The cold, incisive voice recommenced reading:
"_His Majesty commands me to inform you, that he has since received a
letter from the Prince. His Majesty, having told Count Benedetti
that he was awaiting news from the Prince, has decided, upon the
representation of Count Eulenburg and myself, not to receive Count
Benedetti again, but only to let him be informed through an
_aide-de-camp_ that His Majesty has now received from the Prince
confirmation of the news Benedetti has already received from Paris,
and has nothing further to say to the Ambassador. His Majesty leaves
it to Your Excellency whether Benedetti's fresh demand and its
rejection should not be at once communicated both to our Ambassadors
and to the Press representatives._"
The close of the Royal communication plopped into a pool of silence.
The Chancellor coughed, and said with his characteristic stutter:
"The-the laxity and diffuseness of the verbiage of this dispatch
l-lul-leave me in no doubt as to the favorable effect the Ems waters
have already wrought upon the constitution of His Majesty!"
Roon barked his laugh. Moltke raised his thoughtful head from his
breast and said laconically:
"It gives me the belly-ache to listen to such rubbish. Are we German
men or German mice?"
The Chancellor shrugged and said:
"More than ever it is clear that my position is untenable. The King,
under pressure of threats mingled with entreaties, has permitted
himself to be heckled by the Emperor's Franco-Italian emissary. He
ignores my urgent request that he should refer Benedetti to his
Foreign Minister. Now, by the medium of an inferior official, he
tells me that I may acquaint the representatives of the State and the
Press--that nothing is settled and no definite end in view! What is
settled is, that I resign!"
Von Roon called out harshly, striking a sinewy fist upon the table:
"Your Excellency will not leave your friends in this extremity?"
Moltke turned to him half whimsically, half pleadingly:
"For our sake, Otto, stick by the old wagon!"
The Chancellor said, with a sudden softening of the grim lines of his
strong face, and of the eyes that had been fixed and expressionless:
"You talk, both of you, like two babes in the wood. As far as
regards my personal influence to sway the King or control the feeling
of the Reichstag--another hand may guide the State as well as this of
mine. Yet, were it possible--having already the King's
permission--to produce a somewhat concentrated version of this
verbose telegram.... Has either of you a pencil?--mine has been
mislaid.."
"Here, take mine!" said the Field-Marshal eagerly.
The Chancellor took the offered pencil with a brief nod of thanks,
swept the silver-gilt milkmaid ruthlessly aside, and spreading the
forms containing the Royal dispatch on the space she had occupied,
pored over them for a moment, frowning heavily, before the red-chalk
crayon began to play its part. Words were struck out--then whole
sentences....
"Ah, ah!" said Moltke, beaming. "He has finished at last. Now let
us hear what it sounds like with its mane cropped and its tail
docked?"
"Reduced," said the Chancellor, lifting his great eyes from the
red-crayoned papers, "without addition or alteration, the message
might run thus..."
He read:
"_After the news of the renunciation of the hereditary Prince of
Hohenzollern had been officially communicated to the Imperial
Government of France by the Royal Government in Spain, the French
Ambassador at Ems further demanded of His Majesty the King that he
would authorize him to telegraph to Paris that His Majesty the King
bound himself for all future time never again to give his consent
should the Princes of Hohenzollern renew their candidature._"
"Good, very good!" growled Roon.
"That seems to me excellent!" said Moltke, twinkling.
The Chancellor finished:
"_His Majesty the King thereupon decided not again to receive
Benedetti, the French Ambassador, and sent the aide-de-camp on duty
with the information that His Majesty had nothing further to say to
him!_"
"_Bravo, bis!_" roared Roon.
"Why," said Moltke, rubbing his hands delightedly, "now it has a
different ring altogether. Before it sounded like a parley. Now it
is a fanfare of defiance! Sentences like these are worthy of a King!"
"And there can be no accusations of falsification," said the
Chancellor, bending his powerful regard upon his two colleagues.
"The Bund Chancellor carries out what the Prussian monarch commands.
He communicates this text by telegraph to all our Embassies and to
the Press agencies. Is it his fault if its published words provoke
the Gallic cock to show fight?"
"I understand," said the War Minister joyfully, "that we should be
the party attacked first. And we shall be, and we shall win! Our
God of old lives, and will not let us perish!"
"Has Your Excellency nothing to say to me?" asked the Chancellor,
fixing his great eyes on the face of Moltke, now radiant with
childlike happiness.
"Were I a poet," returned the joyous old artist in war, seizing the
hand outstretched to him across the table, and wringing it between
both his own, "I should crown you with a wreath of laurel inscribed
'_Hail to thee, Guardian of Prussia's honor!_' or something of that
kind. Being what I am, I say that you are what my English nephews
would call '_a trump_!' As you said this morning when you quitted
Varzin, 'War Is Inevitable!'" He added, hitting himself a resounding
thump in the chest: "And if I may but live to lead our armies in such
a war--then the devil may come directly we have conquered these
Frenchmen and fetch away this crumbling old carcass!" He added, with
a change to gravity: "I do not say my soul, for I am a decent
Christian. Hey, look here, our dinner has got cold!"
It was true; the viands were stagnant in the dishes. The fillet sat
in the center of a stagnant lake of congealed gravy; the roasted
lamb, reduced by the onslaughts of the Chancellor to a partial
skeleton, was covered with a frosting of rich white fat. He said,
with a laugh that clattered against walls and ceiling like a
discharge of musketry, and reaching for the bell that would summon
Bucher:
"It does not matter; my cook has always a second menu ready in case
of delays or accidents. While Bucher communicates to our Embassies
and the European Press Agencies the concentrated essence of His
Majesty's telegram--while hundreds of thousands of handbills are
being printed that shall disseminate the text throughout Germany, and
Busch writes the articles that shall put the needful complexion on
this affair--we will order up the Moet and Chandon White Star--I am
thirsty after so much talking!--and eat our dinner again!"