A LAY SERMON.
"Es ist eine Lust, in deiser Zeit zu leben!" cried Paul Habor, as he
walked with Wilhelm and Dr. Schrotter on the first sunny day the
following April. They walked under the lindens full of leaf through the
Thiergarten, and home over the Charlottenburger Brucke.
The spirit in which he uttered Hutten's words was at that time dominant
and far-reaching. It seemed as though people were all enjoying the
honeymoon of the new empire; that they breathed peace and the joy of
life with the air, as if the whole nation inhaled the pleasure of
living, the joy of youth and brave deeds, and that they stood at the
entrance of an incomprehensibly great era, promising to everyone
fabulous heights of happiness.
A sort of feverish growth had sprung up in Berlin, an excitement and
ferment which filled the villas in the west end, and the poor
lodging-houses of the other end of the town: was found too in
councilors' drawing-rooms, and in suburban taverns. New streets seemed
to spring up during the night. Where the hoe and rake of
kitchen-gardens were at work yesterday, to-day was the noise of hammers
and saws, and in the middle of the open fields hundreds of houses
raised their walls and roofs to the sky. It seemed as if the increasing
town expected between to-day and to-morrow a hundred thousand new
inhabitants, and were forced to build houses in breathless haste to
shelter them.
And as a matter of fact the expected throng arrived. Even in the most
distant provinces a curious but powerful attraction drew people to the
capital; artisans and cottages, village shopkeepers, and merchants from
small towns, all rushed there like the inflowing tide. It made one
think of a number of moths blindly fluttering round a candle, or of the
magnetic rock of Eastern fairy tales, irresistibly attracting ships to
wreck themselves. It recalled to one the stories of California at the
time of the gold fever. People's excited imaginations saw a veritable
gold-mine in Berlin. The French indemnity flew to people's heads like
champagne, and in a kind of drunken frenzy every one imagined himself a
millionaire. Some had even seen exhibited a reproduction of the hidden
treasure. The great heap of glittering pieces was certainly there, a
tempting reality, piled up mountains high, millions on millions,
craftily arranged to glitter in the flaring gas-light before their
covetous eyes. The real treasure must be at least as substantial as its
counterfeit. People began to see gold everywhere; red streaks of gold
shone through the window-panes, instead of the warm spring sun; they
heard murmuring chinking streams of gold flowing behind the walls of
their houses, under the pavements of the streets, and every one
hastened to fill their hands, and thirsted for their share in the
subterranean gold whose stream was concealed from their eyes. While
their lips were being moistened by the stream of gold, they were, as a
matter of fact, drinking the transformed flesh and blood of the heroes
who had sacrificed themselves on the French battlefields, and in this
infamous travesty of the Christian mystery of the Lord's Supper the
devil himself took part and possession of them. They followed new
customs, new views of life, other ideals. The motto of their noisy and
obtrusive life seemed to be, "Get rich as quickly and with as little
trouble as possible, and make as much as possible of your riches when
you have secured them, even by illegitimate means." So the splendid
houses rose up in an overloaded gaudy irregular style of architecture,
and the smart carriages with india-rubber tires rolled by, yielding
soft and soothing riding to their occupants.
Berlin, the sober economical town, the home of honorable families,
extolled for respectability almost to affectation, now learned the
disorderly ways of noisy cafes, the luxury of champagne suppers, in
over-decorated restaurants, became intimately acquainted with the
theaters--gaining doubtful introductions to expensive mistresses. Mere
upstarts set the fashion in dress, in extravagance, and all who would
be elegant, followed, leading the way to barbaric vices. The
old-established inhabitants were many of them weak or silly enough to
try to outdo the newcomers, and degraded the quiet dignity of their
patriarchal manner of life by speculations on the Stock Exchange. The
intelligent middle classes, whose eyes and ears were filled with this
bluster of the gold-orgy, found that their former way of living had now
grown uncomfortable, their houses were too small, their bread too dry,
their beer too common and their views of life began to climb upward in
a measure which, whether they were willing or equal in talent to it,
forced from them harder work and more dogged perseverance. Political
economists and statisticians were drawn into excitement by their
knowledge of figures. They extolled the sudden crisis in the money
market, the easy returns, the great development of consumption in
goods. They quoted triumphantly the amount of importations, the great
increase in silk, artistic furniture, glass, jewelry, valuable wines,
spices, liqueurs, was called a splendid development of trade; wonderful
evidence of the prosperity of all classes, and an elevation of the
manner of life of the German people. And if moralists failed to see in
these heated desires and idle display, the presence of progress and
blessing, they were called limited Philistines, who were too
feeble-minded to recognize the signs of the times.
The position of the workingman profited by the new condition of things.
Berlin seemed insatiable in her demands for able-bodied workmen.
