"There it lay broken, ruined, and the jeers of the children of this world exhausted themselves upon the evil which had befallen the sacred 'Swan.' All promises had been brought to shame! "Just as sadly fared the prophet himself; he had so often announced that he could not die, because he had once already been dead and now lived the life of one who was regenerated; yet despite such announcement his eyes were closed soon after that mishap. "It was an unimportant piece of news for all my friends, it went to my heart. I thought of the tears which that fair one who was bound to him with such touching devotion, might have shed at the news of his death--and tears rose to my eyes also." CHAPTER II. THE NOVICE. "Two or three years might have passed since that evening; I was by that time one of those young officials, whose knowledge, learned in the lecture-room, had melted away by monotonous practice, when one day an old respected aunt invited me to tea. "She had only recently moved into the town from her estate; I had seen little of her during my life, and had not the remotest idea of being her heir, although I was one of her nearest relatives; the roseate light in which nephews, eager to inherit, are wont to look upon such-like matrons, who shine with the radiance of golden promises, did not, therefore exist for me; I only saw in her a good woman, who had become pious in the evening of life, and who rushed about from church to church. "When I entered I found several elderly ladies and gentlemen assembled round the tea urn. They were imbibing the Chinese beverage. Nevertheless, the conversation was but little cheerful--now and again a word, a sentence--they were the silent ones in the land. "The ticking of an old clock upon the wall, the noise of the tea-urn were the only sounds which interrupted the quietude. I was overcome by that endless weariness which I often experienced when I drove through a waste part of Masuren on rutty roads, beneath a rainy-grey sky. Such weariness at last exercises a sensibly physical oppression; it acts painfully; at last one counts every movement of the pendulum, and time, in its boundless void, appears like a fatal doom. "Even for observation or enjoyable criticism into which the despair of _ennui_ might resolve itself, the assembly offered little scope. "There was nothing remarkable about the old ladies and gentlemen that could challenge it; sometimes I felt a sensation as though I were sitting in a cabinet of wax figures; every one around me so orderly and pale--so silent and motionless. "Outside, the moonlight fell full upon the Castle lake. How gladly should I have wandered about where it shed its silver through the tall trees of the garden, until farther away the bright effulgence blended, dreamlike, with the dusky green.