midnight
There were many among them who had never thought of concerning themselves with the aims of Social-Democracy ; who might perhaps have returned to their ploughs and their spades in a docile and dutiful spirit . But now it dawned upon them all at once how the little they as soldiers had been obliged to learn had been made quite unnecessarily difficult for them . They stripped off , like a troublesome strait-waistcoat , the superfluity of petty rules to which they had been subjected ; and the recognition of the needless compulsion they had so long endured produced , as its inevitable consequence , a violent reaction , which quite naturally manifested itself in a hasty change of opinion . Many of those who , on their discharge the next morning , would have to join in the cheers for the Emperor and the King , had , no doubt , already on their lips the socialist song which would be sung after midnight in the taverns of their native places . And the rest , who , from either stupidity or laziness , were not completely converted to such political views , were nevertheless not entirely free from their influence . There would remain in their minds some vestige of these ideas , and this seed would be carried back by the peasant lads to their remote villages , where the new wisdom from the city would bring forth fruit an hundredfold , sounding as it did so pleasantly to the ear . And yet the mighty lords of the soil wondered at the growth of the socialist vote among the purely agricultural electorate !