Lay Down Your Arms 55

Lay Down Your Arms 55

“Yes,” broke in Frederick, “the fight against an enemy who threatens you

with death, the longing, proud desire of conquering him fills you with

peculiar enjoyment--pray forgive me the word, Aunt Mary--as indeed

everything which sustains or expands life is guaranteed to us by Nature

through the reward of joy. As long as man was in peril from savage

assailants, on two legs or four, and could only protect his life by

killing the latter, battle became one of his delights. If in the midst

of a fight the same pleasure creeps through our veins still though we

are civilised men, it is only a reminiscence of heredity. And at the

present time, when there are in Europe no more savages or beasts of

prey, in order that this delight may not vanish from us entirely, we

have invented artificial assailants for ourselves. This is what goes on.

Attention! You wear blue coats, and those men there red coats. As soon

as we clap hands three times the red coats will be turned for you into

tigers, and the blue coats will become wild beasts to them. So now--one,

two, three; blow the charge, beat the attack; and now you can set off,

and devour each other; and after 10,000--or always in proportion to the

rise in the magnitude of armies--100,000 artificial tigers have devoured

each other with mutual delight in battle at Xdorf, then you have the

battle of Xdorf, which is to become historical; and then the men who

clap hands assemble round a green congress table in Xstadt, rule lines

for altered frontiers on the map, haggle over the proportion of

contributions, sign a paper which figures in the historical annals as

the Peace of Xstadt, clap their hands three times once more, and say to

the redcoats and the bluecoats surviving ‘Embrace each other, men and

brethren’!”

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XIV.

 

_The Prussians advance on Vienna.--Prussian officers quartered at

Grumitz.--My brother Otto’s warlike ardour.--He gets into

trouble.--A grand dinner to the self-invited guests.--Sudden

engagement of my sister Rosa to Prince Henry von Reuss.--General

felicity and enjoyment.--Departure of the Prussians.--Outbreak of

cholera at Grumitz.--The château is infected.--First some of the

servants, then my sisters, then Otto die of cholera, and lastly my

father dies from heart disease, cursing war with his last

breath.--Conrad’s suicide._

 

 

There were Prussians quartered everywhere in the neighbourhood, and now

Grumitz had to come into the circle.

 

Though the suspension of hostilities was already in force, and peace was

almost certain, yet general fear and mistrust reigned throughout the

people. The idea that these spike-helmeted tigers would tear them to

pieces if they could was not easily eradicated out of the people. The

three claps of the hand at Nicolsburg had not yet availed to undo the

effect of the three claps of the declaration of war, and to make the

country-folk look on the Prussians again in the light of brothers. The

very name of the opposing nation gathers round it in war time a whole

host of hateful implied meanings. It is not merely the distinctive name

of a nation hostile for the moment, but it becomes the synonym for

“enemy,” and comprises in itself all the repugnance which that word

expresses.

 

And so it happened that the folks in the neighbourhood trembled, as

before wolves broken loose, if a Prussian quartermaster came there to

procure lodging for his troops. With some besides fear hatred also was

expressed, and these thought they were discharging a patriotic duty if

they did anything to injure a Prussian, if they sent a rifle bullet out

of some place of concealment after “the foe”. This had often taken

place, and if the guilty party was caught he was executed without much

circumstance. These examples had the effect of making the people

suppress their hatred and receive without opposition the soldiers

quartered on them. Then they found to their no small amazement that “the

enemy” really consisted of nothing but good-humoured, friendly fellows,

who paid their way honestly.

 

One morning, it was early in August, I was sitting in the bow-window of

the library and looking out through the open window. From this point was

a long view over the surrounding country. I thought I saw from a

distance a troop of cavalry moving along the high road in our direction.

 

“Prussians coming for quarters,” was my first thought. I adjusted a

telescope which stood in the bow, and looked towards the point in

question. Right; it was a troop of about ten riders with waving black

and white little flags on the points of their lances. And among them a

man on foot, in hunting costume. Why was he walking in this way between

the horses? A prisoner? The glass was not powerful enough. I could not

make out whether the man I took for a prisoner might not be one of our

own foresters.

 

Still it was right to warn the inhabitants of the château of the fate

impending over them. I hastily left the library to look for papa and

Aunt Mary. I found both in the drawing-room. “The Prussians are coming,

the Prussians are coming,” I announced to them breathlessly. One is

always glad to be able to be the first to communicate important tidings.

 

“Devil take them,” was my father’s rather inhospitable exclamation,

while Aunt Mary hit on the right thing to do, as she said: “I will

immediately give Frau Walter her orders for the necessary

preparations”.

