yself:
Thou hast promised thy mother to return home safe and sound. Thou must
not be ill, must not die. Thou must keep thy word. And this thought was
ever by me, sometimes making me quiet, sometimes restless. I was
forever thinking that I could certainly do something to force nature to
remove the shadows, the heaviness, the dullness which weighed me down.
There were two souls in me. And once I very plainly heard you saying to
me: Keep perfectly quiet; you are undermining your life with your
perpetual thinking; for once let thinking alone. And then I was
standing on the stage at the music festival to sing, but I could not
bring out a solitary note. I have gone through a great deal of
suffering, but I am now in perfectly good spirits.

[Doctor Fritz to Weidmann.]

A strange riddle has been solved by means of Eric's being wounded, an
account of which was given in the newspapers in connection with the
victory. A small, delicate-looking old man came to me, who addressed me
in German, but with difficulty, showing that he had probably not made
use of the language for many years. He asked me if I was acquainted
with a Major Dournay. I said yes, and after a great deal of trouble, I
succeeded in finding out that this was Eric's uncle, a man of very
great wealth. He wanted to know all about the family, and especially
whether, his sister Claudine was yet living. Luckily, Knopf could tell
him all the particulars.

[Eric to his mother.]

Mother! My uncle has been found! Through my fall from the horse, but
yet more through Manna's playing on the harp, that was spoken of in the
newspapers as some marvellous tale, my uncle came to see Dr. Fritz. My
uncle visited me while I was very ill, and I thought that I had seen my
father. They tell me that I became so excited that my life was again
endangered, and they had to withhold the news until I had wholly
recovered. I showed your letter to my uncle, and the old man, who has
heard nothing from Europe for ten years, wept bitterly. He will go back
to Europe with us.

[Knopf to Fassbender.]

The classic age had great, noble, heroic forms, but it had no uncle in
America. And how did the world before Columbus' day get on without any
uncles in America? I think that our good Lord, as he rested on the
seventh day, dreamed, in his mid-day sleep, of the uncle in America,
meditated, and created him.

My friend, Major