In that period of his life, Frederick had been undergoing a crisis.  But a little more and his preoccupation with Goethe’s “Italian Journey,” his intercourse with the artists, and the vast number of his impressions of sublime art would have turned him aside from science.  But one day he chanced to meet Mrs. Von Thorn and her daughter Angele.  He became engaged, and there was no question now of a change of profession.  Angele was beautiful, and those days, when he read aloud to her chapters from Goethe, or inspired and inspiring passages from Winckelmann, or recited Hoelderlin, or held forth to her on the masterworks in the Vatican, were full of never-to-be-repeated romantic asininity.  They bought engagement rings of a jeweller on the Corso.  Where was his ring?  He had removed it from his finger, and, like all his other possessions, it had gone down forever in the cabin of the Roland.

Frederick again felt that sensation of hot waves rising from his breast to his eyes.  This time the emotion was a soft one, a feeling of reconciliation, of mourning over lost illusions.  The second epoch of his life, if a second epoch were really to develop from this beginning, was not like the first, full of innocence and based upon illusions.  Frederick was sorry for himself.  He was moved almost to tears.  For it is an all-too strong faith, an all-too certain hope in happiness that finally bring disillusionment.

It was in one of the intervals of clapping and applause punctuating the end of each of Brambilla’s songs, that Petronilla came in and whispered something to Willy Snyders, which caused Willy in turn to whisper to Frederick, who immediately jumped up and left the room.  Willy went with him.

Despite Petronilla’s protestations, a gentleman and a stately, rather gorgeously dressed lady had forced their way into Ingigerd’s room.  Frederick and Willy arrived just as the lady was trying to wake Ingigerd and raise her up in bed.

“For Heaven’s sake, child,” she kept saying, “wake up for a second.”

Frederick and Willy recognised Webster and Forster’s agent and immediately expelled him to the hall, talking to him in whispers, but none the less energetically.  They told him a few forceful things, which he received with a shrug of his shoulders.  When they asked the lady by what right she had forced her way in, she said she was the proprietor of one of the largest New York theatrical agencies and had negotiated the contract between Webster and Forster and Ingigerd Hahlstroem’s father, who had received a thousand dollars in advance.

“Time is money, especially here in New York,” she declared.  “Even if Miss Hahlstroem cannot dance to-night, she must begin to think of to-morrow.  I should be willing to accommodate her, but this is only one of a hundred cases that I have to look after.  And if Miss Hahlstroem is to appear to-morrow, she must go with me this very minute to”—­she mentioned the Gerson of New York—­“so that they can work on her costume over night.  The establishment is on Broadway, and a cab is waiting in front of the door.”