The Project Gutenberg EBook of City of Endless Night, by Milo Hastings

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Title: City of Endless Night

Author: Milo Hastings

Posting Date: November 15, 2011 [EBook #9862]
Release Date: February, 2006
First Posted: October 25, 2003

Language: English

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CITY OF ENDLESS NIGHT

By Milo Hastings

1920







CONTENTS


CHAPTER

   I.  THE RED AND BLACK AND GOLD STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY ON THE CHANGING
       MAP OF THE WORLD

  II.  I EXPLORE THE POTASH MINES OF STASSFURT AND FIND A DIARY IN A DEAD
       MAN'S POCKET

 III.  IN A BLACK UTOPIA THE BLOND BROOD BREEDS AND SWARMS

  IV.  I GO PLEASURING ON THE LEVEL OF FREE WOMEN AND DRINK SYNTHETIC BEER

   V.  I AM DRAFTED FOR PATERNITY AND MAKE EXTRAORDINARY PETITION TO THE
       CHIEF OF THE EUGENIC STAFF

  VI.  IN WHICH I LEARN THAT COMPETITION IS STILL THE LIFE OF THE OLDEST
       TRADE IN THE WORLD

 VII.  THE SUN SHINES UPON A KING AND A GIRL READS OF THE FALL OF BABYLON

VIII.  FINDING THEREIN ONE RIGHTEOUS MAN, I HAVE COMPASSION ON BERLIN

  IX.  IN WHICH I SALUTE THE STATUE OF GOD, AND A PSYCHIC EXPERT EXPLORES
       MY BRAIN AND FINDS NOTHING

   X.  A GODDESS WHO IS SUFFERING FROM OBESITY, AND A BRAVE MAN WHO IS
       AFRAID OF THE LAW OF AVERAGES

  XI.  IN WHICH THE TALKING DELEGATE IS ANSWERED BY THE ROYAL VOICE AND I
       LEARN THAT LABOR KNOWS NOT GOD

 XII.  THE DIVINE DESCENDANTS OF WILLIAM THE GREAT GIVE A BENEFIT FOR THE
       CANINE GARDENS AND PAY TRIBUTE TO THE PIGGERIES

XIII.  IN WHICH A WOMAN ACCUSES ME OF MURDER AND I PLACE A RUBY NECKLACE
       ABOUT HER THROAT

 XIV.  THE BLACK SPOT IS ERASED FROM THE MAP OF THE WORLD AND THERE IS
       DANCING IN THE SUNLIGHT ON THE ROOF OF BERLIN



CITY OF ENDLESS NIGHT



CHAPTER I

THE RED AND BLACK AND GOLD STRUGGLE FOR
SUPREMACY ON THE CHANGING MAP OF THE WORLD


~1~

When but a child of seven my uncle placed me in a private school in
which one of the so-called redeemed sub-sailors was a teacher of the
German language. As I look back now, in the light of my present
knowledge, I better comprehend the docile humility and carefully
nurtured ignorance of this man. In his class rooms he used as a text a
description of German life, taken from the captured submarine. From this
book he had secured his own conception of a civilization of which he
really knew practically nothing. I recall how we used to ask Herr
Meineke if he had actually seen those strange things of which he taught
us. To this he always made answer, "The book is official, man's
observation errs."

~2~

"He can talk it," said my playmates who attended the public schools
where all teaching of the language of the outcast nation was prohibited.
They invariably elected me to be "the Germans," and locked me up in the
old garage while they rained a stock of sun-dried clay bombs upon the
roof and then came with a rush to "batter down the walls of Berlin" by
breaking in the door, while I, muttering strange guttural oaths, would
be led forth to be "exterminated."

On rainy days I would sometimes take my favoured playmates into my
uncle's library where five great maps hung in ordered sequence on the
panelled wall.

The first map was labelled "The Age of Nations--1914," and showed the
black spot of Germany, like in size to many of the surrounding
countries, the names of which one recited in the history class.

The second map--"Germany's Maximum Expansion of the First World
War--1918"--showed the black area trebled in size, crowding into the
pale gold of France, thrusting a hungry arm across the Hellespont
towards Bagdad, and, from the Balkans to the Baltic, blotting out all
else save the flaming red of Bolshevist Russia, which spread over the
Eastern half of Europe like a pool of fresh spilled blood.

Third came "The Age of the League of Nations, 1919--1983," with the gold
of democracy battling with the spreading red of socialism, for the black
of autocracy had erstwhile vanished.

The fourth map was the most fascinating and terrible. Again the black of
autocracy appeared, obliterating the red of the Brotherhood of Man,
spreading across half of Eurasia and thrusting a broad black shadow to
the Yellow Sea and a lesser one to the Persian Gulf. This map was
labelled "Maximum German Expansion of the Second World War, 1988," and
lines of dotted white retreated in concentric waves till the line
of 2041.

This same year was the first date of the fifth map, which was labelled
"A Century of the World State," and here, as all the sea was blue, so
all the land was gold, save one black blot that might have been made by
a single spattered drop of ink, for it was no bigger than the Irish
Island. The persistence of this remaining black on the map of the world
troubled my boyish mind, as it has troubled three generations of the
United World, and strive as I might, I could not comprehend why the
great blackness of the fourth map had been erased and this small blot
alone remained.

~3~

When I returned from school for my vacation, after I had my first year
of physical science, I sought out my uncle in his laboratory and asked
him to explain the mystery of the little black island standing adamant
in the golden sea of all the world.

"That spot," said my uncle, "would have been erased in two more years if
a Leipzig professor had not discovered The Ray. Yet we do not know his
name nor how he made his discovery."

"But just what is The Ray?" I asked.

"We do not know that either, nor how it is made. We only know that it
destroys the oxygen carrying power of living blood. If it were an
emanation from a substance like radium, they could have fired it in
projectiles and so conquered the earth. If it were ether waves like
electricity, we should have been able to have insulated against it, or
they should have been able to project it farther and destroy our
aircraft, but The Ray is not destructive beyond two thousand metres in
the air and hardly that far in the earth."

"Then why do we not fly over and land an army and great guns and batter
down the walls of Berlin and he done with it?"

"That, as you know if you studied your history, has been tried many
times and always with disaster. The bomb-torn soil of that black land is
speckled white with the bones of World armies who were sent on landing
invasions before you or I was born. But it was only heroic folly, one
gun popping out of a tunnel mouth can slay a thousand men. To pursue the
gunners into their catacombs meant to be gassed; and sometimes our
forces were left to land in peace and set up their batteries to fire
against Berlin, but the Germans would place Ray generators in the ground
beneath them and slay our forces in an hour, as the Angel of Jehovah
withered the hosts of the Assyrians."

"But why," I persisted, "do we not tunnel under the Ray generators and
dig our way to Berlin and blow it up?"

My uncle smiled indulgently. "And that has been tried too, but they can
hear our borings with microphones and cut us off, just as we cut them
off when they try to tunnel out and place new generators. It is too
slow, too difficult, either way; the line has wavered a little with the
years but to no practical avail; the war in our day has become merely a
watching game, we to keep the Germans from coming out, they to keep us
from penetrating within gunshot of Berlin; but to gain a mile of
worthless territory either way means too great a human waste to be worth
the price. Things must go on as they are till the Germans tire of their
sunless imprisonment or till they exhaust some essential element in
their soil. But wars such as you read of in your history, will never
happen again. The Germans cannot fight the world in the air, nor in the
sea, nor on the surface of the earth; and we cannot fight the Germans in
the ground; so the war has become a fixed state of standing guard; the
hope of victory, the fear of defeat have vanished; the romance of war
is dead."

"But why, then," I asked, "does the World Patrol continue to bomb the
roof of Berlin?"

"Politics," replied my uncle, "military politics, just futile display of
pyrotechnics to amuse the populace and give heroically inclined young
men a chance to strut in uniforms--but after the election this fall such
folly will cease."

~4~

My uncle had predicted correctly, for by the time I again came home on
my vacation, the newly elected Pacifist Council had reduced the aerial
activities to mere watchful patroling over the land of the enemy. Then
came the report of an attempt to launch an airplane from the roof of
Berlin. The people, in dire panic lest Ray generators were being carried
out by German aircraft, had clamoured for the recall of the Pacifist
Council, and the bombardment of Berlin was resumed.

During the lull of the bombing activities my uncle, who stood high with
the Pacifist Administration, had obtained permission to fly over Europe,
and I, most fortunate of boys, accompanied him. The plane in which we
travelled bore the emblem of the World Patrol. On a cloudless day we
sailed over the pock-marked desert that had once been Germany and came
within field-glass range of Berlin itself. On the wasted, bomb-torn land
lay the great grey disc--the city of mystery. Three hundred metres high
they said it stood, but so vast was its extent that it seemed as flat
and thin as a pancake on a griddle.

"More people live in that mass of concrete," said my uncle, "than in the
whole of America west of the Rocky Mountains." His statement, I have
since learned, fell short of half the truth, but then it seemed
appalling. I fancied the city a giant anthill, and searched with my
glass as if I expected to see the ants swarming out. But no sign of life
was visible upon the monotonous surface of the sand-blanketed roof, and
high above the range of naked vision hung the hawk-like watchers of the
World Patrol.

The lure of unravelled secrets, the ambition for discovery and
exploration stirred my boyish veins. Yes, I would know more of the
strange race, the unknown life that surged beneath that grey blanket of
mystery. But how? For over a century millions of men had felt that same
longing to know. Aviators, landing by accident or intent within the
lines, had either returned with nothing to report, or they had not
returned. Daring journalists, with baskets of carrier pigeons, had on
foggy nights dropped by parachute to the roof of the city; but neither
they nor the birds had brought back a single word of what lay beneath
the armed and armoured roof.

My own resolution was but a boy's dream and I returned to Chicago to
take up my chemical studies.



CHAPTER II

I EXPLORE THE POTASH MINES OF STASSFURT
AND FIND A DIARY IN A DEAD MAN'S POCKET


~1~

When I was twenty-four years old, my uncle was killed in a laboratory
explosion. He had been a scientist of renown and a chemical inventor who
had devoted his life to the unravelling of the secrets of the synthetic
foods of Germany. For some years I had been his trusted assistant. In
our Chicago laboratory were carefully preserved food samples that had
been taken from the captured submarines in years gone by; and what to me
was even more fascinating, a collection of German books of like origin,
which I had read with avidity. With the exception of those relating to
submarine navigation, I found them stupidly childish and decided that
they had been prepared to hide the truth and not reveal it.

My uncle had bequeathed me both his work and his fortune, but despairing
of my ability worthily to continue his own brilliant researches on
synthetic food, I turned my attention to the potash problem, in which I
had long been interested. My reading of early chemical works had given
me a particular interest in the reclamation of the abandoned potash
mines of Stassfurt. These mines, as any student of chemical history will
know, were one of the richest properties of the old German state in the
days before the endless war began and Germany became isolated from the
rest of the world. The mines were captured by the World in the year
2020, and were profitably operated for a couple of decades. Meanwhile
the German lines were forced many miles to the rear before the
impregnable barrier of the Ray had halted the progress of the
World Armies.

A few years after the coming of the Ray defences, occurred what history
records as "The Tragedy of the Mines." Six thousand workmen went down
into the potash mines of Stassfurt one morning and never came up again.
The miners' families in the neighbouring villages died like weevils in
fumigated grain. The region became a valley of pestilence and death, and
all life withered for miles around. Numerous governmental projects were
launched for the recovery of the potash mines but all failed, and for
one hundred and eleven years no man had penetrated those
accursed shafts.

Knowing these facts, I wasted no time in soliciting government aid for
my project, but was content to secure a permit to attempt the recovery
with private funds, with which my uncle's fortune supplied me in
abundance.

In April, 2151, I set up my laboratory on the edge of the area of death.
I had never accepted the orthodox view as to the composition of the gas
that issued from the Stassfurt mines. In a few months I was gratified to
find my doubts confirmed. A short time after this I made a more
unexpected and astonishing discovery. I found that this complex and
hitherto misunderstood gas could, under the influence of certain
high-frequency electrical discharges, be made to combine with explosive
violence with the nitrogen of the atmosphere, leaving only a harmless
residue. We wired the surrounding region for the electrical discharge
and, with a vast explosion of weird purple flame, cleared the whole area
of the century-old curse. Our laboratory was destroyed by the explosion.
It was rebuilt nearer the mine shafts from which the gas still slowly
issued. Again we set up our electrical machinery and dropped our cables
into the shafts, this time clearing the air of the mines.

A hasty exploration revealed the fact that but a single shaft had
remained intact. A third time we prepared our electrical machinery. We
let down a cable and succeeded in getting but a faint reaction at the
bottom of the shaft. After several repeated clearings we risked descent.

Upon arrival at the bottom we were surprised to find it free from water,
save for a trickling stream. The second thing we discovered was a pile
of huddled skeletons of the workmen who had perished over a century
previous. But our third and most important discovery was a boring from
which the poisonous gas was slowly issuing. It took but a few hours to
provide an apparatus to fire this gas as fast as it issued, and the
potash mines of Stassfurt were regained for the world.

My associates were for beginning mining operations at once, but I had
been granted a twenty years' franchise on the output of these mines, and
I was in no such haste. The boring from which this poisonous vapour
issued was clearly man-made; moreover I alone knew the formula of that
gas and had convinced myself once for all as to its man-made origin. I
sent for microphones and with their aid speedily detected the sound of
machinery in other workings beneath.

It is easy now to see that I erred in risking my own life as I did
without the precaution of confiding the secret of my discovery to
others. But those were days of feverish excitement. Impulsively I
decided to make the first attack on the Germans as a private enterprise
and then call for military aid. I had my own equipment of poisonous
bombs and my sapping and mining experts determined that the German
workings were but eighty metres beneath us. Hastily, among the crumbling
skeletons, we set up our electrical boring machinery and began sinking a
one-metre shaft towards the nearest sound.

After twenty hours of boring, the drill head suddenly came off and
rattled down into a cavern. We saw a light and heard guttural shouting
below and the cracking of a gun as a few bullets spattered against the
roof of our chamber. We heaved down our gas bombs and covered over our
shaft. Within a few hours the light below went out and our microphones
failed to detect any sound from the rocks beneath us. It was then
perhaps that I should have called for military aid, but the uncanny
silence of the lower workings proved too much for my eager curiosity. We
waited two days and still there was no evidence of life below. I knew
there had been ample time for the gas from our bombs to have been
dissipated, as it was decomposed by contact with moisture. A light was
lowered, but this brought forth no response.

I now called for a volunteer to descend the shaft. None was forthcoming
from among my men, and against their protest I insisted on being lowered
into the shaft. When I was a few metres from the bottom the cable parted
and I fell and lay stunned on the floor below.

~2~

When I recovered consciousness the light had gone out. There was no
sound about me. I shouted up the shaft above and could get no answer.
The chamber in which I lay was many times my height and I could make
nothing out in the dark hole above. For some hours I scarcely stirred
and feared to burn my pocket flash both because it might reveal my
presence to lurking enemies and because I wished to conserve my battery
against graver need.

But no rescue came from my men above. Only recently, after the lapse of
years, did I learn the cause of their deserting me. As I lay stunned
from my fall, my men, unable to get answer to their shoutings, had given
me up for dead. Meanwhile the apparatus which caused the destruction of
the German gas had gone wrong. My associates, unable to fix it, had fled
from the mine and abandoned the enterprise.

After some hours of waiting I stirred about and found means to erect a
rough scaffold and reach the mouth of the shaft above me. I attempted to
climb, but, unable to get a hold on the smooth wet rock, I gave up
exhausted and despairing. Entombed in the depths of the earth, I was
either a prisoner of the German potash miners, if any remained alive, or
a prisoner of the earth itself, with dead men for company.

Collecting my courage I set about to explore my surroundings. I found
some mining machinery evidently damaged by the explosion of our gas
bombs. There was no evidence of men about, living or dead. Stealthily I
set out along the little railway track that ran through a passage down a
steep incline. As I progressed I felt the air rapidly becoming colder.
Presently I stumbled upon the first victim of our gas bombs, fallen
headlong as he was fleeing. I hurried on. The air seemed to be blowing
in my face and the cold was becoming intense. This puzzled me for at
this depth the temperature should have been above that on the surface of
the earth.

After a hundred metres or so of going I came into a larger chamber. It
was intensely cold. From out another branching passage-way I could hear
a sizzling sound as of steam escaping. I started to turn into this
passage but was met with such a blast of cold air that I dared not face
it for fear of being frozen. Stamping my feet, which were fast becoming
numb, I made the rounds of the chamber, and examined the dead miners
that were tumbled about. The bodies were frozen.

One side of this chamber was partitioned off with some sort of metal
wall. The door stood blown open. It felt a little warmer in here and I
entered and closed the door. Exploring the room with my dim light I
found one side of it filled with a row of bunks--in each bunk a corpse.
Along the other side of the room was a table with eating utensils and
back of this were shelves with food packages.

I was in danger of freezing to death and, tumbling several bodies out of
the bunks, I took the mattresses and built of them a clumsy enclosure
and installed in their midst a battery heater which I found. In this
fashion I managed to get fairly warm again. After some hours of huddling
I observed that the temperature had moderated.

My fear of freezing abated, I made another survey of my surroundings and
discovered something that had escaped my first attention. In the far end
of the room was a desk, and seated before it with his head fallen
forward on his arms was the form of a man. The miners had all been
dressed in a coarse artificial leather, but this man was dressed in a
woven fabric of cellulose silk.

The body was frozen. As I tumbled it stiffly back it fell from the chair
exposing a ghastly face. I drew away in a creepy horror, for as I looked
at the face of the corpse I suffered a sort of waking nightmare in which
I imagined that I was gazing at my own dead countenance.

I concluded that my normal mind was slipping out of gear and proceeded
to back off and avail myself of a tube of stimulant which I carried in
my pocket.

This revived me somewhat, but again, when I tried to look upon the
frozen face, the conviction returned that I was looking at my own
dead self.

I glanced at my watch and figured out that I had been in the German mine
for thirty hours and had not tasted food or drink for nearly forty
hours. Clearly I had to get myself in shape to escape hallucinations. I
went back to the shelves and proceeded to look for food and drink.
Happily, due to my work in my uncle's laboratory, these synthetic foods
were not wholly strange to me. I drank copiously of a non-alcoholic
chemical liquor and warmed on the heater and partook of some nitrogenous
and some starchy porridges. It was an uncanny dining place, but hunger
soon conquers mere emotion, and I made out a meal. Then once more I
faced the task of confronting this dead likeness of myself.

This time I was clear-headed enough. I even went to the miners' lavatory
and, jerking down the metal mirror, scrutinized my own reflection and
reassured myself of the closeness of the resemblance. My purpose framed
in my mind as I did this. Clearly I was in German quarters and was
likely to remain there. Sooner or later there must be a rescuing party.

Without further ado, I set about changing my clothing for that of the
German. The fit of the dead man's clothes further emphasized the closeness
of the physical likeness. I recalled my excellent command of the German
language and began to wonder what manner of man I was supposed to be in
this assumed personality. But my most urgent task was speedily to make
way with the incriminating corpse. With the aid of the brighter
flashlight which I found in my new pockets, I set out to find a place to
hide the body.

The cold that had so frightened me had now given way to almost normal
temperature. There was no longer the sound of sizzling steam from the
unexplored passage-way. I followed this and presently came upon another
chamber filled with machinery. In one corner a huge engine, covered with
frost, gave off a chill greeting. On the floor was a steaming puddle of
liquid, but the breath of this steam cut like a blizzard. At once I
guessed it. This was a liquid air engine. The dead engineer in the
corner helped reveal the story. With his death from the penetrating gas,
something had gone wrong with the engine. The turbine head had blown
off, and the conveying pipe of liquid air had poured forth the icy blast
that had so nearly frozen me along with the corpses of the Germans. But
now the flow of liquid had ceased, and the last remnants were
evaporating from the floor. Evidently the supply pipe had been shut off
further back on the line, and I had little time to lose for rescuers
were probably on the way.

Along one of the corridors running from the engine room I found an open
water drain half choked with melting ice. Following this I came upon a
grating where the water disappeared. I jerked up the grating and dropped
a piece of ice down the well-like shaft. I hastily returned and dragged
forth the corpse of my double and with it everything I had myself
brought into the mine. Straightening out the stiffened body I plunged it
head foremost into the opening. The sound of a splash echoed within the
dismal depths.

I now hastened back to the chamber into which I had first fallen and
destroyed the scaffolding I had erected there. Returning to the desk
where I had found the man whose clothing I wore, I sat down and
proceeded to search my abundantly filled pockets. From one of them I
pulled out a bulky notebook and a number of loose papers. The freshest
of these was an official order from the Imperial Office of Chemical
Engineers. The order ran as follows:

  Capt. Karl Armstadt
      Laboratory 186, E. 58.

  Report is received at this office of the sound of sapping
  operations in potash mine D5. Go at once and verify the same
  and report of condition of gas generators and make analyses
  of output of the same.

Evidently I was Karl Armstadt and very happily a chemical engineer by
profession. My task of impersonation so far looked feasible--I could
talk chemical engineering.

The next paper I proceeded to examine was an identification folder done
up in oiled fabric. Thanks to German thoroughness it was amusingly
complete. On the first page appeared what I soon discovered to be __
pedigree for four generations back. The printed form on which all this
was minutely filled out made very clear statements from which I
determined that my father and mother were both dead.

I, Karl Armstadt, twenty-seven years of age, was the fourteenth child of
my mother and was born when she was forty-two years of age. According to
the record I was the ninety-seventh child of my father and born when he
was fifty-four. As I read this I thought there was something here that I
misunderstood, although subsequent discoveries made it plausible enough.
There was no further record of my plentiful fraternity, but I took heart
that the mere fact of their numerical abundance would make unlikely any
great show of brotherly interest, a presumption which proved
quite correct.

On the second page of this folder I read the number and location of my
living quarters, the sources from which my meals and clothing were
issued, as well as the sizes and qualities of my garments and numerous
other references to various details of living, all of which seemed
painstakingly ridiculous at the time.

I put this elaborate identification paper back into its receptacle and
opened the notebook. It proved to be a diary kept likewise in thorough
German fashion. I turned to the last pages and perused them hastily.

The notes in Armstadt's diary were concerned almost wholly with his
chemical investigations. All this I saw might be useful to me later but
what I needed more immediately was information as to his personal life.
I scanned back hastily through the pages for a time without finding any
such revelations. Then I discovered this entry made some months
previously:

"I cannot think of chemistry tonight, for the vision of Katrina dances
before me as in a dream. It must be a strange mixture of blood-lines
that could produce such wondrous beauty. In no other woman have I seen
such a blackness of hair and eyes combined with such a whiteness of
skin. I suppose I should not have danced with her--now I see all my
resolutions shattered. But I think it was most of all the blackness of
her eyes. Well, what care, we live but once!"

I read and re-read this entry and searched feverishly in Armstadt's
diary for further evidence of a personal life. But I only found tedious
notes on his chemical theories. Perhaps this single reference to a woman
was but a passing fancy of a man otherwise engrossed in his science. But
if rescuers came and I succeeded in passing for the German chemist the
presence of a woman in my new rôle of life would surely undo all my
effort. If no personal acquaintance of the dead man came with the
rescuing party I saw no reason why I could not for the time pass
successfully as Armstadt. I should at least make the effort and I
reasoned I could best do this by playing the malingerer and appearing
mentally incompetent. Such a ruse, I reasoned, would give me opportunity
to hear much and say little, and perhaps so get my bearings in the new
rôle that I could continue it successfully.

Then, as I was about to return the notebook to my pocket, my hopes sank
as I found this brief entry which I had at first scanning overlooked:

"It is twenty days now since Katrina and I have been united. She does
not interfere with my work as much as I feared. She even lets me talk
chemistry to her, though I am sure she understands not one word of what
I tell her. I think I have made a good selection and it is surely a
permanent one. Therefore I must work harder than ever or I shall not
get on."

This alarmed me. Yet, if Armstadt had married he made very little fuss
about it. Evidently it concerned him chiefly in relation to his work.
But whoever and whatever Katrina was, it was clear that her presence
would be disastrous to my plans of assuming his place in the
German world.

Pondering over the ultimate difficulty of my situation, but with a
growing faith in the plan I had evolved for avoiding immediate
explanations, I fell into a long-postponed sleep. The last thing I
remember was tumbling from my chair and sprawling out upon the floor
where I managed to snap out my light before the much needed sleep quite
overcame me.

~3~

I was awakened by voices, and opened my eyes to find the place brightly
lighted. I closed them again quickly as some one approached and prodded
me with the toe of his boot.

"Here is a man alive," said a voice above me.

"He is Captain Armstadt, the chemist," said another voice, approaching;
"this is good. We have special orders to search for him."

The newcomer bent over and felt my heart. I was quite aware that it was
functioning normally. He shook me and called me by name. After repeated
shakings I opened my eyes and stared at him blankly, but I said nothing.
Presently he left me and returned with a stretcher. I lay inertly as I
was placed thereon and borne out of the chamber. Other stretcher-bearers
were walking ahead. We passed through the engine room where mechanics
were at work on the damaged liquid air engine. My stretcher was placed
on a little car which moved swiftly along the tunnel.

We came into a large subterranean station and I was removed and brought
before a bevy of white garbed physicians. They looked at my
identification folder and then examined me. Through it all I lay limp
and as near lifeless as I could simulate, and they succeeded in getting
no speech out of me. The final orders were to forward me post haste to
the Imperial Hospital for Complex Gas Cases.

After an eventless journey of many hours I was again unloaded and
transferred to an elevator. For several hundred metres we sped upward
through a shaft, while about us whistled a blast of cold, crisp air. At
last the elevator stopped and I was carried out to an ambulance that
stood waiting in a brilliantly lighted passage arched over with grey
concrete. I was no longer beneath the surface of the earth but was
somewhere in the massive concrete structure of the City of Berlin.

After a short journey our ambulance stopped and attendants came out and
carried my litter through an open doorway and down a long hall into the
spacious ward of a hospital.

From half closed eyes I glanced about apprehensively for a black-haired
woman. With a sigh of relief I saw there were only doctors and male
attendants in the room. They treated me most professionally and gave no
sign that they suspected I was other than Capt. Karl Armstadt, which
fact my papers so eloquently testified. The conclusion of their
examination was voiced in my presence. "Physically he is normal," said
the head physician, "but his mind seems in a stupor. There is no remedy,
as the nature of the gas is unknown. All that can be done is to await
the wearing off of the effect."

I was then left alone for some hours and my appetite was troubling me.
At last an attendant approached with some savoury soup; he propped me up
and proceeded to feed me with a spoon.

I made out from the conversation about me that the other patients were
officers from the underground fighting forces. An atmosphere of military
discipline pervaded the hospital and I felt reassured in the conclusion
that all visiting was forbidden.

Yet my thoughts turned repeatedly to the black-eyed Katrina of
Armstadt's diary. No doubt she had been informed of the rescue and was
waiting in grief and anxiety to see him. So both she and I were awaiting
a tragic moment--she to learn that her husband or lover was dead, I for
the inevitable tearing off of my protecting disguise.

After some days the head physician came to my cot and questioned me. I
gazed at him and knit my brows as if struggling to think.

"You were gassed in the mine," he kept repeating, "can you remember?"

"Yes," I ventured, "I went to the mine, there was the sound of boring
overhead. I set men to watch; I was at the desk, I heard shouting, after
that I cannot remember."

"They were all dead but you," said the doctor.

"All dead," I repeated. I liked the sound of this and so kept on
mumbling "All dead, all dead."

~4~

My plan was working nicely. But I realized I could not keep up this rôle
for ever. Nor did I wish to, for the idleness and suspense were
intolerable and I knew that I would rather face whatever problems my
recovery involved than to continue in this monotonous and meaningless
existence. So I convalesced by degrees and got about the hospital, and
was permitted to wait on myself. But I cultivated a slowness and brevity
of speech.

One day as I sat reading the attendant announced, "A visitor to see you,
sir."

Trembling with excitement and fear I tensely waited the coming of the
visitor.

Presently a stolid-faced young man followed the attendant into the room.
"You remember Holknecht," said the nurse, "he is your assistant at the
laboratory."

I stared stupidly at the man, and cold fear crept over me as he, with
puzzled eyes, returned my gaze.

"You are much changed," he said at last. "I hardly recognize you."

"I have been very ill," I replied.

Just then the head physician came into the room and seeing me talking to
a stranger walked over to us. As I said nothing, Holknecht introduced
himself. The medical man began at once to enlarge upon the peculiarities
of my condition. "The unknown gas," he explained, "acted upon the whole
nervous system and left profound effects. Never in the records of the
hospital has there been so strange a case."

Holknecht seemed quite awed and completely credulous.

"His memory must be revived," continued the head physician, "and that
can best be done by recalling the dominating interest of his mind."

"Captain Armstadt was wholly absorbed in his research work in the
laboratory," offered Holknecht.

"Then," said the physician, "you must revive the activity of those
particular brain cells."

With that command the laboratory assistant was left in charge. He took
his new task quite seriously. Turning to me and raising his voice as if
to penetrate my dulled mentality, he began, "Do you not remember our
work in the laboratory?"

"Yes, the laboratory, the laboratory," I repeated vaguely.

Holknecht described the laboratory in detail and gradually his talk
drifted into an account of the chemical research. I listened eagerly to
get the threads of the work I must needs do if I were to maintain my
rôle as Armstadt.

Knowing now that visitors were permitted me, I again grew apprehensive
over the possible advent of Katrina. But no woman appeared, in fact I
had not yet seen a woman among the Germans. Always it was Holknecht and,
strictly according to his orders, he talked incessant chemistry.

~5~

The day I resumed my normal wearing apparel I was shown into a large
lounging room for convalescents. I seated myself a short distance apart
from a group of officers and sat eyeing another group of large, hulking
fellows at the far end of the room. These I concluded to be common
soldiers, for I heard the officers in my ward grumbling at the fact that
they were quartered in the same hospital with men of the ranks.

Presently an officer came over and took a seat beside me. "It is very
rarely that you men in the professional service are gassed," he said.
"You must have a dull life, I do not see how you can stand it."

"But certainly," I replied, "it is not so dangerous."

"And for that reason it must be stupid--I, for one, think that even in
the fighting forces there is no longer sufficient danger to keep up the
military morale. Danger makes men courageous--without danger courage
declines--and without courage what advantage would there be in the
military life?"

"Suppose," I suggested, "the war should come to an end?"

"But how can it?" he asked incredulously. "How can there be an end to
the war? We cannot prevent the enemy from fighting."

"But what," I ventured, "if the enemy should decide to quit fighting?"

"They have almost quit now," he remarked with apparent disgust; "they
are losing the fighting spirit--but no wonder--they say that the World
State population is so great that only two per cent of its men are in
the fighting forces. What I cannot see is how a people so peaceful can
keep from utter degeneration. And they say that the World State soldiers
are not even bred for soldiering but are picked from all classes. If
they should decide to quit fighting, as you suggest, we also would have
to quit--it would intolerable--it is bad enough now."

"But could you not return to industrial life and do something
productive?"

"Productive!" sneered the fighter. "I knew that you professional men had
no courage--it is not to be expected--but I never before heard even one
of your class suggest a thing like that--a military man do something
productive! Why don't you suggest that we be changed to women?" And with
that my fellow patient rose and, turning sharply on his metal heel,
walked away.

The officer's attitude towards his profession set me thinking, and I
found myself wondering how far it was shared by the common soldiers. The
next day when I came out into the convalescent corridor I walked past
the group of officers and went down among the men whose garments bore no
medals or insignia. They were unusually large men, evidently from some
specially selected regiment. Picking out the most intelligent looking
one of the group I sat down beside him.

"Is this the first time you have been gassed?" I inquired.

"Third time," replied the soldier.

"I should think you would have been discharged."

"Discharged," said the soldier, in a perplexed tone, "why I am only
forty-four years old, why should I be discharged unless I get in an
explosion and lose a leg or something?"

"But you have been gassed three times," I said, "I should think they
ought to let you return to civil life and your family."

The soldier looked hard at the insignia of my rank as captain. "You
professional officers don't know much, do you? A soldier quit and do
common labor, now that's a fine idea. And a family! Do you think I'm a
Hohenzollern?" At the thought the soldier chuckled. "Me with a family,"
he muttered to himself, "now that's a fine idea."

I saw that I was getting on dangerous ground but curiosity prompted a
further question: "Then, I suppose, you have nothing to hope for until
you reach the age of retirement, unless war should come to an end?"

Again the soldier eyed me carefully. "Now you do have some queer ideas.
There was a man in our company who used to talk like that when no
officers were around. This fellow, his name was Mannteufel, said he
could read books, that he was a forbidden love-child and his father was
an officer. I guess he was forbidden all right, for he certainly wasn't
right in his head. He said that we would go out on the top of the ground
and march over the enemy country and be shot at by the flying planes,
like the roof guards, if the officers had heard him they would surely
have sent him to the crazy ward--why he said that the war would be over
after that, and we would all go to the enemy country and go about as we
liked, and own houses and women and flying planes and animals. As if the
Royal House would ever let a soldier do things like that."

"Well," I said, "and why not, if the war were over?"

"Now there you go again--how do you mean the war was over, what would
all us soldiers do if there was no fighting?"

"You could work," I said, "in the shops."

"But if we worked in the shops, what would the workmen do?"

"They would work too," I suggested.

The soldier was silent for a time. "I think I get your idea," he said.
"The Eugenic Staff would cut down the birth rates so that there would
only be enough soldiers and workers to fill the working jobs."

"They might do that," I remarked, wishing to lead him on.

"Well," said the soldier, returning to the former thought, "I hope they
won't do that until I am dead. I don't care to go up on the ground to
get shot at by the fighting planes. At least now we have something over
our heads and if we are going to get gassed or blown up we can't see it
coming. At least--"

Just then the officer with whom I had talked the day before came up. He
stopped before us and scowled at the soldier who saluted in hasty
confusion.

"I wish, Captain," said the officer addressing me, "that you would not
take advantage of these absurd hospital conditions to disrupt discipline
by fraternizing with a private."

At this the soldier looked up and saluted again.

"Well?" said the officer.

"He's not to blame, sir," said the soldier, "he's off his head."



CHAPTER III

IN A BLACK UTOPIA THE BLOND BROOD BREEDS AND SWARMS


~1~

It was with a strange mixture of eagerness and fear that I received the
head physician's decision that I would henceforth recover my faculties
more rapidly in the familiar environment of my own home.

A wooden-faced male nurse accompanied me in a closed vehicle that ran
noiselessly through the vaulted interior streets of the completely
roofed-in city. Once our vehicle entered an elevator and was let down a
brief distance. We finally alighted in a street very like the one on
which the hospital was located, and filed down a narrow passage-way. My
companion asked for my keys, which I found in my clothing. I stood by
with a palpitating heart as he turned the lock and opened the door.

The place we entered was a comfortably furnished bachelor's apartment.
Books and papers were littered about giving evidence of no disturbance
since the sudden leaving of the occupant. Immensely relieved I sat down
in an upholstered chair while the nurse scurried about and put the
place in order.

"You feel quite at home?" he asked as he finished his task.

"Quite," I replied, "things are coming back to me now."

"You should have been sent home sooner," he said. "I wished to tell the
chief as much, but I am only a second year interne and it is forbidden
me to express an original opinion to him."

"I am sure I will be all right now," I replied.

He turned to go and then paused. "I think," he said, "that you should
have some notice on you that when you do go out, if you become confused
and make mistakes, the guards will understand. I will speak to Lieut.
Forrester, the Third Assistant, and ask that such a card be sent you."
With that he took his departure.

When he had gone I breathed joyfully and freely. The rigid face and
staring eye that I had cultivated relaxed into a natural smile and then
I broke into a laugh. Here I was in the heart of Berlin, unsuspected of
being other than a loyal German and free, for the time at least, from
problems of personal relations.

I now made an elaborate inspection of my surroundings. I found a
wardrobe full of men's clothing, all of a single shade of mauve like the
suit I wore. Some suits I guessed to be work clothes from their cheaper
texture and some, much finer, were evidently dress apparel.

Having reassured myself that Armstadt had been the only occupant of the
apartment, I turned to a pile of papers that the hospital attendant had
picked up from the floor where they had dropped from a mail chute. Most
of these proved to be the accumulated copies of a daily chemical news
bulletin. Others were technical chemical journals. Among the letters I
found an invitation to a meeting of a chemical society, and a note from
my tailor asking me to call; the third letter was written on a
typewriter, an instrument the like of which I had already discovered in
my study. This sheet bore a neatly engraved head reading "Katrina,
Permit 843 LX, Apartment 57, K Street, Level of the Free Women." The
letter ran:

  "Dear Karl: For three weeks now you have failed to keep
  your appointments and sent no explanation. You surely know
  that I will not tolerate such rude neglect. I have reported
  to the Supervisor that you are dropped from my list."

So this was Katrina! Here at last was the end of the fears that had
haunted me.

~2~

As I was scanning the chemical journal I heard a bell ring and turning
about I saw that a metal box had slid forth upon a side board from an
opening in the wall. In this box I found my dinner which I proceeded to
enjoy in solitude. The food was more varied than in the hospital. Some
was liquid and some gelatinous, and some firm like bread or biscuit. But
of natural food products there was nothing save a dish of mushrooms and
a single sprig of green no longer than my finger, and which, like a
feather in a boy's cap, was inserted conspicuously in the top of a
synthetic pudding. There was one food that puzzled me, for it was
sausage-like in form and sausage-like in flavour, and I was sure
contained some real substance of animal origin. Presuming, as I did at
that moment, that no animal life existed in Berlin, I ate this sausage
with doubts and misgivings.

The dinner finished, I looked for a way to dispose of the dishes.
Packing them back in the container I fumbled about and found a switch
which set something going in the wall, and my dishes departed to the
public dishwasher.

Having cleared the desk I next turned to Armstadt's book shelves. My
attention was caught by a ponderous volume. It proved to be an atlas and
directory of Berlin. In the front of this was a most revealing diagram
which showed Berlin to be a city of sixty levels. The five lowest levels
were underground and all were labelled "Mineral Industries." Above these
were eight levels of Food, Clothing and Miscellaneous industries. Then
came the seven workmen's residence levels, divided by trade groups.
Above this were the four "Intellectual Levels," on one of which I, as a
chemist had my abode. Directly above these was the "Level of Free
Women," and above that the residence level for military officers. The
next was the "Royal Level," double in height of the other levels of the
city. Then came the "Administrative Level," followed by eight maternity
levels, then four levels of female schools and nine levels of male
schools. Then, for six levels, and reaching to within five levels of the
roof of the city, were soldiers' barracks. Three of the remaining floors
were labelled "Swine Levels" and one "Green Gardens." Just beneath the
roof was the defence level and above that the open roof itself.

It was a city of some three hundred metres in height with mineral
industries at the bottom and the swine levels--I recalled the
sausage--at the top. Midway between, remote from possible attack through
mines or from the roof, Royalty was sheltered, while the other
privileged groups of society were stratified above and below it.

Following the diagram of levels was a most informing chart arranged like
a huge multiplication table. It gave after each level the words
"permitted," "forbidden," and "permitted as announced," arranged in
columns for each of the other levels. From this I traced out that as a
chemist I was permitted on all the industrial, workmen's and
intellectual levels, and on the Level of Free Women. I was permitted, as
announced, on the Administrative and Royal Levels; but forbidden on the
levels of military officers and soldiers' barracks, maternity and male
and female schools.

I found that as a chemist I was particularly fortunate for many other
groups were given even less liberty. As for common workmen and soldiers,
they were permitted on no levels except their own.

The most perplexing thing about this system was the apparent segregation
of such large groups of men from women. Family life in Germany was
evidently wonderfully altered and seemingly greatly restricted, a
condition inconsistent with the belief that I had always held--that the
German race was rapidly increasing.

Turning to my atlas index I looked up the population statistics of the
city, and found that by the last census it was near three hundred
million. And except for the few millions in the mines this huge mass of
humanity was quartered beneath a single roof. I was greatly surprised,
for this population figure was more than double the usual estimates
current in the outside world. Coming from a world in which the ancient
tendency to congest in cities had long since been overcome, I was
staggered by the fact that nearly as many people were living in this one
city as existed in the whole of North America.

Yet, when I figured the floor area of the city, which was roughly oval
in shape, being eight kilometres in breadth and eleven in length, I
found that the population on a given floor area was no greater than it
had been in the Island of Manhattan before the reform land laws were put
into effect in the latter part of the Twentieth Century. There was,
therefore, nothing incredible in these figures of total population, but
what I next discovered was a severe strain on credence. It was the
German population by sexes; the figures showed that there were nearly
two and a half males for every female! According to the usual estimate
of war losses the figure should have been at a ratio of six women living
to about five men, and here I found them recorded as only two women to
five men. Inspection of the birth rate showed an even higher proportion
of males. I consulted further tables that gave births by sexes and
groups. These varied somewhat but there was this great preponderance of
males in every class but one. Only among the seventeen thousand members
of Royalty did the proportion of the sexes approach the normal.

Apparently I had found an explanation of the careful segregation of
German women--there were not enough to go around!

Turning the further pages of my atlas I came upon an elaborately
illustrated directory of the uniforms and insignia of the various
military and civil ranks and classes. As I had already anticipated, I
found that any citizen in Berlin could immediately be placed in his
proper group and rank by his clothing, which was prescribed with
military exactness.

Various fabrics and shades indicated the occupational grouping while
trimmings and insignia distinguished the ranks within the groups. In all
there were many hundreds of distinct uniforms. Two groups alone proved
exceptions to this iron clad rule; Royalty and free women were permitted
to dress as they chose and were restricted only in that they were
forbidden to imitate the particular uniforms of other groups.

I next investigated the contents of Armstadt's desk. My most interesting
find was a checkbook, with receipts and expenditures carefully recorded
on the stubs. From this I learned that, as Armstadt, I was in receipt of
an income of five thousand marks, paid by the Government. I did not know
how much purchasing value that would amount to, but from the account
book I saw that the expenses had not equalled a third of it, which
explained why there was a bank balance of some twenty thousand marks.

Clearly I would need to master the signature of Karl Armstadt so I
searched among the papers until I found a bundle of returned decks. Many
of the larger checks had been made out to "Katrina," others to the
"Master of Games,"--evidently to cover gambling losses. The smaller
checks, I found by reference to the stubs, were for ornaments or
entertainment that might please a woman. The lack of the more ordinary
items of expenditure was presently made clear by the discovery of a
number of punch marked cards. For intermittent though necessary
expenses, such as tonsorial service, clothing and books. For the more
constant necessities of life, such as rent, food, laundry and
transportation, there was no record whatever; and I correctly assumed
that these were supplied without compensation and were therefore not a
matter of personal choice or permissible variation. Of money in its
ancient form of metal coins and paper, I found no evidence.

~3~

In my mail the next morning I found a card signed by Lieut. Forrester of
the hospital staff. It read:

"The bearer, Karl Armstadt, has recently suffered from gas poisoning
while defending the mines beneath enemy territory. This has affected his
memory. If he is therefore found disobeying any ruling or straying
beyond his permitted bounds, return him to his apartment and call the
Hospital for Complex Gas Cases."

It was evidently a very kindly effort to protect a man whose loss of
memory might lead him into infractions of the numerous rulings of German
life. With this help I became ambitious to try the streets of Berlin
alone. The notice from the tailor afforded an excuse.

Consulting my atlas to get my bearings I now ventured forth. The streets
were tunnel-like passage-ways closed over with a beamed ceiling of
whitish grey concrete studded with glowing light globes. In the
residence districts the smooth side walls were broken only by high
ventilating gratings and the narrow passage halls from which led the
doors of the apartments.

The uncanny quiet of the streets of this city with its three hundred
million inhabitants awed and oppressed me. Hurriedly I walked along
occasionally passing men dressed like myself. They were pale men, with
blanched or sallow faces. But nowhere were there faces of ruddy tan as
one sees in a world of sun. The men in the hospital had been pale, but
that had seemed less striking for one is used to pale faces in a
hospital. It came to me with a sense of something lost that my own
countenance blanched in the mine and hospital would so remain colourless
like the faces of the men who now stole by me in their felted footwear
with a cat-like tread.

At a cross street I turned and came upon a small group of shops with
monotonous panelled display windows inserted in the concrete walls. Here
I found my tailor and going in I promptly laid down his notice and my
clothing card. He glanced casually at the papers, punched the card and
then looking up he remarked that my new suit had been waiting some time.
I began explaining the incident in the mine and the stay in the
hospital; but the tailor was either disinterested or did not comprehend.

"Will you try on your new suit now?" he interrupted, holding forth the
garments. The suit proved a trifle tight about the hips, but I hastened
to assure the tailor that the fit was perfect. I removed it and watched
him do it up in a parcel, open a wall closet, call my house number, and
send my suit on its way through one of the numerous carriers that
interlaced the city.

As I walked more leisurely back to my apartment by a less direct way, I
found my analytical brain puzzling over the refreshing quality of the
breezes that blew through those tunnel-like streets. With bits of paper
I traced the air flow from the latticed faces of the elevator shafts to
the ventilating gratings of the enclosed apartments, and concluded that
there must be other shafts to the rear of the apartments for its exit.
It occurred to me that it must take an enormous system of ventilating
fans to keep this air in motion, and then I remembered the liquid air
engine I had seen in the mine, and a realization of the economy and
efficiency of the whole scheme dawned upon me. The Germans had solved
the power problem by using the heat of the deeper strata of the earth to
generate power through the agency of liquid air and the exhaust from
their engines had automatically solved their ventilating problem. I
recalled with a smile that I had seen no evidence of heating apparatus
anywhere except that which the miners had used to warm their food. In
this city cooling rather than heating facilities would evidently be
needed, even in the dead of winter, since the heat generated by the
inhabitants and the industrial processes would exceed the radiation from
the exterior walls and roof of the city. Sunshine and "fresh air" they
had not, but our own scientists had taught us for generations that heat
and humidity and not lack of oxygen or sunshine was the cause of the
depression experienced in indoor quarters. The air of Berlin was cool
and the excess of vapor had been frozen out of it. Yes, the "climate" of
Berlin should be more salubrious to the body, if not to the mind, than
the fickle environment of capricious nature. From my reasoning about
these ponderous problems of existence I was diverted to a trivial
matter. The men I observed on the streets all wore their hair clipped
short, while mine, with six weeks' growth, was getting rather long. I
had seen several barber's signs but I decided to walk on for quite a
distance beyond my apartment. I did not want to confront a barber who
had known Karl Armstadt, for barbers deal critically in the matter of
heads and faces. At last I picked out a shop. I entered and asked for
a haircut.

"But you are not on my list," said the barber, staring at me in a
puzzled way, "why do you not go to your own barber?"

Grasping the situation I replied that I did not like my barber.

"Then why do you not apply at the Tonsorial Administrative Office of the
level for permission to change?"

Returning to my apartment I looked up the office in my directory, went
thither and asked the clerk if I could exchange barbers. He asked for my
card and after a deal of clerical activities wrote thereon the name of a
new barber. With this official sanction I finally got my hair cut and my
card punched, thinking meanwhile that the soundness of my teeth would
obviate any amateur detective work on the part of a dentist.

