Wilhelm and Paul that same evening sat at one of the windows of Spargnapani’s, looking on the Lindens.  The small rooms were filled to overflowing, and the guests were crammed together in the open doorways, or on the stone staircase, where their loud talking mingled with the noise of the people in the street.  The king’s carriage had hardly passed, when several young men sprang shouting into the room, threw a quantity of printed leaflets, still damp from the press, on the nearest table, and rushed out again.  These were the proofs of an address on the war to the king.  No one knew who had written it, who had had it printed, who the people were who had distributed it, but everyone crowded excitedly round it, and begged for pens from the counter to add their signatures to it.  A few specially enthusiastic souls even put a table with inkstands and pens out on the pavement, and called to the passers-by to sign the paper.  Paul was among the first to fulfill this duty of citizenship, and then handed the pen to his friend.  But Wilhelm laid it down on the table, took Paul’s arm, and drew him out of the crowd into the quiet of the Friedrichstrasse.

“Are you a Prussian?” cried Paul angrily.

“I am as good a Prussian as you are,” said Wilhelm quietly, “and ready to do my duty again, as I have done it before, but these silly effusions don’t affect me at all.”

“Such a manifesto gives the government the moral force for the sternest fulfillment of duty.”

“I hope you are not in earnest when you say that, my dear Paul.  The government does what it has to do without troubling itself about our manifestoes.  It is repugnant to me to have my approval of the war dragged from me without being asked for it.  I may not appear to say ‘yes’ willingly, but at the same time may not have the right to say ‘no.’”

Paul followed silently, and Wilhelm went on: 

“You deceive yourself as to your duty like all these people, who imagine that they are still separate individuals, and that they can sanction or forbid as they will the declaration of war.  I, however, know and feel that I have no longer a voice in the matter.  I have only to obey.  I am no longer an individual.  I am only an evanescent subordinate unit in the organism of the State.  A power over which I have no control has taken possession of me, and has made my will of no avail.  Is there still a part of your destiny which you have the power to guide as you will?  Is there such for me?  We shall be forced to join simply in the united destiny of one people.  And who decides this?  The king, no doubt, thinks that he does; the Emperor Napoleon thinks he does.  I say that these two have no more influence over the capabilities of their people than we two have over the capabilities around us.  The State commands us, the whole evolution of mankind from its beginning commands them.  All of the race which has gone before holds them fast, and compels them as the wheels of the State compel us.  The