CONCURRENTwith all these lively happenings Kirtley had cultivated the acquaintance of Miles Anderson. The two became very friendly. Gard had been so rudely treated by the great German professor in the lecture room that he was quite willing to conclude he could learn from the journalist far more of what he was interested in than from a Teuton university pulpit.
Anderson, like himself, had entered Germany ignorant of the nation and its folk, and fully disposed to find almost everything worthy the highest praise. The elder's vivid convictions, his caustic reflections, were honestly born of what he had seen and heard in different parts of the land, not of what the Germans said of themselves in books, as was the customary rule. By virtue of his callinghe had superior opportunities for observation. He was therefore not a negligible imparter of information.
Gard usually found him in a high-ceilinged, majestic chamber in a typical Dresdenpension, frequented, however, by only three or four boarders. It was a little like a home for Anderson, even if gloomily august in the German style. Dark woodwork, severely waxed floors on which Gard often slipped violently, huge doors, huge chairs and tables—everything large to suit the national taste for big Teuton gods and supermen. Long, thick stuffs concealed the passageways and windows and contributed to the absence of cheering light—that sign and symbol of the Gothic environment and disposition.
The first question the old man usually plumped was:
"How's your German going?"
"Slowly. Pegging along. I suppose it's because I don't get up much of a liking for it. There's something about it that goes against my grain."
And then Anderson would be off for that particular session. On one early occasion he had said, jestingly:
"I guess you will have to fall back upon the natural method."
"What's that?" had come back the innocent interrogatory.
"Take a sweetheart. She will teach you more useful German in a month than you can learn from the pedagogues in a year. Right here in the best parts of Dresden are streets where these ladies can be rented with their rooms per week or per month cheap, with all the German you want thrown in. Are we to assume it is by this system that the German universities are able to turn out what the world believes are the best students?"
"I never heard anything about that back home," confessed Kirtley, always letting the bars down to encourage a monologue.
"Of course not. That would be to interfere with our American readiness to admit German transcendence."
"But how do you harmonize the frank state of morals here with the fact that the Germans are the great religious authorities? How have they established such a reputation abroad for the morality that is assumed to go with Protestantism?"
"That is simple enough. First, by claiming that the French are degenerate. Second, by retaining religion with its morals as an adjunct of an unmoral and authoritative militarism. Religion is to them a topic for expert investigation and study just as is militarism or any natural product—oil, coal, the chemical elements, anything. The Teuton specialist goes at it as at any objective science. His analytical and synthetic processes simply explore in his own subterranean caverns apropos of theology. He has taken over the Bible as the Kaiser has taken over Jerusalem. Wilhelm is becoming the Cerberus of Christianity—sole and surly guardian of its meanings and influence.
"But you never see any men in these German churches, do you? They don't go to church. Nor the women very much. You see old women and children at worship. This is because the German has always typically worshipped Gott on the battlefield or in the military camps—out in the open. The German God is an out-of-doors God and is distinctively associated with the thought of war. God within walls, within a church, is a deity of good will on earth. He is a deity of peace. Naturally this does not appeal to the Goth.He don't pay much lively attention to God unless there's a war on hand or in immediate prospect. Then he begins to shout and 'holler' at Him to attract His attention, because He is so far off from Germany."
Gard laughed. Then, after a moment, he asked, almost shyly,
"If German morals and religion have little necessary relation—little actual relation—how about love?"
"The German would never have known of love if he had not heard it talked of," replied Anderson with responsive geniality, pleased with Kirtley's amused face. "Generally an excess of a moral religion destroys love, just as the absence of it in the past has been apt to go with an indecent and widespread sensuality. So we have, what is called, the beastliness in the Teuton. For he has to go, as you know, to an extreme in things—logical extreme. This is why he is only partly human, from our standpoint. The human is so constructed that he can't stand excess in any direction very long and remain human. Everything has to be diluted, alloyed, temporized for him or it is not bearable—it will not work successfully.
