"I won't have it, no way, no way! My daughter has not been born and has not been brought up to toil her way through life with a poor devil! She can get other men. I won't have her marrying an author, who, if all turns out well, only lives by his fame and otherwise starves!" "Might it be that you are also considering my prior convictions in this?" I asked. "This, I would accept!" "Nonsense! I don't care about that. Hundreds of thousands are walking about in freedom, who ought to be in prison! No, that's not it. I have entirely different reasons. You won't get my daughter!" He shouted these words very loudly. "Oho!" I answered. "Oho? There is no oho! I'm telling you again, you won't get my daughter!" He pounded his walking stick on the floor with every one of these words, to increase their effect. I was very tempted to place my hand on his shoulder and to tell him laughingly: "Well, so keep her!" But my father's legacy within me rebelled against this, the tough, unreflected rage, which never does the right thing. I now also became enraged: "If you won't give her to me, then I'll take her!" "Just try it!" "I won't just try it, but I will do it, actually do it!" Then, he laughed. "You won't dare to come to my place. From now on, any kinds of visits on your part are not welcome any more!" "This goes without saying. But I predict: The time will come, when you'll come to me in person and beg me to visit you. But for now, farewell!" "Me, begging you? Never, never, no way!" He left. But I wrote three lines and sent them to his daughter. They read: "Choose between me and your grandfather; if you choose him, stay; if you choose me, come to Dresden right away!" Then I left town. She chose me; she came. She left the man who had brought her up and whose only treasure she was. This flattered me. I felt as if I had been the winner. I put her up with a minister's widow, who had two grown-up, highly educated daughters. By the contact with these ladies, she was enabled to easily obtain everything she did not possess yet. This gave her the opportunity, to mange a household by herself. I also worked with much, even very much success. I became well known and earned very decent royalties. I had started my "traveller's tales", which were also published right away in Paris and Tours, translated into French. The word of this got around; this even impressed the "old Pollmer". He was told by experts, that I was about to become a prosperous, perhaps even a rich man. So he wrote to his daughter. He forgave her for leaving him for my sake, and asked her to come to Hohenstein, to visit him, and to bring me along. She fulfilled his wish, and I accompanied her. But I did not come to see him, but rather went to Ernstthal to my parents. He sent for me; but I answered, I knew very well what I had predicted to him. If he wanted to have me at his place, he would have to come in person, to invite me. And he came!