Rex sat in a careless attitude in a corner of Greif’s small room, watching his friend as he arrayed himself in the official dress of a Korps student for the coming festivity. It was to be Greif’s last appearance in public as a fellow. To-morrow there would be a meeting of the Korps and he would resign his functions, and some one else would be elected in his stead. Rex watched him curiously and hummed the first stanza of the ‘Gaudeamus’—
‘Give our hearts to gladness, then,While the young life flashes!When our joyous youth is gone,When old age’s aches are done,Earth shall have our ashes!’
‘I wish you would not sing that song!’ exclaimed Greif, a little impatiently. ‘There will be time enough to exercise your voice upon it when we begin to throw away the torches.’
‘It is the only song I ever heard that has any truth in it,’ answered Rex.
‘You ought to write one about the vortex, and call it the physicist’s Lament,’ laughed the other.
‘The idea is not new. Scheffel made geological jokes in verse and sang them.’
‘Go thou and do likewise! But do not make the idea of turning into a philistine more unpleasant than it naturally is.’
‘We have all been through it,’ said Rex, ‘and most of us have survived the change. With insects, the caterpillar turns into the pretty moth. With Korps students, the butterfly becomes sooner or later a crawling, philistine grub. The moral superiority of the worm over the moth is manifest in his works. Have you read your speech over?’
‘I know it by heart. Help me with the scarf, will you?’ ‘Vanity of vanities!’ laughed Rex as he began to knot the coloured silk.
Greif’s costume is worth a word of description. He wore a close-fitting yellow jacket, heavily trimmed with black, white and yellow frogs and crossed cords, in the hussar fashion, and finished at the neck in the military manner with a stiff high collar. His legs were encased in tight breeches of white leather, and long polished boots with riding flaps were drawn above the knee. The long straight rapier hung in its gleaming sheath by his side, the colours of the Korps being done in velvet upon the basket-hilt. Over his right shoulder he wore a heavy silk scarf of the three colours, which was tied in a big knot near the sword-hilt. Upon his bright hair a very small round cap, no bigger than a saucer, and richly embroidered with gold, was held in its place by mysterious means, involving the concealment of a piece of elastic beneath his short curls. Upon the table lay a pair of white leather gauntlets. The whole effect was theatrical, but in the surroundings for which the dress was intended, it could not fail to be both striking and harmonious. It displayed to the best advantage the young man’s fine proportions and athletic figure, and where there were to be hundreds similarly arrayed, with only a difference of colour to distinguish their even ranks, the result could not differ greatly from a military parade. Indeed the costume is not more gaudy than many modern uniforms and is certainly as tasteful.
‘I am sorry it is the last time,’ said Greif sadly, as his friend finished the knot. Then he went to the window and looked once more at the dim outline of the cathedral spire and listened to the water rushing through its cold bed in the dusk far below. He knew that he should look out but a few times more. He did not know that this time was the last. Rex was looking for his overcoat, and as he moved about the room he sang softly another stanza of the old song—
‘Short and sweet this life of ours,Soon its cord must sever!Death comes quick, nor brooks delay,Ruthless, he tears us away,No man spares he ever.’
‘For heaven’s sake, do not sing that song any more!’ cried Greif. ‘I am sad enough, as it is, without your cat’s music.’
Rex laughed oddly.
‘I am as sad as you,’ he said, a moment later, with an abrupt change of manner. ‘You do not act as though you were,’ observed Greif. ‘What are you sad about?’
‘World-sorrow.’
‘Has the vortex fallen ill?’ inquired Greif ironically.
‘It is likely to, I fear. Come along! It is time to be off. You must not keep everybody waiting.’
Something in the tone of his voice struck Greif and affected him disagreeably. He held up the light to Rex’s face, and saw that he was pale, and that his strange eyes looked weary and lifeless.
‘What is the matter, Rex?’ he asked earnestly. ‘Are you in any trouble? Can I do anything for you?’
‘Nothing, thank you,’ answered the other quietly.
Greif set down the lamp upon the table and seemed to hesitate a moment. Then he turned again and laid his hand upon his friend’s arm.
‘Rex, do you want money?’ asked Greif. ‘You know I have plenty.’
In the eyes of a Korps student the want of cash appears to be the only ill to which flesh is heir. Rex smiled rather sadly.
‘No, I do not want money. I thank you, all the same.’
‘What is it then? In love?’
‘In love!’ Rex laughed. ‘I would tell you that soon enough,’ he added carelessly. ‘No—it is a more serious matter.’
‘If I can be of no use to you—’
‘Look here, Greif,’ interrupted the other, ‘we have grown to be good friends, you and I, during this term. You are going away, and I may never see you again. You may as well know why I fraternised with you so readily. I have had your friendship so far, and if I must lose it, I may as well lose it at once.’
Greif opened his bright eyes and stared at his friend in considerable astonishment. He thought that he knew him well, and he could not imagine what was coming.
‘I do not see what could happen to cause that,’ he answered.
‘Do you remember that evening when you first came to my rooms?’
‘Of course.’
‘Have I gained any advantage from our acquaintance, excepting your society and that of your Korps? Think well before you answer.’
‘Certainly not,’ replied Greif. ‘I am quite sure that you have not. What a foolish question!’
‘It seems so to you, no doubt. But it is far from foolish. You say that you remember that evening well. Then you recollect that I told you I knew nothing of you or your family. I made certain predictions. Well, I made them according to the figure, as you saw by the unexpected arrival of that telegram. But I lied to you about the rest. I knew perfectly well who you were, whence you came, and what your father’s half-brother had done.’
Greif had drawn back a little during the first part of this declaration. At the statement that Rex had deceived him he started and drew himself up, his face showing plainly enough that his wrath was not far off.
‘And may I ask your reasons for practising this deception upon me?’ he inquired coldly.
‘There is but one reason, and that is of a somewhat startling nature,’ returned Rex, leaning back against the table and resting his two hands upon it. ‘You allow that I have got no personal advantage out of your friendship. I desired none. I only wanted to know you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I am your cousin. My name is Rieseneck. I am the only son of your father’s half-brother.’
