Upton Sinclair - Dragons’s teeth

The Nazis wouldn’t find any treason in those documents; only receipted bills, and examination papers in Marxist theory. But maybe that was treason now! Or maybe the Nazis would prepare other documents and put them into the files. Orders to the students to blow up Nazi headquarters, or perhaps the Chancellery? Such forgeries had been prepared more than once, and not alone in Germany. Hadn’t an election been won in Britain on the basis of an alleged "Zinoviev letter"?

The headquarters of the Communist Party of Germany was in Karl Liebknecht Haus, and that was the place where treason was to be sought. The police had seized the documents, and two days later Herr Goebbels’s press service gave details about "catacombs" and "underground vaults," a secret and illegal organization functioning in the basement of the building, and so on. Johannes reported an embittered conflict in the Cabinet over these too obvious forgeries; they were considered beneath the dignity of the German government—but perhaps the German government wasn’t going to be so dignified from now on! The Jewish financier couldn’t conceal his amusement over the discomfiture of the "gentleman jockey," the "silver fox," and the rest of the Junker crew. They had made this bed of roses, and discovered too late how full of thorns it was.

The thing that worried Lanny was the possibility that some Nazi agent might produce letters proving that Hansi Robin had been carrying dynamite in his violin case, or Freddi in his clarinet case. They must have had spies in the school, and known everything that both boys had been doing and saying. Lanny said; "Johannes, why don’t you and the whole family come visit us for a while?"

"Maybe we’ll all take a yachting trip," replied the man of money, with a chuckle. "When the weather gets a little better."

"The weather is going to get worse," insisted the Paris end of the line.

Lanny talked this problem over with his wife. She couldn’t very well refuse hospitality to Johannes, from whom she had accepted so much. But she didn’t like the atmosphere which the young Robins brought with them, and she thought them a bad influence for her husband. She argued that the danger couldn’t really be so great as Lanny feared. "If the Nazis are anxious to get votes, they won’t do anything to important persons, especially those known abroad."

Lanny replied: "The party is full of criminals and degenerates, and they, are drunk with the sense of power."

He couldn’t stop worrying about it, and when the day for Hansi’s coming drew near, he said to Irma: "How would you like to motor to Cologne and bring them out with us?"

"What could we do, Lanny?"

"There’s safety in numbers; and then, too, Americans have a certain amount of prestige in Germany."

It wasn’t a pleasant time for motoring, the end of February, but they had heat in their car, and with fur coats they would be all right unless there happened to be a heavy storm. Irma liked adventure; one of the reasons she and Lanny got along so well was that whenever one suggested hopping into a car the other always said: "O.K." No important engagement stood in the way of this trip, and they allowed themselves an extra day on chance of bad weather.

Old Boreas was kind, and they rolled down the valley of the Meuse, by which the Germans had made their entry into France some eighteen and a half years ago. Lanny told his wife the story of Sophie Timmons, Baroness de la Tourette, who had been caught in the rush of the armies and had got away in a peasant’s cart pulled by a spavined old horse.

They reached Cologne late that evening, and spent the next day looking at a grand cathedral, and at paintings in a near-by Gothic museum. Hansi and Bess arrived on the afternoon train, and thereafter they stayed in their hotel suite, doing nothing to attract attention to a member of the accursed race. Among the music-lovers Hansi would be all right, for these were "good Europeans," who for a couple of centuries had been building up a tradition of internationalism. A large percentage of Europe’s favorite musicians had been Jews, and there would have been gaps in concert programs if their works had been omitted.

Was the audience trying to say this by the storms of applause with which they greeted the performance of Mendelssohn’s gracious concerto by a young Jewish virtuoso? Did Hansi have such a message in his mind when he played Bruch’s Kol Nidrei as one of his encores? When the audience leaped to its feet and shouted, "Bravo!" were they really meaning to say: "We are not Nazis! We shall never be Nazis!" Lanny chose to believe this, and was heartened; he was sure that many of the adoring Rheinlanders had a purpose in waiting at the stage door and escorting the four young people to their car. But out in the dark street, with a cold rain falling, doubts began to assail him, and he wondered if the amiable Rhinelanders had guns for their protection.

However, no Nazi cars followed, and no Stormtroopers were waiting at the Hotel Monopol. Next morning they drove to the border, and nobody searched Hansi’s two violin cases for dynamite. They went through the routine performance of declaring what money they were taking out of the country, and were then passed over to the Belgian customs men. Lanny remembered the day when he had been ordered out of Italy, and with what relief he had seen French uniforms and heard French voices. Eight years had passed, and Benito, the "Blessed Little Pouter Pigeon," was still haughtily declaring that his successor had not yet been born. Now his feat was being duplicated in another and far more powerful land, and rumors had it that he was giving advice. In how many more countries would Lanny Budd see that pattern followed? How many more transformations would it undergo? Would the Japanese conquerors of Manchuria adopt some new-colored shirts or kimonos? Or would it be the Croix de Feu in France? Or Mosley’s group in England? And if so, to what part of the world would the lovers of freedom move?

The tall slender figure of Hansi Robin stood before the audience in the symphony hall; an audience of fastidious Parisians whose greeting was reserved. In the front row sat Lanny, Irma, and Bess, greatly excited. Hansi’s appearance was grave and his bows dignified; he knew that this performance was an important one, but was not too nervous, having learned by now what he could do. The conductor was a Frenchman who had given a long life to the service of the art he loved; his hair had grown white, and what was left of it stood out as a fringe under his shiny bald pate. He tapped upon the edge of his stand and raised his baton; there came four beats of the kettledrum, followed by a few notes of a timid marching song; then four more beats, and more notes. It was Beethoven’s violin concerto.

Hansi stood waiting, with his instrument in the crook of his arm and his bow at his side; the introduction is elaborate, and not even by a movement of his eyes would he distract anyone’s attention from the sounds. Lanny Budd, in the front row with his wife and Bess, knew every note of this composition, and had played a piano transcription of the orchestral part for Hansi at Les Forêts, on that fateful day seven years ago when Bess had first met the shepherd boy out of ancient Judea and fallen under his spell. That was one reason why Hansi made a specialty of this concerto; love infused his rendition, as love has a way of doing with whatever it touches.

The march acquired the firm tread of Beethoven; the orchestra thundered, and Lanny wanted to say: "Careful, Maestro. He didn’t have so many instruments!" But the conductor’s expressive hands signed for gentleness as Hansi’s bow touched the strings. The song floated forth, gay yet tender, gentle yet strong-those high qualities which the soul of Beethoven possessed and which the soul of Hansi honored. The fiddle sang and the orchestra made comments upon it; various instruments took up the melody, while Hansi wove embroidery about it, danced around it, over and under it, leaping, skipping, flying in feats of gay acrobatics. A concerto is a device to exhibit the possibilities of a musical instrument; but at its best it may also illustrate the possibilities of the human spirit, its joys and griefs, toils and triumphs, glories and grandeurs. Men and women plod through their daily routine, they become tired and insensitive, skeptical or worse; then comes a master spirit and flings open the gates of their being, and they realize how much they have been missing in their lives.