Elsa von Kreuzenach broke into her father's speech impatiently.
"You are too bad, Father! Captain Brand does not wish to spend the evening in poliltical argument. You know what Franz and I think. We believe that all the evil of the war was caused by silly old hatred and greedy rivalries. Isn't the world big enough for the free development of all its peoples? If not, then life is not worth living, and the human race must go on killing each other until the world is a wilderness."
"I agree," said Brand, looking at Elsa. "The peoples of Europe must resist all further incitements to make war on each other. Surely the American President has given us all a new philosophy by his call for a League of Nations, and his promise of peace without vengeance, with the self-determination of peoples."
"That is true," said Franz von Kreuzenach. "The Allies are bound by Wilson's Fourteen Points. We agreed to the Armistice on that basis, and it is because of the promise that lies in those clauses—the charter of a New World—that the German people, and the Austrians—accept their defeat with resignation, and look forward with hope—in spite of our present ruin—to a greater liberty and to a more beautiful democracy."
"Yes," said Elsa, "what my brother says, Captain Brand, explains the spirit with which your English soldiers have been received on the Rhine. Perhaps you expected hostility, hatred, black looks? No, the German people welcome you, and your American comrades, because the bitterness of defeat is softened by the knowledge that there is to be no more bloodshed—alas, we are drained of blood!—and that the Peace will begin a nobler age in history, for all of us."
The General shifted in his chair so that it scraped the
