The castle clock struck twelve in slow, hollow strokes. Deathlike
stillness lay over the forest outside, and it was as still in the house
where a corpse lay. The steward and servants had retired, as had Frau
von Eschenhagen. Exhausted nature demanded its due. She had made the
long, tedious journey from Burgsdorf without stop, and had lived
through the hard, trying day.
Only a few windows were dimly lighted; they belonged to the rooms which
had been appointed to Frau von Wallmoden and Colonel Falkenried, which
lay near together, separated only by an ante-room.
Falkenried intended to accompany the widow back to the Residenz on the
morrow. He had spoken with her and Regine, and had stood for a long
time beside the body of his friend, who only yesterday had called to
him so confidently, "_auf wiedersehen_"--who had been so full of his
projects and plans for his future and his newly acquired possessions.
Now all this had come to an end. Cold and stiff he lay upon his bier,
and cold and gloomy Falkenried now stood at the window of his room.
Even this awful accident was not able to shake his stony composure, for
he had long ago forgotten to consider death a misfortune. _Life_ was
hard--but not death.
He looked silently out into the winter night and he, too, saw the
ghostly glimmer which lighted the darkness out there. Dark-red it now
glowed upon the distant horizon, and the whole of the northern sky
seemed penetrated by invisible flames.
Redlike, as through a purple veil, twinkled the stars. Now a few
distant rays shot up, growing more numerous, and rising always higher
to the zenith.
Beneath this flaming sky the snow-covered world lay cold and white. The
aurora was shining in the fulness of its splendor!
Falkenried was so lost in the glory of the sight that he did not hear
the opening and closing of the door of the ante-room. Carefully the
partly closed door of his own room was now opened, but the one entering
did not bring himself into view, but remained motionless upon the
threshold.
Colonel Falkenried still stood at the window half-averted, but the
flickering light of the candles which burned upon the table lighted his
face distinctly; the strong, deep lines of the features, and the
gloomy, careworn brow beneath the white hair.
Hartmut shivered involuntarily; he had not anticipated such a deep and
awful change. The man standing in his prime, looked aged, and who had
brought this premature age upon him?
A few moments passed in this deep silence, then a voice vibrated
through the room half-audible, beseeching, and full of a tenderness
suppressed with difficulty--a single word pregnant with meaning.
"Father!"
Falkenried started as if a spirit voice had reached his ear. Slowly he
turned as if really believing he heard a spirit-haunting voice.
Hartmut quickly approached a few steps, then stood still.
"Father, it is I--I come----"
He stopped short, for now he met his father's eyes; those eyes which he
had feared so much, and what they now expressed robbed him of the
courage to speak further. He bowed his head in silence.
Every drop of blood seemed to have left the face of Colonel Falkenried.
He had not known--he had no idea that his son was under the same roof
with him; the meeting found him totally unprepared, but it did not tear
from him one exclamation, nor sign of anger or weakness. Rigid and mute
he stood there and looked upon him who had once been his all. At last
he raised his hand and pointed to the door.
"Go!"
"Father, listen to me----"
"Go, I say." The command now sounded threatening.
"No, I shall not go!" cried Hartmut passionately. "I know that
reconciliation with you depends upon this hour. I have offended
you--how deeply and seriously I feel only now--but I was a boy of
seventeen, and it was my mother whom I followed. Think of that, father,
and pardon me--grant pardon to your son."
"You are the son of the woman whose name you bear--not mine!" said the
Colonel with cutting scorn. "A Falkenried has no son without honor."
Hartmut was about to burst forth at this awful word; the blood rose hot
and wild to his brow, but he looked upon that other brow beneath the
hair bleached like snow, and with superhuman effort controlled himself.
The two believed themselves alone during this interview in the
stillness of the night--surely everything was sleeping in the castle.
They had no idea that a witness was there.
Adelaide von Wallmoden had not retired to rest. She knew that she could
find no sleep after this day which had so suddenly and disastrously
made her a widow. Dressed still in the dark traveling suit which she
had worn on the unfortunate drive, she sat in her room, when suddenly
Colonel Falkenried's voice reached her ear.
With whom could he be speaking at such an hour? Was he not a total
stranger here? And the voice sounded so strangely hollow and
threatening.
She arose in alarm and entered the ante-room which separated the two
sleeping apartments--for only a moment, she thought--only to see
that nothing had happened; then she heard another voice which she
knew--heard the word "Father," and like lightning the truth flashed
upon her, which the next words confirmed. As if paralyzed, she remained
standing there, every word reaching her through the partly closed door.
"You make this hour hard for me," said Hartmut with painfully sustained
composure. "Be it so--I have not expected it otherwise. Wallmoden has
told you everything. I might have known it, but then he could not keep
from you what I have sought and won. I bring to you the laurel of the
poet, father--the first laurel which has come to me. Learn to know my
work; let it speak to you, then you will feel that its creator could
not live and breathe in the constraint of a vocation which kills every
poetical emotion; then you will forget the unfortunate error of the
boy."
Here again it was Hartmut Rojanow who spoke thus with his overweening
self-consciousness and pride, which did not leave him even in this
hour; the poet of Arivana, for whom there existed no duties--no
barriers; but he encountered a rock here, upon which he shattered.
"The boy's error!" repeated Falkenried, just as harshly as before.
