 CHAPTER VIII. My first call upon Marguerite had been followed by other visits when we had talked of books and read together. On these occasions I had carefully suppressed my desire to speak of more personal things, but, constantly reminded by my own troubled conscience, I grew fearful lest the old doctor should discover that the books were the lesser part of the attraction that drew me to Marguerite's apartment, and my fear was increased as I realized that my calls on Zimmern had abruptly ceased. Going 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 a dinner engagement with Heller on the free level, but I still have a little time. If it pleases you, we might walk along to our library. I prompt they accepted the invitation, hoping that it would enable me to better establish my relationship to Marguerite and Zimmern in a safe triangle of mutual friendship. As we walked Zimmern, as if he read my thoughts, turned the conversation to the very subject that was uppermost in my mind. I am glad, Armstott, he said with a gracious smile, that you and Marguerite seemed to enjoy each other's friendship. I had often wished there were younger men in our group, since her duties as caretaker of our books quite forbids her cultivating the acquaintance of any men outside our chosen few. Marguerite is very patient with the doltalk of us old men, but life is not all books, and there is much that youth may share. For these words of Zimmern's I was quite unprepared. He seemed to be inviting me to make love to Marguerite, and I wondered to what extent the prevailing social ethics might have destroyed the finer sensibilities that forbid the sharing of a woman's love. When we reached the apartment Marguerite greeted us with a perfect democracy of manner. But my reassurance of the moment was presently disturbed when she turned to Zimmern and said, Now that you are here, I am going out 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 an engagement with Heller, but perhaps Armstott will remain until you return. Then I shall have him all to myself, declared Marguerite with quite seriousness. Though I glanced from the old doctor to the young woman in questioning amazement, neither seemed in the least embarrassed or aware that anything had been said out of keeping with the customary propriety of life. Marguerite, throwing the blue velvet cape about her bare white shoulders, paused to give the old doctor an affectionate kiss, and with a smile for me was gone. For a few moments the doctor sat musing, but when he turned to me it was to say, I hope that you are making good use of our precious accumulation 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 race has been enslaved, how all the vast store of knowledge, that as a whole makes life possible, is parceled out for each. Not one of us is supposed to know of those vital things outside our own narrow field. That knowledge has forbidden us, lest we should understand the workings of our social system, and question the wisdom of it all. And so while each is wiser in his own little cell, than were the men of the old order. Yet on 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. Scientists have ceased to be men, and have become thinking machines, specialised for their particular tasks. That is true, I said. But what are we to do about it? You have, by these forbidden books, acquired a realisation of the enslavement of the race. But the others, all these millions of professional men, are they not hopelessly rendered impotent by the systematic suppression of knowledge? The millions, yes, replied Zimmern, but there are the chosen few, we who have seen the light must find a way for the liberation of all. Do you mean, I asked eagerly, that you are planning some secret rebellion, that you hope for some possible rising of the people to overthrow the system? Zimmern looked at me in astonishment. The people, he said, cannot rise. In the old order such a thing was possible. Prevolutions they called them. The people led by heroes conceived passions for liberty. But such powers of mental reaction no longer exist in German minds. We have bred and trained it out of them. One might as well have expected the four-footed beasts of burden in the old agricultural days to rebel against their masters. But, I protested, if the people could be enlightened. How! exclaimed Zimmern impatiently. Can you enlighten them? You are young, arm-start very young to talk of such things. Even if a rebellion was a possibility, what would be the gain? Rebellion means disorder. Once the ventilating machinery of the city, and the food processes were disturbed, we should all perish in this trap, we should all die of suffocation and starvation. Then why, I asked, do you talk of this thing, if rebellion is impossible, and would, if possible, destroy us all? Then is there any hope? Zimmern paced the floor for a time in silence, and then, facing me squarely, he said, I have confessed to you my dissatisfaction with the existing state. In doing this I placed myself in great danger. But I risked that, and now I shall risk more. I ask you now, are you with us to the end? Yes, I replied very gravely. I am with you. Although I cannot fully understand on what you base your hope. How are hope? replied Zimmern. Is out there in the world from whence came those flying men who reigned bombs on the roof of Berlin, and for ever keep us patching it? We must get word to them, we must throw ourselves upon the humanity of our enemies, and ask them to save us. But, I questioned in my excitement, what can Germany expect of the enemy? She has made war against the world for centuries. Will that world permit Germany to live, could they find a way to destroy her? Has it 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 is capable of making war against the world, so long will the world attempt to destroy her. You, Colonel Armstott, hold in your proteam's secret the power of Germany to continue the war against the world. Because you were about to gain that power I risked my own life to aid you in getting a wider knowledge. Because you now hold that power I risk it again by asking you to use it to destroy Germany, and to save the Germans. The men who are with me in this cause, and for whom I speak are but a few. The millions, materially alive, are spiritually dead. The world alone can give them life again as men, even though a few million more be destroyed in the giving, have not millions already been destroyed? What if you do save Germany now? What doesn't mean merely that we breed millions more like we now have, soulless creatures born to die like worms in the ground, brains working automatically, stamping out one sort of idea, like machines that stamp out buttons, or mere mouths, shouting like phonographs before this gaudy show of royalty. But, I said, you speak for the few emancipated minds. What of all these men who accept the system? You call them slaves, yet are they not content with their slavery? Do they want to be men of the world, or continue here in their bondage and die fighting to keep up their own system of enslavement? It makes no difference what they want, replied Zimmern, in a voice that trembled with emotion. We bred them as slaves to the culture of Germany, the thing to do is to stop the breeding. But how, I asked, can men who have been beaten into the mold of the ox ever be restored to their humanity? The old ones cannot, sighed Zimmern. It was always so, when a people has once fallen into evil ways, the old generation can never be wholly redeemed. But youth can always be saved. Youth is plastic. But the German race, I said, has not only been miseducated, it has been misbred. Can you undo inheritance? Can this race with its vast horde of workers bred for a maximum of muscle and a minimum of brains ever escape from that stupidity that has been bred into the blood? You have been trained as a chemist, said Zimmern. You despair of the future because you do not understand the laws of inheritance. A specialized type of man or animal is produced from the selection of the extreme individuals. That you know, but what you do not know is that the type, once established, does not persist to its own accord. It can only be maintained by the rigid continuance of the selection. The average stature of man did not change a centimeter in a thousand years till we came in with our meddlesome eugenics. Leave off our scientific meddling and the race will quickly revert to the normal type. That applies to the physical changes. In the mental powers the restoration will be even more rapid, because we have made less change in the psychic elements of the germ plasm, the inborn capacity of the human brain as heart to alter. Men are created more nearly equal than even the writers of democratic constitutions have ever known. If the world state will once help us to free ourselves from these shackles of rigid caste and cultured ignorance, this folly of scientific meddling with the blood and brains of man, there is yet hope for this race, for we have changed far 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 safe and our hearts fine. Without her I fear we should all have given up long ago. With a trembling hand-clasp he left me alone in Marguerite's apartment, and alone too with my conflicting and troubled emotions. He was a lovable soul, ripe with the wisdom of age, yet youthful in his hopes to redeem his people from the curse of this unholy blend of socialism and autocracy that had prostituted science and made a black utopian nightmare of man's millennial dream. Vaguely I wondered how many of the three hundred millions of German souls, for I could not accept the soulless theory of Zimmern, were yet capable of a realization of their humanity. To this query there could be no answer, but of one conclusion I was certain. It was not my place to ask what these people wanted, for their power to decide was destroyed by the infernal process of their making. But here at least my democratic training easily gave the answer that Dr. Zimmern had achieved by sheer genius, and my answer was that for men whose desire for liberty had been destroyed, 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 had long suspected, Dr. Zimmern and his little group of rebellious souls were with me. But what could so few do amidst all the millions? My answer, like Zimmern's, was that the salvation of Germany lay in the enemy's hands, and I alone was of that enemy. Yet never again could I pray for the destruction of the city at the hands of the outraged God, humanity. And I thought of Sodom and Gomorrah which the God of Abraham had agreed to spare, if there be found ten righteous men therein. Part 2 From these far-reaching thoughts my mind was drawn sharply back to the fact of my presence in Marguerite's apartment, and the realization that she would shortly return to find me there alone. I