"I was heartily tired of my student's life at Bonn and at Heidelberg. I had looked in vain into a thousand books to solve the mystery about which so many better men have racked their brains, and I wanted to try it in a new way. I wrote to my guardian, and conveyed to him my intention to travel a few years. My guardian approved the plan, as he approved everything I ever suggested,--so he could get rid of me for a time,--he sent me money and letters of introduction, and I went on my journey. I travelled over Southern Germany, Switzerland, and Northern Italy. But if you were to ask me even for a superficial account of my journey I would be seriously embarrassed. I know as much of those countries as of the landscapes I have seen in my dreams. Last, I went to Hungary. Chance, which was always my only guide, had led me there. In Vienna I had become acquainted with a Hungarian nobleman, whose father owned large estates at the foot of the Tetra mountains. He had invited me to visit him, and I went. We led quite an idyllic life; the main features of which were wine, women, and dice. He had a couple of beautiful sisters, with whom I fell in love one by one. Then I became enthusiastic about the French _dame de compagnie_ of his mother, who had just come from Paris and put all the young Hungarian ladies to shame by the grace of her manners, her taste in matters of toilette, and her skill in conversation. "Once I was roaming about in the forest, my mind full of this sweet goddess, whom I then believed in as I did in genuine pearls and real gold, but whom I afterwards met again in Paris under different circumstances; I was dreaming, and thus lost myself, or was led by my guide, Chance, to a clearing which a band of gypsies had chosen for their temporary encampment. A few small huts built of clay and wickerwork in very archaic style, a fireplace over which an old dame was roasting a stone-martin, deerskins and rags hanging on the branches to dry--this was the picture which suddenly met my eye. The whole band was away with the exception of the old witch, a few little babies who rolled about in the sand in paradisiac nakedness, and one young girl of about fifteen--" The baron filled his glass and drank it at one gulp.