# The Patrioteer/Chapter 1

THE PATRIOTEER
I
Diederich Hessling was a dreamy, delicate child, frightened of everything, and troubled with constant earache. In winter he hated to leave the warm room, and in summer the narrow garden, which smelt of rags from the paper factory, and whose laburnum and elder-trees were overshadowed by the wooden roofs of the old houses. Diederich was often terribly afraid when he raised his eyes from his story book, his beloved fairy tales. A toad half as big as himself had been plainly sitting on the seat beside him! Or over there against the wall a gnome, sunk to his waist in the ground, was staring at him! His father was even more terrible than the gnome and the toad, and moreover he was compelled to love him. Diederich did love him. Whenever he had pilfered, or told a lie, he would come cringing shyly like a dog to his father's desk, until Herr Hessling noticed that something was wrong and took his stick from the wall. Diederich's submissiveness and confidence were shaken by doubts so long as any misdeed remained undiscovered. Once when his father, who had a stiff leg, fell downstairs the boy clapped his hands madly—and then ran away at full speed.
The workmen used to laugh when he passed the workshops after having been punished, crying loudly, his face swollen with tears. Then Diederich would stamp his feet and put out his tongue at them. He would say to himself: "I have got a beating, but from my papa. You would be glad to be beaten by him, but you are not good enough for that."
He moved amongst the men like a capricious potentate. ​Sometimes he would threaten to tell his father that they were bringing in beer, and at others he would coquettishly allow them to wheedle out of him the hour when Herr Hessling was expected to return. They were on their guard against the boss; he knew them, for he had been a workman himself. He had been a vat-man in the old mills where every sheet of paper was made by hand. During that time he had served in all the wars, and after the last one, when everybody made money, he was able to buy a paper machine. His plant consisted of one cylinder machine and one cutter. He himself counted the sheets. He kept his eye on the buttons which were taken from the rags. His little son often used to accept a few from the women, on condition that he did not tell on those who took some away with them. One day he had collected so many that he got the idea of exchanging them with the grocer for sweets. He succeeded—but in the evening Diederich knelt in his bed and, as he swallowed the last piece of barley sugar, he prayed to Almighty God to leave the crime undetected. He nevertheless allowed it to leak out. His father had always used the stick methodically, his weather-beaten face reflecting an old soldier's sense of honour and duty. This time his hand trembled and a tear rolled down, trickling over the wrinkles, onto one side of his grey upturned moustache. "My son is a thief," he said breathlessly, in a hushed voice, and he stared at the child as if he were a suspicious intruder. "You lie and you steal. All you have to do now is to commit a murder."
Frau Hessling tried to compel Diederich to fall on his knees before his father and beg his pardon, because his father had wept on his account. Diederich's instinct, however, warned him that this would only have made his father more angry. Hessling had no sympathy whatever with his wife's sentimental manner. She was spoiling the child for life. Besides he had caught her lying just like little Diederich. No wonder, for she read novels! By Saturday night her week's work was often not completed. She gossiped with the servant instead of ​exerting herself. … And even then Hessling did not know that his wife also pilfered, just like the child. At table she did not dare to eat enough and she crept surreptitiously to the cupboard. Had she dared to go into the workshop she would also have stolen buttons.
She prayed with the child "from the heart," and not according to the prescribed forms, and that always brought a flush to her face. She used to beat him also and gave him thorough thrashings, consumed with a desire for revenge. On such occasions she was frequently in the wrong, and then Diederich threatened to complain to his father. He would pretend to go into the office and, hiding somewhere behind a wall, would rejoice at her terror. He exploited his mother's tender moods, but felt no respect for her. Her resemblance to himself made that impossible, for he had no self-respect. The consequence was that he went through life with a conscience too uneasy to withstand the scrutiny of God.
Nevertheless mother and son spent twilight hours over flowing with sentiment. From festive occasions they jointly extracted the last drop of emotion by means of singing, piano-playing and story-telling. When Diederich began to have doubts about the Christ Child he let his mother persuade him to go on believing a little while longer, and thereby he felt relieved, faithful and good. He also believed obstinately in a ghost up in the Castle, and his father, who would not hear of such a thing, seemed too proud, and almost deserving of punishment. His mother nourished him with fairy tales. She shared with him her fear of the new, animated streets, and of the tramway which crossed them and took him past the city wall towards the Castle, where they enjoyed delightful thrills. At the corner of Meisestrasse you had to pass a policeman, who could take you off to prison if he liked. Diederich's heart beat nervously. How gladly he would have made a détour! But then the policeman would have noticed his uneasy conscience and have seized him. It was much better to prove that ​one felt pure and innocent—so with trembling voice Diederich asked the policeman the time.
After so many fearful powers, to which he was subjected; his father, God, the ghost of the Castle and the police; after the chimney-sweep, who could slip him right up through the flue until he, too, was quite black, and the doctor, who could paint his throat and shake him when he cried—after all these powers, Diederich now fell under the sway of one even more terrible, which swallowed you up completely—the school. Diederich went there howling, and because he wanted to howl he could not give even the answers which he knew. Gradually he learnt how to exploit this tendency to cry whenever he had not learnt his lessons, for all his fears did not make him more industrious or less dreamy. And thus, until the teachers saw through the trick, he was able to avoid many of the evil consequences of his idleness. The first teacher who saw through it, at once earned his wholehearted respect. He suddenly stopped crying and gazed at him over the arm which he was holding bent in front of his face, full of timid devotion. He was always obedient and docile with the strict teachers. On the good-natured ones he played little tricks, which could with difficulty be proved against him and about which he did not boast. With much greater satisfaction he bragged of getting bad marks and great punishments. At table he would say: "To-day Herr Behnke flogged three of us again." And to the question: Whom? "I was one of them."
Diederich was so constituted that he was delighted to be long to an impersonal entity, to this immovable, inhumanly indifferent, mechanical organisation which was the college. He was proud of this power, this grim power, which he felt, is only through suffering. On the headmaster's birthday flowers were placed on the desk and the blackboard. Diederich actually decorated the cane.
In the course of the years two catastrophes, which befell the all-powerful, filled him with a holy and wonderful horror. An ​assistant master was called down in front of the class by the principal and dismissed. A senior master became insane. On these occasions still higher powers, the principal and the lunatic asylum, made fearful havoc of those who had hitherto wielded so much power. From beneath, insignificant but unharmed, one could raise one's eyes to these victims, and draw from their fate a lesson which rendered one's own lot more easy. In relation to his younger sisters Diederich replaced the power which held him in its mechanism. He made them take dictation, and deliberately make more mistakes than they naturally would, so that he could make furious corrections with red ink, and administer punishment. His punishments were cruel. The little ones cried—and then Diederich had to humble himself in order that they should not betray him.
He had no need of human beings in order to imitate the powers that be. Animals, and even inanimate objects, were sufficient. He would stand at the rail of the paper-making machine and watch the cylinder sorting out the rags. "So that one is gone! Look out, now, you blackguards!" Diederich would mutter, and his pale eyes glared. Suddenly he stepped back, almost falling into the tub of chlorine. A workman's footsteps had interrupted his vicious enjoyment.
Only when he himself received the punishment did he feel really big and sure of his position. He hardly ever resisted evil. At most he would beg a comrade: "Don't hit me on the back, that's dangerous." It was not that he was lacking in any sense of his rights and any love of his own advantage. But Diederich held that the blows which he received brought no practical profit to the striker and no real loss to himself. These purely ideal values seemed to him far less serious than the cream puff which the head waiter at the Netziger Hof had long since promised him, but had never produced. Many times Diederich wended his way, with earnest gait, up Meisestrasse to the market place, and called upon his swallow-tailed friend to deliver the goods. One day, however, when the ​waiter denied all knowledge of his promise, Diederich declared, as he stamped his foot in genuine indignation: "This is really too much of a good thing. If you don't give me it immediately, I'll report you to the boss!" Thereupon George laughed and brought him the cream puff.
That was a tangible success. Unfortunately Diederich could enjoy it only in haste and fear, for he was afraid that Wolfgang Buck, who was waiting outside, would come in on him and demand the share which had been promised to him. Meanwhile he found time to wipe his mouth clean, and at the door he broke out into violent abuse of George, whom he called a swindler who had no cream puffs at all. Diederich's sense of justice, which had just manifested itself so effectively to his own advantage, did not respond to the claims of his friend, who could not, at the same time, be altogether ignored. Wolfgang's father was much too important a personage for that. Old Herr Buck did not wear a stiff collar, but a white silk neckcloth, on which his great curly white beard rested. How slowly and majestically he tapped the pavement with his goldtopped walking-stick! He wore a silk hat, too, and the tails of his dress coat often peeped out under his overcoat, even in the middle of the day! For he went to public meetings, and looked after the affairs of the whole city. Looking at the bathing establishment, the prison and all the public institutions, Diederich used to think: "That belongs to Herr Buck." He must be tremendously wealthy and powerful. All the men, including Herr Hessling, took off their hats most respectfully to him. To deprive his son of something by force was a deed whose dangerous consequences could not be foretold. In order not to be utterly crushed by the mighty powers, whom he so profoundly respected, Diederich had to go quietly and craftily to work.
Only once did it happen, when he was in the Lower Third form, that Diederich forgot all prudence, acted blindly and be came himself an oppressor, drunk with victory. As was the ​usual and approved custom, he had bullied the only Jew in his class, but then he proceeded to an unfamiliar manifestation. Out of the blocks which were used for drawing he built a cross on the desk and forced the Jew onto his knees before it. He held him tight, in spite of his resistance; he was strong! What made Diederich strong was the applause of the bystanders, the crowd whose arms helped him, the overwhelming majority within the building and in the world outside. He was acting on behalf of the whole Christian community of Netzig. How splendid it was to share responsibility, and to feel the sensation of collective consciousness.
