CITY OF ENDLESS NIGHT

By Milo Hastings

1920

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

 I. THE RED AND BLACK AND GOLD STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY ON THE CHANGING MAP OF THE WORLD

 II. I EXPLORE THE POTASH MINES OF STASSFURT AND FIND A DIARY IN A DEAD MAN'S POCKET

 III. IN A BLACK UTOPIA THE BLOND BROOD BREEDS AND SWARMS

 IV. I GO PLEASURING ON THE LEVEL OF FREE WOMEN AND DRINK SYNTHETIC BEER

 V. I AM DRAFTED FOR PATERNITY AND MAKE EXTRAORDINARY PETITION TO THE CHIEF OF THE EUGENIC STAFF

 VI. IN WHICH I LEARN THAT COMPETITION IS STILL THE LIFE OF THE OLDEST TRADE IN THE WORLD

 VII. THE SUN SHINES UPON A KING AND A GIRL READS OF THE FALL OF BABYLON

VIII. FINDING THEREIN ONE RIGHTEOUS MAN, I HAVE COMPASSION ON BERLIN

 IX. IN WHICH I SALUTE THE STATUE OF GOD, AND A PSYCHIC EXPERT EXPLORES MY BRAIN AND FINDS NOTHING

 X. A GODDESS WHO IS SUFFERING FROM OBESITY, AND A BRAVE MAN WHO IS AFRAID OF THE LAW OF AVERAGES

 XI. IN WHICH THE TALKING DELEGATE IS ANSWERED BY THE ROYAL VOICE AND I LEARN THAT LABOR KNOWS NOT GOD

 XII. THE DIVINE DESCENDANTS OF WILLIAM THE GREAT GIVE A BENEFIT FOR THE CANINE GARDENS AND PAY TRIBUTE TO THE PIGGERIES

XIII. IN WHICH A WOMAN ACCUSES ME OF MURDER AND I PLACE A RUBY NECKLACE ABOUT HER THROAT

 XIV. THE BLACK SPOT IS ERASED FROM THE MAP OF THE WORLD AND THERE IS DANCING IN THE SUNLIGHT ON THE ROOF OF BERLIN

CITY OF ENDLESS NIGHT

CHAPTER I

THE RED AND BLACK AND GOLD STRUGGLE FORSUPREMACY ON THE CHANGING MAP OF THE WORLD

~1~

When but a child of seven my uncle placed me in a private school inwhich one of the so-called redeemed sub-sailors was a teacher of theGerman language. As I look back now, in the light of my presentknowledge, I better comprehend the docile humility and carefullynurtured ignorance of this man. In his class rooms he used as a text adescription of German life, taken from the captured submarine. From thisbook he had secured his own conception of a civilization of which hereally knew practically nothing. I recall how we used to ask HerrMeineke if he had actually seen those strange things of which he taughtus. To this he always made answer, "The book is official, man'sobservation errs. "

~2~

"He can talk it, " said my playmates who attended the public schoolswhere all teaching of the language of the outcast nation was prohibited. They invariably elected me to be "the Germans, " and locked me up in theold garage while they rained a stock of sun-dried clay bombs upon theroof and then came with a rush to "batter down the walls of Berlin" bybreaking in the door, while I, muttering strange guttural oaths, wouldbe led forth to be "exterminated. "

On rainy days I would sometimes take my favoured playmates into myuncle's library where five great maps hung in ordered sequence on thepanelled wall. 

The first map was labelled "The Age of Nations--1914, " and showed theblack spot of Germany, like in size to many of the surroundingcountries, the names of which one recited in the history class. 

The second map--"Germany's Maximum Expansion of the First WorldWar--1918"--showed the black area trebled in size, crowding into thepale gold of France, thrusting a hungry arm across the Hellesponttowards Bagdad, and, from the Balkans to the Baltic, blotting out allelse save the flaming red of Bolshevist Russia, which spread over theEastern half of Europe like a pool of fresh spilled blood. 

Third came "The Age of the League of Nations, 1919--1983, " with the goldof democracy battling with the spreading red of socialism, for the blackof autocracy had erstwhile vanished. 

The fourth map was the most fascinating and terrible. Again the black ofautocracy appeared, obliterating the red of the Brotherhood of Man, spreading across half of Eurasia and thrusting a broad black shadow tothe Yellow Sea and a lesser one to the Persian Gulf. This map waslabelled "Maximum German Expansion of the Second World War, 1988, " andlines of dotted white retreated in concentric waves till the lineof 2041. 

This same year was the first date of the fifth map, which was labelled"A Century of the World State, " and here, as all the sea was blue, soall the land was gold, save one black blot that might have been made bya single spattered drop of ink, for it was no bigger than the IrishIsland. The persistence of this remaining black on the map of the worldtroubled my boyish mind, as it has troubled three generations of theUnited World, and strive as I might, I could not comprehend why thegreat blackness of the fourth map had been erased and this small blotalone remained. 

~3~

When I returned from school for my vacation, after I had my first yearof physical science, I sought out my uncle in his laboratory and askedhim to explain the mystery of the little black island standing adamantin the golden sea of all the world. 

"That spot, " said my uncle, "would have been erased in two more years ifa Leipzig professor had not discovered The Ray. Yet we do not know hisname nor how he made his discovery. "

"But just what is The Ray?" I asked. 

"We do not know that either, nor how it is made. We only know that itdestroys the oxygen carrying power of living blood. If it were anemanation from a substance like radium, they could have fired it inprojectiles and so conquered the earth. If it were ether waves likeelectricity, we should have been able to have insulated against it, orthey should have been able to project it farther and destroy ouraircraft, but The Ray is not destructive beyond two thousand metres inthe air and hardly that far in the earth. "

"Then why do we not fly over and land an army and great guns and batterdown the walls of Berlin and he done with it?"

"That, as you know if you studied your history, has been tried manytimes and always with disaster. The bomb-torn soil of that black land isspeckled white with the bones of World armies who were sent on landinginvasions before you or I was born. But it was only heroic folly, onegun popping out of a tunnel mouth can slay a thousand men. To pursue thegunners into their catacombs meant to be gassed; and sometimes ourforces were left to land in peace and set up their batteries to fireagainst Berlin, but the Germans would place Ray generators in the groundbeneath them and slay our forces in an hour, as the Angel of Jehovahwithered the hosts of the Assyrians. "

"But why, " I persisted, "do we not tunnel under the Ray generators anddig our way to Berlin and blow it up?"

My uncle smiled indulgently. "And that has been tried too, but they canhear our borings with microphones and cut us off, just as we cut themoff when they try to tunnel out and place new generators. It is tooslow, too difficult, either way; the line has wavered a little with theyears but to no practical avail; the war in our day has become merely awatching game, we to keep the Germans from coming out, they to keep usfrom penetrating within gunshot of Berlin; but to gain a mile ofworthless territory either way means too great a human waste to be worththe price. Things must go on as they are till the Germans tire of theirsunless imprisonment or till they exhaust some essential element intheir soil. But wars such as you read of in your history, will neverhappen again. The Germans cannot fight the world in the air, nor in thesea, nor on the surface of the earth; and we cannot fight the Germans inthe ground; so the war has become a fixed state of standing guard; thehope of victory, the fear of defeat have vanished; the romance of waris dead. "

"But why, then, " I asked, "does the World Patrol continue to bomb theroof of Berlin?"

"Politics, " replied my uncle, "military politics, just futile display ofpyrotechnics to amuse the populace and give heroically inclined youngmen a chance to strut in uniforms--but after the election this fall suchfolly will cease. "

~4~

My uncle had predicted correctly, for by the time I again came home onmy vacation, the newly elected Pacifist Council had reduced the aerialactivities to mere watchful patroling over the land of the enemy. Thencame the report of an attempt to launch an airplane from the roof ofBerlin. The people, in dire panic lest Ray generators were being carriedout by German aircraft, had clamoured for the recall of the PacifistCouncil, and the bombardment of Berlin was resumed. 

During the lull of the bombing activities my uncle, who stood high withthe Pacifist Administration, had obtained permission to fly over Europe, and I, most fortunate of boys, accompanied him. The plane in which wetravelled bore the emblem of the World Patrol. On a cloudless day wesailed over the pock-marked desert that had once been Germany and camewithin field-glass range of Berlin itself. On the wasted, bomb-torn landlay the great grey disc--the city of mystery. Three hundred metres highthey said it stood, but so vast was its extent that it seemed as flatand thin as a pancake on a griddle. 

"More people live in that mass of concrete, " said my uncle, "than in thewhole of America west of the Rocky Mountains. " His statement, I havesince learned, fell short of half the truth, but then it seemedappalling. I fancied the city a giant anthill, and searched with myglass as if I expected to see the ants swarming out. But no sign of lifewas visible upon the monotonous surface of the sand-blanketed roof, andhigh above the range of naked vision hung the hawk-like watchers of theWorld Patrol. 

The lure of unravelled secrets, the ambition for discovery andexploration stirred my boyish veins. Yes, I would know more of thestrange race, the unknown life that surged beneath that grey blanket ofmystery. But how? For over a century millions of men had felt that samelonging to know. Aviators, landing by accident or intent within thelines, had either returned with nothing to report, or they had notreturned. Daring journalists, with baskets of carrier pigeons, had onfoggy nights dropped by parachute to the roof of the city; but neitherthey nor the birds had brought back a single word of what lay beneaththe armed and armoured roof. 

My own resolution was but a boy's dream and I returned to Chicago totake up my chemical studies. 

CHAPTER II

I EXPLORE THE POTASH MINES OF STASSFURTAND FIND A DIARY IN A DEAD MAN'S POCKET

~1~

When I was twenty-four years old, my uncle was killed in a laboratoryexplosion. He had been a scientist of renown and a chemical inventor whohad devoted his life to the unravelling of the secrets of the syntheticfoods of Germany. For some years I had been his trusted assistant. Inour Chicago laboratory were carefully preserved food samples that hadbeen taken from the captured submarines in years gone by; and what to mewas even more fascinating, a collection of German books of like origin, which I had read with avidity. With the exception of those relating tosubmarine navigation, I found them stupidly childish and decided thatthey had been prepared to hide the truth and not reveal it. 

My uncle had bequeathed me both his work and his fortune, but despairingof my ability worthily to continue his own brilliant researches onsynthetic food, I turned my attention to the potash problem, in which Ihad long been interested. My reading of early chemical works had givenme a particular interest in the reclamation of the abandoned potashmines of Stassfurt. These mines, as any student of chemical history willknow, were one of the richest properties of the old German state in thedays before the endless war began and Germany became isolated from therest of the world. The mines were captured by the World in the year2020, and were profitably operated for a couple of decades. Meanwhilethe German lines were forced many miles to the rear before theimpregnable barrier of the Ray had halted the progress of theWorld Armies. 

A few years after the coming of the Ray defences, occurred what historyrecords as "The Tragedy of the Mines. " Six thousand workmen went downinto the potash mines of Stassfurt one morning and never came up again. The miners' families in the neighbouring villages died like weevils infumigated grain. The region became a valley of pestilence and death, andall life withered for miles around. Numerous governmental projects werelaunched for the recovery of the potash mines but all failed, and forone hundred and eleven years no man had penetrated thoseaccursed shafts. 

Knowing these facts, I wasted no time in soliciting government aid formy project, but was content to secure a permit to attempt the recoverywith private funds, with which my uncle's fortune supplied me inabundance. 

In April, 2151, I set up my laboratory on the edge of the area of death. I had never accepted the orthodox view as to the composition of the gasthat issued from the Stassfurt mines. In a few months I was gratified tofind my doubts confirmed. A short time after this I made a moreunexpected and astonishing discovery. I found that this complex andhitherto misunderstood gas could, under the influence of certainhigh-frequency electrical discharges, be made to combine with explosiveviolence with the nitrogen of the atmosphere, leaving only a harmlessresidue. We wired the surrounding region for the electrical dischargeand, with a vast explosion of weird purple flame, cleared the whole areaof the century-old curse. Our laboratory was destroyed by the explosion. It was rebuilt nearer the mine shafts from which the gas still slowlyissued. Again we set up our electrical machinery and dropped our cablesinto the shafts, this time clearing the air of the mines. 

A hasty exploration revealed the fact that but a single shaft hadremained intact. A third time we prepared our electrical machinery. Welet down a cable and succeeded in getting but a faint reaction at thebottom of the shaft. After several repeated clearings we risked descent. 

Upon arrival at the bottom we were surprised to find it free from water, save for a trickling stream. The second thing we discovered was a pileof huddled skeletons of the workmen who had perished over a centuryprevious. But our third and most important discovery was a boring fromwhich the poisonous gas was slowly issuing. It took but a few hours toprovide an apparatus to fire this gas as fast as it issued, and thepotash mines of Stassfurt were regained for the world. 

My associates were for beginning mining operations at once, but I hadbeen granted a twenty years' franchise on the output of these mines, andI was in no such haste. The boring from which this poisonous vapourissued was clearly man-made; moreover I alone knew the formula of thatgas and had convinced myself once for all as to its man-made origin. Isent for microphones and with their aid speedily detected the sound ofmachinery in other workings beneath. 

It is easy now to see that I erred in risking my own life as I didwithout the precaution of confiding the secret of my discovery toothers. But those were days of feverish excitement. Impulsively Idecided to make the first attack on the Germans as a private enterpriseand then call for military aid. I had my own equipment of poisonousbombs and my sapping and mining experts determined that the Germanworkings were but eighty metres beneath us. Hastily, among the crumblingskeletons, we set up our electrical boring machinery and began sinking aone-metre shaft towards the nearest sound. 

After twenty hours of boring, the drill head suddenly came off andrattled down into a cavern. We saw a light and heard guttural shoutingbelow and the cracking of a gun as a few bullets spattered against theroof of our chamber. We heaved down our gas bombs and covered over ourshaft. Within a few hours the light below went out and our microphonesfailed to detect any sound from the rocks beneath us. It was thenperhaps that I should have called for military aid, but the uncannysilence of the lower workings proved too much for my eager curiosity. Wewaited two days and still there was no evidence of life below. I knewthere had been ample time for the gas from our bombs to have beendissipated, as it was decomposed by contact with moisture. A light waslowered, but this brought forth no response. 

I now called for a volunteer to descend the shaft. None was forthcomingfrom among my men, and against their protest I insisted on being loweredinto the shaft. When I was a few metres from the bottom the cable partedand I fell and lay stunned on the floor below. 

~2~

When I recovered consciousness the light had gone out. There was nosound about me. I shouted up the shaft above and could get no answer. The chamber in which I lay was many times my height and I could makenothing out in the dark hole above. For some hours I scarcely stirredand feared to burn my pocket flash both because it might reveal mypresence to lurking enemies and because I wished to conserve my batteryagainst graver need. 

But no rescue came from my men above. Only recently, after the lapse ofyears, did I learn the cause of their deserting me. As I lay stunnedfrom my fall, my men, unable to get answer to their shoutings, had givenme up for dead. Meanwhile the apparatus which caused the destruction ofthe German gas had gone wrong. My associates, unable to fix it, had fledfrom the mine and abandoned the enterprise. 

After some hours of waiting I stirred about and found means to erect arough scaffold and reach the mouth of the shaft above me. I attempted toclimb, but, unable to get a hold on the smooth wet rock, I gave upexhausted and despairing. Entombed in the depths of the earth, I waseither a prisoner of the German potash miners, if any remained alive, ora prisoner of the earth itself, with dead men for company. 

Collecting my courage I set about to explore my surroundings. I foundsome mining machinery evidently damaged by the explosion of our gasbombs. There was no evidence of men about, living or dead. Stealthily Iset out along the little railway track that ran through a passage down asteep incline. As I progressed I felt the air rapidly becoming colder. Presently I stumbled upon the first victim of our gas bombs, fallenheadlong as he was fleeing. I hurried on. The air seemed to be blowingin my face and the cold was becoming intense. This puzzled me for atthis depth the temperature should have been above that on the surface ofthe earth. 

After a hundred metres or so of going I came into a larger chamber. Itwas intensely cold. From out another branching passage-way I could heara sizzling sound as of steam escaping. I started to turn into thispassage but was met with such a blast of cold air that I dared not faceit for fear of being frozen. Stamping my feet, which were fast becomingnumb, I made the rounds of the chamber, and examined the dead minersthat were tumbled about. The bodies were frozen. 

One side of this chamber was partitioned off with some sort of metalwall. The door stood blown open. It felt a little warmer in here and Ientered and closed the door. Exploring the room with my dim light Ifound one side of it filled with a row of bunks--in each bunk a corpse. Along the other side of the room was a table with eating utensils andback of this were shelves with food packages. 

I was in danger of freezing to death and, tumbling several bodies out ofthe bunks, I took the mattresses and built of them a clumsy enclosureand installed in their midst a battery heater which I found. In thisfashion I managed to get fairly warm again. After some hours of huddlingI observed that the temperature had moderated. 

My fear of freezing abated, I made another survey of my surroundings anddiscovered something that had escaped my first attention. In the far endof the room was a desk, and seated before it with his head fallenforward on his arms was the form of a man. The miners had all beendressed in a coarse artificial leather, but this man was dressed in awoven fabric of cellulose silk. 

The body was frozen. As I tumbled it stiffly back it fell from the chairexposing a ghastly face. I drew away in a creepy horror, for as I lookedat the face of the corpse I suffered a sort of waking nightmare in whichI imagined that I was gazing at my own dead countenance. 

I concluded that my normal mind was slipping out of gear and proceededto back off and avail myself of a tube of stimulant which I carried inmy pocket. 

This revived me somewhat, but again, when I tried to look upon thefrozen face, the conviction returned that I was looking at my owndead self. 

I glanced at my watch and figured out that I had been in the German minefor thirty hours and had not tasted food or drink for nearly fortyhours. Clearly I had to get myself in shape to escape hallucinations. Iwent back to the shelves and proceeded to look for food and drink. Happily, due to my work in my uncle's laboratory, these synthetic foodswere not wholly strange to me. I drank copiously of a non-alcoholicchemical liquor and warmed on the heater and partook of some nitrogenousand some starchy porridges. It was an uncanny dining place, but hungersoon conquers mere emotion, and I made out a meal. Then once more Ifaced the task of confronting this dead likeness of myself. 

This time I was clear-headed enough. I even went to the miners' lavatoryand, jerking down the metal mirror, scrutinized my own reflection andreassured myself of the closeness of the resemblance. My purpose framedin my mind as I did this. Clearly I was in German quarters and waslikely to remain there. Sooner or later there must be a rescuing party. 

Without further ado, I set about changing my clothing for that of theGerman. The fit of the dead man's clothes further emphasized the closenessof the physical likeness. I recalled my excellent command of the Germanlanguage and began to wonder what manner of man I was supposed to be inthis assumed personality. But my most urgent task was speedily to makeway with the incriminating corpse. With the aid of the brighterflashlight which I found in my new pockets, I set out to find a place tohide the body. 

The cold that had so frightened me had now given way to almost normaltemperature. There was no longer the sound of sizzling steam from theunexplored passage-way. I followed this and presently came upon anotherchamber filled with machinery. In one corner a huge engine, covered withfrost, gave off a chill greeting. On the floor was a steaming puddle ofliquid, but the breath of this steam cut like a blizzard. At once Iguessed it. This was a liquid air engine. The dead engineer in thecorner helped reveal the story. With his death from the penetrating gas, something had gone wrong with the engine. The turbine head had blownoff, and the conveying pipe of liquid air had poured forth the icy blastthat had so nearly frozen me along with the corpses of the Germans. Butnow the flow of liquid had ceased, and the last remnants wereevaporating from the floor. Evidently the supply pipe had been shut offfurther back on the line, and I had little time to lose for rescuerswere probably on the way. 

Along one of the corridors running from the engine room I found an openwater drain half choked with melting ice. Following this I came upon agrating where the water disappeared. I jerked up the grating and droppeda piece of ice down the well-like shaft. I hastily returned and draggedforth the corpse of my double and with it everything I had myselfbrought into the mine. Straightening out the stiffened body I plunged ithead foremost into the opening. The sound of a splash echoed within thedismal depths. 

I now hastened back to the chamber into which I had first fallen anddestroyed the scaffolding I had erected there. Returning to the deskwhere I had found the man whose clothing I wore, I sat down andproceeded to search my abundantly filled pockets. From one of them Ipulled out a bulky notebook and a number of loose papers. The freshestof these was an official order from the Imperial Office of ChemicalEngineers. The order ran as follows:

 Capt. Karl Armstadt Laboratory 186, E. 58. 

 Report is received at this office of the sound of sapping operations in potash mine D5. Go at once and verify the same and report of condition of gas generators and make analyses of output of the same. 

Evidently I was Karl Armstadt and very happily a chemical engineer byprofession. My task of impersonation so far looked feasible--I couldtalk chemical engineering. 

The next paper I proceeded to examine was an identification folder doneup in oiled fabric. Thanks to German thoroughness it was amusinglycomplete. On the first page appeared what I soon discovered to be __pedigree for four generations back. The printed form on which all thiswas minutely filled out made very clear statements from which Idetermined that my father and mother were both dead. 

I, Karl Armstadt, twenty-seven years of age, was the fourteenth child ofmy mother and was born when she was forty-two years of age. According tothe record I was the ninety-seventh child of my father and born when hewas fifty-four. As I read this I thought there was something here that Imisunderstood, although subsequent discoveries made it plausible enough. There was no further record of my plentiful fraternity, but I took heartthat the mere fact of their numerical abundance would make unlikely anygreat show of brotherly interest, a presumption which provedquite correct. 

On the second page of this folder I read the number and location of myliving quarters, the sources from which my meals and clothing wereissued, as well as the sizes and qualities of my garments and numerousother references to various details of living, all of which seemedpainstakingly ridiculous at the time. 

I put this elaborate identification paper back into its receptacle andopened the notebook. It proved to be a diary kept likewise in thoroughGerman fashion. I turned to the last pages and perused them hastily. 

The notes in Armstadt's diary were concerned almost wholly with hischemical investigations. All this I saw might be useful to me later butwhat I needed more immediately was information as to his personal life. I scanned back hastily through the pages for a time without finding anysuch revelations. Then I discovered this entry made some monthspreviously:

"I cannot think of chemistry tonight, for the vision of Katrina dancesbefore me as in a dream. It must be a strange mixture of blood-linesthat could produce such wondrous beauty. In no other woman have I seensuch a blackness of hair and eyes combined with such a whiteness ofskin. I suppose I should not have danced with her--now I see all myresolutions shattered. But I think it was most of all the blackness ofher eyes. Well, what care, we live but once!"

I read and re-read this entry and searched feverishly in Armstadt'sdiary for further evidence of a personal life. But I only found tediousnotes on his chemical theories. Perhaps this single reference to a womanwas but a passing fancy of a man otherwise engrossed in his science. Butif rescuers came and I succeeded in passing for the German chemist thepresence of a woman in my new rôle of life would surely undo all myeffort. If no personal acquaintance of the dead man came with therescuing party I saw no reason why I could not for the time passsuccessfully as Armstadt. I should at least make the effort and Ireasoned I could best do this by playing the malingerer and appearingmentally incompetent. Such a ruse, I reasoned, would give me opportunityto hear much and say little, and perhaps so get my bearings in the newrôle that I could continue it successfully. 

Then, as I was about to return the notebook to my pocket, my hopes sankas I found this brief entry which I had at first scanning overlooked:

"It is twenty days now since Katrina and I have been united. She doesnot interfere with my work as much as I feared. She even lets me talkchemistry to her, though I am sure she understands not one word of whatI tell her. I think I have made a good selection and it is surely apermanent one. Therefore I must work harder than ever or I shall notget on. "

This alarmed me. Yet, if Armstadt had married he made very little fussabout it. Evidently it concerned him chiefly in relation to his work. But whoever and whatever Katrina was, it was clear that her presencewould be disastrous to my plans of assuming his place in theGerman world. 

Pondering over the ultimate difficulty of my situation, but with agrowing faith in the plan I had evolved for avoiding immediateexplanations, I fell into a long-postponed sleep. The last thing Iremember was tumbling from my chair and sprawling out upon the floorwhere I managed to snap out my light before the much needed sleep quiteovercame me. 

~3~

I was awakened by voices, and opened my eyes to find the place brightlylighted. I closed them again quickly as some one approached and proddedme with the toe of his boot. 

"Here is a man alive, " said a voice above me. 

"He is Captain Armstadt, the chemist, " said another voice, approaching;"this is good. We have special orders to search for him. "

The newcomer bent over and felt my heart. I was quite aware that it wasfunctioning normally. He shook me and called me by name. After repeatedshakings I opened my eyes and stared at him blankly, but I said nothing. Presently he left me and returned with a stretcher. I lay inertly as Iwas placed thereon and borne out of the chamber. Other stretcher-bearerswere walking ahead. We passed through the engine room where mechanicswere at work on the damaged liquid air engine. My stretcher was placedon a little car which moved swiftly along the tunnel. 

We came into a large subterranean station and I was removed and broughtbefore a bevy of white garbed physicians. They looked at myidentification folder and then examined me. Through it all I lay limpand as near lifeless as I could simulate, and they succeeded in gettingno speech out of me. The final orders were to forward me post haste tothe Imperial Hospital for Complex Gas Cases. 

After an eventless journey of many hours I was again unloaded andtransferred to an elevator. For several hundred metres we sped upwardthrough a shaft, while about us whistled a blast of cold, crisp air. Atlast the elevator stopped and I was carried out to an ambulance thatstood waiting in a brilliantly lighted passage arched over with greyconcrete. I was no longer beneath the surface of the earth but wassomewhere in the massive concrete structure of the City of Berlin. 

After a short journey our ambulance stopped and attendants came out andcarried my litter through an open doorway and down a long hall into thespacious ward of a hospital. 

From half closed eyes I glanced about apprehensively for a black-hairedwoman. With a sigh of relief I saw there were only doctors and maleattendants in the room. They treated me most professionally and gave nosign that they suspected I was other than Capt. Karl Armstadt, whichfact my papers so eloquently testified. The conclusion of theirexamination was voiced in my presence. "Physically he is normal, " saidthe head physician, "but his mind seems in a stupor. There is no remedy, as the nature of the gas is unknown. All that can be done is to awaitthe wearing off of the effect. "

I was then left alone for some hours and my appetite was troubling me. At last an attendant approached with some savoury soup; he propped me upand proceeded to feed me with a spoon. 

I made out from the conversation about me that the other patients wereofficers from the underground fighting forces. An atmosphere of militarydiscipline pervaded the hospital and I felt reassured in the conclusionthat all visiting was forbidden. 

Yet my thoughts turned repeatedly to the black-eyed Katrina ofArmstadt's diary. No doubt she had been informed of the rescue and waswaiting in grief and anxiety to see him. So both she and I were awaitinga tragic moment--she to learn that her husband or lover was dead, I forthe inevitable tearing off of my protecting disguise. 

After some days the head physician came to my cot and questioned me. Igazed at him and knit my brows as if struggling to think. 

"You were gassed in the mine, " he kept repeating, "can you remember?"

"Yes, " I ventured, "I went to the mine, there was the sound of boringoverhead. I set men to watch; I was at the desk, I heard shouting, afterthat I cannot remember. "

"They were all dead but you, " said the doctor. 

"All dead, " I repeated. I liked the sound of this and so kept onmumbling "All dead, all dead. "

~4~

My plan was working nicely. But I realized I could not keep up this rôlefor ever. Nor did I wish to, for the idleness and suspense wereintolerable and I knew that I would rather face whatever problems myrecovery involved than to continue in this monotonous and meaninglessexistence. So I convalesced by degrees and got about the hospital, andwas permitted to wait on myself. But I cultivated a slowness and brevityof speech. 

One day as I sat reading the attendant announced, "A visitor to see you, sir. "

Trembling with excitement and fear I tensely waited the coming of thevisitor. 

Presently a stolid-faced young man followed the attendant into the room. "You remember Holknecht, " said the nurse, "he is your assistant at thelaboratory. "

I stared stupidly at the man, and cold fear crept over me as he, withpuzzled eyes, returned my gaze. 

"You are much changed, " he said at last. "I hardly recognize you. "

"I have been very ill, " I replied. 

Just then the head physician came into the room and seeing me talking toa stranger walked over to us. As I said nothing, Holknecht introducedhimself. The medical man began at once to enlarge upon the peculiaritiesof my condition. "The unknown gas, " he explained, "acted upon the wholenervous system and left profound effects. Never in the records of thehospital has there been so strange a case. "

Holknecht seemed quite awed and completely credulous. 

"His memory must be revived, " continued the head physician, "and thatcan best be done by recalling the dominating interest of his mind. "

"Captain Armstadt was wholly absorbed in his research work in thelaboratory, " offered Holknecht. 

"Then, " said the physician, "you must revive the activity of thoseparticular brain cells. "

With that command the laboratory assistant was left in charge. He tookhis new task quite seriously. Turning to me and raising his voice as ifto penetrate my dulled mentality, he began, "Do you not remember ourwork in the laboratory?"

"Yes, the laboratory, the laboratory, " I repeated vaguely. 

Holknecht described the laboratory in detail and gradually his talkdrifted into an account of the chemical research. I listened eagerly toget the threads of the work I must needs do if I were to maintain myrôle as Armstadt. 

Knowing now that visitors were permitted me, I again grew apprehensiveover the possible advent of Katrina. But no woman appeared, in fact Ihad not yet seen a woman among the Germans. Always it was Holknecht and, strictly according to his orders, he talked incessant chemistry. 

~5~

The day I resumed my normal wearing apparel I was shown into a largelounging room for convalescents. I seated myself a short distance apartfrom a group of officers and sat eyeing another group of large, hulkingfellows at the far end of the room. These I concluded to be commonsoldiers, for I heard the officers in my ward grumbling at the fact thatthey were quartered in the same hospital with men of the ranks. 

Presently an officer came over and took a seat beside me. "It is veryrarely that you men in the professional service are gassed, " he said. "You must have a dull life, I do not see how you can stand it. "

"But certainly, " I replied, "it is not so dangerous. "

"And for that reason it must be stupid--I, for one, think that even inthe fighting forces there is no longer sufficient danger to keep up themilitary morale. Danger makes men courageous--without danger couragedeclines--and without courage what advantage would there be in themilitary life?"

"Suppose, " I suggested, "the war should come to an end?"

"But how can it?" he asked incredulously. "How can there be an end tothe war? We cannot prevent the enemy from fighting. "

"But what, " I ventured, "if the enemy should decide to quit fighting?"

"They have almost quit now, " he remarked with apparent disgust; "theyare losing the fighting spirit--but no wonder--they say that the WorldState population is so great that only two per cent of its men are inthe fighting forces. What I cannot see is how a people so peaceful cankeep from utter degeneration. And they say that the World State soldiersare not even bred for soldiering but are picked from all classes. Ifthey should decide to quit fighting, as you suggest, we also would haveto quit--it would intolerable--it is bad enough now. "

"But could you not return to industrial life and do somethingproductive?"

"Productive!" sneered the fighter. "I knew that you professional men hadno courage--it is not to be expected--but I never before heard even oneof your class suggest a thing like that--a military man do somethingproductive! Why don't you suggest that we be changed to women?" And withthat my fellow patient rose and, turning sharply on his metal heel, walked away. 

The officer's attitude towards his profession set me thinking, and Ifound myself wondering how far it was shared by the common soldiers. Thenext day when I came out into the convalescent corridor I walked pastthe group of officers and went down among the men whose garments bore nomedals or insignia. They were unusually large men, evidently from somespecially selected regiment. Picking out the most intelligent lookingone of the group I sat down beside him. 

"Is this the first time you have been gassed?" I inquired. 

"Third time, " replied the soldier. 

"I should think you would have been discharged. "

"Discharged, " said the soldier, in a perplexed tone, "why I am onlyforty-four years old, why should I be discharged unless I get in anexplosion and lose a leg or something?"

"But you have been gassed three times, " I said, "I should think theyought to let you return to civil life and your family. "

The soldier looked hard at the insignia of my rank as captain. "Youprofessional officers don't know much, do you? A soldier quit and docommon labor, now that's a fine idea. And a family! Do you think I'm aHohenzollern?" At the thought the soldier chuckled. "Me with a family, "he muttered to himself, "now that's a fine idea. "

I saw that I was getting on dangerous ground but curiosity prompted afurther question: "Then, I suppose, you have nothing to hope for untilyou reach the age of retirement, unless war should come to an end?"

Again the soldier eyed me carefully. "Now you do have some queer ideas. There was a man in our company who used to talk like that when noofficers were around. This fellow, his name was Mannteufel, said hecould read books, that he was a forbidden love-child and his father wasan officer. I guess he was forbidden all right, for he certainly wasn'tright in his head. He said that we would go out on the top of the groundand march over the enemy country and be shot at by the flying planes, like the roof guards, if the officers had heard him they would surelyhave sent him to the crazy ward--why he said that the war would be overafter that, and we would all go to the enemy country and go about as weliked, and own houses and women and flying planes and animals. As if theRoyal House would ever let a soldier do things like that. "

"Well, " I said, "and why not, if the war were over?"

"Now there you go again--how do you mean the war was over, what wouldall us soldiers do if there was no fighting?"

"You could work, " I said, "in the shops. "

"But if we worked in the shops, what would the workmen do?"

"They would work too, " I suggested. 

The soldier was silent for a time. "I think I get your idea, " he said. "The Eugenic Staff would cut down the birth rates so that there wouldonly be enough soldiers and workers to fill the working jobs. "

"They might do that, " I remarked, wishing to lead him on. 

"Well, " said the soldier, returning to the former thought, "I hope theywon't do that until I am dead. I don't care to go up on the ground toget shot at by the fighting planes. At least now we have something overour heads and if we are going to get gassed or blown up we can't see itcoming. At least--"

Just then the officer with whom I had talked the day before came up. Hestopped before us and scowled at the soldier who saluted in hastyconfusion. 

"I wish, Captain, " said the officer addressing me, "that you would nottake advantage of these absurd hospital conditions to disrupt disciplineby fraternizing with a private. "

At this the soldier looked up and saluted again. 

"Well?" said the officer. 

"He's not to blame, sir, " said the soldier, "he's off his head. "

CHAPTER III

IN A BLACK UTOPIA THE BLOND BROOD BREEDS AND SWARMS

~1~

It was with a strange mixture of eagerness and fear that I received thehead physician's decision that I would henceforth recover my facultiesmore rapidly in the familiar environment of my own home. 

A wooden-faced male nurse accompanied me in a closed vehicle that rannoiselessly through the vaulted interior streets of the completelyroofed-in city. Once our vehicle entered an elevator and was let down abrief distance. We finally alighted in a street very like the one onwhich the hospital was located, and filed down a narrow passage-way. Mycompanion asked for my keys, which I found in my clothing. I stood bywith a palpitating heart as he turned the lock and opened the door. 

The place we entered was a comfortably furnished bachelor's apartment. Books and papers were littered about giving evidence of no disturbancesince the sudden leaving of the occupant. Immensely relieved I sat downin an upholstered chair while the nurse scurried about and put theplace in order. 

"You feel quite at home?" he asked as he finished his task. 

"Quite, " I replied, "things are coming back to me now. "

"You should have been sent home sooner, " he said. "I wished to tell thechief as much, but I am only a second year interne and it is forbiddenme to express an original opinion to him. "

"I am sure I will be all right now, " I replied. 

He turned to go and then paused. "I think, " he said, "that you shouldhave some notice on you that when you do go out, if you become confusedand make mistakes, the guards will understand. I will speak to Lieut. Forrester, the Third Assistant, and ask that such a card be sent you. "With that he took his departure. 

When he had gone I breathed joyfully and freely. The rigid face andstaring eye that I had cultivated relaxed into a natural smile and thenI broke into a laugh. Here I was in the heart of Berlin, unsuspected ofbeing other than a loyal German and free, for the time at least, fromproblems of personal relations. 

I now made an elaborate inspection of my surroundings. I found awardrobe full of men's clothing, all of a single shade of mauve like thesuit I wore. Some suits I guessed to be work clothes from their cheapertexture and some, much finer, were evidently dress apparel. 

Having reassured myself that Armstadt had been the only occupant of theapartment, I turned to a pile of papers that the hospital attendant hadpicked up from the floor where they had dropped from a mail chute. Mostof these proved to be the accumulated copies of a daily chemical newsbulletin. Others were technical chemical journals. Among the letters Ifound an invitation to a meeting of a chemical society, and a note frommy tailor asking me to call; the third letter was written on atypewriter, an instrument the like of which I had already discovered inmy study. This sheet bore a neatly engraved head reading "Katrina, Permit 843 LX, Apartment 57, K Street, Level of the Free Women. " Theletter ran:

 "Dear Karl: For three weeks now you have failed to keep your appointments and sent no explanation. You surely know that I will not tolerate such rude neglect. I have reported to the Supervisor that you are dropped from my list. "

So this was Katrina! Here at last was the end of the fears that hadhaunted me. 

~2~

As I was scanning the chemical journal I heard a bell ring and turningabout I saw that a metal box had slid forth upon a side board from anopening in the wall. In this box I found my dinner which I proceeded toenjoy in solitude. The food was more varied than in the hospital. Somewas liquid and some gelatinous, and some firm like bread or biscuit. Butof natural food products there was nothing save a dish of mushrooms anda single sprig of green no longer than my finger, and which, like afeather in a boy's cap, was inserted conspicuously in the top of asynthetic pudding. There was one food that puzzled me, for it wassausage-like in form and sausage-like in flavour, and I was surecontained some real substance of animal origin. Presuming, as I did atthat moment, that no animal life existed in Berlin, I ate this sausagewith doubts and misgivings. 

The dinner finished, I looked for a way to dispose of the dishes. Packing them back in the container I fumbled about and found a switchwhich set something going in the wall, and my dishes departed to thepublic dishwasher. 

Having cleared the desk I next turned to Armstadt's book shelves. Myattention was caught by a ponderous volume. It proved to be an atlas anddirectory of Berlin. In the front of this was a most revealing diagramwhich showed Berlin to be a city of sixty levels. The five lowest levelswere underground and all were labelled "Mineral Industries. " Above thesewere eight levels of Food, Clothing and Miscellaneous industries. Thencame the seven workmen's residence levels, divided by trade groups. Above this were the four "Intellectual Levels, " on one of which I, as achemist had my abode. Directly above these was the "Level of FreeWomen, " and above that the residence level for military officers. Thenext was the "Royal Level, " double in height of the other levels of thecity. Then came the "Administrative Level, " followed by eight maternitylevels, then four levels of female schools and nine levels of maleschools. Then, for six levels, and reaching to within five levels of theroof of the city, were soldiers' barracks. Three of the remaining floorswere labelled "Swine Levels" and one "Green Gardens. " Just beneath theroof was the defence level and above that the open roof itself. 

It was a city of some three hundred metres in height with mineralindustries at the bottom and the swine levels--I recalled thesausage--at the top. Midway between, remote from possible attack throughmines or from the roof, Royalty was sheltered, while the otherprivileged groups of society were stratified above and below it. 

Following the diagram of levels was a most informing chart arranged likea huge multiplication table. It gave after each level the words"permitted, " "forbidden, " and "permitted as announced, " arranged incolumns for each of the other levels. From this I traced out that as achemist I was permitted on all the industrial, workmen's andintellectual levels, and on the Level of Free Women. I was permitted, asannounced, on the Administrative and Royal Levels; but forbidden on thelevels of military officers and soldiers' barracks, maternity and maleand female schools. 

I found that as a chemist I was particularly fortunate for many othergroups were given even less liberty. As for common workmen and soldiers, they were permitted on no levels except their own. 

The most perplexing thing about this system was the apparent segregationof such large groups of men from women. Family life in Germany wasevidently wonderfully altered and seemingly greatly restricted, acondition inconsistent with the belief that I had always held--that theGerman race was rapidly increasing. 

Turning to my atlas index I looked up the population statistics of thecity, and found that by the last census it was near three hundredmillion. And except for the few millions in the mines this huge mass ofhumanity was quartered beneath a single roof. I was greatly surprised, for this population figure was more than double the usual estimatescurrent in the outside world. Coming from a world in which the ancienttendency to congest in cities had long since been overcome, I wasstaggered by the fact that nearly as many people were living in this onecity as existed in the whole of North America. 

Yet, when I figured the floor area of the city, which was roughly ovalin shape, being eight kilometres in breadth and eleven in length, Ifound that the population on a given floor area was no greater than ithad been in the Island of Manhattan before the reform land laws were putinto effect in the latter part of the Twentieth Century. There was, therefore, nothing incredible in these figures of total population, butwhat I next discovered was a severe strain on credence. It was theGerman population by sexes; the figures showed that there were nearlytwo and a half males for every female! According to the usual estimateof war losses the figure should have been at a ratio of six women livingto about five men, and here I found them recorded as only two women tofive men. Inspection of the birth rate showed an even higher proportionof males. I consulted further tables that gave births by sexes andgroups. These varied somewhat but there was this great preponderance ofmales in every class but one. Only among the seventeen thousand membersof Royalty did the proportion of the sexes approach the normal. 

Apparently I had found an explanation of the careful segregation ofGerman women--there were not enough to go around!

Turning the further pages of my atlas I came upon an elaboratelyillustrated directory of the uniforms and insignia of the variousmilitary and civil ranks and classes. As I had already anticipated, Ifound that any citizen in Berlin could immediately be placed in hisproper group and rank by his clothing, which was prescribed withmilitary exactness. 

Various fabrics and shades indicated the occupational grouping whiletrimmings and insignia distinguished the ranks within the groups. In allthere were many hundreds of distinct uniforms. Two groups alone provedexceptions to this iron clad rule; Royalty and free women were permittedto dress as they chose and were restricted only in that they wereforbidden to imitate the particular uniforms of other groups. 

I next investigated the contents of Armstadt's desk. My most interestingfind was a checkbook, with receipts and expenditures carefully recordedon the stubs. From this I learned that, as Armstadt, I was in receipt ofan income of five thousand marks, paid by the Government. I did not knowhow much purchasing value that would amount to, but from the accountbook I saw that the expenses had not equalled a third of it, whichexplained why there was a bank balance of some twenty thousand marks. 

Clearly I would need to master the signature of Karl Armstadt so Isearched among the papers until I found a bundle of returned decks. Manyof the larger checks had been made out to "Katrina, " others to the"Master of Games, "--evidently to cover gambling losses. The smallerchecks, I found by reference to the stubs, were for ornaments orentertainment that might please a woman. The lack of the more ordinaryitems of expenditure was presently made clear by the discovery of anumber of punch marked cards. For intermittent though necessaryexpenses, such as tonsorial service, clothing and books. For the moreconstant necessities of life, such as rent, food, laundry andtransportation, there was no record whatever; and I correctly assumedthat these were supplied without compensation and were therefore not amatter of personal choice or permissible variation. Of money in itsancient form of metal coins and paper, I found no evidence. 

~3~

In my mail the next morning I found a card signed by Lieut. Forrester ofthe hospital staff. It read:

"The bearer, Karl Armstadt, has recently suffered from gas poisoningwhile defending the mines beneath enemy territory. This has affected hismemory. If he is therefore found disobeying any ruling or strayingbeyond his permitted bounds, return him to his apartment and call theHospital for Complex Gas Cases. "

It was evidently a very kindly effort to protect a man whose loss ofmemory might lead him into infractions of the numerous rulings of Germanlife. With this help I became ambitious to try the streets of Berlinalone. The notice from the tailor afforded an excuse. 

Consulting my atlas to get my bearings I now ventured forth. The streetswere tunnel-like passage-ways closed over with a beamed ceiling ofwhitish grey concrete studded with glowing light globes. In theresidence districts the smooth side walls were broken only by highventilating gratings and the narrow passage halls from which led thedoors of the apartments. 

The uncanny quiet of the streets of this city with its three hundredmillion inhabitants awed and oppressed me. Hurriedly I walked alongoccasionally passing men dressed like myself. They were pale men, withblanched or sallow faces. But nowhere were there faces of ruddy tan asone sees in a world of sun. The men in the hospital had been pale, butthat had seemed less striking for one is used to pale faces in ahospital. It came to me with a sense of something lost that my owncountenance blanched in the mine and hospital would so remain colourlesslike the faces of the men who now stole by me in their felted footwearwith a cat-like tread. 

At a cross street I turned and came upon a small group of shops withmonotonous panelled display windows inserted in the concrete walls. HereI found my tailor and going in I promptly laid down his notice and myclothing card. He glanced casually at the papers, punched the card andthen looking up he remarked that my new suit had been waiting some time. I began explaining the incident in the mine and the stay in thehospital; but the tailor was either disinterested or did not comprehend. 

"Will you try on your new suit now?" he interrupted, holding forth thegarments. The suit proved a trifle tight about the hips, but I hastenedto assure the tailor that the fit was perfect. I removed it and watchedhim do it up in a parcel, open a wall closet, call my house number, andsend my suit on its way through one of the numerous carriers thatinterlaced the city. 

