Felix Lanzberg's Expiation Part 28

For a moment the old man stared before him with fixed, dull gaze; then rising helplessly and slowly from his chair, stretching out his trembling hands, he fell upon his face, senseless.

What cut Felix most bitterly, most deeply to his heart was, that when the Baron recovered from his swoon he had not a word of reproof for his son--not a word. Oh, if he had raged, had cursed and execrated him, all this Felix could have borne more easily than the sight of the terrible, helpless sadness with which from time to time the Baron struck his hands together and murmured: "I was indiscreet; oh, furious old fool, I was indiscreet, indiscreet!"

The meaning of these words only later became clear to Felix.

The Baron telegraphed to the lawyer--he went to Vienna the same day.

It was too late!

All the steps which were taken to spare Felix the publication of his fault and the degrading punishment, were in vain.

The affair occurred in an unfavorable epoch for him, as the courts felt obliged shortly after an _eclat_ to be doubly severe, as the consideration which had recently been shown in a similar case for a n.o.ble name had called forth the justest indignation from the liberal press.

Felix was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.

His father begged an audience of His Majesty. All that he attained was that the sentence should be diminished to one year.

An example must be made.

And the farewell. The last, long, trembling embrace of his father, the moment when the guards who were to conduct the convict away busied themselves with their sabres and compa.s.sionately withdrew while the father whispered imploringly to his son, "Promise me that you will do no harm to yourself!"

And the time in the prison. The fearful despair of the first weeks, when he longed for death, and the promise which he had given his father continually weighed upon and tormented him like a fetter; the brooding stupor into which this despair changed, and which in its turn gave place to a gradual reviving and accustoming himself to his circ.u.mstances. He remembered very well the day when he began to look around at his companions, began anxiously to seek manifestations of their good qualities; to search among them for young people of blameless lives who had sinned in a moment of madness. What did he find? A few convicts who by alternating imprisonment and crime had gradually become dull and stupid, others who had wholly degenerated to rough, terrible, malicious animals; besides these, two or three sons of good family, who confessed their sins with brutal cynicism, scornfully derided their relatives and procured through the jailer wine, cards and evil romances. The sight of these people caused Felix boundless misery.

How he loathed them; how they astonished him; the importance which trifles had for them, and that they had the heart to rail at the poor food!

The doubt came to him whether the idea which he had of himself was not a mere illusion. He dissected his most secret impulses, criticised all his instincts--in short, tormented himself into a pitiable condition.

The remnant of self-respect which he had taken into the prison shrunk away to nothing.

All who had anything to do with him showed him the warmest sympathy. He was so quiet, so obliging; he never asked for anything except more work. The degraded officers were at that time employed in the office work. Felix fulfilled the tasks allotted him with the most painful punctiliousness. At the prison he accustomed himself to that correct regular handwriting which differed so greatly from the careless writing of his gay youth.

The old baron had begged that some consideration might be shown Felix on account of his weakened health. They were perfectly willing to do so, but Felix would hear nothing of this. The money which his father sent him to procure little comforts, he gave to a.s.sistants.

At last the year was over.

Felix had received a letter from his father, in which the latter, too considerate to personally accompany his son from the prison, told him that he would meet him at this or that station, to take a long trip with him. But Felix could not resolve to meet his father immediately after this degrading imprisonment.

It was in the year 1866. War was expected. Felix enlisted in a regiment as a private soldier. He performed his duties with fanatic zeal. The soldiers, who knew nothing of his sad story, looked upon his serving in their ranks as the "whim of a great gentleman," such as is not unusual in excited times, and met him with defiant opposition. But he took such sincere trouble to win their liking, so willingly shared their whole life, that they soon became devoted to him. Their unfeigned liking was more pleasant to him than the sentimental humanity which he met with later in life. Often one of his present comrades pushed him away from some work which he considered unworthy of Felix, and murmured with good-natured embarra.s.sment, "That you are not used to, sir." The officers, who at first had been very ill at ease with him, gradually understood how painful it was to him if any difference was made between him and his comrades, and gave up attempting to make an exception of him.

He never complained, ate the coa.r.s.est food without changing his expression in the slightest, conscientiously polished the b.u.t.tons of his uniform, and always chose the worst place to bivouac.

The first cannon was fired.

Felix fought at Trautenau; fought without enthusiasm, without melodramatic heroism; he fought with the sober, unbounded bravery of a man who does not need the hurrahs to be spurred on by, whose life is wholly indifferent to him, and who hopes and wishes for no other reward for his self-sacrificing performance of his duty than--death.

The leaden rain of the Prussian vanguard--it was wholly unknown to the Austrians who did not fight in Schlesing--had a soothing effect upon his nerves. The breathless excitement of battle did him good. What pained him was the moment before the conflict, when old veterans pa.s.sed each other their field-flasks, and expressed indifferent opinions about the weather; and the young soldiers, scarcely grown recruits, with s.h.i.+ning eyes and pale cheeks, cried "Hurrah!" and inflated their chests, while the guns shook in their hands. What pained him was the moment after the battle, when the last smoke of powder, and a dull echo of the noise of battle filled the air, and the soldiers, confused and stunned, met in camp, and one or another, rousing from the stupor which followed the fearful excitement of battle, asked fearfully, "Where is F----? where is M----?" and then with a shudder remembered that he, himself, had seen F---- and M---- fall. What pained him was, when in the night the wounded cried and groaned, until their comrades'

compa.s.sion changed to impatience, and they complained over the noise which prevented them from sleeping.

Then came the third of July, the day of Sadowa.

