The Lector--loving the Count far more heartily than he was loved by him--was for taking the Librarian by storm at once to the castle, because just now was the most favorable hour, of court-recess, from half past four to half past five. Schoppe said he was on hand. In the castle Augusti commanded a servant, who understood him, to usher Schoppe into the mirror-room. He did so; brought lights immediately after; and Schoppe went slowly up and down, with his annoying retinue of dumb, nimble orang-outangs-of-the-looking-glass, rehearsing his part and calculating the future. Singularly did he feel himself seized now with his young, fresh sense of that former freedom which he was just suspending. He recognized Liberty, held her fast, looked upon her, and said to her, "Go away, only for a little while; save him, and then come back again!" The multiplication of himself in the mirrors disgusted him. "Must ye torment me, ye I's?" said he, and he now represented to himself how he was standing before the richest, brightest moment and finest gold-balance of his existence, how a grave and a great life lay in this balance, and how his "I" must vanish from him, like the copied glass I's round about him. Suddenly a joy darted through him, not beyond the worth of his resolve, but greater than its occasion. At last, near doors flew open, and then the nearest. Then entered a tall form, with head still half turned back, all enveloped in long, black silk. Like an enraptured moon on high tops of foliage, there stood before him, on the dark, silken cloud, a luxuriantly blooming, unadorned head, full of life, with black eyes full of lightnings, with dark roses on the dazzling face, and with an enthroning, snowy brow under the brown, overhanging locks. It seemed to Schoppe, when she looked upon him, as if his life lay in full sunshine; and he felt, with embarrassment, that he stood very near the queen of souls. "Herr von Augusti," she began, earnestly, "has told me that you wished to put into my hands a petition for your sick friend. Name it to me clearly and freely. I will give you, with pleasure, a frank and decided answer." All recollections of his part were sunk to the bottom, and dissolved within him; but the great guardian-genius, who flew along invisible beside his life, plunged with fiery wings into his heart, and he answered, with inspiration, "So, too, will I answer you. My Albano is mortally sick; he has been in a fever since last evening. He loved the departed Fraülein Liana. He lies bound to the condor's-wing of fever, and is swept to and fro. He falls upon his knees at every knell of the clock, and, lying close to the sunny side of fancy, prays more and more fervently, 'Appear to me, and give me peace!' He stands upright and dressed on the high pyre of the fantastic flame-circle, and pants and bakes with thirst, and dries and shrivels up dreadfully, as I can plainly see ..."