The Project Gutenberg eBook, The German Lieutenant and Other Stories, by August Strindberg, Translated by Claud Field This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The German Lieutenant and Other Stories The German Lieutenant; Over-Refinement; "Unwelcome;" Higher Aims; Paul and Peter; A Funeral; The Last Shot Author: August Strindberg Release Date: June 26, 2014 [eBook #46107] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GERMAN LIEUTENANT AND OTHER STORIES*** E-text prepared by Marc D'Hooghe (http://www.freeliterature.org) from page images generously made available by HathiTrust Digital Library (http://www.hathitrust.org/digital_library) Note: Images of the original pages are available through HathiTrust Digital Library. See http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001787881 The German Lieutenant And Other Stories By August Strindberg Translated by Claud Field London T. Werner Laurie Limited 8 Essex Street, Strand 1915 August Strindberg. Born at Stockholm, January 22, 1849; died there, May 14, 1912. A Swedish dramatist and novelist, a leader of modern Swedish literature. Among his plays are "Master Olof" (1872), "Gilletshemlighet" (1880), "Fadren" (1887), "Froken Julie" (1888), "Glaubiger" (1889), "Till Damaskus" (1808), and a series of historical dramas including "Gustavas Wasa," "Erik XIV.," "Gustavas Adolphus," and "Carol XII." He wrote also "Roda rummet" (1879), "Det nya riket" (1882), which provoked so much criticism that the author left Sweden for a number of years; "Svenska folket HELG OCH SOKEN" (1882), "GIFTAS" (1884), "DIE BEICHTE EINES THOREN" (1893), "INFERNO" (1897), written after one of his periodical attacks of insanity; "EINSAM" (1903), an autobiographical novel; "DIE GOTISCHEN ZIMMER" (1904), and many other volumes. He has been called "the Shakspere of Sweden." —The Century Cyclopædia of Names. CONTENTS THE GERMAN LIEUTENANT OVER-REFINEMENT "UNWELCOME" HIGHER AIMS PAUL AND PETER A FUNERAL THE LAST SHOT THE GERMAN LIEUTENANT CHAPTER I It was fourteen days after Sedan, in the middle of September, 1870. A former clerk in the Prussian Geological Survey, later a lieutenant in the reserve, named Von Bleichroden, sat in his shirt-sleeves before a writing-table in the Café du Cercle, the best inn of the little town Marlotte. He had thrown his military coat with its stiff collar over the back of a chair, and there it hung limp, and collapsed like a corpse, with its empty arms seeming to clutch at the legs of the chair to keep itself from falling headlong. Round the body of the coat one saw the mark of the sword-belt, and the left coat- tail was rubbed quite smooth by the sheath. The back of the coat was as dusty as a high-road, and the lieutenant- geologist might have studied the tertiary deposits of the district on the edges of his much-worn trousers. When the orderlies came into the room with their dirty boots, he could till by the traces they left on the floor whether they had been walking over Eocene or Pleiocene formations. He was really more a geologist than a soldier, but for the present he was a letter-writer. He had pushed his spectacles up to his forehead, sat with his pen at rest, and looked out of the window. The garden lay in all its autumn glory before him, and the branches of the apple and pear trees bent with a load of the most splendid fruit to the ground. Orange-red pumpkins sunned themselves close beside prickly grey-green artichokes; fiery-red tomatoes clambered up sticks near wool-white cauliflowers; sun-flowers as large as a plate were turning their yellow disks towards the west, where the sun was beginning to sink; whole companies of dahlias, white as fresh- starched linen, purple-red like congealed blood, dirty-red like fresh-slaughtered flesh, salmon-red, sulphur-yellow, flax- coloured, mottled and speckled, sang one great flower-concert. Then there was the sand-strewn path lined by two rows of giant gilly-flowers; faintly lilac-coloured, dazzlingly ice-blue, and straw-yellow, they continued the perspective to where the vineyards stood in their brownish-green array, a small wood of thyrsus-staves with the reddened grape- clusters half hidden under the leaves. Behind them were the whitening, unharvested stalks of the cornfields, with the over-ripe ears of corn hanging sorrowfully towards the ground, with wide-open husks and bractlets at every gust of wind paying their tribute to the earth and bursting with their juices. And far in the background were the oak-tree tops and the beechen arches of the Forest of Fontainebleau, whose outlines melted away into the finest denticulations, like old Brussels lace, into the extreme meshes of which the horizontal rays of the evening sun wove gold threads. Some bees were still visiting the splendid honey-flowers in the garden; a robin-redbreast twittered in an apple tree; strong gusts of scent came now and then from the gilly-flowers, as when one walks along a pavement and the door of a scent- shop is opened. The lieutenant sat with his pen at rest, visibly entranced by the beautiful scene. "What a lovely land!" he thought, and his recollection went back to the sandy plain of his home, diversified by some wretched stunted firs which stretched their gnarled arms towards the sky as though they implored the favour of not having to drown in the sand. But the beautiful landscape which was framed in the window was shadowed as regularly as clockwork by the musket of the sentry, whose bright, shining bayonet bisected the picture, and who turned on his rounds exactly under a pear tree heavily laden with the finest yellow-green Napoleon pears. The lieutenant thought for a moment of asking him to choose another beat, but did not venture to do so; so in order to escape the flash of the bayonet, he let his gaze wander to the left over the courtyard. There stood the cook-house with its yellow-plastered wall, and an old knotty vine spread out against it like the skeleton of some animal in a museum; the vine was without leaves or clusters, and it stood there as though crucified, nailed fast to the decaying espalier, stretching out its long tough arms and fingers as though it wished to draw the sentry into its