ve Herr Elias a good
shaking. Herr Elias, however, began to shout at the top of his voice,
"Help! help! Come here, folks! Help! My son-in-law's gone mad. My
partner's in a raging fit Help! help!" Everybody came running out of
the office. Traugott had released his hold upon Elias and now sank down
exhausted in a chair. They all gathered round him; but when he suddenly
leapt to his feet and cried with a wild look, "What do you all want?"
they all hurried off out of the room in a string, Herr Elias in the
middle.

Soon afterwards there was a rustling of a silk dress, and a voice
asked, "Have you really gone crazed, my dear Herr Traugott, or are you
only jesting?" It was Christina. "I am not the least bit crazed, my
angel," replied Traugott, "nor is it one whit truer that I am jesting.
Pray compose yourself, my dear, but our wedding won't come off
to-morrow; I shall never marry you, neither to-morrow, nor at any other
time." "There is not the least need of it," said Christina very calmly.
"I have not been particularly pleased with you for some time, and some
one I know will value it far differently if he may only lead home as
his bride the rich and pretty Miss Christina Roos. Adieu!" Therewith
she rustled off. "She means the book-keeper," thought Traugott. As soon
as he had calmed down somewhat he went to Herr Elias and explained to
him in convincing terms that he need not expect to have him either as
his son-in-law or as his partner in the business. Herr Elias reconciled
himself to the inevitable; and repeated with downright honest joy in
the office again and again that he thanked God to have got rid of that
crazy-headed Traugott--even after the latter was a long, long way
distant from Dantzic.

On at length arriving at the longed-for country, Traugott found a new
life awaiting him, bright and brilliant. At Rome he was introduced to
the circle of the German colony of painters and shared in their
studies. Thus it came to pass that he stayed there longer than would
seem to have been permissible in the face of his longing to find
Felicia again, by which he had hitherto been so restlessly urged
onwards. But his longing was now grown weaker; it shaped itself in his
heart like a fascinating dream, whose misty shimmer enveloped his life
on all sides, so that he believed that all he did and thought, and all
his artistic practice, were turned towards the higher supernatural
regions of blissful intuitions. All the female figures w