The Sign Of Flame Part 7

"The affair is settled in the best way," she said in her short and decided tone. "He has the boy in his embrace. Hartmut is hanging upon his father's neck, and the rest will arrange itself easily now. G.o.d be praised! And now you may eat your supper, w.i.l.l.y. The confusion which has disturbed our whole household has come to an end."

w.i.l.l.y did not allow himself to be told twice, but made brisk use of the coveted permission. But Wallmoden shook his head and muttered: "If it were only truly at an end!"

CHAPTER VI.

Neither Falkenried nor his son had noticed that the door had been quietly opened and closed again. Hartmut still clung to his father's neck. He seemed to have lost in a moment all awe and reserve, and was overwhelmingly lovable in his new-found, stormy caresses, the charm of which the Major had rightly feared would disarm him. He spoke but little, but again and again he pressed his lips upon the brow of his son, looking steadily into the beautiful face, full of life, which pressed so close to his own.

Finally Hartmut asked in a low voice: "And--my mother?"

A shadow pa.s.sed again over Falkenried's brow, but he did not release his son from his arms.

"Your mother will leave Germany as soon as she is convinced that she must in the future, as in the past, stay away from you," he said, this time without harshness, but with decision. "You may write to her. I will allow a correspondence with certain restrictions, but I cannot--I dare not permit a personal intercourse."

"Father, think----"

"I cannot, Hartmut; it is impossible."

"Do you hate her, then, so very much?" asked the youth reproachfully.

"You wished the separation--not my mother--I know it from herself."

Falkenried's lips quivered. He was about to speak the bitter words and tell his son that the separation had been at the command of honor; but he looked again in those dark, inquiring eyes, and the words died unspoken. He could not accuse the mother to the son.

"Let that question rest," he replied gloomily; "I cannot answer it to you. Perhaps you will learn my reasons later and will understand them.

I cannot spare you the hard choice now. You can belong only to one--the other you must shun. Accept it as a doom."

Hartmut bowed his head; he might have felt that nothing further could be gained. That the meetings with his mother had to end when he returned to the strict discipline of the school, he knew; but now a correspondence was permitted, which was more than he had dared to hope for.

"Then I will tell mamma so," he said in a crestfallen way. "Now, since you know everything, I may see her openly, may I not?"

The Major started; he had not considered this possibility.

"When were you to see her again?" he asked.

"To-day, at this hour, at the Burgsdorf pond. She is surely awaiting me there now."

Falkenried seemed to battle with himself. A warning voice arose in him not to allow this leave-taking, yet he felt that to refuse would be cruel.

"Will you be back in two hours?" he asked finally.

"Certainly, father; even earlier if you desire it."

"Go, then," said the Major, with a deep breath. One could hear how reluctant was the permission which his sense of duty forced from him.

"We shall drive home as soon as you return. Your vacation ends shortly, anyway."

Hartmut, who was just about to leave, came to a standstill. The words recalled to him what he had entirely forgotten in the last half hour: the discipline and severity of the service which was awaiting him.

Heretofore he had not dared to betray his aversion to it openly, but this hour which banished the awe of his father broke also the seal from his lips. Obeying a sudden impulse, he turned and put his arms again around the neck of his father.

"I have a request," he whispered, "a great, great request which you must grant me; and I know you will do it as a proof that you love me."

A furrow appeared between the Major's eyebrows as he asked with slight reproach: "Do you require proofs of it? Well, let's hear it."

Hartmut nestled still more closely to him; his voice had again that sweet, coaxing sound which made his prayers so irresistible, and the dark eyes implored intensely, beseechingly.

"Do not let me become a soldier, father. I do not love the calling for which you have decided me. I shall never learn to love it. If I have bowed until now to your will, it has been with aversion, with secret grumbling, and I have been unbearably unhappy, only I did not dare to confess it to you."

The furrow on Falkenried's brow sank deeper, and he released his son slowly from his embrace.

"That means, in other words, that you do not like to obey," he said harshly, "and just that is more important to you than to any one else."

"But I cannot bear any compulsion," Hartmut burst forth pa.s.sionately, "and the military service is nothing but duty and fetters. To obey always and eternally--never to have a will of your own--to bow day after day to an iron discipline and strict, cold forms by which every individual movement is suppressed. I cannot bear it any longer.

Everything in me demands freedom for light and life. Let me go, father; do not keep me any longer in these bonds. I die--I suffocate under them."

To a man, who was heart and soul a soldier, he could not have done his cause greater harm than by these imprudent words. It sounded like a stormy, glowing prayer. His arm yet lay around his father's neck, but Falkenried now straightened himself suddenly and pushed him back.

"I should consider the service an honor and no fetter," he said cuttingly. "It is sad that I should have to recall that to my son's mind. Freedom--light--life! You think perhaps that one can throw himself at seventeen years into life and grasp all its treasures. The longed-for freedom for you would be only recklessness, ruin, destruction."

"And what if it should be so!" cried Hartmut, totally beside himself.

"Better go to ruin in freedom than to live in this depression. To me it is a chain--a fetter--slavery----"

"Be silent! not a word further," commanded Falkenried so threateningly that the youth grew silent despite his awful excitement. "You have no choice, and take care that you do not forget your duty. You must become an officer and fulfill your duty completely as does every one of your comrades. When you are of age, I no longer have any power to hinder you. You may then resign, even if it give me my deathblow to see my only son flee the service."

"Father, do you consider me a coward?" Hartmut burst forth. "I could stand a war--I could fight----"

"You would fight foolhardily and rush blindly into every danger; and with this obstinacy which knows no discipline you would destroy yourself and your men. I know this wild, boundless desire for freedom and life to which no barrier, no duty is sacred. I know from whom you have inherited it and where it will finally lead; therefore I keep you securely in the 'fetters,' no matter whether you hate it or not. You shall learn to obey and to bow your will while yet there is time; and you shall learn it. I pledge my word to that."

Again the old, inflexible harshness sounded in his voice; every line of tenderness, of softness, had disappeared, and Hartmut knew his father too well to continue supplication or defiance. He did not answer a syllable, but his eyes glowed again with that demoniac spark which robbed him of all his beauty; and around his lips, which were pressed closely together, there settled a strange, bad expression as he now turned to go.

The Major's eyes followed him. Again the warning voice came to him like a presentiment of evil, and he called his son back.

"Hartmut, you are sure to be back in time? You give me your word?"

"Yes, father." The answer sounded grim, but firm.

"Very well. I shall trust you as a man. I let you go in peace with this promise which you have given me. Be punctual."

Hartmut had been gone but a few moments when Wallmoden entered.

"Are you alone?" he asked, somewhat surprised. "I did not wish to disturb you, but I saw Hartmut hasten through the garden just now.

Where was he going so late?"

"To his mother, to take leave of her."

The Secretary started at this news. "With your consent?" he asked quickly.