ghostly embrace as he turned. The lieutenant turned away and looked at his writing-table. There lay the unfinished letter to his young wife whom he had married four months previously, two months before the war broke out. Beside his field-glass and the list of the French General Staff lay Hartmann's "Philosophy of the Unconscious" and Schopenhauer's "Parerga and Paralipomena." Suddenly he rose from the table and walked up and down the room. It had been the meeting and dining-room of the artists' colony which had now vanished. The wainscoting of the walls was adorned with little oil- paintings recording happy hours in the beautiful hospitable country which so generously opened its art-schools and its exhibitions to foreigners. Here were depicted Spanish dancing-women, Roman monks, scenes from the coasts of Normandy and Brittany, Dutch wind-mills, Scandinavian fishing-villages and Swiss Alps. Into one corner had crept an easel of walnut-wood, and seemed to be hiding itself in the shadow from some threatening bayonets. A palette smeared with half-dried colours hung there and looked like a liver hanging in a pork-shop. Some red Spanish militia caps belonging to the painters, with the colour half faded by exposure to the sun and rain, hung on the clothes-horse. The lieutenant felt embarrassed, like one who has intruded into a stranger's house, and expects the owner to come and surprise him. He therefore abruptly ceased walking up and down and took his seat at the table in order to continue his letter. He had finished the first pages, which were full of expressions of his sorrow, home-sickness and anxiety since he had lately heard news which confirmed his joyful hopes of becoming a father. He dipped his pen in the ink rather in order to have someone to talk with than to give or ask for news. He wrote as follows: "So, for example, when I with my hundred men after a march of fourteen hours without food or water, came to a wood where we found an abandoned provision-wagon, what do you think happened? So famished that their eyes protruded from their heads like mountain crystals in granite, the body of men broke up and threw themselves like wolves upon the food, and since there was scarcely enough for twenty-five, they came to blows. No one listened to my word of command, and when the sergeant struck them with the flat of his sabre, they knocked him down with the butt-ends of their muskets. Sixteen men remained wounded and half dead on the place. Those who got hold of the food ate so greedily that they became sick and had to lie down on the ground, where they at once fell asleep. They fought with their own countrymen like wild beasts who fight for food. "One day we received orders to throw up defences. In the unwooded tract of country we were in there was nothing to use but the vines and their stakes. It was a strange sight to see how the vineyards were rifled in an hour—how the vine- stems were torn up, together with the leaves and grapes, to form faggot-bundles, which were quite wet with the juice of the crushed, half-ripe grapes. It was said that the vines were forty years old. Thus we destroyed the work of forty years in an hour. And that too in order to shoot down those who had provided the material for the faggot-bundles which protected us! "Another day we had to skirmish in an unreaped field of corn where the ears of corn dropped round our feet like hail and the stalks were trodden down to rot at the next shower of rain. Do you think, my dear wife, that one can sleep quietly at night after such doings? And yet, what have I done but my duty? And people venture to assert that the consciousness of duty performed is the best pillow for one's head. "But there are still worse things behind. You have perhaps heard that the French population in order to strengthen their army have risen in a mass and formed bodies of volunteers, who, under the name of 'franc-tireurs,' try to protect their farms and fields. The Prussian Government has refused to recognise them as soldiers, but has threatened to have them shot down as spies and traitors whenever they are found; because, they say, it is states who wage war and not individuals. But are soldiers not individuals? And are not these franc-tireurs soldiers? They have a grey uniform like the chasseur regiments, and uniforms make soldiers. But it is objected that they are not registered. No, they are not registered, because the Government has neither had time to have it done nor are means of communication with the country districts so easy as to make it possible. I have just got three of these franc-tireurs prisoners in the billiard-room, and am every moment expecting orders from headquarters to decide their fate." Here he stopped writing, and rang for his orderly. The latter, who was in waiting in the tap-room, at once appeared in the dining-room before the lieutenant. "How are the prisoners going on?" asked Von Bleichroden. "Very well, sir; they are just now playing billiards, and are quite cheerful." "Give them some bottles of wine, but of the weakest kind. Has nothing happened?" "Nothing, sir." Von Bleichroden continued his letter. "What strange people these Frenchmen are! The three franc-tireurs whom I have just mentioned, and who possibly (I say possibly for I still hope for the best) may be condemned to death in a few days, are just now playing billiards in the room next to mine and I hear their cues striking the balls. What happy contempt of the world! It is really splendid to go hence in such a mood; or rather, it shows that life is worth very little if one can part from it so easily—I mean when one has not such dear ties binding one to existence as I possess. Of course you won't misunderstand me and believe that I think I am tied—— Ah! I don't know what I am writing, for I have not slept for several nights and my head is so——" Just then there was a knock at the door. At the lieutenant's "Come in!" the door opened and the curé of the village entered. He was a man of about fifty, with a friendly and melancholy yet firm expression of face. "I come, sir," he began, "to ask you for permission to speak with the prisoners." The lieutenant rose and put on his coat, while