Blood and Iron Part 45

School children come with teachers and after the children sing the old man bows and says, "Children, I thank you."

-- And this Dr. Schweninger, who promised Bismarck ninety years of life, is always hovering about, like a military doctor, giving express orders to eat this, to get up at such an hour, to go to bed at such an hour, and to take a nap at such an hour.

The old man obeys like a child.

-- Strangers wait at the village bridge to see Bismarck and his dogs pa.s.s by; week after week delegations of working-men, lawyers, students, come to the house.

Schweninger orders him to take longer naps, not worry about politics and not to meet strangers. The old saying, "Once a man and twice a child" is coming to pa.s.s; Otto von Bismarck is no longer the stubborn, dogmatic fellow that he was, even a few years ago. But he still scolds, fights and has his way with all--except the doctor.

-- Tomorrow, April 1, 1898, Bismarck will be 83; however, he does not seem to be failing much; but his face is ashen, his grizzled mustache, eyebrows and hair are as white as the driven snow.

-- Gardeners write to him that they have named their choicest new variety of rose, the Bismarck; and cigarmakers have the Bismarck shape, cutlers the Bismarck dinner knife, a thick, sharp blade that will carve a duck's neck in a twinkling.

-- However, the old man is growing weary of it all; and he hears with no great show of interest that the people are planning monuments everywhere. There is going to be an equestrian, helmeted statue in the market place at Leipzig; at Weringrode, a heroic-sized Bismarck will lean upon a sword; there will be a column in Hartzburg, Victory with a lyre and another Victory with a wreath; there is to be a statue at Kissingen; a helmeted-heroic figure at Freiberg; a column at Charlotte-springs; a column at Meiszen; at Cologne, a heroic figure with a sword; a heroic "Tyras and Bismarck," dog and man, at Leipzig; allegorical figures, "Glory and War," for Berlin; at Wiesbaden, a statue symbolizing the Bismarck National victory; a bust at Heidelberg; at Kreuznach; a heroic figure with helmet and sword, with "Glory" at his feet; at Zwickau, an allegorical memorial of n.o.ble proportions; a tower in the Black Forest; and still another at Altona.

-- No; it is no use! As we said before, the old man is growing very weary of it all; and now along comes Arthur Mendell, who paints for posterity that remarkable Bismarck in which you see only the blazing eyes and the shining silver helmet--the Bismarck of the brave days of '66 and '70, when the German hosts carrying their deadly needle-guns, marched over the Rhine--at Bismarck's word!

-- Dear Old Bismarck, these wreaths of immortelles come to you in your retirement, but you have reached the time when the gra.s.shopper has become a burden, and when you have but one wish left in this world--and that wish is to go in peace to your long sleep.

-- Coming, Bismarck--coming very soon now, Old Soldier; and we know well how courageously you will answer up, when the invisible Skeleton in Armor calls your imperial name!

CHAPTER XVIII

Hail and Farewell

71

Prince Otto V. Bismarck receives his final and his one glorious decoration; and here we leave him, his fame secure among Germany's immortals.

-- The game is now all but played out. The last phase is to be the n.o.blest expression.

In his prime, Bismarck was of ma.s.sive proportions in mind and body; but of his moral nature both friends and enemies had often been in doubt for many years. Now, even that was revealed to be in concord with his herculean bulk.

-- The old glory pa.s.sed from him, like a dream. He committed his soul to his G.o.d; and he heard again voices of Nature that had been inaudible to him, during his many years of intriguing diplomacy.

These voices spoke to him of the vanity and emptiness of human life, of the worthless baubles for which men exchange all they have, that is to say, their immortal gift of time, which soon pa.s.ses away and is no more.

The musings of the Prince on the follies, inconsistencies and ambitions of life conspire to create a heroic figure like King Solomon. All is vanity! The conqueror of a continent has so declared.

He had held the world in his hand, and had found that the sphere is hollow.

So go the fates of men.

-- The great Prince Bismarck has now become as a beggar at the city's gates.

-- Over his grand spectacle of human pomp and power, contrasted with his final self-abnegation, shining forth we see the heights and depths of human life; but in this case the end was greater than the beginning; the defeat than the victory; the downfall than the glory; and the disillusion than the dream.

-- Prince Bismarck in his long career as friend and confidant of the kings of this earth, had been honored with forty-eight orders of distinction. It is needless to mention them all, but they included the Iron Cross and the Order of Merit, the one ent.i.tling him to sit with kings, the other to command an army corps.

-- But the greatest decoration of all was the one he now wore, his high tide of glory gone.

It is the Decoration of the Order of the Disillusioned, bestowed upon himself by his own soul.

Soon or late, prince or pauper, and you and I, wear this Order as at last we sit and wonder at the years gone by.

-- Let us silently pa.s.s on, leaving Bismarck here, in the one solemn moment of his life; when he attains to real grandeur, stamps himself as greater than when he sat before kings.

For now he possesses his own soul, in peace.

And in this last picture, the end is greater than the beginning; the defeat than the victory; the downfall than the glory; and the disillusion than the dream.

-- His final consolation was the Book of Job; and he read therein these strange and solemn words:

-- What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life?

Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh of bra.s.s?

-- So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.

When I lie down, I say, when shall I arise, and the night be gone? and I am full of tossings to and fro, unto the dawning of the day.

My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope.

-- Yea, man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. I would seek unto G.o.d and unto G.o.d would I commit my cause;

Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvelous things without number;

Who giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the fields;

To set up on high those that be low; that those which mourn may be exalted to safety.

He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise.

-- Behold happy is the man whom G.o.d correcteth; therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty;

For he maketh sore and bindeth up; he woundeth and his hands make whole.

He shall deliver thee in six troubles; yea, in seven there shall be no evil touch thee.

In famine, he shall redeem thee from death; and in war from the power of the sword ... neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh.