A little while ago, as I was quitting work and going away from my wood-cutters, I heard a shot from the direction of the Dell.  I thought perhaps it was you, and went in that direction.  But it must have been Robert Stein.  He was walking up and down there by the first bridge like a sentinel.  I thought to myself:  What can he be waiting for?  Not for game; for in that case one doesn’t run up and down; I thought:  You must get to the bottom of this.  You get behind the high oak.  There you can see everything and can’t be seen.  But I was hardly there, when I heard a commotion behind me.  And what was it I heard?  Your Andrew and Robert in a most violent dispute.  I could not understand anything clearly, but one could hear that they were after each other for life and death.  I was just about to creep closer, when they already came rushing along.  The one on the further side of the brook on the rocky path, the other on this side.  The one on this side was Robert with his gun against his cheek.  Two steps from me he stopped—­“Stand or I shoot.”  On the rocky path no two persons can pass each other.  There it is—­“Man, fight for your life.”  And now, pif! paf!—­two shots in succession.  The bullet from the one on the rock whistled between me and Robert into the bushes.  But Robert’s bullet—­Ulrich, I have heard many a shot, but never such a one.  One could hear by the sound of the lead, it scented human life.  I do not know what sensation I felt when he on the other side collapsed like a wounded stag—­

FORESTER.

Andrew?

WEILER.

Who else could it have been?  Hey?  Perhaps he’s home?  Perhaps you know where else he is?  And the person that was shot had the rifle with the yellow strap.  He held it tight.  The strap really glistened in the twilight like a signal of distress.  It was a weird sound, as the iron parts of the gun in falling struck the rocks and the corpse tumbled after it, breaking the bushes—­till there was a splash in the brook below, as if it started in terror.  And when, after this, there succeeded such a strange stillness, as if it had to bethink itself of what had really happened, I had a sensation as though some one were pursuing me.  I should have been back half an hour ago, if I had not lost my way—­I, who know every tree thereabouts.  Now you may imagine how I felt!  Not until I had reached the second bridge there toward Haslau, did I have courage to stop a moment to take breath—­there where the brook is roaring among the rocks.  Accidentally I looked down.  There the brook was playing with a colored rag.  Do you know it, perhaps?

[Takes out ANDREW’S muffler, and holds it before the FORESTER’S eyes; the latter snatches it from his hand.]

FORESTER.

All sorts of shapes before my eyes—­the wine—­

[Holds it sometimes far, sometimes near, without being able to see it.]

WEILER (short pause).