City of Endless Night Part 16

_Du bist wie eine Blume, So hold und schoen und rein,_

_Betend da.s.s Gott dich erhalte, So rein und schoen und hold._

But what a cankerous end was here. This people which the world had once loved and honoured was now bred a beast of burden, a domesticated race, saddled and trained to bear upon its back the House of Hohenzollern as the a.s.s bore Balaam. But the German a.s.s wore the blinders that science had made--and saw no angel.

~8~

As I sat musing thus and gazing into the spray of the fountain I glimpsed a grey clad figure, standing in the shadows of a viney bower.

Although I could not distinguish her face through the leafy tracery I knew that it was Bertha, and my heart thrilled to think that she had returned to the site of our meeting. Thoroughly ashamed of the faithless doubts that I had so recently entertained of her innocence and sincerity, I arose and hastened toward her. But in making the detour about the pool I lost sight of the grey figure, for she was standing well back in the arbour. As I approached the place where I had seen her I came upon two lovers standing with arms entwined in the path at the pool's edge. Not wis.h.i.+ng to disturb them, I turned back through one of the arbours and approached by another path. As I slipped noiselessly along in my felt-soled shoes I heard Bertha's voice, and quite near, through the leafy tracery, I glimpsed the grey of her gown.

"Why with your beauty," came the answering voice of a man, "did you not find a lover from the Royal Level?"

"Because," Bertha's voice replied, "I would not accept them. I could not love them. I could not give myself without love."

"But surely," insisted the man, "you have found a lover here?"

"But I have not," protested the innocent voice, "because I have sought none."

"Now long have you been here?" bluntly asked the man.

"Thirty days," replied the girl.

"Then you must have found a lover, your debut fund would all be gone."

"But," cried Bertha, in a tearful voice, "I only eat one meal a day--do you not see how thin I am?"

"Now that's clever," rejoined the man, "come, I'll accept it for what it is worth, and look you up afterwards," and he laughingly led her away, leaving me undiscovered in the neighbouring arbour to pa.s.s judgment on my own simplicity.

As I walked toward the elevator, I was painfully conscious of two ideas.

One was that Marguerite had been quite correct with her information about the free women who found it profitable to play the role of maidenly innocence. The other was that Dr. Zimmern's precious geography was in the hands of the artful, child-eyed hypocrite who had so cleverly beguiled me with her role of heroic virtue. Clearly, I was trapped, and to judge better with what I had to deal I decided to go at once to the Place of Records, of which I had twice heard.

The Place of Records proved to be a public directory of the financial status of the free women. Since the physical plagues that are propagated by promiscuous love had been completely exterminated, and since there were no moral standards to preserve, there was no need of other restrictions on the lives of the women than an economic one.

The rules of the level were prominently posted. As all consequential money exchanges were made through bank checks, the keeping of the records was an easy matter. These rules I found forbade any woman to cash checks in excess of one thousand marks a month, or in excess of two hundred marks from any one man. That was simple enough, and I smiled as I recalled that I had gone the legal limit in my first adventure.

Following the example of other men, I stepped to the window and gave the name: "Bertha 34 R 6." A clerk brought me a book opened to the page of her record. At the top of the page was entered this statement, "Bred for an actress but rejected for both professional work and maternity because found devoid of sympathetic emotions." I laughed as I read this, but when on the next line I saw from the date of her entrance to the level that Bertha's thirty days was in reality nearly three years, my mirth turned to anger. I looked down the list of entries and found that for some time she had been cas.h.i.+ng each month the maximum figure of a thousand marks. Evidently her little scheme of pensive posing in the Hall of Flowers was working nicely. In the current month, hardly half gone, she already had to her credit seven hundred marks; and last on the list was my own contribution, freshly entered.

"She has three hundred marks yet," commented the clerk.

"Yes, I see,"--and I turned to go. But I paused and stepped again to the window. "There is another girl I would like to look up," I said, "but I have only her name and no number."

"Do you know the date of her arrival?" asked the clerk.

"Yes, she has been here four years and six days. The name is Marguerite."

The clerk walked over to a card file and after some searching brought back a slip with half a dozen numbers. "Try these," he said, and he brought me the volumes. The second record I inspected read: "Marguerite, 78 K 4, Love-child." On the page below was a single entry for each month of two hundred marks and every entry from the first was in the name of Ludwig Zimmern.

~9~

I kept my appointment with Bertha, but found it difficult to hide my anger as she greeted me. Wis.h.i.+ng to get the interview over, I asked abruptly, "Have you read the book I left?"

"Not all of it," she replied, "I found it rather dull."

"Then perhaps I had better take it with me."

"But I think I shall keep it awhile," she demurred.

"No," I insisted, as I looked about and failed to see the geography, "I wish you would get it for me. I want to take it back, in fact it was a borrowed book."

"Most likely," she smiled archly, "but since you are not a staff officer, and had no right to have that book, you might as well know that you will get it when I please to give it to you."

Seeing that she was thoroughly aware of my predicament, I grew frightened and my anger slipped from its moorings. "See here," I cried, "your little story of innocence and virtue is very clever, but I've looked you up and--"

"And what--," she asked, while through her child-like mask the subtle trickery of her nature mocked me with a look of triumph--"and what do you propose to do about it?"

I realized the futility of my rage. "I shall do nothing. I ask only that you return the book."

"But books are so valuable," taunted Bertha.

Dejectedly I sank to the couch. She came over and sat on a cus.h.i.+on at my feet. "Really Karl," she purred, "you should not be angry. If I insist on keeping your book it is merely to be sure that you will not forget me. I rather like you; you are so queer and talk such odd things. Did you learn your strange ways of making love from the book about the inferior races in the world outside the walls? I really tried to read some of it, but I could not understand half the words."

I rose and strode about the room. "Will you get me the book?" I demanded.

"And lose you?"

"Well, what of it? You can get plenty more fools like me."

"Yes, but I would have to stand and stare into that fountain for hours at a time. It is very tiresome."

"Just what do you want?" I asked, trying to speak calmly.

"Why you," she said, placing her slender white hands upon my arm, and holding up an inviting face.

But anger at my own gullibility had killed her power to draw me, and I shook her off. "I want that book," I said coldly, "what are your terms?"

And I drew my check book from my pocket.

"How many blanks have you there?" she asked with a greedy light in her eyes--"but never mind to count them. Make them all out to me at two hundred marks, and date each one a month ahead."

Realizing that any further exhibition of fear or anger would put me more within her power, I sat down and began to write the checks. The fund I was making over to her was quite useless to me but when I had made out twenty checks I stopped. "Now," I said, "this is enough. You take these or nothing." Tearing out the written checks I held them toward her.

As she reached out her hand I drew them back--"Go get the book," I demanded.

"But you are unfair," said Bertha, "you are the stronger. You can take the book from me. I cannot take the checks from you."

"That is so," I admitted, and handed the checks to her. She looked at them carefully and slipped them into her bosom, and then, reaching under the pile of silken pillows, she pulled forth the geography.

I seized it and turned toward the door, but she caught my arm. "Don't,"