"We see this in medicine—conspicuously. Medicines pure from the hands of Mother Nature are too strong, too rank in their purity, to be properly effective. They have to be weakened, reduced, compounded with inferior elements, to be of service. So with Truth. People are always begging for Truth, seeking the ultimate Truth, as if that would bring the perfect state of happiness. This is childlike ignorance. Truth in its pure, perfect condition would simply kill them—like unadulterated drugs. They could not stand its blinding light. They could not stand the shock. Like the rest—to change the metaphor—it has to be made up so largely of shoddy to wear well or wear at all.
"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 associating 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 assure 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 principally 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 ofsentimentwhich 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 slightlydeveloped beyond the youthful stage of sentimentalism. 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."
ANDERSONdid 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 assume 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 oftrouble 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 assumed 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 thefrowning 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 itcome before another generation, for instance?"
"Because the Kaiser is getting along in years. Time does not wait even for him. Alexander, Cæsar, Napoleon were young in comparison. So he is talking a lot about God 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 orderto 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 God 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 vassal, for the Pope will be impotent as against the victorious sword. Hasn't Wilhelm already assumed 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 shore 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 thinkyour 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 saidlikeHuns. 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 bumptious 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 God, Kirtley, as my soul's immortal, I tell you I'm right—I'mright! Thedelugeis 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 assured. 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 upwho 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.
BALLSand dancing are a notable expression of life and character in Germany. The Teuton has a passion for them. In what country are they so institutional? 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 noble, wholesome and full-throbbing with the pounding blood of men and women.
German balls 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 aGerman 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 balls, 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 Terpsichore. 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 booby family she had comported herself so far with a dutiful steadiness in face of his dizzyingcoup de main. As for Von Tielitz and a respectable young woman—how could there be anything serious ahead?
During Jim's trip Fräulein 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 tasseled it off with lighter emotions in the form of "Heart and Hand," "Love's Dreams," "Affection True"—good things with which to court a musical girl. Her cordiality suddenly took on a frank warmness, as if she had come back to an old friend. Hesaw that she felt more at home with him. Wasn't she at last becoming like a "pal"? Yet sometimes the doubtful impression assailed him that she was merely acting in a sort of gratefulness for his having brought the stylish and princely James Alexander Deming of Erie, Pay, to Villa Elsa.
Gard was quite happy when his invitation to the ball was accepted. Both mother and daughter were most glad to go. He procured the box and Frau Bucher, steeped in the practices of economy and judging that his means were modest, pooh-pooed with material kindness at his idea of an expensive motor car. He insisted on compromising by ordering one at five in the morning for the return. It would be an event and he wished to carry it off quite grandly for Elsa's sake. She had never attended the Court Ball, it turned out, and, like all maidens of Saxony, had always longed to go.
Accordingly due preparations were started by her mother and by her in what had served, since Deming's arrival, as a kind of boudoir. The gala affair was talked over with the usual noisiness in the family. Anything that had to do with the King's household waswonderful. The neighbors were exultantly apprised. Certainly the Buchers were nowadays cutting a high figure—they to whom such costly festivities had been unknown. No one had ever associated Villa Elsa with the wand of prodigality, and its vulgar Americans were dumfounding.
But, four days before the ball, Frau Bucher, in a constant condition of agitation in her social upheaval, announced to Gard that she and Fräulein could not accompany him because a telegram had been received from Friedrich. His sister at Meissen was coming for the occasion and he took it for granted that the Buchers would complete his company. Of course Friedrich and his sister could not be disappointed. They were old friends—really a part of the family. Gard, greatly disappointed, reclaimed his money for the box and countermanded the order for the motor. It was provoking, yet such things very reasonably happened.
The next morning another telegram from the always excited Von Tielitz. Plans were changed. Sister did not think she would be able to leave. Frau Bucher would much like to go with Gard. Elsa was so anxious todance at Court. It would be too bad to dash her anticipations to the ground. Gard spent the day renewing the arrangements. It was a pleasure to do so.
That evening a note couched in the spacious terms of formality was handed in at his door by Tekla. Frau Bucher was extremely sorry, but Friedrich and his sister had found they could come and were making all preparations. Herr Kirtley's invitation must be declined again.
Beginning to be put out, he found that his box could not now be returned. And he had no one to go with. It would be stupid to be there without even an acquaintance. At last he thought of Anderson. The latter announced his satisfaction at the prospect of "seeing the Germans jump around." Gard's dancing was cut off, which was disappointing enough, yet he could at least see the spectacle.