he offered the curé a seat on the sofa. But when he had buttoned up the coat tightly and felt the stiff collar close round his neck, it seemed as though his nobler organs were compressed, and as though his blood stood still in coursing through secret channels to his heart. Placing his hand on the copy of Schopenhauer, and leaning against the writing-table, he said: "I am at your service, Monsieur le Curé, but I do not think the prisoners will pay you much attention, for they are busy playing billiards." "I think, sir," answered the curé, "that I know my people better than you do. One question. Do you intend to have these young fellows shot?" "Naturally," answered Von Bleichroden, quite prepared to assume his rôle. "It is the states which wage war, Monsieur le Curé, not individuals." "Pardon me, sir, are you and your soldiers not individuals?" "Pardon me, Monsieur, not for the present." He slipped the letter to his wife under the blotting-paper and continued, "I am just now only a representative of the German Confederation of States." "But, sir, your amiable Empress, whom may God ever protect, was also a representative of the German Confederation when she issued her proclamation to German women to help the wounded, and I know of hundreds of individual Frenchmen who bless her, although the French nation curses your nation. Sir, in the name of Jesus the Redeemer" (here the curé stood up, seized his enemy's hands and continued in a tear-choked voice), "could you not appeal to her?" The lieutenant was nearly losing his self-control, but he recovered himself and said: "With us women have not yet begun to interfere in politics." "That is a pity," answered the priest, and stood up. The lieutenant seemed to have heard a noise through the window, so that he did not pay attention to the priest's answer. He became restless, and his face was quite white, for the stiff collar could no longer prevent the blood quitting it. "Pray sit down, Monsieur," he said. "If you wish to speak with the prisoners, you can do so, but remain sitting for a minute." (He listened out of the window again, and now there were heard distinctly doubled hoof-beats, as of a horse galloping.) "No, don't go, Monsieur," he said with a gasp. The sound of galloping came nearer till it became a walk, slackened and ceased. There was the clinking of a sword and spurs, footsteps, and Von Bleichroden held a letter in his hand. He tore it open and read it. "What is the time?" he asked himself. "Six! In two hours, Monsieur, the prisoners will be shot without trial." "Impossible, sir! One does not so hurry men into eternity." "Eternity or not, the order says that it must be done before vespers, if I do not wish to regard myself as making common cause with the franc-tireurs. And here there follows a sharp reprimand because I have not carried out the order of August 31st. Monsieur, go in and talk with them and spare me the unpleasantness." "You think it unpleasant to report a righteous sentence?" "But I am still a man, Monsieur! Don't you think I am a man?" He tore open his coat to get air, and began to walk up and down the room. "Why cannot we be always men? Why must we have two faces? Oh, Monsieur, go in and talk with them! Are they married men? Have they wives and children—parents perhaps?" "They are all three unmarried," answered the priest. "But at any rate you might let them have this one night." "Impossible! The order says, 'before vespers,' and we have to march at daybreak. Go to them, Monsieur, go to them!" "I will go; but remember, Mr Lieutenant, not to go out in your shirt-sleeves, when you go, or you might meet with the same fate as they. For it is the coat, you know, which makes the soldier." And the priest went. Von Bleichroden wrote the last lines of his letter in a state of great agitation. Then he sealed it and rang for the orderly. "Post this letter," he said to him, "and send in the sergeant." The sergeant came. "Three times three is twenty-nine—no, three times seven is. Sergeant, take three times—take seven-and-twenty men and shoot the prisoners within an hour. Here is the order!" "Shoot them?" asked the sergeant hesitatingly. "Yes, shoot them! Choose the worst soldiers, those who have been under fire before. You understand? For instance, number 86, Besel, number 19, Gewehr, and so on. Order also for me a fatigue-party of sixteen men at once, and choose the best. We will make a reconnaissance towards Fontainebleau, and when we come back it will be over. Do you understand?" "Sixteen men for you, air, and seven-and-twenty for the prisoners. God protect you, sir!" And he went. The lieutenant buttoned his coat again carefully, put on his sword-belt, and placed a revolver in his pocket. Then he lit a cigar, but found it impossible to smoke for he had not enough air in his lungs. He dusted his writing-table; he took his handkerchief and wiped the large pair of scissors, the stick of sealing-wax, and the match-box; he laid the ruler and the pen-holder parallel at an exact right angle with the blotting-paper; then he began to put the furniture straight. When that was finished, he took out his brush and comb and did his hair before the looking-glass; he took down the palette and examined the dabs of paint on it; he inspected all the red caps and tried to make the easel stand on two legs. By the time that the clanking of the weapons of his fatigue-party was audible in the courtyard, there was not a single object in the room which he had not handled. Then he went out, gave the command "Left wheel! March!" and quitted the village. He felt as though he were running away from a foe of superior power, and the soldiers found it difficult to follow him. When they came to a field he made them go in single file so as not to trample down the grass. He did not turn round, but the soldier next behind him could see how the cloth of the back of his coat twitched from time to time, as when one shudders, or expects a blow from behind. At the edge of the wood he ordered a halt; he told the men to keep quiet and to rest while he went into the wood. When he found himself alone and was quite sure that no one could see him, he took a deep breath and turned