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VOLUME XII

GUSTAV FREYTAG THEODOR FONTANE

[Illustration: FREDERICK THE GREAT PLAYING THE FLUTE
From the Painting by Adolph von Menzel]

THE GERMAN CLASSICS OF THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURY

Masterpieces of German Literature
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
KUNO FRANCKE, PH.D., LL.D., LITT.D.
Professor of the History of German Culture,
Emeritus, and Honorary Curator of the Germanic Museum,
Harvard University

ASSISTANT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
WILLIAM GUILD HOWARD, A.M.
Professor of German, Harvard University

In Twenty Volumes Illustrated

ALBANY, N.Y.
J.B. LYON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright 1914

CONTRIBUTORS AND TRANSLATORS

VOLUME XII

Special Writers

ERNEST F. HENDERSON, Ph.D., L.H.D., Author of The History of Germany in the Middle Ages; Short History of Germany, etc.: The Life of Gustav Freytag.

WILLIAM A. COOPER, A.M., Associate Professor of German, Leland
Stanford Junior University: The Life of Theodor Fontane.

Translators

ERNEST F. HENDERSON, Ph.D., L.H.D., Author of The History of Germany in the Middle Ages; Short History of Germany, etc.: The Journalists.

WILLIAM A. COOPER, A.M., Associate Professor of German, Leland
Stanford Junior University: Effi Briest; Extracts from "My Childhood
Days."

E.H. BABBITT, A.B., Assistant Professor of German, Tufts College:
Doctor Luther; Frederick the Great.

MARGARETE MÜNSTERBERG:

Sir Ribbeck of Ribbeck; The Bridge by the Tay.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME XII

GUSTAV FREYTAG

The Life of Gustav Freytag. By Ernest F. Henderson

The Journalists. Translated by Ernest F. Henderson

Doctor Luther. Translated by E.H. Babbitt

Frederick the Great. Translated by E.H. Babbitt

THEODOR FONTANE

The Life of Theodor Fontane. By William A. Cooper

Effi Briest. Translated by William A. Cooper

Extracts from "My Childhood Days." Translated by William A. Cooper

Sir Ribbeck of Ribbeck. Translated by Margarete Münsterberg

The Bridge by the Tay. Translated by Margarete Münsterberg

ILLUSTRATIONS—VOLUME XII

Frederick the Great Playing the Flute.
By Adolph von Menzel. Frontispiece

Gustav Freytag. By Stauffer-Bern

At the Concert. By Adolph von Menzel

Nature Enthusiasts. By Adolph von Menzel

On the Terrace. By Adolph von Menzel

In the Beergarden. By Adolph von Menzel

Lunch Buffet at Kissingen. By Adolph von Menzel

Luther Monument at Worms. By Ernst Rietschel

Frederick William I Inspecting a School. By Adolph von Menzel

Court Ball at Rheinsberg. By Adolph von Menzel

Frederick the Great and His Round Table. By Adolph von Menzel

Frederick the Great on a Pleasure Trip. By Adolph von Menzel

Theodor Fontane. By Hanns Fechner

Fontane Monument at Neu-Ruppin

A Sunday in the Garden of the Tuileries. By Adolph von Menzel

Divine Service in the Woods at Kösen. By Adolph von Menzel

A Street Scene at Paris. By Adolph von Menzel

Procession at Gastein. By Adolph von Menzel

High Altar at Salzburg. By Adolph von Menzel

Bathing Boys. By Adolph von Menzel

Frau von Schleinitz "At Home." By Adolph von Menzel

Supper at a Court Ball. By Adolph von Menzel

EDITOR'S NOTE

This volume, containing representative works by two of the foremost realists of midcentury German literature, Freytag and Fontane, brings, as an artistic parallel, selections from the work of the greatest realist of midcentury German painting: Adolph von Menzel.

KUNO FRANCKE.

THE LIFE OF GUSTAV FREYTAG

By ERNEST F. HENDERSON, PH.D., L.H.D.

Author of A History of Germany in the Middle Ages; A Short History of
Germany, etc.

