“Why does my nephew want it in his room today?” asked Aunt Rikchen.
“I don’t know,” answered Grollmann, slipping away with the coffee, as he had done before with the breakfast-tray.
“He is a horrid man,” said Aunt Rikchen; “he will be the death of me some day, with his mysteries. He shall tell me when he comes back.”
But Grollmann did not come back, although Aunt Rikchen almost tore down the bell-rope. Aunt Rikchen was very angry, and would have been furious if she had heard Grollmann relating above to Reinhold unasked, with the minutest details, what he would not have told her for any money.
“For you see, sir,” said Grollmann, “she is so good in other respects, Fräulein Frederike; but what she knows she must tell, sooner or later, if it cost her her life; and the master cannot bear that, especially from his sister, and we are the sufferers.”
“What did happen?” asked Reinhold.
“This was it,” said the old man. “About last night he came back from the second meeting of the manufacturers; I lighted him to his room, as usual, turned up the lamps in his study, and went into his bedroom to shut the windows, which always stay open till he goes to bed, winter and summer; and there, close to the window, on the floor, lay, what I took at first for a piece of paper, till I took it up and found that it was a regular letter, which somebody must have thrown in from the street, and the small stone that had been fastened to it by a bit of packthread lay close by. I hesitated for a minute or two whether I would not hide the letter, without saying anything to the master, till it occurred to me that the letter might possibly be from a friend, and contain information of something which the master ought to know—a fire, an attempt at murder, or God knows what, of which the rabble are quite capable; so I took it in to the master and told him where and how I had just found it. The master just looked at the address and said: ‘That is written in a disguised hand; I will have nothing to do with it; throw it into the fire.’ But I urged him so that he at length gave way and opened the letter. The master was standing at one side of the table and I at the other, and of course I could see his face while he was reading; and I was terribly alarmed, for the blood rushed to his head, and the hand in which he held the letter trembled so, that I thought, begging your pardon, that he was going to have a fit. But it passed off; the master only let fall the letter and said: ‘It is nonsense; I knew it before. They will not burn the house over our heads; you may go to bed in peace.’ I went, but I was not in peace, and was not much surprised when the master rang for me this morning at —he is always particularly early when he has had any trouble or annoyance in the evening, or if he has anything in particular on his mind. This time it must have been something very bad; the master was in exactly the same dress in which he had come home yesterday evening, and the bed had not been touched. On the other hand, the bottle of wine which I always put in his room at night, and out of which he generally drinks only a glass or two, sometimes nothing at all, was empty to the very last drop; and he looked so wild and strange that I was naturally alarmed, and asked the same question that the Fräulein asked just now, if he was ill. He denied it however, said he had been very much vexed yesterday evening, and added something about the gentlemen who would not hear reason and were going to spoil all by their cowardice, and so on; but it all sounded confused and strange, as if, begging your pardon, he were not quite right in his head. I asked him if he would sleep now for a few hours, and was relieved when he lay down on the sofa and let me cover him up, saying, ‘I wish to be woke at , Grollmann.’ And at I went back again, but the coverlet lay on the ground near the sofa, and I saw at a glance that the master had not slept a minute. He had however washed and dressed himself, and now looked very ill. He said he had not been able to sleep, and had no time now. He wanted his breakfast in half an hour; at he had to be at another meeting, to which the workmen were going to send delegates. ‘I promised to be there,’ he said, ‘though I had rather not go; I might meet someone there whom I had rather not meet today.’ I did not dare to ask who the someone was, but I thought to myself, I am glad it is not me, for he gave a look, Captain, that filled me with terror. If he would only go to sleep now, thought I to myself, for while he was speaking he had sat down on the sofa and stared before him as if he were half asleep already. Well, Captain, and sure enough when I went in just now with the breakfast, quite quietly, he was sitting asleep in the corner of the sofa. For heaven’s sake, let him sleep, thought I, slipping gently out of the room with my breakfast; and now I only ask, Captain, shall I wake him when it is time, or shall I let him sleep? He wants it, God knows.”
“Let him sleep, Grollmann,” said Reinhold,
