The Breaking of the Storm Volume Iii Part 20

He was walking up and down now in the great empty room, from the looking-gla.s.s between the gla.s.s doors which led on to the platform, to the door into the entrance hall, and then back again, stopping only sometimes at the centre table in front of the little box which stood there, once even stretching out his hand to it, and then with a shake of the head pursuing his walk.

Was there any sense in it now? Might he not just as well have left at home his pistol, the caps for which were in his pocket! Or better still have remained at home himself, let things take their course, and people have their own way? At any rate confess to himself his helplessness in regard to things or men, and that he was a broken-down old man, good for nothing but to look on idly at the battle of life as others fought it out, however melancholy, perverse, and miserable the spectacle might be!

Melancholy for him whose heart was crushed and broken, even where formerly he would have looked with satisfaction--his Elsa's happiness.

It was not indeed the happiness of which he had dreamed for her, but to that he was resigned; it was not a brilliant lot which she had chosen for herself, but she loved the man, and, other considerations apart, he was worthy of her love. And it could not be helped either when a stranger knew her secret, that the whole world should know it at the same moment that it was confided to her father.

And yet! and yet! Why should it have happened just now, just to-day?

She was not to blame, neither was he whom she would own as hers before all the world; but upon her name and his their nearest relations had heaped such shameful guilt, had so dragged both the humble and the n.o.ble name through the mire, that every beggar might tread upon them with impunity. Death would have atoned for so much, perhaps almost for all! The worst part of the disgrace would have been hidden in the darkness of the grave, and that which had been left behind on earth--the whispers of malicious tongues--would soon have been silenced! Had he required too much? Was death more bitter than the agony of mind which he had endured in these last terrible hours? And if it were, Ottomar must surely know how to die; he could not add to the disgrace of his forgeries, the thousand times greater disgrace of a cowardly flight. And could Schonau have given his consent to this shameful course? He had not done so with goodwill evidently; he hinted even at accompanying circ.u.mstances, which he could have wished omitted, but which appeared to have been unavoidable, though he could not take upon himself the responsibility of them. Could this man think and write so, whom he had often, and not merely in jest, called a knight _sans peur et sans reproche_? Had he so entirely misconceived his and the Colonel's opinion? Did he remain the sole survivor of an earlier and better time, incomprehensible to the present generation as they were incomprehensible to him? What difference remained then between a n.o.bleman and officer and an adventurer who runs away from his creditors, a clerk who flies with his master's strong box--what difference between Ottomar von Werben and Philip Schmidt? There was none; the bankrupt tradesman and the aristocratic forger stood on the same level, only that the former might say, "I at least had not the face to compromise an honest man's daughter, to morally compel my father to go to the girl's father, and put himself in the humiliating position of being refused--brightly and wisely, as the result shows!"

To the General's over-excited imagination the scene of that morning suddenly presented itself as if it had only happened an hour before.

The day had been gloomy, like this day; the autumn wind had howled round the walls as the March wind was doing to-day, and the rain had pattered against the window just as it did now. It had been a terrible hour, when he had been forced to humble himself so deeply before the proud plebeian, even though the man himself bore the stamp of n.o.bility--which nature can give and which life often confirms--upon his broad forehead, and on every feature of his fine and venerable countenance. If he should ever again meet this man, should have to endure the look of those deep, s.h.i.+ning eyes, where, where could he turn his own?

The General, who had been standing, hardly knowing where he was, with his fixed eyes to the floor, looked up as one of the gla.s.s doors on to the platform opened with some noise, and the man whom he had just been seeing in his mind's eye entered, and closing the door came towards him.

He pa.s.sed his hand across his forehead. Had his senses really forsaken him? Was that the reason why this vision so little resembled the reality?--why the fire in the deep eyes was extinguished?--why the head, which had been held so high, was now bent low?--why the voice which now addressed him was not harsh with anger and hate, as it had been that morning, but a deep, gentle voice, gentle as the words he now began to understand, and which roused him to a sense of reality?

"I have just heard. General von Werben, that you also wish to go to Sundin; I must suppose, for the same business that takes me there. I have been promised a special train in half an hour. Will you do me the honour of making use of it also?"

The General's stern, self-controlled countenance looked so distracted and wild with grief, the clear, commanding eyes looked so bewildered, so helpless, that Uncle Ernst could not but feel, as the other had done before, that he was now the stronger and more collected. With a courteous movement he pushed forward a chair to the General, who was leaning unsteadily against the table, and when he mechanically followed the suggestion, seated himself opposite to him.

"I take it for granted. General, that you have received Herr von Schonau's letter, and that your presence here is the result of that letter?"

The General appeared not to have understood him, and, indeed, he had only heard the words. What did Herr Schmidt know of Schonau's letter?

He uttered the question as it crossed his mind. It was now Uncle Ernst's turn to look up in surprise.

"Have you not received a letter from Herr von Schonau?"

"Yes."

"Mentioning that your son--has gone away?"

The General nodded.

"An hour ago--from this station--to Sundin?"

