The noise grew louder, and then a new speaker appeared on the platform,
this time evidently a cultivated, thoughtful man and an adroit speaker.
The organizers of the evening were unwilling to allow the meeting to
retain the impression of Wilhelm's speech, and had placed a clever
opponent to follow him, who said clearly and concisely that the speaker
before him might be a friend of mankind, but he was certainly an enemy
of culture, because the progress of civilization was always the result
of new requirements and the seeking of their fulfillment, and if men
limited their wants or denied them altogether, mankind would be brought
back to the condition of savages or wild beasts. The progress of
culture depended on the awakening of requirements and their
satisfaction, and not in limiting or renouncing them. The love of
mankind might be a very beautiful thing, but the speaker ought not to
come and preach to the poor, who held together and helped each other
without his advice. Let him go and preach to the rich, for whom he
seemed to feel so much pity and tenderness. Why should the minority
attract to itself the existing means of life, and leave the majority to
starve, as the capitalists did now? why should the provisions not be
divided between all, so that the whole community should have a part?

Paul had wished to leave when Wilhelm had finished, but the latter
waited out of politeness to hear his opponent speak, and when the
speaker had ended in a storm of applause, the three friends left the
meeting. When they were outside, Dr. Schrotter said to Wilhelm:

"Do you know that you are a first-rate speaker? You have everything
that is necessary for moving a crowd in the highest degree."

"Hardly that, I think."

"Certainly, I mean it: a noble appearance, a voice which goes to the
heart, remarkable calmness and assurance, uncommon command of language,
and an idealistic earnestness which would move all the better spirits
among your audience. You have shown us to-night the road you ought to
take. You must devote your gift to speaking in public, you must
endeavor to become a deputy. If you fail in this, you will sin against
our people."

"Bravo! I had already thought of that," cried Paul.

"A deputy--never," said Wilhelm. "If I spoke well to-day it was because
I was sorry for the poor, ignorant men who listened to the silly talk
of a fool as if it were a revelation from Mount Sinai, but I could
never presume to have any influence in Parliament or in the fate of
governments."

"And so you call what is every citizen's duty 'presumption,'"

"Forgive me, doctor, if I say I do not believe that. Only those who are
acquainted with the laws and their development should have anything to
do with the nation's destiny. But only a few isolated individuals know
these laws, and I am not one of them."

"Do you think that the government know them?"

"Oh, no."

"And yet the government does not hesitate to rule the people's destiny
according to their intelligence."

"It reminds me of the poet's expression, 'Du glaubst zu schieben und du
wirst geschoben.'"

"What is the movement that you mean?"

"An unknown inner organic force which defines all the expressions of
life, of single individuals and united societies alike. It develops as
a tree grows. No single individual can add anything to it or take away
from it, no single individual can hasten or retard the development or
give it any direction."

"In one word--the philosophy of the Unknown."

"That is so."

"Very good, and if a government oppresses a people, robs them of their
freedom, perpetually finds fault with them and ill-treats them, they
must bear it quietly, and comfort themselves by the thought that the
government is controlled by the infallible, all-powerful Unknown."

"Rob them of their freedom? No government can rob me of my spiritual
freedom. Freedom rules continually in my mind, and no tyrant has the
power of subduing my thoughts."

"You make a great mistake there," said Dr. Schrotter gravely. "From
you, Dr. Wilhelm Eyuhardt, no gendarme certainly can take away your
freedom, because you are mature, and your opinions of things are
settled. But a tyrannical government can hinder your children from
succeeding to your freedom of mind. It can teach lies and superstitions
in the schools, and compel you to send your children there. It can set
an example of public morality which can demoralize a whole people. It
can draw up manifest examples of miserable intentions and conduct of
life, through whose imitation a people voluntarily mutilates itself or
commits suicide. No, no; it does not do to limit oneself to oneself,
and to struggle upward for one's individual spiritual freedom. One must
go out of oneself. What does it matter if one makes mistakes? It is
true, as you say, that no single individual knows the whole of truth;
but every individual possesss a fragment of it, and altogether we have
the whole. Look at India, there you have existing what we should become
if we all followed your philosophy, they live in their own spiritual
world, and are indifferent to any other, they endure first the
despotism of their own government, then a foreign conqueror, and
finally lose not only freedom and independence, but civilization, and
become not exactly slaves, but ignorant, superstitious barbarians."

"The German people will not get to that," said Wilhelm, smiling.

"Thank the men for that," cried Schrotter, "the men who think it their
duty to take part in the welfare of their country, and to exert
themselves for the spiritual freedom of others. An energetic sympathy
with public affairs is a form of love for one's neighbor. Say that
constantly to yourself, without letting yourself be deceived by the
hypocrite who handles politics as others do the Stock Exchange, merely
to make profit out of them."

While they talked they had arrived at Schrotter's house door. It was
nearly midnight, and had stopped raining, and all the houses except
Schrotter's were dark. Light shone from the two windows of his Indian
drawing room, and one of the curtains was drawn aside a little, leaving
a face clearly visible. It was Bhani, who was waiting patiently for
Schrotter's return, and gazing eagerly down the street. As the three
friends stopped at the door the head disappeared, and the curtain fell
back again into its place.

CHAPTER VI.

AN IDYLL.

The feverish pulse of a city is not felt in the same degree in all
parts of it. There are places from which all circulation seems shut
out, and where the rapid stream of life hardly shows a ripple. Quiet
houses are there, only separated from the noisy street by the thickness
of a wall. They seem to be many miles from the heated movement of life,
and their inhabitants complacently gaze from their windows with the
same unconcern as they would look at a picture on their own walls--a
view perhaps of violence or excitement, a storm at sea, or a battle.

The Markers' house in the Lutzowstrasse was just such a peaceful island
in the tossing sea of the city. It was only a few steps from the
Magdeburger Platz--the first story in a stately house with a round arch
over the door. Three generations of women--grandmother, mother, and
daughter--lived there, without a single man to take care of them,
attended only by an old widowed cook and her daughter, who had grown up
into the position of a waiting maid. A dreamy, monotonous life they
lived here, like that of the sleepers in the palace of the Sleeping
Beauty behind their hundred-year-old hedge of thorns.

The grandmother was the head of the house--Frau Brohl, a lady of over
sixty years, and a widow for the last twenty. She was a small thin
woman, her figure very much bent, with snow-white hair, a narrow, pale
face, and pretty brown eyes. She moved slowly and with great exertion,
spoke softly and with shortness of breath, and seemed weary and sad.
She looked as if she had some hidden sickness, and as if her feeble
lamp of life might soon flicker out. As a matter of fact she had never
had a day's illness; her appearance gave the impression of weakness,
and increasing age made her neither better nor worse. Even now she was
the first to rise in the morning and the last to go to bed; had the
best appetite at table; and, in her occasional walks, was the least
tired.

Her late husband--Herr F. A. Brohl, of the firm of Brohl, Son &
Co.--had been one of the largest ship-brokers in Stettin. They had
lived together for a quarter of a century in peace and happiness, and
her eyes filled with tears when she remembered that part of her life.
It was a beautiful time, much too good for a sinful human being. They
had a house to themselves, with large high rooms, and every day she
received visits from the richest women of the town, and visited them in
return. There was never a betrothal, marriage, or christening in a
well-known family to which she was not invited; every child in the
street knew her and smiled at her; and the suppers in her hospitable
house were renowned as far as Russia and Sweden.

The marriage was blessed by one daughter, who grew up to be a rather
pretty, well-mannered, and well-grown girl. Her horizon stretched from
the storeroom to the linen-press, and from the flatiron to her book of
songs. She felt a high esteem for her father--just as everyone does for
a rich man--and for her mother, if hardly love, at least a boundless
respect. She regarded her as almost more than human, and the care with
which she listened to her mother's instructions into the secrets of the
kitchen, the market, and the linen-room, was almost unnatural. She was
afraid she would never attain to the fluctuations of price in the fish
market in different seasons of the year, the starching of muslins, the
time it took to cook a pudding, and how much sugar went to a pot of
preserved fruit; and her mother destroyed the last remnant of
self-confidence when half-pityingly, half-contemptuously she told her
that she was not sufficiently developed to understand such things. When
Fraulein Brohl was old enough, her parents married her to Herr Marker.
It was hardly a love match, but in Brohl, Son & Company's house such
folly as love was not considered. Herr Marker was the son of a
wholesale coffee-merchant, and was neither handsome nor
distinguished-looking; he was small, thin, bandy-legged, with an
unwholesome complexion, a peevish expression, and almost bald-headed.

Herr F.A. Brohl soon found that he had made a mistake, and been in too
great a hurry. The old Marker lost his fortune in an unlucky
speculation during the Crimean War, and was only saved by Brohl from
the shame of bankruptcy. He died soon afterward of grief, and left his
son nothing but debts. The young Marker showed no special genius for
the coffee business, but an uncomfortable ambition for speculation in
stocks. He opened an exchange office, and entered into transactions
with the Exchanges of Berlin, Frankfort, and Amsterdam, and after a
short time the last penny of his wife's dowry disappeared. His
father-in-law dipped into his pockets and renewed the dowry, but
stipulated that Marker in the future should ask his advice before any
undertaking. This Marker felt as a deep humiliation, and rather than
submit to Brohl's tyranny, preferred to loaf all day with his hands in
his pockets at the Exchange, and shortened the evenings by going to the
club, and boring people with endless stories of the meanness and
thick-headedness of his cad of a father-in-law, who in his
old-fashioned, narrow-minded Philistinism had not the least capacity
for any great undertakings.

Brohl died soon after, and Marker experienced a new and painful
sensation. His wife did not inherit a penny by her father's will, his
whole property under limited conditions going to the widow. This was
specially arranged for by Brohl to prevent Marker from laying his hands
on more capital. He shook his fist at the opening of the will, and
broke out into unseemly abuse; he went all over Stettin, and cried out
that he was robbed, that the old rascal had plundered him. To his wife
and mother-in-law he also talked day after day and night after night,
saying how shamefully he had been treated, and that it was his
mother-in-law's duty to make good the mistake. Frau Marker could not
endure this perpetual grumbling and badgering, and Frau Brohl became
weak with not only her son-in-law but her daughter constantly at her
ear. She consented to give him a large sum to put him into a new
business, which he described as having a brilliant and unfailing
future, and after a great deal of begging and worrying she at length
brought herself to the far greater sacrifice of a removal to Berlin,
that Marker might have a greater sphere for his energies. So the
stately house in the Frauenstrasse with its lofty rooms was abandoned,
and exchanged for the small flat in Berlin.

The departure from Stettin was a miserable one. It was desperate work
packing the thousand things which had gathered together during the
quarter of a century in careless profusion. It was heart-breaking to be
obliged to leave behind the stores of wood, coal, and potatoes in the
cellar, the cranberry jam in the storeroom, which the Markers, in their
grandeur of ideas, did not think worth the trouble of taking with them!
And the farewell visits to the rich friends, in whose family festivals
she would never more take part; and the last visit to the Jacobkirche,
where she would never more go on Sundays and meet her intimate friends,
for whose benefit she wore the family ornaments, and the stiff silk
dress. There were many tears and sobs, but the cup was drained like the
others; and Marker began his new life in the Lutzowstrasse with his
wife, his mother-in-law, and the little Malvine, who was the only child
of their marriage.

At first things went on pretty well. Frau Brohl often had tears in her
eyes when looking at the familiar furniture in her room, which had been
designed for a house three times as large, and she would rather have
sacrificed one of her hands than one of her old sofas or tables. But
Marker was gay as he had never been before, and full of wonderful
stories of the future importance of his firm, astounding both the
women, and even making them respect him, which feeling had never before
influenced them. He had an office in the Burgstrasse, near the
Exchange, shared by other young men, and came home every day with new
reports of the wonderful business he was doing.

A day came, however, when he had no news to tell them, when his
complexion was as yellow as ever, his eyes avoided the questioning
glances of his mother-in-law, and after playing at concealment for a
whole week, he was at last forced to tell them that he had again lost
all his money. He hastened to add, however, that every thing could be
saved if the mother would once more set him on his feet; in every new
undertaking one had to pay something for learning; he had hardly
understood his position so far, but now he knew what he was about, he
must be contented with modest profits. Frau Brohl made a fresh
sacrifice, giving Marker his position in business again after six
months. He had hardly the courage to come home with new plans, but used
to steal in quietly like a shadow on the wall, sit down at table with a
heart-breaking sigh, sulked with the women, and often was heard talking
to himself in this fashion: "This is no sort of life. If women hold the
cards, stupidity is trumps. The woman in the kitchen, the man in
business," and so on. Finally the thing happened which Frau Brohl had
foreseen with anxiety--Marker came with a new project, for which he
wanted fifty thousand thalers. It was an entirely new idea, unheard of
before; it couldn't miscarry, it must bring in a hundred thousand; with
one stroke all the former losses would be retrieved. Then he stopped
talking, and showed yards of figures, read aloud letters of advice, and
went on reading and talking and crackling papers for an hour to Frau
Brohl, following her from the drawing-room into the kitchen, from the
kitchen back to the drawing-room; and when she took refuge in her
bedroom, he read to her through the door. However, it was no good, and
Frau Brohl stood firm. Then Marker tried a new method. He was
argumentative before, now he became tragic; he threatened to throw
himself out of the window, to become dangerously ill, to go away and
never be heard of again. He left half-finished letters on his
writing-table, in which he announced his death to his acquaintances,
laying the blame on his wife and mother-in-law; in short, poor Frau
Brohl, whose existence had become a veritable hell, with a heavy heart
put her hand once more into her pocket, and gave Marker what he wanted.

