Hadrian the Seventh · Chapter 13 (1/3)

XIII

On the night of the second of October, the German Emperor sat in the Imperial box at the Berlin Schauspielhaus. They were playing Wilhelm Tell. William II looked-on at the mummer portraying the audacious genius who, by skill and courage, delivered a people from tyranny. He looked on the presented incident with a humorous sense of its coincidence with his present intention: for, in the imperial mind⁠—that agile predominant mind at which inferior minds (led by the Pall Mall Gazette) were used to mock⁠—was stored certain knowledge of another scene yet to be enacted in which he himself would play the part of the deliverer. An aide-de-camp entered during the interval, while the house gave itself up to conversation, apples, nuts, pfefferkuchen. He handed a locked portfolio to the Kaiser.

“The papers are all here?”

“Yes, Sire.”

“The manager attends?”

“He is at the door, Sire.”

“He has received my commands?”

“Your Majesty’s commands have been executed.”

“Good. I will follow him. Go now to the newspaper-offices; and bring the specials to me after supper. Mahlzeit!”

The curtain went up for the last act. The audience was stricken with sudden paralyzed amazement. On the stage, actors, scene-shifters, the whole theatre staff, were grouped in an immense semicircle. In the chord of the semicircle, one figure stood alone, grimly dominant. At first, it was taken for a daringly realistic caricature of the Emperor; and fear of the penalties of lèse-majesté dawned in the minds of the beholders. But the figure spoke, and doubt fled. It was the Emperor. Everyone knew that vigorous vocative “Germans!” The said Germans were used to manifestations of their ruler’s omniscience and omnipresence; and they automatically stood to listen. He quoted the assertion of Herr Bebmarck in the Reichstag, that every speech by the Kaiser against Socialists meant a socialist gain of 100,000 votes at the elections. Then he flung out a challenge. He said that the insuing elections meant war to the knife, not between him and his people but, between him and the handful of venal demagogues unworthy to bear the sacred name of Germans who led his people astray. He opened his portfolio. Socialism, he said, commanded four million votes. One-third of the German Army was Socialist. Socialism was the largest political party in the Empire; and increased each year at the expense of every other party. It was a vast and important body. A body needed a brain to direct its functions. Who, after all, was the head? The demagogues, or the Kaiser? At a moment like the present, when the Fatherland was menaced on both sides by anarchy and hereditary enemies, the glorious German nation must not be harassed by intestine feuds. Hitherto, a great part of his people had been taught to obstruct his schemes for German welfare. Thereby they had hurt themselves. They had had the pleasure of opposing him: but they had delayed their own betterment: for his alone was the will which should rule Germany. Yet, he would not blame his people. They had been betrayed by liars, deceived by treacherous pseudophilanthropists. He would not blame the tempted, but the tempters. The names of the tempters, the human Satans, were August Bebmarck, turner: Grillerbergen, locksmith: Raue, Bulermolken, Reistem, saddlers: Varmol, ex-post-official: Steinbern, lawyer: Volkenberg, territorial-magnate: Singenmann, capitalist. He arraigned these men on a charge of having deluded the good heart of four million German people by professions of disinterestedness, of benevolence, by promises of universal betterment. He denounced their professions and their promises as false, and their practices as corrupt enough to have obtained the attention of the police. The socialist demagogues were traitors to the very cause which they professed to serve. Their object was not the improvement of the social conditions of the people: it was personal aggrandisement. He brought proofs from his portfolio. Bebmarck, Grillenberger, Varmol had accepted bribes of M. 100,000, M. 45,000, M. 40,000 respectively from the communist government of France. Raue, Bulermolken, Reistem had accepted the post of saddlery contractors to the French army. Each of the foregoing had given a written promise to influence the Socialist vote. The Kaiser read and exhibited the promises; and continued. Steinbern had sold the minute books of various Socialist committees in Hanover for M. 300,000. (The books were produced by an imperial aide.) Volkenberg had scouted the proposal to municipalize his own vast possessions: Singenmann was proved to have derived his riches from ill-paid sweated labour.

“These be thy gods, O Socialism,” the Emperor cried: “the mere possession of important private property, of what is called a stake in the country, has revealed their brazen faces and feet of clay. The mere offer of the price of blood has revealed the Iscariots of the Fatherland.”

