City of Endless Night Part 8

The master had gone entirely through the alphabet of names and now called again the apt Anton for a more brilliant demonstration of his system of teaching. "Since we have with us a chemist who has achieved powers of original thought, I will permit you, Anton, to demonstrate that even at the tender age of twelve you are capable of original thought."

Anton rose gravely and stood at attention. "And what shall I think about?" he asked.

"About anything you like," responded the liberal minded schoolmaster, "provided it is limited to your permitted field of psychic activity."

Anton tilted back his head and gazed raptly at a portrait of the Mighty William. "I think," he said, "that the water molecule is made of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen."

A number of the boys shook their heads in disapproval, evidently recognizing the thought as not being original, but the teacher waited in respectful silence for the founts of originality to burst forth in Anton's mind.

"And I think," continued Anton, "that if the water molecule were made of four atoms of nitrogen and one of oxygen, it would be a great economy, for after we had bathed in the water we could evaporate it and make air and breath it, and after we had breathed it we could condense it again and use it to drink--"

"But that would be unsanitary," piped a voice from the back of the room.

To this interruption Anton, without taking his gaze from the face of William, replied, "Of course it would if we didn't sterilize it, but I was coming to that. We would sterilize it each time."

The master now designated two boys to take to the guardhouse of the school the lad who had spoken without permission. He then produced a red cardboard cross adorned with the imperial eagle and crossed test-tubes of the chemists' insignia and I was honoured by being asked to decorate Anton for his brilliant exploit in original thought.

"Our intellectual work of the day is over," resumed the master, "but in honour of our guest we will have, a day in advance, our weekly exercises in emotion. Heinrich, you may recite for us the category of emotions."

"The permitted emotions," said Heinrich, "are: First, anger, which we should feel when a weak enemy offends us. Second, hate, which is a higher form of anger, which we should feel when a powerful enemy offends us. Third, sadness, which we should feel when we suffer. Fourth, mirth, which we should feel when our enemy suffers. Fifth, courage, which we feel at all times because we believe in our strength. Sixth, humility, which we should feel only before our superiors. Seventh, and greatest, is pride, which we should feel at all times because we are Germans.

"The forbidden emotions are very numerous. The chief ones which we must guard against are: First, pity, which is a sadness when our enemy suffers; to feel this is exceedingly wicked. Second, envy, which is a feeling that some one else is better than we are, which we must not feel at all because it is destructive of pride. Third, fear, which is a lack of courage. Fourth, love, which is a confession of weakness, and is permissible only to women and dogs."

"Very good," said the master, "I will now grant you permission to feel some of the permitted emotions. We will first conduct a chemical experiment. I have in this bottle a dangerous explosive and as I drop in this pellet it may explode and kill us all, but you must show courage and not fear." He held the pellet above the mouth of the bottle, but his eyes were on his pupils. As he dropped the pellet into the bottle, he knocked over with his foot a slab of concrete, which fell to the floor with a resounding crash. A few of the boys jumped in their seats, and the master gravely marked them as deficient in courage.

"You now imagine that you are adult chemists and that the enemy has produced a new form of gas bomb, a gas against which we have no protection. They are dropping the gas bombs into our ventilating shafts and are killing our soldiers in the mines. You hate the enemy--hate hard--make your faces black with hate and rage. Adolph, you are expressing mere anger. There, that is better. You never can be a good German until you learn to hate.

"And now we will have a permitted emotion that you all enjoy; the privilege to feel mirth is a thing for which you should be grateful.

"An enemy came flying over Berlin--and this is a true story. I can remember when it happened. The roof guard shot at him and winged his plane, and he came down in his parachute, which missed the roof of the city and fell to the earth outside the walls but within the first ring of the ray defences. He knew that he could not pa.s.s beyond this and he wandered about for many days within range of the gla.s.ses of the roof guards. When he was nearly starved he came near the wall and waved his white kerchief, which meant he wished to surrender and be taken into the city."

At this point one of the boys t.i.ttered, and the master stopped his story long enough to mark a credit for this first laugh.

"As the enemy aviator continued to walk about waving his cowardly flag another enemy plane saw him and let down a line, but the roof guards sh.e.l.led and destroyed the plane. Then other planes came and attempted to pick up the man with lines. In all seven planes were destroyed in attempting to rescue one man. It was very foolish and very comical. At last the eighth plane came and succeeded in reaching the man a line without being winged. The roof batteries shot at the plane in vain--then the roof gunners became filled with good German hate, and one of them aimed, not at the plane, but at the man swinging on the unstable wire line two thousand metres beneath. The sh.e.l.l exploded so near that the man disappeared as by magic, and the plane flew off with the empty dangling line."

As the story was finished the boys who had listened with varying degrees of mechanical smiles now broke out into a chorus of raucous laughter. It was a forced unnatural laughter such as one hears from a bad actor attempting to express mirth he does not feel.

When the boys had ceased their crude guffaws the master asked, "Why did you laugh?"

"Because," answered Conrad, "the enemy were so stupid as to waste seven planes trying to save one man."

"That is fine," said the master; "we should always laugh when our enemy is stupid, because then he suffers without knowing why he suffers. If the enemy were not stupid they would cease fighting and permit us to rule them and breed the stupidity out of them, as it has been bred out of the Germans by our good old G.o.d and the divine mind of the House of Hohenzollern."

