Albert blushed scarlet. He had thought that himself but dared not utter such blasphemy. For to Albert at this stage of his life, Uhland was the highest of all high. It was as if some second rate god of antiquity boasted of a mightiness surpassing that of Zeus.
In moods like these he would steal out of the house, his visored cap over his eyes, and wander aimlessly through the maze of crooked, narrow streets, driven by irresistible impulses, until he would find himself on the bank of his beloved river. Here there were a thousand objects to dissipate his gloom. The gently flowing stream, the floating boats, the changing tints of the sky, the little wildflowers turning their pretty faces up to him like coquettish young maidens. And the ruins of the castle on the bank of the Rhine abounded in mystery. He often paused, pensively listening to the moaning and sighing of the wind-driven waves against those ruins with a secret awe creeping into his being. Was that the rustling of her silk dress—the dress of the “headless princess”, of whom his nurse had told him in his childhood? But the headless princess only came out of the ruins on moonlight nights! Perhaps they were the stealthy footsteps of the fair young shepherd, looking longingly at the battlements in hope of catching a glimpse of his beloved princess!
His eyes opened, and circles seemed to go round and round—circles of fanciful colors like those he had often seen when pressing his eyes against his pillows—and there was a strange surging in his blood, tumult in his head. His heart filled with a thousand longings, a thousand yearnings, yearnings and longings indefinite, inarticulate. He was only conscious of an aching restlessness, of an irritating strife within him . . .
Throwing himself upon the grassy bank, he would lie listlessly for a time, blankly staring at the sky, only half-conscious of chirping birds around him. Gradually, slowly, strands of thought would begin to come—desultory, fugitive, disconnected fibres of thought, like flying gossamer.
Sometimes other ambitions stirred his being. His mother had often spoken of a military career for him. His mind would skip to Napoleon, the hero he had worshipped ever since he could remember. He would see himself in the role of a warrior, mounted upon a spirited little white horse, as he had once seen Napoleon. His vivid imagination would behold the battlefields, littered with bleeding men and horses, the cry of agony in his ears . . .