fs, upon the
round, green crater of the burnt-out volcano, which once swallowed
nine thousand beasts at once, and which quenched itself with human
blood. The lurid glare of the torches penetrated into the clefts and
caverns, and among the foliage of the ivy and laurel, and among the
great shadows of the moon, which, like departed spirits, hovered in
caverns. Toward the south, where the streams of centuries and
barbarians had stormed in, stood single columns and bare arcades.
Temples and three palaces had the giant fed and lined with his limbs,
and still, with all his wounds, he looked out livingly into the world.

"What a people!" said Albano. "Here curled the giant snake five times
about Christianity. Like a smile of scorn lies the moonlight down
below there upon the green arena, where once stood the Colossus of the
Sun-god. The star of the north[9] glimmers low through the windows,
and the Serpent and the Bear crouch. What a world has gone by!" The
Princess answered that "twelve thousand prisoners built this theatre,
and that a great many more had bled therein." "O! we too have
building prisoners," said he, "but for fortifications; and blood, too,
still flows, but with sweat! No, we have no present; the past, without
it, must bring forth a future."

The Princess went to break a laurel-twig and pluck a blooming
wall-flower. Albano sank away into musing: the autumnal wind of the
past swept over the stubble. On this holy eminence he saw the
constellations, Rome's green hills, the glimmering city, the Pyramid
of Cestius; but all became Past, and on the twelve hills dwelt, as
upon graves, the lofty old spirits, and looked sternly into the age,
as if they were still its kings and judges.

"This to remember the place and time!" said the approaching Princess,
handing him the laurel and the flower. "Thou mighty One! a Coliseum is
thy flower-pot; to thee is nothing too great, and nothing too small!"
said he, and threw the Princess into considerable confusion, till she
observed that he meant not her, but nature. His whole being seemed
newly and painfully moved, and, as it were, removed to a distance: he
looked down after his father, and went to find him; he looked at him
sharply, and spoke of nothing more this evening.

THE OPENING OF THE WILL

From the _Flegeljahre_ (1804)

By JEAN PAUL

TRANSLATED BY FRANCES H. KING

Since Haslau had been a princely residence no one could remember any
event--the birth of the h