The Captain smiled amusedly. “I am still a gentleman, I hope, General.”
The General shook his head irritably. “Of course, of course! There are a few of you left. Otherwise, I should lose hope. But you still encourage the mob. We young officers had a proper contempt for the people, who are only cattle. We were scrupulously polite to them, certainly, but they knew their places. They never presumed. It was all understood. There was first the soldier, the gentleman, and then the professions, then the bourgeoisie, and then the common people. Each class realized its responsibilities to itself, and to the Fatherland, and neither would have wished, or dared, to invade another class. Thus each class had its own pride and rigid self-respect, its own kind of honor, its own immutable code. This made for order and tranquillity. Now, if I hear aright, there is a mongrel mixing of all classes, with the worst in the ascendant. Is that democracy?”
The Captain’s smile broadened. “I would hardly call it democracy, General. It is National Socialism.”
At the word “Socialism,” the General exploded with indignation and scorn. “Socialism! Marxism! Nihilism! Atheism! Anarchism! They are all the same, pestilential!”
The Captain did not reply. His warm and sympathetic smile became as fixed as a grin. The General leaned towards him, as though pathetically desirous of being reassured by the younger man’s presence.
“There is no honor among thieves and plebeians,” he urged. “You will not permit this appalling state of affairs much longer?”
“Of course not,” replied the Captain, soothingly. “This is just a phase of the revolution.”
At that ghastly word, the General’s flushed face paled. “Revolution!” he stammered. “Revolution! What revolution?”
The Captain became more and more soothing. He glanced about the listening table; his right eye closed in a wink as he encountered the gaze of Doctor Schmidt. “Every change is a revolution, General,” he said reassuringly. “I use the word loosely, for want of a better.”
“That is the trouble with the world today!” cried the General. “It uses words loosely, not understanding the impact. Revolution! But you young men are always given to extravagant phrases.” He smiled with difficulty. “I hate the word. For me, its connotation means untenable change, a convulsion, a catastrophe. To you, probably, it means a shifting of cabinets! Do be more careful, Captain.” He still smiled, but his marble-like blue eyes pleaded pathetically.
Doctor Muehler leaned forward and said gravely and quietly: “General, Captain von Keitsch is not using words loosely. When he says revolution, he means revolution.”
There was a sudden silence about the dinner-table. Martina’s thin eyelids fluttered distressedly. Her smile was painfully fixed and touching. Was her party to be ruined? How she detested politics these days! People got upset so, and said the most incredible and astounding things, which did not make for harmony. As for herself, she thought, she never understood politics. Why could not people forget them? The roast goose was really delicious, but there it lay on plates, cooling in its sauce, and every one’s face was so strange.
In the meantime, the Captain and Doctor Muehler faced each other across the damask and crystal expanse of the table like two deadly duelists. They did not take their eyes from each other, though Doctor Muehler continued to speak to the General:
“I am sorry, General, that you must be disturbed. But truth is always disturbing. The fact remains that Germany is in a mortal convulsion, brought on by such men as our good Captain here, and,” he flicked his bitter glance at Schmidt, “and our ‘honorable’ Doctor Schmidt. They say to you: ‘This will pass.’ It is the drug they are giving to all of Germany. And so you, soothed and lulled, say to yourselves: ‘This will pass. It is only today. We must not alarm ourselves too much, or allow our serene judgment and tranquillity to be disturbed to the dislocation point. One must not become unduly excited, or hysterical; one must remember that events change constantly. It is all a matter of keeping balance, and believing steadfastly in the old sane order.’”
Doctor Lesser, the writer, nodded portentously. “Naturally, that is the only thing to believe, the only sensible thing.”
But Doctor Muehler ignored him as too insignificant to be noticed. He still stared fixedly at the Captain, whose smile had taken on a vicious quality. He went on:
“But how terribly wrong such an attitude is! How frightful! How dangerous! For I tell you, General, and all of you, my friends, that this will not pass. It is not today. It is tomorrow, and a thousand, thousand tomorrows, all the generations of our children and the generations of all the world’s children, for an era or more to come. It is not the immediate event in Germany alone. It will not matter if Germany is destroyed, or destroys, and the world is dragged down with her. That will change nothing. The end is here. The convulsion of nature is already shaking the foundations of a thousand cities, all over the earth.”
Every one stared at him. The General’s eyes bulged with gaping incredulity; Frau Muehler had flushed uncomfortably; the writer looked superior and aloof. But the Captain and Schmidt riveted their gaze on Muehler with a cold and curious contemplation and thoughtfulness. As for Therese, an ice-lump of fear settled in her chest, as she saw the look of these two men. She wanted to cry out: “Stop, Herman, these are murderers!” She wanted, at least, to warn him. But he did not look at her. And then she was glad that he did not. She knew that some abscess had broken in him, and that in the breaking he was experiencing an ineffable relief.
“You are talking nonsense,” said the General, bluntly, but there was a plea for desperate reassurance in his voice. “Nonsense,” he repeated, looking about the table, and the word sounded like a miserable question.
