Both bowed, stopping for the purpose upon the landing, and then looking into each other"s eyes. Rex was a man of rather more than medium height, thin, but broad-shouldered and gracefully built. He might have been of any age, but he looked as though he were about thirty years old. It would not have surprised any one to hear that he was much older, or much younger. Thick brown hair was carefully brushed and smoothed all over his head, and he wore his beard, which was of the same colour, carefully trimmed, full and square. A soft and clear complexion, a little less than fair but very far from dark, showed at first sight that Rex rejoiced in perfect health. The straight nose was very cla.s.sic in outline, the brow and forehead evenly developed, the modelling about the eyes and temples very smooth and delicate. But the eyes themselves destroyed at once the harmony of the whole face and gave it a very uncommon expression. This was due entirely to their colour and not at all to their shape. The iris was very large, so that little of the surrounding white was visible, and its hue was that of the palest blue china, while the pupil was so extremely small as to be scarcely noticeable. The apparent absence of that shining black aperture in the centre, made the eyes look like gla.s.s marbles, and rendered their glance indescribably stony. Greif almost started when he saw them.
"You preferred Schwarzburg to Heidelberg, then," he remarked, by way of continuing the conversation.
"For my especial branch I think it is superior."
"Philosophy?" asked Greif, thinking of the lecture they had just attended.
"No. That is a pastime with me. I am interested in astronomy and in some branches connected with that science. You have a celebrated specialist here."
"Yes, old Uncle Sternkitzler," answered Greif irreverently.
"Exactly," a.s.sented Rex. "He is a shining light, a star of the first magnitude. If there is anything to discover, he will discover it. If not, he will explain the reason why there is nothing. He is a great man.
He knows what nothing is, for there is nothing he does not know. I am delighted with him. You do not care for astronomy, Herr von Greifenstein?"
"I do not know anything about it, and I have no talent for mathematics,"
answered Greif. "You intend to make it a profession, I presume."
"Yes, as far as it can be called a profession."
"How far is that, if I may ask?"
"Just as far as it goes after it ceases to be an amus.e.m.e.nt," answered Rex.
"That may be very far," said Greif who was struck by the definition.
"Yes. If you call it a profession, it is one for which a lifetime of study is only an insignificant preparation. If you call it a study and not a profession, you make of it a mere amus.e.m.e.nt, like philosophy."
"I do not find that very amusing," said Greif, with a laugh.
"Nothing is amusing when you are obliged to do it," answered the other.
"Duty is the hair shirt of the nineteenth century. A man who does his duty is just as uncomfortable while he is doing it as any Trappist who ever buckled on a spiked belt under his gown."
"But afterwards?"
"Afterwards? What is afterwards? It is nothing to you or me. Afterwards means the time when you and I are buried, and the next generation are writhing in hair shirts of their own making, and p.r.i.c.kly girdles which they put on themselves." Rex laughed oddly.
"I differ from you," answered Greif.
"You are a Korps student, sir. Does that mean that you wish to quarrel with me?" "Not unless you choose. I am not in search of a row this morning. I differed from you as to your view of duty. It seems to me contrary to German ideas."
"Facts are generally contrary to all ideas," answered Rex.
"Not in Germany--at least so far as duty is concerned. Besides, if science is true, facts must agree with it. Political ethics are a science, and duty is necessary to the system that science has created.
What would become of our military supremacy if the belief in duty were suddenly destroyed?"
"I do not know. But I know that it will not make the smallest difference to us, what becomes of it, when we are dead and buried."
"It would change the condition of our children for the worse."
"You need not marry. No one obliges you or me to become the fathers of new specimens of our species."
"And what becomes of love in your system?" inquired Greif, more and more surprised at his acquaintance"s extraordinary conversation.
"What becomes of any thing when it has ceased to exist?" asked Rex.
"I do not know."
"There is nothing to know in the case. The motion--you would call it force--the motion continues, but the particular thing in which it was manifested is no longer, and that particular thing never will exist again. Motion is imperishable, because it is immaterial. The innumerable milliards of vortices in which the material of your body moves at such an amazing rate will not stand still when you are dead, nor even when every visible atom of your body has vanished from sight in the course of ages. Every vortex is imperishable, eternal, of infinite duration. The vortex was the cause before the beginning and it will remain itself after the end of all things."
"The prime cause," mused Greif. "And who made the vortex?"
"G.o.d," answered Rex laconically.
"But then," objected the younger student in some surprise, "you believe in a future life, in the importance of this life, in duty, in all the rest of it."
"I believe in the vortex," replied the other, "in its unity, individuality and eternity. Life is a matter of convenience, its importance is a question of opinion, its duties are ultimately considerations of taste. What are opinions, conveniences and tastes, compared with realities? The vortex is a fact, and it seems to me that it furnishes enough material for reflexion to satisfy a mind of ordinary activity." "You hold strange views," said Greif thoughtfully.
"Oh no!" exclaimed Rex, with sudden animation. "I am not at all different from any other peaceful student of astronomy, I can a.s.sure you. Neither the vortex nor any other fact ever prevents any man from doing what is individually agreeable to him, nor from enjoying everything that comes in his way, or calling it sinful, according to his convictions."
"And are you a happy man, if the question is not indiscreet?"
"Ah, that is your favourite question among philosophers," laughed Rex, "and it shows what you really think of all your beliefs about duty and the rest of the virtues. You really care for nothing but happiness, if the truth be told. All your religions, your moralities, your laws, your customs, you regard as a means of obtaining ultimate enjoyment. There is little merit in being happy with so much artificial a.s.sistance.
Real originality should show itself in surpa.s.sing your felicity without making use of your laborious methods in attaining to it. The trouble is that your political ethics, your recipes for making bliss in wholesale quant.i.ties, take no account of exceptional people. But why should we discuss the matter? What is happiness? Millions of volumes have been written about it, and no man has ever had the courage to own exactly what he believes would make him happy. You may add your name to the list, Herr von Greifenstein, if you please, and write the next ponderous work upon the subject. You would not be any happier afterwards and you would be very much older. If you really desire to be happy, I will tell you how it is possible. In the first place, are you happy now?"
Rex fixed his stony stare, that contrasted so strangely with his beautiful face, upon Greif"s eyes. He saw there an uncertainty, a vague uneasiness, that answered his question well enough.
"Yes," answered the younger man in a doubtful tone, "I suppose I am."
"I think your happiness is not complete," said Rex, turning away.
"Perhaps my simple plan may help you. Interrogate yourself. What is it that you want? Find out what that something is--that is all."
"And then?"
"And then? Why, take it, and be happy," answered Rex with a careless smile, as though the rule were simple enough.
"That is soon said," replied Greif in a grave tone. "I want what no man can give me."
"Nor woman either?"
"Nor woman either." "And something you could not take if it were before you, within reach?"
"No. I want nothing material. I want to know the future."
"Surely that is not a very hard thing," answered Rex, looking at his watch.
"It must be dinner-time," said Greif politely, as he noticed the action.
He had no wish to detain his new acquaintance.
"Indeed, it is just noon. I fear I have kept you from some engagement."