"For God's sake," cried Maximilian, as he softly pressed her down again on the sofa, "remain quiet, say nothing; I will tell you all that I think or feel—yes, even what I don't know.
"In fact," he continued, "I do not know exactly what I just now thought and felt. Pictures from childhood swept like twilight dreams through my soul. I thought of my mother's chateau[1]—of its garden run wild, of the beautiful marble statue which lay in the green grass. I called it my mother's chateau, but I beg you, of my life, do not understand by that anything magnificent or grand. I have always been accustomed to hear it so called. My father laid a curious emphasis on 'the castle,' and smiled oddly as he said it. It was not till a later time that I learned the meaning of this smile—when I, a boy of twelve, went with my mother to the chateau. It was my first journey. We drove all day through a thick forest, whose dark thrills I shall never forget, and it was not till twilight that we first paused at a long cross-bar which separated us from a great meadow. We were obliged to wait almost half-an-hour before a 'boy' came from a mud hut hard by, who pushed away the impediment and let us in. I say 'boy,' because old Martha always
- ↑ Schloss—castle, chateau, a country villa of a superior kind. Generally a castle, but not invariably.