As I walked more leisurely back to my apartment by a less direct way, Ifound my analytical brain puzzling over the refreshing quality of thebreezes that blew through those tunnel-like streets. With bits of paperI traced the air flow from the latticed faces of the elevator shafts tothe ventilating gratings of the enclosed apartments, and concluded thatthere must be other shafts to the rear of the apartments for its exit. It occurred to me that it must take an enormous system of ventilatingfans to keep this air in motion, and then I remembered the liquid airengine I had seen in the mine, and a realization of the economy andefficiency of the whole scheme dawned upon me. The Germans had solvedthe power problem by using the heat of the deeper strata of the earth togenerate power through the agency of liquid air and the exhaust fromtheir engines had automatically solved their ventilating problem. Irecalled with a smile that I had seen no evidence of heating apparatusanywhere except that which the miners had used to warm their food. Inthis city cooling rather than heating facilities would evidently beneeded, even in the dead of winter, since the heat generated by theinhabitants and the industrial processes would exceed the radiation fromthe exterior walls and roof of the city. Sunshine and "fresh air" theyhad not, but our own scientists had taught us for generations that heatand humidity and not lack of oxygen or sunshine was the cause of thedepression experienced in indoor quarters. The air of Berlin was cooland the excess of vapor had been frozen out of it. Yes, the "climate" ofBerlin should be more salubrious to the body, if not to the mind, thanthe fickle environment of capricious nature. From my reasoning aboutthese ponderous problems of existence I was diverted to a trivialmatter. The men I observed on the streets all wore their hair clippedshort, while mine, with six weeks' growth, was getting rather long. Ihad seen several barber's signs but I decided to walk on for quite adistance beyond my apartment. I did not want to confront a barber whohad known Karl Armstadt, for barbers deal critically in the matter ofheads and faces. At last I picked out a shop. I entered and asked fora haircut. 

"But you are not on my list, " said the barber, staring at me in apuzzled way, "why do you not go to your own barber?"

Grasping the situation I replied that I did not like my barber. 

"Then why do you not apply at the Tonsorial Administrative Office of thelevel for permission to change?"

Returning to my apartment I looked up the office in my directory, wentthither and asked the clerk if I could exchange barbers. He asked for mycard and after a deal of clerical activities wrote thereon the name of anew barber. With this official sanction I finally got my hair cut and mycard punched, thinking meanwhile that the soundness of my teeth wouldobviate any amateur detective work on the part of a dentist. 

Nothing, it seemed, was left for the individual to decide for himself. His every want was supplied by orderly arrangement and for everything hemust have an authoritative permit. Had I not been classed as a researchchemist, and therefore a man of some importance, this simple business ofgetting a hair-cut might have proved my undoing. Indeed, as I afterwardslearned, the exclusive privacy of my living quarters was a mark ofdistinction. Had I been one of lower ranking I should have shared myapartment with another man who would have slept in my bed while I was atwork, for in the sunless city was neither night nor day and the wholepopulation worked and slept in prescribed shifts--the vast machinery ofindustry, like a blind giant in some Plutonic treadmill, toiledceaselessly. 

The next morning I decided to extend my travels to the medical level, which was located just above my own. There were stairs beside theelevator shafts but these were evidently for emergency as they wereclosed with locked gratings. 

The elevator stopped at my ring. Not sure of the proper manner ofcalling my floor I was carried past the medical level. As we shot upthrough the three-hundred-metre shaft, the names of levels as I had readthem in my atlas flashed by on the blind doors. On the topmost defencelevel we took on an officer of the roof guard--strangely swarthy ofskin--and now the car shot down while the rising air rushed by us with awhistling roar. 

On the return trip I called my floor as I had heard others do and waslet off at the medical level. It was even more monotonously quiet thanthe chemical level, save for the hurrying passage of occasionalambulances on their way between the elevators and the various hospitals. The living quarters of the physicians were identical with those on thechemists' level. So, too, were the quiet shops from which the physicianssupplied their personal needs. 

Standing before one of these I saw in a window a new book entitled"Diseases of Nutrition. " I went in and asked to see a copy. The bookseller staring at my chemical uniform in amazement reached quickly underthe counter and pressed a button. I became alarmed and turned to go outbut found the door had been automatically closed and locked. Trying toappear unconcerned I stood idly glancing over the book shelves, whilethe book seller watched me from the corner of his eye. 

In a few minutes the door opened from without and a man in the uniformof the street guard appeared. The book seller motioned toward me. 

"Your identification folder, " said the guard. 

Mechanically I withdrew it and handed it to him. He opened it anddiscovered the card from the hospital. Smiling on me with an air ofcondescension, he took me by the arm and led me forth and conducted meto my own apartment on the chemical level. Arriving there he pushed megently into a chair and stepped toward the switch of the telephone. 

"Just a minute, " I said, "I remember now. I was not on my level--thatwas not my book store. "

"The card orders me to call up the hospital, " said the guard. 

"It is unnecessary, " I said. "Do not call them. "

The guard gazed first at me and then at the card. "It is signed by aLieutenant and you are a Captain--" his brows knitted as he wrestledwith the problem--"I do not know what to do. Does a Captain with anaffected memory outrank a Lieutenant?"

"He does, " I solemnly assured him. 

Still a little puzzled, he returned the card, saluted and was gone. Ithad been a narrow escape. I got out my atlas and read again the rulesthat set forth my right to be at large in the city. Clearly I had aright to be found in the medical level--but in trying to buy a bookthere I had evidently erred most seriously. So I carefully memorized thelist of shops set down in my identification folder and on my cards. 

For the next few days I lived alone in my apartment unmolested except byan occasional visit from Holknecht, the laboratory assistant, who knewnothing but chemistry, talked nothing but chemistry, and seemed dead toall human emotions and human curiosity. Applying myself diligently tothe study of Armstadt's books and notes, I was delighted to find thatthe Germans, despite their great chemical progress, were ignorant ofmany things I knew. I saw that my knowledge discreetly used, mightenable me to become a great man among them and so learn secrets thatwould be of immense value to the outer world, should I later contrive toescape from Berlin. 

By my discoveries of the German workings in the potash mines I hadindeed opened a new road to Berlin. It was up to me by furtherdiscoveries to open a road out again, not only for my own escape, butperhaps also to find a way by which the World Armies might enter Berlinas the Greeks entered Troy. Vague ambitious dreams were these thatfilled and thrilled me, for I was young in years, and the romanticspirit of heroic adventure surged in my blood. 

These days of study were quite uneventful, except for a singleilluminating incident; a further example of the super-efficiency of theGermans. I found the meals served me at my apartment rather less inquantity than my appetite craved. While there was a reasonable variety, the nutritive value was always the same to a point of scientificexactness, and I had seen no shops where extra food was available. AfterI had been in my apartment about a week, some one rang at the door. Iopened it and a man called out the single word, "Weigher. " Just behindhim stood a platform scale on small wheels and with handles like ago-cart. The weigher stood, notebook in hand, waiting for me to act. Itook the hint and stepped upon the scales. He read the weight and as herecorded it, remarked:

"Three kilograms over. "

Without further explanation he pushed the scales toward the next door. The following day I noticed that the portions of food served me were atrifle smaller than they had been previously. The original Karl Armstadthad evidently been of such build that he carried slightly less weightthan I, which fact now condemned me to this light diet. 

However, I reasoned that a light diet is conducive to good brain work, and as I later learned, the object of this systematic weight control wasnot alone to save food but to increase mental efficiency, for a fat manis phlegmatic and a lean one too excitable for the best mental output. It would also help my disguise by keeping me the exact weight and buildof the original Karl Armstadt. 

After a fortnight of study, I felt that I was now ready to take up mywork in the laboratory, but I feared my lack of general knowledge of thecity and its ways might still betray me. Hence I began furtherjourneyings about the streets and shops of those levels where a man ofmy class was permitted to go. 

~4~

After exhausting the rather barren sport of walking about the monotonousstreets of the four professional levels I took a more exciting trip downinto the lower levels of the city where the vast mechanical industriesheld sway. I did not know how much freedom might be allowed me, but Ireasoned that I would be out of my supposed normal environment and hencemy ignorance would be more excusable and in less danger of betraying me. 

Alighting from the elevator, I hurried along past endless rows of heavycolumns. I peered into the workrooms, which had no enclosing walls, anddiscovered with some misgiving that I seemed to have come upon a race ofgiants. The men at the machines were great hulking fellows with thick, heavy muscles such as one would expect to see in a professional wrestleror weight-lifter. I paused and tried to gauge the size of these men: Idecided that they were not giants for I had seen taller men in the outerworld. Two officials of some sort, distinguishable by finer garb, walking among them, appeared to be men of average size, and the tops oftheir heads came about to the workers' chins. That there should be suchmen among the Germans was not unbelievable, but the strange thing wasthat there should be so many of them, and that they should be souniformly large, for there was not a workman in the whole vast factoryfloor that did not over-top the officials by at least half a head. 

"Of course, " I reasoned, "this is part of German efficiency";--for themen were feeding large plates through stamping mills--"they haveselected all the large men for this heavy work. " Then as I continued togaze it occurred to me that this bright metal these Samsons werehandling was aluminum!

I went on and came to a different work hall where men were tending wirewinding machinery, making the coils for some light electricalinstruments. It was work that girls could easily have done, yet thesemen were nearly, if not quite, as hulking as their mates in the stampingmill. To select such men for light-fingered work was not efficiency butstupidity, --and then it came to me that I had also thought the soldiersI had seen in the hospital to be men picked for size, and that in anormal population there could not be such an abundance of men ofabnormal size. The meaning of it all began to clear in my mind--thepedigree in my own identification folder with the numerous fraternity, the system of social castes which my atlas had revealed, theinexplicable and unnatural proportion of the sexes. These gigantic menwere not the mere pick from individual variation in the species, but adistinct breed within a race wherein the laws of nature, that had keptmen of equal stature for countless centuries, even as wild animals wereequal, had been replaced by the laws of scientific breeding. These heavyand ponderous labourers were the Percherons and Clydesdales of adomesticated and scientifically bred human species. The soldiers, somewhat less bulky and more active, were, no doubt, another distinctbreed. The professional classes which had seemed quite normal inphysical appearance--were they bred for mental rather than physicalqualities? Otherwise why the pedigree, why the rigid castes, theisolation of women? I shuddered as the whole logical, inevitableexplanation unfolded. It was uncanny, unearthly, yet perfectlyscientific; a thing the world had speculated about for centuries, athing that every school boy knew could be done, and yet which I, facingthe fact that it had been done, could only believe by a strained effortat scientific coolness. 

I walked on and on, absorbed, overwhelmed by these assaulting, unbelievable conclusions, yet on either side as I walked was the everpresent evidence of the reality of these seemingly wild fancies. Therewere miles upon miles of these endless workrooms and everywhere the samegross breed of great blond beasts. 

The endless shops of Berlin's industrial level were very like thoseelsewhere in the world, except that they were more vast, moreconcentrated, and the work more speeded up by super-machines andexcessive specialization. Millions upon millions of huge, drab-clad, stolid-faced workmen stood at their posts of duty, performing over andover again their routine movements as the material of their laborsshuttled by in endless streams. 

Occasionally among the workmen I saw the uniforms of the petty officerswho acted as foremen, and still more rarely the administrative offices, where, enclosed in glass panelled rooms, higher officials in morebespangled uniforms poured over charts and plans. 

In all this colossal business there was everywhere the atmosphere ofperfect order, perfect system, perfect discipline. Go as I might amongthe electrical works, among the vast factories of chemicals and goods, the lighter labor of the textile mills, or the heavier, noisier businessof the mineral works and machine shops the same system of colossalcoordinate mechanism of production throbbed ceaselessly. Materialsflowed in endless streams, feeding electric furnaces, mills, machines;passing out to packing tables and thence to vast store rooms. Industryhere seemed endless and perfect. The bovine humanity fitted to themachinery as the ox to the treadmill. Everywhere was the ceaselessthrobbing of the machine. Of the human variation and the free action ofman in labour, there was no evidence, and no opportunity for itsexistence. 

Turning from the mere monotonous endlessness of the workshops I made myway to the levels above where the workers lived in those hours when theyceased to be a part of the industrial mechanism of production; andeverywhere were drab-coloured men for these shifts of labour werearranged so that no space at any time was wholly idle. I now passed bymiles of sleeping dormitories, and other miles of gymnasiums, picturetheatres and gaming tables, and, strikingly incongruous with theatmosphere of the place, huge assembly rooms which were labelled "FreeSpeech Halls. " I started to enter one of these, where some kind of ameeting was in progress, but I was thrust back by a great fellow whogrinned foolishly and said: "Pardon, Herr Captain, it is forbidden you. "

Through half-darkened streets, I again passed by the bunk-shelvedsleeping chambers with their cavernous aisles walled with orderly rowsof lockers. Again I came to other barracks where the men were not yetasleep but were straggling in and sitting about on the lowest bunks ofthese sterile makeshift homes. 

I then came into a district of mess halls where a meal was being served. Here again was absolute economy and perfect system. The men dined atendless tables and their food like the material for their labours, wasserved to the workers by the highly efficient device of an endlessmoving belt that rolled up out of a slot in the floor at the end of thetable after the manner of the chained steps of an escalator. 

From the moving belts the men took their portions, and, as they finishedeating, they cleared away by setting the empty dishes back upon themoving belt. The sight fascinated me, because of the adaptation of thismechanical principle to so strange a use, for the principle is old and, as every engineer knows, was instrumental in founding the house ofDetroit Vehicle Kings that once dominated the industrial world. Thefounder of that illustrious line gave the poorest citizen a motor carand disrupted the wage system of his day by paying his men double thestandard wage, yet he failed to realize the full possibilities ofefficiency for he permitted his men to eat at round tables and be servedby women! Truly we of the free world very narrowly escaped the fetish ofefficiency which finally completely enslaved the Germans. 

Each of the long tables of this Berlin dining hall, the ends of whichfaced me, was fenced off from its neighbours. At the entrance gates weresigns which read "2600 Calories, " "2800 Calories, " "3000 Calories"--Ifollowed down the line to the sign which read "Maximum Diet, 4000Calories. " The next one read, "Minimum Diet 2000 Calories, " and thencethe series was repeated. Farther on I saw that men were assemblingbefore such gates in lines, for the meal there had not begun. Moving tothe other side of the street I walked by the lines which curved out andswung down the street. Those before the sign of "Minimum Diet" were notquite so tall as the average, although obviously of the same breed. Butthey were all gaunt, many of them drooped and old, relatively theinferior specimens and their faces bore a cowering look of fear andshame, of men sullen and dull, beaten in life's battle. Following downthe line and noting the improvement in physique as I passed on, I cameto the farthest group just as they had begun to pass into the hall. These men, entering the gate labelled "Maximum Diet, 4000 Calories, "were obviously the pick of the breed, middle-aged, powerful, Herculean, --and yet not exactly Herculean either, for many of them wereoverfull of waistline, men better fed than is absolutely essential tophysical fitness. Evidently a different principle was at work here thanthe strict economy of food that required the periodic weighing of theprofessional classes. 

Turning back I now encountered men coming out of the dining hall inwhich I had first witnessed the meal in progress. I wanted to askquestions and yet was a little afraid. But these big fellows wereseemingly quite respectful; except when I started to enter the FreeSpeech Hall, they had humbly made way for me. Emboldened by theirdeference I now approached a man whom I had seen come out of a "3800Calories" gate, and who had crossed the street and stood there pickinghis teeth with his finger nail. 

He ceased this operation as I approached and was about to step aside. But I paused and smiled at him, much, I fear, as one smiles at a dog ofunknown disposition, for I could hardly feel that this ungainly creaturewas exactly human. He smiled back and stood waiting. 

"Perhaps, I stammered, " you will tell me about your system of eating; itseems very interesting. "

"I eat thirty-eight, " he grinned, "pretty good, yes? I am twenty-fiveyears old and not so tall either. "

I eyed him up--my eyes came just to the top button of his jacket. 

"I began thirty, " continued the workman, "I came up one almost everyyear, one year I came up two at once. Pretty good, yes? One moreto come. "

"What then?" I asked. 

The big fellow smiled with a childish pride, and doubling up his arm, ashuge as an average man's thigh, he patted his biceps. "I get it allright. I pass examination, no flaws in me, never been to hospital, notone day. Yes, I get it. "

"Get what?"

"Paternity, " said the man in a lower voice, as he glanced about to seeif any of his fellows was listening. "Paternity, you know? Women!"

I thought of many questions but feared to ask them. The worker waitedfor some men to pass, then he bent over me, grinning sardonically. "Didyou see them? You have seen women, yes?"

"Yes, " I ventured, "I have seen women. "

"Pretty good, beautiful, yes?"

"Yes, " I stammered, "they are very beautiful. " But I was getting nervousand moved away. The workman, hesitating a little, then followed atmy side. 

"But tell me, " I said, "about these calories. What did you do to get thebig meals? Why do some get more to eat than others?"

"Better man, " he replied without hesitation. 

"But what makes a better man?"

"You don't know; of course, you are an intellectual and don't work. Butwe work hard. The harder we work the more we eat. I load aluminum pigson the elevator. One pig is two calories, nineteen hundred pigs a day, pretty good, yes? All kind of work has its calories, so many for eachthing to do. 

"More work, more food it takes to do it. They say all is alike, that noone can get fat. But all work calories are not alike because some menget fatter than others. I don't get fat; my work is hard. I ought to gettwo and a half calories for each pig I load. Still I do not get thin, but I do not play hard in gymnasium, see? Those lathe men, they got ittoo easy and they play hard in gymnasium. I don't care if you do report. I got it mad at them; they got it too easy. One got paternity last yearalready, and he is not as good a man as I am. I could throw him over myshoulder in wrestling. Do you not think they get it too easy?"

"Do the men like this system, " I asked; "the measuring of food by theamount of work one does? Do any of them talk about it and demand thatall be fed alike?"

"The skinny minimum eaters do, " said the workman with a sneer, "when welet them talk, which isn't often, but when they get a chance they talkBellamism. But what if they do talk, it does them no good. We have a redflag, we have Imperial Socialism; we have the House of Hohenzollern. Well, then, I say, let them talk if they want to, every man must eataccording to his work; that is socialism. We can't have Bellamism whenwe have socialism. "

This speech, so much more informative and evidencing a knowledge I hadnot anticipated, quite disturbed me. "You talk about these things, " Iventured, "in your Free Speech Halls?"

The hitherto pleasant face of the workingman altered to an ugly frown. 

"No you don't, " he growled, "you don't think because I talk to you, thatyou can go asking me what is not your right to know, even if you arean officer?"

I remained discreetly silent, but continued to walk at the side of thestriding giant. Presently I asked:

"What do you do now, are you going to work?"

"No, " he said, looking at me doubtfully, "that was dinner, notbreakfast. I am going now to the picture hall. "

"And then, " I asked, "do you go to bed?"

"No, " he said, "we then go to the gymnasium or the gaming tables. Sixhours' work, six hours' sleep, and four hours for amusement. "

"And what do you do, " I asked, "the remainder of the day?"

He turned and stared at me. "That is all we get here, sixteen hours. This is the metal workers' level. Some levels get twenty hours. Itdepends on the work. "

"But, " I said, "a real day has twenty-four hours. "

"I've heard, " he said, "that it does on the upper levels. "

"But, " I protested, "I mean a real day--a day of the sun. Do youunderstand that?"

"Oh yes, " he said, "we see the pictures of the Place in the Sun. That'sa fine show. "

"Oh, " I said, "then you have pictures of the sun?"

"Of course, " he replied, "the sun that shines upon the throne. We allsee that. "

At the time I could not comprehend this reference, but I made bold toask if it were forbidden me to go to his picture hall. 

"I can't make out, " he said, "why you want to see, but I never heard ofany order forbidding it. 

"I go here, " he remarked, as we came to a picture theatre. 

I let my Herculean companion enter alone, but followed him shortly andfound a seat in a secluded corner. No one disputed my presence. 

The music that filled the hall from some hidden horn was loud and, in arough way, joyous. The pictures--evidently carefully prepared for suchan audience--were limited to the life that these men knew. The themeswere chiefly of athletic contests, of boxing, wrestling and feats ofstrength. There were also pictures of working contests, always ending bythe awarding of honours by some much bespangled official. But of loveand romance, of intrigue and adventure, of pathos and mirth, thesepictures were strangely devoid, --there was, in fact, no woman's likenesscast upon the screen and no pictures depicting emotion or sentiment. 

As I watched the sterile flittings of the picture screen I decided, despite the glimmering of intelligence that my talking Hercules hadshown in reference to socialism and Bellamism and the secrets of theFree Speech Halls, that these men were merely great stupid beastsof burden. 

They worked, they fed, they drank, they played exuberantly in theirgymnasiums and swimming pools, they played long and eagerly at games ofchance. Beyond this their lives were essentially blank. Ambition andcuriosity they had none beyond the narrow circle of their round ofliving. But for all that they were docile, contented and, within theirlimitations, not unhappy. To me they seemed more and more to be likewell cared for domestic animals, and I found myself wondering, as I leftthe hall, why we of the outer world had not thought to produce picturesin similar vein to entertain our dogs and horses. 

~5~

As I returned to my own quarters, I tried to recall the description Ihad read of the "Children of the Abyss, " the dwellers in ancient cityslums. There was a certain kinship, no doubt, between those formersubmerged workers in the democratic world and this labour breed ofBerlin. Yet the enslaved and sweated workers of the old regime werealways depicted as suffering from poverty, as undersized, ill-nourishedand afflicted with disease. The reformers of that day were alwaystalking of sanitary housing, scientific diet and physical efficiency. But here was a race of labourers whose physical welfare was as welltaken care of as if they had been prize swine or oxen. There was apaleness of countenance among these labourers of Berlin that to meseemed suggestive of ill health, but I knew that was merely due to lackof sun and did not signify a lack of physical vitality. Meresun-darkened skin does not mean physiological efficiency, else the negrowere the most efficient of races. Men can live without sun, withoutrain, without contact with the soil, without nature's greenery and thebrotherhood of fellow species in wild haunts. The whole climb ofcivilization had been away from these primitive things. It had merelybeen an artificial perfecting of the process of giving the livingcreature that which is needed for sustenance and propagation in the mostconcentrated and most economical form, the elimination of Nature'ssuperfluities and wastes. 

As I thought of these things it came over me that this unholyimprisonment of a race was but the logical culmination of mechanical andmaterial civilization. This development among the Germans had beenhastened by the necessities of war and siege, yet it was what the wholeworld had been driving toward since man first used a tool and built ahut. Our own freer civilization of the outer world had been achievedonly by compromises, by a stubborn resistance against the forces towhich we ascribed our progress. We were merely not so completelycivilized, because we had never been wholly domesticated. 

As I now record these thoughts on the true significance of the perfectedcivilization of the Germans I realize that I was even more right than Ithen knew, for the sunless city of Berlin is of a truth a civilizationgone to seed, its people are a domesticated species, they are thelogical outcome of science applied to human affairs, with them theprodigality and waste of Nature have been eliminated, they have stampedout contagious diseases of every kind, they have substituted for thelaws of Nature the laws that man may pick by scientific theory andexperiment from the multitude of possibilities. Yes, the Germans werecivilized. And as I pondered these things I recalled those fairy talesthat naturalists tell of the stagnant and fixed society of ants in theirsubterranean catacombs. These insect species credited for industry andintelligence, have in their lesser world reached a similar perfection ofcivilization. Ants have a royal house, they have a highly specializedand fixed system of caste, a completely socialized state--yes, aUtopia--even as Berlin was a Utopia, with the light of the sun and thelight of the soul, the soul of the wild free man, forever shut out. Yes, I was walking in Utopia, a nightmare at the end of man's longdream--Utopia--Black Utopia--City of Endless Night--diabolicallycompounded of the three elements of civilization in which the Germanshad always been supreme--imperialism, science and socialism. 

CHAPTER IV

I GO PLEASURING ON THE LEVEL OF FREE WOMEN AND DRINK SYNTHETIC BEER

~1~

I had returned from my adventure on the labour levels in a mood ofsombre depression. Alone again in my apartment I found difficulty ingetting my mind back upon chemical books. With a sense of relief Ireported to Holknecht that I thought myself sufficiently recovered toreturn to work. 

My laboratory I found to be almost as secluded as my living quarters. Iwas master there, and as a research worker I reported to no man until Ihad finished the problem assigned me. From my readings and fromHolknecht's endless talking I had fairly well grasped the problem onwhich I was supposed to be working, and I now had Holknecht go carefullyover the work he had done in my absence and we prepared a report. This Isent to headquarters with a request for permission to start work onanother problem, the idea for which I claimed to have conceived on myvisit to the attacked potash mines. 

Permission to undertake the new problem was promptly granted. I now setto work to reproduce in a German laboratory the experiments by which Ihad originally conquered the German gas that had successfully defendedthose mines from the world for over a century. Though loath to make thisrevelation, I knew of no other "Discovery" wherewith to gain the stakesfor which I was playing. 

Events shaped themselves most rapidly along the lines of my best hopes. The new research proved a blanket behind which to hide my ignorance. Weneeded new material, new apparatus, and new data and I encouragedHolknecht to advise me as to where to obtain these things and so gainedrequisite working knowledge. 

The experiments and demonstrations finished, I made my report. Myimmediate superior evidently quickly recognized it as a matter tooimportant for his consideration and dutifully passed it up to his ownsuperiors. In a few days I was notified to prepare for a demonstrationbefore a committee of the Imperial Chemical Staff. 

They came to my small laboratory with much eager curiosity. From theirmanner of making themselves known to me I realized with joy that theywere dealing with a stranger. Indeed it was improbable that it shouldhave been otherwise for there were upwards of fifty thousand chemists ofmy rank in Berlin. 

The demonstration went off with a flourish and the committee weregreatly impressed. Means were at once taken to alter the gas with whichthe Stassfurt mines were flooded, but I realized that meant nothingsince I believed that my companions had abandoned the enterprise and thesecret that had enabled me to invade mines had not been shared with anyone in the outer world. 

As I anticipated, my revelation was accepted by the Chemical Staff asevidence of profound scientific genius. It followed as a logical matterthat I should be promoted to the highest rank of research chemists withthe title of Colonel. Because of my youth the more was made of thehonour. This promotion entitled me to double my previous salary, to alarger laboratory and larger and better living quarters in a distantpart of the city. 

My assistant would now be of the rank I had previously been and asHolknecht was not eligible to such promotion I was removed entirely fromall previous acquaintances and surroundings and so greatly decreased thechance of discovery of my true identity. 

~2~

After I had removed to my new quarters I was requested to call at theoffice of the Chemical Staff to discuss the line of research I shouldnext take up. My adviser in this matter was the venerable Herr von Uhl, a white haired old patriarch whose jacket was a mass of decorations. Theinsignia on the left breast indicating the achievements in chemicalscience were already familiar to me, but those on the right breastwere strange. 

Perhaps I stared at them a little, for the old man, noting my interest, remarked proudly, "Yes, I have contributed much glory to the race andour group, --one hundred and forty-seven children, --one hundred and fourof them sons, fifty-eight already of a captain's rank, and twenty-nineof them colonels--my children of the second and third generation numberabove two thousand. Only three men living in Berlin have more totaldescendants--and I am but seventy-eight years of age. If I live to beninety I shall break all records of the Eugenic Office. It all comes ofgood breeding and good work. I won my paternity right, when I was buttwenty-eight, just about your age. If you pass the physical test, perhaps you can duplicate my record. For this early promotion you havewon qualifies you mentally. "

Astonished and alarmed beyond measure I could find no reply and satstaring dumbly, while Herr von Uhl, beginning to speak of chemicalmatters, inquired if I had any preference as to the problem I should nowtake up. Incapable of any clear thinking I could only ask if he had anyto suggest. 

Immediately the old man's face brightened. "A man of your genius, " hesaid, "should be permitted to try his brain with the greatest problemson which the life of Germany depends. The Staff discussed this and hasassigned you to original research for the finding of a better method ofthe extraction of protium from the ore. To work on this assignment youmust of necessity share grave secrets, which, should they be disclosed, might create profound fears, but your professional honour is a sufficientguarantee of secrecy. In this research you will compete with some of themost distinguished chemists in Berlin. If you should be successful youwill be decorated by His Majesty and you will receive a liberal pensioncommensurate with the value of your discovery. "

I was profoundly impressed. Evidently I had stumbled upon something ofvital importance, the real nature of which I did not in the leastcomprehend, and happily was not supposed to. The interview was ended bymy being entrusted with voluminous unpublished documents which I wastold to take home and study. Two armed men were ordered to accompany meand to stand alternate guard outside my apartment while I had thedocuments in my possession. 

~3~

In the quiet of my new abode I unsealed the package. The first sheetcontained the official offer of the rewards in store for success withthe research. The further papers explained the occasion for the gravityand secrecy, and outlined the problem. 

The colossal consequence of the matter with which I was dealing grippedand thrilled me. Protium, it seemed, was the German name for a rareelement of the radium group, which, from its atomic weight and otherproperties, I recognized as being known to the outside world only as alaboratory curiosity of no industrial significance. 

But, as used by the Germans, this element was the essence of lifeitself, for by the influence of its emanations, they had achieved thesynthesis of protein capable of completely nourishing the human body--athing that could be accomplished in the outside world only through theaid of natural protein derived from plants and animals. 

How I wished, as I read, that my uncle could have shared with me thisrevelation of a secret that he had spent his life in a fruitless effortto unravel. We had long since discovered how the Germans had synthesizedthe carbohydrate molecule from carbon dioxide and water and builttherefrom the sugars, starches and fat needed for human nutrition. Weknew quite as well how they had created the simpler nitrogen compounds, that this last step of synthesizing complete food proteins--a stepabsolutely essential to the support of human life wholly from syntheticfoods--the chemists of the outer world had never mastered. 

But no less interesting than the mere chemistry of all this was thehistory of it all, and the light it threw on the larger story of howGermany had survived when the scientists of the world had predicted herspeedy annihiliation. The original use of protium had, I found, beendiscovered late in the Twentieth Century when the protium ores of theUral Mountains were still available to the German chemists. After Russiahad been won by the World Armies, the Germans for a time sufferedchronic nitrogen starvation, as they depended on the protium derivedfrom what remained of their agriculture and from the fisheries in theBaltic. As the increasing bombardment from the air herded them withintheir fast building armoured city, and drove them beneath the soil inall other German territory and from the surface of the sea in theBaltic; they must have perished miserably but for the discovery of a newsource of protium. 

This source they had found in the uninhabited islands of the Arctic, where the formation of the Ural Mountains extends beneath the sea. Sending their submarines thence in search of platinum ores they had notfound platinum but a limited supply of ore containing the even morevaluable protium. By this traffic Germany had survived for a century anda half. The quantity of the rare element needed was small, for itseffect, like that of radium, was out of all proportion to its bulk. Butthis little they must have, and it seems that the supply of orewas failing. 

Nor was that all to interest me. How did the German submarine get to theArctic since the World State had succeeded, after half a century ofeffort, in damming the Baltic by closing up several passes among theDanish Islands and the main pass of the sound between Zealand andSweden? I remember, as a youngster, the great Jubilee that celebratedthe completion of that monumental task, and the joy that hailed from theannouncement that the world's shipping would at last be freed from anancient scourge. 

But little had we of the world known the magnitude of the German fearsas the Baltic dam neared completion. We had thought merely to protectour commerce from German piracy and perhaps to stop them from getting alittle copper and rubber in some remote corner of the earth. But we didnot realize that we were about to cut them off from an essential elementwithout which that conceited and defiant race must have speedily run upthe white flag of absolute surrender or have died to the last man, likerats in a neglected trap. 

But the completion of the Baltic dam evidently had not shut off thesupply of Arctic ore, for the annual importation of ore was given rightup to date though the Baltic had been closed for nearly a score ofyears. Eagerly I searched my papers for an item that would give somehint as to how the submarines got out of the dammed-up Baltic. But onthat point the documents before me were silent. They referred to theArctic ore, gave elaborate details as to mineralogy and geology of thestrata from which it came, but as to the ways of its coming into Berlinthere was not the slightest suggestion. That this ore must come bysubmarine was obvious. If so, the submarine must be at large in theAtlantic and Arctic seas, and those occasional reports of periscopessighted off the coast of Norway, which have never been credited, werereally true. The submarines, or at least their cargoes, must reachBerlin by some secret passage. Here indeed was a master mystery, asecret which, could I unravel it and escape to the outer world with theknowledge, would put unconditionally within the power of the World Statethe very life of the three hundred millions of this unholy race that wasbred and fed by science in the armoured City of Berlin, or that, workinglike blind moles of the earth, held the world at bay from off thesterile and pock-marked soil of all that was left of the one-timeGerman Empire. 

That night I did not sleep till near the waking hour, and when thebreakfast container bumped into the receiving cupboard I was noddingover the chemical papers amid strange and wonderful dreams. 

~4~

Next day with three assistants, themselves chemists of no mean rank, Iset to work to prepare apparatus for repeating all the known processesin the extraction and use of the rare and vital element. This workabsorbed me for many weeks, during which time I went nowhere and saw noone and slept scarce one hour out of four. 

But the steady application told upon me, and, by way of recreation, Idecided to spend an evening on the Level of Free Women, a place towhich, much though it fascinated me, I had not yet mustered thecourage to go. 

My impression, as I stepped from the elevator, was much as that of a manwho alights from a train in a strange city on a carnival night. Beforeme, instead of the narrow, quiet streets of the working and livingquarters of the city, there spread a broad and seemingly endless hall ofrevelry, broken only by the massive grey pillars that held up themulti-floored city. The place was thronged with men of varied ranks andprofessions. But more numerous and conspicuous were the women, the firstand only women that I had seen among the Germans--the Free Women ofBerlin, dressed in gorgeous and daring costumes; women of whom but fewwere beautiful, yet in whose tinted cheeks and sparkling eyes was allthe lure of parasitic love. 

The multi-hued apparel of the throng dazzled and astonished me. Elsewhere I had found a sterile monotony of dress and even of statureand features. But here was resplendent variety and display. Men from allthe professional and military classes mingled indiscriminately, theirdivers uniforms and decorations suggesting a dress ball in the capitalof the world. But the motley costumes of the women, who dressed with thelicense of unrestrained individuality, were even more startling andbizarre--a kaleidoscopic fantastic masquerade. 

I wondered if the rule of convention and tyranny of style had lost allhold upon these women. And yet I decided, as I watched more closely, that there was not an absence of style but rather a warfare of styles. The costumes varied from the veiled and beruffled displays, that leftone confounded as to what manner of creature dwelt therein, to the otherextreme of mere gaudily ornamented nudity. I smiled as I recalled theworld-old argument on the relative modesty of much or little clothing, for here immodesty was competing side by side in both extremes, bothseemingly equally successful. 

But it was not alone in the matter of dress that the women of the FreeLevel varied. They differed even more strikingly in form and feature, for, as I was later more fully to comprehend, these women were drawnfrom all the artificially specialized breeds into which German sciencehad wrought the human species. Most striking and most numerous werethose whom I rightly guessed to be of the labour strain. Proportionallynot quite so large as the males of the breed, yet they were huge, full-formed, fleshly creatures, with milky white skin for the most partcrudely painted with splashes of vermilion and with blued or blackenedbrows. The garishness of their dress and ornament clearly bespoke thepoorer quality of their intellect, yet to my disgust they seemed fullyas popular with the men as the smaller and more refined types, evidentlyfrom the intellectual strains of the race. 

Happily these ungainly women of the labour strain were inclined to herdby themselves and I hastened to direct my steps to avoid as much aspossible their overwhelming presence. 

The smaller women, who seemed to be more nearly human, were even morevariegated in their features and make-up. They were not all blondes, for some of them were distinctively dark of hair and skin, thoughI was puzzled to tell how much of this was inborn and how muchthe work of art. Another thing that astonished me was the widerange of bodily form, as evidently determined by nutrition. Clearlythere was no weight-control here, for the figures varied from extremeslenderness to waddling fatness. The most common type was that of mildobesity which men call "plumpness, " a quality so prized since the worldbegan that the women of all races by natural selection become relativelyfatter than men. 

For the most part I found these women unattractive and even repellent, and yet as I walked about the level I occasionally caught fleetingglimpses of genuine beauty of face and form, and more rarely expressionsof a seeming high order of intelligence. 

This revelling multitude of men and girls was uproariously engaged inthe obvious business of enjoying themselves by means of every art knownto appeal to the mind of man--when intelligence is abandoned and moralrestraint thrown to the winds. 

I wended my way among the multitude, gay with colour, noisy with chatterand mingled music, redolent with a hundred varieties of sensuousperfume. I came upon a dancing floor. Whirling and twisting about thecolumns, circling around a gorgeous scented and iridescent fountain, officers and scientists, chemists and physicians, each clasping in hisarms a laughing girl, danced with abandon to languorous music. 

As I watched the dance I overheard two girls commenting upon theappearance of the dancers. Whirling by in the arms of a be-medalledofficer, was a girl whose frizzled yellow hair fell about adun-brown face. 

"Did you see that, Fedora, tanned as a roof guard and with that hair!"

"Well, you know, " said the other, "it's becoming quite the fashionagain. "

"Why don't you try it? Three baths would tan you adorably and you dohave the proper hair. "

"Oh, yes, I have the hair, all right, but my skin won't stand it. Itried it three years ago and I blistered outrageously. "

The talk drifted to less informing topics and I moved on and came toother groups lounging at their ease on rugs and divans as they watchedmore skilful girls squirming through some intricate ballet on anexhibition platform. 

Seeing me stand apart, a milk-white girl with hair dyed pink cametugging at my arm. Her opalescent eyes looked from out her chalkycountenance; but they were not hard eyes, indeed they seemed the eyes ofinnocence. As I shook my head and rebuffed her cordial advance I felt, not that I was refusing the proffered love of a painted woman, butrather that I was meanly declining a child's invitation to join herplay. In haste I edged away and wandered on past endless gaming tableswhere men in feverish eagerness whirled wheels of chance, while garishlydressed girls leaned on their shoulders and hung about their necks. 

Announced by shouts and shrieking laughter I came upon a noisy jumble ofmechanical amusement devices where men and girls in whirling upholsteredboxes were being pitched and tumbled about. 

Beyond the noise of the childish whirligigs I came into a space wherethe white ceiling lights were dimmed by crimson globes and picturescreens were in operation. It did not take long for me to grasp theessential difference between these pictured stories and those I had seenin the workmen's level. There love of woman was entirely absent from thescreen. Here it was the sole substance of the pictures. But unlike thelove romances of the outer world, there were no engagement rings, nowedding bells, and never once did the face or form of a child appear. 

In seating myself to see the pictures I had carefully chosen a placewhere there was only room for myself between a man and one of thesupporting columns. At an interlude the man arose to go. The girl whohad been with him arose also, but he pushed her back upon the bench, saying that he had other engagements, and did not wish her company. Themoment he was gone the girl moved over and proceeded to crowdcaressingly against my shoulder. She was a huge girl, obviously of thelabour strain. She leaned over me as if I had been a lonely child andshe a lonelier woman. Crowded against the pillar I could not escape andso tried to appear unconcerned. 

"Did you like that story?" I asked, referring to the picture that hadjust ended. 

"No, " she replied, "the girl was too timid. She could never have won aroof guard captain in that fashion. They are very difficult men, thoseroof guard officers. "

"And what kind of pictures do you prefer?" I asked. 

"Quartettes, " she answered promptly. "Two men and two girls when bothgirls want the other man, and both men want the girl they have. Thatmakes a jolly plot. Or else the ones where there are two perfect loversand the man is elected to paternity and leaves her. I had a man likethat once and it makes me sad to see such a picture. "

"Perhaps, " I said, speaking in a timorous voice, "you wanted to go withhim and be the mother of his children?"

She turned her face toward me in the dim light. "He talked like that, "she said, "and then, I hated him. I knew then that he wanted to go andleave me. That he hadn't tried to avoid the paternity draft. Yes, hewanted to sire children. And he knew that he would have to leave me. Andso I hated him for ever loving me. "

A strange thrill crept over me at the girl's words. I tried to fathomher nature, to separate the tangle of reality from the artificial ideasingrained by deliberate mis-education. "Did you ever see children? Here, I mean. Pictures of them, perhaps, on the screen?"

"Never, " said the girl, drawing away from me and straightening up tillmy head scarce reached her shoulder. "And I never want to. I hate thethought of them. I wish I never had been one. Why can'twe--forget them?"

I did not answer, and the labour girl, who, for some technical flaw inher physique had been rejected for motherhood, arose and walkedponderously away. 

After this baffling revelation of the struggle of human souls caught inthe maw of machine-made science, I found the picture screen a dull deadthing, and I left the hall and wandered for miles, it seemed, pastendless confusion of meaningless revelry. Everywhere was music andgaming and laughter. Men and girls lounged and danced, or spun thewheels of fortune or sat at tables drinking from massive steins, ahighly flavoured variety of rather ineffectual synthetic beer. Olderwomen served and waited on the men and girls, and for every man was atleast one girl and sometimes as many as could crowd about him. And sothey sang, and banged their mugs and sloshed their frothy beverage. 

A lonely stranger amidst the jostling throngs, I wandered on through thecarnival of Berlin's Level of Free Women. Despite my longing for humancompanionship I found it difficult to join in this strange recrudescentpaganism with any ease or grace. 

Girls, alone or in groups, fluttered about me with many a covert or openinvitation to join in their merry-making, but something in my haltingmanner and constrained speech seemed to repulse them, for they wouldsoon turn away as if condemning me as a man without appreciation of thevalue of human enjoyment. 

My constraint and embarrassment were increased by a certain sense ofguilt, a feeling which no one in this vast throng, either man or woman, seemed to share. The place had its own standard of ethics, and they wereshocking enough to a man nurtured in a human society founded on thesanctification of monogamous marriage. But merely to condemn thisrecreational life of Germany, by likening it to the licentious freedomthat exists in occasional unrestrained amusement places in the outerworld, would be to give a very incorrect interpretation of Berlin'sLevel of Free Women. As we know such places elsewhere in the world thereis always about them some tacit confession of moral delinquency, somepretence of apology on the part of the participants. The women who sorevel in the outer world consider themselves under a ban of socialdisapproval, while the men are either of a type who have no sense ofmoral restraint or men who have for the time abandoned it. 

But for this life in Berlin no guilt was felt, no apology offered. Themen considered it as quite a normal and proper part of their life, whilethe women looked upon it as their whole life, to which they had beentrained and educated and set apart by the Government; they accepted therôle quite as did the scientist, labourer, soldier, or professionalmother. The state had decreed it to be. They did not question itsmorality. Hence the life here was licentious and yet unashamed, much, asI fancy was the life in the groves of Athens or the baths ofancient Rome. 

CHAPTER V

I AM DRAFTED FOR PATERNITY AND MAKE EXTRAORDINARYPETITION TO THE CHIEF OF THE EUGENIC STAFF

~1~

My research was progressing nicely and I had discovered that in thisfield of chemistry also my knowledge of the outer world would give metremendous advantages over all competitors. Eagerly I worked at thelaboratory, spending most of my evenings in study. Occasionally Iattended the educational pictures or dined on the Level of Free Womenwith my chemical associates and spent an hour or so at dancing or atcards. My life had settled into routine unbroken by adventure. Then Ireceived a notice to report for the annual examination at the PhysicalEfficiency Laboratory. I went with some misgivings, but the ordealproved uneventful. A week later I received a most disturbingcommunication, a bulky and official looking packet bearing the imprintof the Eugenic Office. I nervously slit the envelope and drew fortha letter:

"You are hereby notified that you have reached a stage of advancement inyour professional work that marks you a man of superior gifts, and, having been reported as physically perfect you are hereby honoured withthe high privilege and sacred duties of election to paternity. Fullinstructions for your conduct in this duty to the State will be found inthe enclosed folder. "

In nervous haste I scanned the printed folder:

"Your first duty will be to visit the boys' school for which passport ishere enclosed. The purpose of this is to awaken the paternal instinctsthat you may better appreciate and feel the holy obligation andprivilege conferred upon you. You will also find enclosed cards ofintroduction to three women whom the Eugenic Office finds to be fittedas mothers of your children. That natural selection may have a limitedplay you are permitted to select only one woman from each threeassigned. Such selection must be made and reported within thirty days, after which a second trio will be assigned you. Until such finalselection has been recorded you are expressly forbidden to conductyourself toward these women in an amorous manner. "

Next followed a set of exacting rules for the proper deportment, in thecarrying out of these duties to which the State had assigned me. 

A crushing sense of revulsion, a feeling of loathing and uncleanlinessoverwhelmed me as I pushed aside the papers. Coming from a world wherethe right of the individual to freedom and privacy in the matrimonialand paternal relations was recognized as a fundamental right of man, Ifound this officious communication, with its detailed instruction, appalling and revolting. 

A man cravenly clings to life and yet there are instincts in his soulwhich will cause him to sell life defiantly for a mere conception of amoral principle. To become by official mandate a father of a numerousGerman progeny was a thing to which I could not and would not submit. Many times that day as I automatically pursued my work, I resolved to goto some one in authority and give myself up to be sent to the mines as aprisoner of war, or more likely to be executed as a spy. Cold reasonshowed me the futility of neglecting or attempting to avoid an assignedduty. It was a military civilization and I had already seen enough ofthis ordered life of Berlin to know that there was no middle ground ofchoice between explicit obedience and open rebellion. Nor need I concernmyself with what punishment might be provided for this particulardisobedience for I saw that rebellion for me would mean an investigationthat would result in complete tearing away of the protecting mask of myGerman identity. 