Hundreds and thousands left the fields and the woods, and taking their
strong arms to the labor market of the capital, found employment in the
factories and the workshops; and the mighty engines still beat, sucking
in as it were the stream of people from the country. Berlin itself
could not contain this influx. The newcomers were obliged gypsy fashion
to put up as best they could in the neighborhood. In holes and caves on
the heaths and commons, in huts made of brushwood, they bivouacked for
months, and these men who lived like prairie dogs in such apparent
misery were merry over their houseless, wild existence. As a matter of
fact they experienced no actual want, as there was work for every one
who could and would labor. The rewards were splendid, and the
proletariat found that its only possession, viz., the strength of its
muscles, was worth more than ever before. The workingman talked loudly,
and held his head high. Was it the result of having served in one or
more campaigns? Had he in the background of his mind a vision of dying
men and desolate villages, seen so often on the battlefield? However it
was, he became violent and quarrelsome, indifferent alike to wounding
and death, and learned to make use of the knife like any cutthroat
townsman.
With this return to barbarism (an unfailing result with the soldier
after every time of war) went a degree of animal spirits, which made
one ask whether the workman had learned something of epicurean
philosophy. He had the same excited love of tattling as a thoughtless
girl, and the animal love of enjoyment of a sailor after a long voyage.
His ordinary life seemed to him so uninteresting, so dull, that he
tried to give color and charm to it by taking as many holidays as
possible, and making his work more agreeable with gambling and
drinking, and going for loafing excursions about the neighborhood.
Visits to wine and beer-houses and dancing-rooms were endlessly
multiplied, and everything had the golden foundation which the proverb
of an age of simplicity hardly attributed to honorable handicraft.
Profits were squandered in drink; life was a rush and a riot without
end.
But curiously, in the same degree in which the opportunities of work
were increased and wages became higher, life everywhere easier, and the
ordinary enjoyments greater; just so did the workman grow discontented.
Desires increased with their gratification, and envy measured its own
prosperity by the side of the luxury of the nouveaux riches.
The hand which never before had held so much money, now learned to
clinch itself in hatred against the owner of property, the company
promoter; against all in fact who were not of the proletariat. The
Social Democrat had sprung up ten years before from the circle of the
intelligent political economists and philosophers of the artisan
classes. Since the war they numbered thousands and ten of thousands,
and now began to grow and widen like a moorland fire, at first hardly
perceptible, then betraying through the puff of smoke the fire creeping
along the ground; then a thousand tongues of flame leap upward, and
suddenly sooner or later the whole heath is in a blaze. Innumerable
apostles preaching their turbid doctrines in all the factories and
workshops, found hearers who were discontented and easily carried away.
The social democracy of the workmen was neither a political nor
economical programme which appealed to the intellect, or could be
proved or argued about, but rather an instinct in which religious
mysticism, good and bad impulses, needs, emotional desires were
wonderfully mingled. The men were filled with enmity against those who
had a large share of money; the new faith dogmatically explained
possession of property as a crime--that it was meritorious to hate the
possessor and necessary to destroy him. They were made discontented
with their limited destiny by the sight of the world and its treasures;
the new faith promised them a future paradise in the shape of an equal
division of goods--a paradise in which the hand was permitted to take
whatever the eye desired. They were disgusted by the consciousness of
their deformity and roughness, which dragged them down to the lowest
rank in the midst of school learning if not exactly knowledge; of good
manners if not good breeding; the new faith raised them in their own
eyes, declaring that they were the salt of the earth, that they alone
were useful and important parts of humanity; all others who did not
labor with their hands being miserable and contemptible sponges on
humanity.
The whole proletariat was soon converted to Social Democracy. Berlin
was covered with a network of societies, which became the places of
worship of the new faith. Handbills, pamphlets, newspapers, partly
polemical, partly literary, in which the mob made their statements and
professed their faith stoutly; these, although written very badly, yet
by their monotony, their angry reproaches, their invocations, reminded
one of litanies and psalms.
Wilhelm felt a certain sympathy with the movement. It was first brought
to his notice by a new acquaintance, who had worked with him in the
physical laboratory since the beginning of the year. He was a Russian,
who had introduced himself to the pupils in the laboratory as Dr.
Barinskoi from Charkow. His appearance and, behavior hardly bore this
out. His long thin figure was loosely joined to thin weak legs. Light
blue eyes looked keenly out of a warm grayish-yellow face; add to these
a sharp reddish nose, pale lips, a spare, badly grown mustache and
beard of a dirty color, and slight baldness. His demeanor was suave and
very submissive, his voice had the faltering persuasiveness which a
natural and reasonable man dislikes, because it warns him that the
speaker is lying in wait to take him by surprise. Barinskoi, beside,
never stood upright when he was speaking to any one. He bent his back,
his head hung forward, his eyes shifted their glance from the points of
his own boots to other people's, his face was crumpled up into a
smiling mask, and working his hands about nervously he crammed so many
polite phrases and compliments into his conversation that he was a
terrible bore to all his acquaintances. Barinskoi, who was an
accomplished spy, intended by his entrance into the laboratory to learn
all he could in a circuitous way of persons and conditions.
After a short observation he noticed that Wilhelm seemed isolated in
the midst of the others, and was treated coldly by every one except the
professor. He learned that this coolness of the atmosphere was on
account of the refusal of the duel. After that he tried every possible
means to get nearer to him. Wilhelm was working in some important
researches, and it was possible that the results would destroy some
existing theories.