Nothing, it seemed, was left for the individual to decide for himself.
His every want was supplied by orderly arrangement and for everything he
must have an authoritative permit. Had I not been classed as a research
chemist, and therefore a man of some importance, this simple business of
getting a hair-cut might have proved my undoing. Indeed, as I afterwards
learned, the exclusive privacy of my living quarters was a mark of
distinction. Had I been one of lower ranking I should have shared my
apartment with another man who would have slept in my bed while I was at
work, for in the sunless city was neither night nor day and the whole
population worked and slept in prescribed shifts--the vast machinery of
industry, like a blind giant in some Plutonic treadmill, toiled
ceaselessly.

The next morning I decided to extend my travels to the medical level,
which was located just above my own. There were stairs beside the
elevator shafts but these were evidently for emergency as they were
closed with locked gratings.

The elevator stopped at my ring. Not sure of the proper manner of
calling my floor I was carried past the medical level. As we shot up
through the three-hundred-metre shaft, the names of levels as I had read
them in my atlas flashed by on the blind doors. On the topmost defence
level we took on an officer of the roof guard--strangely swarthy of
skin--and now the car shot down while the rising air rushed by us with a
whistling roar.

On the return trip I called my floor as I had heard others do and was
let off at the medical level. It was even more monotonously quiet than
the chemical level, save for the hurrying passage of occasional
ambulances on their way between the elevators and the various hospitals.
The living quarters of the physicians were identical with those on the
chemists' level. So, too, were the quiet shops from which the physicians
supplied their personal needs.

Standing before one of these I saw in a window a new book entitled
"Diseases of Nutrition." I went in and asked to see a copy. The book
seller staring at my chemical uniform in amazement reached quickly under
the counter and pressed a button. I became alarmed and turned to go out
but found the door had been automatically closed and locked. Trying to
appear unconcerned I stood idly glancing over the book shelves, while
the book seller watched me from the corner of his eye.

In a few minutes the door opened from without and a man in the uniform
of the street guard appeared. The book seller motioned toward me.

"Your identification folder," said the guard.

Mechanically I withdrew it and handed it to him. He opened it and
discovered the card from the hospital. Smiling on me with an air of
condescension, he took me by the arm and led me forth and conducted me
to my own apartment on the chemical level. Arriving there he pushed me
gently into a chair and stepped toward the switch of the telephone.

"Just a minute," I said, "I remember now. I was not on my level--that
was not my book store."

"The card orders me to call up the hospital," said the guard.

"It is unnecessary," I said. "Do not call them."

The guard gazed first at me and then at the card. "It is signed by a
Lieutenant and you are a Captain--" his brows knitted as he wrestled
with the problem--"I do not know what to do. Does a Captain with an
affected memory outrank a Lieutenant?"

"He does," I solemnly assured him.

Still a little puzzled, he returned the card, saluted and was gone. It
had been a narrow escape. I got out my atlas and read again the rules
that set forth my right to be at large in the city. Clearly I had a
right to be found in the medical level--but in trying to buy a book
there I had evidently erred most seriously. So I carefully memorized the
list of shops set down in my identification folder and on my cards.

For the next few days I lived alone in my apartment unmolested except by
an occasional visit from Holknecht, the laboratory assistant, who knew
nothing but chemistry, talked nothing but chemistry, and seemed dead to
all human emotions and human curiosity. Applying myself diligently to
the study of Armstadt's books and notes, I was delighted to find that
the Germans, despite their great chemical progress, were ignorant of
many things I knew. I saw that my knowledge discreetly used, might
enable me to become a great man among them and so learn secrets that
would be of immense value to the outer world, should I later contrive to
escape from Berlin.

By my discoveries of the German workings in the potash mines I had
indeed opened a new road to Berlin. It was up to me by further
discoveries to open a road out again, not only for my own escape, but
perhaps also to find a way by which the World Armies might enter Berlin
as the Greeks entered Troy. Vague ambitious dreams were these that
filled and thrilled me, for I was young in years, and the romantic
spirit of heroic adventure surged in my blood.

These days of study were quite uneventful, except for a single
illuminating incident; a further example of the super-efficiency of the
Germans. I found the meals served me at my apartment rather less in
quantity than my appetite craved. While there was a reasonable variety,
the nutritive value was always the same to a point of scientific
exactness, and I had seen no shops where extra food was available. After
I had been in my apartment about a week, some one rang at the door. I
opened it and a man called out the single word, "Weigher." Just behind
him stood a platform scale on small wheels and with handles like a
go-cart. The weigher stood, notebook in hand, waiting for me to act. I
took the hint and stepped upon the scales. He read the weight and as he
recorded it, remarked:

"Three kilograms over."

Without further explanation he pushed the scales toward the next door.
The following day I noticed that the portions of food served me were a
trifle smaller than they had been previously. The original Karl Armstadt
had evidently been of such build that he carried slightly less weight
than I, which fact now condemned me to this light diet.

However, I reasoned that a light diet is conducive to good brain work,
and as I later learned, the object of this systematic weight control was
not alone to save food but to increase mental efficiency, for a fat man
is phlegmatic and a lean one too excitable for the best mental output.
It would also help my disguise by keeping me the exact weight and build
of the original Karl Armstadt.

After a fortnight of study, I felt that I was now ready to take up my
work in the laboratory, but I feared my lack of general knowledge of the
city and its ways might still betray me. Hence I began further
journeyings about the streets and shops of those levels where a man of
my class was permitted to go.

~4~

After exhausting the rather barren sport of walking about the monotonous
streets of the four professional levels I took a more exciting trip down
into the lower levels of the city where the vast mechanical industries
held sway. I did not know how much freedom might be allowed me, but I
reasoned that I would be out of my supposed normal environment and hence
my ignorance would be more excusable and in less danger of betraying me.

Alighting from the elevator, I hurried along past endless rows of heavy
columns. I peered into the workrooms, which had no enclosing walls, and
discovered with some misgiving that I seemed to have come upon a race of
giants. The men at the machines were great hulking fellows with thick,
heavy muscles such as one would expect to see in a professional wrestler
or weight-lifter. I paused and tried to gauge the size of these men: I
decided that they were not giants for I had seen taller men in the outer
world. Two officials of some sort, distinguishable by finer garb,
walking among them, appeared to be men of average size, and the tops of
their heads came about to the workers' chins. That there should be such
men among the Germans was not unbelievable, but the strange thing was
that there should be so many of them, and that they should be so
uniformly large, for there was not a workman in the whole vast factory
floor that did not over-top the officials by at least half a head.

"Of course," I reasoned, "this is part of German efficiency";--for the
men were feeding large plates through stamping mills--"they have
selected all the large men for this heavy work." Then as I continued to
gaze it occurred to me that this bright metal these Samsons were
handling was aluminum!

I went on and came to a different work hall where men were tending wire
winding machinery, making the coils for some light electrical
instruments. It was work that girls could easily have done, yet these
men were nearly, if not quite, as hulking as their mates in the stamping
mill. To select such men for light-fingered work was not efficiency but
stupidity,--and then it came to me that I had also thought the soldiers
I had seen in the hospital to be men picked for size, and that in a
normal population there could not be such an abundance of men of
abnormal size. The meaning of it all began to clear in my mind--the
pedigree in my own identification folder with the numerous fraternity,
the system of social castes which my atlas had revealed, the
inexplicable and unnatural proportion of the sexes. These gigantic men
were not the mere pick from individual variation in the species, but a
distinct breed within a race wherein the laws of nature, that had kept
men of equal stature for countless centuries, even as wild animals were
equal, had been replaced by the laws of scientific breeding. These heavy
and ponderous labourers were the Percherons and Clydesdales of a
domesticated and scientifically bred human species. The soldiers,
somewhat less bulky and more active, were, no doubt, another distinct
breed. The professional classes which had seemed quite normal in
physical appearance--were they bred for mental rather than physical
qualities? Otherwise why the pedigree, why the rigid castes, the
isolation of women? I shuddered as the whole logical, inevitable
explanation unfolded. It was uncanny, unearthly, yet perfectly
scientific; a thing the world had speculated about for centuries, a
thing that every school boy knew could be done, and yet which I, facing
the fact that it had been done, could only believe by a strained effort
at scientific coolness.

I walked on and on, absorbed, overwhelmed by these assaulting,
unbelievable conclusions, yet on either side as I walked was the ever
present evidence of the reality of these seemingly wild fancies. There
were miles upon miles of these endless workrooms and everywhere the same
gross breed of great blond beasts.

The endless shops of Berlin's industrial level were very like those
elsewhere in the world, except that they were more vast, more
concentrated, and the work more speeded up by super-machines and
excessive specialization. Millions upon millions of huge, drab-clad,
stolid-faced workmen stood at their posts of duty, performing over and
over again their routine movements as the material of their labors
shuttled by in endless streams.

Occasionally among the workmen I saw the uniforms of the petty officers
who acted as foremen, and still more rarely the administrative offices,
where, enclosed in glass panelled rooms, higher officials in more
bespangled uniforms poured over charts and plans.

In all this colossal business there was everywhere the atmosphere of
perfect order, perfect system, perfect discipline. Go as I might among
the electrical works, among the vast factories of chemicals and goods,
the lighter labor of the textile mills, or the heavier, noisier business
of the mineral works and machine shops the same system of colossal
coordinate mechanism of production throbbed ceaselessly. Materials
flowed in endless streams, feeding electric furnaces, mills, machines;
passing out to packing tables and thence to vast store rooms. Industry
here seemed endless and perfect. The bovine humanity fitted to the
machinery as the ox to the treadmill. Everywhere was the ceaseless
throbbing of the machine. Of the human variation and the free action of
man in labour, there was no evidence, and no opportunity for its
existence.

Turning from the mere monotonous endlessness of the workshops I made my
way to the levels above where the workers lived in those hours when they
ceased to be a part of the industrial mechanism of production; and
everywhere were drab-coloured men for these shifts of labour were
arranged so that no space at any time was wholly idle. I now passed by
miles of sleeping dormitories, and other miles of gymnasiums, picture
theatres and gaming tables, and, strikingly incongruous with the
atmosphere of the place, huge assembly rooms which were labelled "Free
Speech Halls." I started to enter one of these, where some kind of a
meeting was in progress, but I was thrust back by a great fellow who
grinned foolishly and said: "Pardon, Herr Captain, it is forbidden you."

Through half-darkened streets, I again passed by the bunk-shelved
sleeping chambers with their cavernous aisles walled with orderly rows
of lockers. Again I came to other barracks where the men were not yet
asleep but were straggling in and sitting about on the lowest bunks of
these sterile makeshift homes.

I then came into a district of mess halls where a meal was being served.
Here again was absolute economy and perfect system. The men dined at
endless tables and their food like the material for their labours, was
served to the workers by the highly efficient device of an endless
moving belt that rolled up out of a slot in the floor at the end of the
table after the manner of the chained steps of an escalator.

From the moving belts the men took their portions, and, as they finished
eating, they cleared away by setting the empty dishes back upon the
moving belt. The sight fascinated me, because of the adaptation of this
mechanical principle to so strange a use, for the principle is old and,
as every engineer knows, was instrumental in founding the house of
Detroit Vehicle Kings that once dominated the industrial world. The
founder of that illustrious line gave the poorest citizen a motor car
and disrupted the wage system of his day by paying his men double the
standard wage, yet he failed to realize the full possibilities of
efficiency for he permitted his men to eat at round tables and be served
by women! Truly we of the free world very narrowly escaped the fetish of
efficiency which finally completely enslaved the Germans.

Each of the long tables of this Berlin dining hall, the ends of which
faced me, was fenced off from its neighbours. At the entrance gates were
signs which read "2600 Calories," "2800 Calories," "3000 Calories"--I
followed down the line to the sign which read "Maximum Diet, 4000
Calories." The next one read, "Minimum Diet 2000 Calories," and thence
the series was repeated. Farther on I saw that men were assembling
before such gates in lines, for the meal there had not begun. Moving to
the other side of the street I walked by the lines which curved out and
swung down the street. Those before the sign of "Minimum Diet" were not
quite so tall as the average, although obviously of the same breed. But
they were all gaunt, many of them drooped and old, relatively the
inferior specimens and their faces bore a cowering look of fear and
shame, of men sullen and dull, beaten in life's battle. Following down
the line and noting the improvement in physique as I passed on, I came
to the farthest group just as they had begun to pass into the hall.
These men, entering the gate labelled "Maximum Diet, 4000 Calories,"
were obviously the pick of the breed, middle-aged, powerful,
Herculean,--and yet not exactly Herculean either, for many of them were
overfull of waistline, men better fed than is absolutely essential to
physical fitness. Evidently a different principle was at work here than
the strict economy of food that required the periodic weighing of the
professional classes.

Turning back I now encountered men coming out of the dining hall in
which I had first witnessed the meal in progress. I wanted to ask
questions and yet was a little afraid. But these big fellows were
seemingly quite respectful; except when I started to enter the Free
Speech Hall, they had humbly made way for me. Emboldened by their
deference I now approached a man whom I had seen come out of a "3800
Calories" gate, and who had crossed the street and stood there picking
his teeth with his finger nail.

He ceased this operation as I approached and was about to step aside.
But I paused and smiled at him, much, I fear, as one smiles at a dog of
unknown disposition, for I could hardly feel that this ungainly creature
was exactly human. He smiled back and stood waiting.

"Perhaps, I stammered," you will tell me about your system of eating; it
seems very interesting."

"I eat thirty-eight," he grinned, "pretty good, yes? I am twenty-five
years old and not so tall either."

I eyed him up--my eyes came just to the top button of his jacket.

"I began thirty," continued the workman, "I came up one almost every
year, one year I came up two at once. Pretty good, yes? One more
to come."

"What then?" I asked.

The big fellow smiled with a childish pride, and doubling up his arm, as
huge as an average man's thigh, he patted his biceps. "I get it all
right. I pass examination, no flaws in me, never been to hospital, not
one day. Yes, I get it."

"Get what?"

"Paternity," said the man in a lower voice, as he glanced about to see
if any of his fellows was listening. "Paternity, you know? Women!"

I thought of many questions but feared to ask them. The worker waited
for some men to pass, then he bent over me, grinning sardonically. "Did
you see them? You have seen women, yes?"

"Yes," I ventured, "I have seen women."

"Pretty good, beautiful, yes?"

"Yes," I stammered, "they are very beautiful." But I was getting nervous
and moved away. The workman, hesitating a little, then followed at
my side.

"But tell me," I said, "about these calories. What did you do to get the
big meals? Why do some get more to eat than others?"

"Better man," he replied without hesitation.

"But what makes a better man?"

"You don't know; of course, you are an intellectual and don't work. But
we work hard. The harder we work the more we eat. I load aluminum pigs
on the elevator. One pig is two calories, nineteen hundred pigs a day,
pretty good, yes? All kind of work has its calories, so many for each
thing to do.

"More work, more food it takes to do it. They say all is alike, that no
one can get fat. But all work calories are not alike because some men
get fatter than others. I don't get fat; my work is hard. I ought to get
two and a half calories for each pig I load. Still I do not get thin,
but I do not play hard in gymnasium, see? Those lathe men, they got it
too easy and they play hard in gymnasium. I don't care if you do report.
I got it mad at them; they got it too easy. One got paternity last year
already, and he is not as good a man as I am. I could throw him over my
shoulder in wrestling. Do you not think they get it too easy?"

"Do the men like this system," I asked; "the measuring of food by the
amount of work one does? Do any of them talk about it and demand that
all be fed alike?"

"The skinny minimum eaters do," said the workman with a sneer, "when we
let them talk, which isn't often, but when they get a chance they talk
Bellamism. But what if they do talk, it does them no good. We have a red
flag, we have Imperial Socialism; we have the House of Hohenzollern.
Well, then, I say, let them talk if they want to, every man must eat
according to his work; that is socialism. We can't have Bellamism when
we have socialism."

This speech, so much more informative and evidencing a knowledge I had
not anticipated, quite disturbed me. "You talk about these things," I
ventured, "in your Free Speech Halls?"

The hitherto pleasant face of the workingman altered to an ugly frown.

"No you don't," he growled, "you don't think because I talk to you, that
you can go asking me what is not your right to know, even if you are
an officer?"

I remained discreetly silent, but continued to walk at the side of the
striding giant. Presently I asked:

"What do you do now, are you going to work?"

"No," he said, looking at me doubtfully, "that was dinner, not
breakfast. I am going now to the picture hall."

"And then," I asked, "do you go to bed?"

"No," he said, "we then go to the gymnasium or the gaming tables. Six
hours' work, six hours' sleep, and four hours for amusement."

"And what do you do," I asked, "the remainder of the day?"

He turned and stared at me. "That is all we get here, sixteen hours.
This is the metal workers' level. Some levels get twenty hours. It
depends on the work."

"But," I said, "a real day has twenty-four hours."

"I've heard," he said, "that it does on the upper levels."

"But," I protested, "I mean a real day--a day of the sun. Do you
understand that?"

"Oh yes," he said, "we see the pictures of the Place in the Sun. That's
a fine show."

"Oh," I said, "then you have pictures of the sun?"

"Of course," he replied, "the sun that shines upon the throne. We all
see that."

At the time I could not comprehend this reference, but I made bold to
ask if it were forbidden me to go to his picture hall.

"I can't make out," he said, "why you want to see, but I never heard of
any order forbidding it.

"I go here," he remarked, as we came to a picture theatre.

I let my Herculean companion enter alone, but followed him shortly and
found a seat in a secluded corner. No one disputed my presence.

The music that filled the hall from some hidden horn was loud and, in a
rough way, joyous. The pictures--evidently carefully prepared for such
an audience--were limited to the life that these men knew. The themes
were chiefly of athletic contests, of boxing, wrestling and feats of
strength. There were also pictures of working contests, always ending by
the awarding of honours by some much bespangled official. But of love
and romance, of intrigue and adventure, of pathos and mirth, these
pictures were strangely devoid,--there was, in fact, no woman's likeness
cast upon the screen and no pictures depicting emotion or sentiment.

As I watched the sterile flittings of the picture screen I decided,
despite the glimmering of intelligence that my talking Hercules had
shown in reference to socialism and Bellamism and the secrets of the
Free Speech Halls, that these men were merely great stupid beasts
of burden.

They worked, they fed, they drank, they played exuberantly in their
gymnasiums and swimming pools, they played long and eagerly at games of
chance. Beyond this their lives were essentially blank. Ambition and
curiosity they had none beyond the narrow circle of their round of
living. But for all that they were docile, contented and, within their
limitations, not unhappy. To me they seemed more and more to be like
well cared for domestic animals, and I found myself wondering, as I left
the hall, why we of the outer world had not thought to produce pictures
in similar vein to entertain our dogs and horses.

~5~

As I returned to my own quarters, I tried to recall the description I
had read of the "Children of the Abyss," the dwellers in ancient city
slums. There was a certain kinship, no doubt, between those former
submerged workers in the democratic world and this labour breed of
Berlin. Yet the enslaved and sweated workers of the old regime were
always depicted as suffering from poverty, as undersized, ill-nourished
and afflicted with disease. The reformers of that day were always
talking of sanitary housing, scientific diet and physical efficiency.
But here was a race of labourers whose physical welfare was as well
taken care of as if they had been prize swine or oxen. There was a
paleness of countenance among these labourers of Berlin that to me
seemed suggestive of ill health, but I knew that was merely due to lack
of sun and did not signify a lack of physical vitality. Mere
sun-darkened skin does not mean physiological efficiency, else the negro
were the most efficient of races. Men can live without sun, without
rain, without contact with the soil, without nature's greenery and the
brotherhood of fellow species in wild haunts. The whole climb of
civilization had been away from these primitive things. It had merely
been an artificial perfecting of the process of giving the living
creature that which is needed for sustenance and propagation in the most
concentrated and most economical form, the elimination of Nature's
superfluities and wastes.

As I thought of these things it came over me that this unholy
imprisonment of a race was but the logical culmination of mechanical and
material civilization. This development among the Germans had been
hastened by the necessities of war and siege, yet it was what the whole
world had been driving toward since man first used a tool and built a
hut. Our own freer civilization of the outer world had been achieved
only by compromises, by a stubborn resistance against the forces to
which we ascribed our progress. We were merely not so completely
civilized, because we had never been wholly domesticated.

As I now record these thoughts on the true significance of the perfected
civilization of the Germans I realize that I was even more right than I
then knew, for the sunless city of Berlin is of a truth a civilization
gone to seed, its people are a domesticated species, they are the
logical outcome of science applied to human affairs, with them the
prodigality and waste of Nature have been eliminated, they have stamped
out contagious diseases of every kind, they have substituted for the
laws of Nature the laws that man may pick by scientific theory and
experiment from the multitude of possibilities. Yes, the Germans were
civilized. And as I pondered these things I recalled those fairy tales
that naturalists tell of the stagnant and fixed society of ants in their
subterranean catacombs. These insect species credited for industry and
intelligence, have in their lesser world reached a similar perfection of
civilization. Ants have a royal house, they have a highly specialized
and fixed system of caste, a completely socialized state--yes, a
Utopia--even as Berlin was a Utopia, with the light of the sun and the
light of the soul, the soul of the wild free man, forever shut out. Yes,
I was walking in Utopia, a nightmare at the end of man's long
dream--Utopia--Black Utopia--City of Endless Night--diabolically
compounded of the three elements of civilization in which the Germans
had always been supreme--imperialism, science and socialism.



CHAPTER IV

I GO PLEASURING ON THE LEVEL OF FREE WOMEN AND DRINK SYNTHETIC BEER


~1~

I had returned from my adventure on the labour levels in a mood of
sombre depression. Alone again in my apartment I found difficulty in
getting my mind back upon chemical books. With a sense of relief I
reported to Holknecht that I thought myself sufficiently recovered to
return to work.

My laboratory I found to be almost as secluded as my living quarters. I
was master there, and as a research worker I reported to no man until I
had finished the problem assigned me. From my readings and from
Holknecht's endless talking I had fairly well grasped the problem on
which I was supposed to be working, and I now had Holknecht go carefully
over the work he had done in my absence and we prepared a report. This I
sent to headquarters with a request for permission to start work on
another problem, the idea for which I claimed to have conceived on my
visit to the attacked potash mines.

Permission to undertake the new problem was promptly granted. I now set
to work to reproduce in a German laboratory the experiments by which I
had originally conquered the German gas that had successfully defended
those mines from the world for over a century. Though loath to make this
revelation, I knew of no other "Discovery" wherewith to gain the stakes
for which I was playing.

Events shaped themselves most rapidly along the lines of my best hopes.
The new research proved a blanket behind which to hide my ignorance. We
needed new material, new apparatus, and new data and I encouraged
Holknecht to advise me as to where to obtain these things and so gained
requisite working knowledge.

The experiments and demonstrations finished, I made my report. My
immediate superior evidently quickly recognized it as a matter too
important for his consideration and dutifully passed it up to his own
superiors. In a few days I was notified to prepare for a demonstration
before a committee of the Imperial Chemical Staff.

They came to my small laboratory with much eager curiosity. From their
manner of making themselves known to me I realized with joy that they
were dealing with a stranger. Indeed it was improbable that it should
have been otherwise for there were upwards of fifty thousand chemists of
my rank in Berlin.

The demonstration went off with a flourish and the committee were
greatly impressed. Means were at once taken to alter the gas with which
the Stassfurt mines were flooded, but I realized that meant nothing
since I believed that my companions had abandoned the enterprise and the
secret that had enabled me to invade mines had not been shared with any
one in the outer world.

As I anticipated, my revelation was accepted by the Chemical Staff as
evidence of profound scientific genius. It followed as a logical matter
that I should be promoted to the highest rank of research chemists with
the title of Colonel. Because of my youth the more was made of the
honour. This promotion entitled me to double my previous salary, to a
larger laboratory and larger and better living quarters in a distant
part of the city.

My assistant would now be of the rank I had previously been and as
Holknecht was not eligible to such promotion I was removed entirely from
all previous acquaintances and surroundings and so greatly decreased the
chance of discovery of my true identity.

~2~

After I had removed to my new quarters I was requested to call at the
office of the Chemical Staff to discuss the line of research I should
next take up. My adviser in this matter was the venerable Herr von Uhl,
a white haired old patriarch whose jacket was a mass of decorations. The
insignia on the left breast indicating the achievements in chemical
science were already familiar to me, but those on the right breast
were strange.

Perhaps I stared at them a little, for the old man, noting my interest,
remarked proudly, "Yes, I have contributed much glory to the race and
our group,--one hundred and forty-seven children,--one hundred and four
of them sons, fifty-eight already of a captain's rank, and twenty-nine
of them colonels--my children of the second and third generation number
above two thousand. Only three men living in Berlin have more total
descendants--and I am but seventy-eight years of age. If I live to be
ninety I shall break all records of the Eugenic Office. It all comes of
good breeding and good work. I won my paternity right, when I was but
twenty-eight, just about your age. If you pass the physical test,
perhaps you can duplicate my record. For this early promotion you have
won qualifies you mentally."

Astonished and alarmed beyond measure I could find no reply and sat
staring dumbly, while Herr von Uhl, beginning to speak of chemical
matters, inquired if I had any preference as to the problem I should now
take up. Incapable of any clear thinking I could only ask if he had any
to suggest.

Immediately the old man's face brightened. "A man of your genius," he
said, "should be permitted to try his brain with the greatest problems
on which the life of Germany depends. The Staff discussed this and has
assigned you to original research for the finding of a better method of
the extraction of protium from the ore. To work on this assignment you
must of necessity share grave secrets, which, should they be disclosed,
might create profound fears, but your professional honour is a sufficient
guarantee of secrecy. In this research you will compete with some of the
most distinguished chemists in Berlin. If you should be successful you
will be decorated by His Majesty and you will receive a liberal pension
commensurate with the value of your discovery."

I was profoundly impressed. Evidently I had stumbled upon something of
vital importance, the real nature of which I did not in the least
comprehend, and happily was not supposed to. The interview was ended by
my being entrusted with voluminous unpublished documents which I was
told to take home and study. Two armed men were ordered to accompany me
and to stand alternate guard outside my apartment while I had the
documents in my possession.

~3~

In the quiet of my new abode I unsealed the package. The first sheet
contained the official offer of the rewards in store for success with
the research. The further papers explained the occasion for the gravity
and secrecy, and outlined the problem.

The colossal consequence of the matter with which I was dealing gripped
and thrilled me. Protium, it seemed, was the German name for a rare
element of the radium group, which, from its atomic weight and other
properties, I recognized as being known to the outside world only as a
laboratory curiosity of no industrial significance.

But, as used by the Germans, this element was the essence of life
itself, for by the influence of its emanations, they had achieved the
synthesis of protein capable of completely nourishing the human body--a
thing that could be accomplished in the outside world only through the
aid of natural protein derived from plants and animals.

How I wished, as I read, that my uncle could have shared with me this
revelation of a secret that he had spent his life in a fruitless effort
to unravel. We had long since discovered how the Germans had synthesized
the carbohydrate molecule from carbon dioxide and water and built
therefrom the sugars, starches and fat needed for human nutrition. We
knew quite as well how they had created the simpler nitrogen compounds,
that this last step of synthesizing complete food proteins--a step
absolutely essential to the support of human life wholly from synthetic
foods--the chemists of the outer world had never mastered.

But no less interesting than the mere chemistry of all this was the
history of it all, and the light it threw on the larger story of how
Germany had survived when the scientists of the world had predicted her
speedy annihiliation. The original use of protium had, I found, been
discovered late in the Twentieth Century when the protium ores of the
Ural Mountains were still available to the German chemists. After Russia
had been won by the World Armies, the Germans for a time suffered
chronic nitrogen starvation, as they depended on the protium derived
from what remained of their agriculture and from the fisheries in the
Baltic. As the increasing bombardment from the air herded them within
their fast building armoured city, and drove them beneath the soil in
all other German territory and from the surface of the sea in the
Baltic; they must have perished miserably but for the discovery of a new
source of protium.

This source they had found in the uninhabited islands of the Arctic,
where the formation of the Ural Mountains extends beneath the sea.
Sending their submarines thence in search of platinum ores they had not
found platinum but a limited supply of ore containing the even more
valuable protium. By this traffic Germany had survived for a century and
a half. The quantity of the rare element needed was small, for its
effect, like that of radium, was out of all proportion to its bulk. But
this little they must have, and it seems that the supply of ore
was failing.

Nor was that all to interest me. How did the German submarine get to the
Arctic since the World State had succeeded, after half a century of
effort, in damming the Baltic by closing up several passes among the
Danish Islands and the main pass of the sound between Zealand and
Sweden? I remember, as a youngster, the great Jubilee that celebrated
the completion of that monumental task, and the joy that hailed from the
announcement that the world's shipping would at last be freed from an
ancient scourge.

But little had we of the world known the magnitude of the German fears
as the Baltic dam neared completion. We had thought merely to protect
our commerce from German piracy and perhaps to stop them from getting a
little copper and rubber in some remote corner of the earth. But we did
not realize that we were about to cut them off from an essential element
without which that conceited and defiant race must have speedily run up
the white flag of absolute surrender or have died to the last man, like
rats in a neglected trap.

But the completion of the Baltic dam evidently had not shut off the
supply of Arctic ore, for the annual importation of ore was given right
up to date though the Baltic had been closed for nearly a score of
years. Eagerly I searched my papers for an item that would give some
hint as to how the submarines got out of the dammed-up Baltic. But on
that point the documents before me were silent. They referred to the
Arctic ore, gave elaborate details as to mineralogy and geology of the
strata from which it came, but as to the ways of its coming into Berlin
there was not the slightest suggestion. That this ore must come by
submarine was obvious. If so, the submarine must be at large in the
Atlantic and Arctic seas, and those occasional reports of periscopes
sighted off the coast of Norway, which have never been credited, were
really true. The submarines, or at least their cargoes, must reach
Berlin by some secret passage. Here indeed was a master mystery, a
secret which, could I unravel it and escape to the outer world with the
knowledge, would put unconditionally within the power of the World State
the very life of the three hundred millions of this unholy race that was
bred and fed by science in the armoured City of Berlin, or that, working
like blind moles of the earth, held the world at bay from off the
sterile and pock-marked soil of all that was left of the one-time
German Empire.

That night I did not sleep till near the waking hour, and when the
breakfast container bumped into the receiving cupboard I was nodding
over the chemical papers amid strange and wonderful dreams.

~4~

Next day with three assistants, themselves chemists of no mean rank, I
set to work to prepare apparatus for repeating all the known processes
in the extraction and use of the rare and vital element. This work
absorbed me for many weeks, during which time I went nowhere and saw no
one and slept scarce one hour out of four.

But the steady application told upon me, and, by way of recreation, I
decided to spend an evening on the Level of Free Women, a place to
which, much though it fascinated me, I had not yet mustered the
courage to go.

My impression, as I stepped from the elevator, was much as that of a man
who alights from a train in a strange city on a carnival night. Before
me, instead of the narrow, quiet streets of the working and living
quarters of the city, there spread a broad and seemingly endless hall of
revelry, broken only by the massive grey pillars that held up the
multi-floored city. The place was thronged with men of varied ranks and
professions. But more numerous and conspicuous were the women, the first
and only women that I had seen among the Germans--the Free Women of
Berlin, dressed in gorgeous and daring costumes; women of whom but few
were beautiful, yet in whose tinted cheeks and sparkling eyes was all
the lure of parasitic love.

The multi-hued apparel of the throng dazzled and astonished me.
Elsewhere I had found a sterile monotony of dress and even of stature
and features. But here was resplendent variety and display. Men from all
the professional and military classes mingled indiscriminately, their
divers uniforms and decorations suggesting a dress ball in the capital
of the world. But the motley costumes of the women, who dressed with the
license of unrestrained individuality, were even more startling and
bizarre--a kaleidoscopic fantastic masquerade.

I wondered if the rule of convention and tyranny of style had lost all
hold upon these women. And yet I decided, as I watched more closely,
that there was not an absence of style but rather a warfare of styles.
The costumes varied from the veiled and beruffled displays, that left
one confounded as to what manner of creature dwelt therein, to the other
extreme of mere gaudily ornamented nudity. I smiled as I recalled the
world-old argument on the relative modesty of much or little clothing,
for here immodesty was competing side by side in both extremes, both
seemingly equally successful.

But it was not alone in the matter of dress that the women of the Free
Level varied. They differed even more strikingly in form and feature,
for, as I was later more fully to comprehend, these women were drawn
from all the artificially specialized breeds into which German science
had wrought the human species. Most striking and most numerous were
those whom I rightly guessed to be of the labour strain. Proportionally
not quite so large as the males of the breed, yet they were huge,
full-formed, fleshly creatures, with milky white skin for the most part
crudely painted with splashes of vermilion and with blued or blackened
brows. The garishness of their dress and ornament clearly bespoke the
poorer quality of their intellect, yet to my disgust they seemed fully
as popular with the men as the smaller and more refined types, evidently
from the intellectual strains of the race.

Happily these ungainly women of the labour strain were inclined to herd
by themselves and I hastened to direct my steps to avoid as much as
possible their overwhelming presence.

The smaller women, who seemed to be more nearly human, were even more
variegated in their features and make-up. They were not all blondes,
for some of them were distinctively dark of hair and skin, though
I was puzzled to tell how much of this was inborn and how much
the work of art. Another thing that astonished me was the wide
range of bodily form, as evidently determined by nutrition. Clearly
there was no weight-control here, for the figures varied from extreme
slenderness to waddling fatness. The most common type was that of mild
obesity which men call "plumpness," a quality so prized since the world
began that the women of all races by natural selection become relatively
fatter than men.

For the most part I found these women unattractive and even repellent,
and yet as I walked about the level I occasionally caught fleeting
glimpses of genuine beauty of face and form, and more rarely expressions
of a seeming high order of intelligence.

This revelling multitude of men and girls was uproariously engaged in
the obvious business of enjoying themselves by means of every art known
to appeal to the mind of man--when intelligence is abandoned and moral
restraint thrown to the winds.

I wended my way among the multitude, gay with colour, noisy with chatter
and mingled music, redolent with a hundred varieties of sensuous
perfume. I came upon a dancing floor. Whirling and twisting about the
columns, circling around a gorgeous scented and iridescent fountain,
officers and scientists, chemists and physicians, each clasping in his
arms a laughing girl, danced with abandon to languorous music.

As I watched the dance I overheard two girls commenting upon the
appearance of the dancers. Whirling by in the arms of a be-medalled
officer, was a girl whose frizzled yellow hair fell about a
dun-brown face.

"Did you see that, Fedora, tanned as a roof guard and with that hair!"

"Well, you know," said the other, "it's becoming quite the fashion
again."

"Why don't you try it? Three baths would tan you adorably and you do
have the proper hair."

"Oh, yes, I have the hair, all right, but my skin won't stand it. I
tried it three years ago and I blistered outrageously."

The talk drifted to less informing topics and I moved on and came to
other groups lounging at their ease on rugs and divans as they watched
more skilful girls squirming through some intricate ballet on an
exhibition platform.

Seeing me stand apart, a milk-white girl with hair dyed pink came
tugging at my arm. Her opalescent eyes looked from out her chalky
countenance; but they were not hard eyes, indeed they seemed the eyes of
innocence. As I shook my head and rebuffed her cordial advance I felt,
not that I was refusing the proffered love of a painted woman, but
rather that I was meanly declining a child's invitation to join her
play. In haste I edged away and wandered on past endless gaming tables
where men in feverish eagerness whirled wheels of chance, while garishly
dressed girls leaned on their shoulders and hung about their necks.

Announced by shouts and shrieking laughter I came upon a noisy jumble of
mechanical amusement devices where men and girls in whirling upholstered
boxes were being pitched and tumbled about.

Beyond the noise of the childish whirligigs I came into a space where
the white ceiling lights were dimmed by crimson globes and picture
screens were in operation. It did not take long for me to grasp the
essential difference between these pictured stories and those I had seen
in the workmen's level. There love of woman was entirely absent from the
screen. Here it was the sole substance of the pictures. But unlike the
love romances of the outer world, there were no engagement rings, no
wedding bells, and never once did the face or form of a child appear.

In seating myself to see the pictures I had carefully chosen a place
where there was only room for myself between a man and one of the
supporting columns. At an interlude the man arose to go. The girl who
had been with him arose also, but he pushed her back upon the bench,
saying that he had other engagements, and did not wish her company. The
moment he was gone the girl moved over and proceeded to crowd
caressingly against my shoulder. She was a huge girl, obviously of the
labour strain. She leaned over me as if I had been a lonely child and
she a lonelier woman. Crowded against the pillar I could not escape and
so tried to appear unconcerned.

"Did you like that story?" I asked, referring to the picture that had
just ended.

"No," she replied, "the girl was too timid. She could never have won a
roof guard captain in that fashion. They are very difficult men, those
roof guard officers."

"And what kind of pictures do you prefer?" I asked.

"Quartettes," she answered promptly. "Two men and two girls when both
girls want the other man, and both men want the girl they have. That
makes a jolly plot. Or else the ones where there are two perfect lovers
and the man is elected to paternity and leaves her. I had a man like
that once and it makes me sad to see such a picture."

"Perhaps," I said, speaking in a timorous voice, "you wanted to go with
him and be the mother of his children?"

She turned her face toward me in the dim light. "He talked like that,"
she said, "and then, I hated him. I knew then that he wanted to go and
leave me. That he hadn't tried to avoid the paternity draft. Yes, he
wanted to sire children. And he knew that he would have to leave me. And
so I hated him for ever loving me."

A strange thrill crept over me at the girl's words. I tried to fathom
her nature, to separate the tangle of reality from the artificial ideas
ingrained by deliberate mis-education. "Did you ever see children? Here,
I mean. Pictures of them, perhaps, on the screen?"

"Never," said the girl, drawing away from me and straightening up till
my head scarce reached her shoulder. "And I never want to. I hate the
thought of them. I wish I never had been one. Why can't
we--forget them?"

I did not answer, and the labour girl, who, for some technical flaw in
her physique had been rejected for motherhood, arose and walked
ponderously away.

After this baffling revelation of the struggle of human souls caught in
the maw of machine-made science, I found the picture screen a dull dead
thing, and I left the hall and wandered for miles, it seemed, past
endless confusion of meaningless revelry. Everywhere was music and
gaming and laughter. Men and girls lounged and danced, or spun the
wheels of fortune or sat at tables drinking from massive steins, a
highly flavoured variety of rather ineffectual synthetic beer. Older
women served and waited on the men and girls, and for every man was at
least one girl and sometimes as many as could crowd about him. And so
they sang, and banged their mugs and sloshed their frothy beverage.

A lonely stranger amidst the jostling throngs, I wandered on through the
carnival of Berlin's Level of Free Women. Despite my longing for human
companionship I found it difficult to join in this strange recrudescent
paganism with any ease or grace.

Girls, alone or in groups, fluttered about me with many a covert or open
invitation to join in their merry-making, but something in my halting
manner and constrained speech seemed to repulse them, for they would
soon turn away as if condemning me as a man without appreciation of the
value of human enjoyment.

My constraint and embarrassment were increased by a certain sense of
guilt, a feeling which no one in this vast throng, either man or woman,
seemed to share. The place had its own standard of ethics, and they were
shocking enough to a man nurtured in a human society founded on the
sanctification of monogamous marriage. But merely to condemn this
recreational life of Germany, by likening it to the licentious freedom
that exists in occasional unrestrained amusement places in the outer
world, would be to give a very incorrect interpretation of Berlin's
Level of Free Women. As we know such places elsewhere in the world there
is always about them some tacit confession of moral delinquency, some
pretence of apology on the part of the participants. The women who so
revel in the outer world consider themselves under a ban of social
disapproval, while the men are either of a type who have no sense of
moral restraint or men who have for the time abandoned it.

But for this life in Berlin no guilt was felt, no apology offered. The
men considered it as quite a normal and proper part of their life, while
the women looked upon it as their whole life, to which they had been
trained and educated and set apart by the Government; they accepted the
rôle quite as did the scientist, labourer, soldier, or professional
mother. The state had decreed it to be. They did not question its
morality. Hence the life here was licentious and yet unashamed, much, as
I fancy was the life in the groves of Athens or the baths of
ancient Rome.



CHAPTER V

I AM DRAFTED FOR PATERNITY AND MAKE EXTRAORDINARY
PETITION TO THE CHIEF OF THE EUGENIC STAFF


~1~

My research was progressing nicely and I had discovered that in this
field of chemistry also my knowledge of the outer world would give me
tremendous advantages over all competitors. Eagerly I worked at the
laboratory, spending most of my evenings in study. Occasionally I
attended the educational pictures or dined on the Level of Free Women
with my chemical associates and spent an hour or so at dancing or at
cards. My life had settled into routine unbroken by adventure. Then I
received a notice to report for the annual examination at the Physical
Efficiency Laboratory. I went with some misgivings, but the ordeal
proved uneventful. A week later I received a most disturbing
communication, a bulky and official looking packet bearing the imprint
of the Eugenic Office. I nervously slit the envelope and drew forth
a letter:

"You are hereby notified that you have reached a stage of advancement in
your professional work that marks you a man of superior gifts, and,
having been reported as physically perfect you are hereby honoured with
the high privilege and sacred duties of election to paternity. Full
instructions for your conduct in this duty to the State will be found in
the enclosed folder."

In nervous haste I scanned the printed folder:

"Your first duty will be to visit the boys' school for which passport is
here enclosed. The purpose of this is to awaken the paternal instincts
that you may better appreciate and feel the holy obligation and
privilege conferred upon you. You will also find enclosed cards of
introduction to three women whom the Eugenic Office finds to be fitted
as mothers of your children. That natural selection may have a limited
play you are permitted to select only one woman from each three
assigned. Such selection must be made and reported within thirty days,
after which a second trio will be assigned you. Until such final
selection has been recorded you are expressly forbidden to conduct
yourself toward these women in an amorous manner."

Next followed a set of exacting rules for the proper deportment, in the
carrying out of these duties to which the State had assigned me.

A crushing sense of revulsion, a feeling of loathing and uncleanliness
overwhelmed me as I pushed aside the papers. Coming from a world where
the right of the individual to freedom and privacy in the matrimonial
and paternal relations was recognized as a fundamental right of man, I
found this officious communication, with its detailed instruction,
appalling and revolting.

A man cravenly clings to life and yet there are instincts in his soul
which will cause him to sell life defiantly for a mere conception of a
moral principle. To become by official mandate a father of a numerous
German progeny was a thing to which I could not and would not submit.
Many times that day as I automatically pursued my work, I resolved to go
to some one in authority and give myself up to be sent to the mines as a
prisoner of war, or more likely to be executed as a spy. Cold reason
showed me the futility of neglecting or attempting to avoid an assigned
duty. It was a military civilization and I had already seen enough of
this ordered life of Berlin to know that there was no middle ground of
choice between explicit obedience and open rebellion. Nor need I concern
myself with what punishment might be provided for this particular
disobedience for I saw that rebellion for me would mean an investigation
that would result in complete tearing away of the protecting mask of my
German identity.

But after my first tumultuous feeling subsided I realized that something
more than my own life was at stake. Already possessed of much intimate
knowledge of the life within Berlin I believed that I was in a way to
come into possession of secrets of vast and vital importance to the
world. To gain these secrets, to escape from the walls of Berlin, was a
more than personal ambition; it was an ambition for mankind.

After a day or two of deliberation I therefore decided against any rash
rebellion. Moreover, as nothing compromising was immediately required of
me, I detached and mailed the four coupons provided, having duly filled
in the time at which I should make the preliminary calls.

~2~

On the day and hour appointed I presented the school card to the
elevator operator, who punched it after the manner of his kind, and duly
deposited me on the level of schools for boys of the professional
groups. A lad of about sixteen met me at the elevator and conducted me
to the school designated.

The master greeted me with obsequious gravity, and waved me to the
visitor's seat on a raised platform. "You will be asked to speak," he
said, "and I beg that you will tell the boys of the wonderful chemical
discoveries that won you the honours of election to paternity."

"But," I protested, as I glanced at the boys who were being put through
their morning drill in the gymnasium, "I fear the boys of such age will
not comprehend the nature of my work."

"Certainly not," he replied, "and I would rather you did not try to
simplify it for their undeveloped minds, merely speak learnedly of your
work as if you were addressing a body of your colleagues. The less the
boys understand of it the more they will be impressed with its
importance, and the more ambitious they will be to become great
chemists."

This strange philosophy of education annoyed me, but I did not have time
to argue further for the bell had rung and the boys were filing in with
strict military precision. There were about fifty of them, all in their
twelfth year, and of remarkable uniformity in size and development. The
blanched skin, which marked the adult faces of Berlin, was, in the pasty
countenance of those German boys, a more horrifying spectacle. Yet they
stood erect and, despite their lack of colour, were evidently a well
nourished, well exercised group of youngsters.

As the last boy reached his place the master motioned with his hand and
fifty arms moved in unison in a mechanical salute.

"We have with us this morning," said the master, "a chemist who has won
the honours of paternity with his original thought. He will tell you
about his work which you cannot understand--you should therefore listen
attentively."

After a few more sentences of these paradoxical axioms on education, the
master nodded, and, as I had been instructed, I proceeded to talk of the
chemical lore of poison gases.

"And now," said the master, when I resumed my seat, "we will have a
review lesson. You will first recite in unison the creed of your caste."

"We are youth of the super-race," began the boys in a sing-song and well
timed chorus. "We belong to the chemical group of the intellectual
levels, being born of sires who were great chemists, born of great
chemists for many generations. It is our duty to learn while we are yet
young all that we may ever need to know, to keep our minds free from
forbidden knowledge and to resist the temptation to think on unnecessary
things. So we may be good Germans, loyal to the House of Hohenzollern
and to the worship of the old German God and the divine blood of William
the Great."

The schoolmaster, who had nodded his head in unison with the rhythm of
the recitation, now smiled in satisfaction. "That was very good," he
said. "I did not hear one faltering voice. Now you may recite
individually in your alphabetical order.

"Anton, you may describe the stages in the evolution of the super-man."

Anton, a flaxen-haired youngster, arose, saluted like a wooden soldier,
and intoned the following monologue:

"Man is an animal in the process of evolving into a god. The method of
this evolution is a struggle in which the weak perish and the strong
survive. First in this process of man's evolution came the savage, who
lived with the lions and the apes. In the second stage came the dark
races who built the so-called ancient civilizations, and fought among
themselves to possess private property and women and children. Third
came the barbarian Blond Brutes, who were destined to sire the
super-race, but the day had not yet come, and they mixed with the dark
races and produced the mongrel peoples, which make the fourth. The fifth
stage is the pure bred Blond Brutes, uncontaminated by inferior races,
which are the men, who under God's direction, built the Armoured City of
Berlin in which to breed the Supermen who are to conquer the mongrel
peoples. The sixth, last and culminating stage of the evolution of man
is the Divinity in human form which is our noble House of Hohenzollern,
descended physically from William the Great, and spiritually from the
soul of God Himself, whose statue stands with that of the Mighty William
at the portals of the Emperor's palace."

It had been a noble effort for so young a memory and as the proud master
looked at me expectantly I could do nothing less than nod my
appreciation.

The master now gave Bruno the following cue:

"Name the four kinds of government and explain each."

