It was fourteen days after Sedan, in the middle of September, 1870. A
former clerk in the Prussian Geological Survey, later a lieutenant in
the reserve, named Von Bleichroden, sat in his shirt-sleeves before a
writing-table in the Café du Cercle, the best inn of the little town
Marlotte. He had thrown his military coat with its stiff collar over
the back of a chair, and there it hung limp, and collapsed like a
corpse, with its empty arms seeming to clutch at the legs of the chair
to keep itself from falling headlong. Round the body of the coat one
saw the mark of the sword-belt, and the left coat-tail was rubbed quite
smooth by the sheath. The back of the coat was as dusty as a high-road,
and the lieutenant-geologist might have studied the tertiary deposits
of the district on the edges of his much-worn trousers. When the
orderlies came into the room with their dirty boots, he could till by
the traces they left on the floor whether they had been walking over
Eocene or Pleiocene formations. He was really more a geologist than a
soldier, but for the present he was a letter-writer. He had pushed his
spectacles up to his forehead, sat with his pen at rest, and looked out
of the window.
The garden lay in all its autumn glory before him, and the branches of
the apple and pear trees bent with a load of the most splendid fruit to
the ground. Orange-red pumpkins sunned themselves close beside prickly
grey-green artichokes; fiery-red tomatoes clambered up sticks near
wool-white cauliflowers; sun-flowers as large as a plate were turning
their yellow disks towards the west, where the sun was beginning to
sink; whole companies of dahlias, white as fresh-starched linen,
purple-red like congealed blood, dirty-red like fresh-slaughtered
flesh, salmon-red, sulphur-yellow, flax-coloured, mottled and speckled,
sang one great flower-concert. Then there was the sand-strewn path
lined by two rows of giant gilly-flowers; faintly lilac-coloured,
dazzlingly ice-blue, and straw-yellow, they continued the perspective
to where the vineyards stood in their brownish-green array, a small
wood of thyrsus-staves with the reddened grape-clusters half hidden
under the leaves. Behind them were the whitening, unharvested stalks
of the cornfields, with the over-ripe ears of corn hanging sorrowfully
towards the ground, with wide-open husks and bractlets at every gust of
wind paying their tribute to the earth and bursting with their juices.
And far in the background were the oak-tree tops and the beechen arches
of the Forest of Fontainebleau, whose outlines melted away into the
finest denticulations, like old Brussels lace, into the extreme meshes
of which the horizontal rays of the evening sun wove gold threads. Some
bees were still visiting the splendid honey-flowers in the garden; a
robin-redbreast twittered in an apple tree; strong gusts of scent came
now and then from the gilly-flowers, as when one walks along a pavement
and the door of a scent-shop is opened.
The lieutenant sat with his pen at rest, visibly entranced by the
beautiful scene. "What a lovely land!" he thought, and his recollection
went back to the sandy plain of his home, diversified by some wretched
stunted firs which stretched their gnarled arms towards the sky as
though they implored the favour of not having to drown in the sand.
But the beautiful landscape which was framed in the window was shadowed
as regularly as clockwork by the musket of the sentry, whose bright,
shining bayonet bisected the picture, and who turned on his rounds
exactly under a pear tree heavily laden with the finest yellow-green
Napoleon pears.
The lieutenant thought for a moment of asking him to choose another
beat, but did not venture to do so; so in order to escape the flash of
the bayonet, he let his gaze wander to the left over the courtyard.
There stood the cook-house with its yellow-plastered wall, and an old
knotty vine spread out against it like the skeleton of some animal in a
museum; the vine was without leaves or clusters, and it stood there as
though crucified, nailed fast to the decaying espalier, stretching out
its long tough arms and fingers as though it wished to draw the sentry
into its ghostly embrace as he turned.
The lieutenant turned away and looked at his writing-table. There lay
the unfinished letter to his young wife whom he had married four months
previously, two months before the war broke out. Beside his field-glass
and the list of the French General Staff lay Hartmann's "Philosophy
of the Unconscious" and Schopenhauer's "Parerga and Paralipomena."
