DARK DAYS.
Dorfling's suicide made a profound impression on Wilhelm, and for
months he was haunted by the vision of that motionless form with its
white face and blood-stained breast. It had a weird fascination for
him, causing him to revert constantly to that tragical May night that
had begun with a cheerful dinner, and ended in a fatal pistol shot.
Paul's comment on the occurrence was short and concise. "The poor chap
was mad," he said, and there the matter ended as far as he was
concerned. Mayboom revered his friend's memory as he would a saint, and
erected a kind of chapel to him in his house, in which Dorfling's
portrait, his book, and various objects belonging to him, thrown up in
relief against draperies and surrounded by a variety of symbolical
accessories, were set forth for the pious delectation of the master of
the house and his visitors. Schrotter held aloof from this cult. He
appreciated Dorfling's character, his consistency, his strength of will
and highmindedness as they deserved, but he was never tired of
preaching and demonstrating to Wilhelm that all these admirable
qualities had been turned out of their proper course by a disturbing
morbid influence. It was monstrous, he contended, that a system of
philosophy should arm you for suicide. What if the premises should
prove false? Then your voluntary death would be a frightful mistake
which nothing could retrieve. One has no right to risk making such a
mistake. He believed in development, in the progress of the organic
world from a lower to a higher stage. Progress and development,
however, were conditional upon life, and he who has recourse to
self-destruction sets an example of unseemly revolt against one of the
most beautiful and comforting of all the laws of nature. Moreover,
suicide was a waste of force on which it was simply heartrending to
have to look. There were so many great deeds to be done which called
for the laying down of life. In a thousand different ways one might
benefit mankind by Winkelried-like actions. If one was determined to
die, one should at least render thereby to those left behind one of
those sublime services which demand the sacrifice of a life.
In their frequent conversations upon this subject, he was so earnest,
so eloquent, so markedly intentional, that Wilhelm finally gave him the
smiling assurance that he was preaching to a convert. It was true, he
had the highest respect for a man who did not hesitate to cast life
from him when his whole mind and thought led him to the conviction that
death was preferable to life; and unprincipled as suicide might be from
an objective point of view, subjectively considered, there surely was
an ideal fitness in making one's actions agree to the uttermost point
with one's opinions? Nevertheless, he himself did not approve of
Dorfling's deed, and would certainly never imitate it, for one could
never know what intentions the unknown powers might not have with
regard to the individual; by committing suicide he maybe threw up some
possible mission, or by his premature departure disturbed the action of
the great machine in which he--as some small screw or wheel--doubtless
had his modest place and function.
As if to prove to Schrotter that he was no disciple of the "Philosophy
of Deliverance," he turned his attention, more than he had ever done
before, to the realities of life. Dorfling left a remarkable will. He
bequeathed his fortune--most advantageously invested in a house in
Dusseldorf and in public funds--yielding a yearly income of about
thirty-five thousand marks, to his two friends, Dr Schrotter and Dr
Eynhardt, with the sole charge that out of it they should provide a
sufficient competency for his old servant, dating from his father's
time, who had attended him literally from the cradle to the grave. The
fortune was to be theirs conjointly and indivisibly, and should one of
them die, to devolve to the survivor, who in his turn was to make such
arrangements as he thought best to insure its being applied, after his
death, in accordance with the testator's views. He expressed the hope
that his two heirs would use the income derived from the property in
alleviating the misery inseparable from human existence, of which
throughout life they must be witnesses. Dorfling's only near relative
was herself very wealthy and generous-minded, and did not dispute the
will, it was accordingly proved.
Wilhelm declared from the first that he understood nothing of the
management of a fortune, of business papers, and so forth, and wanted
to hand over the administration of the whole to Schrotter. Schrotter,
however, would not hear of it, and after vying with one another in
generous self-disparagement and mutual confidence, they finally agreed
that Schrotter, being a practical man, and conversant with the ways of
business and the world, should take the management of the fortune upon
himself, but that Wilhelm should receive a monthly sum of fifteen
hundred marks out of the income to apply as he thought best to the
relief of the needy. The other half of the income was at Schrotter's
disposal, who put it, of course, to the same use. In his capacity as
member of the deputation for the poor, and also as parish doctor, he
came in contact with much poverty and misery, and was able to direct
Wilhelm's charity into the right channels. It became Wilhelm's regular
afternoon employment to visit the homes of those mentioned to him as in
need of relief, that he might the better judge for himself of the true
state of the case, make personal inquiries about the people, and step
in where help was necessary and deserved.
Only now did he learn what life really was, and what he saw neither
increased his pleasure in being alive nor made him proud to be a man
among men. Needless to say, it was not long before the news reached the
circles of the professional beggars that there was a gentleman in the
Dorotheenstrasse who had a considerable yearly sum of money to give
away. The result was that his modest apartment was so besieged by
petitioners that his old landlady, Frau Muller, the widow of a
post-office official, with whom he had boarded and lodged for seven
years, was goaded to desperation, and declared that if the disgraceful
rabble was encouraged she would be obliged to part from Wilhelm, though
it would be her death, she being so fond of him and so used to his
ways. Wilhelm was wise enough to admit the justice of her complaint,
and empowered Frau Muller to turn away ruthlessly all such visitors
whose names were unknown to her, or who came without recommendation,
which orders she carried out with such virulence and relentlessness,
that the worshipful company of professional beggars rapidly came to the
conclusion that it was useless trying to gain admittance to Dr.
Eynhardt as long as he was guarded by the tall, bony old lady who
opened the door but would not leave hold of it. So the unceasing tramp
of dirty boots on the echoing stair was hushed, and Wilhelm saw no more
of the crape-clad widows of eminent officials who required a sewing
machine or a piano to save them from starvation; the gentlemen who
would be forced to put a bullet through their brains if they did not
procure the money to pay a debt of honor; or the unemployed clerks who
had eaten nothing for days, and who all had a sick wife and from six to
twelve children (all small) at home crying for bread; or the foreigners
who could find no work in Berlin, and would return to their native
countries if he would give them a few thalers to pay their fourth-class
railway fare; and similar interesting persons, the endless diversity of
whose life-histories had kept him in a chronic state of surprise for
months. In place of the visitors he now received letters, as many as if
he had been a cabinet minister. It was the same old story, only less
affecting, because generally deficient in style, and faulty as to
spelling, and no longer illustrated by tearful, vigorously mopped eyes,
abysmal sighs, and hands wrung till they cracked. For a time Wilhelm
went to every address given in these letters, in order to see and hear
for himself, but after awhile his powers of discrimination were
sharpened, and he learned to distinguish between the impositions of
swindlers and professional beggars, and the real distress which has a
claim to sympathy.