"To Sundin?" repeated the General. Strange that he had not guessed that at once! If Ottomar intended to live, his first thought must naturally be revenge upon that scoundrel--or was it rather the last thing that he wished to accomplish before his death? He might have left it to his father; but, still, here was a gleam of light in the terrible darkness--a spark from the heart of the son, who was not, after all, so entirely lost, into that of the father. "It was not mentioned in the note," said he. He had raised his head a little, and a feeble fire shone in his sad eyes; there was some look in him again of the iron soldier with whom Uncle Ernst had had that terrible pa.s.sage-of-arms the other day.

"Not mentioned?" said Uncle Ernst; "but, good heavens----"

He broke off suddenly; his face darkened, and his voice sounded harsher, almost as it had done that morning, as he continued:

"Then in his brief note. Captain von Schonau probably did not mention the circ.u.mstance that Herr von Werben undertook the journey in question with my daughter!"

The General drew himself up at these words, like a man who was about sharply to resent an unexpected insult. The looks of the two men met; but while Uncle Ernst's eyes blazed more fiercely, the General's sought the ground, as, with a faint groan, he sank back in his chair.

"Miserable man!" he muttered to himself.

"You have to thank this circ.u.mstance--I mean the intervention of my daughter--that he is still alive," said Uncle Ernst.

"I can feel no grat.i.tude for that," replied the General in a hollow voice.

"And that the father has not the son's death upon his head."

"The father would have been able to endure that responsibility."

"So I should suppose," muttered Uncle Ernst.

He sat for a few moments silent, and his looks also were now gloomy and downcast; but this was neither the time nor the place to renew the ancient feud. In a composed tone he said:

"If General von Werben did not know where Herr von Werben was gone, and that he was with my daughter, may I ask what brought him here?"

"I had intended to call to account the man whom I must suppose has brought ruin upon my son, as he has already brought ruin and shame upon my family. I confess that I hardly see any sense in this project now, and that I----"

The General made a movement as if to rise.

"Do not go, General," said Uncle Ernst. "If time had permitted, I would have gone to you and asked the favour of an interview; now that chance--if we may call it chance--has brought us together, let us make use of this half-hour; it may spare us perhaps years of vain remorse."

The General shot from under his bushy brows a dark, uncertain glance at the speaker.

"Yes, General," said Uncle Ernst, "I repeat it--remorse; though we have neither of us had much opportunity yet of making acquaintance with such a thing. I think we may both bear witness of ourselves, without boasting, that we have all our lives long desired to do right, according to the best of our knowledge and conscience; but, General, since that first and only interview which I had with you, the words have been constantly ringing in my ear, and I hear them at this moment more plainly than ever, that I have indeed forgotten nothing, but have also learned nothing. It was a hard saying to a man like myself, whose highest pride had been to have striven from his youth up after a better and purer experience, after truth and light; and I put it from me, therefore, as an absolute injustice. But it has returned upon me again and again, all through these dark and gloomy winter months, day after day, and night after night, and it has gnawed at my heart till I almost went mad over it, for I thought I could not believe those words without giving up myself, without denying the sun at midday, or at least admitting that that sun had dark, very dark spots, fearfully dark for one who would joyfully have laid his head upon the block for its spotless purity. And yet, General, it was so. However the tortured heart might cry out against it, the relentless words would not be silenced: 'You, who glory in having forgotten nothing, have lost the better part, and you have learned nothing.'

"This hard battle, General, in which I have nearly perished, and which has certainly shortened my life by many years, has continued till this very day, till this very hour. Even the shameless and disgraceful act of my son, with whom for years past I have lived in unnatural enmity, could not break my pride. 'What is it to me,' I cried, 'if he drew poison from the honey, if, when I had made respect for foolish prejudices ridiculous to the boy, he later on lost all reverence for the sacredness of law? If my teaching that it was every man's duty to stand upon his own feet and trust in his own strength was perverted by him into the doctrine that he who had the might had the right also to take all that his hand could grasp, and to tread under foot whatever was weak enough to allow itself to be trampled upon? He has been corrupt from his childhood,' I cried, 'let Nature be answerable for all that she has created in her dark recesses! What matters it to us who, out of the chaos where right and wrong, reason and folly, are wavering and mingling confusedly together, are striving after the light of absolute self-dependence? What matters it above all to the plebeian, to whom the aristocrat's pride in his forefathers seems ridiculous? Let the children go their way! Why should the question of whither we go seem to us more worthy of inquiry than of whence we come, concerning which on principle we ask nothing? Pale spectre of family honour, write thy Mene Tekel on the walls of the prince's palace, on the walls of the n.o.ble's house, but attempt not to awe the free man who has no honour and desires no honour, but that of remaining true to himself!'