From the sad-eyed youth of twelve came this flow of wisdom:

"The first form of government is monarchy, in which the people are ruled
by a man who calls himself a king but who has no divine authority so
that the people sometimes failed to respect him and made revolutions and
tried to govern themselves. The second form of government is a republic,
sometimes called a democracy. It is usually co-existent with the lawyer,
the priest, the family and the greed for gold. But in reality this
government is by the rich men, who let the poor men vote and think they
have a share in the government, thus to keep them contented with their
poverty. The third form of government is proletariat socialism in which
the people, having abolished kings and rich men, attempt to govern
themselves; but this they cannot do for the same reason that a man
cannot lift himself by his shoestraps--"

At this point Bruno faltered and his face went chalky white. The teacher
being directly in front of the standing pupil did not see what had
happened, while I, with fleeting memory of my own school days,
suppressed my mirth behind a formal countenance, as the stoic Bruno
resumed his seat.

The master marked zero on the roll and called upon Conrad, next in line,
to finish the recitation.

"The fourth and last form of government," recited Conrad, "is autocratic
socialism, the perfect government that we Germans have evolved from
proletariat socialism which had destroyed the greed for private property
and private family life, so that the people ceased to struggle
individually and were ready to accept the Royal House, divinely
appointed by God to govern them perfectly and prepare them to make war
for the conquest of the world."

The recitations now turned to repetitions of the pedigree and ranking of
the various branches of the Royal House. But it was a mere list of names
like the begats of Genesis and I was not able to profit much by this
opportunity to improve my own neglected education. As the morning wore
on the parrot-like monologues shifted to elementary chemistry.

The master had gone entirely through the alphabet of names and now
called again the apt Anton for a more brilliant demonstration of his
system of teaching. "Since we have with us a chemist who has achieved
powers of original thought, I will permit you, Anton, to demonstrate
that even at the tender age of twelve you are capable of
original thought."

Anton rose gravely and stood at attention. "And what shall I think
about?" he asked.

"About anything you like," responded the liberal minded schoolmaster,
"provided it is limited to your permitted field of psychic activity."

Anton tilted back his head and gazed raptly at a portrait of the Mighty
William. "I think," he said, "that the water molecule is made of two
atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen."

A number of the boys shook their heads in disapproval, evidently
recognizing the thought as not being original, but the teacher waited in
respectful silence for the founts of originality to burst forth in
Anton's mind.

"And I think," continued Anton, "that if the water molecule were made of
four atoms of nitrogen and one of oxygen, it would be a great economy,
for after we had bathed in the water we could evaporate it and make air
and breath it, and after we had breathed it we could condense it again
and use it to drink--"

"But that would be unsanitary," piped a voice from the back of the room.

To this interruption Anton, without taking his gaze from the face of
William, replied, "Of course it would if we didn't sterilize it, but I
was coming to that. We would sterilize it each time."

The master now designated two boys to take to the guardhouse of the
school the lad who had spoken without permission. He then produced a red
cardboard cross adorned with the imperial eagle and crossed test-tubes
of the chemists' insignia and I was honoured by being asked to decorate
Anton for his brilliant exploit in original thought.

"Our intellectual work of the day is over," resumed the master, "but in
honour of our guest we will have, a day in advance, our weekly exercises
in emotion. Heinrich, you may recite for us the category of emotions."

"The permitted emotions," said Heinrich, "are: First, anger, which we
should feel when a weak enemy offends us. Second, hate, which is a
higher form of anger, which we should feel when a powerful enemy offends
us. Third, sadness, which we should feel when we suffer. Fourth, mirth,
which we should feel when our enemy suffers. Fifth, courage, which we
feel at all times because we believe in our strength. Sixth, humility,
which we should feel only before our superiors. Seventh, and greatest,
is pride, which we should feel at all times because we are Germans.

"The forbidden emotions are very numerous. The chief ones which we must
guard against are: First, pity, which is a sadness when our enemy
suffers; to feel this is exceedingly wicked. Second, envy, which is a
feeling that some one else is better than we are, which we must not feel
at all because it is destructive of pride. Third, fear, which is a lack
of courage. Fourth, love, which is a confession of weakness, and is
permissible only to women and dogs."

"Very good," said the master, "I will now grant you permission to feel
some of the permitted emotions. We will first conduct a chemical
experiment. I have in this bottle a dangerous explosive and as I
drop in this pellet it may explode and kill us all, but you must
show courage and not fear." He held the pellet above the mouth of
the bottle, but his eyes were on his pupils. As he dropped the
pellet into the bottle, he knocked over with his foot a slab
of concrete, which fell to the floor with a resounding crash. A
few of the boys jumped in their seats, and the master gravely marked
them as deficient in courage.

"You now imagine that you are adult chemists and that the enemy has
produced a new form of gas bomb, a gas against which we have no
protection. They are dropping the gas bombs into our ventilating shafts
and are killing our soldiers in the mines. You hate the enemy--hate
hard--make your faces black with hate and rage. Adolph, you are
expressing mere anger. There, that is better. You never can be a good
German until you learn to hate.

"And now we will have a permitted emotion that you all enjoy; the
privilege to feel mirth is a thing for which you should be grateful.

"An enemy came flying over Berlin--and this is a true story. I can
remember when it happened. The roof guard shot at him and winged his
plane, and he came down in his parachute, which missed the roof of the
city and fell to the earth outside the walls but within the first ring
of the ray defences. He knew that he could not pass beyond this and he
wandered about for many days within range of the glasses of the roof
guards. When he was nearly starved he came near the wall and waved his
white kerchief, which meant he wished to surrender and be taken into
the city."

At this point one of the boys tittered, and the master stopped his story
long enough to mark a credit for this first laugh.

"As the enemy aviator continued to walk about waving his cowardly flag
another enemy plane saw him and let down a line, but the roof guards
shelled and destroyed the plane. Then other planes came and attempted to
pick up the man with lines. In all seven planes were destroyed in
attempting to rescue one man. It was very foolish and very comical. At
last the eighth plane came and succeeded in reaching the man a line
without being winged. The roof batteries shot at the plane in vain--then
the roof gunners became filled with good German hate, and one of them
aimed, not at the plane, but at the man swinging on the unstable wire
line two thousand metres beneath. The shell exploded so near that the
man disappeared as by magic, and the plane flew off with the empty
dangling line."

As the story was finished the boys who had listened with varying degrees
of mechanical smiles now broke out into a chorus of raucous laughter. It
was a forced unnatural laughter such as one hears from a bad actor
attempting to express mirth he does not feel.

When the boys had ceased their crude guffaws the master asked, "Why did
you laugh?"

"Because," answered Conrad, "the enemy were so stupid as to waste seven
planes trying to save one man."

"That is fine," said the master; "we should always laugh when our enemy
is stupid, because then he suffers without knowing why he suffers. If
the enemy were not stupid they would cease fighting and permit us to
rule them and breed the stupidity out of them, as it has been bred out
of the Germans by our good old God and the divine mind of the House of
Hohenzollern."

The boys were now dismissed for a recess and went into the gymnasium to
play leap frog. But the sad-eyed Bruno promptly returned and saluted.

"You may speak," said the master.

"I wish, Herr Teacher," said Bruno, "to petition you for permission to
fight with Conrad."

"But you must not begin a fight," admonished the master, "unless you can
attach to your opponent the odium of causing the strife."

"But he did cause the odium," said Bruno; "he stuck it into my leg with
a pin while I was reciting. The Herr Father saw him do it, "--and the
boy turned his eyes towards me in sad and serious appeal.

The schoolmaster glanced at me inquiringly and I corroborated the lad's
accusation.

"Then," said the master, "you have a _casus belli_ that is actually
true, and if you can make Conrad admit his guilt I will exchange your
mark for his."

Bruno saluted again and started to leave. Then he turned back and said,
"But Conrad is two kilograms heavier than I am, and he may not
admit it."

"Then," said the teacher, "you must know that I cannot exchange the
marks, for victory in a fight compensates for the fault that caused it.
But if you wish I will change the marks now, but then you cannot fight."

"But I wish to fight," said Bruno, "and so does Conrad. We arranged it
before recitation that he was to stick me with the pin."

"Such diplomacy!" exulted the master when the lad had gone, "and to
think that they can only be chemists!"

~3~

As the evening hour drew near which I had set for my call on the first
of the potential mothers assigned me by the Eugenic Staff, I re-read the
rules for my conduct:

"On the occasion of this visit you must wear a full dress uniform,
including all orders, decorations and badges of rank and service to
which you are entitled. This is very important and you should call
attention thereto and explain the full dignity and importance of your
rank and decorations.

"When you call you will first present the card of authorization. You
will then present your identification folder and extol the worth and
character of your pedigree.

"Then you will ask to see the pedigree of the woman, and will not fail
to comment favourably thereon. If she be already a mother you will
inquire in regard to her children. If she be not a mother, you will
supplicate her to speak of her potential children. You will extol the
virtue of her offspring--or her visions thereof,--and will not fail to
speak favourably of their promise of becoming great chemists whose
service will redound to the honour of the German race and the
Royal House.

"After the above mentioned matters have been properly spoken of, you may
compliment the mother upon her own intelligence and fitness as a mother
of scientists. But you will refrain from all reference to her beauty of
person, lest her thoughts be diverted from her higher purpose to matters
of personal amours.

"You will not prolong your call beyond the hours consistent with dignity
and propriety, nor permit the mother to perceive your disposition
toward her."

Surely nothing in such formal procedure could be incompatible with my
own ideals of propriety. Taking with me my card of authorization bearing
the name "Frau Karoline, daughter of Ernest Pfeiffer, Director of the
Perfume Works," I now ventured to the Level of Maternity.

Countless women passed me as I walked along. They were erect of form and
plain of feature, with expressions devoid of either intelligence or
passion. Garbed in formless robes of sombre grey, like saints
of song and story, they went their way with solemn resignation. Some of
them led small children by the hand; others pushed perambulators
containing white robed infants being taken to or from the nurseries for
their scheduled stays in the mothers' individual apartments.

The actions of the mothers were as methodical as well trained nurses. In
their faces was the cold, pallid light of the mother love of the
madonnas of art, uncontaminated by the fretful excitement of the mother
love in a freer and more uncertain world.

Even the children seemed wooden cherubim. They were physically healthy
beyond all blemish, but they cooed and smiled in a subdued manner.
Already the ever present "_verboten_" of an ordered life seemed to have
crept into the small souls and repressed the instincts of anarchy and
the aspirations of individualism. As I walked among these madonnas of
science and their angelic offspring, I felt as I imagined a man of
earthly passions would feel if suddenly loosed in a mediaeval and
orthodox heaven; for everything about me breathed peace, goodness,
and coldness.

At the door of her apartment Frau Karoline greeted me with formal
gravity. She was a young woman of twenty years, with a high forehead and
piercing eyes. Her face was mobile but her manner possessed the dignity
of the matron assured of her importance in the world. Her only child was
at the nursery at the time, in accordance with the rules of the level
that forbids a man to see his step-children. But a large photograph,
aided by Frau Karoline's fulsome description and eulogies, gave me a
very clear picture of the high order of the young chemist's intelligence
though that worthy had but recently passed his first birthday.

The necessary matters of the inspection of pedigrees and the signing of
my card of authorization had been conducted by the young mother with the
cool self-possession of a well disciplined school-mistress. Her attitude
and manner revealed the thoroughness of her education and training for
her duties and functions in life. And yet, though she relieved me so
skilfully of what I feared would be an embarrassing situation, I
conceived an intense dislike for this most exemplary young mother, for
she made me feel that a man was a most useless and insignificant
creature to be tolerated as a necessary evil in this maternal world.

"Surely," said Frau Karoline, as I returned her pedigree, "you could not
do better for your first born child than to honour me with his
motherhood. Not only is my pedigree of the purest of chemical lines,
reaching back to the establishment of the eugenic control, but I myself
have taken the highest honours in the training for motherhood."

"Yes," I acknowledged, "you seem very well trained."

"I am particularly well versed," she continued, "in maternal psychology;
and I have successfully cultivated calmness. In the final tests before
my confirmation for maternity I was found to be entirely free from
erotic and sentimental emotions."

"But," I ventured, "is not maternal love a sentimental emotion?"

"By no means," replied Frau Karoline. "Maternal love of the highest
order, such as I possess, is purely intellectual; it recognizes only the
passions for the greatness of race and the glory of the Royal House.
Such love must be born of the intellect; that is why we women of the
scientific group are the best of all mothers. Thus, were I not wholly
free from weak sentimentality, I might desire that my second child be
sired by the father of my first, but the Eugenic Office has determined
that I would bear a stronger child from a younger father, therefore I
acquiesced to their change of assignment without emotion, as becomes a
proper mother of our well bred race. My first child is extremely
intellectual but he is not quite perfect physically, and a mother such
as I should bear only perfect children. That alone is the supreme purpose
of motherhood. Do you not see that I am fitted for perfect motherhood?"

"Yes," I replied, as I recalled that my instructions were to pay
compliments, "you seem to be a perfect mother."

But the cold and logical perfection of Frau Karoline dampened my
curiosity and oppressed my spirit of adventure, and I closed the
interview with all possible speed and fled headlong to the nearest
elevator that would carry me from the level.

~4~

In my first experience I had suffered nothing worse than an embarrassing
half hour, so, with more confidence I pressed the bell the second
evening, at the apartment of Frau Augusta, daughter of Gustave Schnorr,
Authority on Synthetic Nicotine.

Frau Augusta was a woman of thirty-five. She was well-preserved, more
handsome and less coldly inhuman than the younger woman.

"We will get the formalities over since you have been told they are
necessary," said Frau Augusta, as she reached for my card and folder
and, at the same time, handing me her own pedigree.

Peering over the top of the chart that recorded the antecedents of
Gustave Schnorr, I saw his daughter going through my own folder with the
business-like dispatch of a society dowager examining the "character" of
a new housemaid.

"Ah, yes," she said, raising her brows. "I thought I knew the family.
Your Uncle Otto was my second mate. He is the father of my third son and
my twin girls. I have no more promising children. Have you ever met him?
He is in the aluminum tempering laboratories."

I could only stare stupidly, struck dumb with embarrassment.

"No, I suppose not," went on Frau Augusta, "it is hardly to be expected
since you have upwards of a hundred uncles." She arose and, going toward
a shelf where half a dozen pictures of half a dozen men reposed in an
orderly row, took the second one of the group and handed it to me.

"He is a fine man," she said, with a very full degree of pride for a
past and partial possession. "I fear the Staff erred in transferring
him, but then of course the twin girls were most unexpected and
unfortunate since the Armstadt line is supposed to sire seventy-five per
cent, male offspring.

"What do you think? Isn't the Eugenic Office a little unfair at times?
My fifth man thought so. He said it was a case of politics. I don't
know. I thought politics was something ancient that they had in old
books like churches and families."

"I am sure I do not know," I murmured, as I fumbled the portrait of my
putative uncle.

"Of course," continued the voluble Fran Augusta, "you must not think I
am criticizing the authorities. It is all very necessary. And for the
most part I think they have done very well by me. My ten children have
six fathers. All of them but the first were men of most gracious manner
and superior intelligence. The first one had his paternity right
revoked, so I feel satisfied on that score, even if his son is not
gifted--and yet the boy has beautiful hair--I think he would make an
excellent violinist. But then perhaps he wouldn't have been able to
play, so maybe it is all right, though I would think music would be more
easily learned than chemistry. But then since I cannot read either I
ought not to judge. I will show you his picture. I may as well show you
all their pictures. I don't see why you elected fathers should not see
our children--but then I suppose it might produce quarrels. Some women
are so foolish and insist on talking about the children they have
already borne in a way that makes a man feel that his own children could
never come up to them. Now I never do that. Why should one? The future
is always more interesting than the past. I haven't a single child that
has not won the porcelain cross for obedience. Even my youngest--he is
only fourteen months--obeys as if he were a full grown man. Some say
mental and physical excellence are not correlated--but that is a
prejudice because of those great labour beasts. There isn't one of my
children that has fallen below the minimum growth standards, except my
third daughter, and her father was undersized, so it is no fault
of mine."

As the loquacious mother chattered on, she produced an album, through
which I now turned, inspecting the annual photographs of her blond
brood, each of which was labelled with the statistics of physical growth
and the tests of psychic development.

Strive as I might I could think of no comments to make, but the mother
came to the rescue. Unfastening the binding of the loose leaf album she
hastily shuffled the sheets and brought into an orderly array on the
table before me ten photographs all taken at the age of one year. "That
is the only fair way to view them," she said, "for of course one cannot
compare the picture of a boy of fifteen with an infant of one year. But
at an equal age the comparison is fair to all and now you can surely
tell me which is the most intelligent."

I gazed hopelessly at the infantile portraits which, despite their
varied paternity, looked as alike as a row of peas in a pod.

"Oh, well," said Frau Augusta, "after all is it fair to ask you, since
the twins are your cousins?"

Desperately I wondered which were the twins.

"They resemble you quite remarkably, don't you think so? Except that
your hair is quite dark for an Armstadt." Frau Augusta turned and
glanced furtively at my identification folder. "Of course! your mother.
I had almost forgotten who your mother was, but now I remember, she had
most remarkably dark hair. It will probably prove a dominant
characteristic and your children will also be dark haired. Now I should
like that by way of a change."

I became alarmed at this turn of the conversation toward the more
specific function of my visit, and resolved to make my exit with all
possible speed "consistent with dignity and propriety."

Meanwhile, as she reassembled the scattered sheets of the portrait
album, the official mother chattered on concerning her children's
attributes, while I shifted uneasily in my chair and looked about the
room for my hat--forgetting in my embarrassment that I was dwelling in a
sunless, rainless city and possessed no hat.

At last there was a lull in the monologue and I arose and said I must be
going.

Frau Augusta looked pained and I recalled that I had not yet
complimented her upon her intelligence and fitness to be the mother of
coming generations of chemical scientists, but I stubbornly resolved not
to resume my seat.

"You are young," said Frau Augusta, who had risen and shifted her
position till she stood between me and the door. "Surely you have not
yet made many calls on the maternity level." Then she sighed, "I do not
see why they assign a man only three names to select from. Surely they
could be more liberal." She paused and her face hardened. "And to think
that you men are permitted to call as often as you like upon those
degenerate hussies who have been forbidden the sacred duties of
motherhood. It is a very wicked institution, that level of lust--some
day we women--we mothers of Berlin--will rise in our wrath and see that
they are banished to the mines, for they produce nothing but sin and
misery in this man-made world."

"Yes," I said, "the system is very wrong, but--"

"But the authorities, you need not say it, I have heard it all before,
the authorities, always the authorities. Why should men always be the
authorities? Why do we mothers of Berlin have no rights? Why are we not
consulted in these matters? Why must we always submit?"

Then suddenly, and very much to my surprise, she placed her hands upon
my shoulders and said hoarsely: "Tell me about the Free Level. Are the
women there more beautiful than I?"

"No," I said, "very few of them are beautiful, and those of the labour
groups are most gross and stupid."

"Then why," wailed Frau Augusta, "was I not allowed to go? Why was I
penned up here and made to bear children when others revel in the
delights of love and song and laughter?"

"But," I said, shocked at this unexpected revelation of character,
"yours is the more honourable, more virtuous life. You were chosen for
motherhood because you are a woman of superior intelligence."

"It's a lie," cried Frau Augusta. "I have no intelligence. I want none.
But I am as beautiful as they. But no, they would not let me go. They
penned me up here with these saintly mothers and these angelic children.
Children, children everywhere, millions and millions of them, and not a
man but doctors, and you elected fathers who are sent here to bring us
pain and sorrow. You say nothing of love--your eyes are cold. The last
one said he loved me--the brute! He came but thrice, when my child was
born he sent me a flower. But that is the official rule. And I hate him,
and hate his child that has his lying eyes."

The distraught woman covered her face with her hands and burst into
violent weeping.

When she had ceased her sobs I tried to explain to her the philosophy of
contentment with life's lot. I told her of the seamy side of the gown
that cloaks licentiousness and of the sorrows and bitterness of the
ashes of burned out love. With the most iridescent words at my command I
painted for her the halo of the madonna's glory, and translated for her
the English verse that informs us that there is not a flower in any
land, nor a pearl in any sea, that is as beautiful and lovely as any
child on any mother's knee.

But I do not think I altogether consoled Frau Augusta for my German
vocabulary was essentially scientific, not poetic. But I made a noble
effort and when I left her I felt very much the preacher, for the
function of the preacher, not unlike death, is to make us cling to those
ills we have when we would fly to others that we know not of.

~5~

There remained but one card unsigned of the three given me.

Frau Matilda, daughter of Siegfried Oberwinder, Analine Analyst, was
registered as eighteen and evidently an inexperienced mother-elect as I
was a father-elect. The nature of the man is to hold the virgin above
the madonna, and in starting on my third journey to the maternity level,
I found hitherto inexperienced feelings tugging at my heartstrings and
resolved that whatever she might be, I would be dignified and formal yet
most courteous and kind.

My ring was answered by a slender, frightened girl. She was so shy that
she could only nod for me to enter. I offered my card and folder,
smiling to reassure her, but she retreated precipitously into a far
corner and sat staring at me beseechingly with big grey eyes that seemed
the only striking feature of her small pinched face.

"I am sorry if I frighten you," I said, "but of course you know that I
am sent by the eugenic authorities. I will not detain you long. All that
is really necessary is for you to sign this card."

She timidly signed the card and returned it to the corner of the table.

I felt extremely sorry for the fluttering creature; and, knowing that I
could not alter her lot, I sought to speak words of encouragement. "If
you find it hard now," I said, "it is only because you are young and a
stranger to life, but you will be recompensed when you know the joys of
motherhood."

At my words a look of consecrated purpose glowed in the girl's white
face. "Oh, yes," she said eagerly. "I wish very much to be a mother. I
have studied so hard to learn. I wish only to give myself to the holy
duties of maternity. But I am so afraid."

"But you need not be afraid of me," I said. "This is only a formal call
which I have made because the Eugenic Staff ordered it so. But it seems
to me that some better plan might be made for these meetings. Some
social life might be arranged so that you would become acquainted with
the men who are to be the fathers of your children under less
embarrassing circumstances."

"I try so hard not to be afraid of men, for I know they are necessary to
eugenics."

"Yes," I said dryly, "I suppose they are, though I think I would prefer
to put it that the love of man and woman is necessary to parenthood."

"Oh, no," she said in a frightened voice, "not that, that is very
wicked."

"So you were taught that you should not love men? No wonder you are
afraid of them."

"I was taught to respect men for they are the fathers of children," she
replied.

"Then," I asked, deciding to probe the philosophy of the education for
maternity, "why are not the fathers permitted to enjoy their fatherhood
and live with the mother and the children?"

Frau Matilda now gazed at me with open-mouthed astonishment. "What a
beautiful idea!" she exclaimed with rapture.

"Yes, I rather like it myself--the family--"

"The family!" cried the girl in horror.

"That is what we were talking about."

"But the family is forbidden. It is very wrong, very uneugenic. You must
be a wicked man to speak to me of that."

"You have been taught some very foolish ideas," I replied.

"How dare you!" she cried, in alarm. "I have been taught what is right,
and I want to do what is right and loyal. I passed all my examinations.
I am a good mother-elect, and you say these forbidden things to me. You
talk of love and families. You insult me. And if you select me, I
shall--I shall claim exemption,--" and with that she rose and darted
through the inner door.

I waited for a time and then gently approached the door, which I saw had
swung to with springs and had neither latch nor lock. My gentle rap upon
the hollow panel was answered by a muffled sob. I realized the
hopelessness of further words and silently turned from the door and left
the apartment.

The streets of the level were almost deserted for the curfew had rung
and the lights glowed dim as in a hospital ward at night. I hurried
silently along, shut in by enclosing walls and the lowering ceiling of
the street. From everywhere I seemed to feel upon me the beseeching,
haunting grey eyes of Frau Matilda. My soul was troubled, for it seemed
to stagger beneath the burden of its realization of a lost humanity. And
with me walked grey shadows of other men, felt-footed through the gloom,
and they walked hurriedly as men fleeing from a house of death.

~6~

My next duty as a German father-elect was to report to the Eugenic
Office. There at least I could deal with men; and there I went, nursing
rebellion yet trying my utmost to appear outwardly calm.

To the clerk I offered my three signed cards by way of introduction.

"And which do you select?" asked the oldish man over his rimless
glasses.

"None."

"Ah, but you must."

"But what if I refuse to do so?"

"That is most unusual."

"But does it ever happen?"

"Well, yes," admitted the clerk, "but only by Petition Extraordinary to
the Chief of the Staff. But it is most unusual, and if he refuses to
grant it you may be dishonoured even to the extent of having your
election to paternity suspended, may be even permanently cancelled."

"You mean"--I stammered.

"Exactly--you refuse to accept any one of the three women when all are
most scientifically selected for you. Does it not throw some doubts upon
your own psychic fitness for mating at all? If I may suggest, Herr
Colonel--it would be wiser for you to select some one of the three--you
have yet plenty of time."

"No," I said, trying to hide my elation. "I will not do so. I will make
the Petition Extraordinary to your chief."

"Now?" stammered the clerk.

"Yes, now; how do I go about it?"

"You must first consult the Investigator."

After a few formalities I was conducted to that official.

"You refuse to make selection?" inquired the Investigator.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because," I replied, "I am engaged upon some chemical research of most
unusual nature--"

"Yes," nodded the Investigator, "I have just looked that up. The more
reason you should be honoured with paternity."

"Perhaps," I said, "you are not informed of the grave importance of the
research. If you will consult Herr von Uhl of the Chemical Staff--"

"Entirely unnecessary," he retorted; "paternity is also important.
Besides it takes but little time. No more than you need for recreation."

"But I do not find it recreation. I have not been able to concentrate my
mind on my work since I received notice of my election to paternity."

"But you were warned against this," he said; "you have no right to
permit the development of disturbing romantic emotions. They may be bad
for your work, but they are worse for eugenics. So, if you have made
romantic love to the mothers of Berlin, your case must be investigated."

"But I have not."

"Then why has this disturbed you?"

"Because," I replied, "this system of scientific paternity offends my
instincts."

The investigator ogled me craftily. "What system would you prefer
instead?" he asked.

I saw he was trying to trap me into disloyal admissions. "I have nothing
to propose," I stated. "I only know that I find the paternity system
offensive to me, and that the position I am placed in incapacitates me
for my work."

The investigator made some notes on a pad.

"That is all for the present," he said. "I will refer your case to the
Chief."

Two days later I received an order to report at once to Dr. Ludwig
Zimmern, Chief of the Eugenic Staff.

The Chief, with whom I was soon cloistered, was a man of about sixty
years. His face revealed a greater degree of intelligence than I had yet
observed among the Germans, nor was his demeanour that of haughty
officiousness, for a kindly warmth glowed in his soft dark eyes.

"I have a report here," said Dr. Zimmern, "from my Investigator. He
recommends that your rights of paternity be revoked on the grounds that
he believes yours to be a case of atavistic radicalism. In short he
thinks you are rebellious by instinct, and that you are therefore unsafe
to father the coming generation. It is part of the function of this
office to breed the rebellious instinct out of the German race. What
have you to say in answer to these charges?"

"I do not want to seem rebellious," I stammered, "but I wish to be
relieved of this duty."

"Very well," said Zimmern, "you may be relieved. If you have no
objection I will sign the recommendation as it stands."

Surely, I thought, this man does not seem very bitter toward my
traitorous instincts.

Zimmern smiled and eyed me curiously. "You know," he said, "that to
possess a thought and to speak of it indiscreetly are two
different things."

"Certainly," I replied, emboldened by his words. "A man cannot do
original work in science if he possesses a mind that never thinks
contrary to the established order of things."

The clerks in the outer office must have thought my case a grievous one
for I was closeted with their chief for nearly an hour. Though our
conversation was vague and guarded, I knew that I had discovered in Dr.
Ludwig Zimmern, Chief of the Eugenic Staff, a man guilty himself of the
very crime of possessing rebellious instincts for which he had decided
me unfit to sire German children. And when I finally took my leave I
carried with me his private card and an invitation to call at his
apartment to continue our conversation.

~7~

In the weeks that followed, my acquaintance with the Chief of the
Eugenic Staff ripened rapidly into a warm friendship. The frank manner
in which he revealed his dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in
Germany pleased me greatly. Zimmern was interested in my chemical
researches and quickly comprehended their importance.

"I know so little of chemistry," he deplored, "yet on it our whole life
hangs. That is why I am so glad of an opportunity to talk to you. I do
not approve of so much ignorance of each other's work on the part of our
scientists. Our old university system was better. Then a scientist in
any field knew something of the science in all fields. But now we are
specialized from childhood. Take, for example, yourself. You are at work
on a great problem by which all of our labour stands to be undone if you
chemists do not solve it, and yet you do not understand how we will all
be undone. I think you should know more of what it means, then you will
work better. Is it not so?"

"Perhaps," I said, "but I have little time. I am working too hard now."

"Then," said Zimmern, "you should spend more time in pleasure on the
Free Level. Two days ago I conferred with the Emperor's Advisory Staff,
and I learned that grave changes are threatened. That is one reason I am
so interested in this protium on which you chemists are working. If you
do not solve this problem and replenish the food supply, the Emperor has
decided that the whole Free Level with its five million women must be
abolished. His Majesty will have no half-way measures. He is afraid to
take part of these women away, lest the intellectual workers rebel like
the labourers did in the last century when their women were taken away
piecemeal."

"But what will His Majesty do with these five million women?" I
inquired, eagerly desirous to learn more.

"Do? What can he do with the women?" exclaimed Dr. Zimmern in a low
pitched but vibrant voice. "He thinks he will make workers of them. He
does not seem to appreciate how specialized they are for pleasure. He
will make machine tenders of them to relieve the workmen, who are to be
made soldiers. He would make surface soldiers out of these blind moles
of the earth, put amber glasses on them and train them to run on the
open ground and carry the war again into the sunlight. It is folly,
sheer folly, and madness. His Majesty, I fear, reads too much of old
books. He always was historically inclined."

On a later occasion Zimmern gave me the broad outlines of the history of
German Eugenics.

"Our science of applied Eugenics," he said, "began during the Second
World War. Our scientists had long known that the same laws of heredity
by which plants and animals had been bred held true with man, but they
had been afraid to apply those laws to man because the religion of that
day taught that men had souls and that human life was something too
sacred to be supervised by science. But William III was a very fearless
man, and he called the scientists together and asked them to outline a
plan for the perfection of the German race.

"At first all they advocated was that paternity be restricted to the
superior men. This broke up the old-fashioned family where every man
chose his own wife and sired as many children as he liked. There were
great mutterings about that, and if we had not been at war, there would
have been rebellion. The Emperor told the people it was a military
necessity. The death toll of war then was great and there was urgent
need to increase the birth rate, so the people submitted and women soon
ceased to complain because they could no longer have individual
husbands. The children were supported by the state, and if they had
legitimate fathers of the approved class they were left in the mothers'
care. As all women who were normal and healthy were encouraged to bear
children, there was a great increase in the birth rate, which came near
resulting in the destruction of the race by starvation.

"As soon as a sufficient number of the older generation that had
believed in the religious significance of the family and marriage system
had died out, the ambitious eugenists set about to make other reforms.
The birth rate was cut down by restricting the privilege of motherhood
to a selected class of women. The other women were instructed in the
arts of pleasing man and avoiding maternity, and that is where we have
the origin of our free women. In those days they were free to associate
with men of all classes. Indeed any other plan would at first have been
impossible.

"A second fault was that the superior men for whom paternity was
permitted were selected from the official and intellectual classes. The
result was that the quality of the labourers deteriorated. So two
strains were established, the one for the production of the intellectual
workers, and the other for producing manual workers. From time to time
this specialization has increased until now we have as many strains of
inheritance as there are groups of useful characteristics known to be
hereditary.

"We have produced some effects," mused Zimmern, "which were not
anticipated, and which have been calling forth considerable criticism.
His Majesty sends me memorandums nearly every year, after he reviews the
maternity levels, insisting that the feminine beauty of the race is, as
a whole, deteriorating. And yet this is logical enough. With the
exception of our small actor-model strain, the characteristics for which
we breed have only the most incidental relation to feminine beauty. The
type of the labour female is, as you have seen, a buxom, fleshly beauty;
youth and full nutrition are essential to its display, and it soon fades.
In the scientific strains it seems that the power of original thought
correlates with a feminine type that is certainly not beautiful.
Doubtless not understanding this you may have felt that you were
discriminated against in your assignment. But the clerical mind
with its passion for monotonous repetition of petty mental processes
seems to correlate with the most exquisite and refined feminine
features. Those scintillating beauties on the Free Level who have
ever at their beck our wisest men are from our clerical strain,--but
of course they are only the rejects. It is unfortunate that you cannot
see the more privileged specimens in the clerical maternity level.

"But I digress to that which is of no consequence. The beauty of women is
unimportant but the number of women is very important. When some women
were specialized for motherhood then there were surplus women. At first
they made workers of them. The war was then conducted on a larger scale
than now. We had not yet fully specialized the soldier class. All the
young men went to war; and, when they came back and went to work, they
became bitterly jealous of the women workers and made an outcry that
those who could not fight should not work. The men workers drove the women
from industry, hoping thereby each to possess a mistress. As a result the
great number of unproductive women was a drain upon the state. All sorts
of schemes were proposed to reduce the number of female births but most of
these were unscientific. In studying the records it was found that the
offspring of certain men were predominantly males. By applying this
principle of selection we have, with successive generations, been able to
reduce the proportion of female births to less than half the old rate.

"But the sexual impulse of the labourers made them restless and
rebellious, and the support of the free women for these millions of
workers was a great economic waste. When animals had been bred to large
size and great strength their sexuality had decreased, while their power
as beasts of burden increased. The same principle applied to man has
resulted in more docile workers. By beginning with the soldiers and mine
workers, who were kept away from women, and by combining proper training
with the hereditary selection, we solved that problem and removed all
knowledge of women from the minds of the workmen."

"But how about paternity among the workers?" I asked.

"Those who are selected are removed to special isolated quarters. They
are told they are being taken to serve as His Majesty's body guard; and
they never go back to mingle with their fellows."

I then related for the doctor my conversation with the workman who asked
me about women.

"So," said Zimmern, "there has been a leak somewhere; knowledge is hard
to bottle. Still we have bottled most of it and the labourer accepts his
loveless lot. But it could not be done with the intellectual worker."

Dr. Zimmern smiled cynically. "At least," he added, "we don't propose to
admit that it can be done. And that, Col. Armstadt, is what I was
remarking about the other evening. Unless you chemists can solve the
protium problem, Germany must cut her population swiftly, if we do not
starve out altogether. His Majesty's plan to turn the workmen into
soldiers and make workers of the free women will not solve it. It is too
serious for that. The Emperor's talk about the day being at hand is all
nonsense. He knows and we know that these mongrel herds, as he calls the
outside enemy, are not so degenerate.

"We may have improved the German stock in some ways by our scientific
breeding, but science cannot do much in six generations, and what we
have accomplished, I as a member of the Eugenist Staff, can assure you
has really been attained as much by training as by breeding, though the
breeding is given the credit. Our men are highly specialized, and once
outside the walls of Berlin they will find things so different that this
very specialization will prove a handicap. The mongrel peoples are more
adaptable. Our workmen and soldiers are large in physique, but dwarfed
of intellect. The enemy will beat us in open war, and, even if we should
be victorious in war, we could not rule them. Either we solve this food
business or we all turn soldiers and go out into the blinding sunlight
and die fighting."

I ventured as a wild remark: "At least, if we get outside there will be
plenty of women."

The older man looked at me with the superiority of age towards youth.
"Young man," he said, "you have not read history; you do not understand
this love and family doctrine; it exists in the outside world today just
as it did two centuries ago. The Germans in the days of the old surface
wars made too free with the enemy's women, and that is why they ran us
into cover here and penned us up. These mongrel people will fight for
their women when they will fight for nothing else. We have not bred all
the lust out of our workmen either. It is merely dormant. Once they are
loosed in the outer world they will not understand this thing and they
will again make free with the enemy's women, and then we shall all be
exterminated."

Dr. Zimmern got up and filled a pipe with synthetic tobacco and puffed
energetically as he walked about the room. "What do you say about this
protium ore?" he asked; "will you be able to solve the problem?"

"Yes," I said, "I think I shall."

"I hope so," replied my host, "and yet sometimes I do not care; somehow
I want this thing to come to an end. I want to see what is outside there.
I think, perhaps, I would like to fly.

"What troubles me is that I do not see how we can ever do it. We have
bred and trained our race into specialization and stupidity. We wouldn't
know how to go out and join this World State if they would let us."

Dr. Zimmern paced the room in silence for a time. "Do you know," he
said, "I should like to see a negro, a black man with kinky hair--it
must be queer."

"Yes," I answered, "there must be many queer things out there."



CHAPTER VI

IN WHICH I LEARN THAT COMPETITION IS STILL
THE LIFE OF THE OLDEST TRADE IN THE WORLD


~1~

When I told Dr. Zimmern that I should solve the problem of the increase
of the supply of protium I may have been guilty of speaking of hopes as
if they were certainties. My optimism was based on the discovery that
the exact chemical state of the protium in the ore was unknown, and that
it did not exist equally in all samples of the ore.

After some further months of labour I succeeded in determining the exact
chemical ingredients of the ore, and from this I worked rapidly toward a
new process of extraction that would greatly increase the total yield of
the precious element. But this fact I kept from my assistants whose work
I directed to futile researches while I worked alone after hours in
following up the lead I had discovered.

During the progress of this work I was not always in the laboratory. I
had become a not infrequent visitor to the Level of the Free Women. The
continuous carnival of amusement had an attraction for me, as it must
have had for any tired and lonely man. But it was not merely the lure of
sensuous pleasures that appealed to me, for I was also fascinated with
the deeper and more tragic aspect of life beneath the gaudy surface of
hectic joy.

Some generalities I had picked up from observation and chance
conversations. As a primary essential to life on the level I had quickly
learned that money was needed, and my check book was in frequent demand.
The bank provided an aluminum currency for the pettier needs of the
recreational life, but neither the checks nor the currency had had value
on other levels, since there all necessities were supplied without cost
and luxuries were unobtainable. This strange retention of money
circulation and general freedom of personal conduct exclusively on the
Free Level puzzled me. Thus I found that food and drink were here
available for a price, a seeming contradiction to the strict limitations
of the diet served me at my own quarters. At first it seemed I had
discovered a way to defeat that limitation--but there was the weigher to
be considered.

It was a queer ensemble, this life in the Black Utopia of Berlin, a
combination of a world of rigid mechanistic automatism in the regular
routine of living with rioting individual license in recreational
pleasure. The Free Level seemed some ancient Bagdad, some Bourbon Court,
some Monte Carlo set here, an oasis of flourishing vice in a desert of
sterile law-made, machine-executed efficiency and puritanically ordered
life. Aided by a hundred ingenious wheels and games of chance, men and
women gambled with the coin and credit of the level. These games were
presided over by crafty women whose years were too advanced to permit of
a more personal means of extracting a living from the grosser passions
of man. Some of these aged dames were, I found, quite highly regarded
and their establishments had become the rendezvous for many younger
women who by some arrangement that I could not fathom plied their
traffic in commercialized love under the guidance of these subtler women
who had graduated from the school of long experience in preying
upon man.

But only the more brilliant women could so establish themselves for the
years of their decline. There were others, many others, whose beauty had
faded without an increase in wit, and these seemed to be serving their
more fortunate sisters, both old and young, in various menial
capacities. It was a strange anachronism in this world where men's more
weighty affairs had been so perfectly socialized, to find woman
retaining, evidently by men's permission, the individualistic right to
exploit her weaker sister.

The thing confounded me, and yet I recalled the well known views of our
sociological historians who held that it was woman's greater
individualism that had checked the socialistic tendencies of the world.
Had the Germans then achieved and maintained their rigid socialistic
order by retaining this incongruous vestige of feminine commercialism as
a safety valve for the individualistic instincts of the race?

They called it the Free Level, and I marvelled at the nature of this
freedom. Freedom for licentiousness, for the getting and losing of money
at the wheels of fortune, freedom for temporary gluttony and the mild
intoxication of their flat, ill-flavoured synthetic beer. A tragic
symbol it seemed to me of the ignobility of man's nature, that he will
be a slave in all the loftier aspects of living if he can but retain his
freedom for his vices and corruptions. Had the Germans then, like the
villain of the moral play, a necessary part in the tragedy of man; did
they exist to show the other races of the earth the way they
should not go? But the philosophy of this conception collapsed when I
recalled that for more than a century the world had lost all sight of
the villain and yet had not in the least deteriorated from a lack of the
horrible example.

From these vaguer speculations concerning the Free Level of Berlin that
existed like a malformed vestigial organ in the body of that socialized
state, my mind came back to the more human, more personal side of the
problem thus presented me. I wanted to know more of the lives of these
women who maintained Germany's remnant of individualism.

To what extent, I asked myself, have the true instincts of womanhood and
the normal love of man and child been smothered out of the lives of
these girls? What secret rebellions are they nursing in their hearts? I
wondered, too, from what source they came, and why they were selected
for this life, for Zimmern had not adequately enlightened me on
this point.

Pondering thus on the secret workings in the hearts of these girls, I
sat one evening amid the sensuous beauty of the Hall of Flowers. I
marvelled at how little the Germans seemed to appreciate it, for it was
far less crowded than were the more tawdry places of revelry. Here
within glass encircling walls, preserved through centuries of artificial
existence, feeding from pots of synthetic soil and stimulated by
perpetual light, marvellous botanical creations flourished and flowered
in prodigal profusion. Ponderous warm-hued lilies floated on the
sprinkled surface of the fountain pool. Orchids, dangling from the metal
lattice, hung their sensuous blossoms in vapour-laden air. Luxurious
vines, climatized to this unreal world, clambered over cosy arbours, or
clung with gripping fingers to the mossy concrete pillars.

~2~

I was sitting thus in moody silence watching the play of the fountain,
when, through the mist, I saw the lonely figure of a girl standing in
the shadows of a viny bower. She was toying idly with the swaying
tendrils. Her hair was the unfaded gold of youth. Her pale dress of
silvery grey, unmarred by any clash of colour, hung closely about a form
of wraith-like slenderness.

I arose and walked slowly toward her. As I approached she turned toward
me a face of flawless girlish beauty, and then as quickly turned away as
if seeking a means of escape.

"I did not mean to intrude," I said.

She did not answer, but when I turned to go, to my surprise, she stepped
forward and walked at my side.

"Why do you come here alone?" she asked shyly, lifting a pensive
questioning face.

"Because I am tired of all this tawdry noise. But you," I said, "surely
you are not tired of it? You cannot have been here long."

"No," she replied, "I have not. Only thirty days"; and her blue eyes
gleamed with childish pride.

"And that is why you seem so different from them all?"

Timidly she placed her hand upon my arm. "So you," she said gratefully,
"you understand that I am not like them-that is, not yet."

"You do not act like them," I replied, "and what is more, you act as if
you did not want to be like them. It surely cannot be merely that you
are new here. The other girls when they come seem so eager for this
life, to which they have long been trained. Were you not trained for
it also?"

"Yes," she admitted, "they tried to train me for it, but they could not
kill my artist's soul, for I was not like these others, born of a strain
wherein women can only be mothers, or, if rejected for that, come here.
I was born to be a musician, a group where women may be something more
than mere females."

"Then why are you here?" I asked.

"Because," she faltered, "my voice was imperfect. I have, you see, the
soul of an artist but lack the physical means to give that soul
expression. And so they transferred me to the school for free women,
where I have been courted by the young men of the Royal House. But of
course you understand all that."

"Yes," I said, "I know something of it; but my work has always so
absorbed me that I have not had time to think of these matters. In fact,
I come to the Free Level much less than most men."

For a moment, it seemed, her eyes hardened in cunning suspicion, but as
I returned her intent gaze I could fathom only the doubts and fears of
childish innocence.

"Please let us sit down," I said; "it is so beautiful here; and then
tell me all about yourself, how you have lived your childhood, and what
your problems are. It may be that I can help you."

"There is not much to tell," she sighed, as she seated herself beside
me. "I was only eight years old when the musical examiners condemned my
voice and so I do not remember much about the music school. In the other
school where they train girls for the life on the Free Level, they
taught us dancing, and how to be beautiful, and always they told us that
we must learn these things so that the men would love us. But the only
men we ever saw were the doctors. They were always old and serious and I
could not understand how I could ever love men. But our teachers would
tell us that the other men would be different. They would be handsome
and young and would dance with us and bring us fine presents. If we were
pleasing in their sight they would take us away, and we should each have
an apartment of our own, and many dresses with beautiful colours, and
there would be a whole level full of wonderful things and we could go
about as we pleased, and dance and feast and all life would be love and
joy and laughter.

"Then, on the 'Great Day,' when we had our first individual dresses--for
before we had always worn uniforms--the men came. They were young
military officers and members of the Royal House who are permitted to
select girls for their own exclusive love. We were all very shy at
first, but many of the girls made friends with the men and some of them
went away that first day. And after that the men came as often as they
liked and I learned to dance with them, and they made love to me and
told me I was very beautiful. Yet somehow I did not want to go with
them. We had been told that we would love the men who loved us. I don't
know why, but I didn't love any of them. And so the two years passed and
they told me I must come here alone. And so here I am."

"And now that you are here," I said, "have you not, among all these men
found one that you could love?"

"No," she said, with a tremor in her voice, "but they say I must."

"And how," I asked, "do they enforce that rule? Does any one require
you--to accept the men?"

"Yes," she replied. "I must do that--or starve."

"And how do you live now?" I asked.

"They gave me money when I came here, a hundred marks. And they make me
pay to eat and when my money is gone I cannot eat unless I get more. And
the men have all the money, and they pay. They have offered to pay me,
but I refused to take their checks, and they think me stupid."

The child-like explanation of her lot touched the strings of my heart.
"And how long," I asked, "is this money that is given you when you come
here supposed to last?"

"Not more than twenty days," she answered.

"But you," I said, "have been here thirty days!"

She looked at me and smiled proudly. "But I," she said, "only eat one
meal a day. Do you not see how thin I am?"

The realization that any one in this scientifically fed city could be
hungry was to me appalling. Yet here was a girl living amidst luxurious
beauty, upon whom society was using the old argument of hunger to force
her acceptance of the love of man.

I rose and held out my hand. "You shall eat again today," I said.

"I would rather not," she demurred. "I have not yet accepted favours
from any man."

"But you must. You are hungry," I protested. "The problem of your
existence here cannot be put off much longer. We will go eat and then we
will try and find some solution."

Without further objection she walked with me. We found a secluded booth
in a dining hall. I ordered the best dinner that Berlin had to offer.

During the intervals of silence in our rather halting dinner
conversation, I wrestled with the situation. I had desired to gain
insight into the lives of these girls. Yet now that the opportunity was
presented I did not altogether relish the rôle in which it placed me.
The apparent innocence of the confiding girl seemed to open an easy way
for a personal conquest--and yet, perhaps because it was so obvious and
easy, I rebelled at the unfairness of it. To rescue her, to aid her to
escape--in a free world one might have considered these more obvious
moves, but here there was no place for her to escape to, no higher
social justice to which appeal could be made. Either I must accept her
as a personal responsibility, with what that might involve, or desert
her to her fate. Both seemed cowardly--yet such were the horns of the
dilemma and a choice must be made. Here at least was an opportunity to
make use of the funds that lay in the bank to the credit of the name I
bore, and for which I had found so little use. So I decided to offer her
money, and to insist that it was not offered as the purchase price
of love.

