Volume I Part 9 (1/2)

”I shall never possess a foot of the property,” said the General, knitting his brows. ”Besides, as you know, Count, I have as yet had absolutely nothing to do with the question--not even so far as to express an opinion--and am, therefore, by no means in a position to accept the compliment you offer me.” And he turned again to Frau von Strummin.

The Count felt the blood rising to his forehead.

”The opinions of a man of your standing, General,” said he, with well-affected calmness, ”even when he gives them no official shape, could as little remain hidden as the most official report of our excellent President.”

The General's bushy eyebrows frowned still more sternly.

”Well, then, Count Golm,” he cried, ”I avow myself openly as the most determined opponent of your project! I consider it as strategically useless, and I hold it to be scientifically impracticable.”

”Two reasons, either of which, if well founded, would be absolutely crus.h.i.+ng,” answered the Count, smiling ironically. ”As to the first, I bow, of course, to such an authority, although we need not always have a war with a non-naval power like France, but might possibly have one with a naval power like Russia for instance, and should then find a harbour facing the enemy very necessary. But as to the practicability, General; there, with all submission, I think I may put in a word in my amphibious capacity of a country gentleman living by the sea. Our sand, however heavy it makes the roads, to the great inconvenience of ourselves and the President, is a capital material for a railway embankment, and will prove good ground for the foundation of our harbour walls.”

”Until you come to the places where we should have to build on piles,”

said the President, who, on the General's account, felt himself bound to speak.

”Such places may occur, I allow,” cried the Count, who, in spite of the other men's exasperating opposition, at any rate had now the satisfaction of seeing all other conversation at the table silenced, and he alone for the moment speaking. ”But what do you prove by that, excepting that the making of the harbour may take some months or years longer, and cost some few hundred thousands, or, for aught I know, millions more? And what would that signify in a work which, once completed, would be an invincible bulwark against every enemy that threatens us from the East?”

”Excepting one!” said Reinhold.

The Count had never supposed that this fellow would interfere in the conversation. An angry flush rose to his brow; he cast a dark look at the new opponent, and asked, in a short, contemptuous tone:

”And what might that be?”

”The tide coming in with a storm!” answered Reinhold.

”We are too much used in this country to storms and high tides to fear the one or the other,” said the Count, with forced calmness.

”I know that,” answered Reinhold; ”but I am not speaking of ordinary atmospheric changes and disturbances, but of a catastrophe which I am convinced has been preparing for years, and only awaits the final impulse, which will not long be wanting, to burst upon us with a violence of which the wildest fancy can form no conception.”

”Are we still in the domain of reality, or already in the realm of fancy?” asked the Count.

”We are in the region of possibilities,” answered Reinhold; ”that possibility which, as a glance at the map will show us, has already at least once proved a reality, and, according to human calculations, will before very long become such again.”

”You are making us extremely curious,” said the Count

He said it ironically; but he had truly expressed the feelings of the party. All eyes were turned upon Reinhold.

”I am afraid I may weary the ladies with these matters,” said Reinhold.

”Not in the least,” said Elsa.

”I am wild about everything connected with the sea,” cried Meta, with a mischievous glance at Elsa.

”You would really oblige me,” said the President.

”Pray continue,” said the General.

”I will be as brief as possible,” said Reinhold, directing his looks towards the President and the General, as if he only spoke for them.

”The Baltic appears to have been formed by some most extraordinary convulsions, which have given it a character of its own. It has no ebb and flow, its saltness is far less than that of the North Sea, and decreases gradually towards the east; so that the fauna and flora----”

”What are they?” asked Meta.