THE DINNER AT THE BRAUSIGS'
At seven o'clock the guests of the Geheimrath Brausig were gathered
together in the blue drawing-room--with its plush and gilded
wood--which that official had taken with him to the different towns
he had lived in. The Geheimrath was a Saxon of excellent education,
and of amiable though somewhat fawning manners. He seemed always to
bend in any direction in which he was touched. But the frame-work
was solid; and, on the contrary, he was a man whose ideas were
unchangeable. He was tall, ruddy, nearly blind, and wore his hair
long, and his red beard streaked with white, he wore short. He did
not wear spectacles, because his eyes, of a pale agate colour, were
neither shortsighted nor longsighted, but were worn out and almost
dead. He was a great talker. His speciality was to reconcile the
most opposite opinions. In his offices, in his relations with his
inferiors one saw the real basis of his character. Herr Brausig had
an Imperial spirit. He never allowed private people to be in the
right. The words "Public interest" seemed to him to answer all
arguments. In the official world they talked about raising him to
the nobility. He repeated this. His wife was fifty years old, had
the remains of beauty and an imposing figure; she had received the
officials of eight German towns before coming to live in Strasburg.
At her entertainments she gave all her attention to supervising the
servants, and her impatience at the countless annoyances connected
with their service, which she tried to hide, did not allow her to
reply to her neighbours except in sentences absolutely devoid of
interest.
The guests formed a mixture of races and professions which one would
not so easily come across in any other German town. There are so
many imported elements in the Strasburg of to-day! They were
fourteen in number, the dining-room could seat sixteen with a little
over two feet of table for each person, such space being an
essential in the eyes of the Geheimrath. He had in his house, around
him--and he dominated them with his sad, insipid head--some
protégés, people recommended to him, or friends gathered together
from various parts of the empire: two Prussian students from the
University of Strasburg, then two young Alsatian artists, two
painters who had been working for a year at the decoration of a
church; these were the unimportant guests, to which we must add the
two Oberlés, brother and sister, and even the mother, who was looked
upon in the official world as a person of limited intellect. The
guests of note were Professor Knäpple, from Mecklenburg, cultured
and studious, whose erudition consisted chiefly of minutiæ, and the
author of an excellent work on the socialism of Plato. He was the
husband of a pretty wife, round and pink, who seemed fairer and
pinker by the side of her dark husband, with his black beard curling
like an Assyrian's. The Professor of Æsthetics, Baron von Fincken
from Baden--who shaved his cheeks and chin, so that the scars gained
in the duels of his student days might be better seen, was of a
slender, nervous build; his head was of the energetic type, his nose
was turned up and showing the cartilage very plainly; ardent,
passionate, and very anti-French, and yet he looked more like a
Frenchman than any one present, except Jean Oberlé. There was no
Madame von Fincken. But there was beautiful Madame Rosenblatt, the
woman who was more envied, sought after, looked up to, than any
other woman in the German society of Strasburg, even in the military
world, because of her beauty and intelligence. She came from Rhenish
Prussia, as did also her husband, the great iron-master, Karl
Rosenblatt, multi-millionaire, a man of sanguine temperament, and at
the same time methodical and silent, and one said that he was bold
and cold and calculating in business.
This party was like all the parties that the Geheimrath gave; there
was no homogeneity. The official himself called that conciliating
the different elements of the country. He also spoke of the "neutral
ground" of his house and of the "open tribunal," for each and every
opinion. But many Alsatians did not trust this eclecticism and this
liberty. Some maintained that Herr Brausig was simply playing a
part, and that whatever was said in his house was always known in
higher spheres.
Madame Oberlé and her children were the last to arrive at the
Geheimrath. The German guests welcomed Lucienne, who was intimate
with them already. They were polite to the mother, because they knew
she only went into Government society under constraint. Wilhelm von
Farnow, introduced by Madame Brausig, who alone knew about the
officer's plans, bowed ceremoniously to the mother and the young
girl, drew himself up erect, stood stiffly, then returned at once to
the group of men standing near the mirror.