 

“And where is Otto?” I asked. “Some one must acquaint him, and warn him

not to let his hatred of the Prussians peep out anyhow, and not to be

uncivil to the guests.”

 

“Otto is not at home,” replied my father. “He went out early to-day

after the partridges. You should have seen him, how well his

hunting-dress sat on him. He grows a fine fellow. My delight is in him.”

 

Meanwhile the house filled with noise. Hasty steps were heard, and

excited voices.

 

“They are come already--those windbags,” muttered my father.

 

The door was dashed open, and Franz, the _valet de chambre_, rushed in.

 

“The Prussians--the Prussians,” he shouted, in the same tone as one

calls “Fire, fire!”

 

“Well, they won’t eat us,” growled my father.

 

“But they are bringing a man with them--a man from Grumitz,” the man

went on in a trembling voice. “I do not know who it is. He has fired on

them; and who would not like to fire on such a scum? But it is all over

with him.”

 

Now one heard the tramp of horses and tumult of voices together. We went

down to the ground floor and looked through the windows which opened out

into the courtyard. At that moment the Uhlans came riding in, and in

their midst, with pale, defiant face, Otto, my brother.

 

My father uttered a shriek and hurried down the steps. My heart stood

still. The scene before us was horrible. If Otto had really fired at the

Prussian soldiers, which seemed very like him---- I dared not think of

the conclusion.

 

I had not the courage to go after my father. Consolation and assistance

in all sorrows I always sought from Frederick only. So I collected

myself in order to betake myself to Frederick’s room. But before I got

there, my father came back again and Otto after him. By their bearing I

saw that the danger was over. The hearing of the matter had given the

following result: The shot had been discharged accidentally. When the

Uhlans came riding on, Otto wanted to see them close, ran across the

field, stumbled, fell down into a ditch, and in doing so discharged his

gun. At the first moment the statement of the young sportsman was

doubted by the men. They took him in their midst and brought him to the

château as their prisoner. But when it came out that the young gentleman

was the son of General Althaus, and was himself a military student, they

accepted his explanation.

 

“The son of a soldier, and himself a future soldier, might well fire on

hostile soldiers in honourable fight, but not in time of truce, and not

like an assassin.” On this speech of my father’s the Prussian subaltern

had set the young man free.

 

“And are you really innocent?” I asked Otto. “For from your hatred of

the Prussians it would not surprise me if----”

 

He shook his head.

 

“I shall, I trust, have plenty of opportunities in the course of my life

to fire at a few of them; but not from behind, not without exposing my

heart, too, to their bullets.”

 

“Bravo, my boy!” cried my father, delighted by these words.

 

I could not share his delight. All these phrases, in which _life_,

whether one’s own or another’s, is tossed about so contemptuously and so

boastfully, have a repellent tone for me. But I was glad at heart that

the matter had passed over thus. How horrible would it have been for my

poor father if these men had shot down the presumed malefactor without

more ado! In that case the unhappy war by which our house had hitherto

been spared would have yet plunged it into misery.

 

The detachment in question had come in the regular way to take up

quarters. Schloss Grumitz had been selected as the habitation of two

colonels and six officers of the Prussian army. The men were to be

lodged in the village. Two men were to be set as sentinels in the

courtyard of the château.

 

An hour or two after the settlement of the quarters the involuntary and

self-invited guests made their entry into our house. We had been

prepared for the event for several days, and Frau Walter had seen that

all the guest chambers and beds were in readiness. The cook also had

laid in plenty of provisions, and the cellar held a sufficient number of

full barrels and old bottles. The Prussian gentlemen should not find any

scarcity in our house.

 

* * * * *

 

When the company in the château mustered in the drawing-room that day at

the sound of the dinner-bell the room presented a brilliant and lively

picture. The gentlemen, all excepting Minister “To-be-sure,” who was our

guest for the moment, all in uniform, the ladies in full dress. For the

first time for a long while we were all in our glory--Lori

especially--the lively Lori--who had arrived that same day from Vienna,

had, on the news that foreign officers were to be present, unpacked her

fine dresses, and adorned herself with fresh roses. The object, no

doubt, was to turn the head of one or other of the members of the

enemy’s army. Well, as far as I was concerned she might have conquered

the whole Prussian battalion, so she left Frederick undazzled. Lilly,

the happy _fiancée_, wore a light blue robe. Rosa, who also seemed very

happy to have the chance once more of showing herself off to young

cavaliers, was dressed in pink muslin; and I, feeling that war time,

even if one has no person to mourn, is always a time of mourning, put on a black dress.