Michael

of post, he never mislaid things nor tore up documents which he particularly desired should be preserved; he kept his gold in a purse and his change in a trousers-pocket, and in ma

his money in ways that were more productive of usefulness or pleasure; and thus, when he took his place in the corner of

be informed of the fact. His mother had cried in a mild, trickling fashion, but it was quite obvious that in her heart of hearts she was more concerned with a bilious attack of peculiar intensity that had assailed Petsy. She wished Michael would not be so disobedient and vex his father, but she was quite sure that before long some formula, in diplomatic phrase, would be found on which reconciliation could be based; whereas it was highly uncertain whether any formula could be found that would produce the desired ef

embrace of the guard who attempted to stop him with amazing agility, and jumped into Michael's compart

luggage, will you? It's in the taxi still, I thi

latform out of sight, and then sat down with a l

fully. "I thought the guard had collared

on the day of his entering into his new kingdom of liberty was one of its citizens almost thrown into his arms. But for the moment his o

ehind," he said. "Won't you

handkerchief and a collar every day, and a shirt a

marks about crossness being the equivalent of thinking about oneself. And the e

"if-if you will be good enough to

ely, and Falbe looked slightly amused at t

s, too, that you are going to Baireuth. We travel together, then, I hope, for it is dismal work travelling alo

e had heard him say on the piano what his sister understood by the songs of Brahms and Schubert. He could not help glancing at Falbe's hands, as they busied themselves with the filling and lighting of a pipe, and felt that he knew something of those long, broad-tip

t tell you how excited I am about it. I've been looking for

a cloud of smok

r disappoints. It's one of the facts-a reliable f

I ho

cked with

ack again after my week. You'll spend the mornings in the galleri

the carriage and sat next Michael, put

Munich, and I happen to know that it's the

em is practically next door

liss between me now and the desolation of London in August. What is so m

that, however trivial their conversation might be, it somehow resembled eavesdropping to talk to a chance fell

h, "that I know you, that I've listened to you at

him with the fri

hope you listened to her, then, not

listen to you, especially in the Frenc

e la

iment!" he said. "

of shyness at the idea of ta

st strum,

was English, and that from infancy they had spoken German and English indiscriminately. His father, who had died some dozen years before, had been a singer of some note in his native land, but was distinguished more for his teaching than his practice, and it was he who had taught his daughter. Hermann Falbe himself had always

fter these last three months in London, where she had suddenly leaped into eminence, to support herself and contributed to the expenses of their common home. But

ch himself. Here to him was this citizen of the new country who all his life had lived in the palace of art, and that in no dilettante fashion, but with set aim and serious purpose. And Falbe abounded in such topics; he knew the singers and the musicians of the world, and, which was much more than that, he was himself of them; humble, no doubt, in circumstances

e! Hail to thee! Rhine, Rhine deep and true and steadfast." . . . And he waved h

il. You English-we English, I may say, for I am as much English as German-I believe have got the same feeling somewhere in our hearts, but we lock it up and hide it away. Pray God I shall never have to choose to which nation I belong, though for that matter there in no choice in it at all, for I am ce

n in tremendou

vet rolls down the other; but it is German, which makes up for any trifling inconvenience. Baireuth, too; perhaps it will strike you as a dull and stinking little town, and so I dare say it is. But after lunch we shall go up the hillside to where the theatre stands,

in an English mouth ridiculous, or, if persevered in, merely bad form. Yet when Falbe hailed the Rhine and the spires of Cologne, it was clear that there was no bad form about it at all. He felt like that; and, indeed, as Michael was beginning to perceive, he felt with a similar intensity on all subjects about which he felt at all. There was something of the same vivid quality about Aunt

actice of life from his own; to Michael it had always been a congregation of strangers-Francis excepted-who moved about, busy with each other and with affairs that had no allure for him, and were, though not uncivil, wholly alien to him. He was willing to grant that this alienation, this absence of comradeship which he had missed all his

say, with elbows on the window-sill; and not from politeness, but from good fellowship, from the fact that he liked people, was at home to everybody. He liked people; there was

village among the hills, and spend the day there in the woods. Michael had looked forward to this day with extraordinary pleasure, but there was mingled with it a sort of agony of apprehension that Falbe would find him a very bor

hint of breeze, and disposed themselves at length on the carpet of pine-needles. Through the thick boughs overhead the sunlight reached them only in specks and flakes, the wind w

ls like this. But they've got to be wild; you can't tame a smell and put it o

r thought about

ue trout, because you ate so many of them at lunch to-day. But what else do I know about you? I don't even know what you thought of Parsifal. No, perhaps I'm wrong there, because the fact that

l. "I couldn't talk about it; there's nothing

of it any more than you can talk about your elbows and

ack, and laid his hands pa

mind or soul, or whatever you like to call it, goes on growing for a long time. I suppose the moment comes to most people when they cease to grow, when they become fixed and hard; and that is what we mean by being old. But till then you weave your destiny, or, rather,

