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catches in the deep field. From there, after a slight inspection
of a couple of advertisement columns, he worked back to the middle
leaf, where were leaders and the news of nations and the movements
of kings. All this last week he had scanned such items with a
growing sense of amusement in the recollection of Hermann's
disquiet over the Sarajevo murders, and Aunt Barbara's more
detailed and vivid prognostications of coming danger, for nothing
more had happened, and he supposed--vaguely only, since the affair
had begun to fade from his mind--that Austria had made inquiries,
and that since she was satisfied there was no public pronouncement
to be made.
The hot breeze from the window made the paper a little unmanageable
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for a moment, but presently he got it satisfactorily folded, and a
big black headline met his eye. A half-column below it contained
the demands which Austria had made in the Note addressed to the
Servian Government. A glance was sufficient to show that they were
framed in the most truculent and threatening manner possible to
imagine. They were not the reasonable proposals that one State had
a perfect right to make of another on whose soil and with the
connivance of whose subjects the murders had been committed; they
were a piece of arbitrary dictation, a threat levelled against a
dependent and an inferior.
Michael had read them through twice with a growing sense of
uneasiness at the thought of how Lady Barbara's first anticipations
had been fulfilled, when Hermann came in. He pointed to the paper
Michael held.
"Ah, you have seen it," he said. "Perhaps you can guess what I
wanted to see you about."
"Connected with the Austrian Note?" asked Michael.
"Yes."
"I have not the vaguest idea."
Hermann sat down on the arm of his chair.
MICHAEL
167
"Mike, I'm going back to Germany to-day," he said. "Now do you
understand? I'm German."
"You mean that Germany is at the back of this?"
"It is obvious, isn't it? Those demands couldn't have been made
without the consent of Austria's ally. And they won't be granted.
Servia will appeal to Russia. And . . . and then God knows what
may happen. In the event of that happening, I must be in my
Fatherland ready to serve, if necessary."
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"You mean you think it possible you will go to war with Russia?"
asked Michael.
"Yes, I think it possible, and, if I am right, if there is that
possibility, I can't be away from my country."
"But the Emperor, the fire-engine whom you said would quench any
conflagration?"
"He is away yachting. He went off after the visit of the British
fleet to Kiel. Who knows whether before he gets back, things may
have gone too far? Can't you see that I must go? Wouldn't you go
if you were me? Suppose you were in Germany now, wouldn't you
hurry home?"
Michael was silent, and Hermann spoke again.
"And if there is trouble with Russia, France, I take it, is bound
to join her. And if France joins her, what will England do?"
The great shadow of the approaching storm fell over Michael, even
as outside the sultry stillness of the morning grew darker.
"Ah, you think that?" asked Michael.
Hermann put his hand on Michael's shoulder.
"Mike, you're the best friend I have," he said, "and soon, please
God, you are going to marry the girl who is everything else in the
world to me. You two make up my world really--you two and my
mother, anyhow. No other individual counts, or is in the same
class. You know that, I expect. But there is one other thing, and
that's my nationality. It counts first. Nothing, nobody, not even
Sylvia or my mother or you can stand between me and that. I expect
you know that also, for you saw, nearly a year ago, what Germany is
to me. Perhaps I may be quite wrong about it all--about the
gravity, I mean, of the situation, and perhaps in a few days I may
come racing home again. Yes, I said 'home,' didn't I? Well, that
shows you just how I am torn in two. But I can't help going."
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Hermann's hand remained on his shoulder gently patting it. To
Michael the world, life, the whole spirit of things had suddenly
grown sinister, of the quality of nightmare. It was true that all
the ground of this ominous depression which had darkened round him,
was conjectural and speculative, that diplomacy, backed by the
MICHAEL
168
horror of war which surely all civilised nations and responsible
govermnents must share, had, so far from saying its last, not yet
said its first word; that the wits of all the Cabinets of Europe
were at this moment only just beginning to stir themselves so as to
secure a peaceful solution; but, in spite of this, the darkness and
the nightmare grew in intensity. But as to Hermann's determination
to go to Germany, which made this so terribly real, since it was
beginning to enter into practical everyday life, he had neither
means nor indeed desire to combat it. He saw perfectly clearly
that Hermann must go.
"I don't want to dissuade you," he said, "not only because it would
be useless, but because I am with you. You couldn't do otherwise,
Hermann."
"I don't see that I could. Sylvia agrees too."
A terrible conjecture flashed through Michael's mind.
"And she?" he asked.
"She can't leave my mother, of course," said Hermann, "and, after
all, I may be on a wild goose chase. But I can't risk being unable
to get to Germany, if--if the worst happens."
The ghost of a smile played round his mouth for a moment.
"And I'm not sure that she could leave you, Mike," he added.
Somehow this, though it gave Michael a moment of intensest relief
to know that Sylvia remained, made the shadow grow deeper,
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accentuated the lines of the storm which had begun to spread over
the sky. He began to see as nightmare no longer, but as stern and
possible realities, something of the unutterable woe, the
divisions, the heart-breaks which menaced.
"Hermann, what do you think will happen?" he said. "It is
incredible, unfaceable--" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]