something that sounded truer than the wretch himself suspected. Eberhard
saw just then, for the first time in his life, the adored figure of the
girl as a human being like all other human beings; and as if through a
distant vision he experienced in his heart what had taken place.

His illusions were destroyed.

In his soul he had gone through the trials of renunciation long ago. His
passionate wishes of former times had gone through a process of
weakening from loss of blood. He had learned to bow to the inevitable;
he had made a special effort to acquire this bit of earthly wisdom. When
he surveyed the life he had lived in the past five years, it resembled,
despite its flux and the incessant change from city to city and country
to country, a sojourn in a room with closed doors and drawn shades.

When he had returned to the city, which he loved simply because Eleanore
lived in it, he had had no intention of reminding Eleanore of the
expiration of the time mutually agreed upon. He felt that it would be a
banal display of poor taste to appear before her once again as an
awkward, jilted suitor, and try to reconnect the thread where it had
been so ruthlessly broken five years ago. He had intended not to disturb
her or worry her in any way. But to go to her and speak with her, that
had been the one bright ray of hope in all these empty years.

After the scene with Herr Carovius he decided quite firmly to keep away
from Eleanore.

His ready cash had shrunk to a few hundred marks. He discharged his
servants, disposed of some of his jewelry, and rented one of those
little houses that are stuck on the rocks up by the castle like so many
wasp nests. The house he took had been occupied before him by the
Pfragners, and with its three rooms was not much larger than a
fair-sized cage in a menagerie. But he had taken it into his head to
live there, and that was all there was to it. He bought some old
furniture, and adorned the slanting walls of the dilapidated barracks
with such pictures as he had.

One evening there was a knock at the green door of the cottage. Eberhard
opened, and saw Herr Carovius standing before him.

Herr Carovius entered the Baron's doll house, looked around in
astonishment, and, pale as a sheet, said: "So help me God, it seems to
me you are trying to play the role of a hermit. This won't do; this is
no place for a Baron; I will not stand for it."

Eberhard reached for the book he had been reading, a volu