Suddenly he rose from the table and walked up and down the room. It
had been the meeting and dining-room of the artists' colony which had
now vanished. The wainscoting of the walls was adorned with little
oil-paintings recording happy hours in the beautiful hospitable country
which so generously opened its art-schools and its exhibitions to
foreigners. Here were depicted Spanish dancing-women, Roman monks,
scenes from the coasts of Normandy and Brittany, Dutch wind-mills,
Scandinavian fishing-villages and Swiss Alps. Into one corner had crept
an easel of walnut-wood, and seemed to be hiding itself in the shadow
from some threatening bayonets. A palette smeared with half-dried
colours hung there and looked like a liver hanging in a pork-shop. Some
red Spanish militia caps belonging to the painters, with the colour
half faded by exposure to the sun and rain, hung on the clothes-horse.
The lieutenant felt embarrassed, like one who has intruded into a
stranger's house, and expects the owner to come and surprise him. He
therefore abruptly ceased walking up and down and took his seat at the
table in order to continue his letter. He had finished the first pages,
which were full of expressions of his sorrow, home-sickness and anxiety
since he had lately heard news which confirmed his joyful hopes of
becoming a father. He dipped his pen in the ink rather in order to have
someone to talk with than to give or ask for news. He wrote as follows:
"So, for example, when I with my hundred men after a march of
fourteen hours without food or water, came to a wood where we found
an abandoned provision-wagon, what do you think happened? So famished
that their eyes protruded from their heads like mountain crystals in
granite, the body of men broke up and threw themselves like wolves upon
the food, and since there was scarcely enough for twenty-five, they
came to blows. No one listened to my word of command, and when the
sergeant struck them with the flat of his sabre, they knocked him down
with the butt-ends of their muskets. Sixteen men remained wounded and
half dead on the place. Those who got hold of the food ate so greedily
that they became sick and had to lie down on the ground, where they
at once fell asleep. They fought with their own countrymen like wild
beasts who fight for food.
"One day we received orders to throw up defences. In the unwooded tract
of country we were in there was nothing to use but the vines and their
stakes. It was a strange sight to see how the vineyards were rifled in
an hour--how the vine-stems were torn up, together with the leaves and
grapes, to form faggot-bundles, which were quite wet with the juice of
the crushed, half-ripe grapes. It was said that the vines were forty
years old. Thus we destroyed the work of forty years in an hour. And
that too in order to shoot down those who had provided the material for
the faggot-bundles which protected us!
"Another day we had to skirmish in an unreaped field of corn where
the ears of corn dropped round our feet like hail and the stalks were
trodden down to rot at the next shower of rain. Do you think, my dear
wife, that one can sleep quietly at night after such doings? And yet,
what have I done but my duty? And people venture to assert that the
consciousness of duty performed is the best pillow for one's head.
"But there are still worse things behind. You have perhaps heard
that the French population in order to strengthen their army have
risen in a mass and formed bodies of volunteers, who, under the
name of 'franc-tireurs,' try to protect their farms and fields. The
Prussian Government has refused to recognise them as soldiers, but
has threatened to have them shot down as spies and traitors whenever
they are found; because, they say, it is states who wage war and not
individuals. But are soldiers not individuals? And are not these
franc-tireurs soldiers? They have a grey uniform like the chasseur
regiments, and uniforms make soldiers. But it is objected that they are
not registered. No, they are not registered, because the Government has
neither had time to have it done nor are means of communication with
the country districts so easy as to make it possible. I have just got
three of these franc-tireurs prisoners in the billiard-room, and am
every moment expecting orders from headquarters to decide their fate."
Here he stopped writing, and rang for his orderly.
The latter, who was in waiting in the tap-room, at once appeared in the
dining-room before the lieutenant.
"How are the prisoners going on?" asked Von Bleichroden.
"Very well, sir; they are just now playing billiards, and are quite
cheerful."
