If, following such high examples, people changed their nationality like a coat, Herr von Bleichroden believed that cosmopolitanism would have a brilliant future. But the commands of the authorities, which did not accord with their practice, worried him. He loved his country as a cat loves her warm place by the fire; but he did not love it as an institution. Sovereigns find nations necessary to provide them with conscript armies, as tax-payers and as supporters of the throne, for without nations there would not be any royal houses.
After Herr von Bleichroden had resided two and a half years in Switzerland, he received one day a summons from Berlin, for there were rumours of war in circulation. This time it was Prussia against Russia--the same Russia which three years previously had lent Prussia its "moral support" against France. He did not think it conscientious to march against his friends, and since he was quite sure that the two nations wished each other no ill, he asked his wife's advice what he should do in such a new dilemma, for he knew by experience that woman's conscience is nearer the natural law of right than man's.
After a moment's reflection, she answered "To be a German is more than to be a Prussian--that is why the German Confederation was formed; to be a European is more than to be a German; to be a man is more than to be a European. You cannot change your nation, for all 'nations' are enemies, and one does not go over to the enemy unless one is a monarch like Bernadotte or a field-marshal like Von Moltke. The only thing left is to neutralise yourself. Let us become Swiss. Switzerland is not a nation."
Herr von Bleichroden considered this such a happy and simple solution of the difficulty that he at once set about making inquiries how he could be neutralised. His surprise and delight can be imagined when he found that he had already fulfilled all the conditions required to become a Swiss citizen (for there are no underlings in that land!) as he had resided two years there.
Herr von Bleichroden is now neutralised, and although he is very happy he occasionally, though more seldom than before, has conflicts with his conscience.
Sten Ulffot, a youth of twenty years, the last scion of the ancient family of Ulffot, who possessed property in Wäringe, Hofsta and Löfsala, awoke one sunny May morning towards the end of the year 1460 in his bedroom at Hofsta in Upland. After some hours of dreamless sleep his rested brain began to review the events of the previous day, which had been of such decisive importance for him that, still benumbed by the blow, be stood as it were outside the whole affair and regarded it with wonder. The bailiff and sheriff's officer had been there, had shown mortgage-deeds of the house and estate, had read various parchment documents, and the upshot of it all was that Sten, because of his father's and his own debts, was reduced to abject poverty. And since his father in his lifetime had not been a merciful man, the young man must leave the old house, which was no longer his, the very next day.