UNTO THIS LAST
It is past eight o'clock of an evening in December. A hurrying crowd
is streaming on its way homeward through the arteries of a large and
busy city. All the shop doors everywhere are being closed with a
thundering noise, and the ear is assailed by the rattling of the iron
shutters by which thievish hands are to be kept out during the night
hours. The brilliant gas jets and the incandescent lights in the
show-windows are turned off in increasing numbers.
On the asphalt pavement dense throngs of people weary from their day's
labor, or else eager for the pleasures and excitement which the
evening has still in store for them, are pressing forward at an even
trot--an endless procession of men and women occupying every grade in
the social scale,--elegantly attired women and girls, men dressed in
stylish fashion, others clad poorly and with the dust of their hard
toil still clinging to their garments, and, mingled with them all,
half-grown children,--boys and girls, who had been busy at counter or
workshop throughout the day.
It was like a miniature reflection of life itself,--life in a large
city, with all its toil and its wealth, its misery and its luxury.
On the pavement cabs and busses rattled past in endless succession;
and elegant carriages, drawn swiftly by spirited horses and carrying
the princes of trade and of birth, and veiled ladies, who might be
actresses or countesses, for all one could tell, rolled smoothly
along.
Scurrying to and fro in zigzag line, and emitting those peculiar
doleful notes invented for them, automobiles were mixed up in
apparently inextricable confusion with all this hurly-burly of
vehicles, while the trams clanged their bells, and passengers stood
waiting on the edge of the sidewalks, desirous of boarding them, yet
afraid to risk their lives in the turmoil and bustle of the
intervening space. All this excitement of metropolitan life, this
feverish haste, and this pitiless crush, bore the stamp of intense
work performed in a human ant-hill, where every one of the countless
inmates has to fulfil his duty unremittingly, so that combined toil
will produce a harmonious whole.
An elegantly attired pair turned the corner into a poorly lighted side
street, and then took their way along the middle of the road, picking
their steps among all the scraps of paper and the refuse of every kind
that covered it. They came to a halt before a house the exterior of
which showed it to be inhabited by persons in straitened
circumstances, and then they ascended the well-worn front steps
leading to its main entrance. The doorkeeper peered out of his little
lodge and merely nodded slightly to the two. They had come here only a
few days before, after leaving the stylish and expensive Grand Hotel,
and that fact had furnished the man with food for reflection. They
were former First Lieutenant Borgert and Frau Leimann. They had turned
their steps to the French capital, in the hope to be there secured
against any possible police persecution, expecting to be able to earn
a living in this city of millions, which furnishes daily bread to so
many.
Their funds had rapidly been exhausted; for he who has not learned to
husband his resources in the days of plenty will not be able to do so
in the days of dire need.
And so Borgert had been obliged to look about him for some
remunerative occupation. Hunger is a hard taskmaster, and hard as it
seemed to this man who had been reared and had lived till then
virtually in idleness, he had now to turn his hands to useful work;
but the employment he had been able to secure had not lasted long.
Without a word of warning, he had been dismissed as incapable of the
work demanded, and he was just now returning from a last vain effort
to obtain another place. They mounted the steep stairs and entered
their little room, furnished without regard to even moderate ideas of
comfort, and filled with an air which in the days gone by Borgert had
never been able to endure.
He threw himself on the narrow sofa with a cry of despair and covered
his face with his hands, while Frau Leimann cowered before the grate
on a small stool.
With eyes hollow from much weeping and many sleepless nights, she
gazed into the dying fire. This was all the warmth which they could
expect that night, for their means were entirely exhausted.
Both of them kept silence for a while, and then Borgert spoke. The
woman trembled at the sound of his voice, as if she were awaking from
a fearful dream.
"And what is to become of us now?" said he, very low.
She did not answer him, but continued to gaze into the faintly glowing
coals, and a tear slowly coursed down her pale, emaciated face.
"To-morrow we shall have to leave this house, for we are unable to
pay, and then no other refuge is left us but the streets."
"You must work, George," replied the woman in a tear-choked voice,
although she tried to infuse some energy into her tones.
"Have I not tried?" replied he, with a shrug. "But haven't they
dismissed me every time without warning? And besides, there is no use
for my trying again. How can I work? I've never learned it."
"But something must be done; we must find a way out of this," Frau
Leimann cried out, and her voice sounded shrill. "If you intend to
leave me to misery, you ought not to have enticed me away from home."
"Enticed?" Borgert mimicked her. "Who has enticed you? Was it not you
who implored me to let you come with me because you were unable to
endure any longer the life you were leading with your noble husband?"
"If I did so, you, as a man, ought to have had enough common-sense to
talk me out of my intention."
"I should like to know what man is able to talk an idea out of the
head of a woman."
"Do not speak this way, George; it is worse than frivolous. Summon all
your courage and energy and let us see what can be done. There must be
a remedy."
"There is!" retorted Borgert, throwing a loaded revolver on the crazy
table.
A tremor shot through the woman, and for a moment she leaned against
the wall as if ready to swoon, while her wide-opened eyes stared with
fear at the little instrument, the glittering steel of which
reflected the glowing embers in the grate.
"By all that is sacred," her voice came hysterically, "are you out of
your senses!"
"On the contrary," replied Borgert, coolly; "it is the only way out of
all our difficulties, and it is not the first time I have had the
thought. Is it not better to put an end to this dog's life than to die
by inches in penury and distress?"
Frau Leimann stepped musingly towards the grate, as if its warmth were
needed to drive the thought of approaching death out of her head and
to pour new life into her trembling limbs. Her gaze hung fixedly on a
faded engraving which was over the mantel, and which represented a
banquet held by one of the ancient English kings. With glassy eyes she
stared at this picture representing the joys of living. She did not
notice that Borgert had followed her with his feline step.
The report of his pistol was heard, quick and sharp, and with a dying
moan the woman sank to her knees. Her left hand felt for the warming
flame, as if searching for its aid, and the tiny bluish tongues of
fire wavered in their reflection on the surface of this white, plump
hand from which a rill of life-blood was slowly running, drop by drop,
into the ashes of the grate. For a moment only her slayer gazed
terror-stricken at the lifeless body; then he pointed the weapon at
himself, and a second shot put an end to his existence. Death squared
with his mighty hand all the guilt and all the debts he had contracted
during his riotous life.
When the two corpses, four days later, were carted to the cemetery of
Bagneux, the Potter's Field of Paris, and there consigned to the
common grave of the destitute, nobody knew and nobody cared who these
two unknown strangers had been. Nobody suspected the drama of their
lives or the sin which had hurried them to death.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's A Little Garrison, by Fritz von der Kyrburg