held out his hand.
"I am pleased to have seen you, Lord Comber," he said. "Do not forgetmy message to your father; and take my advice and come to Berlin in thewinter. We are always pleased to see the English in Germany."
As Michael left the box he ran into the Herr-Director, who had beensummoned to get a few hints.
He went back to join Falbe in a state of republican irritation, whichthe honour that had been done him did not at all assuage. There was anhour's interval before the third act, and the two drove back to theirhotel to dine there. But Michael found his friend wholly unsympatheticwith his chagrin. To him, it was quite clear, the disappointment of nothaving been able to attend very closely to the second act of Tristan wasnegligible compared to the cause that had occasioned it. It was possiblefor the ordinary mortal to see Tristan over and over again, but toconverse with the Kaiser was a thing outside the range of the averageman. And again in this interval, as during the act itself, Michaelwas bombarded with questions. What did the Kaiser say? Did he rememberAshbridge? Did Michael twice receive the iron grip? Did the All-highestsay anything about the manoeuvres? Did he look tired, or was it only thelight above his head that made him appear so haggard? Even his opinionabout the opera was of interest. Did he express approval?
This was too much for Michael.
"My dear Hermann," he said, "we alluded very cautiously to the 'Song toAegir' this morning, and delicately remarked that you had heard it onceand I twice. How can you care what his opinion of this opera is?"
Falbe shook his handsome head, and gesticulated with his fine hands.
"You don't understand," he said. "You have just been talking to himhimself. I long to hear his every word and intonation. There is thepersonality, which to us means so much, in which is summed up allGermany. It is as if I had spoken to Rule Britannia herself. Would younot be interested? There is no one in the world who is to his countrywhat the Kaiser is to us. When you told me he had stayed at Ashbridge Iwas thrilled, but I was ashamed lest you should think me snobbish, whichindeed I am not. But now I am past being ashamed."
He poured out a glass of wine and drank it with a "Hoch!"
"In his hand lies peace and war," he said. "It is as he pleases. TheEmperor and his Chancellor can make Germany do exactly what they choose,and if the Chancellor does not agree with the Emperor, the Emperor canappoint one who does. That is what it comes to; that is why he is asvast as Germany itself. The Reichstag but advises where he is concerned.Have you no imagination, Michael? Europe lies in the hand that shookyours."
Michael laughed.
"I suppose I must have no imagination," he said. "I don't picture iteven now when you point it out."
Falbe pointed an impressive forefinger.
"But for him," he said, "England and Germany would have been at eachother's throats over the business at Agadir. He held the warhounds inleash--he, their master, who made them."
"Oh, he made them, anyhow," said Michael.
"Naturally. It is his business to be ready for any attack on the part ofthose who are jealous at our power. The whole Fatherland is a swordin his hand, which he sheathes. It would long ago have leaped from thescabbard but for him."
"Against whom?" asked Michael. "Who is the enemy?"
Falbe hesitated.
"There is no enemy at present," he said, "but the enemy potentially isany who tries to thwart our peaceful expansion."
Suddenly the whole subject tasted bitter to Michael. He recalled,instinctively, the Emperor's great curiosity to be informed on Englishtopics by the ordinary Englishman with whom he had acquaintance.
"Oh, let's drop it," he said. "I really didn't come to Munich to talkpolitics, of which I know nothing whatever."
Falbe nodded.
"That is what I have said to you before," he remarked. "You are the mosthappy-go-lucky of the nations. Did he speak of England?"
"Yes, of his beloved England," said Michael. "He was extremely cordialabout our relations."
"Good. I like that," said Falbe briskly.
"And he recommended me to spend two months in Berlin in the winter,"added Michael, sliding off on to other topics.
Falbe smiled.
"I like that less," he said, "since that will mean you will not be inLondon."
"But I didn't commit myself," said Michael, smiling back; "though I cansay 'beloved Germany' with equal sincerity."