"You must let me help you," I said, "you must let me give you money."

"But I do not want your money," she replied. "It would only postpone my
troubles. Even if I do accept your money, I would have to accept money
from other men also, for you cannot pay for the whole of a
woman's living."

"Why not," I asked, "does any rule forbid it?"

"No rule, but can so young a man as you afford it?"

"How much does it take for you to live here?"

"About five marks a day."

I glanced rather proudly at my insignia as a research chemist of the
first rank. "Do you know," I asked, "how much income that
insignia carries?"

"Well, no," she admitted, "I know the income of military officers, but
there are so many of the professional ranks and classes that I get all
mixed up."

"That means," I said, "ten thousand marks a year."

"So much as that!" she exclaimed in astonishment. "And I can live here
on two hundred a month, but no, I did not mean that--you wouldn't,--I
couldn't--let you give me so much."

"Much!" I exclaimed; "you may have five hundred if you need it."

"You make love very nicely," she replied with aloofness.

"But I am not making love," I protested.

"Then why do you say these things? Do you prefer some one else? If so
why waste your funds on me?"

"No, no!" I cried, "it is not that; but you see I want to tell you
things; many things that you do not know. I want to see you often and
talk to you. I want to bring you books to read. And as for money, that
is so you will not starve while you read my books and listen to me talk.
But you are to remain mistress of your own heart and your own person.
You see, I believe there are ways to win a woman's love far better than
buying her cheap when she is starved into selling in this
brutal fashion."

She looked at me dubiously. "You are either very queer," she said, "or
else a very great liar."

"But I am neither," I protested, piqued that the girl in her innocence
should yet brand me either mentally deficient or deceitful. "It is
impossible to make you understand me," I went on, "and yet you must
trust me. These other men, they approve the system under which you live,
but I do not. I offer you money, I insist on your taking it because
there is no other way, but it is not to force you to accept me but only
to make it unnecessary for you to accept some one else. You have been
very brave, to stand out so long. You must accept my money now, but you
need never accept me at all--unless you really want me. If I am to make
love to you I want to make love to a woman who is really free; a woman
free to accept or reject love, not starved into accepting it in this
so-called freedom."

"It is all very wonderful," she repeated; "a minute ago I thought you
deceitful, and now I want to believe you. I can not stand out much
longer and what would be the use for just a few more days?"

"There will be no need," I said gently, "your courage has done its work
well--it has saved you for yourself. And now," I continued, "we will
bind this bargain before you again decide me crazy."

Taking out my check book I filled in a check for two hundred marks
payable to--"To whom shall I make it payable?" I asked.

"To Bertha, 34 R 6," she said, and thus I wrote it, cursing the
prostituted science and the devils of autocracy that should give an
innocent girl a number like a convict in a jail or a mare in a breeder's
herd book.

And so I bought a German girl with a German check--bought her because I
saw no other way to save her from being lashed by starvation to the
slave block and sold piecemeal to men in whom honour had not even died,
but had been strangled before it was born.

With my check neatly tucked in her bosom, Bertha walked out of the café
clinging to my arm, and so, passing unheeding through the throng of
indifferent revellers, we came to her apartment.

At the door I said, "Tomorrow night I come again. Shall it be at the
café or here?"

"Here," she whispered, "away from them all."

I stooped and kissed her hand and then fled into the multitude.

~3~

I had promised Bertha that I would bring her books, but the narrow range
of technical books permitted me were obviously unsuitable, nor did I
feel that the unspeakably morbid novels available on the Level of Free
Women would serve my purpose of awakening the girl to more wholesome
aspirations. In this emergency I decided to appeal to my
friend, Zimmern.

Leaving the laboratory early, I made my way toward his apartment,
puzzling my brain as to what kind of a book I could ask for that would
be at once suitable to Bertha's child-like mind and also be a volume
which I could logically appear to wish to read myself. As I walked
along the answer flashed into my mind--I would ask for a geography
of the outer world.

Happily I found Zimmern in. "I have come to ask," I said, "if you could
loan me a book of description of the outer world, one with maps, one
that tells all that is known of the land and seas and people."

"Oh, yes," smiled Zimmern, "you mean a geography. Your request," he
continued, "does me great honour. Books telling the truth about the
world without are very carefully guarded. I shall be pleased to get the
geography for you at once. In fact I had already decided that when you
came again I would take you with me to our little secret library.
Germany is facing a great crisis, and I know no better way I can serve
her than doing my part to help prepare as many as possible of our
scientists to cope with the impending problems. Unless you chemists
avert it, we shall all live to see this outer world, or die that
others may."

Dr. Zimmern led the way to the elevator. We alighted on the Level of Free
Women. Instead of turning towards the halls of revelry we took our
course in the opposite direction along the quiet streets among the
apartments of the women. We turned into a narrow passage-way and Dr.
Zimmern rang the bell at an apartment door. But after waiting a moment
for an answer he took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door.

"I am sorry Marguerite is out," he said, as he conducted me into a
reception room. The walls were hung with seal-brown draperies. There
were richly upholstered chairs and a divan piled high with fluffy
pillows. In one corner stood a bookcase of burnished metal filigree.

Zimmern waved his hand at the case with an expression of disdain. "Only
the conventional literature of the level, to keep up appearances," he
said; "our serious books are in here"; and he thrust open the door of a
room which was evidently a young lady's boudoir.

Conscious of a profane intrusion, I followed Dr. Zimmern into the dainty
dressing chamber. Stepping across the room he pushed open a spacious
wardrobe, and thrusting aside a cleverly arranged shield of feminine
apparel he revealed, upon some improvised shelves, a library of perhaps
a hundred volumes. He ran his hand fondly along the bindings. "No other
man of your age in Berlin," he said, "has ever had access to such a
complete fund of knowledge as is in this library."

I hope the old doctor took for appreciation the smile that played upon
my face as I contrasted his pitiful offering with the endless miles of
book stacks in the libraries of the outer world where I had spent so
many of my earlier days.

"Our books are safer here," said Zimmern, "for no one would suspect a
girl on this level of being interested in serious reading. If perchance
some inspector did think to perform his neglected duties we trust to him
being content to glance over the few novels in the case outside and not
to pry into her wardrobe closet. There is still some risk, but that we
must take, since there is no absolute privacy anywhere. We must trust to
chance to hide them in the place least likely to be searched."

"And how," I asked, "are these books accumulated?"

"It is the result of years of effort," explained Zimmern. "There are
only a few of us who are in this secret group but all have contributed
to the collection, and we come here to secure the books that the others
bring. We prefer to read them here, and so avoid the chance of being
detected carrying forbidden books. There is no restriction on the
callers a girl may have at her apartment; the authorities of the level
are content to keep records only of her monetary transactions, and that
fact we take advantage of. Should a man's apartment on another level be
so frequently visited by a group of men an inquiry would be made."

All this was interesting, but I inferred that I would again have
opportunity to visit the library and now I was impatient to keep my
appointment with Bertha. Making an excuse for haste, I asked Zimmern to
get the geography for me. The stiff back of the book had been removed,
and Zimmern helped me adjust the limp volume beneath my waistcoat.

"I am sorry you cannot remain and meet Marguerite tonight," he said as I
stepped toward the door. "But tomorrow evening I will arrange for you to
meet Colonel Hellar of the Information Staff, and Marguerite can be with
us then. You may go directly to my booth in the café where you last
dined with me."

~4~

After a brief walk I came to Bertha's apartment, and nervously pressed
the bell. She opened the door stealthily and peered out, then
recognizing me, she flung it wide.

"I have brought you a book," I said as I entered; and, not knowing what
else to do, I went through the ridiculous operation of removing the
geography from beneath my waistcoat.

"What a big book," exclaimed Bertha in amazement. However, she did not
open the geography but laid it on the table, and stood staring at me
with her child-like blue eyes.

"Do you know," she said, "that you are the first visitor I ever had in
my apartment? May I show you about?"

As I followed her through the cosy rooms, I chafed to see the dainty
luxury in which she was permitted to live while being left to starve.
The place was as well adapted to love-making as any other product
of German science is adapted to its end. The walls were adorned
with sensual prints; but happily I recalled that Bertha, having
no education in the matter, was immune to the insult.

Anticipating my coming she had ordered dinner, and this was presently
delivered by a deaf-and-dumb mechanical servant, and we set it forth on
the dainty dining table. Since the world was young, I mused, woman and
man had eaten a first meal together with all the world shut out, and so
we dined amid shy love and laughter in a tiny apartment in the heart of
a city where millions of men never saw the face of woman--and where
millions of babies were born out of love by the cold degree of science.
And this same science, bartering with licentious iniquity, had provided
this refuge and permitted us to bar the door, and so we accepted our
refuge and sanctified it with the purity that was within our own
hearts--such at least was my feeling at the time.

And so we dined and cleared away, and talked joyfully of nothing. As the
evening wore on Bertha, beside me upon the divan, snuggled contentedly
against my shoulder. The nearness and warmth of her, and the innocence
of her eyes thrilled yet maddened me.

With fast beating heart, I realized that I as well as Bertha was in the
grip of circumstances against which rebellion was as futile as were
thoughts of escape. There was no one to aid and no one to forbid or
criticize. Whatever I might do to save her from the fate ordained for
her would of necessity be worked out between us, unaided and unhampered
by the ethics of civilization as I had known it in a freer, saner world.

In offering Bertha money and coming to her apartment I had thrust myself
between her and the crass venality of the men of her race, but I had now
to wrestle with the problem that such action had involved. If, I
reasoned, I could only reveal to her my true identity the situation
would be easier, for I could then tell her of the rules of the game of
love in the world I had known. Until she knew of that world and its
ideals, how could I expect her to understand my motives? How else could
I strengthen her in the battle against our own impulses?

And yet, did I dare to confess to her that I was not a German? Would not
deep-seated ideals of patriotism drilled into the mind of a child place
me in danger of betrayal at her hands? Such a move might place my own
life in jeopardy and also destroy my opportunity of being of service to
the world, could I contrive the means of escape from Berlin with the
knowledge I had gained. Small though the possibilities of such escape
might be, it was too great a hope for me to risk for sentimental
reasons. And could she be expected to believe so strange a tale?

And so the temptation to confess that I was not Karl Armstadt passed,
and with its passing, I recalled the geography that I had gone to so
much trouble to secure, and which still lay unopened upon the table.
Here at least was something to get us away from the tumultuous
consciousness of ourselves and I reached for the volume and spread it
open upon my knees.

"What a funny book!" exclaimed Bertha, as she gazed at the round maps of
the two hemispheres. "Of what is that a picture?"

"The world," I answered.

She stared at me blankly. "The Royal World?" she asked.

"No, no," I replied. "The world outside the walls of Berlin."

"The world in the sun," exclaimed Bertha, "on the roof where they fight
the airplanes? A roof-guard officer" she paused and bit her lip--

"The world of the inferior races," I suggested, trying to find some
common footing with her pitifully scant knowledge.

"The world underground," she said, "where the soldiers fight in the
mines?"

Baffled in my efforts to define this world to her, I began turning the
pages of the geography, while Bertha looked at the pictures in
child-like wonder, and I tried as best I could to find simple
explanations.

Between the lines of my teaching, I scanned, as it were, the true state
of German ignorance. Despite the evident intended authoritativeness of
the book--for it was marked "Permitted to military staff officers"--I
found it amusingly full of erroneous conceptions of the true state of
affairs in the outer world.

This teaching of a child-like mind the rudiments of knowledge was an
amusing recreation, and so an hour passed pleasantly. Yet I realized
that this was an occupation of which I would soon tire, for it was not
the amusement of teaching a child that I craved, but the companionship
of a woman of intelligence.

As we turned the last page I arose to take my departure. "If I leave the
book with you," I said, "will you read it all, very carefully? And then
when I come again I will explain those things you can not understand."

"But it is so big, I couldn't read it in a day," replied Bertha, as she
looked at me appealingly.

I steeled myself against that appeal. I wanted very much to get my mind
back on my chemistry, and I wanted also to give her time to read and
ponder over the wonders of the great unknown world. Moreover, I no
longer felt so grievously concerned, for the calamity which had
overshadowed her had been for the while removed. And I had, too, my own
struggle to cherish her innocence, and that without the usual help
extended by conventional society. So I made brave resolutions and
explained the urgency of my work and insisted that I could not see her
for five days.

Hungrily she pleaded for a quicker return; and I stubbornly resisted the
temptation. "No," I insisted, "not tomorrow, nor the next day, but I
will come back in three days at the same hour that I came tonight."

Then taking her in my arms, I kissed her in feverish haste and tore
myself from the enthralling lure of her presence.

~5~

When I reached the café the following evening to keep my appointment
with Zimmern, the waiter directed me to one of the small enclosed
booths. As I entered, closing the door after me, I found myself
confronting a young woman.

"Are you Col. Armstadt?" she asked with a clear, vibrant voice. She
smiled cordially as she gave me her hand. "I am Marguerite. Dr. Zimmern
has gone to bring Col. Hellar, and he asked me to entertain you until
his return."

The friendly candour of this greeting swept away the grey walls of
Berlin, and I seemed again face to face with a woman of my own people.
She was a young woman of distinctive personality. Her features, though
delicately moulded, bespoke intelligence and strength of character that
I had not hitherto seen in the women of Berlin. Framing her face was a
luxuriant mass of wavy brown hair, which fell loosely about her
shoulders. Her slender figure was draped in a cape of deep blue
cellulose velvet.

"Dr. Zimmern tells me," I said as I seated myself across the table from
her, "that you are a dear friend of his."

A swift light gleamed in her deep brown eyes. "A very dear friend," she
said feelingly, and then a shadow flitted across her face as she added,
"Without him life for me would be unbearable here."

"And how long, if I may ask, have you been here?"

"About four years. Four years and six days, to be exact. I can keep
count you know," and she smiled whimsically, "for I came on the day of
my birth, the day I was sixteen."

"That is the same for all, is it not?"

"No one can come here before she is sixteen," replied Marguerite, "and
all must come before they are eighteen."

"But why did you come at the first opportunity?" I asked, as I mentally
compared her confession with that of Bertha who had so courageously
postponed as long as she could the day of surrender to this life of
shamefully commercialized love.

"And why should I not come?" returned Marguerite. "I had a chance to
come, and I accepted it. Do you think life in the school for girls of
forbidden birth is an enjoyable one?"

I wanted to press home the point of my argument, to proclaim my pride in
Bertha's more heroic struggle with the system, for this girl with whom I
now conversed was obviously a woman of superior intelligence, and it
angered me to know that she had so easily surrendered to the life for
which German society had ordained her. But I restrained my speech, for I
realized that in criticizing her way of life I would be criticizing her
obvious relation to Zimmern, and like all men I found myself inclined to
be indulgent with the personal life of a man who was my friend.
Moreover, I perceived the presumptuousness of assuming a superior air
towards an established and accepted institution. Yet, strive as I might
to be tolerant, I felt a growing antagonism towards this attractive and
cultured girl who had surrendered without a struggle to a life that to
me was a career of shame--and who seemed quite content with her
surrender.

"Do you like it here?" I asked, knowing that my question was stupid, but
anxious to avoid a painful gap in what was becoming, for me, a difficult
conversation.

Marguerite looked at me with a queer penetrating gaze. "Do I like it
here?" she repeated. "Why should you ask, and how can I answer? Can I
like it or not like it, when there was no choice for me? Can I push out
the walls of Berlin?"--and she thrust mockingly into the air with a
delicately chiselled hand--"It is a prison. All life is a prison."

"Yes," I said, "it is a prison, but life on this level is more joyful
than on many others."

Her lip curled in delicate scorn. "For you men--of course--and I suppose
it is for these women too--perhaps that is why I hate it so, because
they do enjoy it, they do accept it. They sell their love for food and
raiment, and not one in all these millions seems to mind it."

"In that," I remarked, "perhaps you are mistaken. I have not come here
often as most men do, but I have found one other who, like you, rebels
at the system--who in fact, was starving because she would not sell
her love."

Marguerite flashed on me a look of pitying suspicion as she asked: "Have
you gone to the Place of Records to look up this rebel against the
sale of love?"

A fire of resentment blazed up in me at this question. I did not know
just what she meant by the Place of Records, but I felt that this woman
who spoke cynically of rebellion against the sale of love, and yet who
had obviously sold her love to an old man, was in no position to
discredit a weaker woman's nobler fight.

"What right," I asked coldly, "have you to criticize another whom you do
not know?"

"I am sorry," replied Marguerite, "if I seem to quarrel with you when I
was left here to entertain you, but I could not help it--it angers me to
have you men be so fond of being deceived, such easy prey to this
threadbare story of the girl who claims she never came here until forced
to do so. But men love to believe it. The girls learn to use the story
because it pays."

A surge of conflicting emotion swept through me as I recalled the
child-like innocence of Bertha and compared it with the critical
scepticism of this superior woman. "It only goes to show," I thought,
"what such a system can do to destroy a woman's faith in the very
existence of innocence and virtue."

Marguerite did not speak; her silence seemed to say: "You do not
understand, nor can I explain--I am simply here and so are you, and we
have our secrets which cannot be committed to words."

With idle fingers she drummed lightly on the table. I watched those
slender fingers and the rhythmic play of the delicate muscles of the
bare white arm that protruded from the rich folds of the blue velvet
cape. Then my gaze lifted to her face. Her downcast eyes were shielded
by long curving lashes; high arched silken brows showed dark against a
skin as fresh and free from chemist's pigment as the petal of a rose. In
exultant rapture my heart within me cried that here was something fine
of fibre, a fineness which ran true to the depths of her soul.

In my discovery of Bertha's innocence and in my faith in her purity and
courage I had hoped to find relief from the spiritual loneliness that
had grown upon me during my sojourn in this materialistic city. But that
faith was shaken, as the impression Bertha had made upon my
over-sensitized emotions, now dimmed by a brighter light, flickered pale
on the screen of memory. The mere curiosity and pity I had felt for a
chance victim singled out among thousands by the legend of innocence on
a pretty face could not stand against the force that now drew me to this
woman who seemed to be not of a slavish race--even as Dr. Zimmern seemed
a man apart from the soulless product of the science he directed. But as
I acknowledged this new magnet tugging at the needle of my floundering
heart, I also realized that my friendship for the lovable and courageous
Zimmern reared an unassailable barrier to shut me into outer darkness.

The thought proved the harbinger of the reality, for Dr. Zimmerman
himself now entered. He was accompanied by Col. Hellar of the
Information Staff, a man of about Zimmern's age. Col. Hellar bore
himself with a gracious dignity; his face was sad, yet there gleamed
from his eye a kindly humor.

Marguerite, after exchanging a few pleasantries with Col. Hellar and
myself, tenderly kissed the old doctor on the forehead, and slipped out.

"You shall see much of her," said Zimmern, "she is the heart and fire of
our little group, the force that holds us together. But tonight I asked
her not to remain"--the old doctor's eyes twinkled with merriment,--"for
a young man cannot get acquainted with a beautiful woman and with ideas
at the same time."

~6~

"And now," said Zimmern, after we had finished our dinner, "I want Col.
Hellar to tell you more of the workings of the Information Service."

"It is a very complex system," began Hellar. "It is old. Its history
goes back to the First World War, when the military censorship began by
suppressing information thought to be dangerous and circulating
fictitious reports for patriotic purposes. Now all is much more
elaborately organized; we provide that every child be taught only the
things that it is decided he needs to know, and nothing more. Have you
seen the bulletins and picture screens in the quarters for the workers?"

"Yes," I replied, "but the lines were all in old German type."

"And that," said Hellar, "is all that the workers and soldiers can read.
The modern type could be taught them in a few days, but we see to it
that they have no opportunity to learn it. As it is now, should they
find or steal a forbidden book, they cannot read it."

"But is it not true," I asked, "that at one time the German workers were
most thoroughly educated?"

"It is true," said Hellar, "and because of that universal education
Germany was defeated in the First World War. The English contaminated
the soldiers by flooding the trenches with democratic literature dropped
from airplanes. Then came the Bolshevist regime in Russia with its
passion for revolutionary propaganda. The working men and soldiers read
this disloyal literature and they forced the abdication of William the
Great. It was because of this that his great grandson, when the House of
Hohenzollern was restored to the throne, decided to curtail universal
education.

"But while William III curtailed general education he increased the
specialized education and established the Information Staff to supervise
the dissemination of all knowledge."

"It is an atrocious system," broke in Zimmern, "but if we had not
abolished the family, curtailed knowledge and bred soldiers and
workers from special non-intellectual strains this sunless world of
ours could not have endured."

"Quite so," said Hellar, "whether we approve of it or not certainly
there was no other way to accomplish the end sought. By no other plan
could German isolation have been maintained."

"But why was isolation deemed desirable?" I enquired.

"Because," said Zimmern, "it was that or extermination. Even now we who
wish to put an end to this isolation, we few who want to see the world
as our ancestors saw it, know that the price may be annihilation."

"So," repeated Hellar, "so annihilation for Germany, but better so--and
yet I go on as Director of Information; Dr. Zimmern goes on as Chief
Eugenist; and you go on seeking to increase the food supply, and so we
all go on as part of the diabolic system, because as individuals we
cannot destroy it, but must go on or be destroyed by it. We have riches
here and privileges. We keep the labourers subdued below us, Royalty
enthroned above us, and the World State at bay about us, all by this
science and system which only we few intellectuals understand and which
we keep going because we can not stop it without being destroyed by
the effort."

"But we shall stop it," declared Zimmern, "we must stop it--with
Armstadt's help we can stop it. You and I, Hellar, are mere cogs; if we
break others can take our places, but Armstadt has power. What he knows
no one else knows. He has power. We have only weakness because others
can take our place. And because he has power let us help him find
a way."

"It seems to me," I said, "that the way must be by education. More men
must think as we do."

"But they can not think," replied Hellar, "they have nothing to
think with."

"But the books," I said, "there is power in knowledge."

"But," said Hellar, "the labourer can not read the forbidden book and
the intellectual will not, for if he did he would be afraid to talk
about it, and what a man can not talk about he rarely cares to read. The
love or hatred of knowledge is a matter of training. It was only last
week that I was visiting a boy's school in order to study the effect of
a new reader of which complaint had been made that it failed
sufficiently to exalt the virtue of obedience. I was talking with the
teacher while the boys assembled in the morning. We heard a great
commotion and a mob of boys came in dragging one of their companions who
had a bruised face and torn clothing. "Master, he had a forbidden book,"
they shouted, and the foremost held out the tattered volume as if it
were loathsome poison. It proved to be a text on cellulose spinning.
Where the culprit had found it we could not discover but he was sent to
the school prison and the other boys were given favours for
apprehending him."

"But how is it," I asked, "that books are not written by free-minded
authors and secretly printed and circulated?"

At this question my companions smiled. "You chemists forget," said
Hellar, "that it takes printing presses to make books. There is no press
in all Berlin except in the shops of the Information Staff. Every paper,
every book, and every picture originates and is printed there. Every
news and book distributor must get his stock from us and knows that he
must have only in his possession that which bears the imprint for his
level. That is why we have no public libraries and no trade in
second-hand books.

"In early life I favoured this system, but in time the foolishness of
the thing came to perplex, then to annoy, and finally to disgust me. But
I wanted the money and honour that promotion brought and so I have won
to my position and power; with my right hand I uphold the system and
with my left hand I seek to pull out the props on which it rests. For
twenty years now I have nursed the secret traffic in books and risked my
life many times thereby, yet my successes have been few and scattered.
Every time the auditors check my stock and accounts I tremble in fear,
for embezzling books is more dangerous than embezzling credit at
the bank."

"But who," I asked, "write the books?"

"For the technical books it is not hard to find authors," explained
Hellar, "for any man well schooled in his work can write of it. But the
task of getting the more general books written is not so easy. For then
it is not so much a question of the author knowing the things of which
he writes but of knowing what the various groups are to be permitted
to know.

"That writing is done exclusively by especially trained workers of the
Information Service. I myself began as such a writer and studied long
under the older masters. The school of scientific lying, I called it,
but strange to say I used to enjoy such work and did it remarkably well.
As recognition of my ability I was commissioned to write the book 'God's
Anointed.' Through His Majesty's approval of my work I now owe my
position on the Staff.

"His Majesty," continued Hellar, "was only twenty-six years of age when
he came to the throne, but he decided at once that a new religious book
should be written in which he would be proclaimed as 'God's Anointed
ruler of the World.'

"I had never before spoken with the high members of the Royal House, and
I was trembling with eagerness and fear as I was ushered into His
Majesty's presence. The Emperor sat at his great black table; before him
was an old book. He turned to me and said, 'Have you ever heard of the
Christian Bible?'

"My Chief had informed me that the new book was to be based on the old
Bible that the Christians had received from the Hebrews. So I said,
'Yes, Your Majesty, I am familiar with many of its words.'

"He looked at me with a gloating suspicion. 'Ah, ha,' he said, 'then
there is something amiss in the Information Service--you are in the
third rank of your service and the Bible is permitted only to the
first rank.'

"I saw that my statement unless modified would result in an embarrassing
investigation. 'I have never read the Christian Bible,' I said, 'but my
mother must have read it for when as a child I visited her she quoted to
me long passages from the Bible.'

"His Majesty smiled in a pleased fashion. 'That is it,' he said, 'women
are essentially religious by nature, because they are trusting and
obedient. It was a mistake to attempt to stamp out religion. It is the
doctrine of obedience. Therefore I shall revive religion, but it shall
be a religion of obedience to the House of Hohenzollern. The God of the
Hebrews declared them to be his chosen people. But they proved a servile
and mercenary race. They traded their swords for shekels and became a
byword and a hissing among the nations--and they were scattered to the
four corners of the earth. I shall revive that God. And this time he
shall chose more wisely, for the Germans shall be his people. The idea
is not mine. William the Great had that idea, but the revolution swept
it away. It shall be revived. We shall have a new Bible, based upon the
old one, a third dispensation, to replace the work of Moses and Jesus.
And I too shall be a lawgiver--I shall speak the word of God.'"

Hellar paused; a smile crept over his face. Then he laughed softly and
to himself--but Dr. Zimmern only shook his head sadly.

"Yes, I wrote the book," continued Hellar. "It required four years, for
His Majesty was very critical, and did much revising. I had a long
argument with him over the question of retaining Hell. I was bitterly
opposed to it and represented to His Majesty that no religion had ever
thrived on fear of punishment without a corresponding hope of reward.
'If you are to have no Heaven,' I insisted, 'then you must have
no Hell.'

"'But we do not need Heaven,' argued His Majesty, 'Heaven is
superfluous. It is an insult to my reign. Is it not enough that a man is
a German, and may serve the House of Hohenzollern?'

"'Then why,' I asked, 'do you need a Hell?' I should have been shot for
that but His Majesty did not see the implication. He replied coolly:

"'We must have a Hell because there is one way that my subjects can
escape me. It is a sin of our race that the Eugenics Office should have
bred out--but they have failed. It is an inborn sin for it is chiefly
committed by our children before they come to comprehend the glory of
being German. How else, if you do not have a Hell in your religion, can
you check suicide?'

"Of course there was logic in his contention and so I gave in and made
the Children's Hell. It is a gruesome doctrine, that a child who kills
himself does not really die. It is the one thing in the whole book that
makes me feel most intellectually unclean for writing it. But I wrote it
and when the book was finished and His Majesty had signed the
manuscript, for the first time in over a century we printed a bible on a
German press. The press where the first run was made we named 'Old
Gutenberg.'"

"Gutenberg invented the printing press," explained Zimmern, fearing I
might not comprehend.

"Yes," said Hellar with a curling lip, "and Gutenberg was a German, and
so am I. He printed a Bible which he believed, and I wrote one which I
do not believe."

"But I am glad," concluded Hellar as he arose, "that I do not believe
Gutenberg's Bible either, for I should very much dislike to think of
meeting him in Paradise."

~7~

After taking leave of my companions I walked on alone, oblivious to the
gay throng, for I had many things on which to ponder. In these two men I
felt that I had found heroic figures. Their fund of knowledge, which
they prized so highly, seemed to me pitifully circumscribed and limited,
their revolutionary plans hopelessly vague and futile. But the
intellectual stature of a man is measured in terms of the average of his
race, and, thus viewed, Zimmern and Hellar were intellectual giants of
heroic proportions.

As I walked through a street of shops. I paused before the display
window of a bookstore of the level. Most of these books I had previously
discovered were lurid-titled tales of licentious love. But among them I
now saw a volume bearing the title "God's Anointed," and recalled that I
had seen it before and assumed it to be but another like its fellows.

Entering the store I secured a copy and, impatient to inspect my
purchase, I bent my steps to my favourite retreat in the nearby Hall of
Flowers. In a secluded niche near the misty fountain I began a hasty
perusal of this imperially inspired word of God who had anointed the
Hohenzollerns masters of the earth. Hellar's description had prepared me
for a preposterous and absurd work, but I had not anticipated anything
quite so audacious could be presented to a race of civilized men, much
less that they could have accepted it in good faith as the Germans
evidently did.

"God's Anointed," as Hellar had scoffingly inferred, not only proclaimed
the Germans as the chosen race, but also proclaimed an actual divinity
of the blood of the House of Hohenzollern. That William II did have some
such notions in his egomania I believe is recorded in authentic history.
But the way Eitel I had adapted that faith to the rather depressing
facts of the failure of world conquest would have been extremely comical
to me, had I not seen ample evidence of the colossal effect of such a
faith working in the credulous child-mind of a people so utterly devoid
of any saving sense of humour.

Not unfamiliar with the history of the temporal reign of the Popes of
the middle ages, I could readily comprehend the practical efficiency of
such a mixture of religious faith with the affairs of earth. For the God
of the German theology exacted no spiritual worship of his people, but
only a very temporal service to the deity's earthly incarnation in the
form of the House of Hohenzollern.

The greatest virtue, according to this mundane theology, was obedience,
and this doctrine was closely interwoven with the caste system of German
society. The virtue of obedience required the German to renounce
discontent with his station, and to accept not only the material status
into which he was born, with science aforethought, but the intellectual
limits and horizons of that status. The old Christian doctrine of heresy
was broadened to encompass the entire mental life. To think forbidden
thoughts, to search after forbidden knowledge, that was at once treason
against the Royal House and rebellion against the divine plan.

German theology, confounding divine and human laws, permitted no dual
overlapping spheres of mundane and celestial rule as had all previous
religious and, social orders since Christ had commanded his disciples to
"Render unto Caesar--" There could be no conscientious objection to
German law on religious grounds; no problem of church and state, for the
church was the state.

In this book that masqueraded as the word of God, I looked in vain for
some revelation of future life. But it was essentially a one-world
theology; the most immortal thing was the Royal House for which the
worker was asked to slave, the soldier to die that Germany might be
ruled by the Hohenzollerns and that the Hohenzollerns might sometime
rule the world.

As the freedom of conscience and the institution of marriage had been
discarded so this German faith had scrapped the immortality of the soul,
save for the single incongruous doctrine that a child taking his own
life does not die but lives on in ceaseless torment in a ghoulish
Children's Hell.

As I closed the cursed volume my mind called up a picture of Teutonic
hordes pouring from the forests of the North and blotting out what
Greece and Rome had builded. From thence my roving fancy tripped over
the centuries and lived again with men who cannot die. I stood with
Luther at the Diet of Worms. With Kant I sounded the deeps of
philosophy. I sailed with Humboldt athwart uncharted seas. I fought with
Goethe for the redemption of a soul sold to the Devil. And with Schubert
and Heine I sang:

  _Du bist wie eine Blume,
  So hold und schoen und rein,_

       *       *       *       *       *

  _Betend dass Gott dich erhalte,
  So rein und schoen und hold._

But what a cankerous end was here. This people which the world had once
loved and honoured was now bred a beast of burden, a domesticated race,
saddled and trained to bear upon its back the House of Hohenzollern as
the ass bore Balaam. But the German ass wore the blinders that science
had made--and saw no angel.

~8~

As I sat musing thus and gazing into the spray of the fountain I
glimpsed a grey clad figure, standing in the shadows of a viney bower.
Although I could not distinguish her face through the leafy tracery I
knew that it was Bertha, and my heart thrilled to think that she had
returned to the site of our meeting. Thoroughly ashamed of the faithless
doubts that I had so recently entertained of her innocence and
sincerity, I arose and hastened toward her. But in making the detour
about the pool I lost sight of the grey figure, for she was standing
well back in the arbour. As I approached the place where I had seen her
I came upon two lovers standing with arms entwined in the path at the
pool's edge. Not wishing to disturb them, I turned back through one of
the arbours and approached by another path. As I slipped noiselessly
along in my felt-soled shoes I heard Bertha's voice, and quite near,
through the leafy tracery, I glimpsed the grey of her gown.

"Why with your beauty," came the answering voice of a man, "did you not
find a lover from the Royal Level?"

"Because," Bertha's voice replied, "I would not accept them. I could not
love them. I could not give myself without love."

"But surely," insisted the man, "you have found a lover here?"

"But I have not," protested the innocent voice, "because I have sought
none."

"Now long have you been here?" bluntly asked the man.

"Thirty days," replied the girl.

"Then you must have found a lover, your début fund would all be gone."

"But," cried Bertha, in a tearful voice, "I only eat one meal a day--do
you not see how thin I am?"

"Now that's clever," rejoined the man, "come, I'll accept it for what it
is worth, and look you up afterwards," and he laughingly led her away,
leaving me undiscovered in the neighbouring arbour to pass judgment on
my own simplicity.

As I walked toward the elevator, I was painfully conscious of two ideas.
One was that Marguerite had been quite correct with her information
about the free women who found it profitable to play the rôle of
maidenly innocence. The other was that Dr. Zimmern's precious geography
was in the hands of the artful, child-eyed hypocrite who had so cleverly
beguiled me with her rôle of heroic virtue. Clearly, I was trapped, and
to judge better with what I had to deal I decided to go at once to the
Place of Records, of which I had twice heard.

The Place of Records proved to be a public directory of the financial
status of the free women. Since the physical plagues that are propagated
by promiscuous love had been completely exterminated, and since there
were no moral standards to preserve, there was no need of other
restrictions on the lives of the women than an economic one.

The rules of the level were prominently posted. As all consequential
money exchanges were made through bank checks, the keeping of the
records was an easy matter. These rules I found forbade any woman to
cash checks in excess of one thousand marks a month, or in excess of two
hundred marks from any one man. That was simple enough, and I smiled as
I recalled that I had gone the legal limit in my first adventure.

Following the example of other men, I stepped to the window and gave the
name: "Bertha 34 R 6." A clerk brought me a book opened to the page of
her record. At the top of the page was entered this statement, "Bred for
an actress but rejected for both professional work and maternity because
found devoid of sympathetic emotions." I laughed as I read this, but
when on the next line I saw from the date of her entrance to the level
that Bertha's thirty days was in reality nearly three years, my mirth
turned to anger. I looked down the list of entries and found that for
some time she had been cashing each month the maximum figure of a
thousand marks. Evidently her little scheme of pensive posing in the
Hall of Flowers was working nicely. In the current month, hardly half
gone, she already had to her credit seven hundred marks; and last on the
list was my own contribution, freshly entered.

"She has three hundred marks yet," commented the clerk.

"Yes, I see,"--and I turned to go. But I paused and stepped again to the
window. "There is another girl I would like to look up," I said, "but I
have only her name and no number."

"Do you know the date of her arrival?" asked the clerk.

"Yes, she has been here four years and six days. The name is
Marguerite."

The clerk walked over to a card file and after some searching brought
back a slip with half a dozen numbers. "Try these," he said, and he
brought me the volumes. The second record I inspected read: "Marguerite,
78 K 4, Love-child." On the page below was a single entry for each
month of two hundred marks and every entry from the first was in the
name of Ludwig Zimmern.

~9~

I kept my appointment with Bertha, but found it difficult to hide my
anger as she greeted me. Wishing to get the interview over, I asked
abruptly, "Have you read the book I left?"

"Not all of it," she replied, "I found it rather dull."

"Then perhaps I had better take it with me."

"But I think I shall keep it awhile," she demurred.

"No," I insisted, as I looked about and failed to see the geography, "I
wish you would get it for me. I want to take it back, in fact it was a
borrowed book."

"Most likely," she smiled archly, "but since you are not a staff
officer, and had no right to have that book, you might as well know that
you will get it when I please to give it to you."

Seeing that she was thoroughly aware of my predicament, I grew
frightened and my anger slipped from its moorings. "See here," I cried,
"your little story of innocence and virtue is very clever, but I've
looked you up and--"

"And what--," she asked, while through her child-like mask the subtle
trickery of her nature mocked me with a look of triumph--"and what do
you propose to do about it?"

I realized the futility of my rage. "I shall do nothing. I ask only that
you return the book."

"But books are so valuable," taunted Bertha.

Dejectedly I sank to the couch. She came over and sat on a cushion at my
feet. "Really Karl," she purred, "you should not be angry. If I insist
on keeping your book it is merely to be sure that you will not forget
me. I rather like you; you are so queer and talk such odd things. Did
you learn your strange ways of making love from the book about the
inferior races in the world outside the walls? I really tried to read
some of it, but I could not understand half the words."

I rose and strode about the room. "Will you get me the book?" I
demanded.

"And lose you?"

"Well, what of it? You can get plenty more fools like me."

"Yes, but I would have to stand and stare into that fountain for hours
at a time. It is very tiresome."

"Just what do you want?" I asked, trying to speak calmly.

"Why you," she said, placing her slender white hands upon my arm, and
holding up an inviting face.

But anger at my own gullibility had killed her power to draw me, and I
shook her off. "I want that book," I said coldly, "what are your terms?"
And I drew my check book from my pocket.

"How many blanks have you there?" she asked with a greedy light in her
eyes--"but never mind to count them. Make them all out to me at two
hundred marks, and date each one a month ahead."

Realizing that any further exhibition of fear or anger would put me more
within her power, I sat down and began to write the checks. The fund I
was making over to her was quite useless to me but when I had made out
twenty checks I stopped. "Now," I said, "this is enough. You take these
or nothing." Tearing out the written checks I held them toward her.

As she reached out her hand I drew them back--"Go get the book," I
demanded.

"But you are unfair," said Bertha, "you are the stronger. You can take
the book from me. I cannot take the checks from you."

"That is so," I admitted, and handed the checks to her. She looked at
them carefully and slipped them into her bosom, and then, reaching under
the pile of silken pillows, she pulled forth the geography.

I seized it and turned toward the door, but she caught my arm. "Don't,"
she pleaded, "don't go. Don't be angry with me. Why should you dislike
me? I've only played my part as you men make it for us--but I do not
want your money for nothing. You liked me when you thought me innocent.
Why hate me when you find that I am clever?"

Again those slender arms stole around my neck, and the entrancing face
was raised to mine. But the vision of a finer, nobler face rose before
me, and I pushed away the clinging arms. "I'm sorry," I said, "I am
going now--going back to my work and forget you. It is not your fault.
You are only what Germany has made you--but," I added with a smile, "if
you must go to the Hall of Flowers, please do not wear that grey gown."

She stood very still as I edged toward the door, and the look of baffled
child-like innocence crept back into her eyes, a real innocence this
time of things she did not know, and could not understand.



CHAPTER VII

THE SUN SHINES UPON A KING AND A GIRL READS OF THE FALL OF BABYLON


~1~

Embittered by this unhappy ending of my romance, I turned to my work
with savage zeal, determined not again to be diverted by a personal
effort to save the Germans from their sins. But this application to my
test-tubes was presently interrupted by a German holiday which was known
as The Day of the Sun.

From the conversation of my assistants I gathered that this was an
annual occasion of particular importance. It was, in fact, His Majesty's
birthday, and was celebrated by permitting the favoured classes to see
the ruler himself at the Place in the Sun. For this Royal exhibition I
received a blue ticket of which my assistants were curiously envious.
They inspected the number of it and the hour of my admittance to the
Royal Level. "It is the first appearance of the day," they said. "His
Majesty will be fresh to speak; you will be near; you will be able to
see His Face without the aid of a glass; you will be able to hear His
Voice, and not merely the reproducing horns."

In the morning our news bulletin was wholly devoted to announcements and
patriotic exuberances. Across the sheet was flamed a headline stating
that the meteorologist of the Roof Observatory reported that the sun
would shine in full brilliancy upon the throne. This seemed very
puzzling to me. For the Place in the Sun was clearly located on the
Royal Level and some hundred metres beneath the roof of the city.

I went, at the hour announced on my ticket, to the indicated elevator;
and, with an eager crowd of fellow scientists, stepped forth into a vast
open space where the vaulted ceiling was supported by massive fluted
columns that rose to twice the height of the ordinary spacing of the
levels of the city.

An enormous crowd of men of the higher ranks was gathering. Closely
packed and standing, the multitude extended to the sides and the rear of
my position for many hundred metres until it seemed quite lost under the
glowing lights in the distance. Before us a huge curtain hung.
Emblazoned on its dull crimson background of subdued socialism was a
gigantic black eagle, the leering emblem of autocracy. Above and
extending back over us, appeared in the ceiling a deep and
unlighted crevice.

As the crowd seemed complete the men about me consulted their watches
and then suddenly grew quiet in expectancy. The lights blinked twice and
went out, and we were bathed in a hush of darkness. The heavy curtain
rustled like the mantle of Jove while from somewhere above I heard the
shutters of the windows of heaven move heavily on their rollers. A
flashing brilliant beam of light shot through the blackness and fell in
wondrous splendour upon a dazzling metallic dais, whereon rested the
gilded throne of the House of Hohenzollern.

Seated upon the throne was a man--a very little man he seemed amidst
such vast and vivid surroundings. He was robed in a cape of dazzling
white, and on his head he wore a helmet of burnished platinum. Before
the throne and slightly to one side stood the round form of a
paper globe.

His Majesty rose, stepped a few paces forward; and, as he with solemn
deliberation raised his hand into the shaft of burning light, from the
throng there came a frenzied shouting, which soon changed into a sort of
chanting and then into a throaty song.

His Majesty lowered his hand; the song ceased; a great stillness hung
over the multitude. Eitel I, Emperor of the Germans, now raised his face
and stared for a moment unblinkingly into the beam of sunlight, then he
lowered his gaze toward the sea of upturned faces.

"My people," he said, in a voice which for all his pompous effort, fell
rather flat in the immensity, "you are assembled here in the Place of
the Sun to do honour to God's anointed ruler of the world."

From ten thousand throats came forth another raucous shout.

"Two and a half centuries ago," now spoke His Majesty, "God appointed
the German race, under William the Great, of the House of Hohenzollern,
to be the rulers of the world.

"For nineteen hundred years, God in his infinite patience, had awaited
the outcome of the test of the Nazarene's doctrine of servile humility
and effeminate peace. But the Christian nations of the earth were
weighed in the balance of Divine wrath and found wanting. Wallowing in
hypocrisy and ignorance, wanting in courage and valour; behind a
pretence of altruism they cloaked their selfish greed for gold.

"Of all the people of the earth our race alone possessed the two keys to
power, the mastery of science and the mastery of the sword. So the
Germans were called of God to instil fear and reverence into the hearts
of the inferior races. That was the purpose of the First World War under
my noble ancestor, William II.

"But the envious nations, desperate in their greed, banded together to
defy our old German God, and destroy His chosen people. But this was
only a divine trial of our worth, for the plans of God are for eternity.
His days to us are centuries. And we did well to patiently abide the
complete unfoldment of the Divine plan.

"Before two generations had passed our German ancestors cast off the
yoke of enslavement and routed the oppressors in the Second World War.
Lest His chosen race be contaminated by the swinish herds of the mongrel
nations God called upon His people to relinquish for a time the fruits
of conquest, that they might be further purged by science and become a
pure-bred race of super-men.

"That purification has been accomplished for every German is bred and
trained by science as ordained by God. There are no longer any mongrels
among the men of Germany, for every one of you is created for his
special purpose and every German is fitted for his particular place as a
member of the super-race.

"The time now draws near when the final purpose of our good old German
God is to be fulfilled. The day of this fulfilment is known unto me. The
sun which shines upon this throne is but a symbol of that which has been
denied you while all these things were being made ready. But now the day
draws near when you shall, under my leadership, rule over the world and
the mongrel peoples. And to each of you shall be given a place in
the sun."

The voice had ceased. A great stillness hung over the multitude. Eitel
I, Emperor of the Germans, threw back his cape and drew his sword. With
a sweeping flourish he slashed the paper globe in twain.

From the myriad throated throng came a reverberating shout that rolled
and echoed through the vaulted catacomb. The crimson curtain dropped.
The shutters were thrown athwart the reflected beam of sunlight. The
lights of man again glowed pale amidst the maze of columns.

Singing and marching, the men filed toward the elevators. The guards
urged haste to clear the way, for the God of the Germans could not stay
the march of the sun across the roof of Berlin, and a score of paper
globes must yet be slashed for other shouting multitudes before the
sun's last gleam be twisted down to shine upon a king.

~2~

Although the working hours of the day were scarcely one-fourth gone, it
was impossible for me to return to my laboratory for the lighting
current was shut off for the day. I therefore decided to utilize the
occasion by returning the geography which I had rescued from Bertha.

Dr. Zimmern's invitation to make use of his library had been cordial
enough, but its location in Marguerite's apartment had made me a little
reticent about going there except in the Doctor's company. Yet I did not
wish to admit to Zimmern my sensitiveness in the matter--and the
geography had been kept overlong.

This occasion being a holiday, I found the resorts on the Level of Free
Women crowded with merrymakers. But I sought the quieter side streets
and made my way towards Marguerite's apartment.

"I thought you would be celebrating today," she said as I entered.

"I feel that I can utilize the time better by reading," I replied.
"There is so much I want to learn, and, thanks to Dr. Zimmern, I now
have the opportunity."

"But surely you are to see the Emperor in the Place in the Sun," said
Marguerite when she had returned the geography to the secret shelf.

"I have already seen him," I replied, "my ticket was for the first
performance."

"It must be a magnificent sight," she sighed. "I should so love to see
the sunlight. The pictures show us His Majesty's likeness, but what is a
picture of sunlight?"

"But you speak only of a reflected beam; how would you like to see real
sunshine?"

"Oh, on the roof of Berlin? But that is only for Royalty and the roof
guards. I've tried to imagine that, but I know that I fail as a blind
man must fail to imagine colour."

"Close your eyes," I said playfully, "and try very hard."

Solemnly Marguerite closed her eyes.

For a moment I smiled, and then the smile relaxed, for I felt as one who
scoffs at prayer.

"And did you see the sunlight?" I asked, as she opened her eyes and
gazed at me with dilated pupils.

"No," she answered hoarsely, "I only saw man-light as far as the walls
of Berlin, and beyond that it was all empty blackness--and it
frightens me."

"The fear of darkness," I said, "is the fear of ignorance."

"You try," and she reached over with a soft touch of her finger tips on
my closing eyelids. "Now keep them closed and tell me what you see. Tell
me it is not all black."