For the most part he had no personal feeling against the pupils whose advancement was checked by his activities. He acted as the conscientious instrument of dire necessity. Afterwards he could go to the culprit and quite honestly sympathise with him. Once he was instrumental in catching some one who had been suspected of copying. With the knowledge of the teacher, Diederich gave him a mathematical problem, the working out of which was deliberately wrong, while the final result was correct. That evening, after the cheater had been exposed, some of the students were sitting in the garden of a restaurant outside the gate singing, as they were allowed to do after gymnasium. Diederich had taken a seat beside his victim. Once, when they had emptied their glasses he slipped his right hand into that of his companion, gazed trustfully into his eyes, and began all alone to sing in a bass voice that quivered with emotion:
"Ich hatt' einen Kameraden, Einen bessern findst du nit.…"
For the rest, with increasing school experience he could make a good show in most subjects, without going beyond what was required of him in any one, or learning anything in the world which was not prescribed in the programme. German composition was his most difficult subject, and any one who excelled at it inspired him with an inexplicable mistrust.
Since he had been promoted to the highest class his matriculation was certain, and his father and teachers felt that he ought to continue his studies. Old Hessling, having marched through the Brandenburger Tor in 1866 and 1871, decided to send Diederich to Berlin.
As he did not care to venture far from the neighbourhood of Friederichstrasse he rented a room up in Tieckstrasse, so that he had only to walk straight down and could not miss the University. As he had nothing else to do, he went there twice a day, and in the intervals he often wept from homesickness. ​He wrote a letter to his father and mother thanking them for his happy childhood. He seldom went out unless he had to. He scarcely dared to eat; he was afraid to spend his money before the end of the month, and he would constantly feel his pocket to see if it was still there.
Lonely as he felt, he still did not go to Blücherstrasse with his father's letter to Herr Göppel, the cellulose manufacturer, who came from Netzig and also did business with Hessling. He overcame his shyness on the fourth Sunday, and hardly had the stout red-faced man, whom he had so often seen in his father's office, waddled up to meet him than Diederich wondered why he had not come sooner. Herr Göppel immediately asked after everybody in Netzig, but especially old Buck. Although his beard was now grey he still respected old Buck as he had done when he was a boy like Diederich, only it was for different reasons. He took off his hat to such a man, one of those whom the German people should esteem more highly than certain persons whose favourite remedy was blood and iron, for which the nation had to pay so dearly. Old Buck was a Forty. Eighter, and had actually been condemned to death. "It is to such people as old Buck," said Herr Göppel, "that we owe the privilege of sitting here as free men." And, as he opened another bottle of beer: "nowadays we are expected to let ourselves be trampled on with jackboots.…"
Herr Göppel confessed himself a liberal opponent of Bismarck's. Diederich agreed with everything that Göppel said: he had no opinion to offer about the Chancellor, the young Emperor and freedom. Then he became uncomfortable, for a young girl had come into the room, and at the first glance her elegance and beauty frightened him.
"My daughter Agnes," said Herr Göppel.
A lanky youth, in his flowing frock-coat, Diederich stood there, blushing furiously. The girl gave him her hand. No doubt she wanted to be polite, but what could one say to her? Diederich said yes, when she asked him if he liked Berlin; and ​when she asked if he had been to the theatre yet, he said no. He was perspiring with nervousness, and was firmly convinced that his departure was the only thing which would really interest the young lady. But how could he get out of the place. Fortunately a third party stepped into the breach, a burly creature named Mahlmann, who spoke with a loud Mecklenburg accent, seemed to be a student of engineering and to be a lodged at Göppel's. He reminded Fräulein Agnes of a walk they had arranged to take. Diederich was invited to accompany then. In dismay he pleaded the excuse of an acquaintance who was waiting for him outside and went off at once. "Thank God," he thought, "she has some one," but the thought hurt him.
Herr Göppel opened the door for him in the dark hall and asked if his friend was also new to Berlin. Diederich lied, saying his friend was from Berlin. "For if neither of you know the city you will take the wrong bus. No doubt you have often lost yourself already in Berlin." When Diederich admitted it, Herr Göppel seemed satisfied. "Here it is not like in Netzig; you can walk about for half a day. Just fancy when you come from Tieckstrasse here to the Halle Gate you have walked as far as three times through the whole of Netzig. … Well now, next Sunday you must come to lunch."
Diederich promised to go. When the time came he would have preferred not to, he went only out of fear of his father. This time he had to undergo a tête-à-tête with the young lady. Diederich behaved as if absorbed in his own affairs and under no obligation to entertain her. She began again to speak about the theatre, but he interrupted her gruffly, saying he had no time for such things. Oh yes, her father had told her that Herr Hessling was studying chemistry.
"Yes. As a matter of fact that is the only science which can justify its existence," Diederich asserted, without exactly knowing what put that idea into his head.
Fräulein Göppel let her bag fall, but he stooped so reluctantly that she had picked it up before he could get to it. In ​spite of that, she thanked him softly and almost shyly. Diederich was annoyed. "These coquettish women are horrible," he reflected. She was looking for something in her bag.
"Now I have lost it—I mean my sticking-plaster. It is bleeding again."
She unwound her handkerchief from her finger. It looked so much like snow that Diederich thought that the blood on it would sink in.
"I have some plaster," he said with a bow.
He seized her finger, and before she could wipe off the blood, he licked it.
"What on earth are you doing?"
He himself was startled, and wrinkling his brow solemnly he said: "Oh, as a chemist I have to do worse things than that."
She smiled. "Oh yes, of course, you are a sort of doctor. … How well you do it," she remarked as she watched him sticking on the plaster.
"There," he said, pushing her hand away and moving back. The air seemed to have become close and he thought: "If it were only possible to avoid touching her skin. It is so disgustingly soft." Agnes stared over his head. After a time she tried again: "Haven't we got common relations in Netzig?" She compelled him to go over a few families with her and they discovered a cousin.
"Your mother is still living, isn't she? You should be glad of that. Mine is long since dead. I don't suppose I shall live long either. One has premonitions"—and she smiled sadly and apologetically.
Silently Diederich resolved that this sentimentality was ridiculous. Another long interval, and as they both hastened to speak, the gentleman from Mecklenburg arrived. He squeezed Diederich's hand so hard that the latter winced, and at the same time he looked into his face with a smile of triumph. He drew a chair unconcernedly close to Agnes's knee, and with an air of proprietorship began talking animatedly ​about all sorts of things which concerned only the two of them. Diederich was left to himself and he discovered that Agnes was not so terrible, when he could contemplate her undisturbed. She wasn't really pretty; her aquiline nose was too small, and freckles were plainly visible on its narrow bridge. Her light brown eyes were too close together, and they blinked when she looked at any one. Her lips were too thin, as indeed her whole face was. "If she had not that mass of reddish brown hair over her forehead and that white complexion. …" He noted, too, with satisfaction that the nail of the finger which he had licked was not quite clean.
Herr Göppel came in with his three sisters, one of whom was accompanied by her husband and children. Her father and her aunts threw their arms round Agnes and kissed her fervently, but with solemn composure. The girl was taller and slimmer than any of them, and as they hung about her narrow shoulders she looked down on them with an air of distraction. The only kiss which she returned, slowly and seriously, was her father's. As Diederich watched this he could see in the bright sunlight the pale blue veins in her temples overshadowed by auburn hair.
It fell to him to take one of the aunts into the dining-room. The man from Mecklenburg had taken Agnes's arm. The silk Sunday dresses rustled round the family table, while the gentlemen took precautions not to crush the tails of their frock-coats. While the gentlemen rubbed their hands in anticipation and cleared their throats, the soup was brought in.
Diederich sat at some distance from Agnes, and he could not see her unless he bent forward—which he carefully refrained from doing. As his neighbour left him in peace, he ate vast quantities of roast veal and cauliflower. The food was the subject of detailed conversation and he was called upon to testify to its excellence. Agnes was warned not to eat the salad, she was advised to take a little red wine, and she was requested to state whether she had worn her goloshes that morning. ​Turning to Diederich Herr Göppel related how he and his sisters somehow or other had got separated in Friederichstrasse, and had not found one another until they were in the bus. "That's the sort of thing that would never happen in Netzig," he cried triumphantly to the whole table. Mahlmann and Agnes spoke of a concert to which they said they must go, and they were sure papa would let them. Herr Göppel mildly objected and the aunts supported him in chorus. Agnes should go to bed early and soon go for a change of air; she had overexerted herself in the winter. She denied it. "You never let me go outside the door. You are terrible."
Diederich secretly took her part. He was swept by a wave of chivalry: He would have liked to make it possible for her to do everything she wished, to be happy and to owe her happiness to him. … Then Herr Göppel asked him if he would like to go to the concert. "I don't know," he said indifferently, looking at Agnes who leaned forward. "What sort of a concert is it? I go only to concerts where I can get beer."
"Quite right," said Herr Göppel's brother-in-law.
Agnes had shrunk back, and Diederich regretted his statement.
They were all looking forward to the custard but it did not come. Herr Göppel advised his daughter just to have a look. Before she could push away her plate Diederich had jumped up, hurling his chair against the wall, and rushed to the door. "Mary! the custard!" he bawled. Blushing, and without daring to look any one in the face, he returned to his seat, but he saw only too clearly how they smiled at one another. Mahlmann actually snorted contemptuously. With forced heartiness the brother-in-law said: "Always polite; as a gentleman should be." Herr Göppel smiled affectionately at Agnes, who did not raise her eyes from her plate. Diederich pressed his knees against the leaf of the table until it shook. He thought: "My God, my God, if only I hadn't done that!"