By degrees, it is true, he became convinced, even in the chill
dwellings of real poverty, that this was hardly ever entirely
unmerited. Where it had not been brought about by laziness, frivolity,
or drink, its source was to be found in ignorance or incapacity, in
other words, in an inefficient equipment for the battle of life. He
judged all these circumstances, however, to be the outward and visible
signs of obscure natural laws, and that to interfere with rash and
ignorant hands in their workings was as useless as it was unreasonable.
He therefore pondered seriously whether, by denying to a portion of
mankind the qualities indispensable to success in the struggle for
existence, Nature herself did not predestine them to misery and
destruction; whether the irredeemable poor--those who after each help
upward invariably fell back in the former state--were not the
offscourings of humanity, the preservation of whom was a fruitless
task, and altogether against the design of Nature?
Fortunately, he did not allow his deeds of brotherly love to be
darkened by the shadow of these and kindred thoughts. He brought
forward reasons which always ended by triumphing over his cold doubts.
Misery was possibly the outcome of inexorable natural laws, but then
was not compassion the same? The poor were poor under the pressure of
some irresistible force, but did not the charitable act under the same
pressure? Moreover, was Wilhelm so sure that he himself was better
equipped for the race of life than those unfortunates who went under
because they chose a trade for which they were neither mentally nor
physically competent, or because, from laziness or obstinacy, they
insisted on remaining in Berlin, where nobody wanted them, when a few
miles off they might have found all the conditions conducive to their
prosperity? How could he know whether he would have been capable of
earning his living if his father had not left him a plentifully-spread
table? In the rooms that contained so little furniture and so many
emaciated human beings, into which his charitable zeal led him every
day, he pictured himself, pale and thin, without food, without books;
and although he had the harmless vanity to believe that privation and
penury would affect him less deeply than the poor devils he visited,
the idea that he saw his own face before him, as it might have been had
he not had the good luck to be his father's heir opened his hand still
wider, and added to the money words of sympathy and comfort, which
afforded the recipients--unless they were utterly hardened--as much
pleasure as the donation itself.
Beside his almsgiving, he now had another occupation which took up all
his surplus time. Schrotter had not let the suggestion drop which he
made at Dorfling's dinner-party, and had persuaded Wilhelm so long that
he finally rouse himself to attempt an account of the ways and means by
which the human mind has freed itself of its grossest errors. It was to
be entitled "A History of Human Ignorance," and promised to be a most
original work. He would endeavor to show what idea people had had of
the universe at various periods, how they explained the phenomena of
nature, their connection, their causes and effects. He would begin with
the childish superstitions of the savages, and continuing through the
so-called learned systems of the ancients and of the Middle Ages, would
bring his history up to the theories of contemporary scientists. He
would demonstrate the psychological causes of the fact that man, at a
certain stage of intellectual development, must necessarily fall into
certain errors, and by the aid of what experiments, experiences, and
conclusions he had come gradually to recognize them as such. How the
fresh interpretation of a single phenomenon would overturn, at one
blow, a number of other phenomena hitherto considered entirely
satisfactory, how prevailing scientific theories, instead of assisting
the fearless observer or discoverer, invariably hindered him and turned
him from the right path, in proof of which assertion he brought forward
such striking examples as Aristotle's convulsive endeavors to make each
of the senses correspond to one of the four elements in which they
believed in his day, and Kepler with his fantastic efforts to prove the
supremacy of the Pythagorean seven in the solar system. The object of
the book was to show that the history of human knowledge is a history
of false inferences and the erroneous interpretations of correctly
observed phenomena, that the increase of knowledge always means the
destruction of existing opinions, that of all the scientific systems up
to the present day, only those retained their position which proved the
futility of earlier theories--never those which built up new structures
on the foundations of the old house of cards that had been blown down.
In a word, that progress means not the acquisition of fresh knowledge,
but an ever-extended consciousness of the futility of the knowledge we
thought to possess.
Wilhem spared himself no pains with this work. He brought all the
thoroughness and industry of his honest nature to bear upon it, would
accept no statement at second-hand, but went for every information to
the fountain head. It would cost an immense amount of time, but after
all he had that at his disposal. There was no need for him to hurry,
seeing that he did not write from ambition or for any material
advantage, but simply for his own gratification. He began by rubbing up
his school Greek sufficiently to enable him to read the ancient
philosophers with ease, which he achieved in a few months, and then set
to work to learn Arabic, that being the chief language of science in
the Middle Ages. Schrotter was seriously alarmed at these extensive
preparations, and hastened to procure, through his pandit friends, some
English extracts from the scientific literature of India, lest Wilhelm
might think fit to study Sanscrit, and decades would pass before he
came to write the first word of his book.
Thus four years went by, years full of work, though they left no
visible traces. Meanwhile the aspect of things in the new Empire had
become very different. Men breathed the oppressive air with laboring
breasts; the bright dawn which promised so glorious a day had, been
followed by sullen mists, and the blue sky had disappeared behind
heavy, leaden-gray clouds, through which no comforting ray of sunshine
pierced. Where was all the glowing enthusiasm, the rapture of hope and
joy that, in the first years after the great war, had flushed every
German cheek and lit up every eye? Throughout the length and breath of
the land the opposing factions confronted one another like armed
antagonists preparing for a duel to the death. Town and village rang
with execration and satire, with howls of rage or satisfied revenge
vented by German against German. The Roman Catholic shook his clinched
fist at the Protestant, the liberal at the conservative, the
protectionist at the free-trader, the partisan of absolute government
at the defender of the people's rights. Everywhere hatred and malice,
everywhere a mad desire to gag, to maltreat, to tear limb from limb;
this unfettering of the basest human passions giving meanwhile such an
impetus to bribery, corruption, and unprincipled advancement for party
purposes as to resemble the loathsome luxuriant growth of mildew in the
damp corners of some neglected storeroom.