resented the fact that the old doctor and the young woman could conspire to place me in such a situation. I resented the fact that a girl like Marguerite could be bound to a man three times her age and yet seem to accept it with perfect grace. But I resented most of all the fact that both she and Zimmern appeared to invite me to share in a triangle of love, open and unashamed. My bitter brooding was disturbed by the sound of a key turning in the lock, and Marguerite, fresh and charming from the exhilaration of her walk, came into the room. I am so glad you remained, she said. I hope no one else comes, and we can have an evening to ourselves. It seems, I answered with a touch of bitterness, that Dr. Zimmern considers me quite a safe playmate for you. At my words Marguerite blushed prettily. I know you do not quite understand, she said. But, you see, I am rather peculiarly situated. I cannot go out much, and I can have no girlfriends here, and no men either 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 the Doctor himself, and Colonel Heller. You rank quite as well as some of the others, but you are ever so much younger. That is why the Doctor thinks you are so wonderful—I mean, because you have risen so high, at so early an age. But perhaps I think you are rather wonderful, just because you are young. Is it not natural for young people to want friends of their own age? It is, I replied, with ill-concealed sarcasm. Why do you speak like that? asked Marguerite, in pain to surprise. Because burnt child dreads the fire. I do not understand, she said, a puzzled look in her eyes. How could a child be burned by a fire, since it could never approach one? They only have fires in the smelting furnaces, and children could never go near them. Despite my bitter mood, I smiled, as I said. It is just a figure of speech that I got out of an old book. It means that when one is hurt by something, he does not want to be hurt in the same way again. You remember what you said to me in the café, about looking up the girl who played the innocent role? I did look her up, and you were right about it. 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 girl either, as you think I had. Perhaps I would have done so, but thanks to you 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 the second apartment I have ever been in on this level. Why did you tell me this? questioned Marguerite. Because, I said doggedly, because I suppose that I want you to know that I have spent most of my time in a laboratory. I also want you to know that I do not like the artful deceit that you all seem to cultivate. And you think I am trying to deceive you? cried Marguerite reproachfully. Your words may be true, I said, but the situation you place me in is a false one. Dr. Zimmer brings me here that I may read your books. He leaves 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 that you particularly want my company, because you have no other young friends. In fact, you practically asked me to make love to you, and yet you know why I cannot. In the excitement of my warring emotions, I had risen and was pacing the floor, 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 the point of leaving at once. But a moment of reflection caused me to turn back. I had forced a quarrel upon Marguerite, and the cause for my anger she perhaps did not comprehend. If I left now it would be impossible to return, and if I did not come back, there would be explanations to make to Zimmern, and perhaps an ending of my association with him and his group, which was not only the sole source of my intellectual life outside my work, but which I had begun to hope might lead to some enterprise of moment, and possibly to my escape from Berlin. So calming my anger I turned to the library, and doggedly pulled down a book, and began scanning its contents. I had been so occupied for some time, when there was a ring at the bell, I peered out into the reception room in time to see Marguerite come from another door. Her eyes revealed the fact that she had been crying. Quickly she closed the door of the little library, shutting me in with the books. A moment later she came in with a grey-haired man, a staff officer of the electrical works. She introduced us coolly, and then helped the old man find 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, and for a time I despaired of a chance to speak to her before I felt I must depart. Another hour passed, and then she stole into the library and seated herself very quietly on a little dressing-chair, and watched me as I proceeded with my reading. I asked her some questions about one of the volumes, and she replied with a meek and forgiving voice that made me despise myself heartily. Other questions and answers followed, and soon we were talking again of books as if we had no overwhelming sense of the personal presence of each other. The hours passed, by all my sense of propriety I should have been long departed, but still we talked of books, without once referring to my heated words of the earlier evening. She had stood enticingly near me as we pulled down the volumes. My heart beat wildly as she sat by my side, while I mechanically turned the pages. The brush of her garments against my sleeve quite maddened me. I had not dared to look into her eyes as I talked meaningless bookish words, summoning all my self-control I now faced her. Marguerite! I said hoarsely. Look at me! She lifted her eyes and met my gaze unflinchingly, the moisture of fresh tears 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 cordiality toward me as Dr. Zimmer's friend to mean more than it should mean. But I do not understand, she said. Should I not have told you that I liked you because you were young? Of course, if you don't want me to—to—she paused abruptly. Her face suffused with a delicate crimson. I stepped toward her and reached out my arms, but she drew back and slipped quickly around the table. No! she cried. No! you have said that 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 hotly. I gazed at her across the narrow table. Was it possible that such a woman had no understanding of ideals of honour and love? Could it be that she had no appreciation of the fight I had waged, and so nearly lost, to respect the trust and confidence that the old doctor had placed in me, with these thoughts the ardour of my passion cooled, and a feeling of pity swept over me, as I sensed the tragedy of so fine a woman ethically impoverished by false training and environment. Had she known honour and yet discarded it, I too should have been unable to resist the impulse of youth to deny to age its less imperious claims. But either she chose artfully to ignore my struggle, or she was truly unaware of it. In either case she would not share the responsibility for the breach of faith. I was puzzled and confounded. It was margarite who broke the bewildering silence. I wished she would go 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 are sure you wish to? A research 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 I could only take the slender fingers and press them hungrily to my fevered lips, and so bid her a wordless adieu. Part 3 But despite wild longing to see her again, I did not return to margarite's apartment for many weeks. A crisis in my work at the laboratory denied me even a single hour of leisure outside brief snatches of food and sleep. I had previously reported to the chemical staff that I had found means to increase materially the extraction percentage of the precious element proteam from the crude imported ore. I had now received word that I should 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 rare material and of expensive equipment needed for the research. But in these smaller demonstrations I had not been called upon to disclose my method. Now the staff, hopeful that I had made the great discovery, insisted that I prepare at once to make a large-scale demonstration and reveal the method that it might immediately be adopted for the wholesale extraction in the industrial works. If I now gave away the full secret of my process I would receive compensation that would indeed seem lavish for a man whose mental horizon was bounded by these enclosing walls. Yet to me, for whom these walls would always be a prison, credit at the banks of Berlin and the baubles of decoration and rank and social honour would be sounding brass. But I wanted power, and with the secret of proteam extraction in my possession, I would have control of life or death over three hundred million men. Why should I sacrifice such power for useless credit and empty honour? If I, though the first of the House of Hohenzollern, would lengthen the days of his rule, let him deal with me, and meet whatever terms I chose to name, for in my chemical retorts I had brewed a secret before which vaunted efficiency and hypocritical divinity could be made to bend a hungry belly and beg for food. It was a laudable and rather thrilling ambition, and yet I was not clear as to just what terms I would dictate, nor how I could enforce the dictation. To ask for an audience with the Emperor now, and to take any such preposterous stand, would merely be to get myself locked up for a lunatic. But I reasoned that if I could make the demonstration so that it would be accepted as genuine, and yet not give away my secret, the situation would be in my hands. Yet I was expected to reveal the process step by step, as the demonstration proceeded. There was but one way out, and that was to make a genuine demonstration, but with falsely written formulas. To plan and prepare such a demonstration required more genuine invention than had the discovery of the process, but I said about the task with feverish enthusiasm. I kept my assistance busy with the preparation of the apparatus, and the more simple work which there was no need to disguise, while night after night I worked alone, altering and disguising the secret steps on which my great discovery hinged. As these preparations were nearing completion, I sent for Dr. Zimmern and Colonel Heller to meet me at my apartment. Comrades, I said, you have endangered your own lives by confiding in me your secret desires to overthrow the rule of the House of Hohen-Solen, as it was overthrown once before. You have done this because 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, for not only have I pledged myself to your ends, but I shall soon possess the coveted power. In a few days I shall demonstrate my process on a large scale before the chemical staff. But I shall do this thing without revealing the method. The formulas I shall give them will be meaningless. As long as I am in charge in my own laboratory, the process will be a success. When it is tried elsewhere it will fail, until I choose 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 in the cause to