rathfully and spat still more decisively. The qualities in the old
gentleman that had really commanded respect, the consistency which,
even where it degenerated into obstinacy, compelled esteem, the calm,
self-contained dignity of a capable personality--these he failed to
see. Not possessing them himself, he lacked also the desire to
perceive them in others. Just as his figure was absolutely at variance
with the bearing of the old gentleman which he sought artificially to
assume, so too his lack of repose and inward stability constantly
contradicted it. He seemed merely to have borrowed the old gentleman's
diplomatic manner of speaking in order to show his own superficiality
and emptiness. Then at times he would suddenly lapse from the stiff
demeanor of the wearer of the blue coat into his own patronizing
joviality and onto a plane where joking rubs out with dirty fingers
the line between superior and subordinate as if it had never existed.
Then when he forcibly jerked himself back just as suddenly into the
person of authority, he did not regain the respect he had lost, he
merely offended. To all this was added the fact that he knew himself
to be excelled by some of his workmen, and in difficult cases was
obliged to let them do as they liked.

Apollonius, on the contrary, had by nature and by virtue of the
training that he had received at his cousin's what his brother lacked;
he possessed dignity of personality, consistency to the point of
obstinacy. His inward sureness made him authoritative; he did not have
to exert himself to be so--he was raised above the necessity of
demanding respect by visible effort which so seldom attains its
purpose, indeed usually defeats it. And so he succeeded in doing what
he wanted. Soon the work was being carried on in the most systematic
order, and all those concerned seemed to feel contented under the
change--all except Fritz Nettenmair. The rapid cooeperation that moved
as on the track of an invisible necessity made the figure in the blue
coat in which he felt himself so big, superfluous. Another reason for
uneasiness was that the new system came from his brother; from him
whom he already had so much to forgive and whom he wanted less and
less to forgive. He did not know, or did not want to know, what charm
a self-contained personality exercises, although he himself was
obliged to acknowledge it against his will, and still less that he
lacked this and that his brother possessed it. He