FINDING THEREIN ONE RIGHTEOUS MAN I HAVE COMPASSION ON BERLIN
~1~
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.
Thinking to make amends I went one evening to the doctor's apartment.
"I was going out shortly," said Zimmern, as he greeted me. "I have a
dinner engagement with Hellar on the Free Level. But I still have a little
time; if it pleases you we might walk along to our library."
I promptly accepted the invitation, hoping that it would enable me
better to establish my relation 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, Armstadt," he said with a gracious smile, "that you and
Marguerite seem 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 dull talk 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 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 Hellar, but perhaps Armstadt will remain until
you return."
"Then I shall have him all to myself," declared Marguerite with quiet
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 parcelled out for each. Not one of us is
supposed to know of those vital things outside our own narrow field.
That knowledge is 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, specialized
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 realization 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--revolutions 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, Armstadt, 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."
"Our hope," replied Zimmern, "is out there in the world from whence come
those flying men who rain 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?"
"As a nation, no, but as men, yes. Men do not kill men as individuals,
they only make war against a nation of men. As long as Germany is
capable of making war against the world so long will the world attempt
to destroy her. You, Colonel Armstadt, hold in your protium 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 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 does it 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 _kultur_ of
Germany, the thing to do is to stop the breeding."
"But how," I asked, "can men who have been beaten into the mould 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 mis-educated, it has
been mis-bred. 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 of its own accord. It can only be
maintained by the rigid continuance of the selection. The average
stature of man did not change a centimetre 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 is hard 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 handclasp 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 has 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
enemies' 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.
~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 the 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 girl friends 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 Col. Hellar. 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 pained surprise.
"Because a 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 rôle? 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 do 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 do 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. Zimmern 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 ask 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. Zimmern's friend to mean more than--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 haughtily.
I gazed at her across the narrow table. Was it possible that such a
woman had no understanding of ideals of honour in 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 Marguerite who broke the bewildering silence. "I wish you 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 resurge of passionate longing to take her in my arms swept over me,
but she held out her hand with such rare and dignified grace that I
could only take the slender fingers and press them hungrily to my
fevered lips and so bid her a wordless adieu.
~3~
But despite wild longing to see her again, I did not return to
Marguerite'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
protium 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 protium 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 Eitel I 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 set about the task with
feverish enthusiasm. I kept my assistants 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 Col.
Hellar 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
Hohenzollern 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 protium mines 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 Hellar, "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 protium 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 you not know that?"
exclaimed Zimmern. "We had supposed you would have been told when you
were assigned to the protium 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 Hellar; "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 the work it is not to be expected
that you would know."
I questioned Hellar 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 protium, 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 marvelled 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.
~4~
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,
alighting on the Level of the Free Women, I went straightway 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
protium problem and they do not know how you did it?"
"That is correct," I said, sinking back into the cushions of the divan.
"I have done all that. I came here first to tell you. You see I 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. Zimmern 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....
~5~
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 gazing at me out
of dreamy eyes.
"How did I get here?" I asked.
"You fell asleep while you were talking, and then some one 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 luxuriant locks were
tumbled about my neck and face and her head was pillowed on my breast.
"I am so happy," she whispered. "I am so glad you came first to me."
For a moment my reason was drugged by the opiate of her touch; and then,
as the realization of the circumstances re-formed in my brain, 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 emphasize 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.
~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 Hellar 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 Hellar, to ask of Zimmern's whereabouts.
"I have an appointment to meet him tonight," said Hellar, "on the Level
of Free Women. Will you not come along?"
I could not well do otherwise than accept, and Hellar 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 Hellar'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
any one 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 the 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 in love?" Even as I pondered the
problem it seemed answered, for as I sat and talked with Zimmern and
Hellar 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 Hellar arose first to go, I took the
opportunity to escape from what to me was an intolerable situation.
~7~
I separated from Hellar and for an hour or more I wandered on the level.
Then resolving to end the strain of my enigmatical position I 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 calm yourself, Armstadt," 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
Eugenic 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 an
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 two 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, Armstadt, 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 début 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.
Forgetting utterly the presence of the man whose words had set us free,
our hearts reached out with hungry arms to claim their own.
For us, time lost her reckoning amidst our tears and kisses, and when 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 mantel. I felt an absurd desire to smash it, for the
impudent thing had been running all the while.