"Thus matters went on for a while," said Mr. Bemperlein, "but the moment came when it was my duty to decide whether I should openly avow my apostasy from the faith of my fathers or not. A very lucrative cure in this region, which was in the hands of an uncle of Frau von Berkow, became vacant by the death of the incumbent. The gentleman thought he would please his niece by offering the place to me; I had nothing to do but to go the following Sunday and preach my trial-sermon. Now, you must know that when the thing was first mentioned to me I was so much overwhelmed by surprise and by fright, and so unwilling to hurt the kind man's feelings, that I said: 'Yes.' You know Frau von Berkow intended to send Julius to Grunwald, and thus I could not have stayed at Berkow any longer at best. I also sat down to compose my sermon. I had so far succeeded in avoiding every call to show my theological talent of declamation, and now I felt, to my horror, that I had completely forgotten the pulpit-talk, and, what was worse, the pulpit logic. Three nights in succession I began my Sisyphus work, but I never got farther than 'My dear brethren!' In the third night, when I had gone to bed quite in despair, and had fallen asleep in great sorrow, thinking what my good father and my worthy grandfather, whom I had known still, would have said if they could see their son and grandson in full incredulity, after he had been so carefully trained in orthodoxy, I had the following curious dream, which no doubt partly arose from an animated description Frau von Berkow had given me of the Louvre.