Whether the fancy will be fulfilled, I cannot tell--still less whether the scene that, led by memory, I lay for my new exploits will be the true one--for I love to see myself once again in the crowded streets of Strelsau, or beneath the frowning keep of the Castle of Zenda.
Thus led, my broodings leave the future, and turn back on the past.
Shapes rise before me in long array--the wild first revel with the King, the rush with my brave tea-table, the night in the moat, the pursuit in the forest: my friends and my foes, the people who learnt to love and honour me, the desperate men who tried to kill me.

And, from amidst these last, comes one who alone of all of them yet moves on earth, though where I know not, yet plans (as I do not doubt) wickedness, yet turns women's hearts to softness and men's to fear and hate.

Where is young Rupert of Hentzau--the boy who came so nigh to beating me?
When his name comes into my head, I feel my hand grip and the blood move quicker through my veins: and the hint of Fate--the presentiment--seems to grow stronger and more definite, and to whisper insistently in my ear that I have yet a hand to play with young Rupert; therefore I exercise myself in arms, and seek to put off the day when the vigour of youth must leave me.
One break comes every year in my quiet life.

Then I go to Dresden, and there I am met by my dear friend and companion, Fritz von Tarlenheim.
Last time, his pretty wife Helga came, and a lusty crowing baby with her.

And for a week Fritz and I are together, and I hear all of what falls out in Strelsau; and in the evenings, as we walk and smoke together, we talk of Sapt, and of the King, and often of young Rupert; and, as the hours grow small, at last we speak of Flavia.