The high tide of the foreign millions had ebbed away, showing itself to
have been no fructifying Nile but a destructive lava stream, leaving
the country charred and desolate after its passage. The gold that only
yesterday had poured through greedy fingers, had turned to-day to ashes
and withered leaves like the goblin gold of a fairy tales. Diminished
inclination for work, an insanely increased demand for the luxuries of
life, the accepted ideas of morality shaken to their foundations by
scandalous examples of triumphant vice and villainy--these were the
blessings that remained after the so-called impetus following on the
"Downfall." Work was scarcer, wages lower, but the flood of country
people seeking work continued to roll toward the capital, overcoming
with irresistible force the backward wave of unfortunates who could
find no employment in the building yards, the factories or the
workshops, trampling blindly over the bodies of the fallen, like a herd
of buffaloes which marches ever straight ahead, which nothing can turn
out of its course, and when it arrives at a precipice over which the
leaders fall, presses onward till the last one is swallowed up in the
depths. The misery and privation became heartrending to witness. Each
morning you might see in the working quarters of the town and suburbs
hundreds of strong men, their hands--perforce idle--buried in their
torn and empty pockets, going from factory to factory asking for work,
while the overseers would wave them off from afar to avoid a useless
interchange of words. If, in the years of the French milliards, the
workingman had turned socialist out of sheer envy and wantonness, he
became so now under the sting of adversity, and in all the length and
breadth of Berlin there was hardly one of the proletariat who was not a
fanatical disciple of the new doctrine, with its slashing denunciations
against all that was, and its intoxicating promises of all that was to
be. Wilhelm had many opportunities of intercourse with the unemployed.
He gave help as far as his fifty marks a day would reach, and kept the
wolf from many a door. But the miraculous loaves and fishes of the
gospel would have been necessary to successfully alleviate even the
distress which he saw with his own eyes, and although much of the
preaching of the social democrats still seemed to him mere
phrase-making and altogether mistaken, he yet came gradually to the
conclusion that somewhere--he did not precisely know where--in the
construction of the social machine there must be a flaw, seeing that
there were so many people who could and would work, and yet were doomed
to despair and ruin for lack of employment. The spring of 1878 came
round, and brought with it two attempts on the life of the emperor
within three weeks. Scarcely had the people recovered from the horror
caused by Hodel's crime when it was shaken to its depths by Nobiling's
murderous shot.
On that terrible Sunday, June the 2d, Wilhelm had dined with Schrotter,
and about three o'clock they started for a walk. In the few steps that
separate the Mittelstrasse from the Linden they saw what was going on
in the town. In Unter den Linden, however, they were received by the
yells of the newspaper men calling out the first special editions, and
found themselves in the stream of people pouring toward the Palace or
to No. 18, where they pointed out the window on the second floor from
which the too-well-aimed shot had fallen.
From the special editions, from the confused remarks and exclamations
of the crowd in which the two friends found themselves, and the
information they obtained from the grim-looking policemen, rougher and
less communicative than ever, they learned all that was necessary of
the bloody deed which had taken place an hour ago. Wilhelm could
scarcely control his horror, and even Schrotter, though calmer, was
deeply moved and downcast. All pleasure in their walk was gone, and
they decided to return to Schrotter's house.
"It is simply hideous," said Wilhelm, as they turned into the
Friedrichstrasse, "that we have such brutes living among us! We know,
of course, that there is a great deal of distress, but a man who can
revenge his own trouble on the person of the emperor must be lower than
the beasts of the field. And men who at this time of day have such
ideas on State organization are electors!"
"Good heavens!" cried Schrotter, with unconscious vehemence, "you are
surely not going to make the popular mistake of drawing sweeping
conclusions from these outrages? Such occurrences have no outside
importance. They are the acts of madmen. Their following so closely
upon one another is the very surest proof of that. There are in Germany
thousands--perhaps tens of thousands--of unhappy creatures whose minds
are more or less unhinged, though their inexperienced surroundings do
not know it. Some exceptional event will suddenly put the entire
population in a state of ferment, the imagination of the already
morbidly inclined will be particularly strongly affected thereby; they
picture the occurrence to themselves till it takes hold of them, and
drives out every other thought from their minds, becomes a nightmare, a
possession, and finally an irresistible impulse to do the same. After
every event of the kind, you hear that a whole number of people have
gone mad, and that their insanity is somehow connected with it. No such
thing. They were mad before, and the insanity which had lain dormant in
them only waited for a chance shock to give it definite form and
character."
They had reached Schrotter's door by this time, and were on the point
of entering, when a policeman stepped up to them, and touching
Wilhelm's arm, said:
"Gentlemen, you will have to come with me."
"Why, what do you mean?" they exclaimed, very much taken aback.
"Better make no fuss, but come quietly with me," answered the
policeman, "This gentleman accuses you of making insulting remarks
against his majesty."
Only now did they become aware of a man standing behind the policeman
and glaring at them in fury.
"Are you mad?" Schrotter burst out angrily. "That is for the magistrate
to decide," exclaimed the man, in a voice trembling with rage; "and
you, policeman, do your duty."
Passers-by began to gather round the group, so, to bring a disagreeable
scene to a close, Schrotter said to Wilhelm:
"We had better go with the policeman; I suppose we shall be enlightened
presently."
A short walk brought them to the police office in the Neue Wilhelms
Strasse, where they were taken before the lieutenant of police. The
policeman deposed in a few words that he had been standing at the
corner of the Friedrich and Mittelstrasse, the two gentlemen passed him
in loud conversation; the third gentleman, who was following them, then
came up to him, and told him to arrest them because they had spoken
insultingly of his majesty, and here they were. He had neither seen nor
heard anything further.
The lieutenant of police began by asking their names. When they told
him--"Dr. Schrotter, M. D. one of the members for Berlin and Professor
Emeritus," and "Dr. Eynhardt, Doctor of Philosophy, householder," he
offered them chairs. The informer introduced himself as
"non-commissioned officer Patke, retired, member of a military
association, and candidate for the private constabulary."
"What have you to bring forward against the gentlemen?"
"I walked behind the two gentlemen from the Linden to the
Mittelstrasse. They were conversing loudly about the attempted
assassination, and I naturally listened."
"It does not appear to me so very natural," commented the lieutenant
dryly.
The informer was a trifle disconcerted, but he soon recovered himself,
and proceeded in a declamatory manner:
"The younger gentleman--the dark one--expressed himself in very
unbecoming terms with regard to his majesty the emperor, and said among
other things, that the outrage was of no real importance. I am a
patriot, I have served his august majesty; if his majesty--"
"That will do," the lieutenant broke in, ruthlessly interrupting the
retired non-commissioned officer's flow of language, which he
accompanied with a dramatic waving of the right arm. "Can you repeat
the 'unbecoming terms' of which, according to your account, this
gentleman made use?"
"I cannot remember the exact words. I was too excited. So much,
however, I remember distinctly--he declared the attempt upon his
majesty's life to be an occurrence of no importance."
Wilhelm now broke in.
"Not a word of that is true," he said quietly. "Neither of us said one
word which could justify this inconceivable charge."
"The remark which this informer seems to have taken hold of," Schrotter
observed, "was not made by my friend, Dr. Eynhardt, but by me. I did
not say either that the occurrence was unimportant, but that it had no
general significance--that it was not a proof of the prevailing feeling
at large."
