Free A Legacy by Sybille Bedford

from Benzheim. The house is at sixes and sevens."
    "I think Papa ought to hear about this," said Clara.
    "And does your father think this man came from Benzheim?" said the Count.
    "He won't believe a word of it. But Gabriel insists there is a man at the inn at Breisach who has come for Jean. The inn people told our groom that he left a huge silver helmet with feathers and a special case for it on his bed, and he has a white tunic and they saw his sword. Gabriel says it's the same man who came to the house this morning in disguise."
    "I see," said Count Bernin.
    "Do you believe any of it, sir?"
    "It couldn't have been that captain who came to see you today, Papa?" said Clara. "He wore no uniform either."

    Count Bernin sat down and wrote once more to Lieu-tenant-General von Schimmelpfennig. The substance of his letter was, My dear Schimmelpfennig, your Captain Mont-clair has managed to turn this business into a farce; nothing further can be gained by making yourselves and your emissaries a local laughingstock, and I think you ought to desist. Why don't you make those people at Benzheim tell their cadets that the boy is ill or has been sent to another corps or a military prison? Surely their imagination will run to that? Besides I believe the boy is ill. A little flexibility, may I remind you, is a useful quality. Always your entire servant, Conrad Bernin.
    On the morning of that day, there appeared in two Baden dailies an account of Johannes's escape from Benzheim. As journalism, these copious articles were on the old-fashioned side.
    Our Readers will be interested to learn of the gallant escape from the restraint of a certain Military Academy contrived by the intrepid offspring of one of Lower Baden's foremost personalities, Baron F*^* of L*** —
    But once under way these narratives told a story, and some of the details—supplied by Gabriel's wide-eyed tale— were harrowing. They attracted the attention of circles outside those of the subscribers to the Badische Landwirt and the Manheimer Anzeiger, and the following morning the facts, in a more astringent form, were published in the Karlsruher Nachrichten and the Sud-Deutsche Courier. Freedom of the Press in Germany was new then and precarious. On principle anything could be printed as long as it was neither untrue, nor presented tendentiously, nor contrary to public order, morality or the interest of the state. Interpretation naturally was wide, and news and papers were often suppressed on a quibble. The liberal Frankfurter Zeitung prepared a leader and sent a man South for confirmation; Bebel's organ, Die Neue Zeit, de-

    cided to do the same; the republican Hamburger Fremden-blatt telegraphed their Munich correspondent; the more prudent Kolner Warte inquired of Berlin whether there was already a dementi. The editor of an anti-Czarist revue published in Switzerland arrived himself from Basle. In due course, these gentlemen assembled at the inn at Brei-sach. Captain Montclair ate his supper in his room.
    At Landen Gabriel found himself a quill and scrawled an SOS COME AT ONCE. The weekly hamper was leaving for Bonn: he sealed the note with wax, and put it in the basket with the rack of lamb, the ducks and the green peas.
    Early next day General von Schimmelpfennig's ADC and a secretary from Bismarck's Chancellery itself, accompanied by Captain Montclair, presented themselves stiff with travel and solemn with officialdom at Count Bernin's gates.
    The Count was in his dressing gown. "Gentlemen, what can I do for you?"
    It was simple. To the Count, used to thinking on those lines, it was crystal clear. To us, and our perspective as the heirs of this and other more enormous pieces of expediency, it appears futile, shameless and involved. The moves that shape the future seldom shape their own intended ends; the course of self-interest is seen as a beeline only at the moment, and the history of individuals, groups and countries is the sum of these. On that May morning eighty