which we are pledged? The older men seemed greatly impressed with my declaration, and danced about me and cried with joy. When they had regained their composure, Zimmern said, There is but one thing you can do for us, and that is to find some way to get word of the proteam minds to the authorities of the world state. Berlin will then be at their mercy, but whatever happens can be no worse than the continuance of things as they are. But how, I said, can a message be sent from Berlin to the outer world? There is only one way, replied Heller, and that is by the submarines that go out for this ore. The submarine staff are members of the Royal House. So indeed are the captains. We have tried for years to gain the confidence of some of these men, but without avail. Perhaps through your work on the proteam ore you can succeed where we have failed. And how, I asked eagerly, Do the ore-bringing vessels get from Berlin to the sea? My visitors glanced at each other significantly. Do not know that, exclaimed Zimmern. We had supposed you would have been told when you were assigned to the proteam research. By way of answer I explained that I knew the source of the ore, but not the route of its coming. All such knowledge is suppressed in books, commented Heller. We older men know of this by word of mouth from the days when the submarine tunnel was completed to the sea. But you are younger. Unless this was told you at the time you were assigned to the work it is not to be expected that you would know. I questioned Heller and Zimmern closely, but found that all they knew was that a submarine tunnel did exist, leading from Berlin somewhere into the open sea. But its exact location they did not know. Again I pressed my question as to what I could do with the power of my secret, and they could only repeat that they staked their hopes on getting word to the outer world by way of submarines. Much as I might admire the strength of character that would lead men to rebel against the only life they knew because they sensed that it was hopeless, I now found myself a little exasperated at the vagueness of their plans. Yet I had none better to defy the emperor would merely be to risk my life and the possible loss of my knowledge to the world. Perhaps after all the older heads were wiser than my own rebellious spirit, and so without making any more definite plans, I ended the interview with a promise to let them know of the outcome of the demonstration. Returning once more to my work, I finished my preparations and sent word to the chemical staff that all was ready. They came with solemn faces. The laboratory was locked and guards were posted. The place was examined thoroughly. The apparatus was studied in detail. All my ingredients were tested for the presence of extracted proteome, lest I be trying to salt the mine. But happily for me they accepted my statement, as to their chemical nature in other respects. Then when all had been approved, the test lot of ore was run. It took us thirty hours to run the extraction, and sample and weigh and test the product, but everything went through exactly as I had planned. With solemn faces the chemical staff unanimously declared that the problem had been solved and marveled that the solution should come from the brain of so young a man, and so I received their adulation and worship, for I could not give credit to the chemists of the world outside, to whom I was really indebted for my seeming miraculous genius, telling me to take my rest and prepare myself for an audience with his majesty. Three days later, the chemical staff departed, carrying, with guarded secrecy, my false formulas. Part four Exultant and happy I left the laboratory. I had not slept for forty hours and scarcely half my regular allotment for many weeks, and yet I was not sleepy now, but awake and excited. I had won a great victory, and I wanted to rejoice and share my conquest with sympathetic ears. I could go to Zimmern, but instead I turned my steps toward the elevator, and lighting on the level of the free women I went straight to Marguerite's apartment. Despite my feeling of exhilaration, my face must have revealed something of my real state of exhaustion, for Marguerite cried in alarm at the sight of me. A little tired, I replied in answer to her solicitous questions. I have just finished my demonstration before the chemical staff. And you won? cried Marguerite in a burst of joy. You deceived them just as the doctor said you would, and they know you have solved the proteome problem and they do not know how you did it? That is correct, I said, sinking back into the cushions of the Devan. I have done all that. I came here first to tell you. You see, I could not come before all these weeks. I have had no time for sleep or anything. I would have telephoned or written, but I feared it would not be safe. Did you think I was not coming again? I missed you at first. I mean, at first I thought you were staying away because you did not want to see me. And then Dr. Zimmer told me what you were doing, and I understood, and waited, for I somehow knew you would come as soon as you could. Yes, of course you knew. Of course I had to come, Marguerite. But Marguerite faded before my vision. I reached out my hand for her, and it seemed to wave in empty space. When I awoke, I was lying on a couch, and a screen bedecked with cupids was standing before me. At first I thought I was alone, and then I realized that I was in Marguerite's apartment, and that Marguerite herself was seated on a low stool beside the couch, and was gazing at me out of dreamy eyes. How did I get here? I asked. You fell asleep while you were talking, and then someone came for books, 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 no haste to go, but reached out and ran my fingers through her massy hair, and then I slowly drew her toward me until her luxurious locks were tumbled about my neck and face and her head was pillowed on my breast. I'm so happy, she whispered, I'm so glad you came first to me. For a moment my reason was draugged by the opiate of her touch, and then as the realization of the circumstances reformed in my brain the feeling of guilt arose and routed the dreamy bliss. Yet I could only blame myself, for there was no guile in her act or word, nor could I believe there was guile in her heart. Gently I pushed her away and arose, stating that I must leave at once. It was plainly evident that Marguerite did not share my sense of embarrassment, that she was aware of no breach of ethics, but her ease only served to impress upon me the greater burden of my responsibility, and emphasise the breach of honour of which I was guilty in permitting this expression of my love to a woman whom circumstances had bound to Zimmern. Pleading need for rest and for time to plan my interview with His Majesty, I hastened away, feeling that I dare not trust myself alone with her again. Part 6 I returned to my own apartment, and when another day had passed, food and sleep had fully restored me to a normal state. I then recalled my promise to inform Heller and Zimmern of the outcome of my demonstration. I called at Zimmern's quarters, but he was not at home. Hence I went to call on Heller to ask of Zimmern's whereabouts. I have an appointment to meet him to-night, said Heller. On the level of free women, will you not come along? I could not well do otherwise than accept, and Heller led me again to the apartment from which I had fled twenty-four hours before. There we found 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 Heller's information, the story of my coming to 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 that anyone considered it the least improper. Their matter-of-fact attitude puzzled and annoyed me. They seemed to treat the incident as if it had been the experience of a couple of children. This angered me, for it seemed proof that they considered Marguerite's love as a common property of any and all. Could it be, I asked myself, that jealousy has been bred and trained out of this race? Is it possible they have killed the instinct that demands private and individual property and love? Even as I pondered the problem it seemed answered, for as I sat and talked with Zimmern and Heller of my chemical demonstration, and the coming interview with his majesty, Marguerite came and seated herself on the arm of my chair, and pillowed her head on my shoulder. Troubled and embarrassed, yet not having the courage to repulse her caresses, I stared at Zimmern, who smiled on us with indulgence. In fact, it seemed that he actually enjoyed the scene. My anger flamed up against him, but for Marguerite I had only pity. For her action seemed so natural and unaffected that I could not believe that she was making sport of me, and could only conclude that she had been so bred in the spirit of the place that she knew nothing else. My talk with the men ended as had the last one, without arriving at any particular plan of action, and when Heller arose first to go I took the opportunity to escape from what to me was an intolerable situation. Part 7 I separated from Heller, and for an hour or more I wandered on the level. Then, resolving to end the strain of my enigmatic position, I turned again toward Marguerite's apartment. She answered my ring. I entered and found her alone. Marguerite! I began. I cannot stand this intolerable situation. I cannot share the love of a woman with another man. I cannot steal a woman'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 be while Dr. Zimmern is alive and you— So! said a voice, and glancing up I saw Zimmern himself framed in the doorway of the book-room. The old doctor looked from me to Marguerite while a smile beamed on his courtly countenance. Sit down and comb yourself, Armstott, said Zimmern. It is time I spoke to you of Marguerite, and of the relation I bear to her. As you know I brought her to this level from the school for girls of forbidden birth. 