‘I must have been, pathologically speaking,’ replied Friederich Othmar. ‘But I have no recollection of it; I certainly never remember a time when I did not read of the state of Europe with interest: I think, on the contrary, there was never a time in which you took any interest in it.’
‘Europe is such a very small fraction of such an immeasurable whole!’
‘It is our fraction at least; and all we have,’ said the Baron; all the gist of the matter seemed to him to lie in that. ‘You would like to live in Venus, or journey to the rings of Saturn, but at present science limits us to Earth.’
‘Can you not persuade him to take any interest in mankind?’ he continued to Yseulte, as she approached them at that moment. He was about to leave Amyôt after one of his brief and necessary visits, and stood smoking a cigarette before his departure in the great central hall, with its dome painted by Primaticcio.
‘In mankind?’ she repeated with a smile. ‘That is very comprehensive, is it not? I am sure,’ she added with hesitation, for she was afraid of offending her husband, ‘he is very good to his own people, if you mean that?’
‘He does not mean that at all, my dear,’ said Othmar. ‘He means that I should be very eager to ruin some states and upraise others, that I should foment war and disunion, or uphold anarchy or absolutism, as either best served me, that I should free the hands of one and tie the hands of another; do not trouble your head about these matters, my child; let us go in the woods and look for primroses, which shall remind you of the green lanes of Faïel.’
Yseulte, whose interest was vaguely aroused, looked from one to another.
‘If you really can do so much as that,’ she said timidly, ‘I think I would do it if I were you; because surely you might always serve the right cause and help the weak people.’
Othmar smiled, well pleased.
‘My dear Baron, this is not the advocate that you wish to arouse. Remember Mephistopheles failed signally when he entered a cathedral.’