"I see light," I said, "white light, on a billowy sea of clouds, as from
a flying plane.... And now I see the sun--it is sinking behind a rugged
line of snowy peaks and the light is dimming.... It is gone now, but it
is not dark, for moonlight, pale and silvery, is shimmering on a choppy
sea.... Now it is the darkest hour, but it is never black, only a dark,
dark grey, for the roof of the world is pricked with a million points of
light.... The grey of the east is shot with the rose of dawn.... The
rose brightens to scarlet and the curve of the sun appears--red like the
blood of war.... And now the sky is crystal blue and the grey sands of
the desert have turned to glittering gold."

I had ceased my poetic visioning and was looking into Marguerite's face.
The light of worship I saw in her eyes filled me with a strange
trembling and holy awe.

"And I saw only blackness," she faltered. "Is it that I am born blind
and you with vision?"

"Perhaps what you call vision is only memory," I said--but, as I
realized where my words were leading, I hastened to add--"Memory, from
another life. Have you ever heard of such a thing as the reincarnation
of the soul?"

"That means," she said hesitatingly, "that there is something in us that
does not die--immortality, is it not?"

"Well, it is something like that," I answered huskily, as I wondered
what she might know or dream of that which lay beyond the ken of the
gross materialism of her race. "Immortality is a very beautiful idea," I
went on, "and science has destroyed much that is beautiful. But it is a
pity that Col. Hellar had to eliminate the idea of immortality from the
German Bible. Surely such a book makes no pretence of being scientific."

"So Col. Hellar has told you that he wrote 'God's Anointed'?" exclaimed
Marguerite with eager interest.

"Yes, he told me of that and I re-read the book with an entirely
different viewpoint since I came to understand the spirit in which it
was written."

"Ah--I see." Marguerite rose and stepped toward the library. "We have a
book here," she called, "that you have not read, and one that you cannot
buy. It will show you the source of Col. Hellar's inspiration."

She brought out a battered volume. "This book," she stated, "has given
the inspectors more trouble than any other book in existence. Though
they have searched for thirty years, they say there are more copies of
it still at large than of all other forbidden books combined."

I gazed at the volume she handed me--I was holding a copy of the
Christian Bible translated six centuries previous by Martin Luther. It
was indeed the very text from which as a boy I had acquired much of my
reading knowledge of the language. But I decided that I had best not
reveal to Marguerite my familiarity with it, and so I sat down and
turned the pages with assumed perplexity.

"It is a very odd book," I remarked presently. "Have you read it?"

"Oh, yes," exclaimed Marguerite. "I often read it; I think it is more
interesting than all these modern books, but perhaps that is because I
cannot understand it; I love mysterious things."

"There is too much of it for a man as busy as I am to hope to read," I
remarked, after turning a few more pages, "and so I had better not
begin. Will you not choose something and read it aloud to me?"

Marguerite declined at first; but, when I insisted, she took the
tattered Bible and turned slowly through its pages.

And when she read, it was the story of a king who revelled with his
lords, and of a hand that wrote upon a wall.

Her voice was low, and possessed a rhythm and cadence that transmuted
the guttural German tongue into musical poetry.

Again she read, of a man who, though shorn of his strength by the wiles
of a woman and blinded by his enemies, yet pushed asunder the pillars
of a city.

At random she read other tales, of rulers and of slaves, of harlots and
of queens--the wisdom of prophets--the songs of kings.

Together we pondered the meanings of these strange things, and exulted
in the beauty of that which was meaningless. And so the hours passed;
the day drew near its close and Marguerite read from the last pages of
the book, of a voice that cried mightily--"Babylon the great is fallen,
is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils and the hold of every
foul spirit."



CHAPTER VIII

FINDING THEREIN ONE RIGHTEOUS MAN I HAVE COMPASSION ON BERLIN


~1~

My first call upon Marguerite had been followed by other visits when we
had talked of books and read together. On these occasions I had
carefully suppressed my desire to speak of more personal things. But,
constantly reminded by my own troubled conscience, I grew fearful lest
the old doctor should discover that the books were the lesser part of
the attraction that drew me to Marguerite's apartment, and my fear was
increased as I realized that my calls on Zimmern had abruptly ceased.

Thinking to make amends I went one evening to the doctor's apartment.

"I was going out shortly," said Zimmern, as he greeted me. "I have a
dinner engagement with Hellar on the Free Level. But I still have a little
time; if it pleases you we might walk along to our library."

I promptly accepted the invitation, hoping that it would enable me
better to establish my relation to Marguerite and Zimmern in a safe
triangle of mutual friendship. As we walked, Zimmern, as if he read my
thoughts, turned the conversation to the very subject that was uppermost
in my mind.

"I am glad, Armstadt," he said with a gracious smile, "that you and
Marguerite seem to enjoy each other's friendship. I had often wished
there were younger men in our group, since her duties as caretaker of
our books quite forbids her cultivating the acquaintance of any men
outside our chosen few. Marguerite is very patient with the dull talk of
us old men, but life is not all books, and there is much that youth
may share."

For these words of Zimmern's I was quite unprepared. He seemed to be
inviting me to make love to Marguerite, and I wondered to what extent
the prevailing social ethics might have destroyed the finer
sensibilities that forbid the sharing of a woman's love.

When we reached the apartment Marguerite greeted us with a perfect
democracy of manner. But my reassurance of the moment was presently
disturbed when she turned to Zimmern and said: "Now that you are here, I
am going for a bit of a walk; I have not been out for two whole days."

"Very well," the doctor replied. "I cannot remain long as I have an
engagement with Hellar, but perhaps Armstadt will remain until
you return."

"Then I shall have him all to myself," declared Marguerite with quiet
seriousness.

Though I glanced from the old doctor to the young woman in questioning
amazement, neither seemed in the least embarrassed or aware that
anything had been said out of keeping with the customary propriety
of life.

Marguerite, throwing the blue velvet cape about her bare white
shoulders, paused to give the old doctor an affectionate kiss, and with
a smile for me was gone.

For a few moments the doctor sat musing; but when he turned to me it was
to say: "I hope that you are making good use of our precious
accumulation of knowledge."

In reply I assured him of my hearty appreciation of the library.

"You can see now," continued Zimmern, "how utterly the mind of the race
has been enslaved, how all the vast store of knowledge, that as a whole
makes life possible, is parcelled out for each. Not one of us is
supposed to know of those vital things outside our own narrow field.
That knowledge is forbidden us lest we should understand the workings of
our social system and question the wisdom of it all. And so, while each
is wiser in his own little cell than were the men of the old order, yet
on all things else we are little children, accepting what we are taught,
doing what we are told, with no mind, no souls of our own. Scientists
have ceased to be men, and have become thinking machines, specialized
for their particular tasks."

"That is true," I said, "but what are we to do about it? You have by
these forbidden books acquired a realization of the enslavement of the
race--but the others, all these millions of professional men, are they
not hopelessly rendered impotent by the systematic Suppression of
knowledge?"

"The millions, yes," replied Zimmern, "but there are the chosen few; we
who have seen the light must find a way for the liberation of all."

"Do you mean," I asked eagerly, "that you are planning some secret
rebellion--that you hope for some possible rising of the people to
overthrow the system?"

Zimmern looked at me in astonishment. "The people," he said, "cannot
rise. In the old order such a thing was possible--revolutions they
called them--the people led by heroes conceived passions for liberty.
But such powers of mental reaction no longer exist in German minds. We
have bred and trained it out of them. One might as well have expected
the four-footed beasts of burden in the old agricultural days to rebel
against their masters."

"But," I protested, "if the people could be enlightened?"

"How," exclaimed Zimmern impatiently, "can you enlighten them? You are
young, Armstadt, very young to talk of such things--even if a rebellion
was a possibility what would be the gain? Rebellion means disorder--once
the ventilating machinery of the city and the food processes were
disturbed we should all perish in this trap--we should all die of
suffocation and starvation."

"Then why," I asked, "do you talk of this thing? If rebellion is
impossible and would, if possible, destroy us all, then is there
any hope?"

Zimmern paced the floor for a time in silence and then, facing me
squarely, he said, "I have confessed to you my dissatisfaction with the
existing state. In doing this I placed myself in great danger, but I
risked that and now I shall risk more. I ask you now, Are you with us
to the end?"

"Yes," I replied very gravely, "I am with you although I cannot fully
understand on what you base your hope."

"Our hope," replied Zimmern, "is out there in the world from whence come
those flying men who rain bombs on the roof of Berlin and for ever keep
us patching it. We must get word to them. We must throw ourselves upon
the humanity of our enemies and ask them to save us."

"But," I questioned, in my excitement, "what can Germany expect of the
enemy? She has made war against the world for centuries--will that world
permit Germany to live could they find a way to destroy her?"

"As a nation, no, but as men, yes. Men do not kill men as individuals,
they only make war against a nation of men. As long as Germany is
capable of making war against the world so long will the world attempt
to destroy her. You, Colonel Armstadt, hold in your protium secret the
power of Germany to continue the war against the world. Because you were
about to gain that power I risked my own life to aid you in getting a
wider knowledge. Because you now hold that power I risk it again by
asking you to use it to destroy Germany and save the Germans. The men
who are with me in this cause, and for whom I speak, are but a few. The
millions materially alive, are spiritually dead. The world alone can
give them life again as men. Even though a few million more be destroyed
in the giving have not millions already been destroyed? What if you do
save Germany now--what does it mean merely that we breed millions more
like we now have, soulless creatures born to die like worms in the
ground, brains working automatically, stamping out one sort of idea,
like machines that stamp out buttons--or mere mouths shouting like
phonographs before this gaudy show of royalty?"

"But," I said, "you speak for the few emancipated minds; what of all
these men who accept the system--you call them slaves, yet are they not
content with their slavery, do they want to be men of the world or
continue here in their bondage and die fighting to keep up their own
system of enslavement?"

"It makes no difference what they want," replied Zimmern, in a voice
that trembled with emotion; "we bred them as slaves to the _kultur_ of
Germany, the thing to do is to stop the breeding."

"But how," I asked, "can men who have been beaten into the mould of the
ox ever be restored to their humanity?"

"The old ones cannot," sighed Zimmern; "it was always so; when a people
has once fallen into evil ways the old generation can never be wholly
redeemed, but youth can always be saved--youth is plastic."

"But the German race," I said, "has not only been mis-educated, it has
been mis-bred. Can you undo inheritance? Can this race with its vast
horde of workers bred for a maximum of muscle and a minimum of brains
ever escape from that stupidity that has been bred into the blood?"

"You have been trained as a chemist," said Zimmern, "you despair of the
future because you do not understand the laws of inheritance. A
specialized type of man or animal is produced from the selection of the
extreme individuals. That you know. But what you do not know is that the
type once established does not persist of its own accord. It can only be
maintained by the rigid continuance of the selection. The average
stature of man did not change a centimetre in a thousand years, till we
came in with our meddlesome eugenics. Leave off our scientific meddling
and the race will quickly revert to the normal type.

"That applies to the physical changes; in the mental powers the
restoration will be even more rapid, because we have made less change in
the psychic elements of the germ plasm. The inborn capacity of the human
brain is hard to alter. Men are created more nearly equal than even the
writers of democratic constitutions have ever known. If the World State
will once help us to free ourselves from these shackles of rigid caste
and cultured ignorance, this folly of scientific meddling with the blood
and brains of man, there is yet hope for this race, for we have changed
far less than we pretend, in the marrow we are human still."

The old man sank back in his chair. The fire in his soul had burned out.
His hand fumbled for his watch. "I must leave you now," he said;
"Marguerite should be back shortly. From her you need conceal nothing.
She is the soul of our hopes and our dreams. She keeps our books safe
and our hearts fine. Without her I fear we should all have given up
long ago."

With a trembling handclasp he left me alone in Marguerite's apartment.
And alone too with my conflicting and troubled emotions. He was a
lovable soul, ripe with the wisdom of age, yet youthful in his hopes to
redeem his people from the curse of this unholy blend of socialism and
autocracy that had prostituted science and made a black Utopian
nightmare of man's millennial dream.

Vaguely I wondered how many of the three hundred millions of German
souls--for I could not accept the soulless theory of Zimmern--were yet
capable of a realization of their humanity. To this query there could be
no answer, but of one conclusion I was certain, it was not my place to
ask what these people wanted, for their power to decide was destroyed by
the infernal process of their making--but here at least, my democratic
training easily gave the answer that Dr. Zimmern had achieved by sheer
genius, and my answer was that for men whose desire for liberty has been
destroyed, liberty must be thrust upon them.

But it remained for me to work out a plan for so difficult a salvation.
Of this I was now assured that I need no longer work alone, for as I had
long suspected, Dr. Zimmern and his little group of rebellious souls
were with me. But what could so few do amidst all the millions? My
answer, like Zimmern's, was that the salvation of Germany lay in the
enemies' hands--and I alone was of that enemy. Yet never again could I
pray for the destruction of the city at the hands of the outraged
god--Humanity. And I thought of Sodom and Gomorrah which the God of
Abraham had agreed to spare if there be found ten righteous men therein.

~2~

From these far-reaching thoughts my mind was drawn sharply back to the
fact of my presence in Marguerite's apartment and the realization that
she would shortly return to find me there alone. I resented the fact
that the old doctor and the young woman could conspire to place me in
such a situation. I resented the fact that a girl like Marguerite could
be bound to a man three times her age, and yet seem to accept it with
perfect grace. But I resented most of all the fact that both she and
Zimmern appeared to invite me to share in a triangle of love, open and
unashamed.

My bitter brooding was disturbed by the sound of a key turning in the
lock, and Marguerite, fresh and charming from the exhilaration of her
walk, came into the room.

"I am so glad you remained," she said. "I hope no one else comes and we
can have the evening to ourselves."

"It seems," I answered with a touch of bitterness, "that Dr. Zimmern
considers me quite a safe playmate for you."

At my words Marguerite blushed prettily. "I know you do not quite
understand," she said, "but you see I am rather peculiarly situated. I
cannot go out much, and I can have no girl friends here, and no men
either except those who are in this little group who know of our books.
And they, you see, are all rather old, mostly staff officers like the
doctor himself, and Col. Hellar. You rank quite as well as some of the
others, but you are ever so much younger. That is why the doctor thinks
you are so wonderful--I mean because you have risen so high at so early
an age--but perhaps I think you are rather wonderful just because you
are young. Is it not natural for young people to want friends of
their own age?"

"It is," I replied with ill-concealed sarcasm.

"Why do you speak like that?" asked Marguerite in pained surprise.

"Because a burnt child dreads the fire."

"I do not understand," she said, a puzzled look in her eyes. "How could
a child be burned by a fire since it could never approach one. They only
have fires in the smelting furnaces, and children could never go
near them."

Despite my bitter mood I smiled as I said: "It is just a figure of
speech that I got out of an old book. It means that when one is hurt by
something he does not want to be hurt in the same way again. You
remember what you said to me in the café about looking up the girl who
played the innocent rôle? I did look her up, and you were right about
it. She has been, here three years and has a score of lovers."

"And you dropped her?"

"Of course I dropped her."

"And you have not found another?"

"No, and I do not want another, and I had not made love to this girl
either, as you think I had; perhaps I would have done so, but thanks to
you I was warned in time. I may be even younger than you think I am,
young at least in experience with the free women of Berlin. This is the
second apartment I have ever been in on this level."

"Why do you tell me this?" questioned Marguerite.

"Because," I said doggedly, "because I suppose that I want you to know
that I have spent most of my time in a laboratory. I also want you to
know that I do not like the artful deceit that you all seem to
cultivate."

"And do you think I am trying to deceive you?" cried Marguerite
reproachfully.

"Your words may be true," I said, "but the situation you place me in is
a false one. Dr. Zimmern brings me here that I may read your books. He
leaves me alone here with you and urges me to come as often as I choose.
All that is hard enough, but to make it harder for me, you tell me that
you particularly want my company because you have no other young
friends. In fact you practically ask me to make love to you and yet you
know why I cannot."

In the excitement of my warring emotions I had risen and was pacing the
floor, and now as I reached the climax of my bitter speech, Marguerite,
with a choking sob, fled from the room.

Angered at the situation and humiliated by what I had said, I was on the
point of leaving at once. But a moment of reflection caused me to turn
back. I had forced a quarrel upon Marguerite and the cause for my anger
she perhaps did not comprehend. If I left now it would be impossible to
return, and if I did not come back, there would be explanations to make
to Zimmern and perhaps an ending of my association with him and his
group, which was not only the sole source of my intellectual life
outside my work, but which I had begun to hope might lead to some
enterprise of moment and possibly to my escape from Berlin.

So calming my anger, I turned to the library and doggedly pulled down a
book and began scanning its contents. I had been so occupied for some
time, when there was a ring at the bell. I peered out into the
reception-room in time to see Marguerite come from another door. Her
eyes revealed the fact that she had been crying. Quickly she closed the
door of the little library, shutting me in with the books. A moment
later she came in with a grey-haired man, a staff officer of the
electrical works. She introduced us coolly and then helped the old man
find a book he wanted to take out, and which she entered on her records.

After the visitor had gone Marguerite again slipped out of the room and
for a time I despaired of a chance to speak to her before I felt I must
depart. Another hour passed and then she stole into the library and
seated herself very quietly on a little dressing chair and watched me as
I proceeded with my reading.

I asked her some questions about one of the volumes and she replied with
a meek and forgiving voice that made me despise myself heartily. Other
questions and answers followed and soon we were talking again of books
as if we had no overwhelming sense of the personal presence of
each other.

The hours passed; by all my sense of propriety I should have been long
departed, but still we talked of books without once referring to my
heated words of the earlier evening.

She had stood enticingly near me as we pulled down the volumes. My heart
beat wildly as she sat by my side, while I mechanically turned the
pages. The brush of her garments against my sleeve quite maddened me. I
had not dared to look into her eyes, as I talked meaningless,
bookish words.

Summoning all my self-control, I now faced her. "Marguerite," I said
hoarsely, "look at me."

She lifted her eyes and met my gaze unflinchingly, the moisture of fresh
tears gleaming beneath her lashes.

"Forgive me," I entreated.

"For what?" she asked simply, smiling a little through her tears.

"For being a fool," I declared fiercely, "for believing your cordiality
toward me as Dr. Zimmern's friend to mean more than--than it
should mean."

"But I do not understand," she said. "Should I not have told you that I
liked you because you were young? Of course if you don't want me
to--to--" She paused abruptly, her face suffused with a
delicate crimson.

I stepped toward her and reached out my arms. But she drew back and
slipped quickly around the table. "No," she cried, "no, you have said
that you did not want me."

"But I do," I cried. "I do want you."

"Then why did you say those things to me?" she asked haughtily.

I gazed at her across the narrow table. Was it possible that such a
woman had no understanding of ideals of honour in love? Could it be that
she had no appreciation of the fight I had waged, and so nearly lost, to
respect the trust and confidence that the old doctor had placed in me.
With these thoughts the ardour of my passion cooled and a feeling of
pity swept over me, as I sensed the tragedy of so fine a woman ethically
impoverished by false training and environment. Had she known honour,
and yet discarded it, I too should have been unable to resist the
impulse of youth to deny to age its less imperious claims.

But either she chose artfully to ignore my struggle or she was truly
unaware of it. In either case she would not share the responsibility for
the breach of faith. I was puzzled and confounded.

It was Marguerite who broke the bewildering silence. "I wish you would
go now," she said coolly; "I am afraid I misunderstood."

"And shall I come again?" I asked awkwardly.

She looked up at me and smiled bravely. "Yes," she said, "if--you are
sure you wish to."

A resurge of passionate longing to take her in my arms swept over me,
but she held out her hand with such rare and dignified grace that I
could only take the slender fingers and press them hungrily to my
fevered lips and so bid her a wordless adieu.

~3~

But despite wild longing to see her again, I did not return to
Marguerite's apartment for many weeks. A crisis in my work at the
laboratory denied me even a single hour of leisure outside brief
snatches of food and sleep.

I had previously reported to the Chemical Staff that I had found means
to increase materially the extraction percentage of the precious element
protium from the crude imported ore. I had now received word that I
should prepare to make a trial demonstration before the Staff.

Already I had revealed certain results of my progress to Herr von Uhl,
as this had been necessary in order to get further grants of the rare
material and of expensive equipment needed for the research, but in
these smaller demonstrations, I had not been called upon to disclose my
method. Now the Staff, hopeful that I had made the great discovery,
insisted that I prepare at once to make a large scale demonstration and
reveal the method that it might immediately be adopted for the wholesale
extraction in the industrial works.

If I now gave away the full secret of my process, I would receive
compensation that would indeed seem lavish for a man whose mental
horizon was bounded by these enclosing walls; yet to me for whom these
walls would always be a prison, credit at the banks of Berlin and the
baubles of decoration and rank and social honour would be sounding
brass. But I wanted power; and, with the secret of protium extraction in
my possession, I would have control of life or death over three hundred
million men. Why should I sacrifice such power for useless credit and
empty honour? If Eitel I of the House of Hohenzollern would lengthen the
days of his rule, let him deal with me and meet whatever terms I chose
to name, for in my chemical retorts I had brewed a secret before which
vaunted efficiency and hypocritical divinity could be made to bend a
hungry belly and beg for food!

It was a laudable and rather thrilling ambition, and yet I was not clear
as to just what terms I would dictate, nor how I could enforce the
dictation. To ask for an audience with the Emperor now, and to take any
such preposterous stand would merely be to get myself locked up for a
lunatic. But I reasoned that if I could make the demonstration so that
it would be accepted as genuine and yet not give away my secret, the
situation would be in my hands. Yet I was expected to reveal the process
step by step as the demonstration proceeded. There was but one way out
and that was to make a genuine demonstration, but with falsely
written formulas.

To plan and prepare such a demonstration required more genuine invention
than had the discovery of the process, but I set about the task with
feverish enthusiasm. I kept my assistants busy with the preparation of
the apparatus and the more simple work which there was no need to
disguise, while night after night I worked alone, altering and
disguising the secret steps on which my great discovery hinged. As these
preparations were nearing completion I sent for Dr. Zimmern and Col.
Hellar to meet me at my apartment.

"Comrades," I said, "you have endangered your own lives by confiding in
me your secret desires to overthrow the rule of the House of
Hohenzollern as it was overthrown once before. You have done this
because you believed that I would have power that others do not have."

The two old men nodded in grave assent.

"And you have been quite fortunate in your choice," I concluded, "for
not only have I pledged myself to your ends, but I shall soon possess
the coveted power. In a few days I shall demonstrate my process on a
large scale before the Chemical Staff. But I shall do this thing without
revealing the method. The formulas I shall give them will be
meaningless. As long as I am in charge in my own laboratory the process
will be a success; when it is tried elsewhere it will fail, until I
choose to make further revelations.

"So you see, for a time, unless I be killed or tortured into confession,
I shall have great power. How then may I use that power to help you in
the cause to which we are pledged?"

The older men seemed greatly impressed with my declaration and danced
about me and cried with joy. When they had regained their composure
Zimmern said: "There is but one thing you can do for us and that is to
find some way to get word of the protium mines to the authorities of the
World State. Berlin will then be at their mercy, but whatever happens
can be no worse than the continuance of things as they are."

"But how," I said, "can a message be sent from Berlin to the outer
world?"

"There is only one way," replied Hellar, "and that is by the submarines
that go out for this ore. The Submarine Staff are members of the Royal
House. So, indeed, are the captains. We have tried for years to gain the
confidence of some of these men, but without avail. Perhaps through your
work on the protium ore you can succeed where we have failed."

"And how," I asked eagerly, "do the ore-bringing vessels get from Berlin
to the sea?"

My visitors glanced at each other significantly. "Do you not know that?"
exclaimed Zimmern. "We had supposed you would have been told when you
were assigned to the protium research."

By way of answer I explained that I knew the source of the ore but not
the route of its coming.

"All such knowledge is suppressed in books," commented Hellar; "we older
men know of this by word of mouth from the days when the submarine
tunnel was completed to the sea, but you are younger. Unless this was
told you at the time you were assigned the work it is not to be expected
that you would know."

I questioned Hellar and Zimmern closely but found that all they knew was
that a submarine tunnel did exist leading from Berlin somewhere into the
open sea; but its exact location they did not know. Again I pressed my
question as to what I could do with the power of my secret and they
could only repeat that they staked their hopes on getting word to the
outer world by way of submarines.

Much as I might admire the strength of character that would lead men to
rebel against the only life they knew because they sensed that it was
hopeless, I now found myself a little exasperated at the vagueness of
their plans. Yet I had none better. To defy the Emperor would merely be
to risk my life and the possible loss of my knowledge to the world.
Perhaps after all the older heads were wiser than my own rebellious
spirit; and so, without making any more definite plans, I ended the
interview with a promise to let them know of the outcome of the
demonstration.

Returning once more to my work I finished my preparations and sent word
to the Chemical Staff that all was ready. They came with solemn faces.
The laboratory was locked and guards were posted. The place was examined
thoroughly, the apparatus was studied in detail. All my ingredients were
tested for the presence of extracted protium, lest I be trying to "salt
the mine." But happily for me they accepted my statement as to their
chemical nature in other respects. Then when all had been approved the
test lot of ore was run. It took us thirty hours to run the extraction
and sample and weigh and test the product. But everything went through
exactly as I had planned.

With solemn faces the Chemical Staff unanimously declared that the
problem had been solved and marvelled that the solution should come from
the brain of so young a man. And so I received their adulation and
worship, for I could not give credit to the chemists of the world
outside to whom I was really indebted for my seeming miraculous genius.
Telling me to take my rest and prepare myself for an audience with His
Majesty three days later, the Chemical Staff departed, carrying, with
guarded secrecy, my false formulas.

~4~

Exultant and happy I left the laboratory. I had not slept for forty
hours and scarcely half my regular allotment for many weeks. And yet I was
not sleepy now but awake and excited. I had won a great victory, and I
wanted to rejoice and share my conquest with sympathetic ears. I could
go to Zimmern, but instead I turned my steps toward the elevator and,
alighting on the Level of the Free Women, I went straightway to
Marguerite's apartment.

Despite my feeling of exhilaration, my face must have revealed something
of my real state of exhaustion, for Marguerite cried in alarm at the
sight of me.

"A little tired," I replied, in answer to her solicitous questions; "I
have just finished my demonstration before the Chemical Staff."

"And you won?" cried Marguerite in a burst of joy. "You deceived them
just as the doctor said you would. And they know you have solved the
protium problem and they do not know how you did it?"

"That is correct," I said, sinking back into the cushions of the divan.
"I have done all that. I came here first to tell you. You see I could
not come before, all these weeks, I have had no time for sleep or
anything. I would have telephoned or written but I feared it would not
be safe. Did you think I was not coming again?"

"I missed you at first,--I mean at first I thought you were staying away
because you did not want to see me, and then Dr. Zimmern told me what
you were doing, and I understood--and waited, for I somehow knew you
would come as soon as you could."

"Yes, of course you knew. Of course, I had to come--Marguerite--" But
Marguerite faded before my vision. I reached out my hand for her--and it
seemed to wave in empty space....

~5~

When I awoke, I was lying on a couch and a screen bedecked with cupids
was standing before me. At first I thought I was alone and then I
realized that I was in Marguerite's apartment and that Marguerite
herself was seated on a low stool beside the couch and gazing at me out
of dreamy eyes.

"How did I get here?" I asked.

"You fell asleep while you were talking, and then some one came for
books, and when the bell rang I hid you with the screen."

"How long have I slept?"

"For many hours," she answered.

"I ought not to have come," I said, but despite my remark I made no
haste to go, but reached out and ran my fingers through her massy hair.
And then I slowly drew her toward me until her luxuriant locks were
tumbled about my neck and face and her head was pillowed on my breast.

"I am so happy," she whispered. "I am so glad you came first to me."

For a moment my reason was drugged by the opiate of her touch; and then,
as the realization of the circumstances re-formed in my brain, the
feeling of guilt arose and routed the dreamy bliss. Yet I could only
blame myself, for there was no guile in her act or word, nor could I
believe there was guile in her heart. Gently I pushed her away and
arose, stating that I must leave at once.

It was plainly evident that Marguerite did not share my sense of
embarrassment, that she was aware of no breach of ethics. But her ease
only served to impress upon me the greater burden of my responsibility
and emphasize the breach of honour of which I was guilty in permitting
this expression of my love to a woman whom circumstances had bound
to Zimmern.

Pleading need for rest and for time to plan my interview with His
Majesty, I hastened away, feeling that I dare not trust myself alone
with her again.

~6~

I returned to my own apartment, and when another day had passed, food
and sleep had fully restored me to a normal state. I then recalled my
promise to inform Hellar and Zimmern of the outcome of my demonstration.
I called at Zimmern's quarters but he was not at home. Hence I went to
call on Hellar, to ask of Zimmern's whereabouts.

"I have an appointment to meet him tonight," said Hellar, "on the Level
of Free Women. Will you not come along?"

I could not well do otherwise than accept, and Hellar led me again to
the apartment from which I had fled twenty-four hours before. There we
found Zimmern, who received me with his usual graciousness.

"I have already heard from Marguerite," said Zimmern, "of your success."

I glanced apprehensively at the girl but she was in no wise disturbed,
and proceeded to relate for Hellar's information the story of my coming
to her exhausted from my work and of my falling asleep in her apartment.
All of them seemed to think it amusing, but there was no evidence that
any one considered it the least improper. Their matter-of-fact attitude
puzzled and annoyed me; they seemed to treat the incident as if it had
been the experience of a couple of children.

This angered me, for it seemed proof that they considered Marguerite's
love as the common property of any and all.

"Could it be," I asked myself, "that jealousy has been bred and trained
out of this race? Is it possible they have killed the instinct that
demands private and individual property in love?" Even as I pondered the
problem it seemed answered, for as I sat and talked with Zimmern and
Hellar of my chemical demonstration and the coming interview with His
Majesty, Marguerite came and seated herself on the arm of my chair and
pillowed her head on my shoulder.

Troubled and embarrassed, yet not having the courage to repulse her
caresses, I stared at Zimmern, who smiled on us with indulgence. In fact
it seemed that he actually enjoyed the scene. My anger flamed up against
him, but for Marguerite I had only pity, for her action seemed so
natural and unaffected that I could not believe that she was making
sport of me, and could only conclude that she had been so bred in the
spirit of the place that she knew nothing else.

My talk with the men ended as had the last one, without arriving at any
particular plan of action, and when Hellar arose first to go, I took the
opportunity to escape from what to me was an intolerable situation.

~7~

I separated from Hellar and for an hour or more I wandered on the level.
Then resolving to end the strain of my enigmatical position I turned
again toward Marguerite's apartment. She answered my ring. I entered and
found her alone.

"Marguerite," I began, "I cannot stand this intolerable situation. I
cannot share the love of a woman with another man--I cannot steal a
woman's love from a man who is my friend--"

At this outburst Marguerite only stared at me in puzzled amazement.
"Then you do not want me to love you," she stammered.

"God knows," I cried, "how I do want you to love me, but it must not be
while Dr. Zimmern is alive and you--"

"So," said a voice--and glancing up I saw Zimmern himself framed in the
doorway of the book room. The old doctor looked from me to Marguerite,
while a smile beamed on his courtly countenance.

"Sit down and calm yourself, Armstadt," said Zimmern. "It is time I
spoke to you of Marguerite and of the relation I bear to her. As you
know, I brought her to this level from the school for girls of forbidden
birth. But what you do not know is that she was born on the Royal Level.

"I knew Marguerite's mother. She was Princess Fedora, a third cousin of
the Empress. I was her physician, for I have not always been in the
Eugenic Service. But Marguerite was born out of wedlock, and the mother
declined to name the father of her child. Because of that the child was
consigned to the school for forbidden love-children, which meant that
she would be fated for the life of a free woman and become the property
of such men as had the price to pay.

"When her child was taken away from her, the mother killed herself; and
because I declined to testify as to what I knew of the case I lost my
commission as a physician of Royalty. But still having the freedom of
the school levels, I was permitted to keep track of Marguerite. As soon
as she reached the age of her freedom I brought her here, and by the aid
of her splendid birth and the companionship of thinking men she has
become the woman you now find her."

In my jealousy I had listened to the first words of the old doctor with
but little comprehension. But as he talked on so calmly and kindly an
eager hope leaped up within me. Was it possible that it had been I who
had misunderstood--and that Zimmern's love for Marguerite was of another
sort than mine?

Tensely I awaited his further words, but I did not dare to look at
Marguerite, who had taken her place beside him.

"I brought her here," Zimmern continued, "for there was no other place
where she could go except into the keeping of some man. I have given her
the work of guarding our books, and for that I could have well afforded
to pay for her living.

"You find in Marguerite a woman of intelligence, and there are few
enough like her. And she finds in you a man of rare gifts, and you are
both young, so it is not strange that you two should love each other.
All this I considered before I brought you here to meet her. I was happy
when Marguerite told me that it was so. But your happiness is marred,
because you, Armstadt, think that I am in the way; you have believed
that I bear the relation to Marguerite that the fact of my paying for
her presence on this level would imply.

"It speaks well of your honour," the doctor went on, "that you have felt
as you did. I should have explained sooner, but I did not wish to speak
of this until it was necessary to Marguerite's happiness. But now that I
have spoken there is nothing to stand in the way of your happiness, for
Marguerite is as worthy of your love as if she had but made her début on
the Royal Level to which she was born. As for what is to be between you,
I can only leave it to the best that is in yourselves, and whatever that
may be has my blessing."

As I listened to the doctor's words entranced with rapture, the vision
of Marguerite floated hazily before my eyes as if she were an ethereal
essence that might, at any moment, be snatched away. But as the doctor's
words ceased my eyes met Marguerite's and all else seemed to fade but
the love light that shone from out their liquid depths.

Forgetting utterly the presence of the man whose words had set us free,
our hearts reached out with hungry arms to claim their own.

For us, time lost her reckoning amidst our tears and kisses, and when my
brain at last made known to me the existence of other souls than ours, I
looked up and found that we were alone. A saucy little clock ticked
rhythmically on a mantel. I felt an absurd desire to smash it, for the
impudent thing had been running all the while.



CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH I SALUTE THE STATUE OF GOD AND A PSYCHIC
EXPERT EXPLORES MY BRAIN AND FINDS NOTHING


~1~

The Chemical Staff called for me at my laboratory to conduct me to the
presence of the Emperor. At the elevator we were met by an electric
vehicle manned fore and aft by pompous guards. Through the wide, high
streets we rolled noiselessly past the decorated facades of the spacious
apartments that housed the seventeen thousand members of the House of
Hohenzollern.

At times the ample streets broadened into still more roomy avenues where
potted trees alternated with the frescoed columns, and beyond which were
luxurious gardens and vast statuary halls. On the Level of Free Women
the life was one of crowded revelry, of the bauble and delights of
carnival, but on the Royal Level there was an atmosphere of luxurious
leisure, with vast spaces given over to the privacy of aristocratic
idleness.

An occasional vehicle rolled swiftly past us on the glassy smoothness of
the pavement; more rarely lonely couples strolled among the potted trees
or sat in dreamy indolence beside the fountains. There was no crowding,
no mass of humanity, no narrow halls, no congested apartments. All
structure here was on a scale of magnificent size and distances, while
by comparison the men and women appeared dwarfed, but withal distinctive
in their costumes and regal in their leisurely idleness.

After some kilometres of travel we came to His Majesty's palace, which
stood detached from all other enclosed structures and was surrounded on
all sides by ever-necessary columns that seemed like a forest of tree
trunks spaced and distanced in geometrical design.

As we approached the massive doorway of the palace, our party paused,
and stood stiffly erect. Before us were two colossal statues of
glistening white crystal. My fellow scientists faced one of the figures,
which I recognized as that of William II, and I, a little tardily,
saluted with them. And now we turned sharply on our heels and saluted
the second figure of these twin German heroes. For German it was
unmistakably in every feature, save for the one oddity that the Teutonic
face wore a flowing beard not unlike that of Michael Angelo's Moses. As
we moved forward my eye swept in the lettering on the pedestal, _"Unser
Alte Deutche Gott,"_ and I was aware that I had acknowledged my
allegience to the supreme war lord--I had saluted the Statue of God.

Entering the palace we were conducted through a long hall-way hung with
floral tapestries. We passed through several great metal doors guarded
by stalwart leaden-faced men and came at last into the imperial audience
room, where His Majesty, Eitel I, satellited by his ministers, sat stiff
and upright at the head of the council table.

Though he had seemed a small man when I had seen him in the dazzling
beam of the reflected sunlight, I now perceived that he was of more than
average stature. He wore no crown and no helmet, but only a crop of
stiff iron grey hair brushed boldly upright. His face was stern, his
nose beak-like, and his small eyes grey and piercing. Over the high back
of his chair was thrown his cape, and he was clad in a jacket of white
cellulose velvet buttoned to the throat with large platinum buttons.

Formally presented by one of the secretaries we made our stiff bows and
were seated at the table facing His Majesty across the unlittered
surface of black glass.

The Emperor nodded to the Chief of the Chemical Staff who arose and read
the report of my solution of the protium problem. He ended by advising
that the process should immediately replace the one then in use in the
extraction of the ore in the industrial works and that I was recommended
for promotion to the place to be vacated by the retiring member of the
Chemical Staff and should be given full charge of the protium industry.

Emperor Eitel listened with solemn nods of approval. When the reading
was finished he arose and proclaimed the retirement with honour, and
because of his advanced age, of Herr von Uhl. The old chemist now
stepped forward and the Emperor removed from von Uhl's breast the
insignia of active Staff service and replaced it with the insignia of
honourable retirement.

In my turn I also stood before His Majesty, who when he had pinned upon
my breast the Staff insignia said: "I hereby commission you as Member of
the Chemical Staff and Director of the Protium Works. Against the
fortune, to be accredited to you and your descendants, you are
authorized to draw from the Imperial Bank a million marks a year. That
you shall more graciously befit this fortune I confer upon you the title
of 'von' and the social privilege of the Royal Level."

When the formal ceremonies were ended I again arose and addressed the
Emperor. "Your Majesty," I said, as I looked unflinchingly at his iron
visage, "I beg leave to make a personal petition."

"State it," commanded the Emperor.

"I wish to ask that you restore to the Royal Level a girl who is now in
the Level of the Free Women, and known there as Marguerite 78 K 4, but
who was born on the Royal Level as a daughter of Princess Fedora of
the House of Hohenzollern."

A hush of consternation fell upon those about the table.

"Your petition," said the Emperor, "cannot be granted."

"Then," I said, speaking with studied emphasis, "I cannot proceed with
the work of extracting protium."

An angry cloud gathered on the face of Eitel I. "Herr von Armstadt," he
said, "the title and awards which have just been conferred upon you are
irrevocable. But if you decline to perform the duties of your office
those duties can be performed by others."

"But others cannot perform them," I replied. "The demonstration I
conducted was genuine, but the formulas I have given were not genuine.
The true formulas for my method of extracting protium are locked within
my brain and I will reveal them only when the petition I ask has
been granted."

At these words the Emperor pounded on the table with a heavy fist. "What
does this mean?" he demanded of the Chemical Staff.

"It is a lie," shouted the Chief of the Staff. "We have the formulas and
they are correct, for we saw the demonstration conducted with the
ingredients stated in the formulas which Armstadt gave us."

"Very well," I cried; "go try your formulas; go repeat the
demonstration, if you can."

The Emperor, glaring his rage, punched savagely at a signal button on
the arm of his chair.

Two palace guards answered the summons. "Arrest this man," shouted His
Majesty, "and keep him in close confinement; permit him to see no one."

Without further ado I was led off by the guards, while the Emperor
shouted imprecations at the Chemical Staff.

~2~

The place to which I was conducted was a suite of rooms in a remote
corner of the Royal Palace. There was a large bedroom and bath, and a
luxurious study or lounging room. Here I found a case of books, which
proved to be novels bearing the imprint of the Royal Level.

Despite the comfortable surroundings, it was evident that I was securely
imprisoned, for the door was of metal, the ventilating gratings were
long narrow slits, and the walls were of heavy concrete--and there being
no windows, no bars were needed. Any living apartment in the city would
have served equally well the jailor's purpose; for it were only
necessary to turn a key from without to make of it a cell in this
gigantic prison of Berlin.

The regular appearance of my meals by mechanical carrier was the only
way I had to reckon the passing of time, for it had chanced that I had
forgotten my watch when dressing for the audience with His Majesty. I
wrestled with unmeasured time by perusing the novels which gave me
fragmentary pictures of the social life on the Royal Level.

As I turned over the situation in my mind I reassured myself that the
secrecy of my formulas was impregnable. The discovery of the process had
been rendered possible by knowledge I had brought with me from the outer
world. The reagents that I had used were synthetic substances, the very
existence of which was unknown to the Germans. I had previously prepared
these compounds and had used and completely destroyed them in making the
demonstration, while I had taken pains to remove all traces of their
preparation. Hence I had little to fear of the Chemical Staff
duplicating my work, though doubtless they were making desperate efforts
to do so, and my imprisonment was very evidently for the purpose of
permitting them to make that effort.

On that score I felt that I had played my cards well, but there were
other thoughts that troubled me, chief of which was a fear that some
investigation might be set on foot in regard to Marguerite and that her
guardianship of the library of forbidden books might be discovered. With
this worry to torment me, the hours dragged slowly enough.

I had been some five days in this solitary confinement when the door
opened and a man entered. He wore the uniform of a physician and
introduced himself as Dr. Boehm, explaining that he had been sent by His
Majesty to look after my health. The idea rather amused me; at least, I
thought, the Emperor had decided that the secrets of my brain were well
worth preservation, and I reasoned that this was evidence that the
Chemical Staff had made an effort to duplicate my work and had reported
their failure to do so.

The doctor made what seemed to me a rather perfunctory physical
examination, which included a very minute inspection of my eyes. Then he
put me through a series of psychological test queries. When he had
finished he sighed deeply and said: "I am sorry to find that you are
suffering from a disturbed balance of the altruistic and the egotistic
cortical impulses; it is doubtless due to the intensive demands made upon
the creative potential before you were completely recovered from the
sub-normal psychosis due to the gas attack in the potash mines."

This diagnosis impressed me as a palpable fraud, but I became genuinely
alarmed at the mention of the affair at the potash mines. I was somewhat
reassured at the thought that this reference was probably a part of the
record of Karl Armstadt, which was doubtless on file at the medical
headquarters, and had been looked up by Dr. Boehm who was in need of
making out a plausible case for some purpose--perhaps that of confining
me permanently on the grounds of insanity. Whatever might be the move on
foot it was clearly essential for me to keep myself cool and well
in hand.

The doctor, after eyeing me calmly for a few moments, said: "It will be
necessary for me to go out for a time and secure apparatus for a more
searching examination. Meanwhile be assured you will not be further
neglected. In fact, I shall arrange for the time to share your apartment
with you, as loneliness will aggravate your derangement."

In a few hours the doctor returned. He brought with him a
complicated-looking apparatus and was followed by two attendants
carrying a bed.

The doctor pushed the apparatus into the corner, and, after seeing his
bed installed in my sleeping chamber, dismissed the attendants and sat
down and began to entertain me with accounts of various cases of mental
derangement that had come under his care. So far as I could determine
his object, if he had any other than killing time, it was to impress me
with the importance of submitting graciously to his care.

Tiring of these stories of the doctor's professional successes with meek
and trusting patients, I took the management of the conversation into my
own hands.

"Since you are a psychic expert, Dr. Boehm, perhaps you can explain to
me the mental processes that cause a man to prize a large bank credit
when there is positively no legal way in which he can expend
the credit."

The doctor looked at me quizzically. "How do you mean," he asked, "that
there is no legal way in which he can expend the credit?"

"Well, take my own case. The Emperor has bestowed upon me a credit of a
million marks a year. But I risked losing it by demanding that a young
woman of the Free Level be restored to the Royal Level where she
was born."

"Of this I am aware," replied the psychic physician. "That is why His
Majesty became alarmed lest your mental equilibrium be disturbed. It
seems to indicate an atavistic reversion to a condition of romantic
altruism, but as your pedigree is normal, I deem it merely a temporary
loss of balance."

"But why," I asked, "do you consider it abnormal at all? Is there
evidence of any great degree of unselfishness in a man desiring the
bestowal of happiness upon a particular woman in preference to bank
credit which he cannot expend? What should I do with a million marks a
year when I have been unable to expend the ten thousand a year I
have had?"

"Ah," exclaimed the doctor, the light of a brilliant discovery breaking
over his countenance. "Perhaps this in a measure explains your case. You
have evidently been so absorbed in your work that you have not
sufficiently developed your appetite for personal enjoyment."

"Perhaps I have not. But just how should I expend more funds; food,
clothing, living quarters are all provided me, there is nothing but a few
tawdry amusements that one can buy, nor is there any one to give the money
to--even if a man had children they cannot inherit his wealth. Just what
is money for, anyway?"

The doctor nodded his head and smiled in satisfaction. "You ask
interesting questions," he said. "I shall try to answer them. Money or
bank credit is merely a symbol of wealth. In ancient times wealth was
represented by the private ownership of physical property, which was the
basis of capitalistic or competitive society. Racial progress was then
achieved by the mating of the men of superior brain with the most
beautiful women. Women do not appreciate the mental power of man in its
direct expression, or even its social use; they can only comprehend that
power when it is translated into wealth. After the destruction of
private property women refused to accept as mates the men of
intellectual power, but preferred instead men of physical strength and
personal beauty.

"At first this was considered to be a proof of the superiority of the
proletariat. For, with all men economically equal, the beautiful women
turned from the anemic intellectual and the sons of aristocracy, to the
strong arms of labour. Believing themselves to be the source of all
wealth, and by that right vested with sole political power, and now
finding themselves preferred by the beautiful women, the labourer would
soon have eliminated all other classes from human society. Had unbridled
socialism with its free mating continued, we should have become merely a
horde of handsome savages.

"Such would have been the destiny of our race had not William III
foreseen the outcome and restored war, the blessings of which had been
all but lost to the world. The progress of peace depended upon the
competition of capitalism, but in peace progress is incidental. In war
it is essential. Because war requires invention, it saved the
intellectual classes, and because war requires authority it made
possible the restoration of our Royal House. Labour, the tyrant of
peace, became again the slave of war, and under the plea of patriotic
necessity eugenics was established, which again restored the beautiful
women to the superior men. And thus by Imperial Socialism the race was
preserved from deterioriation."

"But surely," I said, "eugenics has more than remedied this defect of
socialism, for the selection of men of superior mentality is much more
rigid than it could have been under the capricious matings of
capitalistic society. Why then this need of wealth?"

"Eugenics," replied Boehm, "breeds superior children, but eugenic mating
is a cold scientific thing which fails to fan the flame of man's
ambition to do creative work. That is why we have the Level of Free
Women and have not bred the virility out of the intellectual group. That
is also the reason we have retained the Free Level on a competitive
commercial basis, and have given the intellectual man the bank credit, a
symbol of wealth, that he may use it, as men have always used wealth,
for the purpose of increasing his importance in the eyes of woman. This
function of wealth is psychically necessary to the creative impulse, for
the power of sexual conquest and the stimulus to creative thought are
but different expressions of the same instinct. Wealth, or its symbol,
is a medium of translating the one into the other. For example, take
your discovery; it is important to you and to the state. Your fellow
scientists appreciate it, His Majesty appreciates it, but women cannot
appreciate it. But give it a money value and women appreciate it
immediately. They know that the unlimited bank credit will give you the
power to keep as many women on your list as you choose, and this means
that you can select freely those you wish. So the most attractive women
will compete for your preferment. We bow before the Emperor, we salute
the Statue of God, but we make out our checks to buy baubles for women,
and it is that which keeps the wheels of progress turning."

