I suffered a misery of embarrassment and shame during these few moments. That is a good phrase of the Easterns--'My heart turned to water within me!' I appreciated it then in its full significance. I shall never know what I said or did, or how I escaped. When I came to myself I was walking rapidly along an _allée_ of the Grosser Garten, muttering to myself with a kind of helpless iteration, 'Fool--fool--fool!' As for my apparent recognition of her, it was perfectly inexplicable to me, turn it which way I would. I could neither account for having supposed that I did know her, nor for having been mistaken in my supposition. It was easy to say that I had never in my life met, much less been acquainted, with any young lady answering to her description: but it was just as undeniable that every feature in her face was as familiar to me as the Dresden Madonna or the Venus of Milo. Here were two certainties, in irreconcilable conflict with each other, and it was my unlucky lot to have stumbled between them. I began to have serious doubts whether I were not bewitched--whether my head were quite right. Could it be that my solitary habits, my unsociableness, my taciturnity, had begun to affect my reason? I am not exaggerating my feeling in the least. A genuine logical paradox is about the most appalling thing that can confront a man in this world. Leaving all consideration of my embarrassment and awkwardness out of the question, the predicament of being at odds--so to speak--with possibility, was beyond measure distressing. However, I cooled down at last, and, wisely resolving to give the mystery time to resolve itself, I bent my steps towards the concert-ground and sat down at one of the vacant tables. The band struck up one of Mozart's Sinfonies. I was just beginning to forget my troubles in the music, when a slight stir near me attracted my notice, and looking round, what was my dismay to behold approaching the identical personages of my late adventure! Guided by fate, they sauntered on until they reached the very next table to my own. It happened to be the only disengaged one in the vicinity. They did not seem to see me at all; and after a few moments' deliberation, they sat down.