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 it possible. It is not easy to quarrel with me.’
‘But if I were to insult you—’
‘You will not do so,’ returned Rex very calmly and gravely. ‘You are bound not to attack me about my predictions, and so far as any other cause of disagreement is concerned, I think you will find it hard to discover one, for you came here to make a friendly visit, without a thought of quarrelling. I think you must see that.’
Greif walked up and down the room in silence for some minutes. He felt the superiority of Rex’s position, and would not stoop to force the situation by any brutal discourtesy. At the same time he was distracted by the idea that Rex had not yet told him half of what he knew.
‘You are right,’ he said at last. ‘I am a fool!’
‘No, you are an agglomeration of vortices,’ answered Rex with a smile. ‘Shall I tell you one fact more, one very curious fact?’
‘Tell me all!’ answered Greif with sudden energy.
‘In the nature of things, you should have news of that person to-day. You have not heard from him before coming here?’
‘No, and I think nothing could be more improbable than that I should have news of him at all, beyond what you tell me. Besides, I could prevent the possibility of such a thing.’
‘How?’ inquired Rex.
‘By trespassing upon your hospitality until midnight,’ answered Greif with a laugh, in which his natural good temper reappeared once more.
‘Will you do so?’ asked the student with the greatest readiness. ‘Here is a test of my veracity. Whether you stay here, or go home, or wander out alone by the river, you will hear of that individual before midnight.’
‘But nobody knows I am here.’
‘The stars know,’ answered Rex with a smile. ‘Will you stay with me, or will you go home? It makes no difference, excepting that by staying you will give me the advantage of your company—’
‘What is that?’ asked Greif. There was a loud knocking at the outer door.
‘Probably news from your uncle,’ answered Rex imperturbably. ‘Will you open the door? There can be no deception then.’
‘Yes. I will open the door.’
A telegraph messenger was outside, and inquired if Herr von Greifenstein were in the lodging.
‘How did you know where I was?’ asked Greif.
‘It was marked urgent and so I inquired at the Poodle’s office,’ answered the fellow with a grin as he signified the official by the students’ slang appellation.
Greif hastened to the inner room and tore open the envelope, his face pale with excitement.
‘My father telegraphs—“Your uncle has written his intention to return at once—” Good Heavens!’
He tossed the bit of paper to Rex and fell back in his chair overcome by something very like fear.
Rex glanced at the despatch and then returned to the study of his figure without betraying any surprise.
Greif’s first sensation was that of astonishment, almost amounting to stupefaction. Rex could have desired no more striking fulfilment of a prediction than chance had vouchsafed to him in the present instance. For he admitted to himself that fortune had favoured him, even though the arrival of the news within twenty-four hours was not in his belief a mere coincidence. The telegram might have come at any other moment and might have found Greif in any other place. As for Greif, he saw at a glance how impossible it was that Rex should have foreseen the incident, or planned the circumstances in which it occurred. He could not have known that Greif was coming that evening, unless he knew everything, and moreover the despatch was fresh from the office, and twenty minutes had not elapsed between the time of its reception over the wires and of its delivery into Greif’s hands.
If the occurrence was strange, its effect upon the young man was at least equally unforeseen. Greif had always despised persons who professed to dabble in the supernatural, and had laughed to scorn all the so-called manifestations of spiritualism, mesmerism, and super-rational force. When he had heard that the great astronomer Zollner had written a book to explain the performances of Slade, the medium, by means of a mathematical theory of a fourth dimension in space, Greif had believed that the scientist was raving mad. Up to the moment when the telegram had arrived, he had been convinced that Rex was a cheat, who had accidentally learned certain facts connected with the Greifensteins and was attempting to play the magician by making an adroit use of what he knew. When brought suddenly face to face with a phenomenon he could not explain, Greif’s reason ceased altogether to perform its functions. The news he had just received was startling, but the bewilderment caused by its arrival at that precise juncture made even Rieseneck’s return seem insignificant, in comparison with Rex’s power to foretell the announcement of it.
