One has yet to see whether
such a society of officers can produce a people, and if its thinkers
and teachers could not lead it to a richer cultivation, and its
poets to a higher ideal of duty. I am afraid, my friend, that the
higher souls in our new empire will not find this an easy time."
"And yet you left your dreaming in India to come home to
discomfort," said Wilhelm.
"My longing for Germany never left me all the twenty years I was
there. And then I confess that I secretly reproached myself for
going away. It is comfortable to turn one's back on the Fatherland,
and to find more agreeable conditions in a foreign country. But
afterward one tells oneself that only egoists leave their own people
fighting against darkness and oppression, and that one has no right
to play the traitor to home and belongings, while those left behind
are striving bitterly to better their condition."
The procession of troops was still passing, but the young girls had
already left their posts; the stands were beginning to empty, and
Wilhelm and Dr. Schrotter tried to break through the crowd and go
homeward. After a short silence Schrotter again went on:
"Don't misunderstand me," he said; "in spite of thinking this
triumphal procession barbaric, and my ideal being different from
that of most people, I was deeply moved to-day with sympathy and
admiration.
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