Read A Legacy for Free Online Page B

the trick of living in Germany as though it were a vacuum; the sidestepping of self and life through a hobby; the lack of curiosity about the human world, and the absence, remarkable in so young a man, of the need for general human company. Women were the exception—he was susceptible and at periods believed himself involved. But these loves were not windows, only entrances into another decorated room. He only liked and knew one kind, the polished, the well turned out, the agreeable. He valued liveliness; vacuity was no requirement; in fact he disliked what he called Vesprit lourd, but there were bounds, and nimbleness of mind was acceptable only when balanced by a steady level of manners and good temper. Indeed, his rue-de-Rivoli standards were high and he never deviated from them even in marriage. At that time, when women in their thirties were considered old, the finished manner was compatible with youthful charms, and Julius enjoyed all the success he could have wished for among a number of married beauties of the age of twenty-nine.
    Johannes's escape from Benzheim must have been a feat. He broke out of the dormitory after lights out, avoided patrols, climbed a wall. When he was free, he began to run and he ran all night. At morning he lay low. He did not know much geography, but he was sure that he knew his way home, and he also knew that he must not take it. He suddenly knew a good deal. He knew that they would be after him, and he knew where they would look. He was dead certain determined that he must not be taken, and on this he concentrated with ferocity. He hid in a wood for the whole of the first day; after dark he started out towards the north. It was as much in the opposite direction of Landen as he knew to make it, and he stuck to it for seven nights. He had no money. He got a tramp to let him have his clothes; then dug a hole for the uniform with his hands, his knife and stones. After this he avoided roads and humans; he never let himself be seen. At night he streaked through fields and vineyards; in daytime he crawled from cover to cover where he could, but mostly he lay still. It was an animated region and people were about their work all day. Johannes knew that he must sleep lightly or not at all, and at once he learnt to sleep like a hare. Dogs and cows came to snuff him in his hedge, but with these he knew how to deal and they always walked off quietly. He did everything with a purpose, and everything he did was right. He had taken his watch and his knife with him, and the daguerreotype of his black dog Zoro—he left nothing he loved at Benzheim—but he buried them with his uniform. Johannes had been a very open boy, now he lived like an animal that is used to covering its tracks. Once he had a shock: at morning he saw a river and a gabled town, and he believed it was the Rhine. It was the fifth day, and of course he had read his Leather-stocking, and he knew all about walking in circles. It may or it may not have been Benzheim; he never found out. But he was crazed with panic and had to fight it—alone, without a hold, lying still in grass; and that day exhausted his heart.
    It was mid-April when Johannes had left Benzheim; the days were often grey and wet, and the nights were still quite cold. There was always ground frost. The tramp's boots would not have done, and Johannes's own, unnecessarily perhaps, were buried; so first he walked on socks and then he walked barefoot. He kept alive on water. Sometimes he stole a little food. Eggs from farmhouse hens, beets and mangel from a barn, milk straight from a goat. He tried to munch oats. There was nothing edible yet in fields and orchards, and he never broke into a larder. He had read in the Encyclopaedia at Landen that man could

    live without food for twenty-seven days provided he took plenty of water, and he had discussed this riveting fact with his brothers. The Encyclopaedia said that the subject would feel no actual hunger, and Johannes, who