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would it go before they became aware of it themselves?

Lanny couldn't tell them what he knew. He couldn't say to Hugo: "Your Führer is in the

thick of negotiations with Thyssen, and Krupp von Bohlen, and Karl von Siemens, and others

of the greediest industrialists of your country. He is making fresh promises of conservatism

and legality. He will do anything to get power, and anything to keep it. You and your friends

are just so many pawns that he moves here and there and will sacrifice when his game requires

it." No, for they would ask: "How do you know this?" And he couldn't reply: "Fritz Thyssen

told my father yesterday." They would assume that he had got the stories from Johannes

Robin, a Jew, which would mean to them two things: first, that the stories were lies, and

second, that some Nazi patriots ought to visit the Robin palace by night and smash all its

windows and paint Juda verrecke! on its front door.

No, among Catholics one did not question the purity of the Holy Virgin, and among Nazis

one didn't question the honor of the Führer. When he said in his book that he would have no

honor, he meant as regards his foes; but for his Parteigenossen he was a loving shepherd, to

be followed after the manner of sheep. All that Lanny could do was to ask impersonal

questions. "How can the Führer get commercial credits, if Germany defaults in payments on

her bonds? I don't mean reparations, but the bonds of private investors." Hugo Behr, naive

young Socialist, didn't even know that there were such bonds. Lanny said: "I have several of

them in a safe-deposit box in Newcastle, Connecticut. I bought them because I wanted to help

your Socialist republic."

"It is a bourgeois fraud!" said the ex-Marxist; and that settled all Lanny's claims.

VIII

Kurt had written, begging Irma and Lanny to come for a visit. Lanny had never been to

Stubendorf except at Christmas time, and he thought it would be pleasant to see the country in

midsummer. They drove with a speed greater than the wind over the splendid level roads of

Prussia, past fields where gangs of Polish immigrant women labored on the potato crops. The

roads were lined with well-tended fruit trees, and Irma said: "We couldn't do that in America.

People would steal all the fruit." She had never seen vast fields so perfectly cultivated:

every inch of ground put to use, no such thing as a weed existing, and forests with trees

planted in rows like orchards. She renewed her admiration for the German Volk.

They stayed at the Schloss, even though the Graf was not at home. Kurt had a new "Junker,"

and so had his brother's family and his sister's. Herr Meissner was feeble, but able to talk

politics; he renewed his complaints of corruption and incompetence of the Polish government

under which he was forced to live. Just now there was wrangling over religious questions; the

old problem of the relations of church and state was being fought over with bitterness

inherited through six centuries or more. There were Polish Lutherans and German Lutherans

who couldn't and wouldn't say the Lord's prayer together. There were Polish Catholics trying to

polonize German Catholics. There was the Volhynian Russian church, and the Uniat church

which was half-way between Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic—they accepted the Pope,

but their priests married and had large families. Superimposed upon all this was a new Polish

ecclesiastical system, which subjected all the churches to the government. Herr Meissner, soon

to depart from this earth, found the making of a proper exit as complicated a problem as had

ever confronted him while staying on.

Lanny had been looking forward to having a frank talk with his old chum. He wanted to tell

Kurt what he had learned about the Nazi political machine, and make one last effort to get him

out of it. But he realized that it would be a waste of effort. Kurt was in a state of exultation

over the election results, for which he had been hoping for ten years and working for five. He

considered that Germany was being redeemed, and he was composing a Victory March to end

all marches. Lanny decided sadly that it was better to play piano duets and consider politics as

beneath the notice of inspired musicians.

He and Irma had intended to return to Berlin for another cruise; but there came a telegram

from Miss Severne, who was under strict orders to report the slightest sign of indisposition

on the part of her charge. She reported a digestive disturbance and a temperature of 101; that

didn't mean much in a child, and the nurse was sure it wasn't serious, but Irma fell into a

panic right away—she was a neglectful and selfish mother who had run away from her

responsibilities, amusing herself all over Europe. She wanted to take a plane; but Lanny

said: "By the time you get to an airport and arrange for one we can be half way home. You

spell me and we'll drive straight through."

So they did, and reached Juan in a little over two days—not so bad considering the

mountains in Austria and Italy. Twice on the way they stopped to telephone, and when they

arrived they found that the fire was all out. Was it the magic of Parsifal Dingle, or just the

natural tendency of very young children to get over a fever as quickly as they get it? There was

no way to know; suffice it that Lanny's stepfather had done his best, and Miss Severne had

done hers, and Baby Frances was well—and ready to take full advantage of a reformed and

penitent mother! Irma was so happy to prattle and dance and play with her darling that she

couldn't understand how she had ever wanted to be fashionable.

