He paused. No one spoke. “Yes,” he continued gently, “we still have a form of ‘democracy’ in America. But all of us know that within a very short time the prosperity we now have is doomed to disintegrate. Our system of production is far beyond the capacity of a whole world to absorb, let alone just America, herself. But we cannot destroy production and profits. We can’t cut off toes just to fit a certain impossible shoe. We must rebuild the shoe. For, if we don’t, we shall have Communism in America, and chaos, and confusion, and the downfall of capitalism and private property. Slogans are very good. But no man ever filled his belly with them.
“Of course, there are always wars. We shall have a war. If we can destroy a democracy which asserts that a man has the right to decide whether he shall fight what it is ordained for him to fight. If we don’t destroy it, I can say, as a prophet without exaggeration, that democracy will degenerate into Communism. The capitalistic system, which is your life, and your power, will be destroyed, property confiscated, the natural rulers of the people massacred, and the rule of the proletariat established beyond uprooting. But you all know this! You have known it ever since the war. You have seen it coming.
“It lies with you industrialists, you law-makers, you financiers, you bankers and builders, to prevent this, to save yourselves from ruin and death, to rescue your people from Communism, and International Jewry, which is behind Communism, before it is too late, and ruin is upon you.”
“Ah, yes, the Jews!” murmured Mr. Mitchell.
“The future of the world, the hope of the world, the life of the world, lies in that young spirit just awakening in Europe—fascism. It is not an Italian ideology, gentlemen. It is a universal ideology, squared with reality, profoundly tied up with the needs and the health of humanity. I am predicting that within five years it will be strong in Germany, that within ten years it will be all-powerful in Europe, that within fifteen years it will rule the earth. With your help. And only with your help. It is your life. You cannot turn aside from it.
“The first step in America must be the rousing of a ‘folkic’ spirit among the people. A national, militaristic spirit America must have a vision! Patriotism, here, has still a sheepish and silly sound. It must be aroused, through your veterans’ and other patriotic groups, to be a noble, a heroic, a passionate sound. War and pride must be its gods. The patriotic warlike spirit, the Nordic spirit, is splendid and majestic, and we must make the people understand this. Without patriotism, a nation must dwindle away into suspicious and futile alien groups, without a purpose, without virility and strength.”
He waited. No one moved. But cigars turned to ash in fingers. Schacht smiled faintly. After a moment or two, he continued:
“The man in power who does not believe this is a fool. His folly can have only one result: the loss of his profits. And gentlemen, I am sure that when your profits are touched, your whole souls are touched.”
There was a dim booming of laughter, then silence, as Schacht spoke again:
“This warlike—and profitable—spirit has a great and mortal enemy in every nation. The Jew. In every nation in which he takes up his parasitic abode, the Jew combats patriotism and the national spirit. He fights manly hatred, and calls it foolish and dangerous; he fights nationalism, saying it breeds wars, which of course it does! He slavers about brotherly love, which is a vicious and enfeebling doctrine, one that declares the weak and submerged have a right to live, which any man of sense declares they have not The Jews believes in mercy, a vice rejected by nature, herself. He goes about, agitating speech, encouraging the worthless human cattle to strike against their lawful masters, stirring up the masses to demand a place in government In short, he is the spirit of democracy, the destroyer of a strong, formidable and national spirit, which paralyzes heroism, the will-to-war and conquest, and replaces reality with enfeebling dreams.”
Mr. Mitchell moved slightly. He lifted his eyes and fixed them coldly upon Schacht. “You know very well that it is impossible to have a true folkic spirit in America. Except in a few Southern and Western States. As for the rest, they are permeated and riddled with all sorts of subversive races: the Irish, the Slavs, Italians, Poles, Hungarians. You can give them no common purpose that will bind them together, dissolve them into one powerful whole.”
Schacht smiled. “Yes, you can. You can give them something to hate.”
“What?”
“The Jews.”
They regarded him thoughtfully. Some of them smiled. Christopher said: “Was she a very pretty Jewess, Doctor Schacht?”
