"Before I proceed further, will you kindly allow me to give you a slight description of my views, socially and morally, and of the situation in which I and my family are placed? Imagine, I beg of you, that this is necessary for some unimportant purpose, that I must speak and you must listen, although the one had rather be silent and the other had rather not hear." The General gave Herr Schmidt no time to deny him the desired permission, but continued, without pausing:
"I am descended from a very old family, and can trace my descent authentically through many generations, though we appear never to have been rich, and for the last two centuries must reckon ourselves as belonging to the poorer, not to say to the poor nobility. It is no doubt a consequence of this poverty that the male descendants of the family, which was never very widespread, and has often depended only on one life, have almost without exception passed their lives at Court, and in attendance on their princes, particularly the military ones, and even the women have often devoted themselves to the service of their princesses. I consider it again as a result of this consequence, that fidelity to their liege lords, or, to express it in modern language, devotion to the royal family, the feeling of duty, and the obligation of showing themselves grateful for favours received, have been handed down and held from generation to generation in my family as their dearest, and often as their only heritage; the almost countless names of the Werbens in the annals of war and in the army lists, the names of the many who have fallen honourably and nobly before the enemy, are a proof of this.
"And as it usually happens in old families that the children who have been brought up by their parents in the same ideas in which the latter were brought up by their parents, and not only in the same ideas, but also in the same habits, morally, socially, and professionally, resemble their parents, both bodily and mentally, more than is the case under other circumstances, and this resemblance is at first looked upon as a curiosity, and then, after the fashion of mankind, as an advantage, so it has been with us. I know that this family pride is in the eyes of others laughable, if not wrong. I have no intention of justifying it; I have, as I told you at first, no other object than to give you an insight into the innermost life and habits of the family from which I descend, and thus to facilitate the explanation of certain peculiarities of character and of the rule by which I regulate and have regulated what I do or leave undone in all cases, as, for example, in the following:
"One of my two sisters--there are three of us--married to a rich landed proprietor, had the misfortune to have been mistaken in her choice, and committed the fault of bearing her unhappiness unworthily, and even of making it an excuse for a passion which she conceived for a man whom she had met abroad, and who was wanting, not only in noble birth, but also in all those virtues and qualities which I require in every man whom I am to respect. Death brought about the separation to which my brother-in-law had refused his consent. His large property was to descend to my children. After long resistance and deep consideration, in order not to embitter the unhappy man's dying hours, I accepted the half for my children, under the same conditions which were imposed upon my sister for the possession of the other half, namely, that the inheritance should pass from her if she ever made a marriage contrary to the traditions of our family; I mean a marriage with a man not of noble birth. I may mention, by-the-way, that I myself had and have no resources but my pay, with the exception of what, to modern ideas, is a very small sum which I have saved out of that pay in the course of years. Even that small portion I no longer possess. My son has not inherited my economical habits; perhaps the spirit of the times, which is so unfavourable to the moderation which was recommended to us old people as the highest virtue is in fault. Perhaps I myself made a mistake when I allowed him to enter a regiment in which, as matters stand now, all the officers should be rich men; enough that my son has incurred debts which I have paid as long as it was in my power. For the reasons before mentioned, I can do this no longer, and I have unfortunately cause to suspect that my son's position is a very precarious one if he loses the revenues of the inheritance on which he entered a year and a half ago. There would result for him from a marriage contrary to the habits of his rank and the traditions of his family, other more or less great worldly disadvantages which I will pass over, as my intention is only to point out to you in a general way our moral and financial situation; to suggest the sensations with which I read that letter; and lastly, to denote the course of the conversation which I had last night with my son immediately after the receipt of the letter, and which led to the result which I will now, with your permission, communicate to you."
"I am sorry to be obliged to interrupt you, General," said Uncle Ernst. "If you thought it right to justify beforehand the result of your considerations, whatever it may be, I think I may reasonably claim for myself the same favour. I might possibly be suspected of having formed my resolution consequently upon yours. The possibility of this suspicion would be unbearable to me; I shall avoid it if you will allow me to state my circumstances as clearly as you have just done yours; the conclusion will follow naturally."
