Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

He had come to the end of his strength--the moon was drawing at him!--in the night thousands of people had begged him on their knees not to give them up to destruction--only a new soul could give him back his strength--he felt that he was bending over more and more to the left and the whole universe might collapse at any moment: all this he muttered indistinctly, confusedly, his distressful eyes fixed pleadingly upon Dr. Maerz.

Dr. Maerz listened gravely, as did also Michael Petroff and even the "Rajah," who had stepped inside the door. And because they were all listening so earnestly--especially the "Rajah," whose large brilliant eyes were fixed upon Engelhardt--the little lawyer was once more seized with fear. He felt as if his legs were sinking through the floor, as if in a swamp, but just when this fear was about to overwhelm him like black darkness, a bird lit on the window-sill and chirped, and the lawyer seemed suddenly transformed.

"I am coming!" he whispered hurriedly.

"Don't go!" said Michael Petroff softly, taking hold of his arm. "Where are you going?"

"He was calling me!" answered the lawyer and slipped quickly away.

"How he is hurrying!" thought Michael Petroff, and heard himself laughing inwardly. And presently he said to Dr. Maerz, laying his hand confidentially on his shoulder: "The lawyer is certainly a clever, well educated man--and yet he thinks that the birds call him! Between you and me, Doctor, hasn't it ever occurred to you, that he is not quite right--?"

After luncheon Dr. Maerz's patients went out into the garden as usual. They trotted along in little groups, one after the other, round and round the biggest flower bed, at equal distances, silently, lost in thought. Only the "Inventor," a young man, sometimes paused, rested his hand on his side, put his other hand to his forehead and gazed steadily at a point on the ground.

The lawyer was watering his flowers and listening delightedly to the thousands and thousands of birds that were hopping in the bushes and treetops. Michael Petroff was in high good humor. There was news--! Just listen! Just listen! He was smoking a cigarette that Dr. Maerz had given him, and was enjoying every whiff of it. He held the cigarette with his fingers coquettishly crossed, and swung it in sweeping curves, as if he were taking off his hat to some one, and at every whiff he drew, he stood still and blew the smoke up into the sunny air and watched the blue cloud drift away. Everything gave him pleasure. Even walking was a delight to him. His steps were short, his knees sprung playfully; and he felt with delight how his toes crackled a little and how the elastic balls of his feet rebounded in his thin soled shoes from the ground, while his heels touched the path but lightly and his knees swung. When he stood still, he set the muscles of his thighs, by a certain pressure of the knees, and then enjoyed the firmness with which he stood there like a statue. He was convinced that nothing could have knocked him down. He walked along smiling and glancing cheerfully about him, as if to share his happiness. He greeted everyone, and whenever he met an acquaintance he would tell him the great event that had happened today.

"Just hear this, my friend!" he called out to the little lawyer, who was standing on the lawn, stooping over a tulip bed to water the flowers in the middle of it. "Do come over here! There is such news! Oh, please do come!"

He waited with friendly impatience until the lawyer had finished and came back to the path, meaning to go back to the well with his empty green can. "I want to tell you what has happened today," he began hastily, "His Majesty the king of Saxony has condescended--"

"Pardon me," the lawyer interrupted him in a whisper and started to leave him, "I am in a hurry. It is hot and the flowers are drying up."

"I will walk to the well with you," continued Michael Petroff good humoredly, and walked rapidly beside the departing lawyer. "I can tell you just as well while we are walking. So I said to the Doctor today: 'Now, Doctor, haven't you anything for me today?' 'No,' said he, 'my dear Captain, nothing at all, I am sorry to say.' 'Really nothing,' said I, and I took him by the arm. 'Has not there been a single answer for weeks? Really nothing, Doctor?' He looked at me and thought a while. 'Oh yes,' he said, 'I had almost forgotten. A document did come for you. It is about that carpenter, you know, Captain.' 'A carpenter, Doctor? I don't remember'--so I took out my memorandum book, in which I enter all the documents that I send out: 'Where did the answer come from? From Saxony? Ah!' said I, 'then it must be about the butcher's apprentice who was condemned to death.' 'Yes,' said the Doctor, 'that is it. The fellow was a butcher's apprentice.' And now listen, my friend. Because of my petition, his Majesty the King of Saxony has condescended to pardon him. I must write a letter of thanks to His Majesty this very day."

"How the sun burns today," the lawyer responded to Michael Petroff's tale, and began to work the pump handle. "All the flowers look so wilted."

"Ha, ha!" laughed Michael Petroff. "You're not listening at all, are you?"

No, the lawyer was not listening. He was looking into his can to see if it was full.

Michael Petroff looked at him a while with his head on one side, then he laughed quietly to himself and walked rapidly away. He glanced about the garden in search of some one to whom he could tell his cheerful tale.

Just then he espied the "Rajah," who was walking up and down in the vegetable garden between two beds of lettuce. According to his habit, the "Rajah" was alone, and in a place where no one else would be apt to come.

Michael Petroff rose up on tiptoes and considered whether he had better, with one jump, spring over the beds, which separated him by about a hundred paces from the "Rajah." He would only have to soar upward a very little and he would be there. But he was afraid of being impolite to the "Rajah" or perhaps of startling him, so he gave up the idea.

