City of Endless Night

by Hastings , Milo M. ;

  ‘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 parceled 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 forever 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 miseducated, it has been misbred. 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 centimeter 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 he
lp 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.

  II

  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 cafe about looking up the girl who played the innocent role? 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 gray-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 ag
ainst 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 honor 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 ardor 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 honor, 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.