When they wished each other "gesegnete Mahlzeit" he shook ​hands with everybody except Agnes, to whom he bowed awkwardly. In the drawing-room at coffee he carefully chose a seat where he was screened by Mahlmann's broad back. One of the aunts tried to take possession of him.
"What are you studying, may I ask, young man?" she said.
"Chemistry."
"Oh, I see, physics?"
"No, chemistry."
"Oh, I see."
Auspiciously as she had begun, she could not get any further. To himself Diederich described her as a silly goose. The whole company was impossible. In moody hostility he looked on until the last relative had departed. Agnes and her father had seen them out, and Herr Göppel returned to the room and found the young man, to his astonishment, still sitting there alone. He maintained a puzzled silence and once dived his hand into his pocket. When Diederich said goodbye of his own accord, without trying to borrow money, Göppel displayed the utmost amiability. "I'll say good-bye to my daughter for you," said he, and when they got to the door he added, after a certain hesitation: "Come again next Sunday, won't you?"
Diederich absolutely determined never to put his foot in the house again. Nevertheless, he neglected everything for days afterwards to search the town for a place where he could buy Agnes a ticket for the concert. He had to find out beforehand from the posters the name of the virtuoso whom Agnes had mentioned. Was that he? hadn't the name sounded something like that? Diederich decided, but he opened his eyes in horror when he discovered that it cost four marks fifty. All that good money to hear a man make music! Once he had paid and got out into the street, he became indignant at the swindle. Then he recollected that it was all for Agnes and his indignation subsided. He went on his way through the crowd feeling more ​and more mellow and happy. It was the first time he had ever spent money on another human being.
He put the ticket in an envelope, without any covering message, and, in order not to give himself away, he inscribed the address in the best copper-plate style. While he was standing at the letter-box Mahlmann came up and laughed derisively. Diederich felt that he was discovered and looked earnestly at the hand which he had just withdrawn from the box. But Mahlmann merely announced his intention of having a look at Diederich's quarters. He found that the place looked as if it belonged to an elderly lady. Diederich had actually brought the coffee pot from home! Diederich was hot with shame. When Mahlmann contemptuously opened and shut his chemistry books Diederich was ashamed of the subject he was studying. The man from Mecklenburg plumped down on the sofa and asked: "What do you think of the little Göppel girl? Nice kid, isn't she? Oh, look at him blushing again! Why don't you go after her? I am willing to retire, if it is any satisfaction to you, I have fifteen other strings to my bow."
Diederich made a gesture of indifference:
"I tell you she is worth while, if I am any judge of women. That red hair!—and did you ever notice how she looks at you when she thinks you can't see her?"
"Not at me," said Diederich even more indifferently. "I don't care a damn about it anyhow."
"So much the worse for you!" Mahlmann laughed boisterously. Then he proposed that they should take a stroll, which degenerated into a round of the bars. By the time the street lamps were lit they were both drunk. Later on, in Leipzigerstrasse without any provocation, Mahlmann gave Diederich a tremendous box on the ear. "Oh," he said, "you have an infernal ———." He was afraid to say "cheek." "All right, old chap, amongst friends, no harm meant," cried the Mecklenburger, clapping him on the shoulder. And finally he touched ​Diederich for his last ten marks. … Four days later he found him, weak from hunger, and magnanimously shared with him three marks from what he had meanwhile borrowed elsewhere. On Sunday at Göppel's—where Diederich would perhaps not have gone if his stomach had not been so empty—Mahlmann explained that Hessling had squandered all his money and would have to eat his fill that day. Herr Göppel and his brother-in-law laughed knowingly, but Deiderich would rather never have been born than meet the sad, inquiring eyes of Agnes. She despised him. In desperation he consoled himself with the thought: "She always did. What does it matter?" Then she asked if it was he who had sent the concert ticket. Every one turned to look at him.
What was he to do against the masterly manner in which Mahlmann accepted his loans? On Sunday the Mecklenburger had brought a bouquet for Agnes, though Diederich, who came with empty hands, might have said: "That is really from me." Instead of that he was silent, and was more incensed against Agnes than against Mahlmann. The latter commanded his admiration when he ran at night after some passer-by and knocked in his hat—although Diederich was by no means blind to the warning which this procedure contained for himself.
At the end of the month he received for his birthday an unexpected sum of money which his mother had saved up for him, and he arrived at Göppel's with a bouquet, not so large as to give himself away, or to challenge Mahlmann. As she took it the girl's face wore an embarrassed expression, and Diederich's smile was both shy and condescending. That Sunday seemed to him unusually gay and the proposal that they should go to the Zoological Gardens did not surprise him.
Diederich became the complete city man for the benefit of the ladies. He captured several seats for them in the tram. One gentleman was on the point of taking the seat when Diederich prevented him by stamping heavily on his foot. "Clumsy fool!" he cried and Diederich answered in appropriate terms. Then it turned out that Herr Göppel knew him, and scarcely had they been introduced when both exhibited the most courtly manners. Neither would sit down lest the other should have to stand.
When they sat down at table in the Zoological Gardens Diederich succeeded in getting beside Agnes—why was everything going so well to-day?—and when she proposed to go and look at the animals immediately after they had had their coffee, he enthusiastically seconded the proposal. He felt wonderfully enterprising. The ladies turned back at the narrow passage between the cages of the wild animals. Diederich offered to accompany Agnes. "Then you'd better take me with you," said Mahlmann. "If a bar really did break—"
"Then it would not be you who would put it back into its place," retorted Agnes, as she entered, while Mahlmann burst out laughing. Diederich went after her. He was afraid of the animals who bounded towards him on both sides, without a sound but the noise of their breathing which he felt upon him. And he was afraid of the young girl whose perfume drew him on. When they had gone some distance she turned round and said, "I hate people who boast."
"Really?" Diederich asked, joyfully moved.
"You are actually nice to-day," said Agnes; and he: "I always want to be nice."
"Really?"—and her voice trembled slightly. They looked at one another, each with an expression suggesting that they had not deserved all this. The girl said complainingly:
Mahlmann greeted them. "I was curious to see if you were going to give us the slip." Then he took Diederich aside. "Well, how did you find her? Did you get on all right? Didn't I tell you that no great arts are required?"
Diederich made no reply.
"I suppose you made a good beginning? Now let me tell you this: I shall be only two more terms in Berlin, then you can take her on after I am gone, but meanwhile, hands off—my little friend!" As he said this, his small head looked malicious on his immense body.
Diederich was dismissed. He had received a terrible fright and did not again venture in Agnes's neighbourhood. She did not pay much attention to Mahlmann, but shouted over her shoulder: "Father! it is beautiful to-day and I really feel well."
Herr Göppel took her arm between his two hands, as if he were going to squeeze it tight, but he scarcely touched it. His colourless eyes laughed and filled with tears. When the family had taken its departure, he called his daughter and the two young men, and declared that this was a day which must be celebrated; they would go along down Unter den Linden and afterwards get something to eat.
"Father is getting frivolous!" cried Agnes looking at Diederich. But he kept his eyes fixed on the ground. In the tram he was so clumsy that he got separated far from the others, and in the crowd in Friederichstrasse he walked behind alone with Herr Göppel. Suddenly Göppel stopped, fumbled nervously at his waistcoat and asked "Where is my watch?"
It had disappeared along with the chain. Mahlmann said: "How long have you been in Berlin, Herr Göppel?"
"Ah, yes,"—Göppel turned to Diederich,—"I have been living here for thirty years, but such a thing has never happened to me before." Then, with a certain pride: "such a thing couldn't happen in Netzig at all!"
Now, instead of going to a restaurant, they had to go to ​the police station and lodge a complaint. Agnes began to cough, and Göppel gave a start. "It would make us too tired after this," he murmured. With forced good humour he said good-bye to Diederich, who ignored Agnes's hand, and lifted his hat awkwardly. Suddenly, with surprising agility, he sprang onto a passing bus, before Mahlmann could grasp what was happening. He had escaped. Now the holidays were beginning and he was free of everything. When he got to his house he threw his heaviest chemistry books to the ground with a crash, and he was preparing to send the coffee pot after them. But, hearing the noise of a door, he began at once to gather up everything again. Then he sat down quietly in a corner of the sofa, and wept with his head in his hands. If it had only not been so pleasant before! She had led him into a trap. That's the way girls were; they led you on solely for the purpose of making fun of you with another fellow. Diederich was deeply conscious that he could not challenge comparison with such a man. He contrasted himself with Mahlmann and would not have understood if any one had preferred him to the other. "How conceited I have been," he thought. "The girl who falls in love with me must be really stupid." He had a great fear lest the man from Mecklenburg should come and threaten him more seriously. "I don't want her at all. If I only could get away!" Next day he sat in deadly suspense with his door bolted. No sooner had his money arrived than he set off on his journey.
His mother, jealous and estranged, asked him what was wrong. He had grown up in such a short time. "Ah yes, the streets of Berlin!"
Diederich grasped at the chance, when she insisted that he should go to a small University and not return to Berlin. His father held that there were two sides to the question. Diederich had to give him a full account of the Göppels. Had he seen the factory? Had he been to his other business friends? Herr Hessling wished Diederich to employ his holidays in ​learning how paper was made in his father's workshops. "I am not so young as I used to be, and my old wound has not troubled me so much for a long time as lately."
Diederich disappeared as soon as he could, in order to wander in the Gäbbelchen wood, or along the stream in the direction of Gohse, and to feel himself one with Nature. This pleasure was now open to him. For the first time it occurred to him that the hills in the background looked sad and seemed full of longing. The sun was Diederich's warm love and his tears the rain that fell from heaven. He wept a great deal, and even tried to write poetry.
