Villa Elsa / A Story of German Family Life

by Stuart Oliver Henry

The family were up in arms. Their Government had been questioned. Each member, with the exception of Fräulein, who was "at class," was bursting to talk about America. It had no army. Therefore it amounted to little. It had no higher education worthy of the name. It had only one institution that could claim to be called a university. It had no aristocracy. It was a country of low, lawless classes. These and similar sentences flew back at Kirtley, whose face reddened. The mask was being at last hurled off. What self-control, indeed, had the family before maintained, when they were so armed with displeasure concerning the United States! He would not have credited it. It was at least illuminating, if blinding. For what could be the excuse, provocation? Nothing that he had ever heard of. The two peoples had been so separate and distinct. The words of Anderson rushed into his mind. "The Germans can hate people they've never known, never seen. They hate on principle and without principle."

Knives and forks figured in the air, beer mugs were grabbed and banged down, napkins took refuge under the table as if in fright, to be indiscriminately dirtied under foot. The gulped down food, meeting the oncoming throaty expressions of irritability, created much alimentary confusion. Gard almost trembled. Here he had been for weeks dwelling in a friendly society, in an intimate relationship, without any realization of what ugly thoughts were secretly leveled at him in the form of a political unit. As an individual, he had been most welcome. As a citizen of the United States he was despised. The Herr vociferated:

"What is your country, tell me, what is your country? It is nichts, nichts. It is not a country. It is a ragout, a potpourri, a mess. We do not recognize such a country. It has no beginnings, no tradition, no unity of blood, no ideals——" He choked and the Frau flared forth while attempting to crack a nut between her teeth.

"The American people are the off-scourings of Europe. They were criminals, atheists, diseased people, failures, who were sent away from Europe. So they go and try to found a new race, a new nation. They try, but they fail of course...."

When his mother got out of breath, little Ernst began with a milder, more judicial air, though he seemed partly to have memorized official declarations.

"Don't you think, Herr Kirtley, it stands to reason that our reigning family, which is admitted to be honest and has practiced ruling for centuries, knows better how to govern a race than the always new and untried persons who keep taking the reins of government in a democracy? The Americans can never tell far ahead who is to rule. There are changes all the time. How can the citizen prepare confidently for the future? How can he plan long ahead as we do? I have always read that this is the reason things are so steady and stable in Germany and so uncertain and wabbling in America. This uncertainty hanging over a republic unsettles its population. You have panics, lynchings, graft. We are free of such scourges. Our Government is always the same unit and to be relied on. If new policies are begun, it is there to carry them through to their logical end, even if it takes a generation or longer. You have always new statesmen with new ideas. We no sooner learn to know of one of your politicians than he is dropped and we must read about another in control. How does that make for any well-considered and thoroughly demonstrated plans? Would it not be the natural result that the German people are completely contented and the American people are always discontented?"

Rudolph's excited pronouncements ran along a different line, interchanged with voluminous whiffs of tobacco.

"Under our Government, Herr Kirtley, the German flag is seen in all parts of the globe. And wherever it is seen, it is respected, feared. Who ever sees the American flag? Even I don't know what it looks like. It is not feared. It is only noticed out of voluntary courtesy. And a nation can't be really great without an army like ours. The army is the spine of the country. It makes a country a vertebrate. What would even Germany be without its army? Almost nothing. The army consolidates, trains, disciplines. It gives us health, good constitutions, industrious habits, exactness. It makes a nation superior because it fortifies human effort. In the constant changing of our regiments about to different sections of the Empire, our soldiers come to be well acquainted everywhere. They make friends and are at home in every direction. They learn to realize how great we are and this strengthens the German feeling and makes all parts of the nation one.

"Of course we have the only first-class army. All our General Staff has to do any day is to say the word and, as I have so often said, our army can go out and defeat the world. Our navy will soon be in a position to destroy England's. We are getting her trade routes, her mail routes. Our goods are now selling everywhere. It is not only because they are the best and the cheapest, but because our army and our navy stand behind them to make people know what is best for them. Every little German box of goods has a big gun behind it. Of course we don't need to use the gun—yet—because people are crying for our manufactures all over the world. If we had occupied your big and half-developed country in your place, we would have long ago been the only great State. There would have been no others. We would have annihilated them if they were not willing to become German provinces."

Rudi took a long pull at his cigarette, with his elbows outspread like the haughty wings of the Prussian eagles of war. Emitting a long streamer of smoke, he summed up the whole thing in a nutshell with a derisory—Pouf!