After I had made inquiry of a learned jurist who advised me to have my faery located by the police, I went to one of my colleagues, a poet of the classic school. I found him clad in a red silk dressing gown, a wet handkerchief tied around his forehead. Its purpose was to keep his all too stormy wealth of inspiration in check. Before him on the table stood a glassful of Malaga wine and a silver salver full of pomegranates and grapes. The grapes were made of glass and the pomegranates of soap. But the contemplation of them was meant to heighten his mood. Near him, nailed to the floor, stood a golden harp on which was hung a laurel wreath and a nightcap. Timidly I put my question and the honoured master spoke: "The muse, my worthy friend--ask the muse. Ask the muse who leads us poor children of the dust into the divine sanctuary; carried aloft by whose wings into the heights of ether we feel truly human--ask her!" As it would have been necessary for me, first of all, to look up this unknown lady, I went to another colleague--one of the modern seekers of truth. I found him at his desk peering through a microscope at a dying flee which he was studying carefully. He noted each of its movements upon the slips of paper from which he later constructed his works. Next to him stood some bread and cheese, a little bottle full of ether and a box of powders. When I had explained my business he grew very angry. "Man, don't bother me with such rot!" he cried. "Faeries and elves and ideas and the devil knows what--that's all played out. That's worse than iambics. Go hang, you idiot, and don't disturb me." Sad at seeing myself and my faery so contemned, I crept away and went to one of those modern artists in life, who had tasted with epicurean fineness all the esctasies and sorrows of earthly life in order to broaden his personality.... I hoped that he would understand me, too. I found him lying on a _chaise longue_, smoking a cigarette, and turning the leaves of a French novel. It was _La-bas_ by Huysmans, and he didn't even cut the leaves, being too lazy. He heard my question with an obliging smile. "Dear friend, let's be honest. The thing is simple. A faery is a woman. That is certain. Well, take up with every woman that runs into your arms. Love them all--one after another. You'll be sure then to hit upon your faery some day." As I feared that to follow this advice I would have to waste the better part of my life and all my conscience, I chose a last and desperate method and went to a magician. If Manfred had forced Astarte back into being, though only for a fleeting moment, why could I not do the same with the dear ruler of my higher will? I found a dignified man with the eyes of an enthusiast and filthy locks. He was badly in need of a change of linen. And so I had every reason to consider him an idealist.