The "Rajah" was pacing up and down with his usual pride and dignity, but today he was restless and troubled. Engelhardt's words about preserving the equilibrium of the universe had taken possession of his mind. He had been considering the matter, and after long and inexorable reflection he had come to the decision that there was only one way--only one--

Just then Michael Petroff came up to him.

"Will you permit me to disturb you?" he asked politely, taking off his gray English traveling cap. "I am Captain Michael Petroff."

The "Rajah" gazed at him earnestly with his glowing dark eyes.

"What do you want," he asked quietly.

Michael Petroff smiled. "I want to tell you a piece of good news," he began. "This morning I said to the Doctor: 'Now, Doctor, haven't you anything for me today--?'"--And beaming with joy, he went on to tell the same story that he had told a dozen times that day.

The "Rajah" listened in silence, looking thoughtfully at Michael Petroff. Then he said: "I should like to have a word with you."

"I am quite at your service!"

The "Rajah's" eyes wandered over the garden slowly and with dignity.

"Shall we go over to that bench?"

"With pleasure."

The "Rajah" sat down, and with a condescending gesture invited Michael Petroff to be seated also.

"I see you writing all the time--" he began,

Michael Petroff lifted his cap. "Michael Petroff, Captain in the Russian army," he said politely.

The "Rajah" looked at him and went on, with his usual quiet pride: "Since you write, you must understand. And you surely must have gained knowledge of men and things from sacred books, which are closed to the rest of us, and you must have passed your life in meditation, according to the rules of your caste. Very well. Then explain to me the words of the Fakir, who, according to the inscrutable decision of the Gods, is bearing up the universe on his shoulders. Speak!"

Michael Petroff smiled, highly flattered, and bowed to the "Rajah." He did not really understand all that the "Rajah" said, but he perceived that his words expressed respect and admiration. He felt that it was in some way his duty to confide to the "Rajah" the secret of his paper, but to his own surprise he asked: "You mean our friend Engelhardt?"

"You heard what he said?"

"Yes."

"Then speak!" It appeared that the "Rajah" had not forgotten a single word that Engelhardt had said to Dr. Maerz. Michael Petroff, on the contrary, remembered almost nothing, and so fell into the "Rajah's" disfavor.

"Pardon me!" he apologized. "So many things pass through my head."

"But what will happen if he cannot get another soul?" asked the "Rajah."

"Oh, the Doctor will take care of that."

"Even Fakirs are only human. What will happen if his strength gives way? Will the world collapse?"

"Surely it will collapse!" replied Michael Petroff, laughing.

"What are you laughing at?" asked the "Rajah" quietly, while his dark eyes gleamed. "What will you do if it collapses?"

"I?" Michael Petroff smiled and pointed to the cottage, which showed dimly through the shrubbery. "If that house tumbles down," he went on, "I will run away as fast as I can, and go back to my own country. Russia is my native land. Do you know about Russia? You could hold Germany on the palm of your hand, but you couldn't carry Russia even on your back. My country is so big."

The "Rajah" considered this idea long and carefully.

Then he said slowly, and as if speaking to himself: "If the world collapses, will my kingdom be destroyed too? The mountains and the temples, the forests and the towns, will they all fall in ruins?"

Michael Petroff nodded, laughing maliciously. "I suppose so!"

And now the "Rajah" nodded too. He bowed his head slowly several times. "All my subjects would be destroyed?" he asked, and nodded. He rose and shook his head. "No," he said solemnly, gazing at Michael Petroff. "That must not be! We cannot allow it."

The "Rajah" turned away. Through the sunshine he walked, slowly and with dignity, back to the ward.

Michael Petroff looked after him. He smiled and shook his head. "What a curious being he is though!" said he, laughing. And when he heard his own laughter, he laughed again, loudly and gaily and snapped his fingers. Ha, ha, ha!

But the "Rajah" went to Engelhardt's room and informed him that he had decided to give up his own soul to him. "If the Gods deign to accept my sacrifice."

Engelhardt, who lay in his bed as if he were already dead, opened his eyes and looked at the "Rajah."

"Will you?" he gasped, while his hands and face twitched convulsively.

"Yes."

"I will try to hold out for three days yet!" gasped Engelhardt.

The "Rajah" closed the door. He went to his own room and wrote, in a large rapid hand that wandered in all directions, a short letter to Dr. Maerz.

"Your Excellency," he wrote, "It is the will of Heaven. We shall see the blue river no more. We shall see no more the flooded rice fields, nor the white elephants with bands of gold upon their tusks. It is the will of Heaven and we obey. Say to the English Government that we are too noble for bitterness or revenge. Say to the English Government that we are pleased to rescue our subjects and to yield up our soul, if the sacrifice is pleasing to the Gods."

The "Rajah" rang for the attendant and gave him the letter, quietly and with great dignity. Then he undressed and went to bed, prepared to die.

At nightfall, when it was growing dark, the lawyer, much excited, rushed into Michael Petroff's room, without knocking, or waiting at the door, as he was in the habit of doing.

"Help me. Captain!" he whispered, and threw himself into the arms of the astonished Michael Petroff. The lawyer was trembling with fright.

"What in the world--?" exclaimed Michael Petroff, surprised and startled.

"He is standing in the corridor!" whispered the lawyer.

"Who? What is the matter with you?"

"Engelhardt! He is standing at the 'Rajah's' door. He is taking away his soul."

"What's that you say?" Michael Petroff laughed softly.