The professor followed the experiments with great attention, and many
times spoke of him as his best pupil in difficult work. That was
Barinskoi's excuse for asking Wilhelm if he would initiate him into his
work, and explain to him his hypotheses and methods. He added, with his
submissive smile and nervous rubbing of the hands, that the Heir Doctor
might be quite easy about the priority of his discoveries, as he was
quite prepared to write an explanation that he stood in the position of
pupil to the Heir Doctor, and had only a share in his discoveries in
common with others. Wilhelm contented himself by replying that priority
was nothing to him, and that he did not work for fame, but because he
was ignorant and sought for knowledge.
Thereupon Barinskoi said he was very happy to have found some one with
the same views as himself, he also thought that fame was nonsense, that
knowledge was the only essential thing, that it gave power over things
and men, that the ideal was to proceed unknown and unnoticed through
life, making the others dance without knowing who played on the
instrument. That was not what Wilhelm meant, but he let it go without
denying it. Barinskoi also tried to claim him for a fellow-countryman,
but Wilhelm stopped him, explaining that he was a German, although born
beyond the frontier of his fatherland. This slight did not disconcert
Barinskoi; he endeavored to produce an impression on Wilhelm, and if
one shut one's eyes to his ugliness and fawning ways he was a
well-informed man; harshness was not in Wilhelm's nature, so he held
out no longer against Barinskoi's importunity--who very soon
accompanied him home from the laboratory, visited him uninvited in his
rooms, invited him to supper at his restaurant, which Wilhelm twice
declined, the third time, however, he had not the courage to refuse. In
spite of this Barinskoi would not see that his invitation was only
accepted out of politeness. There were many things reserved and
unsociable about Barinskoi; for example, he never invited any one to
his rooms. He called for his letters at the post office. The address he
gave, and under which he was entered at the University office,
described him as a newspaper correspondent, which agreed with his daily
readings and writings. He frequently disappeared for two or three days,
after which he emerged again, as it were, dirtier than before, with
reddened, half-closed eyelids, weak voice, and general bloodless
appearance. A conjecture as to where he was during this time was
suggested by a smell of spirits, beside the fact that students from the
laboratory had often seen him late at night at the corner of the
Leipziger and Friedrichstrasse in earnest consultation with some
unhappy creature of the streets, and that he was often seen haunting
remote streets in the eastern districts in the company of women.
Barinskoi declared he was the correspondent of a large St. Petersburg
paper, and that he made great efforts to remove the prejudices of
Russia against Germany, and to give his readers a respect for their
great neighbors. By chance one day Wilhelm read the page of Berlin
correspondence, and found that from first to last it was full of
poisoned abuse, insult, and calumination of Berlin and its inhabitants.
At the next opportunity he put it before Barinskoi's eyes without a
word. He started a little, but said directly, quite calmly: Yes, he had
read the letter too; naturally it was not by him; the paper had other
correspondents, who hated Germans, he could do no more than put a stop
to their lies, and find out the reality of their misrepresentations.
Early in this short acquaintance it was clear that Barinskoi was in
constant money difficulties. By his own representations the paper paid
him very irregularly, and the most curious accidents constantly
occurred to prevent the arrival of the expected payments. Once the
money was sent by mistake to the Constantinople correspondent, and it
was six weeks before the oversight was cleared up. Another time a
fellow-writer who was traveling to Berlin undertook to bring the money
with him. On the way he lost the money out of his pocket-book, and
Barinskoi had to wait until he went back to St. Petersburg, to inquire
into the case. By such fool's stories was Wilhelm's friendship put to
the proof. Barinskoi did not stop at borrowing money occasionally, with
sighs and groans, but every few days, often at a few hours' interval, a
new and larger loan would frequently follow.
All this was a dubious method of consolation, and yet Dr. Schrotter, or
rather Paul Haber, decided that though further contact with Barinskoi
must be avoided, he was an object of increasing interest to Wilhelm.
Barinskoi had many ideas in sympathy with his, which he did not find in
others, and their views of society and practical maxims of life were so
much in common that Wilhelm was often puzzled by this question: "How is
it possible that people can draw such completely different conclusions
from the same suppositions by the same logical arguments? Where is the
fatal point where one's ideas separate--ideas which have so far
traveled together?"
Barinskoi thought as Wilhelm did, that the world and its machinery were
mere outward phenomena, a deception of the senses, whose influence
acted as in a delirium. All existing forms of the common life of
humanity, all ordinances of the State or society appeared to him as
foolish or criminal, and at any rate objectionable. He considered that
the object of the spiritual and moral development of the individual was
the deliverance from the restraint, and the complete contempt of all
outward authority.
So far his opinions agreed with Wilhelm's, and then he disclosed the
laws of morality which he had evolved from them.