Once when he was in the chemist's shop his school friend, Gottlieb Hornung, was standing behind the counter. "Yes, I am doing a little compounding here during the summer months," he explained. He had even succeeded in poisoning himself by mistake, and had twisted himself backwards like an eel. It had been the talk of the town. But he would be going to Berlin in the autumn to set about the thing scientifically. Was there anything doing in Berlin? Delighted with his advantage, Diederich began to brag about his Berlin experiences. "We two will paint the town red," the chemist vowed.
Diederich was weak enough to agree. The idea of a small university was abandoned. At the end of the summer Diederich returned to Berlin. Hornung had still a few days to practise. Diederich avoided his old room in Tieckstrasse. From Mahlmann and the Göppels he fled out as far as Gesundbrunnen. There he waited for Hornung. But the latter, who had announced his departure, did not turn up. When he finally did come he was wearing a green yellow and red cap. He had been immediately captured by a fellow-student for a students' corps. Diederich would have to join them also; they were known as the Neo-Teutons, a most select body, said Hornung; there were no less than six pharmacists in it. Diederich concealed his fright Under a mask of contempt, but to no effect. ​Hornung had spoken about him and he could not let him down; he would have to pay at least one visit.
"Well, only one," he said firmly.
That one visit lasted until Diederich lay under the table and they carried him out. When he had slept it off they took him for the Frühschoppen for, although not a member of the corps, he had been admitted to the privilege of drinking with them. This suited him down to the ground. He found himself in the company of a large circle of men, not one of whom interfered with him, or expected anything of him, except that he should drink. Full of thankfulness and good will he raised his glass to every one who invited him. Whether he drank or not, whether he sat or stood, spoke or sang, rarely depended on his own will. Everything was ordered in a loud voice, and if you followed orders you could live at peace with yourself and all the world. When Diederich remembered for the first time not to close the lid of his beer mug, at a certain stage in the ritual, he smiled around at them all, as if his own perfection almost made him feel shy.
That, however, was nothing beside his confident singing. At school Diederich had been one of the best singers, and in his first song book he knew by heart the numbers of the pages where every song could be found. Now he had only to put his finger between the pages of the Kommersbuch, which lay in its nail-studded cover in the pool of beer, and he could find before any one else the song which they were to sing. He would often hang respectfully on the words of the president for a whole evening, in the hope that they would announce his favourite song. Then he would bravely shout: "Sie wissen den Teufel, was Freiheit heisst." Beside him he heard Fatty Delitzsch bellowing, and felt happily lost in the shadow of the low-ceilinged room, decorated in Old German style, with their students' caps on the wall. Around him was the ring of open mouths, all singing the same songs and drinking the same drinks, and the smell of beer and human bodies, from which ​the heat drew the beer again in the form of perspiratiqn. He had sunk his personality entirely in,the corps, whose will and brain were his. And he was a real man, who could respect himself, and who had honour, because he belonged to it. Nobody could separate him from it, or get at him individually. Let Mahlmann dare to come there and try it. Twentu men, instead of one Diederich, would stand up to him! Diederich only wished he were there now, he felt so courageous. He should preferably come with Göppel, then they would see what Diederich had become. What a revenge that would be!
He got the greatest sympathy from the most harmless member of the whole crowd, Fatty Delitzsch. There was something deeply soothing about this smooth, white, humorous lump of fat, which inspired confidence. His corpulent body bulged far out over the edge of the chair and rose in a series of rolls, until it reached the edge of the table and rested there, as if it had done its uttermost, incapable of making any further movement other than raising and lowering the beer-glass. There Delitzsch was in his element more than any of the others. To see him sitting there was to forget that he had ever stood on his feet. He was constructed for the sole purpose of sitting at the beer table. In any other position his trousers hung loosely and despondently, but now they were filled out and assumed their proper shape. It was only then that his face lit up, bright with the joy of life, and he became witty.
It was a tragedy when a young freshman played a joke on him by taking his glass away. Delitzsch did not move, but his glance, which followed the glass wherever it went, suddenly reflected all the stormy drama of life. In his high-pitched Saxon voice he cried: "For goodness' sake, man, don't spill it! Why on earth do you want to take from me the staff of life! That is a low, malicious threat to my very existence, and I could have you jailed for it!"
If the joke lasted too long Delitzsch's fat cheeks sank in, and he humbled himself beseechingly. But as soon as he got ​his beer back, how all-embracing was his smile of forgiveness, how he brightened up! Then he would say: "You are a decent devil after all. Your health! Good luck!" He emptied his mug and rattled the lid for more beer.
A few hours later Delitzsch would turn his chair round and go and bend his head over the basin under the water tap. The water would flow, Delitzsch would gurgle chokingly, and a couple of others would rush into the lavatory drawn by the sound. Still a little pale, but with renewed good humour, Delitzsch would draw his chair back to the table.
"Well, that's better," he would say; and: "what have you been talking about when I was busy elsewhere? Can you not talk of a damn thing except women? What do I care about women?" And louder: "They are not even worth the price of a stale glass of beer. I say! Bring another!"
Diederich felt he was quite right. He knew women himself and was finished with them. Beer stood for incomparably higher ideals.
Beer! Alcohol! You sat there and could always get more. Beer was homely and true and not like coquettish women. With beer there was nothing to do, to wish and to strive for, as there was with women. Everything came of itself. You swallowed, and already something was accomplished; you were raised to a higher sense of life, and you were a free man, inwardly free. Even if the whole place were surrounded by police, the beer that was swallowed would turn into inner freedom, and examinations were as good as passed. You were through and had got your degree. In civil life you held an important position and were rich, the head of a great postcard, or toilet-paper, factory. The products of your life's work were in the hands of thousands. From the beer table one spread out over the whole world, realised important connections, and became one with the spirit of the time. Yes, beer raised one so high above oneself that one had a glimpse of deity!
Diederich would have liked to go on like that for years. ​But the Neo-Teutons would not allow him to. Almost from the very first day they had pointed out to him the moral and material advantages of full membership of the corps. But gradually they set about to catch him in a less indirect fashion. Diederich referred in vain to the fact that he had been admitted to the recognised position of a drinking guest, to which he was accustomed and which he found quite satisfactory. They replied that the aim of the association of students, namely, training in manliness and idealism, could not be fully achieved by mere drinking, important as that was. Diederich shivered, for he knew only too well what was coming. He would have to fight duels! It had always affected him unpleasantly when they had shown him the swordstrokes with their sticks, the strokes which they had taught one another; or when one of them wore a black skull cap on his head and smelt of iodoform. Panic-stricken he now thought: "Why did I stay as their guest and drink with them? Now I can't retreat."
That was true. But his first experience soothed his fears. His body was so carefully padded, his head and eyes so thoroughly protected, that it was impossible for much to happen to him. As he had no reason for not following the rules as willingly and as carefully as when drinking, he learned to fence quicker than the others. The first time he was pinked he felt weak, as the blood trickled down his cheek. Then when the cut was stitched he could have jumped for joy. He reproached himself for having attributed wicked intentions to his kind adversary. It was that very man, whom he had most feared, who took him under his protection and became his friendliest teacher.
Wiebel was a law student, and that fact alone insured Diederich's submissive respect. It was not without a sense of his own inferiority that he saw the English tweeds in which Wiebel dressed, and the coloured shirts, of which he always wore several in succession, until they all had to go to the laundry. ​What abashed him most was Wiebel's manners. When the latter drank Diederich's health with a graceful bow, Diederich would almost collapse—the strain giving his face a tortured expression—spill one half of his drink and choke himself with the other. Wiebel spoke with the soft, insolent voice of a feudal lord. "You may say what you will," he was fond of remarking, "good form is not a vain illusion."
When he pronounced the letter "f" in form, he contracted his mouth until it looked like a small, dark mousehole, and emitted the sound slowly and broadly. Every time Diederich was thrilled by so much distinction. Everything about Wiebel seemed exquisite to him: his reddish moustache which grew high up on his lip and his long, curved nails, which curled downwards, not upward as Diederich's did; the strong masculine odour given out by Wiebel, his prominent ears, which heightened the effect of his narrow skull, and the cat-like eyes deeply set in his face. Diederich had always observed these things with a wholehearted feeling of his own unworthiness. But, since Wiebel had spoken to him, and become his protector, Diederich felt as if his right to exist had now been confirmed. If he had had a tail he would have wagged it gratefully. His heart expanded with happy admiration. If his wishes had dared to soar to such heights, he would also have liked to have such a red neck and to perspire constantly. What a dream to be able to whistle like Wiebel.
It was now Diederich's privilege to serve him; he was his fag. He was always in attendance when Wiebel got up, and got his things for him. As Wiebel was not in the good graces of the landlady, because he was irregular with his rent, Diederich made his coffee and cleaned his boots. In return, he was taken everywhere. When Wiebel wanted privacy Diederich went on guard outside, and he only wished he had his sword with him in order to shoulder it.
Wiebel would have deserved such an attention. The honour of the corps, in which Diederich's honour and his whole ​consciousness were rooted, had its finest representative in Wiebel. On behalf of the Neo-Teutons he would fight a duel with any one. He had raised the dignity of the corps, for he was reputed to have once corrected a member of the swellest corps in Germany. He had also a relative in the Emperor Francis Joseph's second regiment of Grenadier Guards, and every time Wiebel mentioned his cousin, von Klappke, the assembled Neo-Teutons felt flattered, and bowed. Diederich tried to imagine a Wiebel in the uniform of an officer of the Guards, but his imagination reeled before such distinction. Then one day, when he and Gottlieb Hornung were coming highly perfumed from their daily visit to the barber's, Wiebel was standing at the street corner with a quarter-master. There could be no doubt that it was a quarter-master, and when Wiebel saw them coming he turned his back. They also turned and walked away stiffly and silently, without looking at one another or exchanging any remarks. Each supposed that the other had noticed the resemblance between Wiebel and the quarter-master. Perhaps the others were long since aware of the true state of affairs, but they were all sufficiently conscious of the honour of the Neo-Teutons to hold their tongues and forget what they had seen. The next time Wiebel mentioned "my cousin, von Klappke," Diederich and Hornung bowed with the others, as flattered as ever.
