"Are you going to draw my likeness?" asked Melitta. "I wish I could." "Why not? There is my album." "That does not help me. You will have to teach me first how to draw directly with the eye." "Ah, that is exactly what I always wish I could do. How often, when I am interested in a face, a figure, or a landscape, have I thought: Now you will hit it! and when I try to fix it on the paper, clear as it is before my eye, it is nothing but a caricature." "I am sure your album will say the contrary. Is it permitted to look at it?" "Not generally, but you may. In fact, it has no value but for myself; for I find there not only what I have drawn, but also what I have wished to draw. Besides, my album is a kind of diary. I probably commenced this one shortly before my Italian journey." "Then you have been in Italy?" "Two years ago, with my cousin Barnewitz and his wife. I wish you had been with us; first, on your account, for you deserve to see Italy, and then, on my account, because I should then not have been condemned to wander through the most beautiful landscapes and the richest collections alone, or in company with figures of wax. I used to tell then, as I always do, everything to my album, which received patiently what no one else cared to listen to." Melitta had risen and placed herself by Oswald's side, who wanted to get up in order to give her a chair. But, in order to prevent that, she laid her hand lightly on his arm and let it rest there an instant--an instant only, and yet it was long enough to make Oswald's hand tremble and his voice shake when he said, turning over the leaves: "These sketches must have been made before the journey to Italy. Here is the mysterious pond, at the edge of which I slept and dreamt this afternoon." "You have not told me yet what you dreamt?" "Yes, I told you all sorts of sweet foolish things." "Of course about a lady?" "Yes." "Ah, then I must not ask for more?" "Ah, how charming!" exclaimed Oswald, as he turned over a leaf. "How snugly ensconced this cottage lies in the forest. The old pine-trees stand around like gigantic guardians. The beech-tree spreads its mighty branches over it like a protecting deity. And here the creepers, climbing up and waving before the low windows, as if they were whispering: You are ours. And how dreamily that brook creeps along between reeds and ferns and down the deep green meadow in the foreground! That is a beautiful idea," said Oswald, looking up to Melitta from the book. "And as you have found it all out so nicely, I will show it to you this very evening!" "What! This is not a fancy picture?" "Oh no! Perhaps those ducks hiding in the rushes from the hawk up there. The brook is the outlet of your mysterious lake in the forest." "Ah, and thus only a continuation of my dream," said Oswald, turning over leaf after leaf.