He was now decided to remind the Princess of her earlier promise to pour the life-balsam of a southern tour upon Liana's sick nerves, and through her now, betimes, before the confusion of the last pressing moments should prostrate anything, to put the Minister's lady in tune, and gain her over, who, like all court people, would certainly hardly resist a princely wish and a happy prospect. If, however, Liana, from any fault of her own or of others, stayed behind, then was it his sworn determination, for no power, not even his father's, to stir from the native land of his eternal bride; but to root himself before her sick-cloister, until she either passed out therefrom free and cheerful again into open life, or buried herself, darkly veiled, in the gloomy nun-choir of the dead. O, to come back to seek her in the romantic grounds of olden time, and to find her nowhere but behind the speech-grating of the hereditary vault,--this was a thought his heart could not endure! The Princess herself furnished him an opportunity of making his request; she sent him an invitation to an astronomical party at the observatory, through her faithful court-dame Haltermann: "I have to write to you, verbally, merely the following," wrote she. "Come this evening to the observatory; I and my good Haltermann are going thither." This Haltermann, a Fraülein of few charms of spiritual flag-feathers, but of many dogmas and premature wrinkles, had already for years hung indissolubly upon the Princess, keeping everything secret, and favoring all her "make-your-appearances" (_rendez-vous_) by merely saying, "My princess is as pure as gold, and only few know her as I do." Nothing could happen more propitious to Albano's wishes. He stood earliest of all on the noble observatory, in the midst of the lovely night. It was some days after the full moon; that shining world was as yet hidden behind the earth, but the let-on jets of its rays shot up by fits and starts. On all mountain-peaks glimmered even now a pale light, as if the distant morning of super-terrestrial worlds were falling upon them. Through the valleys the light-shunning, black, earthly beast, Night, still stretched himself out, and reared himself up against the mountains. The mountain-castle of Liana was invisible, and showed, like a fixed star, only a light. Suddenly the autumnal purple upon all summits around the castle was bedewed with silver by the moon, and a shower of light came down on the white walls and along the white avenues of the garden; at last, a strange, pale morning, glimmering through all bowers, lay in the garden, as it were the tender gleaming of a high, perfectly pure spirit, who only in the holy, silent night trod the low earth, and then and there sought nothing but the pure, still Liana.