Greif’s eyes flashed, and the hot blood mounted to his face. The information was surprising enough, and his hatred of his uncle was likely to produce trouble.
‘How did you dare to impose upon me in such a way?’ he cried angrily.
‘No one ever speaks to me of daring,’ answered Rex, who seemed quite unmoved. ‘I dare do most things, because I have nothing to lose but a little money, my good name of Rex, and my life. As for my not calling myself Rieseneck, I have not imposed upon you any more than upon any one else, by doing so. My father calls himself Rex, and I have never been known by any other appellation.’
‘But you should have told me—’
‘Doubtless, and so I have. It is true that I have chosen my own time, and that I have allowed myself the pleasure of knowing you before disclosing my identity. You would have refused to have anything to do with me had you known who I was. After all, you are the only relation I have in the world, and I have asked you for nothing, nor ever shall. I learned that you were a student here, and I came to Schwarzburg expressly to meet you. I noted your usual seat at the lecture where we met, and I put myself next to you with the intention of making your acquaintance. Now I have told you everything. You are at liberty to know me or not, henceforth. You prefer not to know me. Is it so? Well, I have done you no injury. Good-bye. I wish you good luck.’
Thereupon Rex took up his hat and with a slight inclination of the head went towards the door. His stony eyes did not turn to Greif, who might have seen in them a strangely pained expression, which would have surprised him. Greif hesitated between his sincere friendship for Rex and his horror of any one so closely connected with Rieseneck. It was very hard to choose the right course with so little preparation, and he was thrown off his balance by the sudden disclosure. But his natural generosity, combined with an undefinable attraction he felt towards the man, overcame all other considerations.
‘Rex!’ he called out, as his friend was already passing through the doorway.
Rex stopped and stood still where he was, turning his head so that he could see Greif.
‘Stay,’ said Greif almost involuntarily. ‘We cannot part company in this way.’
‘If it must be at all, it were best that it were done quickly,’ answered Rex, holding the handle of the door.
‘It must not be done,’ returned Greif in a decided tone. ‘If I am attached to you, it is for what you are, not for what your father was, or is.’
‘Think the matter over,’ replied the other. ‘I will wait, if you please. I deceived you once. It is fair that I should submit to your decision now.’
He closed the door and went to the window, where he stood still, looking out into the dusk, and turning his back upon Greif. The latter paused an instant, and then came forward and laid one hand upon his friend’s shoulder. He acted still under the same impulse of generosity which had first prompted him to keep Rex back.
‘Rex—it depends upon you. If you will, we shall be friends as ever.’
‘I?’ exclaimed Rex, turning suddenly. ‘With all my heart. Is there anything I desire more?’
‘Good—so be it, then!’ answered Greif taking his hand boldly.
‘So be it!’ repeated Rex.
‘And now,’ said Greif, ‘why did you choose this moment to tell me your secret?’
‘Do you want to know? There is a reason for that, too, and not a pleasant one.’
‘I can hear it.’ ‘To-night my father will sleep under your father’s house. You will hear the news before morning. To-morrow I shall leave here to meet him in Switzerland—or not, as the case may be. He has been refused the benefit of the amnesty, but he will be allowed to leave the country quietly. I cannot leave him alone any longer.’
Greif turned a little pale at the intelligence.
‘Then this is the danger you foretold,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘What will happen at Greifenstein to-night?’
‘How can I tell!’ exclaimed Rex. ‘There may be an angry meeting. There may be worse. Or your father’s heart may be softened—’
‘You do not know him. Then my uncle has written to you?’
‘I received the letter to-day, before coming here. Do you see that it was better to have this explanation now, rather than to wait for to-morrow?’
‘Yes—it was better. Let us go, for the time presses—truly I have no heart for this sport to-night. I wish I were at home.’
‘Do not wish,’ said Rex gravely. ‘You could not help matters.’
Greif extinguished the light and the two men groped their way down the dusky staircase in silence, both feeling that an exceptionally difficult situation had been passed through with singular ease, both recognising that the explanation had been hurried over in a way hardly to be accounted for, except by the theory that neither wished to lose the other’s friendship. And yet, both Greif and Rex knew that their decision had been final. The one had nothing more to conceal. The other had nothing left to forgive. Rex, like Rieseneck himself, believed that his mother had died long ago. Greif, like all the rest, was ignorant of his own mother’s identity. Sons of one mother they went out of the house side by side, not dreaming that they were anything more than cousins, whose fathers were half-brothers, little guessing that within a few short hours the father of each and the mother of both would be lying stiff and stark in the chambers of lofty Greifenstein.
They reached the great dark buildings of the University, and found themselves in a dense crowd of students of all colours, on the outskirts of a multitude of others who belonged to no associations. Here they parted, for Rex could not walk in the Swabian Korps and must go with the black hats.
‘We shall meet in the hall,’ said Greif hurriedly. ‘Your place is at our table as usual.’
And so they parted. In a few moments, Greif had found his companions by the tall standard whose colours caught a few struggling rays of light from the street-lamps. Every one was talking, smoking, stamping cold feet upon the stones in the effort to keep warm, cracking jokes, both good and bad, craning necks to see the position of the standards, making agreements for pairing at the ‘Landesvater,’ and generally complaining that the town clocks were all slow that night in Schwarzburg. Occasionally, a roar of laughter arose in the distance, where some unlucky burgher had found his way into a group of students and was being made the butt of a good-humoured jest. And beneath the high, laughing tones, the perpetual hum of a thousand talking voices neither rose nor fell, but droned unceasingly like the long pedal in a fugue, whose full deep note stands still amidst the strife of moving sounds, as the sun stood while the battle was fought out in Ajalon. The very life of the multitude seemed to produce a sound of its own, in the breathing of a thousand pairs of strong young lungs, in the beating of a thousand young, untired hearts, in the pulsation of so much youth brought together to one place. A blind man might have thought himself in the presence of some one monstrous human giant, overflowing with enormous vitality, warming the whole night with his breath, stirring the whole air with each careless movement of his vast body. There is something mysterious in a crowd, most of all in a crowd at night. The throng has simultaneous perceptions and movements, a joint sense of power or of fear, a circulation of consciousness as complete as that which exists in the nerves of every individual. Thousands of men, of whom each alone would act differently from his fellows, are all irresistibly impelled to think the same thoughts, to feel the same emotions, to yield to the same influences, or to join in the same work of destruction. But no one of them all can tell why he so feels, thinks and acts; the mystery of the crowd is upon him, and sways him whither it will, powerless, half unconscious, and wholly irresponsible.
