“I had sold a few gems, and now, after wandering many days, I arrived in a village.  Even as I was entering it, a strange feeling came over me—­I was frightened and did not know why.  But I soon discovered why—­it was the very same village in which I was born.  How astonished I was!  How the tears of joy ran down my cheeks as a thousand strange memories came back to me!  There were a great many changes; new houses had been built, others, which had then only recently been erected, were now in a state of dilapidation.  I came across places where there had been a fire.  Everything was a great deal smaller and more crowded than I had expected.  I took infinite delight in the thought of seeing my parents again after so many years.  I found the little house and the well-known threshold—­the handle on the door was just as it used to be.  I felt as if I had only yesterday left it ajar.  My heart throbbed vehemently.  I quickly opened the door—­but faces entirely strange to me stared at me from around the room.  I inquired after the shepherd, Martin, and was told that both he and his wife had died three years before.  I hurried out and, crying aloud, left the village.

“I had looked forward with such pleasure to surprising them with my riches, and as a result of a remarkable accident the dream of my childhood had really come true.  And now it was all in vain—­they could no longer rejoice with me—­the fondest hope of my life was lost to me forever.

“I rented a small house with a garden in a pleasant city, and engaged a waiting-maid.  The world did not appear to be such a wonderful place as I had expected, but the old woman and my former home dropped more and more out of my memory, so that, upon the whole, I lived quite contentedly.

“The bird had not sung for a long time, so that I was not a little frightened one night when he suddenly began again.  The song he sang, however, was different—­it was: 

  O solitude
  Of lonely wood,
  A vanished good
  In dreams pursued,
  In absence rued,
  O solitude!

“I could not sleep through the night; everything came back to my mind, and I felt more than ever that I had done wrong.  When I got up the sight of the bird was positively repugnant to me; he was constantly staring at me, and his presence worried me.  He never ceased singing now, and sang more loudly and shrilly than he used to.  The more I looked at him the more uneasiness I felt.  Finally, I opened the cage, stuck my hand in, seized him by the neck and squeezed my fingers together forcibly.  He looked at me imploringly, and I relaxed my grip—­but he was already dead.  I buried him in the garden.

“And now I was often seized with fear of my waiting-maid.  My own past came back to me, and I thought that she too might rob me some day, or perhaps even murder me.  For a long time I had known a young knight whom I liked very much—­I gave him my hand, and with that, Mr. Walther, my story ends.”