"Give them some bottles of wine, but of the weakest kind. Has nothing
happened?"
"Nothing, sir."
Von Bleichroden continued his letter.
"What strange people these Frenchmen are! The three franc-tireurs
whom I have just mentioned, and who possibly (I say possibly for I
still hope for the best) may be condemned to death in a few days, are
just now playing billiards in the room next to mine and I hear their
cues striking the balls. What happy contempt of the world! It is really
splendid to go hence in such a mood; or rather, it shows that life is
worth very little if one can part from it so easily--I mean when one
has not such dear ties binding one to existence as I possess. Of course
you won't misunderstand me and believe that I think I am tied Ah! I
don't know what I am writing, for I have not slept for several nights
and my head is so----"
Just then there was a knock at the door.
At the lieutenant's "Come in!" the door opened and the curé of the
village entered. He was a man of about fifty, with a friendly and
melancholy yet firm expression of face.
"I come, sir," he began, "to ask you for permission to speak with the
prisoners."
The lieutenant rose and put on his coat, while he offered the curé a
seat on the sofa. But when he had buttoned up the coat tightly and
felt the stiff collar close round his neck, it seemed as though his
nobler organs were compressed, and as though his blood stood still
in coursing through secret channels to his heart. Placing his hand
on the copy of Schopenhauer, and leaning against the writing-table,
he said: "I am at your service, Monsieur le Curé, but I do not think
the prisoners will pay you much attention, for they are busy playing
billiards."
"I think, sir," answered the curé, "that I know my people better than
you do. One question. Do you intend to have these young fellows shot?"
"Naturally," answered Von Bleichroden, quite prepared to assume
his rôle. "It is the states which wage war, Monsieur le Curé, not
individuals."
"Pardon me, sir, are you and your soldiers not individuals?"
"Pardon me, Monsieur, not for the present." He slipped the letter to
his wife under the blotting-paper and continued, "I am just now only a
representative of the German Confederation of States."
"But, sir, your amiable Empress, whom may God ever protect, was also
a representative of the German Confederation when she issued her
proclamation to German women to help the wounded, and I know of
hundreds of individual Frenchmen who bless her, although the French
nation curses your nation. Sir, in the name of Jesus the Redeemer"
(here the curé stood up, seized his enemy's hands and continued in a
tear-choked voice), "could you not appeal to her?"
The lieutenant was nearly losing his self-control, but he recovered
himself and said: "With us women have not yet begun to interfere in
politics."
"That is a pity," answered the priest, and stood up.
The lieutenant seemed to have heard a noise through the window, so that
he did not pay attention to the priest's answer. He became restless,
and his face was quite white, for the stiff collar could no longer
prevent the blood quitting it.
"Pray sit down, Monsieur," he said. "If you wish to speak with the
prisoners, you can do so, but remain sitting for a minute." (He
listened out of the window again, and now there were heard distinctly
doubled hoof-beats, as of a horse galloping.) "No, don't go, Monsieur,"
he said with a gasp. The sound of galloping came nearer till it became
a walk, slackened and ceased. There was the clinking of a sword and
spurs, footsteps, and Von Bleichroden held a letter in his hand. He
tore it open and read it.
"What is the time?" he asked himself. "Six! In two hours, Monsieur, the
prisoners will be shot without trial."
"Impossible, sir! One does not so hurry men into eternity."
"Eternity or not, the order says that it must be done before vespers,
if I do not wish to regard myself as making common cause with the
franc-tireurs. And here there follows a sharp reprimand because I have
not carried out the order of August 31st. Monsieur, go in and talk with
them and spare me the unpleasantness."
"You think it unpleasant to report a righteous sentence?"
"But I am still a man, Monsieur! Don't you think I am a man?"
He tore open his coat to get air, and began to walk up and down the
room.
"Why cannot we be always men? Why must we have two faces? Oh, Monsieur,
go in and talk with them! Are they married men? Have they wives and
children--parents perhaps?"
