BOOK ONE: YESTERDAY 117 the future, idiot," cried Mühlheim with an excited laugh, "you ought to safeguard a few hundred thousand." After sorne discussion, Gustav agreecl to subscribe, not four hundred thousand, as Mühlheim desired, but a mere two hun- dred thousand marks to the corporation. Mühlheim gave a sigh of relief. Now he had arranged at least a certain degree of security for his foolish friend. Gustav signed the power of attorney which Mühlheim laid before hirn. "Don't forget, by the way," said he proudly, "that Ipossess, apart from this, two hundred marks' monthly income from the Lessing thing." This tedious business over, he quickly recovered his good humour; and when Friedrich Wilhelm Gutwetter arrived, his smile was as beaming as ever. Mühlheim could not tear him- self away fro m politics so quickly. "We have seen the prole- tariat let loose," he proclaimed. "It was not a pretty sight. We have seen the substantial citizen let loose, the agriculturist and the militarist, and that was hideous. But all that will be a paradise to what we shall see when the petty bourgeois is let loose, the Nationalist party men and their Leader." "Da you really believe that, sir?" asked Gutwetter, and gazed at hirn in friendly fashion with great, childlike eyes. "I have a different idea of it," he added rnildly. "1 believe that the war was only a curtain-raiser. The century of the great conflict has just be- gun. It will be a century of destruction. The final generations of the white race will attack each other without mercy. The thunder will mate with the ocean, and fire with the earth. Man will have to develop brains with horns to cope with this struggle. Such will be the charaeter, as I see it, of the future national state, A military power beyond conception, a judiciary power with severe, restrictive laws, and a school system to edu- cate senseless brutes in the ecstasy of self-sacrifice; such is the outlook," He spoke mildly, in gentle tones, his carefully groomed head rose calm-featured from the coat, which re- sembled that of a priest, the childlike eyes looked dreamy.