“I believe that we must part,” Christian repeated softly and with an indistinct smile. “I fear that we are no longer suited to each other. You must go your ways, and I shall go mine.”
Crammon’s face became dark red with astonishment and rage. He brought his fist down on the table and gritted his teeth. “What do you mean? Do you think you can send me packing as though I were a servant? Me?” He arose, took his hat and coat, and went.
Christian sat there for long with his thoughts. The indistinct smile remained on his lips.
When Christian, on awakening next day, rang for his valet, Crammon entered the room in the man’s stead and made a deep bow. Over his left arm he had Christian’s garments, in his right hand his boots. He said good-morning quite in the valet’s tone, laid the clothes on a chair, set the boots on the floor, asked whether the bath was to be prepared at once, and what Herr Wahnschaffe desired for breakfast. And he did all this with complete seriousness, with an almost melancholy seriousness, and with a certain charm within the rôle he was assuming that could not fail to be pleasing.
Christian was forced to laugh. He held out his hand to Crammon. But the latter, refusing to abandon his acting, drew back, and bowed in embarrassment. He pulled the curtains aside, opened the windows, spread the fresh shirt, the socks, the cravat, and went, only to return a little later with the breakfast tray. After he had set the table and put the plates and cups in order, he stood with heels touching and head gently inclined forward. Finally, when Christian laughed again, the expression of his features altered, and he asked half-mockingly, half-defiantly: “Are you still prepared to assert that you can get along without me?”
“It’s impossible to close accounts with you, dear Bernard,” Christian answered.
“It is not one of my habits to leave the table when only the soup has been served,” Crammon said. “When my time comes I trundle myself off without urging. But I don’t permit myself to be sent away.”
“Stay, Bernard,” Christian answered. He was shamed by his friend. “Only stay!” And their hands clasped.
But it almost seemed to Christian that his friend had really in a sense become a servant, that he was one now, at all events, toward whom one no longer had the duty of intimate openness, with whom no inner bond united one—a companion merely.