driven along this road to national ruin. Let us suppose it could not have been avoided. Better times will come again. But did you follow your Bismarck so long as he was in the right? You allowed yourselves to be dragged on; you quarrelled with him. But now, when you think you can go beyond him, you cling to his powerless shadow! Your method of renewing your national forces is depressingly slow. By the time you have grasped the fact that a great man is amongst you, he has ceased to be great!"
"You will learn to know about him soon enough," Diederich assured him. "Blood and iron are still the most effective remedy! Might before might!" His head became heated at the utterance of this credo. But Buck also became excited. "Might! Might will not allow itself to be carried eternally on the bayonet's point like a skewered sausage. Nowadays the real power is peace. Play your comedy of force. Brag about your imaginary enemies at home and abroad Fortunately, deeds are forbidden to you."
"Forbidden?" Diederich snorted with indignation. "His Majesty has said: We would rather leave our eighteen army corps and forty-two million inhabitants on the field …"
"Than that the German eagle—!" cried Buck impetuously, and then more mildly: "No parliamentary resolutions! The army is our only tower of strength."
Diederich would not be outdone. "You are called upon, in the first place, to defend me against my domestic and foreign enemies."
"To ward off a host of miserable traitors," yelled Buck.
"A gang of people—"
"Diederich concluded the sentence: "Unworthy to bear the name of Germans!"
Then both in chorus: "Shoot down your brothers and relatives!" Some of the dancers, who had come for refreshments, were attracted by the shouting, and fetched their womenfolk to contemplate this spectacle of heroic intoxication. Even the
