II

But no man is a hero to his valet or his relatives, and on the spring

morning when Lassalle stood at the parting of the ways--where the

Thinker's path debouched on the Fighter's--his brother-in-law from

Prague, being in Berlin on business, took the opportunity of

remonstrating.

"I can't understand what you mean by such productions," he cried,

excitedly waving a couple of pamphlets.

"That is not my fault, my dear Friedland," said Lassalle suavely. "It

takes _some_ brain to follow even what I have put so clearly. What

have you there?"

"The lecture to the artisans, for which you have to go to gaol for

four months," said the outraged ornament of Prague society, which he

illumined as well as adorned, having, in fact, the town's

gas-contract.

"Not so fast. There is my appeal yet before the _Kammergericht_. And

take care that you are not in gaol first; that pamphlet is either one

of the suppressed editions, or has been smuggled in from Zürich, a

proof in itself of that negative concept of the State which the

pamphlet aims at destroying. Your State is a mere night-watchman--it

protects the citizen but it does nothing to form him. It keeps off

ideas, but it has none of its own. But the State, as friend Boeckh

puts it, should be the institution in which the whole virtue of

mankind realizes itself. It should sum up human experience and wisdom,

and fashion its members in accordance therewith. What is history but

the story of man's struggle with nature? And what is a State but the

socialization of this struggle, the stronger helping the weaker?"

"Nonsense! Why should we help the lower classes?"

"Pardon me," said Lassalle, "it is they who help us. We are the

weaker, they are the stronger. That is the point of the other pamphlet

you have there, explaining what is a Constitution."

"Don't try your legal quibbles on me."

"Legal quibbles! Why the very point of my pamphlet is to ignore verbal

definitions. A Constitution is what constitutes it, and the

working-class being nine-tenths of the population must be nine-tenths

of the German Constitution."

"Then it's true what they say, that you wish to lead a Revolution!"

exclaimed Friedland, raising his coarse glittering hands in horror.

"Follow a Revolution, you mean," said Lassalle. "Here again I do away

with mere words. Real Revolutions make themselves, and we only become

conscious of them. The introduction of machinery was a greater

Revolution than the French, which, since it did not express ideals

that were really present among the masses, was bound to be followed by

the old thing over again. Indeed, sometimes, as I showed in _Franz von

Sickingen_ (my drama of the sixteenth-century war of the Peasants), a

Revolution may even be reactionary, an attempt to re-establish an

order of things that has hopelessly passed away. Hence it is _your_

sentiments that are revolutionary."

Friedland's face had the angry helplessness of a witness in the hands

of a clever lawyer. "A pretty socialist _you_ are!" he broke out, as

his arm swept with an auctioneer's gesture over the luxurious villa in

the Bellevuestrasse. "Why don't you call in the first sweep from the

street and pour him out your champagne?"

"My dear Friedland! Delighted. Help yourself," said Lassalle

imperturbably.

The Prague dignitary purpled.

"You call your sister's husband a sweep!"

"Forgive me. I should have said 'gas-fitter.'"

"And who are you?" shrieked Friedland; "you gaol-bird!"

"The honor of going to gaol for truth and justice will never be yours,

my dear brother-in-law."

Although he was scarcely taller than the gross-paunched parvenu who

had married his only sister, his slim form seemed to tower over him in

easy elegance. An aristocratic insolence and intelligence radiated

from the handsome face that so many women had found irresistible,

uniting, as it did, three universal types of beauty--the Jewish, the

ancient Greek, and the Germanic. The Orient gave complexion and fire,

the nose was Greek, the shape of the head not unlike Goethe's. The

spirit of the fighter who knows not fear flashed from his sombre blue

eyes. The room itself--Lassalle's cabinet--seemed in its simple

luxuriousness to give point at once to the difference between the two

men and to the parvenu's taunt. It was of moderate size, with a large

work-table thickly littered with papers, and a comfortable

writing-chair, on the back of which Lassalle's white nervous hand

rested carelessly. The walls were a mass of book-cases, gleaming with

calf and morocco, and crammed with the literature of many ages and

races. Precious folios denoted the book-lover, ancient papyri the

antiquarian. It was the library of a seeker after the encyclopædic

culture of the Germany of his day. The one lighter touch in the room

was a small portrait of a young woman of rare beauty and nobility. But

this sober cabinet gave on a Turkish room--a divan covered with rich

Oriental satins, inlaid whatnots, stools, dainty tables, all laden

with costly narghiles, chibouques, and opium-pipes with enormous amber

tips, Damascus daggers, tiles, and other curios brought back by him

from the East--and behind this room one caught sight of a little

winter-garden full of beautiful plants.