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 of the Empress. I was her physician, for I have not always been in the eugenics service. But Marguerite was born out of wedlock, and the mother declined to name the father of her child. Because of that the child was consigned to the school for forbidden love-children, which meant that she would be fated for the life of a free woman and become the property of such men as had the price to pay. When her child was taken away from her, the mother killed herself. And because I declined to testify as to what I knew of the case, I lost my commission as a physician of royalty. But still having the freedom of the school levels I was permitted to keep track of Marguerite. As soon as she reached the age of her freedom I brought her here, and by the aid of her splendid birth, and the companionship of thinking men, she has become the woman you now find her. In my jealousy I had listened to the first words of the old doctor, with but little comprehension. But as he talked on so calmly, and kindly, and eager hope leaped up within me, was it possible that it had been I who had misunderstood, and that Zimmern's love for Marguerite was of another sort than mine? Tensely I awaited his further words, but I did not dare to look at Marguerite, who had taken her place beside him. I brought her here, Zimmern continued, for there was no other place where she could go except into the keeping of some man. I have given her the work of guarding our books, and for that I could have well afforded to pay for her living. You find in Marguerite a woman of intelligence, and there are few enough like her, and she finds in you a man of rare gifts, and you are both young, so it is not strange that you too should love each other. All this I considered before I brought you here to meet her. I was happy when Marguerite told me that it was so, but your happiness is marred because you, Armstott, think that I am in the way. You have believed that I bear the relation to Marguerite, that the fact of my paying for her presence on this level would imply. It speaks well of your honour, the doctor went on. That you have felt as you did. I should have explained sooner, but I did not wish to speak of this until it was necessary to Marguerite's happiness. But now that I have spoken there is nothing to stand in the way of your happiness, for Marguerite is as worthy of your love as if she had but made her debut on the 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 that may be has my blessing. As I listened to the doctor's words entranced with rapture, the vision of Marguerite floated hazily before my eyes, as if she were an ethereal essence that might at any moment be snatched away. But as the doctor's words ceased my eyes met Marguerite's, and all else seemed to fade, but the love-light that shone from out their liquid depths. For getting 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 my brain at last made known to me the existence of other souls than ours I looked up and found that we were alone. A saucy little clock ticked rhythmically on a mantle, I felt an absurd desire to smash it, for the impudent thing had been running all the while. CHAPTER IX PART I The chemical staff called for me at my laboratory to conduct me to the presence of the emperor. At the elevator we were met by an electric vehicle manned for and aft by pompous guards. Through the wide high streets we rolled noiselessly past the decorated facades of the spacious apartments that housed the seventeen thousand members of the House of Hohen Zollern. At times the ample streets broadened into still more roomy avenues, where potted trees alternated with the frescoed columns, and beyond which were luxurious gardens and vast statuary halls. On the level of free women the life was one of crowded revelry, of the bubble and delights of carnival, but on the royal level there was an atmosphere of luxurious leisure, with vast spaces given over to the privacy of aristocratic idleness. An occasional vehicle rolled swiftly past us on the glassy smoothness of the pavement. More rarely lonely couples strolled among the potted trees, or sat in dreamy indolence beside the fountains. There was no crowding, no mass of humanity, no narrow halls, no congested apartments. All structure here was on a scale of magnificent size and distances, while by comparison the men and women appeared dwarfed, but with all distinctive in their costumes and regal in their leisurely idleness. After some kilometres of travel we came to His Majesty's Palace, which stood detached from all other enclosed structures, and was surrounded on all sides by ever-necessary columns, that seemed like a forest of tree trunks, 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 of glistening white crystal. My fellow scientists faced one of the figures, which I recognised as that of William II, and I, a little tardily, saluted with them, and now we turned sharply on our heels, and saluted the second figure of these twin German heroes. For German it was unmistakably in every feature save for the one oddity that the teutonic face were a flowing beard, not unlike that of Michelangelo's Moses. As we moved forward my eye swept in the lettering of the pedestal, Unser Altetöte Gott, and I was aware that I had acknowledged my allegiance to the supreme war-lord I had saluted, the statue of God. Entering the palace we were conducted through a long hallway, hung with floral tapestries. We passed through several great metal doors, guarded by stalwart, leaden-faced men, and came at last into the imperial audience-room, where his majesty, Eitel I, sat delighted by his ministers, sat stiff and upright at the head of the council-table. Though he had seemed a small man when I had seen him in the dazzling beam of the reflected sunlight, I now perceived that he was of more than average stature. He wore no crown and no helmet, but only a crop of stiff iron-grey hair brushed boldly upright. His face was stern, his nose beak-like, and his small eyes grey and piercing. Over the high back of his chair was thrown his cape, and he was clad in a jacket of white cellulose velvet, buttoned to the throat with large platinum buttons. Formally presented by one of the secretaries, we made our stiff bows, and were seated at the table facing his majesty across the unlittered surface of black glass. The emperor nodded to the chief of the chemical staff, who arose and read the report of my solution of the proteum problem. He ended by advising that the process should immediately replace the one then in use in the extraction of the ore in the industrial works, and that I was recommended, for promotion to the place to be vacated by the retiring member of the chemical staff, and should be given full charge of the proteum industry. Emperor Idol listened with solemn nods of approval when the reading was finished he arose and proclaimed the retirement with honour and, because of his advanced age, of hair von Ul. The old chemist now stepped forward, and the emperor removed from von Ul's breast the insignia of active staff's service, and replaced it with the insignia of honourable retirement. In my turn I also stood before his majesty, who, when he had pinned upon my breast the staff insignia said, I hereby commission you as member of the chemical staff and director of the proteum works, against the fortune to be accredited to you and your descendants. You are authorised to draw from the imperial bank a million marks a year. That you shall more graciously befit this fortune I confer upon you the title of von and the social privilege of the royal level. When the formal ceremonies were ended I again arose and addressed the emperor. Your majesty, I said, as I looked unflinchingly at his iron visage, 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 in the level of the three women and known there as Marguerite, seventy-eight k. four, but who was born on the royal level as a daughter of Princess Fedora of the house of Hohen Zollern. 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 with the work of extracting proteum. An angry cloud gathered on the face of Eitel the First, have on arm-stot. He said, the title and awards which have just been conferred upon you are irrevocable, but if you decline to perform the duties of your office, those duties can be performed by others. But others cannot perform them. I replied, the demonstration I conducted was genuine, but the formulas I have given were not genuine. The true formulas for my method of extracting proteum are locked within my brain, and I will reveal them only when the petition I ask has been granted. At these words the emperor pounded on the table with a heavy fist. What does this mean? he demanded of the chemical staff. It is a lie, shouted the chief of the staff. We have the formulas, and they are correct, for we saw the demonstration conducted with the ingredients stated in the formulas which arm-stot gave us. Very well, I cried. Go try your formulas. Go repeat the demonstration, if you can. The emperor, glaring his rage, watched savagely at a signal button on the arm of his chair. Two palace guards answered the summons. Arrest this man, shouted his majesty, and keep him in close confinement, permit him to see no one. Without further ado, I was led off by the guards, while the emperor shouted implications at the chemical staff. The place to which I was conducted was a suite of rooms in a remote corner of the royal palace. There was a large bedroom and bath, and a luxurious study or lounging-room. Here I found a case of books which proved to be novels bearing the imprint of the royal level. Despite the comfortable surroundings, it was evident that I was securely imprisoned, for the door was of metal, the ventilating gratings were long, narrow slits, and the walls were of heavy concrete, and there being no windows, no bars were needed. Any living apartment in the city would have served equally well the jailer's purpose, for it were only necessary to turn a key from without to make of it a cell in this gigantic prison of Berlin. The regular appearance of my meals by mechanical carrier was the only way I had to reckon the passing of time, for it had chanced that I had forgotten my watch when dressing for the audience with His Majesty. I wrestled with unmeasured at time by perusing the novels which gave me fragmentary pictures of the social life on the royal level. As I turned over the situation in my mind, I reassured myself that the secrecy of my formulas was impregnable. The discovery of the process had been rendered possible by knowledge I had brought with me from the outer world. The reagents that I had used were synthetic substances, the very existence of which was unknown to the Germans. I had previously prepared these compounds, and had used and completely destroyed them in making the demonstration, while I had taken pains to remove all traces of their preparation. Hence I had little to fear of the chemical staff duplicating my work, though doubtless they were making desperate efforts to do so, and my imprisonment was very evidently for the purpose of permitting them to make that effort. On that score I felt that I had played my cards well, but there were other thoughts that troubled me, chief of which was a fear that some investigation might be set on foot in regard to Marguerite, and that her guardianship of the library of forbidden books might be discovered. With this worry to torment me, the hours dragged slowly enough. I had been some five days in this solitary confinement when the door opened and a man entered. He wore the uniform of a physician and introduced himself as Dr. Broom, explaining that he had been sent by His Majesty to look after my health. The idea rather