“He lives, they did not kill him!” exclaimed the Eletto, now first beginning to rejoice over the surprising news.  “Lips, man—­Philipp!  I have found my mother again, and now my father too.  Wait, wait!  I’ll speak to the lieutenant, he must take my place, and you and I will ride to Lier; there you will tell me the whole story.  Holy Virgin! thanks, a thousand thanks!  I shall see my father again, my father!”

It was past midnight, but the schoolmates were still sitting over their wine in a private room in the Lion at Lier.  The Eletto had not grown weary of questioning, and Count Philipp willingly answered.

Ulrich now knew what death the doctor had met, and that his father had gone to Antwerp and lived there as an armorer for twelve years.  The Jew’s dumb wife had died of grief on the journey, but Ruth was living with the old man and kept house for him.  Navarrete had often heard the Swabian and his work praised, and wore a corselet from his workshop.

The count could tell him a great deal about Ruth.  He acknowledged that he had not sought Adam the Swabian for weapons, but on account of his beautiful daughter.  The girl was slender as a fir-tree!  And her face! once seen could never be forgotten.  So might have looked the beautiful Judith, who slew Holophernes, or Queen Zenobia, or chaste Lucretia of Rome!  She was now past twenty and in the bloom of her beauty, but cold as glass; and though she liked him on account of his old friendship for Ulrich and the affair in the forest, he was only permitted to look at, not touch her.  She would rejoice when she heard that Ulrich was still alive, and what he had become.  And the smith, the smith!  Nay, he would not go home now, but back to Antwerp to be Ulrich’s messenger!  But now he too would like to relate his own experiences.

He did so, but in a rapid, superficial way, for the Eletto constantly reverted to old days and his father.  Every person whom they had both known was enquired for.

Old Count Frohlinger was still alive, but suffered a great deal from gout and the capricious young wife he had married in his old age.  Hangemarx had grown melancholy and, after all, ended his life by the rope, though by his own hand.  Dark-skinned Xaver had entered the priesthood and was living in Rome in high esteem, as a member of a Spanish order.  The abbot still presided over the monastery and had a great deal of time for his studies; for the school had been broken up and, as part of the property of the monastery had been confiscated, the number of monks had diminished.  The magistrate had been falsely accused of embezzling minors’ money, remained in prison for a year and, after his liberation, died of a liver complaint.

Morning was dawning when the friends separated.  Count Philipp undertook to tell Ruth that Ulrich had found his mother again.  She was to persuade the smith to forgive his wife, with whose praises her son’s lips were overflowing.