"I have often noticed that intellectual persons who live much in themselves, and especially noble women of superior cultivation, are not fond of surprises; I must therefore beg your forgiveness for this one."
The Frau Professorin looked at him in amazement. How was it possible that a man, whose life in the past had been what this man's had, could understand such subtle emotions and express them so delicately? She confessed that he had rightly interpreted her emotion, and asked whether his visit was to herself, or one of inspection to his establishment. The question was an awkward one, she knew, but she could think of no other at the moment.
"My visit concerns no one but yourself," said Sonnenkamp; "and I almost regret my purpose of disturbing this beautiful repose. I come from a life of such confusion as makes it hard to believe that repose like yours can exist upon the same planet. We live in a perpetual whirl; the only comfort is that we have still the power of sleeping."
"I am familiar with this excitement of carnival time," said the lady smiling. "How we long for quiet, and yet are ever pursued by the music and laughter of the evening before."
Sonnenkamp now openly declared the object of his visit; and with great humility begged the Frau Professorin to confer upon his house the grace and dignity which she only could give it.
The lady regretted she must decline; she was no longer fitted for gaiety.
"I should not have thought your views of life would be gloomy, but rather free and cheerful."
"I believe they are. I do not consider our life as a dismal charitable institution, from which all cheerfulness is banished. It is right that youth should dance, and not think of the people who are shivering with the cold, and of the grief and misery everywhere, at the very moment they are moving so gaily. I love cheerfulness; we have no strength without it."
"Give us your help then; all the more will we devote ourselves afterward to our poor brothers and sisters of the great human family."
The Professorin had to struggle against a feeling of indignation, that would rise within her, at the idea of the man trifling thus with words like these. She looked at his hands as if there was blood upon them, and these blood-stained hands were offering her festive wine.