and his cousin's youngest daughter, of which his home town was
talking. His brother sent his regards to her as his future
sister-in-law.

Although no such relation existed, Apollonius acknowledged to himself
that it was only for him to call it into being. He knew that he could
become his cousin's son-in-law if he wished. The girl was pretty,
good, and fond of him, as was her sister. But he looked on her only as
a sister; he had never felt a wish that she might be more to him. He
believed he had conquered his love for Christiane; he did not know
that after all it was only she that stood between him and his cousin's
daughter, as she would have stood between him and any other woman.
When he learned that Christiane loved his brother, he had taken from
his breast the little metal box in which he had carried the flower
ever since the evening when he had picked it up in the mistaken
belief that it had been laid there for him. When Christiane became his
brother's wife, he packed up the box with the flower and sent it to
him. He could not throw away what had once been dear to him--but he
might no longer possess it. Only he had a right to the flower for whom
it had been intended, to whom belonged the hand which had bestowed it.

His father called him back; he must obey. But it was more than mere
obedience that awoke in him. He not only went; he went gladly. His
father's words conveyed to him a permission rather than an order. When
the spring sun penetrates into a room that has been uninhabited and
closed for the winter we see that what has lain on the floor like dry
mummies was really sleeping life. Now it moves and stretches itself
and becomes a buzzing cloud and swarms up jubilantly into the golden
ray. Not his father alone, every house in his home-town, every hill,
every garden about it, every tree within it, called him. His brother,
his sister--this was the name he gave Christiane--called him. Yet, she
did not call him. She felt a dislike of him, a dislike so strong that
for six years his brother had struggled in vain to overcome it. He
felt as if he must go home on that account if on no other; he must
show her that he did not deserve her dislike, that he was worthy to be
her brother. He wrote this to his brother in the letter which
announced his intention to obey and named the day on which they might
expect him. He was able to assure him that recollections of the time
that was gone would not torture him, that his brother'