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“Well,” asked Albert, with the greatest curiosity and astonishment, “do you mean to say you have lost your freedom again here? I cannot conceive, why here–“

“Oh,” said Victor, interrupting his friend, while his tone became somewhat solemn, “I can explain all in two words. In the sleepless nights of the illness, I endured here, all the dreams of that noblest and most terrible period of my life were revived. It was my glowing passion itself, that assumed a form–Aurora–she again appeared to me–glorified–purified in the fire of Heaven;–no devilish O’Malley has further power over her–Aurora is–the baroness!”

“How! what!” cried Albert, shrinking with horror. Then he muttered to himself, “The little plump housewife with the great bunch of keys–she an elementary spirit!–she a salamander!”–and he felt a difficulty in suppressing his laughter.

“In the figure,” continued Victor, “there is no longer any trace of resemblance to be found, that is to say, in ordinary life; but the mysterious fire that flashes from her eyes,–the pressure of her hand.”–

“You have been very ill,” said Albert, gravely, “for the wound you received in your head was serious enough to put your life in peril; but now I find you are so far recovered that you will be able to go with me. From the very bottom of my heart I implore you, my dear,–my beloved friend, to leave this place, and accompany me to-morrow to Aix-la-Chapelle.”

“I certainly do not intend to remain here any longer,” replied Victor. “so I will go with you; however, let this matter first be cleared up.”

The next morning, when Albert woke, Victor told him that a strange, ghostly sort of dream had revealed to him the mysterious word, which O’Malley had taught him, when they prepared the Teraphim. He thought that he would make use of it for the last time. Albert shook his head doubtfully, and caused every thing to be got ready for a speedy departure, while Paul Talkebarth evinced the most joyful activity by all sorts of mad expressions. “Zackermanthoe,” he muttered to himself in Albert’s hearing, “It is a good thing that the devil Bear fetched the Irish devil Foot long ago, otherwise there would have been something wrong now.”

Victor, as he had wished, found the baroness alone in her room, occupied with some domestic work. He told her that he was now at last about to quit the house, where he had enjoyed such noble hospitality. The baroness assured him that she had never entertained a friend more dear to her. Victor then took her hand, and asked her if she were ever at Potsdam, and knew a certain Irish Major. “Victor,” said the baroness interrupting him hastily, “we shall part to-day, we shall never see each other again; nay, we must not. A dark veil hangs over my life. Let it suffice if I tell you that a fearful destiny condemns me always to appear a different being from the one which I really am. In the hateful position in which you have found me, and which causes me spiritual torments, which my bodily health seems to belie, I am atoning for a heavy fault–yet no more–farewell!” Upon this, Victor cried with a loud voice: “Nehelmiahmiheal!” and the baroness, with a shriek of horror, fell senseless to the ground. Victor under the influence of a storm of strange feelings, and quite beside himself could scarcely summon resolution enough to ring the bell. However, having done this, he rushed from the chamber. “At once,–let us leave at once!” he cried to his friend, and told him in a few words what had happened. Both leaped upon the horses that had been brought for them, and rode off without waiting for the return of the baron, who had gone out hunting.

Albert’s reflections on the ride from Liege to Aix-la-Chapelle have already shown, with what profound earnestness, with what noble feeling, he had appreciated the events of that fatal period. On the journey to the Residence, whither the two friends now returned, he succeeded in completely delivering Victor from the dreamy condition into which he had sunk, and while Albert brought to his friend’s mind, depicted in the most lively colours, all the monstrous occurrences which the days of the last campaign had brought forth, the latter felt himself animated by the same spirit as that which dwelt in Albert. And although Albert never ventured upon long contradictions or doubts, Victor himself now seemed to look upon his mystical adventure, as nothing but a bad dream.

In the Residence it was natural that the ladies were favourably disposed to the colonel, who was rich, of noble figure, young for the high rank which he held, and who, moreover, was amiability itself. Albert looked upon him as a lucky man, who might choose the fairest for a wife, but Victor observed, very seriously: “Whether it was, that I had been mystified, and, by wicked means, made to serve some unknown end, or whether an evil power really tried to tempt me, this much is certain, that though the past has not cost me my happiness, it has deprived me of the paradise of love. Never can that time return, when I felt the highest earthly felicity, when the ideal of my sweetest, most transporting dreams, nay, love itself, was in my arms. Love and pleasure have vanished, since a horrible mystery deprived me of her, who to my inmost heart was really a higher being, such as I shall not again find upon earth!”

The colonel remained unmarried.

J. O.

[1] Eulenspiegelei signifies odd practical jokes, and is derived from Eulenspiegel, the traditional perpetrator of such pleasantries.–J. O.

[2] Calderon’s “Medico de su honra.”