Albano and his uncle went on to meet the announced Schoppe from village to village. The uncle continually pushed back the hope before them like a horizon, farther and farther, as they advanced. Once, at evening, the Count fancied he heard Schoppe's voice close beside him; in vain, the beloved man came not yet to his heart, and with longing impatience Albano saw the clouds in heaven sail along over the way which his precious one was taking beneath them on the earth. The uncle told him a long story of a secret trouble which often weighed down the Librarian, and of his liability to attacks of madness, which had some time ago repelled him from him, because among all men there was none he dreaded so much as the madman. Of Romeiro's portrait he seemed to know nothing. Albano was silent with vexation, for the Spaniard was one of those insufferable men who, with sleek, steady face, and with screwed-up and helmed soul, can let another's contradiction flutter around them without any contradiction on their part, without echo, without a reflection or alteration, and to whom another's discourse is only a still dew, the fall of which wears away no stone. To this was added Albano's exasperation against his new falsehood about Schoppe's nearness, and against his own incapacity of listening for a good, long hour incredulously to what a liar is saying. "Schoppe is, upon my word, already arrived at the Prince's garden by another route," said the Spaniard at last, in quite a lively mood, and advised turning back, in the comfortable enjoyment of that cool, impudent faculty he had of jamming up every one who did not do homage to him, between sharp, tedious ice-fields. They arrived before the princely garden in the midst of nothing but carriages, out of which were alighting the spectators of to-day's dramatic festival. Albano found among them already his father, the Princess, and Julienne, and, among the actors, Bouverot, his old exercise-master Falterle, and the yellow-dressed merchant's lady in the red shawl, who had once been less _in_ than _on_ Roquairol's heart, and finally Roquairol himself. The Captain stepped up immediately, first and foremost, to the well-known Albano, and said, with elaborate ease, the play would begin soon, only Dian with his wife was still expected. Dian, always easily moved, most of all by an invitation, could least of all resist one when art was the occasion; through him Chariton also was soon gained for the play, but not without one condition,--that she was to play in the piece the part of a beloved to no one but her spouse. When Roquairol spoke with Albano, he found it hard to laugh easily, or to raise his eyelids, as if his face were frozen or swollen; and an avenging, humiliating spirit inwardly weighed his down to the earth before the pure and happy friend out of whose spring he had torn and cast away the bright sun, and over whose life he had hung an eternal plague-cloud.