But after my first tumultuous feeling subsided I realized that somethingmore than my own life was at stake. Already possessed of much intimateknowledge of the life within Berlin I believed that I was in a way tocome into possession of secrets of vast and vital importance to theworld. To gain these secrets, to escape from the walls of Berlin, was amore than personal ambition; it was an ambition for mankind. 

After a day or two of deliberation I therefore decided against any rashrebellion. Moreover, as nothing compromising was immediately required ofme, I detached and mailed the four coupons provided, having duly filledin the time at which I should make the preliminary calls. 

~2~

On the day and hour appointed I presented the school card to theelevator operator, who punched it after the manner of his kind, and dulydeposited me on the level of schools for boys of the professionalgroups. A lad of about sixteen met me at the elevator and conducted meto the school designated. 

The master greeted me with obsequious gravity, and waved me to thevisitor's seat on a raised platform. "You will be asked to speak, " hesaid, "and I beg that you will tell the boys of the wonderful chemicaldiscoveries that won you the honours of election to paternity. "

"But, " I protested, as I glanced at the boys who were being put throughtheir morning drill in the gymnasium, "I fear the boys of such age willnot comprehend the nature of my work. "

"Certainly not, " he replied, "and I would rather you did not try tosimplify it for their undeveloped minds, merely speak learnedly of yourwork as if you were addressing a body of your colleagues. The less theboys understand of it the more they will be impressed with itsimportance, and the more ambitious they will be to become greatchemists. "

This strange philosophy of education annoyed me, but I did not have timeto argue further for the bell had rung and the boys were filing in withstrict military precision. There were about fifty of them, all in theirtwelfth year, and of remarkable uniformity in size and development. Theblanched skin, which marked the adult faces of Berlin, was, in the pastycountenance of those German boys, a more horrifying spectacle. Yet theystood erect and, despite their lack of colour, were evidently a wellnourished, well exercised group of youngsters. 

As the last boy reached his place the master motioned with his hand andfifty arms moved in unison in a mechanical salute. 

"We have with us this morning, " said the master, "a chemist who has wonthe honours of paternity with his original thought. He will tell youabout his work which you cannot understand--you should therefore listenattentively. "

After a few more sentences of these paradoxical axioms on education, themaster nodded, and, as I had been instructed, I proceeded to talk of thechemical lore of poison gases. 

"And now, " said the master, when I resumed my seat, "we will have areview lesson. You will first recite in unison the creed of your caste. "

"We are youth of the super-race, " began the boys in a sing-song and welltimed chorus. "We belong to the chemical group of the intellectuallevels, being born of sires who were great chemists, born of greatchemists for many generations. It is our duty to learn while we are yetyoung all that we may ever need to know, to keep our minds free fromforbidden knowledge and to resist the temptation to think on unnecessarythings. So we may be good Germans, loyal to the House of Hohenzollernand to the worship of the old German God and the divine blood of Williamthe Great. "

The schoolmaster, who had nodded his head in unison with the rhythm ofthe recitation, now smiled in satisfaction. "That was very good, " hesaid. "I did not hear one faltering voice. Now you may reciteindividually in your alphabetical order. 

"Anton, you may describe the stages in the evolution of the super-man. "

Anton, a flaxen-haired youngster, arose, saluted like a wooden soldier, and intoned the following monologue:

"Man is an animal in the process of evolving into a god. The method ofthis evolution is a struggle in which the weak perish and the strongsurvive. First in this process of man's evolution came the savage, wholived with the lions and the apes. In the second stage came the darkraces who built the so-called ancient civilizations, and fought amongthemselves to possess private property and women and children. Thirdcame the barbarian Blond Brutes, who were destined to sire thesuper-race, but the day had not yet come, and they mixed with the darkraces and produced the mongrel peoples, which make the fourth. The fifthstage is the pure bred Blond Brutes, uncontaminated by inferior races, which are the men, who under God's direction, built the Armoured City ofBerlin in which to breed the Supermen who are to conquer the mongrelpeoples. The sixth, last and culminating stage of the evolution of manis the Divinity in human form which is our noble House of Hohenzollern, descended physically from William the Great, and spiritually from thesoul of God Himself, whose statue stands with that of the Mighty Williamat the portals of the Emperor's palace. "

It had been a noble effort for so young a memory and as the proud masterlooked at me expectantly I could do nothing less than nod myappreciation. 

The master now gave Bruno the following cue:

"Name the four kinds of government and explain each. "

From the sad-eyed youth of twelve came this flow of wisdom:

"The first form of government is monarchy, in which the people are ruledby a man who calls himself a king but who has no divine authority sothat the people sometimes failed to respect him and made revolutions andtried to govern themselves. The second form of government is a republic, sometimes called a democracy. It is usually co-existent with the lawyer, the priest, the family and the greed for gold. But in reality thisgovernment is by the rich men, who let the poor men vote and think theyhave a share in the government, thus to keep them contented with theirpoverty. The third form of government is proletariat socialism in whichthe people, having abolished kings and rich men, attempt to governthemselves; but this they cannot do for the same reason that a mancannot lift himself by his shoestraps--"

At this point Bruno faltered and his face went chalky white. The teacherbeing directly in front of the standing pupil did not see what hadhappened, while I, with fleeting memory of my own school days, suppressed my mirth behind a formal countenance, as the stoic Brunoresumed his seat. 

The master marked zero on the roll and called upon Conrad, next in line, to finish the recitation. 

"The fourth and last form of government, " recited Conrad, "is autocraticsocialism, the perfect government that we Germans have evolved fromproletariat socialism which had destroyed the greed for private propertyand private family life, so that the people ceased to struggleindividually and were ready to accept the Royal House, divinelyappointed by God to govern them perfectly and prepare them to make warfor the conquest of the world. "

The recitations now turned to repetitions of the pedigree and ranking ofthe various branches of the Royal House. But it was a mere list of nameslike the begats of Genesis and I was not able to profit much by thisopportunity to improve my own neglected education. As the morning woreon the parrot-like monologues shifted to elementary chemistry. 

The master had gone entirely through the alphabet of names and nowcalled again the apt Anton for a more brilliant demonstration of hissystem of teaching. "Since we have with us a chemist who has achievedpowers of original thought, I will permit you, Anton, to demonstratethat even at the tender age of twelve you are capable oforiginal thought. "

Anton rose gravely and stood at attention. "And what shall I thinkabout?" he asked. 

"About anything you like, " responded the liberal minded schoolmaster, "provided it is limited to your permitted field of psychic activity. "

Anton tilted back his head and gazed raptly at a portrait of the MightyWilliam. "I think, " he said, "that the water molecule is made of twoatoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. "

A number of the boys shook their heads in disapproval, evidentlyrecognizing the thought as not being original, but the teacher waited inrespectful silence for the founts of originality to burst forth inAnton's mind. 

"And I think, " continued Anton, "that if the water molecule were made offour atoms of nitrogen and one of oxygen, it would be a great economy, for after we had bathed in the water we could evaporate it and make airand breath it, and after we had breathed it we could condense it againand use it to drink--"

"But that would be unsanitary, " piped a voice from the back of the room. 

To this interruption Anton, without taking his gaze from the face ofWilliam, replied, "Of course it would if we didn't sterilize it, but Iwas coming to that. We would sterilize it each time. "

The master now designated two boys to take to the guardhouse of theschool the lad who had spoken without permission. He then produced a redcardboard cross adorned with the imperial eagle and crossed test-tubesof the chemists' insignia and I was honoured by being asked to decorateAnton for his brilliant exploit in original thought. 

"Our intellectual work of the day is over, " resumed the master, "but inhonour of our guest we will have, a day in advance, our weekly exercisesin emotion. Heinrich, you may recite for us the category of emotions. "

"The permitted emotions, " said Heinrich, "are: First, anger, which weshould feel when a weak enemy offends us. Second, hate, which is ahigher form of anger, which we should feel when a powerful enemy offendsus. Third, sadness, which we should feel when we suffer. Fourth, mirth, which we should feel when our enemy suffers. Fifth, courage, which wefeel at all times because we believe in our strength. Sixth, humility, which we should feel only before our superiors. Seventh, and greatest, is pride, which we should feel at all times because we are Germans. 

"The forbidden emotions are very numerous. The chief ones which we mustguard against are: First, pity, which is a sadness when our enemysuffers; to feel this is exceedingly wicked. Second, envy, which is afeeling that some one else is better than we are, which we must not feelat all because it is destructive of pride. Third, fear, which is a lackof courage. Fourth, love, which is a confession of weakness, and ispermissible only to women and dogs. "

"Very good, " said the master, "I will now grant you permission to feelsome of the permitted emotions. We will first conduct a chemicalexperiment. I have in this bottle a dangerous explosive and as Idrop in this pellet it may explode and kill us all, but you mustshow courage and not fear. " He held the pellet above the mouth ofthe bottle, but his eyes were on his pupils. As he dropped thepellet into the bottle, he knocked over with his foot a slabof concrete, which fell to the floor with a resounding crash. Afew of the boys jumped in their seats, and the master gravely markedthem as deficient in courage. 

"You now imagine that you are adult chemists and that the enemy hasproduced a new form of gas bomb, a gas against which we have noprotection. They are dropping the gas bombs into our ventilating shaftsand are killing our soldiers in the mines. You hate the enemy--hatehard--make your faces black with hate and rage. Adolph, you areexpressing mere anger. There, that is better. You never can be a goodGerman until you learn to hate. 

"And now we will have a permitted emotion that you all enjoy; theprivilege to feel mirth is a thing for which you should be grateful. 

"An enemy came flying over Berlin--and this is a true story. I canremember when it happened. The roof guard shot at him and winged hisplane, and he came down in his parachute, which missed the roof of thecity and fell to the earth outside the walls but within the first ringof the ray defences. He knew that he could not pass beyond this and hewandered about for many days within range of the glasses of the roofguards. When he was nearly starved he came near the wall and waved hiswhite kerchief, which meant he wished to surrender and be taken intothe city. "

At this point one of the boys tittered, and the master stopped his storylong enough to mark a credit for this first laugh. 

"As the enemy aviator continued to walk about waving his cowardly flaganother enemy plane saw him and let down a line, but the roof guardsshelled and destroyed the plane. Then other planes came and attempted topick up the man with lines. In all seven planes were destroyed inattempting to rescue one man. It was very foolish and very comical. Atlast the eighth plane came and succeeded in reaching the man a linewithout being winged. The roof batteries shot at the plane in vain--thenthe roof gunners became filled with good German hate, and one of themaimed, not at the plane, but at the man swinging on the unstable wireline two thousand metres beneath. The shell exploded so near that theman disappeared as by magic, and the plane flew off with the emptydangling line. "

As the story was finished the boys who had listened with varying degreesof mechanical smiles now broke out into a chorus of raucous laughter. Itwas a forced unnatural laughter such as one hears from a bad actorattempting to express mirth he does not feel. 

When the boys had ceased their crude guffaws the master asked, "Why didyou laugh?"

"Because, " answered Conrad, "the enemy were so stupid as to waste sevenplanes trying to save one man. "

"That is fine, " said the master; "we should always laugh when our enemyis stupid, because then he suffers without knowing why he suffers. Ifthe enemy were not stupid they would cease fighting and permit us torule them and breed the stupidity out of them, as it has been bred outof the Germans by our good old God and the divine mind of the House ofHohenzollern. "

The boys were now dismissed for a recess and went into the gymnasium toplay leap frog. But the sad-eyed Bruno promptly returned and saluted. 

"You may speak, " said the master. 

"I wish, Herr Teacher, " said Bruno, "to petition you for permission tofight with Conrad. "

"But you must not begin a fight, " admonished the master, "unless you canattach to your opponent the odium of causing the strife. "

"But he did cause the odium, " said Bruno; "he stuck it into my leg witha pin while I was reciting. The Herr Father saw him do it, "--and theboy turned his eyes towards me in sad and serious appeal. 

The schoolmaster glanced at me inquiringly and I corroborated the lad'saccusation. 

"Then, " said the master, "you have a _casus belli_ that is actuallytrue, and if you can make Conrad admit his guilt I will exchange yourmark for his. "

Bruno saluted again and started to leave. Then he turned back and said, "But Conrad is two kilograms heavier than I am, and he may notadmit it. "

"Then, " said the teacher, "you must know that I cannot exchange themarks, for victory in a fight compensates for the fault that caused it. But if you wish I will change the marks now, but then you cannot fight. "

"But I wish to fight, " said Bruno, "and so does Conrad. We arranged itbefore recitation that he was to stick me with the pin. "

"Such diplomacy!" exulted the master when the lad had gone, "and tothink that they can only be chemists!"

~3~

As the evening hour drew near which I had set for my call on the firstof the potential mothers assigned me by the Eugenic Staff, I re-read therules for my conduct:

"On the occasion of this visit you must wear a full dress uniform, including all orders, decorations and badges of rank and service towhich you are entitled. This is very important and you should callattention thereto and explain the full dignity and importance of yourrank and decorations. 

"When you call you will first present the card of authorization. Youwill then present your identification folder and extol the worth andcharacter of your pedigree. 

"Then you will ask to see the pedigree of the woman, and will not failto comment favourably thereon. If she be already a mother you willinquire in regard to her children. If she be not a mother, you willsupplicate her to speak of her potential children. You will extol thevirtue of her offspring--or her visions thereof, --and will not fail tospeak favourably of their promise of becoming great chemists whoseservice will redound to the honour of the German race and theRoyal House. 

"After the above mentioned matters have been properly spoken of, you maycompliment the mother upon her own intelligence and fitness as a motherof scientists. But you will refrain from all reference to her beauty ofperson, lest her thoughts be diverted from her higher purpose to mattersof personal amours. 

"You will not prolong your call beyond the hours consistent with dignityand propriety, nor permit the mother to perceive your dispositiontoward her. "

Surely nothing in such formal procedure could be incompatible with myown ideals of propriety. Taking with me my card of authorization bearingthe name "Frau Karoline, daughter of Ernest Pfeiffer, Director of thePerfume Works, " I now ventured to the Level of Maternity. 

Countless women passed me as I walked along. They were erect of form andplain of feature, with expressions devoid of either intelligence orpassion. Garbed in formless robes of sombre grey, like saintsof song and story, they went their way with solemn resignation. Some ofthem led small children by the hand; others pushed perambulatorscontaining white robed infants being taken to or from the nurseries fortheir scheduled stays in the mothers' individual apartments. 

The actions of the mothers were as methodical as well trained nurses. Intheir faces was the cold, pallid light of the mother love of themadonnas of art, uncontaminated by the fretful excitement of the motherlove in a freer and more uncertain world. 

Even the children seemed wooden cherubim. They were physically healthybeyond all blemish, but they cooed and smiled in a subdued manner. Already the ever present "_verboten_" of an ordered life seemed to havecrept into the small souls and repressed the instincts of anarchy andthe aspirations of individualism. As I walked among these madonnas ofscience and their angelic offspring, I felt as I imagined a man ofearthly passions would feel if suddenly loosed in a mediaeval andorthodox heaven; for everything about me breathed peace, goodness, and coldness. 

At the door of her apartment Frau Karoline greeted me with formalgravity. She was a young woman of twenty years, with a high forehead andpiercing eyes. Her face was mobile but her manner possessed the dignityof the matron assured of her importance in the world. Her only child wasat the nursery at the time, in accordance with the rules of the levelthat forbids a man to see his step-children. But a large photograph, aided by Frau Karoline's fulsome description and eulogies, gave me avery clear picture of the high order of the young chemist's intelligencethough that worthy had but recently passed his first birthday. 

The necessary matters of the inspection of pedigrees and the signing ofmy card of authorization had been conducted by the young mother with thecool self-possession of a well disciplined school-mistress. Her attitudeand manner revealed the thoroughness of her education and training forher duties and functions in life. And yet, though she relieved me soskilfully of what I feared would be an embarrassing situation, Iconceived an intense dislike for this most exemplary young mother, forshe made me feel that a man was a most useless and insignificantcreature to be tolerated as a necessary evil in this maternal world. 

"Surely, " said Frau Karoline, as I returned her pedigree, "you could notdo better for your first born child than to honour me with hismotherhood. Not only is my pedigree of the purest of chemical lines, reaching back to the establishment of the eugenic control, but I myselfhave taken the highest honours in the training for motherhood. "

"Yes, " I acknowledged, "you seem very well trained. "

"I am particularly well versed, " she continued, "in maternal psychology;and I have successfully cultivated calmness. In the final tests beforemy confirmation for maternity I was found to be entirely free fromerotic and sentimental emotions. "

"But, " I ventured, "is not maternal love a sentimental emotion?"

"By no means, " replied Frau Karoline. "Maternal love of the highestorder, such as I possess, is purely intellectual; it recognizes only thepassions for the greatness of race and the glory of the Royal House. Such love must be born of the intellect; that is why we women of thescientific group are the best of all mothers. Thus, were I not whollyfree from weak sentimentality, I might desire that my second child besired by the father of my first, but the Eugenic Office has determinedthat I would bear a stronger child from a younger father, therefore Iacquiesced to their change of assignment without emotion, as becomes aproper mother of our well bred race. My first child is extremelyintellectual but he is not quite perfect physically, and a mother suchas I should bear only perfect children. That alone is the supreme purposeof motherhood. Do you not see that I am fitted for perfect motherhood?"

"Yes, " I replied, as I recalled that my instructions were to paycompliments, "you seem to be a perfect mother. "

But the cold and logical perfection of Frau Karoline dampened mycuriosity and oppressed my spirit of adventure, and I closed theinterview with all possible speed and fled headlong to the nearestelevator that would carry me from the level. 

~4~

In my first experience I had suffered nothing worse than an embarrassinghalf hour, so, with more confidence I pressed the bell the secondevening, at the apartment of Frau Augusta, daughter of Gustave Schnorr, Authority on Synthetic Nicotine. 

Frau Augusta was a woman of thirty-five. She was well-preserved, morehandsome and less coldly inhuman than the younger woman. 

"We will get the formalities over since you have been told they arenecessary, " said Frau Augusta, as she reached for my card and folderand, at the same time, handing me her own pedigree. 

Peering over the top of the chart that recorded the antecedents ofGustave Schnorr, I saw his daughter going through my own folder with thebusiness-like dispatch of a society dowager examining the "character" ofa new housemaid. 

"Ah, yes, " she said, raising her brows. "I thought I knew the family. Your Uncle Otto was my second mate. He is the father of my third son andmy twin girls. I have no more promising children. Have you ever met him?He is in the aluminum tempering laboratories. "

I could only stare stupidly, struck dumb with embarrassment. 

"No, I suppose not, " went on Frau Augusta, "it is hardly to be expectedsince you have upwards of a hundred uncles. " She arose and, going towarda shelf where half a dozen pictures of half a dozen men reposed in anorderly row, took the second one of the group and handed it to me. 

"He is a fine man, " she said, with a very full degree of pride for apast and partial possession. "I fear the Staff erred in transferringhim, but then of course the twin girls were most unexpected andunfortunate since the Armstadt line is supposed to sire seventy-five percent, male offspring. 

"What do you think? Isn't the Eugenic Office a little unfair at times?My fifth man thought so. He said it was a case of politics. I don'tknow. I thought politics was something ancient that they had in oldbooks like churches and families. "

"I am sure I do not know, " I murmured, as I fumbled the portrait of myputative uncle. 

"Of course, " continued the voluble Fran Augusta, "you must not think Iam criticizing the authorities. It is all very necessary. And for themost part I think they have done very well by me. My ten children havesix fathers. All of them but the first were men of most gracious mannerand superior intelligence. The first one had his paternity rightrevoked, so I feel satisfied on that score, even if his son is notgifted--and yet the boy has beautiful hair--I think he would make anexcellent violinist. But then perhaps he wouldn't have been able toplay, so maybe it is all right, though I would think music would be moreeasily learned than chemistry. But then since I cannot read either Iought not to judge. I will show you his picture. I may as well show youall their pictures. I don't see why you elected fathers should not seeour children--but then I suppose it might produce quarrels. Some womenare so foolish and insist on talking about the children they havealready borne in a way that makes a man feel that his own children couldnever come up to them. Now I never do that. Why should one? The futureis always more interesting than the past. I haven't a single child thathas not won the porcelain cross for obedience. Even my youngest--he isonly fourteen months--obeys as if he were a full grown man. Some saymental and physical excellence are not correlated--but that is aprejudice because of those great labour beasts. There isn't one of mychildren that has fallen below the minimum growth standards, except mythird daughter, and her father was undersized, so it is no faultof mine. "

As the loquacious mother chattered on, she produced an album, throughwhich I now turned, inspecting the annual photographs of her blondbrood, each of which was labelled with the statistics of physical growthand the tests of psychic development. 

Strive as I might I could think of no comments to make, but the mothercame to the rescue. Unfastening the binding of the loose leaf album shehastily shuffled the sheets and brought into an orderly array on thetable before me ten photographs all taken at the age of one year. "Thatis the only fair way to view them, " she said, "for of course one cannotcompare the picture of a boy of fifteen with an infant of one year. Butat an equal age the comparison is fair to all and now you can surelytell me which is the most intelligent. "

I gazed hopelessly at the infantile portraits which, despite theirvaried paternity, looked as alike as a row of peas in a pod. 

"Oh, well, " said Frau Augusta, "after all is it fair to ask you, sincethe twins are your cousins?"

Desperately I wondered which were the twins. 

"They resemble you quite remarkably, don't you think so? Except thatyour hair is quite dark for an Armstadt. " Frau Augusta turned andglanced furtively at my identification folder. "Of course! your mother. I had almost forgotten who your mother was, but now I remember, she hadmost remarkably dark hair. It will probably prove a dominantcharacteristic and your children will also be dark haired. Now I shouldlike that by way of a change. "

I became alarmed at this turn of the conversation toward the morespecific function of my visit, and resolved to make my exit with allpossible speed "consistent with dignity and propriety. "

Meanwhile, as she reassembled the scattered sheets of the portraitalbum, the official mother chattered on concerning her children'sattributes, while I shifted uneasily in my chair and looked about theroom for my hat--forgetting in my embarrassment that I was dwelling in asunless, rainless city and possessed no hat. 

At last there was a lull in the monologue and I arose and said I must begoing. 

Frau Augusta looked pained and I recalled that I had not yetcomplimented her upon her intelligence and fitness to be the mother ofcoming generations of chemical scientists, but I stubbornly resolved notto resume my seat. 

"You are young, " said Frau Augusta, who had risen and shifted herposition till she stood between me and the door. "Surely you have notyet made many calls on the maternity level. " Then she sighed, "I do notsee why they assign a man only three names to select from. Surely theycould be more liberal. " She paused and her face hardened. "And to thinkthat you men are permitted to call as often as you like upon thosedegenerate hussies who have been forbidden the sacred duties ofmotherhood. It is a very wicked institution, that level of lust--someday we women--we mothers of Berlin--will rise in our wrath and see thatthey are banished to the mines, for they produce nothing but sin andmisery in this man-made world. "

"Yes, " I said, "the system is very wrong, but--"

"But the authorities, you need not say it, I have heard it all before, the authorities, always the authorities. Why should men always be theauthorities? Why do we mothers of Berlin have no rights? Why are we notconsulted in these matters? Why must we always submit?"

Then suddenly, and very much to my surprise, she placed her hands uponmy shoulders and said hoarsely: "Tell me about the Free Level. Are thewomen there more beautiful than I?"

"No, " I said, "very few of them are beautiful, and those of the labourgroups are most gross and stupid. "

"Then why, " wailed Frau Augusta, "was I not allowed to go? Why was Ipenned up here and made to bear children when others revel in thedelights of love and song and laughter?"

"But, " I said, shocked at this unexpected revelation of character, "yours is the more honourable, more virtuous life. You were chosen formotherhood because you are a woman of superior intelligence. "

"It's a lie, " cried Frau Augusta. "I have no intelligence. I want none. But I am as beautiful as they. But no, they would not let me go. Theypenned me up here with these saintly mothers and these angelic children. Children, children everywhere, millions and millions of them, and not aman but doctors, and you elected fathers who are sent here to bring uspain and sorrow. You say nothing of love--your eyes are cold. The lastone said he loved me--the brute! He came but thrice, when my child wasborn he sent me a flower. But that is the official rule. And I hate him, and hate his child that has his lying eyes. "

The distraught woman covered her face with her hands and burst intoviolent weeping. 

When she had ceased her sobs I tried to explain to her the philosophy ofcontentment with life's lot. I told her of the seamy side of the gownthat cloaks licentiousness and of the sorrows and bitterness of theashes of burned out love. With the most iridescent words at my command Ipainted for her the halo of the madonna's glory, and translated for herthe English verse that informs us that there is not a flower in anyland, nor a pearl in any sea, that is as beautiful and lovely as anychild on any mother's knee. 

But I do not think I altogether consoled Frau Augusta for my Germanvocabulary was essentially scientific, not poetic. But I made a nobleeffort and when I left her I felt very much the preacher, for thefunction of the preacher, not unlike death, is to make us cling to thoseills we have when we would fly to others that we know not of. 

~5~

There remained but one card unsigned of the three given me. 

Frau Matilda, daughter of Siegfried Oberwinder, Analine Analyst, wasregistered as eighteen and evidently an inexperienced mother-elect as Iwas a father-elect. The nature of the man is to hold the virgin abovethe madonna, and in starting on my third journey to the maternity level, I found hitherto inexperienced feelings tugging at my heartstrings andresolved that whatever she might be, I would be dignified and formal yetmost courteous and kind. 

My ring was answered by a slender, frightened girl. She was so shy thatshe could only nod for me to enter. I offered my card and folder, smiling to reassure her, but she retreated precipitously into a farcorner and sat staring at me beseechingly with big grey eyes that seemedthe only striking feature of her small pinched face. 

"I am sorry if I frighten you, " I said, "but of course you know that Iam sent by the eugenic authorities. I will not detain you long. All thatis really necessary is for you to sign this card. "

She timidly signed the card and returned it to the corner of the table. 

I felt extremely sorry for the fluttering creature; and, knowing that Icould not alter her lot, I sought to speak words of encouragement. "Ifyou find it hard now, " I said, "it is only because you are young and astranger to life, but you will be recompensed when you know the joys ofmotherhood. "

At my words a look of consecrated purpose glowed in the girl's whiteface. "Oh, yes, " she said eagerly. "I wish very much to be a mother. Ihave studied so hard to learn. I wish only to give myself to the holyduties of maternity. But I am so afraid. "

"But you need not be afraid of me, " I said. "This is only a formal callwhich I have made because the Eugenic Staff ordered it so. But it seemsto me that some better plan might be made for these meetings. Somesocial life might be arranged so that you would become acquainted withthe men who are to be the fathers of your children under lessembarrassing circumstances. "

"I try so hard not to be afraid of men, for I know they are necessary toeugenics. "

"Yes, " I said dryly, "I suppose they are, though I think I would preferto put it that the love of man and woman is necessary to parenthood. "

"Oh, no, " she said in a frightened voice, "not that, that is verywicked. "

"So you were taught that you should not love men? No wonder you areafraid of them. "

"I was taught to respect men for they are the fathers of children, " shereplied. 

"Then, " I asked, deciding to probe the philosophy of the education formaternity, "why are not the fathers permitted to enjoy their fatherhoodand live with the mother and the children?"

Frau Matilda now gazed at me with open-mouthed astonishment. "What abeautiful idea!" she exclaimed with rapture. 

"Yes, I rather like it myself--the family--"

"The family!" cried the girl in horror. 

"That is what we were talking about. "

"But the family is forbidden. It is very wrong, very uneugenic. You mustbe a wicked man to speak to me of that. "

"You have been taught some very foolish ideas, " I replied. 

"How dare you!" she cried, in alarm. "I have been taught what is right, and I want to do what is right and loyal. I passed all my examinations. I am a good mother-elect, and you say these forbidden things to me. Youtalk of love and families. You insult me. And if you select me, Ishall--I shall claim exemption, --" and with that she rose and dartedthrough the inner door. 

I waited for a time and then gently approached the door, which I saw hadswung to with springs and had neither latch nor lock. My gentle rap uponthe hollow panel was answered by a muffled sob. I realized thehopelessness of further words and silently turned from the door and leftthe apartment. 

The streets of the level were almost deserted for the curfew had rungand the lights glowed dim as in a hospital ward at night. I hurriedsilently along, shut in by enclosing walls and the lowering ceiling ofthe street. From everywhere I seemed to feel upon me the beseeching, haunting grey eyes of Frau Matilda. My soul was troubled, for it seemedto stagger beneath the burden of its realization of a lost humanity. Andwith me walked grey shadows of other men, felt-footed through the gloom, and they walked hurriedly as men fleeing from a house of death. 

~6~

My next duty as a German father-elect was to report to the EugenicOffice. There at least I could deal with men; and there I went, nursingrebellion yet trying my utmost to appear outwardly calm. 

To the clerk I offered my three signed cards by way of introduction. 

"And which do you select?" asked the oldish man over his rimlessglasses. 

"None. "

"Ah, but you must. "

"But what if I refuse to do so?"

"That is most unusual. "

"But does it ever happen?"

"Well, yes, " admitted the clerk, "but only by Petition Extraordinary tothe Chief of the Staff. But it is most unusual, and if he refuses togrant it you may be dishonoured even to the extent of having yourelection to paternity suspended, may be even permanently cancelled. "

"You mean"--I stammered. 

"Exactly--you refuse to accept any one of the three women when all aremost scientifically selected for you. Does it not throw some doubts uponyour own psychic fitness for mating at all? If I may suggest, HerrColonel--it would be wiser for you to select some one of the three--youhave yet plenty of time. "

"No, " I said, trying to hide my elation. "I will not do so. I will makethe Petition Extraordinary to your chief. "

"Now?" stammered the clerk. 

"Yes, now; how do I go about it?"

"You must first consult the Investigator. "

After a few formalities I was conducted to that official. 

"You refuse to make selection?" inquired the Investigator. 

"Yes. "

"Why?"

"Because, " I replied, "I am engaged upon some chemical research of mostunusual nature--"

"Yes, " nodded the Investigator, "I have just looked that up. The morereason you should be honoured with paternity. "

"Perhaps, " I said, "you are not informed of the grave importance of theresearch. If you will consult Herr von Uhl of the Chemical Staff--"

"Entirely unnecessary, " he retorted; "paternity is also important. Besides it takes but little time. No more than you need for recreation. "

"But I do not find it recreation. I have not been able to concentrate mymind on my work since I received notice of my election to paternity. "

"But you were warned against this, " he said; "you have no right topermit the development of disturbing romantic emotions. They may be badfor your work, but they are worse for eugenics. So, if you have maderomantic love to the mothers of Berlin, your case must be investigated. "

"But I have not. "

"Then why has this disturbed you?"

"Because, " I replied, "this system of scientific paternity offends myinstincts. "

The investigator ogled me craftily. "What system would you preferinstead?" he asked. 

I saw he was trying to trap me into disloyal admissions. "I have nothingto propose, " I stated. "I only know that I find the paternity systemoffensive to me, and that the position I am placed in incapacitates mefor my work. "

The investigator made some notes on a pad. 

"That is all for the present, " he said. "I will refer your case to theChief. "

Two days later I received an order to report at once to Dr. LudwigZimmern, Chief of the Eugenic Staff. 

The Chief, with whom I was soon cloistered, was a man of about sixtyyears. His face revealed a greater degree of intelligence than I had yetobserved among the Germans, nor was his demeanour that of haughtyofficiousness, for a kindly warmth glowed in his soft dark eyes. 

"I have a report here, " said Dr. Zimmern, "from my Investigator. Herecommends that your rights of paternity be revoked on the grounds thathe believes yours to be a case of atavistic radicalism. In short hethinks you are rebellious by instinct, and that you are therefore unsafeto father the coming generation. It is part of the function of thisoffice to breed the rebellious instinct out of the German race. Whathave you to say in answer to these charges?"

"I do not want to seem rebellious, " I stammered, "but I wish to berelieved of this duty. "

"Very well, " said Zimmern, "you may be relieved. If you have noobjection I will sign the recommendation as it stands. "

Surely, I thought, this man does not seem very bitter toward mytraitorous instincts. 

Zimmern smiled and eyed me curiously. "You know, " he said, "that topossess a thought and to speak of it indiscreetly are twodifferent things. "

"Certainly, " I replied, emboldened by his words. "A man cannot dooriginal work in science if he possesses a mind that never thinkscontrary to the established order of things. "

The clerks in the outer office must have thought my case a grievous onefor I was closeted with their chief for nearly an hour. Though ourconversation was vague and guarded, I knew that I had discovered in Dr. Ludwig Zimmern, Chief of the Eugenic Staff, a man guilty himself of thevery crime of possessing rebellious instincts for which he had decidedme unfit to sire German children. And when I finally took my leave Icarried with me his private card and an invitation to call at hisapartment to continue our conversation. 

~7~

In the weeks that followed, my acquaintance with the Chief of theEugenic Staff ripened rapidly into a warm friendship. The frank mannerin which he revealed his dissatisfaction with the state of affairs inGermany pleased me greatly. Zimmern was interested in my chemicalresearches and quickly comprehended their importance. 

"I know so little of chemistry, " he deplored, "yet on it our whole lifehangs. That is why I am so glad of an opportunity to talk to you. I donot approve of so much ignorance of each other's work on the part of ourscientists. Our old university system was better. Then a scientist inany field knew something of the science in all fields. But now we arespecialized from childhood. Take, for example, yourself. You are at workon a great problem by which all of our labour stands to be undone if youchemists do not solve it, and yet you do not understand how we will allbe undone. I think you should know more of what it means, then you willwork better. Is it not so?"

"Perhaps, " I said, "but I have little time. I am working too hard now. "

"Then, " said Zimmern, "you should spend more time in pleasure on theFree Level. Two days ago I conferred with the Emperor's Advisory Staff, and I learned that grave changes are threatened. That is one reason I amso interested in this protium on which you chemists are working. If youdo not solve this problem and replenish the food supply, the Emperor hasdecided that the whole Free Level with its five million women must beabolished. His Majesty will have no half-way measures. He is afraid totake part of these women away, lest the intellectual workers rebel likethe labourers did in the last century when their women were taken awaypiecemeal. "

"But what will His Majesty do with these five million women?" Iinquired, eagerly desirous to learn more. 

"Do? What can he do with the women?" exclaimed Dr. Zimmern in a lowpitched but vibrant voice. "He thinks he will make workers of them. Hedoes not seem to appreciate how specialized they are for pleasure. Hewill make machine tenders of them to relieve the workmen, who are to bemade soldiers. He would make surface soldiers out of these blind molesof the earth, put amber glasses on them and train them to run on theopen ground and carry the war again into the sunlight. It is folly, sheer folly, and madness. His Majesty, I fear, reads too much of oldbooks. He always was historically inclined. "

On a later occasion Zimmern gave me the broad outlines of the history ofGerman Eugenics. 

"Our science of applied Eugenics, " he said, "began during the SecondWorld War. Our scientists had long known that the same laws of heredityby which plants and animals had been bred held true with man, but theyhad been afraid to apply those laws to man because the religion of thatday taught that men had souls and that human life was something toosacred to be supervised by science. But William III was a very fearlessman, and he called the scientists together and asked them to outline aplan for the perfection of the German race. 

"At first all they advocated was that paternity be restricted to thesuperior men. This broke up the old-fashioned family where every manchose his own wife and sired as many children as he liked. There weregreat mutterings about that, and if we had not been at war, there wouldhave been rebellion. The Emperor told the people it was a militarynecessity. The death toll of war then was great and there was urgentneed to increase the birth rate, so the people submitted and women soonceased to complain because they could no longer have individualhusbands. The children were supported by the state, and if they hadlegitimate fathers of the approved class they were left in the mothers'care. As all women who were normal and healthy were encouraged to bearchildren, there was a great increase in the birth rate, which came nearresulting in the destruction of the race by starvation. 

"As soon as a sufficient number of the older generation that hadbelieved in the religious significance of the family and marriage systemhad died out, the ambitious eugenists set about to make other reforms. The birth rate was cut down by restricting the privilege of motherhoodto a selected class of women. The other women were instructed in thearts of pleasing man and avoiding maternity, and that is where we havethe origin of our free women. In those days they were free to associatewith men of all classes. Indeed any other plan would at first have beenimpossible. 

"A second fault was that the superior men for whom paternity waspermitted were selected from the official and intellectual classes. Theresult was that the quality of the labourers deteriorated. So twostrains were established, the one for the production of the intellectualworkers, and the other for producing manual workers. From time to timethis specialization has increased until now we have as many strains ofinheritance as there are groups of useful characteristics known to behereditary. 

"We have produced some effects, " mused Zimmern, "which were notanticipated, and which have been calling forth considerable criticism. His Majesty sends me memorandums nearly every year, after he reviews thematernity levels, insisting that the feminine beauty of the race is, asa whole, deteriorating. And yet this is logical enough. With theexception of our small actor-model strain, the characteristics for whichwe breed have only the most incidental relation to feminine beauty. Thetype of the labour female is, as you have seen, a buxom, fleshly beauty;youth and full nutrition are essential to its display, and it soon fades. In the scientific strains it seems that the power of original thoughtcorrelates with a feminine type that is certainly not beautiful. Doubtless not understanding this you may have felt that you werediscriminated against in your assignment. But the clerical mindwith its passion for monotonous repetition of petty mental processesseems to correlate with the most exquisite and refined femininefeatures. Those scintillating beauties on the Free Level who haveever at their beck our wisest men are from our clerical strain, --butof course they are only the rejects. It is unfortunate that you cannotsee the more privileged specimens in the clerical maternity level. 

"But I digress to that which is of no consequence. The beauty of women isunimportant but the number of women is very important. When some womenwere specialized for motherhood then there were surplus women. At firstthey made workers of them. The war was then conducted on a larger scalethan now. We had not yet fully specialized the soldier class. All theyoung men went to war; and, when they came back and went to work, theybecame bitterly jealous of the women workers and made an outcry thatthose who could not fight should not work. The men workers drove the womenfrom industry, hoping thereby each to possess a mistress. As a result thegreat number of unproductive women was a drain upon the state. All sortsof schemes were proposed to reduce the number of female births but most ofthese were unscientific. In studying the records it was found that theoffspring of certain men were predominantly males. By applying thisprinciple of selection we have, with successive generations, been able toreduce the proportion of female births to less than half the old rate. 

"But the sexual impulse of the labourers made them restless andrebellious, and the support of the free women for these millions ofworkers was a great economic waste. When animals had been bred to largesize and great strength their sexuality had decreased, while their poweras beasts of burden increased. The same principle applied to man hasresulted in more docile workers. By beginning with the soldiers and mineworkers, who were kept away from women, and by combining proper trainingwith the hereditary selection, we solved that problem and removed allknowledge of women from the minds of the workmen. "

"But how about paternity among the workers?" I asked. 

"Those who are selected are removed to special isolated quarters. Theyare told they are being taken to serve as His Majesty's body guard; andthey never go back to mingle with their fellows. "

I then related for the doctor my conversation with the workman who askedme about women. 

"So, " said Zimmern, "there has been a leak somewhere; knowledge is hardto bottle. Still we have bottled most of it and the labourer accepts hisloveless lot. But it could not be done with the intellectual worker. "

Dr. Zimmern smiled cynically. "At least, " he added, "we don't propose toadmit that it can be done. And that, Col. Armstadt, is what I wasremarking about the other evening. Unless you chemists can solve theprotium problem, Germany must cut her population swiftly, if we do notstarve out altogether. His Majesty's plan to turn the workmen intosoldiers and make workers of the free women will not solve it. It is tooserious for that. The Emperor's talk about the day being at hand is allnonsense. He knows and we know that these mongrel herds, as he calls theoutside enemy, are not so degenerate. 

"We may have improved the German stock in some ways by our scientificbreeding, but science cannot do much in six generations, and what wehave accomplished, I as a member of the Eugenist Staff, can assure youhas really been attained as much by training as by breeding, though thebreeding is given the credit. Our men are highly specialized, and onceoutside the walls of Berlin they will find things so different that thisvery specialization will prove a handicap. The mongrel peoples are moreadaptable. Our workmen and soldiers are large in physique, but dwarfedof intellect. The enemy will beat us in open war, and, even if we shouldbe victorious in war, we could not rule them. Either we solve this foodbusiness or we all turn soldiers and go out into the blinding sunlightand die fighting. "

I ventured as a wild remark: "At least, if we get outside there will beplenty of women. "

The older man looked at me with the superiority of age towards youth. "Young man, " he said, "you have not read history; you do not understandthis love and family doctrine; it exists in the outside world today justas it did two centuries ago. The Germans in the days of the old surfacewars made too free with the enemy's women, and that is why they ran usinto cover here and penned us up. These mongrel people will fight fortheir women when they will fight for nothing else. We have not bred allthe lust out of our workmen either. It is merely dormant. Once they areloosed in the outer world they will not understand this thing and theywill again make free with the enemy's women, and then we shall all beexterminated. "

Dr. Zimmern got up and filled a pipe with synthetic tobacco and puffedenergetically as he walked about the room. "What do you say about thisprotium ore?" he asked; "will you be able to solve the problem?"

"Yes, " I said, "I think I shall. "

"I hope so, " replied my host, "and yet sometimes I do not care; somehowI want this thing to come to an end. I want to see what is outside there. I think, perhaps, I would like to fly. 

"What troubles me is that I do not see how we can ever do it. We havebred and trained our race into specialization and stupidity. We wouldn'tknow how to go out and join this World State if they would let us. "

Dr. Zimmern paced the room in silence for a time. "Do you know, " hesaid, "I should like to see a negro, a black man with kinky hair--itmust be queer. "

"Yes, " I answered, "there must be many queer things out there. "

CHAPTER VI

IN WHICH I LEARN THAT COMPETITION IS STILLTHE LIFE OF THE OLDEST TRADE IN THE WORLD

~1~

When I told Dr. Zimmern that I should solve the problem of the increaseof the supply of protium I may have been guilty of speaking of hopes asif they were certainties. My optimism was based on the discovery thatthe exact chemical state of the protium in the ore was unknown, and thatit did not exist equally in all samples of the ore. 

After some further months of labour I succeeded in determining the exactchemical ingredients of the ore, and from this I worked rapidly toward anew process of extraction that would greatly increase the total yield ofthe precious element. But this fact I kept from my assistants whose workI directed to futile researches while I worked alone after hours infollowing up the lead I had discovered. 

During the progress of this work I was not always in the laboratory. Ihad become a not infrequent visitor to the Level of the Free Women. Thecontinuous carnival of amusement had an attraction for me, as it musthave had for any tired and lonely man. But it was not merely the lure ofsensuous pleasures that appealed to me, for I was also fascinated withthe deeper and more tragic aspect of life beneath the gaudy surface ofhectic joy. 

Some generalities I had picked up from observation and chanceconversations. As a primary essential to life on the level I had quicklylearned that money was needed, and my check book was in frequent demand. The bank provided an aluminum currency for the pettier needs of therecreational life, but neither the checks nor the currency had had valueon other levels, since there all necessities were supplied without costand luxuries were unobtainable. This strange retention of moneycirculation and general freedom of personal conduct exclusively on theFree Level puzzled me. Thus I found that food and drink were hereavailable for a price, a seeming contradiction to the strict limitationsof the diet served me at my own quarters. At first it seemed I haddiscovered a way to defeat that limitation--but there was the weigher tobe considered. 

It was a queer ensemble, this life in the Black Utopia of Berlin, acombination of a world of rigid mechanistic automatism in the regularroutine of living with rioting individual license in recreationalpleasure. The Free Level seemed some ancient Bagdad, some Bourbon Court, some Monte Carlo set here, an oasis of flourishing vice in a desert ofsterile law-made, machine-executed efficiency and puritanically orderedlife. Aided by a hundred ingenious wheels and games of chance, men andwomen gambled with the coin and credit of the level. These games werepresided over by crafty women whose years were too advanced to permit ofa more personal means of extracting a living from the grosser passionsof man. Some of these aged dames were, I found, quite highly regardedand their establishments had become the rendezvous for many youngerwomen who by some arrangement that I could not fathom plied theirtraffic in commercialized love under the guidance of these subtler womenwho had graduated from the school of long experience in preyingupon man. 

But only the more brilliant women could so establish themselves for theyears of their decline. There were others, many others, whose beauty hadfaded without an increase in wit, and these seemed to be serving theirmore fortunate sisters, both old and young, in various menialcapacities. It was a strange anachronism in this world where men's moreweighty affairs had been so perfectly socialized, to find womanretaining, evidently by men's permission, the individualistic right toexploit her weaker sister. 

The thing confounded me, and yet I recalled the well known views of oursociological historians who held that it was woman's greaterindividualism that had checked the socialistic tendencies of the world. Had the Germans then achieved and maintained their rigid socialisticorder by retaining this incongruous vestige of feminine commercialism asa safety valve for the individualistic instincts of the race?

They called it the Free Level, and I marvelled at the nature of thisfreedom. Freedom for licentiousness, for the getting and losing of moneyat the wheels of fortune, freedom for temporary gluttony and the mildintoxication of their flat, ill-flavoured synthetic beer. A tragicsymbol it seemed to me of the ignobility of man's nature, that he willbe a slave in all the loftier aspects of living if he can but retain hisfreedom for his vices and corruptions. Had the Germans then, like thevillain of the moral play, a necessary part in the tragedy of man; didthey exist to show the other races of the earth the way theyshould not go? But the philosophy of this conception collapsed when Irecalled that for more than a century the world had lost all sight ofthe villain and yet had not in the least deteriorated from a lack of thehorrible example. 

