If the Feudal-Provost Von Hafenreffer had no existence except as a creature of my fancy, I should certainly proceed with my history, and tell the world, as matter of fact (and the whole romance-writing set would go to the death upon it[70]), that Albano was sitting there the next morning, blind and deaf, behind the broad bandage which the bandage-maker Cupid had bound before his eyes,--that he had not been able to count more than _five_, except at evening, when he cast up the strokes of the clock, in order, afterward, to run in a magic circle round the Froulay water-house, like one who sets out to _charm the fire_ which glides snake-like after him,--that he had, through those two blow-holes[71] wherewith sentimental whales blubber right out in bookstores, spouted out considerable streams,--for the rest, had never looked at another book (except some leaves in the book of Nature), nor at another human being (except a blind man),--"and to this my surgeon's certificate of erotic wound-fevers (I would say at the conclusion of my lies) Nature manifestly sets her privy seal." That she does not, says Hafenreffer; these are nothing but confounded lies; the case is quite otherwise, thus:-- Zesara never stole a second time into Froulay's garden; a proud blush of shame darted over him at the very thought of the painful blush with which he should come in contact, for the first time, with a mistrustful or inquiring eye. But in this wise the dear soul remained hid from him until her recovery, as the May-month did from her; and he silently tormented himself with reckonings up of her sufferings and doubts of her cure. He was ashamed to be taking any pleasure during her period of sadness, and forbade himself the enjoyment of spring and the visiting of Lilar: ah! he knew too, full well, that the loving spring and Lilar, where she had received so many joys and the last wound, would make his heart too ungovernable and too full.