I endured it as long as I could, then I left
it, for my soul demanded freedom and light. I appealed to my father in
vain; he but tightened the chains--so I tore them apart and went away
with my mother."
His manner was wild and excited as he told his short, fateful story; but
his eyes, anxious and watchful, never left his listener's face. His
father, with his fierce, severe code of honor, had cursed him, but his
friend, who adored him, who had professed such a deep admiration for his
genius, surely he would understand him, and how he had been driven to
take such a step. But this friend was silent now, and in his silence lay
his sentence.
"And you, too, Egon?" In the tone of the questioner, who had waited a
long minute, and waited in vain for some word, there was inexpressible
bitterness. "You, who have so often said to me that nothing should
hamper the poet's flight, that he must break all bonds which would bind
him to the earth. That's what I did, and it's what you would have done
in my place."
The young prince drew himself up proudly, and answered decisively:
"No, Hartmut, you are in error there! I would perhaps have escaped from
a severe school,--but from military service never!"
There were again the same old hard words he remembered as a boy--"the
military service"--"the service of arms!" All the blood in his body
rushed to his head.
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