The deep cathedral bell tolled the hour of seven. Before the strokes were all counted, the hum of the multitude had swelled to twice its former strength, and every one felt himself jostled a little by his neighbour. Then came the sharp, clear voices of those who directed the forming of the procession, the shuffling of many feet, and the muffled but irritated movements of those who had to make way. Then rose a sudden flare of light in a corner of the dark mass, followed quickly by another and another, till many hundreds of torches were aflame, sputtering, smoking and sending up tongues of flame into the black air. Again a word of command, and the even tramp of footsteps began to be heard, a mere patter as of big raindrops upon stones at first, but swelling gradually, and increasing, till the sound roused great echoes from the glowing buildings, while the blazing pitch flared up, brighter and brighter, into a broad sea of flame that flowed away in a narrow stream of fire as the great company filed out of the square into the street beyond. Then, as the place of meeting was emptied, a breeze of cold air rushed into the vacant space; there was hurrying and scurrying of those who remained last, as they ran to take their places, and while a burst of march music was heard in the distance at the head of the column, the last stragglers fell into the file behind, the last torch disappeared into the narrow street, and the broad space that had been so full was left utterly deserted, illuminated only by a dozen dim gaslights in exchange for the lurid glow which a moment earlier had lit up every wall and house from corner stone to pointed gable.
In front of all, marched the Swabians, the high standard waving in front, the burly second of the Korps striding along upon its left with drawn rapier and clattering scabbard, while upon the right Greif walked, an erect and commanding figure, thrown into strong relief by the bright lights behind him. His face was pale, and his teeth were set, for as he led the head of the column he found time to reflect upon what had occurred during the last hour, and time to fear what was yet to happen. Willingly he would have left the rank and hastened to his lodging in time to be ready for the night train. A few short hours would have brought him to his home to learn the truth, were it good or evil. But the thing was impossible. He was of all others that night the man most watched, most admired, most envied. It was his last torchlight procession, his last turn of presiding at the great festival that was at hand, the last draught of that brilliant student’s life he loved was at his lips. He could never again do what he was doing to-night. To-morrow another would be chosen in his place, and to-morrow he was to join the dull ranks of the outer philistines. The thought brought suddenly a flash of wild recklessness into the gloomy atmosphere of his reflexions, and as he halted the column before the Rector’s house and started the ringing cheer for the ‘Magnificus,’ his voice rang out with a metallic clearness that surprised himself.
‘Hoch! Hoch! Hoch!’ The vast chorus that followed his lead cheered his heart.
What could Rieseneck do at Greifenstein, after all? There might be a disagreeable scene. Two of them, perhaps. That would be all, and Rieseneck would go away, never to return again. Rex and his predictions? Bah! The man believed in the power of the stars, and Greif, who trod so firmly at the head of a thousand torches, believed in youth, and would not forfeit his last draught of glorious youthfulness for any such nonsense.
On and on the procession marched, halting in the street where some favourite professor lived, in order to give him three thundering cheers, then tramping on to another and another, down the high street, round the cathedral, back at last to the square whence they had started.
Shoulder to shoulder the students ranged themselves against the walls ofthe houses in serried ranks, drawing back as much as possible, so as toleave a broad space in the middle. There was a pause, and a deep silencefor several minutes. Then the trumpets and horns flared out the grandold hymn of student life, the ‘Gaudeamus igitur, juvenes dum sumus,’ andall those fresh young voices took up the strain with that perfect unisonwhich only Germans know how to give to an improvised chorus—Gaudeamus igitur, juvenes dum sumus, post jucundam juventutem,post molestam senectutem, nos habebit humus, nos habebit humus.Ubi sunt, qui ante nos in mundo fuere? Vadite ad superos, transits adinferos, ubi jam fuere.Vita nostra brevis est, brevi finietur, venit mors velociter, rapitnos atrociter, nemini parcetur.Vivant omnes virgines faciles, formosae, vivant et mulieres, vivantet mulieres bonae, laboriosae.Vivat academia, vivant professores, vivat membrum quodlibet, vivantmembra quaelibet, semper sint in flore.
As the last stanza was sung, in slow and solemn measure, the students began to throw away their torches. First one alone shot out from the belt of fire that surrounded the square, meteorlike in a wide arch, and fell in the centre of the open space amidst a shower of sparks. A dozen followed almost immediately, then a hundred, and hundreds more, till all the thousand lay together, a burning heap, throwing up clouds of lurid smoke into the night, and illuminating the great buildings with a broad red glare. Greif stood still a moment, watching the bonfire, and then sheathed his rapier and turned away. To him it was a sorrowful sight, this ending of his last torchlight procession. He remembered how, as a young novice, he had stood in the same place, his heart full of a strange enjoyment, and he wished that he could go back to those days and live his life again. During nearly three years since that time he had been a student; during more than one he had been a soldier, serving his time with the cuirassiers, and coming into the town as often as he could to spend an hour with his Korps. It was all over now, never to begin again. Only among those soldiers whom he had learned so easily to love, could he hope to find again something of that good fellowship he had enjoyed with the brethren of the Swabian Korps. Only in larger strife could he henceforth feel that glorious excitement of combat which had grown to be one of his nature’s chief cravings. The Korps life had done its work in the direction of his character, developing his latent love of organisation and law, accustoming him to look upon cold steel as the arbiter of right, and upon his country as the strongest among those that draw the sword.
