The physician soon had two patients. Gotthold fell fainting upon Sellien's bed.
"I said so," observed the Doctor; "it's a miracle that he has held out so long. It is really a bad accident."
"If it is an accident," muttered Wollnow.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Herr Wollnow and his wife now spent days and nights of ceaseless care. It had proved possible to move the Assessor, in spite of his serious injuries, to their house, where he was much more comfortably situated in every respect, while Gotthold, who in comparison was scarcely considered wounded, they were obliged to leave at the Fürstenhof. He had lain for hours, either unconscious or tossing in the wildest delirium, a prey to violent fever; the doctor shook his head gravely, and spoke of a concussion of the brain, which was not impossible, or some internal injury, which was extremely probable. Herr Wollnow was very anxious, and spent every moment he could spare by the bedside of the invalid.
"The Assessor's case is really very simple," said he; "he has broken his left leg, and put his right arm out of joint; the arm has been set, and the leg is going on admirably. I'm not anxious about the Assessor, whom you ladies will soon set to rights; but with Gotthold it is different; we don't yet know exactly where we are; I can't be spared there."
Ottilie thought he would have believed it impossible for him to be spared from Gotthold's side, under any circumstances, but she had nothing to say against a preference she herself shared; Gotthold already seemed like her own son.
Herr Wollnow received this remarkable confession with a smile, and the same rather melancholy smile flitted over his grave face again and again, as he sat beside the sick man's bed, stroked the soft wavy hair from his burning brow, and compared the delicate features, now deadly pale and anon flushed with fever, with those of another face, which had once seemed to him the type and expression of all beauty, and whose memory his faithful heart had kept so loyally.
And many strange thoughts, evoked by this recollection, passed through his mind as he sat in the quiet room through the long silent hours,--thoughts which approached caressingly, and he repelled because they sought to remove him from the firm ground on which he had placed himself and his house, and where he must stand resolutely if he did not wish to become the sport of the winds and the waves, with all that had been entrusted to his care. No, no; it beseems not only God to pronounce what He has created good, but man must also be permitted to say so of his works, must be able to say so, if he is to preserve the strength and courage needed to guard what he has made. He had chosen his own part; no matter whether he had taken the worse or better, he had chosen it, and in those words all was said. Those are not the best, but the worst men, who wish to decide for themselves what has been settled long ago.
But for him, who, according to the number of his years, might be his son--whom he would so gladly--no no! not that, not that; but he loved him because he was so good and noble, loved him as an older man can and may love a younger whom he sees tottering along the same intricate mazes of the path of life, which once drank his own heart's blood--for him nothing was yet decided. Could not the determination be made so that the heart need not pour forth its best blood, ere it was calm enough to understand the lessons of wisdom? How gladly would he have procured him a happiness of which he had himself been deprived! It could no longer be a perfect happiness, under any circumstances--too much had already happened which would cast its shadow athwart the fairest future--but perhaps to him it was the only one possible. After all, there was something in the race, in the old habits of thought and feeling transmitted to their descendants by those ancient Germans, who did not try to improve their wretched homes, but simply gave the matter up, who knew of no other stratagem in battle except that of binding themselves together with chains, and in gambling preferred to be ruined, rather than make any concession to ill-luck. And now he too! the son of such a father, such a mother, who both had been destroyed by this excess of feeling, which will suffer no bargaining and trading. Here also the case was essentially different; a force was involved here which was entirely lacking then, a force which almost seemed to make what he would otherwise condemn as a crime against society, an act of philanthropy--a necessity, and yet in his eyes a sad one.