"Self-defence," he repeated, and then he laughed bitterly. "The art of music progresses. Wagner should be glad that he is dead."
"Wagner? Who is Wagner?" inquired Mr. Ryan.
"No one, no one!" replied Von Barwig, shaking his head, "he did not belong to the Union——"
"Then he's a scab," remarked Mr. Ryan.
Von Barwig looked at him and burst out laughing, the laughter of despair. Pinac and Fico looked at each other. Von Barwig's laugh grated harshly on their ears; they did not like to see their beloved friend act in that manner. Pinac touched him gently on the arm and looked appealingly at him. Von Barwig nodded, then rising from his chair, with his habitual gentleness, suggested that the interview was at an end. Messrs. Schwarz and Ryan bowed themselves out and the four friends were left there alone with their misery.
Von Barwig turned to his friends. It was for them that his heart bled, for they had resigned their positions at his request. For the first time since their friendship he had been the cause of misfortune coming to them. He felt it more than all the disappointments that he had experienced during his stay in America. "I am accursed," he thought, "doomed always to disappointments, and I am now a curse to others, to those I love." He tried to tell them how grieved he was at their misfortune, but they would not allow him to apologise, so he sat down in his old armchair and tried to smoke, but he could not. His heart was as heavy as lead. They saw this and they felt for him; they felt his sufferings more than they did their own.
"We have resign from the café, yes, but we are glad, damn glad," said Pinac, lying like a true Gallic gentleman. "Von Barwig, I tell you we are deuced damn glad," he repeated with emphasis.
Von Barwig silently shook his hand and smiled.
"I said to hell with the café—I say it now!" ejaculated Fico. "The café to hell, and many of him!"
"My beautiful 'cello is wasted in that food hole," said Poons to Von Barwig in German, then he laughed and told him a funny story that he had read that day in the Fliegende Blätter. He did his best to make the old man laugh with him, but Von Barwig only smiled sadly. He did not speak; his heart was too heavy.