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either their capacity or their motives. She watched them, and announced her decision to her

too credulous husband: "They are jealous, and want what we've got, and if we gave it to them

they wouldn't even say thank you!"

"Maybe so," replied the husband, who had suffered not a few disillusionments himself. "It's no

use expecting human beings to be better than they are. Some are true idealists, like Hansi and

Freddi."

"Yes, but they work; they would succeed in any world. But those politicians, and intellectuals

who want to be politicians but don't know how — Lanny laughed; he saw that she was

beginning to use her own head. "What you have to do," he cautioned, "is to consider

principles and not individuals. We want a system that will give every body a chance at honest

and constructive labor, and then, see that nobody lives without working."

V

The daughter of J. Paramount Barnes was forced to admit that there was something wrong,

because her dividends were beginning to fall off. In the spring she had been hearing about the

little bull market, which had sounded fine; but during the summer and fall had come a series

of slumps, no less than four, one after another. Nobody understood these events, nobody could

predict them. You would hear people say: "The bottom has been reached now; things are

bound to take a turn." They would bet their money on it— and then, next day or next week,

stocks would be tumbling and everybody terrified.

There came a letter from Irma's uncle Joseph, one of the trustees who managed her estate. He

warned her about what was happening, and explained matters as well as he could; during the past

year her blue-chip stocks had lost another thirty points, below the lowest mark of the great

panic when she had been in New York. It appeared to be a vicious circle: the slump caused fear,

and fear caused another slump. The elections in Germany had had a bad reaction in Wall

Street; everybody decided there wouldn't be any more reparations payments. Mr. Joseph

Barnes added that there hadn't really been any for a long time, and perhaps never had been,

since the Germans first borrowed in Wall Street whatever they wished to pay. Irma didn't

understand this very well, but gave the letter to Lanny, who explained it to her—of course

from his Pink point of view.

One thing Uncle Joseph made plain: Irma must be careful how she spent money! Her answer

was obvious: she had been living on the Robins for half a year, and when she went back to

Bienvenu they would resume that ridiculously simple life. You just couldn't spend money

when you lived in a small villa; you had no place to put things, and no way to entertain on a

large scale. Lanny and his mother had lived on thirteen hundred dollars a month, whereas

Irma had been accustomed to spend fifty times that. So she had no trouble in assuring her

conscientious uncle that she would give heed to his advice. Her mother had decided not to come

to Europe that winter; she was busy cutting down the expenses of the Long Island estate. Lanny

read the letter and experienced the normal feelings of a man who learns that his mother-in-

law is not coming to visit him.

VI

Heinrich Jung called Lanny on the telephone. "Would you like to meet the Führer?" he

inquired.

"Oh, my gosh!" exclaimed Lanny, taken aback. "He wouldn't be interested in me."

"He says he would."

"What did you tell him about me?"

"I said that you were an old friend, and the patron of Kurt Meissner."

Lanny thought for a moment. "Did you tell him that I don't agree with his ideas?"

"Of course. Do you suppose he's only interested in meeting people who agree with him?"

Lanny had supposed something of the sort, but he was too polite to answer directly. Instead

he asked: "Did you say that I might become a convert?"

"I said it might be worth while to try."

"But really, Heinrich, it isn't." "You might take a chance, if he's willing."

Lanny laughed. "Of course he's an interesting man, and I'll enjoy meeting him."

"All right, come ahead."

"You're sure it won't injure your standing?"

"My standing? I went three times to visit him while he was a prisoner in the Landsberg

fortress, and he is a man who never forgets a friend."

"All right, then, when shall we go?"

"The sooner the better. He's in Berlin now, but he jumps about a lot."

"You set the time."

"Are you free this afternoon?"

"I can get free."

Heinrich called again, saying that the appointment was for four o'clock, and he would be

waiting for Lanny in front of the headquarters at three-thirty. When he was in the car and had

given the address, he began, with some signs of hesitation: "You know, American manners are not

quite the same as German. The Führer, of course, understands that you are an American—"

"I hope he won't expect me to say 'Heil Hitler !"

"Oh, no, of course not. You will shake hands with him."

"Shall I address him as 'Er'?" Lanny had read a recent announcement of the introduction of this

custom, previously reserved for royalty. It meant speaking in the third person.

"That will not be expected of a foreigner. But it is better if one doesn't contradict him. You

know that he is under heavy pressure these days—"

"I understand." From many sources Lanny had heard that Adi was a highly excitable person;

some even called him psychopathic.

"I don't mean that you have to agree with him," the other hastened to add. "It's all right if you

just listen. He is very kind about explaining his ideas to people."

"Sure thing." Lanny kept a perfectly straight face. "I have read Mein Kampf, and this will be a

sort of postscript. Five years have passed, and a lot has happened."

