Between Two Worlds

by Upton Sinclair

  One of the reasons for all this was that Kurt wished to go back and visit his people during the coming Christmas. Three years had passed since the Armistice, and that was surely enough for safety. As the treaty of Versailles had fixed matters, Kurt was a citizen of Poland, and that country being an ally of France, it would be easy for him to return. This was a way to get rid of the forged passport upon which he had been traveling as a German agent.

  Affairs had settled down in Silesia, because the League of Nations had effected a compromise, dividing the industrial districts between Germany and Poland, but providing that for fifteen years there should be no customs barriers between the parts. A joint Polish-German commission was working out the details, so there would be no more fighting. Beauty was worried, but she couldn’t deny the Tightness of Kurt’s desire to see his people after so long a time, and she was wise enough not to let him feel that she was putting chains upon him. Lanny was going along—to keep him in order, so he said with a smile. It would be eight years since Lanny had seen Schloss Stubendorf—and what an eight years in the history of mankind!

  Lanny mentioned the proposed trip in a letter to the two young Robins, and right away came a telegram—oh, please, please, please—they paid for three extra words—come to Berlin and stay with them, and hear Hansi play the Bruch concerto! Kurt and Lanny talked it over. Kurt’s oldest brother, an army officer, was stationed in Potsdam, and might not be able to get off for Christmas—most of them had to be on duty all the time, holding down the Reds. Kurt hadn’t planned to see him, because he couldn’t afford the extra journey; but Lanny said nonsense, he was going to pay for the whole trip. They would go to Berlin before Christmas, and Kurt would stay with his brother. He would never say anything to hurt the feelings of the Robins, he said, but he wouldn’t bring himself to condone the doings of a Schieber by entering his home.

  Lanny knew better than to argue about the matter. He hadn’t told Kurt that Robbie was a Schieber, too, and that the money for the trip would come out of his ill-gotten gains! In the month of Lanny’s birthday Methuselah had reached the age of two hundred; that is to say, with one American copper cent you could buy two marks’ worth of anything in Germany—and you would be humbly thanked for doing it.

  III

  Lanny and Kurt descending from the wagon-lit in the Potsdamer Bahnhof, and being welcomed by Kurt’s eldest brother, Emil, whom Lanny had never met before; an elegant tall fellow with yellow mustaches waxed to points, a monocle, and a long gray military cloak nearly to his ankles; clicking his heels, bowing from the waist, doing all the honors for Kurt’s friend, who was also his employer—so the family had been told. A long thin face, this Prussian officer’s, difficult to relax, and his pale steely eyes made Lanny think of an eagle’s. Not that Lanny had ever seen an eagle’s eyes, but he imagined what they would be like. The Prussian eagle had a double head, and Kurt was the other head of this one.

  Emil did everything possible to maintain his pride, but Lanny noticed that his cloak was badly worn and faded, and had a telltale patch near the bottom—perhaps a bullet had carried some of it away. The truth was that Emil was lucky to have a job at all, for there were close to a million officers of all ranks who had been turned out of work by the Versailles treaty. The three walked along the platform, and Lanny noted many signs of poverty; a well-nourished face was rare, and the crowds looked as if they had got their clothes in second-hand shops. Germans would always be clean, even if they had to wash themselves with soda instead of soap; but they had no way to repair or paint their houses, or to mend things broken in civil war. Ragged beggars were everywhere, and women with pinched faces and pitiful finery—not even in Paris did you see so many prostitutes. Bodies of suicides were being found every day in the river and the canals of Berlin, and never did one of them have on underwear. Lanny and Kurt were ashamed to be dressed so well—and glad they had not let Beauty equip them with fresh outfits.

  There was a military automobile with a uniformed chauffeur waiting for Kurt’s brother. More heel-clicking and bowing, and Lanny saw them off, and took a taxi to the Robins’ nest. The taxi looked as if it had been through several wars; it had a ragged seat and a bullethole through the window; but the apartment house where the Schieber lived was most elegant and had a functionary in a bright-colored uniform to open the door. The best of everything was yours if you had foreign money; keep it safe in the bank, and change it every day as you needed it, because it multiplied itself faster than rabbits.

  One of the first things Lanny noted about the Robin apartment was that it had been specially provided with a steel door having heavy hinges and bolts. This had been put in by the previous tenants during the period of the Communist uprisings. A strange, precarious life in this world of runaway inflation! The owner of the fashionable apartment house had just called upon his tenants and informed them that he was no longer able to purchase coal, and that they would have to get together and work out some co-operative way of keeping themselves warm.

  Never had Lanny received such a welcome as that Jewish family gave him. When the steel door swung open they all cried out with delight and came swarming around him. Freddi took his hat and bags and Hansi his overcoat. Mama Robin, whom Lanny met for the first time, was a hearty, active little woman whose German had a strong Yiddish accent; kindness exuded from every pore of her, and she was so eager to make her guest comfortable that she made him the opposite. He was used to the English form of hospitality, which took it for granted that everything in the house was yours and let you help yourself without comment. But when you sat down to dinner with Mama Robin, she insisted that you eat this and enjoy that and have more of the other thing; she would clamor until Hansi would say, gently: “Mama, you are bothering Lanny.” Then there would be a discussion as to whether she was or not, and Lanny would have to eat more than he wanted, in order to avoid hurting the feelings of this Jewish mother whose hospitality lacked a sense of security.

  But all the discomfort vanished when Lanny sat at the piano and Hansi took up his violin. Then everybody fell silent, and mysterious presences entered the garishly furnished room. Beauty came, not Lanny’s mother, but a goddess, white-robed, broad-browed, with Stardust in her hair; Joy came, the daughter of Elysium; Pity came, with tear-dimmed eyes, and Grief with head bowed and dark robes trailing. Life became transfigured, and human insects stirring in primeval slime suddenly discovered themselves to be seers of visions, members of a mystical brotherhood, allies of a godhead. Genius had made its appearance upon earth, and its wonders were the heritage of all worshipers in the temple of Art.

  IV

  But one couldn’t play or listen to music all the time in this world. Johannes Robin had to go out and make money for his family and satisfy the ambitions which drove him. The mother had to attend to her household duties, and three young fellows had to eat and sleep, and see something of the great city of Berlin, it being Lanny’s first visit. Snow was on the ground, and bitter winds blew part of the time, but there came one sunny day, and they hired a coach with a bony nag, and inspected the Reichstag building, and drove down the Siegesallee, which celebrated the war before the last with a double row of enormous Teutonic heroes in white marble. It was not permitted to laugh at them, because these were dangerous times, and the shivering old coachman might have been one of the Kaiser’s own guards. Berlin was orderly now, but street-fighting had been going on for a couple of years and no one could say when it might break out again. Well-dressed people didn’t dare go into the working-class districts, but they scolded because the workers were getting more of the depreciated marks than the people who had incomes. The hungry poor formed breadlines, while the speculators danced and drank in the night-clubs.

  When Lanny got back from the drive he found “Mama”—so she told him to call her—in a great fuss because there had come a telephone call from the American Embassy, which of course sounded tremendous to her. Lanny didn’t know anybody there and couldn’t imagine what it might be, but he called and
was put through to the chargé d’affaires—no ambassador had been named yet. The chargé, it appeared, was a fraternity brother of Robbie Budd, and had a cablegram telling him that Lanny was to be visiting the Robins.

  The official wanted to show him the town, and would he come and have lunch at the Kaiserliche Automobil Klub the following day, Lanny accepted, and an embassy car called for him and brought him to a quite palatial building with lackeys in pink knee-breeches and white silk stockings and gloves. Lanny couldn’t help thinking that he was in a movie—except that a modern American career man, his host, didn’t fit therein. “Do you always do your guests as proud as this,” inquired the youth, and the chargé said: “They presented our staff with membership cards. We are the most important people in the world right now—we have all the wheat and the pork!”