"They are all three unmarried," answered the priest. "But at any rate
you might let them have this one night."
"Impossible! The order says, 'before vespers,' and we have to march at
daybreak. Go to them, Monsieur, go to them!"
"I will go; but remember, Mr Lieutenant, not to go out in your
shirt-sleeves, when you go, or you might meet with the same fate as
they. For it is the coat, you know, which makes the soldier."
And the priest went.
Von Bleichroden wrote the last lines of his letter in a state of great
agitation. Then he sealed it and rang for the orderly.
"Post this letter," he said to him, "and send in the sergeant."
The sergeant came.
"Three times three is twenty-nine--no, three times seven is. Sergeant,
take three times--take seven-and-twenty men and shoot the prisoners
within an hour. Here is the order!"
"Shoot them?" asked the sergeant hesitatingly.
"Yes, shoot them! Choose the worst soldiers, those who have been under
fire before. You understand? For instance, number 86, Besel, number
19, Gewehr, and so on. Order also for me a fatigue-party of sixteen
men at once, and choose the best. We will make a reconnaissance
towards Fontainebleau, and when we come back it will be over. Do you
understand?"
"Sixteen men for you, air, and seven-and-twenty for the prisoners. God
protect you, sir!"
And he went.
The lieutenant buttoned his coat again carefully, put on his
sword-belt, and placed a revolver in his pocket. Then he lit a
cigar, but found it impossible to smoke for he had not enough air
in his lungs. He dusted his writing-table; he took his handkerchief
and wiped the large pair of scissors, the stick of sealing-wax, and
the match-box; he laid the ruler and the pen-holder parallel at an
exact right angle with the blotting-paper; then he began to put the
furniture straight. When that was finished, he took out his brush
and comb and did his hair before the looking-glass; he took down the
palette and examined the dabs of paint on it; he inspected all the red
caps and tried to make the easel stand on two legs. By the time that
the clanking of the weapons of his fatigue-party was audible in the
courtyard, there was not a single object in the room which he had not
handled.
Then he went out, gave the command "Left wheel! March!" and quitted the
village.
He felt as though he were running away from a foe of superior power,
and the soldiers found it difficult to follow him. When they came to
a field he made them go in single file so as not to trample down the
grass. He did not turn round, but the soldier next behind him could see
how the cloth of the back of his coat twitched from time to time, as
when one shudders, or expects a blow from behind.
At the edge of the wood he ordered a halt; he told the men to keep
quiet and to rest while he went into the wood. When he found himself
alone and was quite sure that no one could see him, he took a deep
breath and turned towards the dark thickets through which narrow
foot-paths lead to the Gorge-aux-loups. The under-wood and bushes
lay in shadow, but above the sun still shone brightly on the tops of
the oaks and beeches. He felt as though he lay on the dark bottom of
the sea, and through the green water saw above him the light of day
which he never more would reach. The great, wonderfully beautiful wood
which formerly had soothed his troubled spirit seemed this evening so
disharmonious, so repellent, so cold. Life appeared so heartless, so
contradictory, and Nature herself seemed unhappy in her unconscious
sleep. Here also the terrible struggle for existence was being carried
on, bloodlessly it is true, but just as cruelly as by conscious
creatures. He saw how the baby oaks spread themselves out to bushes
in order to kill the tender beech-seedlings which would never be more
than seedlings; of a thousand beeches only one could get to the light
and thereby become a giant, which should in its turn rob the rest of
life. And the ruthless oak, which stretched out its gnarled, rough arms
as though it wished to keep the whole sun for itself, had discovered
how to wage an underground strife. It sent out its long roots in all
directions, undermining the ground; it ate away from the others the
smallest particles of nourishment; and when it could not overshadow a
rival till it was dead, it starved it out. The oak had already murdered
the pine-wood, but the beech came as an avenger slow but sure, for its
acrid juices kill everything where it predominates. It had discovered
the method of poisoning which was irresistible, for not a single plant
could grow in-its shadow; the earth around it was dark as a grave, and
therefore the future belonged to it.