"The whole world is only an outward phenomenon, and the only reality is
my own consciousness," said Barinskoi; "therefore I see in the would
only myself, live only for myself, and try only to please myself, I am
an extreme individualist. My morality allows me to gratify my senses by
pleasant impressions, to convey to my consciousness pleasant
representations, so as to enjoy as much as possible. Enjoyment is the
only object of my existence, and to destroy all those who come in the
way of it is my right."
Wilhelm wondered whether this frightful code could possibly belong to
the same views of life which, in despising the enjoyment of the senses,
denied desires, demanded the sacrifice of individuality for the sake of
others, and found happiness in the enjoyment of love for one's
neighbors, and in the struggle for human reason over animal instinct?
Barinskoi understood Wilhelm's character and saw that he could quite
safely trust to his forbearance and his single-mindedness, so he made
no further secret of the fact that he was a Nihilist and an Anarchist.
When Wilhelm asked him if he imagined what the realization of his
theories meant, he had the answer ready.
"We demand unconditional freedom. Our will shall not be confined by the
will of others, or by oppressive laws. The Parliament is our enemy as
well as the monarch, the tyranny of the autocrat as well as that of the
majority, the coercion of laws of the State, as well as those of
society. We will gather together groups according to their free choice
and inclination out of the fragments of annihilated society, that is,
if we can manage to procure our enjoyment as well in groups as alone.
These groups will unite into larger groups if the happiness of all
demands a larger undertaking than a single group can secure, such as a
great railway, a submarine tunnel, and the like. In some cases it may
be necessary that a whole people, or even the whole of humanity, should
be in one group, but only up to a certain point, and only until this
point is reached. Naturally no individual is bound to a group, nor one
group to another; binding and loosing go on perpetually, and with the
same facility as molecules in living organisms unite and separate."
Barinskoi occupied himself particularly with the labor questions. Not
that the distress and want of the very poor, the economical insecurity,
the general misery, troubled him at all. He was cynically conscious
that he was as indifferent to the laborer as to the capitalist; the
laborer's inevitable brutalization, his hunger, his bad health, and
short term of life touched him as little as the gout of the rich
gourmand, or the nerves of fine ladies. He saw, however, in the
proletariat a powerful army against prevailing conditions. He could
trace among the discontented masses the possession of the crude vigor
which the Nihilists wanted, to crush the old edifices of the State and
society, and it was this which interested him in the movement and its
literature. He knew the last accurately, and initiated Wilhelm into it,
and so the latter learned all about socialism, its opinions of the
philosophy of production, its theories and promises. He learned also
that sects had already been formed within this new faith, which the
revelations of the socialistic prophets explained differently; and that
they furiously hated each other, and were as much at enmity as if they
were a State Church with a privileged priesthood, benefices, property
and power.
The complaints of the proletariat appeared to Wilhelm of doubtful
value. In every age there were economic fevers, which were not caused
by misery, but by discontent and wastefulness, and if he saw a workman
staggering through the streets, his legs tottering beneath him, he
guessed that his weakness was not caused by hunger, but by beer or
spirits. He understood that mankind believed in an unbroken work of
development within nature, and in their own self-cultivation. The
theory of socialistic teaching, namely, the conditions of production
and distribution, could be constantly remodeled just as other human
institutions, i.e. the customs of governments and societies, the laws,
ideas of beauty and morality, knowledge of nature, and views of
society. His sympathies went out to those who were convinced that the
present economical organization had lived out its time, and were
endeavoring to remove it.
Wilhelm's friends interested themselves warmly in this new sphere of
thought. Paul was a member of the National Liberal Election Society,
and was enthusiastic about Bennigsen and Lasker, who possessed enough
statesmanlike wisdom to surrender fearlessly to the opposition, and
determine to go with the government. To these present experiences Dr.
Schrotter joined the half-forgotten training of '48, and agreed to
belong to a society of the district; he had soon an official
appointment, and placed his experience and knowledge at the disposal of
the sick and poor of the town. He did not interest himself at first in
political strife. He was very uneasy about the turn things were taking,
and considered that it was not right to rebel against the existing
conditions of things, which to the majority of people were agreeable
enough.
"You have fought and bled for the new empire," he said; "I left it
while I was in India to get on as best it could; if the others think
themselves well off, I don't see why they should not have the
satisfaction of the results of their work, just because of the sulky
temper of criticism."
Wilhelm had often taken one or other of them to his society, but
without their being much interested in the meetings. One day he asked
his friend whether he would not go with him to a social democratic
meeting. Schrotter was quite prepared, as he saw that Wilhelm was
really in earnest, and was trying to come in contact with the realities
of life. Paul abominated the social democrats, but he sacrificed
himself to spend an hour there with Wilhelm.
The meeting they were to attend was at the Tivoli. It was a
disagreeable evening in April, with gusts of wind and frequent showers.
