when she recovered, she continued melancholy, until they sent her to
the convent, where she gained new animation."

Eric turned the conversation to the reasons why Sonnenkamp was so much
hated and calumniated. The physician readily took up the subject, and
explained that the poor nobility looked out for every blemish as a
natural defence against a man of such immeasurable wealth, who almost
personally insulted them by his outlays. Herr von Pranken was the only
one favorably disposed towards him, and he was so, not merely because
he wanted to marry his daughter, but there was also a natural
attraction to each other, for Herr Sonnenkamp was deeply interested in
himself, and Herr von Pranken deluded his neighbor as himself. "And
now, my friend," concluded the physician, "now see to it, how you come
into this house with the right understanding."

"I have one request," Eric at last began. "Let me hear what you would
say to a friend concerning me, if I were absent. Will you do that?"

"Certainly; this is what I intended to do. You are an idealist. Ah! how
hard a time people have with their ideal! You idealists, you who are
always thinking, toiling, and feeling for others, you seem to me like a
landlord who has an inn on the road, or in some beautiful situation. He
must get everything in readiness, and pray to God all the time: Send
good weather and many guests! He himself cannot control either weather
or guests. So the counsel is very simple. Don't be a landlord of the
inn of ideality, but eat and drink, yourself, with a good zest, and
don't think of others; they will themselves call for their own portion,
or bring it with them in their knapsack; if not, they can go hungry and
thirsty. I have found that there are only two ways of coming to terms
with life: either to be wholly out with the world, or wholly out with
one's self. The youth of to-day have yet a third way: it is to be at
the same time out with the world and with themselves.

"That is, I am sorry to say, my case."

"And just for that reason," continued the doctor, taking off his huge
glove, and laying his hand on Eric's shoulder, "just for that reason, I
should desire for you some different lot--I don't know what--I cannot
think of any."

A long row of wagons loaded with stripped beech-boughs came along the
road. The physician gave the information that they had already
extracted from these branches various chemical substances, and now they
were carrying the