On the hill they saw already the spires of the city; the sun, that chosen turnstile of the escort, poured out of his deep hiding-place his gold-trailing purple streams over the beds of shadow. There, on the hill, as the sun vanished, Victor folded his arms round the married couple, and said, "O, make yourselves as happy as you do me, and return to your home in gladness!"--and then he took the sisters to his enraptured heart, and said, "Good, good night! I love you!"--and then he saw them all going back with their hidden sighs and tears; and then he called out, "Truly, I shall soon come back; it is really only a jump from one place to the other"; and then he cried after them, "I shall be a poor devil, if we are separated!"--and then his heavy eye followed them through all branches and hollows, and only when the loving company had sunk into the last valley, as into a grave, did he close his eyes and think on the ceaseless separations of man.... At last he opened his eyes toward the outspread, obscured city, and thought: "Amidst that raised-work, in which men nestle with their little life, thy little days, too, are shut in,--this is the veiled birthplace of thy future tears, thy future raptures;--ah! with what eyes shall I look down again, years hence, over this misty environment,--and ... I am a fool! are, then, 2,300 houses standing only on my account?" _Postscript_. This sixteenth post-day the Mining-Superintendent has concluded in regular order at the end of June. FOURTH INTERCALARY DAY, AND PREFACE TO THE SECOND PART.