amused me, at least I thought the Emperor had decided that the secrets of my brain were well worth preservation, and I reasoned that this was evidence that the chemical staff had made an effort to duplicate my work, and had reported their failure to do so. The doctor made what seemed to me a rather perfunctory physical examination, which included a very minute inspection of my eyes. Then he put me through a series of psychological test queries. When he had finished, he sighed deeply and said, I am sorry to find that you are suffering from a disturbed balance of the altruistic and the egotistical cortical impulses. It is doubtless due to the intensive demands made upon the creative potential, before you were completely recovered from the subnormal psychosis, due to the gas attack in the potash mines. This diagnosis impressed me as a palpable fraud, but I became genuinely alarmed at the mention of the affair at the potash mines. I was somewhat reassured at the thought that this reference was probably a part of the record of Carl Armstott, which was doubtless on file at the medical headquarters, and had been looked up by Dr. Berm, who was in need of making out a plausible case for some purpose, perhaps that of confining me permanently on the grounds of insanity. Whatever might be the move on foot, it was clearly essential for me to keep myself cool and well in hand. The doctor, after eyeing me calmly for a few moments, said, It will be necessary for me to go out for a time and secure apparatus for a more searching examination. Meanwhile, be assured you will not be further neglected. In fact, I shall arrange for the time to share your apartment with you, as loneliness will aggravate your derangement. In a few hours the doctor returned. He brought with him a complicated looking apparatus, and was followed by two attendants, carrying a bed. The doctor pushed the apparatus into the corner after seeing his bed installed in my sleeping chamber, dismissed the attendants, and sat down and began to entertain me with accounts of various cases of mental derangement that had come under his care. So far as I could determine his object, if he had any other than killing time, it was to impress me with the importance of submitting graciously to his care. Tiring of these stories of the doctor's professional successes with meek and trusting patience, I took the management of the conversation into my own hands. Since you are a psychic expert, Dr. Berm, perhaps you can explain to me the mental processes that cause a man to prize a large banker credit when there is positively no legal way in which he can expend the credit. The doctor looked at me quizzically. How do you mean? He asked, that there 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 a million marks a year, but I risked losing it by demanding that a young woman of the free level be restored to the royal level where she was born. Of this I am aware, replied the psychic physician. That is why his majesty became alarmed lest your mental equilibrium be disturbed. It seems to indicate an atavistic reversion to a condition of romantic altruism. But as your pedigree is normal, I deem it merely a temporary loss of balance. But why, I asked, do you consider it abnormal at all? Is there evidence of any great degree of unselfishness in a man desiring the bestowal of happiness upon a particular woman in preference to bank credit which he cannot expend? What should I do with a million marks a year when I have been unable to expend the ten thousand a year I have had? Ah! exclaimed the doctor, the light of a brilliant discovery breaking over his countenance. Perhaps this in a measure explains your case. You have evidently been so absorbed in your work that you have not sufficiently developed your appetite for personal enjoyment. Perhaps I've not, but just how should I expend more funds? Food, clothing, living quarters are all provided for me. There is nothing but a few tawdry amusements that one can buy. Nor is there any one to give the money to. Even if a man had children, they cannot inherit his wealth. Just what is money for anyway? The doctor nodded his head, and smiled in satisfaction. You ask interesting questions, he said. I shall try to answer them. Money or bank credit is merely a symbol of wealth. In ancient times wealth was represented by the private ownership of physical property, which was the basis of capitalistic or competitive society. Racial progress was then achieved by the mating of the men of superior brain with the most beautiful women. Women do not appreciate the mental power of man in its direct expression, or even its social use. They can only comprehend that power when it is translated into wealth. After the destruction of private property, women refused to accept as mates the men of intellectual power, but preferred instead men of physical strength and personal beauty. At first this was considered to be a proof of the superiority of the proletariat, for with all men economically equal the beautiful women turned from the anemic intellectual and the sons of aristocracy to the strong arms of labour, believing themselves to be the source of all wealth, and by that right vested with sole political power, and now finding themselves preferred by the beautiful women, the labourer would soon have eliminated all other classes from human society. Had unbridled socialism with its free mating continued, we should have become merely a horde of handsome savages. Such would have been the destiny of our race had not William III foreseen the outcome and restored war, the blessings of which had been all but lost to the world. The progress of peace depended upon the competition of capitalism, but in peace progress is incidental, in war it is essential, because war requires invention, it saved the intellectual classes, and because war requires authority, it made possible the restoration of our royal house, labour the tyrant of peace, became again the slave of war, and under the plea of patriotic necessity Eugenics was established, which again restored the beautiful women to the superior men, and thus by imperial socialism the race was preserved from deterioration. But surely, I said, Eugenics has more than remedied this defect of socialism, for the selection of men of superior mentality is much more rigid than it could have been, under the capricious matings of capitalistic society, why then this need of wealth? Eugenics replied, Berm, braids superior children, but Eugenic mating is a cold scientific thing which fails to fan the flame of man's ambition to do creative work. That is why we have the level of free women, and have not bred the virility out of the intellectual group. That is also the reason we have retained the free level on a competitive commercial basis, and have given the intellectual man, the bank credit, a symbol of wealth, that he may use it, as men have always used wealth, for the purpose of increasing his importance in the eyes of women. This function of wealth is psychically necessary to the creative impulse, for the power of sexual conquest, and the stimulus to creative thought are but different expressions of the same instinct. Wealth, or its symbol, is a medium of translating the one into the other. For example, take your discovery. It is important to you and to the state. Your fellow scientists appreciate it. His Majesty appreciates it, but women cannot appreciate it. But give it a money value, and women appreciate it immediately. They know that the unlimited bank credit will give you the power to keep as many women on your list as you choose. And this means that you can select freely those you wish. So the most attractive women will compete for your preferment. We bow before the Emperor, we salute the statue of God, but we make out our checks to buy bubbles 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 do not see. The legal limit a man may contribute to a woman is but twenty-four hundred marks a year. What, then, does he want with a million? But there is no legal limit, replied the doctor, to the number of women a man may have on his list. His relation to them may be the most casual, but the pursuit is stimulating to the creative imagination. But you forget, Herr von Armstadt, that with the compensation that was to be yours, goes also the social privilege of the royal level. Evidently, you have been so absorbed in your research, that you had no time to think of the magnificent rewards for which you were working. Then perhaps you will explain them to me. With pleasure, said Dr. Berm, your social privilege on the royal level includes the right to marry, and that means that you should have children for whom inheritance is permitted. How else did you suppose the ever-increasing numbers of the house of Ho and Zollern should have maintained their wealth? The question has never occurred to me, I answered. But if it had, I should have supposed that their expenses were provided by appropriations from the State Treasury. Dr. Berm chuckled. Then they should all be dependents on the State, like cripples and imbeciles. It would be a rather poor way to derive the pride of aristocracy. That can only come from inherited wealth. The principal is old, very old. The noblemen must never need's work to live. Then, if he wishes to give service to the State, he may give it without pay, and thus feel his nobility. You cannot aspire to foal's social equality with the royal house, both because you lack divinity of blood, and because you receive your wealth, for that which you have yourself given to the State. But because of your wealth, you will find a wife of the royal house, and she will bear you children who, receiving the divine blood of the Ho and Zollern's from the mother and inherited wealth from the father, will thus be twice ennobled. To have such children is a rare privilege. Not even Hervon Ouh with his thousands of descendants can feel such a pride of paternity. It is well, Hervon Armstott, that you talk to me of these matters. Should you be restored to your full mental powers, and be permitted to assume the rights of your new station, it would be most unfortunate if you should seem unappreciative of these ennobling privileges. Then, if I may, I shall ask you some further questions. It seems that the inherited incomes of the royal level are from time to time reinforced by marriage from without. Does that not dilute the royal blood? That question replied Dr. Berm. More properly should be addressed to a eugenist, but I shall try to give you the answer. The blood of the house of Ho and Zollern is of a very high order, for it is the blood of divinity in human veins. Yet, since there is no eugenic control, no selection, the quality of that blood would deteriorate from inbreeding were there no fresh infusion. Then where better could such blood come than from the men of