she would very willingly be
Diogenes, since she could not, as she very well knew, be Alexander. Now
she perceived that in reality she needed very little of outward comforts
to make her happy; she felt herself in her adverse circumstances so free
and rich; she had become on thee-and-thou terms with the rain-drops,
with the wind, with the shrubs and grass, with all nature in short; she
had not here the mishaps and the humiliations to fear which annoyed her
so often in company. If the magpies laughed at her, she laughed at them
in return. Long life to freedom!

With all these feelings, Petrea got into such excessively high spirits,
that she infected therewith her companions in misfortune; or, according
to her vocabulary, good fortune. But now, however, came on a horrible
tempest, with hail, whose great stones made themselves _thou_ to such a
degree with Petrea's nose as astonished and almost offended her. The
Assessor looked out for shelter; and Petrea, quite charmed that she was
nearly blown away, followed him along a narrow footpath that led into
the wood, onward in the direction of a smoke, which, driven towards them
by the storm, seemed to announce that a hospitable hut was at hand where
they might obtain shelter from the tempest. Whilst they were wandering
about to discover this, Petrea's fancy, more unrestrained than the
storm, busied itself with unbounded creations of robbers' castles, wise
hermits, hidden treasures, and other splendours, to which the smoke was
to conduct her. But ah! they were altogether built up of smoke, since it
arose from no other than a charcoal-burner's kiln, and Petrea had not
the smallest desire to make a nearer acquaintance with the hidden
divinity of which this smoke was the evidence. The small hut of the
charcoal-burner, in the form of a sugar-loaf, stood not far from the
kiln, the unbolted door of which was opened by the Assessor. No hermit,
nor even robber, had his abode therein; the hut was empty, but clean and
compact, and it was with no little pleasure that the Assessor took
possession of it, and seated himself with Petrea on the only bench which
it possessed. Petrea sighed. What a miserable metamorphosis of her
glorious castle in the air!

The prospect which the open door of the hut presented, and which had no
interest for Petrea, appeared, on the contrary, captivating to her
companion. He was there deep in the wood, in a solitude wild, but still
of an elevating character. The hut