From these vaguer speculations concerning the Free Level of Berlin thatexisted like a malformed vestigial organ in the body of that socializedstate, my mind came back to the more human, more personal side of theproblem thus presented me. I wanted to know more of the lives of thesewomen who maintained Germany's remnant of individualism. 

To what extent, I asked myself, have the true instincts of womanhood andthe normal love of man and child been smothered out of the lives ofthese girls? What secret rebellions are they nursing in their hearts? Iwondered, too, from what source they came, and why they were selectedfor this life, for Zimmern had not adequately enlightened me onthis point. 

Pondering thus on the secret workings in the hearts of these girls, Isat one evening amid the sensuous beauty of the Hall of Flowers. Imarvelled at how little the Germans seemed to appreciate it, for it wasfar less crowded than were the more tawdry places of revelry. Herewithin glass encircling walls, preserved through centuries of artificialexistence, feeding from pots of synthetic soil and stimulated byperpetual light, marvellous botanical creations flourished and floweredin prodigal profusion. Ponderous warm-hued lilies floated on thesprinkled surface of the fountain pool. Orchids, dangling from the metallattice, hung their sensuous blossoms in vapour-laden air. Luxuriousvines, climatized to this unreal world, clambered over cosy arbours, orclung with gripping fingers to the mossy concrete pillars. 

~2~

I was sitting thus in moody silence watching the play of the fountain, when, through the mist, I saw the lonely figure of a girl standing inthe shadows of a viny bower. She was toying idly with the swayingtendrils. Her hair was the unfaded gold of youth. Her pale dress ofsilvery grey, unmarred by any clash of colour, hung closely about a formof wraith-like slenderness. 

I arose and walked slowly toward her. As I approached she turned towardme a face of flawless girlish beauty, and then as quickly turned away asif seeking a means of escape. 

"I did not mean to intrude, " I said. 

She did not answer, but when I turned to go, to my surprise, she steppedforward and walked at my side. 

"Why do you come here alone?" she asked shyly, lifting a pensivequestioning face. 

"Because I am tired of all this tawdry noise. But you, " I said, "surelyyou are not tired of it? You cannot have been here long. "

"No, " she replied, "I have not. Only thirty days"; and her blue eyesgleamed with childish pride. 

"And that is why you seem so different from them all?"

Timidly she placed her hand upon my arm. "So you, " she said gratefully, "you understand that I am not like them-that is, not yet. "

"You do not act like them, " I replied, "and what is more, you act as ifyou did not want to be like them. It surely cannot be merely that youare new here. The other girls when they come seem so eager for thislife, to which they have long been trained. Were you not trained forit also?"

"Yes, " she admitted, "they tried to train me for it, but they could notkill my artist's soul, for I was not like these others, born of a strainwherein women can only be mothers, or, if rejected for that, come here. I was born to be a musician, a group where women may be something morethan mere females. "

"Then why are you here?" I asked. 

"Because, " she faltered, "my voice was imperfect. I have, you see, thesoul of an artist but lack the physical means to give that soulexpression. And so they transferred me to the school for free women, where I have been courted by the young men of the Royal House. But ofcourse you understand all that. "

"Yes, " I said, "I know something of it; but my work has always soabsorbed me that I have not had time to think of these matters. In fact, I come to the Free Level much less than most men. "

For a moment, it seemed, her eyes hardened in cunning suspicion, but asI returned her intent gaze I could fathom only the doubts and fears ofchildish innocence. 

"Please let us sit down, " I said; "it is so beautiful here; and thentell me all about yourself, how you have lived your childhood, and whatyour problems are. It may be that I can help you. "

"There is not much to tell, " she sighed, as she seated herself besideme. "I was only eight years old when the musical examiners condemned myvoice and so I do not remember much about the music school. In the otherschool where they train girls for the life on the Free Level, theytaught us dancing, and how to be beautiful, and always they told us thatwe must learn these things so that the men would love us. But the onlymen we ever saw were the doctors. They were always old and serious and Icould not understand how I could ever love men. But our teachers wouldtell us that the other men would be different. They would be handsomeand young and would dance with us and bring us fine presents. If we werepleasing in their sight they would take us away, and we should each havean apartment of our own, and many dresses with beautiful colours, andthere would be a whole level full of wonderful things and we could goabout as we pleased, and dance and feast and all life would be love andjoy and laughter. 

"Then, on the 'Great Day, ' when we had our first individual dresses--forbefore we had always worn uniforms--the men came. They were youngmilitary officers and members of the Royal House who are permitted toselect girls for their own exclusive love. We were all very shy atfirst, but many of the girls made friends with the men and some of themwent away that first day. And after that the men came as often as theyliked and I learned to dance with them, and they made love to me andtold me I was very beautiful. Yet somehow I did not want to go withthem. We had been told that we would love the men who loved us. I don'tknow why, but I didn't love any of them. And so the two years passed andthey told me I must come here alone. And so here I am. "

"And now that you are here, " I said, "have you not, among all these menfound one that you could love?"

"No, " she said, with a tremor in her voice, "but they say I must. "

"And how, " I asked, "do they enforce that rule? Does any one requireyou--to accept the men?"

"Yes, " she replied. "I must do that--or starve. "

"And how do you live now?" I asked. 

"They gave me money when I came here, a hundred marks. And they make mepay to eat and when my money is gone I cannot eat unless I get more. Andthe men have all the money, and they pay. They have offered to pay me, but I refused to take their checks, and they think me stupid. "

The child-like explanation of her lot touched the strings of my heart. "And how long, " I asked, "is this money that is given you when you comehere supposed to last?"

"Not more than twenty days, " she answered. 

"But you, " I said, "have been here thirty days!"

She looked at me and smiled proudly. "But I, " she said, "only eat onemeal a day. Do you not see how thin I am?"

The realization that any one in this scientifically fed city could behungry was to me appalling. Yet here was a girl living amidst luxuriousbeauty, upon whom society was using the old argument of hunger to forceher acceptance of the love of man. 

I rose and held out my hand. "You shall eat again today, " I said. 

"I would rather not, " she demurred. "I have not yet accepted favoursfrom any man. "

"But you must. You are hungry, " I protested. "The problem of yourexistence here cannot be put off much longer. We will go eat and then wewill try and find some solution. "

Without further objection she walked with me. We found a secluded boothin a dining hall. I ordered the best dinner that Berlin had to offer. 

During the intervals of silence in our rather halting dinnerconversation, I wrestled with the situation. I had desired to gaininsight into the lives of these girls. Yet now that the opportunity waspresented I did not altogether relish the rôle in which it placed me. The apparent innocence of the confiding girl seemed to open an easy wayfor a personal conquest--and yet, perhaps because it was so obvious andeasy, I rebelled at the unfairness of it. To rescue her, to aid her toescape--in a free world one might have considered these more obviousmoves, but here there was no place for her to escape to, no highersocial justice to which appeal could be made. Either I must accept heras a personal responsibility, with what that might involve, or deserther to her fate. Both seemed cowardly--yet such were the horns of thedilemma and a choice must be made. Here at least was an opportunity tomake use of the funds that lay in the bank to the credit of the name Ibore, and for which I had found so little use. So I decided to offer hermoney, and to insist that it was not offered as the purchase priceof love. 

"You must let me help you, " I said, "you must let me give you money. "

"But I do not want your money, " she replied. "It would only postpone mytroubles. Even if I do accept your money, I would have to accept moneyfrom other men also, for you cannot pay for the whole of awoman's living. "

"Why not, " I asked, "does any rule forbid it?"

"No rule, but can so young a man as you afford it?"

"How much does it take for you to live here?"

"About five marks a day. "

I glanced rather proudly at my insignia as a research chemist of thefirst rank. "Do you know, " I asked, "how much income thatinsignia carries?"

"Well, no, " she admitted, "I know the income of military officers, butthere are so many of the professional ranks and classes that I get allmixed up. "

"That means, " I said, "ten thousand marks a year. "

"So much as that!" she exclaimed in astonishment. "And I can live hereon two hundred a month, but no, I did not mean that--you wouldn't, --Icouldn't--let you give me so much. "

"Much!" I exclaimed; "you may have five hundred if you need it. "

"You make love very nicely, " she replied with aloofness. 

"But I am not making love, " I protested. 

"Then why do you say these things? Do you prefer some one else? If sowhy waste your funds on me?"

"No, no!" I cried, "it is not that; but you see I want to tell youthings; many things that you do not know. I want to see you often andtalk to you. I want to bring you books to read. And as for money, thatis so you will not starve while you read my books and listen to me talk. But you are to remain mistress of your own heart and your own person. You see, I believe there are ways to win a woman's love far better thanbuying her cheap when she is starved into selling in thisbrutal fashion. "

She looked at me dubiously. "You are either very queer, " she said, "orelse a very great liar. "

"But I am neither, " I protested, piqued that the girl in her innocenceshould yet brand me either mentally deficient or deceitful. "It isimpossible to make you understand me, " I went on, "and yet you musttrust me. These other men, they approve the system under which you live, but I do not. I offer you money, I insist on your taking it becausethere is no other way, but it is not to force you to accept me but onlyto make it unnecessary for you to accept some one else. You have beenvery brave, to stand out so long. You must accept my money now, but youneed never accept me at all--unless you really want me. If I am to makelove to you I want to make love to a woman who is really free; a womanfree to accept or reject love, not starved into accepting it in thisso-called freedom. "

"It is all very wonderful, " she repeated; "a minute ago I thought youdeceitful, and now I want to believe you. I can not stand out muchlonger and what would be the use for just a few more days?"

"There will be no need, " I said gently, "your courage has done its workwell--it has saved you for yourself. And now, " I continued, "we willbind this bargain before you again decide me crazy. "

Taking out my check book I filled in a check for two hundred markspayable to--"To whom shall I make it payable?" I asked. 

"To Bertha, 34 R 6, " she said, and thus I wrote it, cursing theprostituted science and the devils of autocracy that should give aninnocent girl a number like a convict in a jail or a mare in a breeder'sherd book. 

And so I bought a German girl with a German check--bought her because Isaw no other way to save her from being lashed by starvation to theslave block and sold piecemeal to men in whom honour had not even died, but had been strangled before it was born. 

With my check neatly tucked in her bosom, Bertha walked out of the caféclinging to my arm, and so, passing unheeding through the throng ofindifferent revellers, we came to her apartment. 

At the door I said, "Tomorrow night I come again. Shall it be at thecafé or here?"

"Here, " she whispered, "away from them all. "

I stooped and kissed her hand and then fled into the multitude. 

~3~

I had promised Bertha that I would bring her books, but the narrow rangeof technical books permitted me were obviously unsuitable, nor did Ifeel that the unspeakably morbid novels available on the Level of FreeWomen would serve my purpose of awakening the girl to more wholesomeaspirations. In this emergency I decided to appeal to myfriend, Zimmern. 

Leaving the laboratory early, I made my way toward his apartment, puzzling my brain as to what kind of a book I could ask for that wouldbe at once suitable to Bertha's child-like mind and also be a volumewhich I could logically appear to wish to read myself. As I walkedalong the answer flashed into my mind--I would ask for a geographyof the outer world. 

Happily I found Zimmern in. "I have come to ask, " I said, "if you couldloan me a book of description of the outer world, one with maps, onethat tells all that is known of the land and seas and people. "

"Oh, yes, " smiled Zimmern, "you mean a geography. Your request, " hecontinued, "does me great honour. Books telling the truth about theworld without are very carefully guarded. I shall be pleased to get thegeography for you at once. In fact I had already decided that when youcame again I would take you with me to our little secret library. Germany is facing a great crisis, and I know no better way I can serveher than doing my part to help prepare as many as possible of ourscientists to cope with the impending problems. Unless you chemistsavert it, we shall all live to see this outer world, or die thatothers may. "

Dr. Zimmern led the way to the elevator. We alighted on the Level of FreeWomen. Instead of turning towards the halls of revelry we took ourcourse in the opposite direction along the quiet streets among theapartments of the women. We turned into a narrow passage-way and Dr. Zimmern rang the bell at an apartment door. But after waiting a momentfor an answer he took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door. 

"I am sorry Marguerite is out, " he said, as he conducted me into areception room. The walls were hung with seal-brown draperies. Therewere richly upholstered chairs and a divan piled high with fluffypillows. In one corner stood a bookcase of burnished metal filigree. 

Zimmern waved his hand at the case with an expression of disdain. "Onlythe conventional literature of the level, to keep up appearances, " hesaid; "our serious books are in here"; and he thrust open the door of aroom which was evidently a young lady's boudoir. 

Conscious of a profane intrusion, I followed Dr. Zimmern into the daintydressing chamber. Stepping across the room he pushed open a spaciouswardrobe, and thrusting aside a cleverly arranged shield of feminineapparel he revealed, upon some improvised shelves, a library of perhapsa hundred volumes. He ran his hand fondly along the bindings. "No otherman of your age in Berlin, " he said, "has ever had access to such acomplete fund of knowledge as is in this library. "

I hope the old doctor took for appreciation the smile that played uponmy face as I contrasted his pitiful offering with the endless miles ofbook stacks in the libraries of the outer world where I had spent somany of my earlier days. 

"Our books are safer here, " said Zimmern, "for no one would suspect agirl on this level of being interested in serious reading. If perchancesome inspector did think to perform his neglected duties we trust to himbeing content to glance over the few novels in the case outside and notto pry into her wardrobe closet. There is still some risk, but that wemust take, since there is no absolute privacy anywhere. We must trust tochance to hide them in the place least likely to be searched. "

"And how, " I asked, "are these books accumulated?"

"It is the result of years of effort, " explained Zimmern. "There areonly a few of us who are in this secret group but all have contributedto the collection, and we come here to secure the books that the othersbring. We prefer to read them here, and so avoid the chance of beingdetected carrying forbidden books. There is no restriction on thecallers a girl may have at her apartment; the authorities of the levelare content to keep records only of her monetary transactions, and thatfact we take advantage of. Should a man's apartment on another level beso frequently visited by a group of men an inquiry would be made. "

All this was interesting, but I inferred that I would again haveopportunity to visit the library and now I was impatient to keep myappointment with Bertha. Making an excuse for haste, I asked Zimmern toget the geography for me. The stiff back of the book had been removed, and Zimmern helped me adjust the limp volume beneath my waistcoat. 

"I am sorry you cannot remain and meet Marguerite tonight, " he said as Istepped toward the door. "But tomorrow evening I will arrange for you tomeet Colonel Hellar of the Information Staff, and Marguerite can be withus then. You may go directly to my booth in the café where you lastdined with me. "

~4~

After a brief walk I came to Bertha's apartment, and nervously pressedthe bell. She opened the door stealthily and peered out, thenrecognizing me, she flung it wide. 

"I have brought you a book, " I said as I entered; and, not knowing whatelse to do, I went through the ridiculous operation of removing thegeography from beneath my waistcoat. 

"What a big book, " exclaimed Bertha in amazement. However, she did notopen the geography but laid it on the table, and stood staring at mewith her child-like blue eyes. 

"Do you know, " she said, "that you are the first visitor I ever had inmy apartment? May I show you about?"

As I followed her through the cosy rooms, I chafed to see the daintyluxury in which she was permitted to live while being left to starve. The place was as well adapted to love-making as any other productof German science is adapted to its end. The walls were adornedwith sensual prints; but happily I recalled that Bertha, havingno education in the matter, was immune to the insult. 

Anticipating my coming she had ordered dinner, and this was presentlydelivered by a deaf-and-dumb mechanical servant, and we set it forth onthe dainty dining table. Since the world was young, I mused, woman andman had eaten a first meal together with all the world shut out, and sowe dined amid shy love and laughter in a tiny apartment in the heart ofa city where millions of men never saw the face of woman--and wheremillions of babies were born out of love by the cold degree of science. And this same science, bartering with licentious iniquity, had providedthis refuge and permitted us to bar the door, and so we accepted ourrefuge and sanctified it with the purity that was within our ownhearts--such at least was my feeling at the time. 

And so we dined and cleared away, and talked joyfully of nothing. As theevening wore on Bertha, beside me upon the divan, snuggled contentedlyagainst my shoulder. The nearness and warmth of her, and the innocenceof her eyes thrilled yet maddened me. 

With fast beating heart, I realized that I as well as Bertha was in thegrip of circumstances against which rebellion was as futile as werethoughts of escape. There was no one to aid and no one to forbid orcriticize. Whatever I might do to save her from the fate ordained forher would of necessity be worked out between us, unaided and unhamperedby the ethics of civilization as I had known it in a freer, saner world. 

In offering Bertha money and coming to her apartment I had thrust myselfbetween her and the crass venality of the men of her race, but I had nowto wrestle with the problem that such action had involved. If, Ireasoned, I could only reveal to her my true identity the situationwould be easier, for I could then tell her of the rules of the game oflove in the world I had known. Until she knew of that world and itsideals, how could I expect her to understand my motives? How else couldI strengthen her in the battle against our own impulses?

And yet, did I dare to confess to her that I was not a German? Would notdeep-seated ideals of patriotism drilled into the mind of a child placeme in danger of betrayal at her hands? Such a move might place my ownlife in jeopardy and also destroy my opportunity of being of service tothe world, could I contrive the means of escape from Berlin with theknowledge I had gained. Small though the possibilities of such escapemight be, it was too great a hope for me to risk for sentimentalreasons. And could she be expected to believe so strange a tale?

And so the temptation to confess that I was not Karl Armstadt passed, and with its passing, I recalled the geography that I had gone to somuch trouble to secure, and which still lay unopened upon the table. Here at least was something to get us away from the tumultuousconsciousness of ourselves and I reached for the volume and spread itopen upon my knees. 

"What a funny book!" exclaimed Bertha, as she gazed at the round maps ofthe two hemispheres. "Of what is that a picture?"

"The world, " I answered. 

She stared at me blankly. "The Royal World?" she asked. 

"No, no, " I replied. "The world outside the walls of Berlin. "

"The world in the sun, " exclaimed Bertha, "on the roof where they fightthe airplanes? A roof-guard officer" she paused and bit her lip--

"The world of the inferior races, " I suggested, trying to find somecommon footing with her pitifully scant knowledge. 

"The world underground, " she said, "where the soldiers fight in themines?"

Baffled in my efforts to define this world to her, I began turning thepages of the geography, while Bertha looked at the pictures inchild-like wonder, and I tried as best I could to find simpleexplanations. 

Between the lines of my teaching, I scanned, as it were, the true stateof German ignorance. Despite the evident intended authoritativeness ofthe book--for it was marked "Permitted to military staff officers"--Ifound it amusingly full of erroneous conceptions of the true state ofaffairs in the outer world. 

This teaching of a child-like mind the rudiments of knowledge was anamusing recreation, and so an hour passed pleasantly. Yet I realizedthat this was an occupation of which I would soon tire, for it was notthe amusement of teaching a child that I craved, but the companionshipof a woman of intelligence. 

As we turned the last page I arose to take my departure. "If I leave thebook with you, " I said, "will you read it all, very carefully? And thenwhen I come again I will explain those things you can not understand. "

"But it is so big, I couldn't read it in a day, " replied Bertha, as shelooked at me appealingly. 

I steeled myself against that appeal. I wanted very much to get my mindback on my chemistry, and I wanted also to give her time to read andponder over the wonders of the great unknown world. Moreover, I nolonger felt so grievously concerned, for the calamity which hadovershadowed her had been for the while removed. And I had, too, my ownstruggle to cherish her innocence, and that without the usual helpextended by conventional society. So I made brave resolutions andexplained the urgency of my work and insisted that I could not see herfor five days. 

Hungrily she pleaded for a quicker return; and I stubbornly resisted thetemptation. "No, " I insisted, "not tomorrow, nor the next day, but Iwill come back in three days at the same hour that I came tonight. "

Then taking her in my arms, I kissed her in feverish haste and toremyself from the enthralling lure of her presence. 

~5~

When I reached the café the following evening to keep my appointmentwith Zimmern, the waiter directed me to one of the small enclosedbooths. As I entered, closing the door after me, I found myselfconfronting a young woman. 

"Are you Col. Armstadt?" she asked with a clear, vibrant voice. Shesmiled cordially as she gave me her hand. "I am Marguerite. Dr. Zimmernhas gone to bring Col. Hellar, and he asked me to entertain you untilhis return. "

The friendly candour of this greeting swept away the grey walls ofBerlin, and I seemed again face to face with a woman of my own people. She was a young woman of distinctive personality. Her features, thoughdelicately moulded, bespoke intelligence and strength of character thatI had not hitherto seen in the women of Berlin. Framing her face was aluxuriant mass of wavy brown hair, which fell loosely about hershoulders. Her slender figure was draped in a cape of deep bluecellulose velvet. 

"Dr. Zimmern tells me, " I said as I seated myself across the table fromher, "that you are a dear friend of his. "

A swift light gleamed in her deep brown eyes. "A very dear friend, " shesaid feelingly, and then a shadow flitted across her face as she added, "Without him life for me would be unbearable here. "

"And how long, if I may ask, have you been here?"

"About four years. Four years and six days, to be exact. I can keepcount you know, " and she smiled whimsically, "for I came on the day ofmy birth, the day I was sixteen. "

"That is the same for all, is it not?"

"No one can come here before she is sixteen, " replied Marguerite, "andall must come before they are eighteen. "

"But why did you come at the first opportunity?" I asked, as I mentallycompared her confession with that of Bertha who had so courageouslypostponed as long as she could the day of surrender to this life ofshamefully commercialized love. 

"And why should I not come?" returned Marguerite. "I had a chance tocome, and I accepted it. Do you think life in the school for girls offorbidden birth is an enjoyable one?"

I wanted to press home the point of my argument, to proclaim my pride inBertha's more heroic struggle with the system, for this girl with whom Inow conversed was obviously a woman of superior intelligence, and itangered me to know that she had so easily surrendered to the life forwhich German society had ordained her. But I restrained my speech, for Irealized that in criticizing her way of life I would be criticizing herobvious relation to Zimmern, and like all men I found myself inclined tobe indulgent with the personal life of a man who was my friend. Moreover, I perceived the presumptuousness of assuming a superior airtowards an established and accepted institution. Yet, strive as I mightto be tolerant, I felt a growing antagonism towards this attractive andcultured girl who had surrendered without a struggle to a life that tome was a career of shame--and who seemed quite content with hersurrender. 

"Do you like it here?" I asked, knowing that my question was stupid, butanxious to avoid a painful gap in what was becoming, for me, a difficultconversation. 

Marguerite looked at me with a queer penetrating gaze. "Do I like ithere?" she repeated. "Why should you ask, and how can I answer? Can Ilike it or not like it, when there was no choice for me? Can I push outthe walls of Berlin?"--and she thrust mockingly into the air with adelicately chiselled hand--"It is a prison. All life is a prison. "

"Yes, " I said, "it is a prison, but life on this level is more joyfulthan on many others. "

Her lip curled in delicate scorn. "For you men--of course--and I supposeit is for these women too--perhaps that is why I hate it so, becausethey do enjoy it, they do accept it. They sell their love for food andraiment, and not one in all these millions seems to mind it. "

"In that, " I remarked, "perhaps you are mistaken. I have not come hereoften as most men do, but I have found one other who, like you, rebelsat the system--who in fact, was starving because she would not sellher love. "

Marguerite flashed on me a look of pitying suspicion as she asked: "Haveyou gone to the Place of Records to look up this rebel against thesale of love?"

A fire of resentment blazed up in me at this question. I did not knowjust what she meant by the Place of Records, but I felt that this womanwho spoke cynically of rebellion against the sale of love, and yet whohad obviously sold her love to an old man, was in no position todiscredit a weaker woman's nobler fight. 

"What right, " I asked coldly, "have you to criticize another whom you donot know?"

"I am sorry, " replied Marguerite, "if I seem to quarrel with you when Iwas left here to entertain you, but I could not help it--it angers me tohave you men be so fond of being deceived, such easy prey to thisthreadbare story of the girl who claims she never came here until forcedto do so. But men love to believe it. The girls learn to use the storybecause it pays. "

A surge of conflicting emotion swept through me as I recalled thechild-like innocence of Bertha and compared it with the criticalscepticism of this superior woman. "It only goes to show, " I thought, "what such a system can do to destroy a woman's faith in the veryexistence of innocence and virtue. "

Marguerite did not speak; her silence seemed to say: "You do notunderstand, nor can I explain--I am simply here and so are you, and wehave our secrets which cannot be committed to words. "

With idle fingers she drummed lightly on the table. I watched thoseslender fingers and the rhythmic play of the delicate muscles of thebare white arm that protruded from the rich folds of the blue velvetcape. Then my gaze lifted to her face. Her downcast eyes were shieldedby long curving lashes; high arched silken brows showed dark against askin as fresh and free from chemist's pigment as the petal of a rose. Inexultant rapture my heart within me cried that here was something fineof fibre, a fineness which ran true to the depths of her soul. 

In my discovery of Bertha's innocence and in my faith in her purity andcourage I had hoped to find relief from the spiritual loneliness thathad grown upon me during my sojourn in this materialistic city. But thatfaith was shaken, as the impression Bertha had made upon myover-sensitized emotions, now dimmed by a brighter light, flickered paleon the screen of memory. The mere curiosity and pity I had felt for achance victim singled out among thousands by the legend of innocence ona pretty face could not stand against the force that now drew me to thiswoman who seemed to be not of a slavish race--even as Dr. Zimmern seemeda man apart from the soulless product of the science he directed. But asI acknowledged this new magnet tugging at the needle of my flounderingheart, I also realized that my friendship for the lovable and courageousZimmern reared an unassailable barrier to shut me into outer darkness. 

The thought proved the harbinger of the reality, for Dr. Zimmermanhimself now entered. He was accompanied by Col. Hellar of theInformation Staff, a man of about Zimmern's age. Col. Hellar borehimself with a gracious dignity; his face was sad, yet there gleamedfrom his eye a kindly humor. 

Marguerite, after exchanging a few pleasantries with Col. Hellar andmyself, tenderly kissed the old doctor on the forehead, and slipped out. 

"You shall see much of her, " said Zimmern, "she is the heart and fire ofour little group, the force that holds us together. But tonight I askedher not to remain"--the old doctor's eyes twinkled with merriment, --"fora young man cannot get acquainted with a beautiful woman and with ideasat the same time. "

~6~

"And now, " said Zimmern, after we had finished our dinner, "I want Col. Hellar to tell you more of the workings of the Information Service. "

"It is a very complex system, " began Hellar. "It is old. Its historygoes back to the First World War, when the military censorship began bysuppressing information thought to be dangerous and circulatingfictitious reports for patriotic purposes. Now all is much moreelaborately organized; we provide that every child be taught only thethings that it is decided he needs to know, and nothing more. Have youseen the bulletins and picture screens in the quarters for the workers?"

"Yes, " I replied, "but the lines were all in old German type. "

"And that, " said Hellar, "is all that the workers and soldiers can read. The modern type could be taught them in a few days, but we see to itthat they have no opportunity to learn it. As it is now, should theyfind or steal a forbidden book, they cannot read it. "

"But is it not true, " I asked, "that at one time the German workers weremost thoroughly educated?"

"It is true, " said Hellar, "and because of that universal educationGermany was defeated in the First World War. The English contaminatedthe soldiers by flooding the trenches with democratic literature droppedfrom airplanes. Then came the Bolshevist regime in Russia with itspassion for revolutionary propaganda. The working men and soldiers readthis disloyal literature and they forced the abdication of William theGreat. It was because of this that his great grandson, when the House ofHohenzollern was restored to the throne, decided to curtail universaleducation. 

"But while William III curtailed general education he increased thespecialized education and established the Information Staff to supervisethe dissemination of all knowledge. "

"It is an atrocious system, " broke in Zimmern, "but if we had notabolished the family, curtailed knowledge and bred soldiers andworkers from special non-intellectual strains this sunless world ofours could not have endured. "

"Quite so, " said Hellar, "whether we approve of it or not certainlythere was no other way to accomplish the end sought. By no other plancould German isolation have been maintained. "

"But why was isolation deemed desirable?" I enquired. 

"Because, " said Zimmern, "it was that or extermination. Even now we whowish to put an end to this isolation, we few who want to see the worldas our ancestors saw it, know that the price may be annihilation. "

"So, " repeated Hellar, "so annihilation for Germany, but better so--andyet I go on as Director of Information; Dr. Zimmern goes on as ChiefEugenist; and you go on seeking to increase the food supply, and so weall go on as part of the diabolic system, because as individuals wecannot destroy it, but must go on or be destroyed by it. We have richeshere and privileges. We keep the labourers subdued below us, Royaltyenthroned above us, and the World State at bay about us, all by thisscience and system which only we few intellectuals understand and whichwe keep going because we can not stop it without being destroyed bythe effort. "

"But we shall stop it, " declared Zimmern, "we must stop it--withArmstadt's help we can stop it. You and I, Hellar, are mere cogs; if webreak others can take our places, but Armstadt has power. What he knowsno one else knows. He has power. We have only weakness because otherscan take our place. And because he has power let us help him finda way. "

"It seems to me, " I said, "that the way must be by education. More menmust think as we do. "

"But they can not think, " replied Hellar, "they have nothing tothink with. "

"But the books, " I said, "there is power in knowledge. "

"But, " said Hellar, "the labourer can not read the forbidden book andthe intellectual will not, for if he did he would be afraid to talkabout it, and what a man can not talk about he rarely cares to read. Thelove or hatred of knowledge is a matter of training. It was only lastweek that I was visiting a boy's school in order to study the effect ofa new reader of which complaint had been made that it failedsufficiently to exalt the virtue of obedience. I was talking with theteacher while the boys assembled in the morning. We heard a greatcommotion and a mob of boys came in dragging one of their companions whohad a bruised face and torn clothing. "Master, he had a forbidden book, "they shouted, and the foremost held out the tattered volume as if itwere loathsome poison. It proved to be a text on cellulose spinning. Where the culprit had found it we could not discover but he was sent tothe school prison and the other boys were given favours forapprehending him. "

"But how is it, " I asked, "that books are not written by free-mindedauthors and secretly printed and circulated?"

At this question my companions smiled. "You chemists forget, " saidHellar, "that it takes printing presses to make books. There is no pressin all Berlin except in the shops of the Information Staff. Every paper, every book, and every picture originates and is printed there. Everynews and book distributor must get his stock from us and knows that hemust have only in his possession that which bears the imprint for hislevel. That is why we have no public libraries and no trade insecond-hand books. 

"In early life I favoured this system, but in time the foolishness ofthe thing came to perplex, then to annoy, and finally to disgust me. ButI wanted the money and honour that promotion brought and so I have wonto my position and power; with my right hand I uphold the system andwith my left hand I seek to pull out the props on which it rests. Fortwenty years now I have nursed the secret traffic in books and risked mylife many times thereby, yet my successes have been few and scattered. Every time the auditors check my stock and accounts I tremble in fear, for embezzling books is more dangerous than embezzling credit atthe bank. "

"But who, " I asked, "write the books?"

"For the technical books it is not hard to find authors, " explainedHellar, "for any man well schooled in his work can write of it. But thetask of getting the more general books written is not so easy. For thenit is not so much a question of the author knowing the things of whichhe writes but of knowing what the various groups are to be permittedto know. 

"That writing is done exclusively by especially trained workers of theInformation Service. I myself began as such a writer and studied longunder the older masters. The school of scientific lying, I called it, but strange to say I used to enjoy such work and did it remarkably well. As recognition of my ability I was commissioned to write the book 'God'sAnointed. ' Through His Majesty's approval of my work I now owe myposition on the Staff. 

"His Majesty, " continued Hellar, "was only twenty-six years of age whenhe came to the throne, but he decided at once that a new religious bookshould be written in which he would be proclaimed as 'God's Anointedruler of the World. '

"I had never before spoken with the high members of the Royal House, andI was trembling with eagerness and fear as I was ushered into HisMajesty's presence. The Emperor sat at his great black table; before himwas an old book. He turned to me and said, 'Have you ever heard of theChristian Bible?'

"My Chief had informed me that the new book was to be based on the oldBible that the Christians had received from the Hebrews. So I said, 'Yes, Your Majesty, I am familiar with many of its words. '

"He looked at me with a gloating suspicion. 'Ah, ha, ' he said, 'thenthere is something amiss in the Information Service--you are in thethird rank of your service and the Bible is permitted only to thefirst rank. '

"I saw that my statement unless modified would result in an embarrassinginvestigation. 'I have never read the Christian Bible, ' I said, 'but mymother must have read it for when as a child I visited her she quoted tome long passages from the Bible. '

"His Majesty smiled in a pleased fashion. 'That is it, ' he said, 'womenare essentially religious by nature, because they are trusting andobedient. It was a mistake to attempt to stamp out religion. It is thedoctrine of obedience. Therefore I shall revive religion, but it shallbe a religion of obedience to the House of Hohenzollern. The God of theHebrews declared them to be his chosen people. But they proved a servileand mercenary race. They traded their swords for shekels and became abyword and a hissing among the nations--and they were scattered to thefour corners of the earth. I shall revive that God. And this time heshall chose more wisely, for the Germans shall be his people. The ideais not mine. William the Great had that idea, but the revolution sweptit away. It shall be revived. We shall have a new Bible, based upon theold one, a third dispensation, to replace the work of Moses and Jesus. And I too shall be a lawgiver--I shall speak the word of God. '"

Hellar paused; a smile crept over his face. Then he laughed softly andto himself--but Dr. Zimmern only shook his head sadly. 

"Yes, I wrote the book, " continued Hellar. "It required four years, forHis Majesty was very critical, and did much revising. I had a longargument with him over the question of retaining Hell. I was bitterlyopposed to it and represented to His Majesty that no religion had everthrived on fear of punishment without a corresponding hope of reward. 'If you are to have no Heaven, ' I insisted, 'then you must haveno Hell. '

"'But we do not need Heaven, ' argued His Majesty, 'Heaven issuperfluous. It is an insult to my reign. Is it not enough that a man isa German, and may serve the House of Hohenzollern?'

"'Then why, ' I asked, 'do you need a Hell?' I should have been shot forthat but His Majesty did not see the implication. He replied coolly:

"'We must have a Hell because there is one way that my subjects canescape me. It is a sin of our race that the Eugenics Office should havebred out--but they have failed. It is an inborn sin for it is chieflycommitted by our children before they come to comprehend the glory ofbeing German. How else, if you do not have a Hell in your religion, canyou check suicide?'

"Of course there was logic in his contention and so I gave in and madethe Children's Hell. It is a gruesome doctrine, that a child who killshimself does not really die. It is the one thing in the whole book thatmakes me feel most intellectually unclean for writing it. But I wrote itand when the book was finished and His Majesty had signed themanuscript, for the first time in over a century we printed a bible on aGerman press. The press where the first run was made we named 'OldGutenberg. '"

"Gutenberg invented the printing press, " explained Zimmern, fearing Imight not comprehend. 

"Yes, " said Hellar with a curling lip, "and Gutenberg was a German, andso am I. He printed a Bible which he believed, and I wrote one which Ido not believe. "

"But I am glad, " concluded Hellar as he arose, "that I do not believeGutenberg's Bible either, for I should very much dislike to think ofmeeting him in Paradise. "

~7~

After taking leave of my companions I walked on alone, oblivious to thegay throng, for I had many things on which to ponder. In these two men Ifelt that I had found heroic figures. Their fund of knowledge, whichthey prized so highly, seemed to me pitifully circumscribed and limited, their revolutionary plans hopelessly vague and futile. But theintellectual stature of a man is measured in terms of the average of hisrace, and, thus viewed, Zimmern and Hellar were intellectual giants ofheroic proportions. 

As I walked through a street of shops. I paused before the displaywindow of a bookstore of the level. Most of these books I had previouslydiscovered were lurid-titled tales of licentious love. But among them Inow saw a volume bearing the title "God's Anointed, " and recalled that Ihad seen it before and assumed it to be but another like its fellows. 

Entering the store I secured a copy and, impatient to inspect mypurchase, I bent my steps to my favourite retreat in the nearby Hall ofFlowers. In a secluded niche near the misty fountain I began a hastyperusal of this imperially inspired word of God who had anointed theHohenzollerns masters of the earth. Hellar's description had prepared mefor a preposterous and absurd work, but I had not anticipated anythingquite so audacious could be presented to a race of civilized men, muchless that they could have accepted it in good faith as the Germansevidently did. 

"God's Anointed, " as Hellar had scoffingly inferred, not only proclaimedthe Germans as the chosen race, but also proclaimed an actual divinityof the blood of the House of Hohenzollern. That William II did have somesuch notions in his egomania I believe is recorded in authentic history. But the way Eitel I had adapted that faith to the rather depressingfacts of the failure of world conquest would have been extremely comicalto me, had I not seen ample evidence of the colossal effect of such afaith working in the credulous child-mind of a people so utterly devoidof any saving sense of humour. 

Not unfamiliar with the history of the temporal reign of the Popes ofthe middle ages, I could readily comprehend the practical efficiency ofsuch a mixture of religious faith with the affairs of earth. For the Godof the German theology exacted no spiritual worship of his people, butonly a very temporal service to the deity's earthly incarnation in theform of the House of Hohenzollern. 

The greatest virtue, according to this mundane theology, was obedience, and this doctrine was closely interwoven with the caste system of Germansociety. The virtue of obedience required the German to renouncediscontent with his station, and to accept not only the material statusinto which he was born, with science aforethought, but the intellectuallimits and horizons of that status. The old Christian doctrine of heresywas broadened to encompass the entire mental life. To think forbiddenthoughts, to search after forbidden knowledge, that was at once treasonagainst the Royal House and rebellion against the divine plan. 

German theology, confounding divine and human laws, permitted no dualoverlapping spheres of mundane and celestial rule as had all previousreligious and, social orders since Christ had commanded his disciples to"Render unto Caesar--" There could be no conscientious objection toGerman law on religious grounds; no problem of church and state, for thechurch was the state. 

In this book that masqueraded as the word of God, I looked in vain forsome revelation of future life. But it was essentially a one-worldtheology; the most immortal thing was the Royal House for which theworker was asked to slave, the soldier to die that Germany might beruled by the Hohenzollerns and that the Hohenzollerns might sometimerule the world. 

As the freedom of conscience and the institution of marriage had beendiscarded so this German faith had scrapped the immortality of the soul, save for the single incongruous doctrine that a child taking his ownlife does not die but lives on in ceaseless torment in a ghoulishChildren's Hell. 

As I closed the cursed volume my mind called up a picture of Teutonichordes pouring from the forests of the North and blotting out whatGreece and Rome had builded. From thence my roving fancy tripped overthe centuries and lived again with men who cannot die. I stood withLuther at the Diet of Worms. With Kant I sounded the deeps ofphilosophy. I sailed with Humboldt athwart uncharted seas. I fought withGoethe for the redemption of a soul sold to the Devil. And with Schubertand Heine I sang:

 _Du bist wie eine Blume, So hold und schoen und rein, _

 * * * * *

 _Betend dass Gott dich erhalte, So rein und schoen und hold. _

But what a cankerous end was here. This people which the world had onceloved and honoured was now bred a beast of burden, a domesticated race, saddled and trained to bear upon its back the House of Hohenzollern asthe ass bore Balaam. But the German ass wore the blinders that sciencehad made--and saw no angel. 

~8~

As I sat musing thus and gazing into the spray of the fountain Iglimpsed a grey clad figure, standing in the shadows of a viney bower. Although I could not distinguish her face through the leafy tracery Iknew that it was Bertha, and my heart thrilled to think that she hadreturned to the site of our meeting. Thoroughly ashamed of the faithlessdoubts that I had so recently entertained of her innocence andsincerity, I arose and hastened toward her. But in making the detourabout the pool I lost sight of the grey figure, for she was standingwell back in the arbour. As I approached the place where I had seen herI came upon two lovers standing with arms entwined in the path at thepool's edge. Not wishing to disturb them, I turned back through one ofthe arbours and approached by another path. As I slipped noiselesslyalong in my felt-soled shoes I heard Bertha's voice, and quite near, through the leafy tracery, I glimpsed the grey of her gown. 

"Why with your beauty, " came the answering voice of a man, "did you notfind a lover from the Royal Level?"

"Because, " Bertha's voice replied, "I would not accept them. I could notlove them. I could not give myself without love. "

"But surely, " insisted the man, "you have found a lover here?"

"But I have not, " protested the innocent voice, "because I have soughtnone. "

"Now long have you been here?" bluntly asked the man. 

"Thirty days, " replied the girl. 

"Then you must have found a lover, your début fund would all be gone. "

"But, " cried Bertha, in a tearful voice, "I only eat one meal a day--doyou not see how thin I am?"

"Now that's clever, " rejoined the man, "come, I'll accept it for what itis worth, and look you up afterwards, " and he laughingly led her away, leaving me undiscovered in the neighbouring arbour to pass judgment onmy own simplicity. 

As I walked toward the elevator, I was painfully conscious of two ideas. One was that Marguerite had been quite correct with her informationabout the free women who found it profitable to play the rôle ofmaidenly innocence. The other was that Dr. Zimmern's precious geographywas in the hands of the artful, child-eyed hypocrite who had so cleverlybeguiled me with her rôle of heroic virtue. Clearly, I was trapped, andto judge better with what I had to deal I decided to go at once to thePlace of Records, of which I had twice heard. 

The Place of Records proved to be a public directory of the financialstatus of the free women. Since the physical plagues that are propagatedby promiscuous love had been completely exterminated, and since therewere no moral standards to preserve, there was no need of otherrestrictions on the lives of the women than an economic one. 

The rules of the level were prominently posted. As all consequentialmoney exchanges were made through bank checks, the keeping of therecords was an easy matter. These rules I found forbade any woman tocash checks in excess of one thousand marks a month, or in excess of twohundred marks from any one man. That was simple enough, and I smiled asI recalled that I had gone the legal limit in my first adventure. 

Following the example of other men, I stepped to the window and gave thename: "Bertha 34 R 6. " A clerk brought me a book opened to the page ofher record. At the top of the page was entered this statement, "Bred foran actress but rejected for both professional work and maternity becausefound devoid of sympathetic emotions. " I laughed as I read this, butwhen on the next line I saw from the date of her entrance to the levelthat Bertha's thirty days was in reality nearly three years, my mirthturned to anger. I looked down the list of entries and found that forsome time she had been cashing each month the maximum figure of athousand marks. Evidently her little scheme of pensive posing in theHall of Flowers was working nicely. In the current month, hardly halfgone, she already had to her credit seven hundred marks; and last on thelist was my own contribution, freshly entered. 

"She has three hundred marks yet, " commented the clerk. 

"Yes, I see, "--and I turned to go. But I paused and stepped again to thewindow. "There is another girl I would like to look up, " I said, "but Ihave only her name and no number. "

"Do you know the date of her arrival?" asked the clerk. 

"Yes, she has been here four years and six days. The name isMarguerite. "

The clerk walked over to a card file and after some searching broughtback a slip with half a dozen numbers. "Try these, " he said, and hebrought me the volumes. The second record I inspected read: "Marguerite, 78 K 4, Love-child. " On the page below was a single entry for eachmonth of two hundred marks and every entry from the first was in thename of Ludwig Zimmern. 

~9~

I kept my appointment with Bertha, but found it difficult to hide myanger as she greeted me. Wishing to get the interview over, I askedabruptly, "Have you read the book I left?"

"Not all of it, " she replied, "I found it rather dull. "

"Then perhaps I had better take it with me. "

"But I think I shall keep it awhile, " she demurred. 

"No, " I insisted, as I looked about and failed to see the geography, "Iwish you would get it for me. I want to take it back, in fact it was aborrowed book. "

"Most likely, " she smiled archly, "but since you are not a staffofficer, and had no right to have that book, you might as well know thatyou will get it when I please to give it to you. "

Seeing that she was thoroughly aware of my predicament, I grewfrightened and my anger slipped from its moorings. "See here, " I cried, "your little story of innocence and virtue is very clever, but I'velooked you up and--"

"And what--, " she asked, while through her child-like mask the subtletrickery of her nature mocked me with a look of triumph--"and what doyou propose to do about it?"

I realized the futility of my rage. "I shall do nothing. I ask only thatyou return the book. "

"But books are so valuable, " taunted Bertha. 

Dejectedly I sank to the couch. She came over and sat on a cushion at myfeet. "Really Karl, " she purred, "you should not be angry. If I insiston keeping your book it is merely to be sure that you will not forgetme. I rather like you; you are so queer and talk such odd things. Didyou learn your strange ways of making love from the book about theinferior races in the world outside the walls? I really tried to readsome of it, but I could not understand half the words. "

I rose and strode about the room. "Will you get me the book?" Idemanded. 

"And lose you?"

"Well, what of it? You can get plenty more fools like me. "

"Yes, but I would have to stand and stare into that fountain for hoursat a time. It is very tiresome. "

"Just what do you want?" I asked, trying to speak calmly. 

"Why you, " she said, placing her slender white hands upon my arm, andholding up an inviting face. 

But anger at my own gullibility had killed her power to draw me, and Ishook her off. "I want that book, " I said coldly, "what are your terms?"And I drew my check book from my pocket. 