The lieutenant wandered on and on. He struck about with his sword
without thinking how many hopeful young oaklings he destroyed, how
many headless cripples he produced. In fact he hardly thought any more,
for all the activities of his soul seemed crushed in a mortar to pulp.
His thoughts tried to crystallise themselves but dissolved and floated
away; memories, hopes, wrath, gentler feelings, and one great hatred of
all the perversity which by the operation of an inexplicable natural
force had come to rule the world, melted together in his brain, as
though an inner fire had suddenly raised the temperature and obliged
all its solid constituents to assume a fluid form.
Suddenly he started and stood still as if arrested, for from Marlotte
came a sound rolling over the fields and redoubling its echoes in the
hollow passage of the "Wolves' gorge." It was the drum! First a long
roll--trrrrrrrrrrrrrom!--and then blow on blow, one and two, dull and
muffled, as when one nails up a coffin and fears to disturb the house
of mourning--trrrom!--trrrom!--trom!--trom!
He took out his watch; it was a quarter to seven. In a quarter of an
hour it would happen! He wished to return and see it. No, he had just
run away to avoid it; he would not see it for anything. Then he climbed
up a tree.
Now he saw the village, which looked so bright and homelike with its
little gardens and church-tower rising above the house roofs. He saw
no more, but held his watch in his hand and followed the second hand.
Tick, tick, tick, tick--it ran round the little dial-plate so swiftly;
but when the second hand had made one round, the long one made a jerk
and the steady hour hand stood still, as it seemed to him, though it
was moving also.
Now the watch showed five minutes to seven. He gripped the smooth black
beech stem he was standing by very tightly. The watch trembled in his
hand, there was a humming in his ears, and he felt a burning sensation
at the roots of his hair. Crash! There was a sound just as when a plank
breaks, and above a dark slate roof and a white apple tree rose a blue
cloud of smoke over the village, bluish white like a spring cloud; but
above the cloud one, two, and several smoke-rings shot up in the air,
as though they had been shooting at pigeons and not towards a wall.
"They were not all so bad as I thought," he said to himself as he got
down from the tree, feeling quieter now that it was over. And now the
little village church bell began to ring, speaking of peace and quiet
for the dead who had done their duty, but not for all the living who
had done theirs.
The sun had gone down, and the moon, whose pale yellow disk had hung
in the sky all the afternoon, began to redden and gather light as the
lieutenant with his men marched by Montcourt, still followed by the
ringing of the little bell. They came out on the great high-road to
Nemours, which, with its two rows of poplars, seemed peculiarly suited
for marching on. So they went on till it was quite night and the moon
shone clearly. In the last row the men had already begun to whisper
and consult secretly whether they should not ask the corporal to give
the lieutenant some sort of hint that the district was unsafe and that
they should return to their quarters in order to be able to march at
daybreak, when Von Bleichroden quite unexpectedly commanded "Halt!"
They stood on a rising ground from which Marlotte could be seen.
The lieutenant stood quite still, like a pointer who startles a
covey of partridges. Now the drum was beating again. Then the clock
in Montcourt struck nine, followed by those in Grez, in Bourron, in
Nemours; and then all the little church bells began to ring for
vespers, vying with each other in shrillness, and through them all
pierced the tones of the bell in Marlotte, which called "Help! help!"
and Von Bleichroden could not help. Now came a booming along the
ground, as though from the depths of the earth; it was the firing of
the evening gun at the headquarters in Chalons. The moon shone through
the light evening mists which were lying like great flocks of wool
above the little River Loin, and lit it up so that it resembled a lava
stream running in the distance from the dark wood of Fontainebleau
which rose like a volcano. The evening was oppressively warm, but the
men had all white faces, so that the bats which swarmed around them
flew close by their ears, as they do when they see anything white. All
knew what the lieutenant was thinking about, but they had never seen
him behave so strangely and feared that it was not all right with this
aimless reconnaissance on the high-road. At last the corporal summoned
up boldness to approach him, and under the form of making a report drew
his attention to the fact that the tattoo had sounded.
