“But, uncle, I am a man of honor.  I have engaged myself.”

“Listen, Maurits!  Which is better?  For her to go and wait for you for ten years, and then find that you will not marry her, or for you to break it off now?  No, be decided, get up, take the chaise and go home before she wakes.  It will never do at any rate for a betrothed couple to wander about the country by themselves.  I will take care of the girl if you only give up this madness.  My old friend will go home with her.  You shall be supported by me so that you do not need to worry about your future.  Now be sensible; you will please your parents by obeying me.  Go now, without seeing her!  I will talk to her.  She will not stand in the way of your happiness.  Do not try to see her before you leave, then you could grow soft-hearted, for she is sweet.”

And at those words Maurits makes an heroic decision and goes his way.

And when he has gone, what will happen then?

“Scoundrel,” sounds in the garden, loud and threateningly, as if to a thief.  Uncle Theodore looks about him.  Is it no one else?  Is it only he calling so at himself?

What will happen afterwards?  Oh, he will prepare her for Maurits’s departure; show her that Maurits was not worthy of her; make her despise him.  And then when she has cried her heart out on his breast, he shall so carefully, so skilfully make her understand what he feels, lure her, win her.

The down still falls.  Uncle Theodore stretches out his big hand and catches a bit of it.

So fine, so light, so delicate!  He stands and looks at it.

It falls about him, flake after flake.  What will become of them?  They will be driven by the wind, soiled by the earth, trampled upon by heavy feet.

He begins to feel as if that light down fell upon him with the heaviest weight.  Who will be the wind; who will be the earth; who will be the shoe when it is a question of such defenceless little things?

And as a result of his extraordinary knowledge of Noesselt’s “Popular Stories,” an episode from one of them occurred to him like what he had just been thinking.

It was an early morning, not falling night as now.  It was a rocky shore, and down by the sea sat a beautiful youth with a panther skin over his shoulder, with vine leaves in his hair, with thyrsus in his hand.  Who was he?  Oh, the god Bacchus himself.

And the rocky shore was Naxos.  It was the seas of Greece the god saw.  The ship with the black sails swiftly sailing towards the horizon was steered by Theseus and in the grotto, the entrance of which opened high up in a projection of the steep cliff, slept Ariadne.

During the night the young god had thought:  “Is this mortal youth worthy of that divine girl!” And to test Theseus he had in a dream frightened him with the loss of his life, if he did not instantly forsake Ariadne.  Then the latter had risen up, hastened to the ship, and fled away over the waves without even waking the girl to say good-bye.