That was
the essential thing about him as regards his relations with his
fellow-traveller, though, when next morning the spires of Cologne and
the swift river of his Fatherland came into sight, he burst out into a
sort of rhapsody of patriotism that mockingly covered a great sincerity.
"Ah! beloved land!" he cried. "Soil of heaven and of divine harmony!
Hail to thee! Hail to thee! Rhine, Rhine deep and true and steadfast."
. . . And he waved his hat and sang the greeting of Brunnhilde. Then he
turned laughingly to Michael.
"I am sufficiently English to know how ridiculous that must seem to
you," he said, "for I love England also, and the passengers on the boat
would merely think me mad if I apostrophised the cliffs of Dover and
the mud of the English roads. But here I am a German again, and I would
willingly kiss the soil. You English--we English, I may say, for I am as
much English as German--I believe have got the same feeling somewhere in
our hearts, but we lock it up and hide it away. Pray God I shall never
have to choose to which nation I belong, though for that matter there in
no choice in it at all, for I am certainly a German subject. Guten Tag,
Koln; let us instantly have our coffee.
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