‘Earth shall have our ashes!’ he exclaimed sorrowfully as he turned away, quoting the last words of the song.
‘Undoubtedly,’ answered a familiar voice beside him. ‘Undoubtedly—wherefore the best thing we can do is to make the earth ours without delay.’
Greif laughed, as he recognised Rex. The latter had made his way round, during the throwing of the torches, in order to accompany his friend to the drinking-hall. They moved away together in the great crowd. One ceremony was ended, the next would begin in little more than half an hour, as soon as all the Korps were collected in the hall. This time, however, the company would include the Korps only, with their friends, and such members of other Universities as had come over to Schwarzburg to join in the festivity.
‘And now for my last speech,’ observed Greif, as they walked. ‘I wonder what is happening at home.’
Rex did not make any answer, but Greif saw that he bent his head, and seemed to start nervously. The reply came long afterwards, as they were ascending the steps of the drinking-hall.
‘I would rather not know what is happening,’ said Rex. ‘But I would like to know where you and I shall be, to-morrow at this hour.’
‘Probably together, with all good Swabians, at my farewell feast.’
Rex shook his head. There was not time for more, as they were already within the building and Greif was obliged to attend to other matters.
The hall was splendidly decorated. Each of the Korps had a portion of the walls allotted to it, before which its tables were arranged in order. From the rafters to the floor vast draperies of coloured stuffs were hung and festooned so as to show off the insignia of each association to the best advantage, panoplies of swords and helmets, escutcheons with broad bands of gold, silver and black, scores of richly mounted drinking-horns, taken from every kind of beast, from the Italian ox, from the Indian buffalo, from the almost extinct ibex, and from the American mountain sheep—gifts from old members of the Korps who had wandered over the world, but had not forgotten their old companions—silver tankards upon brackets, old standards of softened hue projecting out above, or crossed above coats-of-arms, in short, every object of beauty and value which had become the property of the Swabians during the last fifty years. Every other Korps had done the same, till not a foot of the walls was left bare. High above, in a gallery, sat the musicians, who were to accompany the songs with their instruments, during the night.
The students assembled quickly and took their seats. As the clock struck nine, Greif, as president of the presiding Korps, called for silence, and ordered the opening ‘Salamander.’ Hundreds of glasses rattled upon the oak boards in strict time, and the official Kneipe was declared opened. The music burst out gloriously, echoing among the great wooden beams of the high roof, and song upon song rose full and melodious from below. At last Greif rose again to his feet, and all eyes were turned upon him in the dead silence which succeeded the joyous strains. He was very pale, but it was easy to see that his pallor was caused by the emotion of thus taking leave of his old comrades, rather than by any nervousness about his speech.
He spoke long and well, interrupted occasionally by a short loud burst of applause. It was his especial good fortune to address the assembled Korps for the second time since his name had been inscribed upon the rolls of their beloved Alma Mater; his greatest sorrow was caused by the thought that he had thrown his last torch, and must soon drain his last toast as one of their number. Life was divided by a sharp line into two portions, of which the sadder began when rapier and colours were hung up at home to accumulate the dust that falls from philistinism. Then the head must weary itself with staid matters, and the hand must loosen its hold upon theschlagerand forget its cunning fence. Happy were those who merely exchanged the whistling blade of the student for the heavy sabre of the soldier, the green forest glade of themensurfor larger battlefields and the hope of brighter fame, who, having shed an ounce of blood in defence of their student colours, could look forward to shedding all, to the last drop, for king and country. Happy were those few to whom the Korps was the beginning of an active life, and not the mere breathing space of liberty and good fellowship between the school bench and the desk. But whatever was to follow, whatever had gone before, none knew so well as they themselves, how sweet was the first taste of freedom, and how swiftly the bright time glided away amidst the music of the rapiers, the clash of beakers, and the song of free German voices.
Greif dwelt upon the importance of the Korps in the life of the University, upon the part played by the University in the life of the whole land, and did not scruple to trace Germany’s victories directly to their origin in the daily life of German students, so different from that in other countries. Moreover, in his own opinion, and in that of most of his hearers, Schwarzburg had no rival—certainly none, he added, in the eyes of those who belonged to it. Where, in all Germany, were there such professors, such monuments of learning? What schools had given more famous names to the land, or even so many? As the good mother at home was to each student in that assembly, so was their dear Alma Mater to them all. He drank his beaker to all good Korps students, to all the brave colours there assembled, to all the professors, to the University itself.
‘Hoch, Schwarzburg! Hoch!’ he cried in ringing tones as he raised his glass high in air.
‘Hoch! Hoch! Hoch!’ shouted hundreds of voices.
‘Ad exercitium Salamandri! Eins! Zwei! Drei!’
Greif brought his glass down upon the table as he spoke the last words, and the long roll began, like rattling musketry, again and again, to the due number of times.
Greif sat down amidst thunders of applause. As a matter of fact, he had made a speech rather better than the average of such performances, but a cool observer, or one accustomed to such scenes would have known that he could not fail to be loudly applauded. He was the favourite hero of them all. Young, handsome, brave, popular, not lacking the assurance that leads a crowd, it might have been foreseen that his last feast would crown his University triumphs, with a success passing even his own not very modest expectations.
