He imprinted a fiery kiss upon Bona's hand and departed. The maiden looked after him with a bitter smile, then rose up, and walked slowly into the green-house, where stood the aloe, which she considered for a long time, and at length said, "Yes, proud aloe, you are the image of my revenge. Your blossom requires years to break from the bud, but it does at last break forth in vigour that will not be restrained; and though you perish in the very moment of perfection, you have yet gained your object; he who has done that has lived long enough." * * * * * Beamless, yet with splendid glow, hung the evening sun, like a bright burning ruby in the horizon over the violet-coloured mountains. Purple clouds, edged with gold, shot a glory about it, while the whole western heavens shone in a sea of flame, and the blaze melted away farther on into a lovely sea-green, which again in the east was lost in the dark blue of night. Before the aloe, whose flowers seemed to burn in the evening red, stood Tausdorf, sunk in its contemplation.--"The plant is to be envied," he said to Rasselwitz; "he dies well, who, like it, dies at the moment of reaching the pinnacle of strength and beauty; and I could almost wish that such a death might one day be to myself." "How earnestly and gravely you take every thing," replied Rasselwitz--"nay gloomily too! For my part, it is precisely when I got to the pinnacle that I should feel most eager to live on, because it is then that life is gayest. When one is gone, the best pleasure is over; and in good truth we shall always be dead long enough afterwards." "In the ten years of experience, which I have beyond you, lies the difference of our views. Throughout nature nothing stands still. He who does not go forward goes backward. From the summit the road only leads down again, and every retracing of our steps has something disconsolate about it, which I would willingly buy off with a few years of existence." He turned about to depart, but Rasselwitz held him back:--"I cannot let you go thus; you may, perhaps, have got over your accident, but you still look pale, and the evening wind blows cursedly cool from the mountains. Let us first, therefore, if agreeable to you, empty a flask of tokay against the bad air, and then I will myself accompany you home again." "You gentlemen can't do without the wine-cup," said Tausdorf jestingly. "If, however, it is really to be but a single flask, I am contented."