In the inn at Beckstein he remarked, immediately upon his entrance, an intelligent young gentleman dining, with a book in front of him. He had his own place laid close to the reader, and with a proper apology, broke ground by asking what he read.
‘I am perusing,’ answered the young gentleman, ‘the last work of the Herr Doctor Hohenstockwitz, cousin and librarian of your Prince here in Grünewald—a man of great erudition and some lambencies of wit.’
‘I am acquainted,’ said Otto, ‘with the Herr Doctor, though not yet with his work.’
‘Two privileges that I must envy you,’ replied the young man politely: ‘an honour in hand, a pleasure in the bush.’
‘The Herr Doctor is a man much respected, I believe, for his attainments?’ asked the Prince.
‘He is, sir, a remarkable instance of the force of intellect,’ replied the reader. ‘Who of our young men know anything of his cousin, all reigning Prince although he be? Who but has heard of Doctor Gotthold? But intellectual merit, alone of all distinctions, has its base in nature.’
‘I have the gratification of addressing a student—perhaps an author?’ Otto suggested.
The young man somewhat flushed. ‘I have some claim to both distinctions, sir, as you suppose,’ said he; ‘there is my card. I am the licentiate Roederer, author of several works on the theory and practice of politics.’
‘You immensely interest me,’ said the Prince; ‘the more so as I gather that here in Grünewald we are on the brink of revolution. Pray, since these have been your special studies, would you augur hopefully of such a movement?’
‘I perceive,’ said the young author, with a certain vinegary twitch, ‘that you are unacquainted with my opuscula. I am a convinced authoritarian. I share none of those illusory, Utopian fancies with which empirics blind themselves and exasperate the ignorant. The day of these ideas is, believe me, past, or at least passing.’