hear it."

Hartmut clung still closer to him and his voice assumed its sweetest
and most flattering tones, and the dark eyes were almost irresistible in
their look of entreaty, as he said beseechingly:

"Do not let me become a soldier, father. I do not like the profession
you have chosen for me, and I shall never learn to like it. If I have
until now, bowed to your will, it has been with repugnance and secret
hatred, for I have been wretchedly unhappy; but I have never dared until
now, to tell you of it."

The frown on Falkenried's brow deepened, and he unfolded his son's arms
from his neck.

"In other words you will not obey," he said in a bitter tone, "and for
you obedience is more necessary than anything else."

"I cannot endure force and compulsion," Hartmut broke out passionately.
"And the service is nothing else but force and slavery. Always and
eternally, obedience; never to have your own way, but ever, day after
day, to bow to an iron discipline. Always the same still, cold forms,
with your own feelings never allowed to come to the surface--I cannot
bear it longer! Everything within me strives for freedom, for light and
life. Let me leave it, father; do not confine me longer in such chains.
I shall die, I shall suffocate!"

He could not have chosen more ill-advised words with which to plead his
cause, to a man who was heart and soul a soldier. They sounded
passionate and bitter, yet his arm was still on his father's shoulder;
but the Major pushed him back now.

"I had thought the service an honor, and no slavery," he said cuttingly.
"It is pretty bad when my own son is the first one to bring it to my
notice. Freedom, light and life! Perhaps you think when one reaches his
seventeenth year he has acquired the right to plunge into life without
any further care or guidance. For you, freedom from restraint would
mean destruction."

"And if it did?" cried Hartmut, quite beside himself. "Rather
destruction with freedom, than longer life with such restraint. For me
the army means bondage and slavery--"

"Silence! Not a word more," ordered Falkenried, so threateningly that
the youth, in spite of his fearful passion, was awed. "You have now no
choice, and woe to you if you forget your duty. First you must become an
officer and do your duty as such to the full, like your comrades; then,
if you are still of the same mind and I have no power to prevent it, you
can leave, but if I am alive then, I will receive my