But his dreamy and _night-intoxicated_ soul did not carry so far its dangerous effusion, which might do so much the more harm, as Flamin in his anger was unable to listen any longer to distinctions and justifications, and even rejected again old ones which he had before allowed. For at his entrance a May-frost on Flamin's face closed a little the opening blossom-cup of his heart. He begged Flamin with his contrasting warmth of face to take a walk on this bright day. Out of doors the contrast grew still more sharp, as Flamin thrust his cane into the ground even to the point of cracking it, beheaded flowers, whipped off leaves, stamped out footprints with the heel of his boot, while Victor sought to discourse in one steady stream, in order to maintain his soul in the warmth which he had brought with him. One thing about him gratifies me, that he was going to pour out his heart, overrunning with to-day's renunciations, into the very one which he had to charge with those renunciations. At last he said, hurriedly, just for the sake of throwing off from his soul the confession which hall become so hard to utter, "At Whitsuntide I am going to Maienthal,"--and then flyingly passed over to the words, "O just a year ago to-day thou wentest with me." Flamin interrupted him, and his icy face, like a Hecla, was cloven with flames: "So! so!--at Whitsuntide? Thou dost not go with _us_ to Kussewitz!--Let me once for all speak right out, Victor!"--Then they stopped. Flamin stripped the blossoms and leaves from the branch of a wild plum-tree with bloody hand, and looked not at his gentle friend, lest he should be softened himself. "A year ago to-day, sayest thou? Yes, that very evening I went with thee up to the watch-tower, and we promised each other either truth or death. Thou sworest to me to throw thyself headlong with me, whenever thou shouldst have taken all from me, all,--or, say, _her_ love; for in thy presence she hardly looks at me any more.--By the Devil, am I then blind? Do I not see, then, that the machinery of her journey and thine has been all planned out?--What hast thou to do just now with the Maienthal landscapes? To whom does the _hat_ belong?--And what am I to infer from all this?--To whom, whom? say, say!--O God, if it were true!--Help me, Victor!"--In the eyes of the misused, to-day exhausted Victor stood the bitterest tears, which Flamin, however, who exasperated himself by his own talking, could now bear. Never did the latter in a rage accept remonstrances: nevertheless he expected them, and was astounded at his being in the right, and at the other party's silence, and desired to be contradicted. He crushed in his bleeding hand the sloe-thorns. His eye burned into the weeping one. Victor bewailed his firm oath to his father, and looked on the trembling balance wherein the oath and indulgent friendship hung in equipoise. He collected once more all his love into his breast, and spread his arms wide open, and fain would