Everything now went on as smoothly and merrily as before. After a few
weeks Marker again lost everything, and seemed so upset that he stayed
away all day without coming home. At last he appeared again, and
hesitatingly, with a timid expression, begged for forgiveness. "Very
well," said Frau Brohl, "only I hope you will not begin all over
again." Her hopes were not realized. The spirit of speculation had too
strong a hold over Marker to be kept back. After he had remained quiet
for about a year, he actually had the effrontery to ask his
mother-in-law for more capital. But this time she was like a rock. "Not
a penny," said Frau Brohl, and kept her word. Marker wept, and she let
him weep; he talked of suicide, and she advised him to use a rope, as
he did not understand the use of firearms. He had run through half her
money, and the other half she meant to defend like a lioness. The
specter of poverty rose up before her, she reflected that rich people
would cast her out of their society, and look upon her as a weak woman
without any self-respect, conquered by Marker's tenacity.

There were no more storms after this, and peace reigned in the
tightly-crammed flat in the Lutzowstrasse, but it was peace which
concealed a great deal of grumbling and sulkiness. Marker very seldom
spoke, and his obstinate silence was made easy for him, for the women
at last hardly ever spoke to him. Every week he had a certain sum given
him for pocket-money; Frau Brohl paid his tailor's and bootmaker's
bills, and he was treated in fact as if he had done with this world.
His business was to take the little Malvine to school and fetch her
home again, and on the way he grumbled incessantly to the child about
her mother and grandmother. The former he called "she," and the latter
"the old lady." He never mentioned their names. Malvine had noticed
that at home they never spoke to her father; in her childish way she
imitated this contemptuous silence. The only bright spot in his
existence was a visit to some old business friends, where he unburdened
his overflowing heart, and complained by the hour together of the
tyrants in his house, who trod him under-foot, and ill-treated him now
that he was unfortunate. He was the victim of two silly women, but he
would show them one day of what he was capable. "She" and "the old
lady" were too stupid to understand him, but he hoped he would not die
until he had seen them on their knees before him. In this way he
ceaselessly kept up the smouldering rage within him; his face became
more and more yellow, he grew thinner, he lost his appetite, he looked
as if he were suffering from some dreadful malady. He said nothing,
however, about his health, but seemed to find a comforting satisfaction
in the reflection that "she" and "the old lady" would one day be
surprised to see him lying there, and that would be his revenge. And so
it came to pass--one morning he was too weak to leave his bed. At
luncheon Frau Brohl and Frau Marker noticed his absence, and went to
look for him; as they had taken no notice of him for so long, they were
not aware how shriveled and emaciated he had grown, and were now
shocked and astonished to see how miserable and frail he was. They sent
for a doctor; Frau Brohl made some elder tea; Frau Marker sat up all
night by the sick-bed, but nothing could be done. A few days later he
died, with a look of hatred at his mother-in-law, and a movement of
aversion from his wife.

Nothing was changed in the household; there was another place at table
and a room at liberty, which was soon filled with the things
overflowing from the drawing-room. Frau Brohl still had a passion for
preserving and pickling, which had descended to her daughter and her
granddaughter, and also a passion for needle-work. Year in and year out
the three sat at the window of their drawing-room over embroidery,
lace-making, and such like, working as if they had to earn their daily
bread. They were mistresses of all kinds of fancy work, and invented
many more.

Frau Brohl was unequaled in her inventions of new kinds of work. Such
things as book-markers and slippers, paper-baskets, bed-quilts and
tablecloths, card-baskets, and chair-cushions were all too simple--the
mere a b c of the art. Wonders like embroidered pictures for the walls,
various kinds of fringes for the legs of pianos, fireplace hangings,
gold nets for window-curtains, mottoes for the canary's cage, silk
covers for books, were the order of the day. When any one came in he
was first struck with surprise, which quickly changed to bewilderment.
Wherever he looked his eye fell on some piece of work, with no repose
or unadorned space. Here a row of family portraits, in plush and gold
frames, all looking stiff and uninteresting--on inspecting them at
close quarters, they were seen to be not painted but embroidered in
colored silks. There hung a melon, the outside of the fruit represented
by yellow, green, and brown satin, the stalk by gold thread, the little
cracks and roughnesses by gray silk applique, the whole thing fearful
and absurd in its exuberance. And wherever one went or stood, sat down
or laid one's hand, there wandered a huge wreath of flowers in Berlin
wool, or the profile of a warrior in cross-stitch sneered at one, or a
piece of hanging tapestry of pompous pattern and learned inscriptions
flapped at one, and everything was rich and tedious and terrifying and
shocking in taste; and when one's tired eyes looked out of the triply
be-curtained windows into the street, one fell convinced that little
angels would come down out of the sky clad in what was left over of the
rococo furniture draperies, bordered with gold.

This unsightly museum of useless things was the occupation of Frau
Brohl and Frau Marker's lives, and here Malvine grew up to be the
pretty girl to whom we have been introduced at the Ellrichs'. Her
mother was a sort of elder sister to her, and the only authority in the
house was the grandmother. She ordered the servants, and her daughter
paid her the same timid reverence as in the time of her short frocks.
Frau Marker seldom opened her lips except to eat, or to answer her
mother in a parrot-like sort of echo. Frau Brohl's energetic spirit
stirred even in these narrow boundaries. She did not feel at home in
Berlin; she met no one she knew in the streets, and in fact knew no
one, and this feeling of being among strangers, as if at some
out-of-the-way fair, made her so uneasy that she hardly ever went out.
Often since Marker's death she had thought of returning to Stettin, but
when she reflected how dreadful it would be to pack up and unpack again
all the thousand pieces of work, her courage failed her. All the same
she lived with her heart and soul in Stettin. A local paper from
Stettin was her only reading. She kept up a regular correspondence with
all her old acquaintances, who gave her news of all the engagements,
marriages, births, and deaths of the rich people she had known. If
Stettin people of good standing came to Berlin she called on them and
invited them to dinner, when her former celebrated triumphs in cookery
were repeated. If she found out that any wealthy inhabitants of Stettin
had been in Berlin without informing her of the fact, she took it so
much to heart that she had to go to bed for a week. A few Stettin
families, who in the course of the year emigrated to the capital,
constituted her circle of visiting acquaintances, enlarged later by
Malvine's school friends, and introductions at their houses. The
connection with the Ellrichs was through the Stettin circle. Frau Brohl
gave a large soiree twice in the course of the winter, when the
invitations they had received were returned. Since Malvine was grown up
there had been dancing, although the small size of the drawing-room,
and the displacement of all Frau Brohl's needlework, set everything in
great confusion.

This kind of life and its surroundings naturally could not develop
Malvine's mind and character in any high degree. She missed any
stimulus from her mother or from her grandmother; she only learned to
respect rich people, to fathom the mysteries of the kitchen, and to
cultivate a taste for peculiar and original fancy work; she was,
however, a good-tempered, rather slow-witted girl, of well-balanced
mind, without a trace of capriciousness or the nervous temperament so
common to city life; within her limited view of things she had a good,
honest intelligence, and with her plump figure and her round, rosy
face, which bore witness to her grandmother's kitchen, she was very
comely in men's eyes.

Paul Haber had already become acquainted with the flat in the
Lutzowstrasse during the winter before the war, and he liked the quiet
he found in the corners of the little rooms, and in the muffled voices
of these three women. The friendship was continued during the war by
means of frequent letters, and on his home-coming Paul renewed his
visits with pleasure. By cautious inquiries he had gathered that
Malvine had sixty thousand thalers in cash as her dowry, and would
inherit double that sum. Her modest, quiet, amiable disposition made
him drift into a strong attachment; her appearance was sufficiently
womanly and charming, and her steady, practical views on things,
utterly unromantic an unenthusiastic, harmonized entirely with his own.
It was refreshing for him to hear her chatter about people and things
with the calm good sense of a Philistine, especially in a society where
the bombastic and exaggerated talk of original, poetically minded young
ladies had repelled and bored him. At his first meeting with Malvine
Marker he had thought that she was the wife for him, and since he had
become friendly with her and her circle, he said to himself, "This one
and no other."

The three ladies liked him immensely. Frau Brohl took him at once to
her heart, and that was the chief consideration. His appearance made a
good impression on her. He was strongly built, not too thin, in fact,
showing signs of a respectable probable stoutness in later life; his
face was full, and his complexion healthy, his mustache carefully
trimmed, and his hair closely cropped; he certainly dressed well. The
young men of her former rich acquaintances were of the same type, so
also was the late F.A. Brohl when she first met him. He was
gentlemanly, without a doubt, and he must be well off to employ such a
good tailor and friseur. She also noticed, with an immense
satisfaction, that he had a due appreciation of fancy work. He did not,
like some superficial people, regard these housewifely creations as
merely pretty or useful things, but appreciated them as works of art,
and wondered at the difficulty of these marvelous fabrications.
Complicated lace-work, or embroidered pictures, filled him with
amazement, even if applique had no effect on him. When Frau Brohl
noticed these marks of distinction in him, she did not hesitate to
invite him to dinner on Sunday--at first occasionally, and afterward
regularly, and with increasing pleasure she noticed that in other ways
he also reached the ideal she had imagined in him. He had a good
appetite, and it was not necessary for him to say in words how much he
enjoyed the dishes set before him, every look and gesture showed it
plainly. He evinced a warm sympathy for family events, even when they
did not concern him in any way, and he had the same genuine esteem for
rich people, which had been handed down for three generations in the
Brohl-Marker families. She thought that he showed no disinclination to
be her granddaughter's husband, only at first she pondered over his
calling in life. She knew perfectly well that the highest professorship
could only earn in a year what an ordinary ship-broker made in a month.
At the same time she reflected that even a merchant made a bad job of
it sometimes, as her son-in-law's example had shown her only too
plainly; that the title "Professor" sounded very well, and if he did
not make very much money at most, at least he could not lose it, and
she came to the conclusion that in the circumstances a professor could
make his wife very happy. Frau Marker had nothing to say about the
matter, and was quite prepared to accept a son-in-law from her mother's
hand, as she had formerly accepted a husband, so the fact that Paul had
not made a very favorable impression on her did not matter very much.

There remained only Malvine--but just there lay the difficulty. The
girl was always kind and friendly to Paul, she took his homage without
any coquetry or apparent disinclination; when they went out walking she
took his arm quite unaffectedly; when they were invited to meet in
society, by a tacit agreement he took her in to dinner, had the
privilege of the greater part of the dances, and was her partner for
the cotillion. But whether they were alone or in company, whether they
danced or talked, whether he came or went, she showed a perfect
unconcern and freedom of manner to which he longed to put an end. She
was much too cold and collected even for his unsentimental nature. He
would have forgiven some agitation, some confusion, a few blushes now
and then, perhaps a sigh, but these signs of the heart's flutterings
were nowhere forthcoming. As they were out one day alone together,
something happened which filled Paul with doubt and trouble. Malvine
had been attracted to Wilhelm when first she saw him, and since then
she had incessantly thought and talked of him. He was so handsome, he
spoke so charmingly! She thought it astonishing that any one should not
love him, just because his admiration was mingled with so much shyness.
She herself was much too insignificant a person to think of loving him,
and beside, he was not free, and it would have been a sin to think of
the man who was engaged to her friend. This enthusiasm for Wilhelm
naturally did not escape Paul's notice, but it did not disquiet him,
because he took into account Malvine's nature. "It is a harmless
fancy," he said to himself, "the sort of fancy girls take sometimes for
princes whose photographs they see in shop-windows, or for actors whom
they have admired as Don Carlos or Romeo; later on they laugh over
their childish folly, and these fancies never prevent the pretty
enthusiast from marrying and being happy."

Nevertheless, things became suspiciously different after the breach
between Wilhelm and Loulou. In Malvine's somewhat narrow but
well-regulated mind a brave romance had been mistakenly built up. Now
Wilhelm was free: now she need have no feeling of duty on account of
that superficial, pleasure-seeking Loulou, who had never been worthy of
him. Was it impossible that he might notice her? would be grateful for
her sympathy? and perhaps--who knows--later--he might seek consolation
from her--who was so ready to give it? The concluding chapter of this
girlish romance remained her own secret, but the beginning she boldly
declared. She explained to her grandmother, as well as to Paul, that
now Dr. Eynhardt was in need of being comforted, it was the duty of his
friends to try to overcome his sorrow. She proposed that Paul should
bring him as often as possible, and she obtained from Frau Brohl the
unwonted permission of inviting him to the Sunday luncheon. Wilhelm had
little pleasure in going into ordinary society, especially to
strangers, but this invitation was so warm and pressing that he could
not bring himself to refuse it.

