[h1]France[/h1] [h2]Thionville, Department Grand Est[/h2] The young Charles stood at the doorstep of Number Sixteen, Rue de la Paix clutching his hat in his hands. Broad and stocky he betrayed a severe athletic appearance. The bright summer sun fell across the wide shoulders of his long summer coat and across his crown of thick curly hair and ruddy, dark complexion, almost peasant like, as a field hand and not the son of a respected lawyer. His eyes, typically sharp were dulled by the fear and anxiety of what lay behind the door of Number Sixteen. He knew it very much. It was not hard to summon him back home. A stern letter of condemnation and a demand by the eighteen year old's father had lit under the boots of the young man the sense that there was an impending doom for him. Now the young bohemian, whose chin was graced with the first short carpet of a man's beard shuffled uncomfortably before the home of his father as the pedestrian traffic meandered by under the clear summer's day. The hooves of horses thumped dully off the packed clay streets as carriages of the promenading casual class passed by. All of them ignored him as they went on, though a few neighbors recognized the return of Charles Levi and greeted him warmly. He reciprocated their welcomes uncomfortably, with a stiff German “bonjour” before working up his confidence and stepping in through the door. Inside, the harsh brightness of a mid-summer's afternoon was dulled through the curtains of the respectable romantic home. Its high wallpapered walls, printed with wrapping and meandering floral patterns rose well above reach to the aging yellow plaster of the ceiling. Here and there a few oil lamps burned to cast better light for the dimming eyesight of Charle's father, Heinrich Levi who sat in a dark green high-backed armchair reading the papers. At the table besides him stacks of books pertaining to his law practice or his philosophical interests rested; Charles remarked quietly to himself that some of these would certainly have him arrested for sedition, Voltaire, Diderot, Kant, and the newly minted Comte. Walking carefully across the floor he approached his father, hat in hand and halfed bowed to him, making a sound in the back of his throat. Heinrich immediately dropped the paper, folding it and placing it in his lap in a swift movement of his hands. He looked like much the mirror of Charles, but aged. His face had widened and skin loosened. He wore a thick beard and the old man's hair had thinned and receded back across his face. A pair of wire-thin spectacles sat on his nose. He looked up coldly at his son in the cool blue light of high-noon and invited him to sit in a nearby chair. Charles took an immediate seat, holding his hat in his lap to fuss with the brim as he did, anxiously looking away from his father, only to immediately realize he was and to look at him. Half raising the paper to look at a article discussing the state of Charles X, and to announce a run of paper bans in Paris he asked distractedly, “How are your studies?” Charles fumbled, “They are...” he began. “I don't need you to lie.” Heinrich said, “How are your grades? Just say it.” “Well... They could be better.” “Oh yes, indeed. They well could be.” Charles sat quiet. Heinrich as well. Neither spoke and waited for the other to speak. Charles for his part not wanting to indict himself. His father waiting for him to make an admission. But at last it needed to be said and in a low booming voice Heinrich said, “I am preparing to send Louis to school and I hope he will not develop the same problems in society as you have done. He is already, compared to you a far better pupil in the public schools. I am complimented daily on the quality of his studiousness. Even the rabbi complements him when Henriette takes him in, he knows Yiddish well. Charles, do you remember even a speck of it?” [i]”Zhiker”[/i] Charles responded, naturally “Henriette has already a fine husband waiting back in the old town, back in Trier. A fine young man of your age, just a little older, studies well in Bonn. And what do I have? What do I have but a son who spends his time drinking in Metz when he should be studying! You started so well, but I get monthly concerns from the professors, 'my dear Monsieur Levi, you detect in your son an untapped brilliance and capability, but daily he fails to meet those expectations and can not keep pace. We fear it is the drink.” he exclaimed, holding his hands up to the heavens as if to beseech God. “Do you have anything to say for yourself? To defend yourself here?” Charles sat defenseless, his eyes downcast and away from his father. He continued, “I spend on you up to eight hundred francs a month on your education, room, board, tuition, your general living expenses. At the whole I imagine the wealthiest of the department don't spend more than five hundred francs a month on their children when they send them off. At the rate you spend, in this state of the economy, you alone will fast bankrupt us. If you have nothing to say for yourself I do not believe there is any way I can save you here in Metz. Before you send the family into ruin on your drunken escapades in the city a change of life has to be made. I am forced to consider you for the army, or to seek another option.” Charles' attention was gripped by this, “Please, not the army!” he begged. “I figured as much” Heinrich said “I don't know if there is any way I can say it that has your confidence,” Charles finally began, “But I enjoy my studies greatly. I enjoy the academy, the fulfillment of the education and the lively academia. I do wish to graduate and to make something of myself in the future. In the army I would just be a no body, I would go from one grueling deployment in Algeria to another being the whipping boy of the noble above me. And were