And could Lanny warn the lady concerning these dangers? Could he say: “I am doing business with these Nazis, and my father is doing the same. Our interests compel us to pretend that we like and admire them. If I am to take you to concerts and art galleries, you will have to pretend that you feel the same way”? He had already said something much milder than that in Sophie’s home, and the lady’s reply had been to call him a troglodyte. Now he would be saying, in effect: “I am a troglodyte, and intend to remain one.” That was his right, of course; but who wants to hear what a troglodyte thinks about Beethoven, or Rembrandt, or any of the great soul-compellers of the ages?
No, it just wouldn’t do. He could not go on cultivating a friendship with this woman writer in Berlin. And where else in the world could he cultivate it? Surely not on the Riviera, where she had already made a scandal about him! Or in Paris, or London, or New York? These five places, Lanny’s haunts, were, from the point of view of smart society, the most important in the world; and in no one of them could he carry on any sort of clandestine relationship. He had his circle and Miss Creston had hers, but these circles had intersected on the Cap, and would surely intersect anywhere else.
Laurel Creston was going out from Hitlerland to write short stories about it. She had been observing the people of the Pension Baumgartner for that purpose—she had said it in so many words; she had described one person after another, in her bright satiric way. And she wouldn’t deal with them from the purely human point of view, Pickwick Papers style; no, she would ridicule them as worshipers of the Charlie Chaplin Gott. It might very well be that her stories would make a hit, and be incorporated into a book and reviewed widely. Dr. Goebbels might write a smear article about it in Das Reich; and what sort of dossier would that provide for the Gestapo, that the son of Budd-Erling, the friend of the leading Nazis, was an intimate of this female defamer of the Herrenvolk and their heaven-sent Führer? Nein, Nein and again Nein! It was playing with dynamite, and a form of treason to the job of presidential agent! There simply could be no more of Laurel Creston in Lanny Budd’s life—so he decided, once for all.
IV
Arriving in Berlin, Lanny got his mail. There was nothing from Monck, so he resumed his duties as collector of gossip. He called up the Fürstin Donnerstein, who had been Irma’s friend long ago, and who knew everybody who was anybody in Germany. A peculiar psychological phenomenon, the state of mind of these old-time aristocrats of Prussia toward the Nazi upstarts—a mixture of contempt and grudging respect. They were crude, they were ridiculous—but they had arrived and apparently meant to stay for a while, so make the best of them and get what you could out of them. They were, in effect, a measure of the gullibility of the German masses; they were what it took to hold these masses down; and while it was humiliating to have your country represented by such men, at least your property was safe and there were no more Red agitators to mess up either politics or industry.
So, in the privacy of your own drawing-room, after you had made sure the servants were not within earshot, you could relieve your mind by repeating the latest choice anecdotes—about Die Nummer Zwei taking to drugs again and pretending that his breakdown was because he was reducing weight; about Die Nummer Drei’s latest astrological mentor, and the high price of Die Nummer Vier’s champagne. The numbers were uncertain beyond that, but the little club-footed propaganda Doktor was still sleeping with a new actress every night, in spite of the Führer’s strict orders. Doktor Ley was drunk every night and so was Doktor Funk; there were rumors that Doktor Schacht wanted to move to Wall Street, and that Fritz Thyssen had fled to Switzerland and was going to tell the story of how and why he had given five million marks to the Führer.
Lanny sat in the Fürstin Hilde’s cozy sitting-room before a coal-grate fire, and watched this thin and rather hectic lady smoking many cigarettes and getting what pleasure she could out of a sense of superiority to the rest of the world. It seemed to him a thin sort of pleasure, but many enjoyed it, and millions would have given their right arms to be addressed as “princess” and be able to meet all these great and powerful persons. It saved Lanny a lot of time going about to tiresome receptions, and he repaid the hohe Dame by telling her the latest news from Paris: how the French had received the Ribbentrop visit and what this and that member of the Cabinet had said about the champagne dealer and his friendship proposals. The Prussian aristocracy do not like having persons break into their sacred fold by the method of adoption; they despised this Emporkömmling and found it hard to remain patriotic with him as Foreign Minister.
