Villa Elsa Part 12

"Love, the same way. When the world talks of love so much, it means only friendliness--you like me and I like you--you do something kind for me and I will do something kind for you. Love in its alloyed form of friendship is its efficacious shape for universal use. Pure love, which poor humanity is always reaching out its hands for, simply--as George Sand said--simply tears people to pieces without doing them any good. The result is tragedy, despair, wrecked lives, death before one's time. We see that everywhere depicted in fiction, in the drama, at the opera.

"So the German has kept love in a practical state--for him--by a.s.sociating it so prominently with his procreative capacities. It is a case of Mars and Venus producing fighting men."

"If the German is not governed by love as an ideal," put in Gard, "how is it then that he is so sentimental? People always a.s.sure us that Fritz must be really at bottom as affectionate, tender, emotional, as anyone because he is so sentimental."

"Yes, that's the old conundrum that the enthusiasts over everything German confuse one with. The German's fondness--gobbling-down fondness--for food does not prove that he is a gourmet. The Teuton sentimentality is like mush. It's princ.i.p.ally for children. As Fritz keeps a good deal of his childishness about him as he grows up, he keeps this taste for mush. It takes the place of _sentiment_ which is of the proper mental pabulum for enlightened adults. You can't write poetry about mush. So the Germans have little poetry worth talking about. Where their emotional side ought to be, they are slightly developed beyond the youthful stage of sentiment_alism_.

Their abortive conception of love, their treatment of their women and children--other things--all account for this naturally enough.

One is rather forced, in spite of himself, to take the Germans at either of two extremes in order to understand them candidly--mushiness or iron."

CHAPTER XXII

MAKING FOR WAR

Anderson did not care for the Buchers and only came two or three times to Villa Elsa. So Gard did the calling. The elder would invariably bring out from his table drawer his "bachelor's bride" in the form of a box of clear Havanas, and the "lecture" would begin again before, what he said, was the most select audience in Deutschland.

"Have you heard anything from your spy?" he queried one day.

"No. You don't seriously mean that Rudolph--you a.s.sume it's Rudolph--is watching me?" returned Kirtley, a little disturbed over the recurrence to this subject. "What am I guilty of? I'm as innocent as an unborn lamb."

"Certainly you are. But, my dear boy, what's innocence in Germany?

The Secret Police can make an alien like you a lot of trouble about nothing. You wouldn't believe how systematic they are, and serious as stuffed owls. Take my advice and don't do things at too loose ends as we are apt to over home. But if you do get into trouble, come to me and I will tell you what to say.

"Sometimes they even have one spy spying on another in the home. Of course the spy system, like the army and navy, belongs to the Kaiser. All the people have to do is to furnish the men and the money. It's as Heine said, the royal palaces and so forth are owned by the princes, but the debts owing for them are a.s.sumed by the public. The Hohenzollerns have the property, the Germans have the obligations.

"You see, the spy system tends to prevent the Teuton from talking politics. But he can theorize concerning the State. The State is an active philosophic concept that holds off the people from discussing and gossiping about Wilhelm. It does not exist apart from the ruling family and apart from the bureaucracy which is the ruling family in action. It takes on their character. The State is a mirage which the citizen is made to gawk at in the air, thinking he sees something besides the frowning German sky. It surrounds the Emperor with the divine halo, removes him up above the rumbling clouds where the distant views lend enchantment."

There hung about Anderson's talk to-day, as so frequently, a certain sententious and acidulous manner that, to Gard, evidenced twinges of rheumatism.

The dialogue fell once more on war. After the demonstration in Villa Elsa against America, Anderson was gratified by this proof of his contentions. While Kirtley admitted the force in the argument that this excited and confident condition of feeling among the common German people pointed toward hostilities, he could not really believe that such a horror would break forth upon Europe. There was the Hague Convention--

"Pooh!" exclaimed Anderson. "What does the Hague Convention signify in face of the growing armaments? What have you ever seen in Prussian history to show that Prussia would stop for any agreement when she was sure of winning?"

"You expect war soon," said Gard. "Why soon? Granted the Germans want war to carry out their world plans, why should it come before another generation, for instance?"