The following morning, the day before the event, another wire, and another cramped, stiff note through the diplomatic channels of the kitchen reached the attic. More regrets, but the Von Tielitzes were unable to carry out their plan. Would not Herr Kirtley kindly renew his invitation? This stately despatching of communications, as with a foreign power, went on side by side of and unseparated from the usual daily informal intercourse of the family.
Gard's good nature wrestled with his balanced equilibrium and overcame it along the lines of gallant generosity. It would be a pity to deprive the ladies of what they had looked forward to, although his own expectations were already marred. He would bemean himself sufficiently to overlook Frau's caddishness. He went in town to see if the change would suit his invited friend. Anderson bravely rose to the occasion and accepted silently the duty of having to tour the ball room now and then with his arm despairingly clasping the rotundity of mother Bucher.
When Gard got back to Villa Elsa, another stilted letter with a new programme was awaiting him. It had developed that the Von Tielitzes could come, though the sister was slightly indisposed. It would be nice for all to form a party, and Frau Bucher would be so pleased if Herr Kirtley would have them joined in. But transportation to and fro must be provided because of the sister. He had so kindly, at first, spoken of a motor.
As Friedrich had admittedly no money, Gard saw that this was a project—likely on the part of both—to saddle him with the whole expense. The clumsy maneuvering had got down to bargaining. He was mad. He sent the scullery courier back definitely withdrawing all arrangements. The pleasure of his invited guest could not be complicated. Result, the Von Tielitzes did not appear, mother and daughter Bucher remained at home, and Kirtley went with Anderson.
THEtwo sat the night out in the box. The reader is familiar with Thackeray's amusing references to the stuffy German Court balls. After his day and under the sway of the Empire, they had broadened and aired out somewhat in their automaton grandeurs.
Precisely at nine o'clock the Saxon Court entered, so far as possible in battle array, and unlimbered to a slight extent before their revering subjects. No one knew of anything this Royal family had ever said, commented Anderson. None of them had done anything original or brilliant except Louise, who had run off with the tutor. She could not stand the dullness here any longer. And the members of this Court represented civilization raised to the famousnth power!
How commonplace, uninspiring, theydidlook to Kirtley! As Germans can illy take onpolish he thought he only beheld Rudolphs and Teklas jammed into court dress. The disenchantment of a medieval dynasty at near view!
After the midnight supper Anderson, refreshed, told of an illuminating book he might write on Germany with journalistic brevity and conciseness. It would run something like this:
Chapter on Gentlemen and Ladies.There are few gentlemen and ladies in Germany.Chapter on Manners.There are no manners in Germany. Only orders and servility.Chapter on Charm and Delicacy.No specimens to be found.Chapter on the Milk of Human Kindness.There is no milk of human kindness in Germany.Chapter on the Absence of Arrogance.There is no absence of arrogance in Germany.
And so forth. What did Kirtley think of it?
The journalist jestingly identified the dignitaries, the men about town, the titled ladies about whose bulbous red shoulders often hung scandal, and retailed other gossip from his newspaper files. The scene indeed scintillated with lights and diamonds andcrystal. Two orchestras answered each other in a continuous strain of conquering music. Swords and spurs clanked and clattered through the riotous German dances, adding their martial clangor to the regal sounds. Trains were stepped on, dresses torn. The retiring rooms were often sought for repairs. Now and again commotion was caused by some heavy person tripping on her skirts and crashing to the floor. It was Triumphant Germany celebrating her undisputed position and pride—celebrating her mastery of the universe.
Gard really longed at moments to be actively throbbing with it all, circling in the throng, and holding Elsa with her blond florescence in his arms. Then a certain contentment would possess him as he pictured her mother forced to stay home with blighted hankerings. What a ridiculous appearance he would have presented towing her around here in a waltz before all these florid and grandiose figures of state!
Kirtley's disposition was somewhat slow-going, sure-footed. He had a gentle or quiet conservative tenacity that so often comes withthe inheritance of a moderate income. It at least gave him time to look things deliberately in the face.
