During those ten weeks, Ráby had abundant leisure to reflect on the riddle these events presented. Who had thus attempted to poison him? Was it the offended councillors who had thus intrigued against him, some jealous courtier who had a grudge against him, or his own fugitive wife?
But all that time, except the surgeon and Böske, not a living soul knocked at his door to see him.
His enemies were, of course, countless, but it was just as certain that he had devoted friends. Where was his uncle, and Abraham Rotheisel, and the Servian "pope"; where too the grateful crowd of poor people that he had befriended?
Over and over again too did he inquire if this or that one had yet called, but Böske always answered that visitors had come only when the gracious master was asleep, and she had not dared waken him, or that the doctor had ordered that no one was to disturb the patient.
"And why don't you let people come in and see me?" asked Ráby querulously of his nurse. He was so cross that at last she lost patience, and told him plainly that during the whole course of his illness, not a soul had been near.
But Ráby would not believe it; it was impossible, and he asserted she was lying and trying to deceive him.
Which remark so upset poor Böske, that she burst into tears, and, in her own justification, admitted that people shunned him on purpose, that they were afraid of him, and spoke all imaginable evil of him. Nay, was it not true that everyone was saying he deserved to lose his head for being a traitor to his own country?
The simple maid-servant had only spoken the truth. Her master was, as she had hinted, virtually an outlaw, and his name was by all, from their Excellencies to the shoemaker's apprentices, only mentioned with hatred and scorn. But Ráby, incensed, was so indignant at Böske's well-meant candour, that he gave her notice then and there, and paying her a year's wages, refused to have her any longer in his service.
Thus it was that Ráby dismissed his faithful domestic who had simply told him what men said of him, and now he was absolutely alone in the world.
As soon as he had fully recovered, he set out for Vienna, but this time, in a wine-freighted barge which was to be towed by horses to the capital, for he was too weak to stand the tiring journey by road. They took eight days to reach their destination, and the fresh air did much to restore his shattered health. By the time he reached Vienna, Ráby looked quite himself again, save that he was much thinner than of old.