Here a shot was heard.
"He has shot himself; he has done it now!" cried Frau Ceres, in a singular tone; it was not lamentation, nor laughter, but something peculiar, utterly inexplicable.
Pranken hurried away.
CHAPTER IX.
THE HAND-WRITING ON THE WALL.
Sonnenkamp had seated himself in his room, and the letter-bag lay before him, but he did not open it. What matters it what the outside world desired! One thought was uppermost, that he must do something, something startling, something that would shatter the whole world to pieces. What? He did not yet know. He sat speechless in the midst of the fairest landscape, with the windows darkened, as in a cellar.
No, not harm thyself, that wouldn't do! anything but weakness, cried he to himself. Why be afraid of this old sentimental spinster, Europe, with her fine modes of speech! What hast thou done? Thou hast acted with due reflection, and thou standest by what thou hast done. It is well that there's nothing more to conceal, that everything is known.
He rose and went into the park. From a lofty acacia-tree one of the main branches was hanging down, which had been broken, so that the tree was like a bird that had lost one of its wings. The head-gardener told Sonnenkamp that a gust of wind had swept over the park the night before. Sonnenkamp nodded several times as he looked at the tree, and then indulged in his inaudible whistle.
A gust of wind may break down a tree like this, but a man like him stands firm.
He went farther on, and coming to the fruit-garden, saw the splendid show of fruit upon the trees; glass bell-shaped vessels, filled with water, were hung by wires underneath the different fruits, so that they might be continually supplied with moisture, and be made to grow. All this you can effect; you can direct nature, why not man? why not destiny? He gazed at the huge fruits as if they could give him an answer, but they remained dumb. He stood for a long time before one tree, that had been trained to the shape of a coronet, and stared at the branches.