"It comes to the same thing whether you say it has no importance or no
significance," interrupted the informer. "That gentleman may have made
the remark, but I certainly heard it, and as a loyal servant of his
majesty--"
"That is quite enough," said the lieutenant of police authoritatively.
Then turning to the two friends--"I am very sorry, but as things stand
at present, I must let the law take its course. Do you persist in your
charge?" he asked the informer.
"Yes, Herr Lieutenant; my duty to my sovereign--"
"Silence. Gentlemen, I shall be obliged to notify the matter to the
proper authorities. I expect you will be called upon to clear
yourselves before the magistrate, which I have no doubt you will be
able to do successfully. I need not detain you any longer."
Wilhelm and Schrotter bowed courteously and withdrew, without
vouchsafing a glance at the informer. The latter lingered, as if he
would have liked to continue the conversation with the lieutenant of
police, but an emphatic "You may go!" sent him rapidly over the
threshold of the office.
Five days afterward, on a Friday, Schrotter and Wilhelm were summoned
to appear in the Stadtvogtei [Footnote: A certain prison in Berlin.]
before the magistrate, a disagreeable person with a bilious complexion,
venomous eyes behind his spectacles, and the unpleasing habit of
continually scooping out his ear with the little finger of his left
hand. The two friends, the informer, and the policeman were present.
The magistrate could not have received them differently if they had
been accused of robbing and murdering their parents. To be sure, he
behaved no better to the informer. His expression of unmitigated
disgust was perhaps a freak of nature, and no indication of the true
state of his feelings.
He had a bundle of papers before him, in which he searched for some
time before opening his mouth.
"You are accused of having made use of offensive expressions regarding
his majesty," he said to Schrotter.
"On a preposterously unfounded charge," he retorted.
"And you too," he turned to Wilhelm.
"I can only repeat Dr. Schrotter's answer."
"Give your evidence," he ordered the policeman.
The man did so.
"Could you understand what the gentleman said?"
"No."
"How far was Patke behind them?"
"A few steps."
"You must be more exact."
"I can't say more exactly than that, for I paid no attention to the
gentlemen till I was told to arrest them."
"Is it your opinion that Herr Patke could have heard distinctly what
the gentlemen were saying to one another?"
"I dare say he might have understood if they spoke very loud, but I
can't say for certain."
"Herr Patke, what have you to say?"
The former non-commissioned officer, who had donned his 1870 medal for
the occasion, hereupon assumed a strictly military bearing, fixed his
eye firmly on the magistrate, and began in a sing-song voice:
"I happened to be in the street last Sunday when the infamous wretch
lifted his murderous hand against the sacred person of our august
monarch. My heart bled; I was beside myself; I could have torn
everybody and everything to pieces. As I walked along I noticed these
two gentlemen, who looked to me suspicious from the first--"
"Why?" asked the magistrate.
"Well--the one with his black hair, and the other with his hooked
nose--I said to myself, 'Those are Jews!'"
The magistrate suddenly bent over his papers, and gave a kind of grunt.
Even the policeman, in spite of his wooden official air, could not
repress a smile. Patke continued:
"Then I heard the younger gentleman say, 'It serves his majesty the
emperor quite right.'"
"Did he actually say, his majesty the emperor?" interrupted the
magistrate.
"No," answered Patke eagerly, "I say that."
"You are only to repeat the gentleman's actual words."
"He actually did say that it served the emperor right."
"This is beyond a joke," Schrotter burst out. "Why, man, I wonder the
lie does not stick in your throat and choke you!"
"I must beg you not to address the witness," said the magistrate
brusquely. Then to Patke severely--"That is not what you said in your
first charge."
"I was confused then; I did not recollect distinctly. But later on it
came back to me."
"That is very improbable. What have you to answer, Dr. Eynhardt?"
"Simply, that the man's statement is absolutely untrue. I never uttered
or thought words bearing the remotest resemblance to those he quotes."
"What my friend does not say is," broke in Schrotter, "that, on the
contrary, he expressed the deepest and most painful emotion at the
crime."
The magistrate shot a venomous glance from under his spectacles at
Schrotter, but quailed before those flaming half-closed blue eyes fixed
so sternly upon him.
"Well, and what have you to bring forward against the other gentleman?"
"That gentleman said the outrage was of no great importance."
"In your first account you said the outrage had no real significance,
and that Dr. Eynhardt made the remark."
"Whether he said 'no importance' or 'no significance,' it is all the
same thing, and one cannot so easily distinguish the speaker when one
is walking behind. I may have been mistaken on that point."
"You do not repudiate the remark?" asked the magistrate of Schrotter in
his most biting tones.
"Your expression is not very happily chosen. By repudiating I
understand the declaring of a fact to be false when we know it to be
true. I am not in the habit of doing that, nor should I suppose it of
you, Herr Staatsanwalt."
"I need no instruction from you," the other returned angrily.
"It would seem so, however" Schrotter calmly rejoined.
The magistrate grunted several times and then asked, after a pause,
during which he was particularly busy with his ear:
"You admit the statement, then?"
"Not altogether. It is true that I said the attempt on the emperor's
life had no general significance, but I meant by that and the rest of
what I said, that if the political parties should make this isolated
crime (committed by an undoubtedly insane person) the excuse for
adopting measures inimical to the liberty of the public in general,
they would be doing something both unjustifiable and reprehensible."
"Can he have said that?" asked the magistrate, turning to Patke.
"I don't know. I only know what I said just now."
Renewed grunting, renewed digging in the ear and turning over of
papers. "Hm--hm," he muttered to himself testily, "that is not enough.
It is too indefinite, in spite of strong grounds for suspicion." Then
he looked up, and in a tone which was meant to convey as much scorn as
possible, he asked Schrotter--"You played a part in the political
events of 1848?"
"Yes, and the recollection of it is the pride of my life."
"I did not ask you about that. And you are at present the chairman of a
district society of progressive opinions?"
"I have that honor."
"There is nothing further against you. And you, Dr. Eynhardt, you
refused the Iron Cross in the late campaign?"
"Yes."
"You were discharged from the army without comment?"
"Yes."
"For declining a duel," observed Schrotter.
"Dr. Eynhardt is of age, and can answer for himself. You have attended
Socialist meetings?"
"Only once."
"And made speeches?"
"One speech?"
"And that was directed against Socialism," said Schrotter again.
The magistrate grew lobster-red in the face.
"It is really scandalous," he cried, quivering with rage, "that I am
repeatedly obliged to remind a man of your position that he is only to
answer when spoken to. Why didn't you say yourself, Dr. Eynhardt, that
you had spoken against the Socialists?"