Lanny said that what had done most to weaken German prestige in France was the pogroms, and to this Hilde assented without reservation. He remarked that the French were postponing the trial of the Jewish boy, Grynspan, because they were afraid of stirring up manifestations on behalf of the Jews. There came a gleam into Hilde’s blue eyes, and she said: “Have you heard what happened at Rath’s funeral?”
No, Lanny hadn’t; and the Fürstin got up and went to the door of her sitting-room, opened it, and looked out—a ceremony meaning that words of dangerous import were about to be spoken.
“They brought the body to Düsseldorf in state; the casket was set up in church and the old father came to mourn. Die Nummer Eins came in, and started to console him, saying that the son had died for Germany, and that the whole nation would avenge the murder. But the father stopped him. ‘I do not wish to hear of vengeance,’ he said. ‘It is you who are to blame for Edouard’s death—you with your cruel persecution which drove the poor Jewish boy to madness.’ Die Nummer Eins stood there, pale with fury, then turned on his heel and walked out, and refused to deliver the funeral address. But he did not dare to punish the father, or even to dispute with him, for fear of the scandal. Apparently we of the old nobility still enjoy a certain amount of immunity.”
“Don’t count upon it too much,” warned the American. “Remember General von Schleicher!”
V
Next on the list was Heinrich Jung. Lanny telephoned to his home and heard an official of the Hitlerjugend exclaim, what a charming and informative interview that was in the “Völkischer.” Everybody was talking about it, and Heinrich was proud to be able to say that he had known Lanny Budd since boyhood, and indeed had been the first to make him acquainted with National-Socialist principles. “How far we have traveled in twenty-five years, Lanny! And how surprised we should have been, had we been able to foresee it! No doubt we’d be even more surprised if we could foresee the next twenty-five!”
Heinrich wanted to introduce this famous Kunstsachverständiger to his Party associates. Wouldn’t he come to dinner and a reception the following evening? Lanny couldn’t think of anything that would bore him more, but it was a duty and he accepted. He took his presents for the children, and they were appreciated by both young and old. Heinrich was, apparently, one of the few Party officials who didn’t make money on the side; at any rate, he lived in a style commensurate with his salary. Also, he and his wife were among the not-too-numerous. Nazis who conformed to the Aryan ideal; they were both blonds, and pleasant to the eye—if you didn’t mind that a middle-aged man had grown large about the waist, and that the mother of a brood had become plump and pudgy.
How proud they were to have this elegant man of the world in their a humble home, and how much they made of him, pressing food upon him, laughing over his witticisms, and doing everything in their power to show him off to the Parteigenossen! A living proof that the great land across the seas was coming to appreciate the Herrenvolk, its Führer, and the wonderful movement he had made! Indeed, it was as if the son of Budd-Erling were America, all by himself, and a little bit of France and England, too. They who came to this Empfang were Germany; they, the chiefs of the Hitlerjugend, were most of them people of humble origin, Kleinbuerger like Hitler himself, and now they had charge of the new generations, and taught them what to think, and how to prepare for the defense of the Fatherland and the spreading of its message and its glory over
the world.
They were sitting on the top of that world right now. They had seen their wonderful Führer marching from one triumph to the next, and had become certain that there was nothing he could not do. He had militarized the Rhineland, established conscription in Germany, and forced the Allies to abandon their control over German arms manufacture; he had taken Austria, and then the Sudetenland—unimaginable victories! The Munich settlement represented to all Party comrades the collapse of British and French resistance to the Führer’s will, and they took it for granted that Prague, Danzig, Memel, Vilna, the Corridor—all would tumble like ninepins. Then would come the colonies, and the Ukraine—the Führer had invited them to contemplate the marvels he would be able to perform if only he had the wheat and coal and oil, the nickel and manganese of that vast territory—and they were doing that contemplating. They did it in the presence of Herr Budd, who was no stranger, but a blood brother. It was well known that the best blood in America was German, and the second-best was English, which had come originally from Germany, as was proved by all the basic words in their language: Gott und Mann, Vater und Mutter, Blut und Land und See und Himmel und Donnerwetter.