"And then, General, as I thus strove with my G.o.d--I believe in a G.o.d, General von Werben, Radical and Republican as I am--there crossed my threshold an angel, if I may so call a being whose heavenly goodness and purity seem to have no trace of earth, my clerk's daughter, a blind girl, whom you have perhaps heard mentioned in your family circle. She came to tell me that my daughter had fled--fled with your son, to save him whom she loved with every fibre of her warm, pa.s.sionate heart, to s.h.i.+eld him from the death to which his own father, for what reason I knew not, had condemned him. But I had thrust the spectre from my door, I would not listen now to the angel's soft voice, although a strange awe, which I could not account for, thrilled through me. The meaning was not long unexplained. The pure, pitiful words had been the last which that n.o.ble being had drawn from the strength only of her immeasurable love; a few minutes later the purest heart which ever throbbed in human breast had ceased to beat."

Uncle Ernst pressed his hand to his eyes, and, suppressing his deep emotion by a powerful effort, continued:

"I cannot require of you, General, that you should share my feelings, and I will not waste the precious minutes in a detailed account of the steps which I have now taken, moved by a force which I have neither the power nor the wish further to withstand, in order to save what is perhaps not yet utterly lost. Suffice it to you to know that I have ascertained from the woman who has been your son's confidante lately, and also, without knowing it, the tool of that dangerous man who is such an arch-enemy of your family--I have ascertained, I believe, nearly all that I need know of the sad history which has been played beneath our eyes, un.o.bserved by us.

"Suffice it to you that I am convinced, not of your son's innocence, it would be a lie were I to say that, and to-day more than ever we must have the courage to be sternly true to ourselves and to each other, but that he is not more guilty than a combination of unhappy circ.u.mstances may make a young man who, in spite of all his apparent knowledge of the world, is absolutely inexperienced, and whose heart, though no longer sinless, is not corrupt, but capable of n.o.ble impulses. And, General, if I have made to you, in whom I have always seen the impersonation of the principles most detested and abhorred by me, to you, above whom in my own self-righteousness I stood so high, a confession which has not been easy to my pride; if I have acknowledged that the principle of unbounded liberty and absolute self-dependence when carried to its extreme consequence may lead weaker spirits into error, must so lead them perhaps, as I see my two children erring now, one irrecoverably lost, the other only trembling on the edge of the abyss, into which some mere accident may precipitate her; have you, too, General von Werben, nothing to repent of, nothing to atone for? Have not the narrow fetters of aristocratic and military routine, in which you have tried to confine your son's easily-led disposition, been equally fatal to him? To him who in a freer and lighter atmosphere might have happily and naturally unfolded the bright gifts of his clear understanding, the powers of enjoyment of his warm heart, and who now, compressed and confined by prejudices on all sides, entangled in hopeless contradictions, has gradually accustomed himself to look upon life so completely and entirely as a series of necessary and unavoidable contradictions, that his death at this moment would be only one more?

"A terrible and monstrous contradiction. For would it not be one? Death by his own hand, at the moment when that hand is seized by the woman whom this self-condemned suicide--from all that I now hear I am certain of this--loves with all the force of which his heart is capable, and certainly far more than his own life; and this woman, who is not unworthy indeed of such love, says to him in tones which can only come from a loving and despairing heart: 'Live, live! Live for me, to whom you are all! I have left father, and house, and home, to live for you!

With you, without hoping for better days! With you, in shame and misery, if need be--with you!'"

Uncle Ernst ceased, overpowered by the feelings of his n.o.ble, strong heart, choked by the thoughts which surged in his powerfully working mind. The General, who had been sitting in gloomy meditation, raised his sorrow-dimmed eyes.

"If need be?--it must be!"

"Must be?" cried Uncle Ernst; "why? Because to the poor weary wayworn wanderers it seems that the farther road for them can only be toiling through the desert, through thorns and over stony ground? For them!

Good heavens! They who are young and strong, who will soon in the palmy Eden of their love recognise their youth and strength, and with renewed courage and refreshed hearts go out into life, which stretches boundless and beautiful before them! Life, in whose immeasurable s.p.a.ce there is a thousand-fold room for the man who has erred, if he has but courage and can rise firmly to his feet again to resume the battle, and to conquer in a new sphere of work, a home for himself, for the woman he loves--for his children! The children, General, with whom a new world is born which knows nothing of the old, which needs to know and should know nothing of the father's sin; that sin which, if the father indeed has not atoned for by his sorrow, by his penance, by a single n.o.ble deed, they may redeem by the simple fact of living, of being new blossoms on the tree of humanity, at the foot of which we old people with our ancient griefs and troubles shall long have gone to rest."

Uncle Ernst's great eyes were glowing with n.o.ble enthusiasm; but the General's troubled face gave not the faintest response to it. He slowly shook his grey head.

"I must ask you one question, which sounds very cruel, but is not meant to be so, only to bring us down from this region of bright and, to my thinking, fantastic dreams to this dark earth. Does the perspective which you open to my son, extend also to your son?"

Uncle Ernst started, the fire of his glance was dimmed, and some moments elapsed before his answer came.

"The cases are as far apart as heaven is from earth, as far as a thoughtless act intended to injure no one, which he who committed it hoped, I know, to make good, and to which he had been after all led away by fiendish suggestions, differs from a proceeding which was carried out with the most cold-blooded calculation, in the full knowledge of the ruinous consequences to thousands of others."