‘I do not understand,’ said Greif, staring at his companion.
‘Nor I, beyond a certain point,’ replied the elder man, looking up from his paper.
‘How could you know?’
‘I did not, until a few minutes before I told you. Of course you thought I did. It is very natural.’
‘It could hardly have been a coincidence,’ said Greif, almost to himself.
‘Hardly.’ Rex smiled.
‘And yet,’ continued Greif, ‘I do not see any way of explaining it all.’
‘I could show you, but it would need several years to do so.’
‘It is not a personal gift?’
‘No, it is a science.’
‘Of what kind?’
‘It is that part of astronomy in which the public does not believe. Do you understand?’
‘Astrology?’ inquired Greif with a rather foolish and yet incredulous smile. ‘I thought that was considered to be nothing but mediaeval ignorance.’
‘It is considered so. Whether it is really nothing better than a superstition you have had an opportunity of judging.’
‘But how can you reconcile it with serious science?’
‘The vortex reconciles everything—even men who are on the point of quarrelling, when the circumstances are favourable.’
‘But if all this is true, there is no reason why you should not know everything—’
‘Not everything. There are cases when it is clear from the first that a question cannot be answered. With better tools, a man might do much more. But one may foretell much, if one will take the trouble. Will you hear more of what I have discovered about you?’
Greif hesitated. His strongly rational bent of mind suggested to him that after all there might be some trickery in the prediction so lately fulfilled, though he was unable to detect it. But if Rex foretold the future Greif felt that he must be influenced, and perhaps made very unhappy by the prophecy, which might in the end prove utterly false. It would be more prudent, he thought, to wait and lay a trap for the pretended astrologer, by asking him at another time to answer a different question, of which it should be certain that he had no previous knowledge. The conclusion was quite in accordance with Greif’s prudent nature, which instinctively distrusted the evidence of its senses beyond a certain point, and desired to prepare its experiments with true German scepticism, leaving nothing to chance and fortifying the conclusion by the purification of the means.
‘Thank you,’ he said at last. ‘I will not hear any more at present.’
‘Which means that you will ask me an unforeseen question one of these days to test my strength,’ observed Rex with a smile.
Greif laughed rather nervously, for the remark expressed exactly what was passing in his mind.
‘I confess, I meant to do so. How did you know what I was thinking?’
‘By experience. Are not the nine-tenths of every human being precisely like the nine-tenths of the next? The difficulties of life are connected with that tenth which is not alike in any two.’
‘Your experience must have been very great.’
‘It has been just great enough to teach me to recognise the point at which no experience is of any use whatever.’
‘And what is that point?’
‘Generally the sweetest in life, and the most dangerous.’
‘You speak in riddles, Herr Rex.’
‘One man’s life is another man’s riddle, and if he succeeds in guessing its solution he cries out that it is a sham and was not worth guessing at all.’
‘I believe you are a man-hater,’ said Greif.
‘Why should I be? The world gives me all I ask of it, and if that is not much the fault lies in my scanty imagination. The world is a flower-garden. If you like the flowers, pluck them. Happiness consists in knowing what we want, or in imagining that we want something. To take it is an easy matter.’
‘Then everybody ought to be happy.’
‘Everybody might be—if everybody would take the consequences. That is the stumbling-block—the lack of an ounce of determination and a drachm of courage.’
‘Paradoxes!’ exclaimed Greif. ‘Life is a more serious matter—’
‘Than death? Certainly.’ Rex laughed.
‘I did not say that,’ returned Greif gravely. ‘Death is the most serious of all earthly matters. No one can laugh at it.’
‘Then I am alone in the world. I laugh at it. Serious? Why, it is the affair of a moment compared with a lifetime of enjoyment!’
‘And what may come afterwards does not disturb you?’
‘Why should it? Is there any sense in being made miserable by the concoctions of other people’s hysterical imagination?’