German," sa

lusion that it is not meant to eat. Like all metaphysicians, too, and dealers in the abstract, we are intensely practical. Our passion for experimentalism is dictated by the firm object of using the knowledge we acquire. We are tremendously thorough; we waste nothing, not even time, whereas the English have an absolute genius for wasting time.

ation of idiots

o are always having a perpetual holiday. You go straying all over the world for fun, and annex it generally, so that you can have tiger-shooting in India, and lots o

ly because we don't talk about it. It's-it's like what we agreed abou

e sa

appiest people on the face of the earth. But you are happy because you don't think, whereas the joy of being German is that you do think. England is lying in the shade, like us, with a cigaret

pplied the

nking about England's g

is! What else is t

uld be a European war," said Michae

impossible?" demanded Fal

mply unt

e all soldiers, you see. We start with that. You start by being golfers and cricketers. But 'der Tag' is never quite absent from the German mind. I don

el la

uncommonly bad soldier. But I am an

ain inte

golf. I have never known so little about anybody after three-four days. However, what is our p

of amusement, but rather of mockery. To Michael this mood was quite inexplicable, bu

asked. "Have I annoyed you

ot reply fo

the penalty of Baireuth. There is no charge, so to speak, except for your ticket, but a collection is made, as happen

ondered o

d at length. "Was it about the possibili

turned on his elbo

e it to be inevitable; but what does it matter what either of us believes? Che sara

back on th

" he said. "That is, I me

is long fingers in the s

f you, not who you are, or what you are, or what your flag is. You fly no flag, you proclaim no identity. You may be a crossing-sweeper, or a grocer, or a marquis for all I know. Of course, that matters very little; but what does matter is that never for a moment have you shown me not what you happen to be, but what you are. I'v

at that moment, as Falbe saw him, a shelled and muffled figure, intangible and withdrawn, b

you tell me. I'm like that. But it really ha

cavation in the pine-needle

indifference of other people is a false term for the secretiveness of ones

ely uninterestin

udge of that

had felt when, so few days before, he had spoken of himself and what he was to his father. There was here the common land of music to build upon, whereas to Lord Ashbridge that same soil had been, so to speak, the territory of the enemy. And even more than that, there was the instinct, the certain conviction that he was telling his tale to sympathetic ears, to which the mere fact that he was speaking of himself presuppos

Falbe gave

't you give me any hint

k it mattered,

d. I didn't know anybody could escape from that awful sort of prison-house in which our-I'm English n

e prison-house again, if yo

father cut you

the least idea,

u going to

l hesi

about what he had done, or meant to do. It's a sort of pride, I suppose. He will do a

w will you liv

dmother. In some ways I rather wish I hadn't. It would have been a proof of sincerity

e la

I like things that are good to eat and soft to touch. But I'm bound to say that I get on quite excellently without t

ourage to say what for the last two days

ou are coming to Munich with me? It's a purely selfish suggestion on my part. After being with

without speaking, but Micha

aid. "Then I shall apologise for having

Falbe hesitated. Then

," he said. "I accept wit

a long brea

"So that's settled. It

ed along the needled slope to where, through a vista in the trees, they looked down on the lake and the hamlet that clustered near it. Down the road that wound through the trees towards it passed labourers going homeward from their work, with cheerful guttural cries to each other and a herd of cows

hael's arm, pointed downwards to the vill

of that originally that there came all that Germany stands for, its music, its poetry, its philosophy, its kultur. All flowed fro

lau

eir contest of song and the wooden, gabled house where Albrecht Durer lived? That will teach you Germany, too. The bud of their dream was opening then; and what flower, even in the magnificence of its full-blowing, is so lovely? Albrecht Durer, with his deep, patient eyes, and his patient hands with their unerring stroke; or Bach, with the fugue flowing from his brain through his quick fingers, making stars-stars fixed forever in the heaven of harmony! Don't tell me

esitated

also the most practical nation," he sai

a crime not to be ready-a crime against the Fatherland. We love peace, but the peace-lovers are just those who in war are most terrible. For who are the backbone of war when war comes? The women of the country, my friend, not the ministers, not the generals and the admirals. I

face illuminated by the re

aid, "for that is what her unity and her discipline m

ted nor

ssians rule; there is no doubt of that. From Germany have come the arts, the sciences, the philosophies of the world, and not from there. But they guard our national life. It is they who watch by the Rhine for us, patient and awake. Should they

ed away

d not think of anything serious or unpleasant. Already, as you know, I am half English; there is something to build upon. Ah, and this is the sentimental hour, ju

ze, and made a great florid salutation to th

Beer mug in one hand, and mouth full of sausage and song, and with the other hand, perhaps, fingering a revolver. How unreal it must seem to you, how affected, and yet how, in truth, you miss it all. Scratch a Russian,

ichael's

s or both of ours. I won't tell you how I've enjoyed it, or you will say that I have enjoyed it because I have talked almost all the t