City of Endless Night

by Milo Hastings

  CHAPTER X

  A GODDESS WHO IS SUFFERING FROM OBESITY ANDA BRAVE MAN WHO IS AFRAID OF THE LAW OF AVERAGES

  ~1~

  It was not till we had reached Marguerite's apartment that Zimmernspoke. Then he and Marguerite both embraced me and cried with joy.

  "Ah, Armstadt," said the old doctor, "you have done a wonderful thing, awonderful thing, but why did you not warn us?"

  "Yes," I stammered, "I know. You mean the books. It worried me, but, yousee, I did not plan this thing. I did not know what I should do. It cameto me like a flash as the Emperor was conferring the honours upon me. Ihad hoped to use my power to make him do my bidding, and yet we hadcontrived no way to use that power in furtherance of our great plans tofree a race; but I could at least use it to free a woman. Let us hopethat it augurs progress to the ultimate goal."

  "It was very noble, but it was dangerous," replied Zimmern. "It was onlythrough a coincidence that we were saved. Herr von Uhl told me that sameday what you had demanded. I saw Hellar immediately and he declared araid on Marguerite's apartment. But he came himself with only oneassistant who is in his confidence, and they boxed the books and cartedthem off. They will be turned in as contraband volumes, but the reportwill 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 Iworried greatly while I was imprisoned."

  "Yes," said Zimmern, "we have lost the books, but you have savedMarguerite. That will more than compensate. For that I can never thankyou enough."

  "And you were called into the matter, not," I said, "as Marguerite'sfriend, but as the physician to her mother?"

  "They must have looked up the record," replied Zimmern, "but nothing wassaid to me. I received only a communication from His Majesty commandingme as the physician to Marguerite's mother at the time of Marguerite'sbirth, to make statement as to her fatherhood."

  "But why," I asked, "did you not make this confession before, since itenabled 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 hasrestored Marguerite. The confession is only a matter of form, to satisfythe wagging tongues of Royal Society."

  "Do you mean," I asked, "that she will not be well received therebecause she was born out of wedlock?"

  "Not at all," replied Zimmern; "it was the failure to confess thefather, not the fact of her unwedded motherhood, that brought thepunishment. There are many love-children born on the Royal Level andthey suffer only a failure of inheritance of wealth from the father. Butif they be girls of charm and beauty, and if, as Marguerite now standscredited, they be of rich Royal blood, they are very popular and muchsought after. But without the record of the father they cannot beadmitted into Royal Society, for the record of the blood lines would belost, and that, you see, is essential. Social precedent, the value inthe matrimonial market, all rest upon it. Marguerite is indeedfortunate; with His Majesty's signature attesting my confession, she hasnothing more to fear. But I daresay they shall try their best to win herfrom 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 protiumformulas?"

  "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,--ifthere is any way you can use them for our great plan."

  "Nothing," spoke up Zimmern, "could be gained now by further secrecy buttrouble for us all; and by acceding, both you and Marguerite win yourplaces on the Royal Level, where you can better serve our cause. Thatis, if you are still with us. It may be harder for you, now that youhave won the richest privileges that Germany has to offer, to rememberthose 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 onMarguerite. You will both have opportunities to see much of the officersof the Submarine Service. The German race may yet be freed from thissunless prison, if you can find one among them who can be won toour cause."

  ~2~

  I reported the next morning to the Chemical Staff, by whom I was treatedwith deferential respect. I was immediately installed in my new office,as Director of the Protium Works. While I set about supervising themanufacture of apparatus for the new process, other members of thestaff, now furnished with the correct formulas repeated thedemonstration without my assistance.

  When the report of this had been made to His Majesty, I received myinsignia of the social privilege of the Royal Level and a copy of theRoyal Society Bulletin announcing Marguerite's restoration to her placein the House of Hohenzollern, with the title of Princess Marguerite,Daughter of Princess Fedora and Count Rudolf. The next day a socialsecretary from the Royal Level came for Marguerite and conducted her tothe Apartments of the Countess Luise, under whose chaperonage she was tomake her debut into Royal Society.