A servant announced that dinner was served. There was a movement
among the black coats, and the guests entered the large room,
decorated as at the Oberlés' house with evident predilection. But
the taste was not the same. The vaulted bays with two mullions,
decorated with rose windows in the pointed arch, and filled with
stained-glass, of which at this time only the lead-work was to be
seen; the sideboards with torso pillars with sculptured panels; the
wainscoting rising to the ceiling and ending in little spires; the
ceiling itself divided into numerous sunk panels, and in the carving
of which electric lamps shone like fire blossoms: the whole
decoration recalled to mind Gothic art.
Jean, who came in one of the last in the procession of diners, gave
his arm to pretty Madame Knäpple, who had eyes only for the
wonderfully made and equally wonderfully worn dress of Madame
Rosenblatt. Professor Knäpple's little wife thought she saw that
Jean Oberlé was noticing the same thing. So she said:
"The low neck is indecent. Don't you think so?"
"I find it irreproachable. I think that Madame Rosenblatt must go to
Paris for her dresses."
"Yes; you have guessed rightly," answered the homely little woman.
"When one has such a fortune one has often odd fancies, and but
little patriotism."
The beginning of the meal was rather silent. Little by little the
noise of different conversations rose. They began to drink. M.
Rosenblatt had large bumpers of Rhine wine poured out for him. The
two students in spectacles came back to Wolxheim wine, with as
serious a mien as if it were some difficult passage in the classics.
The voices grew louder. The servants' footsteps could no longer be
heard on the parquet floor. General conversation began as the froth
of intellects had been moved by the light and the wine. Professor
Knäpple, who had a quiet voice, but a manner of pronouncing very
clearly and distinctly, was heard above the hum of conversation,
when he answered his neighbour, Madame Brausig:
"No; I do not understand that one should join the strong because one
is strong. I have always been a liberal."
"You are alluding to the Transvaal perhaps," said the Geheimrath
opposite, with a loud laugh, pleased at having guessed.
"Precisely, Herr Geheimrath. It is not political greatness to crush
small nations."
"You find that extraordinary?"
"No; very ordinary. But I do say there is nothing to boast about in
that."
"Have other nations acted differently?" asked Baron von Fincken.
He turned up his insolent nose. No one carried on the discussion, as
if the argument were unanswerable. And the wave of general talk
rolled on, intermingling and drowning the private conversations of
which it consisted.
Madame Rosenblatt's musical voice broke the hum of talk. She was
saying to little Madame Knäpple, placed on the other side of the
table:
"Yes, madame, I assure you that the question has been discussed.
Everything is possible, madame; however, I should not have thought
that the Municipality of a German town could even discuss such an
idea."
"Not so devoid of sense; don't you think so, Professor, you who
lecture on æsthetics?"
Professor von Fincken, seated at the right hand of the beautiful
Madame Rosenblatt, turned towards her, looked into the depths of her
eyes, which remained like an unrippled lake, and said:
"What is it about, madame?"
"I told Madame Knäpple that in the Municipal Council the question
had been raised of sending the Gobelin Tapestries which the town
possesses, to Paris to be mended."
"That is right, madame, the noes have it."
"Why not to Berlin?" asked Madame Knäpple's pretty red mouth. "Do
they happen to work so badly in Berlin?"
The Geheimrath found it time to "conciliate." "To make Gobelin
tapestry, without doubt, Madame Rosenblatt, is right, and Paris is
necessary; but to mend them! I think--it seems to me--that can be
done in Germany."
"Send our tapestry to Paris!" expostulated Madame Knäpple. "How do
they know if they would ever come back?"
"Oh!" one of the young painters at the end of the table answered
gravely. "Oh, madame!"
"How! Oh! You are an Alsatian, sir," said the homely little woman,
pricked by the interjection as if it had been the point of a needle.
"But we--we have the right to be mistrustful."