"So," I said, "this is your philosophy of wealth. I see, and yet I do
not see. The legal limit a man may contribute to a woman is but
twenty-four hundred marks a year, what then does he want with
a million?"

"But there is no legal limit," replied the Doctor, "to the number of
women a man may have on his list. His relation to them may be the most
casual, but the pursuit is stimulating to the creative imagination. But
you forget, Herr von Armstadt, that with the compensation that was to be
yours goes also the social privilege of the Royal Level. Evidently you
have been so absorbed in your research that you had no time to think of
the magnificent rewards for which you were working."

"Then perhaps you will explain them to me."

"With pleasure," said Dr. Boehm; "your social privilege on the Royal
Level includes the right to marry and that means that you should have
children for whom inheritance is permitted. How else did you suppose the
ever-increasing numbers of the House of Hohenzollern should have
maintained their wealth?"

"The question has never occurred to me," I answered, "but if it had, I
should have supposed that their expenses were provided by appropriations
from the state treasury."

Dr. Boehm chuckled. "Then they should all be dependents on the state
like cripples and imbeciles. It would be a rather poor way to derive the
pride of aristocracy. That can only come from inherited wealth: the
principle is old, very old. The nobleman must never needs work to live.
Then, if he wishes to give service to the state, he may give it without
pay, and thus feel his nobility. You cannot aspire to full social
equality with the Royal House both because you lack divinity of blood
and because you receive your wealth for that which you have yourself
given to the state. But because of your wealth you will find a wife of
the Royal House, and she will bear you children who, receiving the
divine blood of the Hohenzollerns from the mother and inherited wealth
from the father, will thus be twice ennobled. To have such children is a
rare privilege; not even Herr von Uhl with his thousands of descendants
can feel such a pride of paternity.

"It is well, Herr von Armstadt, that you talked to me of these matters.
Should you be restored to your full mental powers and be permitted to
assume the rights of your new station, it would be most unfortunate if
you should seem unappreciative of these ennobling privileges."

"Then, if I may, I shall ask you some further questions. It seems that
the inherited incomes of the Royal Level are from time to time
reinforced by marriage from without. Does that not dilute the
Royal blood?"

"That question," replied Dr. Boehm, "more properly should be addressed
to a eugenist, but I shall try to give you the answer. The blood of the
House of Hohenzollern is of a very high order for it is the blood of
divinity in human veins. Yet since there is no eugenic control, no
selection, the quality of that blood would deteriorate from inbreeding,
were there no fresh infusion. Then where better could such blood come
than from the men of genius? No man is given the full social privilege
of the Royal Level except he who has made some great contribution to the
state. This at once marks him as a genius and gives his wealth a
noble origin."

"But how is it," I asked, "that this addition of men from without does
not disturb the balance of the sexes?"

"It does disturb it somewhat," replied the doctor, "but not seriously,
for genius is rare. There are only a few hundred men in each generation
who are received into Royal Society. Of course that means some of the
young men of the Royal Level cannot marry. But some men decline marriage
of their own free will; if they are not possessed of much wealth they
prefer to go unmarried rather than to accept an unattractive woman as a
wife when they may have their choice of mistresses from the most
beautiful virgins intended for the Free Level. There is always an
abundance of marriageable women on the Royal Level and with your wealth
you will have your choice. Your credit, in fact, will be the largest
that has been granted for over a decade."

"All that is very splendid," I answered. "I was not well informed on
these matters. But why should His Majesty have been so incensed at my
simple request for the restoration of the rights of the daughter of the
Princess Fedora?"

"Your request was unusual; pardon if I may say, impudent; it seems to
imply a lack of appreciation on your part of the honours freely
conferred upon you--but I daresay His Majesty did not realize your
ignorance of these things. You are very young and you have risen to your
high station very quickly from an obscure position."

"And do you think," I asked, "that if you made these facts clear to him,
he would relent and grant my request?"

Dr. Boehm looked at me with a penetrating gaze. "It is not my function,"
he said, "to intercede for you. I have only been commissioned to examine
carefully the state of your mentality."

I smiled complacently at the psychic expert. "Now, doctor," I said, "you
do not mean to tell me that you really think there is anything wrong
with my mentality?"

A look of craftiness flashed from Boehm's eyes. "I have given you my
diagnosis," he said, "but it may not be final. I have already
communicated my first report to His Majesty and he has ordered me to
remain with you for some days. If I should alter that opinion too
quickly it would discredit me and gain you nothing. You had best be
patient, and submit gracefully to further examination and treatment."

"And do you know," I asked, "what the chemical staff is doing about my
formulas?"

"That is none of my affair," declared Boehm, emphatically.

There was a vigour in his declaration and a haste with which he began to
talk of other matters that gave me a hint that the doctor knew more of
the doings of the chemical staff than he cared to admit, but I thought
it wise not to press the point.

~3~

The second day of Boehm's stay with me, he unmantled his apparatus and
asked me to submit to a further examination. I had not the least
conception of the purpose of this apparatus and with some misgivings I
lay down on a couch while the psychic expert placed above my eyes a
glass plate, on which, when he had turned on the current, there
proceeded a slow rhythmic series of pale lights and shadows. At the
doctor's command I fixed my gaze upon the lights, while he, in a
monotonous voice, urged me to relax my mind and dismiss all
active thought.

How long I stood for this infernal proceeding I do not know. But I
recall a realization that I had lost grip on my thoughts and seemed to
be floating off into a misty nowhere of unconsciousness. I struggled
frantically to regain control of myself; and, for what seemed an
eternity, I fought with a horrible nightmare unable to move a muscle or
even close my eyelids to shut out that sickening sequence of creeping
shadows. Then I saw the doctor's hand reaching slowly toward my face. It
seemed to sway in its stealthy movement like the head of a serpent
charming a bird, but in my helpless horror I could not ward it off.

At last the snaky fingers touched my eyelids as if to close them, and
that touch, light though it was, served to snap the taut film of my
helpless brain and I gave a blood-curdling yell and jumped up, knocking
over the devilish apparatus and nearly upsetting the doctor.

"Calm yourself," said Boehm, as he attempted to push me again toward the
couch. "There is nothing wrong, and you must surrender to the psychic
equilibrator so that I can proceed with the examination."

"Examination be damned," I shouted fiercely; "you were trying to
hypnotize me with that infernal machine."

Boehm did not reply but calmly proceeded to pick up the apparatus and
restore it to its place in the corner, while I paced angrily about the
room. He then seated himself and addressed me as I stood against the
wall glaring at him. "You are labouring under hallucinations," he said.
"I fear your case is even worse than I thought. But calm yourself. I
shall attempt no further examination today."

I resumed a seat but refused to look at him. He did not talk further of
my supposed mental state, but proceeded to entertain me with gossip of
the Royal Level, and later discussed the novels in the bookcase.

It was difficult to keep up an open war with so charming a
conversationalist, but I was thoroughly on my guard. I could now readily
see through the whole fraud of my imputed mental derangement. I knew my
mind was sound as a schoolboy's, and that this pretence of examination
and treatment was only a blind. Evidently the Chemical Staff had failed
to work the formulas I had given them and this psychic manipulator had
been sent in here to filch the true formulas from my brain with his
devilish art. I knew nothing of what progress the Germans might have
made with hypnotism, but unless they had gone further than had the outer
world, now that I was on my guard, I believed myself to be safe.

But there was yet one danger. I might be trapped in my sleep by an
induced somnambulistic conversation. Happily I was fairly well posted on
such things and believed that I could guard against that also. But the
fear of the thing made me so nervous that I did not sleep all of the
following night.

The doctor, evidently a keen observer, must have detected that fact from
the sound of my breathing, for the lights were turned out and we slept
in the pitchy blackness that only a windowless room can create.

"You did not sleep well," he remarked, as we breakfasted.

But I made light of his solicitous concern, and we passed another day in
casual conversation.

As the sleeping period drew again near, the doctor said, "I will leave
you tonight, for I fear my presence disturbs you because you
misinterpret my purpose in observing you."

As the doctor departed, I noted that the mechanism of the hinges and the
lock of the door were so perfect that they gave forth no sound. I was
very drowsy and soon retired, but before I went to sleep I practised
snapping off and on the light from the switch at the side of my bed.
Then I repeated over and over to myself--"I will awake at the first
sound of a voice."

This thought ingrained in my subconscious mind proved my salvation. I
must have been sleeping some hours. I was dreaming of Marguerite. I saw
her standing in an open meadow flooded with sunlight; and heard her
voice as if from afar. I walked towards her and as the words grew more
distinct I knew the voice was not Marguerite's. Then I awoke.

I did not stir but lay listening. The voice was speaking monotonously
and the words I heard were the words of the protium formulas, the false
ones I had given the Chemical Staff.

"But these formulas are not correct," purred the voice, "of course, they
are not correct. I gave them to the Staff, but they will never know the
real ones--Yes, the real ones--What are the real ones? Have I
forgotten--? No, I shall never forget. I can repeat them now." Then the
voice began again on one of the fake formulas. But when it reached the
point where the true formula was different, it paused; evidently the
Chemical Staff had found out where the difficulty lay. And so the voice
had paused, hoping my sleeping mind would catch up the thread and supply
the missing words. But instead my arm shot quickly to the switch. The
solicitous Doctor Boehm, flooded with a blaze of light, glared
blinkingly as I leaped from the bed.

"Oh, I was asleep all right," I said, "but I awoke the instant I heard
you speak, just as I had assured myself that I would do before I fell
asleep. Now what else have you in your bag of tricks?"

"I only came--" began the doctor.

"Yes, you only came," I shouted, "and you knew nothing about the work of
the Chemical Staff on my formulas. Now see here, doctor, you had your
try and you have failed. Your diagnosis of my mental condition is just
as much a fraud as the formulas on which the Chemical Staff have been
wasting their time--only it is not so clever. I fooled them and you have
not fooled me. Waste no more time, but go back and report to His Majesty
that your little tricks have failed."

"I shall do that," said Boehm. "I feared you from the start; your mind
is really an extraordinary one. But where," he said, "did you learn how
to guard yourself so well against my methods? They are very secret. My
art is not known even to physicians."

"It is known to me," I said, "so run along and get your report ready."
The doctor shook my hand with an air of profound respect and took his
leave. This time I balanced a chair overhanging the edge of a table so
that the opening of the door would push it off, and I lay down and
slept soundly.

~4~

I was left alone in my prison until late the next day. Then came a guard
who conducted me before His Majesty. None of the Chemical Staff was
present. In fact there was no one with the Emperor but a single
secretary.

His Majesty smiled cordially. "It was fitting, Herr von Armstadt, for me
to order your confinement for your demand was audacious; not that what
you asked was a matter of importance, but you should have made the
request in writing and privately and not before the Chemical Staff. For
that breach of etiquette I had to humiliate you that Royal dignity might
be preserved. As for the fact that you kept the formulas secret, none
need know that but the Chemical Staff and they will have nothing further
to say since you made fools of them." His Majesty laughed.

"As for the request you made, I have decided to grant it. Nor do I blame
you for making it. The Princess Marguerite is a very beautiful girl. She
is waiting now nearby. I should have sent for her sooner, but it was
necessary to make an investigation regarding her birth. The unfortunate
Princess Fedora never confessed the father. But I have arranged that, as
you shall see."

The Emperor now pressed his signal button and a door opened and
Marguerite was ushered into the room. I started in fear as I saw that
she was accompanied by Dr. Zimmern. What calamity of discovery and
punishment, I wondered, had my daring move brought to the secret rebel
against the rule of the Hohenzollern?

Marguerite stepped swiftly toward me and gave me her hand. The look in
her eyes I interpreted as a warning that I was not to recognize Zimmern.
So I appeared the stranger while the secretary introduced us.

"Dr. Zimmern," said His Majesty, "was physician to Princess Fedora at
the time of the birth of the Princess Marguerite. She confessed to him
the father of her child. It was the Count Rudolph who died unmarried
some years ago. There will be no questions raised. Our society will
welcome his daughter, for both the Count Rudolph and the Princess Fedora
were very popular."

During this speech, Dr. Zimmern sat rigid and stared into space. Then
the secretary produced a document and read a confession to be signed by
Zimmern, testifying to these statements of Marguerite's birth.

Zimmern, his features still unmoved, signed the paper and handed it
again to the secretary.

His Majesty arose and held out his hand to Marguerite. "I welcome you,"
he said, "to the House of Hohenzollern. We shall do our best to atone
for what you have suffered. And to you, Herr von Armstadt, I extend my
thanks for bringing us so beautiful a woman. It is my hope that you will
win her as a wife, for she will grace well the fortune that your great
genius brings to us. But because you have loved her under unfortunate
circumstances I must forbid your marriage for a period of two years.
During that time you will both be free to make acquaintances in Royal
Society. Nothing less than this would be fair to either of you, or to
other women that may seek your fortune or to other men who may seek the
beauty of your princess."



CHAPTER X

A GODDESS WHO IS SUFFERING FROM OBESITY AND
A BRAVE MAN WHO IS AFRAID OF THE LAW OF AVERAGES


~1~

It was not till we had reached Marguerite's apartment that Zimmern
spoke. Then he and Marguerite both embraced me and cried with joy.

"Ah, Armstadt," said the old doctor, "you have done a wonderful thing, a
wonderful thing, but why did you not warn us?"

"Yes," I stammered, "I know. You mean the books. It worried me, but, you
see, I did not plan this thing. I did not know what I should do. It came
to me like a flash as the Emperor was conferring the honours upon me. I
had hoped to use my power to make him do my bidding, and yet we had
contrived no way to use that power in furtherance of our great plans to
free a race; but I could at least use it to free a woman. Let us hope
that it augurs progress to the ultimate goal."

"It was very noble, but it was dangerous," replied Zimmern. "It was only
through a coincidence that we were saved. Herr von Uhl told me that same
day what you had demanded. I saw Hellar immediately and he declared a
raid on Marguerite's apartment. But he came himself with only one
assistant who is in his confidence, and they boxed the books and carted
them off. They will be turned in as contraband volumes, but the report
will be falsified; no one will ever know from whence they came."

"Then the books are lost to you," I said; "of that I am sorry, and I
worried greatly while I was imprisoned."

"Yes," said Zimmern, "we have lost the books, but you have saved
Marguerite. That will more than compensate. For that I can never thank
you enough."

"And you were called into the matter, not," I said, "as Marguerite's
friend, but as the physician to her mother?"

"They must have looked up the record," replied Zimmern, "but nothing was
said to me. I received only a communication from His Majesty commanding
me as the physician to Marguerite's mother at the time of Marguerite's
birth, to make statement as to her fatherhood."

"But why," I asked, "did you not make this confession before, since it
enabled Marguerite to be restored to her rights?"

The old doctor looked pained at the question. "But you forget," he said,
"that it is the power of your secret and not my confession that has
restored Marguerite. The confession is only a matter of form, to satisfy
the wagging tongues of Royal Society."

"Do you mean," I asked, "that she will not be well received there
because she was born out of wedlock?"

"Not at all," replied Zimmern; "it was the failure to confess the
father, not the fact of her unwedded motherhood, that brought the
punishment. There are many love-children born on the Royal Level and
they suffer only a failure of inheritance of wealth from the father. But
if they be girls of charm and beauty, and if, as Marguerite now stands
credited, they be of rich Royal blood, they are very popular and much
sought after. But without the record of the father they cannot be
admitted into Royal Society, for the record of the blood lines would be
lost, and that, you see, is essential. Social precedent, the value in
the matrimonial market, all rest upon it. Marguerite is indeed
fortunate; with His Majesty's signature attesting my confession, she has
nothing more to fear. But I daresay they shall try their best to win her
from you for some shallow-minded prince."

"But when," I asked, "is she to go? His Majesty seemed very gracious,
but do you realize that I still possess my secret of the protium
formulas?"

"And do you still hesitate to give them up?" asked Marguerite.

"For your freedom, dear, I shall reveal them gladly."

"But," cried Marguerite, "you must not give them up just for me,--if
there is any way you can use them for our great plan."

"Nothing," spoke up Zimmern, "could be gained now by further secrecy but
trouble for us all; and by acceding, both you and Marguerite win your
places on the Royal Level, where you can better serve our cause. That
is, if you are still with us. It may be harder for you, now that you
have won the richest privileges that Germany has to offer, to remember
those who struggle in the darkness."

"But I shall remember," I said, giving him my hand.

"I believe you will," said Zimmern feelingly, "and I know I can count on
Marguerite. You will both have opportunities to see much of the officers
of the Submarine Service. The German race may yet be freed from this
sunless prison, if you can find one among them who can be won to
our cause."

~2~

I reported the next morning to the Chemical Staff, by whom I was treated
with deferential respect. I was immediately installed in my new office,
as Director of the Protium Works. While I set about supervising the
manufacture of apparatus for the new process, other members of the
staff, now furnished with the correct formulas repeated the
demonstration without my assistance.

When the report of this had been made to His Majesty, I received my
insignia of the social privilege of the Royal Level and a copy of the
Royal Society Bulletin announcing Marguerite's restoration to her place
in the House of Hohenzollern, with the title of Princess Marguerite,
Daughter of Princess Fedora and Count Rudolf. The next day a social
secretary from the Royal Level came for Marguerite and conducted her to
the Apartments of the Countess Luise, under whose chaperonage she was to
make her début into Royal Society.

I, also, was furnished with a social secretary, an obsequious but very
wise little man, who took charge of all my affairs outside my chemical
work. Under his guidance I was removed to more commodious quarters and
my wardrobe was supplied with numerous changes all in the uniform of the
Chemical Staff. There was little time to spare from my duties in the
Protium Works, but my secretary, ever alert, snatched upon the odd
moments to coach me in matters of social etiquette and so prepared me to
make my first appearance in Royal Society at the grand ball given by the
Countess Luise in honour of Marguerite's début.

Despite the assiduous coaching of my secretary, my ignorance must have
been delightfully amusing to the royal idlers who had little other
thought or purpose in life than this very round of complicated
nothingness. But if I was a blundering amateur in all this, they were
not so much discourteous as envious. They knew that I had won my
position by my achievements as a chemist and in a vague way they
understood that I had saved the empire from impending ruin, and for this
achievement I was lionized.

The women rustled about me in their gorgeous gowns and plied me with
foolish questions which I had better sense than to try to answer with
the slightest degree of truth. But their power of sustained interest in
such weighty matters was not great and soon the conversation would drift
away, especially if Marguerite was about, when the talk would turn to
the romance of her restoration.

One group of vivacious ladies discussed quite frankly with Marguerite
the relative advantages of a husband of intellectual genius as compared
with one of a high degree of royal blood. Some contended that the added
prospect of superior intelligence in the children would offset the
lowering of their degree of Hohenzollern blood. The others argued quite
as persistently that the "blood" was the better investment.

Through such conversation I learned of the two clans within the Royal
House. The one prided themselves wholly in the high degree of their
Hohenzollern blood; the other, styling themselves "Royal Intellectuals"
because of a greater proportion of outside blood lines, were quite as
proud of the fact that, while possessed of sufficient royal blood to be
in "the divinity," they inherited supposedly greater intelligence from
their mundane ancestors. This latter group, to make good their claims,
made a great show of intellectuality, and cultivated most persistently a
dilletante dabbling into all sorts of scientific and artistic matters.

Because of Marguerite's high credit in Royal blood she was courted by
"purists" by whom I was only tolerated on her account. On the other
hand, the "intellectuals" considered me as a great asset for their cause
and glorified particularly in the prospects of marriage of an outside
scientist to an eighty-degree Hohenzollern princess. This rivalry of the
clans of Royal Society made us much sought after and I was flooded with
invitations.

It did not take me long to discover, however, that the reason for my
popularity was not altogether a matter of respect for my intellectual
genius. I had at first been inclined to accept all invitations,
innocently supposing that I was being fêted as an honorary guest. But my
social secretary advised against this; and, when he began bringing me
checks to sign, I realized that the social privileges of Royal Society
included the honour of paying the bills for one's own entertainment.

I had already arranged with my banker that a fourth of my income be
turned over to Marguerite until her marriage, for she was without income
of her own, and it was upon my petition that she had been restored to
the Royal Level. At my banker's suggestion I had also made over ten
thousand marks a month to the Countess, under whose motherly wing
Marguerite was being sheltered. I therefore soon discovered that my
income of a million marks a year would be absorbed quite easily by Royal
Society. The entire system appeared to me rather sordid, but such
matters were arranged by bankers and secretaries and the principals were
supposed to be quite innocent of any knowledge of, or concern for,
the details.

The Countess Luise, who was permitted to entertain so lavishly at my
expense, was playing for the favour of both of the opposing social
clans. Possessing a high degree of Hohenzollern blood she stood well
with the purists. But her income was not all that could be desired, so
she had adroitly discovered in her only son a touch of intellectual
genius, and the young man quite dutifully had become a maker of picture
plots, hoping by this distinction to win as a wife one of the daughters
of some wealthy intellectual interloper. At first I had feared the
Countess had designs upon Marguerite as a wife for her son, but as
Marguerite had no income of her own I saw that in this I was mistaken,
and I developed a feeling of genuine friendliness for the plump and
cordial Countess.

"Do you know what I was reading last night?" I remarked one evening, as
I chatted with Marguerite and her chaperone.

"Some work on obesity, I hope," sparkled the Countess. Like many of the
House of Hohenzollern, among whom there was no weight control, she
carried a surplus of adipose tissue not altogether consistent
with beauty.

"No, indeed," I said gravely. "Nothing about your material being, but a
treatise upon your spiritual nature. I was reading an old school book
that I found among my forgotten relics--a book about the Divinity of the
House of Hohenzollern."

"Oh, how jolly!" chuckled the Countess. "How very funny that I never
thought before that you, Herr von Armstadt, were once taught all those
delightful fables."

"And once believed them too," I lied.

"Oh, dear me," replied the Countess, with a ponderous sigh, "so I
suppose you did. And what a shock I must have been to you with an eighty
centimetre waist."

"You are not quite Junoesque," I admitted.

"The more reason you should use your science, Herr Chemist, to aid me to
recover my goddess form."

"What are you folks talking about?" interrupted Marguerite.

"About our divinity, my dear," replied Luise archly.

"But do you feel that it is really necessary," I asked, "that such
fables should be put into the helpless minds of children?"

"It surely must be. Suppose your own heredity had proven tricky--it does
sometimes, you know--and you had been found incapable of scientific
thought. You would have been deranked and perhaps made a record
clerk--no personal reflections, but such things do happen--and if you
now were filing cards all day you would surely be much happier if you
could believe in our divinity. Why else would you submit to a loveless
life and the dull routine of toil? Did not all the ancients, and do not
all the inferior races now, have objects of religious worship?"

"But the other races," I said, "do not worship living people but
spiritual divinities and the sainted dead.

"Quite so," replied the over-plump goddess, "but that is why their
_kulturs_ are so inefficient. Surely the worship was useless to the
spirits and the dead, whereas we find it quite profitable to be
worshipped. But for this wonderful doctrine of the divinity of the blood
of William the Great we should be put to all sorts of inconveniences."

"You might even have to work," I ventured.

The Countess bestowed on me one of her most bewitching smiles. "My dear
Herr Chemist," she said in sugary tones, "you with your intellectual
genius can twit us on our psychic lacks and we must fall back on the
divine blood of our Great Ancestor--but would you really wish the slaves
of dull toil to think it as human as their own?"

"But to me it seems a little gross," I said.

"Not at all; on the contrary, it is a master stroke of science and
efficiency--inferior creatures must worship; they always have and always
will--then why waste the worship?"

~3~

My position as director of the protium works soon brought me into
conference with Admiral von Kufner who was Chief of the Submarine Staff.
Von Kufner was in his forties and his manner indicated greater talent
for pomp and ceremony than for administrative work. His grandfather had
been the engineer to whose genius Berlin owed her salvation through the
construction of the submarine tunnel. By this service the engineer had
won the coveted "von," a princely fortune and a wife of the Royal Level.
The Admiral therefore carried Hohenzollern blood in his veins, which,
together with his ample fortune and a distinguished position, made him a
man of both social and official consequence.

It did not take me long to decide that von Kufner was hopeless as a
prospective convert to revolutionary doctrines. Nor did he possess any
great knowledge of the protium mines, for he had never visited them.
Inheriting his position as an honour to his grandfather's genius, he
commanded the undersea vessels from the security of an office on the
Royal Level, for journeys in ice-filled waters were entirely too
dangerous to appeal to one who loved so well the pleasures and
vanities of life.

I had explained to von Kufner the distinctions I had discovered in the
various samples of the ore brought from the mines and the necessity of
having new surveys of the deposits made on the basis of these
discoveries. After he had had time to digest this information, I
suggested that I should myself go to make this survey. But this idea the
Admiral at once opposed, insisting that the trip through the Arctic ice
fields was entirely too dangerous.

"Very well," I replied. "I feel that I could best serve Germany by going
to the Arctic mines in person, but if you think that is unwise, will you
not arrange for me to consult at once with men who have been in the
mines and are familiar with conditions there?"

To this very reasonable request, which was in line with my obvious
duties, no objection could be made and a conference was at once called
of submarine captains and furloughed engineers who had been in the
Arctic ore fields.

I was impressed by the youthfulness of these men, which was readily
explained by the fact that one vessel out of every five sent out was
lost beneath the Arctic ice floes. With an almost mathematical certainty
the men in the undersea service could reckon the years of their lives on
the fingers of one hand.

Although the official business of the conference related to ore deposits
and not to the dangers of the traffic, the men were so obsessed with the
latter fact, that it crept out in their talk in spite of the Admiral's
obvious displeasure at such confession of fear. I particularly marked
the outspoken frankness of one, Captain Grauble, whose vessel was the
next one scheduled to depart to the mines.

I therefore asked Grauble to call in person at my office for the
instructions concerning the ore investigations which were to be
forwarded to the Director of the Mines. Free from the restraining
influence of the Admiral, I was able to lead the Captain to talk freely
of the dangers of his work, and was overjoyed to find him frankly
rebellious.

That I might still further cultivate his acquaintance I withheld some of
the necessary documents; and, using this as a pretext, I later sought
him out at his quarters, which were in a remote and somewhat obscure
part of the Royal Level.

The official nature of my call disposed of, I led the conversation into
social matters, and found no difficulty in persuading the Captain to
talk of his own life. He was a man well under thirty and like most of
his fellows in the service was one of the sons of a branch of the
Hohenzollern family whose declining fortune denied him all hope of
marriage or social life. In the heroic years of his youth he had
volunteered for the submarine service. But now he confessed that he
regretted the act, for he realized that his death could not be long
postponed. He had made his three trips as commander of an
ore-bringing vessel.

"I have two more trips," declared Captain Grauble. "Such is the prophecy
of statistical facts: five trips is the allotted life of a Captain; it
is the law of averages. It is possible that I may extend that number a
little, but if so it will be an exception. Trusting to exceptions is a
poor philosophy. I do not like it. Sometimes I think I shall refuse to
go. Disgrace, of course,--banishment to the mines. Report my treasonable
utterances if you like. I am prepared for that; suicide is easy
and certain."

"But is it not rather cowardly, Captain?" I asked, looking him steadily
in the eye.

Grauble flung out his hand with a gesture of disdain. "That is an easy
word for you to pronounce," he sneered. "You have hope to live by, you
are on the upward climb, you aspire to marry into the Royal House and
sire children to inherit your wealth. But I was born of the Royal House,
my father squandered his wealth. My sisters were beautiful and they have
married well. My brother was servile; he has attached himself to the
retinue of a wealthy Baroness. But I was made of better stuff than that.
I would play the hero. I would face danger and gladly die to give Berlin
more life and uphold the House of Hohenzollern in its fat and idle
existence; and for me they have taken hope away!

"Oh, yes, I was proclaimed a hero. The young ladies of this house of
idleness dance with me, but they dare not take me seriously; what one of
them would court the certainty of widowhood without a fortune? So why
should I not tire of their shallow trifling? I find among the girls of
the Free Level more honest love, for they, as I, have no hope. They love
but for the passing hour, and pass on as I pass on, I to death, they to
decaying beauty and an old age of servile slavery."

Surely, I exulted, here is the rebellious and daring soul that Zimmern
and Hellar have sought in vain. Even as they had hoped, I seemed to have
discovered a man of the submarine service who was amenable to
revolutionary ideas. Could I not get him to consider the myriad life of
Berlin in all its barren futility, to grasp at the hope of succour from
a free and merciful world, and then, with his aid, find a way out of
Berlin, a way to carry the message of Germany's need of help to the
Great God of Humanity that dwelt without in the warmth and joy of
the sun?

The tide of hope surged high within me. I was tempted to divulge at once
my long cherished plan of escape from Berlin. "Why," I asked, thinking
to further sound his sincerity, "if you feel like this, have you never
considered running your craft to the surface during the sea passage and
beaching her on a foreign shore? There at least is life and hope and
experience."

"By the Statue of God!" cried Grauble, his body shaking and his voice
quavering, "why do you, in all your hope and comfort here, speak of that
to me? Do you think I have never been tempted to do that very thing? And
yet you call me a coward. Have I not breathed foul air for days, fearful
to poke up our air tube in deserted waters lest by the millionth chance
it might lead to a capture? And yet you speak of deliberate surrender!
Even though I destroyed my charts, the capture of a German submarine in
those seas would set the forces of the outer world searching for the
passage. If they found and blocked the passage I should be guilty of the
destruction of three hundred million lives--Great God! God of
Hohenzollern! God of the World! could this thing be?"

"Captain," I said, placing my hand on the shoulder of the palsied man,
"you and I have great secrets and the burden of great sorrows in common.
It is well that we have found each other. It is well that we have spoken
of these things that shake our souls. You have confessed much to me and
I have much that I shall confess to you. I must see you again before
you leave."

Grauble gave me his hand. "You are a strange man," he said. "I have met
none before like you. I do not know at what aims you are driving. If you
plotted my disgrace by leading me into these confessions, you have found
me easy prey. But do not credit yourself too much. I have often vowed I
would go to Admiral von Kufner, and say these things to him. But the
formal exterior of that petty pompous man I cannot penetrate. If I have
confessed to you, it is merely because you are a man without that
protecting shield of bristling authority and cold formality. You seemed
merely a man of flesh and blood, despite your decorations, and so I have
talked. What is to be made of it by you or by me I do not know, but I am
not afraid of you."

"I shall leave you now," I said, "for I have pressing duties, but I
shall see you soon again. So calm yourself and get hold of your reason.
I shall want you to think clearly when I talk with you again. Perhaps I
can yet show you a gleam of hope beyond this mathematical law of
averages that rattles the dice of death."



CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH THE TALKING DELEGATE IS ANSWERED BY THE
ROYAL VOICE AND I LEARN THAT LABOUR KNOWS NOT GOD


~1~

I had delayed in speaking to Grauble of our revolutionary plans, because
I wished first to arrange a meeting with Zimmern and Hellar and secure
the weight of their calmer minds in initiating Grauble into our plans of
sending a message to the World State authorities. I was prevented from
doing this immediately by difficulties in the Protium Works. Meanwhile
unbeknown to me the sailing date of Grauble's vessel was advanced, and
he departed to the Arctic.

Although my position as Director of the Protium Works had been more of
an honour than an assignment of active duties, I made it my business to
assume the maximum rather than the minimum of the functions of the
office as I wished to learn more of the labour situation in Berlin, of
which as yet I had no comprehensive understanding.

In a general way I understood that German labour differed not only in
being eugenically created as a distinct breed, but that the labour group
was also a very distinct caste economically and politically. The
labourer, being denied access to the Level of Free Women, had no need
for money or bank credit in any form. This seemed to me to reduce him to
a condition of pure slavery--since he received no pay for his services
other than the bare maintenance supplied by the state.

Because of this evidence of economic inferiority, I had at first
supposed that labour was in every way an inferior caste. But in this I
had been gravely mistaken, nor had I been able fully to comprehend my
error until this brewing labour trouble revealed in concrete form the
political superiority of labour. In my failure to comprehend the true
state of affairs I had been a little stupid, for the political basis of
German society is revealed to the seeing eye in the Hohenzollern eagle
emblazoned on the red flag, the emblem of the rule of labour.

Historically I believe this belies the origin of the red flag for it was
first used as the emblem of democratic socialism, a Nineteenth Century
theory of a social order in which all social and economic classes were
to be blended into a true democracy differing somewhat in its economic
organization, but essentially the same politically as the true democracy
which we have achieved in the World State. But with the Bolshevist
régime in Russia after the First World War, the red flag was
appropriated as the emblem of the political supremacy and rule of the
proletariat or labour class.

I make these references to bygone history because they throw light on
the peculiar status of the German Labour Caste, which is possessed of
political superiority combined with social and economic inferiority. It
was the Bolshevist brand of socialism that finally overran Germany in
the era of loose and ineffective rule of the world by the League of
Nations. Though I make no pretence of being an accurate authority on
history, the League of Nations, if I remember rightly, was humanity's
first timid conception of the World State. Rather weakly born, it was
promptly emasculated by the rise in America of a political party founded
on the ideas of a great national hero who had just died. The
obstructionist policy of this party was inherent in its origin, for it
was inspired and held together by the ideas of a dead man, whose
followers could only repeat as their test of faith a phrase that has
come down to us as an idiom--"What would He do?"

"He" being dead could do nothing, neither could he change his mind, but
having left an indelible record of his ideas by the strenuous verbiage
of his virile and inspiring rhetoric, there was no room for doubt. As in
all political and religious faiths founded on the ideas of dead heroes,
this made for solidarity and power and quite prevented any adaptation of
the form of government to the needs of the world that had arisen since
his demise.

I have digressed here from my theme of the political status of the
German labour caste, but it is fascinating to trace things to their
origin to find the links of the chain of cause and effect. So, if I have
read my history aright, the emasculation of the League of Nations by the
American obstructionists caused, or at least permitted the rise, and
dominance of the Bolshevists in Twentieth-Century Germany. Had the
Germans been democrats at heart the pendulum would have swung back as it
did with other peoples, and been stayed at the point of equilibrium
which we recognized as the stable mean of democracy.

But in the old days before the modern intermingling of the races it
seems that there were certain tastes that had become instinctive in
racial groups. Thus, just as the German stomach craved the rich flavour
of sausage, so the German mind craved the dazzling show of Royal
flummery. Had it not been for this the First World War could have never
been, for the socialists of that time were bitterly opposed to war and
Germany was the world's greatest stronghold of socialism, yet when their
beloved imperial poser, William the Great, called for war the German
socialists, with the exception of a few whom they afterwards murdered,
went forth to war almost without protest.

When I first began to hear of the political rights of Labour, I went to
my friend Hellar and asked for an explanation.

"Is not the chain of authority absolute," I asked, "up through the
industrial organization direct to the Emperor and so to God himself?"

"But," said Hellar, "the workers do not believe in God!"

"What," I stammered, "workers not believe in God! It is impossible. Have
not the workers simple trusting minds?"

"Certainly," said Hellar, "it is the natural mind of man! Scepticism,
which is the basis of scientific reasoning, is an artificial thing,
first created in the world under the competitive economic order when it
became essential to self-preservation in a world of trade based on
deceit. In our new order we have had difficulty in maintaining enough of
it for scientific purposes even in the intellectual classes. There is no
scepticism among the labourers now, I assure you. They believe as easily
as they breathe."

"Then how," I demanded in amazement, "does it come that they do not
believe in God?"

"Because," said Hellar, "they have never heard of God.

"The labourer does not know of God because we have restored God since
the perfection of our caste system, and hence it was easy to promulgate
the idea among the intellectuals and not among the workers. It was
necessary to restore God for the intellectuals in order to give them
greater respect for the power of the Royal House, but the labourers need
no God because they believe themselves to be the source from which the
Royal House derives its right to rule. They believe the Emperor to be
their own servant ruling by their permission."

"The Emperor a servant to labour!" I exclaimed; "this is absurd."

"Certainly," said Hellar; "why should it be otherwise? We are an absurd
people, because we have always laughed at the wrong things. Still this
principle is very old and has not always been confined to the Germans.
After the revolutions in the Twentieth Century the American plutocrats
employed poverty-stricken European nobility for servants and exalted
them to high stations and obeyed them explicitly in all social matters
with which their service was concerned.

"The labourers restored William III because they wished to have an
exalted servant. He led them to war and became a hero. He reorganized
the state and became their political servant, also their emperor and
their tyrant. It is not an impossible relation, for it is not unlike the
relation between the mother and the child or between a man and his
mistress. And yet it is different, more formal, with functions
better defined.

"The Emperor is the administrative head of the government and we
intellectuals are merely his hirelings. We are merely the feathers of
the Royal eagle, our colour is black, we have no part in the red blood
of human brotherhood, we are outcasts from the socialistic labour
world--for we receive money compensation to which labourers would not
stoop. But labour owns the state. This roof of Berlin over our heads and
all that is therein contained, is the property of the workers who
produced it."

I shook my head in mute admission of my lack of comprehension.

"And who," asked Hellar, "did you think owned Berlin?"

I confessed that I had never thought of that.

"Few of our intellectual class have ever thought of that," replied
Hellar, "unless they are well read in political history. But at the time
of the Hohenzollern restoration labour owned all property in true
communal ownership. They did not release it to the Royal House, but
merely turned over the administration of the property to the Emperor as
an agent."

These belated explanations of the fundamental ideas of German society
quite confused and confounded me, though Hellar seemed in no wise
surprised at my ignorance, since as a chemist I had originally been
supposed to know only of atoms and valences and such like matters.
Seeking a way out of these contradictions I asked: "How is it then that
labour is so powerless, since you say that it owns the state, and even
the Emperor rules by its permission?"

"Napoleon--have you ever heard of him?"

"Yes," I admitted--and then recalling my rôle as a German chemist I
hastened to add--"Napoleon was a directing chemist who achieved a plan
for increasing the food supply in his day by establishing the sugar beet
industry."

"Is that so?" exclaimed Hellar. "I didn't know that. I thought he was
only an Emperor--anyway, Napoleon said that if you tell men they are
equal you can do as you please with them. So when William III was
elected to the throne by labour, he insisted that they retain the power
and re-elect him every five years. He was very popular because he
invented the armoured city--our new Berlin--some day I will tell you of
that--and so of course he was re-elected, and his son after him. Though
most of the intellectuals do not know that it exists the ceremony of
election is a great occasion on the labour levels. The Emperor speaks
all day through the horns and on the picture screens. The workers think
he is actually speaking, though of course it is a collection of old
films and records of the Royal Voice. When they have seen and heard the
speeches, the labourers vote, and then go back to their work and are
very happy."

"But suppose they should sometime fail to re-elect him?"

"No danger," said Hellar; "there is only one name on the ballot and the
ballots are dumped into the paper mill without inspection."

"Most extraordinary," I exclaimed.

"Most ordinary," contradicted Hellar; "it is not even an exclusively
German institution; we have merely perfected it. Voting everywhere is a
very useful device in organized government. In the cruder form used in
democracies there were two or more candidates. It usually made little
difference which was elected; but the system was imperfect because the
voters who voted for the candidate which lost were not pleased. Then
there was the trouble of counting the ballots. We avoid all this."

"It is all very interesting," I said, "but who is the real authority?"

"Ah," said Hellar, "this matter of authority is one of our most subtle
conceptions. The weakness of ancient governments was in the fact that
the line of authority was broken. It came somewhere to an end. But now
authority flows up from labour to the Emperor and then descends again to
labour through the administrative line of which we are one link. It is
an unbroken circuit."

But I was still unsatisfied, for it annoyed me not to be able to
understand the system of German politics, as I had always prided myself
that, for a scientist, I understood politics remarkably well.

~2~

I had gone to Hellar for enlightenment because I was gravely alarmed
over the rumours of a strike among the labourers in the Protium Works. I
had read in the outside world of the murder and destruction of these
former civil wars of industry. With a working population so cruelly held
to the treadmill of industrial bondage the idea of a strike conjured up
in my fancy the beginning of a bloody revolution. With so vast a
population so utterly dependent upon the orderly processes of industry
the possible terrors of an industrial revolution were horrible beyond
imagining; and for the moment all thoughts of escape, or of my own plans
for negotiating the surrender of Berlin to the World State, were swept
aside by the stern responsibilities that devolved upon me as the
Director of Works wherein a terrible strike seemed brewing.

The first rumour of the strike of the labourers in the Protium Works had
come to me from the Listening-in-Service. Since Berlin was too
complicated and congested a spot for wireless communication to be
practical, the electrical conduct of sound was by antiquated means of
metal wires. The workers' Free Speech Halls were all provided with
receiving horns by which they made their appeals to His Majesty, of
which I shall speak presently. These instruments were provided with
cut-offs in the halls. They had been so designed by the electrical
engineers, who were of the intellectual caste, that not even the workers
who installed and repaired them knew that the cut-offs were a blind and
that the Listening-in-Service heard every word that was said at their
secret meetings, when all but workers were, by law and custom, excluded
from the halls.

And so the report came to me that the workers were threatening strike.
Their grievance came about in this fashion. My new process had reduced
the number of men needed in the works. This would require that some of
the men be transferred to other industries. But the transfer was a slow
process, as all the workers would have to be examined anatomically and
their psychic reflexes tested by the labour assignment experts and those
selected re-trained for other labour. That work was proceeding
slowly, for there was a shortage of experts because some similar need of
transfers existed in one of the metal industries. Moreover, my labour
psychologist considered it dangerous to transfer too many men, as they
were creatures of habit, and he advised that we ought merely to cease to
take on new workers, but wait for old age and death to reduce the number
of our men, meanwhile retaining the use of the old extraction process in
part of the works.

"Impossible," I replied, "unless you would have your rations cut and the
city put on a starvation diet. Do you not know that the reserve store of
protium that was once enough to last eight years is now reduced to less
than as many months' supply?"

"That is none of my affair," said the labour psychologist; "these
chemical matters I do not comprehend. But I advise against these
transfers, for our workers are already in a furor about the change of
operations in the work."

"But," I protested, "the new operations are easier than the old; besides
we can cut down the speed of operations, which ought to help you take
care of these surplus men."

"Pardon, Herr Chief," returned the elderly labour psychologist, "you are
a great chemist, a very great chemist, for your invention has upset the
labour operation more than has anything that ever happened in my long
experience, but I fear you do not realize how necessary it is to go slow
in these matters. You ask men who have always opened a faucet from left
to right to now open one that moves in a vertical plane. Here, I will
show you; move your arm so; do you not see that it takes
different muscles?"

"Yes, of course, but what of it? The solution flows faster and the
operation is easier."

"It is easy for you to say that; for you or me it would make no
difference since our muscles have all been developed indiscriminately."

"But what are your labour gymnasiums for, if not to develop all
muscles?"

"Now do not misunderstand me. I serve as an interpreter between the
minds of the workers and your mind as Director of the Works. As for the
muscles developed in the gymnasium, those were developed for sport and
not for labour. But that is not the worst of it; you have designed the
new benches so low that the mixers must stoop at their work. It is
very painful."

"Good God," I cried, "what became of the stools? The mixers are to sit
down--I ordered two thousand stools."

"That I know, Herr Chief, but the equipment expert consulted me about
the matter and I countermanded the order. It would never do. I did not
consult you, it is true, but that was merely a kindness. I did not wish
to expose your lack of knowledge, if I may call it such."

"Call it what you please," I snapped, for at the time I thought my
labour psychologist was a fool, "but get those stools, immediately."

"But it would never do."

"Why not?"

"Because these men have always stood at their work."

"But why can they not sit down now?"

"Because they never have sat down."

"Do they not sit down to eat?"

"Yes, but not to work. It is very different. You do not understand the
psychic immobility of labour. Habits grow stronger as the mentality is
simplified. I have heard that there are animals in the zoological garden
that still perform useless operations that their remote ancestors
required in their jungle life."

"Then do you infer that these men who must stand at their work inherited
the idea from their ancestors?"

"That is a matter of eugenics. I do not know, but I do know that we are
preparing for trouble with these changes. Still I hope to work it out
without serious difficulty, if you do not insist on these transfers.
When workmen have already been forced to change their habitual method of
work and then see their fellows being removed to other and still
stranger work it breeds dangerous unrest."

"One thing is certain," I replied; "we cannot delay the installation of
the new method; as fast as the equipment is ready the new operation must
replace the old."

"But the effect of that policy will be that there will not be enough
work, and besides the work is, as you say, lighter and that will result
in the cutting down of the food rations."

"But I have already arranged that," I said triumphantly; "the Rationing
Bureau have adjusted the calorie standards so that the men will get as
much food as they have been used to."

"What! you have done that?" exclaimed the labour psychologist; "then
there will be trouble. That will destroy the balance of the food supply
and the expenditure of muscular energy and the men will get fat. Then
the other men will accuse them of stealing food and we shall have
bloodshed."

"A moment ago," I smiled, "you told me I did not know your business. Now
I will tell you that you do not know mine. We ordered special food
bulked up in volume; the scheme is working nicely; you need not worry
about that. As for the other matter, this surplus of men, it seems to me
that the only thing is to cut down the working hours temporarily until
the transfers can be made."

The psychologist shook his head. "It is dangerous," he said, "and very
unusual. I advise instead that you have the operation engineers go over
the processes and involve the operations, both to make them more nearly
resemble the old ones, and to add to the time and energy consumption of
the tasks."

"No," I said emphatically, "I invented a more economical process for
this industry and I do not propose to see my invention prostituted in
this fashion. I appreciate your advice, but if we cannot transfer the
workers any faster, then the labour hours must be cut. I will issue the
order tomorrow. This is my final decision."

I was in authority and that settled the matter. The psychologist was
very decent about it and helped me fix up a speech and that next night
the workers were ordered to assemble in their halls and I made my speech
into a transmitting horn. I told them that they had been especially
honoured by their Emperor, who, appreciating their valuable service, had
granted them a part-time vacation and that until further notice their
six-hour shifts were to be cut to four. I further told them that their
rations would not be reduced and advised them to take enough extra
exercise in the gymnasium to offset their shorter hours so they would
not get fat and be the envy of their fellows.

~3~

For a time the workers seemed greatly pleased with their shorter hours.
And then, from the Listening-in-Service, came the rumour of the strike.
The first report of the strike gave me no clue to the grievance and I
asked for fuller reports. When these came the next day I was shocked
beyond belief. If I had anticipated anything in that interval of terror
it was that my workers were to strike because their communications had
been shut off or that they were to strike in sympathy for their fellows
and demand that all hours be shortened like their own. But the grievance
was not that. My men were to go on strike for the simple reason that
their hours had been shortened!

The catastrophe once started came with a rush, for when I reached the
office the next day the psychologist was awaiting me and told me that
the strike was on. I rushed out immediately and went down to the works.
The psychologist followed me. As I entered the great industrial
laboratories I saw all the men at their usual places and going through
their usual operations. I turned to my companion who was just coming up,
and said: "What do you mean; I thought you told me the strike was on,
that the men had already walked out?"

"What do you mean by 'walked out'?" he returned, as puzzled as I.

"Walked out of the works," I explained; "away from their duties, quit
work. Struck!"

"But they have struck. Perhaps you have never seen a strike before, but
do you not see the strike badges?"

And then I looked and saw that every workman wore a tiny red flag, and
the flag bore no imperial eagle.

