Although, whenever the stranger happened to fix his looks on me, I could not repress a certain feeling of apprehension, yet I gradually overcame that still worse mood of mind into which I had been brought, on my first _reconnoissance_ of his features. I even told stories of the absurd Belcampo, who was known less or more to all the party, and, to their great amusement, gave such a lively account of his behaviour on the day of my arrival, (with imitations of his voice and gesticulations,) that a good-humoured fat merchant who sat opposite to me, declared, with tears of laughter in his eyes, "That was the most delightful evening he had ever spent in his life!" When the merriment that I had raised had begun to decline away, the stranger suddenly inquired--"Gentlemen, has any one among you ever seen the Devil?" This question was received but as the prelude to some new and comical story. Of course, every one assured him, in turn, "that he had never yet had that honour." "Well," said the stranger, "it so happened, that I was very lately within a hair-breadth of attaining myself to that honour, and this, namely, at the Castle of the Baron von R----, among the Thuringian mountains." I now trembled in every limb; but the others laughed aloud, crying out, "Go on--go on!" "Gentlemen," said the painter, "you probably all know that wild district in the Thuringian mountains, through which every one must pass, who travels in that direction northwards. But there is especially, on a by-road, one romantic spot, where, if the traveller emerges out of the dark pine-tree forests, and advances to the height of the rocky cliffs, he finds himself suddenly, to his amazement, on the extreme verge of an awful, deep, and, indeed, bottomless abyss. This is called the devil's ground, and the projecting promontory of the rock the devil's chair. "Of the devil's chair it is related, that once, when a certain Count Victorin, with his head full of wicked projects, had sat down upon this rock, the devil suddenly appeared beside him; and because he was himself resolved to carry the Count's wicked designs into execution, he incontinently hurled Victorin down into the unfathomable gulf. "Thereafter, the devil appeared as a capuchin monk, at the castle of the Baron von R----; and when he had taken his pleasure with the Baroness, he first sent her out of the world, (no one knew how,) and then, because the Baron's son, a madman, would by no means allow of this masquerade, but always called out, 'The devil, the devil is among us!' he strangled him. However, by that persevering _annonce_ of the madman, _one_ pious soul at least was saved from the destruction which the devil had intended for them all; and this was the young Baroness Aurelia, the subject of the picture, which you have this night been commending.