She had gone too far. No one stood up for her verdict--general
conversation stopped, and was replaced by flattering appreciations
made by each guest on some quails in aspic which had just been
served. Madame Knäpple herself came back to subjects with which she
was more familiar, for she but rarely took any part in discussions
when men were present. She turned towards her neighbour, von Farnow,
which prevented her from seeing the elegant Madame Rosenblatt, and
Madame Rosenblatt's beautiful dress, and the periwinkle-blue eyes of
Madame Rosenblatt, and she undertook to explain to the young man how
to do quails in aspic, and how to make "Cup" according to her
recipe. However, for the second time their thoughts had been turned
to the vanquished nation--and this thought continued to disturb
their minds in a vague way, while champagne, German-labelled, was
sparkling in the glasses.
Madame Brausig had only exchanged very unmeaning words with M.
Rosenblatt, her neighbour on the right, and with Professor Knäpple,
her neighbour on the left, who preferred talking to Madame
Rosenblatt, and Baron von Fincken, her _vis-à-vis_, and sometimes
with Jean Oberlé. It was she, however, who started a fresh
discussion, without wishing to. And the conversation rose at once to
a height it had not yet reached. The councillor's wife was speaking
to M. Rosenblatt--looking all the time angrily at a servant who had
just knocked against the chair of her most important guest, Madame
Rosenblatt; she was speaking of a marriage between an Alsatian and a
German from Hanover, the commandant of the regiment of Foot
Artillery No. 10. The iron-master answered quite loudly, without
knowing that he was sitting beside the mother of a young girl sought
after by an officer:
"The children will be good Germans. Such marriages are very rare,
and I regret it, because they add immensely to the Germanisation of
this obstinate country."
Baron von Fincken emptied his champagne glass at a draught and,
placing it on the table, said:
"All means are good, because the end is good."
"Certainly," said M. Rosenblatt.
Jean Oberlé was the best known of the three Alsatians present, and
the best qualified to make a reply, and yet the most disqualified,
it seemed to him, to give his opinion, because of the discussions
which this question had caused in his own house. He saw that Baron
von Fincken had looked at him as he spoke, that Herr Rosenblatt was
staring at him, that Professor Knäpple cast a glance at his
left-hand neighbour, that Rosenblatt smiled with the air of one who
would say "Is this little fellow capable of defending his nation?
Will he answer to the spur? Let us see!"
The young man answered, choosing his adversary, and, turning towards
the Baron, "On the contrary, I think that the Germanisation of
Alsace is a bad and clumsy action."
At the same time his face grew harder and the green in his eyes
vibrated, like the green of the forests when the wind blows the
leaves of the trees the wrong way.
The Professor of Æsthetics looked like a man of the sword.
"Why bad, if you please? Do you look upon the conquest as
unpleasant? This is the sequel of that? Do you think so, really? But
say so, then!"
In the silence of all present the answer of Jean Oberlé fell clear
and distinct.
"Yes."
"You dare, sir!"
"Allow me," said the Geheimrath Brausig, stretching out his hand as
if to bless them. "Here we are all good Germans, my dear baron! You
have no right to suspect the patriotism of our young friend, who is
only speaking from a historical point of view!"
Madame Oberlé and Lucienne signed to Jean.
"Be quiet! be quiet!"
But Baron von Fincken saw nothing and heard nothing. The bitter
passion of which his face was the symbol was let loose. He half
rose, and leaning forward, with his head over the table, he said:
"France is pretty! united! powerful and moral!"
Little Madame Knäpple went on:
"Above all, moral!"
Voices high, low, ironical, and irritated rang out confusedly.
"Deceivers, the French! Look at their novels and plays! France is
decadent! A worn-out nation! What will she do against fifty-five
millions of Germans?"
Jean let the avalanche pass; he looked now at Fincken, who was
gesticulating, now at von Farnow, who was silent, with head held
high and frowning brows.
"I believe France is very much calumniated," he said at last. "She
may be governed badly. She may be weakened by dissensions; but since
you attack her, I am delighted to tell you that I look upon her as
a very great nation. Even you yourselves have no other opinion."
