Once one has written such a missive, it may well happen that, after the deed has been done, or rather earmarked for execution, one may feel the urge to forgive an erstwhile friend such errors as were inspired by lowly conceit. As soon as a man suffers greatly and, while still living, already feels his earthly envelope quietly coming apart at the seams, he is inclined to forgive and ask forgiveness; but when he feels better again, he takes it back, for the healthy body is by nature implacable; evidently the old gentleman had experienced both states of mind during his final vicissitudes, and the one must have seemed as justified as the other. But such a condition is intolerable for a distinguished jurist, and so his logically trained mind had devised a means of leaving his will in such a way that its integrity as a last will would remain unimpeachable by any subsequent counterclaims of emotion: He wrote a letter of forgiveness but left it unsigned and undated, instructing Ulrich to date it with the hour of his death and then sign the document together with his sister as proxies, as can be done with an oral will when the dying person does not have the strength to sign his own name. Truly, in his quiet way and without wanting to admit it, he was an odd duck, this little old man who had always subordinated himself to the hierarchies of being and defended them as their zealous servant while harboring all sorts of revolts for which, on the path he had chosen in life, he could find no outlet. Ulrich was reminded of the death notice he had received, which had probably been marshaled in the same frame of mind; indeed he almost saw a kinship with himself in it, though this time it was not with anger but with compassion, at least in the sense that at the sight of this hunger for expression he could understand the old man’s rage against a son who had made life easy for himself by indulging in unseemly liberties. For that is how fathers always regard their sons’ solutions to the problems of life, and Ulrich felt a twinge of filial piety as he thought of all that was still unresolved inside himself. But he no longer had time to find an adequate and understandable way to express any of this to Agathe, for he had barely begun when with a great surge the half-light in which they stood suddenly swept a man into the room. Propelled by his own momentum, he strode straight up to the halo of candlelight where, one step away from the bier and before the flummoxed servant could catch up to announce his arrival, he raised a hand in front of his eyes with an ample gesture. “Esteemed friend!” the visitor intoned with a solemn voice. The little old man lay with clenched jaws in front of his enemy Schwung.

“Young friends: Above us the majesty of the starry firmament, within us the majesty of the moral law!” the visitor continued, regarding his faculty colleague through misted eyes. “Within this breast, now cold, there once dwelt the majesty of the moral law!” Only then did he turn his body around to shake hands with the brother and sister.