"And the great mystery?"
Berger made no reply; he looked again with fixed eyes at the distance. Oswald dared not repeat his question.
Deep silence all around. Silently the light gossamer floated through the clear air; silently the evening sunshine wove its golden net around the heather and the dark-green tops of the pine-trees.
They sat thus speechless side by side--silent and sad, like two children lost in the woods. But while the one, who had wound up his life, and who was fearfully in earnest with his contempt of the world, suffered himself to sink deeper and deeper into the abyss of his grief, the young, fresh vitality of the other struggled mightily towards light and air.
"What is this in me which rouses me at this very moment, when I least expected it, to oppose your wisdom?" he inquired, looking up at Berger. "My reason tells me you are right, but my eye drinks with delight the beauty of this evening landscape; drinks it down into the heart, and there, in my heart, a voice whispers: 'The world is so fair, so fair! and even if life makes you suffer bitter things without end, it is still sweet.' Tell me, Berger, did you ever love with all the strength of your heart? and can love die, as the summer dies, and the flowers, and the warm sunlight?"
Berger smiled--it was a strange, weird smile.
"Did I ever love?"
He cast down his eyes, and took off with his stick a piece of the thick crust of moss at his feet.
"What good does it do," he said, "to lift the veil which so many years have spread over the past? You see what is below--decay and destruction."
"And yet," he said, after a pause, "it is but right you should learn that also. Hear, then:"