"Then I heard Frau Salden's name mentioned, whose guardianship of her child had been taken from her by the authorities, because a mother possessing such impious principles was not capable of bringing it up properly; I learned that she had banished herself to the greatest solitude upon her remote estate. I had contrived to have myself removed to the law courts of another province, but since that time the report of my participation in that community persecuted me. My relations to Frau Salden certainly had remained a secret; but it was sufficient that I had been a member of that despised circle, in order to cause me to be constantly overlooked and kept back in the early part of my career. I therefore relinquished it entirely, and wandered through distant quarters of the globe, so as to escape from the reproaches of others and from my own memories of the past. After many years I returned home, and to my pained astonishment found that those occurrences which I had deemed long since buried, still clung to people's recollections. But that is not the worst. A cold hand has taken hold of the new spring that arose brilliantly before me, and all its verdure and blossoms are transformed into crackling, withered leaves; inevitably, mortally the past seizes me as if it were a Medusa's head! That is a blow to my very heart, and after I have once more let the pictures of my life pass quietly before me, I may now at last utter one cry of anguish, like a wounded hart, that pants in vain to refresh itself at the sparkling forest spring. "Eva's mother is that Frau Salden, who once was my spiritual bride! Thus the daughter can never become my earthly one; it is a calamity, it is my doom! No written law prohibits it; the world's opinion cannot condemn, as from it all remains a secret; but my irrefutable feeling rebels against it, it is impossible and I am utterly miserable that it is impossible." With these words, Blanden had concluded his story. Without, the morning already lay sparkling over land and sea; Blanden started as a chance glance in the mirror showed him his own worn-out reflection. Doctor Kuhl had merely interrupted his friend's tale now and again by a question or a remark, now he flung his finished cigar aside with the words, "The poor child!" "And can you see no means of escape?" asked Blanden. "No, one may bid defiance to laws, but not to one's personal feelings." "Never have I been so helpless," cried Blanden, "so desperately helpless; I wander about like a criminal; I dare not approach either the mother or the daughter. May she learn the truth? What excuse is offered for my withdrawal, for behaviour that looks like a public insult?"