"Because you did not ask me," answered Wilhelm, with a gentle smile.
After a slight pause the magistrate resumed--"You are on friendly terms
with a Russian named Dr. Barinskoi?"
"You can hardly call it that. I did know him, though not exactly in a
friendly way, but for two years I have quite lost sight of him."
"Did you know that Dr. Barinskoi was a Nihilist?"
"Yes."
"And you did not let that make any difference to you?"
"I was not afraid of infection," said Wilhelm, and smiled again.
"Perhaps not, but of being compromised," growled the magistrate.
"That idea has not troubled me as yet."
"You inherited from a friend who committed suicide a large fortune,
which you use chiefly for the benefit of Socialist workmen?"
"I use it for the benefit of the poor, and those I certainly find more
frequently among the Socialist workmen than among factory owners and
householders."
"I'll thank you to remember that this is not the place for making bad
jokes!" roared the magistrate.
"You are quite right," Wilhelm answered serenely. "I know nothing more
unpleasant than bad jokes."
Schrotter looked as if he were going to embrace his friend. He had
never seen him from this side.
"Did it never occur to you to put yourself in communication with the
clergymen of your district, these gentlemen having far greater
facilities for finding out deserving objects of charity than a private
person?"
"I will answer that question when you have had the goodness to explain
to me what connection it has with this man's denunciation."
The magistrate glared at him in a manner calculated to wither him on
the spot, but only met a quiet, smiling face which he was incapable of
intimidating.
"May I request you now," said Schrotter in his turn, "to ask the
witness Patke if for the last few weeks he has not been a candidate for
a post as detective on the political police staff?" Schrotter too had
made a variety of inquiries since last Sunday, and had learned this
fact.
"That is so," stammered Patke, turning very red. "In these terrible
times, when the Socialists and the enemies of the country--"
"Silence, Herr Patke," interrupted the magistrate angrily; "that has
nothing to do with the business on hand." He reflected for awhile, and
then said with the most deeply grudging manner--"The statement of the
one witness--seeing too that it is indefinite in some important
points--is not sufficient to warrant me in passing a sentence, in spite
of many good grounds for suspicion afforded by your past history and
known opinions. I will therefore dismiss the charge, if only to avoid
the public scandal of a Member being accused of lese majeste."
Schrotter was boiling with rage, and had the greatest difficulty in
restraining his naturally passionate temper. "Many thanks for your
kindness," he said in a choking voice, "and for this scoundrel you have
no reprimand?"
"Sir," screamed the magistrate, springing out of his chair with fury,
"leave this room instantly; and you, Herr Patke, if you wish to bring
an action for libel against the gentleman you may call upon me as a
witness."
Patke was too modest to avail himself of this friendly offer. Wilhelm
dragged Schrotter out of the office as fast as he could, and even
outside they still heard the magistrate's grunts of wrath.
Dark days followed, in which Schrotter seemed to live over again the
worst horns of the "wild year." A moral pestilence--the craze for
denunciation--spread itself over the whole of Germany, sparing neither
the palace nor the hut. No one was safe, either in the bosom of the
family, at the club table, in the lecture room, or in the street, from
the low spy who, from fanaticism or stupidity, from personal spite or
desire to make himself conspicuous, took hold of some hasty or
imprudent word, turned it round, mangled it, and brought it redhot to
the magistrates, who seldom had the courage to kick the informer
downstairs. Such unspeakable depths of human baseness came to light, so
full of corruption and pestilence, that the eye turned in horror from
the incredible spectacle. The newspapers brought daily reports of
denunciations for "lese majeste," and when Schrotter read them he
clasped his hands in horrified dismay and exclaimed, "Are we in
Germany? are these my fellow-countrymen?" He became at last so
disgusted that he gave up reading the German papers, and derived his
knowledge of what was going on in the world from the two London papers
which, from the habit of a quarter of a century, he still took in. He
wished to hear no more about denunciations by which, with the aid of
police and magistrates, every kind of cowardice and vileness, social
envy and religious hatred, rivalry, spite, and inborn malevolence,
sought a riskless gratification, and usually found it in full measure.
But it took away all pleasure in social intercourse. One learned to be
cautious and suspicious. One grew accustomed to see an enemy in every
stranger, and to be upon one's guard before a neighbor as before some
lurking traitor. Hypocrisy became an instinct of self-preservation;
every one carefully avoided speaking of those things of which the heart
was full, and Berlin afforded an insight into the mental condition of
the people of Spain during the most flourishing period of the
Inquisition, or of Venice in the days when anonymous denunciations
poured into the yawning jaws of the Lions of St. Mark's square.
The Reichstag was dissolved, the people of Germany must choose new
representatives, and the chief, if not the sole question to be decided
by the election was, Are the Socialists to be dealt with under a
special act, or to come under the common law? Schrotter now felt it
justifiable, nay, that it was his duty, to throw off the reserve he had
maintained since his return to the Fatherland, and come forward as a
candidate for the Reichstag, though for a suburban district, as the
city district to whose poor he had been an untiring benefactor as
physician and friend, with help, counsel, and money, was not available.
At a meeting of his constituents he laid down his confession of faith.
A special act, he explained, was in no way justified, would indeed be
ineffectual, and lead away from the object they had in view. The
government would be guilty of libel if it made the Socialists
answerable for a crime committed by two half or wholly insane persons;
it was the duty of the government to prove that these attacks were the
work of the Socialists: that proof, however, it had been unable to
discover. Moreover, no special act in the world could hinder people of
unsound mind from committing insane deeds--the crimes of a Hodel or a
Nobiling could not be predicted, but neither could they be prevented by
any kind of precautionary measure. The sole result of a special act
would be to make the Socialists practically outlaws in their own
country. That would constitute not only a terrible severity against a
large class of their fellow-citizens, but a frightful danger to the
State. In hundreds and thousands of hearts it would destroy the sense
of fellowship with the community in which they lived; they would look
upon themselves as outcasts, and become the enemies of their pursuers.
It would be exactly as if some thousands of Frenchmen were set down in
the midst of the German population--in the army, in the cities, the
factories, the arsenals and railways, where they would only wait for a
favorable opportunity to revenge themselves on their conquerors. That
would be the inevitable result if the Socialists were deprived of the
security of the common law. He considered the Socialist doctrines false
and mischievous, and their aims senseless
and--fortunately--unattainable, and for that very reason he did not
fear them. But deprive the Socialists of the possibility of expressing
themselves freely in word and print, and their grievances, which now
found vent in harmless speechifying, would assume the form of practical
violence.
