They went home, threw aside their wraps, and looked at one
another. Sketches of the machinery which they had just seen lay
about, as well as some rough drawings. These she collected and
made into a roll.
"Rafael," she said, and drew herself up, half laughing, half
trembling, "kneel; I wish to knight you."
It did not seem unnatural to him; he did so.
"Noblesse oblige," she said, and let the roll of paper approach
his head; but therewith she dropped it and burst into tears.
He spent a merry evening with his friends, and was
enthusiastically applauded. But as he lay in bed that night he
felt utterly despondent. The whole thing might, after all, have
been a mere chance. He had seen so much, had acquired so much
information; it was no discovery that he had made. What was it,
then? He was certainly not a genius; that must be an exaggeration.
Could one imagine a genius without a victor's confidence, or had
his peculiar life destroyed that confidence? This anxiety which
constantly intruded itself; this bad conscience; this dreadful,
vile conscience; this ineradicable dread; was it a foreboding? Did
it point to the future?
It was about half a year after this that his desultory studies
became concentrated on electricity, and after a time this took
them to Munich.
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