The music rose and swelled and died away. Beneath the brilliant light there was clashing of beakers and joyous drinking of deep toasts in the intervals between the songs. At regular intervals Greif demanded silence and proposed the health of each of the other Korps, one by one, in the order of their precedence for the year. A couple of hours passed in this way, and then the signal was given for the singing of the ‘Landesvater,’ and the instruments struck up the stirring strain. Then at the head of each table rose the two eldest fellows, each with a pointed sword in his hand. In time with the music, they stood and struck their rapiers one against the other, exchanging caps at the last bars, and running the sharp blade through the embroidered velvet, so that the small head covering ran down upon the hilt. Next, while the others stood upon the floor, the two leaders mounted upon the bench behind each row, on opposite sides of the table, clashing their swords in time, high above the heads of the carousers; and as the verse ended, each snatched the cap from the crown of the man who sat below him and ran it down his blade as he had previously done with his partner’s. Reaching in due time the end of the board, the two stood crossing and recrossing their weapons, until all the others in the great hall had done the same and not one head remained covered. With this the first half of the ‘Landesvater’ was ended, and a solemn toast was drunk to the health of the sovereign. The second part was gone through in a similar manner, the leaders returning along the rows with the same ceremony and restoring to each man his own head covering at the conclusion of each verse. It is a strange old custom of which it is not easy to discover the origin, though the meaning is clear enough. Every man of the assembly pledges his head to live and die for his sovereign prince or king, and in a country where loyalty is a fact, and patriotism a passion, the expression of both by an ancient ceremony is solemnly imposing. So great is the respect felt for the ‘Landesvater’ and the sincerity of those who take part in it, that even in such a multitude of recklessly gay youths, the strictest sobriety is required of all until it is over, and is exacted under penalties of considerable severity. Once over, the mirth and enjoyment proceed in an increasing ratio, though it is to the credit of the German student that his gaiety on these public occasions never degenerates into unbridled licence, and that while he sings, laughs and jests over his fiftieth glass, he maintains the outward forms of habitual courtesy towards his fellows, together with a sort of manly dignity not unworthy of his stern Gothic forefathers. The liquor is bland and almost harmless, and the heads are strong, and backed by iron constitutions. The object is not intoxication but jollity, and there is a deliberation in the manner of attaining the end by spending eight or nine hours over it, which effectually prevents such scenes as occur at festive meetings where the time is limited and men make themselves beastly drunk in the attempt to be merry before midnight. There is no closing hour for the German students’ carousals. The official part of the affair is declared to be at an end at twelve or one o’clock, but all may stay as long as they please, and many are still in their places when the day dawns.
Greif and Rex sat side by side at the head of the long table. It was long past midnight, but neither felt the need of sleep. Greif dreaded to go home, for he felt that he was taking his last leave of a life he loved. Rex, who was unnaturally calm, even for a man of his solid nerve, sat motionless beside his friend, emptying his huge beaker twice in every hour with unfailing regularity. He talked quietly but constantly, interspersing queer bits of cynicism and odds and ends of uncommon wisdom in his placid conversation. Greif knew by his manner that he was in reality sad and preoccupied, but was grateful for his pleasant talk, which blunted the keen edge of this rupture with first youth’s associations. From time to time Greif wondered rather vaguely whether his relations with Rex would continue in after life, and, if so, whether they would not be affected for the worse by the revelation of Rex’s identity. The excitement of the evening had perhaps momentarily expanded his natural generosity too far, and while he was quite aware that he could not now draw back from the friendship with honour, he was by no means sure that he might not afterwards regret his readiness to receive so kindly, as a cousin, him whom he had so much liked before he had been aware of the relationship. As he sat there, conversing with Rex, he attached an amount of importance to the situation which would have amazed him, had he known that of which both were ignorant, namely, that Rex was his half-brother as certainly as Rieseneck was half-brother to old Greifenstein.
The hours wore on till scarcely fifty students remained in the hall, and they of the sturdy kind who make very little noise over their amusements.
‘Shall we go home, or stay till morning?’ asked Greif at last, hesitating whether to light a fresh cigar or not.
‘We might adjourn to your room,’ suggested Rex. ‘We can finish the night there.’
There was a stir near the door, and Greif looked round, idly at first, to see what was the matter, then with an expression of dismay. A man had entered the hall, a man with a ghastly face, who seemed to be making inquiries of the knot of Korps servants who waited for their tardy masters. Greif’s eyes fixed themselves in the anticipation of evil, when he saw that the fellow wore the Greifenstein livery and was one of his father’s grooms. What was most strange was that he wore boots and spurs, as if he had ridden hard, though he could only have reached Schwarzburg by the railway.
‘Karl!’ cried Greif in a tone that made the man start. ‘What are you doing here?’
Karl crossed the hall, his face growing paler than ever, and his teeth chattering. He had not had time to recover from the thought of what he had left behind him. His hands trembled violently as they grasped the military cap he held.
‘Herr Baron—’ he stammered, staring at Greif with wide and frightened eyes. ‘Herr Baron—’ he began again, trying to frame the words.
‘Speak, Karl!’ exclaimed Greif making a desperate effort to seem calm, though he instinctively dreaded the words which must fall from the man’s lips.
The groom turned appealingly to Rex, who sat motionless in his place, scrutinising the messenger with his stony glance.
‘My God!’ cried he. ‘I cannot tell him! Sir, are you a friend of the Herr Baron?’
Rex nodded, and laying one hand upon Greif’s shoulder as though to make him keep his seat, rose and made a sign to the groom to follow him. But Greif would not submit to be treated like a child, and sprang up, seizing the man’s arm and drawing him nearer.
‘I will hear it myself,’ he said firmly. ‘Is it my father?’ he asked in uncertain tones. Karl nodded gravely.
‘I caught the train as I jumped from the saddle,’ he answered.
‘My mother sent you?’ asked Greif anxiously.
The groom shook his head, and his tremor increased, while he stared wildly about as though in search of some escape from his awful mission.
‘Speak, man!’ cried Greif, mad with anxiety. ‘My father is ill—and you are here though my mother did not send you—speak, I say.’
‘They are dead,’ answered Karl in a low voice.
Greif sank into his seat and covered his face. Suddenly Rex’s impenetrable eyes flashed, and he, last of the three, turned white to the lips.
‘Is there another gentleman at Greifenstein?’ he asked quickly.
‘He is also with them, sir.’
‘Dead?’
‘He shot himself.’
Rex closed his eyes and held the table with his two hands, for he knew who the stranger had been. Seeing that Greif did not move, and supposing that Rex was a mere acquaintance, the man took courage to tell the story, speaking in a low voice to Rex.