He had at first discounted heavily his old friend's pyrotechnic, cynical bill of complaints against the Teutons and Teutonism. It was diverting, salient, but therefore discouraging to credence. Such judgments were apt to be flashes in the pan. They startled but lacked rootage. Gard had not sufficiently taken into consideration that the journalist was speaking at the end of seven years in Germany instead of at the beginning. When one arrives in a country, extreme snap-shot impressions readily flare forth in the mind.
Yet the more Kirtley saw, the more did he turn toward the same divorced mental attitude. He realized how truly the typical Villa Elsa, though in quite a different key, justified Anderson's conclusions. The performance Frau Bucher had gone through verified another variant in racial traits—a variant which Anderson had stressed.
Namely, one must be forcible, even harsh, with a German. He does not respond satisfactorily to kindness, leniency, liberality. Little sunny courtesies, unselfishnesses, genial endeavors, do not characteristically illuminate the tenebrous interior of his consciousness. He misinterprets them as feeblenesses, as confessions of his dominating rights and privileges. The more one grants to him, the more one yields to him, the more advantage and aggressive advantage he assumes he is invited to take. To go out of one's way to be obliging, to attempt to ingratiate one's self, brings difficulties.
But stout decision, sternness, defiant ultimatums, win out with him. As long as Gard had tried to make himself agreeable in the affair of the Court ball, his efforts were misunderstood and he became a handball buffeted about for the superior convenience of others. As soon as he finally stiffened up and mentally told them to go to perdition, the ingrowing troubles ceased with disciplined promptness. A satisfactory relation resulted, and a hearty respect for him in the household, he recognized, was measureably and contentedly increased.
It was a little different phase of the old pagan German tribal habit of considering the outsider as one from whom all should be got that was possible, irrespective of return inkind or a decent proportion of benefits. To hear in hard, to gouge, are toward the foreigner procedures relied on by the Teuton nature as appropriate. In it there is to be found little mutuality or respectfulness of feeling that curbs, not to speak of the social spirit that restrains or breeds a fine dignity of self. A show of weakness in any form, however ideal or beautiful, makes small appeal. So far as any other "tribe" is concerned, life to the German is at base a knock-down argument. Misfortunes in an alien land do not awaken sympathy. They are rather to be regarded as windfalls, as a result of which a profit is to be grabbed or a steely hand of control inserted where it does not belong.
WHENJim Deming returned he resumed sway over Villa Elsa, though with less vehemence. The Buchers fell promptly again under his spell, the duos were dropped, and Gard retired into the attic for study, varying its monotony with sojourns in town to familiarize himself with the personal peculiarities of the German multitude.
During the long break-up of winter, when the Teuton skies were leaden, and it was neither cold enough nor hot enough to stay comfortably in his room, owing to the Bucher economy of heat in this mid-season, it was pleasanter to be stirring abouten ville, and, when weary of this, seeking the agreeable cosiness of the cafés with their warmth of cooking and beverages that thawed one out. He usually lunched in some one of these well-known resorts where he became acquainted with thepersonneland frequenters. It was Deming who introduced him to the inn where Fritzi served, whom Von Tielitz and Messer had urged upon Gard's attentions. Jim had learned of it through the former.
Imagine the tiniest of restaurants. It was scarcely large enough for six small tables. The miniature kitchen immediately adjoined this dining nook, so that these two rooms were in effect one. When the two young Americans first went there together, a very comely girl sat cutting colored papers into fantastic shapes with the apparent intention of having more floral decorations. For huge artificial bouquets decked the boards. The place was freshly painted and engagingly clean. The very low walls were covered with queer mottoes in grotesque Gothic script, with Meissen wares, Vienna glass, and also misshapen oddities that always interest the puerile part of mature German nature.
There was a bust of the Emperor covered with ivy and flower concoctions in cardboard. The coat of arms of Saxony embellished the ceiling which one could almost touch with the upraised hand. A cat and a dog weretaking their noon-day nap. Sausages and cake in the form of the ever-popularLebkuchenwere made a specialty of here, and when Fritzi—for this was Fritzi—had served the young men she took a seat companionably by them, as became her rôle.
She had a rustic beauty and was sound and plump as a cherry. Her peasant headdress was high and elaborate, winged with chicken feathers, and her short skirts gave way before white stockings pulpily emerging from painted wooden shoes which clicked over the dull tiled floor.