Greif was silent. He was young enough and simple enough to be shocked by Rex’s indifference and unbelief, and yet the man exercised an influence over him which he felt and did not resent. Phrases which would have sounded shallow in the mouth of a Korps student, discussing the immortality of the soul over his twentieth measure of beer, produced a very different impression when they fell from the lips of the sober astronomer with the strange eyes. Greif felt uncomfortable, and yet he knew that he would certainly seek the society of Rex again at no distant date. At present all his ideas were unsettled, and after a moment’s silence he rose to go.
‘Do not forget your telegram,’ said Rex, handing it to him.
‘Shall you go to the philosophy lecture to-morrow?’ asked Greif as he reached the door.
‘Perhaps.’
Rex insisted on showing his guest down the stairs to the outer door, a civility which was almost necessary, considering the darkness of the descent. As Greif went down the narrow street, Rex stood on the threshold, shading the light with his hand and listening to the decreasing echo of the footsteps in the distance. Then he re-entered the house and climbed to his lodging.
‘So much for astrology!’ he exclaimed, as he sat down opposite the empty chair which Greif had lately occupied. For a long time he did not move, but remained in his place, with half-closed eyes, apparently ruminating upon the past conversation. When he rose at last, he had reached the conclusion that his coming to Schwarzburg was a step upon which he might congratulate himself.
From that day his acquaintance with Greif gradually ripened into an intimacy. Its growth was almost imperceptible at first, but before a month had passed the two met every day. Greif’s companions murmured. It was a sad sight in their eyes, and they could not be reconciled to it. But Greif explained that he was thinking seriously of his final degree, and that he must be excused for frequenting the society of a much older man, after having given the Korps the best years of his University life. He even offered to resign his position as first in charge, but the proposition raised a storm of protests and he continued to wear the yellow cap as before.
He wrote to his father frequently, but after the first confirmation of the telegram he got no further news of Rieseneck. He described Rex, and spoke of his growing friendship with the remarkable student, who seemed to know everything, and old Greifenstein was glad to learn that his son’s mind was taking a serious direction. He wrote to his mother more than once, in terms more affectionate than he had formerly used, but her answers were short and unsatisfactory, and never evoked in his heart that thrill of pity and love which had so much surprised him in himself during the last weeks at home. He wrote to Hilda, but her letters in reply had a sadness in them that made him almost fear to break the seal. It was at such moments that the anxiety for the future came upon him with redoubled force, until he began to believe that the person most directly threatened by that fatal catastrophe which had been foretold must be Hilda herself. He thought more than once of putting the question to Rex directly, to be decided by his mysterious art. It would have been a relief to him if the decision had chanced to be contrary to his own vague forebodings, but on the other hand, it seemed like a profanation of his love to explain the situation to his friend. He never spoke of Hilda, and Rex did not know of her existence.
And yet Rex was constantly at his side, a part of his life, an element in his plans, a contributor to all his thoughts. He would not have admitted that he was under the man’s influence, and the student of astronomy would never have claimed any such superiority. It was nevertheless a fact that Greif asked his friend’s advice almost daily, and profited greatly thereby, as well as by the inexhaustible fund of information which the mathematician placed at his disposal. Nevertheless Greif did not lay the trap by which he had intended to test Rex’s science, or expose his charlatanism, as the result should determine. He could not make up his mind to try the experiment, for he liked Rex more and more, and began to dread lest anything should occur to cause a breach in their friendship.
It chanced that on a certain evening of November Greif and Rex were sitting at a small marble table in the corner of the principal restaurant. They often came to this place to dine, because it was not frequented by the students, and they were more free from interruption than in one of the ordinary beer saloons of the town. They had finished their meal and, the cloth having been removed, were discussing what remained of a bottle of Makgrader wine. Greif was smoking, and Rex, as he talked, made sketches of his companion’s head upon the marble table.