‘The gentleman arrived before dinner,’ he said. ‘Their merciful lordships dined together, but the butler said they left the table before it was time. Then they heard firing in the house. We broke the doors and found the Lady Baroness dead, in the room beyond the Herr Baron’s study, and in the study the Herr Baron dead with a pistol in his hand, and the other gentleman dead with another pistol in his hand. I saw them. They had shot themselves as they sat in their chairs before the fire, but the fire was nearly gone out, though the lamp was burning. And then we saddled and rode, we four, one for the police, one for the doctor, one for Sigmundskron, and I for the railway, and here I am. You are a good friend of the young Herr, sir?’
‘Yes, that I am,’ answered Rex, starting as though from sleep.
‘Then it would be best, sir, that you should tell me whither I should go, for the young Herr will be worse if he sees me.’
‘Ask your way to the Red Eagle Inn,’ said Rex, ‘and stay there till we send for you.’
He gave the man a handful of loose coin, thoughtful of all contingencies, as he ever was.
‘You need not talk about this horrible catastrophe,’ he said, as he dismissed the frightened groom.
The latter disappeared as fast as he could, glad to get away from the sight of Greif’s misery, and glad to have found some one to help him in telling his fearful tale. When he was gone Rex laid his hand upon Greif’s shoulder, and spoke in a tone of quiet authority.
‘Come with me,’ he said. Greif rose to his feet like a man in a dream, and allowed Rex to put on his topcoat for him, and to lead him out of the almost deserted hall, through the group of servants who loitered at the door and made way respectfully for the pair to pass.
‘Whither?’ asked Greif as they stood in the cold street.
‘To your room,’ answered Rex, quietly passing his arm through his friend’s and gently urging him to move forward.
Greif did not remember afterwards how he had found his way from the hall to his lodging. Neither he nor Rex spoke during the quarter of an hour they employed in reaching the street door, but Rex’s arm was aching with the effort of sustaining and directing his companion. He lit a taper and prepared to help him up the stairs. But the sight of the familiar entrance recalled Greif to himself and dissipated the first stupor of his grief. He ascended the steps firmly, though he went like a man overcome with fatigue, to whom every movement is difficult. Still silent, Rex lit the lamp in the small room, and began to help Greif to take off his mantle. But Greif pushed him aside gently and sat down as he was upon the well-worn chair. Rex went and sat himself down in a corner at some distance and waited. His instinct told him that his friend must have time to recover from the first shock before anything could be done. He shaded his eyes from the light with one hand, and thought of his own sorrow.
The silence was intense. It was as though the spirits of the dead, of the mother of both and of the father of each, were present in the commonplace chamber where sat their two sons, not knowing each other for brothers, though overwhelmed by the same calamity. It seemed as if the murdered woman and her dead murderers were standing silently in the midst of the small room, watching to see what should happen to those they had left behind.
At last Greif raised his white face and looked towards Rex.
‘I must go,’ he said simply.
‘Yes,’ answered Rex. ‘We must bury our dead.’
Greif looked at him as though asking for an explanation of the words. He had not heard all the groom’s story.
‘My father is also with them,’ said Rex, answering the unspoken question. Greif grasped the table and stared at his companion stupidly for a moment. Then all at once his pale face grew luminous and his eyes glittered.
‘Rieseneck?’ he cried, in a suffocated tone. ‘Your father has slain mine and yet you are here—’ He rose from his seat, half mad with horror, as though he would spring upon his friend. But the latter interrupted him, in a tone which enforced attention.
‘Your mother is dead—God knows how. Your father and my father shot themselves, sitting in their chairs.’
Again Greif’s head sank upon his clasped hands, and again the deadly silence descended upon the chamber.
The long December night was over and it was broad dawn when the two men got out of the express train at the station nearest to Greifenstein. Without a word they entered the carriage that had been waiting for them, and the sturdy horses plunged into the forest, breasting the ascent as only strong animals can on a cold winter’s morning. The early light made the great trees look unspeakably gloomy and mournful. There was not a tinge of colour to relieve the dead black shadows, or the icy grey of the driven snow. The tall firs stood solemn and motionless like overgrown cypresses, planted in an endless graveyard, filled with myriads of snow-covered graves, and in the midst Greif and Rex were whirled along over the winding road, pale as dead men themselves as they sat side by side in their dark garments, with set lips and eyes half closed against the freezing wind.
But when the towering wall of Greifenstein came into sight far off above the black tree-tops, Greif started and leaned forward, fixing his eyes upon his home; nor did he change his attitude until the carriage drew up before the deep gateway, and he was aware of a crowd of men and women who stood there awaiting his arrival. Before all the rest, he saw the tall thin figure of Frau von Sigmundskron. Her white hands were clasped together and she was bareheaded. Standing out before the others, in her gown of sober grey, she looked like a mediaeval saint suddenly come down to earth in modern times. As Greif descended she held out her arms to greet him. He realised that she must have journeyed from Sigmundskron in the night in order to be before him.
‘I thank you,’ he said, kissing her hands.
With an effort of will that would have done credit to his dead father, he entered the castle, bending his head gravely in acknowledgment of the servants’ tearful salutations. Though most of them were the merest hirelings in the house, who had lately succeeded others like themselves, yet almost all were in tears. Frau von Sigmundskron looked at Rex in some surprise.
‘A friend?’ she asked with some hesitation.
‘More,’ answered Greif. ‘Let us go to some place where we can be alone.’
He shivered as he felt that he was under the very roof where those he loved best were lying cold and stark in death, but he set his lips and clenched his fingers, determined to bear all that was in store for him. Frau von Sigmundskron hesitated as they approached the door of the drawing-room, and she looked sideways at Greif.
‘Better to my rooms,’ he said. And so the three went on through corridors and staircases till they reached the young man’s apartments. He closed the door, and glanced at Rex.
