The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 11. Francke Kuno

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СКАЧАТЬ therefore, to ask you, if you must speak of the matter now, to do so only in your own name."

      "Ho, ho!" exclaimed von Strummin. "Wherein do we differ so seriously? In one point, I wish a station at Strummin just as much as you do at Golm."

      "But we can't all have a station," said the Count with a patronizing shrug of the shoulders.

      "Certainly not; but I must, or the whole project is not worth a red cent to me," exclaimed the other. "What! Am I to haul my corn half a mile, as before, and an hour later let the train whizz past my nose! In that case I shall prefer to vote at the Diet for the highway which the government offers; that will run right behind my new barn; I can push the wagon from the barn floor to the road. Isn't that true, Mr. President?"

      "Whether the highway will run directly behind your barn or not, von Strummin, I really do not know," said the President. "In any case it will come through your property; as for the rest, my views have been long known to the gentlemen;" and he turned to Else again, to continue with her the conversation which had been interrupted.

      The Count was angry at the reproof which these last words seemed to convey, the more so as he was conscious that he had not deserved it. He had not begun the discussion! Now it might and must be carried still further!

      "You see," continued he, turning to von Strummin, "what a bad turn you have done us – I must say 'us,' now – by this continual, disagreeable intrusion of personal interests. Of course we want our profit from it – what sensible man does not want that! But that is a secondary matter. First the State, then the other things. So I think, at least, and so does the General here."

      "Certainly I think so," said the General; "but how is it that you bring me into it?"

      "Because no one would profit more by the execution of the project than your sister – or whoever may be in possession of Warnow, Gristow, and Damerow."

      "I shall never possess a foot of those estates," said the General knitting his eyebrows. "Besides, I have had absolutely nothing to do with the matter, as you yourself know, Count; I have not once expressed an opinion, and so am not in a position to accept the compliment you paid me."

      He turned again to Madame von Strummin. The Count's face flushed.

      "The views of a man in your position, General," he said with a skilful semblance of composure, "can no more be concealed than the most official declaration of our honored President, even if he give them no official form."

      The General knitted his brows still more sternly.

      "Very well, Count," exclaimed the General, "be it so, but I confess myself openly to be the most determined opponent of your project! I consider it strategically useless, and technically impossible of execution."

      "Two reasons, either of which would be crushing if it were valid," rejoined the Count with an ironical smile. "As to the first, I submit, of course, to such an authority as you are – though we could not always have war with France and her weak navy, but might occasionally have it with Russia with her strong navy, and in that case a harbor facing the enemy might be very necessary. But the impracticability of the project, General! On this point I think that I, with my amphibian character as a country gentleman living by the sea, may with all deference say a word. Our sand, difficult as it makes the construction of roads, to the great regret of ourselves and our President, is excellent material for a railroad embankment, and will prove itself a good site for the foundation of our harbor walls."

      "Except those places where we should have to become lake-dwellers again," said the President, who for the sake of the General could no longer keep silent.

      "There may be such places," exclaimed the Count, who, in spite of the exasperating contradictions by both of the gentlemen, now had the satisfaction at least of knowing that all other conversation had ceased and that for the moment he alone was speaking; "I grant it. But what else would that prove than that the building of the harbor will last a few months or years longer and cost a few hundred thousands or even a few millions more? And what will they say of an undertaking which, once completed, is an invincible bulwark against any enemy attacking from the east?"

      "Except one!" said Reinhold.

      The Count had not thought that this person could join the conversation. His face flushed with anger; he cast a black look at the new opponent, and asked in a sharp defiant tone:

      "And that is?"

      "A storm flood," replied Reinhold.

      "We here in this country are too much accustomed to storms and floods to be afraid of either," said the Count, with forced composure.

      "Yes, I know," replied Reinhold; "but I am not speaking of ordinary atmospheric and marine adjustments and disturbances, but of an event which I am convinced has been coming for years and only waits for an opportune occasion, which will not be wanting, to break forth with a violence of which the boldest imagination can form no conception."

      "Are we still in the realm of reality, or already in the sphere of the imagination?" asked the Count.

      "We are in the domain of possibility," replied Reinhold; "of a possibility which a glance at the map will show us has already been more than once realized and will in all human probability be repeated at no very distant future time."

      "You make us extremely curious," said the Count.

      He had said it ironically; but he had only given expression to the feelings of the company. The eyes of all were fixed upon Reinhold.

      "I am afraid I shall tire the ladies with these things," said Reinhold.

      "Not in the least," said Else.

      "I just revel in everything connected with the sea," said Mieting, with a mischievous glance at Else.

      "You would really oblige me," said the President.

      "Please continue!" added the General.

      "I shall be as brief as possible," said Reinhold, glancing first at the General and then at the President, as if he were addressing them alone. "The Baltic appears to have remained a world to itself after its formation by revolutions of the most violent nature. It has no ebb and flow, it contains less salt than the North Sea, and the percentage of salt diminishes toward the east, so that the flora and fauna – "

      "What's that?" interrupted Mieting.

      "The vegetable and animal world, Miss Mieting – of the Gulf of Finland are almost those of fresh water. Nevertheless there is a constant interaction between the gulf and the ocean, as the two are still visibly connected – an ebb and flow from the latter to the former, and vice versa, with a highly complicated coincident combination of the most varied causes, one of which I must emphasize, because it is just that one of which I have to speak. It is the regularity with which the winds blow from west to east and from east to west, that accompanies and assists in a friendly manner, as it were, the ebb and flow of the water in its submarine channels. The mariner relied upon these winds with almost the same certainty with which one calculates the appearance of well established natural phenomena, and he was justified in doing so; for no considerable change had taken place within the memory of man, until, a few years ago, suddenly an east wind, which usually began to blow in the second half of August and prevailed until the middle of October, disappeared and has never reappeared."

      "Well, and the effect of that?" asked the President, who had listened with rapt attention.

      "The result is, Mr. President, that in the course of these years enormous masses of СКАЧАТЬ