It is difficult to assign to Gustav Freytag his exact niche in the hall of fame, because of his many-sidedness. He wrote one novel of which the statement has been made by an eminent French critic that no book in the German language, with the exception of the Bible, has enjoyed in its day so wide a circulation; he wrote one comedy which for years was more frequently played than any other on the German stage; he wrote a series of historical sketches—Pictures of the German Past he calls them—which hold a unique place in German literature, being as charming in style as they are sound in scholarship. Add to these a work on the principles of dramatic criticism that is referred to with respect by the very latest writers on the subject, an important biography, a second very successful novel, and a series of six historical romances that vary in interest, indeed, but that are a noble monument to his own nation and that, alone, would have made him famous.

As a novelist Freytag is often compared with Charles Dickens, largely on account of the humor that so frequently breaks forth from his pages. It is a different kind of humor, not so obstreperous, not so exaggerated, but it helps to lighten the whole in much the same way. One moment it is an incongruous simile, at another a bit of sly satire; now infinitely small things are spoken of as though they were great, and again we have the reverse.

It is in his famous comedy, The Journalists, which appeared in 1853, that Freytag displays his humor to its best advantage. Some of the situations themselves, without being farcical, are exceedingly amusing, as when the Colonel, five minutes after declaiming against the ambition of journalists and politicians, and enumerating the different forms under which it is concealed, lets his own ambition run away with him and is won by the very same arts he has just been denouncing. Again, Bolz's capture of the wine-merchant Piepenbrink at the ball given under the auspices of the rival party is very cleverly described indeed. There is a difference of opinion as to whether or not Bolz was inventing the whole dramatic story of his rescue by Oldendorf, but there can be no difference of opinion as to the comicality of the scene that follows, where, under the very eyes of his rivals and with the consent of the husband, Bolz prepares to kiss Mrs. Piepenbrink. The play abounds with curious little bits of satire, quaint similes and unexpected exaggerations. "There is so much that happens," says Bolz in his editorial capacity, "and so tremendously much that does not happen, that an honest reporter should never be at a loss for novelties." Playing dominoes with polar bears, teaching seals the rudiments of journalism, waking up as an owl with tufts of feathers for ears and a mouse in one's beak, are essentially Freytagian conceptions; and no one else could so well have expressed Bolz's indifference to further surprises—they may tell him if they will that some one has left a hundred millions for the purpose of painting all negroes white, or of making Africa four-cornered; but he, Bolz, has reached a state of mind where he will accept as truth anything and everything.

Freytag's greatest novel, entitled Soll und Haben (the technical commercial terms for "debit" and "credit"), appeared in 1856. Dombey and Son by Dickens had been published a few years before and is worth our attention for a moment because of a similarity of theme in the two works. In both, the hero is born of the people, but comes in contact with the aristocracy not altogether to his own advantage; in both, looming in the background of the story, is the great mercantile house with its vast and mysterious transactions. The writer of this short article does not hesitate to place Debit and Credit far ahead of Dombey and Son. That does not mean that there are not single episodes, and occasionally a character, in Dombey and Son that the German author could never have achieved. But, considered as an artistic whole, the English novel is so disjointed and uneven that the interest often flags and almost dies, while many of the characters are as grotesque and wooden as so many jumping-jacks. In Freytag's work, on the other hand, the different parts are firmly knitted together; an ethical purpose runs through the whole, and there is a careful subordination of the individual characters to the general plan of the whole structure. It is much the same contrast as that between an old-fashioned Italian opera and a modern German tone-drama. In the one case the effects are made through senseless repetition and through tours de force of the voice; in the other there is a steady progression in dramatic intensity, link joining link without a gap.

But to say that Debit and Credit is a finer book than Dombey and Son is not to claim that Freytag, all in all, is a greater novelist than Dickens. The man of a single fine book would have to be superlatively great to equal one who could show such fertility in creation of characters or produce such masterpieces of description. Dickens reaches heights of passion to which Freytag could never aspire; in fact the latter's temperament strikes one as rather a cool one. Even Spielhagen, far inferior to him in many regards, could thrill where Freytag merely interests.

