Now he said:
"I can well understand your point of view. You emigrated in '48, and
kept your democratic ideas fresh in your heart. Twenty years of
absence, and an intense longing for your home, glorified the
Fatherland in your eyes. You come back and find a country whose
historical development has taken a totally different turn in the
meantime, and the plain reality in nowise corresponds to the
poetical picture you had painted for yourself. Naturally you are
painfully disappointed. I know that of old from my own father. But
may I venture to remark that your criticism is hard, and perhaps not
altogether well founded? A system of government passes--the people
remain. In its inner depths it is untouched by official corruption,
and you yourself acknowledge that the aggressive boasters only
formed a small part of our youth. I am not uneasy for the future of
my country."
"You may be right," returned Schrotter, grown calmer meanwhile, and
standing still in front of Wilhelm. "But the present is gloomy, that
is very certain. But enough of this. I came to cheer you, and have
instead lightened my own heart. It was overflowing, and I have no
one in Berlin to whom I can unburden myself. You see, I must have
you near me. So write your petition, and if it is not accepted, why
then--then we will go together to Switzerland or America, and love
our country from afar, and without any admixture of bitterness, just
as I did in India.
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