The sky was full of clouds chasing each other in endless succession,
the flames of gas flickered and flared, and the streets were covered
with mud which splashed up under the horses' feet. The three friends
went in spite of bad weather to the Tivoli on foot. In the Belle
Alliance Strasse they came upon groups of workmen going in the same
direction as themselves, and as they reached the place in the
Lichterfelder Strasse, they were accompanied by a long stream of
people. At the entrance to the club they found themselves in the midst
of a crowd, and could only advance very slowly unless, like the others,
they pushed and elbowed their way. Mounting a few steps they reached an
enormous garden, lighted by the fitful beams of the moon as she emerged
from the clouds, and a few gaslamps. On the right was a Gothic
building, which would have been sufficiently handsome if built in
stone, but with barbarous taste had been executed in wood. At the end
of the garden some more steps led to a broad, four-cornered courtyard,
on the right of which the iron spire of the National Memorial was dimly
visible, while to the left was a large building of red and yellow brick
with a four-square tower at either end, a pavilion projecting from the
center, and a number of large windows. Over the entrance in the center
of the building was the inscription in gold letters on a blue ground:
"Gemesst im edeln Geistensaft
Des Wemes Geist, des Brodes Kraft"
In the little anteroom a few sharp-looking, rather conceited young men
were standing, either the instigators or organizers of the meeting.
They eyed the people who came in with a quick look of assurance,
offering a pamphlet, which nearly every one bought. Through this
anteroom was the hall, large enough to hold a thousand people
comfortably. Several tables for beer stood between red-covered pillars
which supported the ceiling, and on the right was a platform for the
speakers. Wilhelm, Schrotter, and Paul Haber found places not far from
this, although the hall was soon filled up after they came in.
Wilhelm's first impression was not favorable. He had bought a pamphlet
at the door, and in it he read foolish jokes, clumsy tirades against
capitalists, and drearily silly verses. If the party possessed quick
and cultivated writers, they had certainly not been employed on this
leaflet. His finer senses were as shocked at the meeting as his taste
was at the pamphlet. Mingled odors of tobacco-smoke, beer, human
breath, and damp clothes filled the air; the people at the tables had
an indescribably common stamp, unlovely manners, harsh, loud voices,
and unattractive faces. They gossiped and laughed noisily, and coarse
expressions were frequent. The earnest moral tone, the almost gloomy
melancholy which Wilhelm had found so attractive in socialistic
writings, was absent, and it seemed to him as if the new doctrine in
its removal from the enthusiast's study to the beer-tables of the crowd
had lost all nobility, and had sunk to degradation.
Paul took no trouble to conceal the disgust which "this dirty rabble"
gave him. He gazed contemptuously about him, and every time that one of
his neighbors' elbows came near his coat he brushed the place angrily,
and muttered half-aloud:
"Well, if I were the government I would jolly soon stop your meetings."
Dr. Schrotter, on the other hand, found the sight of the crowd rekindle
in him all the feeling of sentiment he had had for the old democrats;
he felt his heart overflow with pity and tenderness. With his
physician's eyes he pierced through the brutal physiognomies, and
observed them with kindness and sympathy, making his friends attentive
too.
"One of the martyrs of work," he said gently, indicating a haggard man
sitting at the next table who had lost one eye.
"How do you know that?"
"He must be a worker in metal, and has had a splinter in one of his
eyes. He had the injured eye removed to save the other."
Here was a baker with pale face and inflamed eyelids, coughing
badly--consumptive, in consequence of the dust from the flour--his eyes
affected by the heat of the oven. Here was a man who had lost a finger
of his left hand--the victim of a cloth loom; and here a pallid-looking
man, showing when he spoke or laughed slate-colored gums--a case of
lead-poisoning, with a painful death as the inevitable result. And it
seemed as if over all these cripples and sickly people the Genius of
Work hovered as the black angel of Eastern stories, tracing on their
foreheads with his brush--on this one mutilation, on this one an early
death. Schrotter's observations and explanations placed the whole
meeting in a different light to Wilhelm. The coarseness of the men,
even the dirt on their hands and faces, touched him like a reproach,
and in their jokes and laughter he seemed to hear a bitter cry.
A reproach, a complaint against whom? Against the capitalists, or
against inexorable fate? Wilhelm asked himself whether the conditions
of labor were attributable to men, or were not the result of cruel
necessity? Could the capitalist be responsible for the accidents of
machines, the dust from flour, the splitting of iron? If these workmen
had not been one-eyed or consumptive could they have performed their
work for the commonweal? Was it not true that if mankind would not
renounce its claims to bread and other necessities, it must pay for the
satisfaction of wants with the tribute of health and life? that every
comfort, every pleasure added to existence was paid for by human
sacrifice? that the masks of tragedy worn at this meeting were merely
the corporate expressions of a law which united development and
progress with pain and destruction? In this case the whole socialist
programme was manifestly wrong, and the sum of the workman's grievances
was not the result of the economical arrangements of society, but of
the eternal conditions of civilization, that the theory of the methods
of labor and their amelioration was not the expectation of an equal
division of property, but rather of the contrivances of the inventor.
While Wilhelm was absorbed in these reflections the first speaker of
the evening appeared on the platform, a little dapper man, restless as
quicksilver, with long hair, large mouth, and a shrill voice. He opened
the meeting with an extraordinary volubility, in a whirl of pantomimic
gesture and excitement, violently denouncing the capitalists; "infamous
bloodsuckers" as he called them. He painted hopelessly confused
pictures, with constant faults of grammar--of the hard fate of the
workingman, and the black treachery of the property-owning classes.
