I had often noticed, standing on the threshold of her cottage, a young Waldmünchen girl with a face like a Virgin in Raphael's first manner. Her father, with the peasant's civil bearing, used to take off his broad-brimmed felt hat to the ground to me and give me a greeting in German which I returned cordially in French: standing behind him, his daughter used to blush as she looked at me over the old man's shoulder. I caught sight of my virgin again, but she was alone. I waved good-bye to her with my hand; she remained motionless; she seemed astonished; I tried to imagine I know not what vague regrets in her thought: I left her like a wild flower which one has seen in a ditch by the road-side and which has scented one's way. I passed the flocks of Eumæus; he uncovered his head grown grey in the service of the sheep. He had finished his day's work; he was returning to sleep with his ewes, while Ulysses went to continue his wanderings. I had said to myself, before receiving the permit: "If I get it, I shall crush my persecutor." On arriving at Haselbach, it happened to me, as to George Dandin, that my accursed good-nature was too much for me[551]; I had no heart for the triumph. Like a real poltroon, I cowered in a comer of the carriage, and Schwartz showed the order from the Governor; I should have suffered too much from the customs-officer's confusion. He, on his side, did not appear and did not even have my trunk searched. Peace be with him! Let him pardon me for the insults which I addressed to him, but which, owing to a remnant of spite, I will not erase from my Memoirs. As one leaves Bavaria on that side, a vast black forest of pine-trees serves as a porch to Bohemia. Mists hovered in the valleys, the light was fading and the sky, towards the west, was the colour of peach-blossoms; the horizons fell till they almost touched the earth. Light is lacking at that latitude and, with light, life; all is dim, wintry, pale; winter seems to charge summer to keep the hoar-frost for it until its speedy return. A small piece of the moon, which shone faintly, pleased me; all was not lost, since I found a face that I knew. It seemed to say to me: "What? Are you there? Do you remember how I saw you in other forests? Do you remember the pretty things you used to say to me when you were young? Really, you used to talk very nicely about me. Why are you so silent now? Where are you going alone and so late? Will you never end recommencing your career?"