When Wilhelm was there Paul was put completely in the background.
Malvine had no words or glances for any one but Wilhelm, and if she
spoke to Paul it was only to thank him for having brought Dr. Eynhardt
to the Lutzowstrasse. If Paul came alone he was mortified to see a
shadow pass over Malvine's face, and he was forced to listen to a
string of inquiries after his friend. He had been conscious for a long
time that he must try to reconcile himself to this condition of things,
and if he felt himself rebelling, he reminded himself he must have
patience and wait, trying to console himself with the thought that
Malvine's enthusiasm was only on her side--Wilhelm's demeanor seemed to
show that he did not guess what was going on in the girl's mind. His
manner was courteous and friendly, but there was really no difference
between his demeanor toward Frau Brohl and toward the young girl. While
Malvine blushed and became confused when he entered the room, Wilhelm,
on his side, spoke to the grandmother, mother, and daughter with
exactly the same pleasant smile, and his hand rested not a moment
longer in Malvine's than in that of her grandmother. On his side there
was evidently nothing to dread. He felt he had a defender and support
in Frau Brohl. The old lady kept a sharp lookout on her little world
with her dim-sighted eyes. She noticed that Malvine was unable to
withstand the charm which Wilhelm exercised over her, and she could not
bring herself to be angry with the girl. She herself liked the young
man extremely, admired his handsome face, his fine voice, his modest,
unassuming manners, but she felt instinctively that he belonged to
quite a different world from herself, and that in a sense they would
always be strangers. When he spoke she could not follow his thoughts,
although she felt that they were very profound; when she spoke he
listened with the greatest politeness, but nothing more came of it. He
tried to be attentive to her stories about engagements and separations,
he was entirely uninterested in rich people, he did not praise the best
dishes at table, and he even went so far as not to conceal his aversion
for the design of the horrible knight in cross-stitch. Beside all this,
his clothes were bad, and although he had a house of his own, it was
only a little one. No, Wilhelm as a relation was not to be thought of.
He was not of their own flesh and blood, like that good, delightful
Paul Haber.

It was not in Paul's nature to wait patiently in suspense, and he
determined to put an end to his uncertainty. Malvine seemed to him as
desirable as ever, and he had built up in his mind a future, of which
Malvine and her sixty thousand thalers were the foundation. He must
know whether she were for him or not; in the one case to transform his
castle in the air into reality without loss of time, and in the other
case not to waste the best years of his life in aimless disappointment;
not to let other opportunities slip by. He was not quite clear,
however, on one point, To whom should he make his proposal? To Frau
Brohl? That would be the most practicable way, no doubt, as the bent,
pale old lady, with the soft, sighing voice, ruled everything in the
house, and if she promised the hand of her grand-daughter, she would
certainly keep her word. But it went against the grain to put any
constraint on the girl, and he felt that he would be ashamed to answer
"No," if Frau Brohl were to ask him if he had already spoken to
Malvine. Then if he were to go in a straightforward way to Malvine, and
say, "I can no longer hide from you that I love you, and that I want
you to be my wife, will you consent?" there was a great deal of risk in
that, for if she misjudged her own feelings, and said that she loved
some one else, and so could not listen to him, the rupture between them
would be accomplished, and it would be no use to him if later she found
out that she had been mistaken in her feelings. There could be no
secure step for him, on that he was quite decided.

If he could approach neither Frau Brohl nor Malvine, there was one way
clearly open to him, and he took it without further delay.

One sunny afternoon in May, a few weeks after the Labor meeting at the
Tivoli, Paul came to see Wilhelm, and asked him to go for a walk with
him in the Thiergarten. Wilhelm was soon ready, and while they were
walking Paul was astonishingly quiet, and seemed sunk in deep thought.
He suddenly broke the silence, and when they were under the trees,
without any beating about the bush, asked his friend:

"Wilhelm, do you love Malvine?"

Wilhelm stood still, as if rooted to the ground, and in boundless
astonishment he said:

"Are you off your head, Paul?"

"I implore you, Wilhelm," said he in an anxious way, "just answer 'yes'
or 'no,' because the happiness of my life depends on your answer."

"But I never thought of it," cried Wilhelm, grasping Paul's hand. "What
put such an idea into your head?"

"Then you are not in love with Malvine?" asked Paul obstinately.

"No, I am not in love with Malvine, if you will have the answer in that
precise form."

"I thought as much, but I wished to have the answer from your own
lips;" and as they walked, he continued, "Do you see, Wilhelm, if you
had loved Malvine, I would have got out of your way; I would have
submitted to fate without any struggle or opposition."

"Have I been injudicious? Perhaps too intimate? Forgive me, Paul, if it
is so. It happened quite unintentionally. I only thought of her as my
friend's fiancee, and believed her also to be a friend of mine."

"I don't mean that, Wilhelm; you have always behaved awfully well--with
great tact, and all that. But you have not seen how it has been with
Malvine; she is quite mad about you, especially since you have been
free."

"You imagine these things."

"Be quiet, you impatient baby, and hear what I have to say. I believe
it is not love Malvine has for you, but it only wants a word or a look
from you to turn it into love. If she were convinced that you feel only
as a friend for her, she would be contented to admire you from a
distance, and begin to care a little more for an inferior specimen of
mankind like myself."

"I feel quite in despair about it. How could I be so blind, so stupid?"

"Never mind; it is not all over yet. I know Malvine. She is a
simple-minded girl, without a bit of sentiment in her, mentally and
morally healthy. If she knew she had nothing to expect from you, I am
perfectly certain that nothing would stand in the way of my happiness."

"I will do whatever you wish--and first of all, I must put a stop to my
visits there."

"I must ask more from you than that, my poor Wilhelm. Merely staying
away is too passive. You must act. I want you to talk to Malvine, and
somehow explain to her that you don't love her."

"How can I possibly do that?" cried Wilhelm, really startled. "I should
have no right! If she laughed in my face and called me a fool and a
lout, I should feel I deserved it."

"You ought to know that she would not do that. I know I am asking a
very unusual thing, and a very difficult thing, but I feel I can ask
such a sacrifice from your friendship."

As Wilhelm did not immediately answer, Paul said, seizing his hand:

"Once more, Wilhelm, if you have any thought of Malvine, I will not
stand in your way."

"But, Paul--"

"And perhaps I ought to wish it for you; Malvine is a good, dear girl,
and will make the man who marries her happy all his life."

"Don't say any more; I have already told you that she is sacred to me
as your fiancee, and beside, I should have no claim on her, even if I
did not know how you stand with regard to her."

"Well, then, you must help me to reclaim her from her mistake. You
alone can do it, and I am sure that later--very soon, in fact, she will
be grateful to you."

Wilhelm was silent, looking at Paul in anxious suspense. At last, with
a deep sigh, he said:

"Well, if I must---"

"You are a brick," cried Paul, and embraced him before the passers-by,
who turned round to look at them with astonishment.

On the next day, at twelve o'clock, Wilhelm rang at the Markers' flat
in the Lutzowstrasse. Through the little peephole he caught a glimpse
of some one, then the door flew open, a maid ushered him into the
drawing-room, and without waiting for him to speak, said:

"Frau Brohl is in the kitchen; I will fetch her."

"Thank you," said Wilhelm, rather feebly; "there is no hurry.
Is--is--the Fraulein at home?"

The girl was already at the door, and turning round, stared at Wilhelm
with astonished eyes.

"Yes; shall I say that you would like to speak to her?"

Wilhelm nodded, and the girl went out. After a short pause Malvine
stood before him, offering him her white hand, with its short fingers,
while her face flushed to the roots of her hair.

"Might I speak to you, Fraulein?" he said, in a low, constrained voice.

Malvine went very white, all the blood seemed to leave her heart, and
she almost gasped for breath. After a short silence she whispered,
"Certainly, Herr Doctor," and took him into the little room next the
drawing-room, which contained a modest bookcase, a writing table, and
chairs in red damask. She sat down, and Wilhelm took a chair near; they
were silent for a minute or two, while she, with eyes downcast, went
alternately red and white, and could scarcely breathe. There was no
pretense this time about her agitation. It seemed as if suddenly a
flash of lightning had illuminated his mind, showing him a picture of
this trembling, pretty girl clashed to his heart, and he with his arms
round her. It only lasted for a second, but it struck him like an
electric shock, and left in his mind a mingled feeling of trouble,
shame, remorse and vexation. He had a consciousness of danger, and he
felt that he must make a great effort to become master of the situation
and of himself.

"Gnadiges Fraulein," he began, "what I want to say to you will seem
odd, and perhaps audacious, but I beg you in spite of that to hear me
to the end."

Malvine sat motionless, breathing quickly.

"I do not know," he went on, "in what position you and my friend Haber
are with regard to each other, but you must have noticed, without any
explanation, that he loves you."

At the mention of Paul's name, Malvine for the first time raised her
eyes, and looked at Wilhelm with such a troubled expression that he
felt still further alarmed. He had broken the ice, however, and he made
a courageous effort to regain his asssurance.

"Dear Fraulein," he said impressively, "I am afraid there has been some
misunderstanding between us, which it is my duty toward you, toward my
friend, and toward myself, to explain. My behavior has perhaps aroused
an impression which it should not have done. There is no doubt that I
ought not to have shown you how warm my friendship is for you--for you,
a good and beautiful girl, who have inspired my best friend with such a
love; but really I considered that so long as the engagement between
you and Paul was not clearly arranged, that you would understand my
position. If I seemed happy to be near you, it was because I told
myself how happy my friend would be when he could call you his own; if
you seemed to read warmth and tenderness when I looked at you, it was
because I was and am so grateful to you for so happily influencing
Paul."

While he was speaking Malvine had sunk back in her corner, and had
closed her eyes with a deep sigh. A few large tears began to roll down
her cheeks. Wilhelm touched her hand, which was cold as ice. She made a
feeble effort to draw it away, but he held it fast and went on:

"Dearest, best Malvine, do not bear me any grudge for this abominable
half-hour, and believe me that it is only out of consideration for your
life's happiness. I quite understand how it has all happened. Your kind
heart was filled with pity for me, and in your innocence you gave the
pity another name. It was quite natural that you should be uncertain of
yourself, while you thought you were loved by two men, and that the
confusion prevented you seeing clearly with your own heart. Now you
know that Paul loves you, and that the day on which he dares call you
his will be the first happy one I have had for a year. You will be able
to come to a determination more easily, as it concerns your own
happiness equally with Paul's. Paul is a good fellow, and worthy of the
woman who will bear his name."

He bent over her hand and pressed his lips to it. Malvine sobbed aloud,
and putting her arms on his shoulders kissed his hair, then sprang away
and flew to her room. Wilhelm hurried away in great confusion, thankful
that he had been spared meeting either Frau Brohl or Frau Marker. He
only breathed freely when he found himself in the street.

Paul was informed the same afternoon of the conversation which had
taken place, Wilhelm delicately passing over Malvine's outburst of
feeling, and he hurried at once to the Lutzowstrasse to take by storm
the fortress in which his friend had already made a breach. He was
received by Frau Brohl, who nodded in mysterious manner, and took him
into her bedroom, at the back of the flat, through the dining-room. In
her soft, feeble voice she mildly reproached him for not having more
confidence and coming to speak to her sooner. She then related to him
what had happened. She had heard with great surprise that Dr. Eynhardt
had come and gone away again, without saying good-day to her. As she
was going to ask what the visit meant, Malvine came and embraced her
grandmother, crying bitterly, to the old lady's great distress. With
many tears she had given a confused and broken account of the interview
with Wilhelm, begging Frau Brohl to comfort her and foretell that it
should end well. Frau Brohl explained that Malvine was now in her room,
meaning that Paul must not try to see her just at present. Such a
silly, inexperienced creature must have time given her to learn to be
reasonable, beside, she (Frau Brohl) would take care of everything, and
Herr Haber could call her grandmamma now if he liked. He kissed her
hand, deeply moved and grateful, and her eyes filled with tears. She
then explained the situation to Frau Marker, who, after looking very
much surprised, also embraced her son-in-law. It was a dignified scene,
tender, and, as befitted an honorable family, without any over display
of feeling; if all the wealthy people of Stettin had been assembled
there, they could have expressed nothing but admiration.

On the next day Frau Brohl spoke to her grand-daughter. She made her
understand that there were no real objections to be made, that she was
silly and was acting against her own happiness. Paul was much the
better match of the two, was more chic and practical than Wilhelm, had
better prospects in life, and was really better-looking than his
friend. Above all she liked Paul, and did not like Wilhelm, and that
ought to be taken into account. Malvine was not inaccessible to such
arguments, as Paul was really sympathetic to her. Soon her tears ceased
to flow, and her sighs became fainter and fainter. In two days' time
she regained her appetite, signs which Frau Brohl noticed, and quickly
imparted to Paul. At their first meeting he showed a little anxiety,
and she, a good deal of constraint, but that soon passed off, and as
they were constantly together, she found a great deal of pleasure in
his manly good looks and honorable qualities. Beside, it was spring!
the sun shone, the sky was blue, her room was full of the fragrance of
flowers, which Paul brought every day with the regularity of a postman,
and fourteen days later they were engaged, and his first kiss was given
in the presence of her grandmother, mother, and Paul's parents. Her
heart felt very warmly toward him, and she would have felt dreadfully
confused had not Wilhelm, with characteristic good feeling, declined
the invitation to be present.

