At last, after three months, the stranger took his leave, and said, "My dear friends, a wonderful destiny and strange expectations impel me forward into the nearest mountains; a magical form, which I cannot withstand, allures me. I now leave you, and know not whether I shall return to you. I have a sum of money by me, which is safer in your hands than in mine, and therefore I pray you to take charge of it: should I not come back in a year's time, then keep it, and take it as a thank-offering for your kindness shewn to me."
So the stranger departed; and Christian took the money into his keeping. He carefully locked it up; and at times, in the excess of anxiety, looked over it, counted it to see that none was missing, and made himself much ado with it.
"This sum would make us right happy," he once said to his father, "should the stranger not return; we and our children would then be for ever provided for."
"Let alone the gold," said the old man; "therein lies no blessing: hitherto, praise God, we have wanted nothing, and by all means put this thought away from thee."
Christian often arose in the night to waken the servants to their labour, and himself to look after every thing. The father was anxious lest, through excessive diligence, he should injure his youth and health; therefore, one night, he arose in order to admonish him on the subject, when, to his astonishment, he saw him sitting at a table, and with the greatest eagerness counting over the gold.
"My son," said the old man, in sadness, "shall it come to this with thee? has this cursed metal been brought under the roof only to our unhappiness? Bethink thyself, my son, or the wicked fiend will consume thy blood and life."
"Yes," said Christian, "I no longer comprehend myself; neither by night nor by day have I any rest; see now how it looks at me, till the ruddy glow goes deep into my heart. Listen how it clinks, this golden blood; it calls me when asleep; I hear it when music sounds, when the wind blows, when people are talking in the street. If the sun shines, I see only these yellow eyes, with which it blinks at me, and wishes to whisper secretly a word of love into my ear: so I am obliged nightly to get up, though only to satisfy its strong desire, and then I feel it inwardly exulting and rejoicing; when I touch it with my fingers, it grows ruddier and more glorious in its joy. Only look yourself now at the glow of its rapture!"