‘Why, my dear sir, did you not know that is the name the Berliner wits have given to the International Association for the care and nursing of wounded soldiers?’
Two of the greatest lawyers in the world stand close beside me deep in conversation. Every ten minutes, a fresh word is added to a paragraph for the future North German penal code. Braun-Wiesbaden approaches and joins the conclave, which is just discussing that much vexed question, the abolition of capital punishment.
‘You may make your minds easy, gentlemen, and settle to abolish capital punishment,’ he said.
‘Indeed! Have you, then, found a surrogate?’
‘I have.’
‘Well?’ ask the expectant lawyers with unbelieving curiosity.
‘Why, you have only to send the delinquents to the “North German Commission for the better Regulation of Trade”—that will settle them!’
But I hear Bismarck’s voice again close behind me. ‘Let us drink to the welfare of the old blue red and gold colours of the Hannovera of Göttingen!’ he called out to his old fellow-student, the Burgomaster Fromme of Lüneburg. And the two ‘old collegians,’ while emptying their glasses of sparkling Rhine wine, chat over the pleasant days of their youth.
Even as far back as that time, whenever Bismarck was asked what he was studying, his answer invariably was: ‘Diplomacy.’ He was then a very slight overgrown young student, with a fair sprouting moustache—known everywhere by his magnificent Newfoundland dog, and much feared on account of his skill with the sword, having, while still an undergraduate, come off victor in several duels with members of opposition corps; though the scar on his left cheek bears testimony to the uncertainty attending the fate of even the most skilful of fencers. The antagonist who inflicted this ‘quart’ now enjoys the confidence of a great part of the North German population, so much so, that he was elected representative for the Diet.
When he was first presented to Bismarck, the latter, pointing to the scar, asked: ‘Are you the one?’