Ah, thou dear boy! man, especially the rosy-cheeked little man, too easily cheats himself with taking repentance for reformation, resolutions for actions, blossoms for fruits, as on the naked twig of the fig-tree seeming _fruits_ sprout forth, which are only the fleshy rinds of the _blossoms_! And now, while all the nerves and roots of his soul lay naked and exposed to the harsh air, and with such fair, fresh impulses,--just now must he be so often trampled upon and disgraced. Honor burned in his bosom,--he determined to pass through the coming years as through a white colonnade of monumental pillars,--already a mere Alumnus from the city was, to his soul thirsting for glory and knowledge, a classic author,--and was he to endure it that the Director should falsely accuse, and the Vienna master caricature him to the Knight his father? Hard tears were struck, like sparks, from his proud, insulted soul, and the heat dissolved the comet nucleus of his inner world into a sweltry mist. In short, he resolved to run away to Pestitz in the night,--rush into his father's presence, tell him all, and then come home again without saying a word of it. At the end of the village he found a night-express, of whom he inquired the way to Pestitz, and who wondered at the little pilgrim without a hat. But first let my readers look with me at the nest of the supper-party. This very express brought the Vienna master a bad piece of news touching the so-long-praised son of the Minister, whose name was Roquairol.