‘Madam,’ said the latter at once, ‘I am called Rex, but that is not my name. I am the son of Kuno von Rieseneck. I have Herr von Greifenstein’s permission to pay my last duty to my dead father.’
Frau von Sigmundskron raised her gentle eyes in astonishment and looked from one to the other of the two men.
‘Rex is my best friend,’ said Greif. ‘He needed no permission of mine to come here. I will explain all at another time. And now—’ his voice broke, and he turned away, but recovered himself almost immediately. ‘And now, I beg that you will tell us what you know.’
The good baroness detested weakness in herself and could not bear to see it in others, so that she told her story clearly and concisely, though with much caution and thoughtful tact. While she spoke she watched the two friends, who sat motionless beside her, their hands clasped upon their knees, their heads bent down, their faces white with emotion. The sun was already above the hills, and while she spoke the first rays fell through the ancient casement upon the carpet of the room, casting soft reflexions upon the pallid features of the three persons.
‘I will go to them,’ said Greif when she had finished, and he rose to his feet. The baroness prepared to show him the way, and Rex would have followed, but she stopped him by a gesture.
‘I will come back for you,’ she said. ‘They are not together.’
She let Greif enter the chamber alone and softly closed the door after him. Then she returned to Rex. He was standing where she had left him.
‘I have something to say,’ she began, ‘and something to give you. This letter is yours. It was found in the room, sealed, directed and stamped, as though it were to be posted, as it would have been had you not come. Nothing has been discovered for Greif, and this must have been written by Herr von Rieseneck. You are older than Greif, though he is brave enough, poor fellow. Here it is. Will you be alone to read it? I will go into the next room until you call me.
‘Madam,’ answered Rex, taking the letter, ‘I will not trouble you by any exhibition of my feelings, if you will stay here.’
He looked at the superscription, and cut the envelope open neatly with his pocket-knife so as not to break the seal. Frau von Sigmundskron was too well-bred to watch his face while he read the contents. Had she looked, she would have been terrified.
The note was very short, but it contained enough to shake even Rex’s calm nature.
‘My son, when you receive this, I shall be dead. I arrived here this evening and I have discovered that Frau von Greifenstein is your mother, my wife. She made me believe that she was dead and married my brother under a false name. She has atoned for her crimes to her two husbands, who have done justice upon her, and now we also are about to pay the penalty of having executed that justice which is above all laws. At the point of death, I give this secret into your keeping. Your brother is a nameless bastard. Do not ruin him by betraying the shame of your father and of his. You are rich, but were you poor you would have no title to my brother’s inheritance. Do not come to this place. They will bury me as decently as I deserve. Farewell. God keep you, and make you happier than I have been.—Your father,
‘VON RIESENECK.
‘SCHLOSS GREIFENSTEIN,December20.’
As Rex read the words he instinctively turned away. His face was hideously distorted and his stony eyes seemed changed into coals of fire. Every fibre of his strong nature was strained and tortured by the iron grip of his suffering. Every pulse of his body beat with a frantic rage for which no outlet was possible. His eyeballs burned with excruciating pain as he attempted to read again the letter he still held in his hands. He was one of those habitually calm men who become almost insane when they are angry, and in whose placid strength passion of any sort, when roused, finds its most dangerous material. For a full minute he stood speechless, feeling as though his emotion must find some physical expression, lest it should kill him there and then.
He heard a footstep, and then the door opened and closed softly. Looking round, he saw that he was alone; Frau von Sigmundskron had understood from what she could see of his attitude that the letter had brought him news even worse than that of his father’s death, and she had felt that to stay any longer would have been to intrude upon a sorrow in which she could have no share. Seeing that she was gone, Rex abandoned all restraint over himself, and submitted for a time to the overwhelming influences that surrounded him on all sides. His face became livid as he threw himself upon the couch, and his fingers were twisted unnaturally, as though their nerves were irritated by a strong electric current. Lying on his back, he rolled his head from side to side, like a man tortured on the rack, while his reddening eyes kept their sight fixed upon a blank point of the ceiling. The pain in his temples was as that of a red-hot screw boring its way through his brain, and while his white teeth ground audibly upon each other his quick-coming breath blew a scarcely perceptible foam from his strained and parted lips.
Father, mother, honour, were gone at one blow. Not the mother he had learned to dream of as a boy, when some faint memory of her fair face was still with him; not the tender and gentle mother who, if she had lived, would have been dearest on earth to him, and whose untimely death had lent her something heavenly and brightly mysterious; not the mother of whom his father had often told him, who from her place of peace looked down, perhaps, and smiled when he did well, or was pained when he did wrong; not the mother who, in his sleep, seemed to walk beside him when he was a child, robed in white, holding him by the hand and pointing heavenwards, like the picture of the Guardian Angel so common in his native country; not that mother who was to him the embodiment of all that was pure and lovely, and saintly and kind; not that sweet mother who for nearly forty years had held her secret place in the strange labyrinths of the lonely student’s heart, to whose angelic figure he had often turned for consolation when weary with the aimlessness of deep study that led to nothing, or when satiated with all the useless, pleasureless pleasure which money could give and which there was no one to forbid. That dear image was gone, but she was not the mother he had lost. She who had borne him was lying near him now, under that very roof. She had cast him off, him and his father, to spend all those years when he had thought her dead, with another man, worst shame of all, with the brother of her husband. And she had borne another son, she had given a brother to her first-born, whom the world called noble and rich, who in truth was penniless and nameless as any beggar in the street. She had heaped dishonour upon father and son, and she had borne in dishonour a second son and shamed the spotless life of a second father. And this woman, this wretch, this creature for whom no speakable name could be found, was his own mother, and was henceforth to stand in the place of her whose mere memory had been half divine. Her vile life, forfeited for her crimes as shamefully as though she had died by the defaming hands of the common hangman, her hideous existence was thrust before him in all its abomination, as the source of his own, in the stead of all that had seemed most holy and chaste and worthy of his reverence. Was not her blood in his veins? Must not her evil nature of necessity show itself sooner or later in his own? Better the ounce weight of a finger upon that little bar of steel, to press which was to go beyond the risk of human infamy, beyond the possibility of reproducing in his own life the merest shadow of the sins that had darkened hers to the end. Better to cross at once that bridge whose passage is never choked because all who go over move ever in the same way, and none pause whose path has led them to its hither side. Better to leap at once and take his secret out of human keeping.
