It was a week of delicious happiness, niched amid the eternal
mountains, fused with skies and waters.
With an accommodating chaperon who knew no German, the couple could do
and say what they pleased. Lassalle, throwing off the heavy burdens of
prophet and politician, alternated between brilliant lover and
happy-hearted boy. It was almost a honeymoon. Now they were children
with all the overflowing endearments of plighted lovers. Now they were
on the heights of intellect, talking poetry and philosophy, and
reading Lassalle's works; now they were discussing Balzac's
_Physiologie du Mariage_. Anon Lassalle was a large dog, gambolling
before his capricious mistress. "Lie down, sir," she cried once, as he
was reading a poem to her. And with peals of Homeric laughter
Ferdinand declared she had found the only inoffensive way of silencing
him. "If ever I displease you in future, you have only to say, 'Lie
down, sir!'" And he began barking joyously.
And in the glow of this happiness his sense of political defeat
evaporated. He burgeoned, expanded, flung back his head in the old,
imperial way. "By God!" he said, marching up and down the room
feverishly, "you have chosen no mean destiny. Have you any idea of
what Ferdinand Lassalle's wife will be? Look at me!" He stood still.
"Do I look a man to be content with the second rôle in the State? Do
you think I give the sleep of my nights, the marrow of my bones, the
strength of my lungs, to draw somebody else's chestnuts out of the
fire? Do I look like a political martyr? No! I wish to act, to fight,
and also to enjoy the crown of victory, to place it on your brow."
A vision of the roaring streets and floral arches of the Rhenish
cities flashed past him. "Chief of the People, President of the German
Republic,--there's the only true sovereignty. That was what kings were
once--giants of brain and brawn. King--one who knows, one who can!
Headship is for the head. What is this mock dignity that stands on the
lying breaths of winking courtiers? What is this farcical, factitious
glamour that will not bear the light of day? The Grace of God? Ay,
give me god-like manhood, and I will bend the knee. But to ask me to
worship a stuffed purple robe on a worm-eaten throne! 'Tis an insult
to manhood and reason. Hereditary kingship! When you can breed souls
as you breed racehorses it will be time to consider that. Stand here
by my side before this mirror. Is not that a proud, a royal couple?
Did not Nature fashion these two creatures in a holiday mood of joy
and intoxication? _Vive la République_ and its Queen with the golden
locks!"
"_Vive la République_ and its eagle King!" she cried, intoxicated, yet
with more of dramatic enjoyment than of serious conviction.
"Bravo! You believe in our star! Since I met you I see it shining
clearer over the heights. We mount, we mount, peak beyond peak. We
have enemies enough now, thick as the serpents in tropic forests.
Well, let them soil with their impure slaver the hem of our garments.
But how they will crawl fangless when Ferdinand--the Elect of the
People--makes his solemn entry into Berlin. And at his side, drawn by
six white horses, his blonde darling, changed into the first woman of
Germany." He, too, though to him the fancy was real enough for the
moment, enjoyed it with a certain artistic aloofness.