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    Passenger to Frankfurt

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    Oberammergau. But the German woman said scornfully:

      "You do not understand. We Germans have no need of a

      Jesus Christ 1 We have our Adolf Hitler here with us. He

      is greater than any Jesus that ever lived." She was quite

      a nice ordinary woman. But that is how she felt. Masses

      of people felt it. Hitler was a spell-binder. He spoke and

      they listened--and accepted the sadism, the gas chambers,

      the tortures of the Gestapo.'

      She shrugged her shoulders and then said in her normal

      voice, 'All the same, it's odd that you should have said

      what you did just now.'

      What was that?'

      'About the Old Man of the Mountain. The head of the

      Assassins.'

      'Are you telling me there is an Old Man of the Mountain

      here?'

      'No. Not an Old Man of the Mountain, but there might

      be an Old Woman of the Mountain.'

      'An Old Woman of the Mountain. What's she like?'

      'You'll see this evening.'

      'What are we doing this evening?'

      'Going into society,' said Renata.

      'It seems a long time since you've been Mary Arm.'

      'You'll have to wait till we're doing some air travel again.'

      'I suppose it's very bad for one's morale,' Stafford Nye

      said thoughtfully, 'living high up in the world.'

      'Are you talking socially?'

      'No. Geographically. If you live in a castle on a mountain

      peak overlooking the world below you, well, it makes you

      despise the ordinary folk, doesn't it? You're the top' one,

      you're the grand one. That's what Hitler felt in Berchtesgaden,

      that's what many people feel perhaps who climb mountains

      and look down on their fellow creatures in valleys below.'

      'You must be careful tonight,' Renata warned him. 'It's

      going to be ticklish.'

      'Any instructions?'

      'You're a disgruntled man. You're one that's against the

      Establishment, against the conventional world. You're a

      rebel, but a secret rebel. Can you do it?'

      93

      here by command, by appointment. However you liked to

      put it. Renata had been told to bring him here. He wondered

      why. He couldn't really think why, but he was quite ir

      of it. It was at him she was looking. She was appri n, him, summing him up. Was he what she wanted? Wa it',

      yes, he'd rather put it this way, was he what the cust ne:

      had ordered?

      I'll have to make quite sure that I know what it is she

      does want, he thought. I'll have to do my best, otherwise

      . . . Otherwise he could quite imagine that she might raise

      a fat ringed hand and say to one of the tall, muscular

      footmen: 'Take him and throw him over the battlements.'

      It's ridiculous, thought Stafford Nye. Such things can't happen nowadays. Where am I? What kind of a parade, a masquerade

      or a theatrical performance am I taking part in?

      'You have come very punctual to time, child.'

      It was a hoarse, asthmatic voice which had once had

      an undertone, he thought, of strength, possibly even of

      beauty. That was over now, Renata came forward, made a

      slight curtsy. She picked up the fat hand and dropped a

      courtesy kiss upon it.

      'Let me present to you Sir Stafford Nye. The Grafin Charlotte von Waldsausen.'

      The fat hand was extended towards him. He bent over

      it in the foreign style. Then she said something that surprised

      him.

      'I know your great-aunt,' she said,

      He looked astounded, and he saw immediately that she

      was amused by that, but he saw too, that she had expected

      him to be surprised by it. She laughed, a rather queer, grating

      laugh. Not attractive.

      'Shall we say, I used to know her. It is many, many

      years since I have seen her. We were in Switzerland together,

      at Lausanne, as girls. Matilda. Lady Matilda BaldwenWhite.'

      'What

      a wonderful piece of news to take home with. me,

      said Stafford Nye.

      'She is older than I am. She is in good health?'

      'For her age, in very good health. She lives in the country

      quietly. She has arthritis, rheumatism.'

      'Ah yes, all the ills of old age. She should have injections

      of procaine. That is what the doctors do here in this altitude.

      It is very satisfactory. Does she know that you are visiti'g

      me?> 'I imagine that she has not the least idea of it,' said S11'

      96

      Stafford Nye. 'She knew only that I was going to this festival of modern music.'

      'Which you enjoyed, I hope?'

      'Oh enormously. It is a fine Festival Opera Hall, is it not?'

      'One of the finest. Pah! It makes the old Bayreuth Festival

      Hall look like a comprehensive school! Do you know what

      it cost to build, that Opera House?'

