Part 18 (1/2)

One morning early in June when Kirtley, who had been away the afternoon and evening before, came down to breakfast, he found the household upset. Something bad had happened. Tekla was gone. Rudi was not to be seen. Frau had prepared a partial meal and Elsa was making ready to sweep and dust and tidy up the rooms.

The parents were in a rage. They made no bones about it. Frau blurted out with German unreservedness:

”I packed Tekla off--the animal. She had no consideration for me.

What do you think, Herr Kirtley? She is going to be a mother. And by Rudi. Wouldn't you have thought he would have more sense than this--right here at home--break up my service? He let her get him into the mess. I have no doubt it was her doings--my poor Rudi. We have sent him away for a couple of days. I told Tekla to go--be off.

And she was out on the street--like _that_--with her bundle of belongings under her arm. And here I am with no servant. Ach Gott!

they are all cattle, of course. One has to put up with them.”

Herr was in a growling, ferocious state. He blamed Tekla. He blamed his Frau for not knowing what was going on. It was the woman's fault. Everything always was. His incomplete breakfast was late.

”Is there nothing left to eat in the house?” he cried out. He took on a famished and abused air, although he had had his usual six meals the day before. ”Give me at least some cheese and bread!”

In this manner Tekla was roundly denounced for interrupting the course of family comfort. That she had mortally sinned awakened no attention, aroused no concern. There was no sympathy expressed for her in her condition, no responsibility felt for her in her downfall or anxiety about her future. Whether she would, from this misstep, have to take to the streets for a living occurred to no one but Kirtley.

Germans are little wrought up about such questions. There is no shuddering as from an admitted mortal sin. Natural impulses and facts are natural impulses and facts. Why should one be squeamish about them or have soul burnings? In general, carnal desires meet with no great fastidiousness in the German domestic circle. They are rather regarded as honest and healthy like desires for food and drink. The Teuton wife is ashamed of barrenness and considers it proper for women to be fully s.e.xed in feeling. s.e.xuality is not something to be shrunk from, discouraged or denied, but is a candid, copious law of Nature to be recognized.

When Rudi returned shortly from Leipsic, where it had been deemed best for him to retire for the moment, he appeared as conceited and noisy as if nothing had happened. He was not cowed or penitent. His parents, who had got Villa Elsa in running order and were forgetting the _contretemps_, almost beamed upon him. He was now a full-fledged male. Any lingering uncertainties as to his completed manhood had been effectually removed. His affair was viewed from the standpoint of potent strength, not lapse from virtue. Young men had their wild oats to sow. His mistake had been to disturb his own household. Had it been another household, little heed would have been given.

In the Bucher minds the satisfying net result seemed to be that another _soldier_ (it was to be hoped) was to be born for the army, for the Kaiser. Soldiers had to be. Tekla was to fulfill her highest mission as a German servant girl. She was to become a just and const.i.tuent part of the swelling Empire.

Frau's ideas and information on the subject provided Gard's journal with some more condensed material. They were talking out by the garden table.

”What becomes of the German servant girl under such conditions?” he inquired.

”Oh, she can get into another family and go on as before.”

”And the baby? How does she manage with that?”

”She puts it out among poor farm people and pays a little for its keep. As the mother usually works about in different localities--sometimes being taken far away by her employers--the farmer often adopts the baby as it grows up. He can always use more help. If it's a girl, she is good for the farm as well as the house. If it's a boy, he becomes a soldier. A boy of this kind makes the best soldier because he has no parental and no home attachments.

He only knows the barracks and has the officers to obey. He does not learn who his father is, and the mother becomes practically a stranger to him as she moves about in the city or country. He is ready to serve in the colonies or go anywhere or do anything, having no personal ties to hold him.”

”Does not your large army badly demoralize these social conditions?”

”You know, we housewives don't like it much when a new regiment moves into the vicinity. It makes mothers among our domestics and we have to change about. Of course, you see, we have more women than men in Germany and we must have children growing up for the barracks and the cheap labor market. There seems to be no other way, but it is often a great nuisance for us housekeepers. Yet there is this to say: The girls rarely have more than one child by the same man. For another regiment comes along and there are new relations. The army is necessarily a floating population and not very responsible for what it does among us civilians because it _protects_ us.”

Kirtley concluded that this accounted for the large number of detached young men in Germany--in the army and out of it--who appeared to be so entirely footloose, ready for any mission or task in any part of the globe. As the two sat there talking about the question of lovelessness in these relations, Herr Bucher strolled up from his flower beds and joined them in his Tyrolean jacket of the chase and big army boots. Gard said,

”We were speaking of affection, Herr Bucher. Why do the Germans have the ideal of hate when other races are holding up the ideal of love?”

”Because it is good to hate!” exclaimed the host with rugged forcefulness as he squatted in a seat. ”To hate is strong, manly. It makes the blood flow. It makes one alert. It is necessary for keeping up the fighting instinct. To love is a feebleness. It enervates. You see all the nations that talk of love as the keynote of life are weak, degenerate. Germany is the most powerful nation in the world because she hates. When you hate, you eat well, sleep well, work well, fight well. It is best for the health. When you love, it is like a sickness and disorganizes and debilitates.”

”How do you reconcile that with Christ and His mission of love?”

pursued Gard.

”There is nothing to reconcile. We simply do not admit all that. It is not practical. Christ was not practical. He had no family. He made no home. He never even built a house. He did not found a State.

He let the Romans run over Him. How can one live in a cold northern climate without a house, a nation and an army to protect him? No, it is not at all practical. Even Christ could not defend Himself. He was crucified without any resistance, any struggle. To hate is to struggle and that is the mainspring of action. So one must prepare himself to struggle successfully. To hate, to cause to be feared, are the proper motives for life. They _are_ life. Fear is a stronger and far more universal human motive than love. Therefore we Germans want to be feared rather than to be loved. So we hate because it engenders fear in others. To love is already half a surrender and ends logically in death. With Christ the real victory, the real heaven aspired to, was in death, not in life.”