The Children of the World Part 10

"Stop!" said he. "We shall not let you go so, Mohr is incorrigible. But there's something the matter with you, Franzel, I see it in your face, and by our old friendship--"

The angry man compressed his lips still more firmly, and said after a long pause: "Why should I speak of it? Ruin takes its own course."

"Ruin?"

"Why yes, sometimes sooner, sometimes later, what does it matter? And we can only rejoice that it should proceed from this cause. It shows in the clearest manner to what our diseased form of government has come--and where it will arrive, if--supposing that--"

He paused again. The friends looked at each other inquiringly.

"If I'm one too many here," said Mohr phlegmatically, rising and seizing the bottle--"I've no objection to drinking this paltry heeltap in your courtyard."

"I have no secrets," muttered the gloomy visitor. "What has happened took place in public; the consequences which still fear the light will soon be noised abroad. A cry of indignation will resound through Germany, when it is known that even now, in the light of the nineteenth century--"

"But, man," interrupted Edwin, "torture has certainly been discarded in the nineteenth century, and yet for the last fifteen minutes you have been applying the thumb-screws of curiosity. Out with it; _what_ has happened, and _what_ consequences still fear the light?"

"Then, if you must know: I was at the workingmen's educational union yesterday--" (Mohr coughed, glanced at Edwin, and then comfortably sipped his wine)--"There was to have been a lecture on the nature and value of education, but the speaker was taken sick and begged to be excused. We were just considering what was to be done, when a new-comer rose, a guest whom no one knew. He had a strange, half humble, half scornful Jesuit face. 'Would the company permit him to make a short address?' The request could not be refused, and he instantly began to speak with a boldness that surpa.s.sed everything that could have been expected from his priestly appearance. 'Education? A dangerous thing, at least as the children of the world were accustomed to understand it.

The devil, who goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, is a highly cultivated man, not easily caught by modern enlightenment. His proverb is: Education gives liberty, and knowledge rules the world. Yes indeed, the world! So the tempter said to the Lord: "All these things will I give unto thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me!"--But "_my_ kingdom is not of this world"--and so on, the well known litany--_True_. education desires to know nothing of the so-called treasures of science, which morth and rust may corrupt. He who is fitting himself for heaven, provides for the one thing that is necessary, the'--well, you're doubtless willing to be spared the sermon. When it was over, the honest fellows sat bewildered and thunderstruck. The old habit, acquired in childhood, still lingered: no debate in church!--and even the president seemed to think we ought not to take issue with a guest. But the man had a.s.sailed our society in the most offensive way, and were we to be silent? So I began to speak. I was just in the mood, and besides it's a subject to which I've devoted a great deal of thought, I was glad to give the whole society a full discourse from the text: Disparage only reason and science! Well I need not waste any words on the subject among ourselves. But never has it been so clear to me, as in that hour, what a crime those persons commit, who seek to disgust men with the earth, in order to prepare them for what they call heaven. You know I am the last to favor the current talk about utility. These people make the means the end, and if they achieved their object and arranged the world according to their plan--who that did not consider it the highest aim of life to get his stomach satisfied and know the multiplication table by heart, would wish to live in it? But just because there are higher things--transcendent earthly joys, intellectual pleasures, art, poetry, and all other lofty delights--well, you know what I think, and can imagine how indignation against the foes of all earthly happiness loosened my tongue. The a.s.sailer of education and heir of heaven grew red and pale by turns. When I at last paused, and all clapped their hands and burst into a shout of a.s.sent, he attempted to reply. But the president would not permit him to utter another word, so he soon slipped quietly away.

"He has enough!" I thought, "but I was not yet satisfied. I meant to go into the next house and write a pamphlet, in which I intended to prove by referring to history, what boundless injury the belief in immortality does the world. And last night I did sit down and write a few sheets, the first outline of the essay; for I was too excited to grasp the subject properly, and one must not shake the retort when anything is going to crystallize. But it seems I'm to have plenty of leisure; for when I went home to dinner to-day, my landlord, the cabinet maker, said that some policemen had been there, had inquired very particularly about me, and had noted down the answer. The man looked as if he wanted to say 'six weeks _investigation_ and then exile.' He's quite right. I know them; they've long kept an eye on me, I made them uneasy, but they could find no cause of arrest. Now the priests will take up the matter, and then good bye! So, as I have no inclination to leave my place vacant, I shall for the present not seek my usual bed, but try once more how it seems to sleep in the open air."

"With your consciousness of being a second Gracchus for a soft pillow!"

exclaimed Mohr, pledging him in the gla.s.s of wine. "You must live, n.o.ble mortal, until the last millionaire is hung with the entrails of the last priest, which will probably occur about the same time as the death of the Wandering Jew."

"Your jeers do not wound me," replied the printer impetuously. "There are people who consider all the great questions that affect the welfare of mankind a mere jest, and never think seriously of anything except their own dear selves."

"And why not, you preacher in the wilderness? Charity begins at home.

Until I have taken care of my own dear self, where am I to find time and courage to look after my neighbor, or provide for mankind at large?

