l
asleep. It was something not of the earth that he was going through
without realizing it. If he had understood it, who knows whether the
thick skin which had formed on him through renunciation and struggle
would have allowed him to feel it?

He could not help realizing that chance had brought him to the most
important decision of his life; for he could no longer doubt that he
had won complete mastery over the heart of the loving girl. He had
never thought of bettering his condition; he had never even wished such
a thing, for a life without needs is a happy life, good for body and
soul. He loved his freedom; he was exactly what he wanted to be.

And yet fate seemed to intend that he should burden himself with a
wife, with duties to others than himself, and with the comforts which
he had hitherto neglected. He meant not to defend himself, but to let
the thing develop as it would, whatever were the consequences.

On this day he strolled down to Weimar, which had been the goal of his
pilgrimage, in order to tread the streets and roads which the old man
was accustomed to walk. He went to the theatre, and came back to the
Ettersberg and the farm late in the evening. The whole place was
asleep; only the Raven-mother came to bring him some supper.

So he wandered about the next day also. Beate was not to be seen. The
Raven-mother told him that he was always welcome at meal-times, but was
not to put any constraint on himself.

"A sly little creature, that pretty hostess of mine!" he said to
himself. In the afternoon he met her, but outside the garden. It struck
him that she did not blush, but simply looked pleased. Her whole being
had something free and light about it. Her crown of red hair glowed in
the afternoon sun; she had the freedom and the happiness of summer.

Herr Kosch could not help feeling that he had contributed but little to
this beautiful light-heartedness. After all, he was not well acquainted
with the circumstances of these people; and he had had his first sight
of the much courted one in the midst of her suitors. The affectionate
disposition which she had shown toward him that evening seemed to him
no longer so indisputable.

He was decidedly the possessor of what people call luck with women.
"They like," he told himself, "what is unusual. A dark fellow like me,
firm and energetic, with irregular features, and a bearing a trifle
mysterious and suggestive of the werewolf--that's what takes with these
r