"Enumerate to me every trifle of his former days," begged Albano,--"every dew-drop out of his morning redness: he was so chary of his dark history!" "And that to every one," said the stranger. "This much will I one day prove to you, from dates gathered on the spot, that he is a Dutchman, like Hemsterhuis, and properly named _Kees_, like Vaillant's ape, to which he prefixed _Sieben_, or seven; for Siebenkäs is his first name. He drew his income out of the Bank of Amsterdam. Every New Year's night he burnt up the papers of the preceding year; and how his _Clavis Leibgeriana_[146] has become known I do not yet comprehend." Thereupon he related his first change of name, when Schoppe took from him the name Leibgeber; then every hour and act of his true heart toward the (former) poor-man's-attorney; then their second exchange of names, when Siebenkäs let himself nominally be buried, and went on as Leibgeber, and their eternal farewell in a village of Voigtland. As Siebenkäs here stopped in his narrative, he grasped the cold hand, with the words: "Schoppe, I thought I should not find thee till I found thee with God!" and bent weeping over the dead. Albano let his tears stream down, and took the other dead hand and said: "We grasp true, pure, valiant hands." "True, pure, valiant," repeated Siebenkäs, and said, with a Schoppeish smile, "His dog looks on and testifies as much." But he became pale with emotion, and looked now exactly like the dead. Then did he and Albano, sinking, touch the cold face to theirs, and Albano said, "Be thou, too, my friend, Leibgeber; we can love each other, because he loved us. Pale one, let thy form be the seal of my love toward thy old friend!" Albano now pushed up the window, and showed him a grave in the east, and one in the south, near the third open one, out there in the night, and said, "Thus have I thrice wept over life." Siebenkäs pressed his hand, and only said, "The Fates, and Furies, too, glide with linked hands over life, as well as the Graces and Sirens." He looked upon the singular, beautiful, fiery youth with the most hearty love; but Albano, who always imagined himself to be loved but little, and whom the fiery meteors of a Dian and a Roquairol had accustomed to bad habits of thinking, knew not how very much he had won this more tranquil heart. 141. CYCLE. On the morrow more sunshine and strength returned to Albano's breast. He had now himself to heave up the mountain in the flat-pressed plain of his life. Only to _see_ Pestitz again, where all the tournament-pleasures of his shining days had vanished, except the single Dian,--he abhorred the thought. "When this friend has once his grave-mound over his breast, then I go, and take leave of no one," said he.