IX

They settled down to domestic life. In the evening Sophie and her husband would come over

to play bridge with Irma and Beauty. Marceline had begun attending a private school, where

fashionable young ladies didn't learn very much but were watched and kept out of mischief.

That left Lanny free to read the magazines which had accumulated in his absence, and to play

the music that took his fancy; also to attend the workers' school and tell them what he had

learned in England and Germany, and advise them how to avoid the misfortunes which had

befallen their comrades in these countries.

The only trouble was, the data appeared so complicated and the conclusions so uncertain.

"MacDonaldism" appeared to indicate the futility of "gradualness" and legality; the moment

you mentioned it, up popped some young Red to say: "You see what happens when the

workers put their trust in parliaments!" When you mentioned Hitler, right away a wrangle

started as to what had caused him. Was he an agent of German heavy industry, and a proof that

capitalism would not submit peaceably to any form of limitation upon its rule? Or were the

Nazis-a product of the fears which Bolshevism had inspired in the Kleinbürgertum— the small

business men, the petty officials, the white collar workers who had no unions and couldn't

protect their status?

You could take either side of this debate, produce a mass of facts to prove your case, and

come out feeling certain that you had won. The uncomfortable person was the one like Lanny,

who wanted the whole truth, and could see that there was some of it on both sides. Nobody

could look at an issue of a Nazi newspaper without seeing that they were exploiting the fear

of Red Russia to the limit; on the other hand, who could look at Hitler's Braune Haus with its

costly equipment, or see the Stormtroopers marching with their shiny new uniforms and

weapons—and not know that this movement was being financed by big money of some sort.

Großkapital was afraid of Russia, just as the white collar workers were; but Großkapital was

exploiting all the workers, and these two groups couldn't agree on any domestic policies.

Sooner or later the Nazis would have to make up their minds which master they meant to

serve.

There lay the drama of present day events in Germany, and Lanny strove to explain it to the

French workers and to such of their leaders as he met. Hitler sat in his study in Berlin, or in

Munich, or in the retreat which he had bought for himself in the mountains, and the Nazi

chieftains came to him and argued and pulled him this way and that; he thought it over, and

chose whatever course seemed to him to open the way to power. He was as slippery as an eel,

and as quick to move, and nobody could say what he was going to do until he had done it. The

one thing you could say for sure was that National Socialism was power without conscience;

you might call it the culmination of capitalism, or a degenerate form of Bolshevism—names

didn't matter, so long as you understood that it was counter-revolution.

The important question was, whether this same development was to be expected in every

country. Was the depression going to wipe out the middle classes and drive them into the arms of

demagogues? Were the workers being driven to revolt, and would their attempts be met by the

overthrow of parliaments? Were the Communists right in their seemingly crazy idea that

Fascism was a necessary stage in the breakdown of capitalism?

Apparently the question was up for answer in the land which Lanny and Irma called theirs.

The ex-service men who had gone overseas to fight for their country had come back to find the

jobs and the money in the hands of others. Now they were unemployed, many of them

starving, and they gathered in Washington demanding relief; some brought their destitute

families and swarmed upon the steps of the Capitol or camped in vacant lots beside the

Potomac. The Great Engineer fell into a panic and could think of nothing to do but turn the

army loose on them, kill four, and burn the tents and pitiful belongings of all. The "bonus men"

were driven out, a helpless rabble, no one caring where they went, so long as they stopped

bothering politicians occupied with getting re-elected.

To Lanny this appeared the same thing as the Cabinet of the Barons, seizing control of

Prussia and ruling Germany with only a few votes in the Reichstag. It was Poincaire occupying

the Ruhr for the benefit of the Comite des Forges; it was Zaharoff sending an army into Turkey

to get oil concessions. It was the same type of men all over the world. They tried to grab one

another's coal and steel and oil and gold; yet, the moment they were threatened by their wage

slaves anywhere, they got together to fight against the common peril. Do it with the army, do it

with gangsters, do it with the workers' own leaders, buying them or seducing them with titles,

honors, and applause!

Lanny could see that clearly; and it is a pleasure to the mind to discover unity in the midst of

variety. But then the thought would come to him: "My father is one of these men, and so are

his father and his brothers. My sister's father-in-law is one, and so was my wife's father, and

all the men of her family." That spoiled the pleasure in Lanny's mind.

X

Two or three weeks passed, and ambition began to stir once more in the soul of Irma Barnes

Budd. There was that splendid palace in Paris, for which she was paying over eighty thousand

francs rent per month, and nearly as much for upkeep, whether she used it or not. Now it was