I'll give you just one week to make your case. On August thirty-first, eighteen-fourteen, I shall require your proof." With wondering face Franz cried, "A week to August, and fourteen The year! You're mad, 'tis April now. April, and eighteen-twelve." Max staggered, caught A chair,--"April two years ago! Indeed, Or you, or I, are mad. I know not how Either could blunder so." Hilverdink brought "The Amsterdam Gazette", and Max was forced to read. 57 "Eighteen hundred and twelve," in largest print; And next to it, "April the twenty-first." The letters smeared and jumbled, but by dint Of straining every nerve to meet the worst, He read it, and into his pounding brain Tumbled a horror. Like a roaring sea Foreboding shipwreck, came the message plain: "This is two years ago! What of Christine?" He fled the cellar, in his agony Running to outstrip Fate, and save his holy shrine. 58 The darkened buildings echoed to his feet Clap-clapping on the pavement as he ran. Across moon-misted squares clamoured his fleet And terror-winged steps. His heart began To labour at the speed. And still no sign, No flutter of a leaf against the sky. And this should be the garden wall, and round The corner, the old gate. No even line Was this! No wall! And then a fearful cry Shattered the stillness. Two stiff houses filled the ground. 59 Shoulder to shoulder, like dragoons in line, They stood, and Max knew them to be the ones To right and left of Kurler's garden. Spine Rigid next frozen spine. No mellow tones Of ancient gilded iron, undulate, Expanding in wide circles and broad curves, The twisted iron of the garden gate, Was there. The houses touched and left no space Between. With glassy eyes and shaking nerves Max gazed. Then mad with fear, fled still, and left that place. 60 Stumbling and panting, on he ran, and on. His slobbering lips could only cry, "Christine! My Dearest Love! My Wife! Where are you gone? What future is our past? What saturnine, Sardonic devil's jest has bid us live Two years together in a puff of smoke? It was no dream, I swear it! In some star, Or still imprisoned in Time's egg, you give Me love. I feel it. Dearest Dear, this stroke Shall never part us, I will reach to where you are." 61 His burning eyeballs stared into the dark. The moon had long been set. And still he cried: "Christine! My Love! Christine!" A sudden spark Pricked through the gloom, and shortly Max espied With his uncertain vision, so within Distracted he could scarcely trust its truth, A latticed window where a crimson gleam Spangled the blackness, and hung from a pin, An iron crane, were three gilt balls. His youth Had taught their meaning, now they closed upon his dream. 62