“God,” he said, “has blessed you.”
“How do you know?” asked Siebenhaar.
“God,” said the Emperor, “has preserved the Fatterland, through me.”
“On this island,” retorted Siebenhaar, “we are accustomed to talk sense. There would have been no need for God or anybody else to defend Fatterland if you had not so wantonly destroyed peaceful relations with other countries.”
The Emperor removed his helmet.
“What a relief!” he said. “No one has ever talked sensibly to me before. You don’t know how sick I am of being an Emperor with everybody assuming that I don’t wish to think of anything but my own dignity. I am not allowed to think or talk of anything else.”
“Has it ever occurred to you,” asked Siebenhaar, “that a dignity which requires over a million soldiers to maintain it is hardly worth it? Have you ever thought that the million soldiers are maintained not for your dignity, but because their housing, their feeding, their equipment are all exceedingly profitable to a few men?”
“I have often thought that,” replied the Emperor, “but I have never found a soul willing to discuss it with me. When I meet other Emperors the same dreadful thought haunts all of us, but none of us dare speak of it, for we are watched night and day, and what we are to say to each other is written by young men in the Government Offices.”
The Emperor began to cry.
“Four million men have been killed since the war began, and everybody says it is my fault. I didn’t make the war, I didn’t, indeed I didn’t. It was not in my power to make war, any more than it is in my power to stop it. Horrible things have been done by the soldiers.”