which you—for the same reason—do not know of yourself, are in reality, if not exactly the same thing, at least two things that are very closely allied to one another, so much so, indeed, that it shall one day seem to us only a bad and mad dream that we could ever have been separated.
"These are odd thoughts, one may say. But they have their comforting side for all that.
"And perhaps you will not find them so very odd, after all, nor of a wholly unfamiliar stamp. For you have told me that your father was an old disciple of Schopenhauer's, and that he used to speak to you of his beliefs and his views. Now, I certainly have read nothing of Schopenhauer myself, but I remember that Hertz often mentioned him as a great thinker of the school of Kant, though rather too mystical for his taste. So, perhaps, what I have said may even have a familiar ring about it.
"But I really am glad that I have a good safe lock to my writing-case, and can shut up these sheets. For I have a shrewd suspicion that if the Professor read these 'odd thoughts' he would have me removed at once to the other part of this great castle, where the incurables are lodged."
For a long time I sat musing with the sheet in my hand. Alas, but one remained, and only the first page was covered with writing. I had no need to hurry! It seemed to me that all that was worth reading was there, on the last sheet of note-paper.
So I mused over these "odd thoughts," which touched me deeply. Minna was quite right: they reminded me of my dear father, recalled to my mind many a ramble by his side through our great woods, rambles on which he liked to indulge in metaphysical speculations about the "will in nature," as manifesting itself in the lives of the trees and
