The time passed in animated conversation. It was the dearest wish of the Electoress to secure the heir of Brandenburg for her son-in-law. The pleasure of the conversation, however, was soon seriously marred. The Princess Henrietta asked if Wallenstein had not actually attempted to secure the crown of Bohemia. The Princess Louise maintained that he had. “I look with a shudder,” said she, “into the dark, bottomless abyss of that man’s soul. Despicable ambitions rage there. Selfishness characterizes every mortal more or less, but he had no other impelling motive. All love in his nature was destroyed by it, and where there is no love one becomes a fiend. What were Luther, the Pope, or Calvin to him! He made no account of them. His own person was all he cared for. Many a time I have said ‘He is Satan incarnate!’” “And yet,” remarked the Electoress, “his faith in the stars—” “Superstition,” replied the Princess. “I will not dispute with you about the word,” replied the Electoral Prince. “But you must concede one thing: He sought to read his fate in the position of the stars. He believed that everything which happened to him was written there, and he tried to read the writing. To that extent he acknowledged the power which governs the stars.” “Then in reality his superstition was an evidence of his faith,” said the Electoress. “Then if he sometimes fell into a fanaticism, which sprung from his belief in his favorite science, we are bound to excuse him. Do you mean that?” “Not entirely,” replied Frederick William. “In part he was a fanatic; but besides this there was much of evil in him, and when that evil took possession of his nature it destroyed everything before it.” The Princess Henrietta replied: “There is nothing upon earth which interests me so much as the human soul. The famous botanist Kluit at Leyden analyzes an object and examines its organism and structure with the microscope. I would like to have an instrument which would so disclose the soul of Wallenstein that I might look into its lowest depths. What a picture it would reveal to my gaze!” “Sister,” said the Princess Louise, “I agree with you. Many years have passed, but I clearly remember that for a long time I could not rid myself of the picture of the dying Wallenstein by day or night. The door is burst open by the hired assassin. There he stands in the middle of his chamber, an apparition in his white night-dress. The assassin trembles for an instant. Then plucking up courage he rushes upon Wallenstein and pierces him with his knife. Silently and with outstretched arms he receives his death-wound. Not a word! not a sound! He expires in silence! What a monstrous spectacle! But I will desist, for our Rupert is again growing angry.”