seriously thought of
that before. Should he allow himself to be simply thrown into the
street? Perhaps, after all, they would even put him in quod? Time
pressed, and a decision must be reached quickly--at once.

Really, on sober reflection, he could not very well see why he should
remain any longer in this vale of tears after all his glory and his
pleasures would be gone. To learn anew, after losing all caste, after
dismissal from the army in disgrace and dishonor, to learn a
bread-winning calling and to have to work like everybody in that
despised throng of perspiring, vulgar toilers--surely, that was not at
all to his taste. From infancy up he had been reared in disdain of
labor--had acquired, one by one, tastes and habits of thought that
seemed irreconcilable with a life of sober, plain living and thinking,
with a life where his part would be that of a subordinate. It seemed
an impossible thing to him. Dimly he felt that to do so would require
energy, self-denial, and diligence, and of all these he possessed not
a trace. Should he then make an end of it, put a bullet in his brain?

But no, that was absurd, and, besides, that required courage. And
courage, in its best sense, he had never had. He had only shown
courage, or the semblance of it--a certain dash--the kind which in the
army is known as "_Schneid_."

But here, when facing the final realities of life, his courage
entirely deserted him. And was it not possible, after all, that luck
would come to his aid in this dire extremity? He had only the one
life, and once thrown away the loss was irremediable. Suicide
therefore would be rash and stupid--folly never to be redeemed. Life
might smile on him again, and should he then with his own hand cut it
off? No, on no account.

But no rescuing thought would occur to him, cudgel his brain as he
might. And torturing, self-abasing reflections crowded again into his
brain.

The thought of his servant, of poor Roese, curiously enough, was
uppermost. Had not Roese, dolt that he was, cunningly managed to
disappear from a scene which was, in a certain sense, as unbearable as
his master's at this juncture? And Roese by now was perhaps seated
comfortably in a quiet corner where nobody was looking for him, and
where it was possible to live without interference.

Could he himself, then, not do the same thing?

And this shadowy thought began to take solid form the more Borgert
dwelt on it. It seemed to him the only egress f