Das landhaus am Rhein. English
Page 169
CHAPTER IV.
DISSECTED.
Sonnenkamp leaned back in the arm-chair and stared before him; then helooked at the chair itself and caught hold of the arms of it, as if hewanted to ask, Does the chair I am sitting on still hold together?Then, as he laid his hand upon his breast, he began to quiver like anaspen; he felt the order, tore it off with vehemence, and cried:--
"So it in, I must struggle with two worlds. I must fight with the oldone as I have with the new. Cheer up! the new hunt is beginning. I willnot suffer myself to be put down. I must either despise myself, ordespise you; we will see who is strongest, who is most worthy."
It breathed new life into him to think that the world so despised him.
"Just so! I can do that too; I despise you all!"
"But the children! the children!" something whispered to him. When hewas waging war in America, the children knew nothing of it. He rang andasked:--
"Where is Roland?"
"The young master has not got back yet; he was here at twelve o'clock,and asked for you, but he rode away again with some comrades."
"He should have waited," exclaimed Sonnenkamp. "Well--it is better so,"he said, calming himself.
Again he was sitting alone; his mind turned inward on itself, and nowthe matter was clear to him. So it was that the men outside theprinting-office had been reading; it was through mockery that the poordevils in front of the hotel had raised a cheer for him.
He stood up and looked through the window. The hack-drivers werestanding together in a group, and the dwarf was reading to them fromthe newspaper; they may have felt that Sonnenkamp was looking at them,for all at once they turned their gaze upwards, and Sonnenkamp as ifstruck by a hundred bullets staggered back into the middle of the room;then he sat down and held his open hands together between his knees. Hehad gazed into an abyss; it had dizzied him, but he was composinghimself with courage and decision. He knew how at this moment they weretalking about him all over the city, in carpeted hall and plasteredstable--they are saying: I wouldn't take all his millions to be inhis shoes. Very assiduously did Sonnenkamp picture everything tohimself--and what will be in the paper in the morning?
Sonnenkamp sat silent a long time, buried in himself; at length aletter was brought to him, bearing a large seal. Sonnenkamp started;could the Prince have regretted what had happened, and have gone so faras to join with him, and, truly great, thus defy the world? Long hestared at the seal; but it was only that of the newspaper office, andthe weighty letter contained several pieces of gold. Crutius, with manythanks, returned what he had received at the time he had gone up to thevilla, and explained that he would have sent it back much sooner if hehad not desired to pay it with interest.
"Pshaw! how contemptible," cried Sonnenkamp. For sometime he weighed inhis hand the gold that had been scornfully returned to him. So it isthen! Every one dares to scorn you, and you must be quiet when everyone pities you.
He had a revolver with him, he sprang up; he took it up, waved it inthe air, turned it over. "Yes, that was the course to take! To theprinting-office and shoot down this Professor Crutius like a mad dog!But in this country that cannot go unpunished. And should he, then,shoot himself, be thrown into prison, and have his head cut off?
"No, no! we must work the thing differently," he said to himself. Helaid the revolver back again in the case, and rang. Joseph came, he wastrembling. Who knows what the man-eater is going to do with _him_ now?
"Ah, master!" said Joseph, "I remain with you. The coachman Bertram hastaken service here in the house. I do not want double and treble wages,which people say you will have to give now."
"Good! Who was your father, is he still alive?"
"Yes, indeed; my father is in the School of Anatomy, and when thecorpses of the suicides came to the dissecting-house, my father oftenused to say: Yes, yes, when one has done that most frightful thing inthe world, he must be dissected into the bargain. Excuse me, Sir, Itoo am quite confused. But the Professorin told me once, that everyone has done something in his life out of the way, and so we shouldstand by and be true to one another."
A peculiar smile flitted over Sonnenkamp's countenance; the poor roguewas playing the kind-hearted, and bestowing forgiveness upon him.
"So? the Professorin?" said he. In a moment his thoughts were in thevilla, in the park, in the hot-houses, in the greenhouse. He wanted toask Joseph whether the Professorin had said anything more definite, andwhether she knew all about him. But he kept back the words, and simplysaid that he wanted to send some messengers.
"And do you see to it too, let Roland be hunted up and brought here atonce. Let Herr von Pranken be sent for, too," he cried out afterJoseph.
Roland was hard to find, but Pranken was not to be found at all, for hewas in a place where no one would ever have thought of looking for thelife-enjoying Baron.
The head waiter entered and said that dinner was ready, and asked whenit should be served up. Sonnenkamp looked hard at the questioner. Thecreature surely knew that he would eat nothing, and had only come tospy upon him; perhaps there were many people down below who would liketo hear how Herr Sonnenkamp bore himself just now. Sonnenkamp roseproudly, looked at the head waiter with a repelling glance, and toldhim that he need not ask, he would let him know when he wanted what hehad ordered; and at the same time he charged him to see to it, that noone should be allowed to enter his room without having been announced.
One thing after another passed in confusion through his brain;Joseph had told him about the suicides who are dissected in thedissecting-room. Sonnenkamp contemplated himself from head to foot, andthen opened his mouth as if he must utter the thought that was nowrunning through his soul. He is being dissected, not bodily, butspiritually, by every stinging, scandal-loving tongue.