His father had told him much, and the doctor still more, about the wide, wide world-kings, artists and great heroes.  From Hangemarx he learned, that he possessed the same rights and dignity as all other men, and Ruth’s wonderful power of imagination peopled his fancy with the strangest shapes and figures.  She made royal crowns of wreaths, transformed the little hut, the lad had built of boughs, behind the doctor’s house, into a glittering imperial palace, converted round pebbles into ducats and golden zechins—­bread and apples into princely banquets; and when she had placed two stools before the wooden bench on which she sat with Ulrich her fancy instantly transformed them into a silver coronation coach with milk-white steeds.  When she was a fairy, Ulrich was obliged to be a magician; if she was the queen, he was king.

When, to give vent to his animal spirits, Ulrich played with the Richtberg boys, he always led them, but allowed himself to be guided by little Ruth.  He knew that the doctor was a despised Jew, that she was a Jewish child; but his father honored the Hebrew, and the foreign atmosphere, the aristocratic, secluded repose that pervaded the solitary scholar’s house, exerted a strange influence over him.

When he entered it, a thrill ran through his frame; it seemed as if he were penetrating into some forbidden sanctuary.  He was the only one of all his playfellows, who was permitted to cross this threshold, and he felt it as a distinction, for, in spite of his youth, he realized that the quiet doctor, who knew everything that existed in heaven and on earth, and yet was as mild and gentle as a child, stood far, far above the miserable drudges, who struggled with sinewy hands for mere existence on the Richtberg.  He expected everything from him, and Ruth also seemed a very unusual creature, a delicate work of art, with whom he, and he only, was allowed to play.

It might have happened, that when irritated he would upbraid her with being a wretched Jewess, but it would scarcely have surprised him, if she had suddenly stood before his eyes as a princess or a phoenix.

When the Richtberg lay close beneath them, Ruth sat down on a stone, placing her flowers in her lap.  Ulrich threw his in too, and, as the bouquet grew, she held it towards him, and he thought it very pretty; but she said, sighing: 

“I wish roses grew in the forest; not common hedgeroses, but like those in Portugal—­full, red, and with the real perfume.  There is nothing that smells sweeter.”

So it always was with the pair.  Ruth far outstripped Ulrich in her desires and wants, thus luring him to follow her.

“A rose!” repeated Ulrich.  “How astonished you look!”

Her wish reminded him of the magic word she had mentioned the day before, and they talked about it all the way home, Ulrich saying that he had waked three times in the night on account of it.  Ruth eagerly interrupted him, exclaiming: