“Of course it is, Sophie. That’s also a possibility. And if that is the way it
is, it means he has permitted us to have this philosophical conversation in
order to present this possibility. He wishes to emphasize that he, too, is a
helpless shadow, and that this book, in which Hilde and Sophie appear, is in
reality a textbook on philosophy.”
“A textbook?”
“Because all our conversations, all our dialogues ...”
“Yes?”
“... are in reality one long monologue.”
“I get the feeling that everything is dissolving into mind and spirit. I’m
glad there are still a few philosophers left. The philosophy that began so
proudly with Thales, Em-pedocles, and Democritus can’t be stranded here,
surely?”
“Of course not. I still have to tell you about Hegel. He was the first
philosopher who tried to salvage philosophy when the Romantics had
dissolved everything into spirit.”
“I’m very curious.”
“So as not to be interrupted by any further spirits or shadows, we shall
go inside.”
“It’s getting chilly out here anyway.”
“Next chapter!”
Hegel
... the reasonable is that which is viable…
Hilde let the big ring binder fall to the floor with a heavy thud. She lay on her
bed staring up at the ceiling. Her thoughts were in a turmoil.
Now her father really had made her head swim. The rascal! How could he?
Sophie had tried to talk directly to her. She had asked her to rebel against her
father. And she had really managed to plant an idea in Hilde’s mind. A plan ...
Sophie and Alberto could not so much as harm a hair on his head, but Hilde
could. And through Hilde, Sophie could reach her father.
She agreed with Sophie and Alberto that he was going too far in his game of
shadows. Even if he had only made Alberto and Sophie up, there were limits to the
show of power he ought to permit himself.
Poor Sophie and Alberto! They were just as defenseless against the major’s
imagination as a movie screen is against the film projector.
Hilde would certainly teach him a lesson when he got home! She could already
see the outline of a really good plan.
She got up and went to look out over the bay. It was almost two o’clock. She
opened the window and called over toward the boathouse.
“Mom!”
Her mother came out.
“I’ll be down with some sandwiches in about an hour. Okay?”
“Fine.”
“I just have to read a chapter on Hegel.”
Alberto and Sophie had seated themselves in the two chairs by the
window facing the lake.
“Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hege/was a legitimate child of Romanticism,”