillful man, with whom I speedily came to an understanding,
shrugged his shoulders; one medical notability after another, upon
being consulted, could not even obtain an interview, or, like the
christian physician in the harem, be permitted to feel the beautiful
patient's pulse through a hole in the wall; so matters were as hopeless
as they well could be, and the fear that monomania or some serious
derangement of the mind was imminent, was unfortunately only too well
justified.

"A lady who had known the count in Berlin, and in whose family I had
once been successful in curing a patient, mentioned my name to him. So
I came to the castle, and when on the following day I sent in my name
to the countess, simply as an old acquaintance, who had accidentally
wandered here while on a journey and merely wished to present himself
to her, I cherished the brightest hopes of penetrating the secret,
since I was at least admitted, a favor which had been obstinately
refused to all the other physicians who had been summoned.

"But I was very much mistaken. She received me as frankly and cordially
as in Jaegerstrasse, seemed to remember every incident of those days,
down to the magical feast in the Pagoda, which was the last time I saw
her. She even inquired about you; you were doubtless married and no
longer lived in Berlin; then she wished to know what had happened to
the other guests at our bacchanalian revel at Charlottenburg. I clearly
perceived that she listened to my answers absently, not as if she were
giving herself airs, like a great lady who wishes to awe a plebeian,
but with an expression of profound weariness, numbness, and
joylessness, such as I have seen in the first stages of mental
disorder, or in the half lucid intervals of incurable lunatics. I can
truly say, that rarely have I so earnestly desired to be a medical
genius, which--between ourselves--I'm not. She's a beautiful creature,
you've no idea what she has become; I can easily understand, that