The boys were now dismissed for a recess and went into the gymnasium to play leap frog. But the sad-eyed Bruno promptly returned and saluted.

"You may speak," said the master.

"I wish, Herr Teacher," said Bruno, "to pet.i.tion you for permission to fight with Conrad."

"But you must not begin a fight," admonished the master, "unless you can attach to your opponent the odium of causing the strife."

"But he did cause the odium," said Bruno; "he stuck it into my leg with a pin while I was reciting. The Herr Father saw him do it, "--and the boy turned his eyes towards me in sad and serious appeal.

The schoolmaster glanced at me inquiringly and I corroborated the lad's accusation.

"Then," said the master, "you have a _casus belli_ that is actually true, and if you can make Conrad admit his guilt I will exchange your mark for his."

Bruno saluted again and started to leave. Then he turned back and said, "But Conrad is two kilograms heavier than I am, and he may not admit it."

"Then," said the teacher, "you must know that I cannot exchange the marks, for victory in a fight compensates for the fault that caused it.

But if you wish I will change the marks now, but then you cannot fight."

"But I wish to fight," said Bruno, "and so does Conrad. We arranged it before recitation that he was to stick me with the pin."

"Such diplomacy!" exulted the master when the lad had gone, "and to think that they can only be chemists!"

~3~

As the evening hour drew near which I had set for my call on the first of the potential mothers a.s.signed me by the Eugenic Staff, I re-read the rules for my conduct:

"On the occasion of this visit you must wear a full dress uniform, including all orders, decorations and badges of rank and service to which you are ent.i.tled. This is very important and you should call attention thereto and explain the full dignity and importance of your rank and decorations.

"When you call you will first present the card of authorization. You will then present your identification folder and extol the worth and character of your pedigree.

"Then you will ask to see the pedigree of the woman, and will not fail to comment favourably thereon. If she be already a mother you will inquire in regard to her children. If she be not a mother, you will supplicate her to speak of her potential children. You will extol the virtue of her offspring--or her visions thereof,--and will not fail to speak favourably of their promise of becoming great chemists whose service will redound to the honour of the German race and the Royal House.

"After the above mentioned matters have been properly spoken of, you may compliment the mother upon her own intelligence and fitness as a mother of scientists. But you will refrain from all reference to her beauty of person, lest her thoughts be diverted from her higher purpose to matters of personal amours.

"You will not prolong your call beyond the hours consistent with dignity and propriety, nor permit the mother to perceive your disposition toward her."

Surely nothing in such formal procedure could be incompatible with my own ideals of propriety. Taking with me my card of authorization bearing the name "Frau Karoline, daughter of Ernest Pfeiffer, Director of the Perfume Works," I now ventured to the Level of Maternity.

Countless women pa.s.sed me as I walked along. They were erect of form and plain of feature, with expressions devoid of either intelligence or pa.s.sion. Garbed in formless robes of sombre grey, like saints of song and story, they went their way with solemn resignation. Some of them led small children by the hand; others pushed perambulators containing white robed infants being taken to or from the nurseries for their scheduled stays in the mothers' individual apartments.

The actions of the mothers were as methodical as well trained nurses. In their faces was the cold, pallid light of the mother love of the madonnas of art, uncontaminated by the fretful excitement of the mother love in a freer and more uncertain world.

Even the children seemed wooden cherubim. They were physically healthy beyond all blemish, but they cooed and smiled in a subdued manner.

Already the ever present "_verboten_" of an ordered life seemed to have crept into the small souls and repressed the instincts of anarchy and the aspirations of individualism. As I walked among these madonnas of science and their angelic offspring, I felt as I imagined a man of earthly pa.s.sions would feel if suddenly loosed in a mediaeval and orthodox heaven; for everything about me breathed peace, goodness, and coldness.

At the door of her apartment Frau Karoline greeted me with formal gravity. She was a young woman of twenty years, with a high forehead and piercing eyes. Her face was mobile but her manner possessed the dignity of the matron a.s.sured of her importance in the world. Her only child was at the nursery at the time, in accordance with the rules of the level that forbids a man to see his step-children. But a large photograph, aided by Frau Karoline's fulsome description and eulogies, gave me a very clear picture of the high order of the young chemist's intelligence though that worthy had but recently pa.s.sed his first birthday.

The necessary matters of the inspection of pedigrees and the signing of my card of authorization had been conducted by the young mother with the cool self-possession of a well disciplined school-mistress. Her att.i.tude and manner revealed the thoroughness of her education and training for her duties and functions in life. And yet, though she relieved me so skilfully of what I feared would be an embarra.s.sing situation, I conceived an intense dislike for this most exemplary young mother, for she made me feel that a man was a most useless and insignificant creature to be tolerated as a necessary evil in this maternal world.

"Surely," said Frau Karoline, as I returned her pedigree, "you could not do better for your first born child than to honour me with his motherhood. Not only is my pedigree of the purest of chemical lines, reaching back to the establishment of the eugenic control, but I myself have taken the highest honours in the training for motherhood."

"Yes," I acknowledged, "you seem very well trained."

"I am particularly well versed," she continued, "in maternal psychology; and I have successfully cultivated calmness. In the final tests before my confirmation for maternity I was found to be entirely free from erotic and sentimental emotions."