A Legacy (8 page)

Nearly everybody then believed in the intrinsic desirability of a United Germany. The Empire, in one of those Procrustean phrases by which we force a dehumanized and human imprint on the nature of the universe and cloud our understanding, was a Historical Necessity. Yet everybody up to Bismarck was dissatisfied with the form of the

Empire itself. Liberals had worked for Union in the hope of cutting down the powers of the Princes; Prussian nationalists with the intention of establishing hegemony over Austria; Free Traders to get rid of archaic monetary conditions; Democrats to extend the franchise; Labour leaders to unite the working class; Socialists to expand trade-unionism and the Army to expand the Army. The first fruits were the Imperial Constitution of Versailles, new tariffs, anti-socialist legislation, Alsace-Lorraine, Bismarck and the lasting animosity of France. Bismarck had to take a coalition government.

Publication of Johannes's treatment at Corps Benzheim could not fail to raise a question in the Reichstag from members who were pledged to ask such questions. In itself, this was not serious. The Government, or rather the Moderate-Conservative section of its supporters, was quite ready to take a stand and weather what could only be a very minor storm. By an ironic turn it was not those responsible for the cadet schools who found themselves embarrassed, but the anti-militarists who opposed them. Liberal members, though in temporary coalition with the Government, could not be publicly identified with right-wing policy on such an issue without invalidating their mandates. In the event of a debate, a division in the governing majority was thus inevitable. The Government would fall. No combination could hope to form another without Bismarck. Bismarck would find it hard to form another coalition. The Question on The Escaped Cadet must not be asked.

"Yes—" said Count Bernin. "Yes "

"If we can keep it out of the Frankfort and Berlin papers."

"The moment the boy's been sent back by his own father, the bubble's pricked."

"Very likely," said Count Bernin.

"Then we can make those rags print a diminuendo. We

could get them on distortion, you know. They'll have to say it was all a prank and the boy's been happily returned to Benzheim. Nobody'll dare touch it after that."

"I suppose not," said Count Bernin.

"One would like to know how they got hold of the story in the first place?"

"RC Chaplain at Benzheim's supposed to be an unreliable character."

"Possibly," said Count Bernin with a frosty smile.

"Gentlemen—this is a matter of time."

"Of hours."

"We must be able to issue a directive to the Press."

"It would be best if we had something from old Felden himself. Any chance there, Bernin?"

"None."

"Not if we told him all the facts?"

"Particularly if you told him all the facts."

"A strange attitude. Are you sure now?"

"Count Bernin ought to be in a position to know. Considering their future relationship. . . ."

"Gentlemen!"

"Well never mind about a statement. Let's concentrate on the boy."

"What are we going to tell old Felden?"

Count Bernin said, "Your Government is faced by a good many controversial issues."

"Forced on us, Count. Forced on us. If you were thinking of the Veto on Ecclesiastical Incumbents— The Chancellor was as much embarrassed by Infallibility—a most ill-advised promulgation—as, let us be frank, many members of your Church themselves. Now there's the appointment of the Bishop of Bamberg . . ."

"YesV said Count Bernin.

"The Veto here, you will admit, was imposed on us, ex principium, by the attitude of the candidate. However, such measures are not always what they seem to be. We are not inflexible. ... In the event of a de facto Investi-

ture—I am almost able to assure you—the Bishop's supporters would find little effective opposition."

"This has not been my impression so far," said Count Bernin.

"Oh come, Count, you must credit us with a little gratitude."

"What are we going to tell old FeldenV

Count Bernin got up. "We must find a turn," he said.

"I'd better not show my face there again," said Captain Montclair.

"Oh, I shouldn't neglect pressing a personal advantage, Captain," said the Count.

"Is there anything the old boy might want for himself you can think of, Bernin?"

"He wants his peace."

"Not much in that for us."

"On the contrary," said the Count. "On the contrary."

"Preposterous, isn't it? One spoilt brat in a position to upset the Imperial Government. . . ."

Before going over to Landen, Count Bernin spoke to Clara. Gustavus was with her.

