I am promoted!——Melchior, I am promoted! Oh, I don't care what happens now!——I am promoted!——Who would have believed that I should be promoted!——I don't realize it yet!——I read it twenty times!——I couldn't believe it——Good Lord, it's so!——It's so; I am promoted! (Laughing.) I don't know——I feel so queer——the ground turns around——Melchior, Melchior, can you realize what I've gone through?
Hans Rilow.
I congratulate you, Moritz——Only be happy that you got away with it!
Moritz.
You don't know, Hans, you can't guess, what depends on it. For three weeks I've slunk past that door as if it were a hellish abyss. To-day I saw it was ajar. I believe that if some one had offered me a million——nothing, oh nothing, could have held me.——I stood in the middle of the room,—I opened the report book——ran over the leaves——found——and during all that time——I shudder——
Melchior.
Moritz.
During all that time the door behind me stood wide open. How I got out——how I came down the steps, I don't know.
Hans Rilow.