By this time, Diederich had learned self-control, a sense of good form, esprit de corps, and zeal for his superiors. He thought with reluctance and pity of the miserable existence of the common herd, to which he had once belonged. At regularly fixed hours he put in an appearance at Wiebel's lodgings, in the fencing-hall, at the barber's and at Frühschoppen. The afternoon walk was a preliminary to the evening's drinking, and every step was taken in common, under supervision and with the observance of prescribed forms and mutual deference, which did not exclude a little playful roughness. A fellow-student, with whom Diederich had hitherto had only official ​relations, once bumped into him at the door of the lavatory, and although both of them were in a great hurry, neither would take precedence over the other. For a long time they stood bowing and scraping—until suddenly overcome by the same need at the same moment, they burst through the door, charging like two wild boars, and knocked their shoulders together. That was the, beginning of a friendship. Having come together in such human circumstances, they drew nearer also at the official beer-table, drank one another's health and called each other "pig-dog" and "hippopotamus."
The life of the students' corps had also its tragicjside. It demanded sacrifices and taught them to suffer pain and grief with a manly bearing. Delitzsch himself, the source of so much merriment, brought bereavement to the Neo-Teutons. One morning when Wiebel and Diederich came to fetch him, he was standing at his washstand and he said: "Well, are you as thirsty to-day as ever?" Suddenly, before they could reach him he fell down, bringing the crockery with him. Wiebel felt him all over, but Delitzsch did not move again.
"Heart failure," said Wiebel shortly. He walked firmly to the bell. Diederich picked up the broken pieces and dried the floor. Then they carried Delitzsch to his bed. They maintained a strictly disciplined attitude in the face of the landlady's vulgar tears. As they proceeded to attend to the usual formalities—they were marching in step—Wiebel said with stoical contempt for death: "that might have happened to any of us. Drinking is no joke. We should always remember that." Like the others, Diederich felt elevated by Delitzsch's faithful devotion to duty, by his death on the field of honour. They proudly followed the coffin, and every face seemed to say: "The Neo-Teutons for ever!" In the churchyard, with their swords lowered, they all wore the reflective expression of the warrior whose turn may come in the next battle, as his comrade's had come in the one before. And when the leader praised the deceased, who had won the highest prize in the ​school of manliness and idealism, each of them was moved as if the words applied to himself.
This incident marked the end of Diederich's apprenticeship. Wiebel left in order to get called to the bar, and from now on Diederich had to stand alone for the principles which he had laid down, and inculcate them in the younger generation. He did this very strictly and with a sense of great responsibility. Woe to the freshman who incurred the penalty of drinking so many pints in succession. He was obliged to do it for a good deal longer than five minutes, and ended by groping his way out along the wall. The worst offence was for one of them to walk out of the door in front of Diederich. His punishment was eight days without beer. Diederich was not guided by vanity or personal considerations, but solely by his lofty idea of the honour of his corps. He himself was a mere individual, and therefore nothing; whatever rights, whatever dignity and importance he enjoyed, were conferred upon him by the corps. He was indebted to it even for his physical advantages: his broad white face, his paunch which inspired the freshmen with respect, and the privilege of appearing on festive occasions in top boots and wearing a cap and sash, the joy of a uniform! It is true he had still to give precedence to a lieutenant, for the corps to which the lieutenant belonged was obviously a higher one. But; at all events, he could fearlessly associate with a tram conductor without running the risk of his being impertinent. His manly courage was threateningly inscribed on his countenance in the slashes which grooved his chin, streaked his cheeks and cut their way into his close-cropped skull. What a satisfaction it was to exhibit these constantly to every one! Once unexpectedly a brilliant occasion arose. He and two others, Gottlieb Hornung and the landlady's servant, were at a dance in Halensee. The two friends had been sharing for some months a flat with which a rather pretty servant was included. Neither gave her presents, and during the summer they went out with her together. Whether ​Hornung had gone as far with her as himself was a matter about which Diederich had his private opinion. Officially and as a member of the corps he knew nothing.
Rosa was rather nicely dressed and she found admirers at the ball. In order to dance another polka with her, Diederich had to remind her that it was he who had bought her gloves. He had made a polite bow as a preliminary to the dance when suddenly a third party thrust himself between them and danced off with Rosa. Considerably taken aback, Diederich looked after them with a sombre conviction that this was a case where he must assert himself. But, before he could move, a girl had rushed through the dancing couples, slapped Rosa, and dragged her roughly from her partner. It was the work of a moment for Diederich, when he had seen this, to dash up to Rosa's ravisher.
"Sir," he said looking him straight in the eye, "your conduct is unworthy of a gentleman."
"Well, what about it?"
Astonished by this unusual turn to a dignified conversation Diederich stammered: "Dog."
"Hog," replied the other promptly with a laugh.
Completely demoralised by this absence of good form, Diederich prepared to bow and retire. But the other gave him a punch in the stomach and immediately they rolled on the floor. Amidst screams and encouraging shouts they fought until they were separated. Gottlieb Hornung, who was helping to find Diederich's eyeglasses, cried, "there he goes"—and rushed after him, with Diederich following. They were just in time to see him and a companion getting into a cab, and they took the next one. Hornung declared that the corps could not allow such an insult to pass unpunished. "The swine pinches and does not even trouble to look after his lady," Diederich explained.
"So do I."
The chase was exciting. "Shall we overtake them? Our old nag is lame. Suppose this commoner is not of high enough rank to fight a duel with?" In that case they decided that the affair would be officially considered never to have happened.
The first carriage stopped before a nice looking house in the West End. Diederich and Hornung got to the door just as it was shut. They posted themselves with determination in front of it. It grew cold and they marched up and down in front of the house, twenty paces to the right and twenty paces to the left, always keeping the door in view and repeating the same profound and serious remark. This was a case for pistols! This time the Neo-Teutons would buy their honour dearly! Provided he was not a commoner!
At last the concierge appeared, and they consulted him. They tried to describe the two gentlemen, but found that neither of them had any special marks. Hornung maintained, even more passionately than Diederich, that they must wait, and for two more hours they marched up and down. Then two officers came out of the house. Diederich and Hornung stared, uncertain whether there might not be some mistake. The officers started, and one of them seemed to turn slightly pale. That settled the matter for Diederich. He walked up to the one who had turned pale.
"I beg your pardon, sir—"
His voice faltered. The embarrassed lieutenant replied, "You must be mistaken."
Diederich managed to say: "Not at all. I must have satisfaction. You have—"
"I don't know you at all," stammered the lieutenant. But his comrade whispered something in his ear: "That won't do," and taking his friend's card, together with his own, he handed them to Diederich. The latter gave his, and then he read: ​"Albrecht Count Tauern-Barenheim." He did not delay to read the other card, but began dutifully to make little bows. Meanwhile the second officer turned to Gottlieb Hornung.
"Of course, my friend meant no harm by the little joke. Needless to say, he is perfectly ready to give you satisfaction, but I wish to state that no insult was intended."
The other, at whom he glanced, shrugged his shoulders. Diederich stuttered: "Thank you very much."
"That settles the matter, I suppose," said the friend; and the two gentlemen went off.
Diederich remained standing there, with moist brow and choking voice. Suddenly he gave a deep sigh and smiled slowly.
This incident was the sole subject of conversation afterwards at their drinking parties. Diederich praised the true knightly conduct of the count to his comrades.
"A real nobleman always reveals himself."
He contracted his mouth until it was the size of a mousehole and brought out in a slow crescendo: "Good f—form is not a vain illusion."
He repeatedly appealed to Gottlieb Hornung as the witness of his great moment. "He wasn't a bit stuck up, was he? Even a rather daring joke is nothing to a gentleman like that. He preserved his dignity all through. Simply marvellous, I tell you! His Excellence's explanation was so thoroughly satisfactory that it was impossible for me to—you know, I am no roughneck."
Every one understood and assured Diederich that the tradition of the Neo-Teutons had been adequately maintained in this affair. The cards of the two noblemen were handed round by the juniors and were stuck between the crossed swords over the Emperor's portrait. There was not a Neo-Teuton that night who went home sober.
That was the end of the term, but Diederich and Hornung ​had no money to travel home. For some time past they had no money for most things. In view of his duties as a corps member, Diederich's cheque had been raised to two hundred and fifty marks, but still he was up to his eyes in debt. All sources from which a loan could be expected were exhausted, and only the most harried prospect stretched out forbiddingly before them. Finally they were obliged to consider the question of recovering what they themselves had lent in the course of time to their comrades, little as this accorded with knightly practice. Many old chums must meanwhile have come into money. But Hornung could find none. Diederich remembered Mahlmann.
"He is a good mark," he declared. "He was not a member of any corps, a common outsider. I'll beard him in his den." As soon as Mahlmann saw him, he at once burst into that tremendous laugh which Diederich had almost forgotten, and which immediately had an irresistible effect upon him. Mahlmann had no tact. He should have felt that all the Neo-Teutons were morally present in his office with Diederich, and on their account he should have shown more respect for Diederich. The latter had the sensation of having been roughly torn from that powerful unit, and of standing here as one isolated individual before another. This was an unforeseen and uncomfortable position. He felt all the less compunction in mentioning his business. He did not want any money back, such conduct would be unworthy of a comrade. He simply asked if Mahlmann would be so kind as to back a bill for him. Mahlmann leaned back in his desk-chair and said plain and straight: "No."
Diederich was astonished: "Why not?"
"It is against my principles to back a bill," Mahlmann explained.
"So you see! And if I were to go security for you now, you wouldn't pay up either."
Diederich was more surprised than ever.