A student entered the hall, looked about at its occupants, and presently installed himself in a seat near the two friends, touching his blue cap as he sat down. The pair returned the salutation and continued their conversation. The student was of the Rhine Korps, a tall, saturnine youth, evidently strong and active, but very sallow and lean. Greif knew him by sight. His name was Bauer, and he had of late gained a considerable reputation as a fighter. Rex glanced curiously at him once, and then, as though one look had been enough to fix his mental photograph, did not turn his eyes towards him again. Bauer ordered a measure of beer, lighted a black cigar and leaned back against the wall, gloomily eyeing the people at more distant tables. He looked like a man in a singularly bad humour, to whom any piece of mischief would be a welcome diversion. Rex abandoned his sketch of Greif’s head, looked surreptitiously at his watch and then began to draw circles and figures instead. Presently he slipped his hand into his pocket and drew out the almanac he always carried about him.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Greif, interrupting himself in the midst of what he had been saying.
‘Nothing particular,’ answered Rex. ‘Go on. I am listening.’
‘I was saying,’ continued Greif, ‘that I preferred my own part of the country, though you may call it less civilised if you please.’
‘It is natural,’ assented Rex, without looking up from his figure. ‘Every man prefers the place where he is born, I suppose, provided his associations with it are agreeable.’ Then he unconsciously spoke a few words to himself, unnoticed by Greif.
‘Saturn in his fall and term-cadent peregrine.’
‘It is not only that,’ said Greif. ‘Look at the Rhine, how flat and dull and ugly it grows—’
He was suddenly interrupted by the close presence of the other student, who had risen and stood over him, touching his cap and bowing stiffly.
‘Excuse me,’ he said in a harsh voice, ‘my name is Bauer—from Cologne—I must beg you not to insult the Rhine in a public place, nor in my hearing.’
Greif rose to his feet at once, very much astonished that any one should wish to quarrel with him upon such a pretence. Before he could answer, however, Rex anticipated him by addressing the student in a tone that rang through the broad room.
‘Hold your tongue, you silly boy!’ he said, and for the first time since they had become friends Greif recognised the angry accents he had heard through the door when he had first gone to Rex’s lodging.
‘Prosit!’ growled Bauer. ‘Who are you, if you please?’
‘My name is Rex. My friends the Swabians will manage this affair.’
‘I also desire to cross swords with you,’ said Greifenstein politely, using a stock phrase.
‘Prosit!’ growled Bauer again. He took the card Rex offered him, and then, with a scarcely perceptible salute, turned on his heel and walked away.
Greif remained standing during some seconds, gazing after the departing student. His face expressed his annoyance at the quarrel, and a shade of anger darkened its usual radiance.
‘Sit down,’ suggested Rex quietly.
‘We must be off at once,’ said Greif, mechanically resuming his seat. ‘There is to be fighting to-morrow morning, a dozen duels or more, and I will settle with that fellow before breakfast.’
‘That is to say, I will,’ observed the other, putting his pencil and his almanac into his pocket.
‘You?’ exclaimed Greif in surprise.
‘Why not? I can demand it. I insulted him roundly, before you challenged him.’
‘Do you mean to say that you, Rex, a sober old student of Heaven knows how many semesters, want to go out and drum withschlagerslike one of us?’
‘Yes, I do. And I request you as the head of your Korps to arrange the matter for to-morrow morning.’
‘You insist? How long is it since you have fenced? I should be sorry for that brown beard of yours, if a deep-carte necessitated shaving half of it.’ Greif laughed merrily at the idea, and Rex smiled.
‘Yes, my friend, I insist. Never mind my beard. That young man will not fight another round for many a long semester after I have done with him.’
‘Were you such a famousschlagerformerly?’
‘No. Nothing especial. But I can settle Herr Bauer.’
‘I do not know about that,’ said Greif shaking his head. ‘He is one of the best. He came here expressly to pick a quarrel with me, who am supposed to be the best in the University. He is in search of a reputation. You had better be careful.’
‘Never fear. Go and arrange matters. I will stay here till you come back. It is too early to go home yet.’
