Why he went there no one knew, not even he himself. He went there by instinct to look at the horses; he wanted to bring his inward feelings into more conformity with his outward circumstances, and so he visited the old farm-horses that he had already seen a thousand times, and examined their legs carefully. He thought of all the horses he knew that had anything the matter with them. One had spavin--_he_ would take care not to buy a horse that had spavin. Another horse's legs were not quite so straight as they might be, and a third had string-halt--he had learnt to distinguish that, within the last two years. A fourth had the staggers--any man would be a fool to buy that horse. A fifth had been fired for another illness, and so on, and so on. But there was another thought uppermost in his mind as he stood in the door-way of the stables. And that thought was of the wonderful beauty and refinement of Mrs. von Rambow. The young rascal imagined that he had fallen over head and ears in love with her, and now in spite of Alick's kindness to him about the horse, he did not hesitate to cause him unhappiness--in thought. "Yes," he said, as he stood in the door-way in the gathering darkness, "what is Louisa Hawermann in comparison with that angelic lady? Ah, Louisa, I'm sorry for you! I don't know how on earth I came to fall in love with you. And then Mina and Lina. They're poor little bits of things. And Mary Möller--pah! That would never have done. She looked like a great red plum to-day, and Mrs. von Rambow like a delicately tinted peach. When the sorrel-mare is mine, I can perhaps go on a message for the lady--to the post or somewhere. And then, when she comes home at night from a ball at Rahnstädt, I may perhaps open the carriage-door for her, if Daniel Sadenwater happens to be out of the way. If she has forgotten her handkerchief or--or her goloshes at Rahnstädt, I'll mount my sorrel-mare, and--tch, tch--I'll get back with her things in half an hour; ten miles in half an hour!---'Here are your goloshes, Madam,' I'll say. 'Thanks, Triddelfitz,' she'll answer, 'your attention .....' The devil take that beastly pole!" he exclaimed; for as he was going home in the dark immersed in dreams about his new love-affair, he tripped over a pole that had been left in the yard through his own carelessness, and now he lay at full length on ground that felt wonderfully cool and soft. What he had fallen on he could not tell, though his nose made him suspect what it was, and he thought it might be better to go to his own room, and find out before joining Hawermann in the parlour.