  Evidently Germany still had venison and grouse, and the velvet-footed servitors brought them enormous portions. Lanny wondered what thoughts would be in the heads of these lackeys. They might be Junkers or they might be Socialists, but in either case they wouldn’t have any use for American bourgeois. Lanny told his father’s old friend the news about Robbie and his business, and about the family in Connecticut. They talked about the European situation in guarded terms, for of course every waiter might be a spy, and a diplomatic official must neither betray secrets nor give offense.

  V

  The chargé said he had brought Lanny here thinking he might like to see some of the important men of Berlin. Into this stately dining-room came members of the ruling classes—not the politicians, the Socialist and popular party upstarts who might be kicked out any day, but the financial men and businessmen whose power would endure. They were large men with bull necks, red faces, and bristly mustaches or beards; the blockade had affected their bulk no more than that of the white marble statues on the Siegesallee. They wore the short black coats called “mornings,” which had come to replace the longer frock-coats of old days. Those passing bowed to the American official, and several stopped and were introduced to his guest.

  The chargé indicated a short but broad and bulky fellow, swarthy as a Mediterranean, with a thick black beard and dingy clothes that fitted him, so Lanny said, “like socks on a rooster.” It was Hugo Stinnes, the coal magnate, and the youth mentioned: “I saw him at Spa. He laid down the law, I was told, and made the German delegation accept the coal agreement. The French are to pay the pithead cost and freight, plus five marks per ton to feed the miners.”

  “You can be sure Stinnes will get his share,” commented the official. “He has bought up most of the newspapers in Germany, so the politicians have to dance to his piping.”

  There entered a handsome, elegantly dressed man with a small gray mustache and goatee and a nearly bald head. Passing their table, he stopped for a greeting. “Dr. Rathenau,” said the chargé, introducing him. Lanny knew the name, for his father had praised him as a symbol of German organizing ability; he was the head of the country’s great electrical trust, and during the war had been in charge of the supply of raw materials. It was owing to him that the Fatherland had been able to hold out so long, and now he was Minister of Reconstruction, with a still heavier task.

  “A son of Robert Budd of Budd Gunmakers,” said the chargé, and as the minister expressed his pleasure, the American added: “Won’t you join us?”

  Rathenau explained that he was waiting for a friend, but he sat down until this man should arrive. Lanny had a chance to study him, and decided that his face was both kind and thoughtful. His manner was suave, and his English flawless; he spoke long and polished sentences like a classical orator—but at the same time with the positiveness of one born to command.

  Walter Rathenau had just come back from London, where he had been trying to persuade the British that it was impossible for Germany to meet the payment on reparations which was to fall due in a few days. With what could they meet it? They could sell only marks, and the results of that all the world’s money-markets saw. The City men of London had already expressed their opinion on that subject by refusing to extend any credit to Germany, and giving as their reason the exorbitant reparations burden!

  “They have decided to call another conference,” said Rathenau. “It will be early next month, and I think at Cannes.”

  “Indeed?” said the chargé. “Then you will be right at Budd’s back door. His home is Juan-les-Pins.”

  “I hope I may have the pleasure of seeing you there,” added the youth, and the minister agreed courteously to renew the acquaintance.

  “An extraordinary personality,” said the American, after Rathenau had left the table. “He really understands the present situation, and it would be well if his advice were taken. The propertied classes of Germany are called upon to make sacrifices which hurt, and the fact that Rathenau is a Jew makes them even less willing to be ruled by him.”

  “He doesn’t look like a Jew,” commented Lanny.

  “That happens with many of that race. But the Junkers know him, and will never forgive him because he is working with the Social-Democrats—even though it’s in an effort to save them and their country.”

