Thyrsis helped to gather up her various bags and bundles, and transported her out to the country. On the train he set to work to gain her confidence, and was forthwith entertained with the tale of all her heart-troubles. Back in the Hungarian village she had fallen in love with the son of a rich farmer, quite in Hermann and Dorothea fashion; but alas, in this case there had been no “_gute verstandige Mutter_” and no “_würdiger Pfarrer_”--instead there had been a hateful step-mother, and so the “_treffliches Mädchen_” had had to come away. They reached the little cottage at last; and then what a house-cleaning there was, what scrubbing of floors; and brushing out the cobwebs, and scouring of lamp-chimneys and scraping of kettles and sauce-pans! And what a relief it was for Corydon and Thyrsis to be able to go off for a walk together, without first having to carry the baby up to the farm-house! And how very poetical it was to come back and discover Dorothea with the baby in her lap, feeding it a supper of _butter-brod_ with a slice of raw bacon! As time went on, alas, it came more and more to seem that the Dorothea idyl had not been meant to be taken as a work of realism. The “_treffliches_ _Maedchen_” was perhaps _too_ kind-hearted; her emotions were too voluminous for so small a house, her personality seemed to spread all over it. She would sing Hungarian love-ditties at her work; and somehow calling these “folksongs” did not help matters. Also, alas, she distributed about the house strange odors--of raw onions, boiled cabbage and perspiration. So, after three weeks, poor Dorothea had to be sent away--weeping copiously, and bewildered over this cruel misfortune. Corydon and Thyrsis went back again to washing their own dishes; being glad to pay the price for quietness and privacy, and vowing that they would never again try, to “keep a servant”. Section 8. The spring-time had come; not so much the spring-time of poets and song-birds, as the spring-time of cold rains and wind. But still, little by little, the sun was getting the better of his enemies; and so with infinite caution they reduced the quantity of the baby’s apparel, and got him and his “bongie cowtoos” out upon the piazza. Meantime Thyrsis was over at his own place, wrestling with the book again. He had told himself that it would be easy, now that he was free from the money-terror. But alas, it was not easy, and nothing could make it easy. If he had more energy, it only meant that his vision reached farther, and set him a harder task. Never in his life did he write a book, the last quarter of which was not to him a nightmare labor. He would be staggering, half blind with exhaustion--like a runner at the end of a long race, with a rival close at his heels.