He would not have believed the horror if he had learned it from living man. But the message came from those who had sealed its truth with the dark red seal; it came from two men who had not been mistaken, of whom either, suspecting a mistake, would have slain the other for the mere accusation; old men not carried away by a fleeting resemblance, by the breath of a word half understood, by suspicion of a glance only half seen; stern, bold men—too stern to relent, but far too brave to be moved suddenly to senseless wrath against an innocent woman; proud men, both, who would have denied to each other the possibility of their common shame, so long as denial was humanly possible.
There could be no doubt, no shadow of a hope. Greif von Greifenstein was brother to Rex, and both were fatherless and motherless on the same day. Why live on, beneath the weight of memories which no time could efface and no future happiness soften? Had he any obligations to mankind, had he any pride of half-fulfilled hopes, of half-satisfied ambition? What had his life been? A nameless one, though of the two he alone could claim a name, if all were known. What had he done with it? He had attempted to explore the sources of life and the first origin of all those strange states which life brings with it. He had spent years in patient study, and again for months he had experimented upon his own incomprehensible sensations, by alternately procuring himself every pleasure and amusement which money could command, and then seeking the contrast of solitary asceticism. His iron constitution of body had survived all, but his bright intelligence had wearied of the struggle, bruising its keen edge against the rocky barriers of the eternal and the unknown. Wiser than his fellows, he knew that he was no wiser than before; stronger than they, he knew the weakness of all strength; brave as the bravest, bravery seemed to him but a clumsy exhibition of vanity at best, and altogether contemptible from the moment it began to seek occasions for showing itself. He could have understood playing the coward for sake of examining the sensation, and would have laughed at his own vanity, when it led him to redeem his character the next moment by some act of reckless daring. What was it all, but an amazing show of puppets, an astounding dance of lay-figures, animated by strings of which the ends opposite from men were lost in infinite distance? To dance, or not to dance, was all the choice men had, and rather than play a part in such a show as fell to his lot, it seemed better to break the strings and let the miserable marionette fall into the black hole behind the stage.
The possibility of adding a fourth link to the chain of death arrested Rex’s frenzy. Since it was so easy to die, the escape from an earthly hell was always at hand. If, then, he lived, it must be of his own free will, and it did not beseem a man to do with such an ill grace what he did from his choice. Either he must end the matter decently and quietly at once, or, choosing not to end it, he must gather his strength and resume the direction of his existence. No other conclusion was possible. His secret was his own, and none need know it. All was over, and the disclosure of the truth could not help justice, any more than its concealment could injure any one. On the contrary, to tell what he knew would be to ruin Greif.
At the thought of Greif, Rex grew calm, and sat upright on the couch, supporting himself with his hands and gazing absently at the opposite wall. He had something left to live for, since Greif was his brother—Greif, who was at this very moment weeping over the body of her who was mother to both, looking for the last time upon that face which doubtless recalled to him the same tender memories Rex himself had cherished so long and so faithfully. A strong desire to see her took hold of him. The mistaken veneration of a lifetime was gone in a moment and Rex experienced the necessity of putting in its place the truth, however horrible it might be. But, unknown to him, a touch of tenderness remained in the bottom of his heart. Sinful, ruined, dead by the hands of the men she had foully wronged, she had nevertheless been his mother. He said to himself that he would see her, in order that the last impression might finally wipe out all those that had been sweet before it; but in spite of every circumstance of shame that had attended her death, and in spite of his own reasoning, what drew him to her was in reality the strength of what he believed to be wholly eradicated and torn from him, the unconscious longing to see once more the face of her who had borne him, and whose image had been with him since he was a little child.
To see her, and then—what then? The future was a blank, of which the monotony was broken only by the figure of Greif. The idea of devoting himself to his brother, and of expending all his strength and intelligence in the attempt to make him outlive the dreadful memory of this day, presented itself to Rex’s mind. He smiled faintly, for the thought was unlike most of his thoughts. He did not remember to have ever before entertained a similar project. He had sacrificed his inclinations many times in the pursuit of knowledge, and even occasionally out of good nature, but he had never set himself the task of systematically benefiting another man. And yet, he knew well enough that Greif would need support and help and comfort, and that there would be none at hand to offer all these, save Rex himself.
He rose from his seat and paced the room, his hands behind him, his eyes bent down. His face still bore the marks of his sudden and terrible suffering, but the perfectly balanced powers of his mind were already beginning to assert themselves. The habit of scepticism, that is, of systematic inquiry into all that befell him, was too strong to remain long in abeyance, and the equilibrium of the mental forces, cultivated to excess by his method of study, was too stable in nature to be long disturbed, even by the greatest calamity. To-day he saw the necessity of applying his intelligence to the alleviation of Greif’s sorrow and to the preservation of Greif’s existence, endangered by such a blow. In a few weeks at the latest, his own sufferings would acquire an objective interest, and would become so many data for study in the great case of all humanity. Rex could never have been a hero. He could never have detached his own individuality from its place in his map of mankind, so as to believe himself different from all other men, as heroes must believe themselves. He felt that the balance lay between his own life and death, and that he could turn the scale at his own choice; he could never have made himself forget life in the hope of victory, nor death in the fear of failure. Incapable of any transcendental belief whatsoever, his intelligence had deified free-agency, while his unacknowledged suspicion of a directing power asserted itself in his theories concerning nature’s fatalism. He supposed that the machinery of the universe produced inevitable phases in the lives of individuals and of nations; he knew that in all that had happened to him he had been free to exercise his choice between two alternatives. Such a choice was now before him, and for the first time in his life he determined to devote himself to the welfare of another.