"As for you, now, noble knight," continued Timm, "you are a Grecian, without the means of being so at all times, and without the gift of simply transferring the time during which you cannot be so to the account of the future. Instead of doing that, you play the Nazarene, and feel just as happy during the time as the eagle whose wings and claws have been clipped, and who wears a chain around his foot. The exuberant strength, which you cannot employ outwardly, turns within and checks the normal growth of your nature, which has once for all been intended for enjoyment. This is not the first time I call your attention to this contradiction in you. Do you recollect what I told yon already at Grenwitz? You hate the nobles, you hate the rich, you hate the powerful, because the ten fingers of our hands itch with a desire to be noble and rich and powerful yourself. Do not talk to me of your moral humbug of the nobility of mind, the wealth of a pure heart, and the power of truth! All that is mere stuff for those who know what merchandise is sold in the market of life. Pshaw! what has a man like you to do with poverty--a man of your youth, your charms, your pretty face--for, by heaven, Oswald, you are a handsome fellow, a man whom the women embrace without his asking, A man of thoroughly aristocratic tastes and tendencies! It is simply ridiculous! You ought not to be a poor schoolmaster, but a wealthy baron, like those Grenwitz people with whom, by the way, you have a most striking resemblance; then you could enjoy life, and afterwards blow out your brains with some show of reason; then you could marry the fair Helen; could do, in a word, or not do whatever you liked! That is why I say again: you want an income of ten thousand dollars. I wish I could get it for you, I would do it, and were I to take them I know not where." "I really believe you were capable of doing it, Timm." "Why not? And if it were only from curiosity to see how you would act in such a case towards your old friend." "I would do with the mammon, you may rest assured of that, as I did when I was a boy with the cherries people gave me--I would share it with my friends." Albert looked fixedly at Oswald, as he said these words with flushed cheek and raised voice. Suddenly he said, as if awaking from a dream: