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Greifenstein

by F. Marion Crawford · English · Gutenberg #6446 · 861,397 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Greifenstein

Author: F. Marion Crawford


        
Release date: September 1, 2004 [eBook #6446]
                Most recently updated: November 3, 2016

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREIFENSTEIN ***




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Distributed Proofreading Team










GREIFENSTEIN


By F. Marion Crawford




CHAPTER I


Frau von Sigmundskron was not really much past middle age, though the
people in the village generally called her the old baroness. Her hair
was very white and she was thin and pale; her bold features, almost
emaciated, displayed the framework of departed beauty, and if her high
white forehead and waxen face were free from lines and wrinkles, it must
have been because time and grief could find no plastic material there in
which to trace their story. She was a very tall woman, too, and carried
her head erect and high, walking with a firmness and elasticity of step
such as would not have been expected in one whose outward appearance
conveyed so little impression of strength. It is true that she had never
been ill in her life and that her leanness was due to the most natural
of all causes; but these facts were not patent to the observer, and for
reasons which will presently appear she herself would have been the last
to mention them. There was something, too, in the look of her blue
eyes, shaded by long brown lashes which had retained their colour, that
forbade any expression of sympathy. The least experienced of mankind
would have seen at a glance that she was the proudest of women, and
would have guessed that she must be one of the most reticent. She moved
and spoke as though Sigmundskron were still what it had been in former
days, and she had brought up her only child to be as much like herself,
as it was possible that anything so young and fair could resemble what
was already a type of age and gravity.

Poverty is too insignificant a word to describe the state in which the
mother and daughter lived, and had lived for many years. They had no
means of subsistence whatever beyond the pension accorded to the widow
of Lieutenant von Sigmundskron, ‘fallen on the field of honour,’ as the
official report had expressed it, in the murderous war with France.
He had been the last of his name and at the time of his death had no
relations living; two years earlier he had married a girl as penniless
and as noble as himself, and had lived to see a daughter born, destined
to inherit his nobility, his penury, and the bare walls of his ancestral
home.

Sigmundskron had been a very grand castle in its day, and the
half-ruined walls of the old stronghold still rose majestically from the
summit of the crag. Indeed the ruin was more apparent than real as yet,
and a few thousands judiciously expended upon the masonry would have
sufficed to restore the buildings to their original completeness. Many
a newly enriched merchant or banker would have paid a handsome price for
the place, though the land was gone and the government owned the forest
up to the very foot of the rock. But the Lady of Sigmundskron would
rather have starved to death in her vaulted chamber than have taken half
the gold in Swabia to sign away her dead husband’s home. Moreover, there
was Greif, and Greif was to marry Hilda, after which all would be well
again. Greif, with his money, would build and restore and furnish the
old castle, and bring back the breath of life into the ancient halls and
corridors. But in order that Greif might marry Hilda, it was necessary
that Hilda should grow up beautiful, and to grow up at all, it was
necessary that Hilda should be fed.

It had come to that, to the very question of food, of mere bread to eat.
There was not enough for two, but Hilda must not starve. That was the
secret which no one, not even Hilda herself must ever understand. During
the first years, it had not been so hard to live. There had been a
few poor jewels to sell, a few odds and ends that had brought a little
money. While Hilda was a little child it had been easier, for she had
needed but few clothes and, being little, had needed to eat less. But at
last there had come a day when Frau von Sigmundskron, not so thin nor
so pale as now, had seen a hungry look stealing into the eyes of the
fair-haired girl. It was little enough that they had between them, but
the mother said to herself that she could keep alive with less. The
careful economy which bought nothing not capable of sustaining life and
strength could go no further. There were but so many pence a day for
food, and to expend more to-day was to starve tomorrow. From that moment
Frau von Sigmundskron began to complain of headache, and especially of
loss of appetite. She could not eat, she said. She did not think there
was anything the matter, and she would doubtless be better in a few
days. But the days ran on to weeks, the weeks to months, and the
months to years, and Hilda grew tall and fair, unconsciously eating her
mother’s portion of the daily bread. No hermit ever lived upon so little
as sufficed for the baroness; no perishing, shipwrecked wretch ever
measured out so carefully the ounce of biscuit that must maintain life
from day to day; no martyr ever submitted more patiently and silently to
his sufferings. But Hilda grew, and the years sped on, and Greif would
come in time.

Greif, upon whom such great hopes were centred, was a distant cousin as
well as a neighbour. The relationship was on the side of Hilda’s mother,
whose grandfather had been a Greifenstein, and who might have been
expected to accept some assistance from her rich connexions, especially
as she was quite willing that her daughter should marry their only son.
But the baroness was a woman whose pride forbade her to accept under the
pressure of necessity what had not been offered freely in other times.
It must be admitted also that the Greifensteins, though well aware that
the Sigmundskrons were extremely poor, were far from suspecting that
they were in need of bread. They knew that the castle was still the
unhampered property of the two ladies, and they supposed that if things
were really in a bad state, the baroness would raise money upon it.
She never alluded to her affairs when she was with her relations, and
excused herself from asking them to stay with her, on the ground of her
poor health. On rare occasions Greifenstein and his wife drove over to
the castle, and were invariably admitted by the same soberly-dressed,
middle-aged woman, who showed them into the same old-fashioned room,
whence, having made their visit, they returned to the outer gate by the
way they had come. That is all they ever saw of Sigmundskron. Twice in
the year, also, Hilda and her mother were invited to stay a fortnight at
Greifenstein, but no one would have supposed from their behaviour that
the luxury of the latter place surprised them, or seemed in any way
preferable to what they enjoyed at home. Hilda’s education had not been
neglected. Among her earliest recollections was her mother’s constant
injunction never to make remarks upon what she saw in other houses. The
child was not long in learning what the warning meant, and as she
had inherited a plentiful share of her mother’s pride she almost
unconsciously imitated her mother’s behaviour. Greif himself was the
only person who might have known something of the true state of the
case; but as he had been accustomed to be in love with his cousin ever
since they had been children he would have feared to hurt her feelings
by asking questions. For Hilda was reticent even with him, not from any
shame at the idea of being thought poor, but because she was too proud
to have it thought that either she or her mother could ever need the
help of the Greifensteins.

Furthermore, if the baroness’s reluctance to ask for assistance has not
been sufficiently explained, there is one more consideration which might
alone have sufficed to account for her conduct. Between her and Greif’s
mother there existed a great and wholly insurmountable antipathy. She
could not understand how Greifenstein could have married such a woman.
There was a mystery about it which she had never fathomed. Greifenstein
himself was a stern, silent man of military appearance, a mighty hunter
in the depths of the forest, a sort of grizzled monument of aristocratic
strength, tough as leather, courteous in his manner, with that stiff
courtesy that never changes under any circumstances, rigid in his views,
religious, loyal, full of the prejudices that make the best subjects in
a kingdom and the bitterest opponents of all change.

In appearance and manner Frau von Greifenstein presented the most
complete contrast to her husband. She had been pretty, fair and
sprightly in her youth, she was now a faded blonde, full of strange
affectations and stilted sentiments. Possessing but indifferent taste,
she nevertheless devoted much time to the adornment of her person. She
was small of stature, but delicately made, and if her nervous desire to
please had granted to her outward personality a moment’s repose during
the day, she might still have passed muster as a fairly good-looking
woman. Unfortunately she was animated by an unceasing activity in
trivial matters, and was rarely silent. Some women make one think of a
printed page in which there are too many italics, and too many useless
marks of exclamation. At first, their constant cries of admiration
and outbursts of enthusiasm produce a vague sense of uneasiness in the
listener, which soon develops to a feeling of positive distress and
generally ends in a real and deep-rooted dislike. At the beginning one
looks about anxiously for the object which could produce so grotesque a
smile. There is nothing, for the conversation has been as lead, but the
smile does not subside; it only passes through the endless variations
that succeed each other from the inane grin to the affected simper which
is meant to be tender. The whole face moves perpetually, as the facial
muscles of a corpse, excited by an electric current, seem to parody all
the expression of living human sentiment.

But Frau von Greifenstein was not in reality so foolish as might have
been thought. Her silliness was superficial. One part of her life had
been full of strange circumstances, and if the whole truth were told
it would appear that she had known how to extract a large amount of
personal advantage from situations which to many persons would have
seemed hopeless. She and her husband rarely left their castle in the
Black Forest, and it might naturally be supposed that their life
there was exceedingly dull and monotonous. In her own heart Clara von
Greifenstein recognised that her present luxurious retirement was a
paradise compared with the existence she must have led if she had not
known how to help herself at the right moment. During the earlier years
of her marriage, the recollection of her antecedents had been so painful
as to cause her constant anxiety, and at one time she had even gone so
far as to keep a sum of money about her, as though expecting to make a
sudden and unexpected journey. But five and twenty years and more had
passed, without bringing any untoward incident, and she felt herself
very secure in her position. Moreover a son had been born to her and was
growing up to be very like his father. Without Greif there is no
knowing what turn affairs might have taken, for although Clara’s husband
maintained towards her the same stiffly considerate behaviour which had
always characterised him in their relations to each other, he certainly
admitted to himself that she was not growing old gracefully; and it
is even possible that, in some remote glen of the forest, his grave
features may have occasionally allowed themselves a look of sorrowful
regret, or even of actual repugnance, when he thought of his wife’s
spasmodic smiles and foolish talk. Possibly, too, he may have sometimes
speculated upon her probable condition before she had married her first
husband, for he himself had found her a widow of apparently little
more than five and twenty years of age. But if any suggestion at all
derogatory to Greifenstein had presented itself to his mind, his pride
would assuredly have lost no time in smothering the thought. Was she not
the mother of Greif? And besides, if all were to be told, was there
not an unpleasantly dark spot in his own family, in the shape of his
half-brother, Kuno von Rieseneck? Indeed the existence of Kuno von
Rieseneck, concerning whom Clara knew nothing, was the reason why
Greifenstein had lived for so many years in the country, only travelling
outside of Germany when he travelled at all. He wondered that his wife,
being ignorant of the story, should be willing to share the solitude
of the Black Forest without a murmur, and her submission in itself
suggested that she, too, might have some good cause for preferring a
retired life. But if he had been satisfied with what he knew of her
five and twenty years ago, he was not the man to allow himself any
dissatisfaction now that Clara was the mother of that stalwart young
fellow who was heir to all the Greifenstein property.

In the month of July Greif was to come home from the University, and
immediately afterwards Hilda and her mother were to come over for their
half-yearly visit. The ancient place where this family meeting was
convened was so unlike most castles as to deserve a word of description.

The Swabian Black Forest is literally black, save when the winter snow
is heavy on the branches of the huge trees and lies in drifts beneath
them, covering the soft carpet of fir needles to the depth of many feet.
The landscape is extremely melancholy and in many parts is absolutely
monotonous. At intervals of several miles the rock juts suddenly out of
the forest, generally at places where the Nagold, more a torrent than
a river, makes a sharp bend. Many of these steep and stony promontories
are crowned by ancient strongholds, chiefly in ruins, though a very
few are still in repair and are inhabited by their owners. The name of
Greifenstein will not be found on any map of the district, but those
who know that wild and unfrequented country will recognise the spot. The
tumbling stream turns upon itself at a sharp angle, swirling round the
base of a precipitous and wedge-like cliff. So steep are the sides that
they who chose the summit for a fortress saw no need of building any
protection, save one gigantic wall which bestrides the wedge of rock,
thus cutting off a triangular platform, between the massive bulwark
and the two precipices that meet at the apex of the figure. This single
fortification is a solid piece of masonry, enormously thick and of
great height; its two extremities being surmounted by pointed towers,
connected by a covered walk along the top of the wall, which, even at
that height, is fully six feet wide and nearly a hundred in length. This
was the rampart behind which the Greifensteins had dwelt in security
through many generations, in the stormy days of the robber barons. So
sure were they of their safety, that they had built their dwelling-place
on the other side of the bulwark in a manner that offered no suggestion
of war or danger. The house was Gothic in style, full of windows
and ornamented with spacious balconies and much fine stonework. The
three-cornered platform was converted into a flower-garden, surrounded
by a parapet. Protected on the north side by the huge wall, and fully
exposed to the southern sun, the plants throve in an almost artificial
spring, and in the summer jets of water played in the marble basins and
cooled the hot, pine-scented air.

One narrow gate, barely wide enough for two persons to pass abreast,
gave access to this paradise through the grey, window-less mass of
masonry by which it was separated from the melancholy forest without.
One small building only was visible on the side of the woods, scarcely
fifty yards from the gate. This was a small, square, stone tower, half
overgrown with brush and creepers, and evidently abandoned to decay.
It was known in the family and neighbourhood as the ‘Hunger-Thurm,’ or
Hunger Tower, as having been used as a place for starving prisoners to
death, in the fine old days when the lords of Greifenstein did as
they judged good in their own eyes. Frau von Sigmundskron used to look
curiously at the grey building when she was staying with her relations.
She could have described the sufferings of the poor wretches who had
perished there as well as any one of themselves or better. Not twenty
miles from all the luxury that dwelt behind that lofty bulwark, she had
been starving herself for years in order that her only child might live.
And yet the well-fed woodmen touched their caps and their rosy wives and
daughters curtsied to the ‘Lady Baroness’ who, as they told each other,
spent her life in the towers of Sigmundskron hoarding untold wealth
which would one day belong to the golden-haired Lady Hilda. They knew,
for the knowledge could not be kept from them and their kind, how very
few were the silver pieces which were ever seen in the hands of old
Berbel, when she came down to the village market to buy food, and they
naturally concluded that the baroness was a miser even like some of
themselves, keeping her store of gold in a broken teapot somewhere among
those turrets in a spot known only to the owls. It is also possible that
Berbel--her name was Barbara--encouraged the idea, thinking it better
that her beloved mistresses should be thought avaricious than poor. The
burgomaster of the hamlet, who had to take off his coat in order to
sign his name when that momentous operation was unavoidable, but who was
supposed to know vastly more than the schoolmaster, used to talk about
certain mines in Silesia, owned by the Sigmundskrons; and once or twice
he went so far as to assure his hearers that gold and even diamonds
were found there in solid blocks as big as his own Maass-Krug,
that portentous jug from which he derived inspiring thoughts for
conversation, or peaceful satisfaction in solitude, as the case might
be. All, however, agreed in predicting that things would go much better
when the young gentleman of Greifenstein was married to the young lady
of Sigmundskron.

On that warm afternoon in July when Greif was expected, his father took
his gun, though there was little to shoot at that season, and sallied
forth on foot along the broad road that led to the distant railway
station. The portly gatekeeper smiled pleasantly as he stood looking
after his master. For many years, whenever the student was to come home,
old Greifenstein had gone down that road, in the same way, without a
word to any one, but having that same twinkle of happy anticipation in
his eyes, which was never seen there at any other time. Very generally,
too, the laden carriage came rumbling up to the gate with Greif’s
belongings, and an hour or two passed before father and son emerged on
foot from the first trees of the forest. To-day also, the master had
started betimes and it would be long before he heard the horses’ bells
below him in the valley. He walked quickly, as active men do when they
are alone, and there is no one to hinder them, stopping now and then
to see which way a hare sprang, or pausing to listen when his quick ear
caught the distant tread of a buck. He knew that he might walk for miles
without meeting a human being. The road was his, the land was his, the
trees were his. There was no felling to be done in the neighbourhood,
and no one but himself or his men had any right to be prowling about the
woods. In the perfect solitude his features relaxed a little and their
expression changed. The glad anticipation of the meeting with his son
was still in his eyes, but in the rest of his face there was a weary
look which those who knew him best would not have recognised. He was
thinking how different life would seem if Greif and he were to be the
only inhabitants of the old home during the next dozen years. Then he
stiffened his neck suddenly and strode on.

At last the far off tinkling of bells came up to him from the depths of
the forest, with the dull thud of horses’ hoofs that echoed among the
trees. He quickened his pace, knowing at how great a distance the sounds
could be heard. Ten minutes elapsed before the carriage came in sight,
and then almost instantly a loud shout rang through the woods, followed
by an answer from old Greifenstein, deeper, but quite as strong.

‘Father!’

‘Greif!’

Greif had leaped down from his place and was running up the hill at a
pace that would have tried the horses. In a moment more the two tall men
were in each other’s arms, kissing each other on the cheek.

At three and twenty the student looked as much like his father as a
young and fair man can look like an elderly dark one. Their features
were the same, both had the same sinewy firmness of build and the same
eyes; but Greif’s close-cut golden hair and delicate moustache gave
him a brilliancy his father had never possessed. He seemed to bring
the light with him into the deep shade of the glen where they met. One
looking at him would have felt instinctively that he was made to wear
the gleaming uniform of a Prussian Lifeguard, rather than the sober
garments of a civilian. As a matter of fact, he was dressed like an
Englishman, and would probably have been taken for one, to his own
intense disgust, in any European crowd.

‘And how is the mother?’ he asked in a somewhat formal tone, as soon as
the first embrace was over. He had been brought up with dutiful ideas.

‘Your mother is exceedingly well,’ answered Greifenstein, whose manner
also stiffened perceptibly. There was a moment’s pause.

Perhaps it was in the hope of dissipating that awkward feeling
which somehow or other always made itself apparent when the Lady of
Greifenstein was mentioned, that her husband pulled out his case and
offered Greif a cigar.

‘I have brought you a pipe,’ said the latter, and as the carriage came
up to where they were standing he snatched his bag off the back seat.
‘It will make you feel young again,’ he laughed, as he took a paper
parcel from the receptacle. ‘It is a “Korps” pipe, colours and tassels
and all.’

Greifenstein, one of whose favourite hobbies was the advantage of
pipes in general, was as delighted as a boy with the little gift, and
instantly produced a huge silver tobacco box out of the depths of his
shooting coat, from which he began to fill the china bowl.

‘Thank you, my boy,’ he said as he drew the air through the unlighted
pipe to assure himself that there was no obstruction.

Then he took out an old-fashioned flint and steel, lighted a bit of
tinder with a practised hand and laid it upon the tobacco. He made a
sign to the coachman, who urged his sturdy Mecklenburg horses up the
hill and was soon out of sight. The two men walked slowly forwards and
smoked in silence for a few minutes.

‘When is Hilda coming?’ asked Greif at last, when he thought he had
allowed a decent interval to elapse before putting the question which
chiefly interested him.

‘She will come to-morrow, with her mother,’ replied Greifenstein, not
noticing, or pretending not to notice, the faint blush that rose in his
son’s face.

‘I suppose we must wait another year,’ remarked Greif with a sigh. ‘It
seems absurd that at my age I should not have finished my education.’

‘You will be glad, when you are married, that you have your military
service behind you.’

‘I do not know,’ answered the young man absently.

‘You do not know!’ exclaimed his father in surprise. ‘Would you like to
go and live with Hilda in a garrison town while you served your year as
a volunteer?’

‘I was not thinking of that. I have thought lately that, after all, I
had better take active service. Would you object?’

Greifenstein was taken by surprise and would possibly have uttered a
loud exclamation if he had not long ago schooled himself to be incapable
of any such breach of gravity. But he did not answer the question.

‘Father,’ began Greif again after a pause, ‘is it true that you ever had
a brother?’

Greifenstein’s tough face turned slowly grey.

‘A half-brother,’ he answered with an effort. ‘My mother married again.’

Greif glanced sideways at his father and saw that he was oddly affected
by the inquiry. But the young man had his own reasons for wishing to
know the truth.

‘Why have you never told me that I had an uncle?’ he asked.

‘He is no uncle of yours, my boy, nor brother of mine!’ answered
Greifenstein bitterly.

‘I fought about him the other day. That is all,’ said Greif.

‘He is not worth fighting for.’

‘Then the story is true?’

‘What story?’ Greifenstein stopped short in his walk and fixed his sharp
eyes on his son’s face. ‘What story? What do you know?’

‘A man told me that your brother had been discharged from the army with
infamy--_infam cassirt_--and condemned to imprisonment, for betraying
some arsenal or armoury into the hands of the rebels in 1848. I told
him--well--that he lied. What else could I say? I had never heard of the
scoundrel.’

‘You were quite right,’ answered Greifenstein, who was very pale. ‘I
never meant that you should know, any more than your mother. That is the
reason why we live in the country all the year. But I thought it would
come--I feared that some one would tell you!’

‘I do not think that any one will repeat the experiment,’ observed
Greif, turning away and looking down at the torrent, which was visible
between the trees. ‘And what has become of this Herr von Rieseneck, if
that was his name?’

‘He is alive and well. Rich, for anything I know to the contrary. He
escaped from the fortress where he was confined and made his way to
South America. I had not seen him for some time before that disgraceful
affair. We had quarrelled about other matters, and he had entered the
Prussian service.’ ‘I wish you had told me about him before.’

‘Why should I? Do you think it is a pleasant subject for conversation?
As his name was not mine, thank God, there was a chance that you might
never know nor hear of him.’

‘I see why you do not wish me to enter the army.’

‘Yes,’ answered Greifenstein laconically, and he once more walked
forward.

For some time neither spoke. Greifenstein’s profound hatred of his
dishonoured brother was too deeply stirred to allow of his continuing
the conversation, and in a different way the younger man was quite as
much affected as his father. When the student with whom he had fought
had cast in his teeth the evil deeds of Kuno von Rieseneck, he had
unhesitatingly denied the story, thinking it a merely gratuitous
insult invented on the spur of the moment. No one present during the
altercation had thought fit to confirm the tale, and Greif had wreaked
his vengeance upon his enemy in the most approved fashion, in the
presence of the assembled ‘Korps.’ But the words had taken effect and
he had determined to learn from his father’s lips whether they had any
foundation in fact. Being satisfied of the truth of the story, however,
his mood changed. No one who has not studied the character of the German
gentleman--the old-fashioned Edelmann--will readily understand how
directly he feels himself injured by the disgrace of a relative even
very distantly removed. He has often little enough in the world but his
name and his pride of caste, but as compared with the former he holds
his life as of no value whatsoever, and where the latter is concerned
he will suffer much rather than offend the exclusiveness of his class
by derogating from the most insignificant of its prejudices. He is not
afraid of poverty. No one can maintain the position of a gentleman with
more exiguous resources than often fall to his share. Rather than leave
the smallest debt of honour unpaid, he will unhesitatingly take his own
life. That a man should suffer himself to live after doing such a deed
as had broken Kuno von Rieseneck’s career seems to him a crime against
humanity. He is often called avaricious, because, like Frau von
Sigmundskron, he is often very, very poor; but he has never been called
a coward, nor a traitor, by any man, or class of men, who knew him. All
gentlemen throughout the world are brothers, it is true, for to be a
gentleman is to be brave, honest, courteous, and nothing more. But the
gentlemen of different nations are like brothers brought up in different
schools. An Englishman who should demand satisfaction by arms, of
another Englishman, for a hasty word spoken in jest, would be considered
a lunatic in the clubs, and if he carried his warlike intentions into
effect with the consent of his adversary, and killed his man, the law
would hang him without mercy as a common murderer. On the other hand, a
German who should refuse a duel, or not demand one if insulted, would
be dismissed from the army and made an outcast from society. And these
things do not depend upon civilisation, since modern Germany is probably
more civilised than modern England. They depend upon national character.

When Greif heard of his uncle’s existence, and, at the same time, of
his disgrace, it seemed to him that a cloud had descended upon his own
brilliant future. He had long nursed in secret his desire for a military
life, and had often wondered at his father’s unwillingness to discuss
the matter. He now suddenly understood the true state of the case and
realised, by the measure of his disappointment, the magnitude to which
his hopes had grown. But there was something more than this in the
despondency which seized upon him so quickly and would not be thrown
off.

‘Does Hilda know this?’ he asked, at length giving expression to his
thoughts.

Greifenstein did not answer at once.

‘I do not think her mother would have told her,’ he said after a time.
‘But her mother knows.’

‘And my mother does not?’

‘No, nor never shall, if I can help it.’

If the two men spoke little on their homeward walk it was not for lack
of sympathy between them. On the contrary, if anything could strengthen
the strong bond that united them, it was the knowledge that they had a
secret in common which they must keep together.




CHAPTER II


To suppose that Hilda, at eighteen years of age, was like the majority
of young girls as old as she, would be to imagine that human character
is not influenced by its surroundings. She was neither a village
Gretchen, such as Faust loved and ruined, nor was she the omniscient
damsel of modern society. During the greater part of her existence she
had lived without any companions but her mother and the faithful Berbel.
But she had grown up in a wild forest country, in a huge dismantled
stronghold, of which the windows looked out over the tumbling torrent,
and across endless thousands of giant trees, whose dark tops rose like
sombre points of shadow out of the deeper shade below. Even the sky was
not blue. Half a kingdom of firs and pines and hemlocks drank the colour
from the air and left but a sober neutral tint behind. The sun does
not give half the light in the Black Forest that he gives elsewhere. As
Hilda had never, within her recollection, seen an open plain, much less
a city, her idea of the world beyond those leagues of trees in which
she lived was not a very accurate one. She could hardly guess what the
streets of a great town were like, or what effect a crowd of civilised
people would produce upon her sight. And yet she was far from ignorant.
There were books enough left at Sigmundskron for her education, and the
baroness had done what was in her power to impart such instruction as
she could command. Hilda had probably read as many books as most girls
of her age, and had read them more carefully, but she was very far from
loving study for its own sake. Her time, too, was occupied in other
ways, for she and her mother did most things for themselves, as was to
be expected in a household where want reigned supreme over the hours of
every day, from sunrise to sunset.

The necessity for maintaining appearances was small indeed, but such as
it was, neither mother nor daughter could avoid it. No one could predict
what day the Greifensteins would choose for one of their occasional
visits, and in the time of the vacations no one could foresee when Greif
might make his appearance, striding over the wooded hills with his gun
and his dog to spend a quiet afternoon with Hilda in their favourite
sunny corner at the foot of the dismantled tower. When poverty is to be
concealed, his shadow must not be caught lurking at the door by
chance visitors. Nor was it only out of fear of being surprised by her
relations that the quiet baroness insisted that Hilda and even Berbel
should always be presentable. Her pride was inseparably united with
that rigid self-respect which, in the poor, alone saves pride from being
ridiculous. It was indeed marvellous that she should succeed as she did
in hiding the extremity of her need from the Greifensteins, but it must
be remembered that she had never been rich, and had learned in early
youth many a lesson, many a shift of economy which now stood her in good
stead. The Germans have a right to be proud of having elevated thrift
to a fine art. From the Emperor to the schoolmaster, from the
administration of the greatest military force the world has ever seen
to the housekeeping of the meanest peasant, a sober appreciation of the
value of money is the prime rule by which everything is regulated. Frau
von Sigmundskron had made a plan, had drawn up a tiny budget in exact
proportion with the pension which was her only means of subsistence,
and thanks to her unfailing health had never departed from it. The
expenditure had indeed been so closely regulated from the first, that
she had found it necessary to limit herself to what would barely support
life, in order not to stint her child’s allowance. Being by temperament
a very religious woman, she attributed to Providence that success
in rearing Hilda for which she might well have thanked her own iron
determination and untiring efforts. If ever a woman deserved the help of
Heaven in consideration of having bravely helped herself, the baroness
had earned that assistance. So far as the ordinary observer could judge,
however, she had obtained nothing from the world save a reputation for
avarice. Hilda was too much accustomed to the state of things in which
she had grown up, to appreciate her mother’s sacrifices, or to feel
towards her anything like warm gratitude. She herself did all she could,
and that was not little, in the struggle for existence. It is even
possible that she was more grateful to Berbel, than to the baroness
herself. For Berbel voluntarily shared privations, to which the
two ladies were obliged to submit. Berbel was faithful, devoted,
uncomplaining, cheerful; and she was all this, not for the sake of a
servant’s pay, since her wages were infinitesimally small, but out of
pure affection for her mistress.

Berbel had been the wife of Lieutenant von Sigmundskron’s servant, who
had fallen beside his master, rifle in hand, his face to the enemy.
Mistress and maid were left alike widows on the same day, alike young
and portionless, the only difference being that Frau von Sigmundskron
had Hilda, while poor Berbel was childless. Then Berbel refused to go
away, once and for ever, and the officer’s widow accepted the lifelong
devotion offered her, and the three cast in their lot together, to keep
themselves alive as best they could beneath the only roof that was left
to them.

Frau von Sigmundskron had been very much surprised when, on a sunny June
morning, three years before the time of which I write, Greifenstein had
appeared alone, arrayed in the most correct manner, instead of being
clad in the shooting coat he usually wore. She had been still more
astonished when he formally proposed to her an engagement by which
Greif should marry Hilda so soon as he had finished his studies at the
University. He told her frankly why he desired the alliance. She knew
of Rieseneck’s disgrace, and she would understand that the story was an
injury to Greif. On the other hand he, Greif’s father, had never done
anything to be ashamed of, and the lad himself was growing up to be
a very fine fellow and would be rich--Greifenstein did not state the
amount of his fortune. He apprehended that his cousin would consider
Greif a good match from a worldly point of view. Furthermore, though
barely twenty, the young man was deeply attached to Hilda, who was just
fifteen, The attachment was evidently likely to turn into love when
both should be three or four years older. If Frau von Sigmundskron would
consent, a preliminary, verbal agreement might be made, subject to
the will of the two children when the right time should come, it being
essentially necessary, as Greifenstein remarked in his stiffest manner,
that two young people should love each other sincerely if they meant to
marry.

The baroness opened her clear blue eyes very wide, as though she had
seen a coach and four laden with sacks of gold driving through the old
gates of the castle. But she was far too well bred to burst into
tears, or to exhibit any embarrassment, or even an improper amount of
satisfaction. She replied that she was much obliged; that she was poor,
and that Hilda would inherit nothing whatsoever except Sigmundskron, a
fact which her cousin must please to understand from the first; that,
if the absence of any dower were not an obstacle, it was not for her to
create difficulties; and, finally, that she believed Hilda to be quite
as much attached to Greif, as Greif to her. Thereupon Berbel was sent
to fetch a bottle of wine--there had been half a dozen bottles in
the cellar thirteen years ago, and this was the first that had been
opened--and Greifenstein refreshed himself therewith and departed, as
stiffly, courteously and kindly as he had come.

Greif had come over as often as he pleased during his vacations, and had
written whenever he liked during his terms. Never having seen any one at
home or abroad whom he considered comparable with Hilda, he had grown up
to love her as naturally as he loved the pine-scented air of his home,
the warm soft sun, or the still beauty of the forest. Hilda was an
essential part of his life and being, without which he could imagine no
future. Year by year it grew harder to say good-bye, and the happiness
of meeting grew deeper and more real. There was a pride in the knowledge
that she was for him only, which played upon the unconscious selfishness
of his young nature and gave him the most profound and exquisite
delight. At three and twenty he was old enough to understand the world
about him, he had accomplished his year of obligatory service in the
army, and had come into contact with all sorts of men, things and
ideas. He was himself a man, and had outgrown most boyish fallacies and
illusions, but he had not outgrown Hilda. She was there, in the heart
of the forest, in the towers of Sigmundskron, away from the world he had
seen, and maidenly ignorant of all it contained, waiting for him, the
incarnation of all that was lovely, and young, and fair, and spotless.
He pitied his fellow-students, who loved vulgarly whatever came into
their way. He could not imagine what life would be without Hilda. It
was a strange sort of love, too, for there had been no wooing; they
had grown up for each other as naturally as the song-bird for its mate.
There had been no hindrances, no jealousies, no alternate hopes and
fears, none of those vicissitudes to which love is heir. Nothing but
the calamity of death could interfere with the fulfilment of their
happiness, and perhaps no two beings ever loved each other from whom
death seemed so far.

Hilda was happy, too, in her own way, for what she knew of the outer
world was what she saw through Greif’s eyes. To him the greatest of
all blessings would be to come back to the forest and never to leave it
again, and Hilda argued that the world could not be worth seeing, if the
woods were so vastly preferable as he seemed to think. She felt herself
to be what she was in his imagination, a part of the nature in which
she had grown up, as much as the oldest and tallest fir tree on the
hillside. People who spend all their lives in unfrequented regions, feel
a sense of property in the air, the earth and the water, which city-bred
folks cannot readily understand. They have such an intimate, unconscious
knowledge of the seasons, the weather, the growth of plants and the
habits of animals, that it seems to them as though their own hearts beat
in every corner of the world around them, and as though all the changes
they see from day to day were only manifestations of their own vitality.
They may not see, or know that they see, beauties which amaze the
wanderer who visits their wilderness, but they feel them as he never
can, and feed on them as he cannot feed. Their senses, not dulled by
daily close contact with thousands of indifferent and similar objects,
nor by the ceaseless chatter of their fellow-beings, see sights and hear
sounds altogether beyond the perceptions of gregarious man. The infinite
variety of nature, as compared with the pitiful monotony of the works of
humanity, produces in their minds an activity of an especial kind. They
do not know what mental weariness means, nor the desire for nervous
excitement. The succession of morning and evening does not bore them,
for it is a part of themselves, like hunger and the satisfaction of
appetite, thirst and the refreshing draught from the spring. They are
good, though their virtues be negative, and they are happy, for they
have never heard of unhappiness. Their existence is the very opposite
of ours, full where ours is empty, empty where ours is crowded to
overflowing. They are never alone, for the world is their companion,
they are never hurried, for they move with time itself, whereas our
existence is but one long effort to outrun the revolution of the hours.
They do not dream of fame, for they feel the eternity of perpetually
renewed life in all that surrounds them; they have never heard of
competition, for their only rival is God Himself.

Hilda’s earliest recollections did not go back beyond the time when she
had been brought to the Black Forest, and the singular simplicity of
her life made the past years seem strangely short. Children whose first
remembrances are full of new impressions, grow old quickly, while those
to whose perceptions little is offered grow up more slowly, and more
naturally. Other conditions being the same, these latter will be calmer,
healthier and more reasonable. The best horse is not the one which is
made to do the most work as a colt, though performing dogs must learn
their tricks as puppies if they are to learn them at all. Much in life
depends upon the truth of our first impressions, and as this, in its
turn, depends directly upon our ability to judge what we see and hear,
it is clear that children may be injured permanently if too many things
be brought within the sphere of their observation before they have
learned the uses of hearing and sight.

The grand solitudes of the forest, the imposing calm of nature when at
rest, the indescribable magnificence of the winter storms, had furnished
Hilda with her first deep impressions. That death, of which her mother
sometimes spoke, was the disappearance of all that lived beneath the
soft, silent snow. That mysterious resurrection of the dead was nature’s
irresistible glad leap to meet the sun, as the noonday shadows shortened
day by day; that happy life to come was the far-off summer, when the
wind would sigh and whisper again among the branches he had so rudely
handled in his wrath, when all the air would smell of the warm pines,
when the mayflower would follow the hawthorn, and the purple gentian
take the mayflower’s place, when the wild pea-blossom would elbow the
forest violet, and the clover and wild thyme and mint would spring up
thick and crisp and sweet for the dainty roebuck and his doe. Hilda used
to think that the souls of the blessed would at last take their bodies
again, just as the wildflowers in the wood sprang up with their own
shape and beauty, each according to the little seed that had lain dead
and forgotten since autumn had sighed its dirge above their myriad tiny
graves, burying the summer as sadly as men bury those they dearly love.

And yet Hilda never put any of those thoughts into words, though in
her books she loved best those words that expressed her half-formulated
feelings. Had she been removed to the noise and the whirl of city life,
she would very probably have known how to define what she had lost, she
might even have made others feel what she herself had so keenly
felt. But in the silent towers of her home, or amidst that noiseless,
ever-growing life that belongs to undisturbed nature, all she could have
wished to express was expressed for her, in a grander language than
that of man. She had no need of spending long hours in reverie and
contemplation, as people do who are not used to their surroundings,
or who compare their present with their past. Constant occupation had
become a part of her being, and unceasing small activity in household
matters the condition of her life. Heaven knows, there was enough to do
between making and mending everything she wore, keeping in order
even the small part of the gigantic building which she and her mother
inhabited, cultivating as best she could the plot of ground in the
castle yard which was all the land left to her, the last of her name,
and, in the midst of all this manual labour, in maintaining that
prescribed amount of appearance, from which she had never been allowed
to deviate since she had been a little child. A spotless perfection of
neatness was indeed the only luxury left within reach of the two ladies,
and for that one available satisfaction there was no trouble they would
not cheerfully undergo. But these manifold household labours did not
vulgarise Hilda’s character. If she enjoyed the luxury of Greifenstein
during her half-yearly visits, it was not because she disliked or
despised her own home life. She was too thoroughly conscious of the
inevitable to groan over her lot, she was too strong in mind and body
to desire luxurious idleness, and she never imagined that a woman could
find occupation except in household duties. Her whole existence had made
her so simple that she could never have comprehended that complicated
state of mind which is so delightful to society.

Something of nature’s own freshness, too, had been infused into the
young girl’s veins, refreshing and renewing the life in that old blood
of which she was the last descendant. Blue eyes are rarely very bright.
Hilda’s seemed to have a special vitality of their own, which gave the
impression that they must shine in the dark as some crystals do for a
few seconds when they have been long exposed to the sun. They were of
that rare type which appear to sparkle even when not seen directly, not
merely reflecting the light as a placid pool reflects it, but making
it dance and change as sunshine does in falling water. Hilda’s hair
was yellow, and yellow hair is often lustreless as the pine dust in
the woods; but hers glowed, as it were by its own colour, without
reflection, out of the very abundance of vitality. Her features were
delicate and aquiline, but were saved from any look of deficient
strength by that perfection of evenly-distributed colour which comes
only from matchless health and untainted blood, combined with a rare
strength in the action of the heart. Hilda possessed one of those
highly-favoured organisations which nature occasionally produces as
normal types of what humanity should be. Such people bring with them a
radiance that nothing can extinguish, not even extreme old age.
Their beauty may not be of the highest type, but their vitality is
irresistibly attractive, and spreads to their surroundings, undiminished
by any effort they make.

When Hilda was told that if she and Greif loved each other they should
marry, she was far less surprised than her mother had been when old
Greifenstein had made his proposal. It seemed strange to the baroness
that her daughter should not even blush a little on learning the news.
But Hilda saw no reason for blushing and did not feel in the least
disconcerted. To her it all seemed perfectly natural. She had always
loved Greif, ever since she could remember anything. Why should he not
love her? And if they loved each other, they would of course be married
in due time. It was but the fulfilment of her life, after all. There
was surely nothing in the idea to cause her any emotion. Did not Heaven
dispose everything in the best possible way, and was not this the best
possible thing that could happen? Did the hawk mate with the wren, or
the wild boar with the doe? But the baroness did not understand. She
asked Hilda if she should be very unhappy if Greif died, or if he
married some one else.

‘God will not be so unkind,’ answered the young girl simply.

Frau von Sigmundskron was silent. It was clear that Hilda, in her
innocence, had never expected anything else, but her mother trembled
to think of what might happen if that simple faith were rudely
disappointed. It was characteristic of the devoted mother that she
thought of her child’s heart, and not of the worldly difference to Hilda
between single life at Sigmundskron and wedded life at Greifenstein,
between starvation and plenty, extreme poverty and the state of enjoying
all that money could give. It was long before she could comprehend what
had passed in Hilda’s mind, or the process of reasoning by which the
young girl had reached such a calm certainty of anticipation. When she
at last saw that it was an extremely simple matter, she realised how
completely her daughter had been shut off from the world since her
birth. At first she had doubted the reality of the girl’s quiet manner
in the circumstances, but she soon discovered that Hilda behaved during
Greif’s visits exactly as she had always done, meeting him gladly,
parting from him regretfully, speaking with him as though there were
no difference in their relations in the present, nor were to be in the
future, excepting that Greif would always be present, instead of only
coming from time to time. She knew that Greif himself was far from
looking at the matter with such supreme calm. She saw the colour come
and go in his fair face in a way that showed a constant emotion, and
she feared lest such a very susceptible young man as he appeared to be
should be entrapped, when away from home, by the designing mother, of
whom every other mother sees the type in the background of her thoughts.

But Greif did not fall a victim to any such schemes. If Hilda had at all
resembled most girls of her age, he could have compared her with them,
and the comparison would not have been to her advantage. She could not
have possessed their cheap accomplishments, their knowledge of waltzing,
or their intimate acquaintance with their neighbours’ affairs. She could
not have put on their sentimentality with men, nor their cynicism with
each other. She could not imitate their glances and she did not imitate
their dress. She was a creature apart from them all. Deeply imbued as he
was with all the prejudices of an exclusive caste, Greif could not have
looked upon Hilda as he did, if she had been a peasant’s child, even
though she had been herself in all other respects. There was that in her
position which appealed to the romanticism of his nature. The noble but
unfortunate maiden, the last of an ancient race, dwelling in dignified
retirement in her half-ruined ancestral home, was vastly more
interesting than any equally well-born girl could have been, who chanced
to be rich enough to be marched into society as a matrimonial investment
for young men of her station. But it was precisely because Hilda
possessed that one point in common with all such eligible young ladies
that Greif regarded her with a romantic devotion he could never have
felt for a village Gretchen. His pride in her nobility was indeed far
less than his love for herself, but it made for that love a rampart
against love’s deadliest enemy, which is ridicule. He certainly did not
tell himself so. He would have thought it an insult to Hilda to worship
her for anything but her own self; but he was none the less aware that
the pedestal upon which his idol stood was strong enough to withstand
any assault. This being certain, it was the very impossibility of any
further comparison that attracted him most. She was unlike any one whom
he met, or was ever likely to meet, and his imagination invested
her with many exceptional attributes, most of which she undoubtedly
possessed in one degree or another.

Each time he returned and left the noisy train and the smart modern
railway station behind him, to plunge into the silent forest, he felt
more strongly that his real sympathies all lay between Greifenstein
and Sigmundskron, and that his visits to the world were only disturbing
dreams. They must be renewed from time to time, at ever-increasing
intervals, but the real peace of his life awaited him in his home. He,
too, like Hilda, was a child of the woods, and felt that the trees, the
foaming streams and the changeless crags were all parts of himself, to
lose which would be like forfeiting a limb of his body or a sense of
his intelligence. The baroness need not have been afraid lest he should
wander about the world to forget Sigmundskron or Hilda. Nature had made
him constant, and circumstances had made him happy in his own place.

And so for years the lives of all these persons had run on, until the
time was approaching when Greif and Hilda were to be married, and great
changes were to be made at Sigmundskron. Greif had come home for the
last time but one, and his next return would be final. During months and
years the baroness and her daughter had been slowly preparing for the
great event. The most unheard-of economies had been imagined and carried
out in the attempt to give Hilda a little outfit for her wedding, just
enough to hide the desperate poverty in which they had lived. Many
a long winter’s evening had the two ladies spun the fine flax by the
smouldering fire; many a long day had Hilda and Berbel spent at the
primitive loom in the sunny room of the south tower; through many a
summer’s noon had the long breadths of fine linen lain bleaching on
the clean grey stone of the ramparts, watered by the faithful servant’s
careful hand. Endless had been the thought expended before cutting into
each piece of the precious material; endless the labour lavished upon
the fine embroideries by Hilda herself, upon the minute stitching by her
brave-hearted mother. But the work had progressed well, and the finished
garments that lay amidst bundles of sweet-smelling dried herbs in the
great old press would have done credit to the spinning and weaving and
handiwork of skilled craftsmen. It was fortunate that there had been
time for it all, else Hilda would have made but a poor figure on the
great day.

As for Berbel she believed that the forest itself had helped them, when
she saw all that had been accomplished and remembered how she had bought
the flax pound by pound at the market. Though a great share in the joint
success was due to her own patient industry, the result seemed so fine
as compared with the humble beginnings that she was much inclined to
thank the Heinzelmannchen and their ‘brownies’ for the most part of it
all. The baroness thanked Providence, and Hilda thought it was all due
to her love for Greif. Perhaps they were all three right, and possibly
each shared in some measure the views of the other two. At least so far
as the gnomes are concerned, most people who have lived long in forests
and solitary places have discovered that their work, if they like it,
is performed with a rapidity and skill which is marvellous in their own
eyes, and if you do not call the little gentleman who comes at night and
helps you by the name of Rubezahl, you may call him the Spirit of Peace.
But as long as you receive him kindly and give him his due it matters
very little how you christen him, for he is an affectionate spirit and
loves those who love him for himself, and does their work for them, or
makes them think he does, which, in fact, is just the same.

Unfortunately there are other spirits as busy as he in the world, and he
has a way of taking himself off at the slightest alarm, which is often
very distressing to those who love him; and some of those other spirits
had chosen for their abode the Castle of Greifenstein and for their
companions the persons who dwelt there. The unforeseen plays a very
great part in our lives; for if it did not, we should most of us know
exactly what to do at the right moment, and should consequently approach
perfection at an unnatural rate. While Greif and his father were slowly
ascending the hill towards their home, while Frau von Greifenstein
was looking at herself in her mirror and wondering whether she had not
thrown away her youth after all, while Berbel was weaving and Hilda
embroidering and the old baroness stitching steadily along the folded
linen--while all these people were thus quietly and peaceably engaged,
an event was brewing which was destined to produce some very remarkable
results. And lest the justification of ordinary possibility should
be required by the sceptical hereafter, I will at once state that the
greater part of what follows is a matter of history, well known to many
living persons; and that in writing it down I wish it to be understood
that I am submitting to the judgment of humanity a strange case which
actually occurred within this century, rather than constructing from my
own imagination a mere romance for the delectation of such as will take
the trouble to read it.




CHAPTER III


‘Oh! Is it not too delightful to see my dear, dear cousins!’ screamed
Frau von Greifenstein, throwing herself into the arms of the pale and
quiet baroness. ‘And dear Hilda, too! Ach, ist es nicht herzig! Is it
not too sweet!’

She was wonderfully arrayed in an exceedingly youthful costume, short
enough to display her thin, elderly ankles, and adorned with many flying
ribbands and furbelows. An impossibly high garden hat crowned her faded
head, allowing certain rather unattached-looking ringlets of colourless
blonde hair to stray about her cheeks. She made one think of a
butterfly, no longer young, but attempting to keep up the illusions of
spring. Hilda and her mother smiled and returned the salutation in their
quiet way.

‘And how have you been at Sigmundskron?’ continued the sprightly lady.
‘Do you know? It would be my dream to live at Sigmundskron! So romantic,
so solitary, so deliciously poetic! It is no wonder that you look
like Cinderella and the fairy godmother! I am sure they both lived at
Sigmundskron--and Greif will be the Prince Charmant with his Puss in
Boots--quite a Lohengrin in fact--dear me! I am afraid I am mixing
them up--those old German myths are so confusing, and I am quite beside
myself with the joy of seeing you!’

Greifenstein stood looking on, not a muscle of his face betraying the
slightest emotion at his wife’s incoherent speech. But Greif had turned
away and appeared to be examining one of the guns that stood in a rack
against the wall. The meeting had taken place in the great hall, and
he was glad that there was something to look at, for he did not know
whether he was most amused by his mother’s chatter, or ashamed of the
ridiculous figure she made. The impression was certainly a painful one,
and he had not attained to his father’s grim indifference, for he was
not obliged to assist daily at such scenes. He could not help comparing
Hilda’s mother with his own, and he inwardly determined that when he was
married he would take up his abode at Sigmundskron during the greater
part of the year.

Hilda looked at her hostess and wondered whether all women of the
world were like Frau von Greifenstein. The situation did not last long,
however, and half an hour later she found herself sitting beside Greif
on a block of stone by the ruined Hunger-Thurm.

‘At last!’ exclaimed Greif, with a sigh of satisfaction. ‘Is there
anything so tiresome as the sight of affectionate greetings?’

‘Greif--’ Hilda paused, as though reconsidering the question she was
about to ask.

‘Yes--what is it, sweetheart?’

‘When we are married, I must love your mother, must I not?’

‘Oh yes--no doubt,’ answered the young man with a puzzled expression.
‘At least, I suppose you must try.’

‘But I mean, if I do not love her as much as my own mother, will it be
very wrong?’

‘No, not so much, of course.’

‘Do you love her, Greif?’

‘Oh yes,’ replied Greif cheerfully. ‘Not as I love you--’

‘Or your father?’

‘That is different, a man feels more sympathy for his father, because he
is a man.’

‘But I am not a man--’

‘No, and you are not my mother either. That is again different, you
see.’

‘Greif--you do not love your mother at all!’ exclaimed Hilda, turning
her bright eyes to his. But he looked away and his face grew grave.

‘Please do not say that to me, dear,’ he answered quietly. ‘Let us talk
of other things.’

‘Does it pain you? I am sorry. I asked you because--well, I wanted to
know if it was exactly my duty--because--you see, I do not think I ever
could, quite, as I ought to. You are not angry?’

‘No, darling. I quite understand. It will be enough if you behave to her
as you do now. Besides, I was going to propose something, if your mother
will agree to it. When we are married, we might live at Sigmundskron.’

‘Oh! Greif, are you in earnest?’

‘Yes. Why not?’

‘You do not know what a place it is!’ exclaimed Hilda with an uneasy
laugh. She had visions of her husband discovering the utter desolation
of the old castle, but at the same time she felt a sudden wild desire to
see it all restored and furnished and kept up as it should be.

‘Yes, I know. But there are many reasons why I should like it. Of course
it has gone to ruin, more or less, and there would be something to be
done.’

‘Something!’ cried Hilda. ‘Everything! The great rooms are perfectly
desolate, no furniture, hardly any glass in the windows. We are so poor,
Greif!’

‘But I can put panes into the frames and get some furniture. We need not
have so much at first.’

‘But you will have to get everything, everything. You are used to so
much here.’

‘I should not need much if I had you,’ answered Greif looking at her, as
the colour rose in his own face.

‘I do not know. Perhaps not.’

‘I should be happy with you in a woodman’s hut,’ said Greif earnestly.

‘Perhaps,’ replied Hilda a little doubtfully.

‘There is no “perhaps.” I am quite sure of it.’

‘How can you be sure?’ asked the young girl turning suddenly and laying
her hands upon his arm. ‘Did not your father say the same--no, forgive
me! I will not speak of that. Oh Greif! What is love--really--the
meaning of it, the true spirit of it? Why does it sometimes last and
sometimes--not? Are all men so different one from another, and women
too? Is it not like religion, that when you once believe you always
believe? I have thought about it so much, and I cannot understand it.
And yet I know I love you. Why can I not understand what I feel? Is it
very foolish of me? Am I less clever than other girls?’

‘No, indeed!’ Greif drew her to him, and kissed her cheek. Her colour
never changed. With innocent simplicity she turned her face and kissed
him in return.

‘Then why is it?’ she asked. ‘And none of my books tell me what it
means, though I have read them all. Can you not tell me, you who know so
much? What is the use of all your studies and your universities, if you
cannot tell me what it is I feel, what love is?’

‘Does love need explanation? What does the meaning matter, when one has
it?’

‘Ah, you may say that of anything. Would the air be sweeter, if I knew
what it was? Would the storm be louder, or grander, or more angry, if
I knew what made it? And besides, I do know, for I have learned about
storms in my books. But it is not the same thing. Love is not part of
nature, I am sure. It is a part of the soul. But then, why should it
sometimes change? The soul does not change, for it is eternal.’

‘But true love does not change either--’

‘And yet people seem to think it is true, until it changes,’ argued
Hilda. ‘There must be something by which one can tell whether it is true
or not.’

‘One must not be too logical with love, any more than with religion.’

‘Religion? Why, that is the most logical thing we know anything about!’

‘And yet people have differed very much in their opinions of it,’ said
Greif with a smile.

‘Is it not logical that good people should go to heaven and bad people
to hell?’ inquired Hilda calmly. ‘Religion would be illogical if it
taught that sinners should all be saved and saints burnt in everlasting
fire. How can you say it is not logical?’

‘It certainly cannot be said if one takes your view,’ Greif answered,
laughing. ‘But then, if you look at love in the same way, you get the
same result. People who love each other are happy and people who quarrel
are not.’

‘Yes; but then, love does not only consist in not quarrelling.’

‘Nor religion in not being a sinner--but I am not sure--’ Greif
interrupted himself. ‘Perhaps that is just what religion means.’

‘Then why cannot love mean something quite as simple?’

‘It seems simple enough to me. So long as we are everything to each
other we shall understand it quite enough.’

‘Just so long--’

‘And that means for ever.’

‘How do you know, unless you have some knowledge by which you can tell
whether your love is true or not?’

‘Why not yours, sweetheart?’

‘Oh! I know myself well enough. I shall never change. But you--you
might--’

‘Do you not believe me?’

‘Yes, I suppose so. But it always comes to that in the end, whenever we
talk about it, and I am never any nearer to knowing what love is, after
all!’

The young girl rested her chin upon her hand and looked wistfully
through the trees, as though she wished and half expected that some wise
fairy would come flitting through the shadow and the patches of sunshine
to tell her the meaning of her love, of her life, of all she felt, of
all she did not feel. She read in books that maidens blushed when the
man they loved spoke to them, that their hearts beat fast and that their
hands grew cold--simple expressions out of simple and almost childish
tales. But none of these things happened to her. Why should they? Had
she not expected to meet Greif that day? Why should she feel surprise,
or fear, or whatever it was, that made the hearts of maidens in fiction
behave so oddly? He was very handsome, as he sat there glancing sideways
at her, and she could see him distinctly, though she seemed to be
looking at the trees. But that was no reason why she should turn red and
pale, and tremble as though she had done something very wrong. It was
all quite right, and quite sanctioned. She had nothing to say to Greif,
nothing to think about him, that her mother might not have heard or
known.

‘I am no nearer to knowing,’ she repeated after a long interval of
silence.

‘And I am no nearer to the wish to know,’ answered Greif, clasping his
brown hands over his knee and gazing at her from under the brim of his
straw hat. ‘You are a strange girl, Hilda,’ he added presently, and
something in his face showed that her singularity pleased him and
satisfied his pride.

‘Am I? Then why do you like me? Or do you like me because I am strange?’

‘I wish I were a poet,’ observed Greif instead of answering her. ‘I
would write such things about you as have never been written about any
woman. However, I suppose you would never read my verses.’

‘Oh yes!’ laughed Hilda. ‘Especially if mamma told me that they belonged
to the “best German epoch.” But I should not like them--’

‘You do not like poetry in general, I believe.’

‘It always seems to me a very unnatural way of expressing oneself,’
answered Hilda thoughtfully. ‘Why should a man go out of his way to put
what he wants to say into a certain shape? What necessity is there for
putting in a word more than is needed, or for pinching oneself so as to
cut one out that would be useful for the sense, just because by
doing that you can make everything fit a certain mould and sound
mechanical--ta ra tatatata ta tum tum! “Ich weiss nicht was soll es
bedeuten” and all the rest of it. There is something wrong. That poem is
very sad and romantic in idea, and yet you always sing it when you are
particularly happy.’

‘Most people do,’ said Greif, smiling at the truth of the observation.

‘Then what is there in poetry? Does “I love you” sound sweeter if it is
followed by a mechanical “ta ra ta ra ta tum” of words quite unnecessary
to the thought, and which you only hear because they jingle after you,
as your spurs do, when you have been riding and are on foot, at every
step you take?’

‘Schlagend!’ laughed Greif. ‘An annihilating argument! I will never
think of writing verses any more, I promise you.’

‘No. Don’t,’ answered Hilda emphatically. ‘Unless you feel that you
cannot love me in plain language--in prose,’ she added, with a glance of
her sparkling eyes.

‘Verse would be better than nothing, then?’

‘Than nothing--anything would be better than that.’

Greif fell to wondering whether her serious tone meant all that he
understood by it, and he asked himself whether her calm, passionless
affection were really what he in his heart called love. She felt no
emotion, like his own. She could pronounce the words ‘I love’ again and
again without a tremor of the voice or a change in the even shading of
her radiant colour. It was possible that she only thought of him as a
brother, as a part of the world she lived in, as something dearer than
her mother because nearer to her own age. It was possible that if she
had been in the world she might have seen some man whose mere presence
could make her feel all she had never felt. It was conceivable that she
should have fallen into this sisterly sort of affection in the absence
of any person who might have awakened her real sensibilities. Greif’s
masculine nature was not satisfied, for it craved a more active
response, as a lad watches for the widening ripples when he has dropped
a pebble into a placid pool. An irresistible desire to know the truth
overcame Greif.

‘Are you quite sure of yourself, sweetheart?’ he asked softly.

‘Of what?’

‘That you really love me. Do you know--’

Before he could finish the question Hilda was looking into his face,
with an expression he had never seen before. He stopped short, surprised
at the effect of his own words. Hilda was very angry, perhaps for the
first time in her whole life. The brightness of her eyes almost startled
him, and there was a slight contraction of the brows that gave her
features a look of amazing power. Greif even fancied that, for once, her
cheek was a shade paler than usual.

‘You do not know what you say,’ she answered very slowly.

‘Darling--you have misunderstood me!’ exclaimed Greif in distress. ‘I
did not mean to say--’

‘You asked me if I were sure that I really loved you,’ said Hilda very
gravely. ‘You must be mad, but those were your words.’

‘Hear me, sweetheart! I only asked because--you see, you are so
different from other women! How can I explain!’

‘So you have had experience of others!’ She spoke coldly and her voice
had an incisive ring in it that wounded him as a knife. He was too
inexperienced to know what to do, and he instinctively assumed that look
of injured superiority which it is the peculiar privilege of women
to wear in such cases, and which, in a man, exasperates them beyond
measure.

‘My dear,’ said Greif, ‘you have quite misunderstood me. I will explain
the situation.’

‘It is necessary,’ answered Hilda, looking at the trees.

‘In the first place, you must remember what we were saying, or rather
what you were saying a little while ago. You wanted an explanation of
the nature of love. Now that made me think that you had never felt what
I feel--’

‘I have not had your experience,’ observed Hilda.

‘But I have not had any experience either!’ exclaimed Greif, suddenly
breaking down in his dissertation.

‘Then how do you know that I am so different from other women?’ was the
inexorable retort.

‘I have seen other women, and talked with them--’

‘About love?’

‘No--about the weather,’ answered Greif, annoyed at her persistence.

‘And were their views about the weather so very different from mine?’
inquired the young girl, pushing him to the end of the situation.

‘Perhaps.’

‘You do not seem sure. I wish you would explain yourself, as you
promised to do!’

‘Then you must not interrupt me at every word.’

‘Was I interrupting? I thought my questions might help you. Go on.’

‘I only mean to say that I never heard of a woman who wanted an
explanation of her feelings when she was in love. And then I wondered
whether your love was like mine, and as I am very sure, I supposed that
if you felt differently you could not be so sure as I. That is all. Why
are you so angry?’

‘You know very well why I am angry. That is only an excuse.’

‘If you are going to argue in that way--’ Greif shrugged his shoulders
and said nothing more. Hilda seemed to be collecting her thoughts.

‘You evidently doubt me,’ she said at last, speaking quietly. ‘It is
the first time. You have tried to defend your question, and you have not
succeeded. All that you can tell me is that I am different from other
women with whom you have talked. I know that as well as you do, though I
have never seen them. It is quite possible that the difference may come
from my education, or want of education. In that case, if you are going
to be ashamed of me, when I am your wife, because I know less than the
girls you have seen in towns and such places--why then, go away and
marry one of them. She will feel as you expect her to feel, and you will
be satisfied.’

‘Hilda!’

‘I mean what I say. But there may be something else. The difference may
be there because I have not learned the same outward manners as the
city people, because I do not laugh when they would laugh, cry when they
would cry, act as they would act. I do not know half the things they
like, or do, or say, but from what I have read I fancy that they are not
at all simple, nor straightforward in their likings and dislikes, nor
in their speech either. I do not even know whether I look like them,
nor whether if I went to their places they would not take me for some
strange wild animal. I make my own clothes. I have heard that they spend
for one bit of dress as much as my mother and I spend in a whole year
upon everything. I suppose they do, for your mother must wear what
people wear in towns, and her things must cost a great deal. I think
I should feel uncomfortable in them, but if we are married I will wear
what you please--’

‘How can you say such things--’

‘I am only going over the points in which I am different from other
women. That is one of them. Then I believe they learn all sorts of
tricks--they can play on the piano--I have never seen one, for it is the
only thing you have not got at Greifenstein,--they draw and paint, they
talk in more than one language, whereas I only know what little French
my mother could teach me, they sing from written music--for that matter,
I can sing without, which I suppose ought to be harder. But they can
do all those little things, which I suppose amuse you, and of which I
cannot do one. Perhaps those accomplishments, or tricks, change them
so that they feel more than I do. But I do not believe it. If I had the
chance of learning them I would do it, to please you. It would not make
me love you any more. I believe that we, who think of few people because
we know few, think of them more and more lovingly. But if I took trouble
to please you, it would show you how much I love you. Perhaps--perhaps
that is what you really want, that I should say more, act more, make a
greater show. Is that it, after all?’

Her mood had changed while she was speaking, perhaps by the enumeration
of her points of inferiority. She turned her bright eyes towards Greif
with a look of curiosity, as though wondering whether she had hit the
mark, as indeed she had, by a pure accident.

‘It cannot be that--I cannot be such a fool!’ Greif exclaimed with all
the resentment of a man who has been found out in his selfishness.

‘I should not think any the worse of you,’ said Hilda. ‘It is I who have
been foolish not to guess it before. How should you understand that
I love you, merely because I say good morning and kiss you, and good
evening and kiss you, and talk about the weather and your mother’s
ribbands! There must be something more. And yet I feel that if you
married some one else, I should be very unhappy and should perhaps die.
Why not? There would not be anything to live for. Why can I not find
some way of letting you know how I love you? There must be ways of
showing it--but I have thought of everything I can do for you, and it is
so little, for you have everything. Only--Greif, you must not doubt that
I love you because I have no way of showing it--or if you do--’

‘Forgive me, Hilda--I never doubted--’

‘Oh, but you did, you did,’ answered Hilda with great emphasis, and in a
tone which showed how deeply the words had wounded her. ‘It is natural,
I suppose, and then, is it not better that I should know it? It is of no
use to hide such things. I should have felt it, if you had not told me.’

It was not in Hilda’s nature to shed tears easily, for she had been
exposed to so few emotions in her life that she had never acquired the
habit of weeping. But there was something in her expression that moved
Greif more than a fit of sobbing could have done. There was an evident
strength in her resentment, even though it showed itself in temperate
words, which indicated a greater solidity of character than the young
man had given her credit for. He had not realised that a love developed
by natural and slow degrees, without a shadow of opposition, could be
deeper and more enduring than the spasmodic passion that springs up
amidst the unstable surroundings of the world, ill nourished by an
uncertain alternation of hope and fear, and prone to consume itself in
the heat of its own expression. The one is about as different from
the other as the slowly moving glacier of the Alps is from the gaudily
decorated and artificially frozen concoction of the ice-cream vendor.

‘I am very sorry I said it,’ returned Greif penitently. He took her
passive hand in his, hoping to make the peace as quickly as he had
broken it, but she did not return the pressure of his fingers.

‘So am I,’ she answered thoughtfully. ‘I was angry at first. I do not
think I am angry any more, but I cannot forget it, because, in some way
or other, it must be my fault. Forgive you? There is nothing to forgive,
dear. Why should one not speak out what is in one’s heart? It would be a
sort of lie, if one did not. I would tell you at once, if I thought you
did not love me--’

Greif smiled.

‘Ah Hilda! Since we have been sitting here, you have told me you thought
I might change--do you not remember? Was what I said so much worse than
that?’

‘Of course it was,’ she answered. ‘Ever so much worse.’

Thereupon Greif meditated for some moments upon the nature of woman, and
to tell the truth he was not so far advanced as to have no need for such
study. Finding no suitable answer to what she had said, he could think
of nothing better than to press her hand gently and stroke her long
straight fingers. Presently, the pressure was returned and Greif
congratulated himself, with some reason, upon having discovered the only
plausible argument within his reach. But his wisdom did not go so far as
to keep him silent.

‘I think I understand you better than I did,’ he said.

Hilda did not withdraw her hand, but it became again quite passive in
his, and she once more seemed deeply interested in the trees.

‘Do you?’ she asked indifferently after a pause.

‘Perhaps I should rather say myself,’ said Greif, finding that he had
made a mistake. ‘And that is quite another matter.’

‘Yes--it is. Which do you mean?’ Hilda laughed a little.

‘Whichever you like best,’ answered Greif, who was at his wit’s end.

‘Whichever I like?’ she looked at him long, and then her face softened
wonderfully. ‘Let it be neither, dear,’ she said. ‘Let us not try to
understand, but only love, love, love for ever! Love is so much better
than any discussion about it, so much sweeter than anything that you or
I can say in its favour, so much more real and lasting than the meanings
of words. If you could describe it, it would be like anything else, and
if you tried, and could not, you might think there was no such thing at
all, and that would not be true.’

‘You talk better than I do, sweetheart. Where did you learn to say such
things?’

‘I never learned, but I think sometimes that the heart talks better than
the head, because the heart feels what it is talking about, and the head
only thinks it feels. Do you see? You have learnt so much, that your
head will not let your heart speak in plain German.’

Greif smiled at the phrase, which indeed contained a vast amount of
truth.

‘If you could make the professors of philosophy understand that,’ he
answered, ‘you would simplify my education very much.’

‘I do not know what philosophy is, dear, but if there were a professor
here, I would try and persuade him, if it would do you any good. I know
I am right.’

‘Of course you are. You always will be--you represent what Plato
hankered after and never found.’

‘What was that?’

‘Oh! nothing--only perfection,’ laughed Greif.

‘Nonsense! If I am perfection, what must you be? Plato himself? I do not
know much about him, but I have read that he was a good man. Perhaps you
are like him.’

‘The resemblance cannot be very striking, for no one has noticed it, not
even the professors themselves, who ought to know.’

‘Must you go back to Schwarzburg?’ Hilda asked, suddenly growing
serious.

‘Yes, but it is the last time. It will not seem long--there is so much
to be done.’

‘No. It will not seem long,’ answered Hilda, thinking of all that she
and her mother must do before the wedding. ‘But the long times are not
always the sad times,’ she added sorrowfully.

‘I shall be here for Christmas,’ said Greif. ‘And in the new year we
will be married, and then--we must think of what we will do.’

‘We will live at Sigmundskron, as you said, shall we not?’

‘Yes. But before that we will go away for a while.’ ‘Away? Why?’

‘People always do when they are married. We will go to Italy, if you
like, or anywhere else.’

‘But why must we go away?’ asked Hilda anxiously. ‘Do you think we shall
not be as happy here as anywhere else? Oh, I could not live out of the
dear forest!’

‘But, sweetheart, you have never seen a town, nor anything of the world.
Would you not care to know what it is all like beyond the trees?’

‘By and by--yes, I would like to see it all. But I would like poor old
Sigmundskron to see how happy we shall be. I think the grey towers
will almost seem to laugh on that day, and the big firs--they saw my
great-grandfather’s wedding, Greif! I would rather stay in the old
place, for a little while. And, after all, you have travelled so much,
that you can tell me about Italy by the fire in the long evenings, and I
shall enjoy it quite as much because you will be always with me.’

‘Thank you, darling,’ said Greif tenderly, as he drew her cheek to his,
and he said no more about the wedding trip on that afternoon.

The shadows were beginning to lengthen and the cool breeze was beginning
to float down the valley, towards the heated plain far away, when Hilda
and Greif rose from their seat under the shadow of the Hunger-Thurm, and
strolled slowly along the broad road that led into the forest beyond.
Whatever feeling of unpleasantness had been roused by Greif’s unlucky
speech, had entirely disappeared, but the discussion had left its
impress far in the depths of Hilda’s heart. It had never occurred to her
in her whole life before that any one, and especially Greif, could doubt
the reality or the strength of her love. What had now passed between
them had left her with a new aspiration of which she had not hitherto
been conscious. She felt that hereafter she must find some means of
making Greif understand her. When he had said that he understood her
better, she had very nearly been offended again, for she saw how very
far he was from knowing what was in her heart. She longed, as many have
longed before, for some opportunity of sacrifice, of heroic devotion,
which might show him in one moment the whole depth and breadth and
loyalty of her love.




CHAPTER IV


While Hilda and Greif were talking together the three older members of
the family party had established themselves in a shady arbour of the
garden, close to the low parapet, whence one could look down the sheer
precipice to the leaping stream and watch the dark swallows shooting
through the shadow and the sunshine, or the yellow butterflies and moths
fluttering from one resting-place to another, drawn irresistibly to the
gleaming water, out of which their wet wings would never bear them up
again to the flower-garden of the castle above.

Frau von Greifenstein had seated herself in a straw chair with her
parasol, her fan and her lap-dog, a little toy terrier which was always
suffering from some new and unheard-of nervous complaint, and on which
the sensitive lady lavished all the care she could spare from herself.
The miserable little creature shivered all summer, and lay during most
of the winter half paralysed with cold in a wadded basket before the
fire. It snapped with pettish impotence at every one who approached it,
including its mistress, and the house was frequently convulsed because
there was too much salt in its soup or too little sugar in its tea.
Greifenstein’s pointers generally regarded it with silent scorn, but
occasionally, when it was being petted with more than usual fondness,
they would sit up before it, thrust out their long tongues and shake
their intelligent heads, with a grin that reached to their ears, and
which was not unlike the derisively laughing grimace of a street-boy.
Greifenstein never took any notice of the little animal, but on the
other hand he was exceedingly careful not to disturb it. He probably
considered it as a sort of familiar spirit attached to his wife’s being.
Had he been an ancient Egyptian instead of a modern German, he would
doubtless have performed a weekly sacrifice to it, with the same stiff
but ready outward courtesy, and prompted by the same inward adherence to
the principles of household peace, which so pre-eminently characterised
him.

The Lady of Sigmundskron had neither parasol, nor lap-dog, nor fan. Her
plain grey dress, made almost as simply as a nun’s, contrasted oddly
with the profusion of expensive bad taste displayed in her hostess’s
attire, as her serious white face and quiet noble eyes were strangely
unlike Frau von Greifenstein’s simpering, nervous countenance. The
latter lady would certainly have been taken at first sight for the
younger of the two, though she was in reality considerably older, but a
closer examination showed an infinite number of minute lines, about
the eyes, about the mouth, and even on her cheeks, not to mention that
tell-tale wrinkle, the sign manual of advancing years, which begins
just in front of the lobe of the ear and cuts its way downwards and
backwards, round the angle of the jaw. There was a disquieting air of
improbability, too, about some of the colouring in her face, though it
was far from apparent that she was painted. Her hair, at all events, was
her own and was not dyed. And yet, though she possessed an abundance
of it, such as many a girl might have envied, it remained utterly
uninteresting and commonplace, for its faded straw-like colour was not
attractive to the eye, and it grew so awkwardly and so straight as to
put its possessor to much trouble in the arrangement of the youthful
ringlets she thought so becoming to her style. These, however, she
never relinquished under any circumstances whatever. Nevertheless, at
a certain distance and in a favourable light, the whole effect was
youngish, though one could not call it youthful, the more so as Frau von
Sigmundskron who sat beside her was, at little over forty, usually taken
for an old lady.

For some moments after they had all sat down, no one spoke. Then
Greifenstein suddenly straightened himself, as though an idea had
occurred to him, and bending stiffly forward in his seat, addressed his
cousin.

‘It gives us the greatest pleasure to see you once more in our circle,’
he said emphatically.

Frau von Sigmundskron looked up from her fine needlework, and gracefully
inclined her head.

‘You are very kind,’ she answered. ‘You know how happy we are to be with
you.’

‘Ah, it is too, too delightful!’ cried Frau von Greifenstein, with
sudden enthusiasm, covering the toy terrier with her hand at the same
time, as though anticipating some nervous movement on his part at the
sound of her voice. The dog stirred uneasily and uttered a feeble little
growl, turned round on her lap, bit his tail, and then settled himself
to rest again. The lady watched all these movements with anxious
interest, smoothing the folds of her dress at the spot on which the
beast was about to lay his head.

‘Ah! my beloved, my treasure!’ she murmured in a strident whisper. ‘Did
I wake you! Dear, dear Pretzel! Do go to sleep! I call him Pretzel,’ she
added, looking up with a wild smile, ‘because when he is curled up, with
his little legs together, on his side, he is just the shape of those
little twisted rolls my husband likes with his beer. It is a vulgar
name, yes--but this is a vulgar age, dear cousin, you know, and we must
not be behind our times!’

‘Is it?’ asked Frau von Sigmundskron without taking her eyes from her
work.

‘Oh, dreadfully so! Is it not, Hugo? I am sure I have heard you say so.’

‘Without doubt, the times are changed,’ replied Greifenstein. ‘But I
suppose that what is modern will always seem vulgar to old-fashioned
people.’

‘Ah, you do not call me old-fashioned, dear husband? Do you? Really, if
I am old-fashioned, the times must have advanced very, very quickly! Eh?
Dearest cousin, he calls us old-fashioned! You and me! Aber nein! How is
it possible!’

A fit of spasmodic, unnatural laughter shook her from the tip of
her lace parasol to the toes of her small slippers, causing such a
convulsion in the lap-dog’s mind that he sat up on her knees and joined
his cries with hers, until he had succeeded in attracting her attention,
when he was instantly caressed and kissed and petted, with expressions
of the greatest anxiety for his comfort. In about thirty seconds,
however, the noises suddenly ceased, Pretzel went to sleep again and his
mistress sat looking at the swallows and the flitting butterflies, her
weary features expressing nothing that could be connected with mirth,
any more than if she had not laughed for years. The repose could not
last long, but Greifenstein felt that it was refreshing. In five and
twenty years of married life, by dint of never exhibiting any annoyance
at his wife’s way of expressing herself, he had grown hardened against
the disturbing effect of her smile and voice until he was really very
little affected by either. So far as her conduct was concerned, he had
never had anything to complain of, and since he had chosen her of his
own free will, he considered that one part of his duty consisted in
suffering her eccentricities with patience and calm. The idea that
a German who called himself a gentleman should not do his duty never
entered his mind. On the other hand, his imperturbable manner sometimes
irritated his wife, and in justice to her it must be allowed that his
conversation in her presence was often very constrained.

‘The next time you come to Greifenstein,’ he said, leaning forward again
and speaking to his cousin, ‘it will be on the occasion of a very happy
event.’

‘Yes,’ answered Frau von Sigmundskron with her gentle smile, ‘I hope
so.’

‘I think that if you approve, and if your daughter has no objections--’

‘Objections!’ cried Frau von Greifenstein, suddenly waking from her
reverie and turning her face to her companion’s with an engaging
simper. ‘As if dear, sweet, beautiful Hilda could have any objections to
marrying our Greif! Objections! Ah no, dear cousin, that youthful heart
is already on fire!’

The words were uttered with such an affectation of softness that Pretzel
did not move, as his mistress anxiously looked to see if he were awake
when she had done speaking.

‘No,’ replied the other lady calmly. ‘She has none. But I do not think
that was what my cousin Greifenstein meant.’

‘I meant that the marriage might take place early in the new year, if
neither you nor your daughter had any objections,’ said Greifenstein.

‘But they have none--she has just told you so! Oh, Hugo, how dull men
are, where love is concerned! Why should they object?’

‘Indeed, I cannot see any reason why they should not be married in
January,’ said Hilda’s mother. But there was a shade of annoyance in her
face, and she bit her lip a little as she bent over her work.

‘Very good, then,’ pursued Greifenstein, as though his wife had not
spoken. ‘We will say the first week in January, if it is agreeable to
you.’

‘It seems to me,’ observed Frau von Greifenstein with a fine affectation
of irony, ‘that I might be consulted too.’

The Lady of Sigmundskron looked up quickly, but Greifenstein seemed to
grow calmer than ever.

‘Pardon me, my dear wife,’ he answered, with a rather formal inclination
of the head. ‘If you will be as kind as to remember our conversation
of last night, you will call to mind that I asked your consent to the
arrangement, and that you gave it at once.’

‘Ah yes!’ said Frau von Greifenstein. ‘It is true. I daresay we did
speak of it. Ah, you see, the multiplicity of my household cares drives
these things from my head!’

Thereupon her face grew vague and expressionless and she looked again at
the birds and the butterflies.

‘Moreover,’ said Greifenstein, now addressing his wife directly, ‘I am
sure you will recollect that we proposed to ask our cousin to stay with
us until the young people return from their wedding trip.’

‘Yes--yes. I believe we did,’ replied Clara very vaguely and nodding her
head slowly at each word. ‘Indeed we did!’ she exclaimed turning quickly
with one of her unexpected smiles. ‘Of course! Dear, dear! What could
you do, all by yourself up there among those towers? Such a solitary
life, and your only daughter, too! How I pity you!’

‘You are very kind. But I am not much to be pitied. Many mothers lose
their children altogether when they have married them. Hilda will always
be near me, and we can see each other as often as we please.’

‘Your room at Greifenstein will always be ready to receive you,’ said
the master of the house.

‘Oh always, always!’ affirmed his wife with great vivacity.

The conversation languished. It was impracticable to discuss anything
seriously in the presence of Frau von Greifenstein, for her inopportune
interruptions rendered any connected talk impossible.

Presently Greifenstein took a newspaper from his pocket and began to
read the news of the day aloud to the two ladies. He did not read well,
and the sound of his mechanical voice had a drowsy effect in the warm
June air, like the clacking of an old-fashioned mill, dull, regular and
monotonous. Neither of his companions, however, felt inclined for sleep.
His wife watched the birds with a weary look, and his cousin plied her
needle upon her fine work. During many hundreds of afternoons like this
Frau von Greifenstein had sat in the same place hearing the same
voice, and wearing the same expression. She rarely listened, though she
occasionally uttered some exclamation more or less appropriate to what
she thought she had heard. She was generally asking herself whether she
had done well to accept the peace and the isolation that had fallen to
her lot.

Her life was certainly neither happy nor gay. She had all that money
could give, but there was no one to see that she had it. Like glory,
wealth gives very little satisfaction unless there is a public to
witness its effects, and the pleasure we derive from them. Frau von
Greifenstein had no public, and to a nature that is fond of show the
privation is a great one. She could dress herself as gorgeously as she
pleased, but there was no one to envy her splendour, nor even to admire
it. For years she had played to an empty house. If, by any fantastic
combination of events, it were possible that a fairly good actress
should ever be obliged to play the same part every night for five and
twenty years in an absolutely empty theatre, and if she did not go
mad under the ordeal, she would perhaps turn out very like the Lady of
Greifenstein. The stage was always set; the scenery was always of the
best and newest; the vacant boxes and the yawning pit were brilliantly
lighted; the costumes were by the best makers; the stage manager
was punctual and in his place; the curtain went up every day for
the performance; but Frau von Greifenstein’s theatre was silent and
untenanted, not a voice broke the stillness, not a rustle of garments
or a flutter of a programme in a spectator’s hand made the silence less
intense, not an echo of applause woke a thrill of pride or vanity in the
heart of the solitary performer. And the poor actress was growing old,
wasting her smiles, and her poses, and her bursts of laughter, and her
sudden entries on the empty air, till by mechanical repetition they had
grown so meaningless as to be almost terrifying and more than grotesque.

It was no wonder that she seemed so very silly. Incapable of finding
any serious resource in her intellect, she had devoted her energies to
outward things in a place where there was no one to applaud her efforts
or flatter her vanity. Many women would have given it up and would have
fallen into a state of listless indifference; some would have become
insane. But with Frau von Greifenstein the desire to please by
appearance and manner had outlasted any natural gift for pleasing which
she might once have possessed, and had withstood the test of solitude
and the damping atmosphere created by a total absence of appreciation.
It cannot be denied that her mind dwelt with bitterness on the hardness
of her situation. More than once she had thought of changing her mode of
life to plunge into a pietist course of simplicity and asceticism. But
when the morning came, the emptiness of her existence made the diversion
of personal adornment a necessity. There was nothing else to do. And yet
she never pressed her husband to go and live in town, nor to fill the
castle with visitors. She had lost all hold upon the current of events
in the outer world; and as she looked at herself in her mirror, and saw
better than any one else the remorseless signature of time etched deep
in the face that had once been pretty, she felt a sharp pain in her
breast, and a sinking at the heart, for she knew that it was all over
and that she had grown old. There were even moments when she feared lest
she were becoming ridiculous, for she had not originally been without a
certain acute perception in regard to herself. But the fear of ridicule
is never strong unless a comparison of ourselves with others is
possible, and Frau von Greifenstein lived too much alone to suffer long
any such imaginary terrors. The time when she might still have made a
figure in the world had gone by, however, and she knew it, and as any
desire for change which she had formerly felt had sprung from the wish
to be seen, rather than from the wish to see others, she was becoming
resigned to her fate. She had reached that sad period at which half the
pleasure of life consists in dreaming of what one might have done twenty
years ago. It is a dreary amusement, but people who are very hopeless
and solitary find it better than none at all.

Greifenstein read on, without much punctuation and with no change of
tone. There was an article upon the European situation, another upon
tariffs, the court news, the gazette, the festivities projected for a
certain great event. It was all the same to him.

‘In view of the solemnity of the occasion, his majesty has deigned to
grant amnesty to all political--’

He stopped suddenly and coughed, running his eye along the lines that
followed.

‘To all what?’ inquired his wife with a show of interest.

‘To all political offenders concerned in the revolutionary movements of
1848 and 1849,’ continued Greifenstein, who sat up very straight in his
chair and tried to read more mechanically than usual, though his voice
grew unaccountably husky. What followed was merely a eulogium upon the
imperial clemency, and he read on rapidly without taking his eyes from
the printed sheet. Frau von Sigmundskron uttered a little exclamation.
She had pricked her thin white finger with her needle. The Lady of
Greifenstein saw the tiny drop of blood, and immediately exhibited an
amount of emotion out of all proportion with the accident.

‘Oh, what have you done!’ she cried, and she was pale with anxiety as
she bent forward and insisted on seeing the scratch. ‘But, my dear, you
have wounded yourself! Your finger is bleeding! Oh, it is too
dreadful! You must have some water, and I will go and get you some
court-plaster--do be careful! Bind it up with your handkerchief till I
come!’

She rose quickly, and Pretzel for once was forgotten, and rolled from
her knees to the grass, falling upon all-fours with a pathetic little
squeak. But Frau von Greifenstein picked him up and fled towards the
house in search of the plaster before he could make any further protest
against such rough treatment.

‘My wife cannot bear the sight of blood,’ observed Greifenstein, who had
lowered the newspaper and was looking over his glasses at his cousin’s
hand.

‘The wound is not dangerous,’ she answered with an attempt to smile,
but her eyes fixed themselves on Greifenstein’s with a look of anxious
inquiry.

‘He will come back,’ he said, in a low voice, and the colour slowly left
his face.

‘Do you think it possible?’ asked his cousin in the same tone.

‘It is certain. He is included in the amnesty. He has hoped for it these
many years.’

‘Even if he does--he will not come here. You will never see him.’

‘No. I will not see him. But he will be in Germany. It is for Greif--’
he stopped, as though he were choking with anger, but excepting by the
pallor of his stern features, his face expressed nothing of what he
felt.

‘Greif will live here and will never see him either,’ said Frau von
Sigmundskron. ‘Besides, he does not know--’

‘He knows. Some student told him and got a sabre cut for his pains. He
knows, for he told me so only yesterday.’

‘That only makes it easier, then. Greif will be warned, and need never
come into contact with him. Hilda would not understand, even if she were
told. What can she know about revolutions and those wild times? I am
sure he will never attempt to come here.’

‘He shall not sleep under my roof, not if he is starving!’ exclaimed
Greifenstein fiercely. ‘If he had not been the dog he is, he would have
made an end of himself long ago.’

‘Do not say that, cousin. It was better that he should live out his life
in a foreign country than do such a bad thing.’

‘I do not agree with you. When a man has taken Judas Iscariot for his
model I think he ought to follow so eminent an example to the end.’

Frau von Sigmundskron did not wish to argue the point. Far down in her
heart there existed an aristocratic and highly irreligious prejudice
about such matters, and though her convictions told her that suicide was
a crime, her personal sentiment of honour required that a man who had
disgraced himself should put an end to his existence forthwith.

‘He will write, if he means to come,’ she observed, by way of changing
the current of the conversation.

‘It would be more like him to force himself upon me without warning,’
said Greifenstein, folding the paper with his lean strong hands and
drawing his thumb-nail sharply along the doubled edges. The action was
unconscious, but was mechanically and neatly performed, like most things
the man did. Then he opened it, spread it out and looked again at the
passage that contained the news. Suddenly his expression changed.

‘I do not believe he is included in the amnesty,’ he said. ‘He was not
convicted for a political misdeed, but for a military crime involving a
breach of trust. He aggravated his offence by escaping. I do not believe
that he is included.’

‘But will he not believe it himself?’ asked Frau von Sigmundskron.

‘It will be at his peril, then.’ Greifenstein’s face expressed a
momentary satisfaction. Again he folded the paper with the utmost care,
evidently reflecting upon the situation.

‘I suppose he will be sent back to the fortress,’ observed his
companion.

‘I would almost rather he were pardoned, than that,’ answered
Greifenstein gloomily. ‘The whole scandal would be revived--my name
would appear, it would be a fresh injury to Greif. And my wife knows
nothing of it. She would hear it all.’

‘Does she know nothing?’ asked Frau von Sigmundskron, looking curiously
at her cousin.

‘Not a word. She never heard his name.’

‘I could not help supposing that she left us just now because she was
disturbed at the news--and she has not come back.’

‘She is not so diplomatic as that,’ answered Greifenstein with something
like a grim smile. ‘She forgets things easily, and has probably been
detained by some household matter.’

Frau von Sigmundskron could not help admiring the way in which
Greifenstein always spoke of his wife, excusing her more noticeable
eccentricities, and affecting to ignore her minor peculiarities, with a
consistent dignity few men could have sustained in the society of such
a woman. It was a part of his principle of life, and he never deviated
from it. It had perhaps been strengthened by the necessity of teaching
Greif to respect his mother and to treat her with a proper show of
reverence, but the prime feeling itself was inseparable from his
character, and did honour to it. Whatever he might think of his wife,
no living person should ever suspect that he could have wished her to be
different. He had chosen her and he must abide by his choice.

But his cousin was a very keen-sighted person and understood him better
than he guessed, admiring his forbearance and giving him full credit for
his constancy. She had her own opinions concerning his wife, and did not
like her; nor was she quite free from a disturbing apprehension lest at
some future time Greif might develop some of his mother’s undesirable
peculiarities. At present, indeed, there seemed to be nothing which
could justify such fears; but she found it hard to believe that the
young man had inherited nothing whatever from his mother. She could
remember the time when Frau von Greifenstein had been younger and
fresher, when her hair had been less dull and colourless, and when
her complexion had possessed something of that radiance which was
so especially noticeable in her son. And yet Hilda’s mother felt
instinctively that she could never dislike Greif, even if he became vain
and foolish, which did not seem very probable.

For some minutes neither of the cousins spoke, and Frau von Sigmundskron
sat doing nothing, which was altogether contrary to her nature, her work
lying upon her knees and her hands joined one upon the other. As for
Greifenstein, he had at last folded the paper to his satisfaction
and had returned it to his pocket. Presently the sound of his wife’s
footsteps was heard upon the gravel path. She seemed less excited than
when she had left her seat.

‘I have kept you waiting,’ she said, as she came up. ‘I could not find
what I wanted, and when I did that dreadful Pretzel was swallowing a
pair of scissors and nearly had a fit, so that I had to give him a hot
bath to calm him. He is such a care! You have no idea--but here it is,
if it is not too late. I am so dreadfully sorry! I thought I should have
died! Do let me put it upon your finger.’

The scratch had entirely disappeared, but Frau von Sigmundskron did not
wish to appear ungracious, or ungrateful, and held out her hand without
any remark. It would have seemed uncharitable to make Clara’s errand
look wholly superfluous before Greifenstein. But he paid very little
attention to what was passing, for he was preoccupied with his own
thoughts, and before long he rose, excused himself for going away by
saying that he had some pressing correspondence, and left the two ladies
to their own devices.

Frau von Sigmundskron felt rather uncomfortable, as she always did
when she was alone with her hostess. To-day she had an unpleasant
consciousness that she was in the way, and that, if she were not
present, Clara would have already disappeared, in order to be alone. She
resolved to make the interview as short as possible.

‘The weather is very warm,’ she remarked, as a preparatory move towards
going into the house.

‘Is it?’ asked her companion as though she had been told something very
unusual.

‘It seems so to me,’ responded the baroness, rather surprised that the
fact should be questioned. ‘But then, it always seems warmer here after
Sigmundskron.’

‘Yes--yes, perhaps so. I daresay it is. How very good of his majesty--is
it not?’

‘To grant an amnesty?’

‘Yes, to forgive those dreadful creatures who did so much harm. I am
sure I would not have done it--would you? But you are so good--did you
ever know any of them?’

‘Oh no, never. I was--’ She was going to say that she had been too
young, but she was stopped by a feeling of consideration for Clara. ‘I
was never in the way of seeing them,’ she said, completing the sentence.

‘As for me,’ said Clara, ‘I was a mere child, quite a little thing you
know.’ An engaging smile--poor woman, it was more than half mechanical
and unconscious--emphasised this assertion of her youth.

Frau von Sigmundskron, in whom enforced economy had developed an unusual
facility for mental arithmetic, could not refrain from making a quick
calculation. Forty-eight from eighty-eight, forty--a young thing,
perhaps ten--ten and forty, fifty. Clara was virtually admitting that
she was fifty, and if she owned to that, she must be nearer sixty. In
other words, she must have been well over thirty when she had married
Greifenstein. She was certainly wonderfully well preserved. And yet
Greifenstein had more than once told his cousin that he had married his
wife when she was a widow five and twenty years of age. This was the
first occasion upon which Clara had ever let fall a word which could
serve as a starting-point in the calculation, and though the baroness
was the best and kindest of mortals she would not have been a woman
if she had failed to notice the statement, or to draw from it such
conclusions as it offered to her ingenuity.

‘The people who profit by the pardon will be old men,’ she remarked.

‘Old?’ repeated Clara with a scarcely perceptible start. ‘Not so very.
They may be less than sixty--a man of sixty is still young at that age.
I wonder whether any of them will profit by the permission to return.
What do you think, Therese?’

The question was asked with every show of interest, and the baroness
raised her quiet eyes from her work. She and Clara very rarely called
each other by their first names. They generally avoided the difficulty
by a plentiful use of the convenient designation of cousin. Frau von
Greifenstein evidently meant to be more than usually confidential, and
her companion wondered what was coming, and began to feel nervous.

‘Really,’ she answered, ‘I do not know. I suppose that a man who
has been expelled from his country and exiled for many years, would
naturally take the first opportunity of returning. I should think it
probable. On the other hand--’ she stopped a moment, to smooth a stitch
in her work.

‘On the other hand?’ repeated Clara anxiously.

‘Well, I was going to say that in forty years, a man might learn to love
an adopted country as well as his own, and might prefer to stay there.
It would depend upon the man, upon his character, his tastes, perhaps
upon whether he had gone into the revolution out of mistaken patriotism,
or out of personal ambition.’

‘Do you think so? Why?’ Frau von Greifenstein seemed deeply interested.

‘Because I fancy that a patriot would come back at any rate. His love of
his country would be the strongest element in his nature. An ambitious
man would either have found a field for his ambition elsewhere in forty
years, or the passion would have died a natural death by that time.’

‘Ah yes! There is truth in that! But what a dreadfully extraordinary
position!’ she exclaimed, with one of her unexpected bursts of laughter.
‘What a novel! Do you not see it! Oh, if I were only a novelist, what
a plot I could make out of that! Dearest cousin, is it not time to have
coffee?’




CHAPTER V


From that day the life at Greifenstein became even more drearily
monotonous than it had been before, for all the party excepting Greif
and Hilda. To any one not accustomed to the atmosphere the existence
would have been unbearable, but humanity can grow used to anything by
degrees. A stranger finding himself unexpectedly at the castle would
have felt that the sweet air of the forest was poisoned at that one
point by some subtle and undefinable element, that appealed to none of
the senses in particular, but oppressed them all alike. The sensation
was not like that caused by a vague anxiety, or by the shadow of a
coming event creeping mysteriously onward, a mere uneasiness as to the
result which must soon be apparent, but of which it is not possible to
say whether it will be good or bad. It was worse than that, for if there
were to be any result at all, it must be very bad indeed. Greifenstein
himself felt as he supposed a criminal might feel who was hourly
expecting discovery. If his half-brother returned, the suffering caused
by his presence in the country would be almost as great as the shame of
having committed his crime could have been. Frau von Sigmundskron was
more indifferent, for she had never known the man, and her knowledge
of what he had done was less accurate than Greifenstein’s. But she was
nevertheless very uncomfortable when she thought of his appearance.
It had been judged best to acquaint Greif with the proclamation of the
amnesty, in order that he might be prepared for any contingency, but
the news made very little impression upon him, for he had learned the
existence of his disgraced relative so recently that he had from the
first feared his return, and had thought of what he should do ever
since. Moreover he had Hilda with him, and he was very young, two
circumstances which greatly diminished his anxiety about the future. He
was very glad, however, that his academical career was so near its end,
for he reflected that it would be tiresome to be constantly fighting
duels about his uncle. For the present, he had abandoned the idea of
taking active service in the army.

Greifenstein was more silent, and stiff, and severely conscientious than
ever, and his daily habits grew if possible more unbendingly regular, as
though he were protesting already against any unpleasant disturbance in
his course of life which might be in store for him. When he was alone
with his cousin, he never recurred to the subject of Rieseneck or
his return, though the baroness constantly expected him to do so, and
watched his inscrutable face to detect some signs of a wish to discuss
the matter. For two reasons, she would not take the initiative in
bringing up the topic. In the first place, as he was the person most
nearly concerned, her tact told her that it was for him to decide
whether he would talk of his brother or not. Secondly she was silent,
because she had noticed something, and knew that he had noticed it also.
Frau von Greifenstein’s behaviour was slowly changing, and the change
had begun from the hour in which her husband had read from the paper the
paragraph relating to the amnesty.

From the first moment, Frau von Sigmundskron had suspected that Clara
was affected by the news, and her first impression had very naturally
been that she knew the story and had learned it from her husband. There
was nothing improbable in the idea, and but for Greifenstein’s words,
she would have taken it for granted that this was the true state of the
case. He, however, had emphatically denied that Clara was in the secret,
and had evidently looked forward with pain to the moment when he should
be obliged to communicate it to her. He was the most scrupulously
truthful of men, and could not have had any object in concealing the
point from his cousin. And yet there was no doubt that his wife’s manner
had changed, and the baroness could see that Greifenstein was aware
of it. Clara’s vague absence of mind, which had formerly been only
occasional, was increasing, while her fits of spasmodic laughter became
fewer, till at last whole days passed during which her features were not
disturbed by a single smile. There was indeed little to laugh at in her
home, at the best, but she had laughed frequently nevertheless, because
people had told her long ago that it was becoming to her style of
beauty. But she was growing daily more silent and abstracted, scarcely
speaking at all, and not even pretending to be amused at anything.
Greifenstein watched her for a week, and then inquired whether she were
ill. She thanked him and said there was nothing the matter, but during
some hours after he had asked the question she made an evident effort to
return to her former manner. The effect was painful in the extreme.
Her affected mirth seemed more hollow than ever, and her words more
incoherent. Frau von Sigmundskron began to fear that Clara was going
mad, but the latter was not equal to sustaining the effort long, and
soon relapsed into her former silence. Her face grew suddenly very old.
She moved more slowly. The wrinkles deepened almost visibly, and she
became daily thinner. It was evident that something was preying upon
her, and that the mental suffering was reacting upon her body.

Greifenstein said nothing more, and he told no one what he thought. If
his cousin had not suggested to him that Clara must know the story,
he would have supposed that she was ill, and would have sent for a
physician. It would never have entered his mind that she could have
understood all that the proclamation of the amnesty meant to him. He
would have supposed it a coincidence that she should have been first
affected by the malady on that particular day. But the baroness’s remark
had had the effect of fixing in his mind what had immediately preceded
it. He remembered how his wife had suddenly taken advantage of a most
trivial excuse, to show an amount of exaggerated emotion unusual even
for her. He remembered her long absence and her changed expression when
she returned, her silence that evening and her increasing taciturnity
ever since. The connexion between the paragraph and her conduct seemed
certain, and Greifenstein set himself systematically to think out some
explanation for the facts. In five and twenty years Rieseneck’s name had
never been mentioned in her presence. If she had ever heard of him it
must have been before she had married Greifenstein. It was possible that
she might feel the disgrace involved in the man’s return so keenly as to
suffer physically at the thought of it; but Greifenstein’s common sense
told him that this was very improbable. In such a case it would have
been far more natural for her to come to her husband and ask to be told
the whole truth. It was easier to believe that her conduct was due
to some other cause, that she had really never heard of Rieseneck’s
existence, and that there was some other person whose possible return,
in consequence of the amnesty, she dreaded as much as Greifenstein
feared the reappearance of his half-brother. Many persons had been
involved in the revolutionary movements of 1848 and had been obliged
to leave the country in consequence. Clara’s first husband had died of
heart disease in Dresden in the year 1860, and consequently could not
have been connected with the events of those times in any way to his
discredit. She had shown Greifenstein the official notice of his death
in an old gazette of the period. But it was not unlikely that in those
unsettled times one of her relations might have got into trouble and
been exiled or imprisoned. At the time of her marriage however she had
acknowledged no relative excepting an elderly aunt who had been present
at the wedding, but who had died since, without ever paying a visit to
the castle, and no other connexion of hers had ever appeared upon the
scene. Greifenstein was well aware that he had hurried the marriage by
every means in his power. He had been fascinated by Clara, and had
been madly in love. They had met in the Bavarian highlands and had been
married two months later in Munich, with very little formality. Since
that time Greifenstein had always avoided going to Dresden, on account
of the painful associations the city must have for his wife, and had
preferred not to visit Berlin, which had been the scene of his brother’s
crime and trial. The consequence was that neither of the two had ever
been among people who had known them previously.

The idea that two disgraced persons might come back from exile, instead
of one, was extremely disquieting to Greifenstein’s peace of mind. He
knew well enough what to do with Rieseneck if he appeared. He would shut
the gates and let him shift for himself. But the other man would be in
search of Clara. He wondered who he might be, and what their relations
could have been, whether he would turn out to be a brother, an uncle,
or merely some man who had loved her in former days, a mere rejected
suitor. Even should he prove to be her brother, he could not reproach
her for her silence, since he found himself in exactly the same
situation. That contingency, however, was remote. It was extremely
unlikely that each should have a brother who had been convicted of evil
deeds in the revolution, considering how short a time the disturbance
had lasted. The theory that the man was a disappointed pretender to her
hand was infinitely more probable. In any case, Greifenstein made up his
mind that a person existed whose return Clara feared, and the prospect
of whose appearance was so painful as to affect her health.

For some time he hesitated as to the course he should pursue. He was
certainly free to tell her his suspicions, on condition that he told
her of his own apprehensions at the same time. To get her secret without
giving his in return would be unfair, according to his notions of
honour, even apart from the consideration that if Rieseneck came back he
would ultimately be obliged to confide in her. But, on the other hand,
there was a possibility that Rieseneck might not come back, after all,
and in that case, if he had told her everything, he would have submitted
himself to a painful humiliation without necessity. He resolved to keep
his own counsel and at the same time to ask his wife no questions.

Rieseneck was in South America, but Greifenstein had no reason for
supposing that the person whose possible return so greatly disturbed
Clara had betaken himself to so distant a country. He might be in Italy,
in France, in England, anywhere within eight and forty hours’ journey.
He might therefore arrive at any moment after the proclamation.

But no stranger came, though the days became weeks, and the weeks
months, until it was almost time for Greif to go back to Schwarzburg.
Greifenstein began to think that the problematical personage was dead,
though Clara evidently did not share his opinion, for she never regained
her former manner. Under any other circumstances Greifenstein would have
enjoyed the change, the absence of irrelevant interruption, the rest
from her unnatural laughter, the gravity of her tired face. He was far
from being satisfied, however, and his earnest mind brooded constantly
over the possibilities of the unknown future. His situation was the
harder to bear because he could not explain it to his son, the only
human being for whom he felt a strong natural sympathy. It would have
seemed like teaching the boy to suspect his mother of some evil.

Greif secretly wondered what was happening in his home. The atmosphere
was unbearably oppressive, and if he had not been able to spend most of
his time with Hilda he would have asked his father’s permission to take
his knapsack and go for a walking expedition in Switzerland, on the
chance of falling in with a fellow-student. He had noticed the change in
his mother from the first, and asked her daily if she were not better.
Clara would not admit that she was ill, but she looked at Greif with an
expression to which he was not accustomed and which made him nervous.
Hitherto he had never quite known whether she loved him or not. She
had spoiled him as much as she dared when he was a child, but there had
always been something in her way of indulging him which, even to the
little boy, had not seemed genuine. Children rarely love those who spoil
them, and never trust them. Their keen young sense detects the false
note in the character, and draws its own conclusions, which are
generally very just. Greif had found out when he was very young that his
mother gave him everything he asked for, not because she loved him, but
because she was too weak to refuse, and too indolent to care for the
result. He had found her inaccurate in what she told him, and negligent
in fulfilling the little promises upon which a child builds such great
hopes, though she was always ready to pay damages for her forgetfulness
by excessive indulgence in something else, when it was agreeable to her.
Greif had discovered that his father rarely promised him anything,
but that if he did, it was something worth having, and that he was
scrupulously exact in keeping his word about such matters, even at the
expense of his own convenience. He consequently admired his father and
was proud to imitate him; whereas he very soon learned to consider his
mother as a person of inferior intelligence, who did not know enough
to be accurate, and who did not respect herself enough to fulfil her
promises. But for his father’s influence he would probably have ended
by showing what he felt. Greifenstein, however, exacted from him an
unvarying reverence and courtesy towards his mother, and never, even in
moments of the greatest confidence, permitted the boy to criticise the
least of her actions.

To tell Greif of the suspicions which agitated his own mind was
therefore contrary to Greifenstein’s fixed principles, and consequently
utterly impossible. In reply to his questions about his mother’s health
the only answer which was at once plausible and in accordance with
truth was the plain statement that Clara denied being ill, but that she
nevertheless appeared to be suffering from some unknown complaint. Greif
was not satisfied, but his own ingenuity could discover no explanation
of the facts, and he was obliged to hold his peace. His mother’s manner
and her look when he spoke to her disturbed him. It was as though her
uncertain and careless affection had suddenly developed into something
more true and sincere. There was something wistful in the fixed gaze of
her eyes, as though she feared to know what was in his heart, and yet
longed for some more frank expression of his love for her than that mere
reverential courtesy which he had been taught to show his mother since
he was a child. Being very young and of a very kind heart, Greif began
to wonder whether he had not misunderstood her throughout many years. He
possessed that kind of nature which cannot long refrain from returning
any sort of affection it receives, provided that affection appears to
be genuine. He gradually began to feel a responsive thrill in his
heart when he saw that his mother’s sad eyes watched his movements and
lingered upon his face. The tone of his voice began to change when he
addressed her, though he was scarcely conscious of it. His words became
gentler and more sympathetic, as his thoughts of her assumed a kindlier
disposition. He began to reproach himself with his former coldness, and
he frankly owned to himself that he had misunderstood her.

It had always been his custom to go to his mother’s boudoir in the
morning, when he had not already left the house before she was visible.
It was rather a formal affair. Greif knocked at the door and waited for
her answer. Being admitted, he went to his mother and kissed her hand.
She kissed his forehead in return. He asked her how she was, and she
inquired what he was going to do during the day. After five minutes of
conversation, he generally took leave of her with the same ceremony,
and departed. He usually avoided being with her at any other time, and
accident rarely brought them together in the course of the day, for
Greif was always with Hilda or with his father. Very gradually, he began
to find this morning visit less irksome. He fancied that his mother
would willingly have detained him a little longer, but that she felt
how little he could care for her society as compared with that of Hilda.
Then, too, she had grown so sad and silent as to excite in him a sort of
pity. At last the feeling that was drawing them closer found expression.

Greif had made his usual visit one morning and was about to leave the
room. Her sorrowful, faded eyes looked up to his, and slowly filled with
tears. He felt an irresistible impulse to speak, and yielded to it.

‘Mother,’ he said, kneeling down beside her, and taking her hand
affectionately in his, ‘what is it? Why are you ill, and sad? Will you
not tell me?’

She looked at him a moment longer, wonderingly, as though hardly
believing what she saw. Then she broke down. The long restrained tears
welled up and rolled over her thin cheeks, making lines and patches in
the pink powder, at once grotesque and pitiful. The carefully curled
ringlets of colourless hair contrasted strangely with the sudden havoc
in her complexion. Perhaps she was conscious of it, for she tried to
turn her face away, so that Greif should not see it. Then all at
once, with a heartrending sob, she let her head fall forward upon
his shoulder, while her nervous, wasted hands grasped his two arms
convulsively.

‘Oh Greif! I am a very miserable old woman!’ she cried.

‘What is it, mother? Oh, tell me what is the matter!’ he exclaimed,
not knowing what to say, but amazed at the outburst he had so little
anticipated.

For some moments she could say nothing. Greif held her, and prevented
her from slipping off her seat. Looking down, though he could not see
her face, he could see well enough how the tears fell fast and thick
upon the rough sleeve of his shooting coat and trickled down the woollen
material till they rolled off at his elbow. He did not know what to do,
for he had never seen her cry before, and was indeed little accustomed
to woman’s weeping.

‘Dearest mother,’ he said at last, ‘I am so sorry for you! If you would
only tell me--’

‘Ah Greif-my son--if I thought you loved me--a little--I should be less
unhappy!’

‘But I do. Oh, forgive me, if I have never shown you that I do!’ He
was in great distress, for he was really moved, and a great wave
of repentance for all his past coldness suddenly overwhelmed his
conscience.

‘If it were only true!’ sobbed the poor lady. ‘But it is all my
fault--oh, Greif, Greif--my boy--promise that you will not forsake me,
whatever happens to me!’

‘Indeed, I promise,’ answered Greif in great surprise. ‘But what can
happen? What is it that you fear, mother?’

‘Oh, I am very foolish,’ she replied with a hysterical attempt at a
laugh. ‘Perhaps it is nothing, after all.’

Her tears burst out afresh. Greif attempted in vain to soothe her,
calling her by endearing names he had never used to her before, and
feeling vaguely surprised at the expressions of affection that fell from
his lips. All at once, with a passionate movement, she threw her arms
round his neck and kissed him. Then, pushing him aside, she rose quickly
and fled to the next room before he could regain his feet.

For some moments he stood looking at the closed door. Then his instinct
told him that she would not return, and he slowly left the room,
pondering deeply on what he had seen and heard.

The next time they met she made no reference to what had passed, and
Greif’s natural delicacy warned him not to approach the subject. Had
there been such previous intimacy between the two as might be expected
to exist between mother and son, an explanation could scarcely have been
avoided. As it was, however, both felt that it was better to leave the
matter alone. The bond between them was stronger than before, and that
was enough for Clara. She experienced a sense of comfort in Greif’s
mere existence which somewhat lightened the intolerable burthen of
her secret. As for Greif himself, the situation appeared to him more
mysterious than ever, and the air of the house more oppressive. It
seemed to him that every one was watching every one else, and that at
the same time each member of the household was concealing something
from the others. He felt that it would be a relief to return to the
thoughtless life of the University, even at the expense of a separation
from Hilda.

Hilda had not failed to notice what was so apparent to every one else,
and had asked her mother questions concerning the evident depression
that reigned in the household. But the good baroness had only answered
that, whatever might be the matter, it was no concern of Hilda’s nor of
her own; and that when disagreeable things occurred in other people’s
houses it was a duty not to see them. Hilda’s ideas about ill health
were exceedingly vague, and she contented herself with supposing that
Frau von Greifenstein was ill, and that sick persons probably always
behaved as she did. At last the time came for Greif’s departure.

The sense of impending evil was in some measure accountable for the
unusual emotion exhibited at the parting. He had never taken leave of
his mother so affectionately before, nor had he before seen the tears
start into her eyes as she kissed him and said good-bye. Never before
had the grip of his father’s hand seemed to convey so much of sympathy,
nor did he remember that his own voice had ever at other times trembled
as though it were sticking in his throat. Even Frau von Sigmundskron was
a little moved and pressed his hand warmly when he kissed her, though
she said nothing. Hilda was very silent, and never took her eyes from
him. He had bidden her farewell before taking leave of the rest, at
their old haunt by the Hunger-Thurm. There had not been many words,
and there had been no tears, but it had been nevertheless the saddest
parting Greif ever remembered. The day was cloudy and a soft wind was
making melancholy music among the grand old trees. Their own voices
had sounded discordant and out of tune, and the words that might have
expressed what they felt would not be found, and perhaps were not
needed.

But when the last minute was come the whole party went out together
to the gate where the carriage was standing. Greif found himself with
Hilda, separated for a moment from the rest. She laid her hand upon his
arm and spoke in a low voice.

‘Something evil is going to happen to you, Greif,’ she said. There was
something in the accents that chilled him, but he tried to smile.

‘I hope not, sweetheart,’ he answered.

‘I am sure of it,’ said Hilda in a tone of conviction. ‘I cannot tell
why--only, remember, whatever happens--it will be something terrible--I
shall always love you--always, always.’

The others came up, and her voice sank to a whisper as she repeated the
last word. Greif looked anxiously into her face, and saw that she
was pale, and that her flashing blue eyes were veiled and dim. He was
startled, for he had never seen such a change in her before. But there
was no time for words. He whispered a loving answer, but she seemed not
to hear his words as she stood against the huge rough masonry of the
gate, gazing down the drive in the direction of the Hunger-Thurm. As he
was driven rapidly away, he looked back and waved his hat. The others
had stepped forward upon the pavement on one side of the gate, but Hilda
had not moved. Then as the turn of the road was about to hide the castle
from view, he saw her cover her face with both her hands and turn back
into the shadow of the deep gateway.

Greif settled himself in his comfortable seat, wondering what it all
meant. It was very strange that Hilda should have so suddenly and so
forcibly expressed the same idea that had agitated his mother a few days
earlier. It was impossible that they could have talked together, or that
they could be thinking of the same thing. There was no sympathy
between them, and besides, if Hilda had learned anything from Frau von
Greifenstein which Greif did not know, she would certainly have told him
of it, especially as this impending catastrophe threatened him as well
as his mother. He was too firmly opposed to all sorts of superstition
to believe that Hilda had received any supernatural warning of an event
about to occur. But for the conversation that had taken place with
his mother, he would unhesitatingly have told himself that Hilda was
yielding to a foolish presentiment raised by the sorrow of parting.
Persons in love are very apt to fancy each separation the last, and to
imagine some dreadful disaster to be in store for the object of their
affections. He flattered himself that his own common sense was too
strong to be shaken by such absurdities, but he owned that the sensation
was a natural one. Without giving way to presentiments he nevertheless
always felt that something might happen to Hilda before his return, and
it was not strange that she should feel the same anxiety in regard
to him. The impulsive expression she had given to her fear was not in
itself surprising, and if she had turned pale for the first time in her
life, it was perhaps because her heart was really waking to something
stronger than that even, emotionless affection she had hitherto bestowed
upon him.

There was a similarity, however, between his mother’s words and Hilda’s,
which was not so easily explained, and the coincidence was oddly in
harmony with the oppressive constraint that had reigned at Greifenstein
during the vacation. Greif could not help thinking very seriously of it
all, as he drove rapidly through the forest to the railway station;
so seriously indeed, that he at last shook himself with a movement of
impatience, said to himself that he was growing superstitious as a girl,
and lit a cigar with the strong determination not to give way to such
nonsense.

Smoking did not help him, nor the prospect of meeting a fellow-student
or two in the course of the afternoon. He tried to think of the life
that was before him at the University, of the serious work he must do,
of the opening festival of all the united Korps at the beginning of
the term, of his own responsibilities as the head of the association to
which he belonged, of the pleasant hours he would spend in discussing
with youthful shallowness the deepest subjects that can occupy the human
mind, deciding, between a draft of brown ale and a whiff of tobacco,
that Schopenhauer was right in one point, and that Kant was wrong in
another. But, for the present, at least, none of those things could by
mere anticipation distract his thoughts from the matter which occupied
them.

All through the long drive, Hilda’s face was before him and her voice
was in his ear, repeating her strange warning. She had said that she
should always love him. His mother had implored him not to forsake her
in her trouble, whatever it might be. At the same time, his father was
in the greatest anxiety concerning Rieseneck’s movements. Could there
be any connexion between that affair and the conduct of the two women?
Again his common sense rose up with an energetic protest, and displayed
to him all the absurdity of the hypothesis. Could Rieseneck’s possible
return affect his mother more than his father? Could that doubtful event
suffice to rouse Hilda’s fears to such a pitch? If the man came back, he
would come as a suppliant, entreating to be received once, at least, on
tolerance. He would come as a penitent prodigal might, to get a word
of compassion from his brother, perhaps to borrow money. He could do no
harm to any one, beyond the moral shame he brought upon his relatives by
prolonging his wretched existence. He was certainly not a particularly
dangerous person to Greif himself, and Hilda’s warning had been
essentially personal, having no reference to any one else. He could not
understand it, and grew impatient again, realising how deeply he had
been impressed. The forest looked unusually gloomy, and added by its
melancholy solemnity to the depression of his spirits. He was glad
when he saw through the trees the smart wooden railway station with its
coloured signals, its metal roof, and its air of animation. He could not
help thinking that the effect was something like that once produced upon
him when he had come back to the University town from the funeral of an
eminent person whom he had never seen. He had been obliged to attend the
burial with the whole body of the students, and had stood more than
an hour in the churchyard before he could get away. He remembered how
unusually bright and lively the town had appeared to him by contrast
when he returned. Even the thought of Hilda could not now make
the recollection of his home a pleasant one, for Hilda herself was
intimately connected, by her last words, with the whole impression of
funereal gloominess from which the busy railway station furnished him
with the means of escape.




CHAPTER VI


The system of student life in Germany with its duelling, its
associations into Korps, its festivals, and its rabid tenacity to
tradition, has frequently been pronounced ridiculous by European and
American writers, though it does not appear that those who laugh at it
have entered into Korps life themselves, even when they have resided
during a considerable time at a German University. There is, however,
much to be said in favour of its existence in the only country where it
has taken root as a permanent institution; and since it is necessary to
follow Greif’s history from the time when he was still a student, some
explanation of a matter generally little understood may not be out of
place at this point.

Every one knows that a German University has no resemblance, even in
principle, with what English-speaking people generally understand by the
word University. The students do not live in communities, nor in any set
of buildings appropriated for their dwelling. The University, so far as
its habitation is concerned, means only the lecture-rooms. Instructors
and pupils live where they please and as they please, according to their
individual fortune or pleasure. The students are differently situated
from other members of society in one respect. They are not amenable
to the police for any ordinary offence, but in such cases are brought
before the University authorities, and are liable to be confined in the
University prison, attending the lectures belonging to their course,
during the period of their detention, for which purpose they are let out
and shut up again at stated hours. This corresponds to some extent with
the English system of ‘gating.’

A very large body of young men, of various ages, find themselves almost
entirely their own masters, at an age when the English undergraduate
is bound to be at home at twelve o’clock, to attend chapel and hall
dinners, besides fulfilling the obligations imposed by a regular course
of study. They live in lodgings, free of any supervision whatever, they
eat where and when they please, if they do not choose to hear lectures
there is no one to oblige them to do so, for they are supposed to
possess enough common sense to know that the loss is theirs if they fail
at their examinations. It is natural that under these circumstances they
should form associations among themselves. In every University there
will be a certain number of students from each of the country’s
principal provinces. Fellow-countrymen will generally be drawn together
when they are forced to live under similar conditions in one place. To
this instinct may be traced the origin of Korps, and, generally, of all
associations that wear colours, except the so-called Teutonia, which
is probably the oldest of all, and which was originally a political
institution having for its object the promotion of liberal ideas
together with the unity of Germany. There are Korps of the same name,
but the two are always quite distinct and their colours are generally
different.

There are three classes of associations. The Burschenschaften, or
fellowships, the Landsmannschaften, or fellow-countrymen’s unions, and
the Korps. The latter word is French, and was formerly spelt ‘Corps’; as
no better word could be found, or introduced, the German initial letter
is used to distinguish the meaning when used in this sense. Besides
these three classes of acknowledged associations, all wearing colours,
and recognised by the University, there are usually a number of
subordinate ones, termed contemptuously ‘Blasen,’ which may be
translated ‘bubbles,’ a designation given on account of their supposed
instability.

Although admission to these unions is generally, and probably always,
obtained by ballot, they are not clubs in any ordinary sense of the
word. Each has a habitation or lodge, called a Kneipe, or drinking-hall,
and a fencing-room, or a share in the use of one, but there is no set of
apartments corresponding to a club, nor intended for the same manifold
purposes. The organisation and object of the union require no such
conveniences.

The Korps rank highest in estimation and are generally the most
exclusive. In a country where caste prejudice has attained to such
gigantic proportions as it has in Germany, its effects are felt very
early in life; and in Universities where every advantage of education is
placed within easy reach of the very poorest, a course of lectures for
a term often costing but one pound sterling, it is impossible that there
should not be circles formed, in a regular scale, by young men whose
fortunes are more or less alike. Upon these social and financial
distinctions the Korps have grown to be what they are.

Every Korps has three orders of members, and three regular officers,
to each of whom, is assigned one department in the management of the
associations. The orders consist of two regular and one irregular. The
lowest and least important, is considered irregular, and those who
are not admitted further have no claim to anything but a place in the
drinking-hall, and the protection of the regular Korps. They may be men
of any age, but are generally students who are prevented from fighting
by some physical defect, or by the serious objection of their parents,
without whose consent no one is supposed to be admitted to the full
fellowship of the union.

The second order consists of novices, who are designated by the name of
‘foxes.’ The appellation is probably derived from the custom of
playing a kind of game, at the opening of the term, which is called the
fox-hunt, and in which the novices, riding astride of chairs, are made
to run the gauntlet through the ‘fellows’ who are armed with blackened
corks, and who, without moving from their places, attempt to smudge
the faces of the youngsters as they hop past. These ‘foxes’ are young
students who have just joined, and who are not admitted to the rank
of fellows until they have fought a certain number of times. They are
raised to the higher dignity after a ballot, at which they are not
present, and the term of probation generally lasts six months, or one
term.

The fellows, or Burschen, are full-fledged Korps students, eligible to
become officers. The officers are three, and are called respectively
the first, second and third, ‘in charge.’ The first is the chief, who
presides at formal meetings and in the drinking-hall, where the Korps
assembles officially on two evenings of the week. He also represents the
Korps at the weekly meetings of all the representatives. The second
in charge manages all affairs relative to fighting, and is personally
responsible to the association for all formalities relating to the
duels of its members. If any fellow, or novice, has challenged, or been
challenged by, any one else, he must immediately report the affair to
the second in charge, who arranges the meeting for him, and warns him,
at least twelve hours beforehand, of the time appointed. The third in
charge is secretary and treasurer; he keeps the minutes of all meetings,
collects the dues from the members, pays the bills, and is responsible
for the financial department and correspondence.

In well-conducted Korps, and there are many such, the president
considers himself morally bound to see that all the members attend their
lectures regularly. That the associations are not generally mere idle,
riotous bands of students, is sufficiently shown by the fact that almost
every prominent man in German public life has belonged to one of them,
from the great chancellor downwards. Generally speaking, too, each
novice is considered to be personally under the charge of one of the
fellows, whose duty it is to keep him out of trouble and to see that he
is not idle. It will be seen that the system of organisation is
good, and that in reality it has a strong military element, like most
organisations which find favour in Germany.

But if it is military it is also militant, and it is the fact that
fighting is one of its chief objects, which has caused it to be so much
abused by foreigners. It is necessary in the first place to understand
the conditions of the sanguinary battles between the Korps, and the
points by which they are distinguished from the more serious affairs
which are occasionally settled by appeal to arms.

The ordinary student’s duel is not a dangerous affair, though it is
often far more serious than is commonly supposed. The weapon used is a
long, light rapier, square at the point, two-edged and sharpened like a
razor down the whole length of the front, and to about nine inches from
the point at the back. The hilt is a roomy basket of iron, though in
some Universities a bell-hilted sword is used, and in that case the
guard is similar to the first position in sabre fencing or single stick.
The blade is very pliable and not highly tempered, so that in unskilful
hands it is apt to bend and become useless.

The law requires that the combatants should both wear an iron protection
over the eyes, lest the loss of sight should render the student useless
for military service. To protect life also, a heavy silk scarf bandage
is placed round the throat, completely protecting the jugular vein and
the carotid artery. The right arm, which in this peculiar fencing is
used to parry the cut in tierce, is also protected by bandages, and the
body is covered by a leathern cuirass, heavily padded, from the middle
of the breast to the knees. It will be seen that the whole head,
excepting the eyes, is exposed, as well as the chest and shoulders.
Thrusting is forbidden as well as the cut in second, below guard, but
the latter is permitted when either of the combatants is left-handed,
owing to the difference of the position.

Novices’ duels consist generally of fifteen rounds, the first being
merely a formal salute. The fellows fight during fifteen minutes, unless
one of them is severely wounded before the end of the time. An umpire
has a stop-watch in his hand, and only the exact time of actual fencing
is reckoned, which is rather a delicate and troublesome matter. Speaking
is not allowed. If both combatants are good fencers and cautious it
sometimes happens that neither is touched, but as many as thirty slight
wounds are occasionally inflicted on both sides. A surgeon is always
present and decides when a wound is too severe to allow of further
fighting. This usually occurs when a large artery is cut, or a splinter
raised upon a bone.

Meetings are generally arranged for novices, as soon as they have
learned to handle the rapier, whether they have had any quarrel or not,
and such encounters rarely lead to any result worth mentioning. The
intention is to accustom the student to fighting for its own sake, and
he must submit to the conditions or leave the Korps with ignominy. He
learns to fence with coolness and judgment, in a way that could never
be learned on the fencing ground with masks and blunted weapons, and he
acquires from the first the habit of facing an armed man with little but
his own blade to protect him.

It must be remembered that duelling is a social institution in Germany.
It is not necessary here to enter into a discussion of the merits of the
system; it is enough to recall the late Emperor’s speech in regard to
it, in which he declared that he would punish any officer who fought a
duel, but would dismiss from the army any one who refused to do so.
The first clause of this apparent paradox restrains the practice
from becoming an abuse or a general evil; the second imposes it as a
necessity in serious cases. The penalty consists in a longer or shorter
period of arrest, fixed within certain limits, and in case of the death
of one of the combatants the survivor is confined in a fortress for
three years, provided that the duel has taken place with the consent of
the superior officers of the regiment sitting officially as a council of
honour, and that the encounter has been conducted in accordance with the
requirements of the law. Any informality is most severely visited. The
regimental council takes charge of the officer’s reputation, and if it
declares that there need be no meeting, honour is satisfied. In private
life any individual may appeal to the decision of a court of honour
chosen by himself and his adversary, and such decisions are considered
final. But if any person refuses either to fight or to appeal to such
arbitration, he is mercilessly excluded from all polite society wherever
the facts are known. The customs of the country being of this nature,
the existence of fighting associations among students can be both
explained and defended. That some other nations consider the practice of
duelling as altogether barbarous and antiquated, has nothing to do with
the case in hand. An individual cannot change the conditions of the
society in which he is obliged to live, and must either conform to them
or be excluded from intercourse with his fellows. To learn to fight is,
in Germany, as necessary as learning to eat decently is in England, and
the schools of fighting are the Korps and other University unions. As a
direct consequence, they are also schools of life, and in some degree
of etiquette. A man learns there exactly what sort of language is
courteous, what words may be spoken without giving offence, and in what
an insult really consists. By this means a vast amount of trouble is
saved for society, and a uniform standard of behaviour is secured which
is universally respected and adhered to by all who call themselves
gentlemen. The council of the Korps represents the council of the
regiment, or the social court of honour appealed to by civilians. The
conversation of the members with each other, though familiar in
the extreme, is regulated by rigid rules. The slightest approach to
discourtesy between members of the same Korps must be followed by an
instant apology, the refusal of which entails the immediate ejection of
the offender with ignominy, and what is more, the announcement of the
fact by circular letter within the month to every Korps student in every
one of the numerous Universities of the empire. A dishonourable action
of any kind is visited in the same way. The publicity of such a scandal
is enormous. Seven or eight thousand young men are simultaneously
informed that one of their number is disgraced, and at the end of the
year all those older men who have been Korps students in their youth,
are also informed of the fact. This amounts to warning some thirty
or forty thousand gentlemen, chiefly in the higher ranks of society,
against an individual, who, in one circumstance or another, is
almost certain to be brought into contact with some of them. Such an
institution cannot be laughed at, and its censure is no joke.

But even a Korps student’s life is not made up merely of fighting
and study. There is a very jovial side to it, and if its jollity is
sometimes made the subject of reproach this is due to the fact that the
few thoroughly lazy students are of necessity the very ones who are most
seen. It cannot be denied that beer plays a considerable part in
the life of German students. It is also an important element in the
existence of the nation. German beer, however, is not English ale, any
more than it is to be confounded with the nauseous concoctions sold
under its name in other countries. German beer is protected by law, and
unoppressed by taxation. To adulterate it is a crime, an attempt to tax
it would bring about a convulsion of the empire. Its use, in quantities
that amaze the understanding, does not appear to have made Germans
cowards in war, nor laggards in commerce; still less does it seem to
have stupefied the national intellect, or dulled the Teutonic keenness
in the race of nations. The first military power in the world drinks
as much beer as all the rest of the universe together, and probably
a little more. The commercial nation that undersells Englishmen in
England, Frenchmen in France, Italians in Italy and Turks in Turkey,
consumes more malt liquor than they drink of all other liquors.
The intellectual race that has produced Kant, Goethe and Helmholtz,
Bismarck, Moltke, Mommsen, and Richard Wagner in a century, swallows
Homeric draughts of beer at breakfast, dinner and supper. That other
nations do not follow their example, and laugh at their potations is of
little consequence. Even if the Germans do not to some extent owe their
national characteristics to their national drink, it cannot be asserted
with any show of reason that beer has swamped their intelligence, damped
their military ardour or drowned their commercial genius. Beer is the
natural irrigator of conservative principles and intellectual progress.
A little of it is good, much is better, and too much of it can never
produce delirium tremens. Can more be said of any potable concoction
manufactured by humanity for its daily use?

The Korps student drinks beer, therefore, and as though he felt a sort
of religious reverence for the drink of his fathers, he has invented
laws and rules for the ceremony, from which no departure is allowable.
Every meeting of the Korps begins and ends with a ‘Salamander.’ At the
president’s word the glasses or stone jugs are moved rhythmically upon
the oaken board. Another word of command, and each student empties
his beaker. Then the vessels are rattled on the table, while he slowly
counts three, with the precision of a military drum, then struck sharply
again three times, so that they touch the table all together, and the
meeting is opened or closed, as the case may be. The same ceremony is
performed when the health of any one is drunk by the whole Korps. The
principle is that on peaceful occasions the drinking-cup takes the place
of the rapier, and is used for saluting and for combat, as the sword is
used in the duel. To give as much as is received is the object of both.
As much as one student drinks to another’s health, so much must the
others drink in return. If two fall out in a discussion, the one may
challenge the other to a beer duel. The weapons are full glasses, there
is an umpire who gives the word, and he who empties his glass the first
is the conqueror. The president can order any one to drink a certain
quantity _pro poena_, as a penalty for breaking a known rule, and the
fellows have the same privilege in regard to the novices.

There is another element, and a very important one, in the conduct of
the jovial meetings. Singing is a traditional and indispensable business
at every regular Kneipe. Every student has a standard song-book at
his place, containing both the words and music. As singing at sight is
taught in every common school throughout the country, the result is not
so cacophonous as might be expected. The voices are young, fresh and
manly, the tunes full of life and of an easy nature, the verses simple
and often grand, for they are selected from the writings of celebrated
poets. The spirit of the poetry is generally patriotic or fraternal,
always essentially national. The whole effect is fine and elevating, and
those who have sat as young men at the table of a numerous Korps do not
easily forget the sensations evoked by the strains in which they have
joined. Song holds a large place in German life, and an essentially
good one. As a means of strengthening popular patriotism no one has
ever denied its efficacy, and as a mere pastime it is probably the most
pacific and harmless that could be named. It may even be believed that
the capacity and willingness among young men to amuse themselves with
chorus singing indicates to some extent a national love of law and
order. Italians are soloists, in music and in principles. Germans are
born chorus singers, and their great men do not sing themselves, but
conduct the singing of others.

The University of which Greif was a student, and which shall be called
for convenience Schwarzburg, was one of the oldest in the country.
The town in which it was situated possessed in a high degree the
associations and the architectural features which throw a mediaeval
shadow over many northern cities, causing even the encroaching
paint-brush of modern progress to move in old-fashioned lines of subdued
colour. In northern lands antiquity is not associated with the presence
of dirt, as it is in the south. Nuremberg does not look modern because
its streets are clean and there are no beggars, nor does the ancient
seat of the Teutonic Knights at Marienburg look like a hotel because its
lofty corridors and graceful halls, with their cross vaults springing
from central columns, are carefully swept and free from dust. It would
be interesting to examine the causes which produce this odd artistic
phenomenon. In Italy the process of cleansing is destroying altogether
the associations of antiquity and the artistic beauty which once charmed
the traveller. Heidelberg, Nuremberg, and most places in Germany seem
to have gained rather than lost in outward appearance by the advance of
civilisation. Possibly, the Germans of to-day resemble their ancestors
of the fourteenth century more closely than a modern Florentine
resembles Lorenzo De’ Medici. Possibly, in Germany such restorations
as are necessary are executed with a keener perception of beauty in the
model. Possibly, too, German conservatism, Gothic, thoughtful, stern,
expresses itself in all it does; even as the Italian’s queer love of
change and fetish worship of what, in other lands, was called progress
thirty years ago, shows itself in all his visible works. Architecture
exhibits a nation’s feeling far more exactly than literature or any
other branch of art or science. People may, or may not, read the books
that fill the market, and nobody cares whether they do or not except the
author and the publisher. But people must live in houses of some sort,
and, if they are rich enough to choose, they will not live in houses
they do not like, nor worship in temples of which the architecture
irritates their nerves. Now architects are placed in the same position
towards the house builders of the nation, in which authors stand towards
the reading public. If people are conservative, and like old-fashioned
buildings, the architect must satisfy his customer’s love of tradition,
just as the professional writer must write what is wanted, or starve.
The difference in the result is that houses last some time whereas books
do not.

Greif was deeply attached to the University town. He had spent many
happy hours within its walls, and had passed through many exciting
moments of his young life amidst its high, narrow streets and ancient
buildings. Such a place naturally exercised a greater influence over him
than over most men of his age. Born and bred in the heart of the
Black Forest, brought up in the house that had sheltered his race for
centuries, he would have felt uneasy and out of his element if he had
been all at once transported to a modern capital. But in Schwarzburg he
felt that he was at home. The huge cathedral with its spires and arches
and rich fretwork of dark stone, seemed to him the model of what all
cathedrals should be. The swift river that ran between overhanging
buildings, and beneath old bridges that were carved with armorial
bearings and decorated with the rare ironwork of cunning smiths, famous
long ago, bore in its breast the legends of his own forest home, and was
impersonated in many a verse he had learned to sing with his comrades.
The shady nooks and corners, the turns in the crooked streets, the dark
archways of old inns, the swinging signs with their rich deep colour and
Gothic characters, the projecting balconies, glazed with round bull’s
eyes of blown glass set in heavy lead, the marvellously wrought
weathercocks of iron and gold on the corners of the houses, every
outward detail of the time-honoured and time-mellowed town spoke to his
heart in accents he not only understood but loved. Even the modern
note did not jar upon him. There were few officers in the streets, few
soldiers in bright uniforms. Occasionally a troop of white cuirassiers
rode slowly through the main thoroughfare, looking more like mediaeval
knights than Prussian soldiers. Their enormous stature, their bronzed
faces, their snow-white dress and gleaming corslets, the stately, solemn
tramp of their great horses, their straight broad blades without curve
or bend erect at their sides, all made them utterly unlike the ordinary
soldiery of present times, and rendered their appearance perfectly
harmonious with their surroundings. Even the students in their long
boots and coloured caps did not look modern, as they strolled along in
knots of three and four from the University to the mess at dinner-time,
or thronged the pavements of the high street towards evening, when the
purple light was on the cathedral spires and the shadows were deepening
below.

Greif loved it all, and to some extent his affection was returned. He
was certainly the most popular student who had ever trod the stones of
Schwarzburg, as he was by nature one of the most thoroughly German. He
had his quarrels, no doubt, but the way he settled them only served to
increase his reputation. He was pointed out as the man of forty duels,
who had never received a serious wound, and it was said to his credit
that he never wantonly provoked any man, and that his victories had been
chiefly gained over adversaries from neighbouring Universities. He was
looked upon as the natural representative of Schwarzburg in all great
affairs, and when he presided, in the turn of his Korps, over one of the
periodical festivities, his appearance was the occasion for a general
ovation. The feeling that he was to be warmly welcomed was pleasant to
Greif as he got out upon the platform and shook hands with a dozen who
awaited him, but the remembrance that this was probably his last return
as a student among his comrades gave him a passing sensation of sadness.
He was approaching the end of a very happy period in his life, and
though there was much happiness in the future, he was young enough to
regret what he must leave so soon. Few men know what it is to be
the central figure at a great University, and those who have been so
fortunate know well enough how painful is the leavetaking and how hard
the last goodbye to the scene of their triumphs. That moment had not yet
come for Greif, but he could not help seeing how very near it was.

The students led him home to his lodgings over the river, and installed
themselves as they could, all smoking and talking at once, while he
opened his boxes and disposed some of his belongings in their
places. They told him all the news, with the vivacity of men who have
twenty-four hours the start of a friend. The Rhine Korps had increased
its numbers considerably and seemed already inclined to show its teeth
to the Westphalia Korps. The Saxon Korps had lost one of their best
fighters, who had suddenly gone to another University. Hardly any of the
Prussian Korps had arrived, and it was doubtful whether they could renew
the lease of their old drinking-hall. They themselves--their yellow caps
showed that they were Swabians--were already on the look-out for new
‘foxes’ to enlist, and believed that they had secured a couple of
excellent novices. The fencing-master of the Prussians had declared his
intention of fighting a pitched battle--sabres and no bandages--with the
fencing-master of the Rhiners. It was to be hoped that neither would be
badly hurt, as they were both good teachers and worth their salaries.
There was a new waiting-girl at the Stamm-Kneipe where they dined, and
of course all the foxes would fall in love. They, the fellows, would
of course not think of such a thing. It would be quite beneath their
dignity. As for the professors, all those who were not favourites grew
older and older and duller and duller. One of the oldest and dullest had
been married in the summer to a girl of eighteen, a crying shame which
ought to be visited by some demonstration. Why should a professor marry?
Was not Heine right, and were not some kinds of professors cumberers of
the earth, as Achilles called himself when Patroclus had been killed?
Horrible creatures all those whom the Swabians disliked! The professor
of Roman law looked more like a disappointed hyaena than ever, and as
for his colleague, the professor of Greek philosophy, he had begun by
looking like Socrates, when he was born, and time had done its work with
its usual efficacy. Would not Greif be ready soon? It was supper-time.

Greif was thinking of the vanity of human sentiment. A few hours earlier
he had been oppressed by one of the most melancholy moods that had ever
afflicted him. Now, as he stood still for a moment, looking through the
open window at the stars as they began to shine out above the cathedral
spire across the river, he felt as though ten years had passed since he
had driven down through the forest. Only the image of Hilda remained,
and seemed to drown in light the gloomy forebodings that had so much
distressed him. As for Hilda’s own warning, it had been nothing but the
result of her sorrow at parting. And since parting there must be, he
would enjoy to the full what was left of this happy student life, with
its changing hours of study and feasting, of poetry, and fighting, and
song that almost mingled with the clash of steel.

‘Are you ready?’ asked the students in chorus.

Greif set his yellow cap upon his close-cut golden hair.

‘Yes--come on! Vivat, floreat, crescat Suabia! The last semester shall
be a merry one!’

And away they went, crowding down the narrow staircase, laughing,
jesting, and humming snatches of tunes as they burst out into the quiet
shadowy street below.




CHAPTER VII


Greif was not able to throw off the memories of his vacation so easily
as he had at first imagined. The busy week that followed his return to
Schwarzburg furnished enough excitement to divert his thoughts for a
time into a more cheerful channel, and he was further reassured by the
fact that his father’s letter contained nothing that could alarm him.
Everything was going on at Greifenstein as usual. Hilda and her mother
had returned to Sigmundskron. The shooting was particularly good. A
postscript informed Greif that nothing had been heard from a certain
person, who was not named. The young man thought his father’s
handwriting was growing larger and more angular than ever, and that
instead of becoming less steady with advancing years, the letters looked
as though they were cut into the paper with the point of a sharp knife.
Some days passed quickly by, and he began to think that he had disturbed
himself foolishly, and had suffered his judgment to be unbalanced by the
impulsive speeches of Hilda and of his own mother. Then, all at once, as
he sat one morning at his accustomed place in one of the lecture-rooms,
noting in a blank book the wisdom that fell from the lips of a
shrivelled professor, his thoughts wandered and the vision of Hilda rose
before his eyes, with the expression she had worn when she had spoken
of that terrible catastrophe which was in store for him. He could not
imagine why he should have thought of the matter so suddenly, nor why it
seemed so much more important than before. It required a strong effort
to concentrate his mind once more upon what he was doing, and when he
succeeded, he was aware that the point of the professor’s argument had
escaped him. Mechanically he looked at his neighbour to see whether he
had been making notes. The latter was a man much older than himself, and
was busily writing upon loose sheets. He did not look up, but he seemed
to understand what Greif wanted, for he handed him, or tossed him,
the piece of paper on which he was scribbling, numbered the blank page
beneath it, and went on quickly without even turning his eyes. Greif
thanked him, and in the next pause of the lecture copied the notes
into his own book. At the end of the hour Greif returned the sheet and
repeated his thanks. He did not know the man, even by sight, a fact
which surprised him, as the stranger was rather a striking personage.

‘I am very much obliged,’ he said. ‘I was absent-minded--thinking of
something else.’

‘That is always rash,’ replied the other. ‘I am very glad to have been
of service to you.’

Although Greif was not fond of making acquaintances among students who
wore no colours, he could not refrain from continuing the conversation.
The two were the last to leave the hall and went down the broad
staircase together.

‘You have not been long in the University,’ he observed.

‘I have only just arrived. I have migrated from Heidelberg. Permit me
to introduce myself,’ he added according to German custom. ‘My name is
Rex.’

‘My name is von Greifenstein. Most happy.’

‘Most happy.’

