nd unchangeableness.
I had wept my last tear; not another cry could be extorted from my
heart; I presented to my fate my bare head with chill indifference.

"Bendel," I said, "thou knowest my lot. Not without earlier blame has
my heavy punishment befallen me. Thou, innocent man, shalt no longer
bind thy destiny to mine. I do not desire it. I leave this very night;
saddle me a horse; I ride alone; thou remainest; it is my will. Here
still must remain some chests of gold; that retain thou; but I will
alone wander unsteadily through the world. But if ever a happier hour
should smile upon me, and fortune look on me with reconciled eyes,
then will I remember thee, for I have wept upon thy firmly faithful
bosom in heavy and agonizing hours."

With a broken heart was this honest man compelled to obey this last
command of his master, at which his soul shrunk with terror. I was
deaf to his prayers, to his representations; blind to his tears. He
brought me out my steed. Once more I pressed the weeping man to my
bosom, sprang into the saddle, and under the shroud of night hastened
from the grave of my existence, regardless which way my horse
conducted me, since I had longer on earth no aim, no wish, no hope.

CHAPTER VIII

A pedestrian soon joined me, who begged, after he had walked for some
time by the side of my horse, that, as we went the same way, he might
be allowed to lay a cloak which he carried, on the steed behind me.
I permitted it in silence. He thanked me with easy politeness for the
trifling service; praised my horse; and thence took occasion to extol
the happiness and power of the rich, and let himself, I know not how,
fall into a kind of monologue, in which he had me now merely for a
listener.

He unfolded his views of life and of the world, and came very soon
upon metaphysics, whose task is to discover the Word that should solve
all riddles. He stated his thesis with great clearness and proceeded
onward to the proofs.

Thou knowest, my friend, that I have clearly discovered, since I have
run through the schools of the philosophers, that I have by no means a
turn for philosophical speculations, and that I have totally
renounced for myself this field. Since then I have left many things
to themselves; abandoned the desire to know and to comprehend many
things; and as thou thyself advised me, have, trusting to my common
sense, followed as far as I was able the voice within me in my own
way. Now this rhe