genius? No man is given the full social privilege of the royal level, except he who has made some great contribution to the state. This at once marks him as a genius, and gives his wealth a noble origin. But how is it, I asked, that this addition of men from without does not 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 generation who are received into royal society. Of course, that means some of the young men of the royal level cannot marry, but some men decline marriage of their own free will. If they are not possessed of much wealth, they prefer to go unmarried rather than to accept an unattractive woman as a wife, when they may have their choice of mistresses from the most beautiful virgins intended for the free level. There is always an abundance of marriageable women on the royal level, and with your wealth you will have your choice. Your credit, in fact, will be the largest that has been granted for over a decade. All that is very splendid, I answered. I was not well informed on these matters. But why should His Majesty have been so incensed at my simple request for the restoration of the rights of the doubter of the Princess Fedora? Your request was unusual. Pardon if I may say impudent. It seems to imply a lack of appreciation on your part of the honours freely conferred upon you, but I daresay His Majesty did not realise your ignorance of these things. You are very young, and you have risen to your station very quickly from an obscure position. And you think, I asked, that if you made these facts clear to him, he would relent and grant my request. Dr. Berm looked at me with a penetrating gaze. It is not my function, he said, to intercede for you. I have only been commissioned to examine carefully the state of your mentality. I smiled complacently at the psychic expert. Now, doctor, I said, you do not mean to tell me that you really think there is anything wrong with my mentality. A look of craftiness flashed from Berm's eyes. I have given you my diagnosis, he said. But it may not be final. I have already communicated my first report to His Majesty, and he has ordered me to remain with you some days. If I should alter that opinion too quickly, it would discredit me, and gain you nothing. You had best be patient, and submit gracefully to further examination and treatment. And do you know, I asked, what the chemical staff is doing about my formulas? That is none of my affair, declared Berm emphatically. There was a vigor in his declaration, and a haste, with which he began to talk of other matters, that gave me a hint that the doctor knew more of the doings of the chemical staff than he cared to admit. But I thought it wise not to press the point. PART 3 The second day of Berm's day with me, he unmantled his apparatus, and asked me to submit to a further examination. I had not the least conception of the purpose of this apparatus, and with some misgivings I lay down on a couch, while the psychic expert placed above my eyes a glass plate, on which, when he had turned on the current, there proceeded a slow, rhythmic series of pale lights and shadows. At the doctor's command I fixed my gaze upon the lights, while he, in a monotonous voice, urged me to relax my mind, and dismiss all active thought. How long I stood for this infernal proceeding I do not know, but I recall a realisation that I had lost grip on my thoughts, and seemed to be floating off into a misty nowhere of unconsciousness. I struggled frantically to regain control of myself, and for what seemed an eternity, I fought with a horrible nightmare, unable to move a muscle, or even close my eyelids to shut out that sickening sequence of creeping shadows. Then I saw the doctor's hand, reaching slowly toward my face. It seemed to sway in its stealthy movement like the head of a serpent charming a bird, but in my helpless horror I could not ward it off. At last the snakey fingers touched my eyelids as if to close them, and that touch, light though it was, served to snap the taut film of my helpless brain, and I gave a blood curdling yell, and jumped up, knocking over the devilish apparatus, and nearly upsetting the doctor. Calm yourself, said Berm, as he attempted to push me again toward the couch. There's nothing wrong, and you must surrender to the psychic equilibrator, so that I can proceed with the examination. Examination be damned! I shouted fiercely. You were trying to hypnotise me with that infernal machine. Berm did not reply, but calmly proceeded to pick up the apparatus and restore it to its place in the corner, while I paced angrily about the room. He then seated himself and addressed me, as I stood against the wall glaring at him. You are laboring under hallucinations, he said. I fear your case is even worse than I thought. But calm yourself. I shall attempt at no further examination today. I resumed a seat, but refused to look at him. He did not talk further of my supposed mental state, but proceeded to entertain me with gossip of the royal level, and later discussed the novels in the bookcase. It was difficult to keep up an open war, with so charming a conversationalist. But I was thoroughly on my guard. I could now readily see through the whole fraud of my imputed mental derangement. I knew my mind was sound as a schoolboy's, and that this pretense of examination and treatment was only a blind. Evidently the chemical staff had failed to work the formulas I had given them, and the psychic manipulator had been sent in here to filch the true formulas from my brain with his devilish art. I knew nothing of what progress the Germans might have made with hypnotism, but unless they had gone farther than had the outer world, 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 an induced somnambulistic conversation. Happily I was fairly well posted on such things, and believed that I could guard against that also. But the fear of the thing made me so nervous, that I did not sleep all of the following night. The doctor, evidently a keen observer, must have detected that fact from the sound of my breathing, for the lights returned out, and we slept in 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 in casual conversation. As the sleeping period drew near again, the doctor said, I will leave you tonight, for I fear my presence disturbs you, because you misinterpret my purpose in observing you. As the doctor departed I noted that the mechanism of the hinges and the lock of the door were so perfect that they gave forth no sound. I was very drowsy, and soon retired, but before I went to sleep I practised snapping 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 first sound of a voice. This thought ingrained in my subconscious mind proved my salvation. I must have been sleeping some hours. I was dreaming of Marguerite. I saw her standing in an open meadow flooded with sunlight, and heard her voice as if from afar. I walked towards her, and as the words grew more distinct I knew the voice was not Marguerite's. Then I awoke. I did not stir but lay listening. The voice was speaking monotonously, and the words I heard were the words of the proteome formulas, the false ones I had given the chemical staff. But these formulas are not correct, purred the voice. Of course they are not correct. I gave them to the staff, but they will never know the real ones. Yes, the real ones, what are the real ones? Have I forgotten? No, I shall never forget. I can repeat them now. Then the voice began again on one of the fake formulas. But when it reached the point where the true formula was different it paused. Evidently the chemical staff had found out where the difficulty lay, and so the voice had paused, hoping my sleeping mind would catch up the thread and supply the missing words. But instead my arms shot quickly to the switch. The solicitous Dr. Berm flooded with a blaze of light, glared blinkingly as I leaped from the bed. Oh, I was asleep all right, I said. But I awoke the instant I heard you speak, just as I had assured myself that I would do before I fell asleep. 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 of the chemical staff on my formulas. Now see here, doctor, you had your try and you have failed. Your diagnosis of my mental condition is just as much a fraud as the formulas on which the chemical staff have been wasting their time. Only it is not so clever. I fooled them, and you have not fooled me. Waste no more time, but go back and report to His Majesty that your little tricks have failed. I shall do that, said Berm. I feared you from the start. Your mind is really an extraordinary one. But where, he said, did you learn how to guard yourself so well against my methods? They are very secret. My art 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 his leave. This time I balanced a chair, overhanging the edge of a table, so that the opening of the door would push it off, and I lay down, and slept soundly. Part Four I was left alone in my prison until late the next day. Then came a guard who conducted me before His Majesty. None of the chemical staff was present. In fact, there was no one with the Emperor but a single secretary. His Majesty smiled cordially. It was fitting, Herr Armstott, for me to order your confinement for your demand was audacious. Not that what you asked was a matter of importance, but you should have made the request in writing and privately, and not before the chemical staff. But that pre-tove etiquette I had to humiliate you that royal dignity might be preserved. As for the fact that you kept the formula secret, none need know that but the chemical staff, and they will have nothing further to say since you have made fools of them, His Majesty laughed. As for the request you made, I have decided to grant it, nor do I blame you for making it. The Princess Marguerite is a very beautiful girl. She is waiting now nearby. I should have sent for her sooner, but it was necessary to make an investigation regarding her birth. The unfortunate Princess Fedora never confessed the father, but I have arranged that as you shall see. The Emperor now pressed his signal button, and a door opened and Marguerite was ushered into the room. I started in fear, as I saw, that she was accompanied by Dr. Zimmon. What calamity of discovery and punishment, I wondered, had my daring move brought to the secret rebel against the rule of the Hohen Zollern. Marguerite stepped swiftly toward me, and gave me her hand, the look in her eyes I interpreted as a warning that I was not to recognize Zimmon. So I appeared the stranger, while the Secretary introduced us. Dr. Zimmon, said His Majesty, was physician to Princess Fedora at the time of the birth of the Princess Marguerite. She confessed to him the father of her child. It was the Count Rudolf who died unmarried some years ago. There will be no questions raised. Our society will welcome his daughter