To them it was due that Fritz had married a second-rate actress; that Fritz, under all the most distressing circumstances, had still suffered from homesickness, and had taken refuge 'at home;' that he had always possessed a character not merely respectable, but thoroughly noble; never forfeiting the esteem of his equals although stricken from their visiting lists; and that, when in fulness of time he should make ready for the final journey, he might boldly face these very chimeras and say: "Often have I sinned against myself, and my own best happiness, but never, never against you; come therefore and help me to die."
His father was a gentleman, a philosopher, a freethinker,--a visionary, if you will. He raved about the new gospel of 1789, as one raves about an exotic flower, because of its unparalleled oddity, and from the conviction that it never can endure our climate. He had all kinds of bourgeois intimates and the "Contrat social" was his favourite book. But when his son, not from blind passion, but to satisfy conscientious scruples, married an actress, he was beside himself. When Fritz, not without a hint as to the circumstances that had led him to the fatal step, announced his marriage, his letter was sent by the old Count to his lawyer to answer. He himself refused any further intercourse with his son.
Had Fritz's mother been living, all might perhaps have been different. His wife would have been personally more distasteful to her than to his father, the fact of the connection would have seemed to her more miserable than to the old Count; but compassion for her child would have triumphed finally over every other consideration, her heart might have bled, but she would have taken home the distasteful daughter-in-law, and have tried to educate her for her position. At all events she would have known that when a man has trifled away 'the world,' his own home is his true place of refuge.
To all this the old Count gave never a thought, although he was kind-hearted, and Fritz had always been avowedly his favourite. He saw nothing but the misery and degradation of it all; his heart was benumbed by anger. All that was bestowed upon Fritz when he married, was his father's curse, the property which he inherited from his mother, and his share of what had belonged to an elder brother who had died. Although he had from the outset belonged among the "forçats du mariage," he did not for some time feel the burden of his chain and of the enforced companionship. Of an intensely sanguine temperament he had a positive genius for looking on the bright side of life. What annoyed him most at first was being obliged, on account of his marriage, to quit the service. He was terribly bored by having to spend the entire day without his comrades or his horses. His yearly income at this time amounted to the modest sum of six thousand gulden. After he had made out a list of necessary expenses,--that is, added up certain figures upon a visiting card with a gold pencil, he came to the conclusion, with a shrug, that a married man could not possibly live upon six thousand gulden a year, and that therefore, under the circumstances, he might allow himself the privilege of contracting debts.
Of course he would have thought it niggardly to save up anything while in the army; yet he had never been extravagant, he had always at the end of the month had something left over with which to help out a comrade.
He hoped to be able to curtail his household expenses; but there were so many things that no respectable man 'could go without,' and still more, which his wife could not deny herself.--
When Fritz was quite a little boy, his father had often admonished him as to the serious nature of life, and had impressed him as a younger son with the necessity of restricting his needs as much as possible, and even of earning his own living. His narrow circumstances in the future, had occupied the boy's mind, and one day he opened his heart to his sister's governess, at that time his confidante. He said to her, "Madame! Papa yesterday told of a contractor who employed people for fifty kreutzers a day.--Is that fair?"
"Certainly, mon bijou. Why do you ask?"
The boy looked very important, and began to reckon on his small fingers, "Fifty kreutzers a day--hm--that makes five gulden for ten persons--if I marry, and my wife keeps a maid, and I a man--and if we have six children beside--five gulden a day--I can afford that at least."
At twenty-six years of age Fritz's ideas with regard to economy were not much more practical. A household with neither man-servant nor maid-servant did not come within his range of possibilities.