When Albano, with the peace-angel of his life, with the beloved one, who, in the midst of the rush of her feelings, heard, nevertheless, the voice of her female friend, walked forth again once more alone upon the rocky causeway between fragrant vales of Tempe in the glimmering world, he felt as if he had struggled through his life like an eagle through a storm-cloud, and as if the black tempest were running far away below his wings, and the whole starry heaven burned bright above his head. Liana, with maidenly nobleness and firmness, gave him, before he had put a question, the answer: "I must now tell you a mystery, which I have hidden from every one, and even from my mother, because it would have disquieted her. I spoke just now of my never-to-be-forgotten Caroline. On the day of my sacrament, which I had wished to take with her, I went back by night from my teacher to my mother, and in fact through the singular, long cavern, wherein one seems to descend, when one is in reality going upward. My maid went before with the lantern. In the romantic arbor, where a concave mirror stands, I turn round toward the full moon which was streaming in, from a dread of the wild mirror, which distorts people too horribly. Suddenly I hear a heavenly concert, such as I often heard again afterward in sicknesses,--I think of my blessed friend,--and gaze, full of longing, into the moon. Then I saw her opposite to me, beaming with innumerable rays: in her fair eyes was a tender look, but yet something dissolving; the tender mouth, almost the only living feature, resembled a red, but transparent fruit, and all her hues seemed to be nothing but light. Yet only in the blue eye and red mouth did the angel seem like Caroline. I could sketch her, if one could paint with light. I became dangerously sick; then she appeared to me oftener, and refreshed me with inexpressibly sweet tones,--they were not properly words,--whereupon I always sank into a soft sleep, as into a sweet death. Once I asked her--more with inner words--whether I should, then, soon come to her into the realm of light. She answered, I should not die just now, but somewhat later; and she named very clearly the coming year, and the very day, which I have, however, forgotten.... O dear Albano! forgive me only a few words! I soon recovered, and mourned over the slow, lingering passage of time...." "No," Albano interrupted her, for his feelings were striking against each other like swords, "I revere, but I hate her dangerous phantom. Fancy and sickness are the parents of the air-born, destroying angel, who flies scorching, like a dumb heat-lightning, over all the blossoms of youth!"