So it was a family reunion, and as tiresome as such affairs are apt to be. The men were nearly all World War veterans, which meant that they were close to their fifties. They had thick necks and red faces, and when they had filled themselves with sausage sandwiches and beer the necks were thicker and the faces redder. They were all propagandists, having risen by that means, and this meant that they made speeches even when talking to one another. The honor they paid to Lanny Budd was based upon the fact that he had had the good sense to recognize them and their achievements; he shone by reflected light, and was grateful for having it shed upon him. The Parteigenossen sputtered and coughed over their mouthfuls of gutturals and Wurst, and Lanny wasn’t supposed to flinch from any attack, whether salivary or dialectical. This was the Neue Ordnung, and you had better hurry up and learn to like it.
VI
Rudolf Hess, Deputy Führer and Reichsminister, had also read the article in the “Völkischer” and found it “O.K.”—so he said over the phone. He was very busy, for he had all the conduct of the NSDAP on his hands, and as the Reich extended its boundaries, so did the Party, and the Party manager had new groups of subordinates to choose and to direct. But he took time off to take Lanny to lunch at Horcher’s, in the Lutherstrasse, a place frequented by the leading Nazis. They had a private dining room and sat for a long time discussing the things that were near to their hearts.
Lanny had taken the trouble to think up psychic matters which would interest his host. For this black-browed, stern fanatic, so greatly dreaded by all the self-seeking and self-indulgent Party chieftains, had a soft side to his nature; he had had supernormal experiences, and he didn’t have enough understanding of the subject to distinguish between what might be true and what couldn’t be. He was a patron of every sort of eccentric—astrologers and palmists, numerologists and readers of tea-leaves. Lanny had brought Madame Zyszynski to him and might bring her again—which was one reason why he would always have access to the head of the NSDAP, even at the head’s busiest times.
Lanny had visited America since their last meeting, and had learned about the work being done at Duke University in what was there called “parapsychology.” Lanny preferred dealing with truth wherever truth would serve his purposes, so now he told how in hundreds of thousands of tests it was being proved that one person could really tell the face of cards which another person was turning up in another room. Some persons could even tell what cards were going to be turned up before they were turned. Nothing less easy to believe had ever been claimed by any astrologer or palmist, and the orthodox psychologists were behaving as Galileo’s contemporaries had done when he invited them to watch him drop weights from the leaning tower of Pisa. Lanny told Hess about it, and the Deputy listened eagerly, and doubtless would take it as reason for believing anything that any of his astrologers and palmists would tell him.
For purposes of his own Lanny had caused Hess to believe in the psychic gifts of a certain Professor Pröfenik, an elderly mystagogue who was practicing in Berlin. Now Lanny asked if Hess had seen him of late, and the Deputy replied that he had paid another visit, and had been told a number of significant things, including the fact that the Führer was soon to achieve another great victory. “Will he?” asked the American, smiling; and the reply was: “It looks as if he will have to, whether he wishes it or not.” That was a remark which needed no soothsayer to interpret.
Lanny inquired how the Führer was, and the devoted Deputy reported him well in health but annoyed by the complex of problems which had developed out of the Munich settlement. Both Führer and Deputy had talked to Lanny about their fears, and now the latter said that these fears had been justified. The miserable Czechs—the dregs of creation—showed no gratitude for the favor which had been done them in permitting them to retain their “independence.” They were devoting themselves to thwarting the arrangements which the Führer had made for the administration of Slovakia—and of course the British and French were egging them on. “They seem determined to find out how much we will stand,” remarked the Deputy. “They may make the discovery that it is less than they thought.”
