"What fancy have you taken into your head now?" said Edwin, still absorbed in his newspaper.
Balder had limped up to Franzelius and grasped his hand. "I was going to ask you, Reinhold," he said in an undertone, "to come some day in the morning; you will then find me alone, and I should like to say something about your last essay—"
The other turned away. "No," he muttered, "it's better so, wiser to put an end to this once for all. I'm glad Edwin is here too. I wanted to say it before, but you were so absorbed in the game: I shall take leave of you to-day—for an indefinite time—"
"Fools call it forever," quoted Mohr. "What devil has taken possession of you, Caius Franzelius? Do you want to found a colony of workmen among the red-skins on the Schultze—Delitz'schen principles? Or are you going to the Salt Lake of Utah, to disgust the Mormons with their immortality! Or—stop, now I have it—he can't endure the sight of a man who drinks Rhine wine, while the camels in the desert of Sahara often cannot get even muddy water."
The printer seemed about to make some angry reply. Edwin anticipated him.
"You don't know what you are doing," said he. "If you part from old friends, you must have some good reasons for doing so, for they are wares that are not to be bought in every market. It would be kinder, Franzel, to inform us of these reasons. Who knows whether they're so well grounded, as you imagine."
"I thank you, Edwin," replied the other in a faltering voice. "I'm glad it's not a matter of entire indifference to you whether or not our intercourse is given up, little pleasure as it has afforded during the last few weeks. As for my reasons—"
"I'm quite ready to forsake this locality, if unrestrained intercourse is desired," said Mohr quietly, rising.
"There's nothing personal to be said," replied the gloomy visitor. "The fact that we do not understand each other—unpleasant as it often is to be the butt of your frivolous jests—could not induce me to remain away from the 'tun' entirely. The matter is far more serious; to tell the whole story in a few words: I've decided to publish a newspaper, which is to acknowledge and defend my principles more plainly and openly than my fugitive sheets have hitherto done. It is to appear twice a week under the name of: 'The Tribune of the People.' I thank you for the nick-name, Mohr, which I have now made a title of honor. The prospectus will break with the last remnants of superstition and traditional delusions, and as the rich have good reasons for preserving these traditions, since they stir up the water in which they want to fish, it will appeal expressly to the poor and miserable. I have recognized this as my life task, for which I am ready to make every sacrifice—even the hardest."
As he uttered these words he looked at Balder, but instantly averted his eyes and pretended to be searching for his cap.
The brothers were silent, but Mohr went up to him, laid both hands on his shoulders, and said: "Franzel, although you don't like me, you must allow me before these witnesses to declare my respect for you. I envy you such a life task, although I consider it perfect folly. At least change the title. Your readers will hardly be sufficiently well versed in Roman history, to distinguish the difference between tribune and tribunal. Besides, why should we lose the pleasure of your society on that account? I will even offer to be a coworker: in case you, as I hope, issue a feuilleton, I should not be disinclined to write a few brilliant aphorisms—"
"Cease this jesting!" Edwin indignantly interrupted. "Franzel, what does this mean? Because you're going to establish a newspaper, must we clasp hands in an eternal farewell? You may do what you cannot leave undone. Are we our brother's keeper? Or have we hitherto found fault with all your sayings, to which we could not assent?"
"No," replied the printer, as he thrust his huge hands into his pockets. "But that's the very reason; you must be as safe in the future as you have been in the past, so far as it depends upon me. Unfortunately, I'm only too well aware that we shall no longer agree as well on many subjects, as we have done hitherto. But I'm determined to burn my ships; there shall be no more evasions, no half-way measures. The people at the helm cannot endure them. There will be trouble, they will use their usual coarse means—arrests, searching of houses, seizure of papers, watching for conspirators. I do not want to subject you—for I go nowhere else so often—"
"They can seal up all my papers," said Mohr dryly. "The mediocrity of talent, to which they all bear culpable witness, is at least not dangerous to the state. On the contrary, the less genius one possesses, the more useful he is as a tax-paying individual, a sheep in the flock."
Franzelius seized his cap.
"You will do us no harm," said Balder. "Let us take the risk. What could they find here? As I know Edwin—"
"I too would see them enter with the greatest composure," observed Edwin smiling. "No, Franzel, your fears are visionary so far as we are concerned. Can you not, in case of necessity, even swear that I have no tendencies toward socialism, but on the contrary am an incorrigible aristocrat, for which you have often reproached me?"
"And if they question you about your catechism, will you deny it? Will you deny that our principles are the same, and that we only differ in opinion as to whether the times are yet fully ripe for them? You are silent; now you see—"
"Scientific convictions are somewhat different from public speaking, and the police, thank God, no longer meddle with the freedom of thought of a private tutor of philosophy. But since we have come to this point—once more and, as it seems, for the last time: do you take me for a coward, Franzel?"
"You! How can you even—"
"Or do you not believe that I would be drawn and quartered, rather than deny my convictions? Well then, if you think me a man of whose friendship you have no cause to be ashamed, let me tell you this: what you are about to do, appears to me little more judicious, than if you wanted to set before an infant that had not yet cut its teeth, a roast chicken instead of its mother's milk or some of Liebig's preparations, with which it had hitherto appeased its hunger. If any one attempted to do that to my child, I should certainly forbid him the house, or at least endeavor to make his premature diet harmless."
"You talk so, because you don't know the people," Franzelius burst forth, "They are no longer children, their teeth are cut, and their eyes open; where this is not the case, we will help them, offer hard food that they may cut their teeth on it, instead of cooking the traditional children's porridge, perpetually lulling them to sleep with baby talk, when they are grown men, and the leading strings of guardians—"
"Don't get angry unnecessarily!" Edwin interrupted. "Who of us wishes to check the natural growth of the mind, instead of aiding it according to its powers? But what you have in view, is a forced, premature culture, your demagogical enthusiasm is a hot house, and that is why I repeat: make no useless sacrifices, which must not only ruin yourself, but many of your foster children. You cannot carve an Apollo from every block of wood; not every one who ties on a leather apron and earns his bread by the sweat of his brow, will be able to grasp the idea of the fall of man which a follower of Kant or Spinoza can form. Why, when there are so many crying wants of a coarser nature to be satisfied, do you desire to create needs for our less gifted brothers? Why show them what they lack, when, after they have with difficulty learned to feel their needs, you can only give them such very doubtful assistance? You aim to produce an artificial thirst, and then all you can offer them to assuage it, is a pear; for the fountains that flow for us, will, as matters now appear, long remain sealed to them."
"Edwin is right!" exclaimed Mohr, speaking for the first time without his sarcastic curl of the lip. "The people are asleep, dreaming all sorts of things, and Franzelius Gracchus goes about like Macbeth, and murders sleep. I've never understood how anybody can be so inhuman as to rouse a person who is slumbering. But that's the preaching of these humanitarians! You're just as selfish as the priests. For the sake of making the people see, you drum them out of bed at three o'clock in the morning."
"And suppose they are grateful to us for it? Suppose a nightmare has oppressed or bad dreams tormented them?" exclaimed the printer vehemently. "And that's just the case with the people. Their sleep under the night cap