Part 28

Something impelled Daniel to return to Ægydius Place. Again he looked up at the windows, this time beseechingly. The storm within his heart became more violent. For a long time he ran through the streets, and reached home at last along toward five o’clock.

As he passed through the dark hall, he saw a light up on the landing. Meta was carrying it. She was already stirring about, ready to begin her morning’s work. He hesitated; he looked at her; with three steps he was by her side.

“So late?” she whispered with premonitory embarrassment, and began to finger her dress, which she had not yet buttoned up.

“Oh, what a joy to take hold of a living human being on this glorious day!” he exclaimed.

She offered some resistance, but when he tried to take her into her room, she bent her body backward, and thus pressed about his wrist. She was still carrying the light.

“Oh, if you only knew how I feel, Meta. I need you. Hold me tight in your arms.”

She made no more resistance. Perhaps she too was not without her fervent desire. Perhaps it was the time of day that made nature more insistent than usual. Perhaps she was suffering from loneliness in the company of the three sisters. It was still night and dark; but for her it was already day; it was the first day in the year, and she greeted it in festive mood. She yielded to him.

She was a virgin; she had no idea of the responsibility she was taking upon herself. Man had never been exactly a mystery to her, but now she felt for the first time the congenerous creature—and she gave in to him.

Daniel returned to earth after having knocked at the portals of the gods with tremendous wishes. The gods smiled their profoundest smile; for they had decided to have an especial fate arise from this hour.

A meeting of the Social Democrats was being held in Gosten Court. They had met to discuss the Chancellor’s speech on accident insurance.

The first speaker was Deputy Störbecker. But his voice had no carrying power, and what he said died away almost unheard.

Jason Philip Schimmelweis followed him. He presented a fearful indictment of the government. The official representative of the government advised him to be more reserved, whereupon he reinvigorated himself with a draught of beer. Then he hurled the full beaker of that wrathful scorn for which his heart, beating for the people, was noted, at the head of the individual who was first and foremost responsible for the affairs of the Empire. He did not mention Bismarck by name; he spoke instead of a certain bogey. He snatched the halo from his head, swore that he would some day unmask him and show the people that he was a traitor, branded his fame as a tissue of lies, his deeds as the disgrace of the century.

The venomous and eloquent hatred of the pudgy little man inflamed the minds that drank in his oratory. Jason Philip was greeted with a tumult of applause as he took his seat. His face was a bright scarlet red.

The leaders of the party, however, were noticeably quiet. In a moment or two, Deputy Störbecker returned with two comrades eager to enter into a debate with Jason Philip. He followed them into a side room. Exalted at the thought that they had been delegated to express to him the gratitude of the party for his speech, he smiled the smile of vanity and caressed his beard with his fingers.

“What is the matter, gentlemen? Why are you so serious? Did I go too far? I assume complete responsibility for everything I said. But be calm! They are getting afraid of us. The air has a dubious odour. The French are becoming cantankerous again.”

“No, Comrade Schimmelweis, that is not it. You have got to vindicate yourself. You are a Proteus, Comrade Schimmelweis. Your right hand does not know what your left hand is doing. You are treating us disgracefully. You are ploughing in the widow’s garden. You preach water and guzzle wine. You have entered into a conspiracy with the grafters of the town. You are in collusion with the people down at the Prudentia, and you are filling your own coffers in this gigantic swindle. From morning to night you enrich yourself with the hard-earned pennies of the poor. That is sharp practice, Jason Philip Schimmelweis, sharp practice, we say. Now you have got to sever all connection with the Prudentia, or the Party is going to kick you out.”

Then it was that Jason Philip Schimmelweis rose to his true heights of eloquence. He insisted that his hands were clean, his left one and also his right one; that he was working in the interest of a good cause; and that threats could not intimidate him. He made it plain that he would bow to no dictatorship operating under the mask of equality and fraternity. He cried out that if the people wanted a scandal they could have it, but they would find him armed to the teeth. And he assured them that wherever he went in this wide, wide world, he would find the doors open to welcome him.

He then made a sudden about-face, and left his comrades standing. On the way home he continued to murmur murmurs of embitterment to himself.

Like a seasoned sailor eager to escape the storms of a raging sea, he steered his good ship toward other and more hospitable shores. Three days later he went to Baron Siegmund von Auffenberg, the leader of the Liberals, and offered him his services. He told him that he was willing to make any sacrifice for the great Liberal Party.

For thirty-five minutes, by his own watch, he cooled his heels in the ante-chamber. He made one caustic remark after another touching on the arrested development of the feeling of equality among the rich. Genuine rebel that he was, he did not repudiate himself even when he was practising high treason.

When he was finally taken into the office, he was not blinded in the slightest by the luxuriousness of the furniture, the rugs, or the oil paintings. He displayed not the remotest shimmer of servility on meeting the illustrious Baron. He sat down on one of the chairs with complete equanimity, took no notice of the French-speaking parrot, and never cast a single glance at the breakfast table covered with appetising tid-bits. But he did present his case with all due straightforwardness and simplicity.

“Fine,” said the Baron, “fine! I hardly believe that you will find it necessary to make a radical change in your battlefront. A conscienceless agitator you have never been. You have a family, a home of your own; your affairs are in good condition; and in the bottom of your heart you love order and discipline. I have in truth been expecting you for a long while. Nor am I exaggerating when I confess to you that you had to bolt, sooner or later.”

Jason Philip blushed with satisfaction. With the bearing of a cabman who has just pocketed his tip, he replied: “I thank you very much, Baron.”

“On one point we are wholly agreed,” said the Baron, “and it seems to me to be the most important—”

“Quite right,” interrupted Jason Philip, “you allude to the fight against Bismarck. Yes, on this point we are, I hope, of precisely the same opinion. I will do my part. Hand and heart on it, Baron. I could look with perfectly cold blood on this knight of obscurantism writhing on the rack.”

Herr von Auffenberg heard this temperamental statement with noticeably tenuous reassurance. He smiled just a little, and then said: “Wait a minute, my friend, don’t be quite so savage.” He reached for his smelling salts, held them to his nose, and closed his eyes. Then he got up, folded his hands across his back, and walked up and down the room a few times.

What he said after this was as familiar to him as the letters of the alphabet. While Jason Philip gaped at his lips in dumb inspiration, the Baron himself thought of things that had not the remotest connection with what he said.

“The very same man who tried to make the new Empire inhabitable, with the aid of a liberal code of laws, and who brought the long-drawn-out quarrel between the Emperor and the Pope to a happy conclusion, is now trying, by word, thought, and deed, gradually to destroy all liberal traditions and to proclaim the Roman High Priest as the real creator of peace. All that the German Chancellor could do to give the final blow to liberalism he has done. The reaction has not hesitated to abandon the idea of the Kulturkampf and to work instead in the interests of class hatred and racial prejudice, nurturing them even with deeds of violence. Faced with the crimes they themselves have committed, they will see their own children despised and rejected.”