You will impart all this to the man.
[Eric to his mother.]
In the midst of the wanderings of my fever, I kept saying to myself: Thou hast promised thy mother to return home safe and sound. Thou must not be ill, must not die. Thou must keep thy word. And this thought was ever by me, sometimes making me quiet, sometimes restless. I was forever thinking that I could certainly do something to force nature to remove the shadows, the heaviness, the dullness which weighed me down. There were two souls in me. And once I very plainly heard you saying to me: Keep perfectly quiet; you are undermining your life with your perpetual thinking; for once let thinking alone. And then I was standing on the stage at the music festival to sing, but I could not bring out a solitary note. I have gone through a great deal of suffering, but I am now in perfectly good spirits.
[Doctor Fritz to Weidmann.]
A strange riddle has been solved by means of Eric's being wounded, an account of which was given in the newspapers in connection with the victory. A small, delicate-looking old man came to me, who addressed me in German, but with difficulty, showing that he had probably not made use of the language for many years. He asked me if I was acquainted with a Major Dournay. I said yes, and after a great deal of trouble, I succeeded in finding out that this was Eric's uncle, a man of very great wealth. He wanted to know all about the family, and especially whether, his sister Claudine was yet living. Luckily, Knopf could tell him all the particulars.
[Eric to his mother.]
Mother! My uncle has been found! Through my fall from the horse, but yet more through Manna's playing on the harp, that was spoken of in the newspapers as some marvellous tale, my uncle came to see Dr. Fritz. My uncle visited me while I was very ill, and I thought that I had seen my father. They tell me that I became so excited that my life was again endangered, and they had to withhold the news until I had wholly recovered. I showed your letter to my uncle, and the old man, who has heard nothing from Europe for ten years, wept bitterly. He will go back to Europe with us.
[Knopf to Fassbender.]
The classic age had great, noble, heroic forms, but it had no uncle in America. And how did the world before Columbus' day get on without any uncles in America? I think that our good Lord, as he rested on the seventh day, dreamed, in his mid-day sleep, of the uncle in America, meditated, and created him.
My friend, Major Dournay, has now found his uncle with a fortune; I don't know how much it is, but a large one, and all honorably earned. Now he is himself put in a position to solve the riddle of what should be done with so much money. He will not build my music hall, but he will do something else that's great.