  I, also, was furnished with a social secretary, an obsequious but verywise little man, who took charge of all my affairs outside my chemicalwork. Under his guidance I was removed to more commodious quarters andmy wardrobe was supplied with numerous changes all in the uniform of theChemical Staff. There was little time to spare from my duties in theProtium Works, but my secretary, ever alert, snatched upon the oddmoments to coach me in matters of social etiquette and so prepared me tomake my first appearance in Royal Society at the grand ball given by theCountess Luise in honour of Marguerite's debut.

  Despite the assiduous coaching of my secretary, my ignorance must havebeen delightfully amusing to the royal idlers who had little otherthought or purpose in life than this very round of complicatednothingness. But if I was a blundering amateur in all this, they werenot so much discourteous as envious. They knew that I had won myposition by my achievements as a chemist and in a vague way theyunderstood that I had saved the empire from impending ruin, and for thisachievement I was lionized.

  The women rustled about me in their gorgeous gowns and plied me withfoolish questions which I had better sense than to try to answer withthe slightest degree of truth. But their power of sustained interest insuch weighty matters was not great and soon the conversation would driftaway, especially if Marguerite was about, when the talk would turn tothe romance of her restoration.

  One group of vivacious ladies discussed quite frankly with Margueritethe relative advantages of a husband of intellectual genius as comparedwith one of a high degree of royal blood. Some contended that the addedprospect of superior intelligence in the children would offset thelowering of their degree of Hohenzollern blood. The others argued quiteas persistently that the "blood" was the better investment.

  Through such conversation I learned of the two clans within the RoyalHouse. The one prided themselves wholly in the high degree of theirHohenzollern blood; the other, styling themselves "Royal Intellectuals"because of a greater proportion of outside blood lines, were quite asproud of the fact that, while possessed of sufficient royal blood to bein "the divinity," they inherited supposedly greater intelligence fromtheir mundane ancestors. This latter group, to make good their claims,made a great show of intellectuality, and cultivated most persistently adilletante 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 otherhand, the "intellectuals" considered me as a great asset for their causeand glorified particularly in the prospects of marriage of an outsidescientist to an eighty-degree Hohenzollern princess. This rivalry of theclans of Royal Society made us much sought after and I was flooded withinvitations.

  It did not take me long to discover, however, that the reason for mypopularity was not altogether a matter of respect for my intellectualgenius. I had at f
irst been inclined to accept all invitations,innocently supposing that I was being feted as an honorary guest. But mysocial secretary advised against this; and, when he began bringing mechecks to sign, I realized that the social privileges of Royal Societyincluded the honour of paying the bills for one's own entertainment.

  I had already arranged with my banker that a fourth of my income beturned over to Marguerite until her marriage, for she was without incomeof her own, and it was upon my petition that she had been restored tothe Royal Level. At my banker's suggestion I had also made over tenthousand marks a month to the Countess, under whose motherly wingMarguerite was being sheltered. I therefore soon discovered that myincome of a million marks a year would be absorbed quite easily by RoyalSociety. The entire system appeared to me rather sordid, but suchmatters were arranged by bankers and secretaries and the principals weresupposed to be quite innocent of any knowledge of, or concern for,the details.

  The Countess Luise, who was permitted to entertain so lavishly at myexpense, was playing for the favour of both of the opposing socialclans. Possessing a high degree of Hohenzollern blood she stood wellwith the purists. But her income was not all that could be desired, soshe had adroitly discovered in her only son a touch of intellectualgenius, and the young man quite dutifully had become a maker of pictureplots, hoping by this distinction to win as a wife one of the daughtersof some wealthy intellectual interloper. At first I had feared theCountess had designs upon Marguerite as a wife for her son, but asMarguerite 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 andcordial Countess.

  "Do you know what I was reading last night?" I remarked one evening, asI chatted with Marguerite and her chaperone.

  "Some work on obesity, I hope," sparkled the Countess. Like many of theHouse of Hohenzollern, among whom there was no weight control, shecarried a surplus of adipose tissue not altogether consistentwith beauty.

  "No, indeed," I said gravely. "Nothing about your material being, but atreatise upon your spiritual nature. I was reading an old school bookthat I found among my forgotten relics--a book about the Divinity of theHouse of Hohenzollern."

