The Oppermanns by Lion Feuchtwanger

Author:Lion Feuchtwanger [Feuchtwanger, Lion]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE OPPERMANNS had rendered exceptionally meritorious service to the National- ist cause, whether at high school or university, were to have their academic tests made considerably easier. Certain old- fashioned ministerial officials contended that such a decree would ultimately result in patients being treated by doctors who, to be sure, were Nationalists but who might not be re- liable scientifically. Vogelsang's patriotic fervour made short work of such considerations. When the decree had been issued, he again presented him- self before Franccis. There was still another point that required settling and that was his personal relation to the Rector. He would emerge just as triumphantly from this undertaking as from the other. While he was in Tilsit, he had been ahle to visualize triumph only as confronting one's enemy clad in steel and placing one's foot upon his neck. In Berlin he had come to know a different species of triumph, a more gentle, more elegant one. With a view to getting the most out of this type of triumph he was now sitting in the rectorial office, in an attitude more worldly than formal, one leg thrown over the other, his arms folded, the invisible sabre laid aside. An almost gracious smile lurked under his short, corn-coloured moustache, his collar was aetually two more millimetres lower. "I am anxious, Herr Rector," he hegan, trying to make his squeaking voice sound buoyant, "before I leave this establish- ment, to elear up just one more point. We eould not agree, on one occasion, whether the study of the book entitled My Bastle should be introduced in sehools such as this. You remember, Herr Rector?" Franccis nodded. His blue eyes were fixed upon Vogelsang thoughtfully, not with hostility or even unkindly. The latter was there to enjoy to the full his last and most important vie.. tory. F or he was still goaded, deep down, by the reeollection that he had onee been unable to find the right answer to the slander against the revered book. With that aneedote about the

BOOK THREE: TOMORROW Emperor Sigismund, who was above grammarians, that other fellow had put hirn hors de combat on that occasion. Now Vogel sang had the answer; it was belated but very much to the point. "Permit me," he continued with an elegant air, "to relate to you in return for that anecdote of the Council of Con- stance-to which you then drew my attention and in which you ironically compared the Leader with the Emperor-an- other anecdote from Church history. At the Synod of Cyprus," he spoke slowly and pointedly, "a bishop quoted the Saviour's words to the man siek of palsy: 'Take up thy bed and walk.' But the learned prince of the Church, who was a stickler for refinement of style, eonsidered the word 'krabbaton,' which appeared in the actual text, too vulgar and substituted the literary word 'skirnpous.' At that, Saint Spiridion jurnped up and shouted at hirn: 'Are you a better man than He who said krabbaton, to be asharned of using the words He used?' " Franccis had been listening intently.

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