Eric had vanity enough to make him note her want of interest; it vexed him at first, but afterwards he thought no more about it.
Herr Sonnenkamp was very well satisfied with the family-tutor, who not only made a good appearance in his own sphere, and gave to him the rightful consideration, but whose very presence was an ornament of the house, and brought to his table the noblest of the land.
Clodwig again requested that he might be immediately informed of every remains of Roman Antiquities discovered in the restoration of the castle; Sonnenkamp promised it with readiness, and gave an extremely humorous account of the silly motives attributed to him for rebuilding the castle. Some said he wished to figure in "Bädeker's Traveller's Manual," which people carried with them in the summer season, when they passed up and down the river, so that the castle might be pointed at, and the bored English, with finger upon the line of the book, might gape at it awhile with open mouth; but that really an æsthetic reason determined him. He honestly confessed that he intended, in rebuilding the castle, to give a harmonious finish to the view from his work-room window, desiring at the same time to make some contribution to the beauty of the German fatherland.
There was always a peculiar tang in Sonnenkamp's utterance of these words, "German fatherland;" one could detect therein something like deep-seated savage hate, and yet the tone was rather that of tender pity and commiseration. Sonnenkamp knew that Clodwig was, of all things else, a patriot, and he was ready to strike this chord. Eric looked at Roland, to see if he noticed the hypocrisy, for it was no longer ago than Sunday, that Sonnenkamp had expressed himself so strangely and contemptuously, when the conversation turned on the subject of voting. But Roland's features were motionless.
In one view, it was encouraging that the inconsiderate mind of the youth did not perceive the contradiction; while in another, Eric saw here an enhancement of the difficulty of his work as an educator; it was indeed his principal problem, to awaken and to establish in the mind of his pupil the consecutiveness and interlinking of all thought and all action.