"Now, indeed, the mystery of thy five days is out, and without perjury on thy part," said Amandus bitterly, and the high opera of sunset touched him no more; Gustavus, on the contrary, is still more deeply affected; for the feeling of suffering a wrong, mingled with the mistaken feeling of having done a wrong--(tender souls in such cases always justify the other party more than themselves)--melted with it into one bitter tear and he could not say a word. Amandus, who was now vexed at his reconciliation, was still more confirmed in his jealous suspicion by the fact that Gustavus, in his pragmatic relation of the Maussenbach adventure, had entirely left out Beata; but this omission had been intentional on the part of Gustavus, because the presence of the tender soul was just what pained him most in the whole occurrence, and because perhaps in his innermost heart there was budding a tender regard for her, which was too delicate and holy to endure the hard open air of conversation. "And of course she too was present lately in Maussenbach?" said the jealous one in the most unlucky tone.--"Yes!" but Gustavus could not add so much as this, that she had not on that occasion spoken one word to him. This nevertheless unexpected yes, in an instant contorted the face of the questioner, who would have held on high his stump (in case his arm had been shot off) and sworn, "it needed no further proof--Gustavus visibly held Beata in his magnetic vortex--was he not now speechless? Did he not instantly surrender her the likeness? Will she not, as she confounded the copies, also confound the originals, as they are all four so like each other, etc.?"
Amandus loved her, and thought one loved him too, and that one perceived where his drift lay. He had delicacy enough in his own _actions_, but not enough in the _presumptions_ he cherished regarding those of others. He had, namely, in the medical company of his father, often visited Beata, in her sicknesses, at Maussenbach; he had received at her hands that frank confidence which many maidens in their sick days always express, or in well ones, toward young men who appear to them at once virtuous and indifferent; the good Participle in _dus_, Amandus, assumed therefore after some reflection, that a letter which Beata had translated as a specimen, from Rousseau's Heloise, on fine paper--no maiden writes on coarse--and which had been written to the deceased Saint Preux, was addressed to the Participle himself. Girls should never, therefore, translate anything. Amandus was translated into a lover.