Good Blood Part 4

He laid his clenched fist on the table.

"There are people," said he, scowling, "who are like the poisonous weed in the field, at which beasts nibble themselves to death. With such people the rest poison themselves!

"So, then, one day we were having lessons in physics. The teacher was showing us experiments on the electric machine, and an electric shock was to be pa.s.sed through the whole cla.s.s.

"To this end each one of us had to give his hand to his neighbor, so as to complete the circuit.

"As now Big L, who was sitting next to Long K, held out his hand to him, the lubber made a grimace as if he were about to touch a toad and drew back his hand.

"Big L quietly shrank into himself and sat there as if covered with shame. But at the same instant Little L is up and out of his place, over to his brother's side, at whose place, next to Long K, he seats himself, whose hand he grips and smashes with all the force of his body against the wooden form, so that the long gawk cries out with pain.

"Then he grabbed Little L by the neck and the two now began regularly to fight in the middle of cla.s.s.

"The teacher, who had been tinkering all this time at his machine, now rushed up with coat-tails flying.

"'Now! Now! Now!' he cried.

"He was, you must know, an old man for whom we had not exactly a great respect.

"The two were so interlocked that they did not break away, even though the professor was standing directly in front of them.

"'What disgraceful conduct!' cried the professor. 'What disgraceful conduct! Will you separate at once!'

"Long K made a face as if he were about to cry.

"'L No. II began it,' he said, 'though I did nothing at all to provoke him.'

"Little L stood straight up in his place--for we always had to stand when a professor spoke to us--big drops of perspiration coursed slowly down either cheek; he said not a word; he had bitten his teeth together so hard that one could see the muscles of his jaw through the thin cheeks. And as he heard what Long K said a smile pa.s.sed over his face--I have never seen anything like it.

"The old professor expatiated at some length in beautiful set phrases over such disgraceful behavior, spoke of the 'utter depths of abysmal b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, which such conduct betrayed'--we let him talk on; our thoughts were with Little L and Long K.

"And scarcely was the lesson at an end and the professor out of the door, when from the back a book came flying through the air the whole length of the cla.s.s straight at the skull of Long K. And as he turned angrily toward the aggressor, from the other side he received another book on his head, and now there broke out a general howling: 'Knock him down! Knock him down!' The whole cla.s.s sprang up over tables and benches and there was a rush for Long K, whose hide was now so thoroughly tanned that it fairly smoked."

The old colonel, pleased, smiled grimly to himself and contemplated his hand as it still lay with fist doubled on the table.

"I helped," said he, "and with hearty good-will--I can tell you."

It was as if his hand had forgotten that it had grown fifty years older; as the fingers closed convulsively one could see that it was in spirit once again pummeling Long K.

"But as people must belong once and forever to their own kind,"

he continued his narrative, "so this Long K had to be naturally a revengeful, spiteful, malicious, _canaille_. He would much rather have gone to the captain and resentfully told him everything, but in our presence he did not dare; for that he was too cowardly.

"But that he had received a thrashing before the whole cla.s.s, and that Little L was to blame for it, for that he did not forgive Little L.

"One afternoon, then, as recreation hour came round again, the cadets went walking in the courts; the two brothers, as usual, by themselves; Long K linked arm in arm with two others.

"To get from the Karreehof to the other court where the trees were, one had to pa.s.s under one of the wings of the main building, and it was a rule that the cadets must not pa.s.s through arm in arm, so as not to obstruct the pa.s.sageway.

"On this particular afternoon, as ill-luck would have it, Long K, as he was about to pa.s.s through with his two chums from the Karreehof to the other court, met the two brothers at the corridor, and they, deep in their thoughts, had forgotten to let go of one another.

"Long K, although the affair was no concern of his, when he saw this stood still, opened his eyes wide and his mouth still wider, and called out to the two: 'What does this mean,' said he, 'that you go through here arm in arm? Do you intend to block the way for honest people, you set of thieves?'"

