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still full of anxiety, I conducted the marvellous creature home to her door. What, no kiss? No foot over the threshold? I swear not!

In fact I made a beeline for home, went to bed as quiet as a mouse, and said to myself: Tonight you shall sleep sooner and sweeter than ever before in your life! How greatly was I mistaken! Of sleep there was no question, a thousand strange fancies revolved in my brain, and tossed me from side to side upon my couch. But for the most part, how I cursed myself now for my childish bashfulness and timidity. "O, the divine sweet girl", I thought then, "could she well have done more for me - and I less for her? Alas! she knows not how my heart is burning and that through my own fault. O, ninny that I am, not to have kissed her, the darling, not to have clasped her in my arms! Can Ännchen love such a fool, such a boor? No, no! Why should I not spring from my bed and hasten to her dwelling, knock at the door and cry: Ännchen, Ännchen, dearest Ännchen! Get up and hear my confession! O, I have been an ox, a donkey! But forgive me, and I shall do better, you shall soon know how dear you are to me! Dearest, sweetheart, I beg of you, be kind to me, don't give me up. I'll mend my ways. I'm still young, and what I can't do now I will learn." So first love made a fool of me, as of many another man.

30. That's the way of it:

Next morning at daybreak I flew to Ännchen's house - yes, I should have done so, but I did not. For I was so ashamed of myself on her account, that my heart was sore with it [...]. Meanwhile this love-story, which I would have preferred to keep hidden even from myself, became common property. The whole village, especially the women, stared me in the face wherever I went, as if I were an Eskimo. "Ha, ha, Uli!" said they all, "so you have put away childish things!" My parents also became aware of how matters stood. Mother smiled at it, for she liked Ännchen well, but father looked all the more sadly at me, yet said no word, as though he read the guilt in my bosom, which made me all the more uncomfortable. I slipped about like the shadow on the wall, and often wished that I had never set eyes on Ännchen. My fellow-labourers too soon smelt what was brewing and made fun of me.

One evening Ännchen crossed my path in such a way that I could not avoid her. I stood there as if turned to stone. "Uli!" said she, "come and see me tonight a while, I have something to say to you. Will you come, eh?" - "I don't know", I stammered. "Eh, you must! I must talk to you, promise me, eh?" "Oh yes, yes, sure, if I can!" We had to part. I ran home as fast as I could. Heavens, thought I, what can this mean? How can dear Ännchen still be so friendly towards me? Shall I go, may I? Yes, I must, I will go. Now I succeeded in finding an opportunity - whether I did so from honesty or cunning I know not - to tell mother of the business. "Yes, yes, go", said she, "I'll see to it that you leave after supper without a soul knowing". That suited me very well.

And so it befell. I went out and found Ännchen and her mother and stepfather (they kept an inn in those days) alone. I ordered a glass of brandy to pass the time until the old people went to bed, for I could find nothing to say. From sheer timidity I sat well away from Ännchen, but because of this I could hardly wait until her parents retired. At last they did so. Then my darling began at once to chatter away, so that it was at once delightful and yet sad to hear her, reproaching me again and again for my coldness towards her, and all the gossip that she had heard about me meanwhile, she rubbed my nose in it thoroughly. I took courage, justified myself as well as I could, and even fetched out all the rubbish that people were saying about her, and what sort of a girl they thought her - but of my own opinion I said nothing. "Well!" said she, "what do I care what people say! I know what I am, and I should have thought pretty much the same of you. But it doesn't matter, no harm done!"

After this exchange had continued for a while, and the brandy had gone a little to my head, I dared to move a little closer to her, for her discourse, unpleasant as it might appear, was nevertheless devilish pleasing, and to my mind very agreeable. I even became so bold as to attempt, in my stupid untaught way, to make some clumsy advances to her. She, however,

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