Both bowed, stopping for the purpose upon the landing, and then looking
into each other’s eyes. Rex was a man of rather more than medium height,
thin, but broad-shouldered and gracefully built. He might have been
of any age, but he looked as though he were about thirty years old. It
would not have surprised any one to hear that he was much older, or much
younger. Thick brown hair was carefully brushed and smoothed all over
his head, and he wore his beard, which was of the same colour, carefully
trimmed, full and square. A soft and clear complexion, a little less
than fair but very far from dark, showed at first sight that Rex
rejoiced in perfect health. The straight nose was very classic in
outline, the brow and forehead evenly developed, the modelling about
the eyes and temples very smooth and delicate. But the eyes themselves
destroyed at once the harmony of the whole face and gave it a very
uncommon expression. This was due entirely to their colour and not
at all to their shape. The iris was very large, so that little of the
surrounding white was visible, and its hue was that of the palest
blue china, while the pupil was so extremely small as to be scarcely
noticeable. The apparent absence of that shining black aperture in the
centre, made the eyes look like glass marbles, and rendered their
glance indescribably stony. Greif almost started when he saw them.
‘You preferred Schwarzburg to Heidelberg, then,’ he remarked, by way of
continuing the conversation.

‘For my especial branch I think it is superior.’

‘Philosophy?’ asked Greif, thinking of the lecture they had just
attended.

‘No. That is a pastime with me. I am interested in astronomy and in some
branches connected with that science. You have a celebrated specialist
here.’

‘Yes, old Uncle Sternkitzler,’ answered Greif irreverently.

‘Exactly,’ assented Rex. ‘He is a shining light, a star of the first
magnitude. If there is anything to discover, he will discover it. If
not, he will explain the reason why there is nothing. He is a great man.
He knows what nothing is, for there is nothing he does not know. I
am delighted with him. You do not care for astronomy, Herr von
Greifenstein?’

‘I do not know anything about it, and I have no talent for mathematics,’
answered Greif. ‘You intend to make it a profession, I presume.’

‘Yes, as far as it can be called a profession.’

‘How far is that, if I may ask?’

‘Just as far as it goes after it ceases to be an amusement,’ answered
Rex.

‘That may be very far,’ said Greif who was struck by the definition.

‘Yes. If you call it a profession, it is one for which a lifetime of
study is only an insignificant preparation. If you call it a study and
not a profession, you make of it a mere amusement, like philosophy.’

‘I do not find that very amusing,’ said Greif, with a laugh.

‘Nothing is amusing when you are obliged to do it,’ answered the other.
‘Duty is the hair shirt of the nineteenth century. A man who does his
duty is just as uncomfortable while he is doing it as any Trappist who
ever buckled on a spiked belt under his gown.’

‘But afterwards?’

‘Afterwards? What is afterwards? It is nothing to you or me. Afterwards
means the time when you and I are buried, and the next generation are
writhing in hair shirts of their own making, and prickly girdles which
they put on themselves.’ Rex laughed oddly.

‘I differ from you,’ answered Greif.

‘You are a Korps student, sir. Does that mean that you wish to quarrel
with me?’ ‘Not unless you choose. I am not in search of a row this
morning. I differed from you as to your view of duty. It seems to me
contrary to German ideas.’

‘Facts are generally contrary to all ideas,’ answered Rex.

‘Not in Germany--at least so far as duty is concerned. Besides, if
science is true, facts must agree with it. Political ethics are a
science, and duty is necessary to the system that science has created.
What would become of our military supremacy if the belief in duty were
suddenly destroyed?’

‘I do not know. But I know that it will not make the smallest difference
to us, what becomes of it, when we are dead and buried.’

‘It would change the condition of our children for the worse.’

‘You need not marry. No one obliges you or me to become the fathers of
new specimens of our species.’

‘And what becomes of love in your system?’ inquired Greif, more and more
surprised at his acquaintance’s extraordinary conversation.

‘What becomes of any thing when it has ceased to exist?’ asked Rex.

‘I do not know.’

‘There is nothing to know in the case. The motion--you would call it
force--the motion continues, but the particular thing in which it was
manifested is no longer, and that particular thing never will exist
again. Motion is imperishable, because it is immaterial. The innumerable
milliards of vortices in which the material of your body moves at such
an amazing rate will not stand still when you are dead, nor even when
every visible atom of your body has vanished from sight in the course of
ages. Every vortex is imperishable, eternal, of infinite duration. The
vortex was the cause before the beginning and it will remain itself
after the end of all things.’

‘The prime cause,’ mused Greif. ‘And who made the vortex?’

‘God,’ answered Rex laconically.

‘But then,’ objected the younger student in some surprise, ‘you believe
in a future life, in the importance of this life, in duty, in all the
rest of it.’

‘I believe in the vortex,’ replied the other, ‘in its unity,
individuality and eternity. Life is a matter of convenience, its
importance is a question of opinion, its duties are ultimately
considerations of taste. What are opinions, conveniences and tastes,
compared with realities? The vortex is a fact, and it seems to me that
it furnishes enough material for reflexion to satisfy a mind of ordinary
activity.’ ‘You hold strange views,’ said Greif thoughtfully.

‘Oh no!’ exclaimed Rex, with sudden animation. ‘I am not at all
different from any other peaceful student of astronomy, I can assure
you. Neither the vortex nor any other fact ever prevents any man
from doing what is individually agreeable to him, nor from enjoying
everything that comes in his way, or calling it sinful, according to his
convictions.’

‘And are you a happy man, if the question is not indiscreet?’

‘Ah, that is your favourite question among philosophers,’ laughed Rex,
‘and it shows what you really think of all your beliefs about duty and
the rest of the virtues. You really care for nothing but happiness, if
the truth be told. All your religions, your moralities, your laws, your
customs, you regard as a means of obtaining ultimate enjoyment. There
is little merit in being happy with so much artificial assistance.
Real originality should show itself in surpassing your felicity without
making use of your laborious methods in attaining to it. The trouble is
that your political ethics, your recipes for making bliss in wholesale
quantities, take no account of exceptional people. But why should we
discuss the matter? What is happiness? Millions of volumes have been
written about it, and no man has ever had the courage to own exactly
what he believes would make him happy. You may add your name to the
list, Herr von Greifenstein, if you please, and write the next ponderous
work upon the subject. You would not be any happier afterwards and you
would be very much older. If you really desire to be happy, I will tell
you how it is possible. In the first place, are you happy now?’

Rex fixed his stony stare, that contrasted so strangely with his
beautiful face, upon Greif’s eyes. He saw there an uncertainty, a vague
uneasiness, that answered his question well enough.

‘Yes,’ answered the younger man in a doubtful tone, ‘I suppose I am.’

‘I think your happiness is not complete,’ said Rex, turning away.
‘Perhaps my simple plan may help you. Interrogate yourself. What is it
that you want? Find out what that something is--that is all.’

‘And then?’

‘And then? Why, take it, and be happy,’ answered Rex with a careless
smile, as though the rule were simple enough.

‘That is soon said,’ replied Greif in a grave tone. ‘I want what no man
can give me.’

‘Nor woman either?’

‘Nor woman either.’ ‘And something you could not take if it were before
you, within reach?’

‘No. I want nothing material. I want to know the future.’

‘Surely that is not a very hard thing,’ answered Rex, looking at his
watch.

‘It must be dinner-time,’ said Greif politely, as he noticed the action.
He had no wish to detain his new acquaintance.

‘Indeed, it is just noon. I fear I have kept you from some engagement.’

‘I assure you, it has given me the greatest pleasure to meet you,’
answered Greif, holding out his hand.

‘The pleasure has been quite upon my side,’ returned Rex, bowing with
alacrity.

And so they parted, Rex plunging into a shady side street, while Greif
continued his walk towards the dining-place of his Korps, thinking as he
went, of the queer person he had just seen for the first time. His
name was strange, his conversation was unusual, his eyes were most
disagreeable, and yet oddly fascinating. Greif thought about him and
was not satisfied with his short interview. The man’s remark about the
future was either that of a visionary, or of an absent-minded person
who did not always know what he was saying. Greif himself could hardly
understand how he had been led, in a first meeting with one who was
altogether a stranger, to speak so plainly of what disturbed him. It was
not his custom to make acquaintances at a venture, or to refer to his
own affairs with people he did not know. He reflected, however, that
he had not committed himself in any way, while admitting that he might
easily have been drawn on to do so if the interview had been prolonged.

At dinner he asked his friends whether any of them knew a student whose
name was Rex. No one had heard of him, and on learning that he was a
man older than the average, they murmured, and said one to another that
Greif was beginning to cross the borders of Philistia. After the meal
was over, Greif went to his lodgings and tried to work. The sudden
anxiety that had seized him in the morning during the lecture grew
stronger in solitude, until it was almost unbearable. He pushed aside
his books and wrote to his father, inquiring whether anything had
happened, in a way which would certainly have surprised old Greifenstein
if he himself had been less nervous about the future than he actually
was. It was a relief to have written, and Greif returned to his labours
more quietly afterwards.

He did not see Rex again in the lecture-room, though his eye wandered
along the rows of heads bent down over busy hands that wrote without
ceasing. Rex was not among them. He had said that he considered
philosophy an amusement, and he probably came to the hall where it was
taught when the fancy seized him to divert himself. But the desire to
talk with him again became stronger, until Greif actually determined to
go in search of the man.

The sun had gone down, and he stood at his open window as he had done on
the evening of his arrival, watching almost unconsciously for the first
stars to shine out above the cathedral spire. The air was very quiet,
disturbed by no sound but the swirl of the deep river against the stone
piers of the bridge far down below the student’s window. There was
something melancholy in the ceaseless rush of the strong water, which
reminded him of the sighing of the trees at home, on that last morning
when he had sat with Hilda at the foot of the Hunger-Thurm. At such
a time anything which recalled the circumstances of the vacation
necessarily brought with it an increase in his anxiety. Greif thought of
the evening that was before him if he joined his comrades at their usual
place of meeting, and the prospect was distasteful. He would be glad to
escape from the lights and the noise and the drinking and singing, even
from his position of importance among his fellows, who made him their
oracle upon all University matters. He would prefer to pass an hour
or two in quiet conversation, in a quiet room, with Rex the student of
astronomy and mathematics. He did not know where he lived, nor whether
he would be at home at that hour, but it was easy to satisfy his
curiosity upon both points.

He found the address he wanted at the Beadle’s office. Rex lived in a
dark street near the cathedral. Greif climbed many flights of steps,
finding his way by striking one match after another. At the top there
was but one door. He knocked twice and waited. There was no answer, and
he knocked again. He was sure that he could hear some one moving inside
the apartment, but the door remained closed. Annoyed at being kept
waiting he pounded loudly with the piece of iron and called on Rex by
name. He was rewarded at last by hearing footsteps within.

‘Who are you?’ asked an angry voice. ‘And why are you making such a
hideous noise?’

‘My name is von Greifenstein,’ replied Greif, ‘and I want to see Herr
Rex.’

He was preparing for a disagreeable encounter with some unknown person,
when the door opened quickly and he found himself face to face with Rex
himself. His expression was bland in the extreme as he held up the light
he carried and greeted his guest.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said in tones very unlike those Greif had just
heard. ‘I had no idea that it was you. Pray come in.’

‘I am afraid I am disturbing you,’ answered Greif, hesitating as though
he had forgotten the tremendous energy he had put into his knocking.

‘Not at all, not at all,’ repeated Rex, carefully fastening the door
when Greif had entered. ‘You see I am a newcomer and have no friends
here,’ he continued apologetically, ‘and I did not imagine that you knew
my address.’

After passing through a narrow passage, Greif found himself in a
large room with three windows. It was evident that Herr Rex lived more
luxuriously than most students, for there was no bed in the place, and
an open door showed that there was at least one other apartment beyond.
A couple of bookcases were well filled with volumes, and there was a
great heap of others upon the floor in the corner. Two large easy-chairs
stood on opposite sides of the porcelain stove, which at that season
was of course not in use. A broad table in the centre was covered with
books, many of them new, and papers covered with notes or figures were
strewn amongst them in the greatest disorder. Near one of the windows
Greif noticed a writing-desk, upon which lay a few drawing and writing
materials and a large sheet of paper. It was clear that Rex had been at
work here, for a bright lamp stood upon the desk and its strong light
fell from beneath the green shade upon the mathematical figure that had
absorbed the student’s attention.

‘It is a very quiet lodging,’ remarked Rex, drawing forward one of the
arm-chairs and then seating himself in the other. ‘It is just what I
wanted. I do not like noise when I am reading.’

Greif did not exactly know what to say. To visit a student in his rooms
when he had only met him once, was a new experience, and Rex’s stony
blue eyes seemed to ask the object of his coming. It was evident that
Rex only spoke of his habitation in order to break a silence which might
have been awkward.

‘The fact is,’ said Greif, as though answering a direct question, ‘I
have been thinking of what you said the other day.’

‘You do my remarks an honour which I believe they have never received
before,’ replied Rex, bending his handsome head and smiling in his brown
beard.

‘Do you remember? I said that I needed only one thing to make me happy.
I wanted to know the future. You answered that it must be easy to get my
wish. Were you in earnest, or did you speak thoughtlessly? That is what
I came to ask you.’

‘Indeed?’ Rex laughed. ‘You said to yourself that your acquaintance was
either a fool or an absent-minded person, did you not?’

‘Well--’ Greif hesitated and smiled. ‘Either visionary or
absent-minded,’ he admitted. ‘Yes, I could not explain your remark in
any other way.’

‘Of course you could not, unless you suspected that I might be a
charlatan.’

‘That did not occur to me--’

‘It might have occurred to you, considering what I had said. It might
occur to you now, if I answered your question. But on the other hand it
is of no importance whether it does or not. My reply will contribute
to your peace of mind by helping you to catalogue a man you do not know
among the fools and charlatans of whom you have heard. Would you like to
know the future? I can tell it to you, if you please.’

‘The vortex, I suppose,’ answered Greif rather scornfully.

‘Yes. I can tell you the direction of the vortices of which you are
composed, for a time, while they are on their way to join other vortices
in the dance of death. The vortices do nothing but dance, spin and whirl
for ever through life, the farce; through death, the tragedy and through
all the eternity of the epilogue. What do you wish to know?’

‘You are jesting!’ exclaimed Greif moodily. ‘I wish you would be in
earnest.’

‘In earnest!’ cried Rex contemptuously. ‘What is earnestness?’

He rose and went to the desk upon which the lamp was burning, opened
it and took a fresh sheet of paper from within. Greif watched him with
considerable indifference. He had not found what he had sought and he
already meditated a retreat. Rex paid no attention to him, but rapidly
described a circle upon the paper and divided it into twelve parts with
a ruler.

‘Do you remember the date of the day we met?’ he asked, looking up.

‘It was a Monday,’ replied Greif, wondering what his companion was
doing.

‘That will do. I have a calendar,’ said Rex.

He consulted an almanac which he drew from his pocket, made a few short
calculations, and jotted down certain signs and figures in various parts
of the divided circle. When he had finished he looked attentively at
what he had done. The whole operation had occupied about a quarter of an
hour.

‘I do not wonder that you are anxious,’ he remarked, as he resumed his
seat in the easy-chair, still holding the sheet of paper in his hand.

‘What have you discovered?’ inquired Greif, with an incredulous smile.

‘You are threatened by a great calamity, you and all who belong to you,’
replied Rex. ‘I suppose you know it, and that is the reason why you want
to know the future.’

Greif’s cheek turned slowly pale, not at the announcement, but at the
thought that this chance student perhaps knew of Rieseneck’s existence,
and of all that his return might involve.

‘Herr Rex,’ he said sternly, ‘be good enough to tell me what you know of
me and my family from other sources than that bit of paper.’

‘Not much,’ answered the other with a dry laugh. ‘I barely knew of your
existence until I met you the other day, and I have not mentioned you
nor heard your name spoken since.’

‘Why then, you can know nothing, and your figures cannot tell you,’ said
Greif, not yet certain whether to feel relief at the protestation of
ignorance, or to doubt its veracity.

‘Shall I tell you what I see here?’

‘Tell me the nature of the calamity.’

‘Its nature, or the cause of it?’ inquired Rex, scrutinising the sheet
of paper.

‘I suppose that they must be closely connected. Let me know the cause
first--it will be the surest test.’

Rex laid the paper upon his knee, and folded his hands, looking his
guest in the face.

‘Herr von Greifenstein, this is a very serious matter,’ he said, ‘If I
tell you what I have just discovered, you will certainly believe that I
knew it all before, and that I am acting a comedy. You must either bind
yourself to put faith in my innocence, or we must drop this affair and
talk of something else.’

Greif was silent for some moments. To refuse was to insult a man of whom
he had gratuitously asked a question. To promise with the intention of
keeping his word was impossible. He found himself in an awkward dilemma.
Rex helped him out of it with his usual skill.

‘I will tell you what is passing in your mind, and why you are silent,’
he said. ‘You feel that you cannot believe me. I do not blame you. You
will not give your word in such a case, because you must break it. You
are quite right. You are full of curiosity to learn how much I know
about you. It is very natural. The wisest thing to be done, is to
sacrifice your curiosity and I will tear up this piece of paper.’

‘No--wait a moment!’ cried Greif anxiously, putting out his hand to
prevent the act.

‘I do not see any other way out of the difficulty,’ observed Rex,
leaning back in his chair and looking at the stove. ‘You may do this,
however. You may think what you please of me, provided you do not
express your disbelief. I am the most pacific of men, and I have
a strong dislike to fighting at my age. Moreover, you asked me the
question which led to all this. Even if I answer it, am I bound to
explain the reasons for my reply? I believe the code of honour does
not require that, and if there is nothing offensive to you in my
predictions, I do not see why we need quarrel after all, nor what it
matters how I obtained my information. I will promise, too, not to
impart it to any one else. Of course, the simplest way of ending the
matter would be to say no more about it.’

Somehow Rex’s words seemed to change the position. Greif was inwardly
conscious that he would not leave the house without discovering how
much his companion knew, and if this submission to his own curiosity was
little flattering to his pride, it was at least certain that he could
obtain what he wanted without derogating from his dignity if he would
follow the advice Rex gave him.

‘The compact is to be this, I understand,’ he answered at length. ‘You
will tell me what you know, and I will express no opinion as to the way
in which you arrived at the information. Is that what you desire?’

‘It is what I suggest,’ answered Rex. ‘And I bind myself voluntarily to
silence.’

‘Very good. Will you continue your predictions? Will you tell me the
cause of the danger?’

‘You and your family are threatened with great misfortune through the
return of an evil person--a relation, I should fancy--who has been
absent many years.’

Greif started at the directness of the assertion, and an exclamation of
something like anger rose to his lips. But he remembered the compact he
had just made.

‘Will he return?’ he asked in a voice which showed Rex that he was not
mistaken.

‘Inevitably,’ answered the latter. ‘Therein consists the peculiarity
of your situation. You are at the mercy of the inevitable. You cannot
retard by one day the catastrophe, any more than you can prevent one
of the planets from returning to a given point in its orbit. He will
return--let me see--’

‘Can you tell me when?’ asked Greif, who for a moment had forgotten his
scepticism.

Rex seemed to be making a calculation, and repeating it more than once
in order to be sure of its accuracy.

‘In three months, more or less. Probably before Christmas. He is now at
a great distance, in the south-west--’

‘It is impossible that you should guess so much!’ exclaimed Greif,
rising in great excitement.

‘You were not to express an opinion, I believe,’ observed Rex, looking
coldly at the younger man.

‘Can you describe him?’ asked Greif, almost fiercely.

‘Oh yes,’ replied the other. ‘He is elderly, almost old. Perhaps sixty
years of age. He is violent, unreliable, generally unfortunate, probably
disgraced. That is no doubt the reason why you dread his return--’

‘Look here, Herr Rex!’ cried Greif, interrupting him violently. ‘I do
not care a straw for our compact, as you call it--’

‘You agreed to it. I did not desire to speak further in the matter.’

‘Will you agree to forget that there was any compact?’ asked Greif
desperately.

‘Oh no, certainly not,’ answered his tormenter. ‘And you will not forget
it either. You are a man of your word, Herr von Greifenstein. All I can
do is to hold my tongue and tell you nothing more.’

‘That need not prevent my quarrelling with you about something else--’

‘No, if you find 

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