with! This is playing a game that
tortures me. You know my heart. It wears a mantle of pride, but under
the mantle lurks melancholy; many a time it rises in its might, tears
off the mantle, and treads its starched purple in the dust, and--" Mara
gently placed her left hand, which was as cool as the folds of her
garment, upon my right hand, so that my will retreated in fear within
me. I thought, "How ridiculous to talk like that! In what poor
taste--how did you come to do it? It was well that she interrupted you.
And she knows everything; she knows more about you than you know about
yourself." Ashamed, not daring to look at her, I walked along a short
distance.

But soon I once more revolted against her power. In some way or other I
must subdue her.

At a street corner I suddenly remained one pace behind her, turned into
a side street, darted into a shop, and observed through the window how
she, searching, came back the way that we had gone. Then I ran farther
down the side street and through a passage way into another street,
hastily, excitedly, almost beside myself.

All of a sudden I saw Mariandel standing amazed and waiting for me a
few paces in advance. Her fine blue eyes were filled with tears, she
held out her hand to me, and called out reproachfully and
compassionately at the same time, "Erwin--!"

I barely touched her hand, whispered that I was in a hurry, and fled
past her into another street. Mara, I thought, will surely know where I
am; but by the time she gets here, I shall be somewhere else. And
spying around on all sides, I rushed on.

Behold, on the same road ahead of me there walked a lithe maiden of
middle size, whose unexpected sight took my breath away and robbed my
knees of their strength. In a dark-green woolen dress, as I had last
seen her in Germany, she walked apparently absent-minded whithersoever
her footsteps carried her. How many a time I had seen before me this
childishly slender brown neck, this knot of dark hair; how often this
hat on her arm as now, or in her slender brown hand. I longed to see
her familiar face, but I feared to meet her glance. I crossed the
street, outdistanced her as she slowly advanced, and then walked slowly
to meet her. "How far away from me that seems!" I thought, "God
preserve us, I cannot avoid her!" With her head bent slightly, as
though in a revery, she came along. Her dark hair was as of yore combed
far back from her forehead; the dainty lines of her mou