He begged pardon for his indiscretion in listening to the argument, and congratulated Christophe on the _maestria_ with which he had pulverized his opponents. He was still laughing at the thought of it. Christophe was glad to hear it, and looked at him a little distrustfully: "Seriously?" he asked. "You are not laughing at me?" The other swore by the gods. Christophe's face lit up. "Then you think I am right? You are of my opinion?" "Well," said Mannheim, "I am not a musician. I know nothing of music. The only music I like--(if it is not too flattering to say so)--is yours.... That may show you that my taste is not so bad...." "Oh!" said Christophe skeptically, though he was flattered all the same, "that proves nothing." "You are difficult to please.... Good!... I think as you do: that proves nothing. And I don't venture to judge what you say of German musicians. But, anyhow, it is so true of the Germans in general, the old Germans, all the romantic idiots with their rancid thought, their sloppy emotion, their senile reiteration which we are asked to admire, '_the eternal Yesterday, which has always been, and always will be, and will be law to-morrow because it is law to-day._' ...!" He recited a few lines of the famous passage in Schiller: "... _Das ewig Gestrige, Das immer war imd immer wiederkehrt_...." "Himself, first of all!" He stopped in the middle of his recitation. "Who?" asked Christophe. "The pump-maker who wrote that!" Christophe did not understand. But Mannheim went on: "I should like to have a general cleaning up of art and thought every fifty years--nothing to be left standing." "A little drastic," said Christophe, smiling. "No, I assure you. Fifty years is too much: I should say thirty.... And even less!... It is a hygienic measure. One does not keep one's ancestors in one's house. One gets rid of them, when they are dead, and sends, them elsewhere,--there politely to rot, and one places stones on them to be quite sure that they will not come back. Nice people put flowers on them, too. I don't mind if they like it. All I ask is to be left in peace. I leave them alone! Each for his own side, say I: the dead and the living." "There are some dead who are more alive than the living." "No, no! It would be more true to say that there are some living who are more dead than the dead." "Maybe. In any case, there are old things which are still young." "Then if they are still young we can find them for ourselves.... But I don't believe it. What has been good once never is good again. Nothing is good but change. Before all we have to rid ourselves of the old men and things. There are too many of them in Germany. Death to them, say I!"