# Old-New Land/Book 1/Part 4

(page 16)
In the reply which Friedrich received to his letter to the N. O. Body of the newspaper advertisement, he was asked to call at a certain fashionable hotel on the Ringstrasse. He came at the hour appointed, and asked for Mr. Kingscourt. He was shown to a salon on the first floor. A tall, broad-shouldered man greeted him there.
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"Are you Dr. Loewenberg?" "
I" am."
"Have a chair, Dr. Loewenberg!"
They sat down. Friedrich observed the stranger closely, and waited for him to speak. Mr. Kingscourt was a man in the fifties. His full beard was streaked with gray, his thick brown hair interlaced with silver threads that already shimmered white at the temples. He puffed slowly at a thick cigar.
"Do you smoke, Dr. Loewenberg?" "Not now, thank you."
Mr. Kingscourt carefully blew a smoke ring into the air, and watched it attentively until the cloudy strands were dissipated. Only when the last traces had vanished, he asked, without looking at his visitor, "Why are you disgusted with life?"
"I give no information on that subject," replied Friedrich quietly.
Mr. Kingscourt now looked him full in the face, and nodded approvingly as he flicked the ash from his cigar. "You're right, Devil take it! It's none of my affair. And then, if we put this deal through, you'll tell me of your own accord some time. Meanwhile, I shall tell you who I am. My real name is Koenigshoff. I am a German nobleman. I was an officer in my youth, but the coat-of-mail fitted me too snugly. I can't bear another man's will over mine, be it the best in the world. Obedience was good for a few years. But after that I had to quit. Otherwise, I'd have exploded and caused damage I went to America, called myself Kingscourt, and made a fortune in twenty years of blood-sweating work. When I had come so far, I took a wife. ..What did you say, Dr. Loewenberg?"
"Nothing, Mr. Kingscourt."
"Very well. Are you unmarried?"
"I am. But I thought, Mr. Kingscourt, that you would tell me about this experiment you want to propose to me."
"I'll come to that in a moment. If we should arrange to be together, I shall tell you in detail how I worked my way up and made my millions. For I have millions... What did you say?"
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"Nothing, Mr. Kingscourt."
"Energy is everything, Dr. Loewenberg. That's what counts. Want a thing with all your might, and you're dead certain to get it. I never realized until I lived in America what a lazy, weak-kneed lot we Europeans are. Devil take me! In short, I was successful.
"But, by the time I had succeeded, I felt lonely. As it happened, a Koenigshoff, a son of my brother's who was in the guards, made a fool of himself. I had the boy come out to me-just at the time I was courting my wife. Yes, I wanted to establish a family, set up a hearth, seek out a wife upon whom I might hang jewels like any other parvenu. I yearned for children so that they might enjoy the fruits of my drudgery. I wanted to be damned clever, and so I married a poor girl. She was the daughter of one of my employees. I had shown her and her father much kindness. Of course she consented. I thought she loved me, but she was only grateful, or perhaps cowardly. She did not dare to refuse me. So we went housekeeping, and my nephew lived with us.
"You will say that was stupid-an old man between two young people who were bound to attract each other. I called myself an ass when I first found out. But, had it not been he, it would have been someone else. In brief, they betrayed me; from the first moment, I believe. My first move was for a revolver, but then I told myself that really I alone was the guilty one. I let them off. It is human to be base, and every opportunity is a panderer. Avoid human beings if you would not have them ruin you. I collapsed, you see. The thought crept into my mind to end the shabby comedy of my life with a bullet. But on thinking it over, I decided that there was always time to shoot oneself.
"To be sure, there was no point in heaping up more money. I had no more desire for gain, and of the dream of a family I had had enough. Only solitude remained as a last experiment. But it must be a vast, unheard-of solitude, where one would know nothing more of mankind of its wretched struggles, its uncleanness, its disloyalties. I wanted genuine, deep solitude without struggle or desire. A full, true return to Nature! Solitude is the paradise which humanity forfeited by its sins. But I have found it."
"Truly? Have you found it?" asked Friedrich, who still did not gather what the American was leading up to.
"Yes, I have found it. I settled my affairs, and ran away from everything and everyone. No one knew what had become of me. I built myself a comfortable yacht and vanished with it. I wandered about the seas for many months. It's a glorious life, you must know. Wouldn't you .like to try it? Or perhaps you are already familiar with it?"
