This seemed to convey into the breaking heart, through the ears still open to life, sweet tones of the dear old times and pleasant dreams of eternal love;--the mouth began a faint smile, traced at once by pleasure and death,--the broad breast filled, and heaved once more for a sigh of pleasure: it was the last sigh of life, and the dead one sank back, smiling, on the earth. Now hast thou ended thy course here below, stern, steadfast spirit! and into the last evening-tempest on thy bosom there still streamed a soft, playing sun, and filled it with roses and gold. The earth-ball, and all the earthly stuff out of which the fleeting worlds are formed, was indeed far too small and light for thee. For thou soughtest behind, beneath, and beyond life, something higher than life; not thy _self_, thy _I_,--no mortal, not an immortal, but the Eternal, the Original One, God! This present _seeming_ was so indifferent to thee, the evil as well as the good. Now thou art reposing in real _being_,--death has swept away from the dark heart the whole sultry cloud of life, and the eternal light stands uncovered which thou didst so long seek, and thou, its beam, dwellest again in the fire. THIRTY-FIFTH JUBILEE. Siebenkäs.--Confession of the Uncle.--Letter from Albano's Mother.--The Race for the Crown.--Echo and Swan-song of the Story. 140. CYCLE. Long lay Albano in the solitary, dark abyss, till at length light illuminated the depths and the green height from which he had been precipitated. The once life-colored, manly face of his friend lay white before him; the red mantle only heightened the snow of the corpse. The dog lay with his head on his breast, as if he would warm and protect it. When Albano saw the naked blade, he looked round him on all sides, shuddered at the cold uncle, at the living brotherly image of the dead, and at the first shadow of a doubt whether it had been murder or suicide, and asked in a low tone, "How did he die?" "By me," said Siebenkäs; "our similarity killed him; he thought he saw himself, as this gentleman here will assure you." The uncle related several particulars. Albano turned eye and ear away from him, but he buried in the warm reflection of the friend's face that look to which the daylight of friendship had sunk below the horizon of earth. Siebenkäs seemed to assert himself by a rare manly bearing. Even Albano, the younger friend, concealed his anguish that he had lost so much, and that his orphan-heart was now exposed, like a helpless child, in the wilderness of life.