Poor thing, she was now learning by experience that love is not to be ensnared by correct deportment and just deserts. So she was obliged to put up with it while her two well-nourished boarders, on whom she had lavished so much conscientious labor, escorted the little brat home in the darkness to the Ettersberg. She was also obliged to endure it when the stupid girl, in her passionate anxiety, threw her arms around her once more, saying, "You would be sad and unhappy--and you're so pretty and nice! Oh, if I could only learn to be like you!" It was hardly necessary for young Beate to have brought so much disturbance into the house of the unfortunate widow; for Captain Rauchfuss soon after grew very weak and showed signs of breaking up. The evil thing came upon him which attacks so many fine fellows that have drunk freely and stoutly all their days, and condemns them to see the light of life go out slowly amid pains and tortures. Captain Rauchfuss began to live in the midst of wonderful tormenting illusions. He saw things that other people could not see; and since the majority rules on this earth, and exceptions are penalized, Herr Rauchfuss was obliged to make a journey now and then to Jena, to a physician whose house offered a hospitable retreat for such peculiarly affected gentlemen, until such time as they had provisionally, at least, laid aside certain errors and misconceptions. The less severe attacks he fought through on the Ettersberg, in his old home; and it was there that his last hour found him. The Sperbers had come, and old Frau Kummerfelden also, when they heard that Herr Rauchfuss was about to depart. They wanted, in his last hour, to be near the old fellow who had led his life as foolishly and light-heartedly as most people, both for his own sake and for Beate's. And so they sat in an adjoining room, while Herr Rauchfuss prepared himself amid great sufferings for his long journey; they sat and drank coffee, which the housekeeper was always making fresh, and ate ham sandwiches. That night the doctor stayed up at the Ettersberg and chatted with the three old people. Tubby watched by her father's bedside through it all, like a brave soldier. It was a hard death, and the child looked into the horrors of life as into a blazing furnace. She herself had so much life and sunshine in her that it was as though Life itself were standing by the deathbed. "You rascal, you!" cried Herr Rauchfuss angrily. "Just wait a bit--you see how it goes? Soldier's child ... soldier's child!" After he had lain awhile in the night very quiet and indifferent, he said in a faint voice, "Let Sperber come." And when his old neighbor entered, he felt for his hand and held on to it as if in terror; but nothing could be done for him. He wanted to speak, and after a hard struggle he got out, "well--born--and dying--very ill--old friend--old friend!"