Greif was amazed at his friend’s determination, though he had no choice but to do as he was requested. He walked quickly towards the brewery where he was sure of finding the second in charge of his Korps, and probably a dozen others. At every step the situation seemed more disagreeable, and more wholly unaccountable. He could not imagine why Rex should have cared to mix in the quarrel, and he was annoyed at not being able to settle matters with Bauer at once. His mind was still confused, when he pushed open the door of the room in which his companions were sitting. He was hailed by a chorus of joyful cries.
A couple of novices sprang forward to help him to remove his heavy overcoat. Another hastened to get his favourite drinking-cup filled with beer. The second in charge, a burly fellow with many scars on his face and a hand like a Westphalia ham, made a place for the chief next to his own.
‘We have had a row,’ Greif remarked when he was seated at the board and had drunk a health to all present.
‘Ha, that is a good thing!’ laughed the second. ‘Tell us all about it.’ He drank what remained in his huge measure and handed the mug to a fox to be filled. Then he took a good puff at his pipe and settled himself in an attitude of attention.
‘We have had a row at the Palmengarten,’ said Greif. ‘Rex and I—’
‘You have quarrelled with Rex?’ interrupted the second. He and all his companions detested the man because he took Greif away from them. There was a gleam of hope for the chief if he had quarrelled with his Philistine acquaintance, and all present exchanged significant glances.
‘No. That is not it. A fellow of the Rhine Korps has quarrelled with both of us. He says his name is Bauer. Rex called him a silly boy and told him to hold his tongue before I could speak.’
‘Rex!’ exclaimed all the students in chorus.
‘Ha, that is a good thing!’ laughed the second, blowing the foam from his ale. ‘Provided he will fight,’ he added before he drank.
‘Rex is my friend,’ said Greif quietly.
The murmurs subsided as though by magic, and the burly second set down his measure almost untasted.
‘I wanted to fight the man first,’ continued Greif, ‘but Rex objected and appealed to me as the head of a Korps to get the matter settled at once. He wants to fight to-morrow morning with the rest.’
‘Prosit!’ laughed the second. ‘We thought he was a Philistine! He must be forty years old! What a sight it will be!’ cried a dozen voices.
‘As he demands it, we must oblige him,’ observed Greif.
‘A good thing! A very good thing!’ exclaimed the second more solemnly than before. He rarely said much else, and his hand was infinitely more eloquent than his tongue.
‘I hope it is,’ said Greif. ‘This is your affair. You had better go and see the second of the Rhine Korps at once. Rex is waiting for the answer at the Palmengarten. Remember he is determined to fight at once.’
‘He shall drum till the hair flies about the place,’ answered the second, with an unusual flight of rhetoric, as he slipped on his overcoat and went out.
‘You are not going?’ asked the students as Greif showed signs of following his brother-officer.
‘I cannot leave Rex waiting,’ objected Greif.
‘Send for him to come here! If he really means to fight, he is not such a Philistine as we thought!’ cried two or three.
‘If you like, I will send for him,’ answered Greif. ‘Here, little fox!’ he exclaimed, addressing a beardless youth of vast proportions who sat silent at the end of the table. ‘Go to the Palmengarten and say that Greifenstein wishes Herr Rex to come here. Introduce yourself properly before speaking to him.’
The huge-limbed boy rose without a word, gravely saluted and left the room. Greif was his idol, the type which he aspired to imitate, and he obeyed him like a lamb.
‘So Rex means to fight,’ remarked one of the young men, who sat opposite to Greif. ‘Was he ever in a Korps?’
‘Possibly,’ answered the chief.
‘“The Pinschgau lads went out to fight,”’ hummed the student rather derisively, but he did not proceed further than the first line of the old song. Some of the others laughed, and all smiled at the allusion to the comic battle.
