Thomas Ochiltree Read Online Free Page B

a duel and who would still be alive if it had not been for those “outmoded notions,” would never learn of his son’s decision. Neither would his grandfather, who died for his Emperor at the ill-fated battle of Königgrätz. Nor would his great-grandfather, who had helped topple Napoleon by leading a desperate cavalry charge against the French at Leipzig. Nor would any of the other Barons von Falkenburg. All were now just bones or corpses in the family vault. Yet he knew that he simply
could not
betray their heritage.
    “It’s idiotic,” he whispered, leaning over the railing of the bridge. But saying that did not help any more than protesting his innocence to the colonel and Major Becker had helped. Von Falkenburg had been raised in a world where a gentleman’s honor was thought to be more precious than life, and where that was not just an empty phrase, but a principle for which the finest men actually gave their lives, as his father had, as Endrödy had…. That principle had been content to let him play the rationalist, as long as in the meantime it could send roots deep into his soul.
    So it was death, then, though he did not want to die. No desire he had ever felt could compare in strength with his overwhelming longing to keep on existing, for there still to be an Ernst von Falkenburg. He swallowed hard and stared desperately at the glittering reflection of the bridge’s lights on the frigid water sliding beneath him. They offered no comfort.
    The icy wind that blew up from the Hungarian plains forced von Falkenburg into motion. He walked towards the far end of the great bridge, where the desolate “overflow area” of low-lying marsh waited for the spring flood.
    Annie. Endrödy. Now him, von Falkenburg thought as he passed slowly from one pool of dazzling arc light to the other. Annie had said she did not mind having only a few months to live if she could live them with him. At the time he had been touched, but like a spectator at the theater. No one, he realized now, can know what it means to die except those who are dying. And they do not really know either.
    If that professor had not pulled him back from in front of the streetcar, he would actually be dead now. Von Falkenburg looked at the massive girders of the bridge, the blinding glare of the arc lights, and the lonely blackness of the Danube. He tried to imagine them still existing on the supposition that he had been run over by the streetcar and was now dead. He did not succeed in the attempt.
    The inky waters fascinated him. He felt his muscles tense for a moment as if to propel him over the railing, but he knew that he would not jump. If he was going to play the military honor game, he would play it to the end. Besides, he thought with amused bitterness, he had always wanted to fire his revolver at least once.
    With a sudden surge of resolve he decided to shut the mystery of death from his consciousness. He pulled out his watch and looked at it. 9:10 P.M. He had less than eleven hours to live.
    But those were eleven hours in which he could sample existence one last time, in which he could put behind him this nightmarish bridge and river. He had come here to make a decision, and the decision was now made.
    Suddenly frantic not to waste any more of the precious time remaining to him, von Falkenburg strode as fast as he could back across the seemingly endless bridge. He had dismissed the cab earlier because he had wanted to be completely alone. He earnestly wished the cab back now, but wishing would do him no good. It was an hour’s walk back to the Praterstern, and an hour was far too much time to waste.
    Ahead, though, was the end of the line where a streetcar was waiting to head back to the center of town.
    Von Falkenburg broke into a run, shouting for the car to wait. That was in flagrant disregard of the regulations regarding the public demeanor of officers of the Austro-Hungarian army, but von Falkenburg did not give a damn.
    The conductor looked