Frau Brohl arranged for the wedding to take place after Whitsuntide. At
the Zwolf-Apostelkirche she wore her heavy silk dress and all the
family ornaments, as on the Sundays at church at Stettin. Her bent
figure was straighter than usual, and a smile of proud satisfaction
lighted up her pale, melancholy face. Several rich friends from Stettin
had come over to Berlin for the wedding. She leaned on the arm of the
bridegroom's father, Herr Haber, a dignified old gentleman with a long
beard. Paul wore his uniform and a Japanese order, which had been
conferred on him by a Japanese pupil at his lectures on agricultural
chemistry. Several officers in uniform were in the church, and a large
number of professors, councilors, etc. Paul's round face beamed with
happiness, his blond mustache looked triumphant, his hair was
mathematically cut, and a field-marshal might have sworn that he was a
regular officer. The bride was rosy, and looked happy. Her veil and
wreath were made by the family, and her satin dress covered with their
embroidery. Wilhelm was one of Paul's witnesses. When he went to
congratulate the happy pair after the ceremony, Malvine looked at him;
a gentle glance, with perhaps a mild reproach in it. Paul, however,
grasped his hand, and whispered into his ear:

"Your friend for life, Wilhelm, for life."

CHAPTER VII.

SYMPOSIUM.

Paul had hardly returned from his wedding trip to Paris when he
surprised his friends by a series of quite unexpected business
engagements. He gave up his post as lecturer, in spite of the fact that
the appointment as professor for the next six months depended on it; he
left his young wife for three weeks, during which nothing was heard of
him, except an occasional letter bearing the postmarks of Hamburg,
Altona, or Harburg, then he appeared again, and told Malvine that they
were to remove from Berlin, to spend in future a portion of the year in
Hamburg, but to live chiefly on some property near Harburg. He had
decided to leave his academic profession and become a practical
landowner, and accordingly had taken a large leasehold estate. He gave
Wilhelm and Schrotter further particulars of his plans. The place he
had bought was hardly to be called an estate, but a wild desert bit of
moorland called "Friesenmoor," growing only a kind of marsh grass. This
piece of land, from which nothing but peat could be obtained, was
worthless, and he had bought it for a few thalers. After many years of
study on the subject, and without saying a word to any living soul,
Paul had come to the conclusion that this arid moor could be made into
rich arable land by proper cultivation, and seeing money was to be made
out of this possession, he decided without loss of time to put his
theories into practice. There was always the risk that he might lose
his money, but he had great confidence in his science, and "nothing
venture, nothing have." He considered it quite unnecessary to explain
everything about his speculation to Malvine and the old lady. He knew,
too, that merely the word "speculation" would frighten them to death.

The separation from Malvine dissolved her grandmother and mother into
sighs and tears, but during the short time that they had known Paul,
his quiet, determined character had made such an impression on the two
women that they submitted without a word to whatever he arranged. Frau
Brohl packed up several boxes for her granddaughter, filled with the
work of her hands, gave her various recipes for preserving fruits and
for fish sauces, and let her go. She withstood bravely the temptation
to fill up the empty room with the overflow furniture from the
drawing-room, and spoke on the contrary of leaving the room free, so
that the young couple might make it their headquarters when they came
to Berlin. Paul hypocritically invited Frau Brohl and Frau Marker to
come and live on his estate--he did not even fear two mothers-in-law.
Grandmother and mother, though pleased with his attachment for them,
declined with thanks. The cunning dog had reckoned on that refusal. He
would have been in a terrible dilemma had they accepted. He would then
have had to reveal the whole truth, and tell them that his so-called
"property" was a mere swamp, where there was no place for one's feet to
tread unless clad in waterproof boots; hardly a fit place for
townspeople, accustomed to comfort. Before the changes on the
Friesenmoor could be brought about one fell into pools, one's feet got
fast in boggy earth, and the only inhabitants at present were
waterfowl, frogs and toads. He did not even take Malvine to his
property but lived in Hamburg, going to Harburg every morning and
returning in the evening.

In a short time the neighborhood between the Seeve and the Suderelbe
wore a different appearance. Hundreds of laborers were to be seen on
the moor, which hitherto had reflected only the sky in its silent
pools. Dams were thrown up, trenches dug, a dwelling house was raised
on piles, numbers of business offices, and quite a village for workmen,
all mounted and secure on piles of wood, stakes, and stone foundations.
Flatboats floated on the pools, the houses were roofed in, windmills
flapped their sails, and Paul, who had ordered and built everything,
came every day to see how the workmen were getting on. In the autumn he
took Malvine for the first time to Harburg, and leaving the carriage at
the office brought her by boat to the border of the Friesenmoor, to
show her the picture all at once. The men stood on each side of the new
house with their shovels and pickaxes, and greeted the young wife with
such a hearty cheer that her eyes filled with tears. The broad flat
surface of the marsh was now arranged in regular lines where the water
was being drawn off, all so well superintended and orderly, that
Malvine could not help thinking of a chessboard. The windmill moved its
long restless arms, as if to welcome her as mistress here; the
one-storied dwelling house, raised on stone steps, lay there hospitably
built on a raised terrace, with its number of large well-lighted rooms
opening a vista of peace and happiness to Malvine, and she thought it
all so delightful that she would have liked to send for her furniture
from Hamburg and stay there. Paul, however, reflected what danger there
might be to her in her condition to stay through the winter in a house
not yet dry, and so she gave in to his wishes.

At the end of March a telegram from Hamburg announced the birth of a
fine boy, to whom Wilhelm was to stand godfather. He was to be named
Paul Wilhelm, and to be known by the latter name. When the warm weather
came, Paul and his family were to go to the moor, and during the
removal Malvine went with her mother and grandmother, who had both
nursed her tenderly, to Berlin for a visit. Paul went through a great
deal of worry and anxiety this summer. He had everything at stake in
waiting for the results of his undertaking. All his money was in the
buildings, the earth-works, and waterworks; if the barren swamp did not
yield twice the sum intrusted to it he was a ruined man. But as July
drew near, and Paul looked at the thick standing ears of barley and
wheat, he felt the weight of his anxiety lifted, and in August he
proclaimed in letters to his friends that the battle was won, the
harvest more abundant than he had dared to hope for, and the remaining
half-year would complete the transformation of the worthless moorland
into a veritable Australian gold mine. He regarded his property now
with a parental tenderness, as if it were some living being whom he had
trained and educated. The first harvest had given him experience, and
opportunity for new work, and he stayed through the autumn and winter
in his house in the midst of his workmen, whom he felt inclined to
canonize. The men now formed a little colony with their wives and
children, and Paul was as happy as possible within the limited boundary
of his horizon, between the Suderelbe and the Seeve.

These two years had been outwardly uneventful for Wilhelm. In the
mornings he worked in the Physical Institute, in the afternoons he
worked at home, in the evenings he gossiped with Schrotter--a journey
to Hamburg and a fortnight's visit to the house on the Friesenmoor had
given him change. Paul came pretty often to Berlin, and found in the
society of his old friends the enjoyment of his early years renewed,
and Wilhelm with his girlish face, his enthusiastic eyes, and his
unworldly manner did not seem a year older. The professor of physics,
who had frequently been invited to go abroad to direct the teaching in
other European and foreign schools, asked Wilhelm to go with him to
Turkey, Japan, and Chili--as professor. He had the highest opinion of
Wilhelm, and deeply regretted that his misadventure with Herr von
Pechlar made an appointment in Germany impossible. Wilhelm, however,
declined, on the ground that he did not feel an aptitude for teaching,
only for learning.

He had scarcely any intercourse now with Barinskoi, whose immoral views
at last became unbearable; he rarely saw him except when he came to
borrow money. Of late a new acquaintance had come into his limited
social circle. This was a man of about thirty-five, called Dorfling, an
overgrown thin creature, with long, straight gray hair, and deep
intellectual eyes in his thin face. He came from the Rhine, and was the
son of a rich merchant, into whose business he should have gone.
However, when he was twenty-six he boldly told his father that the
world outside was of deeper and wider interest to him than account
books. The father died, and Dorfling hastened to put the business into
liquidation, and devote himself to philosophical studies. For a year he
drifted from one school to another, sitting at the feet of the most
celebrated teachers and plunging himself into their systems. In the
autumn of 1872 he appeared suddenly in Berlin, and renewed his old
acquaintance with Wilhelm. Since then he had become a frequent guest at
Dr. Schrotter's dinner table, and a companion to Wilhelm, in his
afternoon walks.

Dorfling was the most wonderful listener that any one could wish to
have, though he himself was rather silent. If the talk turned on great
questions of knowledge, morality, the object of life, Dorfling's share
in the conversation consisted in the following half-audible remark:
"Yes, it is a powerful and interesting subject. I have just been
working at it, and you will find my opinions in my book." If he were
asked to give his opinions now, or at least to indicate them, he shook
his head and gently said, "I am not good at extempore speaking. My
thoughts only come out clearly when I have a pen in my hand." Not a day
passed by without an allusion to "the book," to which he devoted his
nights, and of which he always spoke, with emotion in his voice, as the
work of his life.

It was impossible to get more information out of him, either about its
title, scope, or contents. It was a philosophic work, no doubt, as he
always said on speaking of such subjects, "I have mentioned that in my
book." But that was all that could be got out of him. Schrotter and
Wilhelm were too good to tease him much about it, though the former,
with a suspicion of a smile, would say that he hoped this and that
would have a place in the book, so that one might at least know his
opinion on it. Paul, who always saw him when he came to Berlin, used to
ask whether the book was not yet ready. Dorfling gave no answer, but
his pale face grew paler, and an expression of pain came to his eyes.

Barinskoi, who now sponged on Dorfling just as he had previously done
on Wilhelm, giving them in fact turn and turn about, had the bad taste
to make jokes continually about the book, at one time calling it the
Holy Grail, another time comparing it to the diamond country of
Sindbad's tale, and in a hundred ways making vulgar and sceptical
jokes. On one of his outbreaks of dissipation he had disappeared far
longer than usual, and on his return he looked more miserable than
ever. Dorfling made some kindly inquiries, and learned that he was
recovering from an attack of inflammation of the lungs, and Barinskoi,
by way of showing gratitude, remarked, "The doctors gave me up, but I
held out, as I do not mean to die until I have read your book."
Dorfling, with a contemptuous look, turned his back on him.

One day, soon after the Easter of 1874, Dorfling brought his friends a
great piece of news. The book was ready, it was even in the press, and
would be published in a few days by a large firm, but he wanted to
present them with copies before the book appeared at the shops. He
therefore invited them to a little festival to celebrate the occasion.
He had been thinking over the book for seventeen years, had been eight
years in writing it, and as it had taken such an important place in his
life, he must be pardoned a little vanity about it now. Paul had a
written invitation sent him, and he thought the occasion was
sufficiently important to come to Berlin on purpose.

On the appointed evening they all met at eight o'clock at Borchardt's
in the Franzbsischen Strasse. A dignified waiter, who in appearance and
manner looked more like an ambassador, received the guests, and took
them into a private room on the left side of the large room above the
ground floor. This little room was all lined with red like a jewel
case, thick red portieres were over the doors, and the amount of gas
with which it was lighted made it rather warmer than was comfortable. A
large table with divans on three sides of it nearly filled the room; it
was beautifully decorated and covered with flowers. Numerous
wineglasses were placed before each guest, and champagne was cooling in
an ice-bucket near the door.

Dorfling was there, and received his guests as the waiter lifted the
heavy portiere. He was in evening dress, and his slightly flushed face
beamed with pleasure. His friends regretted keenly that they had come
in ordinary morning clothes, and expressed their apologies. He
interrupted them, saying they must overlook one of his little whims and
not say anything more about it.

Then they sat down to table, impressed by his charming manner. Dorfling
put Schrotter on his right hand, and Wilhelm and Paul on his left; near
Schrotter was Barinskoi and a friend of Dorfling's, named Mayboorn.
This man was, like Dorfling, a Rhinelander, he combined a successful
career as a writer of comic verses with a confirmed pessimism. When he
had written one of his merriest couplets, he would stop his work and
sigh with Dorfling over the tragedy of life. The papers treated his
farces as rubbish, but the public adored them. The earnest critic would
hardly touch his name with a pair of tongs, but the theatre managers
fought for possession of his work. He had a beautiful wife who
worshiped him, two wonderful children, and the appearance and bearing
of Timon of Athens.

At Dorfling's summons two waiters came in; one of them put a large dish
of oysters on the table, while the other placed a thick octavo volume
before each guest.

"The last of the season," cried Barinskoi gayly, and helped himself to
oysters.

"The book! Bravo!" said Paul, and held out his hand to Dorfling.

There was a short silence, while they all, even the cynical Barinskoi,
contemplated the book before them, On the pearl-gray cover they read;

"The Philosophy of Deliverance, by X. Rheinthaler."