towards the dark thickets through which narrow foot-paths lead to the Gorge-aux-loups. The under-wood and bushes lay in shadow, but above the sun still shone brightly on the tops of the oaks and beeches. He felt as though he lay on the dark bottom of the sea, and through the green water saw above him the light of day which he never more would reach. The great, wonderfully beautiful wood which formerly had soothed his troubled spirit seemed this evening so disharmonious, so repellent, so cold. Life appeared so heartless, so contradictory, and Nature herself seemed unhappy in her unconscious sleep. Here also the terrible struggle for existence was being carried on, bloodlessly it is true, but just as cruelly as by conscious creatures. He saw how the baby oaks spread themselves out to bushes in order to kill the tender beech-seedlings which would never be more than seedlings; of a thousand beeches only one could get to the light and thereby become a giant, which should in its turn rob the rest of life. And the ruthless oak, which stretched out its gnarled, rough arms as though it wished to keep the whole sun for itself, had discovered how to wage an underground strife. It sent out its long roots in all directions, undermining the ground; it ate away from the others the smallest particles of nourishment; and when it could not overshadow a rival till it was dead, it starved it out. The oak had already murdered the pine-wood, but the beech came as an avenger slow but sure, for its acrid juices kill everything where it predominates. It had discovered the method of poisoning which was irresistible, for not a single plant could grow in-its shadow; the earth around it was dark as a grave, and therefore the future belonged to it. The lieutenant wandered on and on. He struck about with his sword without thinking how many hopeful young oaklings he destroyed, how many headless cripples he produced. In fact he hardly thought any more, for all the activities of his soul seemed crushed in a mortar to pulp. His thoughts tried to crystallise themselves but dissolved and floated away; memories, hopes, wrath, gentler feelings, and one great hatred of all the perversity which by the operation of an inexplicable natural force had come to rule the world, melted together in his brain, as though an inner fire had suddenly raised the temperature and obliged all its solid constituents to assume a fluid form. Suddenly he started and stood still as if arrested, for from Marlotte came a sound rolling over the fields and redoubling its echoes in the hollow passage of the "Wolves' gorge." It was the drum! First a long roll—trrrrrrrrrrrrrom!—and then blow on blow, one and two, dull and muffled, as when one nails up a coffin and fears to disturb the house of mourning —trrrom!—trrrom!—trom!—trom! He took out his watch; it was a quarter to seven. In a quarter of an hour it would happen! He wished to return and see it. No, he had just run away to avoid it; he would not see it for anything. Then he climbed up a tree. Now he saw the village, which looked so bright and homelike with its little gardens and church-tower rising above the house roofs. He saw no more, but held his watch in his hand and followed the second hand. Tick, tick, tick, tick—it ran round the little dial-plate so swiftly; but when the second hand had made one round, the long one made a jerk and the steady hour hand stood still, as it seemed to him, though it was moving also. Now the watch showed five minutes to seven. He gripped the smooth black beech stem he was standing by very tightly. The watch trembled in his hand, there was a humming in his ears, and he felt a burning sensation at the roots of his hair. Crash! There was a sound just as when a plank breaks, and above a dark slate roof and a white apple tree rose a blue cloud of smoke over the village, bluish white like a spring cloud; but above the cloud one, two, and several smoke-rings shot up in the air, as though they had been shooting at pigeons and not towards a wall. "They were not all so bad as I thought," he said to himself as he got down from the tree, feeling quieter now that it was over. And now the little village church bell began to ring, speaking of peace and quiet for the dead who had done their duty, but not for all the living who had done theirs. The sun had gone down, and the moon, whose pale yellow disk had hung in the sky all the afternoon, began to redden and gather light as the lieutenant with his men marched by Montcourt, still followed by the ringing of the little bell. They came out on the great high-road to Nemours, which, with its two rows of poplars, seemed peculiarly suited for marching on. So they went on till it was quite night and the moon shone clearly. In the last row the men had already begun to whisper and consult secretly whether they should not ask the corporal to give the lieutenant some sort of hint that the district was unsafe and that they should return to their quarters in order to be able to march at daybreak, when Von Bleichroden quite unexpectedly commanded "Halt!" They stood on a rising ground from which Marlotte could be seen. The lieutenant stood quite still, like a pointer who startles a covey of partridges. Now the drum was beating again. Then the clock in Montcourt struck nine, followed by those in Grez, in Bourron, in Nemours; and then all the little church bells began to ring for vespers, vying with each other in shrillness, and through them all pierced the tones of the bell in Marlotte, which called "Help! help!" and Von Bleichroden could not help. Now came a booming along the ground, as though from the depths of the earth; it was the firing of the evening gun at the headquarters in Chalons. The moon shone through the light evening mists which were lying like great flocks of wool above the little River Loin, and lit it up so that it resembled a lava stream running in the distance from the dark wood of Fontainebleau which rose like a volcano. The evening was oppressively warm, but the men had all white faces, so that the bats which swarmed around them flew close by their ears, as they do when they see anything white. All knew what the lieutenant was thinking