Felix left the shop angrily, and now sought his old acquaintance,
Ephraim Staub. But the latter shrugged his shoulders, said that he had
already done a great deal for the Baron for the sake of his respectful
devotion to him; he relied upon his honor, but still the notes of a
minor were not legal, and all men were mortal, and if anything should
happen to the young Baron who would answer to him, Ephraim Staub, that
the young gentleman's papa would not throw him together with his notes,
which in the eyes of the law were not legal, out of the door?
Felix chewed the knob of his riding-whip angrily. Then carefully
feeling his way, the usurer ventured an infamous proposition.
"Certainly a note with your father's acceptance--that would be
safe--the old gentleman would certainly redeem that--one could always
apply the thumbscrews to one's papa." Ephraim could assure the Baron
that young people of the best families--he must, alas, conceal the
names--had given him this kind of guarantee.
For a long time the true signification of this speech was wholly dark
to Felix, but at length he understood, then he did not even take the
trouble to fall into a rage, only threw back his head arrogantly and
raised his riding-whip to the usurer as one strikes a cur who has
ventured too near.
How did it happen that three days later he returned to Ephraim Staub
and made out the note in the shameful manner which the latter had
desired of him? Yes; how did it happen? Felix no longer knows. If he
knew, he could perhaps understand his crime to-day, but he does not
understand it.
His memory is a blank concerning the three days in which he had slowly
sunk to forgery; there is a dark spot, a chasm in his recollection; he
can only take it up again in the moment when, exhausted as if after
weeks of fever, bathed in cold sweat, and groping along the walls, he
crept from Ephraim's shop to the jeweller's; how suddenly he was
frightened at the gargoyle on the cornice of a house, frightened
because the head laughed.
From this moment he was not happy for a second, not even with Juanita.
Strangely enough, his passion for her now was completely in the
background; it fled.
It seemed to him that a monster sat upon his back and buried two iron
claws in his shoulders, and blew in his ears with his hot, terrible
breath.
The evening on which Juanita was to show her splendid beauty and her
empirical dancing to the audience of the opera house arrived.
A warm, September evening. There had been a hard shower; there was an
odor of wet stone and marble as Felix went to the theatre. By turns he
shook with cold and grew feverish, he suffered with a severe cold. The
theatre was still only sparsely filled. When he took his seat in one of
the front rows he noticed that people pointed him out to each other and
whispered his name. He was a celebrity--Juanita's lover!
And all the soft voices pierced his ears, and yet no one could know
that.
The ballet had been introduced into an opera, he could not have said
into which one; he heard nothing, he saw nothing which took place upon
the stage.
The triumphal fanfare of the madrilena roused him from his brooding.
How beautiful she was!
A cloud of black lace and satin floated about her. On her breast was a
bunch of white roses, in her ears sparkled two great drops like frozen
tears.
Felix saw nothing of the whole apparition but these great sparkling
drops. He would have liked to scream out, "Hold her fast, she wears my
honor in her ears!"
Poor Felix; he was delirious. The triumph which Juanita had experienced
at the Orpheum was nothing to her present one at the opera house. A
foreign prince, who chanced to be in the house, clapped his hands in
approval; the X---- saw it in her box, and grew green with envy.
Then Juanita threw her last kiss and vanished. The opera proceeded.
Felix sat in his place as if petrified.
At last, at the close of the act, he rose to go behind the scenes. That
uneasy hum, which in the world follows a triumph or a fiasco, prevailed
there. Juanita was nowhere to be seen. He knocked at her dressing-room
door, her maid alone answered him. Juanita was gone, had just driven
away. "His Highness Prince Arthur"--the girl was a born Viennese--"had
arranged a supper in all haste in honor of the Senorita, and--she
thought the Baron knew of it----"
Felix heard nothing more; in mad haste he rushed down the narrow stairs
to the stage entrance, and out across the open square before the
theatre. He saw a closed carriage turn a corner. Felix did not know
whom the carriage contained--probably a perfect stranger--and still he
rushed after it--rushed after it like an insane man for a long
distance. The earth trembled beneath him; with a hoarse, breathless
gasp, he sank to the ground.
When he was picked up, he was unconscious. For weeks he lay senseless,
with a severe nervous fever. His father came to Vienna to care for him.