I to win a career there, how am I to rise any further than a simple petty officer when the nobility now has such a monopoly on the upper ranks? I will not be able to rise and do right by you and your honor as a father's son. I implore you to consider an alternative than to surrender me to the army.” “Yes, but the army at the least will feed and board you and clothe you. It is in their ability to do that for all the soldiers. And perhaps you might make a sound artillery officer or a good square infantryman there. A sure place for you. Why not?” “Because is the goal to not make me a partner of yours in the office?” “Hardly a thing that will happen if you are to study poetry!” Heinrich scoffed, “At the least study numbers and do accounting if not to study law, as I demand of you. But on into your second year and it's still all poetry and fiction. Are you not better than that?” “I am better than that!” Charles pleaded. Heinrich scoffed, leaning back in his chair. In the corner a sound could be heard, the bending of a floor board. Charles glanced over to see his moth, tall and blonde like a proper Dutch woman, but her face homely a gray, as a Hebrew wife. She smiled patiently at him as she dried her hands in her apron but said nothing of the conversation. “Then how many chances does a father need to extend to his son?” Charles was hit with a profound and existential demand of him. In a flash he recognized in the tone alone that the wrong answer would end this exchange in the worst way for him, to be cut off from his father's allowance and shutter his academic career, “One more, may I have one more?” he pleaded. Heinrich chewed on his tongue as he thought it over. And then nodded sagely and relaxed in his chair. “I thought as much.” he said, rising somewhat off the cushion as he reached behind him. He produced a crumpled envelope and passed it to his son. Charles took it, and looked down at it curiously, hesitantly holding a hand up as his hat dropped to the floor before stopping thinking he should not open it here and yet. “No, no. Open it.” Heinrich invited, Charles did so and produced a sheet of paper. “Since last winter I corresponded with friends of ours in Germany and Prussia and managed to secure a position for you to continue your studies in Berlin. It is clear that Metz is so far too liberal for you, as I feared Paris would be; let alone expensive. It took a lot of patient negotiation and planning. But on your behalf I enrolled you in the study of law there. I am hoping that under the watchful eye of the Prussians you will find some discipline within you to do your father proud. Afterwards, you can return and apprentice under me and you may take the bar. This is a longer gambit, but one that I pensively hope you can do.” Charles looked up, [i]”Berlin, wirklick?”[/i] [i]”Ja, es ist weit weg. Aber ich bin sicher, dass du es akzeptabel findest – dass ich es akzeptable finde.”[/i] “But, would it be incompatible?” Charles asked, in French. “Napoleon saw to it that it wouldn't. That I am sure of. The House of Hohenzollern certainly would not be able to do that no matter how much they try. I ask only you limit your drinking. I will only be supplying you an appropriate stipend of 400 francs a month this time, I will not answer any requests for more money. If you need more money, I fully expect you to find a way to make it yourself. Please, do not embarrass me. I have my good name on this adventure, do not let it destroy the family.” Charles was joyous at the prospect. Or rather he thought he should. But also the idea of going to Prussia for this filled him with a sense of dread and emptiness. It would have been much more liberating to go to Paris and partake in all the activity there. But Berlin? It was a backwater city in comparison he felt, what could he find there that would keep him busy in his idleness. But perhaps that was part of the plan, he imagined. Never the less, he swallowed his pride. “I see your point, I have no reason to reject it. To Berlin I will go.” Heinrich smiled, his face filled with relief, and the otherwise dour darkness that had filled his expression faded and with it the entire room itself seemed to go brighter, “My child you do a father proud. Perhaps if you turn out well I will have to send the rest of my children to Berlin.” he said with a laugh. Turning to his wife who had stayed lingering in the corner, in the threshold to the kitchen and the living room he asked, “Do we have anything to eat? I believe at the least we should celebrate the wisdom of the folly of youth?” “I can see what we have.” she said in her thick Dutch accent, she had never fully rid herself of it, and at times would have to communicate in Yiddish to simply get through to her husband and children. “Excellent.” Heinrich proclaimed, standing. Suddenly he stopped and remembered something, “You'll have to rent a carriage, I've arranged this already,” he said absent mindedly as he turned to his side-table to look for something, “Which means you will have plenty of time.” He pulled a book from the stack, the small volume of Comte, “Have you read this?” he asked. “No.” Charles said “Then you will have time.” he said with a smile, “Just make sure it's hidden, of course. The Prussian police I imagine won't be sentimental to this sort of writing. If they know at least enough French. I am impartial, but he has only just begun printing on the secret presses. Hard to find, unless you know where to look. The King's ministers like to suppress this sort of work. So of course never take it to Paris. But you should be fine in Berlin.” Charles Levi flipped through the pages and absently played with the book, “I don't know if I should give you my old legal notes at all, if those will help. I so do want to help on this renewed lease on life. They are so hard to come by.”