  VI

  Lanny and Kurt took the night train for Upper Silesia, and in the morning were at the Polish border. A humiliating thing for Kurt to have to be examined by foreign customs officials and border police in order to get to his own home. The customs men were careless, but the passports were studied minutely; Lanny suspected that the officials didn’t know how to read very well. They spoke a bad German when they were compelled to. Afterward Kurt quoted to his friend a saying that when you went east from Germany you were in half-Asia. The signs of it were rutted roads, dilapidated houses, vermin, and superstition.

  Stubendorf was a predominantly German district, and the war hadn’t reached here, so everything was in order, and the snow made the countryside look fresh and clean; only the worn and patched clothing told of extreme poverty. The little train which wound up the branch line had evidently been a troop train and was pretty much of a wreck, the seats cut to pieces and the broken windows boarded over. A farmer of the Schloss estate recognized Kurt and touched his hat and gave them a seat by a sound window, so they could look out upon the landscape which stirred them both deeply—Lanny because his previous visit to the “Christmas-card castle” shone in his memory like snow crystals in sunlight.

  A sleigh met them and was pulled up the slopes by two rather feeble horses—for the war had left few good ones. On a high ridge the tiny town was clustered about the feet of the main building, the front part of which was modern, six stories high and built of gray stone. The Meissner home was one of the separate houses, and someone must have been watching at the window, for they all came trooping to the door before the two travelers had alighted from the sleigh. There were cries of delight, and the women had tears in their eyes.

  Lanny had wondered what was going to be the attitude of Germans to an American, who had been an enemy only three years ago. Of course the members of this family knew that he personally had taken no part in the war, but still, his people had snatched victory out of the grasp of their people. Already in Berlin Lanny had discovered a peculiar fact, and here he found it confirmed—the Germans didn’t seem to blame the Americans, they liked and admired them, and were sure that they had come into the war through a misunderstanding due to the subtlety of British propaganda. Now the Americans realized their mistake and were trying to atone for it, and the Germans would help them by explaining how right they had been.

  But that would come later. It was Christmas eve, and every good German was sentimental about it, and if he hated anybody he stowed the feeling away on a back shelf for a week. Here was Herr Meissner, no longer stout and rosy, with partly bald head and pouches under chin and cheeks and eyes. And die gute verständige Mutter—Lanny always thought of Goethe’s poem in connection with Frau Meissner; her brood had been reduced, for one son was in a hospital for incurables—nobody said what was wrong, but Lanny guessed it was a case of
shell shock; another son buried in East Prussia, and in his place a young widow with three children. Also there was the Meissner daughter, whom Lanny remembered as singing Christmas carols and having a long golden plait hanging over each shoulder. Now she too was a widow with two children, and the little ones made the home gay, for they had no knowledge of war and no shadows over their lives. After they had been put to bed Kurt played for the elders the compositions upon which he had been working for so long. They listened enraptured, and could never get enough during his stay.

  There were only a few lights on the Christmas tree, and the presents were simple, consisting either of food or of old things from pre-war days. The game in the forests had been greatly depleted, and now was being carefully guarded, but you had a little for Christmas; also you had an abundance of wheat and turnips from your fields, but sugar was among the precious metals and coffee a decoction from unnamed materials. You washed your remaining underwear with the care you would have given to the sheerest silk, for if you tore it you would have difficulty in getting a piece of thread with which to mend it. Lanny and Kurt had brought from France a priceless box of raisins, figs, and chocolates, and they helped to make a miraculous Christmas.

  In this era of runaway inflation there were two kinds of rich people, the speculators and the peasants. The latter produced what everybody had to have, and for which everybody paid a higher price every day; so they hoarded their products, and now and then brought home a large wad of paper money. The Polish mark had taken its tumble in advance of the German, and there was a story about a Polish peasant in a near-by district whose hut had burned down during his absence, and he had torn his hair and cried that his whole fortune had been destroyed. When they asked him what it was, he answered: “Forty million marks!”