The boots fit very nicely, and you have a charming little foot. HINZE. That is only because we always walk on our toes, as you must already have read in your natural history. GOTTLIEB. I have great respect for you--on account of the boots. HINZE (_hangs a soldier's knapsack about his neck_). I am going now. See, I have also made myself a bag with a drawing-string. GOTTLIEB. What's it all for? HINZE. Just let me alone! I want to be a hunter. Why, where is my cane? GOTTLIEB. Here. HINZE. Well, then, good-bye. [_Exit._] GOTTLIEB. A hunter? I can't understand the man. [_Exit._] _Open Field_ HINZE (_with cane, knapsack, and bag_). Splendid weather! It's such a beautiful, warm day; afterward I must lie down a bit in the sun. (_He spreads out his bag._) Well, fortune, stand by me. Of course, when I think that this capricious goddess of fortune so seldom favors shrewdly laid plans, that she always ends up by disgracing the intelligence of mortals, I feel as though I should lose all my courage. Yet, be quiet, my heart; a kingdom is certainly worth the trouble of working and sweating some for it! If only there are no dogs around here; I can't bear those creatures at all; it is a race that I despise because they so willingly submit to the lowest servitude to human beings. They can't do anything but either fawn or bite; they haven't fashionable manners at all, a thing which is so necessary in company. There's no game to be caught. (_He begins to sing a hunting song: "I steal through the woods so still and wild," etc. A nightingale in the bush near-by begins to sing._) She sings gloriously, the songstress of the grove; but how delicious she must taste! The great people of the earth are, after all, right lucky in the fact that they can eat as many nightingales and larks as they like; we poor common people must content ourselves with their singing, with the beauty in nature, with the incomprehensibly sweet harmony. It's a shame I can't hear anything sing without getting a desire to eat it. Nature! Nature! Why do you always destroy my finest emotions by having created me thus! I feel almost like taking off my boots and softly climbing up that tree yonder; she must be perching there. (_Stamping in the pit._) The nightingale is good-natured not to let herself be interrupted even by this martial music; she must taste delicious; I am forgetting all about my hunting with these sweet dreams. Truly, there's no game to be caught. Why, who's there? [_Two lovers enter._] HE. I say, my sweet life, do you hear the nightingale? SHE. I am not deaf, my good friend. HE. How my heart overflows with joyousness when I see all harmonious nature thus gathered about me, when every tone but reëchoes the confession of my love, when all heaven bows down to diffuse its ether over me. SHE. You are raving, my dear! HE.