They were slaveowners who paid them their daily wages by shearing the
wool off their backs, and enjoyed riotous luxury themselves while the
poor destitute ones were engulfed in a chasm of misery. The workman
must possess the fruit of his labor himself, like the bird in the air,
or the fish in the water. He who produced nothing was a parasite, and
deserved to be extirpated; he was only a drag, consequently a poison
for the rest of mankind. The Commune in Paris was the first signal of
warning for the thieves of society. Soon the great flood would burst
forth which would carry away all thieves and tyrants, usurers and
bloodsuckers, and the workingmen must be united and get their weapons
ready. Unity was strength, and to allow themselves to be fleeced by
these hyenas of capitalism was an insult to any free, thoughtful man.
He went on in this style for about half an hour, during which time the
words came out in a constant stream without a moment's pause.
Schrotter's expression became sad, while Paul banged the table with his
mug and cried "Bravo" at every grammatical mistake, or every false
analogy. Angry glances were cast at him from neighboring tables, as in
his applause was recognized contempt for the speaker whom they admired
so much. No one laughed or joked, all were silent to the end; at every
violent expression of the long-haired Saxon, eyes flashed, heads nodded
approval, and feet stamped excitedly. So eagerly did the meeting drink
in this excited orator's words that they quite forgot to drink their
beer, and the waiter, bringing in a fresh supply, had to go out again
with an exclamation of surprise.
When the speaker had finished and resumed his seat, Schrotter and Paul,
to their immense surprise, saw Wilhelm spring to his feet in the midst
of all the stamping and applause and go to the platform. What was that
for? He went up and began to speak in an undertone to the organizers of
the meeting. They put their heads together, looking at the card Wilhelm
had given them; then one of them rose, and coming to the front of the
platform, shouted so as to be heard above the clamor:
"True to our principles of listening to opponents, we are going to
allow a guest to speak: it is not part of the programme, but no citizen
shall have cause to complain that his mouth has been stopped."
Any one could understand what this meant, as Wilhelm stood alone in the
middle of the platform and waited with folded arms for silence and
attention. His dark eyes looked straight at his audience, and he began
in his clear, quiet voice: "What you all feel in this meeting is
discontent with your fate, and a wish to improve it. I do not believe,
however, that the honored speaker before me has shown you a way which
will bring you any nearer to your desires. You wish that the State
shall nurse you in sickness, and provide for you in old age. What is
the State? It is yourselves. The State has nothing but what you give
it. If it provides for you in sickness and old age, it takes the money
out of your own pockets. You do not want the State for that. In days of
health and strength you could yourselves lay aside spare money for bad
times without the services of gendarmes, or assistance of executors.
The last speaker spoke of hatred for the owners of property, hatred of
profit. Hatred is a painful feeling. It adds to the pain of existence
another, and very likely a greater one. A soul in which the poison of
hate is at work is heavy and sad, and can never feel happiness. If you
would not burden your lives with hatred it might be possible that you
would become happy."
A murmur arose in the meeting, and a voice in opposition called out
loudly. "The fellow is a Jesuit." "Parson's talk," cried another from
the corner of the room. Wilhelm took no notice of the interruption, but
went on.
"Why do you object to the owners of property? On account of their
idleness? That is not just. Many of them work much harder than all of
you, and bear a weight of responsibility which would kill most of you.
But suppose we grant that many rich people waste their lives doing
nothing. Instead of envying these unhappy people, I pity them from the
bottom of my heart. I would prefer death a thousand times to life
without duty and work."
The murmur grew stronger and more threatening.
"I wish," cried Wilhelm, raising his voice, "I wish I were rich and
powerful. Then I would invite those who scorn my words now, to live
quite idly for a year or six months. I would take care that no
employment was possible for them, that their days and weeks should be
quite empty. Then they would see how soon they would raise imploring
hands to those who had condemned them to idleness. Neither guards nor
walls would keep them to the softly-cushioned golden-caged prison of
indolence, they would fly as if for their lives, and go back to the
place where their work was, which they had previously thought like
hell."
"Let us see if we would," cried some with contemptuous laughter.
"In what has the rich man the advantage of you? He lives better, you
say. He can procure more enjoyments for himself. Are you sure that
these so-called enjoyments bring happiness? Your healthy hunger makes
your bread and cheese taste better than the rich dishes at noblemen's
tables, and the suffering which fills every life is more bitter in the
western villa than in the workingman's back room, because there they
have more leisure to endure it in, and every fiber of the soul has its
own torture."
"What do you get for defending the rich man?" called a voice from the
hall.
