He wished to hear
no more about denunciations by which, with the aid of police and
magistrates, every kind of cowardice and vileness, social envy and
religious hatred, rivalry, spite, and inborn malevolence, sought a
riskless gratification, and usually found it in full measure. But it
took away all pleasure in social intercourse. One learned to be
cautious and suspicious. One grew accustomed to see an enemy in
every stranger, and to be upon one's guard before a neighbor as
before some lurking traitor. Hypocrisy became an instinct of self-
preservation; every one carefully avoided speaking of those things
of which the heart was full, and Berlin afforded an insight into the
mental condition of the people of Spain during the most flourishing
period of the Inquisition, or of Venice in the days when anonymous
denunciations poured into the yawning jaws of the Lions of St.
Mark's square.
The Reichstag was dissolved, the people of Germany must choose new
representatives, and the chief, if not the sole question to be
decided by the election was, Are the Socialists to be dealt with
under a special act, or to come under the common law? Schrotter now
felt it justifiable, nay, that it was his duty, to throw off the
reserve he had maintained since his return to the Fatherland, and
come forward as a candidate for the Reichstag, though for a suburban
district, as the city district to whose poor he had been an untiring
benefactor as physician and friend, with help, counsel, and money,
was not available.
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