‘Look here, my good Korps brothers,’ said Greif in his dominating tones, ‘I will tell you what it is. Rex means to have it out with Bauer to-morrow morning. If he turns out a coward and backs down the ground before the Rhine fellow, you can make game of him as you please, and you know very well that I shall have nothing more to do with him, and that he will be suspended from all intercourse with the Korps. I have my own ideas about what he will do, though Bauer is a devil at deep-carte and has a long arm. Until the question is settled you have no right to laugh at an honourable man who is to be our guest-at-arms, because he is not a Korps student. He is our guest as much as the chief of the Heidelberg Saxo-Prussians was when he came over last spring to fight the first in charge of the Franks. Every man who wants to fight deserves respect until he has shown that he is afraid to stand by his words. There—that is all I have to say, and you know I am right. Here is a full measure to the health of all good Swabians, and may the yellow and blackschlagerdo good work whether in the hands of guest or fellow. One, two and three! Suabia Hoch!’
‘Hoch! Hoch! Hoch!’ roared twenty lusty young voices.
The speech had produced its effect, as Greif’s speeches usually did, and every student drained his cup to the toast with a good will.
‘But after all,’ said the young fellow who had hummed the offensive song, ‘your friend has not handled aschlagersince the days of the flood. It is not likely that he can get the better of such a fellow as Bauer—may the incarnate thunder fly into his body! I can feel that splinter in my jaw to this day!’
‘My dear boy,’ said Greif, ‘one of two things will happen. Either Rex will give Bauer a dose, and in that case you will feel better; or else Bauer will set a deep-carte into Rex’s jaw, exactly where he hit you, and if that happens you will feel that you are not alone in your misfortunes, which is also a certain satisfaction.’
‘You seem remarkably hopeful about Rex,’ observed the student. ‘Here he comes,’ he added as the door opened and Rex appeared attended by the fox.
Every one rose, as usual when a visitor appears under such circumstances. Rex bowed and smiled serenely. He had often been a guest of the Swabians and knew all present. In a few moments he was seated on the chief’s right hand. Greif rapped on the table.
‘Korps brothers,’ he said, ‘our friend Rex visits us in a new capacity. He comes not as usual to share the drinking-horn and the yellow-black song-book. He is with us to-day as a guest-at-arms. Let us drink to his especial welfare.’
‘To your especial welfare,’ said each student, holding his cup out towards Rex, and then drinking a short draught.
‘I revenge myself immediately,’ answered Rex, rising as he moved his glass in a circle and glanced round the table. The phrases are consecrated by immemorial usage. He drank, bowed and resumed his seat. He knew well enough that the Swabians did not like him over well, but he was determined that, sooner or later, they should change their minds.
‘I congratulate you,’ said the same student who had been talking with Greif, ‘upon your quarrel with Bauer. You could not have picked out a man whom I detest more cordially. Observe this slash in my jaw—two bone splinters, an artery and nine stitches. It is a reminiscence, not dear but near.’
‘A fine cut,’ answered Rex, gravely examining the scar. ‘A regularrenommir schmiss, a gash to boast of. A deep-carte, I suppose?’
‘Of course,’ said the other, with the superiority of a man who knows the exact part of the face exposed to each cut. ‘It could not be anything else. He has the most surprising limberness of wrist, and he never hits the bandage by mistake—never! You strike high tierce like lightning and your blade is back in guard—oh yes! but before you are there his deep-carte sits in the middle of your cheek. Whatever you do, it is the same.’
Every one was listening, and Greif frowned at the speaker, whose intention was evident. He wanted to frighten Rex by an account of his adversary’s prowess. Rex looked grave but did not appear in the least disturbed.
‘So?’ he ejaculated. ‘Really! Well, I can put a silver thaler in my cheek and save my teeth, at all events. They are very good.’
A roar of laughter greeted this response.
‘But that is contrary to the code,’ objected the student, laughing with the rest. He was not an ill-humoured man in reality.
‘Yes—I was joking,’ said Rex. ‘But I once saw a man fight with an iron nose on his face.’
‘How was that?’ was asked by every one.
