He laid his hand on the Baron's head; Pranken turned away, and full of humility descended the staircase; at the bottom he gave the soldier a brotherly shake of the hand.
After Pranken had gone, the soldier kept looking at his hand, and then, searching on the floor; he could not imagine that the free and easy Pranken had not given him a gold piece. No, that would have made a ringing; he must surely have given him paper money; but he could not find it on the clean stone-floor.
As if he had anticipated the soldier's thoughts, Pranken returned, and departed after putting a gold piece into his hand.
He came by Nelly's house, where yesterday—it seemed to him a dream—no, it cannot be!—he had waited an hour. He glanced up, and thought he saw some one leaning at the open window, whose eyes followed him; he fixed his look upon the ground, and passed on.
He came to the parade-ground, listened to the music, saw the officers standing in a group, and—who can calculate the sinuous course of thought?—he thought that the watchword was now being given out to the officers; and he had a watchword too, which no one else was to know, given to him by the man behind the cathedral, who had dashed him down as if he would break every one of his bones. A smile went over Pranken's features.
"Thou hast played well, but thou hast only played," he said, recalling to mind the Dean. "You shall see that I can play well too; I know my part, and I will yet show you a little of my skill in playing."
Pride again rose within him, and he could not comprehend that he, Otto von Pranken, had been such a mortified piece of humility. But it is very well to have been so once.
He came to the Hotel Victoria in a half-humble, half-conceited mood, and he now felt a real training-day hunger. Such mental emotions have this advantage, that they make one hungry.
Pranken anticipated with a feeling of satisfaction his dinner with the Baron, his father-in-law.
As he stood at Sonnenkamp's door and was about to ring, he heard some one inside saying in a loud tone:—