Wallmoden has told you about me, I feel sure, and what I have sought,
and how I have succeeded. I bring you the poet's wreath, father, the
first which has fallen to my share. Learn to know my work, let it speak
to you, then you will realize how impossible it was for a man of my
temperament to live and breathe under the restrictions of a profession
which was death to every poetic feeling; then you will forgive your
unruly son for his boyish trick."
Hartmut Rojanow was himself again, and spoke with his old domineering
pride. His arrogant self-consciousness clung to him even in this hour.
He was the author of "Arivana," who acknowledged neither obligation nor
duty.
"The boyish trick," said Falkenried in a harder voice than ever. "Yes,
that's what they called it in order to make it possible for me to remain
in the service. I called it something else, and many of my comrades with
me. You would soon have been an ensign, in a few weeks you would have
been fleeing from the flag you had sworn to defend--I have never known
such another case. You had been well and carefully educated and I had
striven to instill into your mind the keenest sense of honor. You knew
only too well what you did, you were no longer a boy. He who flees like
a thief in the night from the service of his country is a deserter; he
breaks his word and he does not know what honor means.
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