"I saw him standing there. Don't let him come near me. Oh good God!"

"Hush!" interrupted Michael Petroff. "I will attend to it."

The lawyer clung to his knees. "He will come in here! Oh my God, my God!"

"My dear friend," Michael Petroff reassured him, "control yourself. He shall not come in here. I promise you. But I must go and see!"

The little lawyer cowered on the floor and covered his face with his hands. But Michael Petroff left the room. After a while he came back, looking somewhat pale, but laughing to keep his courage up.

"Yes," he said in a low tone, "he is standing at the 'Rajah's' door listening. What makes you tremble so, my friend?"

"Don't leave me!" whispered the lawyer, still covering his face with his hands.

The "Rajah" lay motionless in his bed, gazing far, far away with his great, brilliant eyes. His swarthy face was transfigured by a solemn peace and resignation. He declined to get up and refused all nourishment. Dr. Maerz took his temperature and found it somewhat low, and his pulse rather slow, but he could not discover any symptoms of bodily disorder or of an approaching illness. With cheerful earnestness he advised the "Rajah" to get up and to eat, but as the "Rajah" did not answer, he left him in peace. He was accustomed to his patients' whims and knew that they went as suddenly as they came.

But Engelhardt, on the contrary, caused him great anxiety. In spite of long continued baths and all sorts of quieting treatments, he had passed another sleepless and excited night. He now lay in a sort of half sleep, and shrank and trembled with the effort that his horrible delusion required of him. He heard voices, the cries of millions of men, who wrung their hands and begged him not to give them up to destruction, he heard the ringing of bells, the chanting of processions, the prayers of emperors and kings, bishops and popes. His skin was dry and parched, his pulse was rapid and unsteady. Dr. Maerz sat for a long time by his bedside watching him attentively, and sometimes, closing his eyes for a moment, he would recall with lightning rapidity all his knowledge and experience of such cases. At last, with a thoughtful and baffled air, he left Engelhardt.

But an hour later he was beside him again.

The patients in the ward showed that special form of nervousness that was always present whenever the frequent visits of the doctor indicated that some one was very ill. They walked quietly, spoke in undertones, and many of them refused to leave the room at all. The little lawyer hardly dared to stir and begged the thousands of birds, that lived in his room, to be very quiet, when he put their bread and water on the table. Again and again some unknown power drove him to look through the keyhole. He would stand there a long time, covering his left eye with his hand as children do and peering with his right at the white wall of the corridor. But whenever a passer-by darkened his outlook, he would shrink back startled. If he had to go out to attend to his flowers, he opened the door slowly and silently and walked backward, fixing his eyes on Engelhardt's door, until he reached the steps. There he would turn quickly and hurry away, possessed by the fear that a hand would suddenly seize him by the coat collar.

Michael Petroff was the only one upon whom the general restlessness had no effect. He sat at his writing table, cut out his cases, numbered, registered, pasted, wrote. He shook his head smilingly over the little lawyer's terror, but promised him his protection in any case.

"Make your mind easy, my friend!" said he patronizingly. "So long as I am living, you have no cause for anxiety!" And with a pompous air he added: "I have been to see him. He told me that the "Rajah" had promised him his soul. Voila tout. You may rely on Michael Petroff!"

"I thank you!" whispered the lawyer, and started to kiss Michael Petroff's hand.

"Oh no! Why should you?" said Michael Petroff, but he felt pleased and flattered.

The lawyer was calmer as he turned away. But in the night he heard Engelhardt crying out and crept under the bedclothes with his teeth chattering. It seemed to him as if he were buried in the ground, on a high mountain and he scarcely dared to breathe for fear. But just then he saw an enormous flock of birds flying swiftly over the sky in a gentle curve. He beckoned to them and called out: "Where are you going?"--"Come too, come too!" chirped the birds in answer. "To Vienna, to Vienna!" and they flew away in the distance. The lawyer gazed after them and fell asleep.

The "Rajah's" strength failed visibly, although artificial nourishment was given him, by Dr. Maerz's orders. He was fading away as fast as twilight in the tropics. His brown face and hands had taken on a dull gray hue, like dry garden earth, and his broad and powerful chest rose and sank rapidly and silently under the bedclothes. His eyelids, which were paler than his face, drooped so as to half cover his eyes, but as soon as any one entered the room, they opened slowly, and his large, brilliant eyes rested questioningly on the newcomer.

His pulse was growing weak and rapid, and Dr. Maerz sat almost constantly at the sick man's bedside. The rapid loss of strength was incomprehensible to the Doctor, and the inexplicable and rapid decline of the heart action caused especial anxiety. He sat there, closing his eyes from time to time, observed the patient, considered, tried all conceivable means--and by evening he knew that the "Rajah" was beyond all human aid.

"How is he, Doctor?" asked Michael Petroff, who had been watching for the Doctor in the corridor, and nodded his head toward the "Rajah's" door.

"Oh, not so badly off!" answered Dr. Maerz absentmindedly.

Michael Petroff laughed softly behind his back. Then he went at once to the lawyer's room.

"The 'Rajah' is dying!" he said with a triumphant glance.

The lawyer looked up at him timidly; he did not answer.

