"But to be quite frank," he continued, "I am having a strange experience with nature here. I cannot accustom myself to it. Its poverty oppresses me. I am like one who has outgrown his home and reproaches himself for it. I try to get back to my old attitude, and I admire and flatter German nature whenever I possibly can. But first other pictures in my mind must fade. You see I have just returned from Italy, where I spent the last two years." Heaving a deep sigh Lilly stared at him. She felt as if now he were absolutely unearthly. "Two whole years?" she asked in astonishment. "I am working on a large scientific work, on account of which--no, I was really sent to Italy on account of my health. My uncle, who's a father to me, wanted me to go. I didn't think of the work until I got there. Then my own country and my studies, everything, fell into the background." As he spoke his eyes glowed and stared into space, full of will and enthusiasm. The old, slumbering desire for Italy began to beat its wings again in Lilly's breast. "Yes," she cried with the same enthusiasm as he, "isn't it so? There all ideas grow, and you feel what you can do, and you become what you wanted to be from the first. Isn't it so? I've never been there, but I feel what I say strongly. There, in the home of everything great and beautiful, you yourself become greater and more beautiful--and--everything--sordid passes away. Isn't it so?" He listened dumbfounded, and embraced her with a beaming gaze. "Yes," he replied almost solemnly. "It is so, exactly." She tingled with delight. Did it not seem that with these words he made an avowal of the inner union between them, the avowal she had hoped for from the very first instant of their meeting? Did it not seem that nothing now separated them? She looked down helplessly. Was he really the embodiment of that shade which had so senselessly fastened itself upon her soul since the Dresden days? "I feel as if we had met before," she said softly without raising her eyes. "Exactly the way I feel," he rejoined hastily. "But it cannot be, for I should know where and when." "Were you in Dresden six years ago at about this time?" "No," he said. "Six years ago I was studying at Bonn. The semester came to an end at this season, but I went directly to my uncle, who was having his castle restored." "Where is his castle?" "Near Coblenz." So they had not met in Dresden. "But if we both have the same feeling--" said Lilly. "There are pictures in our souls which seem to be recollections, but in fact are previsions." "What do you mean?" "I mean that one--that one--walks as on the edge of a knife between the past and the present, and reels and falls into a void the instant--" "What?" "The instant--" he broke off--"I beg your pardon, are you an artist?" "Why?" she asked, unpleasantly taken aback. Did he want to make merry at her expense? "I read your sign outside." The sign! "Pressed Flower Studio."