Said Lanny: “I have heard reports that the Führer is annoyed with those who persuaded him to accept the Munich settlement.”
“Well, Herr Budd, you know how he is; he has a hunch, and has learned to follow it. If he weakens and gives way to others, and troubles result, as they are doing now, he naturally says: ‘I should have done what I wanted to do. I am the one who knows!’”
“That means that you and I are both in the doghouse?” They were speaking English, which Hess knew as well as German, having been born and brought up in British-ruled Egypt.
“I wouldn’t say it’s quite that bad,” smiled the Deputy, a genial person when you got under his dour exterior. “At any rate, it won’t be so with you.”
“Is that the reason why Hermann has decided to have a rest in Italy?”
The Deputy smiled even more broadly. “I didn’t have a chance to ask him. But I warned him years ago how much easier it is not to put on weight than to take it off again.”
Lanny knew how to interpret that. Hess was a fighting man, an athlete who kept himself in trim; like his adored Führer, he neither drank nor smoked. But Göring was one of those Nazis whose hoggish greed, for money as well as for food and drink, constituted a scandal in the Deputy’s eyes. It was, perhaps, too much to expect that Number Three should approve entirely of Number Two; yet Lanny knew that Göring and Hess were fairly close together in their views of policy; they were the conservatives among the group surrounding the Führer, and wanted him to go slow and to conciliate Britain and France, at least for the present. The radicals and activists were Goebbels and Ribbentrop, and the hatred of Göring and Hess for this pair was positively poisonous; they would have been at one another’s throats if it had not been for the fact that the Führer needed all four, and managed them like a trainer with a cageful of wild animals.
VII
Lanny sat studying the countenance of this apostle of National Socialism. His heavy black eyebrows met over his eyes, forming a straight line across his face. His mouth made another such line when he was in his dour mood, which was often. His eyes were grayish-green, and when he fixed them upon some Party delinquent he made the wretch tremble. He had been the Führer’s secretary in the early days and had helped to write Mein Kampf in the fortress of Landsberg. He was fanatical in his loyalty, and Lanny had seen enough of the world to know that this is a quality far from common.
This was a man with whom Lanny might have made a friendship in happier days. They might have played tennis and taken walking tours in the mountains; they might have undertaken researches into the nature and causes of psychic phenomena, and tried to sort out fact from fancy in that universe of the subconscious mind. But they had been born in a peri
od of wars and revolutions, and it was their fate to be on opposite sides. Which one of them was right was something that history would decide. Meantime, the fact stood that Hess was fanatically determined to compel Europe to take his path; and Lanny was here as a false friend, watching him, studying how to worm his secrets out of him, with the intention of ultimately tripping him up and binding him hand and foot.
Whenever Lanny wanted to receive, he first gave generously. He discussed the attitude of the French politicians to the new German friendship agreement; he told about the Schneider banquet and what had been said there. The collapse of the Reds in Spain had pretty nearly broken the back of those elements in Paris, and “appeasement” was now accepted as an inevitability. The same thing was true in London, which Lanny had visited since he had last seen Hess. “You mustn’t pay too much heed to their commercial press,” declared the American. “The people who really govern Britain are now pretty nearly solid for a settlement with Germany.”
“It means a lot to me to hear you say that,” replied the other. “I have just about staked my reputation with the Führer on that subject. He doesn’t know the English very well, and it is a question whether he will take my word or Ribbentrop’s.”
“It will require time, but I feel certain that with a little good will on both sides, difficulties can be ironed out.”
Lanny mentioned his trip to the Corridor, to have what he called “another look” at his future home. “I am waiting,” he remarked with a smile, “because I wouldn’t want to live in Poland.”
“I think you can be sure that situation will not remain in its present unsatisfactory state.”
“Yes—but I’m being mercenary. I don’t see any reason for paying a Pole more money than I have to.”