His speech made an impression, but that of a rival candidate a still
greater, for he succeeded in rousing the deepest and most powerful
emotions of his hearers, by the plain statement that whoever refused
the government the right of adopting such measures as it thought
necessary for the safety of the public, simply delivered the life of
their aged and beloved sovereign into the hands of assassins. At the
election, Schrotter had on his side only a small number of
independent-minded voters, who were able to remain unmoved by
sentimental arguments. The workingmen would not vote for him, knowing
him to be an opponent of Socialism. The rival candidate was returned by
a large majority.
The Reichstag assembled, the Socialist Act was passed, Berlin declared
to be in a state of semi-siege, and a great number of workmen dismissed
from the city. It was November, and winter had set in with unusual
severity. On a dark and bitterly cold afternoon, old Stubbe, who had
been agent in the Eynhardts' house for twenty years, entered Wilhelm's
room.
"What is the news, Father Stubbe?" cried Wilhelm, as he came in.
"No good news, Herr Doctor. Wander the locksmith--you know the man who
rents the second floor of the house in our court--has been turned out
by the police. It seems he's a very dangerous customer; I must say I
have never noticed it. He was always very decent; the children were a
bother, certainly--always running about the court and getting between
your feet. Well, we all have our faults; and then, too, he didn't pay
his rent in October."
Wilhelm, who was well acquainted with Father Stubbe's flow of language,
and did not greatly admire it, interrupted him at this point.
"Well, and what is the matter?"
"What's the matter, Herr Doctor? Why, the wife is there now with the
five children, and there's no earning anything, and yesterday she took
away a cupboard to turn it into money somewhere--not that she can have
got much for it, it was all tumbling to pieces. The rest of the
furniture will take legs to itself soon, I dare say, for six mouths
must be fed, and where is food to come from? There will be no removal
expenses anyhow, for there will soon be nothing but the bare walls.
There's no question of paying the rent, and never will be, as far as I
can see; so I thought I had better ask what was to be done with the
poor things."
"What can we do?"
"We could seize the bits of sticks they still have, though that would
not cover the rent that is owing. The best thing, perhaps, would be to
tell Frau Wander just to take her things and clear out; then at least
we could relet the rooms."
"Frau Wander does not work?"
"How can she?--five children, and the youngest still at the breast."
"I will see to it myself, and let you know what is to be done."
"Very good, Herr Doctor," said Stubbe, much relieved. He had a kind
heart and it was only his strict sense of duty that led him to mention
the case of the Wanders, and particularly the unpermissible selling of
the furniture, to the owner of the house.
Stubbe had barely reached home before Wilhelm appeared in the
Kochstrasse. His house lay between the Charlotten and
Markgrafenstrasse, and was an old and unpretentious structure, looking,
among the stately houses of a later period which surrounded it on all
sides, like a poor relation at a rich and distinguished family
gathering. During the "milliard years," building speculators had
offered him considerable sums for the ground, but he was not to be
prevailed upon to sell the house left him by his father. It was only
seven windows wide, and had consisted originally of one story only, but
a low second story had been added, recognizable instantly as a piece of
patchwork. A great key hanging over the entrance announced the fact
that there was a locksmith's workshop inside. The courtyard was very
low and narrow, and roughly paved with cobblestones, between which the
grass sprouted luxuriantly. At the further end of this court stood the
"Hinterhaus," likewise two-storied, on the ground floor of which the
locksmith carried on his resounding trade.
Accompanied by Stubbe, Wilhelm mounted the worn wooden staircase
leading to the second floor. The flat consisted of a kitchen and a room
with one window. Even when the sun was most lavish of his rays, it was
none too light there; now, in the early-falling dusk of a dull late
autumn day, Wilhelm found himself in a dim half-light as he opened the
door. There was no fire in the stove, no lamp upon the table. In the
cold and darkness he could just distinguish among the sparse furniture
a slim, wretched-looking woman sitting on a chair by the table, nursing
a baby wrapped in an old blanket; a tall, large-boned man in workman's
clothes, with a bushy beard and gloomy eyes, leaning against the wall
beside the window, and some fair-haired children, unnaturally silent
and motionless for their age, crouching side by side on the bed, only
swinging their legs a little from time to time.
At Wilhelm's entrance with a friendly "Good-evening," the woman rose
from her seat and gazed at the intruder with hostile eyes, the children
ceased swinging their legs, and the workman shrank away from the window
into the deeper shadow of the corner.
"The landlord," Stubbe announced solemnly.
Frau Wander threw up her head. "Now then, what do you want now?" she
said hurriedly, her bitter tone beginning on the ordinary pitch, but
rising rapidly to a shrewish scream. "It's the rent, I suppose; and I
suppose we're to have notice to quit? It's all one to me. I've got no
money and so I tell you; but what's here you can keep, and you can have
the skin off my back too, and I'll throw in the children beside. They
can drag a milk-cart as well as dogs. Why don't you cut my throat at
once and have done with it?"
"But, my good woman," cried Stubbe, horror-stricken, "what are you
thinking of? The Herr Doctor only means well by you."
Wilhelm had come quite close to the poor thing, who had worked herself
up into such a state of excitement that she was trembling from head to
foot, and said in that gentle voice of his that always found its way to
the heart:
"You are worrying yourself unnecessarily, Frau Wander. I have not come
about the rent, and nobody is going to turn you out of your home. Herr
Stubbe here has been telling me about your troubles, and I came to see
if we could not give you a little assistance."
She stared at him speechless, with wide-open eyes. The children on the
bed began to whisper to one another. Wilhelm took advantage of the
pause to say a few words in Father Stubbe's ear, whereupon the old man
vanished.
"Why don't you offer the gentleman a chair?" said the workman, coming
out of his dark corner.
The woman slowly drew forward a chair, round the torn seat of which the
straw stood up raggedly on all sides. Wilhelm thanked her with a wave
of the hand.
"Do not be afraid of me, dear Frau Wander," he went on. "Tell me
something of your circumstances."
"What was there to tell?" answered the woman, still somewhat ruffled.
He could see for himself how things stood with her. Her husband had
been turned out of Berlin; but much the police cared if she and her
five children starved or froze to death. It would have come to that
already if some of her husband's fellow-workmen had not given them a
little help in their distress, like her present visitor, the
iron-worker, Groll. But what could they do? They had not anything
themselves, and the police were always after them like the devil after
a poor soul. What did they want of them after all? Her husband had held
with the Socialists certainly, but he had done nobody any harm by that.
