To his surprise she simply assented. Even, when, three days after, we departed and I drove through the gate in the same carriage with her and the worthy lady whose young daughter played the _ingenues_, while Spielberg, with Daniel and Victorine, formed the rear-guard, she had strength enough to give no sign of the emotions which must have assailed her in parting from the little grave. But the hopes with which we had struck our tents were not to be realized. Just at that time a panic occurred in commercial circles that made itself felt in the seaport no less than in the large North German commercial towns. People kept their pockets buttoned, and even the renowned artist could not open them. He became so irritated by this state of affairs that, to punish the ingratitude of the age, he intentionally hid the light of his art under a bushel, and played his parts with such haughty negligence that even the few patrons of the theater, who had known his reputation, shook their heads, and transferred their favor to the less famous members of the company. Victorine was the admiration of the young merchants; the _ingenue_ previously mentioned turned the heads of the older school-boys; Daniel, whose acting, even when most negligent, always had its interesting moments, found favor with the critics in the two local papers--yet, nevertheless, the receipts were so small that the company would have been compelled to disband had not Frau Luise's wise economy provided a reserve fund for such contingencies. She paid the salaries as regularly as ever, and kept the wardrobes and other requisites in decent order, without receiving any special thanks from any one. * * * * * I myself was entirely out of funds. Two and a half years of this wandering life had devoured my savings, I could scarcely be seen in my shabby clothes, and, though protected from any anxiety about food, had not even the small amount of pocket money required for trifling wants, so that I was sometimes seized by a mood of despairing melancholy, and should undoubtedly have been up and away some day had I not known how indispensable I had become. If I left the company, everything must go to ruin. I could tell myself, without vanity, that the breach of my--unwritten--contract would be equivalent to fracturing an axle in the car of Thespis. Moreover, was I not bound body and soul to this woman, considering myself transcendently rewarded if she held out her large, firm hand to me in the evening and said, "Good-night, dear friend!" Still, these miserable circumstances oppressed me more and more, and one day, when I met in the street a college friend who meanwhile had had a prosperous career, and while on a business journey had come to our Pomeranian coast, I bore his look of compassionate surprise with a bitter laugh, and willingly accepted his invitation to share a bottle of wine with him that evening at his hotel and make a general confession.