Not far behind this brave soldier rides another, upon whom, likewise, the eyes of the women and girls in the windows gaze with pleasure, though he is a stranger to them all, and, for his part, very rarely lets his dark eyes rest on any of these blooming faces. For who is there here whom he cares to seek? And whose face would he be glad to see unexpectedly? It was only with great reluctance and in order not to offend Schnetz, who asked it of him as a particular proof of friendship, that he finally consented to take part in the entrance of the troops, and to visit once more the city which had so many bitter associations for him. These last two years--what a different man they had made of him! And yet--although he was firmly convinced that the source of every joy was dried up in his innermost heart, and that henceforth nothing was left to him but a barren satisfaction at duties conscientiously fulfilled--even he could not altogether escape the festal mood of this marvelous hour. His handsome face, made bolder and keener by the hardships of war, lost the sad, hard expression which had never been absent from it during the whole year; a bright determination, a quiet earnestness, beamed from his eyes. As he rode through the triumphal avenue strewn with flowers, amid the chime of bells and the wildest shouts of joy, he lost the consciousness of his own hopeless lot, and became merged, as it were, in the great, pervading spirit of a unique and sublime festival, which would never come again; and to take part in which, with the Iron Cross on his breast, and honorable, scarcely healed wounds underneath, was a privilege which might well be thought to compensate for all the lost bliss of a young life. After the entrance ceremonies were over, he wended his way toward the garden on the Dultplatz, where he thought there would be the least danger, to-day, of meeting any one of his acquaintances. Here, surrounded on all sides by the country-folk who had streamed into the city in great crowds, he sat in the shade of the ash-trees and, like a dream, the events of the last two years passed in review before him; from that first Sunday afternoon when he dined here with Jansen and his new friends, down to the present moment, when he sat in the crowd solitary and alone, sought by no friendly eye, and merely stared at as one of that great host which had done honor to its fatherland.