No matter what her
defection at this moment the revolution would begin at dawn; but
although Germany happily lacked the disintegrating forces of Russia,
comfortable as she had been for two generations, and proud in her
discipline, that very discipline would dissolve its new backbone without
the stimulating force of her own inexorable will. And if she deserted
them!...
It was a woman's revolution. A necessary number of men Socialists had
been admitted to the secret and were to strike the second blow. But the
women must strike the first, and according to program. Not only were the
men under surveillance, but where women would be pardoned in case of a
failure, they would be shot. And most of them had more brain than brawn,
were past the fighting age; the girls, and women of middle years, were a
magnificent army which would make the graybeards appear absurd in the
open.
These women worshiped her, believed her to be a super-being created to
save them and their children; but if she betrayed them, proved herself
the merest woman of them all--a childless woman at that--the very bones
would melt out of them, they would prostrate themselves in the ashes of
their final despair.
Spain! Franz! For a moment her imagination rioted.
She smiled ironically. Happiness? Four-walled happiness? Hardly for her,
even without the blood of murdered thousands soaking her doorstep.
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