"No, my young friend," Mahlmann concluded, "if I ever want to commit suicide I can do so without your help."
Diederich pulled himself together and said in a challenging fashion: "I see you have no conception of a gentleman's honour."
"No," Mahlmann repeated, laughing heartily.
With the utmost emphasis Diederich declared: "You appear to be a general kind of swindler. I understand that there is a good deal of swindling in the patent business."
Mahlmann stopped laughing. The expression of his eyes in his little head had become threatening, and he stood up. "Now, get out of here," he said quietly. "Between ourselves, I suppose, it doesn't matter, but my employes are in the next room, and they must not hear such talk." He seized Diederich by the shoulders, turned him around, and shoved him along. Every time he tried to break loose Diederich received a powerful cuff. "I demand satisfaction," he shrieked, "I challenge you to a duel!"
"I am at your service. Have you not noticed it? Then I'll get somebody else for you." He opened the door. "Frederick!" Then Diederich was handed over to one of the packers, who led him down the stairs. Mahlmann shouted after him: "No harm done, my young friend. Whenever you have anything else on your mind, be sure to call again."
Diederich put his clothes in order and left the building in proper style. So much the worse for Mahlmann if he made such an exhibition of himself. Diederich had nothing to reproach himself with, and would have been brilliantly vindicated by a court of honour. The fact remained that it was most objectionable that one person could allow himself such liberties. Every corps had been insulted in the person of Diederich. At the same time it could not be denied ​that Mahlmann had considerably increased Diederich's selfesteem. "A low dog," Diederich reflected. "But people are like that. …"
At home he found a registered letter.
"Now we can be off," said Hornung.
"How do you mean, we? I need my money for myself."
"You must be joking. I can't stay here alone."
"Then go and find some one else to keep you company!" Diederich burst into such a laugh that Hornung thought he was crazy. Thereupon he took his departure.
On the way he noticed for the first time that his mother had addressed the letter. That was unusual. … Since her last card, she said, his father had been much worse. Why had Diederich not come?
"We must be prepared for the worst. If you want to see your dearly-beloved father again, do not delay any longer, my son."
These expressions made Diederich feel uncomfortable. He assured himself that his mother was not trustworthy. "I never believe women anyhow, and mother is not quite right in her mind."
Nevertheless, Herr Hessling was breathing his last when Diederich arrived.
Overcome by the sight, Diederich immediately burst into a most undignified howl as he crossed the threshold. He stumbled to the bedside, and his face at that moment was as wet as if he had been washing it. He flapped his arms a number of times, like a bird beating his wings, and let them fall helplessly to his side. Suddenly he noticed his father's right hand on the coverlet, and knelt down and kissed it. Frau Hessling, silent and shrinking, even at the last breath of her master, did the same to his left hand. Diederich remembered how this black, misshapen finger-nail had hit his cheek, when his father boxed his ears, and he wept aloud. And the thrashings when he had stolen the buttons from the ​rags! This hand had been terrible, but Diederich's heart ached now that he was about to lose it. He felt that the same thought was in his mother's mind and she guessed what was passing in his. They fell into one another's arms across the bed.
When the visits of condolence came, Diederich was himself again. He stood before the whole of Netzig as the representative of the Neo-Teutons, firm and unbending in his knowledge of gentlemanly behaviour. He almost forgot he was in mourning so great was the attention he aroused. He went right out to the hall-door to receive old Herr Buck. The bulky person of Netzig's great man was majestic in his fine frock-coat. With great dignity he carried his upturned silkhat in front of him in one hand, while the other, from which he had taken his black glove to shake hands with Diederich, felt extraordinarily soft. His blue eyes gazed warmly at Diederich and he said:
"Your father was a good citizen. Strive to become one, too, young man. Always respect the rights of your fellow-citizens. Your own human dignity demands that of you. I trust that we shall work here together in our town for the common welfare. You will continue your studies, no doubt?"
Diederich could scarcely answer yes, he was so disturbed by a sense of reverence. Old Buck asked in a lighter tone: "Did my youngest son look you up in Berlin? No? Oh, he must do that. He is also studying there now. I expect he'll soon have to do his year's military service. Have you got that behind you?"
"No"—and Diederich turned very red. He stammered his excuses. It had been quite impossible for him hitherto to interrupt his studies. But old Buck shrugged his shoulders as if the subject were hardly worth discussing.
By his father's will Diederich was appointed, with the old book-keeper Sötbier, as the guardian of his two sisters. Sötbier informed him that there was a capital of seventy thousand ​marks which was to serve as a dowry for the two girls. Even the interest could not be touched. In late years the average net profit of the factory had been nine thousand marks. "No more?" asked Diederich. Sötbier looked at him, horrified at first and then reproachful. If the young gentleman only knew how his late lamented father and Sötbier had worked up the business I Of course there was still room for improvement.…
"Oh, all right," said Diederich. He saw that many changes would have to be made here. Was he expected to live on onequarter of nine thousand marks? This supposition on the part of the deceased made him indignant. When his mother stated that the dear departed had expressed the hope on his death-bed that he would live on in his son Diederich, that Diederich would never marry, and always care for the family, then Diederich burst out. "Father was not a sickly sentimentalist like you," he shouted, "and he wasn't a liar either." Frau Hessling thought she could hear the voice of her husband again and bowed to the inevitable. Diederich seized the opportunity to raise his monthly cheque by fifty marks.
"First of all," he said roughly, "I must do my year's military service. That's an expensive business. Afterwards you can come to me with your petty money questions."
He insisted on reporting himself in Berlin. The death of his father had filled him with wild notions of freedom. But at night he had dreams in which the old man came out of his office with his grey face as when he lay in his coffin—and Diederich awoke in a sweat of terror.
He departed with his mother's blessing. He had no further use for Gottlieb Hornung and their common property Rosa, so he moved. He exhibited his changed circumstances in due form to the Neo-Teutons. The happy days of student life were over. The farewell party! They drank toasts of mourning which were intended for the old gentleman, but which also applied to Diederich and the first flowering of his ​freedom. Out of sheer devotion he finished up under the table, as on the night when he had first drunk with them as a guest. He had now joined the ranks of the old boys.
A couple of days later, still suffering from a bad head, he was standing before the military doctor with a crowd of other young men, all stark naked like himself. The medical officer looked disgustedly at all this manly flesh exposed to view, but when he saw Diederich's paunch his expression was one of contempt. At once they all grinned, and Diederich could not help looking down at his stomach, which was blushing. … The surgeon-major had become quite serious again. One of them, who did not hear as sharply as was prescribed in the regulations, had a bad time, as they knew the tricks of the shirkers. Another, who had the misfortune to be called Levysohn, was told: "If you ever come to bother me here again, you might at least take a bath first!" To Diederich he said: "We'll soon massage the fat off you. After four weeks' training I guarantee you'll look like a civilised man."
With that he was accepted. Those who had been rejected hastened into their clothes as if the barracks was on fire. The men who were considered fit for service looked at one another suspiciously out of the corners of their eyes and went off sheepishly, as if they expected to feel a heavy hand come down on their shoulders. One of them, an actor, who looked as if everything was a matter of indifference, went back again to the doctor and said in a loud voice, carefully enunciating each word: "I beg to add that I am also homosexual."
The medical officer started back and went very red. In an indifferent tone he said: "We certainly don't want such swine here."
To his future comrades Diederich expressed his indignation at this shameless conduct. Then he spoke again to the sergeant who had previously measured his height against the wall, and assured him that he wss delighted. Nevertheless he wrote home to Netzig to the general practitioner, Dr. ​Heuteufel, who used to paint his throat as a boy, asking if he could not certify that he was suffering from scrofula and rickets. Diederich could not be expected to destroy himself with drudgery. But the reply was that he should not complain, that the training would do him no end of good. So Diederich gave up his room again and drove off to the barracks with his portmanteau. Since he had to put in fourteen days there, he might as well save that much rent.
They at once began with horizontal-bar exercises, jumping, and other breathless exertions. They were herded in companies into corridors, which were called "departments." Lieutenant von Kullerow displayed a supercilious indifference, screwing up his eyes whenever he looked at the volunteers. Suddenly he shouted, "Instructor!" and gave his orders to the sergeant and turned on his heels contemptuously. When they exercised in the barrack square, forming fours, opening out, and changing places, the sole object was to keep these "dogs" on the jump. Diederich fully realised that everything here, their treatment, the language used, the whole military system, had only one end in view, to degrade the sense of self-respect to the lowest level. And that impressed him. Miserable as he felt, indeed precisely on that account, it inspired him with deep respect and a sort of suicidal enthusiasm. The principle and the ideal were obviously the same as with the Neo-Teutons, only the system was carried out more cruelly. There were no more comfortable intervals when one could remember one's manhood. Slowly and inevitably one sank to the dimensions of an insect, of a part in the machine, of so much raw material, which was moulded by an unlimited will. It would have been ruin and folly to raise oneself up, even in one's secret heart. The most that one could do, against one's own convictions, was to shirk occasionally. When they were running Diederich fell and hurt his foot. It was not quite bad enough to make him limp, but he did limp, and when the company went out route marching, he was allowed ​to remain behind. In order to do this he had first gone to the captain in person. "Please, captain—" What a catastrophe! In his innocence he had boldly addressed a power from which one was expected to receive orders silently and metaphorically on one's knees! A power whom one could approach only through the intermediary of a third person. The captain thundered so that the noncommissioned ranks started, with expressions of horror at having witnessed a crime. The result was that Diederich limped still more and had to be relieved of duty for another day.
Sergeant Vanselow, who was responsible for the misdemeanour of his recruits, only said to Diederich: "And you profess to be an educated man!" He was accustomed to seeing all misfortunes coming from the volunteers. Vanselow slept in their dormitory behind a screen. When lights were out they would tell dirty stories until the outraged sergeant yelled at them: "And you fellows set up to be men of education!" In spite of his long experience he always expected more intelligence and better conduct from the one-year volunteers than from the other recruits, and every time he was disappointed. Diederich he regarded as by no means the worst. Vanselow's opinion was not influenced solely by the number of drinks they bought him. He set even more store by the military spirit of ready submission, and that Diederich had. When they received instruction he could be held up as a model for the others. Diederich showed himself entirely filled with the military ideals of bravery and honour. When it came to differences of rank and stripes, he seemed to have an innate sense of these things. Vanselow would say: "Now I am the general commanding," and immediately Diederich would act as if he believed it. When he said: "Now I am a member of the Royal Family," then Diederich's attitude was such as to make the sergeant smile with the illusion of grandeur.
In private conversation in the canteen Diederich confided ​in his superiors that military life filled him with enthusiasm. "To be swallowed up in a great init," he would say. He would ask for nothing better In the world than to stay in the army. He was sincere, but that did not prevent him, when they were exercising in the parade ground that afternoon, from having no other wish than to he down in his grave and die. The uniform which was cut to fit closely, for reasons of smartness, became a real instrument of torture after eating. It was no consolation that the captain appeared unspeakably warlike and daring as he gave his commands from his horse, when one could feel the undigested soup slopping about in one's stomach as one ran around breathlessly. The enthusiasm which Diederich was fully prepared to feel was tempered by his personal hardships. His foot was aching again, and Diederich waited for the pain in the anxious hope, mixed with self-contempt, that it would get worse, so bad that he could not go route marching again. Perhaps he might not even have to exercise any more in the barrack square, and they would have to give him his discharge.
Things came to the point where he called one Sunday on the father of one of his college friends, who was an advisory member of the Medical Council. Red with shame Diederich confessed that he had come to ask for his support. He loved the army, the whole system, and would gladly follow that career. He would be part of a great mechanism, an element in its strength, so to speak, and would always know what he had to do, which was a delightful feeling. But now his foot was paining him. "I can't let it go so far until it is useless. After all, I have to support my mother and sisters." The doctor examined him. "The Neo-Teutons for ever." said he. "It so happens your surgeon-major is a friend of mine." That fact was known to Diederich through his friend. He took his leave full of anxious hope.
The effect of this hope was that he could hardly stand the next morning. He reported sick. "Who are you? and why ​do you bother me?"—And the medical officer looked him over. "You look as fit as a fiddle and your waist line has diminished." But Diederich stood to attention and remained sick. The officer in charge had to come and make an examination. When the foot was uncovered the latter declared that if he did not light a cigar he would be ill. Still, he could find nothing wrong with the foot. The doctor pushed him impatiently from the chair. "Fit for duty, that's all, dismissed"—and Diederich was released. In the middle of drill he gave a sudden cry and collapsed. He was taken into the sick ward for slight cases where there was nothing to eat and a powerful smell of humanity. In this place it was difficult for the volunteers to procure their own food, and he got none of the other men's rations. Driven by hunger he reported himself cured. Cut off from all human protection, and from all the social privileges of civil life, he wore a gloomy look. But one morning, when he had lost all hope, he was called away from drill to the room of the surgeon-major-general. This important official wished to examine him. He spoke in an embarrassing, human kind of way, and then broke again into military gruffness which was not any more calculated to put one at one's ease. He too seemed to find nothing definite, but the result of his examination sounded somewhat different. Diederich was only to carry on "temporarily" until further notice. "With a foot like that…"
A few days later a hospital orderly came to Diederich and took an impression of this fateful foot on black paper. Diederich was ordered to wait in the consulting-room. The surgeonmajor happened to be passing and took the opportunity to express his complete contempt. "The foot is not even flat! all it wants is to be washed!" Just then the door was pushed open and the surgeon-major-general made his entry with his cap on his head. His step was firmer and surer than usual, he looked neither to the right nor to the left, stood silently in front of his subordinate, and glared gloomily and severely ​at his cap. The latter was embarrassed. He obviously found himself in a position which did not permit the usual comradeship of colleagues. But he realised the situation, took off his cap and stood at attention. His superior then showed him the paper with the tracing of Diederich's foot, spoke to him in a low tone but with an emphasis which commanded him to see something that was not there. The surgeon-major blinked alternately at his commanding officer, at Diederich and at the paper. Then he clicked his heels; he had seen what he was ordered to see.
When the major-general had gone, the major approached Diederich. With a slight smile of understanding he said politely:
"Of course, the case was clear from the beginning. Because of the men we had to … you understand, discipline.…"
Diederich stood at attention as a sign that he understood.
"But," continued the major, "I need hardly say I knew how your case stood."
Diederich thought: "If you didn't know it before you know it now." Aloud he said: "I trust you will pardon me for asking, sir, but shall I not be allowed to continue my service?"
"I cannot guarantee that," said the doctor, turning away.
From that time on Diederich was relieved of heavy duty. He went for no more route marches. His conduct in barracks was all the more friendly and willing. At roll-call in the evening the captain came from the mess, with a cigar in his mouth and slightly tipsy, to confine to cells those who had wiped their boots instead of polishing them. He never found fault with Diederich. On the other hand, he vented his righteous wrath all the more severely on a volunteer who, now in his third month, had to sleep in the men's dormitory as a punishment because he had not slept there, but at home, during his first fortnight's service. He had had at the time ​fourteen degrees of fever and would probably have died if he had done his duty. Well, let him die! The captain's face assumed an expression of proud satisfaction every time he looked at this volunteer. Standing in the background, small and unnoticed, Diederich thought: "You see, my boy, the Neo-Teutons and an Advisory Member of the Medical Council are more useful than fourteen degrees of fever. …" As far as he was concerned the official formalities were one day happily fulfilled, and Sergeant Vanselow informed him that he had received his release. Diederich's eyes at once filled with tears and he shook his hand warmly.
"Just my luck for a thing like that to happen to me, and I had"—he sobbed—"such a happy time."
Then he found himself outside in the street.
He remained at home four whole weeks and studied hard. When he went out to meals he looked round anxiously lest an acquaintance should see him. Finally he felt he would have to show himself to the Neo-Teutons. He assumed a challenging attitude.
"Until you have been in the army you have no idea what it's like. There, I can tell you, you see the world from a very different standpoint. I would have stayed altogether, my qualifications were so excellent that my superior officers advised me to do so. But then"—here he stared moodily in front of him—"came the accident with the horse. That is the result of being too good a soldier. The captain used to get some one to drive in his dog-cart to exercise the horse, and that is how the accident happened. Of course I did not nurse my foot properly and resumed duty too soon. The thing got very much worse, and the doctor advised me to prepare my relatives for the worst."—The words came sharply and with manly restraint.—"You should have seen the captain; he came to see me himself every day, after the long marches, just as he was, with his uniform covered with dust. During those days of suffering we became real comrades. Here, I still ​have one of his cigars. When he had to confess that the doctor had decided to send me away, I assure you it was one of those moments in a man's life which he can never forget. Both the captain and I had tears in our eyes." The whole company was deeply moved. Diederich looked bravely around at them.
"Well, now I suppose I must try and find my way back into civilian life. Your health."
He continued to cram and on Saturdays he drank with the Neo-Teutons. Wiebel also turned up. He had become an assistant judge, on the way to becoming a state's attorney, and could only talk of "subversive tendencies," "enemies of the fatherland" and "Christian socialist ideas." He explained to the freshmen that the time had come to take politics seriously. He knew it was considered vulgar, but their opponents made it necessary. Real feudal aristocrats, like his friend, von Barnim, were in the movement. Herr von Barnim would shortly honour the Neo-Teutons with his company.
When he came he won all hearts, for he treated them as equals. He had dark, closely cropped hair, the manner of a conscientious bureaucrat, and spoke in matter-of-fact tones, but at the end of his address his eyes had a look of ecstasy, and he said good-bye quickly, pressing their hands fervently. After his visit the Neo-Teutons all agreed that Jewish liberalism was the first fruits of social democracy and German Christians should rally to the Royal Chaplain, Stocker. Like the others, Diederich did not connect the expression "first fruits" with any definite idea, and he understood "social democracy" to mean a general division of wealth. And that was enough for him. But Herr von Barnim had invited those who desired further information to come to him, and Diederich would never have pardoned himself if he had missed so flattering an opportunity.
In his cold, old-fashioned, bachelor apartment Herr von Barnim held a private and confidential conclave. His ​political objective was a permanent system of popular representation as in the happy Middle Ages: knights, clergy, craftsmen and artisans. As the Emperor had rightly insisted, the crafts would have to be restored to the dignity which they enjoyed before the Thirty Years' War. The guilds were to cultivate religion and morals. Diederich expressed the warmest approval. The idea fully corresponded with his tendency, as a registered member of a profession and a gentleman of rank, to take his stand in life collectively rather than personally. He already pictured himself as the delegate of the paper industry. Herr von Barnim frankly excluded their Jewish fellow-citizens from his social order. Were they not the root of all disorder and revolution, of confusion and disrespectfulness, the principle of evil itself? His pious face was convulsed with hatred and Diederich felt with him.
"When all is said and done," he remarked, "we wield the power and can throw them out. The German army—"
"That's just it," cried Herr von Barnim, who was walking up and down the room. "Did we wage the glorious war in order to sell my family estate to a gentleman named Frankfurter?"
While Diederich maintained a disturbed silence, there was a ring and Herr von Barnim said: "This is my barber; I must tackle him also." He noticed Diederich's look of disappointment and added:
"Of course with such a man I talk differently. But each one of us must do his bit against the Social Democrats, and bring the common people into the camp of our Christian Emperor. You must do yours!" Thereupon Diederich took his leave. He heard the barber say:
"Another old customer, sir, has gone over to Liebling just because Liebling now has marble fittings."
