Vienna and Berlin, are now happy and well situated there; why may I not also meet with the same good fortune?”
I gazed upon the lovely girl with silent wonder; her infantine simplicity formed a singular contrast with the firmness of character she displayed in her determination of venturing into the wide world. During our conversation she had not once dared to turn her eyes towards me; she continued to gaze upon the crimson sky of evening beneath us, and appeared totally unconscious and unembarrassed at her situation, thus in confidential conversation with a stranger in the dusk of evening, and in the middle of a lonely forest; neither did she seem to entertain the slightest curiosity to know who I was.
She now rose, and shaking from her lap the stems which she had picked off the herbs, took the basket containing the flowers, for the purpose, as she said, of placing it at the door of the hermit’s cell. She had culled and prepared these herbs, in order to employ the time while waiting for the poor recluse, who, it appears, formed them into wreaths, and gave them away in exchange for provisions in the town. She advanced towards the hut with an air as if she had studied under the Graces themselves.
I followed her with my eyes and felt myself consumed by a raging fire, which seemed every minute to increase. I endeavoured, with a force almost supernatural, to quench the ardour of my feelings, so as at least to prevent, as much as possible, the innocent girl from knowing how near she had been seated to a burning volcano. I abstained from following her, though at the risk of never beholding her again; for another, shorter path, leading from the hermitage to Shwytz, rendered it unnecessary for her to return by the more circuitous route leading to the chapel.
I remained seated there with an anxiety and agitation greater than if the losing or gaining of an empire was to be the result; she, however, shook out the flowers upon the