They all shouted with laughter, the explosive laughter of relief, for every man had been listening with passionate intensity. And then they saw that Doctor Schacht had turned very pale. But he was also laughing. “Yes, Mr. Bouchard,” he replied with charming frankness, “she was.”
This disarmed them. They listened to him with more friendliness now. He went on: “Roman Catholicism is the next enemy to be destroyed. It must be destroyed in America, just as the Jew must be destroyed, for the Church is the enemy of true State domination. It must be destroyed, if we are to have a clean, strong, united and powerful nation. A Nordic nation, freed of Jewish decadence, criminal and fantastic democracy, Catholic perversion and humanitarian sentimentality.”
He said: “I can see that some of you believe this will all be very difficult to bring about. It will be easier in America than in any other nation, for Americans, I say candidly, are mentally inferior to many other races. They believe everything they read in the papers, especially if it coincides with their prejudices. They’d rather see a baseball game than think; they prefer comedians to books. The Americans, in spite of their schools and their constant shouting about education, are the most illiterate people in the world. Why, our own German peasants have twice the intelligence, and three times the reasoning capacity! In Europe, the most stupid man has some idea of politics. In America, they elect the man with the pleasantest face and the nicest lies. And if he can remember more platitudes than his opponent, his constituents will rise up and call him blessed. In the most virtuous country in the world, virtue is the most despised. Americans, just now, ask only to be amused. Later, they will become restless. They will ask only to be given something to hate. If you don’t give it to them, they will destroy you. The question is: will you give it to them?”
“You have a low opinion of us, Doctor Schacht,” said Mr. Burns.
“No, merely a realistic one. Realizing facts is not depressing. It is life-saving.”
He threw out his hands. “Will you live, or will you die? Will you prosper, or decay? Will you have heroic wars, or will you have decadent and gangrenous democracy? It is your choice. The world awaits your decision.”
Again, they all looked at each other. Then Christopher said, with a slight smile: “Gentlemen, there is much in what our German friend has said. Suppose we allow him to leave, for no doubt he has many pressing engagements? We must give him a vote of thanks. Then, later, we can discuss this matter fully. Very, very fully.”
But when Doctor Schacht had gone, no one seemed particularly anxious to discuss what he had said. Each man seemed to be thinking. He seemed to be surveying his own thoughts, about which he may have felt somewhat furtive. Then at last Mr. Mitchell said tentatively: “Of course, it’s a little farfetched. Schacht is a zealot. Or is he?”
Christopher smiled. “A zealot? I wonder. I don’t think there is such a thing. Certainly, Schacht with that face of his, and those eyes, is no real zealot.”
“Nevertheless,” said Mr. Burns, “we can at least—think —about what he’s said. He strikes me as no fool.”
Jay Regan spoke. He no longer had his usual good-natured and rollicking look. He surveyed his friends grimly. “There’s a lot in what Schacht said. I, myself, think there’s a day of reckoning, and so do you. But that day won’t be caused by the Jews, or the Albanians, or the Catholics, or the Fuzzy-Wuzzies, or any other scapegoat to be used as an excuse for murder. It’ll just be caused by
you boys.” He grunted. “It’s a nice thing to think about. I’m glad we’re all together. I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a long time.
‘The nice, nationalistic, militaristic future so eagerly desired by Doctor Schacht, and by yourselves, for different motives, of course, doesn’t interest me just at present. But I’m considerably goddamned interested in the mess you’re cooking up to serve to America, and the rest of the world, within the next few months, or the next year.
“Just what the hell do you boys think you are doing, and where is this going to lead us? This orgy of pyramiding? This national speculation? You and I know that the fools are buying paper and a lot of water. You’re encouraging the little man to think he’s a financier, a big bold speculator, and a manipulator, by God! You’ve encouraged the apegreed in the paper-hanger, the shopgirl, the mechanic, the laborer, the little clerk. When they get scared, you talk of ‘permanent prosperity,’ and have your hired newspaper imbeciles to warn the people about ‘selling America short.’ In the meantime, a reckoning is bounding at your heels. You know that, in spite of all this ‘prosperity,’ unemployment is already ominously growing. You know that industry is already idling, in spite of a ‘booming market.’ Warehouses are already choked with enormous surpluses. I don’t need to tell you this. We can no longer lend Europe the money to buy goods from us. We can, and will, lend money to Germany to accelerate her re-armament. The Bouchards, and their friends, are already arranging a little re-armament scheme for her. And a ‘moratorium,’ to help her ‘starving peoples’; in other words, her starving armaments-makers. The other European nations can’t even pay interest on our loans. We have already industrialized other nations, such as Japan, with our own money, so that they can now compete with us and cut our throats in the foreign markets.