"Truth and justice!" repeated Friedland angrily. "Fiddlesticks! A

crazy desire for notoriety. That's the truth. And as for

justice--well, that was what was meted out to you."

"Prussian justice!" Lassalle's hand rose dramatically heavenwards. His

brow grew black and his voice had the vibration of the great orator or

the great actor. "When I think of this daily judicial murder of ten

long years that I passed through, then waves of blood seem to tremble

before my eyes, and it seems as if a sea of blood would choke me.

Galley-slaves appear to me very honorable persons compared with our

judges. As for our so-called Liberal press, it is a harlot

masquerading as the goddess of liberty."

"And what are you masquerading as?" retorted Friedland. "If you were

really in earnest, you would share all your fine things with dirty

working-men, and become one of them, instead of going down to their

meetings in patent-leather boots."

"No, my dear man, it is precisely to show the dirty working-man what

he has missed that I exhibit to him my patent-leather boots. Humility,

contentment, may be a Christian virtue, but in economics 'tis a deadly

sin. What is the greatest misfortune for a people? To have no wants,

to be lazzaroni sprawling in the sun. But to have the greatest number

of needs, and to satisfy them honestly, is the virtue of to-day, of

the era of political economy. I have always been careful about my

clothes, because it is our duty to give pleasure to other people. If I

went down to my working-men in a dirty shirt, they would be the first

to cry out against my contempt for them. And as for becoming a

working-man, I choose to be a working-man in that sphere in which I

can do most good, and I keep my income in order to do it. At least it

was honorably earned."

"Honorably earned!" sneered Friedland. "That is the first time I have

heard it described thus." And he looked meaningly at the beautiful

portrait.

"I am quite aware you have not the privilege of conversing with my

friends," retorted Lassalle, losing his temper for the first time. "I

know I am kept by my mistress, the Countess Hatzfeldt; that all the

long years, all the best years of my life, I chivalrously devoted to

championing an oppressed woman count for nothing, and that it is

dishonorable for me to accept a small commission on the enormous

estates I won back for her from her brutal husband! Why, my mere fees

as lawyer would have come to double. But pah! why do I talk with you?"

He began to pace the room. "The fact that I have such a delightful home

to exchange for gaol is just the thing that should make you believe in

my sincerity. No, my respected brother-in-law"--and he made a sudden

theatrical gesture, and his voice leapt to a roar,--"understand I will

carry on my life-mission as I choose, and never--never to satisfy every

fool will I carry the ass." His voice sank. "You know the fable."

"Your mission! The Public Prosecutor was right in saying it was to

excite the non-possessing classes to hatred and contempt of the

possessing class."

"He was. I live but to point out to the working-man how he is

exploited by capitalists like you."

"And ruin your own sister!"

"Ha, ha! So you're afraid I shall succeed. Good!" His blue eyes

blazed. He stood still, an image of triumphant Will.

"You will succeed only in disgracing your relatives," said Friedland

sullenly.

His brother-in-law broke into Homeric laughter. "Ho, ho," he cried.

"Now I see. You are afraid that I'll come to Prague, that I'll visit

you and cry out to your fashionable circle: 'I, Ferdinand Lassalle,

the pernicious demagogue of all your journals, Governmental and

Progressive alike, the thief of the casket-trial, the Jew-traitor, the

gaol-bird, I am the brother-in-law of your host,' And so you've rushed

to Berlin to break off with me. Ho, ho, ho!"

Friedland gave him a black look and rushed from the room. Lassalle

laughed on, scarcely noticing his departure. His brain was busy with

that comical scene, the recall of which had put the enemy to flight.

On his migration from Berlin to Prague, when he got the gas-contract,

Friedland, by a profuse display of his hospitality, and a careful

concealment of his Jewish birth, wormed his way among families of

birth and position, and finally into the higher governmental circles.

One day, when he was on the eve of dining the _élite_ of Prague,

Lassalle's old father turned up accidentally on a visit to his

daughter and son-in-law. Each in turn besought him hurriedly not to

let slip that they were Jews. The old man was annoyed, but made no

reply. When all the guests were seated, old Lassalle rose to speak,

and when silence fell, he asked if they knew they were at a Jew's

table. "I hold it my duty to inform you," he said, "that I am a Jew,

that my daughter is a Jewess, and my son-in-law a Jew. I will not

purchase by deceit the honor of dining with you." The well-bred guests

cheered the old fellow, but the host was ghastly with confusion, and

never forgave him.