“Pardon me,” said Malhof, “isn’t that a rather brilliant career—being a celebrated poet?”
Bruning shrugged his shoulders: “What is it to be a celebrated poet in our country, while one is alive? Did you ever meet one at court? Is a street ever named after one? And one was never known to get rich like a successful operetta composer or a brewer. My friend Helmer ought to make a good match. I had schemed one for him long ago. But he is so horribly unpractical—you could see that from his address yesterday. These sentimental impossibilities! Lack of tact—talks there before a public audience composed of kings, statesmen, people of the world, as if it were a gathering of Socialists.”
“Yes,” said the sportsman in confirmation, “I noticed that he attacked military institutions with especial virulence—like a real Red. He apparently thinks it is not right for aeronautics and aviation to be used for military purposes. That is unpatriotic. I long ago enlisted in the volunteer automobile corps and I should not hesitate to place my flying-machine at the disposal of the Ministry of War. But, by Jove! that was a marvelous exhibition of flying the day before yesterday. I must get a pair of folding wings like those!”
“To return to Helmer,” said Malhof. “A good deal that he said was rather striking ... things that I had never thought of before, though I am an old man of wide experience; things, the possibility and desirability of which I must admit.”
“Really!” cried Bruning. “Such changes—that will turn things upside down—do they seem desirable to you?”
“Desirable for the next generation, not for our own, for people do not like to be disturbed in their quiet and in their habits. We do not only say, ‘After us the deluge’; we also say, ‘After us the millennium’; for in order to bring it about, we should have to make quite too inconvenient efforts ... let our great-grandchildren attain a golden age; we ourselves are quite comfortable in our present circumstances; we want to go on enjoying the present order of things and educate our boys to do the same.”
Bruning nodded his head in assent: “We say this—but our friend Regenburg is right: the Socialists think otherwise; they are not contented with the circumstances; they want revolution; therefore such cloud-storming addresses are not merely unpractical; they are dangerous, and we must be on our guard against them.”
“’Tis not necessary,” replied Malhof. “Active measures against them would only profit the revolutionists. All their dreaming, speechmaking, dissertations remain inoperative through the vast passive resistance which they buck up against—a wholly unconscious resistance, for it is combined of indifference and absolute ignorance. If one of them speaks in an assembly and the assembly applauds, then he believes that he has conquered a comprehending world of his contemporaries. Nevertheless, not only does the world of his contemporaries remain unmoved, but even among the assembled audience the majority, when they have left the hall, scarcely remember what arguments have been put before them. How little interest men feel in universal questions! Most people do not even know that there are circumstances that might be changed. Everything that exists in the social and political line, they take for granted, like the weather and the seasons. It is easy enough to hear about those matters, but to take an active part in them, that is another thing. People have so many private interests which are wholly absorbing—their career, their business, their trade, their passions, their family cares, their bitter days and their joyous festivals—there is no room for speculations and Utopias and revolutions. Existing institutions have their competent directors regularly appointed to look after their management, or, in case of necessity, to bring about reform; but we do not have to get mixed up in it ... everything revolutionary is so inconvenient; it disturbs every kind of activity—Heaven protect us from it! You see, that is the state of mind of the compact masses. And so let the world reformers talk themselves hoarse. When they are talked out, it is burnt-out fireworks—nothing more!”
“Do you reckon yourself also among the ‘compact masses,’ Herr von Malhof?” asked Bruning.
“Certainly I do. Never in my life have I taken any interest in the so-called ‘questions.’ I have had far too much to do in making my existence as pleasant and enjoyable as possible. For me, the wisdom of life consists in making the little square metre of existence which we possess as comfortable as we can, in trying to embellish it, without at the same time staring at the thousand-mile stretches that lie beyond. And then, one thing more, my good friend: to battle against thousand-year-old institutions with addresses and volumes of poems, as your honored friend does, is like scratching away Chimborazo with a nail-file. As far as I could make out, Herr Helmer strikes at the belt-line of militarism with his aeronautic arguments—I could not repeat them—the things rebound from my memory like dry-peas from a wall. Just look at our military establishment at home. How does it stand there? Isn’t it just like a Chimborazo? All that glory, that prestige, that power—there is only one other power comparable to it—the Church. That is the reason the two stand by each other so firmly. And really are not all who have their habitations at the foot of these Chimborazos perfectly contented? Haven’t they planted there all their joy, their ambition, their fame, their ideas of virtue?... What is the good, then, of frightening them out of their comfortable security under the pretext that other and more comfortable conditions are to be created for coming generations? No, your young friend must not cherish any illusions; believe me, he will not....”