Freytag's forte lay in fidelity of depiction, in the power to ascertain and utilize essential facts. It would not be fair to say that he had little imagination, for in the parts of The Ancestors that have to do with remote times, times of which our whole knowledge is gained from a few paragraphs in old chronicles and where the scenes and incidents have to be invented, he is at his best. But one of his great merits lies in his evident familiarity with the localities mentioned in the pages as well as with the social environment of his personages. The house of T.D. Schröter in Debit and Credit had its prototype in the house of Molinari in Breslau, and at the Molinaris Freytag was a frequent visitor. Indeed in the company of the head of the firm he even undertook just such a journey to the Polish provinces in troubled times as he makes Anton take with Schröter. Again, the life in the newspaper office, so amusingly depicted in The Journalists, was out of the fulness of his own experience as editor of a political sheet. A hundred little natural touches thus add to the realism of the whole and make the figures, as a German critic says, "stand out like marble statues against a hedge of yew." The reproach has been made that many of Freytag's characters are too much alike. He has distinct types which repeat themselves both in the novels and in the plays. George Saalfeld in Valentine, for instance, is strikingly like Bolz in The Journalists or Fink in Debit and Credit. Freytag's answer to such objections was that an author, like any other artist, must work from models, which he is not obliged constantly to change. The feeling for the solidarity of the arts was very strong with him. He practically abandoned writing for the stage just after achieving his most noted success and merely for the reason that in poetic narration, as he called it, he saw the possibility of being still more dramatic. He felt hampered by the restrictions which the necessarily limited length of an evening's performance placed upon him, and wished more time and space for the explanation of motives and the development of his plot. In his novel, then, he clung to exactly the same arrangement of his theme as in his drama—its initial presentation, the intensification of the interest, the climax, the revulsion, the catastrophe. Again, in the matter of contrast he deliberately followed the lead of the painter who knows which colors are complementary and also which ones will clash.

[Illustration: GUSTAV FREYTAG. STAUFFER-BERN]

What, now, are some of the special qualities that have made Freytag's literary work so enduring, so dear to the Teuton heart, so successful in every sense of the word? For one thing, there are a clearness, conciseness and elegance of style, joined to a sort of musical rhythm, that hold one captive from the beginning. So evident is his meaning in every sentence that his pages suffer less by translation than is the case with almost any other author.

Freytag's highly polished sentences seem perfectly spontaneous, though we know that he went through a long period of rigid training before achieving success. "For five years," he himself writes, "I had pursued the secret of dramatic style; like the child in the fairy-tale I had sought it from the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. At length I had found it: my soul could create securely and comfortably after the manner which the stage itself demanded." He had found it, we are given to understand, in part through the study of the French dramatists of his own day of whom Scribe was one just then in vogue. From them, says a critic, he learned "lightness of touch, brevity, conciseness, directness, the use of little traits as a means of giving insight into character, different ways of keeping the interest at the proper point of tension, and a thousand little devices for clearing the stage of superfluous figures or making needed ones appear at the crucial moment." Among his tricks of style, if we may call them so, are inversion and elision; by the one he puts the emphasis just where he wishes, by the other he hastens the action without sacrificing the meaning. Another of his weapons is contrast—grave and gay, high and low succeed each other rapidly, while vice and virtue follow suit.

No writer ever trained himself for his work more consciously and consistently. He experimented with each play, watched its effect on his audiences, asked himself seriously whether their apparent want of interest in this or that portion was due to some defect in his work or to their own obtuseness. He had failures, but remarkably few, and they did not discourage him; nor did momentary success in one field prevent him from abandoning it for another in which he hoped to accomplish greater things. He is his own severest critic, and in his autobiography speaks of certain productions as worthless which are only relatively wanting in merit.

Freytag's orderly treatment of his themes affords constant pleasure to the reader. He proceeds as steadily toward his climax as the builder does toward the highest point of his roof. He had learned much about climaxes, so he tells us himself, from Walter Scott, who was the first to see the importance of a great final or concluding effect.

We have touched as yet merely on externals. Elegance of style, orderliness of arrangement, consecutiveness of thought alone would never have given Freytag his place in German literature. All these had first to be consecrated to the service of a great idea. That idea as expressed in Debit and Credit is that the hope of the German nation rests in its steady commercial or working class. He shows the dignity, yes, the poetry of labor. The nation had failed to secure the needed political reforms, to the bitter disappointment of numerous patriots; Freytag's mission was to teach that there were other things worth while besides these constitutional liberties of which men had so long dreamed and for which they had so long struggled.

