He walked about the room for a long while, with his thumbs stuck into his closely buttoned coat, and his fingers playing a merry but inaudible tune upon his breast. The visits of condolence really annoyed him. It is so irksome to put on a sorrowful look, to listen to words of consolation, to offer thanks for sympathy, while all is a lie or, at most, an empty form-- It is simply one's duty to express sympathy with the afflicted. Perhaps people regret that they cannot, in such cases, send their empty carriages, as they do at funerals-- Is it not enough to let the world know that the grief was great and general, and that the funeral was a large one? These were Bruno's angry and ill-natured thoughts. "Then they go off," thought he, "the young and the old, in uniform and in citizen's dress, twisting their mustaches and stroking their chins, with a self-complacent air, while they say to themselves: 'You've done a good deed; you are a man of politeness and feeling--' and when they get home they tell their wives and daughters: 'The king's aid-de-camp is thus and so--' and then they eat and drink and drive out, and when they reach the house they say: 'We ought to feel satisfied when everything goes well with us, and our family escapes misfortune.' They use the misfortunes of others as they would a platform, from which to get a better view of their own prosperity." Bruno's fingers moved yet more quickly than before--death, grief, sickness were intended for the lower orders, and not for the higher classes. The world is miserably arranged after all, since there is no preservative against such ills, and since one cannot purchase immunity from them.
His excellency Von Schnabelsdorf also came. Bruno hated him at heart, for it was he who had invented the sobriquet of "Miss Mother-in-law" for Baroness Steigeneck, the whilom dancer. Bruno, however, felt obliged to act as if he knew nothing of it, to take his hand in the most polite and grateful manner, and to receive a kiss from the lips which had put a stigma upon his family; for Von Schnabelsdorf stood highest at court, and Bruno could not do without his friendship, which was doubly necessary, now that his main support, his sister, had been taken from him.
Thus Bruno felt annoyed at the visits of condolence he received, as well as at those which were withheld. The world was considerate enough to refrain from alluding to anything more than Irma's sudden and unfortunate death; how she was thrown from her horse and fell into the lake. The vice-master of the horse maintained that Pluto had never properly been broken in. Bruno, himself, behaved as if he really believed that Irma had met with her death by accident.
But it seemed as if he delighted to picture to himself the scene of the suicide, and to think of Irma at the bottom of the lake, held fast to the rocks by her long hair. He could not banish the awful picture, and at last threw open the window, so that he might divert himself with external objects.
Bruno did not care to eat or drink anything; the intendant could only induce him to take some food, by ordering dinner for himself. Bruno felt obliged to sit down with him, and, at every mouthful, he said: "I can't eat." At last, however, he ordered some champagne.
"I must build a fire in my engine!" said he, gnashing his teeth, while he thrust the bottle into the wine-cooler. "I derive as little pleasure from this as the engine does from the coals."
He drank down the wine hastily, and went on eating with a woe-begone expression, as if he would, at any moment, burst into tears.
He ordered more champagne.
"Did you see that?" said he, looking out of the window. His eyes were inflamed. "There's Kreuter, the merchant, riding Count Klettenheim's chestnut gelding. They must have played high last night, that the count should give up his horse; why, it's the pride of his life, his honor. What is Klettenheim without his gelding. A mere cipher, a double zero. Ah, my dear friend, excuse me! I am feverish, I am ill. But I won't be ill! I shall say nothing more. Go on; say whatever you please."
The intendant had nothing to say. He felt as ill-at-ease as if he were shut up in a dungeon with a maniac.