CHAPTER V.
Jean Paul, the Only-One
IT was already night when Flemming crossed the Roman bridge over the Nahe, and entered the town of Bingen. He stopped at the White Horse; and, before going to bed, looked out into the dim starlight from his window towards the Rhine, and his heart leaped within him to behold the bold outline of the neighboring hills crested with Gothic ruins;—which in the morning proved to be only a high slated roof, with fantastic chimneys.
The morning was bright and frosty; and the river tinged with gay colors by the rising sun. A soft, thin vapor floated in the air. In the sunbeams flashed the hoar-frost like silver stars; and through a long avenue of trees, whose dripping branches bent and scattered pearls before him Paul Flemming journeyed on in triumph.
The man in the play who wished for “some