He commanded his hearers to remember that in 1890 he himself had abrogated the laws against socialism and had dismissed the persecutor Bismarck, saying Die Social Democratie überlassen sie mir; mit der werde ich ganz alleine fertig. He said that his method had been to leave them free to work out their own salvation: but in vain. A bad tree does not bring forth good fruit. It had not been socialism, nor parliamentary majorities and resolutions, which had welded together the German Empire: but the army and he, the Emperor, the representative of that power in the state which, not only created German unity in the teeth of those who pretended to represent the people but, thereby carried into every German home the sense of national power. Finally, he demanded, did the innocent industrious greathearted dupes of the socialist demagogues intend in this crisis of German history to follow and obey the behests of lowborn traitors, never-sufficiently-to-be-damned-and-despised sweaters, infamous Rabagases: or would they give loyal allegiance to him, their divinely appointed and legitimate Kaiser, the heir of Friedrich the Noble and of Wilhelm the Good and of Friedrich the Great⁠—to him, the Father of the fatherland, whose whole life and energy was devoted and consecrated to Deutschland Deutschland über alles.

With that, he left the stage and the theatre. The audience, a typically middle-class one, the very class of all others to which such an oration would appeal, was stirred down to the depths of its phlegmatic Teutonic soul. As the Kaiser departed, not a “Hoch” was uttered: but multitudes of stem-faced converts poured out, silently saluting him with the fire of loyalty lighted in their eyes. Germans are logical by nature. Display indefeasible premises; and it is not a German who will err from the just conclusion. All night long, all the newspapers except the Vorwaerts issued special editions containing the Emperor’s speech. During the next few days William II himself repeated it in the great cities of his empire. At Essen and Breslau his reception partook of the nature of an ovation. Everywhere the press spread his epoch-making words to all who actually did not hear them. German good sense preferred honesty, vigorous masterly honesty, even harebrained honesty, to the base treachery which is actuated by no motive except personal gain. German good sense could see that the Kaiser himself was the hardest-working man in the Empire: that his simply amazing diligence and toil were absolutely unselfish, absolutely impersonal: that he gained no tangible reward whatever: that his life, which quite easily might have been one of irresponsible pleasure and ease, was an incessant round of mental and physical exertion for the good of others. German honour admired and German generosity repaid. The fascinating personality of William II at last was recognized as the chief element of the nation’s power. His splendid and unique confidence in himself and his imperial vocation inspired his subjects with confidence in him. The device of the secret ballot, and the now-unfettered ability of every German to vote according to his conscience, had the calculated effect. The elections showed that the enormous prestige of the Emperor had won the Socialist vote, and the Catholic vote, and the votes of the Right and the Left, in support of his paramount authority. The English newspapers ceased from jeering; and the Pall Mall Gazette split subjunctives as well as infinitives in applause of success.

The lay-Majordomo of the Apostolic Palace found occasion to invite Cardinals Talacryn and Semphill to inspect certain accounts. “I feel it my duty to call Your Eminencies’ attention to the fact,” said he, “that our Most Holy Lord consumes about seven and sixpence worth, of food and drink a week upon the average. It is shocking. Also it is ridiculous. Kindly cast your eyes over these documents. They are the accounts covering the past six months. Note how many times His dinner consists of three raw carrots and two poached eggs. Meat, you see, He eats not more than twice a week. Fish, He refuses. I understand that He will take the lean of beef, the fat of pork, the breast of a bird, and chew them for an hour.”

“That accounts for His magnificent digestion,” said Talacryn; “and I know that He eats raw carrots for the sake of His white skin. But fat pork! Semphill, could you digest fat pork when you were His age? I can’t even now.”

“Condescend to consider the wine,” Count Piccino added. “His Holiness quite fails to appreciate fine wine⁠—”

“All I can say is I can remember seeing Him thoroughly enjoy a teaspoonful of my peach-brandy sometimes after dinner. That was twenty years ago though,” said Semphill.

“He used to enjoy peach-brandy! Eminency, a thousand thanks. He shall have a bottle. I never thought of it. Until now, He has taken what we give Him: but He has no palate whatever for superior brands. He’s quite content with a plain red wine from Citta Lavinia or Cinthyanum; and He drinks about as much of it in a week as another man would drink at a meal. But cream, and goat’s milk⁠—I believe He bathes in those.”

“No, no,” said Semphill; “He drinks them day and night, that’s all. He’s got the digestion of a baby for milk. Shall I ever forget seeing Him drink a pint of thick cream⁠—a whole pint⁠—at a farmhouse once when we were out walking? I thought He’d die there. I begged Him to take some of my pills. I offered to make Him free of my collection. No. He laughed at me; and goes on rejoicing.”

“But, Eminencies, do you think His Holiness can live on this meagre diet?”

“Chi lo sa? I couldn’t. He may.”

“He’s a most incomprehensible creature whatever:” Talacryn concluded.

