“Yes; do that, major,” said Gellert, breathing more freely. “In the mean time, I will take my dinner, and then see how it is with my courage. Conrad! Conrad!” exclaimed Gellert, as Quintus Icilius left him, and his servant entered the room. “Conrad, did you hear the bad tidings? I must go to the King of Prussia.”
“I heard,” said Conrad, “and I do not think it bad tidings, but a great honor. The king sent for Professor Gottsched a few days since, and conversed with him a long time. Since then, his entire household act as if Gottsched were the Almighty Himself, and as if they were all, at least, archangels. Therefore, I am glad that the king has shown you the same honor, and that he desires to know you.”
“Honor!” murmured Gellert. “This great lord wishes to see the learned Germans for once, as others visit a menagerie, and look at the monkeys, and amuse themselves with their wonderful tricks. It is the merest curiosity which leads such men to desire to behold the tricks and pranks of a professor. They know nothing of our minds; it satisfies them to look at us. Conrad, I will not go; I will be ill to-day and every other day. We will see if this modern Icilius will not yield!”
And the usually gentle and yielding poet paced the room in angry excitement, his eyes flashing, and his face deeply flushed.
“I will not—I will not go.”
“You must go, professor,” said Conrad, placing himself immediately in front of his master, and looking at him half-imploringly, half-threateningly—“you must go; you will give your old Conrad the pleasure of being able to say to the impudent servants of Herr Gottsched that my master has also been to the King of Prussia. You will not do me the injury of making me serve a master who has not been to see the king, while Herr Gottsched has been?”
“But, Conrad,” said Gellert, complainingly, “what good will it have done me to have declined the position of regular professor, that I might be in no danger of becoming rector, and being obliged to see kings and princes?”
“It will show the world,” said Conrad, “that a poet need not be a regular professor in order to be called into the society of kings and princes. You must go—the king expects you; and if you do not go, you will appear as the Austrians do, afraid of the King of Prussia.”
“That is true,” said Gellert, whose excitement had somewhat subsided; “it will look as though I were afraid.”
“And so distinguished a man should fear nothing,” said Conrad, “not even a king.”