all you have to do is sign a manifesto every two weeks, and as a member of the German Parliament, in the company of the greatest men in all Europe.
And bathed in perspiration Arnold signs. A curious joke, he murmurs. Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coûte. He had copied this last sentence into his notebook the previous night. However, Arnold had not come to the end of his trials. The European Central Committee had issued a series of manifestos to Europe, to the French, the Italians, the Poles and the Wallachians and now, following the great battle at Bronzell, [46] it was Germany's turn. In his draft Mazzini attacked the Germans for their lack of cosmopolitan spirit, and in particular, for their arrogant treatment of Italian salami vendors, organ-grinders, confectioners, dormouse tamers and mouse-trap sellers. Taken aback Arnold confessed that it was true. He went further. He declared his readiness to cede the Austrian Tirol and Istria to Mazzini. But this was not enough. He had not only to appeal to the conscience of the German people, but also to attack them where they were most vulnerable. Arnold received instructions that this time he was to have an opinion, as he represented the German element. He felt like the student Jobs. [47] He scratched himself thoughtfully behind his ear and after long reflection he stuttered: "Since the age of Tacitus the voices of German bards and baritones can be heard. In winter they kindle fires on all the mountains so as to warm their feet." The bards, the baritones and fires on all the mountains! That will put a bomb under German *******! thought Mazzini with a grin. The bards, baritones, fires on all the mountains and German ******* to boot went into the manifesto as a sop for the German nation. To his astonishment Arnold had passed the examination and understood for the first time with what little wisdom the world is governed. From that moment on he despised Bruno Bauer more than ever for all his eighteen hefty tomes written while he was still young.
While Arnold in the wake of the European Central Committee was signing warlike manifestoes with God, for Mazzini and against the princes, the peace movement was raging not only in England, under the aegis of Cobden, but even beyond the North Sea. So that in Frankfurt/Main the Yankee swindler, Elihu Burritt together with Cobden, Jaup, Girardin and the Red Indian Ka-gi-ga-gi-wa-wa-be-ta organised a Peace Congress.
Our Arnold was just itching to be able to make one of his "frequent appearances"and to give birth to a manifesto. So he proclaimed himself the corresponding member of the Frankfurt Assembly and sent over an extremely confused Peace Manifesto translated out of Cobden's speeches into his own speculative Pomeranian. Various Germans drew Arnold's attention to the contradiction between his warlike attitude in the Central Committee and his peaceful Quakerism. He would reply: "Well, there you have the contradictions. That's the dialectic for you. In my youth I studied Hegel." His "honest consciousness"was eased by the thought that Mazzini knew no German and that it was not hard to pull the wool over his eyes.
Moreover, his relationship with Mazzini promised to become even more secure thanks to the protection of Harro Harring who had just landed in Hull. For with Harring a new and highly symptomatic character steps onto the stage.
