von Gersdorff over their mutual love of botany. He becomes a successful court singer, but eventually learns that he is the Baron's son. Maersk is disillusioned, and repeatedly rejects the Baron's offers to legitimize him so that he can inherit the Baron's enormous estate. Suicidal, Maersk is visited by his mother's husband, who convinces him to travel to Norderney for his health. Miss Nat-og-Dag then relates the story of the Countess Calypso: the daughter of the poet Count Seraphina, who disliked femininity, she was brought up in an abbey entirely among men, where she was ignored by everyone around her. At sixteen, she decides to chop off her own breasts, but stops herself at the last second upon seeing a painting of nymphs in the reflection of a mirror. Calypso escapes from the abbey and walks through the night, happening upon the house of Miss Nat-og-Dag, who is on her way to Norderney. At this point, Miss Nat-og-Dag convinces the young duo to marry. With the help of the Cardinal, they complete the ceremony in the granary. The Cardinal then tells a group a parable about an encounter between Saint Peter and Barabbas in a Jerusalem inn, and the newly married couple falls asleep. At this point, the Cardinal reveals to Miss Nat-og-Dag that he is not, in fact, the Cardinal Hamilcar von Sehestedt, but his valet, Kasparson. Kasparson relates his life story to Nat-og-Dag, describing his time as an actor, a barber in Seville, a revolutionary in Paris, and a slave trader in Algiers. According to Kasparson, he is also the bastard older brother of Louis Philippe I, and killed the real Cardinal in order to take on another "role" in life. The story ends with Kasparson and Miss Nat-og-Dag kissing as water begins to enter the granary. The story, at nearly eighty pages, is close to novella-length. "The Old Chevalier" The narrator listens to his father's friend Baron von Brackel tell a convoluted story about an encounter with a prostitute he had in his younger years: In 1870s Paris, the Baron is approached by a drunken girl on a rainy night, having just survived an attempt on his life through poison by his mistress, the jealous wife of a prominent Parisian statesman. The Baron and the girl, who tells him her name is Nathalie, go back to the Baron's home, he not realizing that she is a prostitute.