had sold nothing the whole livelong day and could not give me back a
sechser. She wished I would buy a groschen's worth. Then it occurred
to me that I also had a sechser in my pocket, and thoroughly delighted
that I had solved the difficult problem, I gave it to the woman and
said: "Now you can give me back a sechser." She understood me so
little however that she gave me back the groschen and kept the sechser.

At this time, while I was making almost daily visits to the young
princes at the castle, both to play as well as to study French with
them, another image comes up in my memory. It was the daughter of the
Princess, the Countess Marie. The mother died shortly after the birth
of the child and the Prince subsequently married a second time. I know
not when I saw her for the first time. She emerges from the darkness
of memory slowly and gradually--at first like an airy shadow which
grows more and more distinct as it approaches nearer and nearer, at
last standing before my soul like the moon, which on some stormy night
throws back the cloud-veils from across its face. She was always sick
and suffering and silent, and I never saw her except reclining upon her
couch, upon which two servants brought her into the room and carried
her out again, when she was tired. There she lay in her flowing white
drapery, with her hands generally folded. Her face was so pale and yet
so mild, and her eyes so deep and unfathomable, that I often stood
before her lost in thought and looked upon her and asked myself if she
was not one of the "strange people" also. Many a time she placed her
hand upon my head and then it seemed to me that a thrill ran through
all my limbs and that I could not move or speak, but must forever gaze
into her deep, unfathomable eyes. She conversed very little with us,
but watched our sports, and when at times we grew very noisy and
quarrelsome, she did not complain but held her white hands over her
brow and closed her eyes as if sleeping. But there were days when she