The horses started; the light wagon rattled over the rough road across the court-yard. In an instant the château, with its still brilliantly lighted windows, the dark barns and stables, and the little cottages all lay behind them, and they were far off between waving grain-fields and mist-covered meadows. The short summer night was already waning. In the East a faint streak of light announced the new day; the early dawn covered the whole landscape as with a thin veil. From the North, however, came sheet lightning, and rent from time to time the thick fog. All was silent yet in the fields; even the lark, the herald of day, was still asleep. Oswald was leaning back in his corner and looked dreamily into the twilight; only at times, when the smoke from the baron's cigar floated by him, he looked at the latter, who seemed to be lost in thought as he sat there, with his hat pushed back a little, the collar of his coat drawn up, and his long legs stretched out to their full length. They might have been sitting thus for a quarter of an hour, when the baron suddenly said: "You don't smoke?" "No." "May I offer you a cigar?" "Thanks! I never smoke." "That is strange." "Why so?" "Because I cannot understand it, how a man can endure this nineteenth century of ours without smoking tobacco or opium, without eating hasheesh, or trying in some other way to deaden the desperate disgust with which this age fills our hearts. And I understand this least of all in your case." "Why just in my case?"