Chapter II

After the carnival—Father’s dinner-party—Toy soldiers—Tilling
again—The brave Hupfauf—Darwin.

The carnival over—Rosa and Lilli were still fancy free, and I was feeling that the dancing was growing monotonous. I find all my impressions noted in the red book. Society was not dropped, for Lent brought its rounds as well; sermons and church were quite as popular a meeting-place for the friends as were the opera and ballroom earlier in the season. I was not quite pious enough to suit Aunt Marie, who dragged the girls off to hear all the famous preachers. I spent my evenings by the fire with books, and devoted myself afresh to my boy. I repeated Tilling’s story to my father, but he considered it of no importance that Arno died without pain. How differently Tilling had regarded the matter, and I did not repeat his words to my father, for he would only instinctively have despised him for his unsoldierly sentiments. How gladly I would further have discussed the question of war with Tilling, but, alas! he never called, and I only casually met him in public occasionally. But even those meetings and greetings lingered in my thought.

One morning at breakfast my father handed me a parcel: “My dear, here is a parcel for you, and I have a favour to ask.”

“A present and a request,” I laughed; “that’s bribery.”

“Yes. I must have three old generals and their wives to dinner, a stiff, sleepy, tedious affair, and I want you to come to my house and do the honours.”

“And you evidently wish to sacrifice your daughter, as the ancient father Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia.”

“I added a younger element for your sake—Dr. Bresser, for one; he treated me in my last illness, and I wish to show my appreciation. I also invited Lieutenant-Colonel Tilling. Ah, you blush; what is the matter with you?”

“Me?” I said, hiding my confusion by hastily breaking open the parcel.

“It is nothing for you, only a box of lead soldiers for Rudolf.”

“But, father, a child of four——”

“Nonsense; I played at soldiers when I was three. My earliest memory is of drums, swords, words of command and marching. That is the way to start the boys to love the profession.”

“But my son shall never be a soldier,” I interrupted.

“Martha, you know it would be his father’s wish.”

“The boy belongs to me now, and I object.”

“What! Object to the noblest and most honourable of all callings?”

“His life shall not be risked in war, he is my only son.”

“As an only son I became a soldier; Arno and your brother also. The traditions of both families require it that the offspring of a Dotzky and an Althaus shall devote his service to his fatherland.”

“His country needs him less than I, and there are other ways of serving one’s country.”

“If all mothers were like you——”

“There would then be fewer parades and reviews, fewer men to slay as food for bullets. That would hardly be a misfortune.”

Much provoked, my father said: “Oh you women! Luckily the young do not ask your permission, when soldier’s blood flows in their veins. But Rudolf will not remain your only son, you will marry again. By the way, what has become of all your admirers? There is Captain Olensky seriously in love with you. Just lately he poured it all out to me, and I should like him as a son-in-law.”

“I do not care for him for a husband.”

“How about Major Millersdorf?”

“You may call the whole army roll, but I want none of them.” And I turned the subject: “When is the dinner?”

“At five. Come down earlier. Adieu, I must go. Kiss Rudi for me—the future Field-Marshal of the Imperial Army.”

Could the dinner be a “stiff, tiresome affair,” when the presence of Baron Tilling moved me in such a singular way? We had no occasion to speak at the table, being separated, and even after the dinner, while serving the coffee in the drawing-room, the two old generals remained my faithful attendants. I longed to speak to Tilling again about the battle-scene, and hear his sympathetic voice. But the circle left no opportunity for me to talk with him. The conversation ran on the usual topic.

“It will soon break out again,” suggested one old general.

“Hum,” said the other, “next time it will be with Russia.”

“Must there always be a next time?” I interrupted, but no one took notice.

“Italy first,” persisted my father. “We must get back Lombardy. We should march into Milan as we did with Father Radetzky in ’49. I remember, it was a bright sunny morn——”

“Oh!” I exclaimed in a panic, “we all know the story of the entry into Milan.”

“And the story of the brave Hupfauf, also?” asked my father.

“Yes, and it is most revolting.”

One of the group broke in diplomatically: “Let us hear it, Althaus.”

My father needed no encouragement.

“Hupfauf was a Tyrolese Jager, and the best shot imaginable. He proposed to take four comrades to the roof of the cathedral and shoot down on the rebels. The four did nothing but load, and he shot, hitting the mark every time and killing ninety Italians.”

