"Yes, yes, such is the world! It's a topsy-turvy world. My husband makes wife and children unhappy because he squanders everything, and Herr Sonnenkamp makes wife and children unhappy because he has got everything. Yes, just so! It's a world turned upside down."
She assured the Professorin that she would take none of the gold of the slave-trader, if she could help herself in any other way.
And out of this gold my son is to enrich himself, said the Professorin, to herself, sitting there alone soon afterwards, as the bells were ringing. She sat quiet for a long time. Then Eric came in and said:
"Ah mother, another dreadful thing has happened!"
"Something new? Still another dreadful thing? What has happened?"
"He was bold and defiant; he went to church with Pranken."
"Who did?"
"Herr Sonnenkamp. And when he came out of the church, there stood all the people in a row, looking at him. He went up to a poor man and handed him a gold piece; the poor man took the money, and then threw it away, exclaiming: 'I will have nothing from you!' And they all cried out: 'We want nothing more from you! Take yourself out of the country.' Sonnenkamp went away, the piece of gold is still lying there before the church door, and no one will pick it up. O mother, the people are great and horrible at the same time."
"Did you see it too? Where did you hear about it? Were you too at the church?"
"No; Manna and Roland told me, and now they are sitting in the garden together, and weeping. I have hastened to you, for you only can help us. Comfort them, strengthen them."