Doctor Muehler went on, quietly, musingly, as though speaking to himself:
“The change will come only when the hearts of men change, and that may not be for half a thousand years. But we must work sleeplessly for that change, even if it does not come in our lifetime; we must urge our children to work for it, and their children, telling them that there is no hope for them until it comes. All this, in Germany, in the world—this pestilence of the mind, this disease of the soul—is the result of wrong thinking. Men thought wrong, until the Protestant Reformation, which lifted a whole world from a darkness in which there were only the little lights of the priests, which they jealously guarded, and which they refused to give to other men. The Reformation snatched the candles from the priests, lighted a million lamps, drove feudalism from the face of the earth, built universities and schools open to all men, set in motion the machinery of freedom and liberty and enlightenment. For the first time, since the fall of Rome, we were able to see, and see clearly.”
He paused, then resumed in a melancholy tone: “And then what happened? The old unscrupulous forces of evil, which are always alive and always waiting, rose up again on their mission of destruction. The heroic Protestant Reformation, which had freed men from slavery, ignorance, blindness and superstition, became the materialist’s and the industrialist’s Reformation, and men were lost again. Lost in a wilderness of machines and dusty, futile science. Lost in the dry cant of pedagogues and politicians and profit-seekers, the philosophies of exploiters and low fellows. The Protestant philosophy of justice and enlightenment and mental liberty became the philosophy of cynics, weary even of their own words. They said that men can live by bread alone, provided there was sufficient bread.” He paused again for a moment, then continued, his voice sad and heavy: “But it is still true that men do not live by bread alone, but by the word of the Living God. Suspicious of theology, which had once enslaved them, the Reformation brought a critical atheism, which was, in its way, as destructive and as enslaving as the old Roman hierarchy.”
Schmidt, smiling his fascinating smile, inclined his head. “In many ways I must confess I agree with you, Herr Professor. I still think we mean the same things, though you deny it. I agree that you pedants have helped to bring out the present world-ennui and confusion. You ha
ve always resisted change. You refuse to recognize the change. You prefer to operate in a vacuum, a nice fur-lined vacuum, filled with words.”
The Captain laughed genially. “Herr Professor, at heart you are really a National Socialist. We believe as you believe. You are still confused, but I am sure we can complete your enlightenment.”
“I do not believe in oppression, cruelty, wickedness and violence,” said the Professor tiredly.
“But there are elements that must be suppressed, elements which are impeding the new Protestant Reformation in Germany,” urged the Captain. “And then, after we have consolidated Germany, our mission will extend to the rest of the world.”
Martina smiled happily. What had promised to end in heated quarreling had become merely a pleasant and cosy discussion. She glanced about the table. But she met no smiles, no answering glances. Every one’s attention was fixed on Doctor Muehler, the Captain, and Doctor Schmidt with a breathless intensity. Martina was bewildered. How difficult people were these days, spoiling agreeable dinner parties with long faces and sepulchral voices!
Doctor Muehler regarded Schmidt fixedly.
“You mean—war,” he said, in a flat and weary tone.
The Captain shrugged. “Why not? War is the vitalistic expression of the people. They must have something to fight for, and sacrifice themselves for.”
“War!” cried Therese, repudiatingly.
“War!” exclaimed the General, bewildered. Then he added with an almost childish simplicity: “But with whom?”
Doctor Muehler regarded Therese gently. “Yes, my dear, war. You see, they really mean war, at the end. On all the rest of the world. That is their lunatic’s obsession.
“But I mean war, too, but not their kind of war. Tyrants and oppressors and conquerors come like storms, like earthquakes and tidal seas, like winds and fires. Each generation confronts them. Each generation must decide whether there are things worth fighting for, and dying for, or whether personal survival is more valuable than the welfare of its children, or slavery sweeter than liberty and justice. It must decide whether it prefers a sword and a vision, even unto death, or life so impotent and sterile, so shameful and rabbitlike, that it contains no hope and no light. The history of tyrants is always the history of the pusillanimous. Oppressors are only the visible symbols of a people’s cowardice, a world’s ignominy and littleness of soul. They, like Hitler and Mussolini, like all madmen and tyrants, are not symbols of the vitalism of the world, but the signs of its decadence, its degeneracy, and its corruption of spirit.”
The Captain said with ominous quietness: “I do not like your remarks about our Fuehrer, Herr Professor.”
But Doctor Muehler continued to speak to Therese, whose face was as white and still as the tablecloth:
“The pattern of war will always recur, in every generation. For in each generation monsters and madmen are born, and will, to the end of time, seek to subjugate, rule and destroy. We must teach our children that such a pattern will inevitably recur in their lifetime and that it is in the nature of things that they will come face to face, sometime in their lives, with these monsters and madmen. It must be their duty to resist and annihilate them, to the very end, even to an end that may be the grave.
“If we do not teach them so, not only we shall die, but they must die, also, shamefully and weakly, without even the consolation of a vision to sustain them in the darkest hour.”
There was a sudden sharp silence after he had stopped speaking. Frau Muehler’s sensible face was suffused. Her eyes sparkled angrily upon her husband.
“What emotion, Herman! What fantastic extravagance! I have never heard you talk like this before.” She was outraged.
