A Little Garrison Part 22

Both became silent once more, and a few minutes later Leimann took his leave, since he had to attend to several minor engagements in town before the dinner hour.

Nor did Borgert remain much longer at home. He went to the Casino and drowned his bad humor in a bottle of Heidsieck.

When Borgert awoke, a couple of days later, from a night's troubled sleep, he noticed with concern that he had overslept himself and missed his earlier duties. He rang the bell for his servant, but Rose did not appear, not even on a second summons.

Borgert dressed and went to Rose's room. He found it unoccupied. The bed was untouched, and on top of it lay the uniform and the cap of the man.

With astonishment the officer looked about him; the sticky, unventilated atmosphere of the little chamber, and a strong odor of soiled linen and worn-out clothes, was all that he noticed. Where could Rose have gone so early in the day, and that, too, without leave, even without a word to him? Had he been summoned to some unexpected duty? But no, that was impossible, for here lay his regimentals.

Borgert had already crossed over to the threshold to leave the room again when his eye lighted on a much-stained slip of paper on the table. He picked it up and his face paled while he read, for in the man's scrawling handwriting there were the words:

"Farewell! And go to the devil!"

As if petrified, Borgert stared at the paper. The fellow, then, had deserted!

About his reasons for the step Borgert was not in doubt a minute, and a sudden feeling of shame and disquiet seized him at the thought that the man might be apprehended. In that case everything would come to light: the bad usage to which he had been subjected, the maltreatment which he had met at his hands, and, worst of all, all those big or little secrets of which he had become aware during his service with his master.

Too unpleasant! Borgert stepped again over to his room and sat down on the edge of the bed. His face was not pleasant to look at, and a nervous twitching of his features showed how much he dreaded an unlucky turn of affairs in case the fugitive should be caught and then blab out all he knew.

It seemed to him as if of late there was a perfect conspiracy against him. Anxiety, ill luck, and disappointment on every side, with not a single silver lining to the cloud, which, black and ominous, had suddenly begun to crowd his horizon.

For the first time the awful certainty flashed through his mind that he stood at the brink of a catastrophe against which there was no remedy unless a miracle intervened. But where under the sun should such a miracle come from? All faith, all hope, dissolved before his view in these few moments when the whole crushing weight of his guilt, the whole labyrinth of his failure in life, came clearly to his consciousness. An unreasoning terror, a fear of himself and a feeling of helplessness conquered the man, who at other times had never surrendered to untoward conditions, who had never hesitated to stamp down all obstacles in his path. Borgert was not capable of deep feeling or of n.o.ble sentiment; he had so far trodden the path of life with cold egotism, coupled with a superficial view of his surroundings and a lack of clearer insight into the motives impelling him and others.

For some time he sat there, pallid, motionless, gazing into the vast blank s.p.a.ce of the unknown future; only the convulsive workings of his face betrayed the intense agitation of his mind. It was the psychological crisis in the life of a man who too late becomes aware of having destroyed his better self, of having annihilated all those hopes which on entering life had floated before his vision in roseate hue. And there was nothing to which he could cling, not even a straw for this man battling with the waves that threatened to engulf him, no human soul that could or would help him. Despair clutched his throat, and his breath came thick and short like that of one drowning.

Borgert had struck a balance with himself. He had taken stock, and now felt clearly that his life was one not only marred but destroyed by his own fault. He made up his mind to bear the consequences since escape there was none.

Mechanically he completed his toilet and then went to the barracks to report himself to the captain for having missed the morning service.

He kept silence about Rose's flight, saying to himself that if the deserter had the start of pursuit by a sufficiency of time, say forty-eight hours, he would be a bigger fool indeed than Borgert took him to be if he had not reached a safe retreat across the frontier.

And that, of course, would spare Borgert himself the unpleasant predicament of facing a court-martial because of systematic maltreatment of a subordinate.

When he returned home at noon, Borgert found a letter. It was the reply of the financial man in Berlin to whom, in his quandary, he had turned. The letter told the recipient in curt terms that his application had been rejected. No loan could be made to him, it said, since inquiries about Borgert and his co-called bondsmen, and the endors.e.m.e.nt of Leimann, had "demonstrated a financial status highly unfavorable."

Borgert received this news almost with indifference, for since this morning he had abandoned all hope of a favorable turn, and hence felt no disappointment.

He knew he could obtain no money anywhere after this. In fact, now that he clearly envisaged things, it seemed astonishing that the bubble had not burst long ere this. It had been solely due, as he now felt, to Leimann's extraordinary skill in hiding his own pecuniary embarra.s.sments that Borgert himself had been able to run up large accounts without any tangible security whatever. For Leimann, he remembered, had backed him up throughout.

Dazed and spent, Borgert lay down on his divan.