for both the Count Rudolf and the Princess Fedora were very popular. During this speech Dr. Zimmon sat rigid and stared into space. Then the Secretary produced a document and read a confession to be signed by Zimmon, testifying to these statements of Marguerite's birth. Zimmon, his features still unmoved, signed the paper and handed it again to the Secretary. His Majesty arose and held out his hand to Marguerite. I welcome you, he said, to the house of Hohen Zollern, we shall do our best to atone for what you have suffered, and to you have on Armstatt. I extend my thanks for bringing us so beautiful a woman. It is my hope that you will win her as a wife, for she will grace well the fortune that your great genius brings to us. But because you have loved her under unfortunate circumstances, I must forbid your marriage for a period of two years. During that time you will both be free to make acquaintances in royal society. Nothing less than this would be fair to either of you, or to other women that may seek your fortune, or to other men who may seek the beauty of your princess. CHAPTER X A goddess who is suffering from obesity, and a brave man who is afraid of the law of averages. It was not till we had reached Marguerite's apartment that Zimmern spoke. Then he and Marguerite both embraced me and cried with joy. Ah, Armstatt, said the old doctor, you have done a wonderful thing, a wonderful thing, but why did you not warn us? Yes, I stammered, I know, you mean the books, it worried me, but you see, I did not plan this thing, I did not know what I should do. It came to me like a flash as the Emperor was conferring the honours upon me. I had hoped to use my power to make him do my bidding, and yet we had contrived no way to use that power in furtherance of our great plans to free a race. But I could at least use it to free a woman, let us hope that it augurs progress to the ultimate goal. It was very noble, but it was dangerous, replied Zimmern. It was only through a coincidence that we were saved, Herr von Ull told me that same day what you had demanded. I saw Heller immediately, and he declared a raid on Marguerite's apartment, but he came himself, with only one assistant who was in his confidence, and they boxed the books and carded them off. They will be turned in as contraband volumes, but the report will be falsified. No one will ever know from once they came. Then the books are lost to you, I said. Of that I am sorry, and I worried greatly while I was imprisoned. Yes, said Zimmern, we have lost the books, but you have saved Marguerite, that will more than compensate. For that I can never thank you enough. And you were called into the matter, not, I said, as Marguerite's friend, but as the physician to her mother. They must have looked up the record, replied Zimmern, but nothing was said to me. I received only a communication from his majesty, commanding me as the physician to Marguerite's mother at the time of Marguerite's birth, to make statement as to her fatherhood. But why, I asked, did you not make this confession before, since it enabled 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 has restored Marguerite. The confession is only a matter of form to satisfy the wagging tongues of royal society. Do you mean, I asked, that she will not be well received there, because she was born out of wedlock? Not at all, replied Zimmern. It was the failure to confess the father, not the fact of her unwedded motherhood, that brought the punishment. There are many loved children born on the royal level, and they suffer only a failure of inheritance of wealth from the father. But if they be girls of charm and beauty, and if, as Marguerite now stands credited, they be of rich royal blood, they are very popular, and much sought after. But without the record of the father they cannot be admitted into royal society, for the record of the bloodlines would be lost. And that, you see, is essential. Social President, the value in the matrimonial market all rest upon it. Marguerite is indeed fortunate, with His Majesty's signature attesting my confession, she has nothing more to fear, but I dare say they shall try their best to win her from you for some shallow-minded prince. But when, I asked, is she to go? His Majesty seemed very gracious, but do you realise that I still possess my secret of the proteum formulas? And do you still hesitate to give them up? Asked Marguerite. For your freedom, dare I shall reveal them gladly. But, cried Marguerite, you must not give them up just for me, if there is any way you can use them for our great plan. Nothing, spoke up Zimmern, could be gained now by further secrecy but trouble for us all. And by asseding both you and Marguerite when your place is on the royal level, where you can better serve our cause. That is, if you are still with us, it may be harder for you, now that you have won the richest privileges that Germany has to offer, to remember those 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 on Marguerite. You will both have opportunities to see much of the officers of the submarine service. The German race may yet be freed from this sunless prison, if you can find one among them who can be one to our cause. I reported the next morning to the chemical staff, by whom I was treated with deferential respect. I was immediately installed in my new office as Director of the Protein Works. While I set about supervising the manufacture of apparatus for the new process, other members of the staff, now furnished with the correct formulas, repeated the demonstration without my assistance. When the report of this had been made to His Majesty, I received my insignia of the social privilege of the royal level and a copy of the Royal Society Bulletin, announcing Marguerite's restoration to her place in the House of Hohenzollern, with the title of Princess Marguerite, Daughter of Princess Fedora and Count Rudolf. The next day a social secretary from the royal level came from Marguerite and conducted her to the apartments of the Countess Louise, under whose chaperonage she was to make her debut into Royal Society. I, Osa, was furnished with a social secretary, an obsequious but very wise little man, who took a charge of all my affairs outside my chemical work. Under his guidance I was removed to more commodious quarters, and my wardrope was supplied, with numerous changes in all the uniform of the chemical staff. There was little time to spare from my duties in the proteome works, but my secretary ever alert prepared me to make my first appearance in Royal Society at the Grand Ball, given by the Countess Louise, in honour of Marguerite's debut. Despite the assiduous coaching of my secretary, my ignorance must have been delightfully amusing to the royal idlers, who had little other thought or purpose in life than this very round of complicated nothingness. But if I was a blundering amateur in all this, they were not so much discourteous as envious. They knew that I had won my position by my achievements, as a chemist, and in a vague way they understood, that I had saved the Empire from impending ruin, and for this achievement I was lionised. The women rustled about me in their gorgeous gowns, and plied me with foolish questions which I had better sense than to try to answer with the slightest degree of truth. But their power of sustained interest in such weighty matters was not great, and soon the conversation would drift away, especially if Marguerite was about, when the talk would turn to the romance of her restoration. One group of vivacious ladies discussed, quite frankly, with Marguerite, the relative advantages of a husband of intellectual genius, as compared with one of a high degree of royal blood. Some contended that the added prospect of superior intelligence in the children would offset the lowering of their degree of Hohenzollern blood. The others argued quite as persistently that the blood was the better investment. Through such conversation I learned of the two clans within the royal house. The one prided themselves wholly in the high degree of their Hohenzollern blood, the other styling themselves royal intellectuals, because of a greater proportion of outside bloodlines, were quite as proud of the fact that while possessed of sufficient royal blood to be in the divinity, they inherited, supposedly, greater intelligence from their mundane ancestors. This latter group, to make good their claims, made a great show of intellectuality and cultivated most persistently a dilettante 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 other hand the intellectuals considered me as a great asset for their cause, and glorified particularly in the prospects of marriage of an outside scientist to an eighty degree Hohenzollern princess. This rivalry of the clans of royal society made us much sought after and I was flooded with invitations. It did not take me long to discover, however, that the reason for my popularity was not altogether a matter of respect for my intellectual genius. I had at first been inclined to accept all invitations innocently supposing that I was being fitted as an honorary guest, but my social secretary advised against this and when he began bringing me checks to sign I realized that the social privileges of royal society included the honour of paying the bills for one's own entertainment. I had already arranged with my banker that a fourth of my income be turned over to Marguerite until her marriage, for she was without income of her own, and it was upon my petition that she had been restored to the royal level. At my banker's suggestion I had also made over ten thousand marks a month to the countess under whose motherly wing Marguerite was being sheltered. I therefore soon discovered that my income of a million marks a year would be absorbed quite easily by royal society. The entire system appeared to me rather sordid, but such matters were arranged by bankers and secretaries, and the principles were supposed to be quite innocent of any knowledge of or concern for the details. The countess Louise, who was permitted to entertain so lavishly at my expense, was playing for the favour of both of the opposing social clans, possessing a high degree of Hohenzollern blood. She stood well with the purus, but her income was not all that could be desired, so she had adroitly discovered in her only son a touch of intellectual genius, and the young man quite dutifully had become a maker of picture plots, hoping by this distinction to win as a wife one of the daughters of some wealthy intellectual interloper. At first I had feared that the countess had designs upon Marguerite as a wife for her son, but as Marguerite 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 and cordial countess. Do you know what I was reading last night? I remarked one evening as I chatted with