"No, I am not familiar with that sort of life," replied Friedrich, "but I should like to try it."
"Well, then...Life on the yacht is freedom, but not real solitude. You must have a crew about you, you have to put into a harbor occasionally for coal. Then you come into contact with people once more, and that's a dirty business. But I know an island in the South Seas where one is really alone. It is a rocky little nest in Cook's Archipelago. I bought it, and had men come over from Raratonga to build me a comfortable home. It is so well hidden by the cliffs that it cannot be spied on any side from the sea. Besides, ships rarely come that way. My island still looks uninhabited. I live there with two servants, a dumb negro whom I had in America, and a Tahitan whom I pulled out of the water at Avarua harbor when he tried to drown himself over an unhappy love affair. Now I have come to Europe for a last visit to buy whatever I shall need for the rest of my life over there-books - apparatus for physics, and weapons. My Tahitan brings provisions from the nearest inhabited island. He and my negro go over every morning in an electric launch. Whatever else we need can be bought for money in Raratonga, just like anywhere else in the world....Understand?"
"Yes, Mr. Kingscourt... But I do not know why you are telling me all this."
"Why I am telling you all this? Because I want to take a companion back with me-so that I shall not unlearn human speech, and so that there may be someone by me to close my eyes when I die. Do you want to be that someone?"
Friedrich reflected for half a moment. Then he replied firmly, "Yes!"
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Kingscourt nodded his satisfaction, but added, "However, I must remind you that you are undertaking a lifelong obligation. At least, it must hold for the rest of my life. If you come with me now, there will be no going back. You must cut all your ties:'
"Nothing binds me," replied Friedrich. "I am all alone in the world, and have had enough of life."
"That's the kind of man I want, sir! You will actually leave this life if you go with me. You will know nothing more of the good or evil of this world. You will be dead to it, and it will have gone under-as far as you are concerned. Does that suit you?"
"It does."
"Then we shall get along very well together. I like your type." "But there is one thing I must tell you, Mr. Kingscourt.
I am a Jew. Does that make any difference?"
Kingscourt laughed. "I say! That's an amusing question. You are a man. I can see that. And you seem to be an educated man. You are disgusted with life. That shows your good taste. Everything else is frightfully unimportant where we are going....Well, then, shake hands on it." Friedrich shook the proffered hand vigorously.
"When can you be ready, Dr. Loewenberg?"
"At any time."
"Good. Say tomorrow. We go from here to Trieste, where my yacht is anchored....Perhaps you still wish to provide yourself with some things here?"
"I shouldn't know what to get. This is no pleasure trip, but a farewell to life:'
"Still, Dr. Loewenberg! You may need money for your purchases, Draw on me."
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"Thank you, I need nothing."
"Have you no debts?"
"I have nothing and owe nothing, my accounts are balanced,"
"Have you no friends or relatives to whom you wish to give something before you go?"
"None."
"So much the better. We're off tomorrow, then. ..But we might begin having our meals together today."
Kingscourt rang for a waiter, and gave his order briefly. An elaborate luncheon was served in Kingscoun's sitting room. The two men soon grew intimate as they talked over the meal. After Kingscourt had so quickly reposed confidence in him, Friedrich felt he ought to tell his own story. He did so briefly and clearly. When he had finished, the American remarked, "Now I believe that you will not leave me once I have you upon my island. Lovesickness, Weltschmerz suffering as a Jew-all that together is enough to make even a young man wish to have done with living. ...
"With living with people, I mean. Even if you bestow benefits upon them, they deceive you and make you suffer. The philanthropists are the greatest fools of all. Don't you think so, Dr. Loewenberg?"
"I think, Mr. Kingscourt, that there is pleasure in well-doing....That reminds me. You offered me money a moment ago if I cared to leave some behind me before I depart from this world, I know a family in the greatest straits. With your permission, I should like to help them,"
"It's nonsense, Dr. Loewenberg! But I cannot refuse you. I had intended giving you a sum of money to settle your affairs. Will five thousand gulden suffice?"
"Amply!" Friedrich assured him. "J should like to think that my farewell to life was not altogether aimless."