describing a visit, say the papers of march 28th, which the kaiser paid incognito to cologne cathedral on march 18th before the great battle, the cologne correspondent of the tyd says:
there were only a few persons in the building. under high arches and in spacious solitude the kaiser sat, as if in deep thought, before the priests’ choir. behind him his military staff stood respectfully at a distance. still musing as he rose, the monarch resting both hands on his walking-stick remains standing immovable for some minutes... i shall never forget this picture of the musing monarch praying in cologne cathedral on the eve of the great battle.
probably he won’t forget it. the german casualty lists will help to remind him. but what is more to the point is that this expert propagandist has presumably received orders that we are not to forget it, and that the sinister originator of the then impending holocaust should be toned down a little in the eyes at least of the tyd to something a little more amiable.
and no doubt the little piece of propaganda gave every satisfaction to those who ordered it, or they would not have passed it out to the tyd, and the touching little scene would never have reached our eyes. at the same time the little tale would have been better suited to the psychology of other countries if he had made the war lord kneel when he prayed in cologne cathedral, and if he had represented the military staff as standing out of respect to one who, outside germany, is held in greater respect than the all highest.
and had the war lord really knelt is it not possible that he might have found pity, humility, or even contrition? things easily overlooked in so large a cathedral when sitting erect, as a war lord, before the priests’ choir, but to be noticed perhaps with one’s eyes turned to the ground.
perhaps he nearly found one of those things. perhaps he felt (who knows?) just for a moment, that in the dimness of those enormous aisles was something he had lost a long, long while ago.
one is not mistaken to credit the very bad with feeling far, faint appeals from things of glory like cologne cathedral; it is that the appeals come to them too far and faint on their headlong descent to ruin.
for what was the war lord seeking? did he know that pity for his poor slaughtered people, huddled by him on to our ceaseless machine guns, might be found by seeking there? or was it only that the lost thing, whatever it was, made that faint appeal to him, passing the door by chance, and drew him in, as the scent of some herb or flower in a moment draws us back years to look for something lost in our youth; we gaze back, wondering, and do not find it.
and to think that perhaps he lost it by very little! that, but for that proud attitude and the respectful staff, he might have seen what was lost, and have come out bringing pity for his people. might have said to the crowd that gave him that ovation, as we read, outside the door: “my pride has driven you to this needless war, my ambition has made a sacrifice of millions, but it is over, and it shall be no more; i will make no more conquests.”
they would have killed him. but for that renunciation, perhaps, however late, the curses of the widows of his people might have kept away from his grave.
but he did not find it. he sat at prayer. then he stood. then he marched out: and his staff marched out behind him. and in the gloom of the floor of the vast cologne cathedral lie the things that the kaiser did not find and never will find now. unnoticed thus, and in some silent moment, passes a man’s last chance.