"I am telling you the penalty of property. You must be just in
everything. Granted that the rich man is a criminal; granted his
idleness is an offense to your activity; granted that his roast meat
and wine make your potatoes taste insipid; it is in the order of things
that you should envy him. But what comes out of this envy? Let us admit
that you could carry through anything you undertook. The rich man would
be plundered and even killed, and his treasures divided between you. We
forget that the rich man is human; we deny him the mercy which the poor
man claims from his fellowmen; we take up the position that to reduce a
rich man to beggary is not the same injustice as to profit by the work
of a poor man; we enjoy the idea of the rich man, hungry and shivering,
when at the same time the hungry shivering poor man has become our
pretext for robbing the other. Do you believe that you would then have
improved your lot in life? Do you think that you would be any happier?
Just think it over for a moment. The rich people are exterminated,
their goods are divided among you; you are already making a discovery,
viz., that the wealthy people are in a very small minority, hardly one
in two hundred, and that the division of their whole property amounts
to very little for each of you. But suppose, for the sake of argument,
that you all become rich. What then? You throw away your working
clothes and dress yourselves in silk; you deck yourselves with silver
and gold ornaments, and you sit on soft-cushioned sofas. Think how long
these luxuries would last--a month perhaps, at the most a year. Then
the rich man's wine is all drunk, and his larder empty, the silk
clothes are worn out, and the sofas torn; you cannot eat precious
stones and gold, and if you do not mean to starve you must begin
working again, and after the extermination of the rich man and the
division of his property you are exactly in the position you were in
before."
He paused a moment or two, in which there was silence for the first
time, and then went on:
"This all means that your bondage is not laid on you by man, but by
Nature herself. Life is hard and wearisome, and no laws or orders of
State or society can make it otherwise. The simple minds of men
understood this a thousand years ago, and they did not rest until they
had found out a reason for everything, so they sought through the
authors of the Jewish Bible for a reasonable explanation of our
mournful destiny on this earth, and comforted themselves with the
assertion that mankind was atoning for the sins of its forefathers.
You, the sons of the nineteenth century, do not believe in this any
longer, but see in the system of profits and the injustice of our
social conditions the causes of your misery. Your explanation is,
however, fully as much a fabrication as the Biblical one. Pain and
death are the conditions of our existence, and for that reason cannot
be done away with. If a miracle could happen, and you could all be
happy in the way you wish, namely, living your life without work,
without suffering, and with a great deal of enjoyment, what would
happen then? The race would increase so fast that after one or two
generations there would hardly be elbow-room, and bread would be as
scarce as it is now. It is the difficulty of providing for children
which limits the population, and this difficulty fixes the limit.
Understand this too, do what you will, you can only procure momentary
relief, and every relief procured means an increase of population.
Whatever your methods of labor are, however the fruits of it are
distributed, you will never produce up to the satisfaction of your
wants; and the sweat of your brow will always be in vain if you set
yourself against the hostile forces of nature."
Wilhelm paused a moment in the deep stillness which now reigned in the
hall, and then went on:
"I do not deny that your lives are troublesome and hard, but I believe
that you make your pain unnecessarily difficult to bear, and add to it
by imagination. You feel your lot to be hard because you see rich
people, who in the distance appear to you to be happy. I have already
told you that the rich are an exception, and that the world cannot
guarantee the existence of a millionaire of to-day for long. At most
you can make the few rich men poor, but you cannot make all the poor
men rich. But why compare yourselves with such people? Why not with
those who have gone before us? Look back, and you will find that your
lives are not only easier but very much richer than the generations who
have gone before you. The poorest among you live better, quieter, and
pleasanter lives than a well-to-do man a thousand years ago, or than a
prince of primitive times. You complain that your labor is hard and
unhealthy? You live longer, in better health, and freer from anxiety
than the huntsman, fisherman, or warrior of the barbarous ages. What
you most suffer from is your hatred, not your need, your ambitions,
your envy. Men can live healthily and happily on water, but you will
have beer and brandy. You earn enough to buy meat and vegetables, but
you will have tobacco for yourselves and finery for your wives, and
that cannot go on. Your daily bread might taste well enough, but it
becomes bitter in your mouths when you think of the millionaire's roast
meat. Struggle then against this envy which spoils the smallest
enjoyments for you, and which in point of fact rules your lives, and do
not try to find happiness in the satisfaction of requirements
artificially created. Do not live for the satisfaction of your palates,
but rather for the improvement of intellect and feeling. There is
enough pain and misery in the world, do not add hatred to it. Have the
same mercy for other creatures which you expect for yourself. Trouble
and danger are common to all. Things are only bearable if all combine
to pull together, if the strong join hands with the weak and the
hopeful with the timid. You will not be healed by envy and hatred, or
by the goading on of your desires, but by love, by forbearance, by
self-sacrifice, and renunciation."
This closing sentence was not to his hearers' taste. Disapprobation and
ominous sounds greeted him as he came down from the platform. "Amen,"
said one scornfully; "A Psalm," said another; "Get thee to a nunnery,
Ophelia," cried a wit; while loud cries of "Turn him out," were heard.
"Pearls before swine," muttered Paul; while Schrotter pressed his hand
and said: "You are right."
The noise grew louder, and then a new speaker appeared on the platform,
this time evidently a cultivated, thoughtful man and an adroit speaker.