Here the colonel interrupted himself.

"That is now fifty years ago," said he, "and more--but I remember it as if it had happened yesterday.

"I was just going with two others from the Karreehof, and suddenly we heard a scream come from the corridor--I can not describe at all how it sounded--when a tiger or other wild beast breaks loose from his cage and throws himself on some one, then, I think, one would hear something like it.

"It was so horrible that we three let our arms drop and stood there quite paralyzed. And not only we, but everything in the Karreehof stopped and suddenly grew quiet. And then everything that had two legs to run with kept rushing up at full speed toward the corridor, so that it fairly swarmed and thickened black around the corridor. I, naturally, with the rest--and what I saw there--

"Little L had climbed on to Long K like a wildcat--nothing else--and with his left hand hanging on by the latter's collar so that the tall gawk was half-choked, with his right fist he kept up a crack--crack--and crack right in the middle of Long K's face, wherever it happened to strike, so that the blood was pouring from Long K's nose like a waterfall.

"Now from the other court came the officer who was on duty and broke his way through the cadets. 'L No. II, will you leave off at once!' he thundered--for he was a man tall as a tree and had a voice that could be heard from one end of the Academy to the other, and we had a wholesome respect for him.

"But Little L neither heard nor saw, but kept on belaboring Long K in the face still more, and with it came again and again that fearful uncanny shriek that thrilled through us all, marrow and bone.

"When the officer saw that he-took hold himself, gripped the little fellow by both shoulders, and by main force tore him away from Long K.

"As soon as he stood upon his feet, however, Little L rolled up the whites of his eyes, fell his full length to the earth, and writhed on the ground in a convulsion.

"We had never yet seen anything like it, and were shocked and, stared at it in absolute terror.

"But the officer, who had been bending down over him, now straightened himself: 'The lad certainly has a most serious convulsion,' said he.

'Forward, two take hold of his feet'--he himself lifted him under the arms--'over to the infirmary!'

"And so they bore Little L over to the infirmary.

"While they were carrying him there we went up to Big L to learn just what had happened, and from Big L and the other two who had been with Long K we then heard the whole story.

"Long K was standing there like a whipped dog and wiping the blood from his nose, and had it not been for this nothing would have saved him from receiving another murderous thrashing. But now all turned silently away from him, no one ever spoke another word to him; he made himself a social outcast."

The top of the table resounded as the old colonel struck it with his fist.

"How long the others kept him in Coventry," said he, "I know not. I sat in cla.s.s with him for a whole year longer and spoke never a single word more to him. We entered the army at the same time as ensigns; I did not give him my hand at parting; do not know whether he has become an officer; have never looked for his name in the army register; don't know whether he has fallen in one of the wars, whether he still lives or is dead--for me he was no more, is no more--the only thing I regret is that the person ever came into my life at all and that I can not root out the remembrance of him forever, like a weed one flings into the oven!

"The next morning came bad news from the infirmary: Little L was lying unconscious in a burning, nervous fever. In the afternoon his older brother was called in, but the little fellow no longer recognized him.

"And in the evening, as we all sat at supper in the big common dining-hall, a rumor came--like a great black bird with m.u.f.fled beat of wings it pa.s.sed through the hall--that Little L was dead.

"As we came back from the dining-hall into company quarters, our captain was standing at the door of the company hall; we were made to go in, and there the captain announced to us that our little comrade, L No. II, had fallen asleep that night, never to wake again.

"The captain was a very good man--he fell in 1866, a brave hero--he loved his cadets, and as he gave us the news, he had to wipe the tears from his beard. Then he ordered us all to fold our hands; one of us had to step forward and before all say 'Our Father' out loud--"

The colonel bowed his head.

"Then for the first time," said he, "I felt how really beautiful is the Lord's Prayer.

"And so, the next afternoon, the door that led from the infirmary to the outdoor gymnasium opened, the hateful, ominous door.