The doctors left the castle at last, having given the hospital-orderly the necessary instructions to carry out during their absence. As Rademacher was the medical officer on duty, he went the rounds once more before leaving; and Vogt, whose head had been re-bandaged and who had scarcely thought of meat and drink, now took some milk-soup at his desire.
Nerve-exhaustion and loss of blood soon made themselves felt. Ensconcing himself on a hard sofa that stood at the head of Klitzing's bed, he fell into a heavy sleep.
The sound of voices roused him. He opened his eyes, and it was a considerable time before he realised where he was. Again the voices spoke. A conversation was evidently going on in the garden outside between two people, a man and a woman. Vogt went to the window and looked out. Close to the wall of the house vegetables had been planted. A bearded man was digging the beds with a spade; the old woman was assisting him by breaking up the clods of earth with a hoe.
"But I can't understand, mother," said the man, "why you gave him the Princes' Room."
The old woman stopped her work for a moment and leant upon the handle of her hoe. Then in her quiet monotonous voice she replied: "They told me he would soon die, and the dead are the greatest kings on earth. They are free. They have no more desires, no more cares. No one can help or harm them any more."
The son said nothing, and both worked on busily.
Without thinking what he was doing Vogt watched them for a time at their digging and hoeing, and when he turned back into the room the heavy atmosphere of the long unventilated apartment gave him a momentary sense of oppression.
But in the meantime something had happened, something that made him suddenly stand still, speechless. Klitzing had awakened.
The sick man had moved his head to one side; his eyes were wide open, and he was looking through the long window. His gaze wandered till it rested on his friend, and apparently recognising him brightened with intense pleasure; then it returned to the picture framed by the window. Undazzled, his eyes looked out upon the radiance of the setting sun, already half below the horizon. The face of the dying man was lighted up by quiet happiness. He stood on the threshold of Paradise, and seemed already to behold it in that fair vision of distant landscape bathed in the departing glow of daylight. The sun's rays kissed the eyes of the dying man, and he appeared to live but by their light. He gazed fixedly on the vanishing disk until it sank out of sight. When he could see it no longer an expression of fear passed over his countenance, as though he dreaded the darkness and sought something that had disappeared from view.