When we reached the saw-mill, a wood-cutter was waiting for me, and told me that Rautenkron, the forester, urgently requested that I would come to him at the bone-mill which lay in the adjacent Ilgen valley.
The wood-cutter told me that one could hardly recognize Rautenkron--something horrible must have happened to him.
I found Rautenkron seated in the bone-miller's room. He said to the miller, "Put enough bones into your kiln, old Adam, so that you may keep away for an hour, and then go and leave us by ourselves."
The miller left.
"Take a seat," he said, in a tone to which I was unused in him; his features and his manner seemed changed.
After a forced laugh, he thus began: "I have bought my bones back from this man--I had sold them to him for a bottle of gentian; and it used to amuse me to think how my noble self would, at some future time, be converted into grass and flowers on the hillside, and perhaps furnish food for cattle.
"But, pardon me," he said, interrupting himself; "forgive me, I beg of you; I ought not to address you in that tone. Forget this, and listen to me with patience. I will confide my last will to you; you have often provoked me, but now I am glad that you are here. The thought of you followed me in the woods, sat by me at my bedside, and has deprived me of rest. I have always wanted to learn what your weak side was, and now I have found it out.
"My father was a worldly-wise man. He divided mankind into two classes--charlatans and weaklings. He maintained that in all that is termed love, be it love of woman or love of the people, there is a large portion of charlatanry, which at first consciously, and afterward without our knowing it, deceives both ourselves and others. You are not a charlatan--but you are vain.
"Do not shake your head, for it is so. Of course, vanity is not a vice; but it is a weakness, for it shows dependence on others. You offered your hand to Funk, because you felt too weak to have an enemy running about in this world. Since I have made that discovery and convinced myself on that point, you no longer worry me. You too have your share in the misery that belongs to the species of vermin that terms itself man. It is out at last--now I have nothing more against you. Indeed, I cannot better prove this than by the fact of my asking you to help me. Usually, I have not required the assistance of others, but now I need yours; and I think that is enough to make you feel that you must aid me."
I consented, but in my own mind I felt a dread of this man, who, in his bitter candor, seemed much more terrible than when taciturn.