Borgert’s father, too,—a worthy old gentleman, broken-hearted at the downfall of his only son,—had to appear in court and depose as to his son’s past and present misdoings, as far as he was aware of them. Even that portion of the estate which, according to the father’s intentions, was to fall to his son’s share at his father’s death, was sequestrated by a mandate of the court and added to the assets left behind by Borgert. In addition, the state’s attorney issued a “Steckbrief”[20] against the ex-officer, in which he was charged with a whole list of offences.
The dwelling itself had the court seals attached to it, and even the poor horses in the stable had fastened to their manes small, leaden seals tied on with string, to denote that the state had taken possession of them.
It stands to reason that all these interesting events travelled through the little town on the wings of gossip, and no village or city within a radius of ten miles failed to regard the matter as a delicious bit of local scandal. The small penny sheets printed in a number of these places were in clover. Nothing like such a genuine sensation had come to their hands for some time.
Colonel von Kronau, the pompous and infallible, was very much cast down. There were some smart gentlemen in the regiment who now claimed to have suspected the facts for a long time, and to have seen such a catastrophe approaching. But there are always such people, and as a matter-of-fact neither these wiseacres nor their less astute comrades had ever expected Borgert to turn out badly. For his case, although somewhat worse, was substantially the epitome of their own cases, and it is a truism that we never see ourselves as others see us.
The colonel remarked to Captain König, shaking his head with a melancholy smile, that this new turn of affairs was the “last nail in his coffin,” and henceforth he was seen going about with a face gloomy and expectant of the worst. For gradually he came to the conclusion that to keep in good order a garrison and its corps of officers, some other methods must be employed than those to which he had clung, at the advice of Frau Stark, for years. It dawned on him that his type of discipline had wrought a train of evils which had grown avalanche-like, and which now at last was likely to bury his official head under a load of opprobrium.
The fact that Frau Leimann had followed the First Lieutenant became known a few days later. This was when her husband returned from Berlin and found a letter from her, in which she implored his forgiveness, and assured him she had acted under an impulse too strong to resist. Of their unhappy married life she said nothing.
Thus Leimann was punished doubly. He had been made ridiculous before the world, and was laughed at behind his back by all those who belonged to his extensive circle of acquaintances. And Borgert’s flight had precipitated Leimann’s own financial downfall. His creditors and those of Borgert obtained orders in court which forced him to sell the larger part of his small private fortune, consisting of sound investments, to satisfy their claims. A goodly proportion of his enforced payments was for those sums guaranteed by him in Borgert’s behalf. When all his affairs had been unravelled, he had but a very small sum remaining to him.
Meanwhile no trace of Frau Leimann and of her companion was found, although detectives of various countries were several times on their tracks. Nobody knew where they had found a refuge.
A fortnight after his desertion poor Röse was discovered and arrested. He had been seized at the Belgian frontier. A court-martial was quickly summoned, and during the trial it became apparent that the motive which alone had driven him to desertion had been the brutal maltreatment to which his master, Borgert, had subjected him. The court regarded that, however, as a mitigating circumstance of such slight value that it reduced the measure of the punishment meted out to him in only a small degree. The poor fellow was universally commiserated by high and low, and even among the officers a voice was raised now and then in exculpation. Many of their subordinates expressed privately the opinion that a poor soldier, even if only the son of an humble peasant, like Röse, ought to have some rights, and that he ought to be treated humanely by his superiors. But these were but private opinions, stated in a barely audible voice, and in the seclusion of the men’s own quarters. As such, naturally, they had not the slightest value in changing the fortunes of poor Röse, who was sentenced to undergo a term of many years of hard labor in a military penitentiary.