The Steward of Rodeck stood in the study of Prince Adelsberg's palace,
in the Residenz. He had been called there to receive various orders and
plans before the departure of his young lord.
Egon, who already wore the uniform of his regiment, had given him
verbal instructions, and now dismissed the old man.
"Keep the old forest nook in good order for me as heretofore," he
concluded. "It is just possible that I may go to Rodeck for a few hours
before I leave, but I hardly believe so, for the order to march may
come any day. How do I please you in my uniform?"
He arose and drew himself up to his full height. The slender, youthful
form looked well in the uniform of a lieutenant, and Stadinger measured
him with admiring eyes.
"Real splendid!" he assured the Prince. "It is a pity that Your
Highness is not a soldier by profession."
"Do you think so? Well, I am one now, body and soul. Service in the
field will come rather hard to me, and I will have to get used to it
first. But it does not hurt when one is under strict discipline."
"No, Your Highness, it will not hurt you at all," remarked Stadinger,
with his terrible truthfulness. "When Your Highness travels about for
years in the Orient with a great sea serpent and a whole herd of
elephants, or when you run away from the most gracious Court at Ostend
because you do not want to marry at all--nothing comes of that but
only----"
"But only stupidity," completed the Prince, wisely. "Stadinger, I shall
severely miss one thing in the campaign--your boundless tiresomeness.
You want to give me a last curtain lecture--I see it in your face--but
will spare you the trouble. Remember me rather to Lena when you get
home. Is she back at Rodeck now?"
"Yes, Your Highness, _now_ she is there," said the old man, with heavy
emphasis.
"Of course, because I march to France. But be content; I shall return a
genuine model of sense and virtue, and then--then I shall marry, too."
"Really?" Stadinger cried in joyful surprise. "How glad the most
gracious Court will be."
"That depends," teased Egon. "I may terrorize the most gracious Court
with my engagement, and perhaps inflict cramps upon my most gracious
Aunt Sophie with it. Don't look so stupid at this, Stadinger. You don't
understand it, but I will permit you to crack your head over it
during the campaign. But now go, and if we should not see each other
again--keep your master in pleasant remembrance."
Stadinger's face took on the grimmest of wrinkles to hide the upwelling
tears, but he could not succeed.
"How can Your Highness talk like that?" he muttered. "Shall I, an old
man, remain perhaps alone in this world, and not see you any more--so
handsome so young and happy! I could not live at that."
"And I have vexed you so much, old Waldgeist," said the young Prince,
giving him his hand; "but you are right--we must think of victory and
not death. But, when both come together, then death is easy."
The old man bent over his master's hand, and a tear fell upon it.
"I wish I could go, too," he said, under his breath.
"I believe it," laughed Egon; "and you would not look bad as a soldier,
in spite of your snow-white hair. But we younger ones have to march
now, and you old ones remain at home. Farewell, Stadinger----" He shook
his hand cordially. "I really believe you are crying. You ought to be
ashamed of yourself. Away with tears and sad anticipations. You will
yet read me another lecture."
"May God grant it!" sighed Peter Stadinger, from the depths of his
heart. With wet eyes he looked once more into the youthful face, so
full of life, smiling at him, so happy and sure of victory. Then he
left sadly, with bowed head, realizing how much his young master had
grown into his heart.
The Prince cast a glance at the clock. He was to go to his superior,
but saw that he had almost an hour yet, so he reached for the
newspapers and plunged into the newest dispatches and reports.
A rapid footstep sounded in the ante-room. Egon looked up in surprise.
Servants were not in the habit of making such a noise, and callers were
always announced. But this caller did not need any announcing, as all
the servants knew. All doors were open to him in the house of Prince
Adelsberg.
"Hartmut, is it you?"
Egon sprang to his feet in joyful surprise, and cast himself on the
breast of the newcomer.
"You back in Germany, and I have no idea of it! You wicked monster, to
leave me for fully two months without news of you! Have you come to say
good-by to me?"
Hartmut had neither returned the greeting nor the stormy embrace.
Silently and gloomily he suffered both, and when he spoke at last, even
his tone betrayed nothing of the joy of this _Wiedersehen_.
"I came straight from the depot. I hardly dared hope to find you still
here, and yet everything depends upon it for me."
"But why did you not announce your return to me? I wrote you
immediately after the declaration of war. You were still in Sicily
then, were you not?"
