gdschloss. I leaned out into the sunshine, and the air was
full of the freshness of the pines I had seen from the heights, and the
freshness of the invisible sea. Some one downstairs was playing sadly on
a cello, tunes that reeked of _Weltschmerz_, and overhead the larks
shrilled an exquisite derision.

I thought I would combine luncheon, tea, and dinner in one meal, and so
have done with food for the day, so I said to the landlord, still
careful to be _kurz und bestimmt_: 'Bring food.' I left it to him to
decide what food, and he brought me fried eels and asparagus first,
sausages with cranberries second, and coffee with gooseberry jam last.
It was odd and indigestible, but quite clean. Afterwards I went down to
the shore through an ear-wiggy, stuffy little garden at the back, where
mosquitoes hummed round the heads of silent bath-guests sitting
statuesquely in tiny arbours, and flies buzzed about me in a cloud. On
the shore the fishermen's children were wading about and playing in the
parental smacks. The sea looked so clear that I thought it would be
lovely to have yet another bathe; so I sent a boy to call Gertrud, and
set out along the beach to the very distant and solitary bathing-house.
It was clean and convenient, but there were more local children playing
in it, darting in and out of the dusky cells like bats. No one was in
charge, and rows of towels and clothes hung up on hooks only asking to
be used. Gertrud brought my things and I got in. The water seemed
desperately cold and stinging, colder far than the water at
Stubbenkammer that morning, almost intolerably cold; but perhaps it only
seemed so because of the eels and cranberries that had come too. The
children were deeply interested, and presently undressed and followed me
in, one girl bathing only in her pinafore. They were very kind to me,
showed me the least stony places, encouraged me when I shivered, and
made a tremendous noise,--I concluded for my benefit, because after
every outburst they paused and looked at me with modest pride. When I
got out they got out too and insisted on helping Gertrud wring out my
things. I distributed _pfennings_ among them when I was dressed, and
they clung to me closer than ever after that, escorting me in a body
back to the inn, and hardly were they to be persuaded to leave me at the
door.

That evening was one of profound peace. I sat at my bedroom window, my
body and soul in a perfect harmony of content. My body had