Berger had seated himself on the low stump of a tree, and Oswald lay down close by him on the thick heather. In this silence of the forest, which reminded him so forcibly of the woods of Berkow and Grenwitz, and of the painfully sweet days he had spent there, he felt that irrepressible impulse to speak which at times overcomes us all of a sudden. As the Catholic is moved to whisper his deep-hidden secrets into the ear of the priest, his personified conscience, so Oswald felt impelled to confess to the unhappy man by his side, in whom he had ever seen another self, all that he had experienced, tried to obtain, suffered and sinned, during these last eventful, fatal months. He did not think of Doctor Birkenhain's suggestion to interest Berger by all means at his command in his own fate, and thus to play the part of the physician to his patient. Was he not a very sick patient himself? But, whatever might agitate his heart--the man by his side had suffered worse things; what, he hardly dared confess to himself--the man who was wandering with lowered head in the dark labyrinth of his soul, and could find no way to light, he could hear all, all. And thus he told him, first hesitatingly, then with animation, with passionate excitement, all he had to tell: his love of Melitta, his love of Helen, his friendship for Bruno, and how jealousy and sickness of heart had robbed him of the one, and strange circumstances and death of the other. Berger had listened in silence, supporting his chin in his hand, and looking with his large eyes fixedly at the distance, without once interrupting Oswald. At last, when the young man wound up with the painful complaint "Why did you send me into this troublesome world? Why did you let me wander about so long in this darkness?" Berger raised his head, turned his eyes towards him, and said slowly, thoughtfully,