"It means," I gasped, "that they have renounced the rule of the Royal
House. This is not a strike, this is rebellion, treason!"

"It is the custom," said the labour psychologist, "and as for rebellion
and treason that you speak of I hardly think you ought to call it that
for rebellion and treason are forbidden."

"Then just what does it mean?"

"It means that this particular group of workers have temporarily
withdrawn their allegiance to the Royal House, and they have, in their
own minds, restored the old socialist régime, until they can make
petition to the Emperor and he passes on their grievance. They will do
that in their halls tonight. We, of course, will be connected up and
listen in."

"Then they are not really on strike?"

"Certainly they are on strike. All strikes are conducted so."

"Then why do they not quit work?"

"But why should they quit work? They are striking because their hours
are already too short--pardon, Herr Chief, but I warned you!

"I think I know what you mean," he added after a pause; "you have
probably read some fiction of old times when the workers went on strike
by quitting work."

"Yes, exactly. I suppose that is where I did get my ideas; and that is
now forbidden--by the Emperor?"

"Not by the Emperor, for you see these men wear the flags without the
eagle. They at present do not acknowledge his authority."

"Then all this strike is a matter of red badges without eagles and
everything else will go on as usual?"

"By no means. These men are striking against the descending authority
from the Royal House. They not only refuse to wear the eagle until their
grievance is adjusted but they will refuse to accept further education,
for that is a thing that descends from above. If you will go now to the
picture halls, where the other shift should be, you will find the halls
all empty. The men refuse to go to the moving pictures."

That night we "listened in." A bull-throated fellow, whom I learned was
the Talking Delegate, addressed the Emperor, and much to my surprise I
thought I heard the Emperor's own voice in reply, stating that he was
ready to hear their grievance.

Then the bull voice of the Talking Delegate gave the reason for the
strike: "The Director of the Works, speaking for your Majesty, has
granted us a part time vacation, and shortened our hours from six to
four. We thank you for this honour but we have decided we do not like
it. We do not know what to do during those extra two hours. We had our
games and amusements but we had our regular hours for them. If we play
longer we become tired of play. If we sleep longer we cannot sleep as
well. Moreover we are losing our appetite and some of us are afraid to
eat all our portions for fear we will become fat. So we have decided
that we do not like a four-hour day and we have therefore taken the
eagles off our flags and will refuse to replace them or to go to the
educational pictures until our hours are restored to the six-hour day
that we have always had."

And now the Emperor's voice replied that he would take the matter under
consideration and report his decision in three days and, that meanwhile
he knew he could trust them to conduct themselves as good socialists who
were on strike, and hence needed no king.

The next day the psychologist brought a representative of the
Information Staff to my office and together we wrote the reply that the
Emperor was to make. It would be necessary to concede them the full six
hours and introduce the system of complicating the labour operations to
make more work. Much chagrined, I gave in, and called in the motion
study engineers and set them to the task. Meanwhile the Royal Voice was
sent for and coached in the Emperor's reply to the striking workmen, and
a picture film of the Emperor, timed to fit the length of the speech,
was ordered from stock.

The Royal Voice was an actor by birth who had been trained to imitate
His Majesty's speech. This man, who specialized in the Emperor's
speeches to the workers, prided himself that he was the best Royal Voice
in Berlin and I complimented him by telling him that I had been deceived
by him the evening before. But considering that the workers, never
having heard the Emperor's real voice, would have no standard of
comparison, I have never been able to see the necessity of the accuracy
of his imitation, unless it was on the ground of art for art's sake.



CHAPTER XII

THE DIVINE DESCENDANTS OF WILLIAM THE GREAT GIVE A BENEFIT
FOR THE CANINE GARDENS AND PAY TRIBUTE TO THE PIGGERIES


~1~

The strike that I had feared would be the beginning of a bloody
revolution had ended with an actor shouting into a horn and the shadow
of an Emperor waving his arms. But meanwhile Capt. Grauble, on whom I
staked my hopes of escape from Berlin, had departed to the Arctic and
would not return for many months. That he would return I firmly
believed; statistically the chances were in his favour as this was his
fourth trip, and hope was backing the favourable odds of the law of
chance.

So I set myself to prepare for that event. My faith was strong that
Grauble could be won over to the cause of saving the Germans by
betraying Germany. I did not even consider searching for another man,
for Grauble was that one rare man in thousands who is rebellious and
fearless by nature, a type of which the world makes heroes when their
cause wins and traitors when it fails--a type that Germany had all but
eliminated from the breed of men.

But, if I were to escape to the outer world through Grauble's
connivance, there was still the problem of getting permission to board
the submarine, ostensibly to go to the Arctic mines. Even in my exalted
position as head of the protium works I could not learn where the
submarine docks or the passage to them was located. But I did learn
enough to know that the way was impenetrable without authoritative
permission, and that thoughts of escape as a stowaway were not worth
considering. I also learned that Admiral von Kufner had sole authority
to grant permission to make the Arctic trip.

The Admiral had promptly turned down my first proposal to go to the
Arctic ore fields, and had by his pompous manner rebuffed the attempts I
made to cultivate his friendship through official interviews. I
therefore decided to call on Marguerite and the Countess Luise to see
what chance there was to get a closer approach to the man through social
avenues. The Countess was very obliging in the matter, but she warned me
with lifted finger that the Admiral was a gay bachelor and a worshipper
of feminine charms, and that I might rue the day I suggested his being
invited into the admiring circle that revolved about Marguerite. But I
laughingly disclaimed any fears on that score and von Kufner was bidden
to the next ball given by the Countess.

Marguerite was particularly gracious to the Admiral and speedily led him
into the inner circle that gathered informally in the salon of the
Countess Luise. I made it a point to absent myself on some of these
occasions, for I did not want the Admiral to guess the purpose that lay
behind this ensnaring of him into our group.

And yet I saw much of Marguerite, for I spent most of my leisure in the
society of the Royal Level, where thought, if shallow, was comparatively
free. I took particular pleasure in watching the growth of Marguerite's
mind, as the purely intellectual conceptions she had acquired from Dr.
Zimmern and his collection of books adjusted itself to the absurd
realities of the celestial society of the descendants of William
the Great.

It may be that charity is instinctive in the heart of a good woman, or
perhaps it was because she had read the Christian Bible; but whatever
the origin of the impulse, Marguerite was charitably inclined and wished
to make personal sacrifice for the benefit of other beings less well
situated than herself. While she was still a resident of the Free Level
she had talked to me of this feeling and of her desire to help others.
But the giving of money or valuables by one woman to another was
strictly forbidden, and Marguerite had not at the time possessed more
than she needed for her own subsistence. But now that she was relatively
well off, this charitable feeling struggled to find expression. Hence
when she had learned of the Royal Charity Society she had straightway
begged the Countess to present her name for membership, without stopping
to examine into the detail of the Society's activities.

The Society was at that time preparing to hold a bazaar and sent out
calls for contributions of cast off clothing and ornaments. Marguerite
as yet possessed no clothes or jewelry of Royal quality except the
minimum which the demands of her position made necessary; and so she
timidly asked the Countess if her clothing which she had worn on the
Free Level would suffice as gifts of charity. The Countess had assured
her that it would do nicely as the destination of all the clothing
contributed was for the women of the Free Level. Thinking that an
opportunity had at last arisen for her to express her compassion for the
ill-favoured girls of her own former level, Marguerite hastened to
bundle up such presentable gowns as she had and sent them to the bazaar
by her maid.

Later she had attended the meeting of the society when the net results
of the collections were announced. To her dismay she found that the
clothing contributed had been sold for the best price it would bring to
the women of the Free Level and that the purpose of the sacrifices, of
that which was useless to the possessors but valuable to others, was the
defraying of the expense of extending the romping grounds for the dogs
of the charitably maintained canine garden.

Marguerite was vigorously debating the philosophy of charity with the
young Count Rudolph that evening when I called. She was maintaining that
human beings and not animals should be the recipients of charity and the
young Count was expounding to her the doctrine of the evil effects of
charity upon the recipient.

"Moreover," explained Count Rudolph, "there are no humans in Berlin that
need charity, since every class of our efficiently organized State
receives exactly what it should receive and hence is in need of nothing.
Charity is permissible only when poverty exists."

"But there is poverty on the Free Level," maintained Marguerite; "many
of the ill-favoured girls suffer from hunger and want better clothes
than they can buy."

"That may be," said the Count, "but to permit them gifts of charity
would be destructive of their pride; moreover, there are few women on
the Royal Level who would give for such a purpose."

"But surely," said Marguerite, "there must be somewhere in the city,
other women or children or even men to whom the proceeds of these gifts
would mean more than it does to dogs."

"If any group needed anything the state would provide it," repeated the
Count.

"Then why," protested Marguerite, "cannot the state provide also for the
dogs, or if food and space be lacking why are these dogs allowed to
breed and multiply?"

"Because it would be cruel to suppress their instincts."

Marguerite was puzzled by this answer, but with my more rational mind I
saw a flaw in the logic of this statement. "But that is absurd," I said,
"for if their number were not checked in some fashion, in a few decades
the dogs would overswarm the city."

It was now the Count's turn to look puzzled. "You have inferred an
embarrassing question," he stated, "one, in fact, that ought not to be
answered in the presence of a lady, but since the Princess Marguerite
does not seem to be a lover of dogs, I will risk the explanation. The
Medical Level requires dogs for purposes of scientific research. Since
the women are rarely good mathematicians, it is easily possible in this
manner to keep down the population of the Canine Garden."

"But the dogs required for research," I suggested, "could easily be bred
in kennels maintained for that purpose."

"So they could," said the Count, "but the present plan serves a double
purpose. It provides the doctors with scalpel practise and it also
amuses the women of the Royal House who are very much in need of
amusement since we men are all so dull."

"Woman's love," continued Rudolph, waxing eloquent, "should have full
freedom for unfoldment. If it be forcibly confined to her husband and
children it might burst its bounds and express too great an interest in
other humans. The dogs act as a sort of safety valve for this instinct
of charity."

The facetious young Count saw from Marguerite's horror-stricken face
that he was making a marked impression and he recklessly continued: "The
keepers at the Canine Gardens understand this perfectly. When funds
begin to run low they put the dogs in the outside pens on short rations,
and the brutes do their own begging; then we have another bazaar and
everybody is happy. It is a good system and I would advise you not to
criticize it since the institution is classic. Other schemes have been
tried; at one time women were permitted to knit socks for soldiers--we
always put that in historical pictures--but the socks had to be melted
up again as felted fibre is much more durable; and then, after the women
were forbidden to see the soldiers, they lost interest. But the dog
charity is a proven institution and we should never try to change
anything that women do not want changed since they are the conservative
bulwark of society and our best protection against the danger of
the untried."

~2~

Blocked in her effort to relieve human poverty by the discovery that its
existence was not recognized, Marguerite's next adventure in doing good
in the world was to take up the battle against ignorance by contributing
to the School for the Education of Servants.

The Servant problem in Berlin, and particularly on the Royal Level, had
been solved so far as male servants were concerned, for these were a
well recognized strain eugenically bred as a division of the
intellectual caste. I had once taken Dr. Zimmern to task on this
classification of the servant as an intellectual.

"The servant is not intellectual creatively," the Eugenist replied, "yet
it would never do to class him as Labour since he produces nothing.
Moreover, the servant's mind reveals the most specialized development of
the most highly prized of all German intellectual characteristics
--obedience.

"It might interest you to know," continued Zimmern, "that we use this
servant strain in outcrossing with other strains when they show a
tendency to decline in the virtue of obedience. If I had not chosen to
exempt you from paternity when your rebellious instincts were reported
to me, and the matter had been turned over to our Remating Board they
might have reassigned you to mothers of the servant class. This practice
of out-crossing, though rare, is occasionally essential in all
scientific breeding."

"Then do you mean," I asked in amazement, "that the highest intellectual
strains have servant blood in them?"

"Certainly. And why not, since obedience is the crowning glory of the
German mind? Even Royal blood has a dash of the servant strain."

"You mean, I suppose, from illegitimate children?"

"Not at all; that sort of illegitimacy is not recognized. I mean from
the admission of servants into Royal Society, just as you have been
admitted."

"Impossible!"

"And why impossible, since obedience is our supreme racial virtue? Go
consult your social register. The present Emperor, I believe, has
admitted none, but his father admitted several and gave them princely
incomes. They married well and their children are respected, though I
understand they are not very much invited out for the reason that they
are poor conversationalists. They only speak when spoken to and then
answer, 'Ja, Mein Herr.' I hear they are very miserable; since no one
commands them they must be very bored with life, as they are unable to
think of anything to do to amuse themselves. In time the trait will be
modified, of course, since the Royal blood will soon predominate, and
the strongest inherent trait of Royalty is to seek amusement."

This specialized class of men servants needed little education, for, as
I took more interest in observing after this talk with Zimmern, they
were the most perfectly fitted to their function of any class in Berlin.
But there was also a much more numerous class of women servants on the
Royal Level. These, as a matter of economy, were not specially bred to
the office, but were selected from the mothers who had been rejected for
further maternity after the birth of one or two children. Be it said to
the credit of the Germans that no women who had once borne a child was
ever permitted to take up the profession of Delilah--a statement which
unfortunately cannot be made of the rest of the world. These mothers
together with those who had passed the child bearing age more than
supplied the need for nurses on the maternity levels and teachers in
girls' schools.

As a result they swarmed the Royal Level in all capacities of service
for which women are fitted. Originally educated for maternity they had
to be re-educated for service. Not satisfied with the official education
provided by the masculine-ordered state, the women of the Royal Level
maintained a continuation school in the fine art of obedience and the
kindred virtues of the perfect servant.

So again it was that Marguerite became involved in a movement that in no
wise expressed the needs of her spirit, and from which she
speedily withdrew.

The next time she came to me for advice. "I want to do something," she
cried. "I want to be of some use in the world. You saved me from that
awful life--for you know what it would have been for me if Dr. Zimmern
had died or his disloyalty had been discovered--and you have brought me
here where I have riches and position but am useless. I tried to be
charitable, to relieve poverty, but they say there is no poverty to be
relieved. I tried to relieve ignorance, but they will not allow that
either. What else is there that needs to be relieved? Is there no good
I can do?"

"Your problem is not a new one," I replied, thinking of the world-old
experience of the good women yoked to idleness by wealth and position.
"You have tried to relieve poverty and ignorance and find your efforts
futile. There is one thing more I believe that is considered a classic
remedy for your trouble. You can devote yourself to the elimination of
ugliness, to the increase of beauty. Is there no organization devoted to
that work?"

"There is," returned Marguerite, "and I was about to join it, but I
thought this time I had better ask advice. There is the League to
Beautify Berlin."

"Then by all means join," I advised. "It is the safest of all such
efforts, for though poverty may not exist and ignorance may not be
relieved, yet surely Berlin can be more beautiful. But of course your
efforts must be confined to the Royal Level as you do not see the rest
of the city."

So Marguerite joined the League to Beautify Berlin and I became an
auxiliary member much appreciated because of my liberal contributions.
It proved an excellent source of amusement. The League met weekly and
discussed the impersonal aspects of the beauty of the level in open
meetings, while a secret complaint box was maintained into which all
were invited to deposit criticisms of more personal matters. It was
forbidden even in this manner to criticize irremedial ugliness such as
the matter of one's personal form or features, but dress and manners
came within the permitted range and the complaints were regularly mailed
to the offenders. This surprised me a little as I would have thought
that such a practice would have made the League unpopular, but on the
contrary, it was considered the mainstay of the organization, for the
recipient of the complaint, if a non-member, very often joined the
League immediately, hoping thereby to gain sweet revenge.

But aside from this safety valve for the desire to make personal
criticism, the League was a very creditable institution and it was there
that we met the great critics to whose untiring efforts the rare
development of German art was due.

Cut off from the opportunity to appropriate by purchase or capture the
works of other peoples, German art had suffered a severe decline in the
first few generations of the isolation, but in time they had developed
an art of their own. A great abundance of cast statues of white crystal
adorned the plazas and gardens and, being unexposed to dust or rain,
they preserved their pristine freshness so that it appeared they had all
been made the day before. Mural paintings also flourished abundantly and
in some sections the endless facade of the apartments was a
continuous pageant.

But it was in landscape gardening that German art had made its most
wonderful advancement. Having small opportunity for true architecture
because of the narrow engineering limitations of the city's
construction, talent for architecture had been turned to landscape
gardening. I use the term advisedly for the very absence of natural
landscape within a roofed-in city had resulted in greater development of
the artificial product.

The earlier efforts, few of which remained unaltered, were more inclined
toward imitation of Nature as it exists in the world of sun and rocks
and rain. But, as the original models were forgotten and new generations
of gardeners arose, new sorts of nature were created. Artificial rocks,
artificial soil, artificially bred and cultured plants, were combined in
new designs, unrealistic it is true, but still a very wonderful
development of what might be called synthetic or romantic nature. The
water alone was real and even in some cases that was altered as in the
beautifully dyed rivulets and in the truly remarkable "Fountain of
Blood," dedicated to one of the sons of William the Great--I have
forgotten his name--in honour of his attack upon Verdun in the First
World War.

In these wondrous gardens, with the Princess Marguerite strolling by my
side, I spent the happiest hours of my sojourn in Berlin. But my joy was
tangled with a thread of sadness for the more I gazed upon this
synthetic nature of German creation the more I hungered to tell her of,
and to take her to see, the real Nature of the outside world--upon
which, in my opinion, with all due respect to their achievements, the
Germans had not been able to improve.

~3~

While the women of the Royal House were not permitted of their own
volition to stray from the Royal Level, excursions were occasionally
arranged, with proper permits and guards. These were social events of
consequence and the invitations were highly prized. Noteworthy among
them was an excursion to the highest levels of the city and to the
roof itself.

The affair was planned by Admiral von Kufner in Marguerite's honour;
for, having spent her childhood elsewhere, she had never experienced the
wonder of this roof excursion so highly prized by Royalty, and for ever
forbidden to all other women and to all but a few men of the teeming
millions who swarmed like larvae in this vast concrete cheese.

The formal invitations set no hour for the excursion as it was
understood that the exact time depended upon weather conditions of which
we would later be notified. When this notice came the hour set was in
the conventional evening of the Royal Level, but corresponding to about
three A.M. by solar time. The party gathered at the suite of the
Countess Luise and numbered some forty people, for whom a half dozen
guides were provided in the form of officers of the Roof Guard. The
journey to our romantic destination took us up some hundred metres in an
elevator, a trip which required but two minutes, but would lead to a
world as different as Mount Olympus from Erebus.

But we did not go directly to the roof, for the hour preferred for that
visit had not yet arrived and our first stop was at the swine levels,
which had so aroused my curiosity and strained belief when I had first
discovered their existence from the chart of my atlas.

As the door of the elevator shaft slid open, a vast squealing and
grunting assaulted our ears. The hours of the swine, like those of their
masters, were not reckoned by either solar or sidereal time, but had
been altered, as experiment had demonstrated, to a more efficient cycle.
The time of our trip was chosen so that we might have this earthly music
of the feeding time as a fitting prelude to the visioning of the
silent heavens.

On the visitors' gangway we walked just above the reach of the jostling
bristly backs, and our own heads all but grazed the low ceiling of the
level. To economize power the lights were dim. Despite the masterful
achievement of German cleanliness and sanitation there was a permeating
odour, a mingling of natural and synthetic smells, which added to the
gloom of semi-darkness and the pandemonium of swinish sound produced a
totality of infernal effect that thwarts description.

But relief was on the way for the automatic feed conveyors were rapidly
moving across our section. First we heard a diminution of sound from one
direction, then a hasty scuffling and a happy grunting beneath us and,
as the conveyors moved swiftly on, the squealing receded into the
distance like the dying roar of a retreating storm.

The Chief Swineherd, immaculately dressed and wearing his full quota of
decorations and medals, honoured us with his personal presence. With the
excusable pride that every worthy man takes in his work, he expounded
the scientific achievements and economic efficiency of the swinish world
over which he reigned. The men of the party listened with respect to his
explanations of the accomplishments of sanitation and of the economy of
the cycle of chemical transformation by which these swine were
maintained without decreasing the capacity of the city for human
support. Lastly the Swineherd spoke of the protection that the swine
levels provided against the effects of an occasional penetrating bomb
that chanced to fall in the crater of its predecessor before the damage
could be repaired.

Pursuant to this fact the uppermost swine level housed those unfortunate
animals that were nearest the sausage stage. On the next lower level, to
which we now descended by a spiral stair through a ventilating opening,
were brutes of less advanced ages. On the lowest of the three levels
where special lights were available for our benefit even the women
ceased to shudder and gave expression to ecstatic cries of rapture, as
all the world has ever done when seeing baby beasts pawing contentedly
at maternal founts.

"Is it not all wonderful?" effused Admiral von Kufner, with a sweeping
gesture; "so efficient, so sanitary, so automatic, such a fine example
of obedience to system and order. This is what I call real science and
beauty; one might almost say Germanic beauty."

"But I do not like it," replied Marguerite with her usual candour. "I
wish they would abolish these horrid levels."

"But surely," said the Countess, "you would not wish to condemn us to a
diet of total mineralism?"

"But the Herr Chemist here could surely invent for us a synthetic
sausage," remarked Count Rudolph. "I have eaten vegetarian kraut made of
real cabbage from the Botanical Garden, but it was inferior to the
synthetic article."

"Do not make light, young people," spoke up the most venerable member of
our party, the eminent Herr Dr. von Brausmorganwetter, the historian
laureate of the House of Hohenzollern. "It is not as a producer of
sausages alone that we Germans are indebted to this worthy animal. I am
now engaged in writing a book upon the influence of the swine upon
German Kultur. In the first part I shall treat of the Semitic question.
The Jews were very troublesome among us in the days before the
isolation. They were a conceited race. As capitalists, they amassed
fortunes; as socialists they stirred up rebellion; they objected to war;
they would never have submitted to eugenics; they even insisted that we
Germans had stolen their God!

"We tried many schemes to be rid of these troublesome people, and all
failed. Therefore I say that Germany owes a great debt to the noble
animal who rid us of the disturbing presence of the Jews, for when pork
was made compulsory in the diet they fled the country of their
own accord.

"In the second part of my book I shall tell the story of the founding of
the New Berlin, for our noble city was modelled on the fortified
piggeries of the private estates of William III. In those days of the
open war the enemy bombed the stock farms. Synthetic foods were as yet
imperfectly developed. Protein was at a premium; the emperor did not
like fish, so he built a vast concrete structure with a roof heavily
armoured with sand that he might preserve his swine from the murderous
attacks of the enemy planes.

"It was during the retreat from Peking. The German armies were being
crowded back on every side. The Ray had been invented, but William the
III knew that it could not be used to protect so vast a domain and that
Germany would be penned into narrow borders and be in danger of
extermination by aërial bombardment. In those days he went for rest and
consolation to his estates, for he took great pleasure in his
thoroughbred swine. Some traitorous spy reported his move to the enemy
and a bombing squadron attacked the estates. The Emperor took refuge in
his fortified piggery. And so the great vision came to him.

"I have read the exact words of this thoughts as recorded in his diary
which is preserved in the archives of the Royal Palace: 'As are these
happy brutes, so shall my people be. In safety from the terrors of the
sky--protected from the vicissitudes of nature and the enmity of men, so
shall I preserve them.'

"That was the conception of the armoured city of Berlin. But that was
not all. For the bombardment kept up for days and the Emperor could not
escape. On the fourth day came the second idea--two new ideas in less
than a week! William III was a great thinker.

"Thus he recorded the second inspiration: 'And even as I have bred these
swine, some for bacon and some for lard, so shall the German Blond
Brutes be bred the super-men, some specialized for labour and some
for brains.'

"These two ideas are the foundation of the kultur of our Imperial
Socialism, the one idea to preserve us and the other to re-create us as
the super-race. And both of these ideas we owe to this noble animal. The
swine should be emblazoned with the eagle upon our flag."

As the Historian finished his eulogy, I glanced surreptitiously at the
faces of his listeners, and caught a twinkle in Marguerite's eyes; but
the faces of the others were as serious as graven images.

Finally the Countess spoke: "Do I understand, then, that you consider
the swine the model of the German race?"

"Only of the lower classes," said the aged historian, "but not the House
of Hohenzollern. We are exalted above the necessities of breeding, for
we are divine."

Eyes were now turned upon me, for I was the only one of the company not
of Hohenzollern blood. Unrelieved by laughter the situation was painful.

"But," said Count Rudolph, coming to my rescue, "we also seek safety in
the fortified piggeries."

"Exactly," said the Historian; "so did our noble ancestor."

~4~

From the piggeries, we went to the green level where, growing beneath
eye-paining lights, was a matted mass of solid vegetation from which
came those rare sprigs of green which garnished our synthetic dishes.
But this was too monotonous to be interesting and we soon went above to
the Defence Level where were housed vast military and rebuilding
mechanisms and stores. After our guides had shown us briefly about among
these paraphernalia, we were conducted to one of the sloping ramps which
led through a heavily arched tunnel to the roof above.

Marguerite clung close to my arm, quivering with expectancy and
excitement, as we climbed up the sloping passage-way and felt on our
faces the breath of the crisp air of the May night.

The sky came into vision with startling suddenness as we walked out upon
the soft sand blanket of the roof. The night was absolutely clear and my
first impression was that every star of the heavens had miraculously
waxed in brilliancy. The moon, in the last quarter, hung midway between
the zenith and the western horizon. The milky way seemed a floating band
of whitish flame. About us, in the form of a wide crescent, for we were
near the eastern edge of the city, swung the encircling band of
searchlights, but the air was so clear that this stockade of artificial
light beams was too pale to dim the points of light in the
blue-black vault.

In anticipating this visit to the roof I had supposed it would seem
commonplace to me, and had discussed it very little with Marguerite,
lest I might reveal an undue lack of wonder. But now as I thrilled once
more beneath their holy light, the miracle of unnumbered far-flung
flaming suns stifled again the vanity of human conceit and I stood with
soul unbared and worshipful beneath the vista of incommensurate space
wherein the birth and death of worlds marks the unending roll of time.
And at my side a silent gazing woman stood, contrite and humble and the
thrill and quiver of her body filled me with a joy of wordless delight.

A blundering guide began lecturing on astronomy and pointing out with
pompous gestures the constellations and planets. But Marguerite led me
beyond the sound of his voice. "It is not the time for listening to
talk," she said. "I only want to see."

When the astronomer had finished his speech-making, our party moved
slowly toward the East, where we could just discern the first faint
light of the coming dawn. When we reached the parapet of the eastern
edge of the city's roof, the stars had faded and pale pink streaked the
eastern sky. The guides brought folding chairs from a nearby tunnel way
and most of the party sat down on a hillock of sand, very much as men
might seat themselves in the grandstand of a race course. But I was so
interested in what the dawn would reveal beneath the changing colours of
the sky, that I led Marguerite to the rail of the parapet where we could
look down into the yawning depths upon the surface of German soil.

My first vision over the parapet revealed but a mottled grey. But as the
light brightened the grey land took form, and I discerned a few scraggly
patches of green between the torn masses of distorted soil.

The stars had faded now and only the pale moon remained in the bluing
sky, while below the land disclosed a sad monotony of ruin and waste,
utterly devoid of any constructive work of man.

Marguerite, her gaze fixed on the dawn, was beginning to complain of the
light paining her eyes, when one of the guides hurried by with an open
satchel swung from his shoulders. "Here are your glasses," he said; "put
them on at once. You must be very careful now, or you will injure
your eyes."

We accepted the darkened protecting lenses, but I found I did not need
mine until the sun itself had appeared above the horizon.

"Did you see it so in your vision?" questioned Marguerite, as the first
beams glistened on the surface of the sanded roof.

"This," I replied, "is a very ordinary sunrise with a perfectly
cloudless sky. Some day, perhaps, when the gates of this prison of
Berlin are opened, we will be able to see all the sunrises of my
visions, and even more wonderful ones."

"Karl," she whispered, "how do you know of all these things? Sometimes I
believe you are something more than human, that you of a truth possess
the blood of divinity which the House of Hohenzollern claims."

"No," I answered; "not divinity,--just a little larger humanity, and
some day very soon I am going to tell you more of the source of
my visions."

She looked at me through her darkened glasses. "I only know," she said,
"that you are wonderful, and very different from other men."

Had we been alone on the roof of Berlin, I could not have resisted the
temptation to tell her then that stars and sun were familiar friends to
me and that the devastated soil that stretched beneath us was but the
wasted skeleton of a fairer earth I knew and loved. But we were
surrounded by a host of babbling sightseers and so the moment passed and
I remained to Marguerite a man of mystery and a seer of visions.

The sun fully risen now, we were led to a protruding observation
platform that permitted us to view the wall of the city below. It was
merely one vast grey wall without interruption or opening in the
monotonous surface.

Amid the more troubled chaos of the ground immediately below we could
see fragments of concrete blown from the parapet of the roof. The wall
beneath us, we were told, was only of sufficient thickness to withstand
fire of the aircraft guns. The havoc that might be wrought, should the
defence mines ever be forced back and permit the walls of Berlin to come
within range of larger field pieces, was easily imagined. But so long as
the Ray defence held, the massive fort of Berlin was quite impervious to
attacks of the world forces of land and air and the stalemate of war
might continue for other centuries.

With the coming of daylight we had heard the rumbling of trucks as the
roof repairing force emerged to their task. Now that our party had
become tired of gazing through their goggles at the sun, our guides led
us in the direction where this work was in progress. On the way we
passed a single unfilled crater, a deep pit in the flinty quartz sand
that spread a protecting blanket over the solid structure of the roof.
These craters in the sand proved quite harmless except for the labour
involved in their refilling. Further on we came to another, now
half-filled from a spouting pipe with ground quartz blown from some
remote subterranean mine, so to keep up the wastage from wind
and bombing.

Again we approached the edge of the city and this time found more of
interest, for here an addition to the city was under construction. It
was but a single prism, not a hundred metres across, which when
completed would add but another block to the city's area. Already the
outer pillars reached the full height and supported the temporary roof
that offered at least a partial protection to the work in progress
beneath. Though I watched but a few minutes I was awed with the evident
rapidity of the building. Dimly I could see the forms below being swung
into place with a clock-like regularity and from numerous spouts great
streams of concrete poured like flowing lava.

It is at these building sections that the bombs were aimed and here
alone that any effectual damage could be done, but the target was a
small one for a plane flying above the reach of the German guns. The
officer who guided our group explained this to us: these bombing raids
were conducted only at times of particular cloud formations, when the
veil of mist hung thick and low in an even stratum above which the air
was clear. When such formation threatened, the roof of Berlin was
cleared and the expected bombs fell and spent their fury blowing up the
sand. It had been a futile warfare, for the means of defence were equal
to the means of offence.

Our visit to the roof of Berlin was cut short as the sun rose higher,
because the women, though they had donned gloves and veils, were fearful
of sunburn. So we were led back to the covered ramp into the endless
night of the city.

"Have we seen it all?" sighed Marguerite, as she removed her veil and
glasses and gazed back blinkingly into the last light of day.

"Hardly," I said; "we have not seen a cloud, nor a drop of rain nor a
flake of snow, nor a flash of lightning, nor heard a peal of thunder."

Again she looked at me with worshipful adoration. "I forget," she
whispered; "and can you vision those things also?"

But I only smiled and did not answer, for I saw Admiral von Kufner
glaring at me. I had monopolized Marguerite's company for the entire
occasion, and I was well aware that his only reason for arranging this,
to him a meaningless excursion, had been in the hopes of being with her.

~5~

But Admiral von Kufner, contending fairly for that share of Marguerite's
time which she deigned to grant him, seemed to bear me no malice; and,
as the months slipped by, I was gratified to find him becoming more
cordial toward me. We frequently met at the informal gatherings in the
salon of the Countess Luise. More rarely Dr. Zimmern came there also,
for by virtue of his office he was permitted the social rights of the
Royal Level. I surmised, however, that this privilege, in his case, had
not included the right to marry on the level, for though the head of the
Eugenic Staff, he had, so far as I could learn, neither wife
nor children.

But Dr. Zimmern did not seem to relish royal society, for when he
chanced to be caught with me among the members of the Royal House the
flow of his brilliant conversations was checked like a spring in a
drought, and he usually took his departure as soon as it was seemly.

On one of these occasions Admiral von Kufner came in as Zimmern sat
chatting over cups and incense with Marguerite and me, and the Countess
and her son. The doctor dropped quietly out of the conversation, and for
a time the youthful Count Ulrich entertained us with a technical
elaboration of the importance of the love passion as the dominant appeal
of the picture. Then the Countess broke in with a spirited exposition of
the relation of soul harmony to ardent passion.

Admiral von Kufner listened with ill-disguised impatience. "But all this
erotic passion," he interrupted, "will soon again be swept away by the
revival of the greater race passion for world rule."

"My dear Admiral," said the Countess Luise, "your ideas of race passion
are quite proper for the classes who must be denied the free play of the
love element in their psychic life, but your notion of introducing these
ideas into the life of the Royal Level is wholly antiquated."

"It is you who are antiquated," returned the Admiral, "for now the day
is at hand when we shall again taste of danger. His Majesty has--"

"Of course His Majesty has told us that the day is at hand," interrupted
the Countess. "Has not His Majesty always preserved this allegorical
fable? It is part of the formal kultur."

"But His Majesty now speaks the truth," replied the Admiral gravely,
"and I say to you who are so absorbed with the light passions of art and
love that we shall not only taste of danger but will fight again in the
sea and air and on the ground in the outer world. We shall conquer and
rule the world."

"And do you think, Admiral," inquired Marguerite, "that the German
people will then be free in the outer world?"

"They will be free to rule the outer world," replied the Admiral.

"But I mean," said Marguerite calmly, "to ask if they will be free again
to love and marry and rear their own children."

At this naïve question the others exchanged significant glances.

"My dear child," said the Countess, blushing with embarrassment, "your
defective training makes it extremely difficult for you to understand
these things."

"Of course it is all forbidden," spoke up the young Count, "but now, if
it were not, the Princess Marguerite's unique idea would certainly make
capital picture material."

"How clever!" cried the Countess, beaming on her intellectual son.
"Nothing is forbidden for plot material for the Royal Level. You shall
make a picture showing those great beasts of labour again liberated for
unrestricted love."

"There is one difficulty," Count Rudolph considered. "How could we get
actors for the parts? Our thoroughbred actors are all too light of bone,
too delicate of motion, and our actresses bred for dainty beauty would
hardly caste well for those great hulking round-faced labour mothers."

"Then," remarked the Admiral, "if you must make picture plays why not
one of the mating of German soldiers with the women of the
inferior races?"

"Wonderful!" exclaimed the plot maker; "and practical also. Our
actresses are the exact counterpart of those passionate French beauties.
I often study their portraits in the old galleries. They have had no
Eugenics, hence they would be unchanged. Is it not so, Doctor?"

"Without Eugenics, a race changes with exceeding slowness," answered
Zimmern in a voice devoid of expression. "I should say that the French
women of today would much resemble their ancestral types."

"But picturing such matings of military necessity would be very
disgusting," reprimanded the Countess.

"It will be a very necessary part of the coming day of German dominion,"
stated the Admiral. "How else can we expect to rule the world? It is,
indeed, part of the ordained plan."

"But how," I questioned, "is such a plan to be executed? Would the men
of the World State tolerate it?"

"We will oblige them to tolerate it; the children of the next generation
of the inferior races must be born of German sires."

"But the Germans are outnumbered ten to one," I replied.

"Polygamy will take care of that, among the white races; the coloured
races must be eliminated. All breeding of the coloured races must cease.
That, also, is part of the ordained plan."

The conversation was getting on rather dangerous ground for me as I
realized that I dare not show too great surprise at this talk, which of
all things I had heard in Germany was the most preposterous.

But Marguerite made no effort to disguise her astonishment. "I thought,"
she said, "that the German rule of the world was only a plan for
military victory and the conquering of the World Government. I supposed
the people would be left free to live their personal lives as
they desired."

"That was the old idea," replied the Admiral, "in the days of open war,
before the possibilities of eugenic science were fully realized. But the
ordained plan revealed to His Majesty requires not only the military and
political rule by the Germans, but the biologic conquest of the inferior
races by German blood."

"I think our German system of scientific breeding is very brutal," spoke
up Marguerite with an intensity of feeling quite out of keeping with the
calloused manner in which the older members of the Royal House discussed
the subject.

The Admiral turned to her with a gracious air. "My lovely maiden," he
said, "your youth quite excuses your idealistic sentiments. You need
only to remember that you are a daughter of the House of Hohenzollern.
The women of this House are privileged always to cultivate and cherish
the beautiful sentiments of romantic love and individual maternity. The
protected seclusion of the Royal Level exists that such love may bloom
untarnished by the grosser affairs of world necessity. It was so
ordained."

"It was so ordained by men," replied Marguerite defiantly, "and what are
these privileges while the German women are prostituted on the Free
Level or forced to bear children only to lose them--and while you plan
to enforce other women of the world into polygamous union with a
conquering race?"

"My dear child," said the Countess, "you must not speak in this wild
fashion. We women of the Royal House must fully realize our
privileges--and as for the Admiral's wonderful tale of world
conquest--that is only his latest hobby. It is talked, of course, in
military circles, but the defensive war is so dull, you know, especially
for the Royal officers, that they must have something to occupy
their minds."

"When the day arrives," snapped the Admiral, "you will find the Royal
officers leading the Germans to victory like Atilla and William the
Great himself."

"Then why," twitted the Countess, "do you not board one of your
submarines and go forth to battle in the sea?"

"I am not courting unnecessary danger," retorted the Admiral; "but I am
not dead to the realities of war. My apartments are directly connected
with the roof."

"So you can hear the bomb explosions," suggested the Countess.

"And why not?" snapped the Admiral; "we must prepare for danger."

"But you have not been bred for danger," scoffed the Countess. "Perhaps
you would do well to have your reactions to fear tested out in the
psychic laboratories; if you should pass the test you might be elected
as a father of soldiers; it would surely set a good example to our
impecunious Hohenzollern bachelors for whom there are no wives."

The young Count evidently did not comprehend his mother's spirit of
raillery. "Has that not been tried?" he asked, turning toward
Dr. Zimmern.

"It has," stated the Eugenist, "more than a hundred years ago. There was
once an entire regiment of such Hohenzollern soldiers in the
Bavarian mines."

"And how did they turn out?" I asked, my curiosity tempting me into
indiscretion.

"They mutinied and murdered their officers and then held an election--"
Zimmern paused and I caught his eye which seemed to say, "We have gone
too far with this."

"Yes, and what happened?" queried the Countess.

"They all voted for themselves as Colonel," replied the Doctor drily.

At this I looked for an outburst of indignation from the orthodox
Admiral, but instead he seemed greatly elated. "Of course," he enthused;
"the blood breeds true. It verily has the quality of true divinity. No
wonder we super-men repudiated that spineless conception of the soft
Christian God and the servile Jewish Jesus."

"But Jesus was not a coward," spoke up Marguerite. "I have read the
story of his life; it is very wonderful; he was a brave man, who met his
death unflinchingly."

"But where did you read it?" asked the Countess. "It must be very new. I
try to keep up on the late novels but I never heard of this 'Story
of Jesus.'"

"What you say is true," said the Admiral, turning to Marguerite, "but
since you like to read so well, you should get Prof. Ohlenslagger's book
and learn the explanation of the fact that you have just stated. We have
long known that all those great men whom the inferior races claim as
their geniuses are of truth of German blood, and that the fighting
quality of the outer races is due to the German blood that was scattered
by our early emigrations.

"But the distinctive contribution that Prof. Ohlenslagger makes to these
long established facts is in regard to the parentage of this man Jesus.
In the Jewish accounts, which the Christians accepted, the truth was
crudely covered up with a most unscientific fable, which credited the
paternity of Jesus to miraculous interference with the laws of nature.

"But now the truth comes out by Prof. Ohlenslagger's erudite reasoning.
This unknown father of Jesus was an adventurer from Central Asia, a man
of Teutonic blood. On no other conception can the mixed elements in the
character of Jesus be explained. His was the case of a dual personality
of conflicting inheritance. One day he would say: 'Lay up for yourself
treasures'--that was the Jewish blood speaking. The next day he would
say: 'I come to bring a sword'--that was the noble German blood of a
Teutonic ancestor. It is logical, it must be true, for it was reasoned
out by one of our most rational professors."

The Countess yawned; Marguerite sat silent with troubled brows; Dr.
Ludwig Zimmern gazed abstractedly toward the cold electric imitation of
a fire, above which on a mantle stood two casts, diminutive
reproductions of the figures beside the door of the Emperor's palace,
the one the likeness of William the Great, the other the Statue of the
German God. But I was thinking of the news I had heard that afternoon
from my Ore Chief--that Captain Grauble's vessel had returned to Berlin.



CHAPTER XIII

IN WHICH A WOMAN ACCUSES ME OF MURDER AND
I PLACE A RUBY NECKLACE ABOUT HER THROAT


~1~

Anxious to renew my acquaintance with Captain Grauble at the earliest
opportunity, I sent my social secretary to invite him to meet me for a
dinner engagement in one of the popular halls of the Free Level.

When I reached the dining hall I found Captain Grauble awaiting me. But
he was not alone. Seated with him were two girls and so strange a
picture of contrast I had never seen. The girl on his right was an
extreme example of the prevailing blonde type. Her pinkish white skin
seemed transparent, her eyes were the palest blue and her hair was
bright yet pale gold. About her neck was a chain of blue stones linked
with platinum. She was dressed in a mottled gown of light blue and gold,
and so subtly blended were the colours that she and her gown seemed to
be part of the same created thing. But on Grauble's left sat a woman
whose gown was flashing crimson slashed with jetty black. Her skin was
white with a positive whiteness of rare marble and her cheeks and lips
flamed with blood's own red. The sheen of her hair was that of a raven's
wing, and her eyes scintillated with the blackness of polished jade.

The pale girl, whom Grauble introduced as Elsa, languidly reached up her
pink fingers for me to kiss and then sank back, eyeing me with mild
curiosity. But as I now turned to be presented to the other, I saw the
black-eyed beauty shrink and cower in an uncanny terror. Grauble again
repeated my name and then the name of the girl, and I, too, started in
fear, for the name he pronounced was "Katrina" and there flashed before
my vision the page from the diary that I had first read in the dank
chamber of the potash mine. In my memory's vision the words flamed and
shouted: "In no other woman have I seen such a blackness of hair and
eyes, combined with such a whiteness of skin."

The girl before me gave no sign of recognition, but only gripped the
table and pierced me with the stare of her beady eyes. Nervously I sank
into a seat. Grauble, standing over the girl, looked down at her in
angry amazement. "What ails you?" he said roughly, shaking her by
the shoulder.

But the girl did not answer him and annoyed and bewildered, he sat down.
For some moments no one spoke, and even the pale Elsa leaned forward and
seemed to quiver with excitement.

Then the girl, Katrina, slowly rose from her chair. "Who are you?" she
demanded, in a hoarse, guttural voice, still gazing at me with
terrified eyes.

I did not answer, and Grauble again reached over and gripped the girl's
arm. "I told you who he was," he said. "He is Herr Karl von Armstadt of
the Chemical Staff."

But, the girl did not sit down and continued to stare at me. Then she
raised a trembling hand and, pointing an accusing finger at me, she
cried in a piercing voice:

"You are not Karl Armstadt, but an impostor posing as Karl Armstadt!"

We were located in a well-filled dancing café, and the tragic voice of
the accuser brought a crowd of curious people about our table. Captain
Grauble waved them back. As they pushed forward again, a street guard
elbowed in, brandishing his aluminum club and asking the cause of the
commotion. The bystanders indicated Katrina and the guard, edging up,
gripped her arm and demanded an explanation.

Katrina repeated her accusation.

"Evidently," suggested Grauble, "she has known another man of the same
name, and meeting Herr von Armstadt has recalled some tragic memory."

"Perhaps," said the guard politely, "if the gentleman would show the
young lady his identification folder, she would be convinced of
her error."

For a moment I hesitated, realizing full well what an inquiry might
reveal.

"No," I said, "I do not feel that it is necessary."

"He is afraid to show it," screamed the girl. "I tell you he is trying
to pass for Armstadt but he is some one else. He looks like Karl
Armstadt and at first I thought he was Karl Armstadt, but I know he
is not."

I looked swiftly at the surrounding faces, and saw upon them suspicion
and accusation. "There may be something wrong," said a man in a military
uniform, "otherwise why should the gentleman of the staff hesitate to
show his folder?"

"Very well," I said, pulling out my folder.

The guard glanced at it. "It seems to be all right," he said, addressing
the group about the table; "now will you kindly resume your seats and
not embarrass these gentlemen with your idle curiosity?"

"Let me see the folder!" cried Katrina.

"Pardon," said the guard to me, "but I see no harm," and he handed her
the folder.

She glanced over it with feverish haste.

"Are you satisfied now?" questioned the guard.

"Yes," hissed the black-eyed girl; "I am satisfied that this is Karl
Armstadt's folder. I know every word of it, but I tell you that the man
who carries it now is not the real Karl Armstadt." And then she wheeled
upon me and screamed, "You are not Karl Armstadt, Karl Armstadt is dead,
and you have murdered him!"

In an instant the café was in an uproar. Men in a hundred types of
uniform crowded forward; small women, rainbow-garbed, stood on the
chairs and peered over taller heads of ponderous sisters of the labour
caste. Grauble again waved back the crowd and the guard brandished his
club threateningly toward some of the more inquisitive daughters
of labour.

When the crowd had fallen back to a more respectful distance, the guard
recovered my identification folder from Katrina and returned it to me.
"Perhaps," he said, "you have known the young lady and do not again care
to renew the acquaintance? If so, with your permission, I shall take her
where she will not trouble you again this evening."

"That may be best," I replied, wondering how I could explain the affair
to Captain Grauble.

"The incident is most unfortunate," said the Captain, evidently a little
nettled, "but I think this rude force unnecessary. I know Katrina well,
but I did not know she had previously known Herr von Armstadt. This
being the case, and he seeming not to wish to renew the acquaintance, I
suggest that she leave of her own accord."

But Katrina was not to be so easily dismissed. "No," she retorted, "I
will not leave until this man tells me how he came by that
identification folder and what became of the man I loved, whom he now
represents himself to be."

At these words the guard, who had been about to leave, turned back.

I glanced apprehensively at Grauble who, seeing that I was grievously
wrought up over the affair, said quietly to the officer, "You had best
take her away."

Katrina, with a black look of hatred at Grauble, went without further
words, and the curious crowd quickly melted away. The three of us who
remained at the table resumed our seats and I ordered dinner.

"My, how Katrina frightened me!" exclaimed the fragile Elsa.

"She does have temper," admitted Grauble. "Odd, though, that she would
conceive that idea that you were some one else. I have heard of all
sorts of plans of revenge for disappointments in love, but that is a
new one."

"You really know her?" questioned Elsa, turning her pale eyes upon me.

"Oh, yes, I once knew her," I replied, trying to seem unconcerned; "but
I did not recognize her at first."

"You mean you didn't care to," smiled Grauble. "Once a man had known
that woman he would hardly forget her."

"But you must have had a very emotional affair with her," said Elsa, "to
make her take on like that. Do tell us about it."