After about eight weeks the physicians declared that for the present
there was no danger--he could be transported to Traunberg, as was the
urgent desire of his father.
At that time Felix was still so weak that he had to be carried; he
slept almost continuously, spoke indistinctly, and had forgotten the
immediate past.
Ephraim Staub hated Felix because of the manner in which, without
removing his cap, with one finger on the visor, he would enter
Ephraim's house, yawning, and say, "You, I want money!" and because of
the manner in which he carelessly crumpled the bank-notes--which
Ephraim never handled except reverently--and thrust them in his
pockets, and because of the cut of the whip with which Felix had
answered his perfidious proposition the first time.
He discounted the note. The old Baron's lawyer learned that a note with
his name upon it was in circulation, and inquired by letter whether the
Baron wished it redeemed for family considerations.
The Baron knew nothing of Juanita. Naturally, Felix had never written
him of his relations with her, and a stranger would never have ventured
to inform the violent old Lanzberg of anything discreditable to his
son. Felix had of late asked his father for no great sums of money, and
the father knew him to be always scrupulously honorable.
How could he look upon the scarcely veiled insinuation of the advocate
as other than an insult? Enraged at the suspicion cast upon his son, he
did not even take the trouble to think the matter over, but wrote at
once, in his first indignation, a brusque letter to his advocate, in
which he declared that he knew nothing of the matter--it could take its
course. It did not even occur to him to excite the invalid Felix with
this horrid story--he told him nothing of it.
Slowly Felix recovered his health, but his happy temper did not return,
he remained always gloomy and monosyllabic--not rude but deeply sad.
His father often gazed anxiously into his eyes, which then every time
looked away from him, and he stroked his cheeks compassionately, which
then always flushed beneath his touch. And once he took the
convalescent's thin hand in his, and said, "Does anything worry you, my
poor boy? It is surely some heart trouble which often comes to one of
your age," and as Felix, who at the beginning of this speech had paled,
now was silent, flushing more and more deeply, the Baron added,
clapping him good-naturedly on the shoulder, "You need not worry about
your secret. I will ask you no more about it if it annoys you; I only
thought it might relieve you to unburden your heart."
Felix buried his face in his hands, and burst into tears. To this day
he can hear in his ears the caressing consolation of his father, the
soft, monotonous voice with which he murmured again and again, "Do not
excite yourself, child; poor fellow, poor fellow!"
That Felix's melancholy could have anything in connection with the
lawyer's communication, did not occur to the Baron.
The next day Felix confessed to his father. It was after breakfast;
they sat alone, opposite each other, at a little round table.
For a moment the old man stared before him with fixed, dull gaze; then
rising helplessly and slowly from his chair, stretching out his
trembling hands, he fell upon his face, senseless.
What cut Felix most bitterly, most deeply to his heart was, that when
the Baron recovered from his swoon he had not a word of reproof for his
son--not a word. Oh, if he had raged, had cursed and execrated him, all
this Felix could have borne more easily than the sight of the terrible,
helpless sadness with which from time to time the Baron struck his
hands together and murmured: "I was indiscreet; oh, furious old fool, I
was indiscreet, indiscreet!"
The meaning of these words only later became clear to Felix.
The Baron telegraphed to the lawyer--he went to Vienna the same day.
It was too late!
All the steps which were taken to spare Felix the publication of his
fault and the degrading punishment, were in vain.
The affair occurred in an unfavorable epoch for him, as the courts felt
obliged shortly after an _eclat_ to be doubly severe, as the
consideration which had recently been shown in a similar case for a
noble name had called forth the justest indignation from the liberal
press.
Felix was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.
His father begged an audience of His Majesty. All that he attained was
that the sentence should be diminished to one year.
An example must be made.
And the farewell. The last, long, trembling embrace of his father, the
moment when the guards who were to conduct the convict away busied
themselves with their sabres and compassionately withdrew while the
father whispered imploringly to his son, "Promise me that you will do
no harm to yourself!"
