"I warn you, captain, not to remain here with us. I have been informed of nothing—he has let me be informed of nothing—but do not stay with us, if you can find any other employment in the world. What is your purpose in coming into this house?"
"Because I thought—until an hour ago I believed—that I could be a fitting guide to your son."
And now Eric gave utterance to his inmost feeling of unfitness for being another's guide, and yet he must confess that no other person could have a stronger inclination to be, only some other might perhaps take it more easily. He unfolded from the very depths of his soul the newly awakened longing to plunge into solitary meditation, and lamented that one builds up an ideal of life and of work only to have it shattered in pieces upon the rock of actual existence; but it was only unvanquished self-seeking, for which his own thought, and not, the world, was to blame.
"I am not learned—I don't understand you," Frau Ceres replied. "But you speak so beautifully—you have such good expressions—I should like always to hear you speak, even if I do not understand what you are saying. But you will not let him know anything about my having sent for you?"
"Him? Whom?" Eric wished to ask, but Frau Ceres raised herself up hastily, and said,—
"He can be terrible—he is a dangerous man—no one knows it, no one would imagine it. He is a dangerous man! Do you like me too?"
Eric trembled. What did that mean?
"Ah! I do not know what I am saying," continued Frau Ceres.
"He is right—I am only half-witted. Why did I send for you? Yes, now I know. Tell me about your mother. Is she really a learned and noble lady? I was also a noble lady—yes, I was one indeed."
A fresh shiver passed over Eric. Is this half lethargic, half raving person really insane, and kept within bounds in society only by the greatest care?