"I would rather not; there are some things one wishes to forget."

Grauble chided his dainty companion for her prying curiosity and tried
to turn the conversation into less personal channels. But Elsa's
appetite for romance had been whetted and she kept reverting to the
subject while I worried along trying to dismiss the matter. But the
ending of the affair was not to be left in my hands; as we were sitting
about our empty cups, we saw Katrina re-enter the café in company with a
high official of the level and the guard who had taken her away.

"I am sorry to disturb you," said the official, addressing me
courteously, "but this girl is very insistent in her accusation, and
perhaps, if you will aid us in the matter, it may prevent her making
further charges that might annoy you."

"And what do you wish me to do?"

"I suggest only that you should come to my office. I have telephoned to
have the records looked up and that should satisfy all and so end
the matter."

"You might come also," added the official, turning to Grauble, but he
waved back the curious Elsa who was eager to follow.

When we reached his office in the Place of Records, the official who had
brought us thither turned to a man at a desk. "You have received the
data on missing men?" he inquired.

The other handed him a sheet of paper.

The official turned to Katrina. "Will you state again, please, the time
that you say the Karl Armstadt you knew disappeared?"

Katrina quite accurately named the date at which the man whose identity
I had assumed had been called to the potash mines.

"Very well," said the official, taking up the sheet of paper, "here we
have the list of missing men for four years compiled from the weighers'
records. There is not recorded here the disappearance of a single
chemist during the whole period. If another man than a chemist should
try to step into a chemist's shoes, he would have a rather difficult
time of it." The official laughed as if he thought himself very clever.

"But that man is not Karl Armstadt," cried Katrina in a wavering voice.
"Do you think I would not know him when every night for--"

"Shut up," said the official, "and get out of here, and if I hear
anything more of this matter I shall subtract your credit."

Katrina, now whimpering, was led from the room. The official beamed upon
Capt. Grauble and myself. "Do you see," he said, "how perfectly our
records take care of these crazy accusations? The black haired one is
evidently touched in the head with jealousy, and now that she has
chanced upon you, she makes up this preposterous story, which might
cause you no end of annoyance, but here we have the absolute refutation
of the charge. Before a man can step into another's shoes, he must step
out of his own. Murdered bodies can be destroyed, although that is
difficult, but one man cannot be two men!"

We left the official chuckling over his cleverness.

"The Keeper of Records was wise after his kind," mused Grauble, "but it
never occurred to him that there might be chemists in the world who are
not registered in the card files of Berlin."

Grauble's voice sounded a note of aloofness and suspicion. Had he
penetrated my secret? Did I dare make full confession? Had Grauble given
me the least encouragement I should have done so, but he seemed to wish
to avoid further discussion and I feared to risk it.

My hope of a fuller understanding with Grauble seemed destroyed, and we
soon separated without further confidences.

~2~

When I returned home from my offices one evening some days later, my
secretary announced that a visitor was awaiting me.

I entered the reception-room and found Holknecht, who had been my
chemical assistant in the early days of my work in Berlin. Holknecht had
seemed to me a servile fawning fellow and when I received my first
promotion I had deserted him quite brutally for the very excellent
reason that he had known the other Armstadt and I feared that his dulled
intelligence might at any time be aroused to penetrate my disguise. That
he should look me up in my advancement and prosperity, doubtless to beg
some favour, seemed plausible enough, and therefore with an air of
condescending patronage, I asked what I could do for him.

"It is about Katrina," he said haltingly, as he eyed me curiously.

"Well, what about her?"

"She wants me to bring you to her."

"But suppose I do not choose to go?"

"Then there may be trouble."

"She has already tried to make trouble," I said, "but nothing came of
it."

"But that," said Holknecht, "was before she saw me."

"And what have you told her?"

"I told her about Armstadt's going to the mines and you coming back to
the hospital wearing his clothes and possessed of his folder and of your
being out of your memory."

"You mean," I replied, determined not to acknowledge his assumption of
my other identity, "that you explained to her how the illness had
changed me; and did that not make clear to her why she did not recognize
me at first?"

"There is no use," insisted Holknecht, "of your talking like that. I
never could quite make up my mind about you, though I always knew there
was something wrong. At first I believed the doctor's story, and that
you were really Armstadt, though it did seem like a sort of magic, the
way you were changed. But when you came to the laboratory and I saw you
work, I decided that you were somebody else and that the Chemical Staff
was working on some great secret and had a reason for putting some one
else in Armstadt's place. And now, of course, I know very well that that
was so, for the other Karl Armstadt would never have become a von of the
Royal Level. He didn't have that much brains."

As Holknecht was speaking I had been thinking rapidly. The thing I
feared was that the affair of the mine and hospital should be
investigated by some one with intelligence and authority. Since Katrina
had learned of that, and this Holknecht was also aware that I was a man
of unknown identity, it was very evident that they might set some
serious investigation going. But the man's own remarks suggested a
way out.

"You are quite right, Holknecht," I said; "I am not Karl Armstadt; and,
just as you have surmised, there were grave reasons why I should have
been put into his place under those peculiar circumstances. But this
matter is a state secret of the Chemical Staff and you will do well to
say nothing about it. Now is there anything I can do for you? A
promotion, perhaps, to a good position in the Protium Works?"

"No," said Holknecht, "I would rather stay where I am, but I could use a
little extra money."

"Of course; a check, perhaps; a little gift from an old friend who has
risen to power; there would be no difficulty in that, would there?"

"I think it would go through all right."

"I will make it now; say five thousand marks, and if nothing more is
said of this matter by you or Katrina, there will be another one like it
a year later."

The young man's eyes gloated as I wrote the check, which he pocketed
with greedy satisfaction. "Now," I said, "will this end the affair for
the present?"

"This makes it all right with me," replied Holknecht, "but what about
Katrina?"

"But you are to take care of her. She can only accept two hundred marks
a month and I have given you enough for that four times over."

"But she doesn't want money; she already has a full list."

"Then what does she want?"

"Jewels, of course; they all want them; jewels from the Royal Level, and
she knows you can get them for her."

"Oh, I see. Well, what would please her?"

"A necklace of rubies, the best they have, one that will cost at least
twenty thousand marks."

"That's rather expensive, is it not?"

"But her favourite lover disappeared," fenced Holknecht, "and his death
was never entered on the records. It may be the Chemical Staff knows
what became of him and maybe they do not; whatever happened, you seem to
want it kept still, so you had best get the necklace."

After a little further arguing that revealed nothing, I went to the
Royal Level, and searching out a jewelry shop, I purchased a necklace of
very beautiful synthetic rubies, for which I gave my check for twenty
thousand marks.

Returning to my apartment, I found Holknecht still waiting. He insisted
on taking the necklace to Katrina, but I feared to trust a man who
accepted bribes so shamelessly, and decided to go with him and deliver
it in person.

Sullenly, Holknecht led the way to her apartment.

Katrina sensuously gowned in flaming red was awaiting the outcome of her
blackmailing venture. She motioned me to a chair near her, while
Holknecht, utterly ignored, sank obscurely into a corner.

"So you came," said the lady of black and scarlet, leaning back among
her pillows and gazing at me through half closed eyes.

"Yes," I said, "since you have looked up Holknecht and he has explained
to you the reason for the disappearance of the man you knew, I thought
best to see you and have an understanding."

"But that dumb fellow explained nothing," declared Katrina, "except that
he told me that Armstadt went to the mines and you came back and took
his place. He wasn't even sure you were not the other Karl Armstadt
until I convinced him, and then he claimed that he had known it all the
time; and yet he had never told it. Some men are as dull as books."

"On the contrary, Holknecht is very sensible," I replied. "It is a grave
affair of state and one that it is best not to probe into."

"And just what did become of the other Armstadt?" asked Katrina, and in
her voice was only a curiosity, with no real concern.

"To tell you the truth, your lover was killed in the mine explosion," I
replied, for I thought it unwise to state that he was still alive lest
she pursue her inquiries for him and so make further trouble.

"That is too bad," said Katrina. "You see, when I knew him he was only a
chemical captain. And when he deserted me I didn't really care much. But
when the Royal Captain Grauble asked me to meet a Karl von Armstadt of
the Chemical Staff, at first I could not believe that it was the same
man I had known, but I made inquiries and learned of your rapid rise and
traced it back and I thought you really were my old Karl. And when I saw
you, you seemed to be he, but when I looked again I knew that you were
another and I was so disappointed and angry that I lost control of my
temper. I am sorry I made a scene, and that official was so stupid--as
if I would not know one man from another! How I should like to tell him
that I knew more than his stupid records."

"But that is not best," I said; "your former lover is dead and there are
grave reasons why that death should not be investigated further--" The
argument was becoming a little difficult for me and I hastened to add:
"Since you were so discourteously treated by the official, I feel that I
owe you some little token of reparation."

I now drew out the necklace and held it out to the girl.

Her black eyes gleamed with triumph at the sight of the bauble. Greedily
she grasped it and held it up between her and the light, turning it
about and watching the red rays gleaming through the stones. "And now,"
she gloated, "that faded Elsa will cease to lord it over me--and to
think that another Karl Armstadt has brought me this--why that stingy
fellow would never have bought me a blue-stone ring, if he had been made
the Emperor's Minister."

Katrina now rose and preened before her mirror. "Won't you place it
round my neck?" she asked, holding out the necklace.

Nor daring to give offence, I took the chain of rubies and attempted to
fasten it round her neck. The mechanism of the fastening was strange to
me and I was some time in getting the thing adjusted. Just as I had
succeeded in hooking the clasp, I heard a curdled oath and the neglected
Holknecht hurled himself upon us, striking me on the temple with one
fist and clutching at the throat of the girl with the other hand.

The blow sent me reeling to the floor but in another instant I was up
and had collared him and dragged him away.

"Damn you both," he whimpered; "where do I come in?"

"Put him out," said Katrina, with a glance of disdain at the cowering
man.

"I will go," snarled Holknecht, and he wrenched from my grasp and darted
toward the door. I followed, but he was fairly running down the passage
and pursuit was too undignified a thing to consider.

"You should have paid him," said Katrina, "for delivering my message."

"I have paid him," I replied. "I paid him very well."

"I wonder if he thought," she laughed, "that I would pay any attention
to a man of his petty rank. Why, I snubbed him unmercifully years ago
when the other Armstadt had the audacity to introduce me."

"Of course," I replied, "he does not understand."

And now, as I resumed my seat, I began puzzling my brain as to how I
could get away without giving offence to the second member of my pair of
blackmailers. But a little later I managed it, as it has been managed
for centuries, by looking suddenly at my watch and recalling a forgotten
appointment.

"You will come again?" purred Katrina.

"Of course," I said, "I must come again, for you are very charming, but
I am afraid it will not be for some time as I have very important duties
and just at present my leisure is exceedingly limited."

And so I made my escape, and hastened home. After debating the question
pro and con I typed a note to Holknecht in which I assured him that I
had not the least interest in Katrina. "Perhaps," I wrote, "when she has
tired a bit of the necklace, she would appreciate something else. But it
would not be wise to hurry this; but if you will call around in a month
or so, I think I can arrange for you to get her something and present it
yourself, as I do not care to see her again."



CHAPTER XIV

THE BLACK SPOT IS ERASED FROM THE MAP OF THE WORLD AND
THERE IS DANCING IN THE SUNLIGHT ON THE ROOF OF BERLIN


~1~

The relative ease with which I had so long passed for the real Karl
Armstadt had lulled me into a feeling of security. But now that my
disguise had been penetrated, my old fears were renewed. True, the
weigher's records had seemingly cleared me, but I knew that Grauble had
seen the weak spot in the German logic of the stupid official, who had
so lightly dismissed Katrina's accusations. Moreover, I fancied that
Grauble had guessed the full truth and connected this uncertainty of my
identity with the seditious tenor of the suggestions I had made to him.
Even though he might be willing to discuss rebellious plans with a
German, could I count on him to consider the treasonable urging coming
from a man of another and an enemy race?

So fearing either to confess to him my identity or to proceed without
confessing, I postponed doing anything. The sailing date of his fifth
trip to the Arctic was fast approaching; if I was ever to board a vessel
leaving Berlin I would need von Kufner's permission. Marguerite reported
the growing cordiality of the Admiral. Although I realized that his
infatuation for her was becoming rather serious, with the confidence of
an accepted lover, I never imagined that he could really come between
Marguerite and myself.

But one evening when I went to call upon Marguerite she was "not at
home." I repeated the call with the same result. When I called her up by
telephone, her secretary bluntly told me that the Princess Marguerite
did not care to speak to me. I hastened to write an impassioned note,
pleading to see her at once, for the days were passing and there was now
but a week before Grauble's vessel was due to depart.

In desperation I waited two more days, and still no word came. My
letters of pleading, like my calls and telephone efforts, were
still ignored.

Then a messenger came bearing a note from Admiral von Kufner, asking me
to call upon him at once.

"I have been considering," began von Kufner, when I entered his office,
"the request you made of me some time ago to be permitted to go in
person to make a survey of the ore deposits. At first I opposed this, as
the trip is dangerous, but more recently I have reconsidered the
importance of it. As others are now fully able to continue your work
here, I can quite conceive that your risking the trip to the mines in
person would be a very courageous and noble sacrifice. So I have taken
the matter up with His Majesty."

With mocking politeness von Kufner now handed me a document bearing the
imperial seal.

I held it with a trembling hand as I glanced over the fateful words that
commissioned me to go at once to the Arctic.

My smouldering jealousy of the oily von Kufner now flamed into
expression. "You have done this thing from personal motives," I cried.
"You have revoked your previous decision because you want me out of your
way. You know I will be gone for six months at least. You hope in your
cowardly heart that I will never come back."

Von Kufner's lips curled. "You see fit," he answered, "to impugn my
motives in suggesting that the order be issued, although it is the
granting of your own request. But the commission you hold in your hand
bears the Imperial signature, and the Emperor of the Germans never
revokes his orders."

"Very well," I said, controlling my rage, "I will go."

~2~

Upon leaving the Admiral's office my first thought was to go at once to
Marguerite. Whatever might be the nature of her quarrel with me I was
now sure that von Kufner was at the bottom of it, and that it was in
some way connected with this sudden determination of his to send me to
the Arctic, hoping that I would never return.

But before I had gone far I began to consider other matters. I was
commissioned to leave Berlin by submarine and that too by the vessel in
command of Captain Grauble, whom I knew to be nursing rebellion and
mutiny in his heart. If deliverance from Berlin was ever to come, it had
come now. To refuse to embrace it would mean to lose for ever this
fortunate chance to escape from this sunless Babylon.

I would therefore go first to Grauble and determine without delay if he
could be relied on to make the attempt to reach the outer world. Once I
knew that, I could go then to Marguerite with an invitation for her to
join me in flight--if such a thing were humanly possible.

But recalling the men who had done so much to fill me with hope and
faith in the righteousness of my mission, I again changed my plan and
sought out Dr. Zimmern and Col. Hellar and arranged for them to meet me
that evening at Grauble's quarters.

At the hour appointed I, who had first arrived at the apartment, sat
waiting for the arrival of Zimmern. When he came, to my surprise and
bewildered joy he was not alone, for Marguerite was with him.

She greeted me with distress and penitence in her eyes and I exulted in
the belief that whatever her quarrel with me might be it meant no
irretrievable loss of her devotion and love.

We sat about the room, a very solemn conclave, for I had already
informed Grauble of my commission to go to the Arctic, and he had sensed
at once the revolutionary nature of the meeting. I now gave him a brief
statement of the faith of the older men, who from the fulness of their
lives had reached the belief that the true patriotism for their race was
to be expressed in an effort to regain for the Germans the citizenship
of the world.

The young Captain gravely nodded. "I have not lived so long," he said,
"but my life has been bitter and full of fear. I am not out of sympathy
with your argument, but before we go further," and he turned to
Marguerite, "may I not ask why a Princess of the House of Hohenzollern
is included in such a meeting as this?"

I turned expectantly to Zimmern, who now gave Grauble an account of the
tragedy and romance of Marguerite's life.

"Very well," said Grauble; "she has earned her place with us; now that I
understand her part, let us proceed."

For some hours Hellar and Zimmern explained their reasons for believing
the life of the isolated German race was evil and defended their faith
in the hope of salvation through an appeal to the mercy and justice of
the World State.

"Of all this I am easily convinced," said Grauble, "for it is but a
logically thought-out conclusion of the feeling I have nourished in my
blind rebellion. I am ready to go with Herr von Armstadt and surrender
my vessel to the enemy; but the practical question is, will our risk
avail anything? What hope can we have that we will even be able to
deliver the message you wish to send? How are we to know that we will
not immediately be killed?"

The hour had come. "I will answer that question," I said, and there was
a tenseness in my tone that caused my hearers to look at me with eager,
questioning eyes.

"Barring," I said, "the possibility of destruction before I can gain
opportunity to speak to some one in authority, there is nothing to fear
in the way of our ungracious reception in the outer world--" As I paused
and looked about me I saw Marguerite's eyes shining with the same
worshipful wonder as when I had visioned for her the sunlight and the
storms of the world outside Berlin--"because I am of that world. I speak
their language. I know their people. I never saw the inside of Berlin
until I was brought here from the potash mines of Stassfurt, wearing the
clothes and carrying the identification papers of one Karl Armstadt who
was killed by gas bombs which I myself had ordered dropped into
those mines."

At these startling statements the older men could only gasp in
incredulous astonishment, but Captain Grauble nodded wisely--"I half
expected as much," he said.

I turned to Marguerite. Her eyes were swimming in a mist of tears.

"Then your visions were real memories," she cried,--"and not miracles. I
knew you had seen other worlds, but I thought it was in some spirit
life." She reached out a trembling hand toward me and then shrinkingly
drew it back. "But you are not Karl Armstadt," she stammered, as she
realized that I was a nameless stranger.

"No," I said, going to her and placing a reassuring arm about her
shoulder, "I am not Karl Armstadt. My name is Lyman de Forrest. I am an
American, a chemical engineer from the city of Chicago, and if Captain
Grauble does not alter his purpose, I am going back there and will take
you with me."

Zimmern and Hellar were listening in consternation. "How is it," asked
Hellar, "that you speak German?"

By way of answer I addressed him in English and in French, while he and
Zimmern glanced at each other as do men who see a miracle and strive to
hold their reason while their senses contradict their logic.

I now sketched the story of my life and adventures with a fulness of
convincing detail. One incident only I omitted and that was of the near
discovery of my identity by Armstadt's former mistress. Of that I did
not speak for I felt that Marguerite, at least in the presence of the
others, would not relish that part of the story. Nor did I wish to worry
them with the fear that was still upon me that I had not seen the last
of that affair.

After answering many questions and satisfying all doubts as to the truth
of my story, I again turned the conversation to the practical problem of
the escape from Berlin. "You can now see," I declared, "that I deserve
no credit for genius or courage. I am merely a prisoner in an enemy city
where my life is in constant danger. If any one of you should speak the
word, I would be promptly disposed of as a spy. But if you are sincere
in your desire to send a message to my Government, I am here to take
that message."

"It almost makes one believe that there is a God," cried Hellar, "and
that he has sent us a deliverer."

"As for me," spoke up Captain Grauble, "I shall deliver your messenger
into the hands of his friends, and trust that he can persuade them to
deal graciously with me and my men. I should have made this break for
liberty before had I not believed it would be fleeing from one death
to another."

"Then you will surely leave us," said Zimmern. "It is more than we have
wished and prayed for, but," he added, turning a compassionate glance
toward Marguerite, "it will be hard for her."

"But she is going with us," I affirmed. "I will not leave her behind. As
for you and Col Hellar, I shall see you again when Berlin is free. But
the risks are great and the time may be long, and if Marguerite will go
I will take her with me as a pledge that I shall not prove false in my
mission for you, her people."

I read Marguerite's answer in the joy of her eyes, as I heard Col.
Hellar say: "That would be fine, if it were possible."

But Zimmern shook his head. "No," he said, as if commanding. "Marguerite
must not go now even if it were possible. You may come back for her if
you succeed in your mission, but we cannot lose her now; she must not go
now,--" and his voice trembled with deep emotion. At his words of
authority concerning the girl I loved I felt a resurge of the old
suspicion and jealousy.

"I am sorry," spoke up Captain Grauble, "but your desire to take the
Princess Marguerite with you is one that I fear cannot be realized. I
would be perfectly willing for her to go if we could once get her
aboard, but the approach of the submarine docks are very elaborately
guarded. To smuggle a man aboard without a proper permit would be
exceedingly difficult, but to get a woman to the vessel is quite
impossible."

"I suppose that it cannot be," I said, for I saw the futility of arguing
the matter further at the time, especially as Zimmern was opposed to it.

The night was now far spent and but four days remained in which to
complete my preparations for departure. In this labour Zimmern and
Hellar could be of no service and I therefore took my leave of them,
lest I should not see them again. "Within a year at most," I said, "we
may meet again, for Berlin will be open to the world. Once the passage
is revealed and the protium traffic stopped, the food stores cannot last
longer. When these facts are realized by His Majesty and the Advisory
Council, let us hope they will see the futility of resisting. The
knowledge that Germany possesses will increase the world's food supply
far more than her population will add to the consumptive demands, hence if
reason and sanity prevail on both sides there will be no excuse for war
and suffering."

~3~

And so I took my leave of the two men from whose noble souls I had
achieved my aspirations to bring the century-old siege of Berlin to a
sane and peaceful end without the needless waste of life that all the
world outside had always believed would be an inevitable part of the
capitulation of the armoured city.

I now walked with Marguerite through the deserted tree-lined avenues of
the Royal Level.

"And why, dear," I asked, "have you refused to see me these five days
past?"

"Oh, Karl," she cried, "you must forgive me, for nothing matters now--I
have been crazed with jealousy. I was so hurt that I could see no one,
for I could only fight it out alone."

"And what do you mean?" I questioned. "Jealous? And of whom could you be
jealous, since there is no other woman in this unhappy city for whom I
have ever cared?"

"Yes, I believe that. I haven't doubted that you loved me with a nobler
love than the others, but you told me there were no others, and I
believed you. So it was hard, so very hard. The Doctor--I saw Dr.
Zimmern this morning and poured out my heart to him--insisted that I
should accept the fact that until marriage all men were like that, and
it could not be helped. But I never asked you, Karl, about other women;
you yourself volunteered to tell me there were no others, and what you
told me was not true. I must forgive you, for now I may lose you, but
why does a man ever need to lie to a woman? I somehow feel that love
means truth--"

"But," I insisted, "it was the truth. I bear no personal relation to any
other woman."

She drew back from me, breathing quickly, faith and doubt fighting a
battle royal in her eyes. "But the checks, Karl?" she stammered; "those
checks the girl on the Free Level cashes each month, and worse than that
the check at the Jeweller's where you bought a necklace for twenty
thousand marks?"

"Quite right, there are such checks, and I shall explain them. But
before I begin, may I ask just how you came to know about those checks?
Not that I care; I am glad you do know; but the fact of your knowledge
puzzles me, for I thought the privacy of a man's checking account was
one of the unfair privileges that man has usurped for himself and not
granted to women."

"But I did not pry into the matter. I would never have thought of such a
thing until he forced the facts upon me."

"He? You mean von Kufner?"

"Yes, it was five days ago. I was out walking with him and he insisted
on my going into a jewellery store we were passing. I at first refused
to go as I thought he wished to buy me something. But he insisted that
he merely wanted me to look at things and I went in. You see, I was
trying not to offend him."

"Of course," I said, "there was no harm in that. And--"

"The Admiral winked at the Jeweller. I saw him do that; and the jeweller
set out a tray of ruby necklaces and began to talk about them, and then
von Kufner remarked that since they were so expensive he must not sell
many. 'Oh, yes,' said the Jeweller, 'I sell a great number to young men
who have just come into money. I sold one the other day to Herr von
Armstadt of the Chemical Staff,' and he reached for his sales book and
opened it to the page with a record of the sale. He had the place
marked, for I saw him remove a slip as he opened the book."

"Rather clever of von Kufner," I commented; "how do you suppose he got
trail of it?"

"He admitted his trailing quite frankly," said Marguerite, "for as soon
as we were out of the shop, I accused him of preparing the scene. 'Of
course,' he said, 'but I had to convince you that your chemist was not
so saintly as you thought him. His banker is a friend of mine, and I
asked him about von Armstadt's account. He is keeping a girl on the Free
Level and evidently also making love to one of better caste, or he would
hardly be buying ruby necklaces.' I told von Kufner that he was a
miserable spy, but he only laughed at me and said that all men were
alike and that I ought to find it out while I was young--and then he
asked if I would like him to have the young woman's record sent up from
the Free Level for my inspection. I ordered him to leave me at once and
I have not seen or heard from him since, until I received a note from
him today telling me of the Royal order for you to go to the Arctic."

I first set Marguerite's mind at ease about the checks to Bertha by
explaining the incident of the geography, and then told the story of
Katrina and the meeting in the café, and the later affair of Holknecht
and the necklace.

"And you will promise me never to see her again?"

"But you have forgotten," I said, "that I am leaving Berlin in four
days."

"Oh, Karl," she cried, "I have forgotten everything--I cannot even
remember that new name you gave us--I believe I must be dreaming--or
that it is all a wild story you have told us to see how much we in our
simplicity and ignorance will believe."

"No," I said gently, "it is not a dream, though I could wish that it
were, for Grauble says that there is no hope of taking you with me; and
yet I must go, for the Emperor has ordered me to the Arctic and von
Kufner will see to it that I make no excuses. If I once leave Berlin by
submarine with Grauble I do not see how I can refuse to carry out my
part of this project to which I am pledged, and make the effort to reach
the free world outside."

Marguerite turned on me with a bitter laugh. "The free world," she
cried, "your world. You are going back to it and leave me here. You are
going back to your own people--you will not save Germany at all--you
will never come back for me!"

"You are very wrong," I said gently. "It is because I have known you and
known such men as Dr. Zimmern and Col. Hellar that I do want to carry
the message that will for ever end this sunless life of your
imprisoned race."

"But," cried Marguerite, "you do not want to take me; you could find a
way if you would--you made the Emperor do your bidding once--you could
do it again if you wanted to."

"I very much want to take you; to go without you would be but a bitter
success."

"But have you no wife, or no girl you love among your own people?"

"No."

"But if I should go with you, the people of your world would welcome you
but they would imprison me or kill me as a spy."

"No," and I smiled as I answered, "they do not kill women."

~4~

During four brief days that remained until Capt. Grauble's vessel was
due to depart my every hour was full of hurried preparations for my
survey of the Arctic mines. Clothing for the rigours and rough labour of
that fearful region had to be obtained and I had to get together the
reports of previous surveys and the instruments for the ore analyses
that would be needed. Nor was I altogether faithless in these
preparations for at times I felt that my first duty might be thus to aid
in the further provisioning of the imprisoned race, for how was I to
know that I would be able to end the state of war that had prevailed in
spite of the generations of pacifist efforts? At times I even doubted
that this break for the outer world would ever be made. I doubted that
Capt. Grauble, though he solemnly assured us that he was ready for the
venture, was acting in good faith. Could he, I asked, persuade his men
to their part of the adventure? Would not our traitorous design be
discovered and we both be returned as prisoners to Berlin? Granted even
that Grauble could carry out his part and that the submarine proceeded
as planned to rise to the surface or attempt to make some port, with the
best of intentions of surrendering to the World State authorities, might
not we be destroyed before we could make clear our peaceful and friendly
intentions? Could I, coming out of Germany with Germans prove my
identity? Would my story be believed? Would I have believed such a story
before the days of my sojourn among the Germans? Might I not be
consigned to languish in prison as a merely clever German spy, or be
consigned to an insanity ward?

At times I doubted even my own desire to escape from Berlin if it meant
the desertion of Marguerite, for there could be no joy in escape for me
without her. Yet I found small relish in looking forward to life as a
member of that futile clan of parasitical Royalty. Had Germany been a
free society where we might hope to live in peace and freedom perhaps I
could have looked forward to a marriage with Marguerite and considered
life among the Germans a tolerable thing. But for such a life as we must
needs live, albeit the most decent Berlin had to offer, I could find no
relish--and the thought of escape and call of duty beyond the bomb proof
walls and poisoned soil called more strongly than could any thought of
love and domesticity within the accursed circle of fraudulent divinity.

There was also the danger that lurked for me in Holknecht's knowledge of
my identity and the bitterness of his anger born of his insane and
stupid jealousy.

Rather than remain longer in Berlin I would take any chance and risk any
danger if only Marguerite were not to be left behind. And yet she must
be left behind, for such a thing as getting a woman aboard a submarine
or even to the submarine docks had never been heard of. I thought of all
the usual tricks of disguising her as a man, of smuggling her as a
stowaway amidst the cargo, but Grauble's insistence upon the
impossibility of such plans had made it all too clear that any such wild
attempt would lead to the undoing of us all.

If escape were possible with Marguerite--! But cold reason said that
escape was improbable enough for me alone. For a woman of the House of
Hohenzollern the prison of Berlin had walls of granite and locks
of steel.

The time of departure drew nearer. I had already been passed down by the
stealthy guards and through the numerous locked and barred gates to the
subterranean docks where Grauble's vessel, the _Eitel 3_, rested on the
heavy trucks that would bear her away through the tunnel to the
pneumatic lock that would float her into the passage that led to
the open sea.

My supplies and apparatus were stored on board and the crew were making
ready to be off. But three hours were left until the time of our
departure and these hours I had set aside for my final leave-taking of
Marguerite. I hastened back through the guarded gates to the elevator
and was quickly lifted to the Royal Level where Marguerite was to be
waiting for me.

With fast beating and rebellious heart I rang the bell of the Countess'
apartment. I could scarcely believe I heard aright when the servant
informed me that the Princess Marguerite had gone out.

I demanded to see the Countess and was ushered into the reception-room
and suffered unbearably during the few minutes till she appeared. To my
excited question she replied with a teasing smile that Marguerite had
gone out a half hour before with Admiral von Kufner. "I warned you,"
said the Countess as she saw the tortured expression of my face, "but
you would not believe me, when I told you the Admiral would prove a
dangerous man."

"But it is impossible," I cried. "I am leaving for the Arctic mines. I
have only a couple of hours; surely you are hiding something. Did you
see her go? Did she leave no word? Do you know where they have gone or
when they will return?"

The Countess shook her head. "I only know," she replied more
sympathetically, "that Marguerite seemed very excited all morning. She
talked with me of your leaving and seemed very wrought up over it, and
then but an hour or so ago she rushed into her room and telephoned--it
must have been to the Admiral, for he came shortly afterwards. They
talked together for a little while and then, without a word to me they
went out, seeming to be in a great hurry. Perhaps she felt so upset over
your leaving that she thought it kinder not to risk a parting scene. She
is so honest, poor child, that she probably did not wish to send you
away with any false hopes."

"But do you mean," I cried, "that you think she has gone out with von
Kufner to avoid seeing me?"

"I am sorry," consoled the Countess, "but it looks that way. It was
cruel of her, for she might have sent you away with hope to live on till
your return, even if she felt she could not wait for you."

I strove not to show my anger to the Countess, for, considering her
ignorance of the true significance of the occasion, I could not expect a
full understanding.

Miserably I waited for two hours as the Countess tried to entertain me
with her misplaced efforts at sympathy while I battled to keep my faith
in Marguerite alive despite the damaging evidence that she had deserted
me at the last hour.

I telephoned to von Kufner's office and to his residence but could get
no word as to his whereabouts, and Marguerite did not return.

I dared not wait any longer--asking for envelope and paper, I penned a
hasty note to Marguerite: "I shall go on to the Arctic and come back to
you. The salvation of Berlin must wait till you can go with me. I
cannot, will not, lose you."

And then I tore myself away and hastened to the elevator and was dropped
to a subterranean level and passed again through the locked and
guarded gates.

~5~

As I came to the vessel no one was in sight but the regular guards
pacing along the loading docks. I mounted the ladder to the deck. The
second officer stood by the open trap. "They are waiting for you," he
said. "The Admiral himself is below. He came with his lady to see
you off."

I hastened to descend and saw von Kufner and Marguerite chatting with
Captain Grauble.

"Why the delay?" asked von Kufner. "It is nearly the hour of departure,
and I have brought the Princess to bid you farewell. We have been
showing her the vessel."

"It is all very wonderful," said Marguerite with a calm voice, but her
eyes spoke the feverish excitement of a great adventure.

"The Princess Marguerite," said von Kufner, "is the only woman who has
ever seen a submarine since the open sea traffic was closed. But she has
seen it all and now we must take our leave for it is time that you
should be off."

As he finished speaking the Admiral politely stepped away to give me
opportunity for a farewell word with Marguerite. Grauble followed him
and, as he passed me, he gave me a look of gloating triumph and then
opened the door of his cabin, which the Admiral entered.

"I am going with you," whispered Marguerite. "Grauble understands."

There was the sound of a scuffle and a strangled oath. Grauble's head
appeared at the cabin door. "Here, Armstadt; be quick, and keep
him quiet."

I plunged into the cabin and saw von Kufner crumpled against the bunk;
his hands were manacled behind him and his mouth stuffed with a cloth.

With an exulting joy I threw myself upon the man as he struggled to
rise. I easily held him down, and whipping out my own kerchief I bound
it tightly across his mouth to more effectively gag him.

Then rolling him over I planted my knee on his back while I ripped a
sheet from the bunk and bound his feet.

From without I heard Grauble's voice in command: "Close the hatch." Then
I felt the vessel quiver with machinery in motion and I knew that we
were moving along the tunnel toward the sea.

Grauble appeared again in the door of the cabin. "The mate understands,"
he said, "and the crew will obey. I told them that the Admiral was going
out with us to inspect the lock. But the presence of a woman aboard will
puzzle them. I have placed the Princess in the mate's cabin so no one
can molest her. We have other things to keep us occupied."

With Grauble's help I now bound von Kufner to the staunch metal leg of
the bunk and we left him alone in the narrow room to ponder on the
meaning of what he had heard.

Outside Grauble led me over to the instrument board where the mate was
stationed.

"Any unusual message?" asked Grauble.

"None," said the mate. "I think we will go through without interruption
at least until we reach the lock; if anything is suspicioned we will be
held up there for examination."

"Do you think the guards at the dock suspected anything?" questioned
Grauble.

"It is not likely," replied the mate. "They saw him come aboard, but he
spoke to none of them. They will presume he is going out to the lock.
The presence of a woman will puzzle them; but, as she was with the
Admiral, they will not dare interfere or even report the fact."

"Then what do you think we have to fear?" asked Grauble.

"Only the chance that the Admiral's absence may be noted at his office
and inquiry be made."

"Of that the Princess could tell us something," said Grauble. "We will
talk with her."

Grauble now led me to the mate's snug cabin, where we found Marguerite
seated on the bunk, looking very pale and anxious.

"Everything is going nicely, so far," the Captain assured her. "We have
only one thing to fear, and that is that inquiry from the Administration
Office for the Admiral may be addressed to the Commander of the Lock."

"But how will they know that he is with us?" asked Marguerite. "Will the
guards report it?"

"I do not think so," said Grauble, "but does any one at his office know
that he came to the docks?"

"I do not see how they could," replied Marguerite; "he was at his
apartment when I called him. He came to me at once, not knowing why I
wished to see him. I begged him to take me to see you off. I swore that
if he did not I should never speak to him again, and he agreed to do so.
He seemed to think himself very generous and talked much of the
distinctive privilege he was conferring upon me by acceding to my
request. But he told no one where we were going. He communicated with no
one from the time he came to me until we arrived at the vessel. The
guards and gate-keepers let us pass without question."

"That is fine," cried Grauble; "von Kufner often stays away from his
office for days at a time. Unless some chance information leaks back
from the guards, he will not be missed. Our chance of being passed
speedily out the lock is good--there is a vessel due to lock in this
very day and we could not be held back to block the tunnel. That is why
the Admiral was impatient when Armstadt failed to appear; he knew our
departure ought not be delayed."

"And what," I asked, "do you propose to do with the Admiral?"

"I suppose we must take him with us as a prisoner," replied the Captain.
"Your World State Government would appreciate a prisoner of the House of
Hohenzollern."

At this suggestion Marguerite shook her head emphatically. "I do not
like that," she said. "Is there not some way to leave him behind?"

"I do not like it either," said Grauble, "because I fear his presence
aboard may make trouble among my men. I do not think they will object to
deserting with us to the free world. Their life in this service is
hopeless enough and this is my fifth trip; they have a belief that the
Captain's fifth trip is an ill-fated one; not a man aboard but trembles
in the dire fear that he will never see Berlin again. They will welcome
with joy a proposal to escape with us, but to ask them to make the
attempt with the Admiral himself on board as a prisoner is a different
thing. These men are cowed by authority and I know not what notions they
might have of their fate if they are to kidnap the Admiral."

"But," I questioned, "is there no possible way to leave him behind?"

Grauble sat thinking for a moment. "Yes," he said, "there is one way we
might do it. We could shave his beard and clip his hair, dress him in a
machinist's garb and smear his hands and face with grease. Then I could
drug him and we could carry him off at the lock and put him in a cell. I
would report that one of my men had gone raving mad, and I had drugged
him to keep him from doing injury to himself and others. It would create
no great surprise. Men in this service frequently go mad; and I am
provided with a sleep producing drug for just such emergencies."

"Then go ahead," I said.

"But you will lose the satisfaction of delivering him prisoner to your
government," smiled Grauble.

"I have no love for the Admiral," I replied, "but I think his punishment
will be more appropriately attended to in Berlin. When our escape is
known he will indeed have a rather difficult time explaining to
His Majesty."

This suggestion of the pompous Admiral's predicament if thus left behind
seemed to amuse Grauble and he at once led the way back to his
own cabin.

Von Kufner was lying very quietly in his bonds and glared up at us with
a weak and futile rage. Grauble smiled cynically at his prostrate chief.
"I had thought to take you along with us," he said, "but I am afraid the
excitement of the voyage would be unpleasant for you so I have decided
to leave you at the lock to take our farewell back to His Majesty."

Von Kufner, helpless and gagged was given no opportunity to reply, for
Grauble, unlocking his medicine case took out a small hypodermic syringe
and plunged the needle into the prisoner's thigh.

In a few minutes the Admiral was unconscious. The Captain now brought a
suit of soiled mechanic's clothes and a clipper and razor, and in a half
hour the prim Admiral in his fancy uniform had been reduced to the
likeness of an oiler. His face roughly shaved, but pale and sallow, gave
a very good simulation of illness of mind and body.

"He will remain like that for at least twelve hours," said Grauble. "I
gave him a heavy dose."

Again we went out, locking the unconscious Admiral in the cabin. "You
may go and keep the Princess company," said Grauble, "while I talk with
my men and give them an inkling of what we are planning. If there is any
trouble at the lock it is better that they comprehend that hope of
freedom is in store for them."

Amid tears of joy Marguerite now told me of her belated conception of
the desperate plan to induce von Kufner to bring her to the docks to see
us depart, and how she had pretended to disbelieve that I was really
going and bargained to marry him within sixty days if she could be
assured by her own eyes that I had really departed for the Arctic.

As we waited feverishly for the first nerve-racking part of the journey
to be over, we spoke of the hopes and dangers of the great adventure
upon which we were finally embarked. And so the hours passed.

At last we felt the rumble of the motors die and knew that the movement
of the vessel had ceased.

~6~

The voice of the mate spoke at the door: "Remain quiet inside," he said,
and a key turned and clicked the bolt of the lock. The tense minutes
passed. Again the key turned in the door and the mate stuck his head
inside. "Come quick," he said to me.

I followed him into Capt. Grauble's cabin, but saw Grauble nowhere.

"Remove your clothing," said the mate, as he seized a sponge and soap
and began washing the blackened oil from the hands and face of the
unconscious Admiral. "We must dress him in your uniform. The Commander
of the Lock has orders to take you off the vessel. We must pass the
Admiral off for you. He will never be recognized. The Commander has
never seen you."

Obeying, without fully comprehending, I helped to quickly dress the
unconscious man in my own clothing. We had barely finished when we heard
voices outside.

"Quick, under the bunk," whispered the mate. As I obediently crawled
into the hiding place, the mate kicked in after me the remainder of the
oiler's clothing which I had been trying to put on and pulled the
disarranged bedding half off the bunk the better to hide me. Then he
opened the door and several men entered.

"I had to drug him," said Grauble's voice, "because he was so violent
with fear when I had him manacled that I thought he might attempt to
beat out his brains."

"Let me see his papers," said a strange voice.

After a brief interval the same voice spoke again--"These are identical
with the description given by His Majesty's secretary. There can be no
doubt that this is the man they want, but I do not see how an enemy spy
could ever pass for a German, even if he had the clothing and
identification. He does not even look like the description in the
folder. The chemists must be very stupid to have accepted him as one
of them."

"It is strange," replied the voice of Capt. Grauble, "but this man was
very clever."

"It is only that most men are very dull," replied the other voice. "Now
I should have suspected at once that the man was not a German. But he
shall answer for his cleverness. Let him be removed at once. We have
word from the vessel outside that they are short of oxygen, and you must
be locked out and clear the passage."

With a shuffling of many feet the form of the third bearer of Karl
Armstadt's pedigree was carried from the cabin, and the door was
kicked shut.

I was still lying cramped in my hiding place when I felt the vessel
moving again. Then a sailor came, bringing a case from which I took
fresh clothing. As I was dressing I felt my ear drums pain from the
increased air pressure, and I heard, as from a great distance, the roar
of the water being let into the lock. From the quiet swaying of the
floor beneath me I soon sensed that we were afloat. I waited in the
cabin until I felt the quiver of motors, now distinguished by the lesser
throb and smoother running, from the drive on the wheeled trucks through
the tunnel.

I opened the cabin door and went out. Grauble was at the instrument
board. The mate stood aft among the motor controls; all men were at
their posts, for we were navigating the difficult subterranean passage
that led to the open sea.

As I approached Grauble he spoke without lifting his eyes from his
instruments. "Go bring the Princess out of her hiding; I want my men to
see her now. It will help to give them faith."

Marguerite came with me and stood trembling at my side as we watched
Grauble, whose eyes still riveted upon the many dials and indicators
before him.

"Watch the chart," said Grauble. "The red hand shows our position."

The chart before him was slowly passing over rolls. For a time we could
only see a straight line thereon bordered by many signs and figures.
Then slowly over the topmost roll came the wavy outlines of a shore, and
the parallel lines marking the depths of the bordering sea. Tensely we
watched the chart roll slowly down till the end of the channel passed
the indicator.

Grauble breathed a great sigh of relief and for the first time turned
his face towards us. "We are in the open sea," he said, "at a depth of
160 metres. I shall turn north at once and parallel the coast. You had
better get some rest; for the present nothing can happen. It is night
above now but in six more hours will be the dawn, then we shall rise and
take our bearings through the periscope."

I led Marguerite into the Captain's cabin and insisted that she lie down
on the narrow berth. Seated in the only chair, I related what I knew of
the affair at the locks. "It must have been," I concluded, after much
speculation, "that Holknecht finally got the attention of the Chemical
Staff and related what he knew of the incident of the potash mines. They
had enough data about me to have arrived at the correct conclusion long
ago. It was a question of getting the facts together."

"It was that," said Marguerite, "or else I am to blame."

"And what do you mean?" I asked.

"I mean," she said, "that I took a great risk about which I must tell
you, for it troubles my conscience. After I had sent for the Admiral and
he had promised to come, I telephoned to Dr. Zimmern of my intention to
get von Kufner to take me to the docks and my hope that I could come
with you. And it may be that some one listened in on our conversation."

"I do not see," I said, "how such a conversation should lead to the
discovery of my identity--the Holknecht theory is more reasonable--but
you did take a risk. Why did you do it?"

"I wanted to tell him good-bye," said Marguerite. "It was hard enough
that I could not see him." And she turned her face to the pillow and
began to weep.

"What is it, my dear?" I pleaded, as I knelt beside her. "It was all
right, of course. Why are you crying--you do not think, do you, that Dr.
Zimmern betrayed us?"

Marguerite raised herself upon her elbow and looked at me with hurt
surprise. "Do you think that?" she demanded, almost fiercely.

"By no means," I hastened to assure her, "but I do not understand your
grief and I only thought that perhaps when you told him he was
angered--I never understood why he seemed so anxious not to have you
go with me."

"Oh, my dear," sobbed Marguerite. "Of course you never understood,
because we too had a secret that has been kept from you, and you have
been so apologetic because you feared so long to confide in me and I
have been even slower to confide in you."

For a moment black rebellion rose in my heart, for though with my
reasoning I had accepted the explanation that Zimmern had given for his
interest in Marguerite, I had never quite accepted it in my unreasoning
heart. And in the depths of me the battle between love and reason and
the dark forces of jealous unreason and suspicion had smouldered, to
break out afresh on the least provocation.

I fought again to conquer these dark forces, for I had many times
forgiven her even the thing which suspicion charged. And as I struggled
now the sound of Marguerite's words came sweeping through my soul like a
great cleansing wind, for she said--"The secret that I have kept back
from you and that I have wanted so often to tell you is that Dr. Zimmern
is my father!"

~7~

In the early dawn of a foggy morning we beached the _Eitel 3_ on a sandy
stretch of Danish shore within a few kilometres of an airdome of the
World Patrol. A native fisherman took Grauble, Marguerite and myself in
his hydroplane to the post, where we found the commander at his
breakfast. He was a man of quick intelligence. Our strange garb was
sufficient to prove us Germans, while a brief and accurate account of
the attempted rescue of the mines of Stassfurt, given in perfect
English, sufficed to credit my reappearance in the affairs of the free
world as a matter of grave and urgent importance.

A squad of men were sent at once to guard the vessel that had been left
in charge of the mate. Within a few hours we three were at the seat of
the World Government at Geneva.

Grauble surrendered his charts of the secret passage and was made a
formal prisoner of state, until the line of the passage could be
explored by borings and the reality of its existence verified.

I was in daily conference with the Council in regard to momentous
actions that were set speedily a-going. The submarine tunnel was located
and the passage blocked. A fleet of ice crushers and exploring planes
were sent to locate the protium mines of the Arctic. The proclamation of
these calamities to the continued isolated existence of Germany and the
terms of peace and amnesty were sent showering down through the clouds
to the roof of Berlin.

Marguerite and I had taken up our residence in a cottage on the lake
shore, and there as I slept late into the sunlit hours of a July
morning, I heard the clatter of a telephone annunciator. I sat bolt
upright listening to the words of the instrument--

"Berlin has shut off the Ray generators of the defence mines--all over
the desert of German soil men are pouring forth from the ventilating
shafts--the roof of Berlin is a-swarm with a mass of men frolicking in
the sunlight--the planes of the World Patrol have alighted on the roof
and have received and flashed back the news of the abdication of the
Emperor and the capitulation of Berlin--the world armies of the mines
are out and marching forth to police the city--"

The voice of the instrument ceased.

I looked about for Marguerite and saw her not. I was up and running
through the rooms of the cottage. I reached the outer door and saw her
in the garden, robed in a gown of gossamer white, her hair streaming
loose about her shoulders and gleaming golden brown in the quivering
light. She was holding out her hands to the East, where o'er the
far-flung mountain craigs the God of Day beamed down upon his
worshipper.

In a frenzy of wild joy I called to her--"Babylon is fallen--is fallen!
The black spot is erased from the map of the world!"









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