Incidentally he holds the decadent noble up to scorn, and shows how he still clings to his old pretensions while their very basis is crumbling under him. It is a new and active life that Freytag advocates, one of toil and of routine, but one that in the end will give the highest satisfaction. Such ideas were products of the revolution of 1848, and they found the ground prepared for them by that upheaval. Freytag, as Fichte had done in 1807 and 1808, inaugurated a campaign of education which was to prove enormously successful. A French critic writes of Debit and Credit that it was "the breviary in which a whole generation of Germans learned to read and to think," while an English translator (three translations of the book appeared in England in the same year) calls it the Uncle Tom's Cabin of the German workingman. A German critic is furious that a work of such real literary merit should be compared to one so flat and insipid as Mrs. Stowe's production; but he altogether misses the point, which is the effect on the people of a spirited defense of those who had hitherto had no advocate.

Freytag has been called an opportunist, but the term should not be considered one of reproach. It certainly was opportune that his great work appeared at the moment when it was most needed, a moment of discouragement, of disgust at everything high and low. It brought its smiling message and remained to cheer and comfort. The Journalists, too, was opportune, for it called attention to a class of men whose work was as important as it was unappreciated. Up to 1848, the year of the revolution, the press had been under such strict censorship that any frank discussion of public matters had been out of the question. But since then distinguished writers, like Freytag himself, had taken the helm. Even when not radical, they were dreaded by the reactionaries, and even Freytag escaped arrest in Prussia only by hastily becoming a court official of his friend the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha—within whose domains he already owned an estate and was in the habit of residing for a portion of each year—and thus renouncing his Prussian citizenship. Even Freytag's Pictures from the German Past may be said to have been opportune. Already, for a generation, the new school of scientific historians—the Rankes, the Wattenbachs, the Waitzs, the Giesebrechts—had been piling up their discoveries, and collating and publishing manuscripts describing the results of their labors. They lived on too high a plane for the ordinary reader. Freytag did not attempt to "popularize" them by cheap methods. He served as an interpreter between the two extremes. He chose a type of facts that would have seemed trivial to the great pathfinders, worked them up with care from the sources, and by his literary art made them more than acceptable to the world at large. In these Pictures from the German Past, as in the six volumes of the series of historical romances entitled The Ancestors, a patriotic purpose was not wanting. Freytag wished to show his Germans that they had a history to be proud of, a history whose continuity was unbroken; the nation had been through great vicissitudes, but everything had tended to prove that the German has an inexhaustible fund of reserve force. Certain national traits, certain legal institutions, could be followed back almost to the dawn of history, and it would be found that the Germans of the first centuries of our era were not nearly so barbarous as had been supposed.

And so with a wonderful talent for selecting typical and essential facts and not overburdening his narrative with detail he leads us down the ages. The hero of his introductory romance in The Ancestors is a Vandal chieftain who settles among the Thuringians at the time of the great wandering of the nations—the hero of the last of the series is a journalist of the nineteenth century. All are descendants of the one family, and Freytag has a chance to develop some of his theories of heredity. Not only can bodily aptitudes and mental peculiarities be transmitted, but also the tendency to act in a given case much as the ancestor would have done.

It cannot be denied that as Freytag proceeds with The Ancestors the tendency to instruct and inform becomes too marked. He had begun his career in the world by lecturing on literature at the University of Breslau, but had severed his connection with that institution because he was not allowed to branch out into history. Possibly those who opposed him were right and the two subjects are incapable of amalgamation. Freytag in this, his last great work, revels in the fulness of his knowledge of facts, but shows more of the thoroughness of the scholar than of the imagination of the poet. The novels become epitomes of the history of the time. No type of character may be omitted. So popes and emperors, monks and missionaries, German warriors and Roman warriors, minstrels and students, knights, crusaders, colonists, landskechts, and mercenaries are dragged in and made to do their part with all too evident fidelity to truth.

We owe much of our knowledge of Freytag's life to a charming autobiography which served as a prefatory volume to his collected works. Freytag lived to a ripe old age, dying in 1895 at the age of seventy-nine. Both as a newspaper editor and as a member of parliament (the former from 1848 to 1860, the latter for the four years from 1867 to 1871) he had shown his patriotism and his interest in public affairs. Many of his numerous essays, written for the Grenzboten, are little masterpieces and are to be found among his collected works published in 1888. As a member of parliament, indeed, he showed no marked ability and his name is associated with no important measure.

Not to conceal his shortcoming it must be said that Freytag, at the time of the accession to the throne of the present head of the German Empire, laid himself open to much censure by attacking the memory of the dead Emperor Frederick who had always been his friend and patron.