Veritable clamours arose. Ah! Oh! Indeed.
"Your very fury against her proves this. You have conquered her, but
you have not left off envying her!"
"Do you read the commercial statistics, young man?" asked the
resolute voice of Herr Rosenblatt.
"Her merchant navy is in the sixth rank!" whispered one of the
students.
Professor Knäpple fixed his spectacles on his nose and very clearly
articulated the following proposition:
"What you say, my dear Oberlé, is true as regards the past. Even
to-day I think I can add, that if we had France to ourselves she
would rapidly become a great country. We should know how to improve
her."
"I beg you," added von Fincken insolently, "not to discuss an
opinion which is not tenable."
"I beg you, in my turn," said Jean, "not to use in discussion
arguments which are not conclusive, and do not really touch the
question. One cannot judge a country simply and solely by its
commerce, its navy, or its army."
"On what would you form your judgment then, sir?"
"On the soul of the country, sir. France has hers; that I know from
history and from I know not what filial instinct I feel within me;
and I firmly believe that there are many superior virtues, eminent
qualities, generosity, disinterestedness, love of justice, taste,
delicacy, and a certain flower of heroism, which are to be found
more often than elsewhere in the past and in the present of this
nation. I could give many proofs of it. Even if she were as weak as
you assert, she holds treasures which are the honour of the world,
which must be torn from her before she merits death, and by the
side of these things the remainder seems very small. Your
Germanisation, sir, is only destruction or diminution of those
virtues or French qualities in the Alsatian soul. And that is why I
maintain that it is bad!"
"Come now," said Fincken, "Alsace belongs naturally to Germany; she
has made her come back. We make our repossession sure. Who would not
do as much?"
"France!" answered Oberlé; "and that is why we love her. She might
have taken the territory, but she would not have done violence to
the soul. We belong to her by right of love."
The baron shrugged his shoulders.
"Go back then to her!"
Jean almost shouted, "Yes." The servants stopped to listen, in
passing round the sweets. He went on:
"I find your attempt bad in itself, because it is a repression of
consciences; but I also find that it is clumsy, even from a German
point of view."
"Charming," said the little falsetto of Madame Knäpple. "You should
have the interest to keep what originality and independence remains
to us. It would be a useful example to Germany."
"Thanks," said a voice.
"And more and more useful," insisted the young man. "I was educated
in Germany and I am sure of my contention. What struck me most, and
shocked me, is the want of personality in Germans, their increasing
forgetfulness of liberty, their effacement before the power of----"
"Take care, young man!" interrupted the Geheimrath quickly.
"I shall say before the power of Prussia, Geheimrath, which devours
consciences, and which allows only three types of men to live, and
these she has moulded from childhood--taxpayers, officials, and
soldiers."
From the end of the table one of the students rose from his chair:
"The Roman Empire did the same, and it was the Roman Empire!"
A vibrating voice near him cried:
"Bravo!"
All the guests looked up. It was Wilhelm von Farnow, who had said
only this one word since the beginning of the discussion. The
violence of the debate had irritated him like a personal
provocation. It had excited others. Herr Rosenblatt clenched his
fists. Professor Knäpple muttered stormy sentences as he wiped his
spectacles. His wife laughed nervously.
Then the beautiful Madame Rosenblatt, letting her pearl necklace run
through her fingers, smiled, and looking pleasantly at the Alsatian,
said:
"M. Oberlé has at least the courage of his opinions. No one could be
more openly against us."
Jean felt far too irritated to answer pleasantly. He looked intently
at the faces of Fincken, Rosenblatt, and Knäpple, at the student who
was moving restlessly near Lucienne, and then leaning slightly
towards Madame Rosenblatt, said:
"It is only through the women that the German nation can acquire the
refinement which is wanting, madame. Germany has some accomplished
women."
"Thank you for us!" answered three men's voices.
Madame Knäpple, furious at the compliment paid to Madame Rosenblatt,
said:
"What is your scheme then, sir, for shaking off the yoke of
Germany?"