"Yes!" Michael Petroff sat down in a cane-seated chair, and drew up his trousers a little, so as not to get them out of shape at the knees. "I asked the Doctor just now. He answered: 'Not so badly off.' Now that means that the 'Rajah' is dying. When Heinrich was dying, Heinrich who used to sing the jolly songs that you laughed at so, my friend, what did the Doctor say? 'Not so badly off!' And Heinrich died. Oh yes! I understand the doctors."

The little lawyer wrapped himself in his shawl. He was freezing.

"He is sucking the soul out of his body," continued Michael Petroff with an important air. "He understands his business, Engelhardt does. How did he manage with Schwindt, the attendant? The very same way, don't you see!"

And Michael Petroff left the room, rubbing his hands cheerfully. He was interested in everything that went on around him, in everything that he _saw through_. There was news--! In the best of spirits, he sat down at his writing table to give the final touches to his article: "Doctor Maerz arrested."

That very night, toward three o'clock, the "Rajah" died. It was a warm, still night and the moonlight was so bright that one could read out of doors. The patients were restless, they cleared their throats, walked up and down and talked together. But once in a while they would all be silent: that was when Engelhardt began to scream out. "I can't bear it any longer!" And then he would declaim aloud the petitions that kings and princes addressed to him on their knees.

The little lawyer had not dared to go to bed. He sat fully dressed on the sofa, with all his blankets wrapped around him. And yet he was so cold that his teeth chattered. Whenever Engelhardt began to cry out, he moved his lips in prayer and crossed himself.

Michael Petroff, on the contrary, had gone to bed with complete unconcern. He lay, with his arms under his head, and pondered over a suitable title for his next paper. For this time he would take the Doctor by surprise, he would catch him--just wait and see! What was the sense of a title like the _Non-Partisan_, if you please? Could one overcome this case-hardened Doctor with that? What? Oh, no, no. Surely not. The title must smell of fire and brimstone. It must be like the stroke of a sword, like the muzzle of a gun aimed at the Doctor--for Dr. Maerz must be startled when he reads the title! And after much reflection, Michael Petroff decided that this time he would call his paper _The Sword of the Archangel_. He could plainly see this Archangel sweeping obliquely forward, with terrible fluttering garments and an appalling and angry mien, holding his sword with both hands somewhat backward above his head. And this sword, that was as sharp as a razor and very broad at the back, slit the firmament open and a steaming bloodred stream appeared. This steaming red stream gave Michael Petroff a feeling of luxurious delight. He sat up and said: "Just wait! Ha, ha!"

But suddenly he covered his eyes with his hand. A dim, longing pain had come over him, and he could not tell why.

"Michael Petroff--?" said he softly, "Michael Petroff--?" and the tears sprung to his eyes. And so, with his hand over his wet eyes and a confused sorrow in his heart, he fell asleep.

He was sleeping soundly when he was awakened by a knock at his door: "It is I, the attendant, don't be startled."

"What is it!"

The attendant stepped in and said in an undertone: "Dr. Maerz told me to ask you to come. The teacher wants to speak to you."

"The teacher?"

"The 'Rajah,' you know."

"You do not know what he wants of me?"

"No, Dr. Maerz has sent for you."

"Very well, I will come."

Michael Petroff rose and made his toilet slowly and scrupulously. The attendant came back and begged him to hurry. Michael Petroff was tying his cravat carefully. "I am coming at once," said he impatiently, "but I can't make a call half dressed."

Finally he was ready; he looked in the glass a moment, stroked his moustache and stepped out.

"Oh Captain!" whispered the little lawyer through the crack of the door, for the knocking and talking in Petroff's room had made him still more anxious. "I beg you--!"

"I am in a hurry," answered Michael Petroff, and hastened along the corridor. As he passed Engelhardt's door he heard him declaiming: "We pray thee, do not destroy the dome of the world. Praised be thy name!" And with an altered, gasping voice Engelhardt went on: "I am struggling, I am struggling--!" In the room overhead a step went restlessly up and down, back and forth, like the distant throbbing of a machine.

Then the attendant opened the door of the "Rajah's" room and Michael Petroff stepped in.

"Good morning!" said he, loudly and cheerfully, as if it were broad daylight and as if the "Rajah" were not a dying man. "Good morning, Doctor. Here I am.--Good morning--Prince!" he added more softly after a glance at the "Rajah." "Michael Petroff, Captain in the Russian army."

The "Rajah's" appearance had greatly impressed Michael Petroff. The "Rajah" was sitting up in bed with his great dark eyes fixed upon him. A shaded electric light burned above his head, but in spite of the dim light the "Rajah's" face, framed by his dark hair and beard, shone like dull gold, yes, it positively shone. And it was this strange brightness which had so impressed Michael Petroff that he spoke more softly and addressed him as Prince. He had, in fact, never seriously considered who the "Rajah" really was. He was a Prince, who possessed a great kingdom somewhere and lived in exile. Now Michael Petroff believed all this without thinking very much about it. Yet at this moment he _understood_ that the "Rajah" was a Prince, and he entirely altered his bearing toward him.

"You were pleased to send for me?" said he, with timid hesitation, and bowed.

The "Rajah" turned his face toward Dr. Maerz.

"I thank you, Sir," he said, in a deep, quiet voice, whose tone had changed. "I know that you could have refused me this favor, since I am your prisoner."

"My dear friend"--answered the Doctor, but the "Rajah" paid no further attention to him.

"I sent for you," he said, turning to Michael Petroff, "in order that you may write down my last will and testament."

