ture,
passionately, irregularly, and yet with power and skill, and found that
his partner fitted him wonderfully. She danced with a perfect
comprehension of his way of dancing. This pleased him not a little.
Before this, when he had had occasion to dance, he had been much
annoyed by finding in the dance the same conflict as in life,
resistance instead of adaptation. But this time he found a singular
pleasure in it, as it were an assertion of himself. Like a good strong
wine the delight ran through his body. He felt himself free and
unfettered as he seldom did--himself, without a struggle.

Now his partner was out of breath, though he was far from exhausted.
She tottered, and there was something unrhythmic in her movements that
disturbed him. Exhausted, she drew him out of the crowd of dancers, and
sank faintly almost into the arms of a short, stout gentleman.

He laughed good-naturedly. "Yes, my pretty child, I've been looking
on for some time--but why must girls dance at such a tremendous rate?"
The engraver saw his partner grow more and more confused--more than he
would have thought a chance contact should have accounted for. "Oh,
pardon!" he heard her say. "Pardon, your Royal Highness, for my
awkwardness!"

"Oh, then it's Karl August that she almost bumped into!" thought Herr
Kosch. To be sure, there by the house stood the hunting-coach which he
had seen in pictures. His eyes eagerly sought further. Quite near him
he caught sight of a dignified old gentleman in a dark-gray coat, a
snowy white neckerchief about his throat in which a reddish-yellow stone
glowed, his hat in his hand, his hair like a well-arranged gray mist
above his lofty forehead, which rose in lines pure as the dome of a
temple--and those eyes! He had danced himself up to the very goal of
his pilgrimage.

But he did not go up to this man and say, "Brother!" He just stood and
stared. "God in heaven, what a man!" he murmured to himself. "He has
built up his manhood like a throne. He stands alone among them
all--they are simply wiped out by his presence."

The engraver saw his friend, for whom he had so longed in his lonely
hours, standing now at an immense distance from him. "Yes--a man must
build such a wall about him if he means to create and express himself
as _he_ has. No--he has nothing to do or to seek among the wretched.
What a plebeian I am that I couldn't understand this!"

Then he saw the prince take Beate Rauchfuss, whose beauty dazzle