By the table she knitted, watching the eating solicitously, and was by turns candid, sociable and saucy as a spoiled child. It was her business not to be affronted by familiar remarks and actions. She was there to draw trade. She knew how to drop quick curtsies in response to compliments and tips. Although Deming acted freely toward her like an old acquaintance, he could not make much headway owing to the bar of language—her jargon of dialect.
Gard, when touched with loneliness, went there several times and struck up quite an intimacy with her, the proprietor and his wife.It was a snug spot and she was picturesque. TheLebkuchenand famous sausages, which would have been a deadly combination in America, seemed to agree with him, soothed with beer. While Fritzi appearedkeckat intervals, Gard did not see any excuse for agreeing with the scandalous hints Von Tielitz and Messer threw out about her. They would naturally see the wench in every domestic.
It was from the inn that Kirtley frequently went to Anderson's for the afternoon. Gard had found it desirable to write down in a notebook some of the facts and reflections he was accumulating on the subject of the German. He would want to show them to his old tutor when home was reached again. Among them, Anderson's ideas and comments were included, flanked by an occasional apothegm.
Gard copied off a sample of their many talks in somewhat the abridged form as given below. It was when, on one of these days, Kirtley learned that Anderson had moved, and traced him to his new abode. From the window of this apartment they could see, through the bleary March light, the dowager-like Grosse Garten where Deming paraded in style with Frau Bucher and Fräulein. Although the trees and shrubbery were now so gaunt and chilly of aspect, soon they would be green and gay with beautiful spring, and Anderson would find them cheering.
"Iamgetting old," he said. "I have never wanted May to hurry up so much as this year. Here I can get a good view and the birds will come and nest in these branches. They will whistle to me. I can fill my pocket with crumbs and go out and make their acquaintance in the sunshine and flowers. Since the war failed me again, I can see that my friends pull away from me. They doubtless think that no one is more worthless than a prophet who cannot pull off his 'stunt' and has short gray hair in the bargain. Everyone is blissfully lolling in the embraces of enduring tranquillity and I am seeking the companionship of trees and birds that are not troubled with the machinations and delusions of mankind.
"So there will be this delightful summer of 1914 ahead. Christian civilization is spreading rapidly everywhere. More Bibles being sold than ever. More Hottentots and cannibals wearing clothes and losing their taste for human flesh. And so universal Peace has come to stay. There will not be another war.
"And yet the Dresden barracks were never so full of soldiers, and the German bases of military supplies are crammed. The munition factories are running on extra-time schedules. Has the world turned topsy-turvy or have I? Does what one actually see and hear have no meaning any more?"
"Why do you stay in Germany?" asked Gard. "The Germans antagonize you. And you look upon their Government as a wicked monster prepared to leap upon its innocent prey?"
"For about the same reasons that you remain at the Buchers'. Because it's so often exasperating here. And that's always exciting. I guess it's the Irish strain in us. Want to stick around where there's a good prospect for trouble—want something to swear at. And I consider it my duty to remain here as a sign post of warning. I am carrying about a small red flag with DANGER on it. If the Germans win command of the world, I will be here on the ground all ready to start in as a German and will have a great advantage over nearly all Yankees. I have conned my green book of irregular verbs, which I think would bother most of them considerably. Ihave got accustomed to the German eating and drinking which I imagine would prove the death of most of them, too. I have learned to sleep athwart the German bed—no small feat, as you know. For everything must become Germanized under German rule. Teutons know no other method."
"Is that the meaning of the sort of happy, triumphant feeling that one finds in Germany? It seems to pervade the whole Empire—rich and poor, merchant and peasant, housewife and children."
"Yes, because they know a victorious war is coming and they will all be lords and masters. The Empire will stretch out wide and there will be work at the highest wages and plenty of money. The German will be able to travel on his own railroads throughout most of Europe and Turkey. No matter how servile he may be at home, everyone will kowtow to him abroad.
"It will be a short, decisive campaign. It will cost some blood and some treasure, but then—the German millennium! The people a eager, ripe, fit for it. The coveted Government jobs will be more numerous and remunerative. They will confer more power on theincumbents, for they will be largely connected with conquered provinces. The German Michel will be no longer cramped up in his mid-continent."...
