Good Blood Part 2

"When the cadets came down at recreation time those who were good friends together met and would go walking arm in arm around the 'Karreehof and toward the court where the trees stood, and so it was always until the trumpet sounded for return to work.

"Big L--well--he attached himself just wherever he could find attachment, and stalked sullenly ahead by himself--Little L, on the contrary, almost before he could reach the court was seized under the arm by two or three big fellows and compelled to walk with them. And they were Primaners at that. For ordinarily, you must know, it never occurred to a Primaner to go with a 'Knapsack,' or Plebe, from the Sekunda; it was far beneath his dignity; but with Little L it was different, there an exception was made. And yet he was no less loved by the Sekundaner than by the Primaner. One could see that in cla.s.s, where we Sekundaner boys, you know, were by ourselves. In cla.s.s we were ranged according to alphabet, so that the two L's sat together very nearly in the centre.

"In their lessons they stood pretty nearly even. Big L had a good head for mathematics; in other things he was not of much account, but in mathematics he was, as you might say, a "shark," and Little L, who was not strong in mathematics, used to "crib" from his brother. In all other respects Little L was ahead of his older brother, and in fact one of the best in his cla.s.s. And right here appeared the difference between the brothers; Big L kept his knowledge to himself, and never prompted; Little L, _he_ prompted, he fairly shouted--yes, to be sure he did--"

A tender smile pa.s.sed over the face of the old man.

"If any one on the front form was called upon and did not know the answer--Little L hissed right across all the forms what he ought to say: when it came the turn of the back benches little L spoke the answer half-aloud to himself.

"There was there an old professor from whom we took Latin. During nearly every lesson he would stop short in the middle of the cla.s.s; 'L No.

II,' he would say, 'you are prompting again! And that, too, in a most shameless fas.h.i.+on. Have a care, L No. II, next time I will make an example of you. I say it to you now for the last time!"

The old colonel laughed to himself. "But it always remained the next to last time, and the example was never made. For though Little L was no model boy, more often quite the contrary, he was loved by both teachers and officers as well--but how indeed could it have been otherwise? He was always in high spirits, as if receiving a new present every day, yet nothing ever got sent to him, for the father of the two was in desperately poor circ.u.mstances, a major in some infantry regiment or other, and the boys received hardly a groschen (2.4 cents) for pocket money. And always as if just peeled out of the egg, so fresh,--without and within--eh, eh, altogether--"

Here the colonel paused, as if searching for an expression that would contain the whole of his love for this former little comrade.

"As if Nature had been for once in a proudly good-humor," he said, "and had stood that little follow upright on his feet and cried: 'There you have him!'

"Now this was to be observed," he continued, "that just so much as the brothers differed, one from the other, the more they seemed to cling to each other. In Big L, indeed, one did not notice it so much; he was always sullen and displayed no feeling; but Little L could never conceal anything. And because Little L felt conscious of this, how much better he himself was treated by the other cadets, it made him sorry for his brother. When we took our walks around the courtyard, then one could see how Little L would look at his brother from time to time, to see if he, too, had some one to walk with. That he prompted his brother in cla.s.s and allowed him to copy from himself when sight-exercises were dictated was all a matter of course; but he also took care that no one teased his brother, and when he observed him quietly from the side, as he often did, without drawing his brother's attention to it, then his little face was quite noticeably sad, almost as if he were a great care to him--"

The old man pulled hard at his pipe. "All that I put together for myself afterward," said he, "when everything happened that was to happen; he knew at the time much better than we did how matters stood with Big L, and what was his brother's character.

"This was, of course, understood among the cadets, and it helped Big L none the more, for he remained disliked after it as before, yet it made Little L all the more popular, and he was generally called 'Brother Love.'

"Now the two lived together in one room, and Little L, as I said, was very clean and neat; the big one, on the contrary, was very slovenly.

And so Little L fairly made himself servant to his brother, and it turned out that he even cleaned the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons on his uniform for him, and just before the ranks formed for roll-call would place himself, with clothes-brush in hand, in front of his brother, and once more regularly brush and scrub him--especially on those days when the 'cross lieutenant' was on duty and received roll-call.

