“Oh, never.”

Effi stepped in.  It was a small room with a high ceiling and shelves around the walls, on which stood alembics and retorts.  Along one wall were filing cases arranged alphabetically and provided with iron rings on the front ends.  They contained the prescriptions.

Gieshuebler was delighted and embarrassed.  “What an honor!  Here among my retorts!  May I invite her Ladyship to be seated for a moment?”

“Certainly, dear Gieshuebler.  But really only for a moment.  I want to bid you farewell.”

“But, most gracious Lady, you are coming back, aren’t you?  I heard it was only for three or four days.”

“Yes, dear friend, I am supposed to come back, and it is even arranged that I shall be back in Kessin in a week at the latest.  But it is possible that I may not come back.  I don’t need to tell you all the thousand possibilities—­I see you are about to tell me I am still too young to—­but young people sometimes die.  And then there are so many other things.  So I prefer to take leave of you as though it were for ever.”

“But, most gracious Lady—­”

“As though it were for ever.  And I want to thank you, dear Gieshuebler.  For you were the best thing here; naturally, because you were the best man.  If I live to be a hundred years old I shall not forget you.  I have felt lonely here at times, and at times my heart was so heavy, heavier than you can ever know.  I have not always managed rightly.  But whenever I have seen you, from the very first day, I have always felt happier, and better, too.”

“Oh, most gracious Lady.”

“And I wished to thank you for it.  I have just bought a small bottle of sal volatile.  There are often such remarkable people in the compartment, who will not even permit a window to be opened.  If I shed any tears—­for, you know, it goes right up into one’s head, the salts, I mean—­then I will think of you.  Adieu, dear friend, and give my regards to your friend, Miss Trippelli.  During these last weeks I have often thought of her and of Prince Kotschukoff.  After all is said and done it remains a peculiar relation.  But I can understand it—­and let me hear from you some day.  Or I shall write.”

With these words Effi went out.  Gieshuebler accompanied her out upon the square.  He was dumbfounded, so completely that he entirely overlooked many enigmatical things she said.

Effi went back home.  “Bring me the lamp, Johanna,” she said, “but into my bedroom.  And then a cup of tea.  I am so cold and cannot wait till his Lordship returns.”

The lamp and the tea came.  Effi was already sitting at her little writing desk, with a sheet of letter paper before her and the pen in her hand.  “Please, Johanna, put the tea on the table there.”