When Diederich reported to Wiebel the latter said:
"That is all very well, and I have a particular regard for the idealistic viewpoint of my friend, von Barnim, but in the ​long run it will not get us anywhere. Stocker, you know, also made his damned experiments with democracy at the Ice Palace. Whether it was Christian or un-Christian democracy, I don't know. Things have got too far for that. To-day only one course is still open: To hit out hard so long as we have the power."
Greatly relieved Diederich agreed with him. To go round converting Christians had at once struck him as rather laborious.
"I will attend to the Social Democrats, the Emperor has said." Wiebel's eyes gleamed with a cat-like ferocity. "Now what more do you want? The soldiers have been given their orders, and it may happen that they will have to fire on their beloved relatives. What of it? I tell you, my dear fellow, we are on the eve of great events."
Diederich showed signs of excited curiosity.
"My cousin, von Klappke—" Wiebel paused and Diederich clicked his heels—"has told me things which are not yet ripe for publication. Suffice it to say that His Majesty's statement yesterday, that the grumblers should kindly shake the dust of Germany from the soles of their feet, was a damnably serious warning."
"Is that a fact? Do you really think so?" said Diederich. "Then it is the devil's own luck that I have to leave His Majesty's service just at this moment. I am not ashamed to say that I would have done my whole duty against the do mestic enemy. One thing I do know, the Emperor can rely upon the army."
I During those icy cold days of February, 1892, he went about the streets a great deal, in the expectation of great events. Along Unter den Linden something was afoot, but what it was could not yet be seen. Mounted police held the ends of the streets and waited. Pedestrians pointed to this display of force. "The unemployed!" People stood still to watch them approaching. They came from a northerly ​direction, marching slowly in small sections. When they reached Unter den Linden they hesitated, as if lost, took counsel by an exchange of glances, and turned off towards the Castle. There they stood in silence, their hands in their pockets, while the wheels of the cars splashed them with mud, and they hunched up their shoulders beneath the rain which fell on their faded overcoats. Many of them turned to look at passing officers, at the ladies in their carriages, at the long fur coats of the gentlemen hurrying from Burgstrasse. Their faces were expressionless, neither threatening nor even curious: not as if they wanted to see, but as if they wanted to be seen. Others never moved an eye from the windows of the Castle. The rain trickled down from their upturned faces. The horse of a shouting policeman drove them on further across the street to the next corner—but they stood still again, and the world seemed to sink down between those broad hollow faces, lit by the livid gleam of evening, and the stern walls beyond them which were already enveloped in darkness.
"I do not understand," said Diederich, "why the police do not take more energetic measures. That is certainly a rebellious crew."
"Don't you worry," Wiebel replied, "they have received exact instructions. Believe me, the authorities have their own well-developed plans. It is not always desirable to suppress at the outset such excrescences on the body politic. When they have been allowed to ripen, then a radical operation can be performed."
The ripening process to which Wiebel referred increased daily, and on the 26th it was completed. The demonstrations of the unemployed seemed more conscious of their objective. When they were driven back into one of the northern streets they overflowed into the next, and, before they could be cut off, they surged forward again in increased numbers. The processions all met at Unter den Linden, and as often as they ​were separated they ran together again. They reached the Castle, were driven back, and reached it again, silent and irresistible, like a river overflowing its banks. The traffic was blocked, the stream of pedestrians was banked up until it flowed over slowly into the flood which submerged the square; into this turbid, discoloured sea of poverty, rolling up in clammy waves, emitting subdued noises and throwing up, like the masts of sunken ships, poles bearing banners: "Bread! Work!" Here and there a more distinct rumbling broke out of the depths: "Bread! Work!" Swelling above the crowd it rolled off like a thunder-cloud: "Bread! Work!" The mounted police attack, the sea foams up and subsides, while women's voices shrilly cry like signals above the uproar: "Bread! Work!"
They are swept along, carrying with them the curious spectators standing on the Friederich monument. Their mouths are wide open; dust rises from the minor officials whose way to the office has been blocked, as if their clothes had been beaten. A distorted face, unknown to Diederich, shouts at him: "Here's something different! Now we are going for the Jews!"—and the face disappears before he remembers that it is Herr von Barnim. He tries to follow him, but in a big rush is thrown far across the road in front of a cafe, where he hears the crash of the broken windows and a workman shouting: "They fired me out of here lately with my thirty pfennig, because I had not got a silk hat on."—With him Diederich is forced in through the window, between the overturned tables and on to the floor, where they trip over broken glass, crushing against one another and howling. "No more in here! We must have air!" But still they clamber in. "The police are charging!" In the middle of the street, a free passage is miraculously made, as if for a triumphant procession. Then someone cries: "There goes Emperor William!"
Diederich found himself once more on the street. No one knew how it happened that they could suddenly move ​along in a solid mass the whole width of the street, and on both sides, right up to the flanks of the horse on which the Emperor sat—the Emperor himself. The people looked at him and followed him. Shouting masses were dissolved and swept along. Every one looked at him. A dark pushing mob without form, without plan, without limit, and bright above it a young man in a helmet: the Emperor. They looked. They had brought him down from his Castle. They had shouted: "Bread! Work!" until he had come. Nothing had been changed, except that he was there, and yet they were marching as if to a review of the troops at the Tempelhof.
On the outskirts, where the crowds were thinner, respectable people were saying to each other: "Well, thank God, he knows what he wants!"
"What does he want then?"
"To show that mob who is master ! He tried treating them kindly. He even went too far in remitting sentences two years ago; they have become impertinent."
"It certainly must be admitted that he is not afraid. My word, this is an historical moment!
Diederich listened ' and was thrilled. The old gentleman who had spoken turned to him. He had white side-whiskers and wore an iron cross.
"Young man," said he, "what our magnificent young Emperor is now doing will be learned one day by the children in their schoolbooks. Wait till you see!"
Many people threw out their chests with an air of reverence. The gentlemen who rode behind the Emperor kept their eyes fixed in front of them, but they guided their horses through the crowd as if all these folk were supers ordered to appear in some royal spectacle. At times they glanced sideways at the public to see how the latter were impressed. The Emperor himself saw only his own personality and his own performance. Profound seriousness was stamped upon his features and his eyes flashed over the thousands whom he ​had fascinated. He measured himself against them, he, the master by the grace of God, and his rebellious slaves. Alone and unprotected he had dared to come amongst them, strong only in the sense of his mission. They might lay violent hands upon him if that were the will of the Almighty. He offered himself as sacrifice to his sacred trust. He would show them whether God was on his side. Then they would carry away the impression of his action and the eternal memory of their own powerlessneess.
A young man wearing a wide-brimmed hat passed near Diederich and said: "Old stuff. Napoleon in Moscow fraternising alone with the people."
"But it is fine," asserted Diederich, and his voice faltered with emotion. The other shrugged his shoulders.
"Melodrama, and no good, at that."
Diederich looked at him and tried to flash his eyes like the Emperor.
"I suppose you are one of that rabble yourself."
He could not have explained what the rabble was. He simply felt that here, for the first time in his life, he had to defend law and order against hostile criticism. In spite of his agitation, he had another look at the man's shoulders; they were not imposing. The bystanders, too, were expressing disapproval. Then Diederich asserted himself. With his huge stomach he pressed the enemy against the wall and battered in his hat. Others joined in pummelling him, his hat fell to the ground, and soon the man himself lay there. As he moved on, Diederich remarked to his fellow-combatants: "That fellow has certainly not done his military service. He hasn't even got scars on his face; he has never fought a duel."
The old gentleman with the side-whiskers and the iron cross turned up again and shook Diederich's hand.
"Bravo, young man, bravo!"
"Isn't it enough to make you mad," said Diederich, still ​furious, "when the fellow tries to spoil our historical moment?"
"You have been in the army?" queried the old gentleman.
"I would have liked nothing better than to stay there," Diederich replied.
"Ah, yes, it isn't every day that we have a Sedan." The old gentleman touched his iron cross. "That's what we did!" Diederich stretched himself and pointed to the Emperor and the subdued crowd.
"That is as good as Sedan!"
"Hm, hm," said the old gentleman.
"Allow me, sir," cried some one, waving a notebook. "We must get that. A touch of atmosphere, y'understand? I suppose it was a damned radical you bashed?"
"Oh, a mere trifle"—Diederich was still boiling. "As far as I am concerned this would be the time to go straight for the domestic enemy. We have our Emperor with us."
"Fine," said the reporter as he wrote: "In the wildly agitated throng people of all classes were heard expressing their devoted loyalty and unshakable confidence in His Majesty."
"Hurrah!" shouted Diederich, for every one was shouting, and, caught in a great surge of shouting people, he was carried right along to the Brandenburger Tor. A few steps in front of him rode the Emperor. Diederich could see his face, its stony seriousness and flashing eyes, but he was shouting so much that his sight was blurred. An intoxication, higher and nobler than that which beer procured, raised his feet off the ground and carried him into the air. He waved his hat high above all heads, in a sphere of enthusiastic madness, in a heaven where our finest feelings move. There on the horse rode Power, through the gateway of triumphal entries, with dazzling features but graven as in stone. The Power which transcends us and whose hoofs we kiss, the Power which is beyond the reach of hunger, spite and mockery! ​Against it we are impotent, for we all love it! We have it in our blood, for in our blood is submission. We are an atom of that Power, a diminutive molecule of something it has given out. Each one of us is as nothing, but massed in ranks as Neo-Teutons, soldiers, bureaucrats, priests and scientists, as economic organisations and unions of power, we taper up like a pyramid to the point at the top where Power itself stands, graven and dazzling. In it we live and have our being, merciless towards those who are remote beneath us, and triumphing even when we ourselves are crushed, for thus does power justify our love for it!