"How many blanks have you there?" she asked with a greedy light in hereyes--"but never mind to count them. Make them all out to me at twohundred marks, and date each one a month ahead. "

Realizing that any further exhibition of fear or anger would put me morewithin her power, I sat down and began to write the checks. The fund Iwas making over to her was quite useless to me but when I had made outtwenty checks I stopped. "Now, " I said, "this is enough. You take theseor nothing. " Tearing out the written checks I held them toward her. 

As she reached out her hand I drew them back--"Go get the book, " Idemanded. 

"But you are unfair, " said Bertha, "you are the stronger. You can takethe book from me. I cannot take the checks from you. "

"That is so, " I admitted, and handed the checks to her. She looked atthem carefully and slipped them into her bosom, and then, reaching underthe pile of silken pillows, she pulled forth the geography. 

I seized it and turned toward the door, but she caught my arm. "Don't, "she pleaded, "don't go. Don't be angry with me. Why should you dislikeme? I've only played my part as you men make it for us--but I do notwant your money for nothing. You liked me when you thought me innocent. Why hate me when you find that I am clever?"

Again those slender arms stole around my neck, and the entrancing facewas raised to mine. But the vision of a finer, nobler face rose beforeme, and I pushed away the clinging arms. "I'm sorry, " I said, "I amgoing now--going back to my work and forget you. It is not your fault. You are only what Germany has made you--but, " I added with a smile, "ifyou must go to the Hall of Flowers, please do not wear that grey gown. "

She stood very still as I edged toward the door, and the look of baffledchild-like innocence crept back into her eyes, a real innocence thistime of things she did not know, and could not understand. 

CHAPTER VII

THE SUN SHINES UPON A KING AND A GIRL READS OF THE FALL OF BABYLON

~1~

Embittered by this unhappy ending of my romance, I turned to my workwith savage zeal, determined not again to be diverted by a personaleffort to save the Germans from their sins. But this application to mytest-tubes was presently interrupted by a German holiday which was knownas The Day of the Sun. 

From the conversation of my assistants I gathered that this was anannual occasion of particular importance. It was, in fact, His Majesty'sbirthday, and was celebrated by permitting the favoured classes to seethe ruler himself at the Place in the Sun. For this Royal exhibition Ireceived a blue ticket of which my assistants were curiously envious. They inspected the number of it and the hour of my admittance to theRoyal Level. "It is the first appearance of the day, " they said. "HisMajesty will be fresh to speak; you will be near; you will be able tosee His Face without the aid of a glass; you will be able to hear HisVoice, and not merely the reproducing horns. "

In the morning our news bulletin was wholly devoted to announcements andpatriotic exuberances. Across the sheet was flamed a headline statingthat the meteorologist of the Roof Observatory reported that the sunwould shine in full brilliancy upon the throne. This seemed verypuzzling to me. For the Place in the Sun was clearly located on theRoyal Level and some hundred metres beneath the roof of the city. 

I went, at the hour announced on my ticket, to the indicated elevator;and, with an eager crowd of fellow scientists, stepped forth into a vastopen space where the vaulted ceiling was supported by massive flutedcolumns that rose to twice the height of the ordinary spacing of thelevels of the city. 

An enormous crowd of men of the higher ranks was gathering. Closelypacked and standing, the multitude extended to the sides and the rear ofmy position for many hundred metres until it seemed quite lost under theglowing lights in the distance. Before us a huge curtain hung. Emblazoned on its dull crimson background of subdued socialism was agigantic black eagle, the leering emblem of autocracy. Above andextending back over us, appeared in the ceiling a deep andunlighted crevice. 

As the crowd seemed complete the men about me consulted their watchesand then suddenly grew quiet in expectancy. The lights blinked twice andwent out, and we were bathed in a hush of darkness. The heavy curtainrustled like the mantle of Jove while from somewhere above I heard theshutters of the windows of heaven move heavily on their rollers. Aflashing brilliant beam of light shot through the blackness and fell inwondrous splendour upon a dazzling metallic dais, whereon rested thegilded throne of the House of Hohenzollern. 

Seated upon the throne was a man--a very little man he seemed amidstsuch vast and vivid surroundings. He was robed in a cape of dazzlingwhite, and on his head he wore a helmet of burnished platinum. Beforethe throne and slightly to one side stood the round form of apaper globe. 

His Majesty rose, stepped a few paces forward; and, as he with solemndeliberation raised his hand into the shaft of burning light, from thethrong there came a frenzied shouting, which soon changed into a sort ofchanting and then into a throaty song. 

His Majesty lowered his hand; the song ceased; a great stillness hungover the multitude. Eitel I, Emperor of the Germans, now raised his faceand stared for a moment unblinkingly into the beam of sunlight, then helowered his gaze toward the sea of upturned faces. 

"My people, " he said, in a voice which for all his pompous effort, fellrather flat in the immensity, "you are assembled here in the Place ofthe Sun to do honour to God's anointed ruler of the world. "

From ten thousand throats came forth another raucous shout. 

"Two and a half centuries ago, " now spoke His Majesty, "God appointedthe German race, under William the Great, of the House of Hohenzollern, to be the rulers of the world. 

"For nineteen hundred years, God in his infinite patience, had awaitedthe outcome of the test of the Nazarene's doctrine of servile humilityand effeminate peace. But the Christian nations of the earth wereweighed in the balance of Divine wrath and found wanting. Wallowing inhypocrisy and ignorance, wanting in courage and valour; behind apretence of altruism they cloaked their selfish greed for gold. 

"Of all the people of the earth our race alone possessed the two keys topower, the mastery of science and the mastery of the sword. So theGermans were called of God to instil fear and reverence into the heartsof the inferior races. That was the purpose of the First World War undermy noble ancestor, William II. 

"But the envious nations, desperate in their greed, banded together todefy our old German God, and destroy His chosen people. But this wasonly a divine trial of our worth, for the plans of God are for eternity. His days to us are centuries. And we did well to patiently abide thecomplete unfoldment of the Divine plan. 

"Before two generations had passed our German ancestors cast off theyoke of enslavement and routed the oppressors in the Second World War. Lest His chosen race be contaminated by the swinish herds of the mongrelnations God called upon His people to relinquish for a time the fruitsof conquest, that they might be further purged by science and become apure-bred race of super-men. 

"That purification has been accomplished for every German is bred andtrained by science as ordained by God. There are no longer any mongrelsamong the men of Germany, for every one of you is created for hisspecial purpose and every German is fitted for his particular place as amember of the super-race. 

"The time now draws near when the final purpose of our good old GermanGod is to be fulfilled. The day of this fulfilment is known unto me. Thesun which shines upon this throne is but a symbol of that which has beendenied you while all these things were being made ready. But now the daydraws near when you shall, under my leadership, rule over the world andthe mongrel peoples. And to each of you shall be given a place inthe sun. "

The voice had ceased. A great stillness hung over the multitude. EitelI, Emperor of the Germans, threw back his cape and drew his sword. Witha sweeping flourish he slashed the paper globe in twain. 

From the myriad throated throng came a reverberating shout that rolledand echoed through the vaulted catacomb. The crimson curtain dropped. The shutters were thrown athwart the reflected beam of sunlight. Thelights of man again glowed pale amidst the maze of columns. 

Singing and marching, the men filed toward the elevators. The guardsurged haste to clear the way, for the God of the Germans could not staythe march of the sun across the roof of Berlin, and a score of paperglobes must yet be slashed for other shouting multitudes before thesun's last gleam be twisted down to shine upon a king. 

~2~

Although the working hours of the day were scarcely one-fourth gone, itwas impossible for me to return to my laboratory for the lightingcurrent was shut off for the day. I therefore decided to utilize theoccasion by returning the geography which I had rescued from Bertha. 

Dr. Zimmern's invitation to make use of his library had been cordialenough, but its location in Marguerite's apartment had made me a littlereticent about going there except in the Doctor's company. Yet I did notwish to admit to Zimmern my sensitiveness in the matter--and thegeography had been kept overlong. 

This occasion being a holiday, I found the resorts on the Level of FreeWomen crowded with merrymakers. But I sought the quieter side streetsand made my way towards Marguerite's apartment. 

"I thought you would be celebrating today, " she said as I entered. 

"I feel that I can utilize the time better by reading, " I replied. "There is so much I want to learn, and, thanks to Dr. Zimmern, I nowhave the opportunity. "

"But surely you are to see the Emperor in the Place in the Sun, " saidMarguerite when she had returned the geography to the secret shelf. 

"I have already seen him, " I replied, "my ticket was for the firstperformance. "

"It must be a magnificent sight, " she sighed. "I should so love to seethe sunlight. The pictures show us His Majesty's likeness, but what is apicture of sunlight?"

"But you speak only of a reflected beam; how would you like to see realsunshine?"

"Oh, on the roof of Berlin? But that is only for Royalty and the roofguards. I've tried to imagine that, but I know that I fail as a blindman must fail to imagine colour. "

"Close your eyes, " I said playfully, "and try very hard. "

Solemnly Marguerite closed her eyes. 

For a moment I smiled, and then the smile relaxed, for I felt as one whoscoffs at prayer. 

"And did you see the sunlight?" I asked, as she opened her eyes andgazed at me with dilated pupils. 

"No, " she answered hoarsely, "I only saw man-light as far as the wallsof Berlin, and beyond that it was all empty blackness--and itfrightens me. "

"The fear of darkness, " I said, "is the fear of ignorance. "

"You try, " and she reached over with a soft touch of her finger tips onmy closing eyelids. "Now keep them closed and tell me what you see. Tellme it is not all black. "

"I see light, " I said, "white light, on a billowy sea of clouds, as froma flying plane. .. . And now I see the sun--it is sinking behind a ruggedline of snowy peaks and the light is dimming. .. . It is gone now, but itis not dark, for moonlight, pale and silvery, is shimmering on a choppysea. .. . Now it is the darkest hour, but it is never black, only a dark, dark grey, for the roof of the world is pricked with a million points oflight. .. . The grey of the east is shot with the rose of dawn. .. . Therose brightens to scarlet and the curve of the sun appears--red like theblood of war. .. . And now the sky is crystal blue and the grey sands ofthe desert have turned to glittering gold. "

I had ceased my poetic visioning and was looking into Marguerite's face. The light of worship I saw in her eyes filled me with a strangetrembling and holy awe. 

"And I saw only blackness, " she faltered. "Is it that I am born blindand you with vision?"

"Perhaps what you call vision is only memory, " I said--but, as Irealized where my words were leading, I hastened to add--"Memory, fromanother life. Have you ever heard of such a thing as the reincarnationof the soul?"

"That means, " she said hesitatingly, "that there is something in us thatdoes not die--immortality, is it not?"

"Well, it is something like that, " I answered huskily, as I wonderedwhat she might know or dream of that which lay beyond the ken of thegross materialism of her race. "Immortality is a very beautiful idea, " Iwent on, "and science has destroyed much that is beautiful. But it is apity that Col. Hellar had to eliminate the idea of immortality from theGerman Bible. Surely such a book makes no pretence of being scientific. "

"So Col. Hellar has told you that he wrote 'God's Anointed'?" exclaimedMarguerite with eager interest. 

"Yes, he told me of that and I re-read the book with an entirelydifferent viewpoint since I came to understand the spirit in which itwas written. "

"Ah--I see. " Marguerite rose and stepped toward the library. "We have abook here, " she called, "that you have not read, and one that you cannotbuy. It will show you the source of Col. Hellar's inspiration. "

She brought out a battered volume. "This book, " she stated, "has giventhe inspectors more trouble than any other book in existence. Thoughthey have searched for thirty years, they say there are more copies ofit still at large than of all other forbidden books combined. "

I gazed at the volume she handed me--I was holding a copy of theChristian Bible translated six centuries previous by Martin Luther. Itwas indeed the very text from which as a boy I had acquired much of myreading knowledge of the language. But I decided that I had best notreveal to Marguerite my familiarity with it, and so I sat down andturned the pages with assumed perplexity. 

"It is a very odd book, " I remarked presently. "Have you read it?"

"Oh, yes, " exclaimed Marguerite. "I often read it; I think it is moreinteresting than all these modern books, but perhaps that is because Icannot understand it; I love mysterious things. "

"There is too much of it for a man as busy as I am to hope to read, " Iremarked, after turning a few more pages, "and so I had better notbegin. Will you not choose something and read it aloud to me?"

Marguerite declined at first; but, when I insisted, she took thetattered Bible and turned slowly through its pages. 

And when she read, it was the story of a king who revelled with hislords, and of a hand that wrote upon a wall. 

Her voice was low, and possessed a rhythm and cadence that transmutedthe guttural German tongue into musical poetry. 

Again she read, of a man who, though shorn of his strength by the wilesof a woman and blinded by his enemies, yet pushed asunder the pillarsof a city. 

At random she read other tales, of rulers and of slaves, of harlots andof queens--the wisdom of prophets--the songs of kings. 

Together we pondered the meanings of these strange things, and exultedin the beauty of that which was meaningless. And so the hours passed;the day drew near its close and Marguerite read from the last pages ofthe book, of a voice that cried mightily--"Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils and the hold of everyfoul spirit. "

CHAPTER VIII

FINDING THEREIN ONE RIGHTEOUS MAN I HAVE COMPASSION ON BERLIN

~1~

My first call upon Marguerite had been followed by other visits when wehad talked of books and read together. On these occasions I hadcarefully suppressed my desire to speak of more personal things. But, constantly reminded by my own troubled conscience, I grew fearful lestthe old doctor should discover that the books were the lesser part ofthe attraction that drew me to Marguerite's apartment, and my fear wasincreased as I realized that my calls on Zimmern had abruptly ceased. 

Thinking to make amends I went one evening to the doctor's apartment. 

"I was going out shortly, " said Zimmern, as he greeted me. "I have adinner engagement with Hellar on the Free Level. But I still have a littletime; if it pleases you we might walk along to our library. "

I promptly accepted the invitation, hoping that it would enable mebetter to establish my relation to Marguerite and Zimmern in a safetriangle of mutual friendship. As we walked, Zimmern, as if he read mythoughts, turned the conversation to the very subject that was uppermostin my mind. 

"I am glad, Armstadt, " he said with a gracious smile, "that you andMarguerite seem to enjoy each other's friendship. I had often wishedthere were younger men in our group, since her duties as caretaker ofour books quite forbids her cultivating the acquaintance of any menoutside our chosen few. Marguerite is very patient with the dull talk ofus old men, but life is not all books, and there is much that youthmay share. "

For these words of Zimmern's I was quite unprepared. He seemed to beinviting me to make love to Marguerite, and I wondered to what extentthe prevailing social ethics might have destroyed the finersensibilities that forbid the sharing of a woman's love. 

When we reached the apartment Marguerite greeted us with a perfectdemocracy of manner. But my reassurance of the moment was presentlydisturbed when she turned to Zimmern and said: "Now that you are here, Iam 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 anengagement with Hellar, but perhaps Armstadt will remain untilyou return. "

"Then I shall have him all to myself, " declared Marguerite with quietseriousness. 

Though I glanced from the old doctor to the young woman in questioningamazement, neither seemed in the least embarrassed or aware thatanything had been said out of keeping with the customary proprietyof life. 

Marguerite, throwing the blue velvet cape about her bare whiteshoulders, paused to give the old doctor an affectionate kiss, and witha smile for me was gone. 

For a few moments the doctor sat musing; but when he turned to me it wasto say: "I hope that you are making good use of our preciousaccumulation 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 racehas been enslaved, how all the vast store of knowledge, that as a wholemakes life possible, is parcelled out for each. Not one of us issupposed to know of those vital things outside our own narrow field. That knowledge is forbidden us lest we should understand the workings ofour social system and question the wisdom of it all. And so, while eachis wiser in his own little cell than were the men of the old order, yeton 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. Scientistshave ceased to be men, and have become thinking machines, specializedfor their particular tasks. "

"That is true, " I said, "but what are we to do about it? You have bythese forbidden books acquired a realization of the enslavement of therace--but the others, all these millions of professional men, are theynot hopelessly rendered impotent by the systematic Suppression ofknowledge?"

"The millions, yes, " replied Zimmern, "but there are the chosen few; wewho have seen the light must find a way for the liberation of all. "

"Do you mean, " I asked eagerly, "that you are planning some secretrebellion--that you hope for some possible rising of the people tooverthrow the system?"

Zimmern looked at me in astonishment. "The people, " he said, "cannotrise. In the old order such a thing was possible--revolutions theycalled them--the people led by heroes conceived passions for liberty. But such powers of mental reaction no longer exist in German minds. Wehave bred and trained it out of them. One might as well have expectedthe four-footed beasts of burden in the old agricultural days to rebelagainst their masters. "

"But, " I protested, "if the people could be enlightened?"

"How, " exclaimed Zimmern impatiently, "can you enlighten them? You areyoung, Armstadt, very young to talk of such things--even if a rebellionwas a possibility what would be the gain? Rebellion means disorder--oncethe ventilating machinery of the city and the food processes weredisturbed we should all perish in this trap--we should all die ofsuffocation and starvation. "

"Then why, " I asked, "do you talk of this thing? If rebellion isimpossible and would, if possible, destroy us all, then is thereany hope?"

Zimmern paced the floor for a time in silence and then, facing mesquarely, he said, "I have confessed to you my dissatisfaction with theexisting state. In doing this I placed myself in great danger, but Irisked that and now I shall risk more. I ask you now, Are you with usto the end?"

"Yes, " I replied very gravely, "I am with you although I cannot fullyunderstand on what you base your hope. "

"Our hope, " replied Zimmern, "is out there in the world from whence comethose flying men who rain bombs on the roof of Berlin and for ever keepus patching it. We must get word to them. We must throw ourselves uponthe humanity of our enemies and ask them to save us. "

"But, " I questioned, in my excitement, "what can Germany expect of theenemy? She has made war against the world for centuries--will that worldpermit 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 iscapable of making war against the world so long will the world attemptto destroy her. You, Colonel Armstadt, hold in your protium secret thepower of Germany to continue the war against the world. Because you wereabout to gain that power I risked my own life to aid you in getting awider knowledge. Because you now hold that power I risk it again byasking you to use it to destroy Germany and save the Germans. The menwho are with me in this cause, and for whom I speak, are but a few. Themillions materially alive, are spiritually dead. The world alone cangive them life again as men. Even though a few million more be destroyedin the giving have not millions already been destroyed? What if you dosave Germany now--what does it mean merely that we breed millions morelike we now have, soulless creatures born to die like worms in theground, brains working automatically, stamping out one sort of idea, like machines that stamp out buttons--or mere mouths shouting likephonographs before this gaudy show of royalty?"

"But, " I said, "you speak for the few emancipated minds; what of allthese men who accept the system--you call them slaves, yet are they notcontent with their slavery, do they want to be men of the world orcontinue here in their bondage and die fighting to keep up their ownsystem of enslavement?"

"It makes no difference what they want, " replied Zimmern, in a voicethat trembled with emotion; "we bred them as slaves to the _kultur_ ofGermany, the thing to do is to stop the breeding. "

"But how, " I asked, "can men who have been beaten into the mould of theox ever be restored to their humanity?"

"The old ones cannot, " sighed Zimmern; "it was always so; when a peoplehas once fallen into evil ways the old generation can never be whollyredeemed, but youth can always be saved--youth is plastic. "

"But the German race, " I said, "has not only been mis-educated, it hasbeen mis-bred. Can you undo inheritance? Can this race with its vasthorde of workers bred for a maximum of muscle and a minimum of brainsever escape from that stupidity that has been bred into the blood?"

"You have been trained as a chemist, " said Zimmern, "you despair of thefuture because you do not understand the laws of inheritance. Aspecialized type of man or animal is produced from the selection of theextreme individuals. That you know. But what you do not know is that thetype once established does not persist of its own accord. It can only bemaintained by the rigid continuance of the selection. The averagestature of man did not change a centimetre in a thousand years, till wecame in with our meddlesome eugenics. Leave off our scientific meddlingand the race will quickly revert to the normal type. 

"That applies to the physical changes; in the mental powers therestoration will be even more rapid, because we have made less change inthe psychic elements of the germ plasm. The inborn capacity of the humanbrain is hard to alter. Men are created more nearly equal than even thewriters of democratic constitutions have ever known. If the World Statewill once help us to free ourselves from these shackles of rigid casteand cultured ignorance, this folly of scientific meddling with the bloodand brains of man, there is yet hope for this race, for we have changedfar 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 safeand our hearts fine. Without her I fear we should all have given uplong ago. "

With a trembling handclasp he left me alone in Marguerite's apartment. And alone too with my conflicting and troubled emotions. He was alovable soul, ripe with the wisdom of age, yet youthful in his hopes toredeem his people from the curse of this unholy blend of socialism andautocracy that had prostituted science and made a black Utopiannightmare of man's millennial dream. 

Vaguely I wondered how many of the three hundred millions of Germansouls--for I could not accept the soulless theory of Zimmern--were yetcapable of a realization of their humanity. To this query there could beno answer, but of one conclusion I was certain, it was not my place toask what these people wanted, for their power to decide was destroyed bythe infernal process of their making--but here at least, my democratictraining easily gave the answer that Dr. Zimmern had achieved by sheergenius, and my answer was that for men whose desire for liberty has beendestroyed, 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 hadlong suspected, Dr. Zimmern and his little group of rebellious soulswere with me. But what could so few do amidst all the millions? Myanswer, like Zimmern's, was that the salvation of Germany lay in theenemies' hands--and I alone was of that enemy. Yet never again could Ipray for the destruction of the city at the hands of the outragedgod--Humanity. And I thought of Sodom and Gomorrah which the God ofAbraham had agreed to spare if there be found ten righteous men therein. 

~2~

From these far-reaching thoughts my mind was drawn sharply back to thefact of my presence in Marguerite's apartment and the realization thatshe would shortly return to find me there alone. I resented the factthat the old doctor and the young woman could conspire to place me insuch a situation. I resented the fact that a girl like Marguerite couldbe bound to a man three times her age, and yet seem to accept it withperfect grace. But I resented most of all the fact that both she andZimmern appeared to invite me to share in a triangle of love, open andunashamed. 

My bitter brooding was disturbed by the sound of a key turning in thelock, and Marguerite, fresh and charming from the exhilaration of herwalk, came into the room. 

"I am so glad you remained, " she said. "I hope no one else comes and wecan have the evening to ourselves. "

"It seems, " I answered with a touch of bitterness, "that Dr. Zimmernconsiders me quite a safe playmate for you. "

At my words Marguerite blushed prettily. "I know you do not quiteunderstand, " she said, "but you see I am rather peculiarly situated. Icannot go out much, and I can have no girl friends here, and no meneither 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 thedoctor himself, and Col. Hellar. You rank quite as well as some of theothers, but you are ever so much younger. That is why the doctor thinksyou are so wonderful--I mean because you have risen so high at so earlyan age--but perhaps I think you are rather wonderful just because youare young. Is it not natural for young people to want friends oftheir 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 coulda child be burned by a fire since it could never approach one. They onlyhave fires in the smelting furnaces, and children could never gonear them. "

Despite my bitter mood I smiled as I said: "It is just a figure ofspeech that I got out of an old book. It means that when one is hurt bysomething he does not want to be hurt in the same way again. Youremember what you said to me in the café about looking up the girl whoplayed the innocent rôle? I did look her up, and you were right aboutit. 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 girleither, as you think I had; perhaps I would have done so, but thanks toyou 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 thesecond 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 knowthat I have spent most of my time in a laboratory. I also want you toknow that I do not like the artful deceit that you all seem tocultivate. "

"And do you think I am trying to deceive you?" cried Margueritereproachfully. 

"Your words may be true, " I said, "but the situation you place me in isa false one. Dr. Zimmern brings me here that I may read your books. Heleaves 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 thatyou particularly want my company because you have no other youngfriends. In fact you practically ask me to make love to you and yet youknow why I cannot. "

In the excitement of my warring emotions I had risen and was pacing thefloor, 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 thepoint of leaving at once. But a moment of reflection caused me to turnback. I had forced a quarrel upon Marguerite and the cause for my angershe perhaps did not comprehend. If I left now it would be impossible toreturn, and if I did not come back, there would be explanations to maketo Zimmern and perhaps an ending of my association with him and hisgroup, which was not only the sole source of my intellectual lifeoutside my work, but which I had begun to hope might lead to someenterprise of moment and possibly to my escape from Berlin. 

So calming my anger, I turned to the library and doggedly pulled down abook and began scanning its contents. I had been so occupied for sometime, when there was a ring at the bell. I peered out into thereception-room in time to see Marguerite come from another door. Hereyes revealed the fact that she had been crying. Quickly she closed thedoor of the little library, shutting me in with the books. A momentlater she came in with a grey-haired man, a staff officer of theelectrical works. She introduced us coolly and then helped the old manfind 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 andfor a time I despaired of a chance to speak to her before I felt I mustdepart. Another hour passed and then she stole into the library andseated herself very quietly on a little dressing chair and watched me asI proceeded with my reading. 

I asked her some questions about one of the volumes and she replied witha meek and forgiving voice that made me despise myself heartily. Otherquestions and answers followed and soon we were talking again of booksas if we had no overwhelming sense of the personal presence ofeach other. 

The hours passed; by all my sense of propriety I should have been longdeparted, but still we talked of books without once referring to myheated words of the earlier evening. 

She had stood enticingly near me as we pulled down the volumes. My heartbeat wildly as she sat by my side, while I mechanically turned thepages. The brush of her garments against my sleeve quite maddened me. Ihad not dared to look into her eyes, as I talked meaningless, bookish words. 

Summoning all my self-control, I now faced her. "Marguerite, " I saidhoarsely, "look at me. "

She lifted her eyes and met my gaze unflinchingly, the moisture of freshtears 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 cordialitytoward me as Dr. Zimmern's friend to mean more than--than itshould mean. "

"But I do not understand, " she said. "Should I not have told you that Iliked you because you were young? Of course if you don't want meto--to--" She paused abruptly, her face suffused with adelicate crimson. 

I stepped toward her and reached out my arms. But she drew back andslipped quickly around the table. "No, " she cried, "no, you have saidthat 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 awoman had no understanding of ideals of honour in love? Could it be thatshe had no appreciation of the fight I had waged, and so nearly lost, torespect the trust and confidence that the old doctor had placed in me. With these thoughts the ardour of my passion cooled and a feeling ofpity swept over me, as I sensed the tragedy of so fine a woman ethicallyimpoverished by false training and environment. Had she known honour, and yet discarded it, I too should have been unable to resist theimpulse of youth to deny to age its less imperious claims. 

But either she chose artfully to ignore my struggle or she was trulyunaware of it. In either case she would not share the responsibility forthe breach of faith. I was puzzled and confounded. 

It was Marguerite who broke the bewildering silence. "I wish you wouldgo now, " she said coolly; "I am afraid I misunderstood. "

"And shall I come again?" I asked awkwardly. 

She looked up at me and smiled bravely. "Yes, " she said, "if--you aresure you wish to. "

A resurge of passionate longing to take her in my arms swept over me, but she held out her hand with such rare and dignified grace that Icould only take the slender fingers and press them hungrily to myfevered lips and so bid her a wordless adieu. 

~3~

But despite wild longing to see her again, I did not return toMarguerite's apartment for many weeks. A crisis in my work at thelaboratory denied me even a single hour of leisure outside briefsnatches of food and sleep. 

I had previously reported to the Chemical Staff that I had found meansto increase materially the extraction percentage of the precious elementprotium from the crude imported ore. I had now received word that Ishould prepare to make a trial demonstration before the Staff. 

Already I had revealed certain results of my progress to Herr von Uhl, as this had been necessary in order to get further grants of the rarematerial and of expensive equipment needed for the research, but inthese smaller demonstrations, I had not been called upon to disclose mymethod. Now the Staff, hopeful that I had made the great discovery, insisted that I prepare at once to make a large scale demonstration andreveal the method that it might immediately be adopted for the wholesaleextraction in the industrial works. 

If I now gave away the full secret of my process, I would receivecompensation that would indeed seem lavish for a man whose mentalhorizon was bounded by these enclosing walls; yet to me for whom thesewalls would always be a prison, credit at the banks of Berlin and thebaubles of decoration and rank and social honour would be soundingbrass. But I wanted power; and, with the secret of protium extraction inmy possession, I would have control of life or death over three hundredmillion men. Why should I sacrifice such power for useless credit andempty honour? If Eitel I of the House of Hohenzollern would lengthen thedays of his rule, let him deal with me and meet whatever terms I choseto name, for in my chemical retorts I had brewed a secret before whichvaunted efficiency and hypocritical divinity could be made to bend ahungry belly and beg for food!

It was a laudable and rather thrilling ambition, and yet I was not clearas to just what terms I would dictate, nor how I could enforce thedictation. To ask for an audience with the Emperor now, and to take anysuch preposterous stand would merely be to get myself locked up for alunatic. But I reasoned that if I could make the demonstration so thatit would be accepted as genuine and yet not give away my secret, thesituation would be in my hands. Yet I was expected to reveal the processstep by step as the demonstration proceeded. There was but one way outand that was to make a genuine demonstration, but with falselywritten formulas. 

To plan and prepare such a demonstration required more genuine inventionthan had the discovery of the process, but I set about the task withfeverish enthusiasm. I kept my assistants busy with the preparation ofthe apparatus and the more simple work which there was no need todisguise, while night after night I worked alone, altering anddisguising the secret steps on which my great discovery hinged. As thesepreparations were nearing completion I sent for Dr. Zimmern and Col. Hellar to meet me at my apartment. 

"Comrades, " I said, "you have endangered your own lives by confiding inme your secret desires to overthrow the rule of the House ofHohenzollern as it was overthrown once before. You have done thisbecause you believed that I would have power that others do not have. "

The two old men nodded in grave assent. 

"And you have been quite fortunate in your choice, " I concluded, "fornot only have I pledged myself to your ends, but I shall soon possessthe coveted power. In a few days I shall demonstrate my process on alarge scale before the Chemical Staff. But I shall do this thing withoutrevealing the method. The formulas I shall give them will bemeaningless. As long as I am in charge in my own laboratory the processwill be a success; when it is tried elsewhere it will fail, until Ichoose to make further revelations. 

"So you see, for a time, unless I be killed or tortured into confession, I shall have great power. How then may I use that power to help you inthe cause to which we are pledged?"

The older men seemed greatly impressed with my declaration and dancedabout me and cried with joy. When they had regained their composureZimmern said: "There is but one thing you can do for us and that is tofind some way to get word of the protium mines to the authorities of theWorld State. Berlin will then be at their mercy, but whatever happenscan be no worse than the continuance of things as they are. "

"But how, " I said, "can a message be sent from Berlin to the outerworld?"

"There is only one way, " replied Hellar, "and that is by the submarinesthat go out for this ore. The Submarine Staff are members of the RoyalHouse. So, indeed, are the captains. We have tried for years to gain theconfidence of some of these men, but without avail. Perhaps through yourwork on the protium ore you can succeed where we have failed. "

"And how, " I asked eagerly, "do the ore-bringing vessels get from Berlinto the sea?"

My visitors glanced at each other significantly. "Do you not know that?"exclaimed Zimmern. "We had supposed you would have been told when youwere assigned to the protium research. "

By way of answer I explained that I knew the source of the ore but notthe route of its coming. 

"All such knowledge is suppressed in books, " commented Hellar; "we oldermen know of this by word of mouth from the days when the submarinetunnel was completed to the sea, but you are younger. Unless this wastold you at the time you were assigned the work it is not to be expectedthat you would know. "

I questioned Hellar and Zimmern closely but found that all they knew wasthat a submarine tunnel did exist leading from Berlin somewhere into theopen sea; but its exact location they did not know. Again I pressed myquestion as to what I could do with the power of my secret and theycould only repeat that they staked their hopes on getting word to theouter world by way of submarines. 

Much as I might admire the strength of character that would lead men torebel against the only life they knew because they sensed that it washopeless, I now found myself a little exasperated at the vagueness oftheir plans. Yet I had none better. To defy the Emperor would merely beto risk my life and the possible loss of my knowledge to the world. Perhaps after all the older heads were wiser than my own rebelliousspirit; and so, without making any more definite plans, I ended theinterview with a promise to let them know of the outcome of thedemonstration. 

Returning once more to my work I finished my preparations and sent wordto the Chemical Staff that all was ready. They came with solemn faces. The laboratory was locked and guards were posted. The place was examinedthoroughly, the apparatus was studied in detail. All my ingredients weretested for the presence of extracted protium, lest I be trying to "saltthe mine. " But happily for me they accepted my statement as to theirchemical nature in other respects. Then when all had been approved thetest lot of ore was run. It took us thirty hours to run the extractionand sample and weigh and test the product. But everything went throughexactly as I had planned. 

With solemn faces the Chemical Staff unanimously declared that theproblem had been solved and marvelled that the solution should come fromthe brain of so young a man. And so I received their adulation andworship, for I could not give credit to the chemists of the worldoutside to whom I was really indebted for my seeming miraculous genius. Telling me to take my rest and prepare myself for an audience with HisMajesty three days later, the Chemical Staff departed, carrying, withguarded secrecy, my false formulas. 

~4~

Exultant and happy I left the laboratory. I had not slept for fortyhours and scarcely half my regular allotment for many weeks. And yet I wasnot sleepy now but awake and excited. I had won a great victory, and Iwanted to rejoice and share my conquest with sympathetic ears. I couldgo to Zimmern, but instead I turned my steps toward the elevator and, alighting on the Level of the Free Women, I went straightway toMarguerite's apartment. 

Despite my feeling of exhilaration, my face must have revealed somethingof my real state of exhaustion, for Marguerite cried in alarm at thesight of me. 

"A little tired, " I replied, in answer to her solicitous questions; "Ihave just finished my demonstration before the Chemical Staff. "

"And you won?" cried Marguerite in a burst of joy. "You deceived themjust as the doctor said you would. And they know you have solved theprotium problem and they do not know how you did it?"

"That is correct, " I said, sinking back into the cushions of the divan. "I have done all that. I came here first to tell you. You see I couldnot come before, all these weeks, I have had no time for sleep oranything. I would have telephoned or written but I feared it would notbe safe. Did you think I was not coming again?"

"I missed you at first, --I mean at first I thought you were staying awaybecause you did not want to see me, and then Dr. Zimmern told me whatyou were doing, and I understood--and waited, for I somehow knew youwould come as soon as you could. "

"Yes, of course you knew. Of course, I had to come--Marguerite--" ButMarguerite faded before my vision. I reached out my hand for her--and itseemed to wave in empty space. .. . 

~5~

When I awoke, I was lying on a couch and a screen bedecked with cupidswas standing before me. At first I thought I was alone and then Irealized that I was in Marguerite's apartment and that Margueriteherself was seated on a low stool beside the couch and gazing at me outof dreamy eyes. 

"How did I get here?" I asked. 

"You fell asleep while you were talking, and then some one came forbooks, and when the bell rang I hid you with the screen. "

"How long have I slept?"

"For many hours, " she answered. 

"I ought not to have come, " I said, but despite my remark I made nohaste to go, but reached out and ran my fingers through her massy hair. And then I slowly drew her toward me until her luxuriant locks weretumbled about my neck and face and her head was pillowed on my breast. 

"I am so happy, " she whispered. "I am so glad you came first to me. "

For a moment my reason was drugged by the opiate of her touch; and then, as the realization of the circumstances re-formed in my brain, thefeeling of guilt arose and routed the dreamy bliss. Yet I could onlyblame myself, for there was no guile in her act or word, nor could Ibelieve there was guile in her heart. Gently I pushed her away andarose, stating that I must leave at once. 

It was plainly evident that Marguerite did not share my sense ofembarrassment, that she was aware of no breach of ethics. But her easeonly served to impress upon me the greater burden of my responsibilityand emphasize the breach of honour of which I was guilty in permittingthis expression of my love to a woman whom circumstances had boundto Zimmern. 

Pleading need for rest and for time to plan my interview with HisMajesty, I hastened away, feeling that I dare not trust myself alonewith her again. 

~6~

I returned to my own apartment, and when another day had passed, foodand sleep had fully restored me to a normal state. I then recalled mypromise to inform Hellar and Zimmern of the outcome of my demonstration. I called at Zimmern's quarters but he was not at home. Hence I went tocall on Hellar, to ask of Zimmern's whereabouts. 

"I have an appointment to meet him tonight, " said Hellar, "on the Levelof Free Women. Will you not come along?"

I could not well do otherwise than accept, and Hellar led me again tothe apartment from which I had fled twenty-four hours before. There wefound Zimmern, who received me with his usual graciousness. 

"I have already heard from Marguerite, " said Zimmern, "of your success. "

I glanced apprehensively at the girl but she was in no wise disturbed, and proceeded to relate for Hellar's information the story of my comingto her exhausted from my work and of my falling asleep in her apartment. All of them seemed to think it amusing, but there was no evidence thatany one considered it the least improper. Their matter-of-fact attitudepuzzled and annoyed me; they seemed to treat the incident as if it hadbeen the experience of a couple of children. 

This angered me, for it seemed proof that they considered Marguerite'slove as the common property of any and all. 

"Could it be, " I asked myself, "that jealousy has been bred and trainedout of this race? Is it possible they have killed the instinct thatdemands private and individual property in love?" Even as I pondered theproblem it seemed answered, for as I sat and talked with Zimmern andHellar of my chemical demonstration and the coming interview with HisMajesty, Marguerite came and seated herself on the arm of my chair andpillowed her head on my shoulder. 

Troubled and embarrassed, yet not having the courage to repulse hercaresses, I stared at Zimmern, who smiled on us with indulgence. In factit seemed that he actually enjoyed the scene. My anger flamed up againsthim, but for Marguerite I had only pity, for her action seemed sonatural and unaffected that I could not believe that she was makingsport of me, and could only conclude that she had been so bred in thespirit of the place that she knew nothing else. 

My talk with the men ended as had the last one, without arriving at anyparticular plan of action, and when Hellar arose first to go, I took theopportunity to escape from what to me was an intolerable situation. 

~7~

I separated from Hellar and for an hour or more I wandered on the level. Then resolving to end the strain of my enigmatical position I turnedagain toward Marguerite's apartment. She answered my ring. I entered andfound her alone. 

"Marguerite, " I began, "I cannot stand this intolerable situation. Icannot share the love of a woman with another man--I cannot steal awoman's love from a man who is my friend--"

At this outburst Marguerite only stared at me in puzzled amazement. "Then you do not want me to love you, " she stammered. 

"God knows, " I cried, "how I do want you to love me, but it must not bewhile Dr. Zimmern is alive and you--"

"So, " said a voice--and glancing up I saw Zimmern himself framed in thedoorway of the book room. The old doctor looked from me to Marguerite, while a smile beamed on his courtly countenance. 

"Sit down and calm yourself, Armstadt, " said Zimmern. "It is time Ispoke to you of Marguerite and of the relation I bear to her. As youknow, I brought her to this level from the school for girls of forbiddenbirth. But what you do not know is that she was born on the Royal Level. 

"I knew Marguerite's mother. She was Princess Fedora, a third cousin ofthe Empress. I was her physician, for I have not always been in theEugenic Service. But Marguerite was born out of wedlock, and the motherdeclined to name the father of her child. Because of that the child wasconsigned to the school for forbidden love-children, which meant thatshe would be fated for the life of a free woman and become the propertyof such men as had the price to pay. 

"When her child was taken away from her, the mother killed herself; andbecause I declined to testify as to what I knew of the case I lost mycommission as a physician of Royalty. But still having the freedom ofthe school levels, I was permitted to keep track of Marguerite. As soonas she reached the age of her freedom I brought her here, and by the aidof her splendid birth and the companionship of thinking men she hasbecome the woman you now find her. "

In my jealousy I had listened to the first words of the old doctor withbut little comprehension. But as he talked on so calmly and kindly aneager hope leaped up within me. Was it possible that it had been I whohad misunderstood--and that Zimmern's love for Marguerite was of anothersort than mine?

Tensely I awaited his further words, but I did not dare to look atMarguerite, who had taken her place beside him. 

"I brought her here, " Zimmern continued, "for there was no other placewhere she could go except into the keeping of some man. I have given herthe work of guarding our books, and for that I could have well affordedto pay for her living. 

"You find in Marguerite a woman of intelligence, and there are fewenough like her. And she finds in you a man of rare gifts, and you areboth young, so it is not strange that you two should love each other. All this I considered before I brought you here to meet her. I was happywhen Marguerite told me that it was so. But your happiness is marred, because you, Armstadt, think that I am in the way; you have believedthat I bear the relation to Marguerite that the fact of my paying forher presence on this level would imply. 

"It speaks well of your honour, " the doctor went on, "that you have feltas you did. I should have explained sooner, but I did not wish to speakof this until it was necessary to Marguerite's happiness. But now that Ihave spoken there is nothing to stand in the way of your happiness, forMarguerite is as worthy of your love as if she had but made her début onthe Royal Level to which she was born. As for what is to be between you, I can only leave it to the best that is in yourselves, and whatever thatmay be has my blessing. "

As I listened to the doctor's words entranced with rapture, the visionof Marguerite floated hazily before my eyes as if she were an etherealessence that might, at any moment, be snatched away. But as the doctor'swords ceased my eyes met Marguerite's and all else seemed to fade butthe love light that shone from out their liquid depths. 

Forgetting utterly the presence of the man whose words had set us free, our hearts reached out with hungry arms to claim their own. 

For us, time lost her reckoning amidst our tears and kisses, and when mybrain at last made known to me the existence of other souls than ours, Ilooked up and found that we were alone. A saucy little clock tickedrhythmically on a mantel. I felt an absurd desire to smash it, for theimpudent thing had been running all the while. 

CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH I SALUTE THE STATUE OF GOD AND A PSYCHICEXPERT EXPLORES MY BRAIN AND FINDS NOTHING

~1~

The Chemical Staff called for me at my laboratory to conduct me to thepresence of the Emperor. At the elevator we were met by an electricvehicle manned fore and aft by pompous guards. Through the wide, highstreets we rolled noiselessly past the decorated facades of the spaciousapartments that housed the seventeen thousand members of the House ofHohenzollern. 

At times the ample streets broadened into still more roomy avenues wherepotted trees alternated with the frescoed columns, and beyond which wereluxurious gardens and vast statuary halls. On the Level of Free Womenthe life was one of crowded revelry, of the bauble and delights ofcarnival, but on the Royal Level there was an atmosphere of luxuriousleisure, with vast spaces given over to the privacy of aristocraticidleness. 

An occasional vehicle rolled swiftly past us on the glassy smoothness ofthe pavement; more rarely lonely couples strolled among the potted treesor sat in dreamy indolence beside the fountains. There was no crowding, no mass of humanity, no narrow halls, no congested apartments. Allstructure here was on a scale of magnificent size and distances, whileby comparison the men and women appeared dwarfed, but withal distinctivein their costumes and regal in their leisurely idleness. 

After some kilometres of travel we came to His Majesty's palace, whichstood detached from all other enclosed structures and was surrounded onall sides by ever-necessary columns that seemed like a forest of treetrunks spaced and distanced in geometrical design. 

As we approached the massive doorway of the palace, our party paused, and stood stiffly erect. Before us were two colossal statues ofglistening white crystal. My fellow scientists faced one of the figures, which I recognized as that of William II, and I, a little tardily, saluted with them. And now we turned sharply on our heels and salutedthe second figure of these twin German heroes. For German it wasunmistakably in every feature, save for the one oddity that the Teutonicface wore a flowing beard not unlike that of Michael Angelo's Moses. Aswe moved forward my eye swept in the lettering on the pedestal, _"UnserAlte Deutche Gott, "_ and I was aware that I had acknowledged myallegience to the supreme war lord--I had saluted the Statue of God. 

Entering the palace we were conducted through a long hall-way hung withfloral tapestries. We passed through several great metal doors guardedby stalwart leaden-faced men and came at last into the imperial audienceroom, where His Majesty, Eitel I, satellited by his ministers, sat stiffand upright at the head of the council table. 

Though he had seemed a small man when I had seen him in the dazzlingbeam of the reflected sunlight, I now perceived that he was of more thanaverage stature. He wore no crown and no helmet, but only a crop ofstiff iron grey hair brushed boldly upright. His face was stern, hisnose beak-like, and his small eyes grey and piercing. Over the high backof his chair was thrown his cape, and he was clad in a jacket of whitecellulose velvet buttoned to the throat with large platinum buttons. 

Formally presented by one of the secretaries we made our stiff bows andwere seated at the table facing His Majesty across the unlitteredsurface of black glass. 

The Emperor nodded to the Chief of the Chemical Staff who arose and readthe report of my solution of the protium problem. He ended by advisingthat the process should immediately replace the one then in use in theextraction of the ore in the industrial works and that I was recommendedfor promotion to the place to be vacated by the retiring member of theChemical Staff and should be given full charge of the protium industry. 

Emperor Eitel listened with solemn nods of approval. When the readingwas finished he arose and proclaimed the retirement with honour, andbecause of his advanced age, of Herr von Uhl. The old chemist nowstepped forward and the Emperor removed from von Uhl's breast theinsignia of active Staff service and replaced it with the insignia ofhonourable retirement. 

