Part 12 (1/2)
That was what this cousin was for him, a mere Sitzfleisch haben.
Doctor von Hartrott, on explaining his visit, spoke in Spanish.
He availed himself of this language used by the family during his childhood, as a precaution, looking around repeatedly as if he feared to be heard. He had come to bid his cousin farewell. His mother had told him of his return, and he had not wished to leave Paris without seeing him. He was leaving in a few hours, since matters were growing more strained.
”But do you really believe that there will be war?” asked Desnoyers.
”War will be declared to-morrow or the day after. Nothing can prevent it now. It is necessary for the welfare of humanity.”
Silence followed this speech, Julio and Argensola looking with astonishment at this peaceable-looking man who had just spoken with such martial arrogance. The two suspected that the professor was making this visit in order to give vent to his opinions and enthusiasms. At the same time, perhaps, he was trying to find out what they might think and know, as one of the many viewpoints of the people in Paris.
”You are not French,” he added looking at his cousin. ”You were born in Argentina, so before you I may speak the truth.”
”And were you not born there?” asked Julio smiling.
The Doctor made a gesture of protest, as though he had just heard something insulting. ”No, I am a German. No matter where a German may be born, he always belongs to his mother country.” Then turning to Argensola--”This gentleman, too, is a foreigner. He comes from n.o.ble Spain, which owes to us the best that it has--the wors.h.i.+p of honor, the knightly spirit.”
The Spaniard wished to remonstrate, but the Sage would not permit, adding in an oracular tone:
”You were miserable Celts, sunk in the vileness of an inferior and mongrel race whose domination by Rome but made your situation worse.
Fortunately you were conquered by the Goths and others of our race who implanted in you a sense of personal dignity. Do not forget, young man, that the Vandals were the ancestors of the Prussians of to-day.”
Again Argensola tried to speak, but his friend signed to him not to interrupt the professor who appeared to have forgotten his former reserve and was working up to an enthusiastic pitch with his own words.
”We are going to witness great events,” he continued. ”Fortunate are those born in this epoch, the most interesting in history! At this very moment, humanity is changing its course. Now the true civilization begins.”
The war, according to him, was going to be of a brevity hitherto unseen.
Germany had been preparing herself to bring about this event without any long, economic world-disturbance. A single month would be enough to crush France, the most to be feared of their adversaries. Then they would march against Russia, who with her slow, clumsy movements could not oppose an immediate defense. Finally they would attack haughty England, so isolated in its archipelago that it could not obstruct the sweep of German progress. This would make a series of rapid blows and overwhelming victories, requiring only a summer in which to play this magnificent role. The fall of the leaves in the following autumn would greet the definite triumph of Germany.
With the a.s.surance of a professor who does not expect his dictum to be refuted by his hearers, he explained the superiority of the German race. All mankind was divided into two groups--dolicephalous and the brachicephalous, according to the shape of the skull. Another scientific cla.s.sification divided men into the light-haired and dark-haired. The dolicephalous (arched heads) represented purity of race and superior mentality. The brachicephalous (flat heads) were mongrels with all the stigma of degeneration. The German, dolicephalous par excellence, was the only descendant of the primitive Aryans. All the other nations, especially those of the south of Europe called ”latins,” belonged to a degenerate humanity.
The Spaniard could not contain himself any longer. ”But no person with any intelligence believes any more in those antique theories of race!
What if there no longer existed a people of absolutely pure blood, owing to thousands of admixtures due to historical conquests!” ... Many Germans bore the identical ethnic marks which the professor was attributing to the inferior races.
”There is something in that,” admitted Hartrott, ”but although the German race may not be perfectly pure, it is the least impure of all races and, therefore, should have dominion over the world.”
His voice took on an ironic and cutting edge when speaking of the Celts, inhabitants of the lands of the South. They had r.e.t.a.r.ded the progress of Humanity, deflecting it in the wrong direction. The Celt is individualistic and consequently an ungovernable revolutionary who tends to socialism. Furthermore, he is a humanitarian and makes a virtue of mercy, defending the existence of the weak who do not amount to anything.
The ill.u.s.trious German places above everything else, Method and Power.
Elected by Nature to command the impotent races, he possesses all the qualifications that distinguish the superior leader. The French Revolution was merely a clash between Teutons and Celts. The n.o.bility of France were descended from Germanic warriors established in the country after the so-called invasion of the barbarians. The middle and lower cla.s.ses were the Gallic-Celtic element. The inferior race had conquered the superior, disorganizing the country and perturbing the world.
Celtism was the inventor of Democracy, of the doctrines of Socialism and Anarchy. Now the hour of Germanic retaliation was about to strike, and the Northern race would re-establish order, since G.o.d had favored it by demonstrating its indisputable superiority.
”A nation,” he added, ”can aspire to great destinies only when it is fundamentally Teutonic. The less German it is, the less its civilization amounts to. We represent 'the aristocracy of humanity,' 'the salt of the earth,' as our William said.”
Argensola was listening with astonishment to this outpouring of conceit.
All the great nations had pa.s.sed through the fever of Imperialism. The Greeks aspired to world-rule because they were the most civilized and believed themselves the most fit to give civilization to the rest of mankind. The Romans, upon conquering countries, implanted law and the rule of justice. The French of the Revolution and the Empire justified their invasions on the plea that they wished to liberate mankind and spread abroad new ideas. Even the Spaniards of the sixteenth century, when battling with half of Europe for religious unity and the extermination of heresy, were working toward their ideals obscure and perhaps erroneous, but disinterested.
All the nations of history had been struggling for something which they had considered generous and above their own interests. Germany alone, according to this professor, was trying to impose itself upon the world in the name of racial superiority--a superiority that n.o.body had recognized, that she was arrogating to herself, coating her affirmations with a varnish of false science.
”Until now wars have been carried on by the soldiery,” continued Hartrott. ”That which is now going to begin will be waged by a combination of soldiers and professors. In its preparation the University has taken as much part as the military staff. German science, leader of all sciences, is united forever with what the Latin revolutionists disdainfully term militarism. Force, mistress of the world, is what creates right, that which our truly unique civilization imposes. Our armies are the representatives of our culture, and in a few weeks we shall free the world from its decadence, completely rejuvenating it.”
The vision of the immense future of his race was leading him on to expose himself with lyrical enthusiasm. William I, Bismarck, all the heroes of past victories, inspired his veneration, but he spoke of them as dying G.o.ds whose hour had pa.s.sed. They were glorious ancestors of modest pretensions who had confined their activities to enlarging the frontiers, and to establis.h.i.+ng the unity of the Empire, afterwards opposing themselves with the prudence of valetudinarians to the daring of the new generation. Their ambitions went no further than a continental hegemony ... but now William II had leaped into the arena, the complex hero that the country required.