ee the stranger
lying in bed, but raising his head a little to greet Frau Helena, who
was bending over him and enquiring how he had slept.

"I really hardly know, noble lady," answered the youth. "My faithful
watcher there will be better able to tell you whether I was quiet or
talked nonsense and threw my hands and feet about. But I dreamed a
great deal, and such lovely dreams--nothing in them of blood or wounds.
And this morning when I came to myself it gave me a sudden stab in the
heart to think how I must have alarmed you last night, and that you do
not even know to whom you have been so unspeakably kind. Nay,"
continued he, seizing hold of her hand on seeing that she was again
going to impose silence, "I will not let you go, even though it should
be better for me to remain four-and-twenty hours without speaking. It
makes me wild to lie here and let that good Samaritan, and yourself
above all, feel that you are wasting your time and trouble upon a
fellow who better deserves to lie on the straw of a hospital amongst
brawlers and swashbucklers whom the beadle picks up half-dead on the
streets. I owe my present plight to my greenness and presumption,
having always held that with a good conscience and good courage, nobody
need fear to face the devil. My father has often enough shaken his head
at me warningly and said, 'Touch not pitch if thou wilt keep clean
hands; and don't mix with wolves if thou dost not mean to howl with
them.' And when I left Augsburg how my mother charged me only to enter
respectable houses and keep good company! The egg, however, thought
itself wiser than the hen. For you see, noble lady, I am naturally a
restless sort of a fellow, and beautiful as my native town is, and
cheerful too at times, I found it too confined, and wanted to see the
world, Switzerland more especially, because I had heard so much of it
from my father. He served his apprenticeship here in Berne in the house
of the rich master-clothier, Aufdembuehel, whom you doubtless know.
Afterwards he settled in Augsburg, and married my mother and set up a
great fabric of his own; and yet he has always thought fondly of
Berne, so that when I told him my wish to visit it he made no
objection. I almost think he had some idea of a daughter-in-law from
that house, which suited my notions too, for I have grown to the age of
five-and-twenty in Augsburg, and all the blue and brown, eyes there
have left me scathless. And so for about a fortnight I