r in any face, no question as to the future
in any eye, but the certainty of triumph in all; as if they had seen
the last page turned in the book of fate, with victory and its glorious
results written thereon.

Toward nine o'clock a thunderbolt broke over the Brandenburger Thor,
and rolled like the breaking of a wave to the other end of the street.
The king had left the Potsdam railway station a quarter of an hour ago,
and the crowd greeted him with a tremendous shout as his carriage
appeared. The people wished by this acclamation, springing from the
depths of their hearts, to show their ruler that they were prepared to
follow him even to death. But the king was so much absorbed in thought
that he scarcely seemed to hear or notice the enthusiasm of the crowd.
He saluted and bowed to right and left as a prince is accustomed to do
from his childhood, but it was a mechanical action of the body, and his
mind had little part in it. His eyes were not looking at the sea of
uncovered heads, but seemed fixed, under knitted brows, on the
distance, as if they endeavored to decipher there some indistinct,
shadowy form. Did the king perceive in this moment the responsibility
of one human being to carry such a load? Did he wish in his innermost
heart that he might share the weight of the decision with others--the
representatives of the people--and not alone be forced to throw the
dice deciding the life or death of hundreds and thousands? Who can say?
At all events the powerful features of the king's face betrayed no such
uneasy doubt--only a deep earnestness and an immovable steadiness of
expression. Belief in the divine right of his kingship gave him power
over the minds of men, and he took his duties on him in this hour
without weakness or failing, grasping with his human hand the obscure
spiritual web of man's destiny, and with his limited intelligence
trying to unravel the dark threads here and there, on which hung the
healing and destruction of millions. In such moments a whole people
will become united into one being, swayed by the mastery of a single
mind, and await the commands of a single will. It comes, no one knows
from whom--all blindly follow. In spite of the superficial differences
which men find in one another under similar conditions, the powerful
effect of unconscious imitation is surprisingly apparent, and under its
operation personal peculiarities disappear.

Wilhelm and Paul that same evening sat at one of the wi