These things are too weighty, my n.o.ble fellow, to be exhausted by the first eloquent pen, and and that's why I wish you a long life, so you can at least be able to study the subject at leisure."

Franzelius cast a compa.s.sionate glance at him. "So in all ages selfishness has intrenched itself behind a hypocritical modesty," he grumbled. "If no one wished for or did better things, before he knew the _best_, we should still be in the condition of the lake-dwellers.

And must an idea for which hitherto only our holier instincts speak, I mean which cannot yet be mathematically proved--and with which the world after all would be--for when the smallest thought concerns all mankind--Edwin will know what I mean."

"G.o.d understands you, and that's enough; see Sancho Panza at the right place," jeered Mohr.

"What do you intend to do now, Franzel?" interrupted Edwin, who during the whole conversation had been sitting on the window sill, stroking Balder's cat.

"That's a secondary consideration. Tell me instead whether you approve of what I have done?"

"Will that undo it?"

"As if I would recall it! But you know I value the thought, that we three at least--even if others have a different opinion--"

He paused and looked at Edwin almost timidly.

"What I _think_," replied the latter, "is no secret to you. But I am firmly persuaded of many truths, and yet should hesitate a long time before demonstrating them to a crowd of strangers. However, why should we discuss the matter? You will do what you cannot leave undone, and as you have very enthusiastic ideas about the equality of men, even in their powers of thought--"

"He who does not work for all, works for none, or at least only for himself."

"Pardon me, my dear fellow. That's a false conclusion. You yourself will not deny that the division of labor is a useful arrangement. Well then, one begins from below, another from above. If I convince ten of the best minds, give them even a little light in regard to the hardest problems, does not my work in time aid others also? Mens' gifts are as different as their ambitions."

Franzelius was about to make some reply, but restrained himself with evident effort, and only said:

"And you, Balder? Are you too of the opinion, that only a mad ambition urges me to let the little light that is in me shine before the mult.i.tude?"

"You misunderstood Edwin," replied the youth, limping up to him and gently unclasping his hand from the door latch. "We all know that you forget yourself in the cause. But he thinks it would be better for the _cause_, if you were more patient. All fruits do not ripen at the same time. Come, don't let us part so."

"But you, you--could you have kept silence under such provocation?"

"Hush!" Mohr suddenly exclaimed. "Don't you hear her?"--Then as if speaking to himself, he added in a scarcely audible tone: "it's enough to tame wild beasts and socialistic democrats. Eternal G.o.ds! how that woman plays."

The four men in the upper room actually kept so quiet that not a note of the improvisation below was lost. Franzelius had thrown himself into the chair beside the bed, on which Balder sat with his lame leg crossed over the other. Edwin was still seated on the window sill, and Mohr leaned over his gla.s.s, with his head resting on his hands, and fairly groaned with delight.

When the music ceased, he rose. "My friends," said he, "I think it is our duty to offer this lady some attention. I will go down and invite her to drink a gla.s.s of wine with us to her health."

"Are you mad, Mohr?" laughed Edwin. "She's a respectable person, and will think you have already more gla.s.ses of wine in your head than is good for your senses."

Mohr looked at him with an air of comical dignity, and twisted his crooked under lip still more awry. "She's an artist," said he, "no common-place, pedant of a woman. Here are four friends of art--I generously include you, Franzel, as you at least kept quiet while she was playing, though you were probably thinking of your social discords.

I'll wager it will be an honor and pleasure to her--give me a decent hat--or no, I'll go bare-headed, like an inmate of the house. It will be less formal."

"You've impudence enough for it. Well then, ask her to bring a gla.s.s for the festal banquet."

"She shall drink out of mine," replied Mohr, who was already at the door. "I'll run the risk of her guessing my thoughts."

They heard him go down stairs and ring the bell.

"He's really going to do it," cried Balder, hastily rising from his seat. "What will she think of us?"

Franzelius rose too. "I'll go," said he. "I have not sufficient self-control to endure Mohr's jokes and witticisms in the presence of a lady. Will he be here often now? In that case, I prefer to take my leave until--until you too are tired of a man, who never takes anything seriously."

"You wrong him," replied Edwin. "Fire and water are two equally stern elements, although one accomplishes by heat what the other does by cold:--destroys and vivifies like every power."

"Hm! If you don't freeze meantime--Farewell."

"And where are you going to spend the night?" asked Balder.

"There are plenty of benches in the Thiergarten."

"I wouldn't let you go, Franzel," whispered Balder, as he reached the threshold. "You have already camped here many a night. But--Edwin sleeps so badly now. The least thing disturbs his nerves."

"Thank you, Balder. Don't be anxious about me. Good night!"

They heard him go down stairs, and directly after Mohr came slowly up.

He entered the room with a face deeply flushed, but apparently calm.

"Our philanthropist has gone," said he. "I believe I drove him away.

I'm sorry; he thinks I don't like him and he's very much mistaken. On the contrary, I do him the honor to envy him."

"For what?"