minorMass, or in the music of the Passion, all is said. And all that camefrom the woods and the country and the quiet life in little towns, whenthe artist did his work because he loved it, and cared not one jot aboutwhat anybody else thought about it. We are a nation of thinkers anddreamers."
Michael hesitated a moment.
"But you said not long ago that you were also the most practicalnation," he said. "You are a nation of soldiers, also."
"And who would not willingly give himself for such a Fatherland?" saidFalbe. "If need be, we will lay our lives down for that, and die morewillingly than we have lived. God grant that the need comes not. Butshould it come we are ready. We are bound to be ready; it would be acrime not to be ready--a crime against the Fatherland. We love peace,but the peace-lovers are just those who in war are most terrible. Forwho are the backbone of war when war comes? The women of the country,my friend, not the ministers, not the generals and the admirals. Idon't say they make war, but when war is made they are the spirit of it,because, more than men, they love their homes. There is not a womanin Germany who will not send forth brother and husband and father andchild, should the day come. But it will not come from our seeking."
He turned to Michael, his face illuminated by the red glow of thesinking sun.
"Germany will rise as one man if she's told to," he said, "for that iswhat her unity and her discipline mean. She is patient and peaceful, butshe is obedient."
He pointed northwards.
"It is from there, from Prussia, from Berlin," he said, "that the wordwill come, if they who rule and govern us, and in whose hands are allorganisation and equipment, tell us that our national existence compelsus to fight. They rule. The Prussians rule; there is no doubt of that.From Germany have come the arts, the sciences, the philosophies of theworld, and not from there. But they guard our national life. It is theywho watch by the Rhine for us, patient and awake. Should they beckon usone night, on some peaceful August night like this, when all seems sotranquil, so secure, we shall go. The silent beckoning finger will beobeyed from one end of the land to the other, from Poland on the east toFrance on the west."
He turned away quickly.
"It does not bear thinking of," he said; "and yet there are many, oh, somany, who night and day concern themselves with nothing else. Let us beEnglish again, and not think of anything serious or unpleasant. Already,as you know, I am half English; there is something to build upon. Ah,and this is the sentimental hour, just when the sun begins to touch thehorizon line of the stale, weary old earth and turns it into rosy goldand heals its troubles and its weariness. Schon, Schon!"
He stood for a moment bareheaded to the breeze, and made a great floridsalutation to the sun, now only half-disk above the horizon.
"There! I have said my evensong," he remarked, "like a good German, whoalways and always is ridiculous to the whole world, except those who areGerman also. Oh, I can see how we look to the rest of the world so well.Beer mug in one hand, and mouth full of sausage and song, and with theother hand, perhaps, fingering a revolver. How unreal it must seem toyou, how affected, and yet how, in truth, you miss it all. Scratch aRussian, they say, and you find a Tartar; but scratch a German and youfind two things--a sentimentalist and a soldier. Lieber Gott! No, I willsay, Good God! I am English again, and if you scratch me you will find agolf ball."
He took Michael's arm again.
"Well, we've spent one day together," he said, "and now we knowsomething of who we are. I put this day in the bank; it's mine or yoursor both of ours. I won't tell you how I've enjoyed it, or you will saythat I have enjoyed it because I have talked almost all the time. Butsince it's the sentimental hour I will tell you that you mistake. I haveenjoyed it because I believe I have found a friend."
CHAPTER V
Hermann Falbe had just gone back to his lodgings at the end of theRichard Wagner Strasse late on the night of their last day at Baireuth,and Michael, who had leaned out of his window to remind him of the hourof their train's departure the next morning, turned back into the roomto begin his packing. That was not an affair that would take much time,but since, on this sweltering August night, it would certainly be aprocess that involved the production of much heat, he made ready for bedfirst, and went about his preparations in pyjamas. The work of droppingthings into a bag was soon over, and finding it impossible to entertainthe idea of sleep, he drew one of the stiff, plush-covered arm-chairs tothe window and slipped the rein from his thoughts, letting them gallopwhere they pleased.
