n the
two bottles of Johannisberger are not sufficient to inspire me with
courage. Is it not terrible that the honorable Council should be
obliged to attend in person? It is an unheard-of indignity!"

"Not only for you, but for the Berlin citizen is the insult equally
great," said Gotzkowsky.

Herr von Kircheisen shook his head in a most melancholy manner. "Yes,"
said he, "but the Berlin citizen does not feel it so deeply. It does
not affect his honor as it does that of the magistracy."

Gotzkowsky smiled scornfully. "Do you think," asked he, "that the
magistrates possess a different kind of honor from that of any citizen
of the town? The sense of honor is keener among the people than it is
among the noblest lords."

The chief burgomaster frowned. "These are very proud words," replied
he, with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Pride belongs to the citizen!" cried Gotzkowsky. "But believe me,
noble sir, my heart to-day is not as proud as my words. It is sore
with pain and grief over our deep, unmerited degradation."

"Silence, silence!" whispered the chief magistrate, leaning
tremblingly on Gotzkowsky's arm. He heard a noise behind the closed
gates, and his mind misgave him that the dreaded enemy was at hand.

Suddenly there sounded on the other side of the walls the loud notes
of a trumpet, and the warder hastened to throw open the gate. A rare
and motley mixture of Russian uniforms now came in sight. There were
seen Cossacks, with their small horses and sharp lances; body-guards,
with their gold-adorned uniforms; hussars, in their jackets trimmed
with costly furs, all crowding in in confused tumult and with
deafening screams and yells, that contrasted strangely with the
silence inside the gates, with the noiseless, deserted streets,
the closed windows of the houses, whose inhabitants scorned to be
witnesses to the triumphal entry of the enemy. Only the ever-curious,
ever-sight-loving, always-thoughtless populace, to whom the honor has
at times been accorded of being called "the sovereign people," only
this populace had hurried hither from all the streets of Berlin to see
the entry of the Russians, and to hurrah to the conqueror, provided
he paraded right handsomely and slowly in. And now a deep silence took
place in the ranks of the enemy; the crowd opened and formed a lane,
through which rode the Russian General Bachmann and his staff. As he
reached the gate he drew in his horse and asked, in a loud, sonorous
voice