“As our friend Schacht says, something is doomed, and maybe we are the marked cards. But it is certain that the things you are doing, the speculations you are encouraging, the vast surpluses you are piling up, the illusion, of ‘permanent prosperity’ which you are feeding to the public, the contempt for thrift and saving and moderation you are artfully broadcasting, are rapidly bringing on a financial and economic collapse, and chaos. You know what’s coming. The signs are already in the wind. You could stave it off. But you won’t! And you know what the end will probably be: maybe a revolution, when the people get hungry enough.”
Christopher said lightly: “When a man grows old, he becomes a philosopher. A full belly is the beginning of wisdom, and impotence the beginning of virtue. Don’t be annoyed, Mr. Regan. I’m just quoting my father, who could turn out epigrams with a flick of his wrist. But when men speak of the ‘crack of doom,’ they’ve either got indigestion, or can’t enjoy women any more.
“But suppose what you say is true: in that event, we’ll have to do something. After we’ve gotten our profits. I grant you that. The re-armament of Europe is already under way. In the meantime, we’re unloading stock, quite quietly and steadily. You’re doing that, too.” He smiled. The others smiled, all except Regan, who colored and swelled with anger.
Christopher continued: “When the ‘crack of doom’ comes, we’ve still got war. War takes care of two surpluses: population and commodities. Or, if the worst comes to the worst—we’ve still got our Doctor Schachts, and we’ve still got our patriots, and our drums, and we’ve got various minorities we can hate and murder, to satisfy the people.” He sniffed. “I can already smell the carrion!”
—THE END—
Turn the page to continue reading from the Barbours and Bouchards Series
CHAPTER I
‘A charming place,’ said Count Wolfgang von Bernstrom, as he looked about him. ‘Each time I see it, it appears more delightful to me. I am very fortunate, my dear Ramsdall, in leasing it from you for the rest of the summer.’
‘And I,’ said George, Lord Ramsdall, somewhat drily, ‘am fortunate in leasing it to you There is a plague on Cannes this season.’ He paused, and glanced obliquely at the German.
Von Bernstrom shrugged stiffly, his hard military shoulders moving as if made of wood and not flesh and bone. He adjusted his monocle and surveyed the terrace with unaffected pleasure before replying: ‘So many rumours, my dear Ramsdall. So much hysteria. I, for one, believe nothing, know nothing, see nothing, hear nothing. A very comfortable state of mind. I recommend it with enthusiasm. Why anticipate an unpleasantness that most probably will never arrive? Such a dispersal of energy! One needs to conserve energy these turbulent days. One must be aware, yet not too aware.’ He smiled and his pale dry face wrinkled with a kind of mirth which was really mirthless. His eyes, too, were pale and dry, with a curious sort of brilliance in their whites, as if they were made of polished marble. His light thin hair was cropped in the Junker fashion; he had a sharp spade-like chin, a colourless slash of a mouth which opened frequently in a smile that was oddly charming, despite its lack of human warmth. That smile revealed excellent and flashing teeth. His cheeks were sunken, as if sucked in, and between them his thin hooked nose was aggressive, yet possessing a translucence as though formed solely of cartilage and skin. He gave the impression of fleshlessness, because he was unusually tall and thin; there might have been only aristocratic bones under his lovingly tailored English tweeds. The pared cleanliness of the Teuton appeared exaggerated in him. An aura of soap, cold water, shaving lotion and aseptic cologne wafted from him to Lord Ramsdall on the warm salt wind.
