soothingly, “Tomorrow I leave this town, probably never to return.”  Then I perceived a faint pressure of the lovely lips and of the little hand and I—­hurried smilingly away.  Yes, I must smile when I reflect that unconsciously I uttered the magic formula by which our red-and blue-coated cavaliers more frequently win female hearts than by their mustachioed attractiveness—­“Tomorrow I leave, probably never to return.”

* * * * *

During the night which I passed at Goslar, a remarkably curious occurrence befell me.  Even now I cannot think of it without terror.  I am not cowardly by nature and Heaven knows that I have never experienced any special anguish when, for example, a naked blade has sought to make acquaintance with my nose or when I have lost my way at night in a wood of ill repute, or when, at a concert, a yawning lieutenant has threatened to swallow me—­but ghosts I fear almost as much as the Austrian Observer[52].  What is fear?  Does it originate in the brain or in the emotions?  This was a point which I frequently disputed with Dr. Saul Ascher, when we accidentally met in the Cafe Royal in Berlin, where for a long time I used to take dinner.  The Doctor invariably maintained that we feared anything, because we recognized it as fearful, by a certain process of reasoning, for reason alone is an active power—­the emotions are not.  While I ate and drank my fill, the Doctor continued to demonstrate to me the advantages of reason.  Toward the end of his demonstration, he was accustomed to look at his watch and remark conclusively, “Reason is the highest principle!” Reason!  Never do I hear this word without recalling Dr. Saul Ascher, with his abstract legs, his tight-fitting transcendental-grey long coat, his forbidding icy face, which could have served as frontispiece for a textbook of geometry.  This man, deep in the fifties, was a personified straight line.  In his striving for the positive, the poor man had, by dint of philosophizing, eliminated all the splendid things from life, such as sunshine, religion, and flowers, so that there remained nothing for him but the cold positive grave.  The Apollo Belvedere and Christianity were the two special objects of his malice, and he had even published a pamphlet against the latter, in which he had demonstrated its unreasonableness and untenableness.  In addition to this, he has written a great number of books, in all of which Reason shines forth in all its peculiar excellence, and as the poor Doctor meant what he said in all seriousness, he was, so far, deserving of respect.  But the great joke consisted precisely in this, that the Doctor invariably cut such a seriously absurd figure when he could not comprehend what every child comprehends, simply because it is a child.  I visited the Doctor of Reason several times in his own house, where I found him in company with very pretty girls; for Reason, it seems, does not prohibit the enjoyment of the things of this world.  Once, however, when I called, his servant told me the “Herr Doctor” had just died.  I experienced as much emotion on this occasion as if I had been told that the “Herr Doctor” had just moved.