CHAPTER IV.
DISSECTED.
Sonnenkamp leaned back in the arm-chair and stared before him; then he looked at the chair itself and caught hold of the arms of it, as if he wanted to ask, Does the chair I am sitting on still hold together? Then, as he laid his hand upon his breast, he began to quiver like an aspen; he felt the order, tore it off with vehemence, and cried:—
"So it in, I must struggle with two worlds. I must fight with the old one as I have with the new. Cheer up! the new hunt is beginning. I will not suffer myself to be put down. I must either despise myself, or despise you; we will see who is strongest, who is most worthy."
It breathed new life into him to think that the world so despised him.
"Just so! I can do that too; I despise you all!"
"But the children! the children!" something whispered to him. When he was waging war in America, the children knew nothing of it. He rang and asked:—
"Where is Roland?"
"The young master has not got back yet; he was here at twelve o'clock, and asked for you, but he rode away again with some comrades."
"He should have waited," exclaimed Sonnenkamp. "Well—it is better so," he said, calming himself.
Again he was sitting alone; his mind turned inward on itself, and now the matter was clear to him. So it was that the men outside the printing-office had been reading; it was through mockery that the poor devils in front of the hotel had raised a cheer for him.
He stood up and looked through the window. The hack-drivers were standing together in a group, and the dwarf was reading to them from the newspaper; they may have felt that Sonnenkamp was looking at them, for all at once they turned their gaze upwards, and Sonnenkamp as if struck by a hundred bullets staggered back into the middle of the room; then he sat down and held his open hands together between his knees. He had gazed into an abyss; it had dizzied him, but he was composing himself with courage and decision. He knew how at this moment they were talking about him all over the city, in carpeted hall and plastered stable—they are saying: I wouldn't take all his millions to be in his shoes. Very assiduously did Sonnenkamp picture everything to himself—and what will be in the paper in the morning?
Sonnenkamp sat silent a long time, buried in himself; at length a letter was brought to him, bearing a large seal. Sonnenkamp started; could the Prince have regretted what had happened, and have gone so far as to join with him, and, truly great, thus defy the world? Long he stared at the seal; but it was only that of the newspaper office, and the weighty letter contained several pieces of gold. Crutius, with many thanks, returned what he had received at the time he had gone up to the villa, and explained that he would have sent it back much sooner if he had not desired to pay it with interest.
"Pshaw! how contemptible," cried Sonnenkamp. For sometime he weighed in his hand the gold that had been scornfully returned to him. So it is then! Every one dares to scorn you, and you must be quiet when every one pities you.
He had a revolver with him, he sprang up; he took it up, waved it in the air, turned it over. "Yes, that was the course to take! To the printing-office and shoot down this Professor Crutius like a mad dog! But in this country that cannot go unpunished. And should he, then, shoot himself, be thrown into prison, and have his head cut off?
"No, no! we must work the thing differently," he said to himself. He laid the revolver back again in the case, and rang. Joseph came, he was trembling. Who knows what the man-eater is going to do with him now?
"Ah, master!" said Joseph, "I remain with you. The coachman Bertram has taken service here in the house. I do not want double and treble wages, which people say you will have to give now."
"Good! Who was your father, is he still alive?"
"Yes, indeed; my father is in the School of Anatomy, and when the corpses of the suicides came to the dissecting-house, my father often used to say: Yes, yes, when one has done that most frightful thing in the world, he must be dissected into the bargain. Excuse me, Sir, I too am quite confused. But the Professorin told me once, that every one has done something in his life out of the way, and so we should stand by and be true to one another."
A peculiar smile flitted over Sonnenkamp's countenance; the poor rogue was playing the kind-hearted, and bestowing forgiveness upon him.
"So? the Professorin?" said he. In a moment his thoughts were in the villa, in the park, in the hot-houses, in the greenhouse. He wanted to ask Joseph whether the Professorin had said anything more definite, and whether she knew all about him. But he kept back the words, and simply said that he wanted to send some messengers.
"And do you see to it too, let Roland be hunted up and brought here at once. Let Herr von Pranken be sent for, too," he cried out after Joseph.
Roland was hard to find, but Pranken was not to be found at all, for he was in a place where no one would ever have thought of looking for the life-enjoying Baron.
The head waiter entered and said that dinner was ready, and asked when it should be served up. Sonnenkamp looked hard at the questioner. The creature surely knew that he would eat nothing, and had only come to spy upon him; perhaps there were many people down below who would like to hear how Herr Sonnenkamp bore himself just now. Sonnenkamp rose proudly, looked at the head waiter with a repelling glance, and told him that he need not ask, he would let him know when he wanted what he had ordered; and at the same time he charged him to see to it, that no one should be allowed to enter his room without having been announced.
One thing after another passed in confusion through his brain; Joseph had told him about the suicides who are dissected in the dissecting-room. Sonnenkamp contemplated himself from head to foot, and then opened his mouth as if he must utter the thought that was now running through his soul. He is being dissected, not bodily, but spiritually, by every stinging, scandal-loving tongue.