Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/301

 The patient faintly smiled when he saw me and said: "Dear Fenger!" "Minna!" he murmured a little while after.

"Surely she will come to-morrow," Mrs. Hertz said.

"Then she will play to you," I added, though I felt tongue-tied and could scarcely speak.

"Beethoven," the old man whispered, and closed his eyes.

Mrs. Hertz arranged the pillows more comfortably; she then took the temperature; the thermometer had gone down to a little under 106°. Shortly after he began to say that time and space were forms of perception, but the soul was a "Ding an sich" (a thing of itself), a substance, a "Noumenon," "Intelligibile,"—these words he continually repeated.

The son, who was grieved and alarmed by these thoughts that seemed to indicate death, took his hand and said—

"Now you must not think, father, you must rest."

"Perhaps Kühne will come to-morrow, then you can philosophise together," Mrs. Hertz said.

"To-morrow!" he sighed, with quite a strange accent.

Mrs. Hertz turned away.

"Yes, indeed, wait till he comes; he understands it better than we do."

"Progressus," the old man said.

"Amen!" the Sister murmured, and crossed herself. She thought that he had called upon a saint, or perhaps a prophet.

Immanuel and I, who had heard it, could not help smiling a little. I wondered that I could still find anything to smile at. No one would have been more pleased with the humour that lay in this mistake than Hertz himself; but he was already dead to his surroundings.