"Well, in the morning the cadets had to go down into the court for roll-call, and there the officer on duty went up and down between the lines and inspected their uniforms to see if they were in order.

"And when the 'cross lieutenant' attended to this, then there reigned the most woful anxiety throughout the company, for he always found something. He would go behind the cadets and flip at their coats with his finger to make the dust fly, and if none came, then he would lift their coat-pockets and snap at them, and so, beat our coats as much as we would, there was sure to be left some dust lying on them, and as soon as the 'cross lieutenant' saw it, he would sing out in a voice like that of an old bleating ram: 'Write him down for Sunday report,' and then Sunday's day off might go to the devil, and then that got to be a very serious matter."

The old colonel paused, took a vigorous swallow of wine, and with the palm of his hand squeezed the beard from his upper lip into his mouth and sucked off the wine drops that sparkled on the hair. Recollection of the "cross lieutenant" made him plainly furious.

"When one considers what sort of meanness it takes to so deprive a poor little fellow of the Sunday holiday he has been hugging for a whole week, and all for a trifle--bah! it's downright--whenever I have seen any one annoying my men--in later days that sort of thing didn't happen in my regiment; they knew this, that I was there and would not tolerate it.--To be rough at times, ay, even to the extreme if necessary, to throw one into the guard-house, that does no harm--: but to nag--for that it takes a mean skunk!"

"Very true!" observed the waiter from the back part of the room, and thus made it known that he was following the colonel's story.

The old man calmed himself and went on with his story.

"Things went on this way for a year, and then came the time for examinations, always a very special occasion.

"The Primaners took their ensign's examination, and the Selektaners, who, as I have said, Were called 'Onions,' the officer's examination, and as fast as any had pa.s.sed the examination, they were dismissed from the cadet corps and sent home, and it came about that the second cla.s.smen, or Sekundaner, who were to be promoted to first cla.s.s, still remained Sekundaner for a time.

"Well, this state of affairs lasted until the new Sekundaner entered from the preparatory school and the newly dubbed 'Onions' returned, and then once more the wheelbarrow trudged along its accustomed way. But in the meantime a kind of disorder prevailed, more especially just after the last of the Primaners had left--they were examined in sections, you know, and then despatched, after which everything went pretty much at sixes and sevens.

"There was now in the dormitory where the two brothers lived a certain Primaner, a 'swell,' as he was called by the cadets, and because he had made up his mind, as soon as he should pa.s.s the examination and breathe the fresh air again, to conduct himself like a fine gentleman, he had had made for himself, instead of a sword-belt like those the cadets procured from the inst.i.tution and wore, a special patent-leather belt of his own, thinner and apparently finer than the ordinary regulation belt.

He was able to afford this much, you see, for he had money sent to him from home. He had displayed this belt about everywhere, for he was inordinately proud of it, and the other cadets admired it.

"Now as the day arrived for the Primaner to pack together his scattered belongings in order to go home, he looked to buckle on his fine belt--and all at once the thing was missing.

"A great to-do followed; search was made everywhere; the belt was not to be found. The Primaner had not locked it in his wardrobe, but had put it with his helmet in the dormitory behind the curtain where the helmets of the other cadets lay openly--and from there it had disappeared.

"It could not possibly have disappeared in any other way;--some one must have taken it.

"But who?

"First they thought of the old servant who was accustomed to blacken the boots of the cadets, and keep the dormitory in order--but he was an old trusty non-commissioned officer, who had never during the course of his long life allowed himself to be guilty of the least irregularity.

"It surely could not be one of the cadets? But who could possibly think such a thing? So the matter remained a mystery, and truly an unpleasant one. The Primaner swore and scolded because he must now leave wearing the ordinary inst.i.tution belt; the other cadets in the room were altogether silent and depressed; they had at once unlocked all their wardrobes and offered to let the Primaner search them, but he had merely replied: 'That's nonsense, of course; who could think of such a thing?'

"And now something remarkable happened, and caused more sensation than all that went before; all at once the Primaner got back the belt.

"He had just left his room with his portmanteau in his hand, and had reached the stairs, when he was hastily called from behind, and as he turned about, Little L came running up, holding something in his hand--it was the Primaner's belt.