about, but they had never seen him behave so strangely and feared that it was not all right with this aimless reconnaissance on the high- road. At last the corporal summoned up boldness to approach him, and under the form of making a report drew his attention to the fact that the tattoo had sounded. Von Bleichroden received the information with a humble air, as when one receives a command, and gave the order to return home. When, one hour later, they entered the first street of Marlotte the corporal noticed that the lieutenant's right leg was contracted as though by a spavin, and that he moved in a diagonal course like a horse-fly. In the market-place the troops were dismissed without evening prayers, and the lieutenant disappeared. He did not wish to return to his rooms at once. Something was drawing him he knew not whither. He ran about with widely opened eyes and inflated nostrils, like a hound on the scent. He examined the walls and sniffed for a familiar smell. He saw nothing and met no one. He wished to see where "it" had happened, but he also feared to see it. At last he became tired and went home. In the courtyard he stopped and then went round the cook-house. Suddenly he came upon the sergeant and was so startled that he had to support himself by holding on to the wall. The sergeant was also startled, but recovered himself and began, "I was looking for you, sir, in order to make my report." "Very good! Very good indeed! Go home and lie down," answered Von Bleichroden, as though he feared to hear details. "Yes, sir, but it was——" "Very good! Go! Go!" He spoke so quickly and uninterruptedly that it was impossible for the sergeant to put in a word. Every time he opened his mouth he was overwhelmed with a torrent of words, so that at last he became tired of it and went away. Then the lieutenant breathed again and felt like a boy who has escaped a thrashing. He was now in the garden. The moon shone brightly on the yellow wall of the cook-house, and the vine stretched its skeleton arms as though in a very long yawn. But what was that? Two or three hours before it had been dead and leafless, simply a grey skeleton which writhed, and now were there not hanging on it the finest red clusters, and had not the stem grown green? He went nearer in order to see whether it was the same vine. As he came close to the wall he stepped in something slippery and was aware of the same nauseous smell which one perceives in butchers' shops. And now he saw that it was the same vine, certainly the same, but the plaster of the wall was broken by bullets and sprinkled with blood. He went away quickly. When he came into the front hall he stumbled over something which lay under his feet. He drew off his boots in the hall and threw them out in the garden. Then he went into his room, where his tea was laid. He felt terribly hungry but could not eat. He remained standing and staring at the covered table which was so neatly spread: the white pat of butter with a little radish laid on the top of it; the tablecloth was white and he saw that it was embroidered with his or his wife's initials, which had not been there at first; the little goat's milk cheese lay so neatly on its vine leaf, as though something more than the fear of a forced contribution had operated here; the beautiful little white loaf so unlike the brown rye-bread to which he was accustomed; the red wine in the polished decanter; the thin reddish slices of mutton—all seemed to have been arranged by friendly hands. But he felt afraid to touch the food, and suddenly rang the bell. Immediately the landlady stood in the doorway without saying a word. She looked down at his feet and waited for an order. The lieutenant did not know what he wanted, nor did he remember for what he had rung, but he had to say something. "Are you angry with me?" he stammered. "No, sir," answered the woman mildly. "Does the gentleman want anything?" And she looked down again at his feet. He also looked down to see what had attracted her attention, and discovered that he was standing in his stockings, and that the floor was covered with red footprints—red footprints with the mark of the toes where his stockings had been torn, for he had walked far that day. "Give me your hand, my good woman," he said, stretching out his own. "No," answered the woman, and looked straight into his eyes. Then she left the room. Herr von Bleichroden tried to pluck up courage after this snub, and took a chair and sat down to his meal. He lifted the plate of meat in order to help himself, but the smell of the meat made him feel ill. He stood up, opened the window, and threw the whole plate with its contents into the garden. His whole body trembled and he felt sick; his eyes were so sensitive that the light tried them, and all bright colours irritated them. He threw out the red bottle of wine, he took away the red radish from the butter, the red painters' caps and palettes—everything that was red had to go. Then he lay down on the bed. His eyes were tired, but he could not close them, so he lay for an hour, till he heard voices in the tap-room. He did not wish to listen, but he could not shut his ears, and recognised that they were two corporals who were drinking beer and talking. "Those were two sturdy fellows—the two short ones, but the long one was weak." "Yes, he fell like a bundle of rags by the wall. He had asked that they should fasten him to the espalier, for he wished to stand, he said." "But the others—devil take me!—stood with their arms folded over their breasts, as though they were going to be photographed." "Yes, but when the priest came into the billiard-room and told them there was no chance, all three fell crash on the ground, so at least the sergeant said, but there was no scream nor prayer for mercy." "Yes, they were deuced plucky chaps. Your health!" Herr von Bleichroden pressed his head into his pillow and stopped his ears with the sheets. But presently he got up. It was as if something drew him forcibly to the door behind which they were talking, he wanted to hear more; but the corporals now conversed in low tones. Accordingly he stole forward, leant his back against a corner, laid his ear to the keyhole and listened. "But did you see our people? Their faces were as grey as pipe ashes, and many of them shot in the air. Don't let us talk more about it! But they got what they deserved, and they weighed much more when they went than when they came. It was like shooting little birds with grapeshot." "Did you see the priest's boys in red cassocks who stood and sang with the coffee-roasters? It was like snuffing out a light when the rifles cracked. They rolled in the bean-beds like sparrows, fluttering their wings and turning their eyes. And how the old women came and picked up the pieces! Oh! oh! but so it goes in war. Your health!" Herr von Bleichroden had heard enough; the blood had so gone to his brain that he could not sleep. He went into the tap-room and told the corporals-to go home. Then he undressed himself, dipped his head in the hand-basin, took up Schopenhauer and began to read with pulses beating violently: "Birth and death both belong to life; they constitute two opposites which condition each other; they are the two extreme poles in each manifestation of life. This is just what the deepest of all mythologies, the Hindu, has expressed by investing Siva the goddess of destruction with a necklace of skulls and the Lingam, the organ of reproduction. Death is the painful dissolution of a knot which was tied in pleasure, it is the forcible doing away with the fundamental mistake of our existence, it is deliverance from a delusion." He let the book drop, for he heard someone crying and tossing about in his bed. Who was in the bed? He saw a body, the under part of which was painfully contorted by cramp, while the muscles of the chest stood out strained like the staves of a cask, and he heard a low, hollow sound like a shriek smothered under the bed-clothes. It was his own body! Had he then been divided into two, that he heard and saw himself as though he were another person? The screaming continued. The door opened and the mild-mannered landlady came in, probably alter knocking. "What does the gentleman want?" she asked with shining eyes and a peculiar smile upon her lips. "I!" answered the sick man. "Nothing! But I am very ill and would like to see a doctor." "There is no doctor here, but the priest is accustomed to help us," answered the woman, smiling no longer. "Send for the priest then," said the lieutenant, "though I don't generally like them." "But when one is ill, one likes them," said the woman, and disappeared. When the priest entered he went to the bed and took the sick man's wrist. "What do you think it is?" asked the latter. "What do you think it is?" "A bad conscience," was the priest's brief reply. Herr von Bleichroden answered excitedly, "A bad conscience after doing one's duty!" "Yes," answered the priest, tying a wet handkerchief round the sick man's head. "Listen to me while you still can. It is now you who are condemned—to a worse lot than the —three! Listen to me carefully. I know the symptoms. You are on the edge of madness. You must try to think the matter out. Think hard, and you will find your brain get right again. Look at me, and follow my words if you can. You have become two persons. You regard one part of yourself as though it were a second or a third person. How did that happen? It is the social falsehood, which makes us all double. When you wrote to your wife to-day you were a man—a true, simple, good man; but when you spoke with me you were another character altogether. Just as an actor loses his personality and becomes a mere conglomeration of the parts he performs, so an official becomes two persons at least. Now when there comes a spiritual shock, upheaval or earthquake, the soul splits, as it were, in two, and the two natures lie side by side, and contemplate each other. "I see a book lying on the ground which I also know. The author was a deep thinker, perhaps the deepest of all. He saw through the misery and nothingness of earthly life as though he had learnt from our Lord and Saviour, but for all that he could not help being a double character, for life, birth, habit and human weakness compelled him to relapses. You see, sir, that I have read other books beside the breviary. And I talk as a doctor, not as a priest, for we both—follow me carefully—we both understand one another. Do you think I do not know the curse of the double life which I lead? Not that I feel any doubt of the holy things, which have passed into my blood and bones, so to speak, but I know, sir, that I do not speak in God's name when I speak. Falsehood passes into us from our mother's womb and breast, and he who would tell the whole truth out under present circumstances—yes, yes! Can you follow me?" The sick man listened eagerly, and his eyelids had not dropped once all the time the priest was speaking. "Now there is a little traitor," continued the priest, "with a torch in his hand, an angel who goes about with a basket of roses with which he bestrews the refuse-heaps of life. He is an angel of deceit, and he is called 'The Beautiful.' The heathen worshipped him in Greece; princes have done him homage, for he has bewitched the eyes of people so that they could not see things as they are. He goes through the whole of life, falsifying and falsifying. Why do you warriors dress in splendid clothes with gold and brilliant colours? Why do you always work with music and flying flags? Is it not to conceal what is really at the bottom of your profession? If you loved the truth, you ought to go about in white smocks, like butchers, so that the bloodstains might show distinctly, with knives and marrow-borers as they do in slaughter-houses, with axes dripping blood and greasy with tallow. Instead of a band of music, you ought to drive before you a herd of howling maniacs whom the sights of the battlefield have driven crazy; instead of flags, you should carry shrouds and draw coffins on your wagon-trains." The sick man, who now writhed in convulsions, clasped his hands in prayer and bit his finger-nails. The priest's face had assumed a terrible expression—hard, implacable, hostile. He continued: "You are naturally a good man, you, and I will not punish that side of you, but I punish you