The count could tell him a great deal about Ruth. He acknowledged that
he had not sought Adam the Swabian for weapons, but on account of his
beautiful daughter. The girl was slender as a fir-tree! And her face!
once seen could never be forgotten. So might have looked the beautiful
Judith, who slew Holophernes, or Queen Zenobia, or chaste Lucretia of
Rome! She was now past twenty and in the bloom of her beauty, but cold
as glass; and though she liked him on account of his old friendship for
Ulrich and the affair in the forest, he was only permitted to look at,
not touch her. She would rejoice when she heard that Ulrich was still
alive, and what he had become. And the smith, the smith! Nay, he would
not go home now, but back to Antwerp to be Ulrich's messenger! But now
he too would like to relate his own experiences.

He did so, but in a rapid, superficial way, for the Eletto constantly
reverted to old days and his father. Every person whom they had both
known was enquired for.

Old Count Frohlinger was still alive, but suffered a great deal from
gout and the capricious young wife he had married in his old age.
Hangemarx had grown melancholy and, after all, ended his life by the
rope, though by his own hand. Dark-skinned Xaver had entered the
priesthood and was living in Rome in high esteem, as a member of a
Spanish order. The abbot still presided over the monastery and had a
great deal of time for his studies; for the school had been broken up
and, as part of the property of the monastery had been confiscated, the
number of monks had diminished. The magistrate had been falsely accused
of embezzling minors' money, remained in prison for a year and, after his
liberation, died of a liver complaint.