  "Oh, how jolly!" chuckled the Countess. "How very funny that I neverthought before that you, Herr von Armstadt, were once taught all thosedelightful fables."

  "And once believed them too," I lied.

  "Oh, dear me," replied the Countess, with a ponderous sigh, "so Isuppose you did. And what a shock I must have been to you with an eightycentimetre waist."

  "You are not quite Junoesque," I admitted.

  "The more reason you should use your science, Herr Chemist, to aid me torecover 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 suchfables should be put into the helpless minds of children?"

  "It surely must be. Suppose your own heredity had proven tricky--it doessometimes, you know--and you had been found incapable of scientificthought. You would have been deranked and perhaps made a recordclerk--no personal reflections, but such things do happen--and if younow were filing cards all day you would surely be much happier if youcould believe in our divinity. Why else would you submit to a lovelesslife and the dull routine of toil? Did not all the ancients, and do notall the inferior races now, have objects of religious worship?"

  "But the other races," I said, "do not worship living people butspiritual 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 thespirits and the dead, whereas we find it quite profitable to beworshipped. But for this wonderful doctrine of the divinity of the bloodof 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 dearHerr Chemist," she said in sugary tones, "you with your intellectualgenius can twit us on our psychic lacks and we must fall back on thedivine blood of our Great Ancestor--but would you really wish the slavesof 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 andefficiency--inferior creatures must worship; they always have and alwayswill--then why waste the worship?"

  ~3~

  My position as director of the protium works soon brought me intoconference with Admiral von Kufner who was Chief of the Submarine Staff.Von Kufner was in his forties and his manner indicated greater talentfor pomp and ceremony than for administrative work. His grandfather hadbeen the engineer to whose genius Berlin owed her salvation through theconstruction of the submarine tunnel. By this service the engineer hadwon 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 aman of both social and official consequence.

  It did not take me long to decide that von Kufner was hopeless as aprospective convert to revolutionary doctrines. Nor did he possess anygreat knowledge of the protium mines, for he had never visited them.Inheriting his position as an honour to his grandfather's genius, hecommanded the undersea vessels from the security of an office on theRoyal Level, for journeys in ice-filled waters were entirely toodangerous to appeal to one who loved so well the pleasures andvanities of life.

  I had explained to von Kufner the distinctions I had discovered in thevarious samples of the ore brought from the mines and the necessity ofhaving new surveys of the deposits made on the basis of thesediscoveries. After he had had time to digest this information, Isuggested that I should myself go to make this survey. But this idea theAdmiral at once opposed, insisting that the trip through the Arctic icefields was entirely too dangerous.

  "Very well," I replied. "I feel that I could best serve Germany by goingto the Arctic mines in person, but if you think that is unwise, will younot arrange for me to consult at once with men who have been in themines and are familiar with conditions there?"

  To this very reasonable request, which was in line with my obviousduties, no objection could be made and a conference was at once calledof submarine captains and furloughed engineers who had been in theArctic ore fields.

  I was impressed by the youthfulness of these men, which was readilyexplained by the fact that one vessel out of every five sent out waslost beneath the Arctic ice floes. With an almost mathematical certaintythe men in the undersea service could reckon the years of their lives onthe fingers of one hand.

  Although the official business of the conference related to ore depositsand not to the dangers of the traffic, the men were so obsessed with thelatter fact, that it crept out in their talk in spite of the Admiral'sobvious displeasure at such confession of fear. I particularly markedthe outspoken frankness of one, Captain Grauble, whose vessel was thenext one scheduled to depart to the mines.

  I therefore asked Grauble to call in person at my office for theinstructions concerning the ore investigations which were to beforwarded to the Director of the Mines. Free from the restraininginfluence of the Admiral, I was able to lead the Captain to talk freelyof the dangers of his work, and was overjoyed to find him franklyrebellious.

  That I might still further cultivate his acquaintance I withheld some ofthe necessary documents; and, using this as a pretext, I later soughthim out at his quarters, which were in a remote and somewhat obscurepart of the Royal Level.

