Sonnenkamp did not know how he ought to take this freedom; but the best way was to put up with it silently. He listened with assenting nods, and thought to himself, What a way they have of doing things here in the palace! It is just as if the people in it didn't walk on their feet; everything is so mysterious; as if something was going on every moment that had nothing at all in common with the life of other men.
The white-haired valet requested Sonnenkamp to sit down while he waited.
Sonnenkamp did sit down, and drew off his right-hand glove; he wanted to be able to do it without difficulty when the time came to unglove that hand for the oath; and then he presented some gold pieces to the white-haired valet.
The experienced valet withdrew, bowing, to the end of the room; he knew the dread that was felt by those who are not accustomed to the court, and would leave the man to compose himself.
Sonnenkamp sat still; again those wild pulsations began to hammer away in his thumb; he called for a glass of water.
The white-haired valet called to another, this one to a third, and the call for a glass of water went far into the distance.
A very old clock that was standing on the mantle-piece struck the quarter hour. Sonnenkamp compared his watch with it, and found that it was very slow; he determined in future to set his watch, by the clock in the palace.
Sonnenkamp was alone: and yet he little thought that through the clear edges of the ground glass in a door behind him, two eyes were fastened upon him, and that those eyes were rolling savagely in their sockets.
Just as the glass of water made its appearance, it was announced that Herr Sonnenkamp might enter. He could not even once moisten his lips.
He entered the large hall, where it was bright daylight; but he staggered back, for directly opposite to him hung an engraving, a work of Alfred Rethel's. A strong-limbed man with the murderer's knife still in his hand, bending and stooping, was making his escape over a heath; the bushes on the road were blown aside by the wind, and above the fugitive hovers a supernatural shape, holding a sword, with the point downward, directly over the head of the fleeing criminal.