“Germany will rise as one man if she’s told to,” he said, “for that is what her unity and her discipline mean. She is patient and peaceful, but she is obedient.”
He pointed northwards.
“It is from there, from Prussia, from Berlin,” he said, “that the word will come, if they who rule and govern us, and in whose hands are all organisation and equipment, tell us that our national existence compels us to fight. They rule. The Prussians rule; there is no doubt of that. From Germany have come the arts, the sciences, the philosophies of the world, and not from there. But they guard our national life. It is they who watch by the Rhine for us, patient and awake. Should they beckon us one night, on some peaceful August night like this, when all seems so tranquil, so secure, we shall go. The silent beckoning finger will be obeyed from one end of the land to the other, from Poland on the east to France on the west.”
He turned away quickly.
“It does not bear thinking of,” he said; “and yet there are many, oh, so many, who night and day concern themselves with nothing else. Let us be English 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 the horizon line of the stale, weary old earth and turns it into rosy gold and heals its troubles and its weariness. Schon, Schon!”
He stood for a moment bareheaded to the breeze, and made a great florid salutation to the sun, now only half-disk above the horizon.
“There! I have said my evensong,” he remarked, “like a good German, who always and always is ridiculous to the whole world, except those who are German 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 the other hand, perhaps, fingering a revolver. How unreal it must seem to you, how affected, and yet how, in truth, you miss it all. Scratch a Russian, they say, and you find a Tartar; but scratch a German and you find two things—a sentimentalist and a soldier. Lieber Gott! No, I will say, Good God! I am English again, and if you scratch me you will find a golf ball.”
He took Michael’s arm again.
“Well, we’ve spent one day together,” he said, “and now we know something of who we are. I put this day in the bank; it’s mine or yours or both of ours. I won’t tell you how I’ve enjoyed it, or you will say that I have enjoyed it because I have talked almost all the time. But since it’s the sentimental hour I will tell you that you mistake. I have enjoyed it because I believe I have found a friend.”