He was a bright companion, sufficiently conversant with arts and sciences to talk on every subject, without committing himself. He knew how to converse on all topics fluently enough, without betraying the superficial character of his knowledge and his studies. Educated at the court of the Empress Elizabeth, life had appeared to him in all its voluptuousness and fullness, but at the same time had soon been stripped of all its fancies and illusions. For him there existed no ideals and no innocence, no faith, not even a doubt which in itself implies a glimmer of faith; for him there was nothing but the plain, naked, undeceivable disenchantment, and pleasure was the only thing in which he still believed.
This pleasure he pursued with all the energy of his originally noble and powerful character; and as all his divinities had been destroyed, all holy ideals had dissolved into myths and hollow phantoms, he wished to secure one divinity, at least, to whom he could raise an altar, whom he could worship: this divinity was Pleasure.
Pleasure he sought everywhere, in all countries; and the more ardently and eagerly he sought it, the less was he able to find it. Pleasure was the first modest, coy woman who cruelly shunned him, and the more he pursued her, the more coldly did she seem to fly him.
And now he converted his whole life into an adventure, a kind of quixotic pursuit of the lost loved one, Pleasure. In the mean time, his heart was dead to all the better and nobler feelings. But, at one time, it seemed as if a higher and more serious inclination promised permanently to enchain this dreaded rival of all husbands and lovers.
Feodor von Brenda, the most blasé, witty, insolent cavalier at the court of his empress, became suddenly serious and silent. On his proud countenance was seen, for the first time, the light of a soft and gentle feeling, and when he approached his beautiful bride, the Countess Lodoiska von Sandomir, there beamed from his dark eyes a glow holier and purer than the fire of sensuality. Could he have fled with her into some desert, could he have withdrawn into the stillness of his mountain castle, he would have been saved; but life held him with its thousand minute, invisible threads, and the experiences of his past years appeared to mock him for his credulity and confidence.
Besides this woman, whom he adored as an angel, arose the demon of skepticism and mistrust, and regarded him with mocking smiles and looks of contempt; but still Feodor von Brenda was a name of honor, a cavalier to whom his pledged word was sacred, and who was ready to pay the debt of honor which he had incurred toward his betrothed; and this love for the Countess Lodoiska, although cankered by doubt and gnawed by the experiences of his own life, still had sufficient power over him to cause the future to appear not gloomy but full of promise, and to allow him to hope, if not for happiness, at least for rest and enjoyment.
The war-cry roused him from these dreams and doubts of love. Elizabeth had united with Maria Theresa against Frederick of Prussia, and the Empress of Russia was about to send an army to the support of her ally. Feodor awoke from the sweet rest into which his heart had sunk, and, like Rinaldo, had torn asunder the rosy chains by which his Armida had sought to fetter him. He followed the Russian colors, and accompanied General Sievers as his adjutant to Germany.
As to him all life was only an adventure, he wished also to enjoy the exciting pastime of war. This, at least, was something new, a species of pleasure and amusement he had not yet tried, and therefore the young colonel gave himself up to it with his whole soul, and an ardent desire to achieve deeds of valor.
But it was his fate to be carried early from the theatre of war as a prisoner, and in this character he arrived with General Sievers at Berlin. But his durance was light, his prison the large and pleasant city of Berlin, in which he could wander about perfectly free with the sole restriction of not going beyond the gates.
General Sievers became accidentally acquainted with Gotzkowsky, and this acquaintance soon ripened into a more intimate friendship. He passed the greater part of his days in Gotzkowsky's house. As a lover of art, he could remain for hours contemplating the splendid pictures which Gotzkowsky had bought for the king in Italy, and which had not yet been delivered at Sans Souci; or, by the side of the manufacturer he traversed the large halls of the factory in which an entirely new life, a world of which he had no idea, was laid open to him. And then again Gotzkowsky would impart to him the wide and gigantic plans which occupied his mind; and this disclosed to him a view into a new era which arose beyond the present time, an era when industry would command and raise the now despised workman into the important and respected citizen.