WHYis it that this seems to be a nation of professionals while ours seems to be a nation of amateurs? I suppose it is, of course, because of the more general spread here of thorough instruction."
"Yes, with us unskilled mediocrity is the popular level because it is within the reach of everyone in a democracy. With the German, high skilled, highly instructed efficiency is the ideal. The failure of America to rise into the expert level is due to our unenforced higher education. We compel our people to have a common school education in order to preserve the Republic. Its voters must know how to read and write and 'figger' or they won't be able to vote intelligently.
"Now if we did in addition what Germany does, we would insist, as far as practicable, on advanced education or instruction in everyfamily. Then we, too, would have a wealth of trained talent. Comparing the riches and population of the two countries there is a much greater proportion of university men and other competently instructed men in Germany. Only relatively few Americans can show diplomas for genuine and severe mental training. Take your own Bucher family as an illustration. All its men will have sheepskins that are worth while to show. With us, out of such a family none would have a sheepskin, or at most one. One of the boys might have gone to a university. And as for the difference in the women—little comparison. Your Frau, as you have told me, has several framed diplomas to her credit.
"You can see what a tremendous advantage all this gives the German people over us. You have hit it very well—we are nearly always amateurs. They are nearly always able to be professionals."
"Is it the same with the laboring classes—the mechanics and all that?"
"The same is true, in its way. A poor American boy thinks he will like to be a machinist. He gets a job as a new hand on a salary. He works at it a couple of years. Then somebodyoffers him ten dollars a week more to drive a truck, which is a simple, elementary task. He drops his machinist career for this. He gets more money and it requires no tedious training. So he remains an indifferent mechanic. It's the money he's looking for, not the satisfaction of proficiency in a skilled trade.
"Now, by contrast, the future of the poor German child is decided in a fashion at about the age of ten. When a boy is elected to go into industry, for instance, he is apprenticed at about fourteen for, say, four years to be a mechanic. He is given no wages. In fact he has to pay something, very often, for the opportunity to learn. But he must, at the same time, attend what they call here continuing schools. It is these schools, which we do not have in America, that hold him fixed to his line of work—prevent him from jumping from one kind of thing to another. He not only works in the shop but is forced to go to a continuing school.
"Hence at eighteen the German factory and Government are sure to find in him just the kind of instructed worker they need. There has never been any danger of his meanwhilechanging to driving a truck. He sticks to his trade through life. He becomes a master mechanic. You can't lure him away into an unskilled channel by more money. It's not the money alone he is thinking of. It is also the pride of having a specific calling that lifts him out of the great commonplace market of untrained labor. So Germany is full of competent mechanical men while we limp along with our huge supply of the partly experienced. Every such German knows how to do at least one thing as well as and usually better than anyone else.
"This is one big reason why Germany is pushing ahead of every nation in the industrial world and one reason why I fear her. No matter what she wants to do, she has an abundance of efficient brain and muscle right at hand with which to do it well and at once. In our great United States the lack of this is the bane of American industry and development, and causes such immense and continual loss in time and money because of our having to deal with such a mass of inexperienced young workmen.
"But more than this. The German who is taught a trade acquires not only the technic ofit in a shop or laboratory, but also acquires in his studies something of an enlightening and inspiring knowledge of its history and significance. He is, consequently, much more than a mere drudge. He is made intelligent about his calling. This particular feature, so pregnant and valuable, is not incorporated in the American plan, if we can be said to have a plan in these matters. For the Yankee ambition is to make plenty of money inanyquick way, and therefore to rise above a trade which a German is content to remain in. We feel no keen necessity about careful instruction in such vocations. Luck, "pull," "cheek," mere cleverness, are prominently relied on in its stead.
"There is another thing in this trade instruction that we do not have in any noticeable degree. It teaches the German mechanic to become wedded to his Nation and Government. He is made to realize the great benefits and responsibilities he owes to them. He becomes an integral national citizen ready to serve his homeland. He is taught to think of something higher than his pay envelope. Under our system such a mechanic grows up loosely connected in thought and acts with thegoverning public under which he enjoys all his liberty and opportunity. In so far as national necessities go he is apt to be a weakened unit or pulling the wrong way. Unlike the German, he has been educated to have no self-sacrificing ideal of state or country."
