‘I have been married five and twenty years,’ Greifenstein replied. It was strange to be informing his brother of the fact. Rieseneck sat down upon a high chair and rested his elbow upon the table. Neither spoke for a long time, but Greifenstein resumed his seat, relighted his pipe, and placed his feet upon the fender, taking precisely the attitude in which he had been when his brother was announced. The situation was almost intolerable, but his habits helped him to bear it.
‘I was also married,’ said Rieseneck at last, in a low voice, as though speaking to himself. ‘You never saw my wife?’ he asked rather suddenly.
‘No.’
‘She died,’ continued the other. ‘It was very long ago—more than thirty years.’
‘Indeed,’ said Greifenstein, as though he cared very little to hear more.
Again there was silence in the room, broken only by the crackling of the fir logs in the fire and by the ticking of the clock in its tall carved case in the corner. A full hour must elapse before the evening meal, and Greifenstein did not know what to do with his unwelcome guest. At last the latter took out a black South American cigar and lit it. For a few moments he smoked thoughtfully, and then, as though the fragrant fumes had the power to unloose his tongue, he again began to talk.
‘She died,’ he said. ‘She ruined me. Yes, did you never hear how it was? And yet I loved her. She would not follow me. Then they sent me some of her hair and the boy. But for her, it might never have happened, and yet I forgive her. You never heard how it all happened?’
‘I never inquired,’ answered Greifenstein. ‘You say she ruined you. How do you mean?’
‘She made me do it. She was an enthusiast for liberty and revolution. She filled my mind with ideas of the people’s sovereignty. She talked of nothing else. She besought me on her knees to join her party, as she called it. She flattered me with dreams of greatness in a great republic, she illuminated crime in the light of heroism, she pushed me into secret societies, and laughed at me for my want of courage. I loved her, and she made a fool of me, worse than a fool, a traitor, worse than a traitor, a murderer, for she persuaded me to give the arms to the mob, she made me an outlaw, an exile, an object of hatred to my countrymen, a thing loathsome to all who knew me. And yet I loved her, even when it was all over, and I would have given my soul to have her with me.’
Greifenstein’s face expressed unutterable contempt for this man, who in the strength and pride of youth had laid down his honour for a woman’s word, not even for her love, since he had possessed that already.