"Then I can return?" asked Anna.
"You cannot return from hell!" shouted Hoym. "And thanks to me you are now in hell!"
He tore open his waistcoat as he spoke, and sank into a chair.
"Yes," he continued, "I shall go mad! but I cannot make war against the King!"
"What do you mean?"
"The King, Fürstenberg, Vitzthum, all of them, my own sister too, for aught I know to the contrary, all have conspired against me. They have learned that you are beautiful; that I am an idiot; and the King has ordered me to show you to him."
"Who told them about me?" inquired the Countess quietly.
Hoym was silent, he could not say that he himself had done it; he gnashed his teeth, and sprang from the chair. Suddenly his anger changed to cool and biting irony.
"Let us talk reasonably," said he, lowering his voice. "I cannot undo what is done. I asked you to come here because it was the King's wish, and you know that Jupiter launches his thunderbolts at anyone who thwarts his will. Everything and everybody must contribute to his amusement--he tramples other persons' treasures beneath his feet, and then casts them on the dung-hill!"
Again he began his walk up and down the room.