And the time in the prison. The fearful despair of the first weeks,
when he longed for death, and the promise which he had given his father
continually weighed upon and tormented him like a fetter; the brooding
stupor into which this despair changed, and which in its turn gave
place to a gradual reviving and accustoming himself to his
circumstances. He remembered very well the day when he began to look
around at his companions, began anxiously to seek manifestations of
their good qualities; to search among them for young people of
blameless lives who had sinned in a moment of madness. What did he
find? A few convicts who by alternating imprisonment and crime had
gradually become dull and stupid, others who had wholly degenerated to
rough, terrible, malicious animals; besides these, two or three sons of
good family, who confessed their sins with brutal cynicism, scornfully
derided their relatives and procured through the jailer wine, cards and
evil romances. The sight of these people caused Felix boundless misery.
How he loathed them; how they astonished him; the importance which
trifles had for them, and that they had the heart to rail at the poor
food!
The doubt came to him whether the idea which he had of himself was not
a mere illusion. He dissected his most secret impulses, criticised all
his instincts--in short, tormented himself into a pitiable condition.
The remnant of self-respect which he had taken into the prison shrunk
away to nothing.
All who had anything to do with him showed him the warmest sympathy. He
was so quiet, so obliging; he never asked for anything except more
work. The degraded officers were at that time employed in the office
work. Felix fulfilled the tasks allotted him with the most painful
punctiliousness. At the prison he accustomed himself to that correct
regular handwriting which differed so greatly from the careless writing
of his gay youth.
The old baron had begged that some consideration might be shown Felix
on account of his weakened health. They were perfectly willing to do
so, but Felix would hear nothing of this. The money which his father
sent him to procure little comforts, he gave to assistants.
At last the year was over.
Felix had received a letter from his father, in which the latter, too
considerate to personally accompany his son from the prison, told him
that he would meet him at this or that station, to take a long trip
with him. But Felix could not resolve to meet his father immediately
after this degrading imprisonment.
It was in the year 1866. War was expected. Felix enlisted in a regiment
as a private soldier. He performed his duties with fanatic zeal. The
soldiers, who knew nothing of his sad story, looked upon his serving in
their ranks as the "whim of a great gentleman," such as is not unusual
in excited times, and met him with defiant opposition. But he took such
sincere trouble to win their liking, so willingly shared their whole
life, that they soon became devoted to him. Their unfeigned liking was
more pleasant to him than the sentimental humanity which he met with
later in life. Often one of his present comrades pushed him away from
some work which he considered unworthy of Felix, and murmured with
good-natured embarrassment, "That you are not used to, sir." The
officers, who at first had been very ill at ease with him, gradually
understood how painful it was to him if any difference was made between
him and his comrades, and gave up attempting to make an exception of
him.
He never complained, ate the coarsest food without changing his
expression in the slightest, conscientiously polished the buttons of
his uniform, and always chose the worst place to bivouac.
The first cannon was fired.
Felix fought at Trautenau; fought without enthusiasm, without
melodramatic heroism; he fought with the sober, unbounded bravery of a
man who does not need the hurrahs to be spurred on by, whose life is
wholly indifferent to him, and who hopes and wishes for no other reward
for his self-sacrificing performance of his duty than--death.
The leaden rain of the Prussian vanguard--it was wholly unknown to the
Austrians who did not fight in Schlesing--had a soothing effect upon
his nerves. The breathless excitement of battle did him good. What
pained him was the moment before the conflict, when old veterans passed
each other their field-flasks, and expressed indifferent opinions about
the weather; and the young soldiers, scarcely grown recruits, with
shining eyes and pale cheeks, cried "Hurrah!" and inflated their
chests, while the guns shook in their hands. What pained him was the
moment after the battle, when the last smoke of powder, and a dull echo
of the noise of battle filled the air, and the soldiers, confused and
stunned, met in camp, and one or another, rousing from the stupor which
followed the fearful excitement of battle, asked fearfully, "Where is
F----? where is M----?" and then with a shudder remembered that he,
himself, had seen F---- and M---- fall. What pained him was, when in
the night the wounded cried and groaned, until their comrades'
compassion changed to impatience, and they complained over the noise
which prevented them from sleeping.
Then came the third of July, the day of Sadowa.
It was damp, cold weather, no sun in the heavens. On the earth
trodden-down grain, soiled with dirt and blood; a confusion of blue and
white soldiers, partly arranged in compact, geometrically exact
figures, partly scattered in sheltered positions, partly crouching
behind earthworks, so far separated that Prussians and Austrians mostly
saw each other as points or masses. Hostile, without hostility, they
stood opposite each other; perhaps not one among the thousands upon
thousands here and yonder hated the other, and yet each one was ready
to do his utmost to kill the unknown enemy.
