Felix Lanzberg's Expiation Part 34

Take my poor child to your home. Erwin will bring the boy up better than I could have done. Do not show my corpse to him, and put no mourning on him. I do not wish to be the cause of a single bitter hour to his poor little heart. Tell him I have gone on a journey. He will forget me.

Never tell him, I beg you, of my disgrace, and if he learns of it through strangers, then--then tell him that I loved him beyond everything, and that I took my life so that I need never blush before him.

Lay the little lock of golden hair which I cut from his head in Rome upon my breast. You will find it in the upper left drawer of my writing-desk, and put the old soldier's coat which I wore at Sadowa upon me. (Stifler knows where it is.) It is the only article of clothing in which I dare stretch myself out beside my ancestors for eternal rest, or appear before them for eternal reconciliation; who knows!

A last kiss for my child. Farewell! and forgive

"The Certain Lanzberg."

Erwin's eyes were moist. "He was indeed a n.o.ble nature," said he gently and hoa.r.s.ely, as he gave the letter back to Elsa.

"Yes," cried she, with a kind of pride. "He was really n.o.ble; therefore he tormented himself to death."

Erwin drew the convulsively sobbing woman to his breast.

Three days later the funeral took place.

All the inhabitants of the country round of his rank were present; even Count L---- came to show Felix the last honors. All were deeply shocked. Suicide, against which in general they cherished the Catholic abhorrence, seemed to them in this case justified. They saw in this act almost the repayment of an outlawed debt.

From that day the byword with which they had formerly designated Felix changed. They never again called him "the certain Lanzberg," but now always "the unfortunate Lanzberg."

He was rehabilitated!