‘He was a brave fellow of the right sort,’ said Rex, ‘but he had a long nose and a short arm. In fact he had formed the habit of parrying with his nose, like a Greek statue—you know, all those they find have had their noses knocked off by Turks. Now the nose is a noble feature, and is of great service to man, when he wants to find out whether he is in Italy or Germany. But as a weapon of defence it leaves much to be desired. The man of whom I am telling you had grown so much used to using it in this way, that whenever he saw anything coming in the shape of a carte he thrust it forward as naturally as a pig does when he sees an acorn. After a couple of semesters the cartes sat on his nose from bridge to tip, one after the other, like the days of the week in a calendar. But when the third semester began, and the cartes began to fall too near together, and sometimes two in the same place, the doctors said that the nose was worn-out, though it had once been good. And the man told the second in charge, and the second told the first, and the first laid the matter before the assembled Korps. Thereupon the whole Seniorum Conventus sat in solemn committee upon this war-worn nose, and decided that its owner need fight no more. But he was not only brave; he possessed the invention of Prometheus, combined with the diabolical sense of humour which so much distinguished the late Mephistopheles. He offered to go on fighting if he might be allowed an iron nose. Goetz of Berliehingen, he said, had won battles with an iron hand, and the case was analogous. The proposition was put to the vote and carried unanimously amidst thunders of applause. The iron nose was made and fitted to the iron eye-pieces, and my friend appeared on the fighting ground looking like a figure of Kladderadatsch disguised as Arminius. He wore out two iron noses while he remained in the Korps, but the destruction of the enemy’s weapons more than counterbalanced this trifling expense. When he left, his armour was attached to a life-sized photograph of his head, which hangs to this day above two crossed rapiers in the Kneipe. That is the history of the man with the iron nose.’
There had been much half-suppressed laughter while Rex was telling his story, and when he had finished, the students roared with delight. Rex had never before given himself so much trouble to amuse them, and the effect of his narrative was immense.
‘He talks as if he knew something about it,’ said one, nudging his neighbour.
‘Perhaps he helped to wear out the nose,’ answered the other still laughing.
‘A health to you all,’ cried Rex, draining his full measure.
‘And may none of you parry carte with the proboscis,’ he added, as he set down the empty cup.
‘Ha! That is a good thing!’ laughed the voice of the burly second as he entered the room, his face beaming with delight.
‘Out with the foxes, there is business here for a few minutes.’ The foxes, who were not privileged to hear the deliberations of their elders upon such grave matters, rose together and filed out, carrying their pipes and drinking-cups with them. Then the second sat down in his vacant place.
‘Well?’ asked Greif. ‘Is it all settled.’
‘Yes. The cattle wanted to fight you first. I said the Philistine insisted—excuse me, no offence. Good. Now—that was all.’
The second buried his nose in a foaming tankard.
‘Is it for to-morrow morning?’ asked Rex calmly.
‘Palmengarten, back entrance, four sharp.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Greif. ‘Are we to fight in the Palmengarten, in the restaurant?’
The second nodded, and lighted his pipe.
‘Poetic,’ he observed. ‘Marble floor—fountain playing—palm trees in background.’ ‘Then we must go there at that hour so as not to be seen?’
‘The Poodle thinks it is at Schneckenwinkel, and is going out by the early train to lie in wait,’ chuckled the burly student.
‘There he will sit all the morning like a sparrow limed on a twig.’
‘Have we any other pairs?’ asked Greif absently.
‘Three others. Two foxes and Hollenstein. He is gone to bed and I am going to send the foxes after him. We can make a night of it, if you like.’
‘I will stay with you,’ said Rex, who seemed jovially inclined.
Neither Greif nor the second thought it their business to suggest that their combatant had better get some rest before the battle. When two o’clock struck, Rex was teaching them all a new song, which was not in the book, his clear strong voice ringing out steadily and tunefully through the smoky chamber, his smooth complexion neither flushed nor pale from the night’s carousal, his stony eyes as colourless and forbidding, as his smile was genial and unaffected.
As they rose to go, he caught sight of a huge silver-mounted horn that hung behind his chair.
‘I will drink that out to-morrow night, with your permission,’ he said with a light laugh.
‘Bravo!’ shouted the excited chorus.
‘He is a little drunk,’ whispered the student whom Bauer had wounded, addressing his neighbour.