"What an expressive title," said Wilhelm, breaking the silence first.

"Admirably adapted for a comic song," remarked Mayboom, with a
melancholy air. Barinskoi laughed loudly, while Dorfling looked blandly
at him. The comic poet sighed deeply and began to eat.

"But why Rheinthaler?" asked Paul.

"I at first wanted the book to appear anonymously; but the public is
accustomed now to see a proper name on the title page. If it does not
find one, its curiosity is excited, and what I particularly wished to
avoid comes to pass, namely, the diversion of attention from the
essential to the unessential."

"That does not explain why you have not put your own name to it," said
Paul.

"My own name? What for? What is a name? What is an individuality, which
a name symbolizes? The thoughts which I have put down in this book are
not from me, the transient accident called Dorfling, but from the
absolute everlasting thing which thinks in my brain. I am merely the
carrier of the truth, appointed by it. What would you say if a postman
put his name on all the letters he delivers?"

"I should not be capable of such self-effacement," said Paul. "If I had
devoted the best years of my life to any work I should be unable to
renounce the recognition I had earned."

"Recognition, Herr Haber. What sort of word is that? One does what one
does, not because one wills, but because one must; not on account of an
operation aimed at, but because of a compelling cause. He who reckons
on any kind of reward for his works is on the same footing as a silly
woman who claims men's approbation because she is pretty or an
unreasoning child, who wants to be praised and petted because he has
eaten his dinner. A mature perception arrives at this idea of the duty
which one must fulfill, and in no hope of the gratification of
individual vanity or self-seeking. Recognition! Does the wind hope for
recognition from the ships it helps to sail? Is it blamed if it dashes
the ship to pieces? It blows, as it must, and is perfectly indifferent
about what men say, and as to its effect on trees, and chimney-pots,
and ships. My brain is now thinking just as the wind blows. There is no
difference between my organism and what goes on in the atmosphere. Both
obey the laws of nature, and I merely fulfill these when I write a
book."

"I quite agree with you," said Wilhelm.

The oysters had been eaten, and some wonderful Markobrunner drunk. The
waiter now brought some Printaniere soup. The conversation halted, as
everyone had involuntarily opened his copy of the book, some of them
perhaps really curious to read, the others out of sympathy for the
writer.

"Please don't read it now," said Dorfling, "the book will be just the
same to-morrow, but the soup will be cold."

"That is the remark of a philosopher," said Barinskoi, and poked his
pointed red nose in the savory steam from his soup.

"It is difficult to tear oneself away," said Schrotter; "it would be
very friendly of you to give an idea of the thoughts at the foundation
of your thesis."

"How could I explain a whole system intelligibly in a few words?" said
Dorfling.

"You could leave out all the proofs and the development, we can read
those presently in your book. You need only just give us the main ideas
of your 'Philosophy of Deliverance.'"

All the guests joined in Schrotter's request, Paul the most eagerly,
for the idea of having to read through that thick, dry book had
frightened him, and now he saw the possibility of knowing its contents
in an agreeable and comfortable way.

Dorfling objected at first, but as his friends insisted he began.

"The phenomenal world, in my opinion, is the foundation of a single
spiritual principle which you can call what you like--strength, final
cause, will, consciousness, God. This eternal principle separates part
of itself from its own being--and this is the soul of mankind. Every
soul perceives clearly that it is a part of an eternal whole; it feels
itself unhappy and uneasy in its fragmentary existence, and yearns to
go back again to the whole from whence it came. Individual life means
removal from that all-embracing whole; individual death is the complete
union of finite parts with the infinite whole. Thus, although life is a
necessity, it is a continual pain, and ceaseless yearning; death is the
freedom from pain and the fulfillment of that yearning. The only aim of
life is death at the end of it, and death is the goal toward which
every activity of the living organism eagerly strives."

Paul looked at Wilhelm and Schrotter, but as they were silent he said
nothing. Schrotter after consideration, said:

"Why do you separate a part of the eternal principle from itself?"

"To make its unity manifold through divisibility, to arrive at the
consciousness of the 'ego,' through the creation of an absolute
negation."

"Your eternal principle then," said Schrotter, "appears to you like
some lord or master, who is lonely because he is by himself in the
world, and wishes to have the society of others."

"Over this, however, is placed the creation of the negation arriving at
the consciousness of its own 'ego,' in addition to the knowledge of the
object it has in view; thus consciousness precedes the rest," said
Wilhelm.

Dorfling shook his head.

"These objections are close reasoning. You will find them answered in
the book."

"You are right," said Schrotter, "it is unfair to criticize before we
have read the book. I only want to make one remark, not in the sense of
criticism, but rather to confirm a fact. Your "Philosophy of
Deliverance" is no other than a form of Christianity which looks upon
the earth as a vale of tears, on life as a banishment, and on death as
going home to the Father's house. The theology of the Vatican would not
find a hitch in your system."

"Forgive me, doctor," answered Dorfling. "I see a great difference
between my system and Christianity. Both of them hold that life is a
misery, and death is the deliverance. But Christianity does not explain
why God creates men, and sends them to the misery of earth, instead of
leaving them in peace in heaven. I, on the contrary, claim that I
explain the creation of living and conscious beings."

"Your assertion then means that the eternal principle of phenomena
creates organisms, with the object of arriving at the consciousness of
itself?"

"Exactly."

"Now, we have already answered you as to that," said Schrotter, "and I
will not keep back my objection any longer. Let me get away for a
moment from your system, and say that between metaphysics and theology
I do not see the least difference. A metaphysical system and a
religious dogma are both attempts to explain the incomprehensible
secret to human reason. The negro solves the riddle of the musical-box,
believing that a spirit is inside it, which gives forth musical sounds
at the white man's command; and that is precisely what priests and
philosophers do when they explain the great workings of the universe by
a God, or a principle, or whatever they call their fetich. Human nature
always wants to know the why and wherefore of things. When we are not
sure of our ground, we help ourselves by conjectures, or even by
imagination. These conjectures are senseless or reasonable, according
to whether our knowledge is insufficient or comprehensive. Men are
satisfied in their childhood with stories as explanations of the
world's mysteries, in their maturity they advance to plausible
hypotheses: the stories yield to theology, hypotheses to philosophy.
Religion presents a fictitious solution to the riddle in a concrete
form, and metaphysics in an abstract form; the one relates and asserts,
the other argues and avoids the improbable. It is only a difference of
degree, not of character."

"That is just so," cried Wilhelm. "Metaphysics are as incapable as
religion of disclosing what lies behind the phenomenal world, and I
cannot conceive (forgive me, Dorfling, if I say straight out what I
mean), I cannot conceive how a philosopher can really take his own
system in earnest. He must know that his explanation is only a
conjecture, a possibility at the best, and he actually has the temerity
to preach it as a fixed truth. No, my friend, I do not expect anything
from metaphysics. It only interests me as a means for studying
psychology. The history of philosophical systems is a history of the
development of the mind of humanity. The systems are only valuable as
testimonials to the endless extent and possibility of human thought.
All the systems put together do not contain a spark of objective truth."

"That is upon the whole the difference between natural science and
metaphysics," said Schrotter. "Science regulates the boundary between
what is known and what is not known, and declares when the limit is
reached. Our knowledge has attained to a certain point, and beyond that
we know and understand nothing, absolutely nothing. Metaphysics will
not stop at that limit. It confuses knowledge and dreams together, and
manufactures out of the two something quite worthless. It explains
things which it does not understand, and which cannot be understood,
and offers us detailed descriptions of countries into which it has
never traveled, and where mankind probably never will travel."

"May I say a word in defence of your metaphysics?" said Dorfling, with
a slight smile.

"Yes, go on," cried Barinskoi. He had drunk more than all the rest put
together, and the serious conversation seemed to afford him great
amusement.

"Look here, Eynhardt. I cannot possibly uphold your statement that
metaphysics do not contain a spark of objective truth. To be certain of
that, one must also be certain what objective truth is. But you are not
certain, as you very well know, and so logically you must admit the
possibility that metaphysics can hold a spark of objective truth. I am
of an entirely different opinion on this point. I believe that the
science of the actual content of things, the foundation of all
appearances, the laws of the universe, in short, everything which you
call objective truth, is the property peculiar to the atoms, of which
the world formerly existed. Absolute science, I say, is inherent
matter, like motion and gravitation. Matter does not learn of them, it
possesses them. A cell has not studied chemistry, but with unfailing
accuracy it executes its wonderful chemical operations. Water knows
nothing of physics and mathematics, but it flows from the spring, just
as high as the laws of hydraulic pressure command."

"Bravo," interrupted Mayboom, "that explains at last something I never
understood; and that is, why a flower pot should fall off a window
straight on the heads of people in the street, with unfailing accuracy."

"Please, Mayboom, no bad jokes to-day," said Dorfling gently.

The comic song writer sighed and again sank into deep thought, and the
philosopher went on:

"The science of truth, to which every atom adheres, dwells in men. We
must not forget that man is a collection of countless millions of
atoms; the collected consciousness of mankind can know just as much of
what each atom knows, as a whole people can understand of Greek or
Sanscrit because one or other of its members can read those languages.
Only through intercommunication can the knowledge of the few become the
knowledge of the many. The development of the living being I regard in
this way, that the atoms at first only hang loosely, gradually becoming
more closely knit together, until they make a substantial organism. The
single atoms in the course of this process of development step over the
boundary toward consciousness. At first it is a trembling, insecure
foreboding, like the sensation of light to one nearly blind, then the
outlines of truth become clearer, and all at once grow sharp and
clearly defined. The different attempts at explanation of the secrets
of the world are the expression of these forebodings of truth. So every
one of the religious and philosophical systems is to my mind a grain of
the truth, and the whole of it will be found in the great unity which
we shall reach in a higher development."

"As charming as a pretty story," said Schrotter, "but--it is only a
story after all. You conjecture that the thing is so situated, but you
are not in a condition to prove it; and if I deny it, you have no means
of compelling me to believe, as I can compell you to believe that twice
two makes four. No, no; nothing can come of these metaphysical
speculations. The whole philosophy is not worth psychological
treatment. We are no further to-day than the old Greeks, whose
knowledge led to the formula, 'Know thyself.' We can hope to know
ourselves some day, to know what goes on in our brains. I hardly
believe, however, that science will ever arrive at it."

"The study of natural science has brought me to the same conclusion,"
said Wilhelm. "We know nothing to-day of the nature of phenomena--we
knew nothing yesterday, and we shall know nothing to-morrow. The great
advance in thought has only brought us to the point of no more
self-deception, and exactly knowing what we do know, whereas yesterday
men deceived themselves, and imagined that the fables of religion and
metaphysics were positive knowledge. The history of physical science is
in this respect very interesting. It teaches that every step forward
does not consist of a new explanation, but rather goes to prove, that
the earlier explanations were untrustworthy. The sphere of the exact
sciences does not grow wider, but narrower. It would be very
instructive to study the history of natural science at the point it has
reached."

"Why do you not write such a history?" asked Schrotter.

"Why? It would be foolish to add another book to the millions of books
already written. All that one can say about it is soon said. Anything
really new is written once in a thousand years, all the rest is
repetition, dilution, compilation. If everyone who writes on a subject
were to read first everything which has been written on that subject,
he would very soon throw his pen out of the window."

"I must again differ from you," said Dorfling. "I think it is best,
that we so seldom know all that has been thought and written on a
subject. It is best that we write new books without wearying to read
the millions of others. I grant that most books are only repetitions of
earlier ones. But it is unconscious repetition, and it is exactly that
which gives it a wonderfully new meaning. It proves unity of mind,
identity of science. Thousands of men daily discover gunpowder. Many of
them laugh, because gunpowder was first discovered two hundred years
ago. I do not laugh. I see in it the manifestation of the eternal unity
of phenomenal principle. So many men could not arrive at the same
thought if they were not fragments of a whole; now you know why I have
written a book, and also, why I have not put my individual name on the
title-page."

From the next room they heard a woman laugh in a wild, excited way,
glasses chinked together, and a man's voice was just distinguished in
conversation. Barinskoi pricked up his ears and winked at Paul; the
others paid no attention.

"Do not misunderstand me," said Wilhelm, answering Dorfling's last
remark. "I do not mean to say that your book is superfluous. You had
every right to it, having made it the object of your life."

"Not the object of my life," interrupted Dorfling. "The only object I
have in life is death, which I call deliverance."

"Very good; I will say then, when you conceived it your duty to write
it."

"'Duty' yes, I will allow that word to pass. Let us rather say impulse,
or instinct. If one has a perception one also feels an impulse, which
one calls a feeling of duty to share it with others."

Wilhelm smiled.

"You believe even in perception. That proves above all what you mean by
your duty. I know, to my regret, that I have no perceptions to share
with others, and the duty of my life is only toward my own moral
education and greatest possible perfection."

"That is not enough," Paul broke in, "this self-culture in one's own
study does no one any good. For that reason I do not mind if I appear
unphilosophical. One has duties toward one's fellowmen. One must be
useful to the State, as a good citizen. One must make money, to add to
the national wealth."

