f the regular
guests were to be found to-day on account of the beautiful weather
outside, and where those who were present were fully occupied with
their customary drink. It would not be very hard to divine what had led
our friend hither. First of all, the certainty of not meeting any one
whom he knew. Then, probably, an unconscious attraction in the name.
The landlord of this little wine-room bore the name of the first man,
and it is probable that one who had just been driven from Paradise felt
a strong inclination to go and console himself with another Adam over
the common fate of the race. In this object he seemed to have been
wonderfully successful, partly because of the innocent power of the red
Wuertemberger, of which this desperate man had managed to empty four
Schoppen; partly because of the soothing influence of the muses.

What Rosenbusch had written in his sketch-book had been a melancholy
strain; a sad lament over the misappreciation of the world, its
hardhearted realism, its effect upon his own fate, and, finally, over
his own desperate love affair.

Any one who knew how to read poems might easily have derived from this
one the consolation that the author's life was in no immediate danger
from the stunning blows which had fallen upon it. The truth is he
belonged to those delicately-strung, romantic souls, who consider it
almost a moral duty to suffer continually from some gentle inflammation
of the heart or fantasy. But the more chronic their state becomes, the
less dangerous it is, as a general rule. Unfortunately, in the case of
our lyric poet, there was another circumstance which tended greatly to
increase the unpleasantness of his situation. Though, by temperament,
he was little inclined to passionate catastrophes, he felt, on the
other hand, a certain abstract craving for action, which made it
impossible for him to be content with looking on at life from a
distance. A certain lack of physical courage--for he was of a slender,
nervous build--made him feel it incumbent on him to exercise so much
the more moral boldness, and to carry a fancy, which another would have
quickly put aside--for it had not really taken a very strong hold on
him--to some romantic end, or to illustrate it by some adventurous
enterprise. This love of _denouements_ had generally turned out so
badly for him that he might well have been discouraged; his friends
told the most comical stories of what he had suffered in this way. But