Again, I felt as if I had been the winner. How foolish was I! It was not me who had won here, but only the calculated thought that I was likely to obtain a fortune, and for me, there even was the danger that it was not just the grandfather who was thus calculating. Aside from this, he asked her to stay with him in Hohenstein, until we would get married. I had no objections and gave up my lodgings in Dresden, to live with my parents in Ernstthal. This was a time of rather strange internal and external developments for me. I wrote and travelled. Returning from one of these travels, I was told, as soon as I had stepped off the train, that the night before the "old Pollmer" had died; he had suffered a stroke. I rushed to his apartment. I had been told too much. He was not dead; he was still alive, but he could neither speak nor move. His grandchild sat in the next room, rather materially busy. She had searched for his money and found it. It was not much; I believe it was less than two hundred marks. I pulled her away from this, over to the sick man. He recognised me and wanted to talk, but only achieved an inarticulate babble. His eyes expressed a terrible fear. Then, the physician who treated him came. He had already examined him the first thing early in the morning, did it now again, and informed us that all hope was in vain. After he had left, the dying man's daughter fell on her knees before me and begged me that I should by no means leave her. I promised this to her and have kept my word. I have even done more than this. I fulfilled her wish to stay in Hohenstein. We rented one floor at the upper market square and could have lived there in infinite happiness, if such happiness had been in our destiny.