"Halloa, there!" he calls after me, holding the money towards me.
"Thank you, I do not want the money."
At this his eye brightens. "Bravo! Bravo!" he cries. "Stay and become
my secretary; I need one possessing both a good penmanship and a good
conscience."
"My conscience is also good enough for a soldier," I answer gloomily.
"Here, Seppli!" cries Hofer at this, "bring this man rifle and knife!
Oh, that 's brave!" and he presses my hand, adding, "We shall soon have
work enough."
So I become a warrior, a Tyrolese guardsman. And soon I have work.
The French and the Bavarians and even the Austrians would not suffer a
peasant king in the citadel at Innsbruck. The enemy, three times
overthrown by the Tyrolese, had invaded the country in hordes. The rifle
worked better in my hands than I had supposed possible. Everything in
the past was forgotten, but I longed for my friend Heinrich at my side
while fighting the enemy. I captured one French flag, and in trying for
the second I was taken. Three bearded Frenchmen laughingly disarmed me,
enraged boy that I was.... They made me prisoner and dragged me away,
through Bavaria and Suabia on into France.
It is painful for me to describe that time. It was a very dog's
life,--a dog's life, not because I lay for three years in prison in a
foreign land, but because I was a rebel against my own country. In
defiance of the Emperor--so it was reported--the Tyrolese had risen
against Bavaria to which he had apportioned them. My German
fellow-countrymen acknowledged it themselves, and so my unhappiness was
complete. Instead of performing an heroic act, thou hast aided in an
evil deed, Andreas; not as brave warrior but as deserter thou liest in
chains.
A long march to Russia and to the Orient is talked of. Among many
others of my countrymen I am liberated. Several try to reach their
homes. I know nothing of any home and may know nothing. Poor fools like
myself are worse off at home than elsewhere. And as a rebel, which I
now am, I shall never return to my own land. I will do penance for my
sad mistake of illegally bearing arms against the great conqueror. I
will go with his troops and help to free the people of the Orient, and
place them in subjection to the leader of the Occident. A great aim,
Andreas, but a long journey. The Germans make the way very hard for us,
but our commander marches with lightning-like rapidity in among the
disorganised and scattered people, who can neither think great thoughts
nor do great deeds. And for many weeks we drive the Russian army before
us, over the wild steppes and endless snow-fields. But in Moscow the
Russians throw firebrands between themselves and us, in the midst of
their own capital. And we find ourselves buried in the land of unending
winter, without support, resting-place, or means of subsistence. Man
and nature are alike our enemy. Our chief, seeing that everything is
lost, turns us back. Oh, the many desert storms, the hundreds of ice
streams, the thousands and thousands of snowy graves, between us and the
fatherland! Whoever can march with benumbed limbs bruised to the knees;
whoever can tear the last tatters from the body of his dying comrade to
cover himself; whoever is able to suck the warm blood from his own veins
and eat the flesh of fallen horses and dead wolves; whoever understands
warming himself with the snow for a cover and wrestling with the waves
and flakes of ice; and, besides all this, knows how to conquer the
fright, the terror, and the despair--he, perhaps, may see his home
again.
Benumbed like my body are my soul and my brain; in a wilderness, under
the snow-laden branches of a pine tree, I am left lying.
A smoky cabin, a bright fire, a long-bearded man and a dark-skinned
maiden meet my gaze as I awake upon a couch of mats. A fur skin has
been thrown over me. Outside is a roaring sound, like the raging of
waters or like a storm. Those are good, friendly eyes which look at me
from the two people. The man is tending the fire; the girl feeding me
with milk. They are talking in their rough language, of which I cannot
understand a word. I think of Heinrich and long for the pleasant sound
of his voice. I am suffering terrible pains all over my body, which the
man has wrapped in a wet cloth. The maiden holds a little cross before
my eyes, murmuring something like a prayer. She is praying a dying
blessing for thee, Andreas!
Thou dear, friendly house in the enemy's land! What afterwards occurred
there, I can no longer recall. The swarthy maiden often laid her hand
on my brow. Had it only come then, it would have been a beautiful
death; but it happened otherwise. Even now I can hear the blow that
shattered the door. Soldiers forced their way in, maltreated the old
man, and pushed the dark-skinned girl from my bedside. They carried me
away from there, away through the storm and the wilderness--back to the
army.