Armed with the allegiance of an united empire, the Kaiser scoured away across the continent to Rome. He travelled incognito as the Duke of Königsberg and put up at the Palazzo Caffarelli. The world looked on and wondered. No news of his intentions were vouchsafed; and, as a rule, journalists had the decency to refrain themselves from suppositions. The exception to the rule was French, of course. “Religion is the great preoccupation of William II. Beneath the spangled uniform of this Emperor there is the soul of a clergyman, or rather the visionary soul of an initiate of even vaguer mysteries. The Kaiser only waits for an opportunity to achieve in Rome what he has already achieved in the east, that is to say, to oust France,” shrieked M. Jean de Bonnefon in the Paris Éclair. La Patrie instantly yelled in comment, “Let Germany take the Holy See. It will be the end of Germany and the beginning of revenge for Sedan. The Paparchy is an acid which will dissolve the badly cemented parts of an empire which is still too new.”

But it was not precisely religion which dictated the Kaiser’s movement. He had the sense to know that religion is personal; and, though he never lost an opportunity of asserting his personal religious opinions, the idea of making them the rule for all men never entered his eminently practical mind. No: he had other plans; and he was seeking material wherewith to build. He conferred long and secretly with the King of Italy, a man after his own heart, a born ruler, a natural autocrat, who himself had been a slave. They discussed needs. William II wanted room for a population which had increased by twenty millions in thirty years. Victor Emanuel III wanted money and time⁠—money to make easier the life of his people⁠—time to mature improvements⁠—give him those and he could laugh at Italy’s enemies, the secret societies, and the clergy⁠—

“Clergy?” the Kaiser demurred. “Now are you really sure that the clergy are your enemies?”

“Yes, in their heart of hearts. Don’t you understand that we robbed them? Don’t you know that this very palace of the Quirinale, in which I am receiving Your Imperial Majesty, is stolen property?”

“Yes, yes. But this Englishman? Surely He makes a difference?”

“To some extent. But He cannot extirpate in a moment the hatred and envy with which my House and I are regarded by the clergy whom we dispossessed. For nearly forty years, to hate us has been part of the clerical education. A weed of that kind cannot be rooted up at once. It is ingrained. Perhaps in another generation⁠—Basta!”

“Meanwhile?”

“Meanwhile what?”

“Well, hasn’t the Pope made things easier for you?”

“Yes, in a way. But what is His object? What concession, for example⁠—”

“He doesn’t seem to have left Himself any opening for extorting concessions.”

“But did Your Imperial Majesty ever hear of a priest who gave something for nothing?”

“One of my cardinals tells me that this is a madman, whose pose is to be primitive, apostolic.”

“Ha! For a primitive apostle He has a singularly dictatorial method. Have you read His ‘Epistles,’ and His denunciations of the socialists, for example?”

“I have. I entirely approve of them. They have assisted me greatly in dealing with some rebels of my own.”

“Oh no one could find fault with His sentiments⁠—so far. But they are so unusual, so extra-pontifical, that one wonders what they are concealing.”

“Is Your Majesty sure that they conceal something?”

“No, I’m not. Of course I have no means of arriving at certainty. That could only be obtained from the Pope Himself; and only from Him if He were willing to give it.”

“Has Your Majesty asked Him?”

“Certainly not. We continue to misunderstand one another. Your Imperial Majesty knows that there is no means of communication between my government and the Vatican. All we get is hearsay; and all they get is gossip.”

“Why do you not request Hadrian to receive you⁠—you yourself? I imagine that He would not refuse.”

“Perhaps not. I believe that He has been preparing for me some such trap as that. But I distrust the Greeks even when they bear gifts. They say He says His prayers in Greek, by the by.”

“I am about to request His Holiness to receive me.”

“Your Imperial Majesty’s case is different. You are not likely to have fresh insults and fresh humiliations offered to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I cherish the memory of all ecclesiastical pinpricks which formerly were administered to my father and grandfather.”

“Pinpricks? What do you call pinpricks?”

“For example, in 1878, Pio Nono, from His Own deathbed, sent to reconcile my excommunicated grandfather, who was enabled to die in the Embrace of The Lord. A little later, died also Pio Nono. My father voluntarily returned the courtesy, sending his adjutant to offer condolence to the Conclave. Leone, who then was Chamberlain, ordered the Swiss Guard to refuse entrance to the royal envoy at the bronze gates⁠—to refuse the message even.”

“Very clerical!” the Emperor said; and pondered a moment. Then “Will Your Majesty go to the Vatican with me?”

“No, Sire: I never will go to the Vatican,” the King replied.