"Yes, they called it so to make it possible for me to remain in the
army. I name it differently, and so does every one of my comrades. You
were to have been an ensign. In a few weeks it would have been
desertion of the standard by law also. I have never considered it
anything else. You had been raised in the strict discipline of honor of
our caste, and knew what you did, for you were no longer a boy. _He who
flees secretly from the military service which he owes his fatherland
is a deserter; he who breaks a vow--a given word--is without honor. You
did both!_ But of course you and your kind pass over such things
easily."
Hartmut clenched his teeth; his whole body trembled at these merciless
words, and his voice sounded hollow, choked, as he answered:
"Enough, father. I cannot bear it. I wished to bow before you--wished
to submit--but you yourself drive me from you. This is the same cruel
sternness with which you drove my mother from you. I know it from her
own lips. Whatever her later life was, and however through it my own
has developed--this severity alone has been the cause of it."
The Colonel folded his arms, and an expression of unspeakable disdain
quivered around his mouth.
"From her own lips you know? Possibly. No woman has sunk so deeply but
she would try to veil such a truth from her son. I did not wish to
pollute your ears at that time with this truth, for you were innocent
and pure. Now you will probably understand me when I tell you that the
separation was a demand of honor. The man who stained my honor fell by
my bullet, and she who betrayed me--I pushed from me."
Hartmut became white as death at this disclosure. He had never thought
that. He had fully believed that only the harshness which lay in his
father's character had caused the separation. The remembrance of his
mother fell lower and lower; he had loved her just as ardently as she
had loved him, even when he felt at times that she was his ruin.
"I wished to protect you from the poisonous breath of this presence and
influence," continued Falkenried. "Fool that I was! You were lost to me
even without the coming of your mother. You bear her features; it is
her blood that courses through your veins, and it would have demanded
its dominion sooner or later. You would have become anyway what you are
now--a homeless adventurer, who does not recognize his fatherland and
his honor."
"This is too much!" burst forth Hartmut wildly. "I shall not permit
myself to be so abused, even by you. I see now that no reconciliation
between us is possible. I go, but the world will judge differently from
you. It has already crowned my first work, and I shall force from it
the appreciation which my own father keeps from me."
The Colonel looked at his son--something awful was in the glance; then
he said icily and slowly, emphasizing each word: "Then take care also
that the world does not learn that the 'crowned poet' did a spy's
service two years ago at Paris."
Hartmut shrank as if hit by a bullet.
"I? In Paris? Are you out of your senses?"
Falkenried shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.
"Acting besides? Do not trouble yourself--I know all. Wallmoden proved
to me what role Zalika Rojanow and her son played at Paris. I know the
origin of the means by which they continued the life they were
accustomed to when their wealth was lost. They were very much sought
after by the commissioners, for they were exceedingly apt, and they who
bought their services received them."
Hartmut stood as if lifeless. So this was the awful solution of the
problem which Wallmoden had given him that night in his hint. He had
not understood its meaning then, but sought the solution in another
direction. This was it, then, which his mother kept from him--from
which she had diverted him with caresses and coaxings whenever he
put a suspicious question. She had sunk to the last, most disgraceful
lot--and her son was branded with her.
The silence which now ensued was awful; it lasted for minutes, and when
Hartmut finally spoke again his voice had lost its sound--the words
came brokenly, almost inaudibly, from his lips:
"And you believe--that I--that I knew about this?"
"Yes," said the Colonel, coldly and firmly.
"Father, you cannot--must not do that. The punishment would be too
terrible. You must believe me when I tell you that I had no idea
of this disgrace--that I believed a part of our wealth had been
saved--that--you will believe me, father?"
"No." Falkenried remained rigid and unbending as before.
Beside himself with anguish, Hartmut fell upon his knees.
"Father, before everything that is sacred to you in heaven or in
earth--oh, do not look at me so terribly. You drive me frantic with
that look! Father, I give you my word of honor----"
An awful, wild laugh from his father interrupted him.
"Your word of honor as at that time at Burgsdorf. Get up--abandon
acting; you do not deceive me by it. You went from me with a breaking
of your word--_you return with a lie_. Go your own way--I go mine. Only
one thing I request of you--command you. Do not dare to use the name of
Falkenried by the side of the branded one of Rojanow. Never let the
world know who you are. When that happens my blood will be upon you,
for then--I end with life!"
With a loud cry Hartmut sprang to his feet and approached his father,
but Falkenried repelled him by a commanding gesture.
"Do you think that I still love life? I have borne it because I had
to--perhaps I considered it my duty; but there is one point where this
duty ends; you know it now--act accordingly."
He turned his back upon his son and walked to the window. Hartmut did
not speak another word. Mutely he turned to go.
The ante-room was not lighted, yet it was filled with the glow
of the blazing skies outside, and in this glow stood a woman--deathly
pale--with eyes fixed with an indescribable expression upon the one
approaching.
He glanced up and a single look showed him that she knew all. This was
the last. He had received his mortal humiliation before the woman he
loved--had been thrown into the dust before her!
Hartmut did not know how he left the castle, how he reached the open
air. He only felt that he should stifle in those walls--that he was
driven forth with fury and power. He found himself at last under a fir
tree, which bowed its snow-covered limbs over him. It was night in the
forest--cold, icy winter night, but up there in the sky the mysterious
light shone on and on with purple power, with quivering rays, which
united at the zenith into a crown.