He regarded her with gentle sadness. “You are right, Elizabeth. I never talked like this before. But it was not from lack of courage. It was just from stupidity. And blindness. I thought this would pass, too. Now I realize it will not pass.”
Doctor Lesser, the writer, gave vent to a superior cackle. “It is not the function of the teacher, and the artist, to give vulgar attention to the passing event,” he said. “Really, Doctor Muehler, you are stepping down into the base politician’s chair.” He glanced around the table with an egotistic humor: “It is the artist’s true function to interpret life, not to attempt to guide it.”
Doctor Muehler gave him a look of supreme contempt.
“So speaks the intellectual,” he said, with bitter insult in his voice. “So speaks the shrilling impotent eunuch. But when I denounce you, I also denounce myself. I know, now, what I must do.”
The Captain and Doctor Schmidt laughed outright, as though overcome with an inner amusement which had now burst out. Martina laughed, too, breathing with relief. After all, she thought, it was only an agreeable discussion. The General looked about, uncertainly. He smiled, though with bewildered uneasiness. Elizabeth Muehler, intensely relieved by the laughter, shot one glance of cold reproof at her husband, then smiled sensibly. Really, Herman was impossible. He had insulted almost every one tonight, but not one had taken offense. How truly tolerant and civilized were the Germans!
But Therese neither laughed nor smiled. She was as white as death. She was consumed with an awful fear. She knew that Doctor Muehler was signing his death-warrant, and there must be some way to save him yet.
Yes, there must be some way to save him, she thought desperately. She did not like the sparkling fire in his eyes, the rigidity and exaltation of his face. He must be saved, saved like Karl, for Germany.
16
She had hoped the air would free her from the increasing, ominous dread, the vague fright. But it did not. She could not forget the faces she had seen. It was like looking at the faces of bestial executioners. The executioners of Germany. She drew in a hard breath. I must control myself, she thought. She tried to stop the trembling of her flesh. I shall be ill, down in bed, hopeless, she reprimanded herself severely. Then what could I do? But it was no use. She could hardly walk when she alighted from her car. The cool air struck her like a freezing blast, though it was still summer.
The house was quiet. Only a single yellowish light burned in the entry. Old Lotte would always arise when her mistress returned, but Therese shrank from any contact with any one, even with this simple old creature. She stood in the hall, holding her breath, listening. There was no sound at all. She climbed the stairs as noiselessly as a ghost. She expected to hear Karl’s incessant fumbling pacing, hollow in the midnight stillness. But she heard nothing. Now she breathed easier. He must be asleep.
She paused before his study door. She saw a faint gleam of light under it. She pressed her hand against the door, and it swung silently open. A dim lamp burned on his desk. Then she started. There were disordered papers on the desk, covered with handwriting. It was not possible! It could not be that he was writing again! It could not be that while she was sinking he was recovering! She tiptoed to the desk. Sheet upon sheet, covered with disordered, straggling writing. Tears blinded her. She sank into the desk chair, gripped the edge of the desk. He must have been writing for hours. He was not distinguished for rapid writing. Each jewelled phrase and shining word came to him slowly, perfectly, laboriously. Then she was struck with the shambling, leaping, incoherent lines, so different from his usual small, neat, precise writing.
Was that a faint, murmurous sound! Her head jerked up; she listened. She saw that Karl’s bedroom door was also open a little. She went to it. The lamplight on the desk fell within like a pale misty shaft. Karl was in bed, asleep. He must have stirred and murmured in his restless nightmare, for his head was hanging over the edge, and one arm was flung downward so that it almost touched the floor. He slept, but his face, so haggard, so gaunt, was not composed. It was tight with some sorrowful preoccupation, some despairing resistance. He looked curiously defensive, lying there, in his attitude of exhausted abandon. She knelt beside him, not daring to touch him lest he wake, but it seemed to her that her heart poured out like a flood towards him, protective,
grief-stricken. My darling, she said silently. My darling, perhaps it would be better if you died. Died in your sleep, like this. Perhaps it would be better if all the innocent died in these days. For when you awaken, how dangerous you are, how appalling! There is no room in the world for awakened innocence. It is better for us if you die. We can recover. But you cannot recover. You can only devastate and destroy, in your mad fury of vengeance. It is not the cold, the balanced, the matter-of-fact, who raze cities and light them into flames. It is the innocent who cannot bear their awakening. God protect us from you!
She rose to her feet, heavily, painfully, as though she had become old and stiff. She closed the door silently. But not before she had lightly touched his fallen hand with her trembling lips. She went back to his desk, and stood, looking down at his writing. She sat down, and began to read. The characters were disordered; some of the words had letters missing. Others were unintelligible. But she could still read. And then, as she read, her pulses slowed down to a slow agonized beating, and it seemed to her that all the world was listening to the voice of assaulted innocence, which must some day rise to a crescendo of avenging madness.
It was soon evident to her that this was not tonight’s work alone. The ink was different on some pages; the writing, at first, was small and precise, only becoming towards the middle, incoherent and scrawling. He had been writing for a long time. Some of the pages had drifted to the floor. None were numbered. She was not sure which was the beginning or the end.
Time No Longer Page 18