"I am at your disposal," answered Michael Petroff, bowing slightly.

"Then write what I tell you."

Michael Petroff felt in his pockets confusedly. "I will run," said he, "I will be back at once"--and he left the room rapidly, to bring pencil and paper from his office.

"Michael Petroff--" whispered the little lawyer pleadingly. "You are leaving me--?"

"The 'Rajah' commands me!" answered Michael Petroff impatiently, and hurried past the trembling lawyer's little outstretched hands back to the dying man's room.

"Here I am, pardon me?" he stammered breathlessly.

"Then write!" said the "Rajah."

Michael seated himself properly and the "Rajah" began:

"We, Rajah of Mangalore, banished by the English Government, too noble to harbor feelings of revenge toward our enemies, since we are dying, in order to rescue our subjects, make known to our people:

"We greet you, our people! We greet the palm forests that shelter the temples of our ancestors! We greet the blue river that refreshes our land!"--

Michael Petroff, who was writing busily and industriously what the "Rajah" dictated, looked up as the "Rajah" paused. He saw that two great tears were falling from the "Rajah's" brilliant dark eyes. They ran down his thin but strangely glowing cheeks into his beard.

The "Rajah" raised his hand with a dignified gesture. Then he went on to the end calmly and majestically:

"We grant a universal amnesty! All our dungeons and prisons are to be opened and then burned to ashes. From this time forth no more blood shall be shed!"

"Oh, my Lord--my Prince--!" whispered Michael Petroff as he wrote.

"There shall no longer be an army in our land and no man shall go begging with his bowl. The treasure in our vaults shall be equally shared among our people. Neither castes nor classes shall exist from this time forth. All men shall be equal and all shall be brothers and sisters.

"The aged shall have their huts to die in, and to the children we bequeath the meadows to play in. To the sick we grant health, and to the unhappy sleep, quiet sleep. There shall be no more war and no more hatred between the peoples, whatever their color, for so we decree. The judges shall be wise and just, and to evil doers one must say: Go and be happy, for unhappiness causes evil doing.

"To mankind we grant the earth, that they may occupy the same, to the fish we give the waters and the sea, to the birds the heavens, and to the beasts the forests, and the meadows that lie hidden amongst them!

"But you, our own people, we bless and kiss you, for we are dying."

The "Rajah" raised his hands in benediction and sank back upon the pillows.

All who were present remained motionless and gazed at him. His chest rose and fell feebly and rapidly while his lids drooped over his eyes and showed like bright spots in his dark face.

Dr. Maerz stepped gently to the bedside.

Just then the "Rajah" smiled. He threw his head back and opened his lips, as if he were going to sing. But only a thin, musical cry passed his lips, so high, so thin and so far away that it seemed as if the "Rajah" were already calling from some distant realm. It was the cry of the street venders in the Orient.

The "Rajah" was dead.

Michael Petroff stood on tiptoes and gazed with parted lips at the pale, mysteriously beautiful face that shone beneath the rich dark hair. He felt a sense of shame. He had lived so long with him who was now dead, without realizing who he was. He longed to kneel beside the dead man's bed and whisper: "Prince, my Prince!" But he did not dare to approach, he was afraid and stole out of the room.

After a while, when Dr. Maerz stepped out into the corridor, he was impressed by the quiet that reigned in the ward. There was not a sound to be heard. The muffled tread overhead, that had paced back and forth for hours, was still. And Engelhardt had ceased crying and groaning.

Dr. Maerz went to the shoemaker's door. All was as still as death within. He opened the door and listened. Engelhardt--was sleeping! His breathing was deep and regular ... Dr. Maerz shook his head and went thoughtfully out of the ward. On the steps leading to the garden he lit a cigar and turned up his coat collar. He was shivering.

So now he is asleep, thought he, as he walked through the moonlit garden, where the bushes cast long, pale shadows. Is there any discoverable connection between the teacher's death and Engelhardt's sleep? And he thought of one of his colleagues, who would invent a connection in any case, and then he thought how much he would enjoy a cup of strong coffee just now. Suddenly he paused, slightly startled. In the moonlight a little man, all wrapped up, was moving. It was the lawyer.

The little man had passed the whole night shivering and trembling in his dark room. But when the first cock crowed he had slipped out of the ward to water his flowers.

"Hush, hush!" he whispered to the thousands of little birds that began to chirp in the bushes as soon as he came near. "Sleep a bit longer, little ones!"

And while he was watering the flowers, he quite forgot the night, the "Rajah," and Engelhardt who needed another soul, and began to smile. "Good morning, my pets," he said softly, "here I am, I have come back to you."

But in Michael Petroff's room the light was burning.

Michael Petroff was sitting at his writing table, smiling and goodhumored, writing diligently. For the impression that the "Rajah's" death had made upon him had vanished as quickly as the tears that he had shed for him. He was now working on an article which he regarded as a marvelously important contribution for his newspaper. And this work brought back his happy cheerful spirits.

In the neatest characters he wrote:

"A telegram! The Rajah of Mangalore--against whose exile we have registered our telegraphic protest with the English Government--fell gently asleep tonight toward three o'clock. We had the honor to be present at his deathbed and to draw up the last will and testament of this great ruler. We will favor our readers with a copy:

"'We, Rajah of Mangalore, banished by the English Government, too noble to harbor feelings of revenge toward our enemies, since we are dying, in order to rescue our subjects, make known to our people ...'"

