Felix lay as before in a half-sleeping state, so that Schnetz, whose watch it happened to be, thought it would do no harm to admit his friend. But they merely greeted one another with a silent nod. Then the sculptor stepped up to the sick-bed of his Icarus, and, turning his head away from the others, stood there motionless for full ten minutes. Schnetz, who had seated himself again on the stool before the easel and was cutting out a silhouette, noticed that a trembling, like that of suppressed sobs, shook Jansen's massive frame. He was surprised at this, for he did not know in what intimate relations the two had stood to one another.
"There is no danger," he said, in a low voice; "a few weeks and he will be able to mount his horse again. How he will get on with his modeling is not so certain. That cut over the right hand was very heavy. But I imagine that will be your least sorrow."
But the wounded man seemed to have caught a word or two of what Schnetz had whispered. He slowly opened his heavy, feverish eyes, and, with a dreamy smile that gave a sweet, arch look to his pale face, he muttered:
"Sorrow!--why should any one be sorry? The world is so beautiful--even pain does one good. No, no, we will laugh--laugh--and drink to the health--"
He made a movement, and the piercing pain it caused him roused him thoroughly. He recognized the silent figure at his bedside.
"Hans, my old Dædalus!" he cried, making a motion of his hand toward his friend, "is it you? Good!--this is capital! This gives me more pleasure--than I can tell you! Have you left your Paradise to come out here? Oh, if you knew--you see I must not talk much--I could not, even if I would--else--Heavens! what things--I should have to tell you! And you me, wouldn't you, old boy? Between ourselves, it wasn't just as it should have been--we knew almost nothing at all about one another--you had your head full, and I too. But now, as soon as I am able to talk again--you know that no human being is what you are to me--except one--except one--and even she--"
Schnetz rose with considerable noise, stepped up to the bed, and said: "Fresh ice is of more account just now than warm old friendship. So stop a bit!"
He made a sign to Jansen to go out without waiting to take leave, and then busied himself about his nurse's duties, while Felix's looks and words soon grew confused again.