"Bravo, Herr Haber," said Mayboom gravely. "You speak like a
town-crier," and after a short pause he added, "That is a great
compliment from me."

"We express the same meaning in different forms," answered Wilhelm.
"How can you add to the national wealth? By making yourself a rich man.
And I try to be useful to the community by educating myself in the
greatest possible morality, and the highest ideal of a citizen. No one
can work outside of himself when every individual strives to be good
and true, then the whole people will be good and noble."

"Now you are disputing as to your life's duty," cried Baninskoi, whose
eyes glowed, and whole face was red with the alcohol he had imbibed.
"Prove first that it is a duty. I deny without exception every duty to
others. Why should I trouble myself about the world? What are my
fellow-creatures to me? Dinner is trumps, and long live wine!" and he
drank a glassful.

"It is an instinct born with us," said Wilhelm, without any vexation,
"to care for one's fellow-creatures, and to feel a duty in sympathy for
others."

"But suppose I have not got this instinct?" answered Barinskoi.

"Then you are an unhealthy exception."

"Prove it."

"The best proof is the continuance of mankind. If the instinct of
sympathy with others were to fail among men, humanity would long ago
have ceased to exist."

Barinskoi laughed.

"That is a convenient arrangement. Instinct then is the only foundation
for your duty, and the continuance of humanity is the only sanction of
your instinct. I will leave you to listen to your instinct, and
sympathize as much as you like, but for my part I joyfully renounce
this duty; the only punishment I should be afraid of is the destruction
of mankind, and that is not likely to happen in my lifetime."

"There is another punishment," said Mayboom solemnly, "that I take this
bottle of champagne away from you on account of--your bad behavior."

While he spoke he took away the bottle, and Barinskoi tried to get it
back again; a little struggle ensued. Dorfling put an end to it by an
emphatic "Please don't do that." Turning to Wilhelm he went on:

"I do not believe in your idea of duty; you place instinct at the
foundation. I use another word. I call your instinct the foreboding
that each has of its being, and its outflow toward the eternal
phenomenon of principle. At all events, that seems to suffice for a
foundation. But I conceive duty to be quite a different thing. You
limit your view to self-culture, and have love for your
fellow-creatures, but no desire to instruct them. Now, I think that
culture should begin with oneself, but end with others. That is my idea
of love for humanity. One need hardly go out of oneself to do this. One
can influence things remote without disturbing oneself. Just think of
the magnet; it is an immense source of influence, called example. It
sets an astonishing example without moving out of itself--an example
which cannot be overlooked, and powerfully affects the imagination."

"One illustration for another," said Schrotter, who had shown his
interest in the conversation by nodding his head now and then. "You
wish man to play the part of a magnet; that is not enough, I want him
to play the part of a cogwheel. He must catch hold of his surroundings
while he moves, he must also move all those round him. Everyone cannot
be a magnet; we are not all made of the same stuff. But one can make a
cogged wheel out of whatever one will--and beside, a magnet only
influences certain substances. It will draw iron, but cannot attract
copper, wood, or stone; but the cogwheel takes hold of anything near
it, of whatever material it is made. I will not work the illustration
to death. You can see by this what I mean. I think a far-reaching
activity is the first business of mankind. Our nerves are not so much
those of sensation as of movement; we do not only take in impressions
from the outside, we are provided with organs which give out
impressions received from within. Every sensation of movement which
nature sends through us is a summons to be answered by an action, not
only self-culture, not example, not passive good-will toward others,
but by the intention an object of activity toward the world and
humanity. The Middle Ages summoned up the business of life in the
words, 'Ora et Labora.' They are beautiful words, and after this lapse
of time we take the meaning out for ourselves, in other words, 'Think
and Act.'"

The woman's laughter from the next room became louder, and then they
heard chairs pushed back, and the noise of departure. The rustling of a
silk dress, with the clinking of spurs and sword, passed the door,
became fainter, and then ceased. It was near midnight, and Schrotter
rose to go. He was thinking of Bhani, who was sitting up for him at
home. The dinner must have been paid for beforehand, for the guests
were spared the sight of a money transaction to chill the end of their
pleasant evening. The cool night air felt refreshing after the heat of
the small room. Dorfling declined the offers his friends made to
accompany him home. They all wished him "Farewell."

"Die well, would be a better wish," replied Dorfling, and with these
strange words in their ears they left him.

Schrotter and Wilhelm went a part of the way with Paul, who had the
furthest to go. For a little while he was silent, then he broke out:

"I declare this is beyond my comprehension. The whole time I was there
I felt as if I were in a vault with a lot of ghosts. You, Herr Doctor,
were the only living being among them; I breathed again when I heard
you talking. If I had not head the sounds from next door, and had not
had the realities of our dinner before me, I should have thought I was
dreaming."

"What has put you out so, my dear Paul?" said Wilhelm.

"What! Are you men of flesh and blood? Are you really alive? There we
sat for four mortal hours, and the talk was wearisome to a degree,
never one sensible word."

"Now! now!" protested Schrotter.

"Herr Doctor, forgive me, but I must repeat it, never one sensible
word. Do you call Dorfling's 'Philosophy of Deliverance' sensible? or,
Wilhelm, your philosophy of self-culture, which, with all deference to
you, I call philosophical onanism? Only six men, two of them under
thirty-five, and the whole blessed evening not one word about either
pleasure or love."

They had come to the place where Friedrichstrasse and Leipzigerstrasse
cross each other; and Schrotter signed to them to look toward the left
corner. There under a gas lamp they saw Barinskoi in earnest
conversation with a woman.

"Yes, look at him! That brute is still the most reasonable among all
your philosophics. He has his method of sponging, and enjoys himself
according to the category of Aristotle. But your metaphysics--"

"What do you really want, Paul?"

"Well, I want you all to have to do for once with practical life, with
two hundred workmen to pay and ten thousand acres of land to see after;
and artificial manures and the price of corn to worry you; then perhaps
you would take a little less interest as to whether the soul was a
phenomenon or an india-rubber ball, or whether men were magnets or
cogwheels."

Wilhelm only smiled. He had long ago given up trying to bring his
practical friend to ideal views. At the corner of the Kochstrasse they
separated, and Paul continued his way to the Lutzowstrasse, while
Wilhelm and Schrotter turned back.

Twenty minutes later, as Wilhelm entered his bedroom, his eyes fell on
a letter for him in Dorfling's handwriting. He opened it, greatly
surprised, and read as follows:

"DEAR FRIEND: When you read this I shall be free from all trouble and
all doubt. I have accomplished what I set myself to do, and I am going
back to eternity from this limited sphere. May you be as happy as I
shall be in a few hours! Keep a friendly thought for me as long as you
stay in this world of misery, and believe that he who writes this had
the warmest friendship for you."

"L. DORFLING."

Wilhelm stood as if thunderstruck. Was it by any chance a dreadful
joke? No; Dorfling was incapable of that. It must be a grim reality. He
ran quickly out of the house to seek Schrotter. The old Indian servant
opened the door, and in his broken English informed him that Schrotter
Sahib had found a letter when he reached home and had immediately gone
out again.

Wilhelm could now doubt no longer, and running swiftly, he reached the
street where Dorfling lived, waited in agonizing suspense for the door
to be opened, flew up the stairs, and through the open door to his
friend's bedroom. There he found Schrotter; Mayboom was also there
sobbing, and a tearful old servant. In an arm chair near the bed was
Dorfling, still in his dress coat and tie, his head sunk on his breast,
his face hardly whiter than in life, his arms hanging down, and in the
middle of the white shirt-front a great red stain. On the floor lay a
revolver.

Wilhelm, horrified, took his friend's hand. It was still quite warm.
His agonizing look sought Schrotter's, who answered in a hushed voice,
"He is dead."

Then his tears broke out, and his trembling fingers had hardly strength
to close the lids over his friend's eyes, those eyes which looked so
strangely quiet and peaceful as if they now knew the answer to the
Great Secret.

CHAPTER VIII.

DARK DAYS.

Dorfling's suicide made a profound impression on Wilhelm, and for
months he was haunted by the vision of that motionless form with its
white face and blood-stained breast. It had a weird fascination for
him, causing him to revert constantly to that tragical May night that
had begun with a cheerful dinner, and ended in a fatal pistol shot.
Paul's comment on the occurrence was short and concise. "The poor chap
was mad," he said, and there the matter ended as far as he was
concerned. Mayboom revered his friend's memory as he would a saint, and
erected a kind of chapel to him in his house, in which Dorfling's
portrait, his book, and various objects belonging to him, thrown up in
relief against draperies and surrounded by a variety of symbolical
accessories, were set forth for the pious delectation of the master of
the house and his visitors. Schrotter held aloof from this cult. He
appreciated Dorfling's character, his consistency, his strength of will
and highmindedness as they deserved, but he was never tired of
preaching and demonstrating to Wilhelm that all these admirable
qualities had been turned out of their proper course by a disturbing
morbid influence. It was monstrous, he contended, that a system of
philosophy should arm you for suicide. What if the premises should
prove false? Then your voluntary death would be a frightful mistake
which nothing could retrieve. One has no right to risk making such a
mistake. He believed in development, in the progress of the organic
world from a lower to a higher stage. Progress and development,
however, were conditional upon life, and he who has recourse to
self-destruction sets an example of unseemly revolt against one of the
most beautiful and comforting of all the laws of nature. Moreover,
suicide was a waste of force on which it was simply heartrending to
have to look. There were so many great deeds to be done which called
for the laying down of life. In a thousand different ways one might
benefit mankind by Winkelried-like actions. If one was determined to
die, one should at least render thereby to those left behind one of
those sublime services which demand the sacrifice of a life.

In their frequent conversations upon this subject, he was so earnest,
so eloquent, so markedly intentional, that Wilhelm finally gave him the
smiling assurance that he was preaching to a convert. It was true, he
had the highest respect for a man who did not hesitate to cast life
from him when his whole mind and thought led him to the conviction that
death was preferable to life; and unprincipled as suicide might be from
an objective point of view, subjectively considered, there surely was
an ideal fitness in making one's actions agree to the uttermost point
with one's opinions? Nevertheless, he himself did not approve of
Dorfling's deed, and would certainly never imitate it, for one could
never know what intentions the unknown powers might not have with
regard to the individual; by committing suicide he maybe threw up some
possible mission, or by his premature departure disturbed the action of
the great machine in which he--as some small screw or wheel--doubtless
had his modest place and function.

As if to prove to Schrotter that he was no disciple of the "Philosophy
of Deliverance," he turned his attention, more than he had ever done
before, to the realities of life. Dorfling left a remarkable will. He
bequeathed his fortune--most advantageously invested in a house in
Dusseldorf and in public funds--yielding a yearly income of about
thirty-five thousand marks, to his two friends, Dr Schrotter and Dr
Eynhardt, with the sole charge that out of it they should provide a
sufficient competency for his old servant, dating from his father's
time, who had attended him literally from the cradle to the grave. The
fortune was to be theirs conjointly and indivisibly, and should one of
them die, to devolve to the survivor, who in his turn was to make such
arrangements as he thought best to insure its being applied, after his
death, in accordance with the testator's views. He expressed the hope
that his two heirs would use the income derived from the property in
alleviating the misery inseparable from human existence, of which
throughout life they must be witnesses. Dorfling's only near relative
was herself very wealthy and generous-minded, and did not dispute the
will, it was accordingly proved.

Wilhelm declared from the first that he understood nothing of the
management of a fortune, of business papers, and so forth, and wanted
to hand over the administration of the whole to Schrotter. Schrotter,
however, would not hear of it, and after vying with one another in
generous self-disparagement and mutual confidence, they finally agreed
that Schrotter, being a practical man, and conversant with the ways of
business and the world, should take the management of the fortune upon
himself, but that Wilhelm should receive a monthly sum of fifteen
hundred marks out of the income to apply as he thought best to the
relief of the needy. The other half of the income was at Schrotter's
disposal, who put it, of course, to the same use. In his capacity as
member of the deputation for the poor, and also as parish doctor, he
came in contact with much poverty and misery, and was able to direct
Wilhelm's charity into the right channels. It became Wilhelm's regular
afternoon employment to visit the homes of those mentioned to him as in
need of relief, that he might the better judge for himself of the true
state of the case, make personal inquiries about the people, and step
in where help was necessary and deserved.