      She mentioned a sum in millions of marks. It quite took

      Stafford Nye's breath away, but he was under no necessity

      to conceal that. She. was pleased with the effect it made

      upon him.

      'With money,' she said, 'if one knows, if one has the

      ability, if one has the discrimination, what is there that

      money cannot do? It can give one the best.'

      She said the last two words with a rich enjoyment, a

      kind of smacking of the lips which he found both unpleasant

      and at the same time slightly sinister.

      'I see that here,' he said, as he looked round the walls.

      'You are fond of art? Yes, I see you arks. There, on the

      east wall is the finest Cezanne in the world today. Some

      say that the--ah, I forget the name of it at the moment,

      the one in the Metropolitan in New York--is finer. That

      is not true. The best Matisse, the best Cezanne, the best of

      all that great school of art are here. Here in my mountain

      eyrie.'

      'It is wonderful,' said Sir Stafford. 'Quite wonderful.'

      Drinks were being handed round. The Old Woman of

      the Mountain, Sir Stafford Nye noticed, did not drink anything.

      It was possible, he thought, that she feared to take

      any risks over her blood pressure with that vast weight.

      'And where did you meet this child?' asked the mountainous

      Dragon.

      Was it a trap? He did not know, but he made his decision.

      ^'At the American Embassy, in London.'

      Ah yes, so I heard. And how is--ah, I forget her name

      now--ah yes, Milly Jean, our southern heiress? Attractive, did you think?'

      Most charming. She has a great success in London.'

      And poor duU Sam Cortman, the United States Ambassador?'

      A very sound man, I'm sure,' said Stafford Nye politely.

      Me chuckled.

      'Aha, you're tactful, are you not? Ah well, he does weU

      An0^ -Re does what he is told as a good Politician should. '"la it is enjoyable to be Ambassador in London. She could

      I>TP 97 D

      do that for him, Milly Jean. Ah, she could get him an

      Embassy anywhere in the world, with that well-stuffed purse

      of hers. Her father owns half the oil in Texas, he owns land

      goldfields, everything. A coarse, singularly ugly man_But

      what does she look like? A gentle little aristocrat. Not blatant,

      not rich. That is very clever of her, is it not?'

      'Sometimes it presents no difficultie
    s,' said Sir StaPord

      Nye.

      'And you? You are not rich?'

      'I wish I was.'

      "The Foreign Office nowadays, it is not, shall we say,

      very rewarding?'

      'Oh well, I would not put it like thai . . . After all, one

      goes places, one meets amusing people, one sees the world,

      one sees something of what goes on.'

      'Something, yes. But not everything.'

      That would be very difficult.'

      'Have you ever wished to see what--how shall I put it--

      what goes on behind the scenes in life?'

      'One has an idea sometimes.' He made his voice noncommittal.

      'I have heard it said that that is true of you, that you

      have sometimes ideas about things. Not perhaps the conventional

      ideas?'

      There have been times when I've been made to feel

      the bad boy of the family," said Stafford Nye and laughed.

      Old Charlotte chuckled.

      'You don't mind admitting things now and again, do you?'

      'Why pretend? People always know what you're concealing.'

      She looked at him.

      'What do you want out of life, young man?'

      He shrugged his shoulders. Here again, he had to play

      things by ear.

      'Nothing,' he said.

      'Come now, come now, am I to believe that?'

      'Yes, you can believe it. I am not ambitious. Do I loo>

      ambitious?'

      'No, I will admit that.'

      'I ask only to be amused, to live comfortably, to eat, to

      drink in moderation, to have friends who amuse me.

      The old woman leant forward. Her eyes snapped open and shut three or four times. Then she spoke in ,1 ra1"6 different voice. It was like a whistling note.

      'Can you hate? Are you capable of hating?'

      To hate is a waste of time.'

      98

      I see. I see. There are no lines of discontent in your face.

      That is true enough. AU the same, I think you are ready to take a certain path which will lead you to a certain

      t place, and you will go along it smiling, as though you did I not care, but all the same, in the end, if you find the right

      advisers, the right helpers, you might attain what you want,

      if you are capable of wanting.'

      'As to that,' said Stafford Nye, 'who isn't?' He shook his

      head at her very gently. 'You see too much,' he said. 'Much

      too much.'

      Footmen threw open a door.

      'Dinner is served.'

