"Sometimes I do wonder if I am only a servant. I often feel really as if I were some enchanted princess, and you, _Herr_, the knight who is to deliver me. Will you be the knight?" She blinked at him over her wine-glass. He nodded in friendly acquiescence. Let her revel in her strange fancies. It was Christmas. "There have been cases," she continued, "in which princesses have been turned into quite common sluts. They have had stones thrown at them, and been spat at, and men have called after them, 'Strike her down, the dirty slut!' And all the time they were princesses in disguise." "Do you believe in fairy tales, then?" he asked, wondering. She laughed to herself. "Not exactly, _Herr_. But when one passes so many hours alone, and has to take long solitary walks as I have, one must think. And when the rain beats down, and the wind blows.... Hark at it now, what a to-do it's making.... Think of me tramping along in this--and I have often been out when it's as bad, but I've never lost my way. And sometimes, when I come into the wood, I have asked myself, 'Which would you rather be? A queen sitting on a golden throne, or the Catholics' Holy Virgin, who had our dear Lord and Saviour for her little boy; or would you rather be the devil's grandmother, and bury all the Schrandeners in a manure-heap; or a noble lady and----" She paused. "And?" he queried. She drew herself up, and laughed in embarrassment. "I can't tell you that--it is too silly. But I had only to choose which I'd be. And as I march along through the night shadows, I often imagine I am one or other, till all of a sudden I find myself in Bockeldorf, just as if I'd flown there--often I think I am flying. Ah! things do happen in real life, after all, very much the same as in the fairy tales. Don't you think so, _Herr_?" He contemplated her with curiosity and wonder, as if he had never seen her before. And truly it was the first time he had looked into her secret soul. Now, when her tongue was loosened by wine, much was revealed in her that before he had either not observed or not understood. "Blissful creature!" he murmured.