“If I were a king,” repeated Chlodwig thoughtfully. “Many a man has imagined to himself that contingency. Si j’étais roi is the title of an opera.—If I were a king, then I should have lived in other conditions, should have had another kind of education, inherited other instincts.... The love of soldiering would be inherent in my blood—the first king was a victorious soldier;—the concept ‘Majesty,’ mounting from the humbly bowing masses, would have risen to my head, stinging and bewitching me, like the bubbling spirits rising in champagne-cups.... My breast would be swelled with the consciousness of power. I should probably not let it be noticed, and I should take pains to seem affable and natural. I should be well aware that my power was to a certain degree limited in modern, constitutional, and enlightened times, and, therefore, I should instinctively fear what threatens it still more: revolutionary ideas and activities; and likewise should instinctively prize all that protected it: my faithful nobles, my loyal army; on the whole, the conservative spirit. I should simply know nothing of the struggles and problems and aims of the progressive spirit. ‘Liberal,’ in the court-jargon, is synonymous with ‘suspicious,’ and ‘radical’; signifying a will-power, which goes to the very root of things, is synonymous with ‘criminal.’ I should not have had much experience of the sorrows of the poor and wretched; that would be to me as remote and natural as a pool in a morass or the débris of a quarry. My consolation would be that the poor people would still hope for compensation beyond the grave, and in order to strengthen them in this hope, I should set them an example of piety—should perhaps actually be pious, through the necessity slumbering in every better soul of being occasionally humble. As I am one who tries to do right, and should be the same if I were a king, I should fulfill scrupulously my really difficult duties. I should work with zeal and industry. For recreation and pleasure, I should go hunting. Indeed, this sport would involve a certain amount of ambition, for I should be well aware of the respectful interest with which the world would chronicle every successful shot of my rifle and be ready to erect a monument in memory of my thousandth stag. I should....”
“Stop!” cried the prince; “you are unfair!”
“Quite possibly. I have been generalizing, and in doing so, one cannot be fair. And above all, Your Royal Highness, I regret having somewhat failed in due tact. I should not have spoken to a king’s son as I have. But because I know that you are quite different from the others....”
“But you are also unfair to those others, Herr Helmer. Don’t you believe that the spirit of the age also makes its way through the seams of palaces and throne-rooms? That ‘lofty thinking’ and free thinking are also carried on under crowns? Look at those little German courts the princes of which cherish a cult for art or promote the investigations and activities of such men as, for example, Ernst Haeckel! And this ‘lofty thought’ for which you seem especially enthusiastic, ‘universal peace’: don’t you see that the very emperor who at his first accession to the throne was expected by the world to hanker after military laurels, has for long decades done everything he could to avoid war?”
“I recognize that,” answered Helmer; “but the question means more than merely not waging war; it means putting down war.”
“I call your attention to this: I just remarked the Emperor has done what he could. The power and will of a great ruler stand behind mighty barriers and walls. His court, his army, his environment, his whole inheritance of traditional principles and the institutions which he is placed there to preserve—all these things combine together to hamper the accomplishment of his aspirations. The portrait that you have just painted of a king does not apply any longer to our contemporary rulers in their inmost reality—yet their environment combines to make them such. Now, see here, my dear poet, you were complaining that they knew nothing of the sorrows of the people; you are right: the classes are too widely separated; they know nothing of each other. So it is with the princes: those that do not live in association with them know but little about them and form false notions; they conceive them to be of the ‘demigod’ or ‘Serenissimus’ type, but in truth they are exactly like other men; differing from one another, good and bad, stupid and clever, insignificant and talented. But they do have one actual advantage: they control more power and influence than ordinary mortals, and for that reason it would be a good thing if princes were to come forward as champions of the highest aspirations of the time.”
“But suppose—my objection may, perhaps, again sound somewhat tactless—but suppose these aspirations include what Kant once laid down as a postulate—that monarchies are doomed to make way for a republican régime....”
“This will not be accomplished overnight.”
“No; and then I grant you that the question is not whether the régime ought to change. Governmental forms are, after all, only forms—the content is the important thing. What must change, what must grow, is the spirit, and certainly in all strata. The general level of all mankind must rise. I myself should not like to see the control of government put into the hands of the masses as they are to-day.”
The prince made a somewhat impatient gesture. “I beg of you, Herr Helmer, let us not deal in generalities. Yesterday, I heard a wonderfully beautiful litany of them proceed from your lips; now I should like something positive, concrete. For that reason, I put my question to you: What would you do if you were a king? Do—work at—that is the gist of the matter. And a king can do things, as long as Kant’s wish is not as yet fulfilled—because he has much power; not unlimited power, of course. Put to yourself this case: that you—you yourself, no one else, you with all your experiences, your knowledge, your poetic accomplishment—were suddenly made a powerful king.... One can imagine one’s self in another position—I know it from experience. I have often asked myself, if I were a common soldier, if I were a poor proletarian, how should I feel, what should I try to do in order to win a little happiness and freedom for myself and my fellows, or to give vent to my wrath over the unfairness under which we sigh and drudge.... Perhaps you do not know, Helmer, that I take a passionate interest in social problems; that often, just as others sneak into gambling-hells or other places of forbidden pleasure, I have slipped into assemblies where the Socialists....”