Silence followed this speech, Julio and Argensola looking with astonishment at this peaceable-looking man who had just spoken with such martial arrogance.  The two suspected that the professor was making this visit in order to give vent to his opinions and enthusiasms.  At the same time, perhaps, he was trying to find out what they might think and know, as one of the many viewpoints of the people in Paris.

“You are not French,” he added looking at his cousin.  “You were born in Argentina, so before you I may speak the truth.”

“And were you not born there?” asked Julio smiling.

The Doctor made a gesture of protest, as though he had just heard something insulting.  “No, I am a German.  No matter where a German may be born, he always belongs to his mother country.”  Then turning to Argensola—­“This gentleman, too, is a foreigner.  He comes from noble Spain, which owes to us the best that it has—­the worship of honor, the knightly spirit.”

The Spaniard wished to remonstrate, but the Sage would not permit, adding in an oracular tone: 

“You were miserable Celts, sunk in the vileness of an inferior and mongrel race whose domination by Rome but made your situation worse.  Fortunately you were conquered by the Goths and others of our race who implanted in you a sense of personal dignity.  Do not forget, young man, that the Vandals were the ancestors of the Prussians of to-day.”

Again Argensola tried to speak, but his friend signed to him not to interrupt the professor who appeared to have forgotten his former reserve and was working up to an enthusiastic pitch with his own words.

“We are going to witness great events,” he continued.  “Fortunate are those born in this epoch, the most interesting in history!  At this very moment, humanity is changing its course.  Now the true civilization begins.”

The war, according to him, was going to be of a brevity hitherto unseen.  Germany had been preparing herself to bring about this event without any long, economic world-disturbance.  A single month would be enough to crush France, the most to be feared of their adversaries.  Then they would march against Russia, who with her slow, clumsy movements could not oppose an immediate defense.  Finally they would attack haughty England, so isolated in its archipelago that it could not obstruct the sweep of German progress.  This would make a series of rapid blows and overwhelming victories, requiring only a summer in which to play this magnificent role.  The fall of the leaves in the following autumn would greet the definite triumph of Germany.

With the assurance of a professor who does not expect his dictum to be refuted by his hearers, he explained the superiority of the German race.  All mankind was divided into two groups—­dolicephalous and the brachicephalous, according to the shape of the skull.  Another scientific classification divided men into the light-haired and dark-haired.  The dolicephalous (arched heads) represented purity of race and superior mentality.  The brachicephalous (flat heads) were mongrels with all the stigma of degeneration.  The German, dolicephalous par excellence, was the only descendant of the primitive Aryans.  All the other nations, especially those of the south of Europe called “latins,” belonged to a degenerate humanity.