"Yet one remark more, reverend sir, I must hazard. Many times it has appeared to me as if the Baron, too, had on his mind some secret grief, of which he conceals from me the cause. Besides his openly declared anxiety on account of Hermogen, he contends visibly with painful thoughts, which constantly harass him. It has often suggested itself to me, that he may perhaps, by some evil chance, have discovered the Baroness's criminality, and this by traces more certain and unambiguous than those which have occurred to me. Therefore, reverend sir, I must finally recommend also the Baron to your spiritual care and attention." CHAPTER XIII. With these words Reinhold closed his long narrative, which had, meanwhile, in a hundred different ways, tormented me. The most extraordinary and irreconcilable contradictions laboured, crossing and re-crossing each other, through my brain. My very identity, my individuality, was cruelly become the game--the mere plaything, of chance, while as it were, losing myself, and melting away into forms and features not my own, I swam, without hold or stay, upon that wild sea of events, which broke in upon me like raging waves. I had, indeed, virtually lost myself, for I could no longer recover any power of voluntary action. It was through the interference of my arm that Victorin had been hurled into the abyss; but it was chance, and no impulse of volition, by which I was guided on that occasion. "Now," said I to myself, "I come into his place; but then Reinhold knows Father Medardus, the preacher in the Capuchin Convent, and thus in his estimation I appear only that which I truly am. On the other hand, the adventure with the Baroness, which the Count had in contemplation, falls upon my shoulders, so that in this respect I become again Victorin! To myself an inexplicable riddle, thought becomes a mere chaos. Like the fabulous knight, who fought with his DOUBLE in the dark forest, I am at variance, and combating with myself." Notwithstanding these internal commotions, I succeeded in counterfeiting tolerably well such composure as is becoming to a priest; and in this mood I came for the first time into the presence of the Baron. I found him a man advanced in years; but in his now shrunk features, lay yet the evidences of the strength and vivacity which he had once possessed. Not age, indeed, but grief, had ploughed wrinkles in his forehead, and blanched his hair. Notwithstanding this, there prevailed in all that he said, and in his whole behaviour, a cheerfulness and good humour, by which every one must be attracted, and prepossessed in his favour.