Klaus Heinrich rose. "I've been gossiping," he said; for that was the expression he used at such moments. And then he dismissed Herr Martini, wished him success in his poetical career, and accompanied the poet's respectful withdrawal with a laugh and that rather theatrical up and down movement of the hand which was not always equally effective, but which he had brought to a high pitch of perfection. Such was the Prince's conversation with Axel Martini, the author of "Evoë!" and "The Holy Life." It gave him food for thought, it continued to occupy his mind after it had ended. He continued to think over it while Neumann was reparting his hair and helping him on with the dazzling full-dress coat with the stars, during the club concert at Court, and for several days afterwards, and he tried to reconcile the poet's statements with the rest of the experiences which life had vouchsafed to him. This Herr Martini, who, while the unhealthy flush glowed under his eyes, kept crying: "How beautiful, how strong is life!" yet was careful to go to bed at ten, shut himself off from life on hygienic grounds, as he said, and avoided every serious tie with it--this poet with his frayed collar, his watery eyes, and his envy of the young Weber who scorched over the country with village girls: he left a mixed impression, it was difficult to come to any certain conclusion about him. Klaus Heinrich expressed it, when he told his sister of the meeting, by saying: "Things are none too comfortable and easy for him, that's quite obvious, and that certainly entitles him to our sympathy. But somehow, I'm not sure if I'm glad to have met him, for he has something deterrent about him, Ditlinde--yes, after all, he's certainly a little repulsive." VII IMMA Fräulein von Isenschnibbe had been well informed. On the very evening of the day on which she had brought the Princess zu Reid the great news, the _Courier_ published the announcement of Samuel Spoelmann's, the world-renowned Spoelmann's, impending arrival, and ten days later, at the beginning of October (it was the October of the year in which Grand Duke Albrecht had entered his thirty-second and Prince Klaus Heinrich his twenty-sixth year), thus barely giving time for public curiosity to reach a really high point, his arrival became a fact, a plain actuality on an autumn-tinged, entirely ordinary week-day, which was destined to impress itself on the future as a date to be remembered for ever.