Kirtley still did not believe that this reached to America and Americans, for which topics, as already indicated, the Buchers had shown small curiosity in their intercourse with him, seldom mentioning the names. But his eyes were abruptly opened wide with astonishment and concealed indignation one evening at dinner.
It was a habit for the family, when nothing was pressing, to remain at table discussing this and that, nearly always providing the theme was German. He encouraged this because he could learn from the well-stocked information which the members possessed about Germany and the Germans, and for the further reason of conversational opportunities.
It may be best to try to reproduce the scene in outline as it occurred. The talk had fallen upon governments, nations, peoples—a general field of inquiry for which Kirtley had had some predilection at college. The vast superiority of the German Government had been again, as often before, so emphasized in Villa Elsa that he felt now that he ought to raise a question. Should this overweening assumption always pass unnoticed, unqualified?
It was partly because the foreigner avoided disputing with the Germans, who made discussion unpleasant by their acrid, dictatorial manners and drowning diapasons, that their arrogance had so rapidly grown out of bounds. They do not recognize courtesies in debate, fly off the handle, burst in with interruptions on the half-finished statements and sentences of others.
Besides, Kirtley had not yet fully learned that they have not the same understanding of things, not the same definitions for the same words. For instance, the Buchers insisted that the Germans had the most freedom of any nation. But their freedom meant something like the liberty allowed in a prison yard. Free press? Yes, it was to be found in Deutschland in its highest state, since it was always authoritative. And there authority meant liberty of opinion. Again, thought was the most free and liberal there, because, as it seemed, the German was free to think just as the Kaiser thought. Equity? Equity was only what the Teutons wanted, and therefore of the most desirable type. And so on.
Such differences were usually antipodal—diametrically opposed. The reason, Gard worked out, was that in America and other democratic lands the significance of such words sprang from the common people upward. In Germany such interpretations proceeded essentially from the reigning family downward. Discussions under such circumstances, instead of leading toward mutual understanding, breed acrimony. There is little room for shadings, amicable approachments, progress in the direction of reciprocal enlightenment.
It was a nest of blustering, pugnacious hornets which Kirtley poked up on the evening in question, by asking:
"How do you prove that the German Government is the best?"
The Herr, taking his knife from his mouth—the Teuton eats conspicuously with his knife—suddenly showed that he had evidently, in the presence of his American guest, long held himself in on this subject with ill-feelings that clamored to be let loose.
"Prove it? Prove it?" he hoarsely exclaimed. "It needs no proof. Everybody knows it. Could we have the greatest people without the best Government? Could we have the best education without the best Government? Why does everybody come to Germany to study? Why did you come? It's because these things are true. Did you ever hear of young Germans going elsewhere to universities? They do not need to. We have the best."