"But the same question will be put to him as to you--you, a Roumanian."
"No, no," cried Hartmut, passionately. "If I must confess it to you--I am a German."
The effect of this disclosure was not as great as Hartmut might have feared. The Prince looked at him for a moment, amazed.
"I have thought so at times, for the one who could compose an Arivana in the German language did not get this language by education, but had grown up with it. But you bear the name Rojanow----"
"The name of my mother, who belonged to a Roumanian--Bojar's family. My name is--Hartmut von Falkenried."
His own name sounded strange in his ears, for he had not pronounced it for years; but Egon grew attentive at the name.
"Falkenried? That was the name of the Prussian Colonel who came on that secret mission from Berlin. Are you any connection of his?"
The young Prince looked compassionately upon his friend, for he saw how terribly hard this confession came to him. He felt that a family drama was hidden here, and, too delicate to investigate further, he only asked: "And you do not want to proclaim yourself the son of your father, not a Falkenried? Every Prussian regiment would be open to you then."
"No, they would be closed to me forever. I fled from the cadets' school ten years ago."
"Hartmut!" Absolute terror was in the exclamation.
"Do you also, like my father, consider me worthy of death for it? You, of course, have grown up in freedom and have no conception of the iron rule which reigns in these institutions; of the tyranny with which one is bent under the yoke of blind obedience. I could not stand it. I was forced to freedom and light. I begged--entreated my father--but in vain. He held me fast in the chain--when I broke it, and fled with my mother."
He uttered this, all with wild, desperate defiance; but his eyes rested anxiously upon the face of his listener. His father, with his severe ideas of honor, had sentenced him; but his friend, who idolized him, who in passionate enthusiasm admired his genius and all that he did--he _must_ understand the necessity of his step. But this friend was silent, and in this silence lay the sentence.
In the tone of the questioner who waited several minutes in vain for an answer, there lay deep bitterness. "And you too, Egon, who have so often told me that nothing should hamper the flight of the poet; that he must break the fetters which would hold him to the ground. I did that--and you would have done the same."