Only now did he learn what life really was, and what he saw neither
increased his pleasure in being alive nor made him proud to be a man
among men. Needless to say, it was not long before the news reached the
circles of the professional beggars that there was a gentleman in the
Dorotheenstrasse who had a considerable yearly sum of money to give
away. The result was that his modest apartment was so besieged by
petitioners that his old landlady, Frau Muller, the widow of a
post-office official, with whom he had boarded and lodged for seven
years, was goaded to desperation, and declared that if the disgraceful
rabble was encouraged she would be obliged to part from Wilhelm, though
it would be her death, she being so fond of him and so used to his
ways. Wilhelm was wise enough to admit the justice of her complaint,
and empowered Frau Muller to turn away ruthlessly all such visitors
whose names were unknown to her, or who came without recommendation,
which orders she carried out with such virulence and relentlessness,
that the worshipful company of professional beggars rapidly came to the
conclusion that it was useless trying to gain admittance to Dr.
Eynhardt as long as he was guarded by the tall, bony old lady who
opened the door but would not leave hold of it. So the unceasing tramp
of dirty boots on the echoing stair was hushed, and Wilhelm saw no more
of the crape-clad widows of eminent officials who required a sewing
machine or a piano to save them from starvation; the gentlemen who
would be forced to put a bullet through their brains if they did not
procure the money to pay a debt of honor; or the unemployed clerks who
had eaten nothing for days, and who all had a sick wife and from six to
twelve children (all small) at home crying for bread; or the foreigners
who could find no work in Berlin, and would return to their native
countries if he would give them a few thalers to pay their fourth-class
railway fare; and similar interesting persons, the endless diversity of
whose life-histories had kept him in a chronic state of surprise for
months. In place of the visitors he now received letters, as many as if
he had been a cabinet minister. It was the same old story, only less
affecting, because generally deficient in style, and faulty as to
spelling, and no longer illustrated by tearful, vigorously mopped eyes,
abysmal sighs, and hands wrung till they cracked. For a time Wilhelm
went to every address given in these letters, in order to see and hear
for himself, but after awhile his powers of discrimination were
sharpened, and he learned to distinguish between the impositions of
swindlers and professional beggars, and the real distress which has a
claim to sympathy.

By degrees, it is true, he became convinced, even in the chill
dwellings of real poverty, that this was hardly ever entirely
unmerited. Where it had not been brought about by laziness, frivolity,
or drink, its source was to be found in ignorance or incapacity, in
other words, in an inefficient equipment for the battle of life. He
judged all these circumstances, however, to be the outward and visible
signs of obscure natural laws, and that to interfere with rash and
ignorant hands in their workings was as useless as it was unreasonable.
He therefore pondered seriously whether, by denying to a portion of
mankind the qualities indispensable to success in the struggle for
existence, Nature herself did not predestine them to misery and
destruction; whether the irredeemable poor--those who after each help
upward invariably fell back in the former state--were not the
offscourings of humanity, the preservation of whom was a fruitless
task, and altogether against the design of Nature?

Fortunately, he did not allow his deeds of brotherly love to be
darkened by the shadow of these and kindred thoughts. He brought
forward reasons which always ended by triumphing over his cold doubts.
Misery was possibly the outcome of inexorable natural laws, but then
was not compassion the same? The poor were poor under the pressure of
some irresistible force, but did not the charitable act under the same
pressure? Moreover, was Wilhelm so sure that he himself was better
equipped for the race of life than those unfortunates who went under
because they chose a trade for which they were neither mentally nor
physically competent, or because, from laziness or obstinacy, they
insisted on remaining in Berlin, where nobody wanted them, when a few
miles off they might have found all the conditions conducive to their
prosperity? How could he know whether he would have been capable of
earning his living if his father had not left him a plentifully-spread
table? In the rooms that contained so little furniture and so many
emaciated human beings, into which his charitable zeal led him every
day, he pictured himself, pale and thin, without food, without books;
and although he had the harmless vanity to believe that privation and
penury would affect him less deeply than the poor devils he visited,
the idea that he saw his own face before him, as it might have been had
he not had the good luck to be his father's heir opened his hand still
wider, and added to the money words of sympathy and comfort, which
afforded the recipients--unless they were utterly hardened--as much
pleasure as the donation itself.

Beside his almsgiving, he now had another occupation which took up all
his surplus time. Schrotter had not let the suggestion drop which he
made at Dorfling's dinner-party, and had persuaded Wilhelm so long that
he finally rouse himself to attempt an account of the ways and means by
which the human mind has freed itself of its grossest errors. It was to
be entitled "A History of Human Ignorance," and promised to be a most
original work. He would endeavor to show what idea people had had of
the universe at various periods, how they explained the phenomena of
nature, their connection, their causes and effects. He would begin with
the childish superstitions of the savages, and continuing through the
so-called learned systems of the ancients and of the Middle Ages, would
bring his history up to the theories of contemporary scientists. He
would demonstrate the psychological causes of the fact that man, at a
certain stage of intellectual development, must necessarily fall into
certain errors, and by the aid of what experiments, experiences, and
conclusions he had come gradually to recognize them as such. How the
fresh interpretation of a single phenomenon would overturn, at one
blow, a number of other phenomena hitherto considered entirely
satisfactory, how prevailing scientific theories, instead of assisting
the fearless observer or discoverer, invariably hindered him and turned
him from the right path, in proof of which assertion he brought forward
such striking examples as Aristotle's convulsive endeavors to make each
of the senses correspond to one of the four elements in which they
believed in his day, and Kepler with his fantastic efforts to prove the
supremacy of the Pythagorean seven in the solar system. The object of
the book was to show that the history of human knowledge is a history
of false inferences and the erroneous interpretations of correctly
observed phenomena, that the increase of knowledge always means the
destruction of existing opinions, that of all the scientific systems up
to the present day, only those retained their position which proved the
futility of earlier theories--never those which built up new structures
on the foundations of the old house of cards that had been blown down.
In a word, that progress means not the acquisition of fresh knowledge,
but an ever-extended consciousness of the futility of the knowledge we
thought to possess.

Wilhem spared himself no pains with this work. He brought all the
thoroughness and industry of his honest nature to bear upon it, would
accept no statement at second-hand, but went for every information to
the fountain head. It would cost an immense amount of time, but after
all he had that at his disposal. There was no need for him to hurry,
seeing that he did not write from ambition or for any material
advantage, but simply for his own gratification. He began by rubbing up
his school Greek sufficiently to enable him to read the ancient
philosophers with ease, which he achieved in a few months, and then set
to work to learn Arabic, that being the chief language of science in
the Middle Ages. Schrotter was seriously alarmed at these extensive
preparations, and hastened to procure, through his pandit friends, some
English extracts from the scientific literature of India, lest Wilhelm
might think fit to study Sanscrit, and decades would pass before he
came to write the first word of his book.

Thus four years went by, years full of work, though they left no
visible traces. Meanwhile the aspect of things in the new Empire had
become very different. Men breathed the oppressive air with laboring
breasts; the bright dawn which promised so glorious a day had, been
followed by sullen mists, and the blue sky had disappeared behind
heavy, leaden-gray clouds, through which no comforting ray of sunshine
pierced. Where was all the glowing enthusiasm, the rapture of hope and
joy that, in the first years after the great war, had flushed every
German cheek and lit up every eye? Throughout the length and breath of
the land the opposing factions confronted one another like armed
antagonists preparing for a duel to the death. Town and village rang
with execration and satire, with howls of rage or satisfied revenge
vented by German against German. The Roman Catholic shook his clinched
fist at the Protestant, the liberal at the conservative, the
protectionist at the free-trader, the partisan of absolute government
at the defender of the people's rights. Everywhere hatred and malice,
everywhere a mad desire to gag, to maltreat, to tear limb from limb;
this unfettering of the basest human passions giving meanwhile such an
impetus to bribery, corruption, and unprincipled advancement for party
purposes as to resemble the loathsome luxuriant growth of mildew in the
damp corners of some neglected storeroom.

The high tide of the foreign millions had ebbed away, showing itself to
have been no fructifying Nile but a destructive lava stream, leaving
the country charred and desolate after its passage. The gold that only
yesterday had poured through greedy fingers, had turned to-day to ashes
and withered leaves like the goblin gold of a fairy tales. Diminished
inclination for work, an insanely increased demand for the luxuries of
life, the accepted ideas of morality shaken to their foundations by
scandalous examples of triumphant vice and villainy--these were the
blessings that remained after the so-called impetus following on the
"Downfall." Work was scarcer, wages lower, but the flood of country
people seeking work continued to roll toward the capital, overcoming
with irresistible force the backward wave of unfortunates who could
find no employment in the building yards, the factories or the
workshops, trampling blindly over the bodies of the fallen, like a herd
of buffaloes which marches ever straight ahead, which nothing can turn
out of its course, and when it arrives at a precipice over which the
leaders fall, presses onward till the last one is swallowed up in the
depths. The misery and privation became heartrending to witness. Each
morning you might see in the working quarters of the town and suburbs
hundreds of strong men, their hands--perforce idle--buried in their
torn and empty pockets, going from factory to factory asking for work,
while the overseers would wave them off from afar to avoid a useless
interchange of words. If, in the years of the French milliards, the
workingman had turned socialist out of sheer envy and wantonness, he
became so now under the sting of adversity, and in all the length and
breadth of Berlin there was hardly one of the proletariat who was not a
fanatical disciple of the new doctrine, with its slashing denunciations
against all that was, and its intoxicating promises of all that was to
be. Wilhelm had many opportunities of intercourse with the unemployed.
He gave help as far as his fifty marks a day would reach, and kept the
wolf from many a door. But the miraculous loaves and fishes of the
gospel would have been necessary to successfully alleviate even the
distress which he saw with his own eyes, and although much of the
preaching of the social democrats still seemed to him mere
phrase-making and altogether mistaken, he yet came gradually to the
conclusion that somewhere--he did not precisely know where--in the
construction of the social machine there must be a flaw, seeing that
there were so many people who could and would work, and yet were doomed
to despair and ruin for lack of employment. The spring of 1878 came
round, and brought with it two attempts on the life of the emperor
within three weeks. Scarcely had the people recovered from the horror
caused by Hodel's crime when it was shaken to its depths by Nobiling's
murderous shot.

On that terrible Sunday, June the 2d, Wilhelm had dined with Schrotter,
and about three o'clock they started for a walk. In the few steps that
separate the Mittelstrasse from the Linden they saw what was going on
in the town. In Unter den Linden, however, they were received by the
yells of the newspaper men calling out the first special editions, and
found themselves in the stream of people pouring toward the Palace or
to No. 18, where they pointed out the window on the second floor from
which the too-well-aimed shot had fallen.

From the special editions, from the confused remarks and exclamations
of the crowd in which the two friends found themselves, and the
information they obtained from the grim-looking policemen, rougher and
less communicative than ever, they learned all that was necessary of
the bloody deed which had taken place an hour ago. Wilhelm could
scarcely control his horror, and even Schrotter, though calmer, was
deeply moved and downcast. All pleasure in their walk was gone, and
they decided to return to Schrotter's house.

"It is simply hideous," said Wilhelm, as they turned into the
Friedrichstrasse, "that we have such brutes living among us! We know,
of course, that there is a great deal of distress, but a man who can
revenge his own trouble on the person of the emperor must be lower than
the beasts of the field. And men who at this time of day have such
ideas on State organization are electors!"

"Good heavens!" cried Schrotter, with unconscious vehemence, "you are
surely not going to make the popular mistake of drawing sweeping
conclusions from these outrages? Such occurrences have no outside
importance. They are the acts of madmen. Their following so closely
upon one another is the very surest proof of that. There are in Germany
thousands--perhaps tens of thousands--of unhappy creatures whose minds
are more or less unhinged, though their inexperienced surroundings do
not know it. Some exceptional event will suddenly put the entire
population in a state of ferment, the imagination of the already
morbidly inclined will be particularly strongly affected thereby; they
picture the occurrence to themselves till it takes hold of them, and
drives out every other thought from their minds, becomes a nightmare, a
possession, and finally an irresistible impulse to do the same. After
every event of the kind, you hear that a whole number of people have
gone mad, and that their insanity is somehow connected with it. No such
thing. They were mad before, and the insanity which had lain dormant in
them only waited for a chance shock to give it definite form and
character."

They had reached Schrotter's door by this time, and were on the point
of entering, when a policeman stepped up to them, and touching
Wilhelm's arm, said:

"Gentlemen, you will have to come with me."

"Why, what do you mean?" they exclaimed, very much taken aback.

"Better make no fuss, but come quietly with me," answered the
policeman, "This gentleman accuses you of making insulting remarks
against his majesty."

Only now did they become aware of a man standing behind the policeman
and glaring at them in fury.

"Are you mad?" Schrotter burst out angrily. "That is for the magistrate
to decide," exclaimed the man, in a voice trembling with rage; "and
you, policeman, do your duty."

Passers-by began to gather round the group, so, to bring a disagreeable
scene to a close, Schrotter said to Wilhelm:

"We had better go with the policeman; I suppose we shall be enlightened
presently."

A short walk brought them to the police office in the Neue Wilhelms
Strasse, where they were taken before the lieutenant of police. The
policeman deposed in a few words that he had been standing at the
corner of the Friedrich and Mittelstrasse, the two gentlemen passed him
in loud conversation; the third gentleman, who was following them, then
came up to him, and told him to arrest them because they had spoken
insultingly of his majesty, and here they were. He had neither seen nor
heard anything further.

The lieutenant of police began by asking their names. When they told
him--"Dr. Schrotter, M. D. one of the members for Berlin and Professor
Emeritus," and "Dr. Eynhardt, Doctor of Philosophy, householder," he
offered them chairs. The informer introduced himself as
"non-commissioned officer Patke, retired, member of a military
association, and candidate for the private constabulary."

"What have you to bring forward against the gentlemen?"

"I walked behind the two gentlemen from the Linden to the
Mittelstrasse. They were conversing loudly about the attempted
assassination, and I naturally listened."