In my turn I also stood before His Majesty, who when he had pinned uponmy breast the Staff insignia said: "I hereby commission you as Member ofthe Chemical Staff and Director of the Protium Works. Against thefortune, to be accredited to you and your descendants, you areauthorized to draw from the Imperial Bank a million marks a year. Thatyou shall more graciously befit this fortune I confer upon you the titleof 'von' and the social privilege of the Royal Level. "

When the formal ceremonies were ended I again arose and addressed theEmperor. "Your Majesty, " I said, as I looked unflinchingly at his ironvisage, "I beg leave to make a personal petition. "

"State it, " commanded the Emperor. 

"I wish to ask that you restore to the Royal Level a girl who is now inthe Level of the Free Women, and known there as Marguerite 78 K 4, butwho was born on the Royal Level as a daughter of Princess Fedora ofthe House of Hohenzollern. "

A hush of consternation fell upon those about the table. 

"Your petition, " said the Emperor, "cannot be granted. "

"Then, " I said, speaking with studied emphasis, "I cannot proceed withthe work of extracting protium. "

An angry cloud gathered on the face of Eitel I. "Herr von Armstadt, " hesaid, "the title and awards which have just been conferred upon you areirrevocable. But if you decline to perform the duties of your officethose duties can be performed by others. "

"But others cannot perform them, " I replied. "The demonstration Iconducted was genuine, but the formulas I have given were not genuine. The true formulas for my method of extracting protium are locked withinmy brain and I will reveal them only when the petition I ask hasbeen granted. "

At these words the Emperor pounded on the table with a heavy fist. "Whatdoes this mean?" he demanded of the Chemical Staff. 

"It is a lie, " shouted the Chief of the Staff. "We have the formulas andthey are correct, for we saw the demonstration conducted with theingredients stated in the formulas which Armstadt gave us. "

"Very well, " I cried; "go try your formulas; go repeat thedemonstration, if you can. "

The Emperor, glaring his rage, punched savagely at a signal button onthe arm of his chair. 

Two palace guards answered the summons. "Arrest this man, " shouted HisMajesty, "and keep him in close confinement; permit him to see no one. "

Without further ado I was led off by the guards, while the Emperorshouted imprecations at the Chemical Staff. 

~2~

The place to which I was conducted was a suite of rooms in a remotecorner of the Royal Palace. There was a large bedroom and bath, and aluxurious study or lounging room. Here I found a case of books, whichproved to be novels bearing the imprint of the Royal Level. 

Despite the comfortable surroundings, it was evident that I was securelyimprisoned, for the door was of metal, the ventilating gratings werelong narrow slits, and the walls were of heavy concrete--and there beingno windows, no bars were needed. Any living apartment in the city wouldhave served equally well the jailor's purpose; for it were onlynecessary to turn a key from without to make of it a cell in thisgigantic prison of Berlin. 

The regular appearance of my meals by mechanical carrier was the onlyway I had to reckon the passing of time, for it had chanced that I hadforgotten my watch when dressing for the audience with His Majesty. Iwrestled with unmeasured time by perusing the novels which gave mefragmentary pictures of the social life on the Royal Level. 

As I turned over the situation in my mind I reassured myself that thesecrecy of my formulas was impregnable. The discovery of the process hadbeen rendered possible by knowledge I had brought with me from the outerworld. The reagents that I had used were synthetic substances, the veryexistence of which was unknown to the Germans. I had previously preparedthese compounds and had used and completely destroyed them in making thedemonstration, while I had taken pains to remove all traces of theirpreparation. Hence I had little to fear of the Chemical Staffduplicating my work, though doubtless they were making desperate effortsto do so, and my imprisonment was very evidently for the purpose ofpermitting them to make that effort. 

On that score I felt that I had played my cards well, but there wereother thoughts that troubled me, chief of which was a fear that someinvestigation might be set on foot in regard to Marguerite and that herguardianship of the library of forbidden books might be discovered. Withthis worry to torment me, the hours dragged slowly enough. 

I had been some five days in this solitary confinement when the dooropened and a man entered. He wore the uniform of a physician andintroduced himself as Dr. Boehm, explaining that he had been sent by HisMajesty to look after my health. The idea rather amused me; at least, Ithought, the Emperor had decided that the secrets of my brain were wellworth preservation, and I reasoned that this was evidence that theChemical Staff had made an effort to duplicate my work and had reportedtheir failure to do so. 

The doctor made what seemed to me a rather perfunctory physicalexamination, which included a very minute inspection of my eyes. Then heput me through a series of psychological test queries. When he hadfinished he sighed deeply and said: "I am sorry to find that you aresuffering from a disturbed balance of the altruistic and the egotisticcortical impulses; it is doubtless due to the intensive demands made uponthe creative potential before you were completely recovered from thesub-normal psychosis due to the gas attack in the potash mines. "

This diagnosis impressed me as a palpable fraud, but I became genuinelyalarmed at the mention of the affair at the potash mines. I was somewhatreassured at the thought that this reference was probably a part of therecord of Karl Armstadt, which was doubtless on file at the medicalheadquarters, and had been looked up by Dr. Boehm who was in need ofmaking out a plausible case for some purpose--perhaps that of confiningme permanently on the grounds of insanity. Whatever might be the move onfoot it was clearly essential for me to keep myself cool and wellin hand. 

The doctor, after eyeing me calmly for a few moments, said: "It will benecessary for me to go out for a time and secure apparatus for a moresearching examination. Meanwhile be assured you will not be furtherneglected. In fact, I shall arrange for the time to share your apartmentwith you, as loneliness will aggravate your derangement. "

In a few hours the doctor returned. He brought with him acomplicated-looking apparatus and was followed by two attendantscarrying a bed. 

The doctor pushed the apparatus into the corner, and, after seeing hisbed installed in my sleeping chamber, dismissed the attendants and satdown and began to entertain me with accounts of various cases of mentalderangement that had come under his care. So far as I could determinehis object, if he had any other than killing time, it was to impress mewith the importance of submitting graciously to his care. 

Tiring of these stories of the doctor's professional successes with meekand trusting patients, I took the management of the conversation into myown hands. 

"Since you are a psychic expert, Dr. Boehm, perhaps you can explain tome the mental processes that cause a man to prize a large bank creditwhen there is positively no legal way in which he can expendthe credit. "

The doctor looked at me quizzically. "How do you mean, " he asked, "thatthere is no legal way in which he can expend the credit?"

"Well, take my own case. The Emperor has bestowed upon me a credit of amillion marks a year. But I risked losing it by demanding that a youngwoman of the Free Level be restored to the Royal Level where shewas born. "

"Of this I am aware, " replied the psychic physician. "That is why HisMajesty became alarmed lest your mental equilibrium be disturbed. Itseems to indicate an atavistic reversion to a condition of romanticaltruism, but as your pedigree is normal, I deem it merely a temporaryloss of balance. "

"But why, " I asked, "do you consider it abnormal at all? Is thereevidence of any great degree of unselfishness in a man desiring thebestowal of happiness upon a particular woman in preference to bankcredit which he cannot expend? What should I do with a million marks ayear when I have been unable to expend the ten thousand a year Ihave had?"

"Ah, " exclaimed the doctor, the light of a brilliant discovery breakingover his countenance. "Perhaps this in a measure explains your case. Youhave evidently been so absorbed in your work that you have notsufficiently developed your appetite for personal enjoyment. "

"Perhaps I have not. But just how should I expend more funds; food, clothing, living quarters are all provided me, there is nothing but a fewtawdry amusements that one can buy, nor is there any one to give the moneyto--even if a man had children they cannot inherit his wealth. Just whatis money for, anyway?"

The doctor nodded his head and smiled in satisfaction. "You askinteresting questions, " he said. "I shall try to answer them. Money orbank credit is merely a symbol of wealth. In ancient times wealth wasrepresented by the private ownership of physical property, which was thebasis of capitalistic or competitive society. Racial progress was thenachieved by the mating of the men of superior brain with the mostbeautiful women. Women do not appreciate the mental power of man in itsdirect expression, or even its social use; they can only comprehend thatpower when it is translated into wealth. After the destruction ofprivate property women refused to accept as mates the men ofintellectual power, but preferred instead men of physical strength andpersonal beauty. 

"At first this was considered to be a proof of the superiority of theproletariat. For, with all men economically equal, the beautiful womenturned from the anemic intellectual and the sons of aristocracy, to thestrong arms of labour. Believing themselves to be the source of allwealth, and by that right vested with sole political power, and nowfinding themselves preferred by the beautiful women, the labourer wouldsoon have eliminated all other classes from human society. Had unbridledsocialism with its free mating continued, we should have become merely ahorde of handsome savages. 

"Such would have been the destiny of our race had not William IIIforeseen the outcome and restored war, the blessings of which had beenall but lost to the world. The progress of peace depended upon thecompetition of capitalism, but in peace progress is incidental. In warit is essential. Because war requires invention, it saved theintellectual classes, and because war requires authority it madepossible the restoration of our Royal House. Labour, the tyrant ofpeace, became again the slave of war, and under the plea of patrioticnecessity eugenics was established, which again restored the beautifulwomen to the superior men. And thus by Imperial Socialism the race waspreserved from deterioriation. "

"But surely, " I said, "eugenics has more than remedied this defect ofsocialism, for the selection of men of superior mentality is much morerigid than it could have been under the capricious matings ofcapitalistic society. Why then this need of wealth?"

"Eugenics, " replied Boehm, "breeds superior children, but eugenic matingis a cold scientific thing which fails to fan the flame of man'sambition to do creative work. That is why we have the Level of FreeWomen and have not bred the virility out of the intellectual group. Thatis also the reason we have retained the Free Level on a competitivecommercial basis, and have given the intellectual man the bank credit, asymbol of wealth, that he may use it, as men have always used wealth, for the purpose of increasing his importance in the eyes of woman. Thisfunction of wealth is psychically necessary to the creative impulse, forthe power of sexual conquest and the stimulus to creative thought arebut different expressions of the same instinct. Wealth, or its symbol, is a medium of translating the one into the other. For example, takeyour discovery; it is important to you and to the state. Your fellowscientists appreciate it, His Majesty appreciates it, but women cannotappreciate it. But give it a money value and women appreciate itimmediately. They know that the unlimited bank credit will give you thepower to keep as many women on your list as you choose, and this meansthat you can select freely those you wish. So the most attractive womenwill compete for your preferment. We bow before the Emperor, we salutethe Statue of God, but we make out our checks to buy baubles for women, and it is that which keeps the wheels of progress turning. "

"So, " I said, "this is your philosophy of wealth. I see, and yet I donot see. The legal limit a man may contribute to a woman is buttwenty-four hundred marks a year, what then does he want witha million?"

"But there is no legal limit, " replied the Doctor, "to the number ofwomen a man may have on his list. His relation to them may be the mostcasual, but the pursuit is stimulating to the creative imagination. Butyou forget, Herr von Armstadt, that with the compensation that was to beyours goes also the social privilege of the Royal Level. Evidently youhave been so absorbed in your research that you had no time to think ofthe magnificent rewards for which you were working. "

"Then perhaps you will explain them to me. "

"With pleasure, " said Dr. Boehm; "your social privilege on the RoyalLevel includes the right to marry and that means that you should havechildren for whom inheritance is permitted. How else did you suppose theever-increasing numbers of the House of Hohenzollern should havemaintained their wealth?"

"The question has never occurred to me, " I answered, "but if it had, Ishould have supposed that their expenses were provided by appropriationsfrom the state treasury. "

Dr. Boehm chuckled. "Then they should all be dependents on the statelike cripples and imbeciles. It would be a rather poor way to derive thepride of aristocracy. That can only come from inherited wealth: theprinciple is old, very old. The nobleman must never needs work to live. Then, if he wishes to give service to the state, he may give it withoutpay, and thus feel his nobility. You cannot aspire to full socialequality with the Royal House both because you lack divinity of bloodand because you receive your wealth for that which you have yourselfgiven to the state. But because of your wealth you will find a wife ofthe Royal House, and she will bear you children who, receiving thedivine blood of the Hohenzollerns from the mother and inherited wealthfrom the father, will thus be twice ennobled. To have such children is arare privilege; not even Herr von Uhl with his thousands of descendantscan feel such a pride of paternity. 

"It is well, Herr von Armstadt, that you talked to me of these matters. Should you be restored to your full mental powers and be permitted toassume the rights of your new station, it would be most unfortunate ifyou should seem unappreciative of these ennobling privileges. "

"Then, if I may, I shall ask you some further questions. It seems thatthe inherited incomes of the Royal Level are from time to timereinforced by marriage from without. Does that not dilute theRoyal blood?"

"That question, " replied Dr. Boehm, "more properly should be addressedto a eugenist, but I shall try to give you the answer. The blood of theHouse of Hohenzollern is of a very high order for it is the blood ofdivinity in human veins. Yet since there is no eugenic control, noselection, the quality of that blood would deteriorate from inbreeding, were there no fresh infusion. Then where better could such blood comethan from the men of genius? No man is given the full social privilegeof the Royal Level except he who has made some great contribution to thestate. This at once marks him as a genius and gives his wealth anoble origin. "

"But how is it, " I asked, "that this addition of men from without doesnot disturb the balance of the sexes?"

"It does disturb it somewhat, " replied the doctor, "but not seriously, for genius is rare. There are only a few hundred men in each generationwho are received into Royal Society. Of course that means some of theyoung men of the Royal Level cannot marry. But some men decline marriageof their own free will; if they are not possessed of much wealth theyprefer to go unmarried rather than to accept an unattractive woman as awife when they may have their choice of mistresses from the mostbeautiful virgins intended for the Free Level. There is always anabundance of marriageable women on the Royal Level and with your wealthyou will have your choice. Your credit, in fact, will be the largestthat has been granted for over a decade. "

"All that is very splendid, " I answered. "I was not well informed onthese matters. But why should His Majesty have been so incensed at mysimple request for the restoration of the rights of the daughter of thePrincess Fedora?"

"Your request was unusual; pardon if I may say, impudent; it seems toimply a lack of appreciation on your part of the honours freelyconferred upon you--but I daresay His Majesty did not realize yourignorance of these things. You are very young and you have risen to yourhigh station very quickly from an obscure position. "

"And do you think, " I asked, "that if you made these facts clear to him, he would relent and grant my request?"

Dr. Boehm looked at me with a penetrating gaze. "It is not my function, "he said, "to intercede for you. I have only been commissioned to examinecarefully the state of your mentality. "

I smiled complacently at the psychic expert. "Now, doctor, " I said, "youdo not mean to tell me that you really think there is anything wrongwith my mentality?"

A look of craftiness flashed from Boehm's eyes. "I have given you mydiagnosis, " he said, "but it may not be final. I have alreadycommunicated my first report to His Majesty and he has ordered me toremain with you for some days. If I should alter that opinion tooquickly it would discredit me and gain you nothing. You had best bepatient, and submit gracefully to further examination and treatment. "

"And do you know, " I asked, "what the chemical staff is doing about myformulas?"

"That is none of my affair, " declared Boehm, emphatically. 

There was a vigour in his declaration and a haste with which he began totalk of other matters that gave me a hint that the doctor knew more ofthe doings of the chemical staff than he cared to admit, but I thoughtit wise not to press the point. 

~3~

The second day of Boehm's stay with me, he unmantled his apparatus andasked me to submit to a further examination. I had not the leastconception of the purpose of this apparatus and with some misgivings Ilay down on a couch while the psychic expert placed above my eyes aglass plate, on which, when he had turned on the current, thereproceeded a slow rhythmic series of pale lights and shadows. At thedoctor's command I fixed my gaze upon the lights, while he, in amonotonous voice, urged me to relax my mind and dismiss allactive thought. 

How long I stood for this infernal proceeding I do not know. But Irecall a realization that I had lost grip on my thoughts and seemed tobe floating off into a misty nowhere of unconsciousness. I struggledfrantically to regain control of myself; and, for what seemed aneternity, I fought with a horrible nightmare unable to move a muscle oreven close my eyelids to shut out that sickening sequence of creepingshadows. Then I saw the doctor's hand reaching slowly toward my face. Itseemed to sway in its stealthy movement like the head of a serpentcharming a bird, but in my helpless horror I could not ward it off. 

At last the snaky fingers touched my eyelids as if to close them, andthat touch, light though it was, served to snap the taut film of myhelpless brain and I gave a blood-curdling yell and jumped up, knockingover the devilish apparatus and nearly upsetting the doctor. 

"Calm yourself, " said Boehm, as he attempted to push me again toward thecouch. "There is nothing wrong, and you must surrender to the psychicequilibrator so that I can proceed with the examination. "

"Examination be damned, " I shouted fiercely; "you were trying tohypnotize me with that infernal machine. "

Boehm did not reply but calmly proceeded to pick up the apparatus andrestore it to its place in the corner, while I paced angrily about theroom. He then seated himself and addressed me as I stood against thewall glaring at him. "You are labouring under hallucinations, " he said. "I fear your case is even worse than I thought. But calm yourself. Ishall attempt no further examination today. "

I resumed a seat but refused to look at him. He did not talk further ofmy supposed mental state, but proceeded to entertain me with gossip ofthe Royal Level, and later discussed the novels in the bookcase. 

It was difficult to keep up an open war with so charming aconversationalist, but I was thoroughly on my guard. I could now readilysee through the whole fraud of my imputed mental derangement. I knew mymind was sound as a schoolboy's, and that this pretence of examinationand treatment was only a blind. Evidently the Chemical Staff had failedto work the formulas I had given them and this psychic manipulator hadbeen sent in here to filch the true formulas from my brain with hisdevilish art. I knew nothing of what progress the Germans might havemade with hypnotism, but unless they had gone further than had the outerworld, now that I was on my guard, I believed myself to be safe. 

But there was yet one danger. I might be trapped in my sleep by aninduced somnambulistic conversation. Happily I was fairly well posted onsuch things and believed that I could guard against that also. But thefear of the thing made me so nervous that I did not sleep all of thefollowing night. 

The doctor, evidently a keen observer, must have detected that fact fromthe sound of my breathing, for the lights were turned out and we sleptin the pitchy blackness that only a windowless room can create. 

"You did not sleep well, " he remarked, as we breakfasted. 

But I made light of his solicitous concern, and we passed another day incasual conversation. 

As the sleeping period drew again near, the doctor said, "I will leaveyou tonight, for I fear my presence disturbs you because youmisinterpret my purpose in observing you. "

As the doctor departed, I noted that the mechanism of the hinges and thelock of the door were so perfect that they gave forth no sound. I wasvery drowsy and soon retired, but before I went to sleep I practisedsnapping off and on the light from the switch at the side of my bed. Then I repeated over and over to myself--"I will awake at the firstsound of a voice. "

This thought ingrained in my subconscious mind proved my salvation. Imust have been sleeping some hours. I was dreaming of Marguerite. I sawher standing in an open meadow flooded with sunlight; and heard hervoice as if from afar. I walked towards her and as the words grew moredistinct I knew the voice was not Marguerite's. Then I awoke. 

I did not stir but lay listening. The voice was speaking monotonouslyand the words I heard were the words of the protium formulas, the falseones I had given the Chemical Staff. 

"But these formulas are not correct, " purred the voice, "of course, theyare not correct. I gave them to the Staff, but they will never know thereal ones--Yes, the real ones--What are the real ones? Have Iforgotten--? No, I shall never forget. I can repeat them now. " Then thevoice began again on one of the fake formulas. But when it reached thepoint where the true formula was different, it paused; evidently theChemical Staff had found out where the difficulty lay. And so the voicehad paused, hoping my sleeping mind would catch up the thread and supplythe missing words. But instead my arm shot quickly to the switch. Thesolicitous Doctor Boehm, flooded with a blaze of light, glaredblinkingly as I leaped from the bed. 

"Oh, I was asleep all right, " I said, "but I awoke the instant I heardyou speak, just as I had assured myself that I would do before I fellasleep. Now what else have you in your bag of tricks?"

"I only came--" began the doctor. 

"Yes, you only came, " I shouted, "and you knew nothing about the work ofthe Chemical Staff on my formulas. Now see here, doctor, you had yourtry and you have failed. Your diagnosis of my mental condition is justas much a fraud as the formulas on which the Chemical Staff have beenwasting their time--only it is not so clever. I fooled them and you havenot fooled me. Waste no more time, but go back and report to His Majestythat your little tricks have failed. "

"I shall do that, " said Boehm. "I feared you from the start; your mindis really an extraordinary one. But where, " he said, "did you learn howto guard yourself so well against my methods? They are very secret. Myart is not known even to physicians. "

"It is known to me, " I said, "so run along and get your report ready. "The doctor shook my hand with an air of profound respect and took hisleave. This time I balanced a chair overhanging the edge of a table sothat the opening of the door would push it off, and I lay down andslept soundly. 

~4~

I was left alone in my prison until late the next day. Then came a guardwho conducted me before His Majesty. None of the Chemical Staff waspresent. In fact there was no one with the Emperor but a singlesecretary. 

His Majesty smiled cordially. "It was fitting, Herr von Armstadt, for meto order your confinement for your demand was audacious; not that whatyou asked was a matter of importance, but you should have made therequest in writing and privately and not before the Chemical Staff. Forthat breach of etiquette I had to humiliate you that Royal dignity mightbe preserved. As for the fact that you kept the formulas secret, noneneed know that but the Chemical Staff and they will have nothing furtherto say since you made fools of them. " His Majesty laughed. 

"As for the request you made, I have decided to grant it. Nor do I blameyou for making it. The Princess Marguerite is a very beautiful girl. Sheis waiting now nearby. I should have sent for her sooner, but it wasnecessary to make an investigation regarding her birth. The unfortunatePrincess Fedora never confessed the father. But I have arranged that, asyou shall see. "

The Emperor now pressed his signal button and a door opened andMarguerite was ushered into the room. I started in fear as I saw thatshe was accompanied by Dr. Zimmern. What calamity of discovery andpunishment, I wondered, had my daring move brought to the secret rebelagainst the rule of the Hohenzollern?

Marguerite stepped swiftly toward me and gave me her hand. The look inher eyes I interpreted as a warning that I was not to recognize Zimmern. So I appeared the stranger while the secretary introduced us. 

"Dr. Zimmern, " said His Majesty, "was physician to Princess Fedora atthe time of the birth of the Princess Marguerite. She confessed to himthe father of her child. It was the Count Rudolph who died unmarriedsome years ago. There will be no questions raised. Our society willwelcome his daughter, for both the Count Rudolph and the Princess Fedorawere very popular. "

During this speech, Dr. Zimmern sat rigid and stared into space. Thenthe secretary produced a document and read a confession to be signed byZimmern, testifying to these statements of Marguerite's birth. 

Zimmern, his features still unmoved, signed the paper and handed itagain to the secretary. 

His Majesty arose and held out his hand to Marguerite. "I welcome you, "he said, "to the House of Hohenzollern. We shall do our best to atonefor what you have suffered. And to you, Herr von Armstadt, I extend mythanks for bringing us so beautiful a woman. It is my hope that you willwin her as a wife, for she will grace well the fortune that your greatgenius brings to us. But because you have loved her under unfortunatecircumstances I must forbid your marriage for a period of two years. During that time you will both be free to make acquaintances in RoyalSociety. Nothing less than this would be fair to either of you, or toother women that may seek your fortune or to other men who may seek thebeauty of your princess. "

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 début 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 début. 

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 first been inclined to accept all invitations, innocently supposing that I was being fêted 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 his 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. "

CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH THE TALKING DELEGATE IS ANSWERED BY THEROYAL VOICE AND I LEARN THAT LABOUR KNOWS NOT GOD

~1~

I had delayed in speaking to Grauble of our revolutionary plans, becauseI wished first to arrange a meeting with Zimmern and Hellar and securethe weight of their calmer minds in initiating Grauble into our plans ofsending a message to the World State authorities. I was prevented fromdoing this immediately by difficulties in the Protium Works. Meanwhileunbeknown to me the sailing date of Grauble's vessel was advanced, andhe departed to the Arctic. 

Although my position as Director of the Protium Works had been more ofan honour than an assignment of active duties, I made it my business toassume the maximum rather than the minimum of the functions of theoffice as I wished to learn more of the labour situation in Berlin, ofwhich as yet I had no comprehensive understanding. 

In a general way I understood that German labour differed not only inbeing eugenically created as a distinct breed, but that the labour groupwas also a very distinct caste economically and politically. Thelabourer, being denied access to the Level of Free Women, had no needfor money or bank credit in any form. This seemed to me to reduce him toa condition of pure slavery--since he received no pay for his servicesother than the bare maintenance supplied by the state. 

Because of this evidence of economic inferiority, I had at firstsupposed that labour was in every way an inferior caste. But in this Ihad been gravely mistaken, nor had I been able fully to comprehend myerror until this brewing labour trouble revealed in concrete form thepolitical superiority of labour. In my failure to comprehend the truestate of affairs I had been a little stupid, for the political basis ofGerman society is revealed to the seeing eye in the Hohenzollern eagleemblazoned on the red flag, the emblem of the rule of labour. 

Historically I believe this belies the origin of the red flag for it wasfirst used as the emblem of democratic socialism, a Nineteenth Centurytheory of a social order in which all social and economic classes wereto be blended into a true democracy differing somewhat in its economicorganization, but essentially the same politically as the true democracywhich we have achieved in the World State. But with the Bolshevistrégime in Russia after the First World War, the red flag wasappropriated as the emblem of the political supremacy and rule of theproletariat or labour class. 

I make these references to bygone history because they throw light onthe peculiar status of the German Labour Caste, which is possessed ofpolitical superiority combined with social and economic inferiority. Itwas the Bolshevist brand of socialism that finally overran Germany inthe era of loose and ineffective rule of the world by the League ofNations. Though I make no pretence of being an accurate authority onhistory, the League of Nations, if I remember rightly, was humanity'sfirst timid conception of the World State. Rather weakly born, it waspromptly emasculated by the rise in America of a political party foundedon the ideas of a great national hero who had just died. Theobstructionist policy of this party was inherent in its origin, for itwas inspired and held together by the ideas of a dead man, whosefollowers could only repeat as their test of faith a phrase that hascome down to us as an idiom--"What would He do?"

"He" being dead could do nothing, neither could he change his mind, buthaving left an indelible record of his ideas by the strenuous verbiageof his virile and inspiring rhetoric, there was no room for doubt. As inall political and religious faiths founded on the ideas of dead heroes, this made for solidarity and power and quite prevented any adaptation ofthe form of government to the needs of the world that had arisen sincehis demise. 

I have digressed here from my theme of the political status of theGerman labour caste, but it is fascinating to trace things to theirorigin to find the links of the chain of cause and effect. So, if I haveread my history aright, the emasculation of the League of Nations by theAmerican obstructionists caused, or at least permitted the rise, anddominance of the Bolshevists in Twentieth-Century Germany. Had theGermans been democrats at heart the pendulum would have swung back as itdid with other peoples, and been stayed at the point of equilibriumwhich we recognized as the stable mean of democracy. 

But in the old days before the modern intermingling of the races itseems that there were certain tastes that had become instinctive inracial groups. Thus, just as the German stomach craved the rich flavourof sausage, so the German mind craved the dazzling show of Royalflummery. Had it not been for this the First World War could have neverbeen, for the socialists of that time were bitterly opposed to war andGermany was the world's greatest stronghold of socialism, yet when theirbeloved imperial poser, William the Great, called for war the Germansocialists, with the exception of a few whom they afterwards murdered, went forth to war almost without protest. 

When I first began to hear of the political rights of Labour, I went tomy friend Hellar and asked for an explanation. 

"Is not the chain of authority absolute, " I asked, "up through theindustrial organization direct to the Emperor and so to God himself?"

"But, " said Hellar, "the workers do not believe in God!"

"What, " I stammered, "workers not believe in God! It is impossible. Havenot the workers simple trusting minds?"

"Certainly, " said Hellar, "it is the natural mind of man! Scepticism, which is the basis of scientific reasoning, is an artificial thing, first created in the world under the competitive economic order when itbecame essential to self-preservation in a world of trade based ondeceit. In our new order we have had difficulty in maintaining enough ofit for scientific purposes even in the intellectual classes. There is noscepticism among the labourers now, I assure you. They believe as easilyas they breathe. "

"Then how, " I demanded in amazement, "does it come that they do notbelieve in God?"

"Because, " said Hellar, "they have never heard of God. 

"The labourer does not know of God because we have restored God sincethe perfection of our caste system, and hence it was easy to promulgatethe idea among the intellectuals and not among the workers. It wasnecessary to restore God for the intellectuals in order to give themgreater respect for the power of the Royal House, but the labourers needno God because they believe themselves to be the source from which theRoyal House derives its right to rule. They believe the Emperor to betheir own servant ruling by their permission. "

"The Emperor a servant to labour!" I exclaimed; "this is absurd. "

"Certainly, " said Hellar; "why should it be otherwise? We are an absurdpeople, because we have always laughed at the wrong things. Still thisprinciple is very old and has not always been confined to the Germans. After the revolutions in the Twentieth Century the American plutocratsemployed poverty-stricken European nobility for servants and exaltedthem to high stations and obeyed them explicitly in all social matterswith which their service was concerned. 

"The labourers restored William III because they wished to have anexalted servant. He led them to war and became a hero. He reorganizedthe state and became their political servant, also their emperor andtheir tyrant. It is not an impossible relation, for it is not unlike therelation between the mother and the child or between a man and hismistress. And yet it is different, more formal, with functionsbetter defined. 

"The Emperor is the administrative head of the government and weintellectuals are merely his hirelings. We are merely the feathers ofthe Royal eagle, our colour is black, we have no part in the red bloodof human brotherhood, we are outcasts from the socialistic labourworld--for we receive money compensation to which labourers would notstoop. But labour owns the state. This roof of Berlin over our heads andall that is therein contained, is the property of the workers whoproduced it. "

I shook my head in mute admission of my lack of comprehension. 

"And who, " asked Hellar, "did you think owned Berlin?"

I confessed that I had never thought of that. 

"Few of our intellectual class have ever thought of that, " repliedHellar, "unless they are well read in political history. But at the timeof the Hohenzollern restoration labour owned all property in truecommunal ownership. They did not release it to the Royal House, butmerely turned over the administration of the property to the Emperor asan agent. "

These belated explanations of the fundamental ideas of German societyquite confused and confounded me, though Hellar seemed in no wisesurprised at my ignorance, since as a chemist I had originally beensupposed to know only of atoms and valences and such like matters. Seeking a way out of these contradictions I asked: "How is it then thatlabour is so powerless, since you say that it owns the state, and eventhe Emperor rules by its permission?"

"Napoleon--have you ever heard of him?"

"Yes, " I admitted--and then recalling my rôle as a German chemist Ihastened to add--"Napoleon was a directing chemist who achieved a planfor increasing the food supply in his day by establishing the sugar beetindustry. "

"Is that so?" exclaimed Hellar. "I didn't know that. I thought he wasonly an Emperor--anyway, Napoleon said that if you tell men they areequal you can do as you please with them. So when William III waselected to the throne by labour, he insisted that they retain the powerand re-elect him every five years. He was very popular because heinvented the armoured city--our new Berlin--some day I will tell you ofthat--and so of course he was re-elected, and his son after him. Thoughmost of the intellectuals do not know that it exists the ceremony ofelection is a great occasion on the labour levels. The Emperor speaksall day through the horns and on the picture screens. The workers thinkhe is actually speaking, though of course it is a collection of oldfilms and records of the Royal Voice. When they have seen and heard thespeeches, the labourers vote, and then go back to their work and arevery happy. "

"But suppose they should sometime fail to re-elect him?"

"No danger, " said Hellar; "there is only one name on the ballot and theballots are dumped into the paper mill without inspection. "

"Most extraordinary, " I exclaimed. 

"Most ordinary, " contradicted Hellar; "it is not even an exclusivelyGerman institution; we have merely perfected it. Voting everywhere is avery useful device in organized government. In the cruder form used indemocracies there were two or more candidates. It usually made littledifference which was elected; but the system was imperfect because thevoters who voted for the candidate which lost were not pleased. Thenthere was the trouble of counting the ballots. We avoid all this. "

"It is all very interesting, " I said, "but who is the real authority?"

"Ah, " said Hellar, "this matter of authority is one of our most subtleconceptions. The weakness of ancient governments was in the fact thatthe line of authority was broken. It came somewhere to an end. But nowauthority flows up from labour to the Emperor and then descends again tolabour through the administrative line of which we are one link. It isan unbroken circuit. "

But I was still unsatisfied, for it annoyed me not to be able tounderstand the system of German politics, as I had always prided myselfthat, for a scientist, I understood politics remarkably well. 

~2~

I had gone to Hellar for enlightenment because I was gravely alarmedover the rumours of a strike among the labourers in the Protium Works. Ihad read in the outside world of the murder and destruction of theseformer civil wars of industry. With a working population so cruelly heldto the treadmill of industrial bondage the idea of a strike conjured upin my fancy the beginning of a bloody revolution. With so vast apopulation so utterly dependent upon the orderly processes of industrythe possible terrors of an industrial revolution were horrible beyondimagining; and for the moment all thoughts of escape, or of my own plansfor negotiating the surrender of Berlin to the World State, were sweptaside by the stern responsibilities that devolved upon me as theDirector of Works wherein a terrible strike seemed brewing. 

The first rumour of the strike of the labourers in the Protium Works hadcome to me from the Listening-in-Service. Since Berlin was toocomplicated and congested a spot for wireless communication to bepractical, the electrical conduct of sound was by antiquated means ofmetal wires. The workers' Free Speech Halls were all provided withreceiving horns by which they made their appeals to His Majesty, ofwhich I shall speak presently. These instruments were provided withcut-offs in the halls. They had been so designed by the electricalengineers, who were of the intellectual caste, that not even the workerswho installed and repaired them knew that the cut-offs were a blind andthat the Listening-in-Service heard every word that was said at theirsecret meetings, when all but workers were, by law and custom, excludedfrom the halls. 

And so the report came to me that the workers were threatening strike. Their grievance came about in this fashion. My new process had reducedthe number of men needed in the works. This would require that some ofthe men be transferred to other industries. But the transfer was a slowprocess, as all the workers would have to be examined anatomically andtheir psychic reflexes tested by the labour assignment experts and thoseselected re-trained for other labour. That work was proceedingslowly, for there was a shortage of experts because some similar need oftransfers existed in one of the metal industries. Moreover, my labourpsychologist considered it dangerous to transfer too many men, as theywere creatures of habit, and he advised that we ought merely to cease totake on new workers, but wait for old age and death to reduce the numberof our men, meanwhile retaining the use of the old extraction process inpart of the works. 

"Impossible, " I replied, "unless you would have your rations cut and thecity put on a starvation diet. Do you not know that the reserve store ofprotium that was once enough to last eight years is now reduced to lessthan as many months' supply?"

"That is none of my affair, " said the labour psychologist; "thesechemical matters I do not comprehend. But I advise against thesetransfers, for our workers are already in a furor about the change ofoperations in the work. "

"But, " I protested, "the new operations are easier than the old; besideswe can cut down the speed of operations, which ought to help you takecare of these surplus men. "

"Pardon, Herr Chief, " returned the elderly labour psychologist, "you area great chemist, a very great chemist, for your invention has upset thelabour operation more than has anything that ever happened in my longexperience, but I fear you do not realize how necessary it is to go slowin these matters. You ask men who have always opened a faucet from leftto right to now open one that moves in a vertical plane. Here, I willshow you; move your arm so; do you not see that it takesdifferent muscles?"

"Yes, of course, but what of it? The solution flows faster and theoperation is easier. "

"It is easy for you to say that; for you or me it would make nodifference since our muscles have all been developed indiscriminately. "

"But what are your labour gymnasiums for, if not to develop allmuscles?"

"Now do not misunderstand me. I serve as an interpreter between theminds of the workers and your mind as Director of the Works. As for themuscles developed in the gymnasium, those were developed for sport andnot for labour. But that is not the worst of it; you have designed thenew benches so low that the mixers must stoop at their work. It isvery painful. "

"Good God, " I cried, "what became of the stools? The mixers are to sitdown--I ordered two thousand stools. "

"That I know, Herr Chief, but the equipment expert consulted me aboutthe matter and I countermanded the order. It would never do. I did notconsult you, it is true, but that was merely a kindness. I did not wishto expose your lack of knowledge, if I may call it such. "

"Call it what you please, " I snapped, for at the time I thought mylabour psychologist was a fool, "but get those stools, immediately. "

"But it would never do. "

"Why not?"

"Because these men have always stood at their work. "

"But why can they not sit down now?"

"Because they never have sat down. "

"Do they not sit down to eat?"

"Yes, but not to work. It is very different. You do not understand thepsychic immobility of labour. Habits grow stronger as the mentality issimplified. I have heard that there are animals in the zoological gardenthat still perform useless operations that their remote ancestorsrequired in their jungle life. "

"Then do you infer that these men who must stand at their work inheritedthe idea from their ancestors?"

"That is a matter of eugenics. I do not know, but I do know that we arepreparing for trouble with these changes. Still I hope to work it outwithout serious difficulty, if you do not insist on these transfers. When workmen have already been forced to change their habitual method ofwork and then see their fellows being removed to other and stillstranger work it breeds dangerous unrest. "

"One thing is certain, " I replied; "we cannot delay the installation ofthe new method; as fast as the equipment is ready the new operation mustreplace the old. "

"But the effect of that policy will be that there will not be enoughwork, and besides the work is, as you say, lighter and that will resultin the cutting down of the food rations. "

"But I have already arranged that, " I said triumphantly; "the RationingBureau have adjusted the calorie standards so that the men will get asmuch food as they have been used to. "

"What! you have done that?" exclaimed the labour psychologist; "thenthere will be trouble. That will destroy the balance of the food supplyand the expenditure of muscular energy and the men will get fat. Thenthe other men will accuse them of stealing food and we shall havebloodshed. "

"A moment ago, " I smiled, "you told me I did not know your business. NowI will tell you that you do not know mine. We ordered special foodbulked up in volume; the scheme is working nicely; you need not worryabout that. As for the other matter, this surplus of men, it seems to methat the only thing is to cut down the working hours temporarily untilthe transfers can be made. "

The psychologist shook his head. "It is dangerous, " he said, "and veryunusual. I advise instead that you have the operation engineers go overthe processes and involve the operations, both to make them more nearlyresemble the old ones, and to add to the time and energy consumption ofthe tasks. "

"No, " I said emphatically, "I invented a more economical process forthis industry and I do not propose to see my invention prostituted inthis fashion. I appreciate your advice, but if we cannot transfer theworkers any faster, then the labour hours must be cut. I will issue theorder tomorrow. This is my final decision. "

I was in authority and that settled the matter. The psychologist wasvery decent about it and helped me fix up a speech and that next nightthe workers were ordered to assemble in their halls and I made my speechinto a transmitting horn. I told them that they had been especiallyhonoured by their Emperor, who, appreciating their valuable service, hadgranted them a part-time vacation and that until further notice theirsix-hour shifts were to be cut to four. I further told them that theirrations would not be reduced and advised them to take enough extraexercise in the gymnasium to offset their shorter hours so they wouldnot get fat and be the envy of their fellows. 

~3~

For a time the workers seemed greatly pleased with their shorter hours. And then, from the Listening-in-Service, came the rumour of the strike. The first report of the strike gave me no clue to the grievance and Iasked for fuller reports. When these came the next day I was shockedbeyond belief. If I had anticipated anything in that interval of terrorit was that my workers were to strike because their communications hadbeen shut off or that they were to strike in sympathy for their fellowsand demand that all hours be shortened like their own. But the grievancewas not that. My men were to go on strike for the simple reason thattheir hours had been shortened!

The catastrophe once started came with a rush, for when I reached theoffice the next day the psychologist was awaiting me and told me thatthe strike was on. I rushed out immediately and went down to the works. The psychologist followed me. As I entered the great industriallaboratories I saw all the men at their usual places and going throughtheir usual operations. I turned to my companion who was just coming up, and said: "What do you mean; I thought you told me the strike was on, that the men had already walked out?"

"What do you mean by 'walked out'?" he returned, as puzzled as I. 

"Walked out of the works, " I explained; "away from their duties, quitwork. Struck!"

"But they have struck. Perhaps you have never seen a strike before, butdo you not see the strike badges?"

And then I looked and saw that every workman wore a tiny red flag, andthe flag bore no imperial eagle. 

"It means, " I gasped, "that they have renounced the rule of the RoyalHouse. This is not a strike, this is rebellion, treason!"

"It is the custom, " said the labour psychologist, "and as for rebellionand treason that you speak of I hardly think you ought to call it thatfor rebellion and treason are forbidden. "

"Then just what does it mean?"

"It means that this particular group of workers have temporarilywithdrawn their allegiance to the Royal House, and they have, in theirown minds, restored the old socialist régime, until they can makepetition to the Emperor and he passes on their grievance. They will dothat in their halls tonight. We, of course, will be connected up andlisten in. "

"Then they are not really on strike?"

"Certainly they are on strike. All strikes are conducted so. "

"Then why do they not quit work?"

"But why should they quit work? They are striking because their hoursare already too short--pardon, Herr Chief, but I warned you!

"I think I know what you mean, " he added after a pause; "you haveprobably read some fiction of old times when the workers went on strikeby quitting work. "

"Yes, exactly. I suppose that is where I did get my ideas; and that isnow forbidden--by the Emperor?"

"Not by the Emperor, for you see these men wear the flags without theeagle. They at present do not acknowledge his authority. "

"Then all this strike is a matter of red badges without eagles andeverything else will go on as usual?"

"By no means. These men are striking against the descending authorityfrom the Royal House. They not only refuse to wear the eagle until theirgrievance is adjusted but they will refuse to accept further education, for that is a thing that descends from above. If you will go now to thepicture halls, where the other shift should be, you will find the hallsall empty. The men refuse to go to the moving pictures. "

That night we "listened in. " A bull-throated fellow, whom I learned wasthe Talking Delegate, addressed the Emperor, and much to my surprise Ithought I heard the Emperor's own voice in reply, stating that he wasready to hear their grievance. 

Then the bull voice of the Talking Delegate gave the reason for thestrike: "The Director of the Works, speaking for your Majesty, hasgranted us a part time vacation, and shortened our hours from six tofour. We thank you for this honour but we have decided we do not likeit. We do not know what to do during those extra two hours. We had ourgames and amusements but we had our regular hours for them. If we playlonger we become tired of play. If we sleep longer we cannot sleep aswell. Moreover we are losing our appetite and some of us are afraid toeat all our portions for fear we will become fat. So we have decidedthat we do not like a four-hour day and we have therefore taken theeagles off our flags and will refuse to replace them or to go to theeducational pictures until our hours are restored to the six-hour daythat we have always had. "

And now the Emperor's voice replied that he would take the matter underconsideration and report his decision in three days and, that meanwhilehe knew he could trust them to conduct themselves as good socialists whowere on strike, and hence needed no king. 

The next day the psychologist brought a representative of theInformation Staff to my office and together we wrote the reply that theEmperor was to make. It would be necessary to concede them the full sixhours and introduce the system of complicating the labour operations tomake more work. Much chagrined, I gave in, and called in the motionstudy engineers and set them to the task. Meanwhile the Royal Voice wassent for and coached in the Emperor's reply to the striking workmen, anda picture film of the Emperor, timed to fit the length of the speech, was ordered from stock. 

The Royal Voice was an actor by birth who had been trained to imitateHis Majesty's speech. This man, who specialized in the Emperor'sspeeches to the workers, prided himself that he was the best Royal Voicein Berlin and I complimented him by telling him that I had been deceivedby him the evening before. But considering that the workers, neverhaving heard the Emperor's real voice, would have no standard ofcomparison, I have never been able to see the necessity of the accuracyof his imitation, unless it was on the ground of art for art's sake. 

CHAPTER XII

THE DIVINE DESCENDANTS OF WILLIAM THE GREAT GIVE A BENEFITFOR THE CANINE GARDENS AND PAY TRIBUTE TO THE PIGGERIES

~1~

The strike that I had feared would be the beginning of a bloodyrevolution had ended with an actor shouting into a horn and the shadowof an Emperor waving his arms. But meanwhile Capt. Grauble, on whom Istaked my hopes of escape from Berlin, had departed to the Arctic andwould not return for many months. That he would return I firmlybelieved; statistically the chances were in his favour as this was hisfourth trip, and hope was backing the favourable odds of the law ofchance. 

So I set myself to prepare for that event. My faith was strong thatGrauble could be won over to the cause of saving the Germans bybetraying Germany. I did not even consider searching for another man, for Grauble was that one rare man in thousands who is rebellious andfearless by nature, a type of which the world makes heroes when theircause wins and traitors when it fails--a type that Germany had all buteliminated from the breed of men. 

But, if I were to escape to the outer world through Grauble'sconnivance, there was still the problem of getting permission to boardthe submarine, ostensibly to go to the Arctic mines. Even in my exaltedposition as head of the protium works I could not learn where thesubmarine docks or the passage to them was located. But I did learnenough to know that the way was impenetrable without authoritativepermission, and that thoughts of escape as a stowaway were not worthconsidering. I also learned that Admiral von Kufner had sole authorityto grant permission to make the Arctic trip. 

The Admiral had promptly turned down my first proposal to go to theArctic ore fields, and had by his pompous manner rebuffed the attempts Imade to cultivate his friendship through official interviews. Itherefore decided to call on Marguerite and the Countess Luise to seewhat chance there was to get a closer approach to the man through socialavenues. The Countess was very obliging in the matter, but she warned mewith lifted finger that the Admiral was a gay bachelor and a worshipperof feminine charms, and that I might rue the day I suggested his beinginvited into the admiring circle that revolved about Marguerite. But Ilaughingly disclaimed any fears on that score and von Kufner was biddento the next ball given by the Countess. 

