He was still captain, master of his company. He would show those writers.

That night he did not go to the officers’ mess; he didn’t even eat, he went to bed. His sleep was heavy and dreamless. The next morning, at the officers’ roll call, he submitted his complaint, terse and sonorous, to the colonel. It was passed on. And now began the martyrdom of Captain Joseph Trotta von Sipolje, the Knight of Truth. It took weeks for the Ministry of War to notify him that his complaint had been forwarded to the Ministry of Religion, Culture, and Education. And more weeks dragged by until one day the minister’s answer arrived. It read:

Your Lordship,

Dear Captain Trotta,

In reply to Your Lordship’s complaint regarding Text No. 15 in the authorized readers written and edited by Professors Weidner and Srdcny for Austrian elementary and secondary schools in accordance with the Law of 21 July 1864, the Minister of Religion, Culture, and Education most respectfully takes the liberty of calling Your Lordship’s attention to the circumstance that, in accordance with the Edict of 21 March 1840, the primer selections of historic significance, in particular those relating to the august person of His Majesty Emperor Franz Joseph as well as other members of the Supreme Imperial House, are to be adjusted to the intellectual capacities of the pupils and kept consistent with the best possible pedagogic goals. The text in question, No. 15, as mentioned in Your Lordship’s complaint, was submitted personally to His Excellency the Minister of Religion, Culture, and Education, who approved the use thereof in the school system. It was the intention of the higher educational authorities and no less that of the lower educational authorities to introduce the pupils in the Monarchy to the heroic deeds performed by members of the Armed Forces and to depict them in accordance with the juvenile character, imagination, and patriotic sentiments of the developing generation without altering the veracity of the events portrayed, but also without rendering them in a dry tone devoid of any spur to the imagination and any patriotic sentiments. In consequence of the above and similar considerations, the undersigned most respectfully begs Your Lordship to be so good as to withdraw his complaint.

This document was signed by the Minister of Religion, Culture, and Education. The colonel handed it to Captain Trotta with the fatherly words, “Let it be!”

Trotta took it and remained silent. One week later, through official channels, he petitioned for an audience with His Majesty, and one morning three weeks later he stood in the palace, face-to-face with the Supreme Commander in Chief.

“Listen, my dear Trotta!” said the Kaiser. “The whole business is rather awkward. But neither of us comes off all that badly. Let it be!”

“Your Majesty,” replied the captain, “it’s a lie!”

“People tell a lot of lies,” the Kaiser confirmed.

“I can’t, Your Majesty,” the captain choked forth.

The Kaiser inched closer to the captain. The monarch was scarcely taller than Trotta. They locked eyes.

“My ministers,” Franz Joseph began, “must know what they’re doing. I have to rely on them. Do you catch my drift, my dear Trotta?” And after a while. “We’ll do something. You’ll see!”

The audience was over.

His father was still alive. But Trotta did not go to Laxenburg. He returned to the garrison and requested his discharge from the army.

He was discharged as a major. He moved to Bohemia, to his father-in-law’s small estate. Imperial favor did not abandon him. A few weeks later, he was notified that the Kaiser had seen fit to contribute five thousand guldens from the privy purse to the education of the son of the man who had saved his life.