The merchant slowly looked from his sister to Anton's honest face, which was glowing with youthful zeal, and replied, "Be it so, then. If I receive the letters I expect, you will accompany me to-morrow to the frontier; and now good-night."
The following morning, Anton, who had thrown himself ready dressed on the bed, was awakened by a slight knock. "The letters are come, sir." And, hurrying into the office, he found the principal and Mr. Jordan already there, engaged in earnest conversation, which the former merely interrupted for a moment by the words "We go." Never had Anton knocked at so many doors, run so quickly up and down stairs, and so heartily shaken the hands of his colleagues, as in the course of the next hour. As he hurried along the dim corridor, he heard a slight rustling. Sabine stepped toward him and seized hold of his hand. "Wohlfart, protect my brother." Anton promised, with inexpressible readiness, to do so; felt for his loaded pistols, a present from Mr. Fink, and jumped into the railway carriage with the most blissful feelings a youthful hero could possibly have. He was bent on adventure, proud of the confidence of his principal, and exalted to the utmost by the tender relation into which he had entered with the divinity of the firm. He was indeed happy.
The engine puffed and snorted across the wide plain like a horse from Beelzebub's stables. There were soldiers in all the carriages—bayonets and helmets shining every where; at all the stations, crowds of curious inquirers, hasty questions and answers, fearful rumors, and marvelous facts. Anton was glad when they left the railroad and the soldiers, and posted on to the frontier in a light carriage: The high road was quiet, less frequented indeed than usual, but when they drew near the border they repeatedly met small detachments of military. The merchant did not say any thing to Anton about the business in hand, but spoke with much animation on every other subject, and treated his traveling companion with confidential cordiality. Only he showed an aversion to Anton's pistols, which a little damped the latter's martial ardor; for when, at the second station, he carefully drew them out of his pocket to examine their condition, Mr. Schröter pointed toward their brown muzzles, saying, "I do not think we shall succeed in getting back our goods by dint of pocket pistols. Are they loaded?"
Anton bowed assent, adding, with a last remnant of martial vanity, "They are at full cock."
"Really!" said the principal, seriously, taking them out of Anton's pocket, and then calling to the postillion to hold his horses, he coolly shot off both barrels, remarking good-naturedly as he returned the pistols to their owner, "It is better to confine ourselves to our accustomed weapons: we are men of peace, and only want our own property restored to us. If we can not succeed in convincing others of our rights, there is no help for it. Plenty of powder will be shot away to no purpose—plenty of efforts without result, and expenditure which only tends to impoverish. There is no race so little qualified to make progress, and to gain civilization and culture in exchange for capital, as the Slavonic. All that those people yonder have in their idleness acquired by the oppression of the ignorant masses they waste in foolish diversions. With us, only a few of the specially privileged classes act thus, and the nation can bear with it if necessary; but there, the privileged classes claim to represent the people. As if nobles and mere bondsmen could ever form a state! They have no more capacity for it than that flight of sparrows on the hedge. The worst of it is that we must pay for their luckless attempt."
"They have no middle class," rejoined Anton, proudly.
"In other words, they have no culture," continued the merchant; "and it is remarkable how powerless they are to generate the class which represents civilization and progress, and exalts an aggregate of individual laborers into a state."
"In the town before us, however," suggested Anton, "there is Conrad Gaultier, and the house of the three Hildebrands in Galicia as well."
"Worthy people," agreed the merchant, "but they are all merely settlers, and the honorable burgher-class feeling has no root here, and seldom goes down to a second generation. What is here called a city is a mere shadow of ours, and its citizens have hardly any of those qualities which with us characterize commercial men—the first class in the state."
"The first?" said Anton, doubtingly.