"It behoves me," answered she and held her handkerchief to her eyes, "to keep silent, to suffer and to look on." "But afterwards," put in the Suabian, with a sly smile, "afterwards. Miss Zues, when all is over?" "Oh, Dietrich," she responded softly, "do you not know what the poet says: 'As Fate decides, so turns the heart of maid'?" And in introducing this quotation from Schiller she regarded him so temptingly aside that he again lifted up his long legs and shuffled them, feeling like starting off at once. While the two rivals arranged their little vehicles on their wheels, and Dietrich did the same, she repeatedly touched him with her elbow, or else stepped on his foot. She also wiped the dust from his hat, but at the same time threw inviting glances towards the others, pretending to be highly amused at the Suabian's eagerness. But she did this without being observed by Dietrich. And now all three of them drew deep breaths and sighed like so many furnaces. They looked all about them, took off their hats, fanned themselves and then once more put on their hats. For the last time they sniffed the air in all the directions of the compass, and tried to recover their breath. Zues herself felt deeply for them, and for very compassion shed sundry tears. "Here," she then said, "are the last three prunes. Take each of you one in the mouth, that will refresh you. And now depart, and turn the folly of the wicked into the wisdom of the just! That which the wicked have invented for your confusion, now change into a work of self-denial and of serious enterprise, into the well-considered final act of good conduct maintained for years, and into a competitive race for virtue itself." And she herself with her own fair hands shoved a dried prune between the cramped lips of each, and each of them at once began to gently chew the prune. Jobst pressed his hand upon his stomach, exclaiming: "What must be, must be. Let us start, in the name of Heaven!" And saying which and raising his staff, he began to stride ahead, knees strongly bent and nostrils high in air, dragging his little load after him. Scarcely had Fridolin seen that, when he, too, did the same, taking long steps, and without once looking behind him. Both of them could now be seen descending the hill and entering the dusty highway. The Suabian was the last one to get away, and he was walking, without showing any great hurry, with Zues at his side, grinning in a self-satisfied way, as though he felt sure of victory, and as though he were willing, out of mere generosity, to grant a little start to his rivals, while Zues praised him for this supposed noble action and for his equanimity. "Ah," she now sighed, "after all, it is a blessing to be sure of a firm support in life! Even where one is sufficiently gifted oneself with insight and cleverness and follows, besides, the path of rectitude, all the same it makes it much easier to walk through life on the arm of a tried friend."