And this very day, when she looked into his eyes with so much renewed love, he was to be torn from her! He spared her, it is true, the revelation of his birth and his eternal separation, in order not to lay upon her lacerated heart new loads of sorrow; but he would fain wholly gather, in this last minute of his fair love, this gleaning and this after-bloom of his life. Ah, he would fain look upon her as never before,--he would press her hand intensely as he had never before done,--he would say a farewell to her like a dying man.----For it is all--his innermost being cried unceasingly--for the last, last time!--Only he would not kiss her: a shrinking reverence, the thought of having played out the part of the lover, forbade him to make a selfish use of her ignorance. But when he was about to direct towards her the last look of love,--then did fate thrust all the sharpened weapons, which had hitherto been driven into his nerves, once more into the bleeding openings, just as they replace in the wounds of murdered men the old instruments, to see whether they are the same,----ah, they _were_ the same,--the chamber was darkened as if by an extinguisher,----the tones of the flute were stifled in the internal din,--he must needs look upon her and yet could not for the water in his eyes,--he must look upon her with a long, retentive look, because he wanted to impress her beautiful face as a shadow-image of the shadowy Eden forever upon his soul.--At last he succeeded; amidst a thousand woes he seized with an intense look her tear-bedewed face, through which virtue pulsed like a heart, and shadowed it out in his desolate soul even to every line, to every drop.--So much of her he took away with him,--no more; he left her everything, his heart and his joy.--Ah, tender Clotilda! if thou hadst guessed it!--The sobbing of _his_ mother hurried him to the adjoining chamber; he flung open the door, cried in a crushed voice to his mother, whose face was averted: "Dearest! by the Almighty, your _son_ is no murderer and no reprobate,"--and compressed the hand she gave him behind her back with a wild intensity of grasp. Look not now, my friends, at the dismal moment when for the last time he takes Clotilda's hand, and severs his heart from hers, and yet only says, "A happy journey, Clotilda, a peaceful life, Clotilda, joy be with thee, Clotilda!" --And at a distance from the village he fell on his knees beside the blind one, with a mute prayer for the mourning heart which he had now lost for the last time.-- Not until four o'clock in the morning did he arrive with the blind-one, without weariness, without tears, and without thoughts, at Flachsenfingen. 40. DOG-POST-DAY. The Murderous Duel.--Apology for the Duel.--Prisons regarded as Temples.--Job's-Wails of the Parson.--Legends of my Biographical Past.--Potato-Planting.