Ever since Wander had gone over to the Socialists he had left off
drinking--not a drop--only coffee, and sometimes a little beer; and he
was always good to his wife and children, and he had no debts as long
as he had been able to earn anything. The locksmith downstairs had
discharged him after the second attack on the emperor, although he was
a clever workman; but the master was afraid of the police, and none of
the others would risk taking him on. That was bad enough, but it was
not so hard to bear in the summer, and the Socialists held faithfully
together, and now and then there was a penny to be earned. But now--now
that he had to go away, and winter was at the door-- She could keep up
no longer, and burst into tears.
Wilhelm seated himself cautiously on the broken chair, and asked,
"Where is your husband now? and what does he think of doing?"
"He is trying to get through to the Rhine, and get work at Dortmund, or
somewhere in that neighborhood," she answered, while the tight sobs
caught her breath, and she wiped away the tears with the back of her
hand. "If he can't get any work he will go to France, or Belgium, or
even America, if he must. But that takes a lot of money, and where is
one to get it without stealing? We are to come to him when he has found
work, and can send us the money for the journey. Till then--"
With the free arm that was not holding the child she made a hopeless
gesture.
At that moment the door opened and Father Stubbe came in, carrying in
one hand a lighted candle, and in the other a great, fresh-smelling
loaf of bread. He placed both upon the bare table, and then discreetly
withdrew.
"Bread! bread!" cried the children, awakened to sudden life, and
jumping off the bed they gathered round the table with greedy eyes,
clapping their hands. There were four of them--the youngest a mite of
two or three, who only babbled with the others; the eldest, a pale
little girl of seven or eight years.
"Children! Just let me catch you!" scolded the mother; but her voice
shook with nervous excitement.
"Please, Frau Wander, won't you cut the children some bread first? We
can talk afterward."
In a twinkling the eldest girl had fetched a knife from the kitchen,
the children continuing to clap their hands delightedly, and Frau
Wander cut them large slices, and while she was so engaged, "We have
never had anything given us, Herr Doctor," she said; "we have always
earned our living with honest work. It is hard to have to come to this;
but what can you do when the police put a rope round your neck?"
"You must not worry any longer, dear Frau Wander," said Wilhelm, "but
you must not speak like that of the police. You do yourself no good by
it, and perhaps a great deal of harm. We will do what we can for you.
Never mind about the rent. You will stay on quietly here, and allow me
to assist you with this trifle." He pressed two twenty-mark pieces into
the half-reluctant hand so unused to accepting alms. "And Herr Stubbe
will give you the same sum every month till you are able to join your
husband."
He held out his hand, which she grasped in silence, incapable of
finding suitable words to thank him, and he hurried to the door. The
mechanic hastily snatched up the candle from the table, ran after him
and lighted him downstairs, murmuring with real emotion:
"Thank you a thousand times, Herr Doctor, and may God bless you!"
And all the way downstairs Wilhelm was followed by the children's
jubilant song of "Bread! bread!"
One morning a few days later--it was December the 2d--as Wilhelm was
sitting at his writing-table engaged in making notes from a thick
English book of travels on the Australian savage's ideas on nature, he
heard a sound of quarreling going on in the hall. He could distinguish
Frau Muller's irate tones, and then a man's voice mentioning his name.
He gave no further heed to the dispute, thinking it was doubtless some
importune person in whom worthy Frau Muller had detected the
professional beggar, and was therefore driving away. But it did not
leave off, and grew louder and louder, Frau Muller's voice rising at
last to an exasperated scream--there even seemed to be something like a
hand-to-hand fight going on--till Wilhelm thought it behooved him to
see what was happening, and, if need be, come to the rescue of his
faithful house-dragon. He opened the door quickly and received Frau
Muller in his arms. If he had not caught her, she would have fallen
backward into the room, for she had leaned--a living bulwark--against
the door, defending the entrance with her body against two men, one of
whom was trying to push her away, while the other, standing further
back, was restraining his companion from grasping Frau Muller all too
roughly. In the daring man who did not shrink from laying sacrilegious
hands upon the furious and snorting landlady, Wilhelm instantly
recognized the mechanic whom he had seen at Frau Wander's. At sight of
him the man raised his hat politely, and before the gasping Frau
Muller, who was simply choking with excitement, could find her tongue,
he said:
"Beg pardon, I am sure, Herr Doctor, for disturbing you; but we really
must speak to you. I knew from Herr Stubbe that you are always at home
at this hour, so I would not let the lady send us away."
"The lady indeed!" Frau Muller managed at last to exclaim. "Now he
talks about ladies, and a minute ago he had the impudence--"
"You must excuse us, madam," said the workman with the utmost civility;
"we meant no harm, and we simply must speak to the Herr Doctor."
"Come in," said Wilhelm curtly, and not overwarmly, while he pressed
the still angrily glaring Frau Muller's hand gratefully.
The second visitor now mentioned his name--it was that of one of the
most prominent leaders of the Social Democrats in Germany. Wilhelm
signed to the two men to be seated, and asked what he could do for them.
"I heard through the mechanic Groll here," answered the stranger,
pointing to the other man, "what you did for Frau Wander. That
encouraged us to come to you with a request."
At a sign from Wilhelm he continued:
"You have seen one of our cases for yourself, and that not by any means
the worst. We have dozens of such cases, and there will probably be
hundreds more. Our union does what it can. Every member gives up part
of his week's wages for the unfortunate victims, and thereby we perhaps
save the government from the crime of having condemned innocent women
and children to death by starvation. But our people are poor, and have
to fight against want themselves. We cannot expect any great sacrifice
from them. What we want is a considerable lump sum to enable us to send
on the families of the exiled workmen to join their respective
bread-winners. So we go round knocking at the doors of our wealthy
associates, who, though in consideration of the times they do not care
to declare themselves openly for us, nevertheless have a feeling heart
for the workingman's distress."
All the time he was speaking he looked Wilhelm straight in the eyes.
Wilhelm bore his gaze quietly, and answered:
"If you think I share your opinions you are much mistaken. I consider
that you are pursuing a false course, that you make assertions to the
workingman which you cannot prove, and promise him things you cannot
fulfill, and I frankly confess that I do not envy you the
responsibility you have taken upon your own shoulders."
The leader stroked his short beard with a nervous movement, and the
mechanic twisted his hat awkwardly between his hands. Wilhelm went on
after a short pause:
"But that does not prevent me from sympathizing with the distress of
women and children, and I shall be very glad to do what I can if you
will give me a detailed account of the state of affairs."
In a few plain words the visitor gave a sketch of the circumstances,
all the more heartbreaking for its very unpretentiousness. So many men
dismissed, so many wives, so many children, so many parents and near
relatives unable to support themselves. Of these so many were sick, so
many women lately confined, so many cripples. So many had prospects of
better circumstances if they could get away from Berlin. For that
purpose such and such a sum was necessary. So much was already in hand.
