At last the turn came to those, to whom it never comes first, although they are the only ones who have a hearty meaning in such ceremonies. Heiderscheid stepped out on the balcony, and caused the noisy swarming multitude to stretch out the forefinger and thumb, and repeat the oath after him. The mass, always fascinated, shouted their _vivat_; in the dazzled eyes gleamed the confident expectation of a better regency and love for the unknown individual. The Count, whom a multitude generally made enthusiastic, as it did Schoppe melancholy, glowed with the inspiration of brotherly love and thirst for achievement; he saw princes, like omnipotent ones, holding sway on their eminences, and saw the blooming provinces and the gay cities of a wisely-ruled land spread out before him; he represented to himself how he, were he a prince, could, with the electric sparkling of the sceptre-point, dart, with an animating shock, into millions of united hearts at once, whereas he could now, with so great difficulty, scarcely kindle a few of the nearest; he saw his throne, as a mountain in morning light, pouring out, instead of lava, navigable streams through the lands, and breaking the storms, with a hum of harvests and festivals around its feet; he thought to himself how far, from such a high place, he could send light abroad, like a moon, which does not hide the sun by day, but, from her elevation, flings his distant brightness into the night,--and how he would, instead of only defending, _create_ and _educate_ freedom, and be a regent for the sake of forming self-regents.[112] "But why am I not one?" said he mournfully. Noble youth! do thy estates, then, furnish thee no subjects? But just so does the lesser prince believe he would govern a duchy quite otherwise, and the higher one believes the same in regard to a kingdom, and so does the highest, in regard to universal monarchy. Meanwhile, all through this singular uneasy day, wild perspectives of youth passed to and fro before him, and the old spirit-voice, which he was going to meet to-day, repeated in him the dark exhortation, Take the crown! Wehrfritz came back in the evening with a red face from the fiery allegiance-banquet, and Albano took an agitated leave of him, as if of the ebb and calm of life--his childish youth; for to-day he launched out deeper into its waves. Schoppe came back and wanted to have him before the sight-hole of his show-box, wherein he slid through the vicariate-allegiance-swearing in Klosterdorf, in a series of comic pictures; but these contrasted too severely with higher ones, and gave little pleasure.