me, my Kaiser? If I cannot free thee,
I will at least comfort thee, and thou shalt at least have one with thee
who will prattle with thee about thy sorest affliction, and whisper
courage to thee, and love thee, and whose best joke and best blood shall
be at thy service. For thou, my people, art the true Kaiser, the true
lord of the land; thy will is sovereign, and more legitimate far than
that purple _Tel est notre plaisir_, which invokes a divine right with
no better warrant than the anointings of shaven and shorn jugglers; thy
will, my people, is the sole rightful source of power. Though now thou
liest down in thy bonds, yet in the end will thy rightful cause prevail;
the day of deliverance is at hand, a new time is beginning. My Kaiser,
the night is over, and out there glows the ruddy dawn.'

"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, thou art mistaken; perhaps thou takest
a headsman's gleaming axe for the sun, and the red of dawn is only
blood.'

"'No, my Kaiser, it is the sun, though it is rising in the west; these
six thousand years it has always risen in the east; it is high time
there should come a change.'

"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, thou hast lost the bells out of thy red
cap, and it has now such an odd look, that red cap of thine!'

"'Ah, my Kaiser, thy distress has made me shake my head so hard and
fierce, that the fool's bells have dropped off my cap; the cap is none
the worse for that.'

"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, what is that noise of breaking and
cracking outside there?'

"'Hush! that is the saw and the carpenter's axe, and soon the doors of
thy prison will be burst open, and thou wilt be free, my Kaiser!'

"'Am I then really Kaiser? Ah, I forgot, it is the fool who tells me
so!'

"'Oh, sigh not, my dear master, the air of thy prison makes thee so
desponding! when once thou hast got thy rights again, thou wilt feel
once more the bold imperial blood in thy veins, and thou wilt be proud
like a Kaiser, and violent, and gracious, and unjust, and smiling, and
ungrateful, as princes are.'

"'Conrad von der Rosen, my fool, when I am free, what wilt thou do
then?'

"'I will then sew new bells on to my cap.'

"'And how shall I recompense thy fidelity?'

"'Ah, dear master, by not leaving me to die in a ditch!'"[148]

I wish to mark Heine's place in modern European literature, the scope of
his activity, and his value. I cannot attempt to give here a detailed
account of his life, or a description