“Horrible!” I exclaimed. “Each one shot had a mother or sweetheart at home, and had a right to his young life.”

“My dear, they were all enemies, and that alters the point of view.”

“Ah, true,” said Dr. Bresser, “the whole world is turned upside down so long as there is racial enmity, and the laws of humanity will receive but slight recognition.”

“What do you say, Baron Tilling?” I asked.

“I would have decorated the gallant breast of the man, from the point of view of war ethics, and then put a bullet into his stony heart. He deserved both.”

I gave the speaker a grateful look, and, except the doctor, all the guests seemed unpleasantly affected, and a short pause ensued in the talk.

The doctor then turned to my father, asking, “Have you read the new work by the English naturalist, Darwin?”

“I know nothing of it.”

“Why, papa,” I exclaimed, “that is the book you told me would soon be forgotten by the world.”

“And, so far as I am concerned, it is forgotten.”

“But,” continued the doctor, “it has quite turned the world upside down with its new theory of the origin of species.”

“You mean the ape theory?” asked the general at the right. “The idea that we are descended from the ourang-outang?”

“Upon the whole,” the cabinet minister began, nodding (and when he began thus we all trembled, for he was getting ready for a long discourse), “the thing seems absurd, but we dare not take it as a joke. The theory is powerfully built up on collected facts, and ingeniously worked out. Like all such rash conceptions it will find its followers and produce a certain effect on modern thought. It is a great pity it has been given so much consideration. Of course, the clergy will array itself against the degrading theory that man is derived from the brute, rather than from God’s image. No wonder they are shocked and denounce it. But church condemnation cannot prevent the spread of ideas that come in the garb of science. Until men of science themselves reduce it to an absurdity——”

“What folly!” broke in my father, fearing that his guests might be bored. “One needs only a bit of common sense to reject the absurd notion that man has descended from apes.”

“Darwin has certainly wakened reasonable doubts, and apes and man do greatly resemble each other,” the minister added, “but it will take some time to bring about a unity of opinion among the scientists about it.”

“These gentry live by disputing,” said the old general to the left, in a heavy Viennese dialect. “I too have heard something about this ape business. But why bother one’s head with the chatter of the star-gazers and grass-collectors and frog-dissectors? I saw a picture of this Darwin, and I could well believe that his grandfather was a chimpanzee.”

The entire company enjoyed the joke.

Then the quieter general spoke: “Can you imagine an ape inventing the telegraph? Speech alone raised men so far above beasts——”

“Pardon, your Excellency,” interrupted Dr. Bresser, “but the art of speech and the capacity for invention were not among man’s original powers. After all, it is the result of evolution and development.”

“Yes, I know, Doctor,” replied the general, “the war-cry of the new school is evolution, but one cannot develop a camel from a kangaroo, nor do we find apes to-day developing into men.”

I turned to Baron Tilling: “And what do you think of Darwin? Are you a follower or an opponent?”

“Although I have heard much of late about Darwin, Countess, I cannot give an opinion, for I have not read the book.”

“Nor have I,” the doctor acknowledged.

“Nor I—nor I—nor I—” came the chorus from the rest.

And the cabinet minister gravely wound up: “The subject is so popular to-day that the expressions, ‘evolution,’ ‘natural selection,’ ‘survival of the fittest,’ have passed into current thought. You find many defenders among those who thirst for new ideas and change, while cool-headed, critical people who insist on proof are found on the other side.”

“There is always opposition to every new idea as soon as it comes up,” said Tilling; “but one must have penetrated into the idea in order to be able to judge. Conservatives assail anything, and often for the weakest and most absurd reasons, and the masses only repeat what they hear. To judge of scientific theories without investigation is absurd. Even Copernicus was thundered down by Rome——”

“But, as I said before,” interrupted the minister, “not orthodoxy but science itself cries down false hypotheses in our day.”

“New ideas are always objected to in the beginning by the old fogeys who never like to give up their settled dogmas and views,” Tilling replied. “For my part, I shall read the book, and the opposition of the narrow-brained speaks rather for than against its truth.”

“Oh, you brave, clear-thinking spirit!” I silently apostrophised the speaker.