Upton Sinclair - Dragons’s teeth

Their things were packed and stowed in the car, and the car was waiting in front of the mansion. Irma was putting the last dab of powder on her nose, and Lanny stood in front of her with a frown of thought upon his face: "Darling, I don’t see how I can possibly take this drive."

She knew him well, after four years of wifehood, and tried not to show her disappointment. "Just what do you want to do?"

"I want to think about how to help Freddi."

"Do you suppose that letter is from Hugo?"

"I had a clear understanding with him that he was to sign the name Boecklin. I think the letter must be from one of Freddi’s comrades, some one who has learned that we helped Johannes. Or perhaps some one who has got out of Dachau."

"You don’t think it might be a hoax?"

"Who would waste a stamp to play such a trick upon us?"

She couldn’t think of any answer. "You’re still convinced that Freddi is Göring’s prisoner?"

"Certainly, if he’s in the concentration camp, Göring knows he’s there, and he knew it when he had Furtwaengler tell me that he couldn’t find him. He had him sent a long way from Berlin, so as to make it harder for us to find out."

"Do you think you can get him away from Göring if Göring doesn’t want to let him go?"

"What I think is, there may be a thousand things to think of before we can be sure of the best course of action."

"It’s an awfully nasty job to take on, Lanny."

"I know, darling—but what else can we do? We can’t go and enjoy ourselves, play around, and refuse to think about our friend. Dachau is a place of horror—I doubt if there’s any so dreadful in the world today, unless it’s some other of the Nazi camps. It’s an old dilapidated barracks, utterly unfit for habitation, and they’ve got two or three thousand men jammed in there. They’re not just holding them prisoners—they’re doing what Göring told me with his own mouth, applying modern science to destroying them, body, mind, and soul. They’re the best brains and the finest spirits in Germany, and they’re going to be so broken that they can never do anything against the Nazi regime."

"You really believe that, Lanny?"

"I am as certain of it as I am of anything in human affairs. I’ve been studying Hitler and his movement for twelve years, and I really do know something about it."

"There’s such an awful lot of lying, Lanny. People go into politics, and they hate their enemies, and exaggerate and invent things."

"I didn’t invent Mein Kampf, nor the Brownshirts, nor the murders they are committing night after night. They break into people’s homes and stab them or shoot them in their beds, before the eyes of their wives and children; or they drag them off to their barracks and beat them insensible."

"I’ve heard those stories until I’ve been made sick. But there are just as many violent men of the other side, and there have been provocations over the years. The Reds did the same thing in Russia, and they tried to do it in Germany—"

"It’s not only the Communists who are being tortured, darling; it’s pacifists and liberals, even church people; it’s gentle idealists, like Freddi—and surely you know that Freddi wouldn’t have harmed any living creature."

Irma had to put down her powder-puff, but was still sitting on the stool in front of her dressing-table. She had many things that she had put off saying for a long time; and now, apparently, was the time to get them off her mind. She began: "You might as well take the time to understand me, Lanny. If you intend to plunge into a thing like this, you ought to know how your wife feels about it."

"Of course, dear," he answered, gently. He could pretty well guess what was coming.

"Sit down." And when he obeyed she turned to face him. "Freddi’s an idealist, and you’re an idealist. It’s a word you’re fond of, a very nice word, and you’re both lovely fellows, and you wouldn’t hurt anybody or anything on earth. You believe what you want to believe about the world—which is that other people are like you, good and kind and unselfish—idealists, in short. But they’re not that; they’re full of jealousy and hatred and greed and longing for revenge. They want to overthrow the people who own property, and punish them for the crime of having had life too easy. That’s what’s in their hearts, and they’re looking for chances to carry out their schemes, and when they come on you idealists, they say: Here’s my meat! They get round you and play you for suckers, they take your money to build what they call their movement. You serve them by helping to undermine and destroy what you call capitalism. They call you comrades for as long as they can use you, but the first day you dared to stand in their way or interfere with their plans, they’d turn on you like wolves. Don’t you know that’s true, Lanny?"

"It’s true of many, I’ve no doubt."

"It would be true of every last one, when it came to a showdown. You’re their front, their stalking horse. You tell me what you heard from Göring’s mouth—and I tell you what I’ve heard from Uncle Jesse’s mouth. Not once but a hundred times! He says it jokingly, but he means it—it’s his program. The Socialists will make their peaceable revolution, and then the Communists will rise up and take it away from them. It’ll be easy because the Socialists are so gentle and so kind—they’re idealists! You saw it happen in Russia, and then in Hungary—didn’t I hear Karolyi tell you about it?"

"Yes, dear—"

"With his own mouth he told you! But it didn’t mean much to you, because it isn’t what you want to believe. Karolyi is a gentleman, a noble soul—I’m not mocking—I had a long talk with him, and I’m sure he’s one of the most high-minded men who ever lived. He was a nobleman and he had estates, and when he saw the ruin and misery after the war he gave them to the government. No man could do more. He became the Socialist Premier of Hungary, and tried to bring a peaceful change, and the Communists rose up against his government—and what did he do? He said to me in these very words: I couldn’t shoot the workers. So he let the Communist-led mob seize the government, and there was the dreadful bloody regime of that Jew—what was his name?"

"Bela Kun. Too bad he had to be a Jew!"

"Yes, I admit it’s too bad. You just told me that you didn’t invent Mein Kampf and you didn’t invent the Brownshirts. Well, I didn’t invent Bela Kun and I didn’t invent Liebknecht and that Red Rosa Jewess who tried to do the same thing in Germany, nor Eisner who did it in Bavaria, nor Trotsky who helped to do it in Russia. I suppose the Jews have an extra hard time and that makes them revolutionary; they haven’t any country and that keeps them from being patriotic. I’m not blaming them, I’m just facing the facts, as you’re all the time urging me to do."

"I’ve long ago faced the fact that you dislike the Jews, Irma."

"I dislike some of them intensely, and I dislike some things about them all. But I love Freddi, and I’m fond of all the Robins, even though I am repelled by Hansi’s ideas. I’ve met other Jews that I like—"

"In short," put in Lanny, "you have accepted what Hitler calls honorary Aryans. " He was surprised by his own bitterness.

"That’s a mean crack, Lanny, and I think we ought to talk kindly about this problem. It isn’t a simple one."

"I want very much to," he replied. "But one of the facts we have to face is that the things you have been saying to me are all in Mein Kampf, and the arguments you have been using are the foundation stones upon which the Nazi movement is built. Hitler also likes some Jews, but he dislikes most of them because he says they are revolutionary and not patriotic. Hitler also is forced to put down the idealists and the liberals because they serve as a front for the Reds, But you see, darling, the capitalist system is breaking down, it is no longer able to produce goods or to feed the people, and some other way must be found to get the job done. We want to do it peaceably if possible; but surely the way to do it cannot be for all the men who want it done peaceably to agree to shut up and say nothing, for fear of giving some benefit to the men of violence!"