"I have none."
"Then what do you ask for?"
"Nothing, madame; I suffer."
It was one of the Alsatian artists, the painter with the yellow
beard, who looked like one of Giotto's pupils, who continued the
conversation, and all the table turned towards him.
"I am not like M. Oberlé, who asks for nothing. He has only just
come into the country after a long absence. If he had lived here
some time, he would come to a different conclusion. We Alsatians of
the new generation through our contact with three hundred thousand
Germans have had the difference of our French culture from that of
Germany conclusively demonstrated. We prefer our own; that is
permitted? In exchange for the loyalty that we have shown to
Germany, the taxes we pay, the military service we perform--we
desire to remain Alsatians. And you determinedly refuse to
understand. Our demand is that we should not be compelled to submit
to exceptional laws, to this sort of state of siege which we have
endured for thirty years. We demand that we should not be treated
and governed as a country of the Empire--after the fashion of the
Cameroons, Togoland, and New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, or
the Isles of Providence, but like a European province of the German
Empire. We shall not be satisfied until that day comes when we can
feel we are in our own home here--Alsatians in Alsace, as the
Bavarians are Bavarians in Bavaria. Whilst as things are, we are the
conquered ones waiting on the good pleasure of a master. That is my
demand!"
He spoke clearly, with apparent coldness, and his golden beard
looked like the point of an arrow. His measured words succeeded in
exciting their minds--and one could foresee the angry answer when
Geheimrathin Brausig rose.
Her guests followed suit, and went into the blue drawing-room.
"You were absurd! What were you thinking about?" Lucienne asked in
an undertone as she passed Jean.
"Perhaps what you said was imprudent," added Madame Oberlé, a moment
after; "but you defended Alsace well--and I approve of you."
The Geheimrath was already turning to all sides, making use of the
usual formula, which he murmured into the ears of Fincken, von
Farnow, of Rosenblatt and Professor Knäpple, the two students, Jean,
and the two Alsatian artists:
"Do me the pleasure of following me to the smoking-room!"
The smoking-room was a second drawing-room, separated from the first
by plate-glass.
M. Brausig's guests were soon reunited there. Cigars and beer were
brought. Smoke spirals went up, mingled together, and rose to the
ceiling. M. Rosenblatt became a centre of conversation. The
Professor Knäpple became another. The loud voices seemed to be
wrangling, but were only explaining simple ideas with difficulty.
Alone, two men were talking of a serious subject and making but
little noise. They were Jean Oberlé and von Farnow. Scarcely had the
former lit his cigar when von Farnow touched Jean's arm and said:
"I want to have a little conversation with you apart."
To be more free, the young men seated themselves near the monumental
mantelpiece, facing the bay which opened into the drawing-room,
while the other smokers grouped round M. Rosenblatt and Baron von
Fincken occupied the embrasure of the windows.
"You were violent to-night, my dear fellow," said von Farnow, with
the haughty politeness which he often adopted; "I was tempted twenty
times to answer you, but I preferred waiting. Were you not aiming at
me a little?"
"Much of what I said was meant for you. I wanted to tell you very
clearly what I was and to teach it to you before witnesses, so that
it should be clearly understood that if you persevere in your
projects, I have made no concessions to you, no advances; that I
have nothing whatever to do with the marriage you are contemplating.
I am not going to oppose my father's wishes, but I will not have my
ideas confused with his."
"That is how I understood it. You have evidently learned that I have
met your sister in society and that I love her?"
"Yes."
"Is that all you have to answer?"
A rush of blood suffused the German's cheeks.
"Explain yourself quickly!" he went on. "My family is of the
nobility; do you recognise that?"
"Yes."
"Do you recognise that it is an honour for a woman to be sought by a
German officer?"
"For any except an Alsatian woman. But although you do not
understand that feeling, we are not like other people--we are the
people of Alsace. I esteem you very much, Farnow, but your marriage
with my sister will cruelly affect three persons among us--myself
first of all."
