He had, as
it were, fallen asleep in one age of the world, and wakened in
another, and it seemed as if he really wished to defer his wakening,
or else that repose was an absolute novelty to him; for he sat dozing
in his chair in the sun the whole of the next day, and scarcely
spoke.
Ebbo, who felt it a necessity to come to an understanding of the
terms on which they were to stand, tried to refer matters to him, and
to explain the past, but he was met sometimes by a shake of the head,
sometimes by a nod--not of assent, but of sleep; and his mother
advised him not to harass the wearied traveller, but to leave him to
himself at least for that day, and let him take his own time for
exertion, letting things meantime go on as usual. Ebbo obeyed, but
with a load at his heart, as he felt that all he was doing was but
provisional, and that it would be his duty to resign all that he had
planned, and partly executed, to this incompetent, ignorant rule. He
could certainly, when not serving the Emperor, go and act for himself
at Thekla's dower castle of Felsenbach, and his mother might save
things from going to utter ruin at Adlerstein; but no reflection or
self-reproach could make it otherwise than a bitter pill to any
Telemachus to have to resign to one so unlike Ulysses in all but the
length of his wanderings,--one, also, who seemed only half to like,
and not at all to comprehend, his Telemachus.
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