Marguerite and her chaperone. Some work on obesity, I hope, sparkled the countess, like many of the house of Hohenzollern, among whom there was no weight control. She carried a surplus of adipose tissue, not altogether consistent with beauty. No, indeed, I said gravely, nothing about your material being, but a treatise upon your spiritual nature. I was reading an old school-book, that I found among my forgotten relics, a book about the divinity of the house of Hohenzollern. Oh, how jolly, chuckled the countess, how very funny that I never thought before that you have on Armstatt were once taught all those delightful fables. And once believed them too, I lied. Oh, to me! replied the countess with a ponderous sigh. So I suppose you did, and what a shock I must have been to you with an eighty-cent meter waist. You are not quite Juno-esque, I admitted. The more reason you should use your science-hair-camest to aid me to recover my goddess-form. What are you folks talking about? interrupted Marguerite. About our divinity, my dear, replied Louise Archley. But do you feel that it is really necessary, I asked, that such fables should be put into the helpless minds of children? I suppose it must be. Suppose your own heredity had proven tricky. It does sometimes, you know, and you had been found incapable of scientific thought. You would have bendy-branked, and perhaps made a record-click. No personal reflections, but such things do happen. And if you were now filing cards all day, you would surely be much happier if you could believe in our divinity. Why else would you submit to a loveless life in the dull routine of toil? Did not all the ancients, and do not all the inferior races now, have objects of religious worship? But the other races, I said, do not worship living people, but spiritual divinities and the sainted dead. Quite so, replied the over-plump goddess. But that is why their cultures are so inefficient. Surely the worship was useless to the spirits and the dead, whereas we find it quite profitable to be worshiped. But for this wonderful doctrine of the divinity of the blood of 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 dear hair-chemist, she said in sugary tones, you with your intellectual genius can twit us on our psychic lax, and we must fall back on the divine blood of our great ancestor. But would you really wish the slaves of dole 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 master's stroke of science and efficiency. Inferior creatures must worship. They always have and always will. Then why waste the worship? Part 3 My position as director of the proteome works soon brought me into conference with Admiral von Kufner, who was chief of the submarine staff. von Kufner was in his forties, and his manner indicated greater talent for pomp and ceremony than for administrative work. His grandfather had been the engineer to whose genius Berlin owed her salvation through the construction of the submarine tunnel. By this service the engineer had won 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 a man of both social and official consequence. It did not take me long to decide that von Kufner was hopeless as a prospective convert to revolutionary doctrines, nor did he possess any great knowledge of the proteome minds, for he had never visited them. Inheriting his position as an honour to his grandfather's genius, he commanded the undersea vessels from the security of an office on the royal level, for journeys in ice-filled waters were entirely too dangerous to appeal to one who loved so well the pleasures and vanities of life. I had explained to von Kufner the distinctions I had discovered in the various samples of the ore brought from the mines and the necessity of having new surveys of the deposits made on the basis of these discoveries. After he had had time to digest this information I suggested that I should myself go to make this survey, but this idea the Admiral at once opposed, insisting that the trip through the Arctic ice-fields was entirely too dangerous. Very well, I replied, I feel that I could best serve Germany by going to the Arctic mines in person, but if you think that is unwise, will you not arrange for me to consult at once with men who have been in the mines and are familiar with the conditions there? To this very reasonable request which was in line with my obvious duties no objection could be made and a conference was at once called of submarine captains and furloughed engineers who had been in the Arctic ore-fields. I was impressed by the usefulness of these men which was readily explained by the fact that one vessel out of every five sent out was lost beneath the Arctic ice-flows with an almost mathematical certainty the men in the undersea service could reckon the years of their lives on the fingers of one hand. Although the official business of the conference related to ore deposits and not to the dangers of the traffic, the men were so obsessed with the latter fact that it crept out in their talk in spite of the Admiral's obvious displeasure at such confession of fare. I particularly marked the outspoken frankness of one, Captain Groble, whose vessel was the next one scheduled to depart to the mines. I therefore asked Groble to call in person at my office for the instructions concerning the ore investigations which were to be forwarded to the director of the mines. Free from the restraining influence of the Admiral I was able to lead the captain to talk freely of the dangers of his work and was overjoyed to find him frankly rebellious. But I might still further cultivate his acquaintance I withheld some of the necessary documents and using this as a pretext I later sought him out at his quarters which were in a remote and somewhat obscure part of the royal level. The official nature of my call disposed of I led the conversation into social matters and found no difficulty in persuading the captain to talk of his own life. He was a man well under thirty and like most of his fellows in the service was one of the sons of a branch of the Hohenzollern family whose declining fortune denied him all hope of marriage or social life. In the heroic years of his youth he had volunteered for the submarine service but now he confessed that he regretted the act for he realized that his death could not be long postponed. He had made his three trips as commander of an ore-bringing vessel. I have two more trips declared Captain Grubble such as the prophecy of statistical facts five trips is the allotted life of a captain it is the law of averages it is possible that I may extend that number a little but if so it will be an exception trusting to exceptions is a poor philosophy I do not like it sometimes I think I shall refuse to go disgrace of course banishment to the minds report my treasonable utterances if you like I am prepared for that suicide is easy and certain but is it not rather cowardly Captain I asked looking him steadily in the eye Grubble flung out his hand with a gesture of disdain that is an easy word for you to pronounce he sneered you have hoped to live by you were on the upward climb you aspire to marry into the royal house and sire children to inherit your wealth but I was born of the royal house my father squandered his wealth my sisters were beautiful and they have married well my brother was servile he has attached himself to the retinue 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 Berlin more life and uphold the House of Hohenzollern in its fat and idle existence and for me they have taken hope away oh yes I was proclaimed a hero the young ladies of this house of idleness dance with me but they dare not take me seriously what one of them would court the certainty of widowhood without fortune so why should I not tire of their shallow trifling I find among the girls of the free level more honest love for they as I have no hope they love but for the passing hour and pass on as I pass on I to death they to decaying beauty and an old age of servile slavery surely I exalted here is the rebellious and daring soul that Zimmern and Hellern have sought in vain even as they had hoped I seem to have discovered a man of the submarine service who was amenable to revolutionary ideas could I not get him to consider the myriad life of Berlin in all its barren futility to grasp at the hope of succour from a free and merciful world and then with his aid find a way out of Berlin a way to carry the message of Germany's need of help to the great God of humanity that dwelt without in the warmth and joy of the sun the tide of hope surged high within me I was tempted to divulge at once my long cherished plan of escape from Berlin why? I asked thinking to further sound his sincerity if you feel like this have you never considered running your craft to the surface during the sea passage and beaching her on a foreign shore there at least is life and hope and experience by the statue of God cried Groubel his body shaking and his voice quavering why do you in all your hope and comfort hear speak of that to me do you think I have never been tempted to do that very thing and yet you call me a coward have I not breathed foul air for days full to poke up our air tube in deserted waters lest by the millionth chance it might lead to a capture and yet you speak of deliberate surrender even though I destroyed my charts the capture of a German submarine in those seas would set the forces of the outer world searching for the passage if they found and blocked the passage I should be guilty of the destruction of 300 million lives God! God of Hohenzollern! 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 of the burden of great sorrows in common it is well that we have found each other it is well that we have spoken of these things that shake our souls you have confessed much to me and I have much that I shall confess to you I must see you again before you leave Grobbel gave me his hand you are a strange man, he said I have met none before like you I do not know at what aims you are driving if you plotted my disgrace by leading me into these confessions you have found me easy prey but do not credit yourself too much if often vowed I would go to Admiral von Kufner and say these things to him but the formal exterior of that petty pompous man I cannot penetrate if I have confessed to you it is merely because you are a man without that protecting shield of bristling authority and cold formality you seemed merely a man of flesh and blood despite your decorations and so I have talked what is to be made of it by you or by me I do not know but I'm not afraid of you I shall leave you now I said for I have pressing duties but I shall 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 I can yet show you a gleam of hope beyond this mathematical law of averages that rattles the dice of death End of section 12