"It does not appear to me so very natural," commented the lieutenant
dryly.

The informer was a trifle disconcerted, but he soon recovered himself,
and proceeded in a declamatory manner:

"The younger gentleman--the dark one--expressed himself in very
unbecoming terms with regard to his majesty the emperor, and said among
other things, that the outrage was of no real importance. I am a
patriot, I have served his august majesty; if his majesty--"

"That will do," the lieutenant broke in, ruthlessly interrupting the
retired non-commissioned officer's flow of language, which he
accompanied with a dramatic waving of the right arm. "Can you repeat
the 'unbecoming terms' of which, according to your account, this
gentleman made use?"

"I cannot remember the exact words. I was too excited. So much,
however, I remember distinctly--he declared the attempt upon his
majesty's life to be an occurrence of no importance."

Wilhelm now broke in.

"Not a word of that is true," he said quietly. "Neither of us said one
word which could justify this inconceivable charge."

"The remark which this informer seems to have taken hold of," Schrotter
observed, "was not made by my friend, Dr. Eynhardt, but by me. I did
not say either that the occurrence was unimportant, but that it had no
general significance--that it was not a proof of the prevailing feeling
at large."

"It comes to the same thing whether you say it has no importance or no
significance," interrupted the informer. "That gentleman may have made
the remark, but I certainly heard it, and as a loyal servant of his
majesty--"

"That is quite enough," said the lieutenant of police authoritatively.
Then turning to the two friends--"I am very sorry, but as things stand
at present, I must let the law take its course. Do you persist in your
charge?" he asked the informer.

"Yes, Herr Lieutenant; my duty to my sovereign--"

"Silence. Gentlemen, I shall be obliged to notify the matter to the
proper authorities. I expect you will be called upon to clear
yourselves before the magistrate, which I have no doubt you will be
able to do successfully. I need not detain you any longer."

Wilhelm and Schrotter bowed courteously and withdrew, without
vouchsafing a glance at the informer. The latter lingered, as if he
would have liked to continue the conversation with the lieutenant of
police, but an emphatic "You may go!" sent him rapidly over the
threshold of the office.

Five days afterward, on a Friday, Schrotter and Wilhelm were summoned
to appear in the Stadtvogtei [Footnote: A certain prison in Berlin.]
before the magistrate, a disagreeable person with a bilious complexion,
venomous eyes behind his spectacles, and the unpleasing habit of
continually scooping out his ear with the little finger of his left
hand. The two friends, the informer, and the policeman were present.
The magistrate could not have received them differently if they had
been accused of robbing and murdering their parents. To be sure, he
behaved no better to the informer. His expression of unmitigated
disgust was perhaps a freak of nature, and no indication of the true
state of his feelings.

He had a bundle of papers before him, in which he searched for some
time before opening his mouth.

"You are accused of having made use of offensive expressions regarding
his majesty," he said to Schrotter.

"On a preposterously unfounded charge," he retorted.

"And you too," he turned to Wilhelm.

"I can only repeat Dr. Schrotter's answer."

"Give your evidence," he ordered the policeman.

The man did so.

"Could you understand what the gentleman said?"

"No."

"How far was Patke behind them?"

"A few steps."

"You must be more exact."

"I can't say more exactly than that, for I paid no attention to the
gentlemen till I was told to arrest them."

"Is it your opinion that Herr Patke could have heard distinctly what
the gentlemen were saying to one another?"

"I dare say he might have understood if they spoke very loud, but I
can't say for certain."

"Herr Patke, what have you to say?"

The former non-commissioned officer, who had donned his 1870 medal for
the occasion, hereupon assumed a strictly military bearing, fixed his
eye firmly on the magistrate, and began in a sing-song voice:

"I happened to be in the street last Sunday when the infamous wretch
lifted his murderous hand against the sacred person of our august
monarch. My heart bled; I was beside myself; I could have torn
everybody and everything to pieces. As I walked along I noticed these
two gentlemen, who looked to me suspicious from the first--"

"Why?" asked the magistrate.

"Well--the one with his black hair, and the other with his hooked
nose--I said to myself, 'Those are Jews!'"

The magistrate suddenly bent over his papers, and gave a kind of grunt.
Even the policeman, in spite of his wooden official air, could not
repress a smile. Patke continued:

"Then I heard the younger gentleman say, 'It serves his majesty the
emperor quite right.'"

"Did he actually say, his majesty the emperor?" interrupted the
magistrate.

"No," answered Patke eagerly, "I say that."

"You are only to repeat the gentleman's actual words."

"He actually did say that it served the emperor right."

"This is beyond a joke," Schrotter burst out. "Why, man, I wonder the
lie does not stick in your throat and choke you!"

"I must beg you not to address the witness," said the magistrate
brusquely. Then to Patke severely--"That is not what you said in your
first charge."

"I was confused then; I did not recollect distinctly. But later on it
came back to me."

"That is very improbable. What have you to answer, Dr. Eynhardt?"

"Simply, that the man's statement is absolutely untrue. I never uttered
or thought words bearing the remotest resemblance to those he quotes."

"What my friend does not say is," broke in Schrotter, "that, on the
contrary, he expressed the deepest and most painful emotion at the
crime."

The magistrate shot a venomous glance from under his spectacles at
Schrotter, but quailed before those flaming half-closed blue eyes fixed
so sternly upon him.

"Well, and what have you to bring forward against the other gentleman?"

"That gentleman said the outrage was of no great importance."

"In your first account you said the outrage had no real significance,
and that Dr. Eynhardt made the remark."

"Whether he said 'no importance' or 'no significance,' it is all the
same thing, and one cannot so easily distinguish the speaker when one
is walking behind. I may have been mistaken on that point."

"You do not repudiate the remark?" asked the magistrate of Schrotter in
his most biting tones.

"Your expression is not very happily chosen. By repudiating I
understand the declaring of a fact to be false when we know it to be
true. I am not in the habit of doing that, nor should I suppose it of
you, Herr Staatsanwalt."

"I need no instruction from you," the other returned angrily.

"It would seem so, however" Schrotter calmly rejoined.

The magistrate grunted several times and then asked, after a pause,
during which he was particularly busy with his ear:

"You admit the statement, then?"

"Not altogether. It is true that I said the attempt on the emperor's
life had no general significance, but I meant by that and the rest of
what I said, that if the political parties should make this isolated
crime (committed by an undoubtedly insane person) the excuse for
adopting measures inimical to the liberty of the public in general,
they would be doing something both unjustifiable and reprehensible."

"Can he have said that?" asked the magistrate, turning to Patke.

"I don't know. I only know what I said just now."

Renewed grunting, renewed digging in the ear and turning over of
papers. "Hm--hm," he muttered to himself testily, "that is not enough.
It is too indefinite, in spite of strong grounds for suspicion." Then
he looked up, and in a tone which was meant to convey as much scorn as
possible, he asked Schrotter--"You played a part in the political
events of 1848?"

"Yes, and the recollection of it is the pride of my life."

"I did not ask you about that. And you are at present the chairman of a
district society of progressive opinions?"

"I have that honor."

"There is nothing further against you. And you, Dr. Eynhardt, you
refused the Iron Cross in the late campaign?"

"Yes."

"You were discharged from the army without comment?"

"Yes."

"For declining a duel," observed Schrotter.

"Dr. Eynhardt is of age, and can answer for himself. You have attended
Socialist meetings?"

"Only once."

"And made speeches?"

"One speech?"

"And that was directed against Socialism," said Schrotter again.

The magistrate grew lobster-red in the face.

"It is really scandalous," he cried, quivering with rage, "that I am
repeatedly obliged to remind a man of your position that he is only to
answer when spoken to. Why didn't you say yourself, Dr. Eynhardt, that
you had spoken against the Socialists?"

"Because you did not ask me," answered Wilhelm, with a gentle smile.

After a slight pause the magistrate resumed--"You are on friendly terms
with a Russian named Dr. Barinskoi?"

"You can hardly call it that. I did know him, though not exactly in a
friendly way, but for two years I have quite lost sight of him."

"Did you know that Dr. Barinskoi was a Nihilist?"

"Yes."

"And you did not let that make any difference to you?"

"I was not afraid of infection," said Wilhelm, and smiled again.

"Perhaps not, but of being compromised," growled the magistrate.

"That idea has not troubled me as yet."

"You inherited from a friend who committed suicide a large fortune,
which you use chiefly for the benefit of Socialist workmen?"

"I use it for the benefit of the poor, and those I certainly find more
frequently among the Socialist workmen than among factory owners and
householders."

"I'll thank you to remember that this is not the place for making bad
jokes!" roared the magistrate.

"You are quite right," Wilhelm answered serenely. "I know nothing more
unpleasant than bad jokes."

Schrotter looked as if he were going to embrace his friend. He had
never seen him from this side.

"Did it never occur to you to put yourself in communication with the
clergymen of your district, these gentlemen having far greater
facilities for finding out deserving objects of charity than a private
person?"

"I will answer that question when you have had the goodness to explain
to me what connection it has with this man's denunciation."

The magistrate glared at him in a manner calculated to wither him on
the spot, but only met a quiet, smiling face which he was incapable of
intimidating.

"May I request you now," said Schrotter in his turn, "to ask the
witness Patke if for the last few weeks he has not been a candidate for
a post as detective on the political police staff?" Schrotter too had
made a variety of inquiries since last Sunday, and had learned this
fact.

"That is so," stammered Patke, turning very red. "In these terrible
times, when the Socialists and the enemies of the country--"

"Silence, Herr Patke," interrupted the magistrate angrily; "that has
nothing to do with the business on hand." He reflected for awhile, and
then said with the most deeply grudging manner--"The statement of the
one witness--seeing too that it is indefinite in some important
points--is not sufficient to warrant me in passing a sentence, in spite
of many good grounds for suspicion afforded by your past history and
known opinions. I will therefore dismiss the charge, if only to avoid
the public scandal of a Member being accused of lese majeste."

Schrotter was boiling with rage, and had the greatest difficulty in
restraining his naturally passionate temper. "Many thanks for your
kindness," he said in a choking voice, "and for this scoundrel you have
no reprimand?"

"Sir," screamed the magistrate, springing out of his chair with fury,
"leave this room instantly; and you, Herr Patke, if you wish to bring
an action for libel against the gentleman you may call upon me as a
witness."

Patke was too modest to avail himself of this friendly offer. Wilhelm
dragged Schrotter out of the office as fast as he could, and even
outside they still heard the magistrate's grunts of wrath.

Dark days followed, in which Schrotter seemed to live over again the
worst horns of the "wild year." A moral pestilence--the craze for
denunciation--spread itself over the whole of Germany, sparing neither
the palace nor the hut. No one was safe, either in the bosom of the
family, at the club table, in the lecture room, or in the street, from
the low spy who, from fanaticism or stupidity, from personal spite or
desire to make himself conspicuous, took hold of some hasty or
imprudent word, turned it round, mangled it, and brought it redhot to
the magistrates, who seldom had the courage to kick the informer
downstairs. Such unspeakable depths of human baseness came to light, so
full of corruption and pestilence, that the eye turned in horror from
the incredible spectacle. The newspapers brought daily reports of
denunciations for "lese majeste," and when Schrotter read them he
clasped his hands in horrified dismay and exclaimed, "Are we in
Germany? are these my fellow-countrymen?" He became at last so
disgusted that he gave up reading the German papers, and derived his
knowledge of what was going on in the world from the two London papers
which, from the habit of a quarter of a century, he still took in. He
wished to hear no more about denunciations by which, with the aid of
police and magistrates, every kind of cowardice and vileness, social
envy and religious hatred, rivalry, spite, and inborn malevolence,
sought a riskless gratification, and usually found it in full measure.
But it took away all pleasure in social intercourse. One learned to be
cautious and suspicious. One grew accustomed to see an enemy in every
stranger, and to be upon one's guard before a neighbor as before some
lurking traitor. Hypocrisy became an instinct of self-preservation;
every one carefully avoided speaking of those things of which the heart
was full, and Berlin afforded an insight into the mental condition of
the people of Spain during the most flourishing period of the
Inquisition, or of Venice in the days when anonymous denunciations
poured into the yawning jaws of the Lions of St. Mark's square.

The Reichstag was dissolved, the people of Germany must choose new
representatives, and the chief, if not the sole question to be decided
by the election was, Are the Socialists to be dealt with under a
special act, or to come under the common law? Schrotter now felt it
justifiable, nay, that it was his duty, to throw off the reserve he had
maintained since his return to the Fatherland, and come forward as a
candidate for the Reichstag, though for a suburban district, as the
city district to whose poor he had been an untiring benefactor as
physician and friend, with help, counsel, and money, was not available.

At a meeting of his constituents he laid down his confession of faith.
A special act, he explained, was in no way justified, would indeed be
ineffectual, and lead away from the object they had in view. The
government would be guilty of libel if it made the Socialists
answerable for a crime committed by two half or wholly insane persons;
it was the duty of the government to prove that these attacks were the
work of the Socialists: that proof, however, it had been unable to
discover. Moreover, no special act in the world could hinder people of