Anderson had, at one time, drawn Gard's attention to the immense advantage Germany uniquely derived by completely organizing and keeping at work that vast majority of incurable mediocrities—mere plodders—who are found in every race and who often weigh down its destiny to the point of sinking hopelessness.
Kirtley had since observed that one conspicuous German method was largely to employ this empty talent in small Government jobs. In general, these tasks seemed to be expressly for the swarming and uninspired nonentities, and meant most trivial duties for trivial pay. But such tasks kept this population occupied, orderly and more than self-respecting. In America incurable mediocrity is left to shift for itself in huge masses.
The natural ambition of a Teuton was to be in the national service. Rare was the German family who had not one member in "Government circles." Or if not, it was building expectations toward such a future. One in every eight wage-earning men a bureaucrat! It was not only a question of the salary, assured if small, but the honor. Any Government clerk or roustabout, not to speak of functionaries in higher duties, was looked up to in a way unfamiliar in America, for under that continuous régime his position remained fixed for life. Government officials and employees in the United States are quite freely thrown out under the frequent election upheavals and may to-morrow be ordinary citizens bereft of any sort of authority over their fellows. So they enjoy only a passing deference.
In Germany, owing to the use of plodders who made up extensively its ubiquitous and commanding official class, this bureaucratic scheme proved useful in more ways than one. It put faith and expectation into these stolid, menial lives and took them out of the ranks of the idle and discontented dullards who, in other countries, are a source of danger or decay. It attached Fritz firmly and loyally to the Nation. It held the links between the ruling caste and the people hard and tight. At the same time it tied his family and friendsto the Hohenzollern, uniting them in a bond almost servile. The ever-swelling ranks of bureaucrats, in such a large measure imbecile and applying themselves to imbecile occupations, strengthened the incomparable solidarity of the race. And it was this army of State employees who were actively helping diffuse through Germany in 1913 the frothy ideas of a national triumph that intoxicated the populace.
But Kirtley, admiring this manifestation of practical and administrative wisdom, felt that there must be somewhere a tremendous weak spot. The expense of this plan and its withdrawal of muscle and even poor brain from directly productive channels, were costly. And there was about it a pompous vacancy, an arrogant nonsensicalness, a latent peril resulting from such a large number of automatons in unquestioned positions, that should all logically indicate this: If Germany once broke, it would collapse somewhat like an eggshell. It would be a formidable eggshell but with a content surprisingly void.
In a sentence, the mighty German bureaucracy kept the population from thinking. It meant—Obey and make no inquiry! Andwhere in history, Gard asked himself, has a nation of such political and body slaves endured as against nations where the common individual was free to ask questions? Slavery in any important form is acknowledged to be an outworn, decadent economic policy. It cannot compete in the long run.
As a result of this bureaucratic domination in Germany there were, as Kirtley observed, many aspects of the organized public life so excessively worked out and applied in their development as to be unbelievable to Americans who had not come in actual contact with them. These logical extremes and exhaustive minutiæ often enough combined a ferocious ostentation and comical absurdness that were so little realized by those afar who learned of the mighty seriousness and intelligence of the Germans merely from the printed page. The conduct and operations of the limitless bureaucracy were usually the form in which the foreigner in the flesh ran counter to this unconscionable discipline.
Of all this Government routine, the spy system stood out in relief, although, at the same time, it was so dovetailed into the civil administration as to be frequently indistinguishable. Like a typical Yankee Gard, always greatly impressed by the general emphasis everywhere laid on the perfection of the Germans and their methods in everything, had regarded Anderson's remarks and hints about the spy régime as exaggerations. He still could not believe that Rudolph was a kind of Government sleuth or that Teuton existence was honeycombed from cellar to roof with official suspicion and the tyranny of the detective.
But this phase was now brought within range of his personal knowledge, and he had a glimpse of this famous German service. And through whom? Of all persons, Jim Deming. Strange to relate, it brought to a sudden head the latter's stirring courtship of Fräulein Elsa.