February 14 Sunday – Sam’s notebook: “Professor Helmholtz called” [NB 31 TS 26].

Paine quotes Sam’s record of this day that Professor Rudolf Virchow visited, “but unfortunately leaves no further memorandum of that visit.” Did Paine confuse Helmholtz with Virchow? Or, did both men stop by? Paine also notes that Sam was “quite recovered” by this time, and quotes his final entry:

30 sick abed — full of interest — read the debates & get excited over them, though don’t versteh. By reading, keep in a state of excited ignorance: ike a blind man in a house afire — flounder around, immensely but unintelligently interested, don’t know how I got in & can’t find the way out, but I’m having a booming time all to myself.

Don’t know what a Schulgesetzentwurf is, but I keep as excited over it & as worried about it as if it was my own child. I simply live on the Sch-E; it is my daily bread. I wouldn’t have the question settled for anything in the world. Especially now that I’ve lost the öffentliche Militärgericht circus. I read all the debates on that question with a never-failing interest, but all at once they sprung a vote on me a couple of days ago & did something by a vote of 100 to 143, but I couldn’t find out what it was [MTB 393; B 31 TS 29]. (Notebook TS followed; Paine’s changes ignored)