"Because the Kaiser is getting along in years. Time does not wait even for him. Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon were young in comparison.

So he is talking a lot about G.o.d now and that means war. He wants to enjoy ruling Europe awhile before he dies. He does not get on with the Crown Prince and is not greatly interested in leaving all such glory for him to sport about in. Soon Wilhelm the Deuce will be too old to take part in a military campaign. He has not many years to live at his age. He is not a well man. The longer he puts it off, the shorter will be the triumph he craves."

The talk shifted angles and Anderson was saying after awhile:

"When you have the German statesmen, generals, magnates, press, professors, theologians, everybody, insisting on the incomparable virtues of the Germans and never on their failings--on their rights and privileges and never on their duties to humanity--do you wonder that the plain people, like your Buchers, think it devolves upon them to turn foreign lands into waste by the sword in order to convert them into German countries? It is hard to find in any German publication a frank and commending acknowledgment that a foreigner has really completed anything to his credit. If such evidence is too strong in any case and forces an admission, the foreign inventor or discoverer is rather made to appear presumptuous in acting before some German got around to it. The Teutons never think, talk and write in terms of humanity--only in terms of Germanity. Do you not begin to see that the Teutons are, in intent, as murderously fanatical about their greatness as the mad Mullah and his followers were about their bigotry? The Germans have been educated to these views since childhood....

"You tell me that Charlemagne took on Christian religion as a prop to, an ally of, his military power--an aid to the extension of his rule. Well, then, the Teutons have turned what they call their Christianity into a warlike worship of themselves. Their preachers must stand in with the Kaiser. He is to them G.o.d on earth. It is the old story of the throne upheld by the official church."

"But how about all Catholic Germany?" parried Gard. "About one-third is Catholic."

"True, true. Yet from what I've seen, the German Catholics will be found fighting for the Protestants when war comes, just as the Socialists will be found fighting for the Emperor. This is because the feeling for race and nation is far stronger than for creed or doctrine. If the Kaiser succeeds in getting control of Europe, he will take to himself the spiritual and religious headship of the world and the Pope will become essentially his va.s.sal, for the Pope will be impotent as against the victorious sword. Hasn't Wilhelm already a.s.sumed to be the head of Mohammedanism?

"And look at it. South Germany, which is Catholic, and Saxony here, are cramped up in the interior. Their manufacturing interests are increasing by leaps and bounds. Isn't it natural they should want a direct outlet to the Atlantic and Mediterranean? Wouldn't these Saxons be proud to have a piece of real ocean sh.o.r.e to use as their own?

"Another thing. As the Germans are brutal among themselves, I predict that, stirred up as they are, they will be brutal like Huns in this war. You see how they deal with their own women. Imagine what they will do to foreign women. How do you yourself think your young military Bucher would act toward Americans if he landed on our coast with a gun? The German will be like a Hun just as he was in the treacherous days of Ariovistus and Arminius--the Teutoberger forest and all that over again. He will red-handedly rebuff civilizing influences just as he did in those days."

"How do you define Hun?" asked Gard. "The Germans are not Huns by race."

"No. I said _like_ Huns. I mean by Huns a people who insist on their tribal sovereign right of conquest by means of ruthless murder and senseless destruction--wiping out foreign races and property."

One evening the conversation drifted to this theme:

"Is Luther--Protestantism--one of the reasons why Protestant America is so favorably inclined to Germany?" suggested Kirtley.

"Americans would be surprised to find there is no such thing as Lutheranism here. A b.u.mptious military cult has usurped its place.

There are no Lutherans in Deutschland--only Evangelicals and Dissidents. And of course Catholics. If you ask an ordinary Teuton what Protestantism is, he will scarcely know what you mean precisely. American Protestantism and German Protestantism are radically unlike. The one is peaceful and trustful, the other is warlike and knavish.

"And it seems to me so plain that, besides our religionists, our American education is playing in with the Kaiser's plans. It tends to weaken faith in our government. It makes unpatriotic citizens.

Our colleges turn out young men who feel no political duties. We teach them to look for benefits without responsibilities. How different with the German universities! Our school histories, too, nurse active hatred of England, and everywhere with us the main opinion about the French is fostered that they are immoral and therefore to be despised. All this works in with the advancement of German popularity and interests, while at the same time our young men, like you, are sent here to study. Only the best in Germany is diligently kept before our people. The worst is never known as you and I are learning to know it over here."