"Two others happened to be pa.s.sing at the time, and they afterward told how deathly pale Little L was, and how every member of his body was literally shaking. He had whispered something into the ear of the Primaner, and the two had exchanged all quietly a couple of words, and then the Primaner affectionately stroked the other's head, took off his regulation belt, buckled on the fine one and was gone; he had handed the regulation belt over to Little L to carry back. Naturally the story could now no longer be concealed, and it all came out accordingly.

"A new a.s.signment of rooms was ordered; Big L was transferred; and just at the time all this was taking place, he had completed his removal to the new quarters.

"Afterward it occurred to the cadets that he had kept strangely quiet about the whole affair--but one always hears the gra.s.s growing after it has grown. So much, however, was certain; he had allowed no one to help him, and when Big L put his hands to the work, he became quite rough toward his little brother. But Little L, ready to help as he always was, did not allow himself to be deterred by this, and as he was taking out of his brother's locker the gymnasium drill jacket that was lying neatly folded together, he felt all at once something hard within--and it was the belt of the Primaner.

"What the brothers said to each other at the moment, or whether they spoke at all, no one has ever learned; for Little L had still so much presence of mind that he went noiselessly from the room.

"But hardly was he out of the door and in the corridor, when he threw the jacket on the ground, and without once thinking of what might be made out of the affair, he ran up behind the Primaner with the belt.

"But now, of course, it could no longer be helped; in five minutes the story was the property of the whole company.

"Big L had allowed himself to be driven by the devil and had become light-fingered. Half an hour later it was whispered softly from room to room: 'To-night, when the lamps are turned out, general consultation in the company hall!'

"In every company quarters, you must know, there was a larger room, where marks were given out, and certain public actions proceeded with, in what was called the company hall.

"So that evening, when the lamps were out, and everything was quite dark, there was a general movement from all the rooms, through the corridor; not a door ventured to slam, all were in stocking feet, for the captain and the officers still knew nothing and were allowed to know nothing of the meeting, else we would have brought a storm about our ears.

"As we came to the door of the company hall, there stood near the door against the wall one as white as the plaster on the wall--it was Little L. At the same moment a couple took him by the hands. 'Little L can come in with us,' they said; 'he is not to blame.' Only one of them all wished to oppose this; he was a long, big fellow--he was called--name of no consequence--well, then, he was called K. But he was overruled at once; Little L was taken in with us, a couple of tallow candles were lit and placed on the table, and now the consultation began."

The colonel's gla.s.s was empty again. I filled it for him, and he took a long swallow. "Over all this," he went on, "one can laugh now if one wills; but this much I can say for us, we were not in a laughing mood, but altogether dismal. A cadet a rascal--to us that was something incomprehensible. All faces were pale, all speaking was but half aloud.

Ordinarily it was considered the most despicable piece of meanness if one cadet reported another to the authorities--but when a cadet had done such a thing as to steal, then he was for us no longer a cadet, and it was for this reason that the consultation was being held, whether we ought to report to the captain what Big L had done.

"Long K was the first to speak. He declared that we ought to go at once to the captain and tell him everything, for at such meanness all consideration ceases. Now Long K was the biggest and strongest boy in the company; his words, therefore, made a marked impression, and besides, we were all of his opinion at bottom.

"No one knew anything to object to this, and so there fell a general silence. All at once, however, the circle that had formed around the table opened and Little L, who had till now been flattening himself against the farthest corner of the room, came forward into the centre.

His arms hung limp at the side of his body, and his face he kept lowered to the ground; one saw that he wished to say something, but could not find the courage.

"Long K was again laying down the law. 'L No. II,' said he, 'has no right to speak here.'

"But this time he was not so fortunate. He had always been hostile to the two, no one quite knew why, especially Little L. Moreover, he was not a bit popular, for as such youngsters have once and for all a tremendously fine instinct, they may have felt that in this long gawk lay hidden a perfectly mean, cowardly, wretched spirit. He was one of those who never venture to attack their equals in size, but bully the smaller and weaker ones.

"At that broke out a whispering on all sides: 'Little L _shall_ speak!

All the more reason for him to speak.'