"You may as well hear, too," said the Count. "The understanding between you has put me in an intolerable position. And I wish to say this—Clara, if Felden does not agree to send back his boy, I shall not give my consent to your marriage. I shall treat your engagement as though it had never been. I trust that you will not marry Gustavus Felden without my consent as long as I live. And if I know your brother, whose aims are mine, not during his lifetime either. I am very sorry. But I shall not accept being compromised."

Presently the men from Berlin saw Count Bernin, fully dressed now, to the carriage.

"I can promise you nothing," he said. But when he and Captain Montclair arrived at Landen, Johannes had already very nearly cooked his own goose.

The old Baron greeted them on the stairs. "I am delighted to see you, cher Monsieur. So you were able to come back after all?" He took Captain Montclair by the arm. "Come in, come in. I was just about to have a glass of wine. // we can find somewhere to sit, that is; I've had such a morning. The house is full of the strangest people. But this is such a pleasure. You will find that I've been brushing up my mechanics for you. Not that I've had a quiet moment. Nobody seems to know when to go these days."

"What do they want?" said Count Bernin.

"Oh my dear Bernin, I wish you would find out. I don't think they know themselves. I believe they are impostors. My children say they all come from Benzheim, Jean's school you know. Well, perhaps they do. They look like it. Jean shouldn't have let them come here. He is having hysterics somewhere, so unattractive, so unhelpful. Jean's getting out of hand. Do you know, Monsieur, that Jean and Gabriel insisted you were from that place. Wait till you see those people! They've all gone to the kitchen. The first time they're in my house, they might have asked/*

"Did they talk to you at all?" said Count Bernin.

"Oh yes. For hours. Such a morning. Something about Jean's watch. Of course they haven't found it. One of them asked me to contribute to a publication— Perhaps I will let him have my treatise on Phosphates. . . . And there's a gentleman—quite civil—who says he's from Saint Petersburg. He brought his luggage. When I asked him and how is my old friend Countess Troubkine, he told me that he had danced with her at Tsarskoje and that she was a vision. The poor man must be out of his mind. Marie Fedorovna, who's been laid up with the gout these fifteen years. . . . And they all would talk to me about Benzheim. Well I told them what I thought of that/'

"As a matter of fact Captain Montclair is in a sense connected with Benzheim," said Count Bernin.

"Is he? Are you? What a very extraordinary coincidence?

How wrong one can be. . . . It must be delightful for the boys to have you there."

"The Captain is not actually at Benzheim."

"Of course not. He wouldn't have the time. I expect you demonstrate your interesting experiments there occasionally. I wish my friend Mercier had told me. I seem to have got a wrong impression of that school. Jean is an ass. He's very nearly worried me into my grave with his stories. . . . Filling the house with those dreadful people too. I can see they have nothing to do with Benzheim."

"They are radicals who wish to expose institutions like Benzheim."

"Ah," said the old Baron; "nihilists. Poor Marie Fedo-rovna going to dances with them, not that she can of course. What a very odd life she must be leading these days. And Jean letting them come here and getting it all wrong. I don't know what to do with the boy, que le diable l'emporte."

"That is what we have come to talk about," said Count Bernin. "May we go into the library?"

Luncheon at Sigmundshofen an hour later was perfunctory. The men from Berlin had their boxes open beside them on the table and were scribbling.

"Bernin was wonderful," said Captain Montclair. "You should have seen him."

Clara signed the butler not to hand the cutlets again.

Captain Montclair helped himself to Moselle. "Those newspaper fellows were a bit of a break, weren't they? Well, it's an ill wind—"

The young ADC pushed aside his papers. "That's the lot. If you would really be so good, Count?"

"Certainly. My man will take them. The horse is ready."

"Thank you."

"Bernin—may I congratulate you on a not inconsiderable diplomatic victory?" said Captain Montclair.

"I have the station-master at Singen warned to flag the Basle-Cologne Express," said Count Bernin.

"Thank you."

"The man is reliable?"

"Entirely."

Captain Montclair pulled out his watch. "While you are all discussing this excellent brandy, I'd better be on my way. I must not keep my pupil waiting. . . ."

"Clara, would you touch the bell," said Count Bernin.

Nobody looked at Montclair as he left the dining room.

"You expect him to have trouble?"

"No," said Count Bernin. "He is a fool, but he's tough."

"I don't like it."