"I cannot refuse," said the General; "though I should have wished that you would allow me to add the few important words which I still have to say. I have a conviction that it would be better for all parties."
"I must insist, however, on my request," said Uncle Ernst. The General had again fixed his clear, steady glance on his opponent. His plans were crossed. "I ought to have proceeded more rapidly," said he to himself, "now I shall be forced to take the defensive, and the attack will apparently be hot enough."
"Pray proceed," he said, leaning back in his chair. Uncle Ernst did not answer immediately; when the General was announced, he had determined to be calm; and while the General was speaking he had constantly repeated this determination. He knew that he should have remained so if he had found the haughty aristocrat whom he expected, if the aristocrat had from the first explained to him with cold scorn, or with brutal warmth, that a union between his son and a girl of low birth was not to be thought of, and that he must request the father in future to keep his daughter under better control, if he wished to avoid scandal, and more to the same effect. But he had been deceived in his expectations. All that the man brought forward were only circumstances, explanations, insulting enough in reality, but the manner was courteous, was meant to be courteous, and he for his part was forced to swallow and choke down these polite insults with no less politeness. He was really half choked. And it was just this that threatened to deprive the passionate man of the last remains of his calm, that forced him to be silent for a few minutes longer, till he had so far subdued his raging heart, that he could at least preserve outward composure, and not betray himself by his first words. And now for it!
"I have no family history to relate, even briefly, General. In the ordinary sense of the word, I have no family to speak of at all; I do not even know who my grandfather was. My father never spoke of him; he appears to have had no reason to be proud of his father. My father was proud, but only of himself, of his herculean strength, of his untiring energy, of his dauntless courage. My father was the owner of a river boat: if an opportunity occurred at the bursting of a dyke to risk his life for that of others, or in the times of the French War to carry a dangerous message, or to undertake anything which no one else would undertake, my father did it, and carried it out. He was as passionate as he was proud. When the superintendent of dykes, a man of high rank, on one occasion had a quarrel with him and ventured to lay his hand upon him, my father knocked him down on the spot, and paid for his violence by a year's imprisonment.
"It seems that even people of no family have a right to talk of hereditary virtues and vices. My brother, the father of my nephew, who has the honour to be known to General von Werben, appeared to have inherited only the virtues; an intelligent, prudent, brave man, who left his home early, in order to seek his fortunes in the wide world, and died many years ago in the exercise of his calling as captain of a mail steamer at Hamburg. I, on the contrary, had inherited, besides the few advantages of which my father could boast, nearly all his weaknesses; I was proud, arrogant, haughty, and passionate, like him. I have never been able to understand how men could endure any restraint which they were able to throw off, I mean an unjust restraint, which does not necessarily result from the nature of man, such as sickness or death, or from the nature of society, such as law and order, but which one set of men have exercised over another, from arbitrariness, avarice or hard-heartedness, and which the others have borne out of stupidity, denseness or cowardice. I have therefore always instinctively hated the rule of kings and princes as an institution which only suits a people that is yet in its infancy, or a worn-out and aged people, but which must be rejected with horror by a strong nation, conscious of its strength; and I have especially hated the nobility as the refuse and chips of the material from which the idol is made; and I have hated all institutions which in principle tend towards royalty and nobility. To endure as little as possible of these restraints, to place myself in a position in which I could live according to my convictions, has been, as long as I can remember, the most absorbing passion of my mind. That I have not remained as ignorant as I came out of the village school, that I have worked my way up from my position as cabin-boy and steersman to be a man of property, I may thank that passion. It ran a little wild at first, before reason came to its aid and showed it ends to which it could attain, instead of the unattainable ones for which it struggled in its first heat; for instance, a free commonwealth, a republic of equal men, not enslaved or dishonoured by the exemptions or privileges of any one man." Uncle Ernst paused; he must once more conquer the stream that rushed roaring and raging from his heart to his brain. He must remain calm, now especially. Outside the rain was falling, a dull twilight reigned in the room. The General sat, his head resting on his hand, sunk in thought. There could only be a question now of an honourable retreat; the how would settle itself.