"So you think," said Gard companionably, "that the Kaiser will set his fiery ball rolling this spring."

"I put the date at March first." The old man's hands trembled as he relighted his cigar stub. His voice almost broke.

"I know they think I'm getting in my dotage--brain a little cracked--and all that. I'm a poor chap possessed of a foolish and wicked delusion. Mean well, but head rickety. Sometimes I really think I must be crazy, with all the world against me about the German danger. They call me Jeremiah and Mother Goose rolled into one. But, by G.o.d, Kirtley, as my soul's immortal, I tell you I'm right--I'm _right_! The _deluge_ is just ahead!--and nothing being done to prevent it." He shouted the words till Gard almost shook.

Every time he left Anderson, he would settle back into the lulling arms of false security, but always a little less a.s.sured. How could the old newspaper man be correct and the rest of mankind be in error? He used the stock arguments with himself. Granted that the obese Germans about him on the tram trundling along toward Loschwitz were talking war and preparing for war. They had been doing so for forty-three years and no conflict had come. Immense populations of peace and unpreparedness were growing up who would discourage a world war--would not permit it. There were increasing millions of people who had never seen a soldier, never seen a battleship. Would they want to pay the cost in blood and billions of treasure? It was unthinkable.

And so everyone was floating on with these comfortable convictions--floating on toward the imminent cataclysm, smiling pityingly on the few lugubrious Andersons who were right.

CHAPTER XXIII

SOCIAL ETIQUETTE

b.a.l.l.s and dancing are a notable expression of life and character in Germany. The Teuton has a pa.s.sion for them. In what country are they so inst.i.tutional? The German dance music is on the whole by far the best any land has composed. The waltzes are fine productions of the race. They are not enemic, lascivious or empty of meaning. They are n.o.ble, wholesome and full-throbbing with the pounding blood of men and women.

German b.a.l.l.s are most varied in kind, responding to the complete scale of existence from high to low. However dowdy, rigid, ungainly or sensual they may be, their music is nearly always elevating or at least of merit because it is written by thoroughly trained composers of whom Germany has a full complement. One of the dreams of any American woman in Europe has been to dance with a German officer who, in his handsome, well-fitting uniform setting off his commanding proportions and guarded forcefully by his clattering sword and jingling spurs, appealed to those instincts for knightliness and chivalric appearance which excite the feminine nature.

Nevertheless the general unloveliness of the social disposition and activities of the Teutons is normally reflected in their b.a.l.l.s, and is increased by their tremendous and perspiring energies in this diversion where usually pervades an atmosphere thick with the odors of beer, sausage, cheese.

The Royal Court Ball opened the fashionable season every winter in Dresden as proper in an orthodox monarchy. It was Kirtley's one opportunity to view German royalty, in its intimacy of pumps and low necks, at a ceremonious function in a whirl of music and the dance.

Naturally he wanted to be present with Elsa who was, of course, competent in the art of Terpsich.o.r.e. To say the least she was the only young lady he knew well in Saxony, and to have her hair of ripe corn color dancing in its luxuriance before his eyes to the inspiring melodies of the opera bands would be something to thrill him and his memories afterward. He would take a box and somehow manage to moor Frau Bucher in its depths.

His hopes had sprung up about it for, luckily, Von Tielitz had gone away and Jim, who had put the family in such a state of intoxication, was to be in Prague and Warsaw for a month. It would be a chance for the obscured Gard to emerge into the light and see how Elsa was really affected by the Deming glamor. Of all her b.o.o.by family she had comported herself so far with a dutiful steadiness in face of his dizzying _coup de main_. As for Von Tielitz and a respectable young woman--how could there be anything serious ahead?

During Jim's trip Fraulein plunged into her etching to make up for absences. But Gard was pleased over the renewal of their piano duos which had been abandoned after Deming's arrival. She very loyally found a little time for this distraction, and so, as before, they played through earnest stuff and ta.s.seled it off with lighter emotions in the form of "Heart and Hand," "Love's Dreams,"