[Mieting and Else are alone in their room. Mieting declares her love for the captain, declaring he is just her ideal of a man. She then unbraids her long hair, which reaches to her feet, tells Else all her little love stories, kisses her and runs off to bed.
The gentlemen likewise prepare to retire. Reinhold excuses himself very formally, declines the Count's offer of a carriage for his journey in the early morning, and is also about to retire, when the butler knocks on his door and tells him that the President wishes to speak to him. The President assures him of his personal interest, and asks him to look over certain papers relating to the railway and naval project and tell him whether he would be willing to work with him in the capacity of chief pilot at Wissow to succeed the old chief, soon to be pensioned. Reinhold is quite overcome by this confidence on the part of the stranger. The President invites him to dinner at his house, when he is to give his answer. Reinhold considers the proposal—to give up all his plans—his command of a ship plying between South America and China for the great Hamburg firm, his North Pole expedition, in which he had interested many people—to give up all for this desert coast and—he had to confess it—to be near Else, though his social position was hopelessly inferior; he would be but a fool, he knew. Which course should he take? He looks out of the window and sees Venus, the star of love, shining through a rift of the clouds. He decides to accept the President's proposal. It is dawn, and he lies down for an hour's sleep.
Else lies awake for a long time thinking of the day's happenings. When she does fall asleep, she dreams wildly of searching for Reinhold, and of wrestling with Mieting, by whom she is finally awakened just before sunrise. Mieting helps Else dress and they both go out to watch the sunrise from a height overlooking the sea. Reinhold comes upon them there. He sees the ship and hastens away with a word for Mieting and a glance for Else, who returns the glance and sends him on his way with a joyous heart.
On the train to Berlin Reinhold is in the same compartment with Ottomar von Werben, Else's brother, and the two recognize each other. Reinhold tells of his adventures in hunting buffaloes and tapirs, in contrast with which Ottomar describes his tiresome occupation as an officer since the close of the war. In the conversation Ottomar tells Reinhold that he lives next door to Reinhold's uncle, and offers to help him find his uncle when they arrive, since Reinhold has not seen him for ten years. While Ottomar is looking through the crowd Reinhold recognizes his uncle, who gives him an affectionate greeting, and Ferdinande, his uncle's daughter, now a young lady of twenty-four. Reinhold introduces Ottomar to Ferdinande, but she is in a hurry to be off, and whispers in Reinhold's ear that her father and Ottomar's father have been enemies since '48.
Reinhold, on entering his uncle's luxurious home, feels that it lacks real comfort, but thinks this may be due to the fact that he is a stranger. Then he thinks of Else—she lives next door! Aunt Rikchen greets him with hugs and kisses when he comes in. At dinner he asks about his cousin Philip, and learns that Philip almost never comes home. The question seems to have opened an old sore, as Philip is at odds with his father—an unfortunate beginning for the evening meal, Reinhold thinks.]
Meanwhile it appeared that his fears were fortunately not to be justified. To be sure, Aunt Rikchen could not open her mouth without having the thread of her discourse abruptly cut off by Uncle Ernst, and Ferdinande took little part in the conversation; but that signified little in the beginning, or was easily explained, as Uncle Ernst asked Reinhold first of all for a detailed account of his adventures and experiences during the long years since they had seen each other, and listened with an attentiveness which brooked no interruption. Now Reinhold had an opportunity to admire the very unusual fullness and accuracy of Uncle Ernst's knowledge. He could not mention a city, however distant, with whose location, history, and mercantile relations his uncle was not fully acquainted. He expressed to his uncle his astonishment and admiration.
"What do you expect?" answered Uncle Ernst. "If one is born a poor devil and has not the good fortune, like you, to roam around professionally through the world, but as a boy, a youth, and a man, has been bound to the soil and to hard work to gain his daily bread, until he has become an old fellow and can now no longer travel as one otherwise might do—what remains for him but to study the maps and nose through books to find out how grand and beautiful God has made His world."
While Uncle Ernst thus spoke, all the roughness and bitterness vanished from his voice, all sullenness from his rigid features, but only for a moment; then the dark cloud again gathered over his brow and eyes, like gray mists about the snows of a mountain range, which had just gleamed in the sunlight.