In Maienthal eleven o'clock was called,--at twelve Emanuel believed he should be gone hence. At last Emanuel, unmanned himself by another's sorrow, fell upon his friend and said: "What hast thou further to say to me, my beloved, my inexpressibly dear friend?--by hours are fled,--our farewell approaches,--say thine, and then disturb not my dying. Be still, when death climbs the mountain, and send no lamentations after me, when he takes me up.--What hast thou more to say to me, my eternally beloved?"--"Nothing more, thou angel of heaven! nor can I," said Victor with bleeding and exhausted heart, and laid his oppressed head with streams of tears on Emanuel's shoulder. "Now then break off thy heart from mine, and farewell,--be happy, be good, be great. I have loved thee very much, I shall love thee once more and then forever. Good, faithful one,--mortal like me, immortal like me!" The storm-bells tolled more violently,--the hovering luminous point advanced upon the powder-house,--all the covered cloud-volcanoes bellowed side by side and flung their flames together, and the thunders passed like alarm-bells between them,--the two friends lay in each other's arms, close, mute, gasping, clasping, trembling before the last word. "O speak once more, my Horion, and take leave of thy friend,--only say to me, Rest well! and leave the dying." Horion said, "Rest well!" and left him. His tears ceased and his sighs were hushed. The thunder came to a fearful pause. Nature was mutely ordering her chaos in the tempest. Not a flash gleamed through the funeral pile in heaven. Only the funeral tolling of the alarm-bells on the lightning-rod continued to speak, and the luminous point to creep onward. Under the wide stillness lay sleep, dreams, and a friend's inconsolable heart. In this stillness of eternity Emanuel went up without any other hand in his to the high gate which soars away in black darkness above time. Silence is the speech of the world of spirits, the starry heaven its nunnery-grating,--but behind this nunnery-grating appeared now no spirit, not even God. The moment was coming when man looks upon his body and then on his individual self, and then shudders.--The _I_ stands alone beside its shadow,--a foam-globe of being trembles, snaps, and collapses, and one hears the bubble vanish and _is_ one himself. Emanuel peered into Eternity, it looked like a long night. He looked round him to see whether he cast a shadow,--a shadow casts no shadow. Ah! a mute lays man in the cradle, a mute stretches him out in the grave.--When he has a joy, it looks as if a sleeper smiled,--when he weeps and wails, it looks like weeping in one's sleep.--We all look up to heaven and pray for solace; but overhead in the endless blue there is no voice for our heart,--nothing appears, nothing consoles us, nothing answers us.-- And so we die....