Von Bleichroden received the information with a humble air, as when one
receives a command, and gave the order to return home.
When, one hour later, they entered the first street of Marlotte the
corporal noticed that the lieutenant's right leg was contracted as
though by a spavin, and that he moved in a diagonal course like a
horse-fly. In the market-place the troops were dismissed without
evening prayers, and the lieutenant disappeared.
He did not wish to return to his rooms at once. Something was drawing
him he knew not whither. He ran about with widely opened eyes and
inflated nostrils, like a hound on the scent. He examined the walls and
sniffed for a familiar smell. He saw nothing and met no one. He wished
to see where "it" had happened, but he also feared to see it. At last
he became tired and went home. In the courtyard he stopped and then
went round the cook-house. Suddenly he came upon the sergeant and was
so startled that he had to support himself by holding on to the wall.
The sergeant was also startled, but recovered himself and began, "I was
looking for you, sir, in order to make my report."
"Very good! Very good indeed! Go home and lie down," answered Von
Bleichroden, as though he feared to hear details.
"Yes, sir, but it was----"
"Very good! Go! Go!"
He spoke so quickly and uninterruptedly that it was impossible for
the sergeant to put in a word. Every time he opened his mouth he was
overwhelmed with a torrent of words, so that at last he became tired of
it and went away. Then the lieutenant breathed again and felt like a
boy who has escaped a thrashing.
He was now in the garden. The moon shone brightly on the yellow wall
of the cook-house, and the vine stretched its skeleton arms as though
in a very long yawn. But what was that? Two or three hours before it
had been dead and leafless, simply a grey skeleton which writhed, and
now were there not hanging on it the finest red clusters, and had not
the stem grown green? He went nearer in order to see whether it was the
same vine.
As he came close to the wall he stepped in something slippery and was
aware of the same nauseous smell which one perceives in butchers'
shops. And now he saw that it was the same vine, certainly the same,
but the plaster of the wall was broken by bullets and sprinkled with
blood.
He went away quickly. When he came into the front hall he stumbled over
something which lay under his feet. He drew off his boots in the hall
and threw them out in the garden. Then he went into his room, where his
tea was laid. He felt terribly hungry but could not eat. He remained
standing and staring at the covered table which was so neatly spread:
the white pat of butter with a little radish laid on the top of it;
the tablecloth was white and he saw that it was embroidered with his
or his wife's initials, which had not been there at first; the little
goat's milk cheese lay so neatly on its vine leaf, as though something
more than the fear of a forced contribution had operated here; the
beautiful little white loaf so unlike the brown rye-bread to which he
was accustomed; the red wine in the polished decanter; the thin reddish
slices of mutton--all seemed to have been arranged by friendly hands.
But he felt afraid to touch the food, and suddenly rang the bell.
Immediately the landlady stood in the doorway without saying a word.
She looked down at his feet and waited for an order. The lieutenant did
not know what he wanted, nor did he remember for what he had rung, but
he had to say something.
"Are you angry with me?" he stammered.
"No, sir," answered the woman mildly. "Does the gentleman want
anything?" And she looked down again at his feet.
He also looked down to see what had attracted her attention, and
discovered that he was standing in his stockings, and that the floor
was covered with red footprints--red footprints with the mark of the
toes where his stockings had been torn, for he had walked far that day.
"Give me your hand, my good woman," he said, stretching out his own.
"No," answered the woman, and looked straight into his eyes. Then she
left the room.
