all
but Eric and Knopf, who still roamed about in the morning twilight; and
Knopf was especially happy to watch so closely once more the universal
awakening of nature.

He said that one always neglected it, unless compelled to observe it;
and that there were doubtless many poets who sang of the dewy twilight
of the morn, who were at the same time frightfully late sleepers.

Eric listened to the good Knopf, but could not conceive how there could
be a man out there in the open air alive to such contemplation; with
him every thought and every act, the very idea that there was still
much to do in life, seemed like a shadowy dream.

On the other hand, Knopf thought that Eric was all attention, and
expressed regret that the child had gone; he still had the Russian
Prince to instruct, indeed, but the child had made the whole house
happy; she was like a living, speaking rose transplanted from the New
World. They were evidently expressions which were to serve as ornaments
to a poem already begun or in contemplation.

Eric listened to it all patiently.

At last he asked Knopf if Doctor Fritz had said much to him about Herr
Sonnenkamp.

Knopf confirmed a part of Weidmann's information; but he did not seem
to know everything.

"I take the holy morn to witness," exclaimed Knopf, "you are a man to
be honored, Herr Dournay. If I had known at the time the antecedents of
Herr Sonnenkamp, I should not have felt so secure when I was teaching
Roland. I should always have felt as if there was a loaded pistol at my
ear, to go off at any moment. Yes, you are a strong man; this is a new
kind of greatness, for I know what it means to control and manage
Roland as you do."

Knopf had seized hold of Eric's hand, and in his excessive enthusiasm
he kissed it.

Eric was calm, and Knopf had a beatific look; his countenance with its
smiles was like the stream, on whose bosom the wind tosses along the
rippling waves. He maintained that they were both happy in being
co-workers in the solution of the most difficult and most sublime
problem of the century; for Eric had Roland to instruct, who would be
obliged to have relations with slavery, and he himself had the Russian
for a pupil, who had now the emancipated serfs to manage.

He represented that the prince wanted him to go home with him, and
establish a school for the liberated serfs; Doctor Fritz, on the other
hand, wanted him to go to America and manage a school for the children
of freed