ements for Ida
into the principal newspapers of Germany, and making random visits to
towns all about to consult directories and police records. A singular
sort of misanthropy possessed him. He cursed the multitude of towns and
villages that reduced the chances in his favor to so small a thing. He
cursed the teeming throngs of men, women, and children, in whose mass
she was lost, as a jewel in a mountain of rubbish. Had he possessed the
power, he would in those days, without an instant's hesitation, have
swept the bewildering, obstructing millions of Germany out of existence,
as the miner washes away the earth to bring to light the grain of gold
in his pan. He must have scanned a million women's faces in that weary
search, and the bitterness of that million-fold disappointment left its
trace in a feeling of aversion for the feminine countenance and figure
that he was long in overcoming.

Knowing that only by some desperate chance he could hope to meet her in
his random wanderings, it seemed to him that he was more likely to be
successful by resigning as far as possible all volition, and leaving
the guidance of the search to chance; as if Fortune were best disposed
toward those who most entirely abdicated intelligence and trusted
themselves to her. He sacredly followed every impulse, never making up
his mind an hour before at what station he should leave the cars, and
turning to the right or left in his wanderings through the streets of
cities, as much as possible without intellectual choice. Sometimes,
waking suddenly in the middle of the night, he would rise, dress with
eager haste, and sally out to wander through the dark streets, thinking
he might be led of Providence to meet her. And, once out, nothing but
utter exhaustion could drive him back; for how could he tell but in
the moment after he had gone, she might pass? He had recourse to every
superstition of sortilege, clairvoyance, presentiment, and dreams.
And all the time his desperation was singularly akin to hope. He dared
revile no seeming failure, not knowing but just that was the necessary
link in the chain of accidents destined to bring him face to face with
her. The darkest hour might usher in the sunburst. The possibility that
this was at last the blessed chance lit up his eyes ten thousand times
as they fell on some new face.

But at last he found himself back in Bonn, with the feverish infatuation
of the gambler, which had succeeded hope in his mind, su