HEROES.
All over Germany the corn stood high in the fields, ripe for the sickle. Then suddenly the threatening shadow of war rose in the west like a black thundercloud in the blue summer sky, filling the harvest gatherers with anxious forebodings. For fourteen days the people waited in painful suspense, not knowing whether to take up the sword or the scythe. Then the cry of destiny came crashing through the country, terrifying and relieving at the same time: "The French have declared War!"
That was on July 15, 1870, on a Friday. Late in the afternoon the dismal news was spread in Berlin that the French ambassador at Ems had insulted the king, who had retired to the capital, and that a combat with the arrogant neighbors on the Rhine was inevitable. Before night the street Unter den Linden, from the Brandenburger Thor to the Schlossbrucke, was packed with men overflowing with intense excitement. Without any preconceived arrangement, all the inhabitants decorated their windows with banners and lights, and the streets assumed the festal appearance of rejoicings over a victory. The crowd looked upon this spectacle not as an undecided beginning, but a glorious conclusion. There was no fear in any face, no question as to the future in any eye, but the certainty of triumph in all; as if they had seen the last page turned in the book of fate, with victory and its glorious results written thereon.
Toward nine o'clock a thunderbolt broke over the Brandenburger Thor, and rolled like the breaking of a wave to the other end of the street. The king had left the Potsdam railway station a quarter of an hour ago, and the crowd greeted him with a tremendous shout as his carriage appeared. The people wished by this acclamation, springing from the depths of their hearts, to show their ruler that they were prepared to follow him even to death. But the king was so much absorbed in thought that he scarcely seemed to hear or notice the enthusiasm of the crowd. He saluted and bowed to right and left as a prince is accustomed to do from his childhood, but it was a mechanical action of the body, and his mind had little part in it. His eyes were not looking at the sea of uncovered heads, but seemed fixed, under knitted brows, on the distance, as if they endeavored to decipher there some indistinct, shadowy form. Did the king perceive in this moment the responsibility of one human being to carry such a load? Did he wish in his innermost heart that he might share the weight of the decision with others—the representatives of the people—and not alone be forced to throw the dice deciding the life or death of hundreds and thousands? Who can say? At all events the powerful features of the king's face betrayed no such uneasy doubt—only a deep earnestness and an immovable steadiness of expression. Belief in the divine right of his kingship gave him power over the minds of men, and he took his duties on him in this hour without weakness or failing, grasping with his human hand the obscure spiritual web of man's destiny, and with his limited intelligence trying to unravel the dark threads here and there, on which hung the healing and destruction of millions. In such moments a whole people will become united into one being, swayed by the mastery of a single mind, and await the commands of a single will. It comes, no one knows from whom—all blindly follow. In spite of the superficial differences which men find in one another under similar conditions, the powerful effect of unconscious imitation is surprisingly apparent, and under its operation personal peculiarities disappear.
Wilhelm and Paul that same evening sat at one of the windows of Spargnapani's, looking on the Lindens. The small rooms were filled to overflowing, and the guests were crammed together in the open doorways, or on the stone staircase, where their loud talking mingled with the noise of the people in the street. The king's carriage had hardly passed, when several young men sprang shouting into the room, threw a quantity of printed leaflets, still damp from the press, on the nearest table, and rushed out again. These were the proofs of an address on the war to the king. No one knew who had written it, who had had it printed, who the people were who had distributed it, but everyone crowded excitedly round it, and begged for pens from the counter to add their signatures to it. A few specially enthusiastic souls even put a table with inkstands and pens out on the pavement, and called to the passers-by to sign the paper. Paul was among the first to fulfill this duty of citizenship, and then handed the pen to his friend. But Wilhelm laid it down on the table, took Paul's arm, and drew him out of the crowd into the quiet of the Friedrichstrasse.
"Are you a Prussian?" cried Paul angrily.
"I am as good a Prussian as you are," said Wilhelm quietly, "and ready to do my duty again, as I have done it before, but these silly effusions don't affect me at all."
"Such a manifesto gives the government the moral force for the sternest fulfillment of duty."
"I hope you are not in earnest when you say that, my dear Paul. The government does what it has to do without troubling itself about our manifestoes. It is repugnant to me to have my approval of the war dragged from me without being asked for it. I may not appear to say 'yes' willingly, but at the same time may not have the right to say 'no.'"
Paul followed silently, and Wilhelm went on:
"You deceive yourself as to your duty like all these people, who imagine that they are still separate individuals, and that they can sanction or forbid as they will the declaration of war. I, however, know and feel that I have no longer a voice in the matter. I have only to obey. I am no longer an individual. I am only an evanescent subordinate unit in the organism of the State. A power over which I have no control has taken possession of me, and has made my will of no avail. Is there still a part of your destiny which you have the power to guide as you will? Is there such for me? We shall be forced to join simply in the united destiny of one people. And who decides this? The king, no doubt, thinks that he does; the Emperor Napoleon thinks he does. I say that these two have no more influence over the capabilities of their people than we two have over the capabilities around us. The State commands us, the whole evolution of mankind from its beginning commands them. All of the race which has gone before holds them fast, and compels them as the wheels of the State compel us. The dead sternly point out the way to them, as the living do to us. We all of us know nothing, kings and ministers as little as we, of the real forces at work. What these forces will do, and what they strive to attain to, is hidden from us, and we only see what is nearest to us, without any connection with its causes and final operation. That is why it seems to me better to do what one sees as one's duty at the moment, rather than to give ourselves the absurd appearance of being free in our movements, and certain as to our goal." Paul pressed his hand at parting, and murmured:
"Theoretically you are right, but practically I do not see why the tyrant at the Tuileries need begin with us. He could at least leave us in peace."
The order for mobilization was issued. Wilhelm was surprised to receive his appointment again as second lieutenant, and was nominated to the 61st Pomeranian Regiment. His duties during the next few days took up the whole of his time, and left him hardly a moment to himself. He was free only for a few hours before the march to the frontier, and then he made all the haste he could to say good-by at the Lennestrasse. His heart beat quickly as he hurried along, and now that the time of separation was near, he reproached himself for the irresolution of the last few weeks. He was going to the front without leaving a clear understanding behind him. He tried to convince himself that perhaps it was better so—if he fell she would be free before the world. But at the bottom of his heart this reasoning did not satisfy him, and he lingered over the idea of taking his weeping betrothed to his heart before all the world, and kissing the tears off her cheeks, instead of bidding farewell to her at the station, and holding her to him from a distance by an acknowledged tie. Was not their love alone enough? No, he knew that it was not, and he felt with painful surprise that his contempt for outward appearances, his impulse after reality, were vigorous in him as long as he followed his inmost life alone; but when he came out of himself, and wished to unite another human destiny with his own, these things had become a painful weakness. Through this other life, the world's customs and frivolities began to influence him, and his proud independence must be humbled to the dust, or he must painfully tolerate his own weakness. These reflections brought another with them—it was