Falbe got up.
"I would wish that--that you were Kaiser of England," he said.
"God forbid!" said Michael. "I should not have time to play the piano."
During the next day or two Michael often found himself chipping atthe bed-rock, so to speak, of this conversation, and Falbe's revealedattitude towards his country and, in particular, towards its supremehead. It seemed to him a wonderful and an enviable thing that anyonecould be so thoroughly English as Falbe certainly was in his ordinary,everyday life, and that yet, at the back of this there should lieso profound a patriotism towards another country, and so profound areverence to its ruler. In his general outlook on life, his friendappeared to be entirely of one blood with himself, yet now on two orthree occasions a chance spark had lit up this Teutonic beacon. ToMichael this mixture of nationalities seemed to be a wonderful gift;it implied a widening of one's sympathies and outlook, a largercomprehension of life than was possible to any of undiluted blood.
For himself, like most young Englishmen of his day, he was not consciousof any tremendous sense of patriotism like this. Somewhere, deep downin him, he supposed there might be a source, a well of English waters,which some explosion in his nature might cause to flood him entirely,but such an idea was purely hypothetical; he did not, in fact, lookforward to such a bouleversement as being a possible contingency. Butwith Falbe it was different; quite a small cause, like the sight ofthe Rhine at Cologne, or a Bavarian village at sunset, or the fact of afriend having talked with the Emperor, was sufficient to make hisinnate patriotism find outlet in impassioned speech. He wondered vaguelywhether Falbe's explanation of this--namely, that nationally the Englishwere prosperous, comfortable and insouciant--was perhaps sound. Itseemed that the notion was not wholly foundationless.
CHAPTER VI
Michael had been practising all the morning of a dark November day, hadeaten a couple of sandwiches standing in front of his fire, and observedwith some secret satisfaction that the fog which had lifted for anhour had come down on the town again in earnest, and that it was onlyreasonable to dismiss the possibility of going out, and spend theafternoon as he had spent the morning. But he permitted himself a fewminutes' relaxation as he smoked his cigarette, and sat down by thewindow, looking out, in Lucretian mood, on to the very dispiritingconditions that prevailed in the street.
Though it was still only between one and two in the afternoon, thedensest gloom prevailed, so that it was impossible to see the outlineseven of the houses across the street, and the only evidence that hewas not in some desert spot lay in the fact of a few twinkling lights,looking incredibly remote, from the windows opposite and the gas-lampsbelow. Traffic seemed to be at a standstill; the accustomed roar fromPiccadilly was dumb, and he looked out on to a silent and vapour-swathedworld. This isolation from all his fellows and from the chances of beingdisturbed, it may be added, gave him a sense of extreme satisfaction. Hewanted his piano, but no intrusive presence. He liked the sensation ofbeing shut up in his own industrious citadel, secure from interruption.
During the last two months and a half since his return from Munich hehad experienced greater happiness, had burned with a stronger zest forlife than during the whole of his previous existence. Not only had hebeen working at that which he believed he was fitted for, and which gavehim the stimulus which, one way or another, is essential to all goodwork, but he had been thrown among people who were similarly employed,with whom he had this great common ground of kinship in ambition andaim. No more were the days too long from being but half-filled with workwith which he had no sympathy, and diversions that gave him no pleasure;none held s
ufficient hours for all that he wanted to put into it. And inthis busy atmosphere, where his own studies took so much of his timeand energy, and where everybody else was in some way similarly employed,that dismal self-consciousness which so drearily looked on himselfshuffling along through fruitless, uncongenial days was cracking off himas the chestnut husk cracks when the kernel within swells and ripens.
Apart from his work, the centre of his life was certainly the householdof the Falbes, where the brother and sister lived with their mother. Sheturned out to be in a rather remote manner "one of us," and had abouther, very faint and dim, like an antique lavender bag, the odour ofAshbridge. She lived like the lilies of the field, without toiling orspinning, either