It was said of Lord Ramsdall that he amazingly resembled Winston Churchill, whom he hated with hysterical passion. Short, stocky, with a rosy cherubic face and prominent blue eyes and a button of a pink nose, he appeared all amiable shrewdness. He had a big round head covered with tendrils of faded blond hair, through which his skull shone rosily, like a baby’s scalp, quite unlike Mr Churchill’s. He was fond of being called ‘Johnnie Bull,’ and tried unremittingly to carry out this characterization by a bluff and hearty manner, a rich and rotund laugh, a robust manner of speaking, and an open and engaging smile. If he was ever aware that his only and beloved daughter, Ursula, was called the ‘Bitch of Cannes and points East,’ or that she was at the present time the mistress of Count von Bernstrom, he gave no evidence of it. If he was loathed and hated in England because of his oppression of the workers in his great steel-mill (subsidiary of Robsons-Strong), and if he was strongly suspect among those he spoke of contemptuously as ‘Reds,’ and, too, if his newspaper, the London Opinion, was accused of pandering to the pacifistic policies of the doddering Chamberlain (to the danger of the British Empire), these matters were of no apparent importance to the happy and generous peer. On this beautiful morning of May 9, 1939, all seemed well with George, Lord Ramsdall, and he appeared to have nothing more on his mind than a warm affection for von Bernstrom and a simple delight that his white elephant of a villa (which he had happily been able to lease to the young American couple for the past five years, at a most satisfying sum) was about to pass into the hands of his dear friend, with a substantial lease.
The villa, situated close to the sea between Juan-les-Pins and Cannes, shone white and gleaming in the brilliant May sunshine, every french window sparkling. It stood on brown rock, but on three sides of it were narrow green lawns, immaculately fresh and clipped, and beautifully landscaped with shrubs and beds of flowers. It faced the blue and incandescent ocean, and the air about it was sweet and pure with salt and the fragrance of the gardens. Everything was so still, so warm, so peaceful, that Lord Ramsdall momentarily regretted that he must leave Cannes almost immediately for dusty gritty London, where so much was to be done, and done without delay. Thinking this, he glanced again at von Bernstrom, and his full lids almost closed over the bulge of his eyes.
The German appeared much younger to the casual eye than he truly was, for he was in his fifties. But there was a lean agelessness about him, like the agelessness of a predatory hawk. He had been the Kaiser’s youngest general in the late war, but he refused to be called by his former title. ‘I am done with th
ings military,’ he would say in a tight tone, with a stiff lift of his bony hand. He would avert his narrow head when saying this, and would present his profile, that harsh profile, as if something impossibly nauseating had been mentioned. Nor did he ever speak of the Third Reich, or Hitler, and if these were spoken of in his presence, he would relapse into grim silence, pent and angular, and would soon make an excuse to leave the company. Never did he at any time give the impression of loathing or abominating the present regime of his country, except for these slight manifestations. But the latter were quite enough, for the naive. As for the initiate, von Bernstrom’s attitudes and expressions occasioned them grim if secret mirth. He visited Germany very seldom. He had lived in France for nearly ten years, an apparently, gloomy and reticent exile, an aristocrat who could not even mention the vulgar upstarts, vagabonds and criminals who now infested his country. Consequently, to romantic ladies in particular, he was a fascinating figure, and they quite forgave him his dun fat little wife. In truth, they usually forgot her. His affair with Ursula Ramsdall had their approval, their admiration and affection. If the lady had formerly expressed the most vitriolic passion for the Nazis, it was discerned that since her amorous entanglement with von Bernstrom she had apparently had a change of heart.
Also, there were persistent rumours that his estates in
Prussia had been confiscated by the omnipotent Hitler in revenge for a lack of enthusiasm for the Austrian paper-hanger, and that his visits to Germany, infrequent though they were, were filled with danger for him. However, for one rumoured to be practically without resources of a financial nature, he lived well, even lavishly. Ramsdall had once remarked vaguely that ‘probably the chap has a decent account in the Bank of England, and in France and America.’ At any rate, there was no affair of any importance occurring without von Bernstrom’s presence, and the Casino saw him frequently, losing or winning vast sums with great indifference.