There was no one in the room except a lad whom I did not know, and who likewise spoke English, and said the Countess would be present in a moment.  She then left, and I was alone, and had time to look about.

The walls of the room were of rose-chestnut, and over an openwork trellis, a luxuriant broadleaved ivy twined around the whole room.  All the tables and chairs were of carved rose-chestnut.  The floor was of variegated woodwork.  It gave me a curious sensation to see so much that was familiar in the room.  Many articles from our old play-room in the castle were old friends, but the others were new, especially the pictures, and yet they were the same as those in my University room—­the same portraits of Beethoven, Handel and Mendelssohn, as I had selected—­hung over the grand piano.  In one corner I saw the Venus di Milo, which I always regarded as the masterpiece of antiquity.  On the table were volumes of Dante, Shakspeare, Tauler’s Sermons, the “German Theology,” Ruckert’s Poems, Tennyson and Burns, and Carlyle’s “Past and Present,”—­the very same books—­all of which I had had but recently in my hands.  I was growing thoughtful, but I repressed my thoughts and was just standing before the portrait of the deceased Princess, when the door opened, and the same two servants, whom I had so often seen in childhood, brought the Countess into the room upon her couch.

What a vision!  She spoke not a word, and her countenance was as placid as the sea, until the servants left the room.  Then her eyes sought me—­the old, deep, unfathomable eyes.  Her expression grew more animated each instant.  At last her whole face lit up, and she said: 

“We are old friends—­I believe; we have not changed.  I cannot say ‘You,’ and if I may not say ‘Thou,’ then we must speak in English.  Do you understand me?”

I had not anticipated such a reception, for I saw here was no masquerade—­here was a soul which longed for another soul—­here was a greeting like that between two friends who recognize each other by the glance of the eye, notwithstanding their disguises and dark masks.  I seized the hand she held out to me, and replied:  “When we address an angel, we cannot say ‘You.’”

And yet how singular, is the influence of the forms and habits of life!  How difficult it is to speak the language of nature even to the most congenial souls!  Our conversation halted, and both of us felt the embarrassment of the moment.  I broke the silence and spoke out my thoughts:  “Men become accustomed to live from youth up as it were in a cage, and when they are once in the open air they dare not venture to use their wings, fearing, if they fly, that they may stumble against everything.”

“Yes,” replied she, “and that is very proper and cannot well be otherwise.  One often wishes that he could live like the birds which fly in the woods, and meet upon the branches and sing together without being presented to each other.  But, my friend, even among the birds there are owls and sparrows, and in life it is well that one can pass them without knowing them.  It is sometimes with life as with poetry.  As the real poet can express the Truest and most Beautiful, although fettered by metrical form, so man should know how to preserve freedom of thought and feeling notwithstanding the restraints of society.”