Marguerite was particularly gracious to the Admiral and speedily led himinto the inner circle that gathered informally in the salon of theCountess Luise. I made it a point to absent myself on some of theseoccasions, for I did not want the Admiral to guess the purpose that laybehind this ensnaring of him into our group. 

And yet I saw much of Marguerite, for I spent most of my leisure in thesociety of the Royal Level, where thought, if shallow, was comparativelyfree. I took particular pleasure in watching the growth of Marguerite'smind, as the purely intellectual conceptions she had acquired from Dr. Zimmern and his collection of books adjusted itself to the absurdrealities of the celestial society of the descendants of Williamthe Great. 

It may be that charity is instinctive in the heart of a good woman, orperhaps it was because she had read the Christian Bible; but whateverthe origin of the impulse, Marguerite was charitably inclined and wishedto make personal sacrifice for the benefit of other beings less wellsituated than herself. While she was still a resident of the Free Levelshe had talked to me of this feeling and of her desire to help others. But the giving of money or valuables by one woman to another wasstrictly forbidden, and Marguerite had not at the time possessed morethan she needed for her own subsistence. But now that she was relativelywell off, this charitable feeling struggled to find expression. Hencewhen she had learned of the Royal Charity Society she had straightwaybegged the Countess to present her name for membership, without stoppingto examine into the detail of the Society's activities. 

The Society was at that time preparing to hold a bazaar and sent outcalls for contributions of cast off clothing and ornaments. Margueriteas yet possessed no clothes or jewelry of Royal quality except theminimum which the demands of her position made necessary; and so shetimidly asked the Countess if her clothing which she had worn on theFree Level would suffice as gifts of charity. The Countess had assuredher that it would do nicely as the destination of all the clothingcontributed was for the women of the Free Level. Thinking that anopportunity had at last arisen for her to express her compassion for theill-favoured girls of her own former level, Marguerite hastened tobundle up such presentable gowns as she had and sent them to the bazaarby her maid. 

Later she had attended the meeting of the society when the net resultsof the collections were announced. To her dismay she found that theclothing contributed had been sold for the best price it would bring tothe women of the Free Level and that the purpose of the sacrifices, ofthat which was useless to the possessors but valuable to others, was thedefraying of the expense of extending the romping grounds for the dogsof the charitably maintained canine garden. 

Marguerite was vigorously debating the philosophy of charity with theyoung Count Rudolph that evening when I called. She was maintaining thathuman beings and not animals should be the recipients of charity and theyoung Count was expounding to her the doctrine of the evil effects ofcharity upon the recipient. 

"Moreover, " explained Count Rudolph, "there are no humans in Berlin thatneed charity, since every class of our efficiently organized Statereceives exactly what it should receive and hence is in need of nothing. Charity is permissible only when poverty exists. "

"But there is poverty on the Free Level, " maintained Marguerite; "manyof the ill-favoured girls suffer from hunger and want better clothesthan they can buy. "

"That may be, " said the Count, "but to permit them gifts of charitywould be destructive of their pride; moreover, there are few women onthe Royal Level who would give for such a purpose. "

"But surely, " said Marguerite, "there must be somewhere in the city, other women or children or even men to whom the proceeds of these giftswould mean more than it does to dogs. "

"If any group needed anything the state would provide it, " repeated theCount. 

"Then why, " protested Marguerite, "cannot the state provide also for thedogs, or if food and space be lacking why are these dogs allowed tobreed and multiply?"

"Because it would be cruel to suppress their instincts. "

Marguerite was puzzled by this answer, but with my more rational mind Isaw a flaw in the logic of this statement. "But that is absurd, " I said, "for if their number were not checked in some fashion, in a few decadesthe dogs would overswarm the city. "

It was now the Count's turn to look puzzled. "You have inferred anembarrassing question, " he stated, "one, in fact, that ought not to beanswered in the presence of a lady, but since the Princess Margueritedoes not seem to be a lover of dogs, I will risk the explanation. TheMedical Level requires dogs for purposes of scientific research. Sincethe women are rarely good mathematicians, it is easily possible in thismanner to keep down the population of the Canine Garden. "

"But the dogs required for research, " I suggested, "could easily be bredin kennels maintained for that purpose. "

"So they could, " said the Count, "but the present plan serves a doublepurpose. It provides the doctors with scalpel practise and it alsoamuses the women of the Royal House who are very much in need ofamusement since we men are all so dull. "

"Woman's love, " continued Rudolph, waxing eloquent, "should have fullfreedom for unfoldment. If it be forcibly confined to her husband andchildren it might burst its bounds and express too great an interest inother humans. The dogs act as a sort of safety valve for this instinctof charity. "

The facetious young Count saw from Marguerite's horror-stricken facethat he was making a marked impression and he recklessly continued: "Thekeepers at the Canine Gardens understand this perfectly. When fundsbegin to run low they put the dogs in the outside pens on short rations, and the brutes do their own begging; then we have another bazaar andeverybody is happy. It is a good system and I would advise you not tocriticize it since the institution is classic. Other schemes have beentried; at one time women were permitted to knit socks for soldiers--wealways put that in historical pictures--but the socks had to be meltedup again as felted fibre is much more durable; and then, after the womenwere forbidden to see the soldiers, they lost interest. But the dogcharity is a proven institution and we should never try to changeanything that women do not want changed since they are the conservativebulwark of society and our best protection against the danger ofthe untried. "

~2~

Blocked in her effort to relieve human poverty by the discovery that itsexistence was not recognized, Marguerite's next adventure in doing goodin the world was to take up the battle against ignorance by contributingto the School for the Education of Servants. 

The Servant problem in Berlin, and particularly on the Royal Level, hadbeen solved so far as male servants were concerned, for these were awell recognized strain eugenically bred as a division of theintellectual caste. I had once taken Dr. Zimmern to task on thisclassification of the servant as an intellectual. 

"The servant is not intellectual creatively, " the Eugenist replied, "yetit would never do to class him as Labour since he produces nothing. Moreover, the servant's mind reveals the most specialized development ofthe most highly prized of all German intellectual characteristics--obedience. 

"It might interest you to know, " continued Zimmern, "that we use thisservant strain in outcrossing with other strains when they show atendency to decline in the virtue of obedience. If I had not chosen toexempt you from paternity when your rebellious instincts were reportedto me, and the matter had been turned over to our Remating Board theymight have reassigned you to mothers of the servant class. This practiceof out-crossing, though rare, is occasionally essential in allscientific breeding. "

"Then do you mean, " I asked in amazement, "that the highest intellectualstrains have servant blood in them?"

"Certainly. And why not, since obedience is the crowning glory of theGerman mind? Even Royal blood has a dash of the servant strain. "

"You mean, I suppose, from illegitimate children?"

"Not at all; that sort of illegitimacy is not recognized. I mean fromthe admission of servants into Royal Society, just as you have beenadmitted. "

"Impossible!"

"And why impossible, since obedience is our supreme racial virtue? Goconsult your social register. The present Emperor, I believe, hasadmitted none, but his father admitted several and gave them princelyincomes. They married well and their children are respected, though Iunderstand they are not very much invited out for the reason that theyare poor conversationalists. They only speak when spoken to and thenanswer, 'Ja, Mein Herr. ' I hear they are very miserable; since no onecommands them they must be very bored with life, as they are unable tothink of anything to do to amuse themselves. In time the trait will bemodified, of course, since the Royal blood will soon predominate, andthe strongest inherent trait of Royalty is to seek amusement. "

This specialized class of men servants needed little education, for, asI took more interest in observing after this talk with Zimmern, theywere the most perfectly fitted to their function of any class in Berlin. But there was also a much more numerous class of women servants on theRoyal Level. These, as a matter of economy, were not specially bred tothe office, but were selected from the mothers who had been rejected forfurther maternity after the birth of one or two children. Be it said tothe credit of the Germans that no women who had once borne a child wasever permitted to take up the profession of Delilah--a statement whichunfortunately cannot be made of the rest of the world. These motherstogether with those who had passed the child bearing age more thansupplied the need for nurses on the maternity levels and teachers ingirls' schools. 

As a result they swarmed the Royal Level in all capacities of servicefor which women are fitted. Originally educated for maternity they hadto be re-educated for service. Not satisfied with the official educationprovided by the masculine-ordered state, the women of the Royal Levelmaintained a continuation school in the fine art of obedience and thekindred virtues of the perfect servant. 

So again it was that Marguerite became involved in a movement that in nowise expressed the needs of her spirit, and from which shespeedily withdrew. 

The next time she came to me for advice. "I want to do something, " shecried. "I want to be of some use in the world. You saved me from thatawful life--for you know what it would have been for me if Dr. Zimmernhad died or his disloyalty had been discovered--and you have brought mehere where I have riches and position but am useless. I tried to becharitable, to relieve poverty, but they say there is no poverty to berelieved. I tried to relieve ignorance, but they will not allow thateither. What else is there that needs to be relieved? Is there no goodI can do?"

"Your problem is not a new one, " I replied, thinking of the world-oldexperience of the good women yoked to idleness by wealth and position. "You have tried to relieve poverty and ignorance and find your effortsfutile. There is one thing more I believe that is considered a classicremedy for your trouble. You can devote yourself to the elimination ofugliness, to the increase of beauty. Is there no organization devoted tothat work?"

"There is, " returned Marguerite, "and I was about to join it, but Ithought this time I had better ask advice. There is the League toBeautify Berlin. "

"Then by all means join, " I advised. "It is the safest of all suchefforts, for though poverty may not exist and ignorance may not berelieved, yet surely Berlin can be more beautiful. But of course yourefforts must be confined to the Royal Level as you do not see the restof the city. "

So Marguerite joined the League to Beautify Berlin and I became anauxiliary member much appreciated because of my liberal contributions. It proved an excellent source of amusement. The League met weekly anddiscussed the impersonal aspects of the beauty of the level in openmeetings, while a secret complaint box was maintained into which allwere invited to deposit criticisms of more personal matters. It wasforbidden even in this manner to criticize irremedial ugliness such asthe matter of one's personal form or features, but dress and mannerscame within the permitted range and the complaints were regularly mailedto the offenders. This surprised me a little as I would have thoughtthat such a practice would have made the League unpopular, but on thecontrary, it was considered the mainstay of the organization, for therecipient of the complaint, if a non-member, very often joined theLeague immediately, hoping thereby to gain sweet revenge. 

But aside from this safety valve for the desire to make personalcriticism, the League was a very creditable institution and it was therethat we met the great critics to whose untiring efforts the raredevelopment of German art was due. 

Cut off from the opportunity to appropriate by purchase or capture theworks of other peoples, German art had suffered a severe decline in thefirst few generations of the isolation, but in time they had developedan art of their own. A great abundance of cast statues of white crystaladorned the plazas and gardens and, being unexposed to dust or rain, they preserved their pristine freshness so that it appeared they had allbeen made the day before. Mural paintings also flourished abundantly andin some sections the endless facade of the apartments was acontinuous pageant. 

But it was in landscape gardening that German art had made its mostwonderful advancement. Having small opportunity for true architecturebecause of the narrow engineering limitations of the city'sconstruction, talent for architecture had been turned to landscapegardening. I use the term advisedly for the very absence of naturallandscape within a roofed-in city had resulted in greater development ofthe artificial product. 

The earlier efforts, few of which remained unaltered, were more inclinedtoward imitation of Nature as it exists in the world of sun and rocksand rain. But, as the original models were forgotten and new generationsof gardeners arose, new sorts of nature were created. Artificial rocks, artificial soil, artificially bred and cultured plants, were combined innew designs, unrealistic it is true, but still a very wonderfuldevelopment of what might be called synthetic or romantic nature. Thewater alone was real and even in some cases that was altered as in thebeautifully dyed rivulets and in the truly remarkable "Fountain ofBlood, " dedicated to one of the sons of William the Great--I haveforgotten his name--in honour of his attack upon Verdun in the FirstWorld War. 

In these wondrous gardens, with the Princess Marguerite strolling by myside, I spent the happiest hours of my sojourn in Berlin. But my joy wastangled with a thread of sadness for the more I gazed upon thissynthetic nature of German creation the more I hungered to tell her of, and to take her to see, the real Nature of the outside world--uponwhich, in my opinion, with all due respect to their achievements, theGermans had not been able to improve. 

~3~

While the women of the Royal House were not permitted of their ownvolition to stray from the Royal Level, excursions were occasionallyarranged, with proper permits and guards. These were social events ofconsequence and the invitations were highly prized. Noteworthy amongthem was an excursion to the highest levels of the city and to theroof itself. 

The affair was planned by Admiral von Kufner in Marguerite's honour;for, having spent her childhood elsewhere, she had never experienced thewonder of this roof excursion so highly prized by Royalty, and for everforbidden to all other women and to all but a few men of the teemingmillions who swarmed like larvae in this vast concrete cheese. 

The formal invitations set no hour for the excursion as it wasunderstood that the exact time depended upon weather conditions of whichwe would later be notified. When this notice came the hour set was inthe conventional evening of the Royal Level, but corresponding to aboutthree A. M. By solar time. The party gathered at the suite of theCountess Luise and numbered some forty people, for whom a half dozenguides were provided in the form of officers of the Roof Guard. Thejourney to our romantic destination took us up some hundred metres in anelevator, a trip which required but two minutes, but would lead to aworld as different as Mount Olympus from Erebus. 

But we did not go directly to the roof, for the hour preferred for thatvisit had not yet arrived and our first stop was at the swine levels, which had so aroused my curiosity and strained belief when I had firstdiscovered their existence from the chart of my atlas. 

As the door of the elevator shaft slid open, a vast squealing andgrunting assaulted our ears. The hours of the swine, like those of theirmasters, were not reckoned by either solar or sidereal time, but hadbeen altered, as experiment had demonstrated, to a more efficient cycle. The time of our trip was chosen so that we might have this earthly musicof the feeding time as a fitting prelude to the visioning of thesilent heavens. 

On the visitors' gangway we walked just above the reach of the jostlingbristly backs, and our own heads all but grazed the low ceiling of thelevel. To economize power the lights were dim. Despite the masterfulachievement of German cleanliness and sanitation there was a permeatingodour, a mingling of natural and synthetic smells, which added to thegloom of semi-darkness and the pandemonium of swinish sound produced atotality of infernal effect that thwarts description. 

But relief was on the way for the automatic feed conveyors were rapidlymoving across our section. First we heard a diminution of sound from onedirection, then a hasty scuffling and a happy grunting beneath us and, as the conveyors moved swiftly on, the squealing receded into thedistance like the dying roar of a retreating storm. 

The Chief Swineherd, immaculately dressed and wearing his full quota ofdecorations and medals, honoured us with his personal presence. With theexcusable pride that every worthy man takes in his work, he expoundedthe scientific achievements and economic efficiency of the swinish worldover which he reigned. The men of the party listened with respect to hisexplanations of the accomplishments of sanitation and of the economy ofthe cycle of chemical transformation by which these swine weremaintained without decreasing the capacity of the city for humansupport. Lastly the Swineherd spoke of the protection that the swinelevels provided against the effects of an occasional penetrating bombthat chanced to fall in the crater of its predecessor before the damagecould be repaired. 

Pursuant to this fact the uppermost swine level housed those unfortunateanimals that were nearest the sausage stage. On the next lower level, towhich we now descended by a spiral stair through a ventilating opening, were brutes of less advanced ages. On the lowest of the three levelswhere special lights were available for our benefit even the womenceased to shudder and gave expression to ecstatic cries of rapture, asall the world has ever done when seeing baby beasts pawing contentedlyat maternal founts. 

"Is it not all wonderful?" effused Admiral von Kufner, with a sweepinggesture; "so efficient, so sanitary, so automatic, such a fine exampleof obedience to system and order. This is what I call real science andbeauty; one might almost say Germanic beauty. "

"But I do not like it, " replied Marguerite with her usual candour. "Iwish they would abolish these horrid levels. "

"But surely, " said the Countess, "you would not wish to condemn us to adiet of total mineralism?"

"But the Herr Chemist here could surely invent for us a syntheticsausage, " remarked Count Rudolph. "I have eaten vegetarian kraut made ofreal cabbage from the Botanical Garden, but it was inferior to thesynthetic article. "

"Do not make light, young people, " spoke up the most venerable member ofour party, the eminent Herr Dr. Von Brausmorganwetter, the historianlaureate of the House of Hohenzollern. "It is not as a producer ofsausages alone that we Germans are indebted to this worthy animal. I amnow engaged in writing a book upon the influence of the swine uponGerman Kultur. In the first part I shall treat of the Semitic question. The Jews were very troublesome among us in the days before theisolation. They were a conceited race. As capitalists, they amassedfortunes; as socialists they stirred up rebellion; they objected to war;they would never have submitted to eugenics; they even insisted that weGermans had stolen their God!

"We tried many schemes to be rid of these troublesome people, and allfailed. Therefore I say that Germany owes a great debt to the nobleanimal who rid us of the disturbing presence of the Jews, for when porkwas made compulsory in the diet they fled the country of theirown accord. 

"In the second part of my book I shall tell the story of the founding ofthe New Berlin, for our noble city was modelled on the fortifiedpiggeries of the private estates of William III. In those days of theopen war the enemy bombed the stock farms. Synthetic foods were as yetimperfectly developed. Protein was at a premium; the emperor did notlike fish, so he built a vast concrete structure with a roof heavilyarmoured with sand that he might preserve his swine from the murderousattacks of the enemy planes. 

"It was during the retreat from Peking. The German armies were beingcrowded back on every side. The Ray had been invented, but William theIII knew that it could not be used to protect so vast a domain and thatGermany would be penned into narrow borders and be in danger ofextermination by aërial bombardment. In those days he went for rest andconsolation to his estates, for he took great pleasure in histhoroughbred swine. Some traitorous spy reported his move to the enemyand a bombing squadron attacked the estates. The Emperor took refuge inhis fortified piggery. And so the great vision came to him. 

"I have read the exact words of this thoughts as recorded in his diarywhich is preserved in the archives of the Royal Palace: 'As are thesehappy brutes, so shall my people be. In safety from the terrors of thesky--protected from the vicissitudes of nature and the enmity of men, soshall I preserve them. '

"That was the conception of the armoured city of Berlin. But that wasnot all. For the bombardment kept up for days and the Emperor could notescape. On the fourth day came the second idea--two new ideas in lessthan a week! William III was a great thinker. 

"Thus he recorded the second inspiration: 'And even as I have bred theseswine, some for bacon and some for lard, so shall the German BlondBrutes be bred the super-men, some specialized for labour and somefor brains. '

"These two ideas are the foundation of the kultur of our ImperialSocialism, the one idea to preserve us and the other to re-create us asthe super-race. And both of these ideas we owe to this noble animal. Theswine should be emblazoned with the eagle upon our flag. "

As the Historian finished his eulogy, I glanced surreptitiously at thefaces of his listeners, and caught a twinkle in Marguerite's eyes; butthe faces of the others were as serious as graven images. 

Finally the Countess spoke: "Do I understand, then, that you considerthe swine the model of the German race?"

"Only of the lower classes, " said the aged historian, "but not the Houseof Hohenzollern. We are exalted above the necessities of breeding, forwe are divine. "

Eyes were now turned upon me, for I was the only one of the company notof Hohenzollern blood. Unrelieved by laughter the situation was painful. 

"But, " said Count Rudolph, coming to my rescue, "we also seek safety inthe fortified piggeries. "

"Exactly, " said the Historian; "so did our noble ancestor. "

~4~

From the piggeries, we went to the green level where, growing beneatheye-paining lights, was a matted mass of solid vegetation from whichcame those rare sprigs of green which garnished our synthetic dishes. But this was too monotonous to be interesting and we soon went above tothe Defence Level where were housed vast military and rebuildingmechanisms and stores. After our guides had shown us briefly about amongthese paraphernalia, we were conducted to one of the sloping ramps whichled through a heavily arched tunnel to the roof above. 

Marguerite clung close to my arm, quivering with expectancy andexcitement, as we climbed up the sloping passage-way and felt on ourfaces the breath of the crisp air of the May night. 

The sky came into vision with startling suddenness as we walked out uponthe soft sand blanket of the roof. The night was absolutely clear and myfirst impression was that every star of the heavens had miraculouslywaxed in brilliancy. The moon, in the last quarter, hung midway betweenthe zenith and the western horizon. The milky way seemed a floating bandof whitish flame. About us, in the form of a wide crescent, for we werenear the eastern edge of the city, swung the encircling band ofsearchlights, but the air was so clear that this stockade of artificiallight beams was too pale to dim the points of light in theblue-black vault. 

In anticipating this visit to the roof I had supposed it would seemcommonplace to me, and had discussed it very little with Marguerite, lest I might reveal an undue lack of wonder. But now as I thrilled oncemore beneath their holy light, the miracle of unnumbered far-flungflaming suns stifled again the vanity of human conceit and I stood withsoul unbared and worshipful beneath the vista of incommensurate spacewherein the birth and death of worlds marks the unending roll of time. And at my side a silent gazing woman stood, contrite and humble and thethrill and quiver of her body filled me with a joy of wordless delight. 

A blundering guide began lecturing on astronomy and pointing out withpompous gestures the constellations and planets. But Marguerite led mebeyond the sound of his voice. "It is not the time for listening totalk, " she said. "I only want to see. "

When the astronomer had finished his speech-making, our party movedslowly toward the East, where we could just discern the first faintlight of the coming dawn. When we reached the parapet of the easternedge of the city's roof, the stars had faded and pale pink streaked theeastern sky. The guides brought folding chairs from a nearby tunnel wayand most of the party sat down on a hillock of sand, very much as menmight seat themselves in the grandstand of a race course. But I was sointerested in what the dawn would reveal beneath the changing colours ofthe sky, that I led Marguerite to the rail of the parapet where we couldlook down into the yawning depths upon the surface of German soil. 

My first vision over the parapet revealed but a mottled grey. But as thelight brightened the grey land took form, and I discerned a few scragglypatches of green between the torn masses of distorted soil. 

The stars had faded now and only the pale moon remained in the bluingsky, while below the land disclosed a sad monotony of ruin and waste, utterly devoid of any constructive work of man. 

Marguerite, her gaze fixed on the dawn, was beginning to complain of thelight paining her eyes, when one of the guides hurried by with an opensatchel swung from his shoulders. "Here are your glasses, " he said; "putthem on at once. You must be very careful now, or you will injureyour eyes. "

We accepted the darkened protecting lenses, but I found I did not needmine until the sun itself had appeared above the horizon. 

"Did you see it so in your vision?" questioned Marguerite, as the firstbeams glistened on the surface of the sanded roof. 

"This, " I replied, "is a very ordinary sunrise with a perfectlycloudless sky. Some day, perhaps, when the gates of this prison ofBerlin are opened, we will be able to see all the sunrises of myvisions, and even more wonderful ones. "

"Karl, " she whispered, "how do you know of all these things? Sometimes Ibelieve you are something more than human, that you of a truth possessthe blood of divinity which the House of Hohenzollern claims. "

"No, " I answered; "not divinity, --just a little larger humanity, andsome day very soon I am going to tell you more of the source ofmy visions. "

She looked at me through her darkened glasses. "I only know, " she said, "that you are wonderful, and very different from other men. "

Had we been alone on the roof of Berlin, I could not have resisted thetemptation to tell her then that stars and sun were familiar friends tome and that the devastated soil that stretched beneath us was but thewasted skeleton of a fairer earth I knew and loved. But we weresurrounded by a host of babbling sightseers and so the moment passed andI remained to Marguerite a man of mystery and a seer of visions. 

The sun fully risen now, we were led to a protruding observationplatform that permitted us to view the wall of the city below. It wasmerely one vast grey wall without interruption or opening in themonotonous surface. 

Amid the more troubled chaos of the ground immediately below we couldsee fragments of concrete blown from the parapet of the roof. The wallbeneath us, we were told, was only of sufficient thickness to withstandfire of the aircraft guns. The havoc that might be wrought, should thedefence mines ever be forced back and permit the walls of Berlin to comewithin range of larger field pieces, was easily imagined. But so long asthe Ray defence held, the massive fort of Berlin was quite impervious toattacks of the world forces of land and air and the stalemate of warmight continue for other centuries. 

With the coming of daylight we had heard the rumbling of trucks as theroof repairing force emerged to their task. Now that our party hadbecome tired of gazing through their goggles at the sun, our guides ledus in the direction where this work was in progress. On the way wepassed a single unfilled crater, a deep pit in the flinty quartz sandthat spread a protecting blanket over the solid structure of the roof. These craters in the sand proved quite harmless except for the labourinvolved in their refilling. Further on we came to another, nowhalf-filled from a spouting pipe with ground quartz blown from someremote subterranean mine, so to keep up the wastage from windand bombing. 

Again we approached the edge of the city and this time found more ofinterest, for here an addition to the city was under construction. Itwas but a single prism, not a hundred metres across, which whencompleted would add but another block to the city's area. Already theouter pillars reached the full height and supported the temporary roofthat offered at least a partial protection to the work in progressbeneath. Though I watched but a few minutes I was awed with the evidentrapidity of the building. Dimly I could see the forms below being swunginto place with a clock-like regularity and from numerous spouts greatstreams of concrete poured like flowing lava. 

It is at these building sections that the bombs were aimed and herealone that any effectual damage could be done, but the target was asmall one for a plane flying above the reach of the German guns. Theofficer who guided our group explained this to us: these bombing raidswere conducted only at times of particular cloud formations, when theveil of mist hung thick and low in an even stratum above which the airwas clear. When such formation threatened, the roof of Berlin wascleared and the expected bombs fell and spent their fury blowing up thesand. It had been a futile warfare, for the means of defence were equalto the means of offence. 

Our visit to the roof of Berlin was cut short as the sun rose higher, because the women, though they had donned gloves and veils, were fearfulof sunburn. So we were led back to the covered ramp into the endlessnight of the city. 

"Have we seen it all?" sighed Marguerite, as she removed her veil andglasses and gazed back blinkingly into the last light of day. 

"Hardly, " I said; "we have not seen a cloud, nor a drop of rain nor aflake of snow, nor a flash of lightning, nor heard a peal of thunder. "

Again she looked at me with worshipful adoration. "I forget, " shewhispered; "and can you vision those things also?"

But I only smiled and did not answer, for I saw Admiral von Kufnerglaring at me. I had monopolized Marguerite's company for the entireoccasion, and I was well aware that his only reason for arranging this, to him a meaningless excursion, had been in the hopes of being with her. 

~5~

But Admiral von Kufner, contending fairly for that share of Marguerite'stime which she deigned to grant him, seemed to bear me no malice; and, as the months slipped by, I was gratified to find him becoming morecordial toward me. We frequently met at the informal gatherings in thesalon of the Countess Luise. More rarely Dr. Zimmern came there also, for by virtue of his office he was permitted the social rights of theRoyal Level. I surmised, however, that this privilege, in his case, hadnot included the right to marry on the level, for though the head of theEugenic Staff, he had, so far as I could learn, neither wifenor children. 

But Dr. Zimmern did not seem to relish royal society, for when hechanced to be caught with me among the members of the Royal House theflow of his brilliant conversations was checked like a spring in adrought, and he usually took his departure as soon as it was seemly. 

On one of these occasions Admiral von Kufner came in as Zimmern satchatting over cups and incense with Marguerite and me, and the Countessand her son. The doctor dropped quietly out of the conversation, and fora time the youthful Count Ulrich entertained us with a technicalelaboration of the importance of the love passion as the dominant appealof the picture. Then the Countess broke in with a spirited exposition ofthe relation of soul harmony to ardent passion. 

Admiral von Kufner listened with ill-disguised impatience. "But all thiserotic passion, " he interrupted, "will soon again be swept away by therevival of the greater race passion for world rule. "

"My dear Admiral, " said the Countess Luise, "your ideas of race passionare quite proper for the classes who must be denied the free play of thelove element in their psychic life, but your notion of introducing theseideas into the life of the Royal Level is wholly antiquated. "

"It is you who are antiquated, " returned the Admiral, "for now the dayis at hand when we shall again taste of danger. His Majesty has--"

"Of course His Majesty has told us that the day is at hand, " interruptedthe Countess. "Has not His Majesty always preserved this allegoricalfable? It is part of the formal kultur. "

"But His Majesty now speaks the truth, " replied the Admiral gravely, "and I say to you who are so absorbed with the light passions of art andlove that we shall not only taste of danger but will fight again in thesea and air and on the ground in the outer world. We shall conquer andrule the world. "

"And do you think, Admiral, " inquired Marguerite, "that the Germanpeople will then be free in the outer world?"

"They will be free to rule the outer world, " replied the Admiral. 

"But I mean, " said Marguerite calmly, "to ask if they will be free againto love and marry and rear their own children. "

At this naïve question the others exchanged significant glances. 

"My dear child, " said the Countess, blushing with embarrassment, "yourdefective training makes it extremely difficult for you to understandthese things. "

"Of course it is all forbidden, " spoke up the young Count, "but now, ifit were not, the Princess Marguerite's unique idea would certainly makecapital picture material. "

"How clever!" cried the Countess, beaming on her intellectual son. "Nothing is forbidden for plot material for the Royal Level. You shallmake a picture showing those great beasts of labour again liberated forunrestricted love. "

"There is one difficulty, " Count Rudolph considered. "How could we getactors for the parts? Our thoroughbred actors are all too light of bone, too delicate of motion, and our actresses bred for dainty beauty wouldhardly caste well for those great hulking round-faced labour mothers. "

"Then, " remarked the Admiral, "if you must make picture plays why notone of the mating of German soldiers with the women of theinferior races?"

"Wonderful!" exclaimed the plot maker; "and practical also. Ouractresses are the exact counterpart of those passionate French beauties. I often study their portraits in the old galleries. They have had noEugenics, hence they would be unchanged. Is it not so, Doctor?"

"Without Eugenics, a race changes with exceeding slowness, " answeredZimmern in a voice devoid of expression. "I should say that the Frenchwomen of today would much resemble their ancestral types. "

"But picturing such matings of military necessity would be verydisgusting, " reprimanded the Countess. 

"It will be a very necessary part of the coming day of German dominion, "stated the Admiral. "How else can we expect to rule the world? It is, indeed, part of the ordained plan. "

"But how, " I questioned, "is such a plan to be executed? Would the menof the World State tolerate it?"

"We will oblige them to tolerate it; the children of the next generationof the inferior races must be born of German sires. "

"But the Germans are outnumbered ten to one, " I replied. 

"Polygamy will take care of that, among the white races; the colouredraces must be eliminated. All breeding of the coloured races must cease. That, also, is part of the ordained plan. "

The conversation was getting on rather dangerous ground for me as Irealized that I dare not show too great surprise at this talk, which ofall things I had heard in Germany was the most preposterous. 

But Marguerite made no effort to disguise her astonishment. "I thought, "she said, "that the German rule of the world was only a plan formilitary victory and the conquering of the World Government. I supposedthe people would be left free to live their personal lives asthey desired. "

"That was the old idea, " replied the Admiral, "in the days of open war, before the possibilities of eugenic science were fully realized. But theordained plan revealed to His Majesty requires not only the military andpolitical rule by the Germans, but the biologic conquest of the inferiorraces by German blood. "

"I think our German system of scientific breeding is very brutal, " spokeup Marguerite with an intensity of feeling quite out of keeping with thecalloused manner in which the older members of the Royal House discussedthe subject. 

The Admiral turned to her with a gracious air. "My lovely maiden, " hesaid, "your youth quite excuses your idealistic sentiments. You needonly to remember that you are a daughter of the House of Hohenzollern. The women of this House are privileged always to cultivate and cherishthe beautiful sentiments of romantic love and individual maternity. Theprotected seclusion of the Royal Level exists that such love may bloomuntarnished by the grosser affairs of world necessity. It was soordained. "

"It was so ordained by men, " replied Marguerite defiantly, "and what arethese privileges while the German women are prostituted on the FreeLevel or forced to bear children only to lose them--and while you planto enforce other women of the world into polygamous union with aconquering race?"

"My dear child, " said the Countess, "you must not speak in this wildfashion. We women of the Royal House must fully realize ourprivileges--and as for the Admiral's wonderful tale of worldconquest--that is only his latest hobby. It is talked, of course, inmilitary circles, but the defensive war is so dull, you know, especiallyfor the Royal officers, that they must have something to occupytheir minds. "

"When the day arrives, " snapped the Admiral, "you will find the Royalofficers leading the Germans to victory like Atilla and William theGreat himself. "

"Then why, " twitted the Countess, "do you not board one of yoursubmarines and go forth to battle in the sea?"

"I am not courting unnecessary danger, " retorted the Admiral; "but I amnot dead to the realities of war. My apartments are directly connectedwith the roof. "

"So you can hear the bomb explosions, " suggested the Countess. 

"And why not?" snapped the Admiral; "we must prepare for danger. "

"But you have not been bred for danger, " scoffed the Countess. "Perhapsyou would do well to have your reactions to fear tested out in thepsychic laboratories; if you should pass the test you might be electedas a father of soldiers; it would surely set a good example to ourimpecunious Hohenzollern bachelors for whom there are no wives. "

The young Count evidently did not comprehend his mother's spirit ofraillery. "Has that not been tried?" he asked, turning towardDr. Zimmern. 

"It has, " stated the Eugenist, "more than a hundred years ago. There wasonce an entire regiment of such Hohenzollern soldiers in theBavarian mines. "

"And how did they turn out?" I asked, my curiosity tempting me intoindiscretion. 

"They mutinied and murdered their officers and then held an election--"Zimmern paused and I caught his eye which seemed to say, "We have gonetoo far with this. "

"Yes, and what happened?" queried the Countess. 

"They all voted for themselves as Colonel, " replied the Doctor drily. 

At this I looked for an outburst of indignation from the orthodoxAdmiral, but instead he seemed greatly elated. "Of course, " he enthused;"the blood breeds true. It verily has the quality of true divinity. Nowonder we super-men repudiated that spineless conception of the softChristian God and the servile Jewish Jesus. "

"But Jesus was not a coward, " spoke up Marguerite. "I have read thestory of his life; it is very wonderful; he was a brave man, who met hisdeath unflinchingly. "

"But where did you read it?" asked the Countess. "It must be very new. Itry to keep up on the late novels but I never heard of this 'Storyof Jesus. '"

"What you say is true, " said the Admiral, turning to Marguerite, "butsince you like to read so well, you should get Prof. Ohlenslagger's bookand learn the explanation of the fact that you have just stated. We havelong known that all those great men whom the inferior races claim astheir geniuses are of truth of German blood, and that the fightingquality of the outer races is due to the German blood that was scatteredby our early emigrations. 

"But the distinctive contribution that Prof. Ohlenslagger makes to theselong established facts is in regard to the parentage of this man Jesus. In the Jewish accounts, which the Christians accepted, the truth wascrudely covered up with a most unscientific fable, which credited thepaternity of Jesus to miraculous interference with the laws of nature. 

"But now the truth comes out by Prof. Ohlenslagger's erudite reasoning. This unknown father of Jesus was an adventurer from Central Asia, a manof Teutonic blood. On no other conception can the mixed elements in thecharacter of Jesus be explained. His was the case of a dual personalityof conflicting inheritance. One day he would say: 'Lay up for yourselftreasures'--that was the Jewish blood speaking. The next day he wouldsay: 'I come to bring a sword'--that was the noble German blood of aTeutonic ancestor. It is logical, it must be true, for it was reasonedout by one of our most rational professors. "

The Countess yawned; Marguerite sat silent with troubled brows; Dr. Ludwig Zimmern gazed abstractedly toward the cold electric imitation ofa fire, above which on a mantle stood two casts, diminutivereproductions of the figures beside the door of the Emperor's palace, the one the likeness of William the Great, the other the Statue of theGerman God. But I was thinking of the news I had heard that afternoonfrom my Ore Chief--that Captain Grauble's vessel had returned to Berlin. 

CHAPTER XIII

IN WHICH A WOMAN ACCUSES ME OF MURDER ANDI PLACE A RUBY NECKLACE ABOUT HER THROAT

~1~

Anxious to renew my acquaintance with Captain Grauble at the earliestopportunity, I sent my social secretary to invite him to meet me for adinner engagement in one of the popular halls of the Free Level. 

When I reached the dining hall I found Captain Grauble awaiting me. Buthe was not alone. Seated with him were two girls and so strange apicture of contrast I had never seen. The girl on his right was anextreme example of the prevailing blonde type. Her pinkish white skinseemed transparent, her eyes were the palest blue and her hair wasbright yet pale gold. About her neck was a chain of blue stones linkedwith platinum. She was dressed in a mottled gown of light blue and gold, and so subtly blended were the colours that she and her gown seemed tobe part of the same created thing. But on Grauble's left sat a womanwhose gown was flashing crimson slashed with jetty black. Her skin waswhite with a positive whiteness of rare marble and her cheeks and lipsflamed with blood's own red. The sheen of her hair was that of a raven'swing, and her eyes scintillated with the blackness of polished jade. 

The pale girl, whom Grauble introduced as Elsa, languidly reached up herpink fingers for me to kiss and then sank back, eyeing me with mildcuriosity. But as I now turned to be presented to the other, I saw theblack-eyed beauty shrink and cower in an uncanny terror. Grauble againrepeated my name and then the name of the girl, and I, too, started infear, for the name he pronounced was "Katrina" and there flashed beforemy vision the page from the diary that I had first read in the dankchamber of the potash mine. In my memory's vision the words flamed andshouted: "In no other woman have I seen such a blackness of hair andeyes, combined with such a whiteness of skin. "

The girl before me gave no sign of recognition, but only gripped thetable and pierced me with the stare of her beady eyes. Nervously I sankinto a seat. Grauble, standing over the girl, looked down at her inangry amazement. "What ails you?" he said roughly, shaking her bythe shoulder. 

But the girl did not answer him and annoyed and bewildered, he sat down. For some moments no one spoke, and even the pale Elsa leaned forward andseemed to quiver with excitement. 

Then the girl, Katrina, slowly rose from her chair. "Who are you?" shedemanded, in a hoarse, guttural voice, still gazing at me withterrified eyes. 

I did not answer, and Grauble again reached over and gripped the girl'sarm. "I told you who he was, " he said. "He is Herr Karl von Armstadt ofthe Chemical Staff. "

But, the girl did not sit down and continued to stare at me. Then sheraised a trembling hand and, pointing an accusing finger at me, shecried in a piercing voice:

"You are not Karl Armstadt, but an impostor posing as Karl Armstadt!"

We were located in a well-filled dancing café, and the tragic voice ofthe accuser brought a crowd of curious people about our table. CaptainGrauble waved them back. As they pushed forward again, a street guardelbowed in, brandishing his aluminum club and asking the cause of thecommotion. The bystanders indicated Katrina and the guard, edging up, gripped her arm and demanded an explanation. 

Katrina repeated her accusation. 

"Evidently, " suggested Grauble, "she has known another man of the samename, and meeting Herr von Armstadt has recalled some tragic memory. "

"Perhaps, " said the guard politely, "if the gentleman would show theyoung lady his identification folder, she would be convinced ofher error. "

For a moment I hesitated, realizing full well what an inquiry mightreveal. 

"No, " I said, "I do not feel that it is necessary. "

"He is afraid to show it, " screamed the girl. "I tell you he is tryingto pass for Armstadt but he is some one else. He looks like KarlArmstadt and at first I thought he was Karl Armstadt, but I know heis not. "

I looked swiftly at the surrounding faces, and saw upon them suspicionand accusation. "There may be something wrong, " said a man in a militaryuniform, "otherwise why should the gentleman of the staff hesitate toshow his folder?"

"Very well, " I said, pulling out my folder. 

The guard glanced at it. "It seems to be all right, " he said, addressingthe group about the table; "now will you kindly resume your seats andnot embarrass these gentlemen with your idle curiosity?"

"Let me see the folder!" cried Katrina. 

"Pardon, " said the guard to me, "but I see no harm, " and he handed herthe folder. 

She glanced over it with feverish haste. 

"Are you satisfied now?" questioned the guard. 

"Yes, " hissed the black-eyed girl; "I am satisfied that this is KarlArmstadt's folder. I know every word of it, but I tell you that the manwho carries it now is not the real Karl Armstadt. " And then she wheeledupon me and screamed, "You are not Karl Armstadt, Karl Armstadt is dead, and you have murdered him!"

In an instant the café was in an uproar. Men in a hundred types ofuniform crowded forward; small women, rainbow-garbed, stood on thechairs and peered over taller heads of ponderous sisters of the labourcaste. Grauble again waved back the crowd and the guard brandished hisclub threateningly toward some of the more inquisitive daughtersof labour. 

When the crowd had fallen back to a more respectful distance, the guardrecovered my identification folder from Katrina and returned it to me. "Perhaps, " he said, "you have known the young lady and do not again careto renew the acquaintance? If so, with your permission, I shall take herwhere she will not trouble you again this evening. "

"That may be best, " I replied, wondering how I could explain the affairto Captain Grauble. 

"The incident is most unfortunate, " said the Captain, evidently a littlenettled, "but I think this rude force unnecessary. I know Katrina well, but I did not know she had previously known Herr von Armstadt. Thisbeing the case, and he seeming not to wish to renew the acquaintance, Isuggest that she leave of her own accord. "

But Katrina was not to be so easily dismissed. "No, " she retorted, "Iwill not leave until this man tells me how he came by thatidentification folder and what became of the man I loved, whom he nowrepresents himself to be. "

At these words the guard, who had been about to leave, turned back. 

I glanced apprehensively at Grauble who, seeing that I was grievouslywrought up over the affair, said quietly to the officer, "You had besttake her away. "

Katrina, with a black look of hatred at Grauble, went without furtherwords, and the curious crowd quickly melted away. The three of us whoremained at the table resumed our seats and I ordered dinner. 

"My, how Katrina frightened me!" exclaimed the fragile Elsa. 

"She does have temper, " admitted Grauble. "Odd, though, that she wouldconceive that idea that you were some one else. I have heard of allsorts of plans of revenge for disappointments in love, but that is anew one. "

"You really know her?" questioned Elsa, turning her pale eyes upon me. 

"Oh, yes, I once knew her, " I replied, trying to seem unconcerned; "butI did not recognize her at first. "

"You mean you didn't care to, " smiled Grauble. "Once a man had knownthat woman he would hardly forget her. "

"But you must have had a very emotional affair with her, " said Elsa, "tomake her take on like that. Do tell us about it. "

"I would rather not; there are some things one wishes to forget. "

Grauble chided his dainty companion for her prying curiosity and triedto turn the conversation into less personal channels. But Elsa'sappetite for romance had been whetted and she kept reverting to thesubject while I worried along trying to dismiss the matter. But theending of the affair was not to be left in my hands; as we were sittingabout our empty cups, we saw Katrina re-enter the café in company with ahigh official of the level and the guard who had taken her away. 

"I am sorry to disturb you, " said the official, addressing mecourteously, "but this girl is very insistent in her accusation, andperhaps, if you will aid us in the matter, it may prevent her makingfurther charges that might annoy you. "

"And what do you wish me to do?"

"I suggest only that you should come to my office. I have telephoned tohave the records looked up and that should satisfy all and so endthe matter. "

"You might come also, " added the official, turning to Grauble, but hewaved back the curious Elsa who was eager to follow. 

When we reached his office in the Place of Records, the official who hadbrought us thither turned to a man at a desk. "You have received thedata on missing men?" he inquired. 

The other handed him a sheet of paper. 

The official turned to Katrina. "Will you state again, please, the timethat you say the Karl Armstadt you knew disappeared?"

Katrina quite accurately named the date at which the man whose identityI had assumed had been called to the potash mines. 

"Very well, " said the official, taking up the sheet of paper, "here wehave the list of missing men for four years compiled from the weighers'records. There is not recorded here the disappearance of a singlechemist during the whole period. If another man than a chemist shouldtry to step into a chemist's shoes, he would have a rather difficulttime of it. " The official laughed as if he thought himself very clever. 

"But that man is not Karl Armstadt, " cried Katrina in a wavering voice. "Do you think I would not know him when every night for--"

"Shut up, " said the official, "and get out of here, and if I hearanything more of this matter I shall subtract your credit. "

Katrina, now whimpering, was led from the room. The official beamed uponCapt. Grauble and myself. "Do you see, " he said, "how perfectly ourrecords take care of these crazy accusations? The black haired one isevidently touched in the head with jealousy, and now that she haschanced upon you, she makes up this preposterous story, which mightcause you no end of annoyance, but here we have the absolute refutationof the charge. Before a man can step into another's shoes, he must stepout of his own. Murdered bodies can be destroyed, although that isdifficult, but one man cannot be two men!"

We left the official chuckling over his cleverness. 

"The Keeper of Records was wise after his kind, " mused Grauble, "but itnever occurred to him that there might be chemists in the world who arenot registered in the card files of Berlin. "

Grauble's voice sounded a note of aloofness and suspicion. Had hepenetrated my secret? Did I dare make full confession? Had Grauble givenme the least encouragement I should have done so, but he seemed to wishto avoid further discussion and I feared to risk it. 

