The servant asked the gentleman’s name.
‘Herr Brandt,’ answered Greifenstein without hesitation.
The letter had informed him that Rieseneck’s application to be included in the amnesty had been absolutely refused, and that he had fled a second time under an assumed name. He appealed to his brother to help him over the frontier to Constance, and said that he might arrive at any time after his letter.
When he was alone, Greifenstein sat down to consider the situation, after carefully filling and lighting the pipe his son had brought him at his last visit. He was in the habit of doing this every day when he came home, and it seemed to him that to omit any detail of his ordinary life would be to show an amount of emotion quite unworthy of himself. It was one of those small acts, performed alone, which are the truest indications of a man’s character. If he was not able to smoke his pipe as usual, it must be because he was unable to bear calmly what had come upon him, and consequently was not fit to meet his wife at dinner without betraying his anxiety. It was not an act that showed indifference, as many would think. On the contrary, it was the expression of his indomitably conscientious nature. To change one small thing in his demeanour, even when he was alone, would have been to begin badly and at a disadvantage.
He scrupulously put his feet upon the same spot on the fender at which they usually rested when he came home, he sat in his accustomed attitude, and he smoked with his accustomed solemnity. It would be a mistake to exaggerate the importance which Rieseneck’s coming had in his eyes, as far as any material consequences to himself were concerned. There was no ruin before him, no inevitable disaster. He dreaded the moral side of the incident, and worst of all the possibility of his being obliged to tell Clara of the existence of his disgraced brother. He knew well enough that the newspapers would contain an account of Rieseneck’s attempt, and he feared lest some journalist with a long memory should recall the fact of the relationship. Like most men who have formerly lived in a capital, he fancied that every one still knew him, and respected him, and he attached immense importance to the mere mention of his name. That he should be called the brother of a disgraced and criminal officer in a journal, seemed to him a terrible calamity, an almost unbearable blow to his pride. He did not guess that he was as really forgotten as though he had been twenty years dead. The days when he had worn a uniform seemed very near to him still, and he could not realise that his own youth could seem so distant to those who had once known him. His whole nature revolted against the thought of meeting Rieseneck, and though he was not troubled by an active imagination he could not help thinking of the bitter words he would use in the interview. There was nothing cynical in his moral composition. To him, honour was a fact and not a prejudice, a priceless possession of his own, a household idol for which he was at all times ready to sacrifice every other consideration. The existence of his brother was a rent in the wholeness of that fact, a flaw in his title to that possession, a stain upon the divinity of that domestic god. Greifenstein was very unhappy, and his trouble took the form of resentment against the offender, rather than of a mild and harmless self-pity. He was hindered from forgetting and he would not forgive, for the injury was real, as he saw it. In crowded cities men have other things to do than to trouble their peace concerning ideals. A neighbour, a friend, a relation, falls into overwhelming disgrace—they pause a minute and then pass on, reflecting with all the certainty gained by long experience, that the world will soon forget, and that, after all is said, their brother’s infamy is no concern of theirs. But when men who are scrupulously honourable themselves, and who respect their own family traditions of honour more than anything else on earth, are shut off from the world for many years, they cannot look at such matters as city folks do. The less they have to do the more they think of their household history, and the greater is the pride they feel in reviewing the biography of their race. A sort of medieval twilight descends upon their latter years, and their souls receive the heraldic vision. They brood gloomily over the misdeeds of some long-dead ancestor, and their faces glow when they think of their crusading forefathers. They fight again the battles of long ago, they charge with Welf or Weiblingen, they follow the Kaiser to his coronation in imperial Rome, they strive through the press of knights, they perish with Conradin in Naples, they prick hotly after the standard of the great Rudolf, they kill and riot throughout the Thirty Years’ War, they shed their heart’s blood with Frederick, they fall at Austerlitz, they rise at Leipzig, they are with Blucher at Waterloo, with ‘Unser Fritz’ at Koniggratz, with Schmettow’s gallant cuirassiers in the deadly ride of Mars la Tour, and they land themselves each evening before the carved escutcheon of the old chimney-piece at home, the proud descendants of a race of heroes known to fame. And yet, though all be true from first to last, fame knows little of them. Who remembers their names? Their fathers for ages were gentlemen like themselves, never very great or powerful, sometimes poor, almost insignificant in the great throng of light-hearted soldiers on whose necks empires have rested, and by whose hands kingdoms have been overthrown. Probably not one of all those dead knights ever felt half the pride in himself that is felt in him by his representative in the nineteenth century, nor experienced half as much pleasure in gazing at his battered shield with its half-defaced cognisance, as now brings the blood to his descendant’s cheek as he looks at the carved stone semblance of the original. In the trained sight of this modern gentleman, the past is more real than its own reality was long ago; he is more loyal than the law, more royalist than the king, more protestant than Luther, more conservative than a Chinese sage. An insinuation against any member of his race, though he have been dead since the first Crusade, is a direct insult to himself, to be wiped out by personal combat. His sleeping passions, if roused, take but one direction, to fight for something, his king, his religion or his honour. His memories and his prejudices are complicated, interwoven and entangled beyond all belief; his character is simple, for his only principle is that those prejudices and traditions are alike infallible and unassailable, and that no sacrifice must be spared in defending them. Such is the old-fashioned German country gentleman, and such was Hugo von Greifenstein.
Rieseneck, a traitor to his country, the betrayer of a military trust, condemned, a fugitive and publicly infamous, was about to enter the sacred place of his brother’s idols. For a few hours at least he was to abide under the roof which sheltered such precious memories. His abominable presence was to defile the honourable dwelling of all the Greifensteins. Worse than that, his execrated name was to be coupled with that of Greifenstein himself in the public prints. Matters could not be worse, in the estimation of the iron-grey man who sat solemnly smoking his pipe before the fire, and straining every faculty to maintain his usual composure even in his solitude.
The situation seemed unbearable, and yet it must be borne. Every moment was in all likelihood bringing Rieseneck nearer, every minute might be the last before his coming. There was nothing to be done. Greifenstein had not even the diversion of making preparations for the man’s hurried journey, since any show of preparation might be detrimental to the scheme. His plan was to start in the early dawn of the next morning with guns and dogs as though for a shooting expedition, to ride as far as possible, then to leave the horses and to cross the frontier into Switzerland. Nothing could be easier, and he knew that Rieseneck was aware of the fact from his knowledge of the locality. Moreover it was probable that although the application for pardon had been refused, no attempt would be made to arrest the fugitive. He would be allowed to leave the country unmolested, as it would be considered impolitic to increase the scandal by consigning him again to the fortress whence he had escaped so many years before. Greifenstein had nothing to fear for himself, and he cared nothing what became of his brother, provided that he were not caught. Nevertheless, he suffered extremely while he waited, for he dreaded the meeting, as he could not have dreaded any material danger.
He was making a calculation with the object of fixing some limit of time within which Rieseneck must arrive, and he came to the conclusion that the catastrophe could not be far distant. Rieseneck would probably come to the nearest railway station by train from Stuttgardt, and walk thence to Greifenstein, leaving any luggage he might have with him to be forwarded after he had made good his escape. In that case, if he had started on the day when he wrote, his coming might be only retarded a little by the fact of his being on foot, whereas the lad who brought the post was mounted.
A knock at the door interrupted his reflexions. Something told him that Rieseneck was at hand, but he turned his head with studied calmness so that he could see the servant’s face, and held his pipe steadily between his teeth.
‘Herr Brandt has arrived,’ said the man, quietly, as though nothing unusual were occurring. Greifenstein, even in that moment, had the courage to scrutinise the attendant’s features, but their expression betrayed no suspicion.