low any longer
looking up; the slater at work is no longer any novelty. The children
turn again to their old games. The jackdaws grow accustomed to him;
they regard him as a bird, like themselves, only bigger, but
peaceful, as they are; and the clouds in the sky have never troubled
themselves about him from the beginning. The ladies envy him his view.
Who can look out so freely across the green plain and see how
mountains range themselves behind mountains, first green, then growing
bluer and bluer to where the sky, even bluer than they, rests on the
last ones! But he troubles himself as little about the mountains as
the clouds trouble themselves about him. Day after day he works on
with iron and claw-hammer, day after day he hammers slates and drives
in nails, till he is done with hammering and nailing. One day man,
tackle, ladder and scaffolding have disappeared. The removal of the
ladder is just as dangerous as its setting up; but no one below folds
his hands, no mouth extols the achievement of the man between heaven
and earth. The crows wonder for a whole week and then it seems to them
as if years ago they had dreamt of some odd bird. Far below the tumult
of the wanderers of the earth still sounds, high above the wanderers
of the sky, the silent clouds still continue in their vast course, but
no one flies around the steep roof save the cawing swarm of jackdaws.

It was proposed to put the whole management of the repairs in
Apollonius' hands. In order not to hurt his brother's feelings, he
begged the council to arrange differently. He was so anxious not to
hurt his brother that he did not even say why he asked this. His work
in Cologne had accustomed him to act independently; he foresaw that
his brother, as he had found him again, would be the cause of many a
hindrance. He knew that he was taking a heavy burden upon himself when
he promised the inspector that the work itself should not suffer by
reason of the two-headed management. The honest man, who guessed
Apollonius' purpose and only respected him the more on that account,
obtained the consent of the council for him, and silently resolved
that wherever it should be necessary he would take the part of his
favorite and uphold the latter's orders against those of his brother.

It was a difficult task that Apollonius had set himself; it was much
more difficult than he knew. His presence at home had not pleased his
brother from the beginning; Apollonius attributed tha