My hope of a fuller understanding with Grauble seemed destroyed, and wesoon separated without further confidences. 

~2~

When I returned home from my offices one evening some days later, mysecretary announced that a visitor was awaiting me. 

I entered the reception-room and found Holknecht, who had been mychemical assistant in the early days of my work in Berlin. Holknecht hadseemed to me a servile fawning fellow and when I received my firstpromotion I had deserted him quite brutally for the very excellentreason that he had known the other Armstadt and I feared that his dulledintelligence might at any time be aroused to penetrate my disguise. Thathe should look me up in my advancement and prosperity, doubtless to begsome favour, seemed plausible enough, and therefore with an air ofcondescending patronage, I asked what I could do for him. 

"It is about Katrina, " he said haltingly, as he eyed me curiously. 

"Well, what about her?"

"She wants me to bring you to her. "

"But suppose I do not choose to go?"

"Then there may be trouble. "

"She has already tried to make trouble, " I said, "but nothing came ofit. "

"But that, " said Holknecht, "was before she saw me. "

"And what have you told her?"

"I told her about Armstadt's going to the mines and you coming back tothe hospital wearing his clothes and possessed of his folder and of yourbeing out of your memory. "

"You mean, " I replied, determined not to acknowledge his assumption ofmy other identity, "that you explained to her how the illness hadchanged me; and did that not make clear to her why she did not recognizeme at first?"

"There is no use, " insisted Holknecht, "of your talking like that. Inever could quite make up my mind about you, though I always knew therewas something wrong. At first I believed the doctor's story, and thatyou were really Armstadt, though it did seem like a sort of magic, theway you were changed. But when you came to the laboratory and I saw youwork, I decided that you were somebody else and that the Chemical Staffwas working on some great secret and had a reason for putting some oneelse in Armstadt's place. And now, of course, I know very well that thatwas so, for the other Karl Armstadt would never have become a von of theRoyal Level. He didn't have that much brains. "

As Holknecht was speaking I had been thinking rapidly. The thing Ifeared was that the affair of the mine and hospital should beinvestigated by some one with intelligence and authority. Since Katrinahad learned of that, and this Holknecht was also aware that I was a manof unknown identity, it was very evident that they might set someserious investigation going. But the man's own remarks suggested away out. 

"You are quite right, Holknecht, " I said; "I am not Karl Armstadt; and, just as you have surmised, there were grave reasons why I should havebeen put into his place under those peculiar circumstances. But thismatter is a state secret of the Chemical Staff and you will do well tosay nothing about it. Now is there anything I can do for you? Apromotion, perhaps, to a good position in the Protium Works?"

"No, " said Holknecht, "I would rather stay where I am, but I could use alittle extra money. "

"Of course; a check, perhaps; a little gift from an old friend who hasrisen to power; there would be no difficulty in that, would there?"

"I think it would go through all right. "

"I will make it now; say five thousand marks, and if nothing more issaid of this matter by you or Katrina, there will be another one like ita year later. "

The young man's eyes gloated as I wrote the check, which he pocketedwith greedy satisfaction. "Now, " I said, "will this end the affair forthe present?"

"This makes it all right with me, " replied Holknecht, "but what aboutKatrina?"

"But you are to take care of her. She can only accept two hundred marksa month and I have given you enough for that four times over. "

"But she doesn't want money; she already has a full list. "

"Then what does she want?"

"Jewels, of course; they all want them; jewels from the Royal Level, andshe knows you can get them for her. "

"Oh, I see. Well, what would please her?"

"A necklace of rubies, the best they have, one that will cost at leasttwenty thousand marks. "

"That's rather expensive, is it not?"

"But her favourite lover disappeared, " fenced Holknecht, "and his deathwas never entered on the records. It may be the Chemical Staff knowswhat became of him and maybe they do not; whatever happened, you seem towant it kept still, so you had best get the necklace. "

After a little further arguing that revealed nothing, I went to theRoyal Level, and searching out a jewelry shop, I purchased a necklace ofvery beautiful synthetic rubies, for which I gave my check for twentythousand marks. 

Returning to my apartment, I found Holknecht still waiting. He insistedon taking the necklace to Katrina, but I feared to trust a man whoaccepted bribes so shamelessly, and decided to go with him and deliverit in person. 

Sullenly, Holknecht led the way to her apartment. 

Katrina sensuously gowned in flaming red was awaiting the outcome of herblackmailing venture. She motioned me to a chair near her, whileHolknecht, utterly ignored, sank obscurely into a corner. 

"So you came, " said the lady of black and scarlet, leaning back amongher pillows and gazing at me through half closed eyes. 

"Yes, " I said, "since you have looked up Holknecht and he has explainedto you the reason for the disappearance of the man you knew, I thoughtbest to see you and have an understanding. "

"But that dumb fellow explained nothing, " declared Katrina, "except thathe told me that Armstadt went to the mines and you came back and tookhis place. He wasn't even sure you were not the other Karl Armstadtuntil I convinced him, and then he claimed that he had known it all thetime; and yet he had never told it. Some men are as dull as books. "

"On the contrary, Holknecht is very sensible, " I replied. "It is a graveaffair of state and one that it is best not to probe into. "

"And just what did become of the other Armstadt?" asked Katrina, and inher voice was only a curiosity, with no real concern. 

"To tell you the truth, your lover was killed in the mine explosion, " Ireplied, for I thought it unwise to state that he was still alive lestshe pursue her inquiries for him and so make further trouble. 

"That is too bad, " said Katrina. "You see, when I knew him he was only achemical captain. And when he deserted me I didn't really care much. Butwhen the Royal Captain Grauble asked me to meet a Karl von Armstadt ofthe Chemical Staff, at first I could not believe that it was the sameman I had known, but I made inquiries and learned of your rapid rise andtraced it back and I thought you really were my old Karl. And when I sawyou, you seemed to be he, but when I looked again I knew that you wereanother and I was so disappointed and angry that I lost control of mytemper. I am sorry I made a scene, and that official was so stupid--asif I would not know one man from another! How I should like to tell himthat I knew more than his stupid records. "

"But that is not best, " I said; "your former lover is dead and there aregrave reasons why that death should not be investigated further--" Theargument was becoming a little difficult for me and I hastened to add:"Since you were so discourteously treated by the official, I feel that Iowe you some little token of reparation. "

I now drew out the necklace and held it out to the girl. 

Her black eyes gleamed with triumph at the sight of the bauble. Greedilyshe grasped it and held it up between her and the light, turning itabout and watching the red rays gleaming through the stones. "And now, "she gloated, "that faded Elsa will cease to lord it over me--and tothink that another Karl Armstadt has brought me this--why that stingyfellow would never have bought me a blue-stone ring, if he had been madethe Emperor's Minister. "

Katrina now rose and preened before her mirror. "Won't you place itround my neck?" she asked, holding out the necklace. 

Nor daring to give offence, I took the chain of rubies and attempted tofasten it round her neck. The mechanism of the fastening was strange tome and I was some time in getting the thing adjusted. Just as I hadsucceeded in hooking the clasp, I heard a curdled oath and the neglectedHolknecht hurled himself upon us, striking me on the temple with onefist and clutching at the throat of the girl with the other hand. 

The blow sent me reeling to the floor but in another instant I was upand had collared him and dragged him away. 

"Damn you both, " he whimpered; "where do I come in?"

"Put him out, " said Katrina, with a glance of disdain at the coweringman. 

"I will go, " snarled Holknecht, and he wrenched from my grasp and dartedtoward the door. I followed, but he was fairly running down the passageand pursuit was too undignified a thing to consider. 

"You should have paid him, " said Katrina, "for delivering my message. "

"I have paid him, " I replied. "I paid him very well. "

"I wonder if he thought, " she laughed, "that I would pay any attentionto a man of his petty rank. Why, I snubbed him unmercifully years agowhen the other Armstadt had the audacity to introduce me. "

"Of course, " I replied, "he does not understand. "

And now, as I resumed my seat, I began puzzling my brain as to how Icould get away without giving offence to the second member of my pair ofblackmailers. But a little later I managed it, as it has been managedfor centuries, by looking suddenly at my watch and recalling a forgottenappointment. 

"You will come again?" purred Katrina. 

"Of course, " I said, "I must come again, for you are very charming, butI am afraid it will not be for some time as I have very important dutiesand just at present my leisure is exceedingly limited. "

And so I made my escape, and hastened home. After debating the questionpro and con I typed a note to Holknecht in which I assured him that Ihad not the least interest in Katrina. "Perhaps, " I wrote, "when she hastired a bit of the necklace, she would appreciate something else. But itwould not be wise to hurry this; but if you will call around in a monthor so, I think I can arrange for you to get her something and present ityourself, as I do not care to see her again. "

CHAPTER XIV

THE BLACK SPOT IS ERASED FROM THE MAP OF THE WORLD ANDTHERE IS DANCING IN THE SUNLIGHT ON THE ROOF OF BERLIN

~1~

The relative ease with which I had so long passed for the real KarlArmstadt had lulled me into a feeling of security. But now that mydisguise had been penetrated, my old fears were renewed. True, theweigher's records had seemingly cleared me, but I knew that Grauble hadseen the weak spot in the German logic of the stupid official, who hadso lightly dismissed Katrina's accusations. Moreover, I fancied thatGrauble had guessed the full truth and connected this uncertainty of myidentity with the seditious tenor of the suggestions I had made to him. Even though he might be willing to discuss rebellious plans with aGerman, could I count on him to consider the treasonable urging comingfrom a man of another and an enemy race?

So fearing either to confess to him my identity or to proceed withoutconfessing, I postponed doing anything. The sailing date of his fifthtrip to the Arctic was fast approaching; if I was ever to board a vesselleaving Berlin I would need von Kufner's permission. Marguerite reportedthe growing cordiality of the Admiral. Although I realized that hisinfatuation for her was becoming rather serious, with the confidence ofan accepted lover, I never imagined that he could really come betweenMarguerite and myself. 

But one evening when I went to call upon Marguerite she was "not athome. " I repeated the call with the same result. When I called her up bytelephone, her secretary bluntly told me that the Princess Margueritedid not care to speak to me. I hastened to write an impassioned note, pleading to see her at once, for the days were passing and there was nowbut a week before Grauble's vessel was due to depart. 

In desperation I waited two more days, and still no word came. Myletters of pleading, like my calls and telephone efforts, werestill ignored. 

Then a messenger came bearing a note from Admiral von Kufner, asking meto call upon him at once. 

"I have been considering, " began von Kufner, when I entered his office, "the request you made of me some time ago to be permitted to go inperson to make a survey of the ore deposits. At first I opposed this, asthe trip is dangerous, but more recently I have reconsidered theimportance of it. As others are now fully able to continue your workhere, I can quite conceive that your risking the trip to the mines inperson would be a very courageous and noble sacrifice. So I have takenthe matter up with His Majesty. "

With mocking politeness von Kufner now handed me a document bearing theimperial seal. 

I held it with a trembling hand as I glanced over the fateful words thatcommissioned me to go at once to the Arctic. 

My smouldering jealousy of the oily von Kufner now flamed intoexpression. "You have done this thing from personal motives, " I cried. "You have revoked your previous decision because you want me out of yourway. You know I will be gone for six months at least. You hope in yourcowardly heart that I will never come back. "

Von Kufner's lips curled. "You see fit, " he answered, "to impugn mymotives in suggesting that the order be issued, although it is thegranting of your own request. But the commission you hold in your handbears the Imperial signature, and the Emperor of the Germans neverrevokes his orders. "

"Very well, " I said, controlling my rage, "I will go. "

~2~

Upon leaving the Admiral's office my first thought was to go at once toMarguerite. Whatever might be the nature of her quarrel with me I wasnow sure that von Kufner was at the bottom of it, and that it was insome way connected with this sudden determination of his to send me tothe Arctic, hoping that I would never return. 

But before I had gone far I began to consider other matters. I wascommissioned to leave Berlin by submarine and that too by the vessel incommand of Captain Grauble, whom I knew to be nursing rebellion andmutiny in his heart. If deliverance from Berlin was ever to come, it hadcome now. To refuse to embrace it would mean to lose for ever thisfortunate chance to escape from this sunless Babylon. 

I would therefore go first to Grauble and determine without delay if hecould be relied on to make the attempt to reach the outer world. Once Iknew that, I could go then to Marguerite with an invitation for her tojoin me in flight--if such a thing were humanly possible. 

But recalling the men who had done so much to fill me with hope andfaith in the righteousness of my mission, I again changed my plan andsought out Dr. Zimmern and Col. Hellar and arranged for them to meet methat evening at Grauble's quarters. 

At the hour appointed I, who had first arrived at the apartment, satwaiting for the arrival of Zimmern. When he came, to my surprise andbewildered joy he was not alone, for Marguerite was with him. 

She greeted me with distress and penitence in her eyes and I exulted inthe belief that whatever her quarrel with me might be it meant noirretrievable loss of her devotion and love. 

We sat about the room, a very solemn conclave, for I had alreadyinformed Grauble of my commission to go to the Arctic, and he had sensedat once the revolutionary nature of the meeting. I now gave him a briefstatement of the faith of the older men, who from the fulness of theirlives had reached the belief that the true patriotism for their race wasto be expressed in an effort to regain for the Germans the citizenshipof the world. 

The young Captain gravely nodded. "I have not lived so long, " he said, "but my life has been bitter and full of fear. I am not out of sympathywith your argument, but before we go further, " and he turned toMarguerite, "may I not ask why a Princess of the House of Hohenzollernis included in such a meeting as this?"

I turned expectantly to Zimmern, who now gave Grauble an account of thetragedy and romance of Marguerite's life. 

"Very well, " said Grauble; "she has earned her place with us; now that Iunderstand her part, let us proceed. "

For some hours Hellar and Zimmern explained their reasons for believingthe life of the isolated German race was evil and defended their faithin the hope of salvation through an appeal to the mercy and justice ofthe World State. 

"Of all this I am easily convinced, " said Grauble, "for it is but alogically thought-out conclusion of the feeling I have nourished in myblind rebellion. I am ready to go with Herr von Armstadt and surrendermy vessel to the enemy; but the practical question is, will our riskavail anything? What hope can we have that we will even be able todeliver the message you wish to send? How are we to know that we willnot immediately be killed?"

The hour had come. "I will answer that question, " I said, and there wasa tenseness in my tone that caused my hearers to look at me with eager, questioning eyes. 

"Barring, " I said, "the possibility of destruction before I can gainopportunity to speak to some one in authority, there is nothing to fearin the way of our ungracious reception in the outer world--" As I pausedand looked about me I saw Marguerite's eyes shining with the sameworshipful wonder as when I had visioned for her the sunlight and thestorms of the world outside Berlin--"because I am of that world. I speaktheir language. I know their people. I never saw the inside of Berlinuntil I was brought here from the potash mines of Stassfurt, wearing theclothes and carrying the identification papers of one Karl Armstadt whowas killed by gas bombs which I myself had ordered dropped intothose mines. "

At these startling statements the older men could only gasp inincredulous astonishment, but Captain Grauble nodded wisely--"I halfexpected as much, " he said. 

I turned to Marguerite. Her eyes were swimming in a mist of tears. 

"Then your visions were real memories, " she cried, --"and not miracles. Iknew you had seen other worlds, but I thought it was in some spiritlife. " She reached out a trembling hand toward me and then shrinkinglydrew it back. "But you are not Karl Armstadt, " she stammered, as sherealized that I was a nameless stranger. 

"No, " I said, going to her and placing a reassuring arm about hershoulder, "I am not Karl Armstadt. My name is Lyman de Forrest. I am anAmerican, a chemical engineer from the city of Chicago, and if CaptainGrauble does not alter his purpose, I am going back there and will takeyou with me. "

Zimmern and Hellar were listening in consternation. "How is it, " askedHellar, "that you speak German?"

By way of answer I addressed him in English and in French, while he andZimmern glanced at each other as do men who see a miracle and strive tohold their reason while their senses contradict their logic. 

I now sketched the story of my life and adventures with a fulness ofconvincing detail. One incident only I omitted and that was of the neardiscovery of my identity by Armstadt's former mistress. Of that I didnot speak for I felt that Marguerite, at least in the presence of theothers, would not relish that part of the story. Nor did I wish to worrythem with the fear that was still upon me that I had not seen the lastof that affair. 

After answering many questions and satisfying all doubts as to the truthof my story, I again turned the conversation to the practical problem ofthe escape from Berlin. "You can now see, " I declared, "that I deserveno credit for genius or courage. I am merely a prisoner in an enemy citywhere my life is in constant danger. If any one of you should speak theword, I would be promptly disposed of as a spy. But if you are sincerein your desire to send a message to my Government, I am here to takethat message. "

"It almost makes one believe that there is a God, " cried Hellar, "andthat he has sent us a deliverer. "

"As for me, " spoke up Captain Grauble, "I shall deliver your messengerinto the hands of his friends, and trust that he can persuade them todeal graciously with me and my men. I should have made this break forliberty before had I not believed it would be fleeing from one deathto another. "

"Then you will surely leave us, " said Zimmern. "It is more than we havewished and prayed for, but, " he added, turning a compassionate glancetoward Marguerite, "it will be hard for her. "

"But she is going with us, " I affirmed. "I will not leave her behind. Asfor you and Col Hellar, I shall see you again when Berlin is free. Butthe risks are great and the time may be long, and if Marguerite will goI will take her with me as a pledge that I shall not prove false in mymission for you, her people. "

I read Marguerite's answer in the joy of her eyes, as I heard Col. Hellar say: "That would be fine, if it were possible. "

But Zimmern shook his head. "No, " he said, as if commanding. "Margueritemust not go now even if it were possible. You may come back for her ifyou succeed in your mission, but we cannot lose her now; she must not gonow, --" and his voice trembled with deep emotion. At his words ofauthority concerning the girl I loved I felt a resurge of the oldsuspicion and jealousy. 

"I am sorry, " spoke up Captain Grauble, "but your desire to take thePrincess Marguerite with you is one that I fear cannot be realized. Iwould be perfectly willing for her to go if we could once get heraboard, but the approach of the submarine docks are very elaboratelyguarded. To smuggle a man aboard without a proper permit would beexceedingly difficult, but to get a woman to the vessel is quiteimpossible. "

"I suppose that it cannot be, " I said, for I saw the futility of arguingthe matter further at the time, especially as Zimmern was opposed to it. 

The night was now far spent and but four days remained in which tocomplete my preparations for departure. In this labour Zimmern andHellar could be of no service and I therefore took my leave of them, lest I should not see them again. "Within a year at most, " I said, "wemay meet again, for Berlin will be open to the world. Once the passageis revealed and the protium traffic stopped, the food stores cannot lastlonger. When these facts are realized by His Majesty and the AdvisoryCouncil, let us hope they will see the futility of resisting. Theknowledge that Germany possesses will increase the world's food supplyfar more than her population will add to the consumptive demands, hence ifreason and sanity prevail on both sides there will be no excuse for warand suffering. "

~3~

And so I took my leave of the two men from whose noble souls I hadachieved my aspirations to bring the century-old siege of Berlin to asane and peaceful end without the needless waste of life that all theworld outside had always believed would be an inevitable part of thecapitulation of the armoured city. 

I now walked with Marguerite through the deserted tree-lined avenues ofthe Royal Level. 

"And why, dear, " I asked, "have you refused to see me these five dayspast?"

"Oh, Karl, " she cried, "you must forgive me, for nothing matters now--Ihave been crazed with jealousy. I was so hurt that I could see no one, for I could only fight it out alone. "

"And what do you mean?" I questioned. "Jealous? And of whom could you bejealous, since there is no other woman in this unhappy city for whom Ihave ever cared?"

"Yes, I believe that. I haven't doubted that you loved me with a noblerlove than the others, but you told me there were no others, and Ibelieved you. So it was hard, so very hard. The Doctor--I saw Dr. Zimmern this morning and poured out my heart to him--insisted that Ishould accept the fact that until marriage all men were like that, andit could not be helped. But I never asked you, Karl, about other women;you yourself volunteered to tell me there were no others, and what youtold me was not true. I must forgive you, for now I may lose you, butwhy does a man ever need to lie to a woman? I somehow feel that lovemeans truth--"

"But, " I insisted, "it was the truth. I bear no personal relation to anyother woman. "

She drew back from me, breathing quickly, faith and doubt fighting abattle royal in her eyes. "But the checks, Karl?" she stammered; "thosechecks the girl on the Free Level cashes each month, and worse than thatthe check at the Jeweller's where you bought a necklace for twentythousand marks?"

"Quite right, there are such checks, and I shall explain them. Butbefore I begin, may I ask just how you came to know about those checks?Not that I care; I am glad you do know; but the fact of your knowledgepuzzles me, for I thought the privacy of a man's checking account wasone of the unfair privileges that man has usurped for himself and notgranted to women. "

"But I did not pry into the matter. I would never have thought of such athing until he forced the facts upon me. "

"He? You mean von Kufner?"

"Yes, it was five days ago. I was out walking with him and he insistedon my going into a jewellery store we were passing. I at first refusedto go as I thought he wished to buy me something. But he insisted thathe merely wanted me to look at things and I went in. You see, I wastrying not to offend him. "

"Of course, " I said, "there was no harm in that. And--"

"The Admiral winked at the Jeweller. I saw him do that; and the jewellerset out a tray of ruby necklaces and began to talk about them, and thenvon Kufner remarked that since they were so expensive he must not sellmany. 'Oh, yes, ' said the Jeweller, 'I sell a great number to young menwho have just come into money. I sold one the other day to Herr vonArmstadt of the Chemical Staff, ' and he reached for his sales book andopened it to the page with a record of the sale. He had the placemarked, for I saw him remove a slip as he opened the book. "

"Rather clever of von Kufner, " I commented; "how do you suppose he gottrail of it?"

"He admitted his trailing quite frankly, " said Marguerite, "for as soonas we were out of the shop, I accused him of preparing the scene. 'Ofcourse, ' he said, 'but I had to convince you that your chemist was notso saintly as you thought him. His banker is a friend of mine, and Iasked him about von Armstadt's account. He is keeping a girl on the FreeLevel and evidently also making love to one of better caste, or he wouldhardly be buying ruby necklaces. ' I told von Kufner that he was amiserable spy, but he only laughed at me and said that all men werealike and that I ought to find it out while I was young--and then heasked if I would like him to have the young woman's record sent up fromthe Free Level for my inspection. I ordered him to leave me at once andI have not seen or heard from him since, until I received a note fromhim today telling me of the Royal order for you to go to the Arctic. "

I first set Marguerite's mind at ease about the checks to Bertha byexplaining the incident of the geography, and then told the story ofKatrina and the meeting in the café, and the later affair of Holknechtand the necklace. 

"And you will promise me never to see her again?"

"But you have forgotten, " I said, "that I am leaving Berlin in fourdays. "

"Oh, Karl, " she cried, "I have forgotten everything--I cannot evenremember that new name you gave us--I believe I must be dreaming--orthat it is all a wild story you have told us to see how much we in oursimplicity and ignorance will believe. "

"No, " I said gently, "it is not a dream, though I could wish that itwere, for Grauble says that there is no hope of taking you with me; andyet I must go, for the Emperor has ordered me to the Arctic and vonKufner will see to it that I make no excuses. If I once leave Berlin bysubmarine with Grauble I do not see how I can refuse to carry out mypart of this project to which I am pledged, and make the effort to reachthe free world outside. "

Marguerite turned on me with a bitter laugh. "The free world, " shecried, "your world. You are going back to it and leave me here. You aregoing back to your own people--you will not save Germany at all--youwill never come back for me!"

"You are very wrong, " I said gently. "It is because I have known you andknown such men as Dr. Zimmern and Col. Hellar that I do want to carrythe message that will for ever end this sunless life of yourimprisoned race. "

"But, " cried Marguerite, "you do not want to take me; you could find away if you would--you made the Emperor do your bidding once--you coulddo it again if you wanted to. "

"I very much want to take you; to go without you would be but a bittersuccess. "

"But have you no wife, or no girl you love among your own people?"

"No. "

"But if I should go with you, the people of your world would welcome youbut they would imprison me or kill me as a spy. "

"No, " and I smiled as I answered, "they do not kill women. "

~4~

During four brief days that remained until Capt. Grauble's vessel wasdue to depart my every hour was full of hurried preparations for mysurvey of the Arctic mines. Clothing for the rigours and rough labour ofthat fearful region had to be obtained and I had to get together thereports of previous surveys and the instruments for the ore analysesthat would be needed. Nor was I altogether faithless in thesepreparations for at times I felt that my first duty might be thus to aidin the further provisioning of the imprisoned race, for how was I toknow that I would be able to end the state of war that had prevailed inspite of the generations of pacifist efforts? At times I even doubtedthat this break for the outer world would ever be made. I doubted thatCapt. Grauble, though he solemnly assured us that he was ready for theventure, was acting in good faith. Could he, I asked, persuade his mento their part of the adventure? Would not our traitorous design bediscovered and we both be returned as prisoners to Berlin? Granted eventhat Grauble could carry out his part and that the submarine proceededas planned to rise to the surface or attempt to make some port, with thebest of intentions of surrendering to the World State authorities, mightnot we be destroyed before we could make clear our peaceful and friendlyintentions? Could I, coming out of Germany with Germans prove myidentity? Would my story be believed? Would I have believed such a storybefore the days of my sojourn among the Germans? Might I not beconsigned to languish in prison as a merely clever German spy, or beconsigned to an insanity ward?

At times I doubted even my own desire to escape from Berlin if it meantthe desertion of Marguerite, for there could be no joy in escape for mewithout her. Yet I found small relish in looking forward to life as amember of that futile clan of parasitical Royalty. Had Germany been afree society where we might hope to live in peace and freedom perhaps Icould have looked forward to a marriage with Marguerite and consideredlife among the Germans a tolerable thing. But for such a life as we mustneeds live, albeit the most decent Berlin had to offer, I could find norelish--and the thought of escape and call of duty beyond the bomb proofwalls and poisoned soil called more strongly than could any thought oflove and domesticity within the accursed circle of fraudulent divinity. 

There was also the danger that lurked for me in Holknecht's knowledge ofmy identity and the bitterness of his anger born of his insane andstupid jealousy. 

Rather than remain longer in Berlin I would take any chance and risk anydanger if only Marguerite were not to be left behind. And yet she mustbe left behind, for such a thing as getting a woman aboard a submarineor even to the submarine docks had never been heard of. I thought of allthe usual tricks of disguising her as a man, of smuggling her as astowaway amidst the cargo, but Grauble's insistence upon theimpossibility of such plans had made it all too clear that any such wildattempt would lead to the undoing of us all. 

If escape were possible with Marguerite--! But cold reason said thatescape was improbable enough for me alone. For a woman of the House ofHohenzollern the prison of Berlin had walls of granite and locksof steel. 

The time of departure drew nearer. I had already been passed down by thestealthy guards and through the numerous locked and barred gates to thesubterranean docks where Grauble's vessel, the _Eitel 3_, rested on theheavy trucks that would bear her away through the tunnel to thepneumatic lock that would float her into the passage that led tothe open sea. 

My supplies and apparatus were stored on board and the crew were makingready to be off. But three hours were left until the time of ourdeparture and these hours I had set aside for my final leave-taking ofMarguerite. I hastened back through the guarded gates to the elevatorand was quickly lifted to the Royal Level where Marguerite was to bewaiting for me. 

With fast beating and rebellious heart I rang the bell of the Countess'apartment. I could scarcely believe I heard aright when the servantinformed me that the Princess Marguerite had gone out. 

I demanded to see the Countess and was ushered into the reception-roomand suffered unbearably during the few minutes till she appeared. To myexcited question she replied with a teasing smile that Marguerite hadgone out a half hour before with Admiral von Kufner. "I warned you, "said the Countess as she saw the tortured expression of my face, "butyou would not believe me, when I told you the Admiral would prove adangerous man. "

"But it is impossible, " I cried. "I am leaving for the Arctic mines. Ihave only a couple of hours; surely you are hiding something. Did yousee her go? Did she leave no word? Do you know where they have gone orwhen they will return?"

The Countess shook her head. "I only know, " she replied moresympathetically, "that Marguerite seemed very excited all morning. Shetalked with me of your leaving and seemed very wrought up over it, andthen but an hour or so ago she rushed into her room and telephoned--itmust have been to the Admiral, for he came shortly afterwards. Theytalked together for a little while and then, without a word to me theywent out, seeming to be in a great hurry. Perhaps she felt so upset overyour leaving that she thought it kinder not to risk a parting scene. Sheis so honest, poor child, that she probably did not wish to send youaway with any false hopes. "

"But do you mean, " I cried, "that you think she has gone out with vonKufner to avoid seeing me?"

"I am sorry, " consoled the Countess, "but it looks that way. It wascruel of her, for she might have sent you away with hope to live on tillyour return, even if she felt she could not wait for you. "

I strove not to show my anger to the Countess, for, considering herignorance of the true significance of the occasion, I could not expect afull understanding. 

Miserably I waited for two hours as the Countess tried to entertain mewith her misplaced efforts at sympathy while I battled to keep my faithin Marguerite alive despite the damaging evidence that she had desertedme at the last hour. 

I telephoned to von Kufner's office and to his residence but could getno word as to his whereabouts, and Marguerite did not return. 

I dared not wait any longer--asking for envelope and paper, I penned ahasty note to Marguerite: "I shall go on to the Arctic and come back toyou. The salvation of Berlin must wait till you can go with me. Icannot, will not, lose you. "

And then I tore myself away and hastened to the elevator and was droppedto a subterranean level and passed again through the locked andguarded gates. 

~5~

As I came to the vessel no one was in sight but the regular guardspacing along the loading docks. I mounted the ladder to the deck. Thesecond officer stood by the open trap. "They are waiting for you, " hesaid. "The Admiral himself is below. He came with his lady to seeyou off. "

I hastened to descend and saw von Kufner and Marguerite chatting withCaptain Grauble. 

"Why the delay?" asked von Kufner. "It is nearly the hour of departure, and I have brought the Princess to bid you farewell. We have beenshowing her the vessel. "

"It is all very wonderful, " said Marguerite with a calm voice, but hereyes spoke the feverish excitement of a great adventure. 

"The Princess Marguerite, " said von Kufner, "is the only woman who hasever seen a submarine since the open sea traffic was closed. But she hasseen it all and now we must take our leave for it is time that youshould be off. "

As he finished speaking the Admiral politely stepped away to give meopportunity for a farewell word with Marguerite. Grauble followed himand, as he passed me, he gave me a look of gloating triumph and thenopened the door of his cabin, which the Admiral entered. 

"I am going with you, " whispered Marguerite. "Grauble understands. "

There was the sound of a scuffle and a strangled oath. Grauble's headappeared at the cabin door. "Here, Armstadt; be quick, and keephim quiet. "

I plunged into the cabin and saw von Kufner crumpled against the bunk;his hands were manacled behind him and his mouth stuffed with a cloth. 

With an exulting joy I threw myself upon the man as he struggled torise. I easily held him down, and whipping out my own kerchief I boundit tightly across his mouth to more effectively gag him. 

Then rolling him over I planted my knee on his back while I ripped asheet from the bunk and bound his feet. 

From without I heard Grauble's voice in command: "Close the hatch. " ThenI felt the vessel quiver with machinery in motion and I knew that wewere moving along the tunnel toward the sea. 

Grauble appeared again in the door of the cabin. "The mate understands, "he said, "and the crew will obey. I told them that the Admiral was goingout with us to inspect the lock. But the presence of a woman aboard willpuzzle them. I have placed the Princess in the mate's cabin so no onecan molest her. We have other things to keep us occupied. "

With Grauble's help I now bound von Kufner to the staunch metal leg ofthe bunk and we left him alone in the narrow room to ponder on themeaning of what he had heard. 

Outside Grauble led me over to the instrument board where the mate wasstationed. 

"Any unusual message?" asked Grauble. 

"None, " said the mate. "I think we will go through without interruptionat least until we reach the lock; if anything is suspicioned we will beheld up there for examination. "

"Do you think the guards at the dock suspected anything?" questionedGrauble. 

"It is not likely, " replied the mate. "They saw him come aboard, but hespoke to none of them. They will presume he is going out to the lock. The presence of a woman will puzzle them; but, as she was with theAdmiral, they will not dare interfere or even report the fact. "

"Then what do you think we have to fear?" asked Grauble. 

"Only the chance that the Admiral's absence may be noted at his officeand inquiry be made. "

"Of that the Princess could tell us something, " said Grauble. "We willtalk with her. "

Grauble now led me to the mate's snug cabin, where we found Margueriteseated on the bunk, looking very pale and anxious. 

"Everything is going nicely, so far, " the Captain assured her. "We haveonly one thing to fear, and that is that inquiry from the AdministrationOffice for the Admiral may be addressed to the Commander of the Lock. "

"But how will they know that he is with us?" asked Marguerite. "Will theguards report it?"

"I do not think so, " said Grauble, "but does any one at his office knowthat he came to the docks?"

"I do not see how they could, " replied Marguerite; "he was at hisapartment when I called him. He came to me at once, not knowing why Iwished to see him. I begged him to take me to see you off. I swore thatif he did not I should never speak to him again, and he agreed to do so. He seemed to think himself very generous and talked much of thedistinctive privilege he was conferring upon me by acceding to myrequest. But he told no one where we were going. He communicated with noone from the time he came to me until we arrived at the vessel. Theguards and gate-keepers let us pass without question. "

"That is fine, " cried Grauble; "von Kufner often stays away from hisoffice for days at a time. Unless some chance information leaks backfrom the guards, he will not be missed. Our chance of being passedspeedily out the lock is good--there is a vessel due to lock in thisvery day and we could not be held back to block the tunnel. That is whythe Admiral was impatient when Armstadt failed to appear; he knew ourdeparture ought not be delayed. "

"And what, " I asked, "do you propose to do with the Admiral?"

"I suppose we must take him with us as a prisoner, " replied the Captain. "Your World State Government would appreciate a prisoner of the House ofHohenzollern. "

At this suggestion Marguerite shook her head emphatically. "I do notlike that, " she said. "Is there not some way to leave him behind?"

"I do not like it either, " said Grauble, "because I fear his presenceaboard may make trouble among my men. I do not think they will object todeserting with us to the free world. Their life in this service ishopeless enough and this is my fifth trip; they have a belief that theCaptain's fifth trip is an ill-fated one; not a man aboard but tremblesin the dire fear that he will never see Berlin again. They will welcomewith joy a proposal to escape with us, but to ask them to make theattempt with the Admiral himself on board as a prisoner is a differentthing. These men are cowed by authority and I know not what notions theymight have of their fate if they are to kidnap the Admiral. "

"But, " I questioned, "is there no possible way to leave him behind?"

Grauble sat thinking for a moment. "Yes, " he said, "there is one way wemight do it. We could shave his beard and clip his hair, dress him in amachinist's garb and smear his hands and face with grease. Then I coulddrug him and we could carry him off at the lock and put him in a cell. Iwould report that one of my men had gone raving mad, and I had druggedhim to keep him from doing injury to himself and others. It would createno great surprise. Men in this service frequently go mad; and I amprovided with a sleep producing drug for just such emergencies. "

"Then go ahead, " I said. 

"But you will lose the satisfaction of delivering him prisoner to yourgovernment, " smiled Grauble. 

"I have no love for the Admiral, " I replied, "but I think his punishmentwill be more appropriately attended to in Berlin. When our escape isknown he will indeed have a rather difficult time explaining toHis Majesty. "

This suggestion of the pompous Admiral's predicament if thus left behindseemed to amuse Grauble and he at once led the way back to hisown cabin. 

Von Kufner was lying very quietly in his bonds and glared up at us witha weak and futile rage. Grauble smiled cynically at his prostrate chief. "I had thought to take you along with us, " he said, "but I am afraid theexcitement of the voyage would be unpleasant for you so I have decidedto leave you at the lock to take our farewell back to His Majesty. "

Von Kufner, helpless and gagged was given no opportunity to reply, forGrauble, unlocking his medicine case took out a small hypodermic syringeand plunged the needle into the prisoner's thigh. 

In a few minutes the Admiral was unconscious. The Captain now brought asuit of soiled mechanic's clothes and a clipper and razor, and in a halfhour the prim Admiral in his fancy uniform had been reduced to thelikeness of an oiler. His face roughly shaved, but pale and sallow, gavea very good simulation of illness of mind and body. 

"He will remain like that for at least twelve hours, " said Grauble. "Igave him a heavy dose. "

Again we went out, locking the unconscious Admiral in the cabin. "Youmay go and keep the Princess company, " said Grauble, "while I talk withmy men and give them an inkling of what we are planning. If there is anytrouble at the lock it is better that they comprehend that hope offreedom is in store for them. "

Amid tears of joy Marguerite now told me of her belated conception ofthe desperate plan to induce von Kufner to bring her to the docks to seeus depart, and how she had pretended to disbelieve that I was reallygoing and bargained to marry him within sixty days if she could beassured by her own eyes that I had really departed for the Arctic. 

As we waited feverishly for the first nerve-racking part of the journeyto be over, we spoke of the hopes and dangers of the great adventureupon which we were finally embarked. And so the hours passed. 

At last we felt the rumble of the motors die and knew that the movementof the vessel had ceased. 

~6~

The voice of the mate spoke at the door: "Remain quiet inside, " he said, and a key turned and clicked the bolt of the lock. The tense minutespassed. Again the key turned in the door and the mate stuck his headinside. "Come quick, " he said to me. 

I followed him into Capt. Grauble's cabin, but saw Grauble nowhere. 

"Remove your clothing, " said the mate, as he seized a sponge and soapand began washing the blackened oil from the hands and face of theunconscious Admiral. "We must dress him in your uniform. The Commanderof the Lock has orders to take you off the vessel. We must pass theAdmiral off for you. He will never be recognized. The Commander hasnever seen you. "

Obeying, without fully comprehending, I helped to quickly dress theunconscious man in my own clothing. We had barely finished when we heardvoices outside. 

"Quick, under the bunk, " whispered the mate. As I obediently crawledinto the hiding place, the mate kicked in after me the remainder of theoiler's clothing which I had been trying to put on and pulled thedisarranged bedding half off the bunk the better to hide me. Then heopened the door and several men entered. 

"I had to drug him, " said Grauble's voice, "because he was so violentwith fear when I had him manacled that I thought he might attempt tobeat out his brains. "

"Let me see his papers, " said a strange voice. 

After a brief interval the same voice spoke again--"These are identicalwith the description given by His Majesty's secretary. There can be nodoubt that this is the man they want, but I do not see how an enemy spycould ever pass for a German, even if he had the clothing andidentification. He does not even look like the description in thefolder. The chemists must be very stupid to have accepted him as oneof them. "

"It is strange, " replied the voice of Capt. Grauble, "but this man wasvery clever. "

"It is only that most men are very dull, " replied the other voice. "NowI should have suspected at once that the man was not a German. But heshall answer for his cleverness. Let him be removed at once. We haveword from the vessel outside that they are short of oxygen, and you mustbe locked out and clear the passage. "

With a shuffling of many feet the form of the third bearer of KarlArmstadt's pedigree was carried from the cabin, and the door waskicked shut. 

I was still lying cramped in my hiding place when I felt the vesselmoving again. Then a sailor came, bringing a case from which I tookfresh clothing. As I was dressing I felt my ear drums pain from theincreased air pressure, and I heard, as from a great distance, the roarof the water being let into the lock. From the quiet swaying of thefloor beneath me I soon sensed that we were afloat. I waited in thecabin until I felt the quiver of motors, now distinguished by the lesserthrob and smoother running, from the drive on the wheeled trucks throughthe tunnel. 

I opened the cabin door and went out. Grauble was at the instrumentboard. The mate stood aft among the motor controls; all men were attheir posts, for we were navigating the difficult subterranean passagethat led to the open sea. 

As I approached Grauble he spoke without lifting his eyes from hisinstruments. "Go bring the Princess out of her hiding; I want my men tosee her now. It will help to give them faith. "

Marguerite came with me and stood trembling at my side as we watchedGrauble, whose eyes still riveted upon the many dials and indicatorsbefore him. 

"Watch the chart, " said Grauble. "The red hand shows our position. "

The chart before him was slowly passing over rolls. For a time we couldonly see a straight line thereon bordered by many signs and figures. Then slowly over the topmost roll came the wavy outlines of a shore, andthe parallel lines marking the depths of the bordering sea. Tensely wewatched the chart roll slowly down till the end of the channel passedthe indicator. 

Grauble breathed a great sigh of relief and for the first time turnedhis face towards us. "We are in the open sea, " he said, "at a depth of160 metres. I shall turn north at once and parallel the coast. You hadbetter get some rest; for the present nothing can happen. It is nightabove now but in six more hours will be the dawn, then we shall rise andtake our bearings through the periscope. "

I led Marguerite into the Captain's cabin and insisted that she lie downon the narrow berth. Seated in the only chair, I related what I knew ofthe affair at the locks. "It must have been, " I concluded, after muchspeculation, "that Holknecht finally got the attention of the ChemicalStaff and related what he knew of the incident of the potash mines. Theyhad enough data about me to have arrived at the correct conclusion longago. It was a question of getting the facts together. "

"It was that, " said Marguerite, "or else I am to blame. "

"And what do you mean?" I asked. 

"I mean, " she said, "that I took a great risk about which I must tellyou, for it troubles my conscience. After I had sent for the Admiral andhe had promised to come, I telephoned to Dr. Zimmern of my intention toget von Kufner to take me to the docks and my hope that I could comewith you. And it may be that some one listened in on our conversation. "

"I do not see, " I said, "how such a conversation should lead to thediscovery of my identity--the Holknecht theory is more reasonable--butyou did take a risk. Why did you do it?"

"I wanted to tell him good-bye, " said Marguerite. "It was hard enoughthat I could not see him. " And she turned her face to the pillow andbegan to weep. 

"What is it, my dear?" I pleaded, as I knelt beside her. "It was allright, of course. Why are you crying--you do not think, do you, that Dr. Zimmern betrayed us?"

Marguerite raised herself upon her elbow and looked at me with hurtsurprise. "Do you think that?" she demanded, almost fiercely. 

"By no means, " I hastened to assure her, "but I do not understand yourgrief and I only thought that perhaps when you told him he wasangered--I never understood why he seemed so anxious not to have yougo with me. "

"Oh, my dear, " sobbed Marguerite. "Of course you never understood, because we too had a secret that has been kept from you, and you havebeen so apologetic because you feared so long to confide in me and Ihave been even slower to confide in you. "

For a moment black rebellion rose in my heart, for though with myreasoning I had accepted the explanation that Zimmern had given for hisinterest in Marguerite, I had never quite accepted it in my unreasoningheart. And in the depths of me the battle between love and reason andthe dark forces of jealous unreason and suspicion had smouldered, tobreak out afresh on the least provocation. 

I fought again to conquer these dark forces, for I had many timesforgiven her even the thing which suspicion charged. And as I strugglednow the sound of Marguerite's words came sweeping through my soul like agreat cleansing wind, for she said--"The secret that I have kept backfrom you and that I have wanted so often to tell you is that Dr. Zimmernis my father!"

~7~

In the early dawn of a foggy morning we beached the _Eitel 3_ on a sandystretch of Danish shore within a few kilometres of an airdome of theWorld Patrol. A native fisherman took Grauble, Marguerite and myself inhis hydroplane to the post, where we found the commander at hisbreakfast. He was a man of quick intelligence. Our strange garb wassufficient to prove us Germans, while a brief and accurate account ofthe attempted rescue of the mines of Stassfurt, given in perfectEnglish, sufficed to credit my reappearance in the affairs of the freeworld as a matter of grave and urgent importance. 

A squad of men were sent at once to guard the vessel that had been leftin charge of the mate. Within a few hours we three were at the seat ofthe World Government at Geneva. 

Grauble surrendered his charts of the secret passage and was made aformal prisoner of state, until the line of the passage could beexplored by borings and the reality of its existence verified. 

I was in daily conference with the Council in regard to momentousactions that were set speedily a-going. The submarine tunnel was locatedand the passage blocked. A fleet of ice crushers and exploring planeswere sent to locate the protium mines of the Arctic. The proclamation ofthese calamities to the continued isolated existence of Germany and theterms of peace and amnesty were sent showering down through the cloudsto the roof of Berlin. 

Marguerite and I had taken up our residence in a cottage on the lakeshore, and there as I slept late into the sunlit hours of a Julymorning, I heard the clatter of a telephone annunciator. I sat boltupright listening to the words of the instrument--

"Berlin has shut off the Ray generators of the defence mines--all overthe desert of German soil men are pouring forth from the ventilatingshafts--the roof of Berlin is a-swarm with a mass of men frolicking inthe sunlight--the planes of the World Patrol have alighted on the roofand have received and flashed back the news of the abdication of theEmperor and the capitulation of Berlin--the world armies of the minesare out and marching forth to police the city--"

The voice of the instrument ceased. 

I looked about for Marguerite and saw her not. I was up and runningthrough the rooms of the cottage. I reached the outer door and saw herin the garden, robed in a gown of gossamer white, her hair streamingloose about her shoulders and gleaming golden brown in the quiveringlight. She was holding out her hands to the East, where o'er thefar-flung mountain craigs the God of Day beamed down upon hisworshipper. 

In a frenzy of wild joy I called to her--"Babylon is fallen--is fallen!The black spot is erased from the map of the world!"