As the Socialists now did all the talking, and unhindered, it was not difficult to persuade even the reluctant minority that the military party had precipitated the war in a sudden panic at the rapidly developing power of the proletariat.

Night fliers dropped millions of leaflets in the vicinity of the armies on the Eastern and Western fronts, signed (at the pistol point) by the most powerful names in the former Government, as well as by the well-known Social-Democrat leaders, containing the details of the Revolution and proofs of its success.  The Empire had fallen.  A Republic, acknowledged by the great powers of the world, was established.  Would the soldiers stack their arms and return to their homes?  If the generals or under officers attempted to restrain them it was to be remembered that the soldiers were as a hundred thousand to one.

The women felt no real apprehension of an avenging army.  They knew the average German male.  His innate subserviency to power would turn him automatically about to the party whose power was supreme.  And the soldiers hated their officers.

VIII

On Friday night Gisela left her apartment in the Koeniginstrasse, where she had slept for a few hours after a visit to the principal cities of the Empire, and walked out to Schwabing, that picturesque “village” that looked like a bit of the Alps transferred to the edge of Munich.  She had not forgotten the man she had sacrificed, and at the end of the first day of the Revolution she had learned that his body had been caught under the Schwabing bridge, rescued, and placed temporarily in the vault of the little church.

It was a bright starlight night, and the old white church with its bulbous tower, last outpost of Turkey in her heyday, looked like a lone mourner for the dream of Mittel-Europa.  Gisela climbed the mound and entered the quiet enclosure.  She had met no one in the peaceful suburb, although she had heard the deep guttural voices of elderly men still lingering at the tables in the beer gardens.

She had sent orders to leave the door of the church unlocked, and she entered the barren room, guiding herself with her electric torch to the stair that led down to the vault.  Fear of any sort had long since been crowded out of her, but it was a lonely pilgrimage she hardly would have undertaken ten days ago.

She descended the short flight of steps and flashed her light about the vault.  It was a small room, oppressively musty and humid.  All Schwabing is damp but the Isar itself might have washed the walls of this dripping sepulcher.  The coffin stood on a rough trestle in the center of the chamber, and it was covered with the military cloak that, with his sword and helmet, she had ordered sent from his hotel.

She stood beside the coffin, trying to visualize the man who lay within, wondering if the orders still bulged above the hilt of the dagger she had driven in with so firm a hand ... or if they had taken the time to remove it ... or if that symbol of Germany’s freedom would be found ages hence in a handful of dust when the man who had taught her all she would ever know of love or living was long forgotten....