How are my days to be spent without
you here in this dreary hole? I am beside myself, and yet thus much of
what you say is right; it is salvation, and we must in the end bless
the hand that inflicts this separation on us."
Innstetten had hardly shoved the letters aside when the doorbell rang.
In a moment Johanna announced Privy Councillor Wuellersdorf.
Wuellersdorf entered and saw at a glance that something must have
happened.
"Pardon me, Wuellersdorf," said Innstetten, receiving him, "for having
asked you to come at once to see me. I dislike to disturb anybody in
his evening's repose, most of all a hard-worked department chief. But
it could not be helped. I beg you, make yourself comfortable, and
here is a cigar."
Wuellersdorf sat down. Innstetten again walked to and fro and would
gladly have gone on walking, because of his consuming restlessness,
but he saw it would not do. So he took a cigar himself, sat down face
to face with Wuellersdorf, and tried to be calm.
"It is for two reasons," he began, "that I have sent for you. Firstly,
to deliver a challenge, and, secondly, to be my second in the
encounter itself. The first is not agreeable and the second still
less. And now your answer?"
"You know, Innstetten, I am at your disposal. But before I know about
the case, pardon me the naive question, must it be? We are beyond the
age, you know--you to take a pistol in your hand, and I to have a
share in it. However, do not misunderstand me; this is not meant to be
a refusal.
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