Christlieb was at no loss as to what he wished for, and the persons he most earnestly desired to behold; but this, perhaps, would be impossible, and was too much to expect. He fell into a reverie, and said nothing.
"I should like to have a violin," at length stammered out her patient.
"A violin!" said the lady in great amazement. "Very well, you shall have one when you are a little stronger; but at present you would hardly be able to hold it, or to draw the bow; besides, I fear that its harsh tones might be injurious to your nerves. Therefore you had better wait a short time before you get it."
The lady now assisted him back to his bed; but in doing so, he made a gesture as if in great pain.
"Is there anything the matter with you?" asked his affectionate nurse anxiously.
"I feel a pain in my side," replied Christlieb.
"Ah! I must have touched the part which was wounded by the fisherman when he drew you out of the water with his hook," said the lady.
Several days passed away, and with them Christlieb regained strength and health, to the delight of his affectionate nurse, who requested that he would call her mother as formerly. Christlieb promised to do so, but often forgot his part. As the lady most carefully abstained from all reference to past events, she had now no longer any misgivings about her patient's state of mind; but, in order to see whether he still remembered his lately expressed wish, she surprised him one day by the gift of a beautiful violin.
Christlieb's eyes sparkled at the sight of it, and the lady could not refrain from smiling when she saw the supposed Balduin take it in his hand. She, however, looked rather more serious when she perceived how well he seemed to know how to tune the instrument, how master-like he used the bow, and touched the strings. Her surprise increased every moment; and when he had played softly and with wonderful execution the thema of Rhode's variations, it had reached its zenith. When he had played one or two of the variations, his fingers and his bow becoming animated and full of fire, the amazed lady exclaimed, almost out of her senses, "Stop! you are not my Balduin; and yet you are my son! Had I not twins, and were they not both stolen, while only _one_ was miraculously restored to me? You are my Reinhold, my gentler, dearer child!" She threw her arms around Christlieb, while the violin fell sounding from his hands on the floor.