"Just as soon as you would to thinking. These headaches are much more serious for a woman. To endure them one must be free--free as a man is without chick or child, without a little ache or pain; he must be able to sink himself in his great trouble." She looked at him in questioning astonishment. "You see," he went on, "you're a little tender spring world, and you want to go rolling after a burnt-out, petrified, stiff and stony winter world. 'Deuce take it!' people will say, 'What do they want with each other?' The sweet spring world will be burned up or crushed to pieces--it's plainly to be seen." "Then let it be!" answered the girl firmly and quietly. "We are all burning up anyhow ..." And he was conscious again of the May-perfume of the spring world which intoxicated his unaccustomed senses. She was too full of beauty for him, too ready with her devotion, too tender of soul and too longing of heart. Something less generous would have done better for him. Excess always oppressed and troubled him. His ascetic chamber rose before his eyes: his bed covered with a woolen counterpane and a few rags, a regular wolf's lair--his work-table, the whole room with its clouded windows; and he thought of the distress that came upon him when he knew there were a few gold pieces in his box and felt himself turned, as long as they weighed him down, into a commonplace citizen. To win a scanty reward with great pains had become a necessity of his life. The comfortable existence which seemed to be approaching troubled him. What would he do with it, and it with him? He recognized only a few duties to himself, and they were more than enough. Now a little spring world came rolling up to him and revolving around him in its fragrant orbit. He would have to adapt himself to it--and that would be no simple matter. Deeply moved, both of them, they reached the Rauchfuss farm, and found all sorts of guests awaiting them. The Kirsten girls and their friends, Frau Marianne's boarders and the little widow herself, and some of the bachelors were there. To all of these the guest who had dropped from the clouds seemed a doubtful addition. They had come up to have a look round, and they found Beate joyous and rosy. She greeted them all more warmly than had been her wont. Each felt himself specially made welcome. The new guest stood there, thin and angular in his gray suit in which he had emerged as a pike from the water, and looked none too well pleased at the coming and going, at the chatter and the laughter. "The fellow hasn't accomplished anything here--that skeleton!" said one of the boarders. He himself showed the good results of Frau Marianne's care. Her idea was to keep one of the two always well taken care of for herself--that was her fixed policy, because in any case she wanted to have one of the two to console her.