"If the worm has injured the man, it is his duty to guard others from the danger of like injury, and if he cannot guard others, he ought to clear his own path.
"But if he incurs new danger in the attempt?
"Yet he must do what he can to satisfy himself," exclaimed Werner. "I will not allow myself to be robbed of the rights that I have against another. I am called upon by the insult to my wife; I am called upon by the ruined life of a scholar, whom we both lament. Say no more to me. Friend, my self-respect has been severely wounded, and with reason. I feel my weakness with a bitterness that is the just punishment for the pride with which I have looked upon the life of others. I have written to Struvelius, and begged his pardon for having so arrogantly treated him in the uncertainty that once disturbed his life. Here is my letter to our colleague. I beg you to give it to him, and to tell him that when we meet again I wish to have no words upon the past, only he must know how bitterly I have atoned for having been severe with him. But, however much patience and consideration I may require from others, I should lose the last thing that gives me courage to live, if I went from here without coming to a reckoning with the lord of that castle. I am no man of the world who has learnt to conceal his anger beneath courtly words."
"He who seeks to call a man to account," exclaimed Raschke, "should have the means of getting firm hold of his opponent, otherwise what should be satisfaction may become a new humiliation."
"To have sought this satisfaction to the utmost," replied Werner, "is in itself a satisfaction."
"Werner," said his colleague, "I hope that your anger and indignation will not draw you into the thoughtless vindictiveness of the weak fools who call a brutal playing with one's own life and that of others satisfaction."
"He is a prince," said the Professor, with a gloomy smile; "I wear no spurs, and the last use I made of my bullet mould was to crack nuts with it. How can you so mistake me? But there are things which must be expressed. There is a healing power in words; if not for him who listens to them, yet for him who speaks. I must tell him what I demand of him. He shall feel how my words are forced down into his joyless heart. My speaking out will make me free."
"He will refuse to hear you," exclaimed Raschke.
"I will do my best to speak to him."
"He has many means of preventing you."