The doctor was more friendly than ever in his bearing towards Eric, for
he saw that he had wished to interfere in his life too hastily and
roughly. He expressed regret that Eric had not seen Herr Weidmann to
advantage that day, as the latter had been preoccupied, or something
had gone wrong with him, and he advised Eric not to adopt a wrong
impression in regard to him. The doctor smiled, well pleased, when Eric
replied that he should not allow himself to form an opinion of a view
on the Rhine which every one admired, if he had seen it only through
rain or mist. The physician had evidently been thinking much of Eric
during his drive; he always addressed him to-day as Herr Captain in a
very marked manner, and he explained this when he held out his hand in
bidding him good-night, by saying,--

"You are the first soldier with whom I have ever been able to live
quite comfortably. With all other officers, I have always had a feeling
of--I can't say fear, exactly--but a certain consciousness of being
unarmed in the presence of an armed man. You soldiers always have an
air of preparation, of readiness for attack, in which there's much
that's good. I take back my words; perhaps a soldier can be a still
better educator than a physician. Well, good-night!"

When Eric was alone, everything vanished which he had seen or
experienced during the day, and Roland's form alone remained before
him. He tried to fancy what the boy's thoughts were in riding after
him. He sought to transport himself into the boy's state of feeling; he
could not entirely do so, for Roland was full of anger with Eric, for
deserting one who was so truly and fondly devoted to him. The boy felt
as if he had been robbed, and so he rode over to the town fancying that
Eric must be coming to meet him, or must be watching for him at the
window; he rode back weeping with anger.

The world, of which he was to possess so much, appeared to him
worthless and strange, while it seemed to Eric, who had nothing but his
own thoughts, bathed in a dew of blessing. In the stillness of the
night he thought over the hospitable and homelike reception he had met
from Clodwig, and now from the physician, and hospitality seemed to him
the purest fruit of noble manhood. In ancient times men entertained
gods and angels, and they still entertained them, for in freely
offering what one has to a stranger, whose very existence was yesterday
unknown, the divine is unfolded in the pure soul.