as a representative, as you called yourself, and your punishment will be a warning to others. Will you see the three corpses? Will you see them?" "No! For Jesus' sake!" shrieked the sick man, whose nightshirt was wet with sweat and clung to his shoulder-blades. "Your cowardice shows that you are a man, and, as such, cowardly." As though struck by the blow of a whip, the sick man started up; his face seemed composed, his chest was no more convulsed, and with a calm voice, as though he were quite well, he said: "Go, devil of a priest, or you will make me do something desperate." "But I shall not come again if you call me," said the other. "Remember that! Remember, that if you cannot sleep it is not my fault, but the fault of those who lie in the billiard-room! In the billiard-room, you know!" He flung open the door of the billiard-room, and a terrible smell of carbolic acid streamed into the sick-chamber. "Do you smell it? Do you smell it? That is not like smelling powder, nor is it an exploit to telegraph home about. Great victory! Three dead and one mad! God be praised! It is not an occasion for writing odes, strewing flowers in the streets, and singing Te Deums in the churches? It is not a victory! It is murder, murder, you murderer!" Herr von Bleichroden had sprung out of bed and jumped out of the window. In the courtyard he was seized by some of his men, whom he tried to bite. Then he was bound and placed in a headquarter ambulance in order to be taken to the asylum as a complete maniac. CHAPTER II It was a sunny morning at the end of February, 1871. Up the steep Martheray Hill in Lausanne a young woman walked slowly, leaning on the arm of a middle-aged man. She was far gone in pregnancy, and hung heavily on her companion's arm. Her face was that of a girl, but it was pale with care, and she was dressed in mourning. The man was not, from which the passers-by concluded that he was not her husband. He seemed in deep trouble, stooped down now and then to the little woman and said a word or two to her, then seemed to be absorbed again in his own thoughts. When they came to the old custom-house in front of the inn "A l'Ours," they stood still. "Is there another hill?" she asked. "Yes, dear," he answered. "Let us sit down for a moment." They sat down on a seat before the inn. Her heart beat slowly and her breast heaved painfully, as though for want of air. "I am sorry for you, poor brother," she said. "I see that you are longing to be with your own family." "Don't mention it, sister! Don't let us talk about it. Certainly my heart is sometimes far away, and they need me at the sowing time, but you are my sister, and one cannot disown one's flesh and blood." "We shall see now," resumed Frau von Bleichroden, "whether this air and this new treatment will help towards his cure. What do you think?" "Certainly it will," her brother answered, but turned his head aside so that she should not see the doubt in his face. "What a winter I have passed through in Frankfort! To think that Destiny can invent such tragedies! I think I could have borne his death more easily than this living burial." "But one must always hope," said her brother in a hopeless tone. And his thoughts travelled far—to his children and his fields. But immediately afterwards he felt ashamed of his selfishness, that he could not sympathise fully with this grief, which was really not his own but which he had to share, and he felt angry with himself. Suddenly there sounded from the hill above a shrill, prolonged scream, like the whistle of a locomotive, and then another. "Does the train go so high up the mountain?" asked Frau von Bleichroden. "Yes, it must be that," said her brother, and listened with wide-open eyes. The scream was repeated. But now it sounded as if someone were drowning. "Let us go home again," said Herr Schantz, who had become quite pale; "you cannot climb this hill to-day, and to- morrow we will be wiser and take a carriage." But his sister insisted on proceeding in spite of all. And so they ascended the long hill to the hospital, though it was like a climb up Calvary. Through the green hawthorn hedges on both sides of the way, darted black thrushes with yellow beaks; grey lizards raced over the ivy-grown walls and disappeared in the crevices. It was full spring, for there had been no winter, and by the edges of the path bloomed primroses and hellebores; but they did not arrest the attention of the pilgrims. When they had got half-way up the hill, the mysterious screaming was repeated. As though overcome by a sudden foreboding, Frau von Bleichroden turned to her brother, looked in his eyes with her own, which were clouding over, only to see her fears confirmed, then she sank down on the path without being able to utter a cry, while a yellow cloud of dust whirled over her. And there she remained lying. Before her brother could collect himself a casual passer-by had run for a carriage, and as the young woman was carried into it her work for the coming generation had already begun, and now two cries were heard—the cries of two human creatures from the depths of sorrow. Her brother stood on the pathway looking up to the blue sky of spring, and thought to himself, "If the cries could only be heard up there, but it is certainly too high." In the hospital which stood above them, Von Bleichroden had been lodged in a room which had an open view towards the south. The walls were padded and painted with flowing contours of landscapes in faint blue. On the ceiling was painted an espalier with vine leaves. The floor was carpeted, and under the carpet was a layer of straw. The furniture was completely covered with horsehair and cushions, so that no corners or edges of the wood were visible. The situation of the door could not be discovered from within the room, thereby diverting all the patient's thoughts of getting out and the consciousness of being confined, the most dangerous of all to a mind in a state of excitement. The windows, it is true, were grated, but the gratings were elaborately wrought in the shape of lilies and leaves, and so painted that their purpose was quite disguised. Von Bleichroden's madness had taken the form of