e Iphigenia of Goethe," but what were either of these Hecubas to
me? I began to scribble verses on the margin of the book, and their
melody had so lulling an effect that not long after midnight I fell
asleep in my chair, and in spite of the uncomfortable position never
woke till morning, though in my verses I had confessed myself once more
in love; and what of all the untoward circumstances of the case was the
darkest, in love with the heart's choice of my best friend!

This too was my first waking thought on the following morning. I
remember distinctly, however, that the misfortune which I clearly saw
to be ours, did not after all make me actually miserable, nay that it
rather exalted my self-complacency and rendered me very interesting in
my own eyes, as I had now a chance of personally experiencing all that
I had hitherto merely read of. I was never tired of conjuring up the
disastrous and heartrending scenes to which this complication must
necessarily lead, and an indefinably pleasurable kind of pity for
myself, for Sebastian, and for the innocent source of our woes suffused
all my thoughts.

Instead of going to the gymnasium, where I should have had to appear
without the German essay, I preferred to visit the "hedge-school" as
the French say, that is to lounge about the park, and there on a lonely
bench in the most out-of-the-way corner, commit my youthful sorrows to
paper. Heine and Eichendorff were at that time contending for my
immortal soul. On that particular morning I was not yet ripe for the
irony of the "Buch der Lieder," and the tree-tops rustled too
romantically above my head for the utterance of any tones but such as
suited a youthful scapegrace. About noon I saw with melancholy
satisfaction that the poem entitled "New Love," begun that morning,
would form a very considerable addition to my volume, if it went on
long at this rate.

In the afternoon when I sat, thinking no evil, in my room, and
attempting to draw the profile of my secretly beloved one from memory,
I heard Sebastian's step on the stair. I hastily hid away the sheet of
paper, and dipped my pen in the ink-stand to seem as though I were
interrupted at my work. When he entered I had not the heart to look up
at him.

He too gave me a very cursory greeting, stretched himself out as usual
in my arm chair, and began to smoke a short-pipe.

In about half-an-hour he asked,

"Have you been there again?"

"Yes," I replied, and seemed to be ve