Only as the sun rose did Michael Petroff lie down to rest.

THE CONTEMPORARY GERMAN DRAMA

By Amelia von Ende

A period of transition in a nation's life is not the best foundation upon which to rear a new literature. The change of religious, moral, I social and political standards from their well-established and time-honored base to new and untried planes does not favor the development of minds, well-defined and well-balanced, and of characters, able to translate a clear purpose into consistent achievement.

Germany passed through such a change toward the end of the nineteenth century. The unification of the Empire with its era of material prosperity and progress strengthened the roots of national consciousness; the gospel of the superman with its absolute ego-cult stimulated individual self-assertion; the wave of altruism which swept across the world at the same time roused the slumbering sense of social responsibility. These three forces--national consciousness, individual self assertion, social responsibility--profoundly affected the character of the young generation growing up in the newly reestablished Empire. Embracing each of these principles in turn, theorizing about them, the young men and women of the time became unsettled. With the gradual realization of the seriousness of the underlying ideas grew the desire to experiment with them in life, to prove them by practice. In the attempt to live these new ideals the individual became involved in a conflict with the old conscience that no philosophy had yet been able to argue away, and the road out of this dilemma lay along the line of least resistance, which consisted in drifting with the changing tides. The result was the gradual evolution of a type of hero which modified the drama of the country. While the hero of old encountered and conquered obstacles mainly of external circumstance and complication, the hero of the present is the victim of doubts and moods rooted within himself, defeating his purpose and paralyzing his will.

The modern German drama deals with these conditions and characters. The writers whose creative instinct awoke in the seventies stood upon the firm ground of old traditions and were inspired by the optimism of the national renascence. The writers who responded to the same instinct in the eighties stood on the plane of a philosophy which had undermined the old traditions and conventions and had not yet crystallized into constructive principles that could safely guide the individual through life. Their souls wavered between self-realization and self-renunciation; their minds eagerly followed the example of Ibsen inquiring into individual motives and responsibilities, and their eyes were at the same time opened to the economic struggle of the masses which had roused the social conscience. A world unknown to the poets of the previous generation, or ignored by them, had come within the range of vision; it engaged not only the humanitarian's sympathy and the philosopher's speculation, but the artist's interest. It was studied for its scientific meaning and exploited for its esthetic possibilities.

The floodgates of a literature rich in stimulating ideas were opened and the new subject-matter demanded a new manner, a new style. The influence of Darwin was not lost upon the young generation. The significance of circumstance and environment in the making of man led to a minute painting of the milieu, of the external setting of each individual life at every moment of its existence in drama or fiction. The language of the characters became the language of their class in ordinary life. The action was immediately and directly transferred to the written page and became a record of unadorned reality. The cry for truth became one of the party cries of the period. Naturalistic fiction and naturalistic drama came into being.

Within the brief space of less than twenty-five years were born three men whose literary personalities represent this development of German drama. Ernst von Wildenbruch in the main held fast to the traditions of the past, which he treated in historical plays in the manner of a poet who had matured in the period of Germany's unification and was inspired with the consciousness of national renascence. Hermann Sudermann, who rose on the horizon just as the old traditions began to weaken, chose to ignore the past, took his cue from the social note of the present, but sought a compromise with the old forms and with the taste of the great mass of the people. Gerhart Hauptmann, the youngest of the three, discarded all precedent and built upon new foundations with new material in a new manner. By the success which he gained in spite of his uncompromising attitude, he became the leader of the young generation.

The intellectual atmosphere in the decade that witnessed the advent of Sudermann and Hauptmann was extraordinarily alive and stimulating and the drama was chosen by an amazing number of young aspirants to literary fame as the vehicle of the message they had for the world. The plays of the period suggest the fermentation going on in the young brains, the unsettling of old and the dawn of new creeds, religious, social and esthetic. The clash of two generations became one of the most popular themes. Caesar Flaischlen, a Suabian, handled it most thoughtfully and effectively in _Martin Lehnhardt_. Though the author modestly called it "dramatic scenes," it was a play presenting with spirited rhythm a phase of the spiritual revolution and moral revaluation then taking place, and in the orthodox uncle and the radical nephew he created two figures full of real dramatic life. The well-to-do and well-satisfied middle-class with its somewhat shopworn ideals was a popular topic with these young men who lustily set about to demolish the Mosaic and other codes of life. Otto Erich Hartleben was hailed as the Juvenal of the society of his time, flaying it mercilessly in satirical comedies like _Education for Marriage_, _The Moral Requirement_, and _Rose-Monday_.

Whatever were the shortcomings of these young hot-spurs, there is no doubt that there were among them earnest seekers for new values of life and letters. Many were contented with pathetic seriousness and doubtful results to imitate their successful and popular model, Gerhart Hauptmann. Some made no attempt at concealing that they walked closely in the footsteps of their master. Nor did the critics of the new school esteem them any less for being followers and imitators rather than creators of independent merit. Among these youths, Georg Hirschfeld, a born Berliner, was the most promising. He was of a type abundant in every metropolis having an intense intellectual life: sensitive, impressionable, with an amazing talent for absorption and adaptation and a facile gift of language. The reception accorded to his drama. _The Mothers_ (1896), which was frankly reminiscent of Sudermann's contrast between the front and the rear house and of Hauptmann's dialogue of real life, was so generous, that it gave the author, then barely twenty-three, a position quite out of proportion to his achievement. His efforts at following up the easily won success made him a pathetic figure in the drama of that decade. He experienced failure upon failure and has now, after the publication of some stories of varying merit and the stage success of a clever comedy directed against the esthetes--_Mieze and Maria_--once more dropped out of sight.

