BOOK ONE: YESTERDAY pretation, was his uncle [oachim's opinion. Berthold regarded his mother's brother, joachim Ranzow, with reverence and affection. Government Director Ranzow, tall, slender, and elegant, precise in speech and character, had won the boy's heart by treating him as an adult. What Uncle joachim had to say on the problem of Arminius the German was romantic. Berthold did not quite understand it, but it made an impres- sion on hirn. "You know, my boy," said Uncle Ranzow, care- fully pouring him out a strong schnaps with his long hand, "the fact that the affair ended badly doesn't prove anything. "One man may ask: 'Is this thing safe?' The second: 'Is it right?' Their queries show us in one phrase Which free man is, which wight," Arminius was right. It was only by means of revolt, even at the risk of defeat, that the Germans came to understand their own natures, crystallized themselves, learned to live. If they had not revolted in those days, they would never havc entered history, they would have had no history and would have van- ished into obscurity. It was only through Arminius that they won a name and arrived. Name, reputation, is all that counts. What sort of a man the real Czsar was, is without interest: wh at lives is the legendary Czsar. If Berthold understood that correctly, it was not alone a true likeness of Arrninius that was important. The face of the statue in the Teutoburg Forest might also have apart to play. It was therefore not enough for hirn to have an idea, now, how Arminius looked. That was confusing. He was still far from his goal. A chance conversation with his cousin Ruth Oppermann did not help to sirnplify matters. Ruth patronized hirn, treated him as a small boy who had grown up with misguided ideas. WeIl, he was young, it was necessary to free hirn from his