United States or Brunei ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
At midnight Kirtley saw a remarkable sight. On the stroke of twelve, loud toasts to Der Tag were suddenly lifted high in air as the orchestra broke forth with the Wacht am Rhein. An uproar seized the assembly. "Gott scourge England! Down with France! Deutschland über Alles!" In a twinkling it was a crowd mad for war. Beer mugs were smashed, various objects of apparel were flung far and wide.
The servitor raced in, mad and muttering, and banged down a big can of the much desired condiment. At last, Gott sei Dank! there was pepper by the wholesale. The salad proceeded on its troubled course. "You like our Germany yes?" was inserted. Kirtley assured the three that he had had a pleasant year. "Our Germany is a great country," explained the tall Teuton in a high, cracked voice.
He saw and heard what was going on in those quarters, and through him Kirtley learned of that phase of German character and habits. In view of everything, there had finally been no decent, reasonable way for Gard but to let Deming, professedly zealous of knowing German and seeing Teuton home life, into the Bucher circle.
Kirtley took refuge in an alcove. He fancied he would before long spy Fritzi. She would be the only person he knew. But she discovered him first. She tripped up to him with a green cavalier redolent of salad oil and beer. She was very proud to be able to claim Herr Kirtley for one of her "sales." Foreigners are always distinguished.
"Italy is already as good as conquered," Rudi proclaimed, "and England simply needs to be tilted off her worm-eaten perch by a sudden shock." Kirtley rubbed his eyes. What a widespread, horrible butchery was being nursed and nourished here in this obscure family of peace? Surely this good folk did not appreciate the meaning of it all.
Besides, Kirtley had not yet fully learned that they have not the same understanding of things, not the same definitions for the same words. For instance, the Buchers insisted that the Germans had the most freedom of any nation. But their freedom meant something like the liberty allowed in a prison yard. Free press?
"I know they think I'm getting in my dotage brain a little cracked and all that. I'm a poor chap possessed of a foolish and wicked delusion. Mean well, but head rickety. Sometimes I really think I must be crazy, with all the world against me about the German danger. They call me Jeremiah and Mother Goose rolled into one. But, by God, Kirtley, as my soul's immortal, I tell you I'm right I'm right!
In the winter a pleasant feature had been the theater or opera nights. Darkness then came at four. Dinner would be served at five in order to reach the amusement place at half past six or seven. By eleven the family were back in Loschwitz, sitting down, starved, to a bouncing supper where frequently Kirtley regaled himself with the toothsome Pumpernickel.
And he alone, among the powerful military chieftains of the old, old past, had died both peacefully and undefeated. Why, then, has he faded from view? This was an interesting question to Kirtley. Why has Cæsar so outshone Charlemagne? Why are Homer and Vergil, in comparison, coming ever more to the fore? Why has Dante become the masterly profile of medievalism?
Hence resulted the unfeelingness that Kirtley observed in the life about him in Loschwitz the roughness so little tempered with affection, but, instead, frankly interpreted and exhibited as the true bearing of the dominant male's masculine nobility. Quite normally, then, came about the extensive amount of open and violent quarreling which Gard noticed in the households.