“I doubt very much,” he said, “whether Downing Street realizes the enormous power which the Quai d’Orsay has over the Yildiz Kiosk.”
“So do I,” I said, “what is it?”
But he hardly noticed the interruption.
“You’ve got to remember,” he went on, “that, from the point of view of the Yildiz, the Wilhelmstrasse is just a thing of yesterday.”
“Quite so,” I said.
“Of course,” he added, “the Ballplatz is quite different.”
“Altogether different,” I admitted.
“And mind you,” he said, “the Ballplatz itself can be largely moved from the Quirinal through the Vatican.”
“Why of course it can,” I agreed, with as much relief in my tone as I could put into it. After all, what simpler way of moving the Ballplatz than that?
It was I who was taking on myself to do most of the answering, because it was I who had brought him there and invited the other men to meet him. “He’s coming round at five,” I had said, “do come and have a cup of tea and meet him. He knows more about the European situation and the probable solution than any other man living.” Naturally they came gladly. They wanted to know—as everybody wants to know—how the war will end. They were just ordinary plain men like myself.
I could see that they were a little mystified, perhaps disappointed. They would have liked, just as I would, to ask a few plain questions, such as, can the Italians knock the stuff out of the Austrians? Are the Rumanians getting licked or not? How many submarines has Germany got, anyway? Such questions, in fact, as we are accustomed to put up to one another every day at lunch and to answer out of the morning paper. As it was, we didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.
No one spoke4. The silence began to be even a little uncomfortable. It was broken by my friend Rapley, who is in wholesale5 hardware and who has all the intellectual bravery that goes with it. He asked the Authority straight out the question that we all wanted to put.
“Just what do you mean by the Ballplatz? What is the Ballplatz?”
The Authority smiled an engaging smile.
“Precisely,” he said, “I see your drift exactly. You say what is the Ballplatz? I reply quite frankly6 that it is almost impossible to answer. Probably one could best define it as the driving power behind the Ausgleich.”
“I see,” said Rapley.
“Though the plain fact is that ever since the Herzegovinian embroglio the Ballplatz is little more than a counterpoise to the Wilhelmstrasse.”
“Ah!” said Rapley.
“Indeed, as everybody knows, the whole relationship of the Ballplatz with the Nevski Prospekt has emanated7 from the Wilhelmstrasse.”
This was a thing which personally I had not known. But I said nothing. Neither did the other men. They continued smoking, looking as innocent as they could.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” said the Authority, “when I speak of the Nevski Prospekt. I am not referring in any way to the Tsarskoe Selo.”
“No, no,” we all agreed.
“No doubt there were, as we see it plainly now, under currents in all directions from the Tsarskoe Selo.”
We all seemed to suggest by our attitude that these undercurrents were sucking at our very feet.
“But the Tsarskoe Selo,” said the Authority, “is now definitely eliminated.”
We were glad of that; we shifted our feet back into attitudes of ease.
I felt that it was time to ask a leading question.
“Do you think,” I said, “that Germany will be broken up by the war?”
“You mean Germany in what sense? Are you thinking of Preuszenthum? Are you referring to Junkerismus?”
“No,” I said, quite truthfully, “neither of them.”
“That’s it,” I said.
“Then it’s rather hard,” said the Eminent Authority, “to answer your question in plain terms. But I’ll try. One thing, of course, is absolutely certain, Mittel-Europa goes overboard.”
“It does, eh?”
“Oh, yes, absolutely. This is the end of Mittel-Europa. I mean to say—here we’ve had Mittel-Europa, that is, the Mittel-Europa idea, as a sort of fantasmus in front of Teutonism ever since Koniggratz.”
The Authority looked all round us in that searching way he had. We all tried to look like men seeing a fantasmus and disgusted at it.
“So you see,” he went on, “Mittel-Europa is done with.”
“I suppose it is,” I said. I didn’t know just whether to speak with regret or not. I heard Rapley murmur9, “I guess so.”
“And there is not a doubt,” continued the Authority, “that when Mittel-Europa goes, Grossdeutschthum goes with it.”
“Oh, sure to,” we all murmured.
