"'Then I must play my last trump,' cried Berger, jumping up. 'Hear, then, you incredulous man, that the house to which I wish to send you owns an angel in the shape of a most lovely girl. She is the sister of your Alexander, and, God be thanked, as yet at a boarding-school in Hamburg. I hate her, for she has caused me infinite trouble. All the mad dreams of my youth revived when I saw her, and worried me like fair ghosts. At last I ran away as soon as I saw her coming on the smooth sand of the beach, with her light straw-hat. Yes, I must tell you; I wrote those sonnets which I read to you the other day, and which I told you I had composed thirty years ago at Heligoland, only last year at Ostend. You were good enough to call them glowing with love, and heaven knows what else--well, I was bewitched by the fair demon, and I wrote them with blood, the blood of my heart. But you will not tell that to anybody?' "'Why not? Not a soul would believe me.' "'There you are right And now?' "'Now I am less inclined than ever. I do not wish to repeat the foolish story of the love affair between a tutor and the daughter of a noble house, which I have read over and over again in so many a novel. And if the girl is really so beautiful and lovely, that----' "'That even the dry branches put out fresh leaves--what might then happen to the green wood?' interrupted me Berger, laughing aloud. 'Well, then, fall in love! why not? My dear fellow, the book of life, for people like ourselves, has the same title as one of Balzac's novels: _Illusions Perdues_. Every day only adds a new chapter, and the shorter the book, the better and the more interesting it is. But since it must needs be written, and cannot be written by any other means, it is, after all, immaterial whether we go east or west; we pass through the same experiences here and there. Therefore I say once more: Go to Grenwitz!' "What could I do? It seemed to me my duty to fulfil the wish of my friend, to whom I owed so much. And then, was not Berger right in saying that it was immaterial whether I went east or west? In fine, I packed my trunks, bade my Mentor farewell, and went across to this island." CHAPTER III.