Fog mixed with the powder-smoke. There was a wild confusion of screams,
groans, rolling of wheels, rattling of sabres, and stamping of horses.
In the distance chaos seemed to prevail; at the spot where Felix was
stationed a kind of monotony, a kind of order ruled.
The ranks close over the fallen. "Fire!" commands the officer.
There is a click of the gun hammers, the flames shine redly on the
gun-barrels--sch--sch whistle the hostile balls around Felix; crashing,
ear-splitting, like sharp hail, answer the riflemen.
Felix was at Swiepwald, with the regiment of riflemen of which the
Austrians only speak with tears in their eyes, the Prussians with hands
on their caps!
For a while the losses were slight. All went well. Then came a moment
when the riflemen received the hostile balls indifferently. Many of
them were weary and found time to say so, still more were hungry--few
Austrian soldiers received anything to eat on that memorable day, the
day of Sadowa. Felix had given his last rations to a young recruit who,
as he thought, needed nourishment more than he; but Felix had
overestimated his strength, an unusual faintness suddenly overcame him,
he begged his neighbor for his flask, and crash!--a shell--and the
neighbor lay on the ground with shattered feet.
From this moment the losses are immense. Man after man falls. Little
brownish-red streams of blood trickle through the ruts of the ground,
the pine-trees become bare, their needles fall unpleasantly,
prickingly, upon the faces of the riflemen. With the whistling of the
musket-balls mingles the groaning shots of the artillery like the
deafening, reechoing thunder in a mountainous country. The atmosphere
is unbearably impregnated with the peculiar odor of battle. With the
smell of powder and heated iron mingles the odor of perspiration of an
excited mass of men, and the repulsive, terrible, salt smell of their
blood.
The fog becomes more and more thick. The riflemen see nothing near them
but dead comrades, and before, a white wall behind which death lurks.
They no longer know what is taking place at the other end of the field,
do not know that the Prussian Crown Prince has arrived; but all feel
that they are fighting for a lost cause, and that their resistance is
nothing more than a heroic demonstration.
Always in the front rank, Felix fights on. Twice have the men at his
right and left fallen, but all the balls whistle past him--from second
to second he expects death, but it comes not.
There are not thirty men left of his battalion; orderlies fly to and
fro, the officers are hoarse, then suddenly the cry, "Retreat!"
Retreat!
Felix stands as if rooted to the ground--Retreat! What, shall he flee?
No! But captivity, in which, bound as he is by his promise, he would
not have the right to take his life! And he retreats with the others,
who now join the great mass. Their pace becomes more and more irregular
and hurried.
The evening is dark, the enemy behind them, the few riflemen are among
the last. A standard-bearer sinks down, wounded in the knee by a stray
shot. No one troubles himself about him or the flag.
What is the flag? Nothing but a soiled, torn rag. Nothing but--the
symbol of the regiment's honor.
Honor! The word has a mysterious, alluring sound for Felix, somewhat as
the word water has for one perishing in the desert.
Honor! honor! He takes the flag from the standard-bearer's hand, who
pleads piteously that he may at least be pushed into a ditch and not
trodden upon like a worm. Felix performs this service for him, and
remains far behind his comrades. At length he raises the flag and is
about to proceed with it.
But, deathly wearied as he is, he can scarcely carry it, so he tears
the flag from the pole, and breaking this over his knee he wishes to
bury both pieces in the slime of the ditch, but before he has
accomplished this a little band of Prussian cavalry approaches. He lays
his hand on his gun, but if he defends himself, defends himself so that
they must kill him, the flag is forfeited. He then stretches himself in
the mire of the road, flat on his face over the flag, as to-day he has
seen many of his comrades, shot through the heart.
The horses trot past him; one of them starts back from him, this rider
looks before him, sees what he takes for a corpse and passes on.
The horse, who takes the leap required of him with the timidity which
every human body inspires in his species, strikes Felix with his hoof.
When the riders are out of sight, and all is still, Felix rises, a
stinging pain in his left arm. At first he thought the arm was broken,
but no, only a severe contusion causes the pain. He thrusts his hand
into his coat, wraps the flag around it, and creeps wearily forward.