Trude shakes her head as if to say, "Don't scold!" Then she raises herself, murmurs, without looking up, a soft "Good-night," and goes into the house. Martin follows her. Johannes buries his head in his arms and dreams to himself. He sees her again as she raises herself to her full height with her eyes all a-gleam,--then suddenly sank down as if struck by lightning. Then he reproaches himself that he did not hasten to her side sooner, to prevent her from falling, for he was nearest to her, and not only as regards space! Not only as regards space! As by a lurid flame--horrible, bloody-red--his brain is suddenly illumined! Now he understands what feelings inspired him on that midsummer night--why he flung the vase to the ground--he makes a movement as if he would shatter it a second time!--It is only for one moment--a moment of hellish torture--then the flame is suddenly extinguished, there is darkness once more--intense, pain-penetrated darkness!--He passes his hand over his brow, as if to fire the flame anew, but all remains dark,--and dark and mysterious remains to him what he has just experienced. He feels as though he must cry out, as if he must confide to the night this unintelligible agony in which he is wrestling. He drops on to his knees, on the very same spot where Trude sank down, rests his head on the edge of the bench and moans softly to himself. Suddenly a door in the house slams. His brother's steps resound in the entrance. He jumps up and sits down on the bench. Martin's figure, darkly outlined, appears on the veranda. "Brother, brother!" Johannes calls out to him. "Are you there, my boy?" the latter answers and throws himself with a deep sigh on to the bench. "Well, things are nearly all right again now--she has cried herself to sleep and now she is lying there quite calmly and her breath too comes quietly and regularly. I stood for a while at her bedside and looked at her. I am quite at a loss! Her child-like mind used to lie before me as clear as a mirror--and now all at once--what can it be? However much I think about it, I don't seem to get on to the right track. Perhaps she troubles because as yet there is no prospect of--of--yes, probably that's it. But I have always kept my longing quite to myself--didn't want to hurt her feelings--for of course, she can't alter the matter. And really, if one thinks about it, she is but a child herself and much too young to fulfil maternal duties. Why, one must have patience!" Thus he tries to talk away his soul's secret sorrow. Johannes remains silent. His heart is so full, so full. He wants to give his brother some proof of his affection and knows not how? He too has his own pain which he wants to work off, and, grasping Martin's hand, he says from the depths of his soul: "Oh, everything, everything will come right again!"