In conclusion it may be said that no one claims for Freytag a place in the front rank of literary geniuses. He is no Goethe, no Schiller, no Dante, no Milton, no Shakespeare. He is not a pioneer, has not changed the course of human thought. But yet he is an artist of whom his country may well be proud, who has added to the happiness of hundreds of thousands of Germans, and who only needs to be better understood to be thoroughly enjoyed by foreigners.

England and America have much to learn from him—the value of long, careful, and unremitting study; the advantage of being thoroughly familiar with the scenes and types of character depicted; the charm of an almost unequaled simplicity and directness. He possessed the rare gift of being able to envelop every topic that he touched with an atmosphere of elegance and distinction. His productions are not ephemeral, but are of the kind that will endure.

* * * * *

GUSTAV FREYTAG

* * * * *

#THE JOURNALISTS#

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

BERG, retired Colonel.

IDA, his daughter.

ADELAIDE RUNECK.

SENDEN, landed proprietor.
_
PROFESSOR OLDENDORF, editor-in-chief. |
|
CONRAD BOLZ, editor. |
|
BELLMAUS, on the staff.. |
|
KÄMPE, on the staff. } of the newspaper
| The Union.
KÖRNER, on the staff. |
|
PRINTER HENNING, owner. |
|
MILLER, factotum. _|

_
BLUMENBERG, editor. |
} of the newspaper
SCHMOCK, on the staff. _| Coriolanus.

PIEPENBRINK, wine merchant and voter.

LOTTIE, his wife.

BERTHA, their daughter.

KLEINMICHEL citizen and voter.

FRITZ, his son.

JUDGE SCHWARZ.

A foreign ballet-dancer.

KORB, secretary for Adelaide's estate.

CARL, the Colonel's man-servant.

A waiter.

Club-guests. Deputations of citizens.

Place of action: A provincial capital.

THE JOURNALISTS[1] (1853)

TRANSLATED BY ERNEST F. HENDERSON, PH.D., L.H.D.

ACT I

SCENE I

A summer parlor in the COLONEL'S house. Handsome furnishings. In the centre of rear wall an open door, behind it a verandah and garden; on the sides of rear wall large windows. Right and left, doors; on the right, well in front, a window. Tables, chairs, a small sofa.

IDA is sitting in front on the right reading a book. The COLONEL enters through centre door with an open box in his hand in which are dahlias.

COLONEL.

Here, Ida, are the new varieties of dahlias our gardener has grown. You'll have to rack your brains to find names for them. Day after tomorrow is the Horticultural Society meeting, when I am to exhibit and christen them.

IDA.

This light-colored one here should be called the "Adelaide."

COLONEL.

Adelaide Buneck, of course. Your own name is out of the running, for as a little dahlia you have long been known to the flower-trade.

IDA.

One shall be called after your favorite writer, "Boz."

COLONEL.

Splendid! And it must be a really fine one, this yellow one here with violet points. And the third one—how shall we christen that?

IDA (stretching out her hand entreatingly to her father).

"Edward Oldendorf."

COLONEL.

What! The professor? The editor? Oh no, that will not do! It was bad enough for him to take over the paper; but that he now has allowed himself to be led by his party into running for Parliament—that I can never forgive him.

IDA.

Here he comes himself.

COLONEL (aside).

It used to be a pleasure to me to hear his footstep; now I can hardly keep from being rude when I see him.

Enter OLDENDORF.

OLDENDORF.

Good morning, Colonel!

IDA (with a friendly greeting).

Good morning, Edward. Help me to admire the new dahlias that father has grown.

COLONEL.

But do not trouble the professor. Such trifles no longer interest him; he has bigger things in his head.

OLDENDORF.

At all events I have not lost my ability to enjoy what gives you pleasure.

COLONEL (grumbling to himself).

You have not given me much proof of that. I fear you take pleasure in doing the very things that vex me. You are doubtless quite busy now with your election, Mr. Future Member of Parliament!

OLDENDORF.

You know, Colonel, that I myself have less than any one else to do with it.

COLONEL.

Oh, I don't believe that! It is the usual custom in such elections, I imagine, to pay court to influential persons and shake hands with the voters, to make speeches, scatter promises, and do all the other little devil's tricks.

