The princess was herself a great traveller; two or three times a year Samuel Brohl received a visit from her.  She questioned him, examined him, felt him, as we feel a peach to be certain it is ripe.  Samuel was very happy; he was free, he enjoyed his life, he did as he pleased.  One single thing spoiled his happiness; when he looked in the glass, he would sometimes say within himself:  “These are the features of a man who is sold, and the woman who bought him is neither young nor beautiful.”  Several times he determined to learn a trade, so that he might be in a position to refund the debt and break the bargain.  But he never did.  He was both ambitious and idle.  He wanted to fly at once; he had a horror of beginnings of apprenticeships.  His early education had been so neglected that in order to recover lost time he would have been compelled to study hard—­all the more so because, although he was quick-witted, and had a marvellous facility for entering into the thoughts of others, his own stock was poor; he had no ideas of his own, nor individuality of mind.  He possessed a collection of half-talents; even in music, he was incapable of originating; when he attempted to compose, his inspirations proved mere reminiscences.  He did himself justice; he felt that, strive as he might, his half-talents never would aid him to secure the first position, and he disdained the second.  In fact, what he most needed was will, which, after all, makes the man.  He tried to fling himself from his horse, which carried him where he did not desire to go; but he felt that his feet held firm in the stirrup; he had not strength to disengage them, and he remained in the saddle.  Not being able to be a great man, he abandoned himself to his fate, which condemned him to be only a knave.  At the expiration of his term of freedom, he declared himself solvent, and the princess took possession of her merchandise.

“Yes, poets are corrupters,” thought Count Abel Larinski.  “If Samuel Brohl never had read The Merchant of Venice, or Egmont, a tragedy in five acts, or Schiller’s ballads, he would have been resigned to his new position; he would have seen its good sides, and would have eaten and drunk his shame in peace, without experiencing any uncomfortable sensations; but he had read the poets, and he grew disgusted, nauseated.  He was dying with desire to get away, and the princess suspected it.  She kept him always in sight, she held him close, she paid him quarterly, shilling by shilling, his meagre allowance.  She said to herself:  ’So long as he has nothing, he cannot escape.’  She mistook; he did escape, and he was so afraid of being retaken that for some time he hid like a criminal, pursued by the police.  He fancied that this woman was always on his track.  It was then, for the first time, that he felt hunger, for they eat in the land of Egypt.  He lived by all sorts of expedients, and cursed the poets.  One day he learned that his father was dead; he hastened to the old tavern