Herr von Bleichroden tried to pluck up courage after this snub, and
took a chair and sat down to his meal. He lifted the plate of meat
in order to help himself, but the smell of the meat made him feel
ill. He stood up, opened the window, and threw the whole plate with
its contents into the garden. His whole body trembled and he felt
sick; his eyes were so sensitive that the light tried them, and all
bright colours irritated them. He threw out the red bottle of wine, he
took away the red radish from the butter, the red painters' caps and
palettes--everything that was red had to go. Then he lay down on the
bed. His eyes were tired, but he could not close them, so he lay for an
hour, till he heard voices in the tap-room. He did not wish to listen,
but he could not shut his ears, and recognised that they were two
corporals who were drinking beer and talking.
"Those were two sturdy fellows--the two short ones, but the long one
was weak."
"Yes, he fell like a bundle of rags by the wall. He had asked that they
should fasten him to the espalier, for he wished to stand, he said."
"But the others--devil take me!--stood with their arms folded over
their breasts, as though they were going to be photographed."
"Yes, but when the priest came into the billiard-room and told them
there was no chance, all three fell crash on the ground, so at least
the sergeant said, but there was no scream nor prayer for mercy."
"Yes, they were deuced plucky chaps. Your health!"
Herr von Bleichroden pressed his head into his pillow and stopped his
ears with the sheets. But presently he got up. It was as if something
drew him forcibly to the door behind which they were talking, he wanted
to hear more; but the corporals now conversed in low tones. Accordingly
he stole forward, leant his back against a corner, laid his ear to the
keyhole and listened.
"But did you see our people? Their faces were as grey as pipe ashes,
and many of them shot in the air. Don't let us talk more about it! But
they got what they deserved, and they weighed much more when they went
than when they came. It was like shooting little birds with grapeshot."
"Did you see the priest's boys in red cassocks who stood and sang with
the coffee-roasters? It was like snuffing out a light when the rifles
cracked. They rolled in the bean-beds like sparrows, fluttering their
wings and turning their eyes. And how the old women came and picked up
the pieces! Oh! oh! but so it goes in war. Your health!"
Herr von Bleichroden had heard enough; the blood had so gone to his
brain that he could not sleep. He went into the tap-room and told the
corporals-to go home. Then he undressed himself, dipped his head in the
hand-basin, took up Schopenhauer and began to read with pulses beating
violently:
"Birth and death both belong to life; they constitute two opposites
which condition each other; they are the two extreme poles in
each manifestation of life. This is just what the deepest of all
mythologies, the Hindu, has expressed by investing Siva the goddess
of destruction with a necklace of skulls and the Lingam, the organ of
reproduction. Death is the painful dissolution of a knot which was tied
in pleasure, it is the forcible doing away with the fundamental mistake
of our existence, it is deliverance from a delusion."
He let the book drop, for he heard someone crying and tossing about in
his bed. Who was in the bed? He saw a body, the under part of which was
painfully contorted by cramp, while the muscles of the chest stood out
strained like the staves of a cask, and he heard a low, hollow sound
like a shriek smothered under the bed-clothes. It was his own body! Had
he then been divided into two, that he heard and saw himself as though
he were another person? The screaming continued. The door opened and
the mild-mannered landlady came in, probably alter knocking.
"What does the gentleman want?" she asked with shining eyes and a
peculiar smile upon her lips.
"I!" answered the sick man. "Nothing! But I am very ill and would like
to see a doctor."
"There is no doctor here, but the priest is accustomed to help us,"
answered the woman, smiling no longer.
"Send for the priest then," said the lieutenant, "though I don't
generally like them."
"But when one is ill, one likes them," said the woman, and disappeared.
When the priest entered he went to the bed and took the sick man's
wrist.
"What do you think it is?" asked the latter. "What do you think it is?"
"A bad conscience," was the priest's brief reply.
Herr von Bleichroden answered excitedly, "A bad conscience after doing
one's duty!"
"Yes," answered the priest, tying a wet handkerchief round the sick
man's head. "Listen to me while you still can. It is now _you_ who are
condemned--to a worse lot than the --three! Listen to me carefully.
