“Who knows,” I suggested, “perhaps our enmity with Prussia will cease. Perhaps we shall some day conclude an alliance with them.”
My father shrugged his shoulders. “If women would only abstain from talking politics!” he said disdainfully. “After what has taken place, we have to chastise these insolent fellows, we have to get the annexed (as they call them—I call them ‘plundered’) states back to their severed allegiance; that is what our honour demands, and the interest of our position amongst the Powers of Europe. Friendship—alliance with these transgressors? Never! unless they came and begged humbly for it.”
“In that case,” remarked Frederick, “we should perhaps set our feet on their necks. Alliances are sought and concluded only with those whom one respects, or who can offer one protection against a common foe. In statecraft the ruling principle is egotism.”
“Oh yes,” my father replied, “if the ego means one’s country, everything else is certainly to be subordinated to it, and everything is certainly allowable and commanded which seems serviceable to its interests.”
“It is, however, to be wished,” answered Frederick, “that in the behaviour of communities the same elevated civilisation should be reached, as has banished from the behaviour of individuals the rough self-worship, resting on fist-law, and that the view should prevail more and more that one’s own interests are really most effectually furthered by avoiding damage to those of foreigners, or rather in union with the latter.”
“Eh?” asked my father, with his hand to his ear.
But Frederick could not, of course, repeat this long sentence and illustrate it, and so the discussion ended.
“I shall be at Grumitz tomorrow at one o’clock.—Conrad.”
Everybody can imagine the delight which this telegram caused Lilly. No other arrival is hailed with such joy and rapture as that of one returning from the wars. It is true that in this case there was not also what is the favourite subject of the common ballads and engravings, viz., “The conqueror’s return”; but the human feelings of the loving sweetheart would not be interfered with by patriotic considerations, and if Conrad had “taken” the city of Berlin, I believe this would not have availed to heighten the warmth of Lilly’s reception of him.
To him, of course, it would have been better if he had come home along with troops who had been victorious, if he had contributed to conquer the province of Silesia for his emperor. Meantime, the very fact of having fought is in itself an honour for a soldier, even if he is one of the beaten, nay, one of the fallen: the latter is even more especially glorious. Thus Otto told us that in the academy at Wiener-Neustadt the names of all the students were inscribed on a table of honour, to whom the advantage had befallen of having been left dead on the battlefield, Tué à l’ennemi, they say in France; and in that country, as everywhere else, it is a much-prized ancestral distinction. The more progenitors one can point out in one’s family who have lost their lives in battles, whether won or lost, the prouder is the descendant of it, the more value may he set on his name, the less value on his life. In order to show oneself worthy of one’s slain ancestors, one must have a lively joy of one’s own in slaying, active and passive. Well, so much the better is it, that, as long as war exists, there should also be found people who see therein elevation and inspiration, nay, even pleasure. The number, however, of these people is daily becoming less, while the number of the soldiers becomes daily greater. Whither must this finally lead? To its becoming intolerable. And whither will this lead?
Conrad did not think so deeply. His way of looking at it was excellently expressed by the well-known song of the lieutenant in the Dame Blanche: “Oh, what delight is a soldier’s life, what delight!” To hear him speak, one might have actually envied him the expedition of which he had just formed part. My brother Otto was really filled with this envy. This warrior returned from his baptism of blood and fire, who even before looked so knightly in his hussar uniform, and who was now also adorned with an honourable scar over his chin, received in the shower of bullets, who had perhaps given their quietus to so many of the foe, he seemed to him now surrounded by a nimbus of glory.
“It was not a successful campaign, that I must admit,” said Conrad, “but I have brought back from it one or two grand reminiscences.”
“Tell us, tell us,” Lilly and Otto besought him.
“Well, I cannot give you many details; the whole thing lies behind me like a dream, the powder gets into one’s head in such a strange way. The intoxication, in fact, or the fever, the martial fire, in a word, begins from the moment of marching. The parting from one’s love indeed comes hard on one; it was the one hour in which my breast was full of tender pain, but when one is once off with one’s comrades; when the thought is, now I am going on the highest duty which life can lay on a man, viz., to defend my beloved country; when, then, the musicians struck up ‘Radetzky’s March,’ and the silken folds of the flags rustled in the wind, I must confess, Lilly, that at that moment I would not have turned back—no, not into the arms of my love. Then I felt that I should never be worthy of that love except by doing my duty out there by the side of my
