Page:The four horsemen of the Apocalypse - (Los cuatro jinetes de Apocalipsis) (IA cu31924014386738).djvu/163

 Julius von Hartrott replied most disdainfully to this, repeating the Spaniard's very words. Men who thought much said many things. Besides, Nietzsche was a poet, completely demented at his death, and was no authority among the University sages. His fame had only been recognized in foreign lands.… And he paid no further attention to the youth, ignoring him as though he had evaporated into thin air after his presumption. All the professor's attention was now concentrated on Desnoyers.

"This country," he resumed, "is dying from within. How can you doubt that revolution will break out the minute war is declared?… Have you not noticed the agitation of the boulevard on account of the Caillaux trial? Reactionaries and revolutionists have been assaulting each other for the past three days. I have seen them challenging one another with shouts and songs as if they were going to come to blows right in the middle of the street. This division of opinion will become accentuated when our troops cross the frontier. It will then be civil war. The anti-militarists are clamoring mournfully, believing that it is in the power of the government to prevent the clash.… A country degenerated by democracy and by the inferiority of the triumphant Celt, greedy for full liberty!… We are the only free people on earth because we know how to obey."

This paradox made Julio smile. Germany the only free people!…

"It is so," persisted Hartrott energetically. "We have the liberty best suited to a great people—economical and intellectual liberty."

"And political liberty?"

The professor received this question with a scornful shrug.

"Political liberty!… Only decadent and ungovernable people, inferior races anxious for equality and