Part 14 (1/2)

Prince (_smiling_).

Well, frankly, I should say Volkerlingk----

Brachtmann.

You don't mean----

Prince (_still smiling_).

I don't mean anything.

von Berkelwitz.

Gentlemen, I'm only a plain country squire, but I should like to suggest that the morals of our hostess are hardly a subject for discussion.

Prince.

Morals? Morals? What do morals signify? They were only invented for the preservation of the race.

von Berkelwitz.

That's over my head, your Highness.

Prince.

It's simple enough. Mankind is bound to go on reproducing itself--that's its fundamental instinct. Morality was invented to keep the strain pure. If it ceases to accomplish that purpose, it had better abdicate in favour of immorality. That's all.

von Berkelwitz.

I'll be hanged if I understand a single word.

Prince.

We all know the old families wouldn't have survived till now if the stock hadn't been renewed--surrept.i.tiously, so to speak--by----

Brachtmann.

Really, Prince--really----

Prince.

My dear Brachtmann, it's all very well for you to look shocked. Your family hasn't had to resort to such expedients: your patent of n.o.bility isn't more than two hundred years old. But my people have been misbehaving since the time of Lewis the Pious. Look at the result--look at _me_. Jaw prognathous--frontal bone asymmetrical--ears abnormal--all the symptoms of a decaying race. Thanks to several centuries of inbreeding, I must go through life a degenerate, and I a.s.sure you I haven't any talent for it. If only I could marry a healthy dairy-maid!

Under such circ.u.mstances, do you wonder one loses one's respect for morality? What if two people in this house have followed the dictates of their temperament?

Brachtmann.

Prince, von Berkelwitz is right. As long as we're in the house ourselves, we'll postpone any discussion of its inmates.

Prince.