He stated the amount of certain large donations, and added--"I will not
mention the names of the subscribers, as it might happen that it would
be to your advantage not to know them."
Wilhelm had listened in silence. He now opened a drawer of his
writing-table, took out a yellow envelope in which Schrotter was in the
habit of giving him, on the first of every month, fifteen hundred marks
out of the Dorfling bequest, and handed the sum which he had received
the day before, and was still unbroken, to the workingmen's leader. The
man turned over the three five-hundred-mark notes, and then looked up
startled. Wilhelm only nodded his head slightly.
The leader rose. "It would be inadvisable to give you a receipt. You
have no doubt, I think, that your noble gift will be used for its
proper object. Thank you a thousand times, and if you should ever stand
in need of faithful and determined men, then think of us."
A week later, to the very day, early in the morning a police officer
brought Wilhelm an official document summoning him to appear that
afternoon before the head police authorities in the Stadtvogtei. He
presented himself at the appointed hour in the office, and handed the
document to an official, who, after glancing at it, asked:
"You are Dr. Wilhelm Eynhardt?
"Yes."
He took up a paper lying ready at hand, and said dryly: "I have to
inform you that, in accordance with the Socialist Act, you are ordered
out of Berlin and its purlieus, and must be out of the city by
to-morrow at midnight at the latest."
"Ordered out of Berlin!" cried Wilhelm, utterly taken, aback. "And may
I ask what I have done?"
"You must know that better than I," answered the official sternly.
"However, I have no further information to give you, and can only
advise you to address yourself to the Committee of Police, in case you
require a day or two more to regulate your affairs."
At the same time he handed him the paper, which proved to be the
written order of banishment, and dismissed him with a slight bend of
the head.
Wilhelm went without a word. Naturally he turned his steps almost
unconsciously to Schrotter, to whom he held out the police paper in
silence. Schrotter read it, and struck his hands together.
"Is it possible?" he murmured. "Is it possible?" He paced the room with
long strides, then suddenly stood still before his friend, and laying
his hands on Wilhelm's shoulder, he said in tones of profound emotion:
"I never thought I should live to see such things in my own country. I
am nearly sixty, and it is late in the day for me to begin a new life.
But really I find it difficult to breathe this air any longer. Where
shall you go?"
"I do not know yet myself. I must collect my thoughts a little first."
"Whatever you decide upon, I have a very good mind to go with you.
There is nothing left for me to do in my old age but emigrate again."
"You will not do that!" answered Wilhelm hurriedly. "Men like you are
more badly needed here than ever. You must stay. I implore you to do
so. Remember how you reproached yourself for twenty years, because you
were not there when the people were struggling against the Manteuffel
reaction. And then--your patients, your poor, the hundreds who have
need of you."
Schrotter did not answer, and seated himself on the divan. His massive
face was gloomy as midnight, and the fiery blue eyes almost closed.
After awhile he growled: "But why--why?"
"Oh, I suppose because of the fifteen hundred marks for the families of
the dismissed workmen."
"Of course!" cried Schrotter, clapping his hand to his forehead.
"Dorfling's gold does not come from the Rhine for nothing," Wilhelm
smiled sadly. "Like the Nibleungen treasure, it is doomed to bring
disaster on all who possess it."
As Schrotter did not answer, Wilhelm resumed: "And as we are on the
subject, we may as well settle that matter at once. Of course you will
use the whole income now for your poor?"
"Not at all!" cried Schrotter. "Why should things not remain as they
are? Wherever you may take up your abode, the poor you have always with
you."
Wilhelm shook his head. "I may possibly go abroad, and you see, Herr
Doctor, I am prejudiced in favor of my own country. I think we shall
carry our Dorfling's intentions best by using his money for the relief
of German necessity."
Schrotter made no further objection. That Wilhelm would not, under any
circumstances, use a penny of the money for himself he knew perfectly
well, and in the end it was all the same whether the poor received it
from his hand or Wilhelm's. He merely wrote down some addresses which
Wilhelm gave him of people to whom he gave regular assistance, and whom
he recommended to Schrotter to that end.
When toward evening Wilhelm returned home, and, as was inevitable, told
Frau Muller the news, she nearly fainted, and had to sit down. She was
struck dumb for some time, and then only found strength to utter low
groans. Her lodger turned out of Berlin like a vagrant. A householder
too! Such a respectable, fine young gentleman, whom she had watched
over like the apple of her eye for seven years--dreadful--dreadful. But
it was all the fault of the low wretches who had forced their way in
last week. She had thought as much at the time. If she had only called
in the police at once! The police--oh yes, she had all due respect for
the police, she was the widow of a government official, and she loved
her good old king certainly--but that they should have banished the
Herr Doctor--that was not right--that could not possibly be right! Frau
Muller could not reconcile herself to the thought of parting. She would
go to her friend and patron the "Geheimer Oberpostrath," and he would
use his influence in the matter; and at last, seeing that Wilhem only
smiled or spoke a few soothing words to her, she burst into tears and
sobbed out: "I am so used to you, Herr Doctor, I don't know how I am
going to live without you." She only composed herself a little when
Wilhelm told her that, for the present at any rate, he was going to
leave his books and other goods and chattels where they were, for he
might perhaps be allowed to return after a time, and meanwhile a young
man, whom she knew, and who was studying at Wilhelm's at Schrotter's
expense, should board and lodge with her, and she would receive the
same sum as Wilhelm had always paid.
With night came counsel. Wilhelm decided to go first to Hamburg, where
Paul lived during the winter, wait there till the spring, and then
arrange further plans. He visited the grave of his father and mother,
gave Stubbe orders as to the management of the house, took leave of a
few friends, visited one or two poor people whom he was in the habit of
looking after, and then had nothing further to keep him in Berlin. The
rest of the day he passed with Schrotter, who found the parting very
hard to bear. Bhani, whom they had acquainted with the matter, had
tears in her beautiful dark eyes--the last remnant of youth in the
withered face. And as he left the dear familiar house in the
Mittelstrasse she begged him--translating the Indian words plainly
enough by looks and gestures--to accept an amulet of cold green jade as
a remembrance of her.
That night at eleven o'clock a slow train bore Wilhelm away from Berlin.
At the station he caught sight of the face of his old friend Patke,
whom he had come across more than once during that day. The former
non-commissioned officer had apparently reached the goal of his
ambitions and become a private detective.
Schrotter had stood on the step of the carriage till the very last
moment, holding his friend's hand. Now Wilhelm leaned back in his
corner and closed his eyes, and while the train rattled along over the
snow-covered plain, he asked himself for the first time whether after
all Dorfling had been quite such a fool as most of them considered him
to have been?