  The official nature of my call disposed of, I led the conversation intosocial matters, and found no difficulty in persuading the Captain totalk of his own life. He was a man well under thirty and like most ofhis fellows in the service was one of the sons of a branch of theHohenzollern family whose declining fortune denied him all hope ofmarriage or social life. In the heroic years of hi
s youth he hadvolunteered for the submarine service. But now he confessed that heregretted the act, for he realized that his death could not be longpostponed. He had made his three trips as commander of anore-bringing vessel.

  "I have two more trips," declared Captain Grauble. "Such is the prophecyof statistical facts: five trips is the allotted life of a Captain; itis the law of averages. It is possible that I may extend that number alittle, but if so it will be an exception. Trusting to exceptions is apoor philosophy. I do not like it. Sometimes I think I shall refuse togo. Disgrace, of course,--banishment to the mines. Report my treasonableutterances if you like. I am prepared for that; suicide is easyand certain."

  "But is it not rather cowardly, Captain?" I asked, looking him steadilyin the eye.

  Grauble flung out his hand with a gesture of disdain. "That is an easyword for you to pronounce," he sneered. "You have hope to live by, youare on the upward climb, you aspire to marry into the Royal House andsire children to inherit your wealth. But I was born of the Royal House,my father squandered his wealth. My sisters were beautiful and they havemarried well. My brother was servile; he has attached himself to theretinue 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 Berlinmore life and uphold the House of Hohenzollern in its fat and idleexistence; and for me they have taken hope away!

  "Oh, yes, I was proclaimed a hero. The young ladies of this house ofidleness dance with me, but they dare not take me seriously; what one ofthem would court the certainty of widowhood without a fortune? So whyshould I not tire of their shallow trifling? I find among the girls ofthe Free Level more honest love, for they, as I, have no hope. They lovebut for the passing hour, and pass on as I pass on, I to death, they todecaying beauty and an old age of servile slavery."

  Surely, I exulted, here is the rebellious and daring soul that Zimmernand Hellar have sought in vain. Even as they had hoped, I seemed to havediscovered a man of the submarine service who was amenable torevolutionary ideas. Could I not get him to consider the myriad life ofBerlin in all its barren futility, to grasp at the hope of succour froma free and merciful world, and then, with his aid, find a way out ofBerlin, a way to carry the message of Germany's need of help to theGreat God of Humanity that dwelt without in the warmth and joy ofthe sun?

  The tide of hope surged high within me. I was tempted to divulge at oncemy long cherished plan of escape from Berlin. "Why," I asked, thinkingto further sound his sincerity, "if you feel like this, have you neverconsidered running your craft to the surface during the sea passage andbeaching her on a foreign shore? There at least is life and hope andexperience."

  "By the Statue of God!" cried Grauble, his body shaking and his voicequavering, "why do you, in all your hope and comfort here, speak of thatto me? Do you think I have never been tempted to do that very thing? Andyet you call me a coward. Have I not breathed foul air for days, fearfulto poke up our air tube in deserted waters lest by the millionth chanceit might lead to a capture? And yet you speak of deliberate surrender!Even though I destroyed my charts, the capture of a German submarine inthose seas would set the forces of the outer world searching for thepassage. If they found and blocked the passage I should be guilty of thedestruction of three hundred million lives--Great God! God ofHohenzollern! 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 spokenof these things that shake our souls. You have confessed much to me andI have much that I shall confess to you. I must see you again beforeyou leave."

  Grauble gave me his hand. "You are a strange man," he said. "I have metnone before like you. I do not know at what aims you are driving. If youplotted my disgrace by leading me into these confessions, you have foundme easy prey. But do not credit yourself too much. I have often vowed Iwould go to Admiral von Kufner, and say these things to him. But theformal exterior of that petty pompous man I cannot penetrate. If I haveconfessed to you, it is merely because you are a man without thatprotecting shield of bristling authority and cold formality. You seemedmerely a man of flesh and blood, despite your decorations, and so I havetalked. What is to be made of it by you or by me I do not know, but I amnot afraid of you."

  "I shall leave you now," I said, "for I have pressing duties, but Ishall 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 Ican yet show you a gleam of hope beyond this mathematical law ofaverages that rattles the dice of death."