A far more robust figure came to the fore in Max Halbe, a West Prussian and an individuality deeply rooted in the soil of his forefathers. That soil and his close kinship with nature gave Halbe a firmer foundation than the shifting quicksands of metropolitan life offered. These were the premises upon which he set out to build. But he would not have been a child of his time had he not seen life through the temperament of his generation. With all his sturdy mental and moral fibre he could not withstand the torrential current of skepticism and revaluation that swept through the intellectual world and uprooted its spiritual mainstays. Though the action of his plays was based upon eternal conflicts of the human tragi-comedy--the irreconcilable contrast between two generations, between two orders of life, between love and duty--his characters are of the new type, his unheroic heroes are like the men he saw about him, reeds swayed by the breath of the Zeitgeist, and true to the naturalistic creed of his generation they were represented by him without any attempt at idealization.

Halbe made his debut in 1889 with the tragedy of a peasant parvenu. The play was fashioned according to old formulas, but of charming local color and with more than a touch of the new type in one of the characters. This was followed in 1890 by _Free Love_, the hero of which is one of those individuals unable to reconcile their convictions with their actions--a conflict which becomes a source of torture to themselves and those about them. The _Ice-Floe_ (1892) was a powerful drama, in which the sudden thaw, destroying what has been, but bringing with it a breath of the spring and the new life to come, admirably symbolized the passing of the old order. But it was not until the following year, which saw the publication of his _Youth_, that Halbe attracted serious attention outside of the circles of that Young Germany which has become identified with the literary revolution. _Youth_ was of a human significance and of an artistic calibre which could not well be ignored. This work presented the old theme of youth, love and sin in the provincial setting that he knew so well; the characters were taken from real life and portrayed with striking truthfulness. But over it all was the atmosphere of spring, of sunshine and blossoms and thundershowers that quicken the germs in the womb of the earth. This was suggested with a delicacy and a chastity rare in the literature of that period of storm and stress. _Youth_ was the work of a true poet and would have been hailed as such even had the author been born into a period less generous in its bestowal of praise upon the works of the "coming men."

In _Mother Earth_, published in 1897, Max Halbe shows himself at his best both in spirit and in manner. The hero of that play is estranged from his paternal hearth, with its ancestral traditions and from the simple rural life and the innocent tender love of his youth. For he has gone to Berlin, has drifted into the circles of the intellectuals, married the brilliant and advanced daughter of a professor and become actively interested in feminist propaganda. Subconsciously, however, this life does not satisfy him, and when on the death of his father he returns to the old home and feels once more its charm, he realizes that he has forfeited real happiness for a vague and alien ideal. In this work with its firmly knit and logically evolved action Max Halbe reached a climax in his development. Since its production his star has been steadily declining and the thirteen or more works that have since come from his pen have not added to his reputation. Embittered by his failures, he chose some years ago to attack his rivals and critics in a satirical comedy. _The Isle of the Blessed_, but he had miscalculated the effect of the poorly disguised personal animosities upon an audience not sufficiently interested in the author's friendships and enmities. He has, however, not become sadly resigned to his fate, like Hirschfeld, but continues to court the favor of the stage with the tenacity of a man disappointed in his hopes but unwilling to admit his defeat.

An important aspect of the social and esthetic programme of the new school was the unflinching frankness with which it faced a problem belonging to intimate life and barring public discussion, yet closely connected with the economic conditions of society: the problem of sex. The curious revival of pagan eroticism in lyric poetry and the growing tendency toward a scientific cynicism in fiction were supplemented by attempts to handle sex from the standpoint of modern psychology and social ethics in drama. With works of that class has the name of Frank Wedekind become inseparably associated. He is the most positive intellect among the writers of Young Germany and their most radical innovator in regard to form. He is a fanatic of truth and deals only with facts; discarding the mitigating accessories of the _milieu_, he places those facts before us in absolute nudity. This would make him the most consistent naturalist; but when facts are presented bald and bare, they do not make the impression of reality, but rather of grotesque caricature. Hence Wedekind has sometimes been compared with early English dramatists and classed with romanticists like Lenz, Grabbe and Heine. He himself has no esthetic theories whatever that could facilitate his being enrolled under some fetching label. Nor has he any ethical principles, some critics allege, if they do not curtly call him immoral. Yet his work, from the appearance of _Spring's Awakening_ (1891) to his _Stone of Wisdom_, (1909) and his most recent works, proves him to be concerned with nothing but the moral problem. He treats social morality with mordant irony from an a-moral standpoint. The distinction between a-moral and immoral must be borne in mind in any attempt to interpret the puzzling and paradoxical personality of the author and to arrive at an approximate understanding of the man behind his work.