In all his life he had never experienced so much sheer emotion as thelast week had held for him. He had enjoyed his first taste of liberty;he had stripped himself naked to music; he had found a friend. Any oneof these would have been sufficient to saturate him, and they had all,in the decrees of Fate, come together. His life hitherto had been likesome dry sponge, dusty and crackling; now it was plunged in the watersof three seas, all incomparably sweet.
He had gained his liberty, and in that process he had forgotten abouthimself, the self which up till now had been so intolerable a burden. Atschool, and even before, when first the age of self-consciousness dawnedupon him, he had seen himself as he believed others saw him--a queer,awkward, ill-made boy, slow at his work, shy with his fellows, incapableat games. Walled up in this fortress of himself, this gloomy andforbidding fastness, he had altogether failed to find the means ofaccess to others, both to the normal English boys among whom his pathlay, and also to his teachers, who, not unnaturally, found him sullenand unresponsive. There was no key among the rather limited bunches attheir command which unlocked him, nor at home had anything been foundwhich could fit his wards. It had been the business of school to turnout boys of certain received types. There was the clever boy, theathletic boy, the merely pleasant boy; these and the combinationsarrived at from these types were the output. There was no use forothers.
Then had succeeded those three nightmare years in the Guards, where,with his more mature power of observation, he had become more activelyconscious of his inability to take his place on any of the recognisedplatforms. And all the time, like an owl on his solitary perch, he hadgazed out lonelily, while the other birds of day, too polite to mockhim, had merely passed him by. One such, it is true--his cousin--had satby him, and the poor owl's heart had gone out to him. But even Francis,so he saw now, had not understood. He had but accepted the fact of himwithout repugnance, had been fond of him as a queer sort of kind eldercousin.
Then there was Aunt Barbara. Aunt Barbara, Michael allowed, hadunderstood a good deal; she had pointed out with her unerringlyhumourous finger the obstacles he had made for himself.
But could Aunt Barbara understand the rapture of living which thisone week of liberty had given him? That Michael doubted. She had onlypointed out the disabilities he made for himself. She did not knowwhat he was capable of in the way of happiness. But he thought, thoughwithout self-consciousness, how delightful it would be to show himself,the new, unshelled self, to Aunt Barbara again.
A laughing couple went tapping down the street below his window, boy andgirl, with arms and waists interlaced. They were laughing at nothing atall, except that they were boy and girl together and it was all gloriousfun. But the sight of them gave Michael a sudden spasm of envy. With allthis enlightenment that had come to him during this last week, there hadcome no gleam of what that simplest and commonest aspect of human naturemeant. He had never felt towards a girl what that round-faced Germanboy felt. He was not sure, but he thought he disliked girls; they meantnothing to him, anyhow, and the mere thought of his arm round a girl'swaist only suggested a very embarrassing attitude. He had nothing tosay to them, and the knowledge of his inability filled him withan uncomfortable sense of his want of normality, just as did theconsciousness of his long arms and stumpy legs.
There was a night he remembered when Francis had insisted that he shouldgo with him to a discreet little supper party after an evening atthe music-hall. There were just four of them--he, Francis, and twocompanions--and he played the ro
le of sour gooseberry to his cousin,who, with the utmost gaiety, had proved himself completely equal to theinauspicious occasion, and had drank indiscriminately out of both thegirls' glasses, and lit cigarettes for them; and, after seeing them bothhome, had looked in on Michael, and gone into fits of laughter at hisgeneral incompatibility.
The steps and conversation passed round the corner, and Michael,stretching his bare toes on to the cool balcony, resumed hisresearches--those joyful, unegoistic researches into himself. Hisliberty was bound up with his music; the first gave the key to thesecond. Often as he had rested, so to speak, in oases of music inLondon, they were but a pause from the desert of his uncongenial lifeinto the desert again. But now the desert was vanished, and the oasisstretched illimitable to the horizon in front of him. That was where,for the future, his life was to be passed,