The story opens with a description of a castle which has fallen almost into ruins because of its owner's poverty. This description is striking and good; it has its counterpart in French literature in the picture of the Chateau de la Misère in Th. Gautier's _Capitaine Fracasse_. We are made to feel all the melancholy associated with the idea of former grandeur and present decay. The somewhat frivolous and selfish character of the penniless young Countess Dolores is also drawn with a masterly hand. This lady succeeds in engaging the affections of a distinguished and rich young man, Count Karl, who falls passionately in love with her and marries her, after overcoming various outward and inward difficulties. In the character of Count Karl, Arnim has succeeded in doing what had perhaps never been done in German literature before, namely, depicting what the English call a _perfect gentleman_, a conception for which other nations have no corresponding expression. A _gentleman_ is a man of honour, manly, serious, born to command; he is, moreover, a good Christian, conscientious, unselfish, the protector of those around him, not only good by natural disposition, but moral on principle. In this character Arnim seems to have embodied much of what was best in his own nature. Unfortunately he did not succeed in imparting to it sufficient life; a kind of dream-haze surrounds this man of fine feelings, who is always writing verses and who talks a language inspired by the spirit of romance. The plot turns upon the seduction of the young Countess. She is ensnared by a Spanish duke, who, under a false name and title, gains admission to the house, flatters her vanity in every possible way, and gradually, by the help of magnetism and romantic mysticism, gains complete influence over her, and persuades her that he has some mysterious connection with higher, nay, actually with divine, powers. It seems almost as if Arnim must have had Zacharias Werner in his mind when he drew this character. In Werner's writings we have exactly this same mixture of impudent lust and sanctimonious mystery; and we know that with Werner's mother it became a fixed idea that she was the Virgin Mary and her son the Saviour of the world. We come upon a similar idea in the following somewhat ineffective description of the seduction of Dolores:--