, The Third Liberator.'"

"The Third Liberator," passionately echoed the Countess.

"Do you know," he went on, "I've often fancied it was I who gave Heine
the line of thought he developed in his sketch of German philosophy,
that our revolution will be the outcome of our Philosophy, that in the
earthquake will be heard the small still voice of Kant and Hegel. It
is what I tried to say the other day in my address on Fichte. It is
pure thought that will build up the German Empire. Reality--with its
fragments, Prussia, Saxony, etc.--will have to remould itself after
the Idea of a unified German--Republic. Why do you smile?" he broke
off uneasily, with a morbid memory of his audience drifting away into
the refreshment room.

"I was thinking of Heine's saying that we Germans are a methodical
nation, to take our thinking first and our revolution second, because
the heads that have been used for thinking may be afterwards used for
chopping off. But if you chopped off heads first, like the French,
they could not be of much use to philosophy."

Lassalle laughed. "I love Heine. He seemed my soul's brother. I loved
him from boyhood, only regretting he wasn't a republican like Boerne.
Would he could have lived to see the triumph of his prediction, the
old wild Berserker rage that will arise among us Teutons when the
Talisman of the Cross breaks at last, as break it must, and the old
gods come to their own again. A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye.
The canting tyrants shall bite the dust, the false judges shall be
judged."

"That is how I like you to talk."

He smote the table with his fist. His own praises had fired him,
though his marvellous memory that could hold even the complete
libretti of operas had been little in doubt as to Heine's phrasing.

"Yes, the holy alliance of Science and the People--those opposite
poles! They will crush between their arms of steel all that opposes
the higher civilization. The State, the immemorial vestal fire of all
civilization--what a good phrase! I must write that down for my
_Kammergericht_ speech."

"And at the same time finish this Heine business, please, and be done
with that impertinent demoiselle. What! she must have letter for
letter! Of course it's a blessing she ceased to correspond with you.
But all the same, just see what these creatures are. No sympathy with
the wear and tear of your life. All petty egotisms and vanities! What
do they care about your world-reaching purp