about our military shortcomings, and at last succeeded in bolting every door to advancement so tightly against me, that I preferred to leave the beaten track of a military career altogether. Wouldn't even the blessed Thersites have been forced to resign if he had served as first lieutenant under the generals Achilles or Diomedes? And yet, those times were far simpler than ours! So, now, I go on grumbling without hinderance, and without caring whether any notice is taken of it or not. The wheat of the Philistines is sown too thick, and thrives too well, for it to be hurt by the few tares that grow among it. Still, it does me some good; in the first place, because it purges me of my gall before it mixes with my blood and attacks my vitals; and then because it makes me more and more hated by good society, and avoided by persons of my own rank. You don't know what a Robinson-Crusoe-like existence I lead; in the midst of the city I am as solitary as Saint Anthony in his cave; yes, even more lonely, for I suffer no temptations. Won't you take a look at my hermitage? Here we are at the door." They had arrived at the old house with which Felix had already made acquaintance. He felt very little disposition to mount the stairs again. While his companion had been running on in this odd, bitter way, his mind had been occupied by one single thought. "She is here! You need only wish it, and you can see her to-morrow!" Nevertheless, he could not well refuse Schnetz's polite invitation; and so he followed him up into his fourth-story quarters. CHAPTER VI. The pale, quiet woman opened the door for them, and looked neither at Schnetz nor his companion, but withdrew hastily to a little back-room near the kitchen, without giving any other answer than a slow shake of the head to her master's kind nod and inquiry whether any one had been there. Felix was struck, even more than the first time, by the sad, timid expression of her eyes, which had a noble form and a soft brilliancy, while her features could never have been handsome even in her younger days.