The Malady of the Century

by Max Simon Nordau

"Be a good boy now," Malvine broke in, "and leave uncle in peace and go back to the nursery. You shall have him again later on."

After more kisses and caresses Willy ran off, and Paul led his guest to the room prepared for him, where at last he left him to himself.

Wilhelm had visited Paul on his estate during the preceeding summer, but since then had only seen him in Berlin. The house on the Uhlenhorst was new to him, and he marveled at the solid sumptuousness that met the eye at every turn. The visitor's room was not less splendidly furnished than the smoking and breakfast rooms he had already seen, and when he looked about him at the great carved bedstead with its ample draperies, the silk damask-covered chairs, the thick rugs, the marble washstand, and the toilet table with its array of bottles and dishes of china, cut glass, and silver, he could not help feeling almost abashed. His friend Paul had become a very great gentleman apparently!

And so in point of fact he had. The Friesenmoor had proved itself a very gold mine, and in the district round about they calculated that it yielded a clear return of a hundred or a hundred and twenty thousand marks a year. Paul had long ago been in a position to make use of his right of purchase on the estate, and had acquired about two thousand acres of adjoining marsh lands beside, though at a considerably higher price, and was now the owner of a well-rounded estate of twelve thousand acres, the admiration and pride of the whole neighborhood. He had converted the cultivation of the marshland, which six years ago had been but a bold theory, into an established scientific fact, and his methods, the excellence of which was amply proved by his almost tropically luxuriant harvests and uninterruptedly increasing wealth, were assiduously imitated on all sides. Paul Haber was acknowledged far and wide to be the first authority on the management of marsh land. The government had long since taken note of his success and kept an eye upon his doings, and was furnished by the Landrath with regular accounts of his agricultural progress. Young men of the best county families contended for the privilege of being under him for a year's practical farming. Foreign governments sent professors, lecturers, and practical agriculturists to him, partly to inspect his arrangements, partly to study his methods under his personal supervision, in order to adopt them in their own countries. Paul was more than a landed proprietor, he was a kind of professor holding his unpretentious lecture in the open air or in the appropriately decorated smoking-room of the Priesenmoor house, always surrounded by a troop of eager and admiring listeners of various nationalities, and mostly of high rank.

Of course, under these circumstances there was no lack of outward marks of distinction. Two years before he had been promoted to a first lieutenancy of the Landwehr. A row of foreign decorations adorned his breast, and last year, when he was visited by the Minister for Agriculture, accompanied by the Landrath, the Kronen Order of the fourth class was added to the rest. Paul was on the District Committee and County Council, and if he was not deputy of the Landtag and member of the Reichstag, it was only because he considered all parliamentary work a barren expenditure of time and strength. He stood in high repute in the county, which was proved by his election to be the president of the Society for the Cultivation of Moors and Marshes, a society founded by his followers and admirers, and which counted among its members some of the most important landowners of the whole of Northern Germany.

These circumstances could not fail to react on Paul's character. He no longer tried to look as much as possible like a smart officer, but rather like a country gentleman of ancient lineage. The thick fair mustache had abandoned its enterprising upward curl, and now hung down straight and long. The model parting of the hair was in any case out of the question, a distinguished baldness having taken the place of the old luxuriance, and his figure had fulfilled all the promises of his youth. In his dress Paul still cultivated extreme elegance, only that it partook more of the bucolic now in style than of the drawing-room as in former days. He wore high patent leather boots with small silver spurs, well-fitting riding breeches, a gray coat with green facings and large buckhorn buttons, a blue-and-white spotted silk necktie tied in a loose knot with fluttering ends, an artistically crushed soft felt hat, and in his dog-skin gloved hand a small riding-whip with a chased gold head. With all its dandyism it was a model of good taste, and in no single detail smacked of the parvenu, and that for the very good reason that Paul was no parvenu, but a man who was conscious of having attained to a position which was his by nature and by right. He had never suffered from undue diffidence, and his success had naturally increased his sense of his own value, which, however, he did not display in any bumptious or aggressive manner as one who would force reluctant acknowledgment of his merits, but quietly and naturally, seeing that he received full and voluntary recognition from all sides. He believed in himself, and was quite right to do so, for everybody else believed in him too. He spoke with authority, for there was no one about him who did not hang upon his lips with respect, and mostly with admiration. He made assertions and gave his opinion with the assurance of superior knowledge, but he had a right to do so, for it always referred only to matters about which he knew, or was fully persuaded that he knew, more than most people. Even his wealth did not go to his head, but acted on him like a moderate amount of drink upon a man who can stand a great deal. He enjoyed to the full the comforts and amenities of life which his large income enabled him to procure, but he did it for his own pleasure, not for the sake of what others would think; for his own comfort, and not for show. He liked to keep good horses and dogs, an admirably appointed table and cellar, and a large staff of well-drilled servants. On the other hand, he avoided anything approaching to display, was never seen at races, went to no fashionable baths, gave no grand entertainments, nor had a box at either theatre or operahouse, belonged to no club, and never played high. His wife wore perhaps rather more jewelry and followed the newest Paris fashions a trifle more closely than was absolutely necessary at Friesenmoor or even the Uhlenhorst, but as she remained as simple and unaffected as before, nobody could think any the worse of her for this small inherited weakness.

Toward his own family Paul had behaved in a most exemplary manner, affording thereby the strongest proof that though he had risen he was no upstart. The numerous members of his family and the men who had married into it nearly all had to thank him for their advancement or actual support. Some were employed on his estate, others he had trained in his particular branch of agriculture, after which, and with his recommendation, they had found no difficulty in obtaining brilliant positions as stewards or lease-holders of estates, and two of his brothers had appointments on royal domains. He had, therefore, every right to self-congratulation, as having fulfilled all the duties of a model man and citizen far beyond what necessity demanded.

For Wilhelm, Paul still retained the affection and friendship of his early days, only that, unconsciously to himself, it had taken on a certain fatherly tone; although there was a difference of but one year between them, there was a touch of protecting consideration and pity about it, such as strong men feel toward a weaker and less perfectly developed creature.

The first day Paul left his friend to have a thorough rest, but the next morning early he knocked at his door and asked if he might come in.

"Certainly," was the answer, and opening the door at the same moment, Wilhelm appeared fully dressed and ready for inspection.