I know the symptoms. You are on the edge of madness. You must try to
think the matter out. Think hard, and you will find your brain get
right again. Look at me, and follow my words if you can. You have
become two persons. You regard one part of yourself as though it were
a second or a third person. How did that happen? It is the social
falsehood, which makes us all double. When you wrote to your wife
to-day you were a man--a true, simple, good man; but when you spoke
with me you were another character altogether. Just as an actor loses
his personality and becomes a mere conglomeration of the parts he
performs, so an official becomes two persons at least. Now when there
comes a spiritual shock, upheaval or earthquake, the soul splits, as it
were, in two, and the two natures lie side by side, and contemplate
each other.
"I see a book lying on the ground which I also know. The author was a
deep thinker, perhaps the deepest of all. He saw through the misery and
nothingness of earthly life as though he had learnt from our Lord and
Saviour, but for all that he could not help being a double character,
for life, birth, habit and human weakness compelled him to relapses.
You see, sir, that I have read other books beside the breviary. And I
talk as a doctor, not as a priest, for we both--follow me carefully--we
both understand one another. Do you think I do not know the curse of
the double life which I lead? Not that I feel any doubt of the holy
things, which have passed into my blood and bones, so to speak, but I
know, sir, that I do not speak in God's name when I speak. Falsehood
passes into us from our mother's womb and breast, and he who would tell
the whole truth out under present circumstances--yes, yes! Can you
follow me?"
The sick man listened eagerly, and his eyelids had not dropped once all
the time the priest was speaking.
"Now there is a little traitor," continued the priest, "with a torch in
his hand, an angel who goes about with a basket of roses with which
he bestrews the refuse-heaps of life. He is an angel of deceit, and
he is called 'The Beautiful.' The heathen worshipped him in Greece;
princes have done him homage, for he has bewitched the eyes of people
so that they could not see things as they are. He goes through the
whole of life, falsifying and falsifying. Why do you warriors dress in
splendid clothes with gold and brilliant colours? Why do you always
work with music and flying flags? Is it not to conceal what is really
at the bottom of your profession? If you loved the truth, you ought
to go about in white smocks, like butchers, so that the bloodstains
might show distinctly, with knives and marrow-borers as they do in
slaughter-houses, with axes dripping blood and greasy with tallow.
Instead of a band of music, you ought to drive before you a herd of
howling maniacs whom the sights of the battlefield have driven crazy;
instead of flags, you should carry shrouds and draw coffins on your
wagon-trains." The sick man, who now writhed in convulsions, clasped
his hands in prayer and bit his finger-nails. The priest's face had
assumed a terrible expression--hard, implacable, hostile. He continued:
"You are naturally a good man, you, and I will not punish that side
of you, but I punish you as a representative, as you called yourself,
and your punishment will be a warning to others. Will you see the three
corpses? Will you see them?"
"No! For Jesus' sake!" shrieked the sick man, whose nightshirt was wet
with sweat and clung to his shoulder-blades.
"Your cowardice shows that you are a man, and, as such, cowardly."
As though struck by the blow of a whip, the sick man started up; his
face seemed composed, his chest was no more convulsed, and with a calm
voice, as though he were quite well, he said: "Go, devil of a priest,
or you will make me do something desperate."
"But I shall not come again if you call me," said the other. "Remember
that! Remember, that if you cannot sleep it is not my fault, but the
fault of those who lie in the billiard-room! In the billiard-room, you
know!" He flung open the door of the billiard-room, and a terrible
smell of carbolic acid streamed into the sick-chamber. "Do you smell
it? Do you smell it? That is not like smelling powder, nor is it an
exploit to telegraph home about. Great victory! Three dead and one
mad! God be praised! It is not an occasion for writing odes, strewing
flowers in the streets, and singing Te Deums in the churches? It is not
a victory! It is murder, murder, you murderer!"
Herr von Bleichroden had sprung out of bed and jumped out of the
window. In the courtyard he was seized by some of his men, whom he
tried to bite. Then he was bound and placed in a headquarter ambulance
in order to be taken to the asylum as a complete maniac.