"Isn't it marvelous how much has come true!" exclaimed the faithful young "Aryan."

VII

The Partei- und oberster S.A. Führer, Vorsitzender der N.S.D.A.P., lived in one of those

elegant apartment houses having a uniformed doorkeeper. The Führer was a vegetarian, and

an abstainer from alcohol and tobacco, but not an ascetic as to interior decoration; on the

contrary, he thought himself an artist and enjoyed fixing up his surroundings. With the money

of Fritz Thyssen and other magnates he had bought a palace in Munich and made it over into

a showplace, the Nazi Braune Haus; also for the apartment in Berlin he had got modernistic

furniture of the utmost elegance. He lived with a married couple to take care of him, South

Germans and friends of his earlier days. They had two children, and Adi was playing some

sort of parlor game with them when the visitors were brought in. He kept the little ones for a

while, talking to them and about them part of the time; his fondness for children was his

better side, and Lanny would have been pleased if he had not had to see any other.

The Führer wore a plain business suit, and presented the aspect of a simple, unassuming

person. He shook hands with his Franco-American guest, patted Heinrich on the back, and

called for fruit juice and cookies for all of them. He asked Lanny about his boyhood on the

Riviera, and the children listened with open eyes to stories about hauling the seine and bringing

in cuttlefish and small sharks; about digging in one's garden and finding ancient Roman coins;

about the "little Septentrion child" who had danced and pleased in the arena of Antibes a

couple of thousand years ago. Adi Schicklgruber's own childhood had been unhappy and he

didn't talk about it.

Presently he asked where Lanny had met Kurt Meissner, and the visitor told about the Dalcroze

school at Hellerau. His host took this as a manifestation of German culture, and Lanny forbore

to mention that Jaques-Dalcroze was a Swiss of French descent. It was true that the school

had been built and endowed by a German patron. Said Hitler: "That kind of thing will be the

glory of our National Socialist administration; there will be such an outburst of artistic and

musical genius as will astound the world." Lanny noted that in all the conversation he took it

for granted that the N.S.D.A.P. would soon be in control of Germany; he never said "if," he said

"when"—and this was one of the subjects on which the visitor was surely not going to contradict

him.

They talked about Kurt and his music, which was pure "Aryan," so the Führer declared;

nothing meretricious, no corrupt foreign influences; life in France for so many years had

apparently not affected the composer in the slightest. Lanny explained that Kurt had kept

almost entirely to himself, and had seldom gone out unless one dragged him. He told about his life

at Bienvenu, and the Führer agreed that it was the ideal way for an artist. "It is the sort of life I

would have chosen; but, alas, I was born under a different star." Lanny had heard that he

believed in astrology, and hoped he wouldn't get onto that subject.

VIII

What the Führer of all the Nazis planned was for this elegant and extremely wealthy young

foreigner to go out to the world as a convert to the National Socialist ideas. To that end he laid

himself out to be charming, for which he had no small endowment. He had evidently inquired

as to Lanny's point of view, for everything he said was subtly directed to meeting that. Lanny

was a Socialist, and Hitler, too, was a Socialist, the only true, practical kind of Socialist. Out of

the chaos of competitive capitalism a new order was about to arise; an order that would

endure, because it would be founded upon real understanding and guided by scientists. Not the

evil, degenerate Socialism of the Marxists, which repudiated all that was most precious in human

beings; not a Socialism poisoned with the delusion of internationalism, but one founded upon

recognition of the great racial qualities which alone made such a task conceivable.

Patiently and kindly the Führer explained that his ideas of race were not German in the

narrow sense. Lanny, too, was an "Aryan," and so were the cultured classes in America; theirs

was a truly "Aryan" civilization, and so was the British. "I want nothing in the world so much

as understanding and peace between my country and Britain, and I think there has been no

tragedy in modern times so great as the war they fought. Why can we not understand one

another and get together in friendship for our common task? The world is big enough, and it is

full of mongrel tribes whom we dare not permit to gain power, because they are incapable of

making any intelligent use of it."

Hitler talked for a while about these mongrels. He felt quite safe in telling a young Franco-

American what he thought about the Japanese, a sort of hairless yellow monkeys. Then he came

to the Russians, who were by nature lazy, incompetent, and bloodthirsty, and had fallen into

the hands of gutter-rats and degenerates. He talked about the French, and was careful of what

he said; he wanted no enmity between France and Germany; they could make a treaty of peace

that would last for a thousand years, if only the French would give up their imbecile idea of

encircling Germany and keeping her ringed with foes. "It is the Polish alliance and the Little

Entente which keep enmity between our peoples; for we do not intend to let those peoples go

on ruling Germans, and we have an iron determination to right the wrongs which were