The privy councillor drank from his glass and continued, with deeply-moved voice:
"We also, we--the children of this nineteenth century--are born to have no leave of absence. The enormous tasks given us in science, in politics, in every department of human activity, claim from childhood up all our powers and consume them entirely. To arms! to arms! This is the unceasing cry which summons us also, whether our arms are the pen or the brush, the plough or the hammer, the compass or the lancet. And work--inexorable, imperious work--what does it care for the workman?--whether his temples are beating with fever, whether his brain is overwrought to insanity, or his limbs are trembling from exhaustion--work does not mind it. It rewards him with poverty, sickness, and suffering, and demands of the ill-treated, the oppressed, the labors of Hercules. Yes, my friends, we also are plebeians in the service of work as those Roman plebeians in the service of war, and we can complain with them and say, 'sine missione nascimur."
"And yet, I asked myself, how is it possible that we, weaklings and degenerate offspring as we are, can accomplish deeds by the side of which those of Hercules and other heroes appear like the play of pigmies? That our time, so often reproached on account of the prevailing laxity and indifference, nevertheless is like a parturient mountain, which produces--not a ridiculous mouse, but snorting steam-engines, gigantic works of industry and triumphs of inventive genius of every kind? It is possible only by the complete change which has taken place in the relative position of men. Then, work and conflict were in the hands of a few heroes, while the masses were following in idleness and laziness with loud cries. Now the individual, however great he may be, counts for little; the whole strength of our day lies in the masses, which are pressing forward in close columns, slowly but irresistibly, in the path of progress. This is not yet clearly seen by many. Rulers, princes, and princes' servants, who have a dim apprehension of the matter, would like to bring back the olden times for the sake of their brutal selfishness and their frivolous vanity--the times when the individual was everything and the masses nothing; but it is all in vain. The army of progress, endowed with the death-defying instinct of the migratory lemur, marches on in long, unnumbered lines, shoulder to shoulder, each man stepping in the footsteps of the man before him, and when here and there a vacant space occurs the lines are closed up again in an instant.
"And this thought, my friends, which I tried to see clearly before my mind's eye, had something marvellously soothing for me. I thought, what does it matter whether you break down to-day or to-morrow? Behind you follows a younger and stronger soldier who will at once step over you, fill your place, and accomplish with the very arms which fall from your releasing grasp greater things than you could ever have done."
As he said these words, the privy councillor pressed his son-in-law's hand; but Sophie, who had long struggled with her tears, threw herself sobbing in her father's arms.
"No, no, my child," said her father, stroking her soft hair lovingly. "You must not cry; I wanted to prove to you, and to you all, that we must not weep and wail, but rejoice at it, that we are invincible and immortal in others and through others. Yes, it is a beautiful and a true saying, which I read to-day in Freiligrath's Confession of Faith: 'On the tree of mankind blossom blooms by blossom.' I see all around me budding and blooming; a whole spring of mankind in miniature. How long will it be before these buds and blossoms will change into glorious flowers, and ripen to luscious fruit? Will I live to see it? I wish to do so, I hope so; but even if it should not be so--if I should not be permitted to see your children at my knee--well, then, you dear ones, sorrow must follow joy as joy follows sorrow; where blossom is to crowd upon blossom, there the dry wood must be cut out and thrown into the oven; and if we must part, we had better part, if not cheerfully, at least bravely."
While the privy councillor had been speaking, a dull sound of steps and the confused noise of suppressed voices had been heard before the windows in the street. Then all had been silent again; and as the privy councillor said his last words there arose suddenly, in the magnificent tones of an immense chorus of men's voices, gentle as the spring breezes, and yet mighty as a thunderstorm, the song:
"It is decreed in God's own council
That thou must part
From all that's dearest to the heart;
Altho' in all this world the hardest is
To human heart
From those we love for e'er to part!"
Those in the room were startled as if a voice from on high were speaking to them. Sophie leaned sobbing on her father's breast; the eyes of the men were brimful of tears; Marguerite even, although she did not understand a word, was yet so excited that she pressed her handkerchief to her face and wept aloud.
Then all rose and went to the bay-window. Below, in the very wide street, and forming a large semicircle marked out by bright lamps, stood the singers--members of the Mechanics' Club, which the privy councillor had founded years ago, and whose president Franz had been during the last weeks. Further out an immense multitude, head to head--men and women, citizens, students, poor people--all pell-mell, silent, motionless, as in a church.