It was damp, cold weather, no sun in the heavens. On the earth trodden-down grain, soiled with dirt and blood; a confusion of blue and white soldiers, partly arranged in compact, geometrically exact figures, partly scattered in sheltered positions, partly crouching behind earthworks, so far separated that Prussians and Austrians mostly saw each other as points or ma.s.ses. Hostile, without hostility, they stood opposite each other; perhaps not one among the thousands upon thousands here and yonder hated the other, and yet each one was ready to do his utmost to kill the unknown enemy.

Fog mixed with the powder-smoke. There was a wild confusion of screams, groans, rolling of wheels, rattling of sabres, and stamping of horses.

In the distance chaos seemed to prevail; at the spot where Felix was stationed a kind of monotony, a kind of order ruled.

The ranks close over the fallen. "Fire!" commands the officer.

There is a click of the gun hammers, the flames s.h.i.+ne redly on the gun-barrels--sch--sch whistle the hostile b.a.l.l.s around Felix; cras.h.i.+ng, ear-splitting, like sharp hail, answer the riflemen.

Felix was at Swiepwald, with the regiment of riflemen of which the Austrians only speak with tears in their eyes, the Prussians with hands on their caps!

For a while the losses were slight. All went well. Then came a moment when the riflemen received the hostile b.a.l.l.s indifferently. Many of them were weary and found time to say so, still more were hungry--few Austrian soldiers received anything to eat on that memorable day, the day of Sadowa. Felix had given his last rations to a young recruit who, as he thought, needed nourishment more than he; but Felix had overestimated his strength, an unusual faintness suddenly overcame him, he begged his neighbor for his flask, and cras.h.!.+--a sh.e.l.l--and the neighbor lay on the ground with shattered feet.

From this moment the losses are immense. Man after man falls. Little brownish-red streams of blood trickle through the ruts of the ground, the pine-trees become bare, their needles fall unpleasantly, p.r.i.c.kingly, upon the faces of the riflemen. With the whistling of the musket-b.a.l.l.s mingles the groaning shots of the artillery like the deafening, reechoing thunder in a mountainous country. The atmosphere is unbearably impregnated with the peculiar odor of battle. With the smell of powder and heated iron mingles the odor of perspiration of an excited ma.s.s of men, and the repulsive, terrible, salt smell of their blood.

The fog becomes more and more thick. The riflemen see nothing near them but dead comrades, and before, a white wall behind which death lurks.

They no longer know what is taking place at the other end of the field, do not know that the Prussian Crown Prince has arrived; but all feel that they are fighting for a lost cause, and that their resistance is nothing more than a heroic demonstration.

Always in the front rank, Felix fights on. Twice have the men at his right and left fallen, but all the b.a.l.l.s whistle past him--from second to second he expects death, but it comes not.

There are not thirty men left of his battalion; orderlies fly to and fro, the officers are hoa.r.s.e, then suddenly the cry, "Retreat!"

Retreat!

Felix stands as if rooted to the ground--Retreat! What, shall he flee?

No! But captivity, in which, bound as he is by his promise, he would not have the right to take his life! And he retreats with the others, who now join the great ma.s.s. Their pace becomes more and more irregular and hurried.

The evening is dark, the enemy behind them, the few riflemen are among the last. A standard-bearer sinks down, wounded in the knee by a stray shot. No one troubles himself about him or the flag.

What is the flag? Nothing but a soiled, torn rag. Nothing but--the symbol of the regiment's honor.

Honor! The word has a mysterious, alluring sound for Felix, somewhat as the word water has for one peris.h.i.+ng in the desert.

Honor! honor! He takes the flag from the standard-bearer's hand, who pleads piteously that he may at least be pushed into a ditch and not trodden upon like a worm. Felix performs this service for him, and remains far behind his comrades. At length he raises the flag and is about to proceed with it.

But, deathly wearied as he is, he can scarcely carry it, so he tears the flag from the pole, and breaking this over his knee he wishes to bury both pieces in the slime of the ditch, but before he has accomplished this a little band of Prussian cavalry approaches. He lays his hand on his gun, but if he defends himself, defends himself so that they must kill him, the flag is forfeited. He then stretches himself in the mire of the road, flat on his face over the flag, as to-day he has seen many of his comrades, shot through the heart.

The horses trot past him; one of them starts back from him, this rider looks before him, sees what he takes for a corpse and pa.s.ses on.

The horse, who takes the leap required of him with the timidity which every human body inspires in his species, strikes Felix with his hoof.

When the riders are out of sight, and all is still, Felix rises, a stinging pain in his left arm. At first he thought the arm was broken, but no, only a severe contusion causes the pain. He thrusts his hand into his coat, wraps the flag around it, and creeps wearily forward.

In his ears a single word rings: "Honor!"

He totters to the Elbe, which separates him from his comrades; there is no longer a bridge there; he does not trust his strength to swim across. Ah! and even if he does drown in the bottom of the river, the Prussians cannot find the flag, and he cares nothing for his life. He flings himself into the stream, the waves plash around his ears: "Honor!" The cold water strengthens him, and for the moment prevents the pain in his arm. He reaches the opposite sh.o.r.e, he himself never knew how.

He staggers on in his clothes, made heavy by the water. His mind is not clear, only grasps the idea that he must go on. He stumbles along--slowly--slowly; often he sinks down and lies still for a while, then he suddenly springs up again, feels for the flag and totters on.

He does not know where he is, the Austrian camp lies before him--he does not see it--then something red s.h.i.+nes through the gray morning light. Felix gathers up his strength; breathless, gasping, he drags himself up to what he soon recognizes as an Austrian Uhlan picket.

He reaches the picket, he can no longer speak, hands the flag to an officer, and falls to the ground.

The Uhlans--there were two or three officers among them--crowd around him. When they see his lamentable condition they speak with pride of the fidelity to his flag of this common soldier, and they say it aloud, and Felix hears it and it does him good; it seems to him that the blot upon his honor is washed away.