torments of conscience. He imagined that he had murdered the keeper of a vineyard under mysterious circumstances, which he could never bring himself to confess for the simple reason that he could not remember them. Now he thought himself condemned to death and sitting in prison awaiting the execution of the sentence. But he had lucid intervals. Then he fastened large sheets of paper on the walls of the room and wrote syllogisms on them till they were covered. Then he remembered that he had caused some franc-tireurs to be shot, but did not remember that he was married. When his wife came to see him he received her visit like that of a pupil to whom he was giving lessons in logic. He had written up as the premise of his syllogisms, "All franc-tireurs are traitors and the order is to shoot them." One day his wife, who was obliged to agree with everything, had the rashness to shake his belief in the premise that "all franc-tireurs are traitors," thereupon he tore down all the syllogisms from the wall and said that he would spend twenty years in proving the premise, for premises must first be proved. Besides this, he cherished great projects for the good of mankind. What is the object of all our striving here upon earth? he asked. Why does the king reign, the priest preach, the poet write, the artist paint? In order to procure nitrogen for the body. Nitrogen is the dearest of all kinds of food, and that is why meat is so expensive. Nitrogen is intelligence, for the rich who eat meat are more intelligent than the others who only eat vegetable hydrates. Now (so ran his argument) nitrogen was beginning to be scarce on the earth and this was why there came wars, workmen's strikes, newspapers, pietists and coups d'état. Therefore it was necessary to discover a new nitrogen mine. Von Bleichroden had done so, and now all men would be equal; liberty, equality and fraternity would arrive and be realised on earth. This inexhaustible mine was—the air. It contained seventy-nine per cent of nitrogen, and a means must be devised of inhaling it directly and of using it for the nourishment of the body without the necessity of it being first condensed into grass, corn and vegetables, and then converted by an animal into flesh. That was the problem of the future with which Von Bleichroden was busying himself; its solution would render agriculture and cattle-breeding superfluous, and the golden age would return on earth. But at intervals he again sank into dreams about the murder he supposed himself to have committed, and was profoundly miserable. The same February morning on which his wife had been on her way to the asylum and had been obliged to return, Von Bleichroden sat in his new room and looked out of the window. At first he had contemplated the vine painted on the ceiling and the landscape on the walls; then he set himself in a comfortable chair opposite the window so that he had a clear view in front of him. He felt quiet to-day, for he had taken a cold bath the evening before and had slept well. He knew that the month was February, but he did not know where he was. The first thing that struck him was the absence of snow out of doors, and that surprised him for he had never been in southern lands. Outside in front of the window stood green bushes—the "laurier teint" quite covered with flowers, the "laurier cerise" with its shining bright green leaves, green through the whole winter. There was also a box tree and an elm quite overgrown with ivy which concealed all the branches and gave the tree the appearance of being in full leaf. Over the lawn, which was starred with primroses, as though a shower of sulphur had fallen on it, a man passed mowing the grass with a scythe, while a little girl was raking the beds. Von Bleichroden took an almanac and read "February." "Raking in February! Where am I?" he asked himself. Then his eyes travelled beyond the garden and he saw a deep valley which sank gradually but was as green as a summer meadow. Little villages and churches stood here and there, and he could see bright green weeping-willows. "In February!" he said to himself again. And where the meadows ceased there lay a lake, quite calm and clear blue as air. On the other side of the lake was a landscape fading in azure tints, topped by a chain of hills. But above the chain of hills were some other objects which resembled clouds. They were of as delicate a white as fresh-washed wool, but they were pointed and over them lay small thin clouds. He did not know where he was, but it was so beautiful that it could not be on the earth. Was he dead, and had he entered another world? He was certainly not in Europe. Perhaps he was dead! He sank into quiet musing and sought to realise his new situation. But when he looked up again he saw that the whole sunny picture was framed and crossed by the window-grating; the hammered iron lilies and the leaf-work stood out in sharp relief as though they were floating in the air. He was at first startled, but then he composed himself; he contemplated the picture once more, especially the pointed rosy clouds (as he thought them). Then he felt a wonderful joy and sensation of relief in his head: it was as though the convolutions of his brain, after having been hopelessly entangled, began to arrange and order themselves. He was so glad that he began to sing, as he thought, but he had never sung in his life and therefore he only uttered cries of joy. It was these which had issued from the window and filled his wife with grief and despair. After sitting thus for an hour, he had remembered an old painting in a bowling alley near Berlin which represented a Swiss landscape, and now he knew that he was in Switzerland and that the pointed clouds were Alps. When the doctor made his second round he found Von Bleichroden sitting quietly in a chair before the window and humming to himself, and it was not possible to divert his gaze from the beautiful scene. But he was quite clear in his mind and fully realised his situation. "Doctor," he said, pointing to the grated window, "why do you want to spoil and fleur-de-lisify such a beautiful picture? Won't you let me go into the open air? I think it would do...