OLDENDORF.

You yourself do not believe, Colonel, that I would do anything discreditable?

COLONEL.

Not? I am not so sure, Oldendorf. Since you have turned journalist, edit your Union and daily reproach the State with its faulty organization, you are no longer what you used to be.

OLDENDORF (who up to this point has been conversing with IDA about the flowers, but now turns to the COLONEL).

Does what I now say or write conflict with my former views? It would be hard to convince me of that. And still less can you have noticed any change in my feelings or in my conduct toward you.

COLONEL (obdurate).

Well, I don't see what reason you would have for that. I am not going to spoil my morning by quarreling. Ida may try to straighten things out with you. I am going to my flowers. [Takes the box and exit toward the garden.]

OLDENDORF.

What has put your father in such a bad humor? Has something in the newspaper vexed him again?

IDA.

I do not think so. But it annoys him that now in politics you again find it necessary to advocate measures he detests and attack institutions he reveres. (Shyly.) Edward, is it really impossible for you to withdraw from the election?

OLDENDORF.

It is impossible.

IDA.

I should then have you here, and father could regain his good humor; for he would highly appreciate the sacrifice you were making for him, and we could look forward to a future as peaceful as our past has been.

OLDENDORF.

I know that, Ida, and I feel anything but pleasure at the prospect of becoming member for this town; yet I cannot withdraw.

IDA (turning away).

Father is right. You have changed entirely since becoming editor of the paper.

OLDENDORF.

Ida! You too! If this is going to cause discord between us I shall indeed feel badly.

IDA.

Dear Edward! I am only grieving at losing you for so long.

OLDENDORF.

I am not yet elected. If I do become member and can have my way, I will take you to the capital and never let you leave my side again.

IDA.

Ah, Edward, we can't think of that now! But do spare father.

OLDENDORF.

You know how much I stand from him; and I don't give up hope of his becoming reconciled to me. The election once over, I will make another appeal to his heart. I may wrest from him a favorable answer that will mean our marriage.

IDA.

But do humor his little foibles. He is in the garden near his dahlia bed; express your delight over the gay colors. If you go at it skilfully enough perhaps he may still call one the "Edward Oldendorf." We have been talking of it already. Come! [Exeunt both.]

Enter SENDEN, BLUMENBERG, CARL, SCHMOCK.

SENDEN (entering).

Is the Colonel alone?

CARL.

Professor Oldendorf is with him.

SENDEN.

Take in our names. [Exit CARL.] This everlasting Oldendorf! I say, Blumenberg, this connection of the old gentleman with the Union must stop. We cannot really call him one of us so long as the professor frequents this house. We need the Colonel's influential personality.

BLUMENBERG.

It is the best-known house in town—the best society, good wine, and art.

SENDEN.

I have my private reasons, too, for bringing the Colonel over to our side. And everywhere the professor and his clique block our way.

BLUMENBERG.

The friendship shall cease. I promise you that it shall cease, gradually, within the next few weeks. The first step has already been taken. The gentlemen of the Union have fallen into the trap.

SENDEN.

Into what trap?

BLUMENBERG.

The one I set for them in our paper. [Turning upon SCHMOCK who is standing in the doorway.] Why do you stand here, Schmock? Can't you wait at the gate?

SCHMOCK.

I went where you did. Why should I not stand here? I know the Colonel as well as you do.

BLUMENBERG.

Don't be forward and don't be impudent. Go and wait at the gate, and when I bring you the article, quickly run with it to the press—understand?

SCHMOCK.

How can I help understanding when you croak like a raven?

[EXIT.]

[Illustration: Permission F Bruckmann, A -G, Munich
AT THE CONCERT ADOLPH VON MENZEL.]

BLUMENBERG (to SENDEN).

He is a vulgar person, but he is useful! Now that we are alone, listen! The other day when you brought me to call here, I begged the Colonel just to write down his ideas on the questions of the day.

SENDEN.

Yes, alas! You piled on the flattery much too thick, but the old gentleman did, nevertheless, at last take fire.

BLUMENBERG.

We begged him to read to us what he had written; he read it to us, we praised it.

SENDEN.

It was very tiresome all the same.

BLUMENBERG.

I begged it of him for our paper.

SENDEN.

Yes, unfortunately! And now I must carry these bulky things to your press. These articles are too heavy; they won't do the Coriolanus any good.