The organizers of the evening were unwilling to allow the meeting to
retain the impression of Wilhelm's speech, and had placed a clever
opponent to follow him, who said clearly and concisely that the speaker
before him might be a friend of mankind, but he was certainly an enemy
of culture, because the progress of civilization was always the result
of new requirements and the seeking of their fulfillment, and if men
limited their wants or denied them altogether, mankind would be brought
back to the condition of savages or wild beasts. The progress of
culture depended on the awakening of requirements and their
satisfaction, and not in limiting or renouncing them. The love of
mankind might be a very beautiful thing, but the speaker ought not to
come and preach to the poor, who held together and helped each other
without his advice. Let him go and preach to the rich, for whom he
seemed to feel so much pity and tenderness. Why should the minority
attract to itself the existing means of life, and leave the majority to
starve, as the capitalists did now? why should the provisions not be
divided between all, so that the whole community should have a part?
Paul had wished to leave when Wilhelm had finished, but the latter
waited out of politeness to hear his opponent speak, and when the
speaker had ended in a storm of applause, the three friends left the
meeting. When they were outside, Dr. Schrotter said to Wilhelm:
"Do you know that you are a first-rate speaker? You have everything
that is necessary for moving a crowd in the highest degree."
"Hardly that, I think."
"Certainly, I mean it: a noble appearance, a voice which goes to the
heart, remarkable calmness and assurance, uncommon command of language,
and an idealistic earnestness which would move all the better spirits
among your audience. You have shown us to-night the road you ought to
take. You must devote your gift to speaking in public, you must
endeavor to become a deputy. If you fail in this, you will sin against
our people."
"Bravo! I had already thought of that," cried Paul.
"A deputy--never," said Wilhelm. "If I spoke well to-day it was because
I was sorry for the poor, ignorant men who listened to the silly talk
of a fool as if it were a revelation from Mount Sinai, but I could
never presume to have any influence in Parliament or in the fate of
governments."
"And so you call what is every citizen's duty 'presumption,'"
"Forgive me, doctor, if I say I do not believe that. Only those who are
acquainted with the laws and their development should have anything to
do with the nation's destiny. But only a few isolated individuals know
these laws, and I am not one of them."
"Do you think that the government know them?"
"Oh, no."
"And yet the government does not hesitate to rule the people's destiny
according to their intelligence."
"It reminds me of the poet's expression, 'Du glaubst zu schieben und du
wirst geschoben.'"
"What is the movement that you mean?"
"An unknown inner organic force which defines all the expressions of
life, of single individuals and united societies alike. It develops as
a tree grows. No single individual can add anything to it or take away
from it, no single individual can hasten or retard the development or
give it any direction."
"In one word--the philosophy of the Unknown."
"That is so."
"Very good, and if a government oppresses a people, robs them of their
freedom, perpetually finds fault with them and ill-treats them, they
must bear it quietly, and comfort themselves by the thought that the
government is controlled by the infallible, all-powerful Unknown."
"Rob them of their freedom? No government can rob me of my spiritual
freedom. Freedom rules continually in my mind, and no tyrant has the
power of subduing my thoughts."
"You make a great mistake there," said Dr. Schrotter gravely. "From
you, Dr. Wilhelm Eyuhardt, no gendarme certainly can take away your
freedom, because you are mature, and your opinions of things are
settled. But a tyrannical government can hinder your children from
succeeding to your freedom of mind. It can teach lies and superstitions
in the schools, and compel you to send your children there. It can set
an example of public morality which can demoralize a whole people. It
can draw up manifest examples of miserable intentions and conduct of
life, through whose imitation a people voluntarily mutilates itself or
commits suicide. No, no; it does not do to limit oneself to oneself,
and to struggle upward for one's individual spiritual freedom. One must
go out of oneself. What does it matter if one makes mistakes? It is
true, as you say, that no single individual knows the whole of truth;
but every individual possesss a fragment of it, and altogether we have
the whole. Look at India, there you have existing what we should become
if we all followed your philosophy, they live in their own spiritual
world, and are indifferent to any other, they endure first the
despotism of their own government, then a foreign conqueror, and
finally lose not only freedom and independence, but civilization, and
become not exactly slaves, but ignorant, superstitious barbarians."
"The German people will not get to that," said Wilhelm, smiling.
"Thank the men for that," cried Schrotter, "the men who think it their
duty to take part in the welfare of their country, and to exert
themselves for the spiritual freedom of others. An energetic sympathy
with public affairs is a form of love for one's neighbor. Say that
constantly to yourself, without letting yourself be deceived by the
hypocrite who handles politics as others do the Stock Exchange, merely
to make profit out of them."
While they talked they had arrived at Schrotter's house door. It was
nearly midnight, and had stopped raining, and all the houses except
Schrotter's were dark. Light shone from the two windows of his Indian
drawing room, and one of the curtains was drawn aside a little, leaving
a face clearly visible. It was Bhani, who was waiting patiently for
Schrotter's return, and gazing eagerly down the street. As the three
friends stopped at the door the head disappeared, and the curtain fell
back again into its place.