“Well, then, there you are—what is the result for Germany—why the thing’s as plain as a pikestaff—in fact you’re driven to it by the sheer logic10 of the situation—there is only one outcome—”
The Authority was speaking very deliberately11. He even paused at this point and lighted a cigarette, while we all listened breathlessly. We felt that we had got the thing to a focus at last.
“Only one outcome—a Staatenbund.”
“Great heavens,” I said, “not a Staatenbund!”
“Undoubtedly,” said the Authority, puffing12 quietly at his cigarette, as if personally he wouldn’t lift a finger to stop the Staatenbund if he could, “that’s the end of it, a Staatenbund. In other words, we are back where we were before the Vienna Congress!”
At this he chuckled13 heartily14 to himself: so the rest of us laughed too: the thing was too absurd. But the Authority, who was a man of nice distinctions and genuinely anxious to instruct us, was evidently afraid that he had overstated things a little.
“Mind you,” he said, “there’ll be something left—certainly the Zollverein and either the Ausgleich or something very like it.”
All of the men gave a sort of sigh of relief. It was certainly something to have at least a sort of resemblance or appearance of the Ausgleich among us. We felt that we were getting on. One could see that a number of the men were on the brink15 of asking questions.
“What about Rumania,” asked Nelles—he is a banker and interested in government bonds—“is this the end of it?”
“No,” said the Authority, “it’s not the end of Rumania, but it is the end of Rumanian Irridentismus.”
That settled Nelles.
“What about the Turks?” asked Rapley.
“The Turks, or rather, I suppose it would be more proper to say, the Osmanli, as that is no doubt what you mean?” Rapley nodded. “Well, speaking personally, I should say that there’s no difficulty in a permanent settlement in that quarter. If I were drawing up the terms of a treaty of peace meant to be really lasting16 I should lay down three absolute bases; the rest needn’t matter”—the Authority paused a moment and then proceeded to count off the three conditions of peace on his fingers—“These would be, first, the evacuation of the Sandjak; second, an international guarantee for the Capitulations; and third, for internal matters, an arrangement along the lines of the original firman of Midhat Pasha.”
A murmur of complete satisfaction went round the group.
“I don’t say,” continued the Eminent Authority, “that there wouldn’t be other minor17 matters to adjust; but they would be a mere18 detail. You ask me, for instance, for a milice, or at least a gendarmerie, in the Albanian hinterland; very good, I grant it you at once. You retain, if you like, you abolish the Cypriotic suzerainty of the Porte—all right. These are matters of indifference19.”
We all assumed a look of utter indifference.
“But what about the Dardanelles? Would you have them fixed20 so that ships could go through, or not?” asked Rapley.
“The Dardanelles,” said the Authority, “could easily be denationalized under a quadrilateral guarantee to be made a pars22 materia of the pactum foederis.”
“That ought to hold them,” I murmured.
The Authority felt now that he had pretty well settled the map of Europe. He rose and shook hands with us all around very cordially. We did not try to detain him. We felt that time like his was too valuable to be wasted on things like us.
“Well, I tell you,” said Rapley, as we settled back into our chairs when the Great Authority had gone, “my own opinion, boys, is that the United States and England can trim Germany and Austria any day in the week and twice on Sunday.”
After which somebody else said:
“I wonder how many of these submarines Germany has, anyway?”
And then we drifted back into the humbler kind of war talk that we have been carrying on for three years.
But later, as we walked home together, Rapley said to me:
“That fellow threw a lot of light on things in Europe, didn’t he?”
And I answered:
“Yes.”
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收听单词发音
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1
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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3
sip
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| v.小口地喝，抿，呷；n.一小口的量 | |
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4
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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6
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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7
emanated
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| v.从…处传出，传出( emanate的过去式和过去分词 )；产生，表现，显示 | |
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8
embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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9
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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10
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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11
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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12
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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13
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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15
brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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16
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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17
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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18
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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19
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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20
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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21
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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22
pars
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| n.部，部分；平均( par的名词复数 )；平价；同等；（高尔夫球中的）标准杆数 | |
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liars
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| 说谎者( liar的名词复数 ) | |
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