"Neither do I."

"Neither do I," said Count Bernin.

"It doesn't seem—well, I suppose—straight."

"I suppose there was nothing else—?"

"Unfortunately not."

"I'm afraid you must be right. Well . . . And you do advise the night train from Karlsruhe for us?"

"Definitely."

"We've put you to a great deal of trouble, Count."

"Not at all."

But when the Express was stopped at Singen that night, there were no passengers, nor did the gentlemen return to Berlin, for Johannes on hearing his fate had swallowed the heads of several boxfuls of sulphur matches.

D
octors replaced reporters at Landen. The old Baron never could stand them. He believed they brought bad luck. He loathed all illness when it was not connected with animals or could not be laid by a glass of wine and a beef steak, and in his family looked on it as a deliberate disgrace. And he was afraid of death. To have courted it at Landen appeared to him the crumbling of the last brick of sense and sanity. He kept to the library, tossed between terror and fury, admitting no one except Count Bernin and Montclair, certain that the reign of chaos had come down on him.

"Worse than the Great Revolution," he said. "Worse."

Gustavus's entrances were tolerated as he carried messages.

Johannes had been having a kind of convulsion and been very sick. This had taken place in a barn, but the dogs had become alarmed and managed to attract Gabriel's attention. Johannes was given soap-and-water and later had his stomach pumped, and this unnerving experience had left him shocked, sore and weak. Now, he was still in pain, quite out of danger, and lay, drawn in a tight ball, shivering in his bed, banked by hot-water crocks, a prey to Clara's ministrations. Zoro lay motionless stretched flat on the floor, heaving from time to time a deep groan. Clara was trying to talk to Johannes of his great sin. A loud clock was ticking in the room.

Johannes had his face turned against the wall.

Outside, Gabriel was walking about the house, weeping.

"You must never despair," Clara said. "If you allow despair to fill you, you will be alone. You will have shut out

God. Offer your suffering to God and He will be with you.

"There is no cause to despair. You must accept your sufferings, you must will them in your heart, moment by moment, as His Will. If you can do this, you will no longer be alone, you will never be afraid. . . .

"I will pray for you. Pray that you may understand God's Will. So that you shall be comforted and no longer alone. . . ."

But Johannes's mind, clamped in stony misery, darkened by closing waves of noncomprehension, could not hear. And when Julius walked in, fresh from the station with Gabriel clutching at his coat, he found the curtains undrawn, Clara on her knees and Johannes still turned against the bedroom wall.

Clara did not rise, and Johannes did not turn, but Zoro sprang upon him in elastic ecstasy.

"Down Zoro. Dear Zoro. Down!"

At the sound of his brother's voice, Johannes unwound himself.

"Jean, mon pauvre Jean?" Julius said, trying to embrace him. "What in God's name—?" And at last Johannes turned his face.

"Kitchen matches, you know the kind that make that smell, he ate them," said Gabriel. "He chopped all the tops off with a knife and put them in a bowl of cider because Papa is sending him back to Benzheim. He read it in Le Petit Jules Verne Pratique. Zoro and Ursus came to fetch me. They saved his life. He's had a rubber pipe as thick as that put down his throat. Oh please, please, Jules, tell Papa."

"Jean, you idiot, what is all this?"

"Papa says I must go back to Benzheim. Papa wants me to go back to Benzheim.

"What nonsense, Jeannot. Not Papa."

"Papa says I must go back to Benzheim."

"Oh Jean, do speak in a normal voice. Papa knows what it was like. He wouldn't want you to go there again."

"Papa wants me to go back to Benzheim." "I am afraid it's true," said Clara.

The old Baron rather brightened when he saw Julius.

"You are not going to keep on this coat?" he said.

But when Julius began to speak about Johannes, he was ordered out of the room; and when he persisted, he was ordered back to Bonn. Julius stood his ground. His father turned on him with such violence that he fled, not so much in fear as in bewilderment.

He found Clara. "What is going on here?"

"We have all made a very grave mistake," she said. "I do not think your brother should be allowed to be sent back. The strain has broken his will. He is too young; it would be more than he was meant to bear. If we let him go, he may no longer be able to find his way out of his rebellion and we may condemn him."