Life is a worthless commonplace. It wouldn't have been a bad idea if I had hanged myself in the cradle.----Why doesn't Mamma come with the tea! MORITZ. Your tea will do me good, Melchior!----I'm shivering. I feel so strangely spiritualized. Touch me once, please. I see,--I hear,--I feel, much more acutely----and yet everything seems like a dream----oh, so harmonious.----How still the garden stretches out there in the moonlight, so still, so deep, as if it extended to eternity. From out the bushes step indefinable figures that slip away in breathless officiousness through the clearings and then vanish in the twilight. It seems to me as if a counsel were to be held under the chestnut tree.----Shall we go down there, Melchior? MELCHIOR. Let's wait until we have drunk our tea. MORITZ. The leaves whisper so busily.----It's just as if I heard my dead grandmother telling me the story of the “Queen Without a Head.” There was once a wonderfully beautiful Queen, beautiful as the sun, more beautiful than all the maidens in the country. Only, unfortunately, she came into the world without a head. She could not eat, not drink, not kiss. She could only communicate with her courtiers by using her soft little hand. With her dainty feet she stamped declarations of war and orders for executions. Then, one day, she was besieged by a King, who, by chance, had two heads, which, year in and year out, disputed with one another so violently that neither could get a word in edgewise. The Court Conjurer-in-chief took off the smallest of these heads and set it upon the Queen's body. And, behold, it became her extraordinarily well! Therefore, the King and the Queen were married, and the two heads disputed no longer, but kissed each other upon the brow, the cheeks and the mouth, and lived thereafter through long, long years of joy and peace.----Delectable nonsense! Since vacation I can't get the headless Queen out of my mind. When I see a pretty girl, I see her without a head----and then presently, I, myself appear to be the headless Queen.----It is possible that someone may be set over me yet. (_Frau Gabor comes in with the steaming tea, which she sets before Melchior and Moritz on the table._) FRAU GABOR. Here, children, here's a mouthful for you. Good-evening, Herr Stiefel, how are you? MORITZ. Thank you, Frau Gabor.----I'm watching the dance down there. FRAU GABOR. But you don't look very good----don't you feel well? MORITZ. It's not worth mentioning. I went to bed somewhat too late last night. MELCHIOR. Only think, he worked all through the night. FRAU GABOR. You shouldn't do such things, Herr Stiefel. You ought to take care of yourself. Think of your health. Don't set your school above your health. Take plenty of walks in the fresh air. At your age, that is more important than a correct use of middle high German. MORITZ.