BLUMENBERG.

Yet I printed them gladly. When a man has written for a paper he becomes a good friend of that paper. The Colonel at once subscribed for the Coriolanus, and, the next day, invited me to dinner.

SENDEN (shrugging his shoulders).

If that is all you gain by it!

BLUMENBERG.

It is merely the beginning.—The articles are clumsy; why should I not say so?

SENDEN.

God knows they are!

BLUMENBERG.

And no one knows who the author is.

SENDEN.

That was the old gentleman's stipulation. I imagine he is afraid of
Oldendorf.

BLUMENBERG.

And precisely what I anticipated has come to pass. Oldendorf's paper has today attacked these articles. Here is the latest issue of the Union.

SENDEN.

Let me look at it. Well, that will be a fine mix-up! Is the attack insulting?

BLUMENBERG.

The Colonel will be sure to consider it so. Don't you think that that will help us against the professor?

SENDEN.

Upon my honor you are the slyest devil that ever crept out of an inkstand!

BLUMENBERG.

Give it to me, the Colonel is coming. Enter the COLONEL.

COLONEL.

Good morning, gentlemen!—[aside] and that Oldendorf should just happen to be here! If only he will remain in the garden! Well, Mr. Editor, how is the Coriolanus?

BLUMENBERG.

Our readers admire the new articles marked with an arrow. Is there any chance that some more—

COLONEL (drawing a manuscript from his pocket and looking round).

I rely on your discretion. As a matter of fact I wanted to read it through again on account of the structure of the sentences.

BLUMENBERG.

That can best be done in the proof-reading.

COLONEL.

I think it will do. Take it; but not a word—

BLUMENBERG.

You will let me send it at once to press. [At the door.] Schmock!

[SCHMOCK appears at the door, takes the manuscript and exit quickly.]

SENDEN.

Blumenberg is keeping the sheet up to the mark, but, as he has enemies, he has to fight hard to defend himself.

COLONEL (amused).

Enemies? Who does not have them? But journalists have nerves like women. Everything excites you; every word that any one says against you rouses your indignation! Oh come, you are sensitive people!

BLUMENBERG.

Possibly you are right, Colonel. But when one has opponents like this Union—

COLONEL.

Oh, yes, the Union. It is a thorn in the flesh to both of you. There is a great deal in it that I cannot praise; but, really when it comes to sounding an alarm, attacking, and pitching in, it is cleverer than your paper. The articles are witty; even when they are on the wrong side one cannot help laughing at them.

BLUMENBERG.

Not always. In today's attack on the best articles the Coriolanus has published in a long time I see no wit at all.

COLONEL.

Attack on what articles?

BLUMENBERG.

On yours, Colonel. I must have the paper somewhere about me.

[Searches, and gives him a copy of the Union.]

COLONEL.

Oldendorf's paper attacks my articles! [Reads.] "We regret such lack of knowledge—"

BLUMENBERG.

And here—

COLONEL.

"It is an unpardonable piece of presumption"—What! I am presumptuous?

BLUMENBERG.

And here—

COLONEL.

"One may be in doubt as to whether the naïveté of the contributor is comical or tragical, but at all events he has no right to join in the discussion"—[Throwing down the paper.] Oh, that is contemptible! It is a low trick!

Enter IDA and OLDENDORF from the garden.

SENDEN (aside).

Now comes the cloud-burst!

COLONEL.

Professor, your newspaper is making progress. To bad principles is now added something else—baseness.

IDA (frightened).

Father!

OLDENDORF (coming forward).

Colonel, how can you justify this insulting expression?

COLONEL (holding out the paper to him).

Look here! That stands in your paper! In your paper, Oldendorf!

OLDENDORF.

The tone of the attack is not quite as calm as I could have wished—

COLONEL.

Not quite so calm? Not really?

OLDENDORF.

In substance the attack is justified.

COLONEL.

Sir! You dare say that to me!

IDA.

Father!

OLDENDORF.

Colonel, I do not comprehend this attitude, and I beg you to consider that we are speaking before witnesses.

COLONEL.

Do not ask for any consideration. It would have been your place to show consideration for the man whose friendship you are otherwise so ready to claim.

OLDENDORF.

But, first of all, tell me frankly what is your own connection with the articles attacked in the Coriolanus?

COLONEL.