I felt as though I were being dragged from my home;--but it is God's
world everywhere. However my comrades had not deserted me; and that
rejoiced my heart. Constant and true I resolved to stay by them and
serve my great general.
On the Rhine I recovered. And in the young springtime I felt a new life
stirring within me. A lad, counting but three-and twenty-years, I was
inflamed with desire for all that was noble and just, for the common
weal, for the brotherhood of man; in my enthusiasm I cried out with my
comrades, "One God in heaven and one Lord on earth!" He is the
deliverer, the quarrel of princes must now end. The nations must become
one great, united people! Such thoughts inspired me. The dark eye of
the general, like lightning in the night, inflamed us all. Against
Saxony we marched, there to fight the battle for our leader, and to
place the beautiful German country under his protection.
At Luetzen I defended the life of a French general; at Dresden I killed
Bluecher's horse from under him; at Leipzig I shot my Heinrich....
*A NEW MISSION*
"Andreas!" is his death-cry. Thus I know him. The blood bursts forth
from his breast. I now come to myself. I throw my gun against a rock,
shattering it in pieces; disarmed, I rush into battle; with his own
sword I split the skull of a French officer.
What good has it done? I have fought against my fatherland, against the
brothers who speak my language, while that of my French comrades I have
scarcely understood. And I have shot my Heinrich. Alas, how late my
eyes are opened!
"Thou art an inexperienced fellow; go to Vienna, to Carl!" Thou
faithful Hofer, had I but followed thy advice! Thy flag was good, more
glorious than all others in the wide land. From that hour when my faith
in it was torn from my heart, my misfortunes began. Love for freedom in
the world has made me captive; the expiation of my own mistake has led
me into danger and torment; loyalty to my general and longing for a
great, united whole has made me traitor to my fatherland, the murderer
of my friend. Andreas, if virtue leads thee to crime, to what depths
would evil intention have plunged thee? Thou hast proudly repelled the
true leader, experience and guidance failed thee there. Andreas, thou
hast given thyself to trade, to science, and to a soldier's life;
poverty, confusion, and repentance hast thou reaped. Foreigners have
cared for and nursed thee like a son and a brother, and they have been
maltreated for it. Thou bringest nothing good to the world or to
mankind. Andreas, thou must go to the depths of the wilderness and
become a hermit!
In Saxony, under the arms of a windmill, I repeated these truths to
myself. And thereupon I departed, fled through Bohemia and Austria, and
after many days arrived in the town of Salzburg. That anyone in this
town should recognise me, a poor, sick, ruined fellow, I did not fear.
In _Peters-Friedhof_ my father lay buried. I wished to see the mound
before seeking a cave for myself in some deserted ravine of the forest.
And as I lay upon the cold, frozen earth, once more able to weep my
heart out over my life, so young and so unfortunate, a gentleman
appeared walking among the graves; he asked what troubled me, then with
a gesture of astonishment exclaimed: "Erdmann, you here? And how
changed you are! Gone scarcely four years and hardly to be recognised!"
Herr von Schrankenheim, the father of my former pupil was standing
before me.
Walking up and down with him among the graves, I told him all. With wet
eyes he pressed money into my hand: "There, get yourself some new
clothes and then come to my house. Become a hermit!--that is no career
for a brave young lad. You must overcome your despondency and begin life
anew."
I went to his house with great dread, for there was one folly which I
had not yet conquered.
Herr von Schrankenheim presented his son to me. He had already become a
tall, elegant gentleman. With his hands behind his back, he made me a
silent bow, and after a little left us. Then his father, conducting me
into his study, bade me take a seat in the softest easy-chair.
"Erdmann," he began after awhile, "are you really in earnest in your
desire to live a life of seclusion in the wilderness?"
"That is the best thing for me," I answered. "I am worthless among
people who live in joy and pleasure; in wandering and confusion, the few
years of my youth have tossed me about from one land to another and
amongst the misery of nations. Sir, I know the world and have enough of
it."
"You are hardly in your twenty-fourth year, and not yet at the height of
your powers, and you wish to give up the service you might render your
fellow-men?"
At that I listened attentively; the words impressed me.
"If you think that up to the present time you have only been the author
of evil, why do you wish to escape from the dust without also giving the
world and the community the good which surely slumbers in rich measure
within you?"