."

Roland went with Eric to his room, and questioned him eagerly whether
he had not also been as happy the first time he had put on his uniform.

Eric could not give him an answer; he tried to remember how he felt the
first time he had donned his uniform, but he recollected much better
how he felt the last time he had doffed it. A remembrance did come to
him, however, a long forgotten remembrance. The Doctor had once said
that Roland never took any pleasure in a new suit, but now he was in
raptures over the gay-colored soldier's coat; all ideals seemed to have
disappeared, or at least to have concentrated in this coat. Eric gazed
at him sadly; he came near saying that the two most beautiful moments
in the soldier's life were, when he put on the uniform, and when he
took it off forever. But he could not now make this reply, for there
are things which every one must experience for himself, and cannot
learn from others; and what would anything amount to on this present
occasion?

Joseph came and said that Eric must repair to Herr Sonnenkamp.

With the ground reeling under him, with everything swimming before his
eyes, like one in a dream, Eric went across the court and up the steps;
he stood in the antechamber. Now is the decisive moment.

CHAPTER VIII.

RESERVATIONS.

Eric entered; he did not venture to look at Sonnenkamp; he dreaded
every word he might have to say to him; for every thought that
Sonnenkamp expressed to him, everything which his thoughts had touched
on, seemed to him polluted. But now as he fixed his gaze upon him,
Sonnenkamp seemed to be transformed, as if he had by some charm
contracted his powerful frame. He looked so modest, so humble, so
childlike, smiling there before him. He informed Eric, in a quiet tone,
that the Prince had seen fit in his graciousness to invest him with a
title of nobility, and was soon to deliver him the patent confirming it
with his own hand.

Eric breathed with still greater difficulty, and could not utter a
word.

"You are surprised?" asked Sonnenkamp. "I know the Jewish banker has
been refused,--and I even think--the gentlemen are very shrewd--I even
think--however, it doesn't make any difference; every one works his own
way. I know also that a certain Doctor Fritz has been at the
philanthropist Weidmann's, and that he has spoken a good deal of
slander about a man whom I unfortunately resemble--isn