He did not wish to go to the Casino, for he felt no appetite, and he was not in the mood to play his accustomed pranks and capers for the delectation of his comrades. He did not want to see or hear of anybody. He wanted to be all by himself and indulge in his morose reflections. His eye wandered around the elegant appointments of his dwelling. These fine paintings on his walls; this handsome and costly furniture, most of it carved in solid oak; the soft Oriental rugs underfoot which deadened every sound and made his bachelor home so comfortable and cosy; those heavy, discreet hangings of finest velvet which shut out the intrusive light and kept his apartments in that epicurean chiaroscuro which his sybarite taste demanded—what a pity, what an infernal shame, to have to surrender into the hands of these vermin of usurers all these trappings of his bachelor freedom! Of course, they would struggle and fight for it all, and each one of them would scramble to be the first to assert and enforce his rights. Rather amusing it would be, he thought, but alas! he himself would not be able to view the scene.
There was no help for it. Within a few days the crash must come; he could see no escape.
But what was to become of himself? He had never seriously thought of that before. Should he allow himself to be simply thrown into the street? Perhaps, after all, they would even put him in quod? Time pressed, and a decision must be reached quickly—at once.
Really, on sober reflection, he could not very well see why he should remain any longer in this vale of tears after all his glory and his pleasures would be gone. To learn anew, after losing all caste, after dismissal from the army in disgrace and dishonor, to learn a bread-winning calling and to have to work like everybody in that despised throng of perspiring, vulgar toilers—surely, that was not at all to his taste. From infancy up he had been reared in disdain of labor—had acquired, one by one, tastes and habits of thought that seemed irreconcilable with a life of sober, plain living and thinking, with a life where his part would be that of a subordinate. It seemed an impossible thing to him. Dimly he felt that to do so would require energy, self-denial, and diligence, and of all these he possessed not a trace. Should he then make an end of it, put a bullet in his brain?
But no, that was absurd, and, besides, that required courage. And courage, in its best sense, he had never had. He had only shown courage, or the semblance of it—a certain dash—the kind which in the army is known as “Schneid.”
But here, when facing the final realities of life, his courage entirely deserted him. And was it not possible, after all, that luck would come to his aid in this dire extremity? He had only the one life, and once thrown away the loss was irremediable. Suicide therefore would be rash and stupid—folly never to be redeemed. Life might smile on him again, and should he then with his own hand cut it off? No, on no account.
But no rescuing thought would occur to him, cudgel his brain as he might. And torturing, self-abasing reflections crowded again into his brain.
The thought of his servant, of poor Röse, curiously enough, was uppermost. Had not Röse, dolt that he was, cunningly managed to disappear from a scene which was, in a certain sense, as unbearable as his master’s at this juncture? And Röse by now was perhaps seated comfortably in a quiet corner where nobody was looking for him, and where it was possible to live without interference.
Could he himself, then, not do the same thing?
And this shadowy thought began to take solid form the more Borgert dwelt on it. It seemed to him the only egress from the situation.