The man who had returned home was recognized as John Nobody, and he himself avowed that it was he who had once fled with Frederick Mergel. The next day the village was full of the adventures of the man who had so long been forgotten. Everybody wanted to see the man from Turkey, and they were almost surprised that he should still look like other people. The young folks, to be sure, did not remember him, but the old could still recognize his features perfectly, wretchedly disfigured though he was.
"John, John, how gray you've grown!" said an old woman; "and where did you get your wry neck?"
"From carrying wood and water in slavery," he replied. "And what has become of Mergel? You ran away together, didn't you?"
"Yes, indeed; but I do not know where he is; we got separated. If you think of him, pray for him," he added; "he probably needs it."
They asked him why Frederick had disappeared, inasmuch as he had not murdered the Jew. "Not killed him!" said John, and listened intently when they told him what the lord of the estate had purposely spread abroad in order to erase the spot from Mergel's name. "So all was in vain," he said musing, "all in vain—so much suffering!"
He sighed deeply and asked, on his part, about many things. He was told that Simon had been dead a long while, but had first fallen into complete poverty through lawsuits and bad debtors whom he could not sue because, it was said, the business relations between them had been questionable. Finally he had been reduced to begging and had died on the straw in a strange barn. Margaret had lived longer, but in absolute mental torpor. The people in the village had soon grown tired of helping her, because she let everything that they gave her go to ruin; for it is, after all, characteristic of people to abandon the most helpless, those whom assistance does not relieve for any length of time and who are and always will be in need of aid. Nevertheless she had not suffered any actual want; the family of the Baron had cared for her, sent her meals daily, and even provided medical treatment for her, when her pitiable condition had developed into complete emaciation. In her house now lived the son of the former swineherd, who had so admired Frederick's watch on that unfortunate night.
"All gone, all dead!" sighed John.
In the evening, when it had grown dark and the moon was shining, he was seen limping about the cemetery in the snow; he did not pray over any one grave, nor did he go very close to any, but he seemed to gaze fixedly at some of them from a distance. Thus he was found by Forester Brandes, the son of the murdered forester, whom the Baron had sent to bring John to the castle. Upon entering the living-room he looked about him timidly, as though dazed by the light, and then at the Baron who was sitting in his armchair; he had aged greatly but still had his old bright eyes, and the little red cap was still on his head, as it had been twenty-eight years ago; beside him was the Baroness, his wife, also grown old, very old.
"Now, John," said the Baron, "do tell me all about your adventures. But," as he surveyed him through his glasses, "you wasted away terribly there in Turkey, didn't you?" John began telling how Mergel had called him away from the hearth at night and said he must go away with him.
"But why did the foolish fellow ever run away?—I suppose you know that he was innocent?"