Schrotter was seriously
alarmed at these extensive preparations, and hastened to procure,
through his pandit friends, some English extracts from the
scientific literature of India, lest Wilhelm might think fit to
study Sanscrit, and decades would pass before he came to write the
first word of his book.
Thus four years went by, years full of work, though they left no
visible traces. Meanwhile the aspect of things in the new Empire had
become very different. Men breathed the oppressive air with laboring
breasts; the bright dawn which promised so glorious a day had, been
followed by sullen mists, and the blue sky had disappeared behind
heavy, leaden-gray clouds, through which no comforting ray of
sunshine pierced. Where was all the glowing enthusiasm, the rapture
of hope and joy that, in the first years after the great war, had
flushed every German cheek and lit up every eye? Throughout the
length and breath of the land the opposing factions confronted one
another like armed antagonists preparing for a duel to the death.
Town and village rang with execration and satire, with howls of rage
or satisfied revenge vented by German against German. The Roman
Catholic shook his clinched fist at the Protestant, the liberal at
the conservative, the protectionist at the free-trader, the partisan
of absolute government at the defender of the people's rights.
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