      The proceedings were properly formal. They had indeed

      iatnost a royal tinge about them. The big doors at the far teKl of the room were flung open, showing through to a ^ghtly lighted ceremonial dining-room, with a painted ceil^R

      and three enormous chandeliers. Two middle-aged women

      l^proached the Grafin, one on either side. They wore evening

      dress, their grey hair was carefully piled on their heads,

      each wore a diamond brooch. To Sir Stafford Nye, all the

      same, they brought a faint flavour of wardresses. They were,

      he thought, not so much security guards as perhaps high-class

      nursing attendants in charge of the health, the toilet and other

      intimate details of the Grafin Charlotte's existence. After

      napectful bows, each one of them slipped an arm below Ac shoulder and elbow of the sitting woman. With the ease of

      long practice aided by the effort which was obviously as much aa, she could make, they raised her to her feet in a dignified

      fiuhion. ^j 'We will go in to dinner now,' said Charlotte.

      With her two female attendants, she led the way. On

      her feet she looked even more a mass of wobbling jelly,

      yet she was still formidable. You could not dispose of her

      in your mind as just a fat old woman. She was somebody,

      knew she was somebody, intended to be somebody. Behind

      the three of them he Ttod Renata foUowed.

      As they entered through the portals of the dining-room, he felt it was almost more a banquet hall than a dining- room. There was a bodyguard here. Tall, fair-haired, handsome

      young men. They wore some kind of uniform. As Charotte

      entered there was a clash as one and all drew their vfwsh- They crossed them overhead to make a passageway, d Charlotte, steadying herself, passed along that passageay,

      released by her attendants and making her progress solo

      a vast carved chair with gold fittings and upholstered in

      99

      golden brocade at the head of the long table. It wa

      like a wedding procession, Stafford Nye thought. ,'. ' I or military one. In this case surely, military, strictly mi -;.rybut

      lacking a bridegroom.

      They were all young men of super physique, t -? them,

      he thought, was older than thirty. They he-.u (,ood

      looks, their health was evident. They did not smi'e, ihey

      were entirely serious, they were--he thought of a word or

      it--yes, dedicated. Perhaps not so much a military proces^a

      as a religious one. The servitors appeared, old-fashioned

      servitors belonging, he thought, to the Schloss's past, to a time

      before the 1939 war. It was like a super production of a

      period historic play. And queening over it, sitting in the chair

      or the throne or whatever you liked to call it, at the head

      of the table, was not a queen or an empress but an old

      woman noticeable mainly for her avoirdupois weight and her

      extraordinary and intense ugliness. Who was she? What was

      she doing here? Why?

      Why all this masquerade, why this bodyguard, a security

      bodyguard perhaps? Other diners came to the table. They

      bowed to the monstrosity on the presiding throne and took

      their places. They wore ordinary evening dress. No introductions

      were made.

      Stafford Nye, after long years of sizing up people, assessed

      them. Different types. A great many different types. Lawyers,

      he was certain. Several lawyers. Possibly accountants or

      financiers; one or two army officers in plain clothes. They

      were of the Household, he thought, but they were also in the

      old-fashioned feudal sense of the term those who 'sat below

      the salt'.

      Food came. A vast boar's head pickled in aspic, ven.i
      pastry--a super millefeuille that seemed of unbelievable afectionery

      richness.

      The vast woman ate, ate greedily, hungrily, enjo' ,?_

      food. From outside came a new sound. The sounc r '"_ powerful engine of a super sports ear. It passed the i'11'' in a white flash. There came a cry inside the room hov the bodyguard. A great cry of 'Heil! Heil! Heil Franz!

      The bodyguard of young men moved with the ease of

      military manoeuvre known by heart. Everyone had '"'se to their feet. Only the old woman sat without moving, re head lifted high, on her dais. And, so Stafford Nye thougtii.

      a new excitement now permeated the room. .j

      The other guests, or the other members of the ho'-'sehol

      whatever they were, disappeared in a way that somehow

      reminded Stafford of lizards disappearing into the cracks of

      wall. The golden-haired boys formed a new figure, their

      Words flew out, they saluted their patroness, she bowed her

      head in acknowledgment, their swords were sheathed and

      they turned, permission given, to march out through the door

      of the room. Her eyes followed them, then went first to

      Renata, and then to Stafford Nye.
    >
      'What do you think of them?' she said. 'My boys, my

      youth corps, my children. Yes, my children. Have you a

      word that can describe them?'

