"He was calling me!" answered the lawyer and slipped quickly away.
"How he is hurrying!" thought Michael Petroff, and heard himself laughing inwardly. And presently he said to Dr. März, laying his hand confidentially on his shoulder: "The lawyer is certainly a clever, well educated man—and yet he thinks that the birds call him! Between you and me, Doctor, hasn't it ever occurred to you, that he is not quite right—?"
After luncheon Dr. März's patients went out into the garden as usual. They trotted along in little groups, one after the other, round and round the biggest flower bed, at equal distances, silently, lost in thought. Only the "Inventor," a young man, sometimes paused, rested his hand on his side, put his other hand to his forehead and gazed steadily at a point on the ground.
The lawyer was watering his flowers and listening delightedly to the thousands and thousands of birds that were hopping in the bushes and treetops. Michael Petroff was in high good humor. There was news—! Just listen! Just listen! He was smoking a cigarette that Dr. März had given him, and was enjoying every whiff of it. He held the cigarette with his fingers coquettishly crossed, and swung it in sweeping curves, as if he were taking off his hat to some one, and at every whiff he drew, he stood still and blew the smoke up into the sunny air and watched the blue cloud drift away. Everything gave him pleasure. Even walking was a delight to him. His steps were short, his knees sprung playfully; and he felt with delight how his toes crackled a little and how the elastic balls of his feet rebounded in his thin soled shoes from the ground, while his heels touched the path but lightly and his knees swung. When he stood still, he set the muscles of his thighs, by a certain pressure of the knees, and then enjoyed the firmness with which he stood there like a statue. He was convinced that nothing could have knocked him down. He walked along smiling and glancing cheerfully about him, as if to share his happiness. He greeted everyone, and whenever he met an acquaintance he would tell him the great event that had happened today.
"Just hear this, my friend!" he called out to the little lawyer, who was standing on the lawn, stooping over a tulip bed to water the flowers in the middle of it. "Do come over here! There is such news! Oh, please do come!"
He waited with friendly impatience until the lawyer had finished and came back to the path, meaning to go back to the well with his empty green can. "I want to tell you what has happened today," he began hastily, "His Majesty the king of Saxony has condescended—"
"Pardon me," the lawyer interrupted him in a whisper and started to leave him, "I am in a hurry. It is hot and the flowers are drying up."
"I will walk to the well with you," continued Michael Petroff good humoredly, and walked rapidly beside the departing lawyer. "I can tell you just as well while we are walking. So I said to the Doctor today: 'Now, Doctor, haven't you anything for me today?' 'No,' said he, 'my dear Captain, nothing at all, I am sorry to say.' 'Really nothing,' said I, and I took him by the arm. 'Has not there been a single answer for weeks? Really nothing, Doctor?' He looked at me and thought a while. 'Oh yes,' he said, 'I had almost forgotten. A document did come for you. It is about that carpenter, you know, Captain.' 'A carpenter, Doctor? I don't remember'—so I took out my memorandum book, in which I enter all the documents that I send out: 'Where did the answer come from? From Saxony? Ah!' said I, 'then it must be about the butcher's apprentice who was condemned to death.' 'Yes,' said the Doctor, 'that is it. The fellow was a butcher's apprentice.' And now listen, my friend. Because of my petition, his Majesty the King of Saxony has condescended to pardon him. I must write a letter of thanks to His Majesty this very day."
"How the sun burns today," the lawyer responded to Michael Petroff's tale, and began to work the pump handle. "All the flowers look so wilted."
"Ha, ha!" laughed Michael Petroff. "You're not listening at all, are you?"