“You must mix freely with the members of the Cabinet. You must dine with
them. This is a most necessary matter and one to be kept well in mind.
Dine with them often in such a way as to make yourself familiar to them.
Will you do this?”
“I will,” I said.
“Very good. Remember also that in order to mask your purpose you must
constantly be seen with the most fashionable and most beautiful women of
the American capital. Can you do this?”
“Can I?” I said.
“You must if need be”--and the Baron gave a most significant look which
was not lost upon me--“carry on an intrigue with one or, better, with
several of them. Are you ready for it?”
“More than ready,” I said.
“Very good. But this is only a part. You are expected also to
familiarize yourself with the leaders of the great financial interests.
You are to put yourself on such a footing with them as to borrow large
sums of money from them. Do you object to this?”
“No,” I said frankly, “I do not.”
“Good! You will also mingle freely in Ambassadorial and foreign circles.
It would be well for you to dine, at least once a week, with the British
Ambassador. And now one final word”--here Gestern spoke with singular
impressiveness--“as to the President of the United States.”
“Yes,” I said.
“You must mix with him on a footing of the most open-handed
friendliness. Be at the White House continually. Make yourself in the
fullest sense of the words the friend and adviser of the President. All
this I think is clear. In fact, it is only what is done, as you know, by
all the masters of international diplomacy.”
“Precisely,” I said.
“Very good. And then,” continued the Baron, “as soon as you find
yourself sufficiently _en rapport_ with everybody, or I should say,” he
added in correction, for the Baron shares fully in the present German
horror of imported French words, “when you find yourself sufficiently
in enggeknupfterverwandtschaft with everybody, you may then proceed to
advance your peace terms. And now, my dear fellow,” said the Baron,
with a touch of genuine cordiality, “one word more. Are you in need of
money?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I thought so. But you will find that you need it less and less as you
go on. Meantime, good-bye, and best wishes for your mission.”
Such was, such is, in fact, the mission with which I am accredited. I
regard it as by far the most important mission with which I have been
accredited by the Wilhelmstrasse. Yet I am compelled to admit that up to
the present it has proved unsuccessful. My attempts to carry it out
have been baffled. There is something perhaps in the atmosphere of this
republic which obstructs the working of high diplomacy. For over five
months now I have been waiting and willing to dine with the American
Cabinet. They have not invited me. For four weeks I sat each night
waiting in the J. hotel in Washington with my suit on ready to be asked.
They did not come near me.
Nor have I yet received an invitation from the British Embassy inviting
me to an informal lunch or to midnight supper with the Ambassador.
Everybody who knows anything of the inside working of the international
spy system will realize that without these invitations one can do
nothing. Nor has the President of the United States given any sign. I
have sent ward to him, in cipher, that I am ready to dine with him on
any day that may be convenient to both of us. He has made no move in the
matter.
Under these circumstances an intrigue with any of the leaders of
fashionable society has proved impossible. My attempts to approach them
have been misunderstood--in fact, have led to my being invited to
leave the J. hotel. The fact that I was compelled to leave it, owing to
reasons that I cannot reveal, without paying my account, has occasioned
unnecessary and dangerous comment. I connect it, in fact, with the
singular attitude adopted by the B. hotel on my arrival in New York, to
which I have already referred.
I have therefore been compelled to fall back on revelations and
disclosures. Here again I find the American atmosphere singularly
uncongenial. I have offered to reveal to the Secretary of State the
entire family history of Ferdinand of Bulgaria for fifty dollars. He
says it is not worth it. I have offered to the British Embassy the
inside story of the Abdication of Constantine for five dollars. They say
they know it, and knew it before it happened. I have offered, for little
more than a nominal sum, to blacken the character of every reigning
family in Germany. I am told that it is not necessary.
Meantime, as it is impossible to return to Central Europe, I expect to
open either a fruit store or a peanut stand very shortly in this great
metropolis. I imagine that many of my former colleagues will soon be
doing the same!