"I fond of him?" said Bruno, raising his head defiantly; "why should I be fond of him? He is perfectly indifferent to me. He does not care for me! He! Why, yesterday he has been running about all day long without me, and today he has not looked at me once; he is perfectly indifferent to me, you hear? You can tell your mamma so. Perfectly indifferent!" And thereupon he hid his face in Julius' curls and sobbed bitterly. "What is the matter, Bruno?" "The matter? Nothing! What should it be?" "Bruno, I am going with Mr. Bemperlein," called Oswald across. "Doctor, I am going with Julius!" Bruno called back. "Where is Malte?" "Am I Malte's keeper?" "Malte is in the baron's room," said Mr. Bemperlein. "The drive has fatigued him very much, and the baron has made him lie down on the sofa, where he is snugly coiled up like a kitten. Which way shall we go?" "Suppose we go through the forest?" said Oswald. They crossed the drawbridge, which had not been raised for two hundred years, through the linden avenue into the wood, Mr. Bemperlein and Oswald ahead, Bruno and Julius following at a little distance. Bruno had put his arm around Julius' neck; he had no interest to-day in anything but his friend, whom he had always loved dearly, and on whose brown eyes he had written more than one poem, and whom he now, in the hour of parting, overwhelmed with caresses. "You are going away, Julius," he moaned; "and when you have been away for three days you will have forgotten me." "I shall never forget you, Bruno!" "Ah! Are you quite sure of that? You have a better memory, then, than Oswald--I mean Doctor Stein. He told me the same thing, that he loved me like a brother, and since night before last he has forgotten that I am in the world. Now he is probably telling Mr. Bemperlein that he loves him like a brother--just look how he takes his arm! And nobody cares for me! Ah! I hate him! I hate everybody--except you, Julius." While the poor boy was thus pouring out his love and his sorrow into his friend's bosom, and felt clearly that he also did not understand him, and that he was alone, quite alone on this joyless earth, Mr. Bemperlein spoke thus to Oswald: CHAPTER XVII.