      'I think so,' said Stafford Nye. 'Magnificent.' He spoke

      Itfher as to Royalty. 'Magnificent, ma'am.' i ..''Ahl' She bowed her head. She smiled, the wrinkles multilying

      all over her face. It made her look exactly like a

      locodile.

      'A terrible woman, he thought, a terrible woman, imossible,

      dramatic. Was any of this happening? He couldn't

      Clieve it was. What could this be but yet another festival

      ilftil in which a production was being given.

      The doors clashed open again. The yellow-haired band at the young supermen marched as before through it. This (iflBe they did not wield swords, instead they sang. Sang >Ah unusual beauty of tone and voice.

      if After a good many years of pop music Stafford Nye felt

      M incredulous pleasure. Trained voices, these. Not raucous

      houting. Trained by masters of the singing art. Not allowed

      to strain their vocal cords, to be off key. They might be

      the new Heroes of a New World, but what they sang was

      not new music. It was music he had heard before. An arrangement

      of the Preislied, there must be a concealed orchestra

      somewhere, he thought, in a gallery round the top of the

      room. It was an arrangement or adaptation of various Wag- nenan themes. It passed from the Preislied to the distant ^hoes of the Rhine music.

      The Elite Corps made once more a double lane where wnebody was expected to make an entrance. It was not

      e old Empress this time. She sat on her dais awaiting

      whoever was coming.

      And at last he came. The music changed as he came. It

      hea^0^131^ motif which ^ n(yw Stafford Nye had got by

      caU The melody of the Young Siegfried. Siegfried's horn

      ucw nslng up.in its Y0^ and its triumph, its mastery of a

      U.CW 1 JVW.MA CUJU 1U? HJHAlJLlj-'lAi J

      w world which the young Siegfried came to ^nrough the doorway, marching up bel

      101

      conquer.

      between the lines

      of what were clearly his followers, came one of the handsomest

      young men Stafford Nye had ever seen. Golden- haired, blue-eyed, perfectly proportioned, conjured up as it

      were by the wave of a magician's wand, he came forth out of

      the world of myth. Myth, heroes, resurrection, rebirth, it was

      all there. His beauty, his strength, his incredible assurance and

      arrogance.

      He strode through the double lines of his bodyguard

      until he stood before the hideous mountain of womanhood

      that sat there on her throne; he knelt on one knee, n sed

      her hand to his lips, and then rising to his feet, he threv ap

      one arm in salutation and uttered the cry that Stafford

      Nye had heard from the others. 'Heil!' His German was not

      very clear, but Stafford Nye thought he distinguished the

      syllables 'Heil to the great mother!'

      Then the handsome young hero looked from one side to

      the other. There was some faint recognition, though ac uninterested one, of Renata, but when his gaze turned to

      Stafford Nye, there was definite interest and appraisal. Caution,

      thought Stafford Nye. Caution! He must play his part

      right now. Play the part that was expected of him. Only--

      what the hell was that part? What was he doing here? What

      were he or the girl supposed to be doing here? Why had they come?

      The hero spoke.

      'So,' he said, 'we have guests!' And he added, smiling

      with the arrogance of a young man who knows that he is

      vastly superior to any other person in the world. 'Welcome,

      guests, welcome to you both.'

      Somewhere in the depths of the Schtoss a great bell

      began tolling. It had no funereal sound about it, but it had

      a disciplinary air. The feeling of a monastery summoned to some holy office.

      'We must sleep now,' said old Charlotte. 'Sleep. We will

      meet again tomorrow morning at eleven o'clock.'

      She looked towards Renata and Sir Stafford Nye.

      'You will be shown to your rooms. I hope you "ill &ee^ well.'

      It was the Royal dismissal.

      Stafford Nye saw Renata's arm fly up in the Fasc salute

      but it was addressed not to Charlotte, but to thi 'yw haired boy. He thought she said: 'Heil Franz jo! 1'" n copied her gesture and he, too, said 'Heill'

      Charlotte spoke to them.

      'Would it please you tomorrow morning to start the day with a ride through the forest?'

      'I should like it of all things,' said Stafford Nyei

      And you, child?'

      'Yes, I too.'

      'Very good then. It shall be arranged. Good night to you

      both. I am glad to welcome you here. Franz Joseph--

     
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