"No; I left there as soon as war seemed unavoidable, and did not
receive your letter. I have been in Germany a week."
"And you come to me only now?" said Egon, reproachfully.
Rojanow did not notice this reproach. His eyes rested upon his friend's
uniform with almost a jealous expression.
"You are already on duty, I see," he said, hastily. "I also intend to
enter the German army."
Egon evidently expected something entirely different. He retreated a
step in boundless surprise.
"In the German army? You--a Roumanian?"
"Yes, and therefore I have come to you. Will you make it possible for
me?"
"I?" asked the Prince, whose surprise grew greater and greater. "I am
nothing more than a young officer. If you are really in earnest in this
strange resolve, you must go to one of the standing posts of command."
"I have already done that at various places. I have tried it even in
your neighboring state, but they will not accept the stranger. They
demand all sorts of papers and references, which I do not possess, and
torture me with endless questions. Everywhere suspicion and mistrust
affront me. Nobody will understand my resolve."
"To speak the truth, Hartmut, I don't understand it, either," said
Egon, solemnly. "You have always showed such a deep antipathy to
Germany--you are the son of a country whose higher circles know only
French education and customs--which stands in sympathy exclusively with
France. The mistrust of strangers is easily understood. But why do you
not turn directly to the Duke, and personally accomplish your desires?
You know how prepossessed he is with the poet of 'Arivana.' It will
cost you only an audience, which will be granted you at any time, and
an order from him will remove every difficulty and admit every
exception."
Rojanow's glance fell, and his clouded brow grew darker as he replied:
"I know that, but I cannot ask anything from that side. The Duke would
put the same questions as all the rest, and I could not withhold the
answer from him, and the truth--I cannot tell it to him."
"Not even to me?" asked the Prince, stepping up to him and laying his
hand on Hartmut's shoulder. "Why do you insist so persistently upon
entering our army? What do you look for under our colors?"
Hartmut passed his hand across his brow, as if to wipe something away
from there. Then he replied, heavily and huskily:
"Salvation--or death."
"You return as you went--a puzzle," said Egon, shaking his head. "You
have hitherto refused every explanation. Can I not now learn your
secret?"
"Obtain me an entrance into your army, and I will tell you everything,"
Rojanow cried in feverish excitement. "No matter under what conditions,
only see that it is granted me. But do not speak to the Duke nor to a
general, but turn to one of the lower commanders. Your name, your
relationship with the reigning house makes your word powerful. They
will not answer Prince Adelsberg with a 'No' when he himself speaks for
a volunteer."
"But the same question will be put to him as to you--you, a Roumanian."
"No, no," cried Hartmut, passionately. "If I must confess it to you--I
am a German."
The effect of this disclosure was not as great as Hartmut might have
feared. The Prince looked at him for a moment, amazed.
"I have thought so at times, for the one who could compose an Arivana
in the German language did not get this language by education, but had
grown up with it. But you bear the name Rojanow----"
"The name of my mother, who belonged to a Roumanian--Bojar's family. My
name is--Hartmut von Falkenried."
His own name sounded strange in his ears, for he had not pronounced it
for years; but Egon grew attentive at the name.
"Falkenried? That was the name of the Prussian Colonel who came on that
secret mission from Berlin. Are you any connection of his?"
"He is my father."
The young Prince looked compassionately upon his friend, for he saw how
terribly hard this confession came to him. He felt that a family drama
was hidden here, and, too delicate to investigate further, he only
asked: "And you do not want to proclaim yourself the son of your
father, not a Falkenried? Every Prussian regiment would be open to you
then."
"No, they would be closed to me forever. I fled from the cadets' school
ten years ago."
"Hartmut!" Absolute terror was in the exclamation.
"Do you also, like my father, consider me worthy of death for it? You,
of course, have grown up in freedom and have no conception of the iron
rule which reigns in these institutions; of the tyranny with which one
is bent under the yoke of blind obedience. I could not stand it. I was
forced to freedom and light. I begged--entreated my father--but in
vain. He held me fast in the chain--when I broke it, and fled with my
mother."
He uttered this, all with wild, desperate defiance; but his eyes rested
anxiously upon the face of his listener. His father, with his severe
ideas of honor, had sentenced him; but his friend, who idolized him,
who in passionate enthusiasm admired his genius and all that he did--he
_must_ understand the necessity of his step. But this friend was
silent, and in this silence lay the sentence.