He did not wish to go to the Casino, for he felt no appet.i.te, and he was not in the mood to play his accustomed pranks and capers for the delectation of his comrades. He did not want to see or hear of anybody. He wanted to be all by himself and indulge in his morose reflections. His eye wandered around the elegant appointments of his dwelling. These fine paintings on his walls; this handsome and costly furniture, most of it carved in solid oak; the soft Oriental rugs underfoot which deadened every sound and made his bachelor home so comfortable and cosy; those heavy, discreet hangings of finest velvet which shut out the intrusive light and kept his apartments in that epicurean _chiaroscuro_ which his sybarite taste demanded--what a pity, what an infernal shame, to have to surrender into the hands of these vermin of usurers all these trappings of his bachelor freedom!

Of course, they would struggle and fight for it all, and each one of them would scramble to be the first to a.s.sert and enforce his rights.

Rather amusing it would be, he thought, but alas! he himself would not be able to view the scene.

There was no help for it. Within a few days the crash must come; he could see no escape.

But what was to become of himself? He had never seriously thought of that before. Should he allow himself to be simply thrown into the street? Perhaps, after all, they would even put him in quod? Time pressed, and a decision must be reached quickly--at once.

Really, on sober reflection, he could not very well see why he should remain any longer in this vale of tears after all his glory and his pleasures would be gone. To learn anew, after losing all caste, after dismissal from the army in disgrace and dishonor, to learn a bread-winning calling and to have to work like everybody in that despised throng of perspiring, vulgar toilers--surely, that was not at all to his taste. From infancy up he had been reared in disdain of labor--had acquired, one by one, tastes and habits of thought that seemed irreconcilable with a life of sober, plain living and thinking, with a life where his part would be that of a subordinate. It seemed an impossible thing to him. Dimly he felt that to do so would require energy, self-denial, and diligence, and of all these he possessed not a trace. Should he then make an end of it, put a bullet in his brain?

But no, that was absurd, and, besides, that required courage. And courage, in its best sense, he had never had. He had only shown courage, or the semblance of it--a certain dash--the kind which in the army is known as "_Schneid_."

But here, when facing the final realities of life, his courage entirely deserted him. And was it not possible, after all, that luck would come to his aid in this dire extremity? He had only the one life, and once thrown away the loss was irremediable. Suicide therefore would be rash and stupid--folly never to be redeemed. Life might smile on him again, and should he then with his own hand cut it off? No, on no account.

But no rescuing thought would occur to him, cudgel his brain as he might. And torturing, self-abasing reflections crowded again into his brain.

The thought of his servant, of poor Rose, curiously enough, was uppermost. Had not Rose, dolt that he was, cunningly managed to disappear from a scene which was, in a certain sense, as unbearable as his master's at this juncture? And Rose by now was perhaps seated comfortably in a quiet corner where n.o.body was looking for him, and where it was possible to live without interference.

Could he himself, then, not do the same thing?

And this shadowy thought began to take solid form the more Borgert dwelt on it. It seemed to him the only egress from the situation.

In new surroundings, in another country, amongst people who did not know him, he might begin life afresh, and soon gra.s.s would grow over the short-lived sensation which his disappearance would create in this world-forgotten little hole of a town! Within a twelvemonth his very name perhaps would be no longer on anybody's lips in this place. And even if in times to come this or that one of his comrades should mention his name, it would be with the thought that such a man had existed at some time or other, and that n.o.body to-day cared about him any more.

He was so lost in his dreary thoughts that he did not observe the door opening and giving admittance to Frau Leimann.

She looked pale and serious. Her face, so pleasant in its youthful, placid beauty at other times, now appeared aged, and her eyes wore an anxious expression.

Borgert did not rise, but contented himself with nodding to her, saying never a word. His glance enveloped this woman, an intrigue with whom had seemed to him but a short while ago an ambition worthy of his talents.

But to-day she appeared to him no longer so desirable; her motions seemed to him without grace or distinction, and her charms mediocre.

Her hair was arranged in negligent fashion, and the soft folds of her morning gown to-day seemed to enwrap another woman and not the one whose beauty had intoxicated him.

Two impressions stood out clearly in his mind: the woman as she now faced him, and as she had appeared to him on a memorable evening.

But Frau Leimann was so preoccupied herself that the unflattering and searching look of Borgert escaped her. She sat down on the divan beside him and took his hand in hers. Her eyes gazed with diffidence at the face of the man.

"You are ill, George?" asked she with anxiety.

He contented himself for all answer with a shake of his head.

"But tell me, speak to me. What ails you?"

"Why, it is nothing and it is everything," Borgert answered with indifference.

"What do you mean by that, George? Talk sensibly, please."

"What am I to say? I am done with the whole business. That is all."

"Done! Done with what? How am I to understand you?"

"Done with everything,--with life and with myself."

"You talk like a sphinx, George. Why not tell me frankly what has happened to you?"

"My money is gone. I'll have to run away, or else there will be the deuce to pay."

Borgert felt a tremor run through her body. She did not reply, but turned her face slowly away from him and stared at the window.