"It seems to me that we have exchanged the parts which are usually taken by the man of the people and the aristocrat. The man of the people remembers minutely a wrong that was done him a generation back, and has forgiven nothing; the aristocrat has not indeed forgotten, but he has learnt to forgive. Or do you think that he has nothing to forgive? You said one must have experienced what you did on that night, in order to understand it. Well! can you, on the other hand, place yourself in the position of a man who saw, on that night, all that he held honourable and holy, all for which he had lived and for which his ancestors had shed their blood, fall to pieces in shameful ruin, and chaos take its place? But he has learnt more than merely to forgive; he has learnt to value the good qualities of his opponents wherever he can find them; he has learnt no longer to shut his eyes to the weaknesses of his own party; he has seen that the struggle must be fought out on different ground, on the ground of right and justice, and that the victory will remain with that party which understands how to seize first on this ground and to take the strongest root. For this reason the excesses committed by his party find no more inflexible judge than himself; for this reason he demands that every one shall be in private life an example and pattern of conduct and morals, and shall act justly, let it cost him what it will. What it has cost me to make this advance to you to-day, you must leave me to decide with myself and with my God--it is more and less than you can understand. Enough that I am here, and ask you to forgive my son, if on this matter, from a false, culpable, but not unnatural regard to the circumstances in which he is born, he has allowed himself to deviate from the straight road that led him to the father of the woman he loved. I ask you not to let the children suffer because the fathers have stood face to face with weapons in their hands; I ask you, in the name of my son, for your daughter's hand for my son." Uncle Ernst started back like a traveller before whom a piece of rock falls, blocking his path, while the precipice gapes near him, and no return is possible. Without, the storm raged; the clock struck the hour of ten. Uncle Ernst collected himself; the rock must be removed--it must! "I have sworn that this hand shall wither sooner than that it shall touch the hand of General von Werben." "But hardly by the God of goodness and mercy?" "I have sworn it." "Then remember what is written, 'That man is like the grass, that to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven.' We are neither of us any longer young; who knows how soon the morrow will come for us?" "May it come soon, is my wish!"