ould not yet utter a word: he only nodded without speaking, and
Clodwig continued,--

"That is fine, an instance of the grand truth of compensation in the
world. Once, you were to become my son--my son! It is better as it is.
I am to have no son. But tell me, how is Roland? Did he not want to
come with you? I see him, the splendid youth! he is present all the
time. You have done well, Eric, entirely well. You will stay with the
young man. If we could only know what will become of the father!"

Before Eric could answer, the invalid lay back upon the pillow. He
seemed to have fallen asleep. Nothing was heard but the ticking of the
clock; and now a carriage drove into the court-yard, the wheels cutting
into the gravel.

Clodwig awoke.

"That is the Doctor," he said aloud. He requested the attendant to say
to the physician that he would like to be left with Eric alone for a
time. The nurse gave the commission to the servant, and remained in the
anteroom. Sitting upright, Clodwig said,--

"Shut the door: I want to speak to you in private."

Eric sat by the bedside, and Clodwig began,--

"This Sonnenkamp, so audacious, and yet--hypocrisy, it is everywhere; a
jumble of grimaces, of masks who do not know one another. A sentence
upon Sonnenkamp? I have let him off entirely. His path is zigzag, his
goal horrible. Who shall judge? I say it here to you, my brain received
a fatal lesion when the fearful thought entered into it. When I look
over my own life, what is it? I have filled out a uniform: we are
walking, empty sentry-boxes, painted with the national color. If a
discharge comes, we think it something very mysterious; we whisper--all
a farce. The life of most persons is hypocrisy, and so is mine, so
long, so honorable! We have no courage, we do not confess what we are.
We are encumbered with forms, compliances, courtesies, conformities;
and all is false inside. We never tell each other what we are as we
acknowledge it to ourselves. Don't be afraid. I have no crime, no
transgression, now, to acknowledge and to feel remorse for. I have been
all my life pure as thousands, as millions, by my side; but I have not
been the person that I really am. Do you know that grand word which God
spake when he revealed himself in the desert to the holy Shepherd? It
is this. This is God. 'I am that I am.' This is the truth,
truthfulness, the divine in every man; and men deny it. Who can say I
am that I am? I never could, and millions by