"Listen only to this one thing more. I was a drummer: I'll tell you the story some day. I became an officer; and my comrades did not dream how they honored me, when they used secretly, thinking I did not hear it, to call me Capt. Drumsticks, or, for shortness, even Sticks. Yes: they did honor to the Capt. Sticks; for, from that time forward, it became clear to me. I was unable to explain it so to myself, but she made me understand: she knows every thing. Yes: so it is. He is only half alive whom Fortune has made into something. Misfortune is the Holy Spirit, saying to mankind, 'Arise and walk.' You understand me?"
"Yes," said Eric earnestly, pressing the old man's valiant hand and riding on.
Looking back, he saw the veteran still standing on the same spot. He nodded to the horseman, as though he would have said to him, in the distance. Yes: to you I have given good baggage,—my best. You will not lose it; and now, if I die, it is in the possession of one who will keep it, and not give it away. He thanked the Builder of all the worlds, that he had caused him to pass through so much that was hard, and yet always to come out of it unharmed.
Meanwhile, Eric was riding cheerfully towards Mattenheim. On the way, however, he turned round. It seemed to him that he was bound in honor to summon Clodwig first. That in forming this resolution he was also influenced by an impulse of curiosity as to how Bella was now behaving, he frankly acknowledged to himself: nevertheless, he rode first to Wolfsgarten.
The parrot shrieked from the open window, as though wishing to inform all the inhabitants of the arrival of so unusual a guest; for it was long since Eric had been there. He thought he had discerned the form of Bella in the room adjoining that at whose open window the parrot hung; but she did not show herself again.
Entering Clodwig's room, he found him, for the first time, in a state of despondency. He must also have had some bodily ailment; since he did not rise, as had always been his wont, greeting his young friend with as much formality as heartiness.
"I knew that you would come to me," said Clodwig, breathing hard, but speaking in a mild voice.
"If one spirit can influence another at a distance, you and your mother must have felt most clearly that I was with you at this time. And now, if you please, let us talk very quietly, as I am somewhat indisposed. Let us forget, first of all, that we are starved by intercourse with that man. I think we ought, in this case, to think of him, and not of ourselves. See,"—taking up a phial,—"look at this. I take a childish delight in this new chemical stuff, which looks exactly like clear water, and yet serves to efface a written word without scratching the paper at all; and now I am thinking, ought we not to be able to find some moral agency similar to this?"
Eric, seeing the matter which he had in hand immediately referred to, laid the plan of the jury before Clodwig, and called upon him to bear his part in it. Clodwig declined, with the remark that Herr Sonnenkamp, or whatever his name was, must have a court of his peers,—men of similar rank, or, rather, of a similar profession with himself. He, for his part, was no peer of Herr Sonnenkamp, or whatever he called himself.
Eric reminded his friend, with great caution, of his having dwelt on the equality of privileges at Heilingthal; but Clodwig seemed to give no heed to these words.