He could devote no more attention to his books, but while talking to Balder in a half earnest, half satirical tone, made as careful a toilette as is possible when a man possesses but one suit of clothes, and finally, with his huge paper shears clipped his beard before the tiny mirror. "I should really like to know," he said, while engaged in this operation, without looking at Balder, "whether I should be less indifferent to her, if I were a handsome young fellow like you, so that she could be vain of me, or rather see her natural love of beauty satisfied by my insignificant self. That I shall ever be necessary to her, is not to be hoped. But to be an elegant superfluity, like a parrot, or a piano on which she doesn't even know how to play--the prospect wouldn't be very glorious, but for lack of a better. There, the bushes have been pruned till they're fit to appear at court. I look quite ghostly; this fortnight has been hard upon me. But perhaps it will touch her: 'heart-sick, pallid, and true.' Good bye, my boy. I'll bring back all sorts of things for dinner." He was so strangely agitated that he embraced Balder, kissed him on the forehead, and then rushed out of the room, humming in his powerful "transcendental" voice--as Mohr called it--"_la donna è mobile_." CHAPTER II. His first errand was to a hatter, his second to a ready made clothing store. When, though the October sun was shining warmly, he took his way toward the Rurfürsten Bridge in his new winter overcoat, he could not help laughing at his shadow, which he could scarcely recognize in its present stately contour. He crammed the large pockets with oranges, of which Balder was very fond, bought all sorts of trifles for him, and seemed to himself very brave and resolute, in using so much self constraint as to lengthen the long distance to Rosenstrasse by his numerous delays. He even felt capable of maintaining perfectly his self control, if it should chance that he never saw her again. When he at last knocked at her door, he considered it a great proof of his courage, that he went to meet danger so boldly.