"How? I ask you!"
They were obliged to speak in an undertone and to avoid any
gestures, because of the presence of the Geheimrath's guests at the
farther end of the room, who were observing the young men, and were
trying to interpret their attitudes. All their emotion and their
irritation was in their eyes and in the whispering of words which
must only be heard by one person.
Through the sheet of plate-glass, Lucienne could see von Farnow, and
getting up and crossing the drawing-room, or pretending to admire
the basket of flowers which stood out from the frame-work, she
looked inquiringly at the faces of the officer and of her brother.
"You are a man of heart, von Farnow. Think what our home in Alsheim
will be when this fresh cause of dissension is added to the others?"
"I shall go away," said the officer; "I can exchange and leave
Strasburg."
"The memory will remain with us. But that is not all. And from now
on there is my mother, who will never consent...."
With a movement of his hand von Farnow showed that he brushed aside
that objection.
"There is my grandfather, whom Alsace once elected to protest, and
who cannot to-day give the lie to all his past life."
"I owe nothing to M. Philippe Oberlé," interrupted Farnow.
His voice became more imperious.
"I warn you that I never give up a resolution once taken. When M.
von Kassewitz, the prefect of Strasburg, and the only near relation
remaining to me, returns from the holiday he is going to take in a
few days' time, he will go to Alsheim, to your house; he will ask
for the hand of Mlle. Lucienne Oberlé for his nephew, and his
request will be granted, because Mlle. Lucienne Oberlé wishes to
accept me, because her father has already consented, and because I
will have it so--I, Wilhelm von Farnow!"
"It remains to be seen whether you have done well...."
"According to my will: that is sufficient for me."
"How much pride there is in your love, Farnow!"
"It is in everything I do, Oberlé!"
"Do you think I am mistaken? My sister pleases you because she is
pretty?"
"Yes."
"Intelligent?"
"Yes."
"But also because she is an Alsatian girl! Your pride has seen in
her a victory to be gained. You are not ignorant of the fact that
the women of Alsace are in the habit of refusing Germans. They are
queens not easily accessible to your amorous ambitions, from the
country girls, who at their gatherings refuse to dance with the
emigrants, up to our sisters, who are not often seen in your
drawing-rooms or on your arms. In the various regiments you will
belong to you will boast that you have won Lucienne Oberlé. It will
even be a good mark for you in high quarters? Will it not?"
"Perhaps," said Farnow with a sneer.
"Go on then, break, or finish breaking, three of us!"
They were getting more and more irritated, each trying to control
himself.
The officer rose, threw away his cigar, and said haughtily:
"We are civilised barbarians--that is understood, less burdened than
you with prejudices and pretensions to justice. That is why we shall
conquer the world. But in the meantime, Oberlé, I am going to join
your mother and talk to her, as amiably as an enemy possibly can.
Will you accompany me?"
Jean Oberlé shook his head in the negative.
Farnow crossed the smoking-room, leaving Oberlé there.
Lucienne was anxiously awaiting him in the drawing-room. She saw him
direct his steps towards Madame Oberlé, and, forcing himself to
smile, place a chair near the arm-chair in which the fragile
Alsatian lady in black was sitting. At the same time the Geheimrath
called out, "Oberlé! You have smoked a cigar without even drinking
one glass of beer. But that is a crime! Come. Professor Knäpple is
explaining the measures the Government is taking to prevent the
Russianising of the eastern provinces of Germany."
* * * * *
Late that night, a landau bore away to Alsheim three travellers; it
had fetched them from the station at Molsheim.
The way there was a long one, and Lucienne soon went to sleep in the
carriage. Her mother, who had hardly said anything up to then, bent
towards her son, and, pointing to the beautiful creature sound
asleep, asked him:
"You knew?"
"Yes."
"I guessed it. There was no need to tell me much. I have seen her
look at him. Oh, Jean, this trial that I hoped to escape!--the fear
of which has made me accept so many, many things! I have only you
left, my Jean! But you remain to me!"
She kissed him fervently.