, and gave Tonio many a happy hour by meeting him
half-way--but also many a pang of jealousy and disappointment, the
pain of a vain endeavor to find a common spiritual ground. For the
remarkable thing was that Tonio, although he envied Hans Hansen for his
way of living, constantly tried to bring him around to his own, which
he could never do for more than a few minutes, and then only in
seeming.

"I've just been reading something wonderful, something splendid," he
said. They were walking along, eating fruit tablets from a bag which
they had purchased at Iverson's on Mill Street for ten pfennig. "You
must read it, Hans, it is _Don Carlos_ by Schiller. I'll lend it to
you, if you wish."

"No, no," said Hans Hansen, "never mind, Tonio, that's not my style. I
stick to my horse-books, you know. Splendid illustrations in them, I
tell you. Sometime I'll show them to you at the house. They are
snap-shots, and you see the horses trotting and galloping and jumping,
in every position, such as you would never see in life because they
move too fast."

"In all positions?" asked Tonio politely. "Yes, that's fine, but as for
_Don Carlos_, it is beyond all comprehension. There are passages in it,
you'll see, that are so beautiful that it gives you a jerk, as if
something had suddenly burst."

"Burst?" asked Hans Hansen. "How do you mean?"

"For example, there is the passage where the king has wept because he
has been deceived by the marquis--but the marquis has only deceived him
for love of the prince, you understand, for whom he is sacrificing
himself. And now the news that the king has wept comes out of his
cabinet into the ante-room. 'Wept? The king has wept?' All the
courtiers are terribly taken aback, and it just goes through you, for
he's an awfully stiff and strict king. But you understand so clearly
that he did weep, and I really feel sorrier for him than for the
marquis and the prince together. He's always so utterly alone and
without love, and now he thinks he has found a friend, and the friend
betrays him ..."

Hans Hansen cast a sidelong glance into Tonio's face, and something in
that face must surely have won him over to this subject, for he
suddenly thrust his arm into Tonio's again and asked,

"Why, how does he betray the king, Tonio?"

Tonio was stirred to action.

"Why, the fact is," he began, "that all letters to Brabant and
Flanders ..."

"There comes Erwin Immerthal," said Hans.

Tonio was silent. "If