When Oswald came to his room, after the painful scene with Emily von Breesen,--for he found it impossible to return to the company,--he found on his table a parcel, which must have been placed there during his absence. The words: "Enclosed the books, with many thanks. Your faithful B.," told him at a glance who had brought the parcel and what it contained. And, strange! he hesitated to open it. He felt as if he had no right to Melitta's letters, since his heart was no longer entirely hers, as if, above all, she, who had never entirely given him her heart, had no right to give him this sign of her love. At last, almost mechanically, he opened the package. There were three books within. From the middle one fell two letters--one from Melitta and one from Bemperlein. Melitta's letter contained only a few cordial words, complaining "of the long separation, during which, besides the long distance, other disturbing elements also might come to stand between their hearts," and finally expressed the hope of a speedy reunion. The letter had no signature. "It might fall into wrong hands," said Oswald, bitterly. "I will be still more generous; I will destroy this witness of a love of which she begins to be ashamed." He burnt the paper in the flame of his candle. Bemperlein's letter was fuller, but it spoke almost exclusively of Professor Berger. Bemperlein had, during his residence in Grunwald, seen very much of Professor Berger, to whom he had carried letters from Oswald, and had become as enthusiastically fond of him as the professor had become attached to himself. His dismay, therefore, was great when Doctor Birkenhain informed him one day that Professor Berger had just been brought to the asylum. Bemperlein wrote Oswald that he had at once asked permission to visit Berger; the permission had been granted, and he had since spent daily several hours with the patient, who preferred his company to any other. Berger, he said, spoke reasonably on all subjects except his fixed idea of the Nothing. He was perfectly reconciled to being in an asylum, "for," he said, "the difference between the people inside and the people outside is only this, that the latter may and probably will soon become what the people inside already are. If, for instance, Doctor Birkenhain would just have the kindness to take his head to pieces, he would perceive its utter emptiness with his own eyes, and choose a nice, sunny room in his house, in order to meditate undisturbed on the great Original Nothing." Bemperlein wrote that Berger's aberration of mind was considered only temporary, and that Doctor Birkenhain hoped to be able to restore the great man very soon to his friends and pupils.