On the outside, they seem just alike--but oh, what a difference within! . . . Last night the people beset a few babblers in the boulevard who were yelling, 'To Berlin!'--a slogan of bad memories and worse taste. France does not wish conquests; her only desire is to be respected, to live in peace without humiliations or disturbances. To-night two of the mobilized men said on leaving, 'When we enter Germany we are going to make it a republic!' . . . A republic is not a perfect thing, but it is better than living under an irresponsible monarchy by the grace of God. It at least presupposes tranquillity and absence of the personal ambitions that disturb life. I was impressed by the generous thought of these laboring men who, instead of wishing to exterminate their enemies, were planning to give them something better."
Tchernoff remained silent a few minutes, smiling ironically at the picture which his imagination was calling forth.
"In Berlin, the masses are expressing their enthusiasm in the lofty phraseology befitting a superior people. Those in the lowest classes, accustomed to console themselves for humiliations with a gross materialism, are now crying 'Nach Paris! We are going to drink champagne gratis!' The pietistic burgher, ready to do anything to attain a new honor, and the aristocracy which has given the world the greatest scandals of recent years, are also shouting, 'Nach Paris!' To them Paris is the Babylon of the deadly sin, the city of the Moulin Rouge and the restaurants of Montmartre, the only places that they know. . . . And my comrades of the Social-Democracy, they are also cheering, but to another tune.--'To-morrow!
To St. Petersburg! Russian ascendency, the menace of civilization, must be obliterated!' The Kaiser waving the tyranny of another country as a scarecrow to his people! . . . What a joke!"
And the loud laugh of the Russian sounded through the night like the noise of wooden clappers.
"We are more civilized than the Germans," he said, regaining his self-control.
Desnoyers, who had been listening with great interest, now gave a start of surprise, saying to himself, "This Tchernoff has been drinking."
"Civilization," continued the Socialist, "does not consist merely in great industry, in many ships, armies and numerous universities that only teach science. That is material civilization. There is another, a superior one, that elevates the soul and does not permit human dignity to suffer without protesting against continual humiliations. A Swiss living in his wooden chalet and considering himself the equal of the other men of his country, is more civilized than the Herr Professor who gives precedence to a lieutenant, or to a Hamburg millionaire who, in turn, bends his neck like a lackey before those whose names are prefixed by a von."
Here the Spaniard assented as though he could guess what Tchernoff was going to say.
"We Russians endure great tyranny. I know something about that. I know the hunger and cold of Siberia. . . . But opposed to our tyranny has always existed a revolutionary protest. Part of the nation is half-barbarian, but the rest has a superior mentality, a lofty moral spirit which faces danger and sacrifice because of liberty and truth. . . . And Germany? Who there has ever raised a protest in order to defend human rights? What revolutions have ever broken out in Prussia, the land of the great despots?
Frederick William, the founder of militarism, when he was tired of beating his wife and spitting in his children's plates, used to sally forth, thong in hand, in order to cowhide those subjects who did not get out of his way in time. His son, Frederick the Great, declared that he died, bored to death with governing a nation of slaves. In two centuries of Prussian history, one single revolution--the barricades of 1848--a bad Berlinish copy of the Paris revolution, and without any result. Bismarck corrected with a heavy hand so as to crush completely the last attempts at protest--if such ever really existed. And when his friends were threatening him with revolution, the ferocious Junker, merely put his hands on his hips and roared with the most insolent of horse laughs. A revolution in Prussia! . . . Nothing at all, as he knew his people!"
Tchernoff was not a patriot. Many a time Argensola had heard him railing against his country, but now he was indignant in view of the contempt with which Teutonic haughtiness was treating the Russian nation. Where, in the last forty years of imperial grandeur, was that universal supremacy of which the Germans were everlastingly boasting? . . .
Excellent workers in science; tenacious and short-sighted academicians, each wrapped in his specialty!--Benedictines of the laboratory who experimented painstakingly and occasionally hit upon something, in spite of enormous blunders given out as truths, because they were their own . . . that was all! And side by side with such patient laboriosity, really worthy of respect--what charlatanism! What great names exploited as a shop sample! How many sages turned into proprietors of sanatoriums! . . . A Herr Professor discovers the cure of tuberculosis, and the tubercular keep on dying as before. Another labels with a number the invincible remedy for the most unconfessable of diseases, and the genital scourge continues afflicting the world. And all these errors were representing great fortunes, each saving panacea bringing into existence an industrial corporation selling its products at high prices--as though suffering were a privilege of the rich. How different from the bluff Pasteur and other clever men of the inferior races who have given their discoveries to the world without stooping to form monopolies!
"German science," continued Tchernoff, "has given much to humanity, I admit that; but the science of other nations has done as much.
