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by letting out rooms to travellers. She dwelt not far from the church of Saint Cecilia, in an old, low, two-storied house, herself living below, and letting out the upper floor for money. To reach her we had to traverse the whole town, and Renata did not let slip a word the whole way, nor did she bend back the edge of her hood.
    To my surprise, Martha at once recognised in the sunburnt mariner the beardless scholar who had caroused at her board in the years gone by, and was as glad to see me as if I had been a relative; she began to spoil me, prattling:
    “Ah, Master Rupprecht! Did I ever hope to see you again? Look, all these ten years I’ve not forgotten you! Master Gerard did say that you ran off with the landsknechts, and I thought that only your bones were left, whitening somewhere in the fields of Italy. And look, what a strapping and stern and handsome man you have become—the spit and image of St. George on the holy painting! Step upstairs; there I have rooms disengaged and ready: there’s not much business now—everyone tries to get into the hostelries, so that affairs are slack, trade goes down, it’s not as in bygone days.”
    In a quiet voice I ordered her to prepare all the upstairs rooms for myself and my wife, saying that I should pay in good Rhine gold, and Martha, sensing money in my purse as a hunting dog senses game, became even twice as polite and admiring. Walking backwards before us, she led the way to the upper floor, but, while Martha fussed, getting everything ready for the night and questioning me with many gossiping asides, Renata played throughout the dumb part in a comœdia, not even unveiling her face, as if in fear that she might be recognised. But as soon as we were left alone, she at once said to me commandingly:
    “You will sleep, Rupprecht, in that room there, and do not dare to come to me unless I call.”
    I looked Renata in the face and made no sound in reply, but I walked out with such a weight upon my soul as if I had been condemned to be branded with a hot iron. I wanted either to weep, or to thrash this woman who had so strange a power over me. I gritted my teeth and said to myself: “All right, all right then; if only you give me the chance, I shall repay you alb for alb”—and at the same time it seemed to me as though it would be heavenly bliss only to sit once more at Renata’s bedside and stroke her hair until my hand was exhausted. Not daring to disobey her injunction, I agonised in bed, like one drunk, to whom the world sways like the deck of a caravel, until weariness overmastered my bitter-angry thoughts. Till the morning, however, nightmares suffocated me and I seemed to see the beldam of Geerdt, astride on my bosom, roaring and drinking blood as it spouted from my breast, while Renata with a youth in flaming robes floated past through a blue garden amid gigantic lilies, and I crawled after them like a toad, my heavy limbs powerless to part from the earth.
    None the less, the habit of the camp woke me with its drum at the customary hour, and I had time to put myself in order and freshen my head before Renata summoned me. But she called in a voice stern and Callous, and when I heard the comfortless words that she addressed to me I felt as though I were swallowing all the green waters of the ocean waves with not one tiny sail on the whole horizon.
    This is what Renata said to me, not mentioning anything of her yesterday’s intention of leaving me:
    “Listen, Rupprecht! We must find Heinrich this very day, I do not wish to wait one day longer. We must find him, though we have to tramp through the whole town. Let us go then!”
    I would have replied to this commanding speech that I could be of but little help in the search for Count Heinrich, never having seen him face to face, but so imperative was Renata’s gaze that I found neither words nor voice, and when, lowering her hood, quickly and determinedly, she rushed out into the street, I moved after her like a