That Wedekind is not only an author, but an actor as well, has in no small degree complicated his case. The pose seems so inseparably connected with the art of the actor, that his intransigent policy in sex matters and his striking impersonations of the characters in his plays have been interpreted as the unabashed bid for notoriety of a clever poseur. But his acting could hardly have made palatable to theatre audiences topics tabooed in polite conversation and with appalling candor presented by him on the stage. Neither his quality as actor nor his quality as author could account for the measure of popularity his plays have attained. It would rather indicate that the German public was ready for open discussion of the problems involved and that Wedekind's frankness and honesty, his lapses into diabolical grimace and grotesque hyperbole notwithstanding, met a demand of his time. Nor did he restrict himself to that one particular problem. His irony spared no institution, no person: lese-majeste was one of his offenses; nor did he spare himself. Born into a generation which took itself very seriously, he created the impression as if he at least were not taking himself too seriously. Yet a survey of his work, regardless of the comparisons and conclusions it may suggest, tends to substantiate the claim that Frank Wedekind is not only an uncompromising destroyer of antiquated sentiment and a fanatic of positive life, but a grim moralist. It is easy to recognize him in some of his characters, and these figures, like the banished king in _Thus is Life_, the secretary Hetman in _Hidalla_, the author Lindekuh in _Musik_, and others, are always the tragic moralists in an immoral world. There is something pathetic in the perseverance with which he is ever harping on the one string.

For although he is now one of the more popular writers of his generation, his attitude has not changed much in the course of his career. The man who hurled into the world _Spring's Awakening_, is still behind the social satirist who has become a favorite with theatre audiences through his clever portrayal of a crook in _The Marquis of Keith_ and of the popular stage favorite in _The Court Singer_. He is little concerned with the probability of the plot; his situations will not bear the test of serious scrutiny. They are only the background from which the figure of the hero stands out in strong relief. The popular tenor, who is an amusing combination of the artist and the businessman, is one of the characters in the plays of Wedekind that have little or no trace in them of the author himself. He is seen with astonishing objectivity and presented with delectable sarcasm. The story of the famous singer, who between packing his valise to take the train for his next engagement, studying a new role, running over numerous letters from admirers, makes love to the one caller he cannot get rid of, a woman who chooses that inopportune moment to shoot herself before his eyes, is a typical product of his manner, and a grotesque satire upon the cult of histrionic stars practised by both sexes.

While the initiative in the literary revolution of which Halbe and Wedekind are such striking examples was taken by Northern Germany and centred in Berlin, Austria was not slow in adding a note of its own by giving the German drama of the period two of its most interesting individualities. Both Arthur Schnitzler and Hugo von Hofmannsthal--to whom might be added the clever and versatile Hermann Bahr--reflect the complex soul of their native city, Vienna; for if Austria is acknowledged to be a most curious racial composite, Vienna contains its very essence. Situated at the parting of the ways for the South and the Orient, it has ever been a much-coveted spot. After the conquest of the original Celtic settlement by the Romans, Teutons, Huns, and Turks have successively fought for its possession and have left their imprint upon its physiognomy. Intermarriage with the neighboring Czechs and Magyars, the affiliations of the court with Spain, Italy, and France, and the final permeation of all social strata by the Hebrew element, have produced what may be called the Viennese soul. Political conditions, too, have influenced it: to maintain peace in a country which is a heterogeneous conglomerate of states rather than an organic growth, requires a diplomacy the chief aim of which is to prevent anything from happening. This attitude of the Viennese court and its vast machinery of functionaries slowly affected other classes, until the people of Vienna as a body seem to refrain from anything that means action. It is this passive fatalism which has hampered the intellectual development of Vienna. Oldest in culture among the German-speaking cities of Europe it has never been and is not likely ever to be a leader.

Minds that entered upon this local heritage were only too ready to receive the seeds of skepticism abundant in the spiritual atmosphere of the century's end. But Nietzsche's gospel of the Superman, Ibsen's heretical analysis of human motives and Zola's cry for truth did not affect the young generation of Vienna intellectuals as they did those of Paris or Berlin, where the revision of old standards of life and letters was promptly followed by daring experiments with new ideals. Young Vienna heard the keynotes of the new time, but it was content to evolve a new variety of an old tune. Time-honored pessimism, world-sorrow, gave way to a sophisticated and cynical world-weariness which is symptomatic of decadence. Widely different as their individualities present themselves, between the pages of their books and on the stage, both Schnitzler and Hofmannsthal reflect that attitude of mind.

In the work of Arthur Schnitzler the Hebrew element predominates; it has quickened the somewhat inert Vienna blood and finds expression in analytical keenness and sharpness of vision, a wit of Gallic refinement and a language of sparkling brilliancy. Schnitzler's profession, too, has not been without some influence upon his poetical work. A physician facing humanity daily not in strength and health, but in weakness and disease, cannot divest himself of a certain pessimistic bias. Brought up and practising in a city like Vienna, he cannot escape the cynicism which belongs alike to the man of the world as to the doctor before whom all veils and pretenses are discarded. It is difficult, indeed, to banish the idea that the consultation-room of Arthur Schnitzler, Dr. med., is the confessional which furnishes material to Arthur Schnitzler, author. For the modern physician is not concerned with his patient's body only, but also with his soul. He must be a psychologist as well, and the success of his diagnosis depends upon his skill to unravel the intricate interrelations between both. That Schnitzler is such a physician admits of no doubt. His perspicacity as diagnostician lends subtlety to his analysis and portrayal of characters. While his professional bias may in a manner limit the range of his vision, his professional knowledge and experience are strong assets of the dramatist Schnitzler.