Upton Sinclair - Dragons’s teeth

On the tenth day of May there were ceremonies throughout Germany which riveted the attention of the civilized world. Quantities of books were collected from the great library of Berlin University, including most of the worthwhile books which had been written during the past hundred years: everything that touched even remotely upon political, social, or sexual problems. Some forty thousand volumes were heaped into a pile in the square between the University and the Opera House and drenched with gasoline. The students paraded, wearing their bright society caps and singing patriotic and Nazi songs. They solemnly lighted the pyre and a crowd stood in a drizzling rain to watch it burn. Thus modern thought was symbolically destroyed in the Fatherland, and a nation which had stood at the forefront of the intellectual life would learn to do its thinking with its "blood."

On that same tenth of May the schools of Germany were ordered to begin teaching the Nazi doctrines of "race." On that day the government confiscated all the funds belonging to the Socialist party and turned them over to the new Nazi-controlled unions. On that day Chancellor Hitler spoke to a Labor Congress, telling it that his own humble origin and upbringing fitted him to understand the needs of the workers and attend to them. On that day the correspondent of the New York Times was forbidden to cable news of the suicide of the daughter of Scheidemann, the Socialist leader, and of a woman tennis champion who had brought honor to Germany but who objected to the process of "co-ordinating" German sport with Nazi propaganda. Finally, on that day there was a parade of a hundred thousand persons down Broadway in New York, protesting against the treatment of German Jews.

The members of the Budd family in Bienvenu and in Paris were packing and getting ready for a year’s absence from home. What should they take and what leave behind? Everything that was going on board the yacht had to be marked for the cabins or the hold. What was to be sent from Paris to Bienvenu was left in charge of Jerry Pendleton, who would see to its packing and unpacking. The ex-tutor and ex-lieutenant had saved most of his year’s salary, and would go back to the pension and wait for the tourists to return. Madame Zyszynski was to be loaned for a year to the munitions king—for the spirits of the Budds and Dingles appeared to have said their say, whereas the Duquesa Marqueni was still going strong. Bub Smith was to escort the priceless little Frances to the yacht and see her safely on board; then he would take a steamer and return to his job in Newcastle, until such time as the baby should arrive in the land of the gangsters and the home of the kidnapers.

The expedition from Bienvenu arrived in Paris by train: Hansi and Bess; Beauty and her husband; Marceline and her governess— the former nearly sixteen, an elegant young lady, but she would be made to study every day on the yacht, and if there was anything Miss Addington didn’t know, she would look it up in the encyclopedia, or the all-knowing Lanny would tell it to her. Frances was now three years old, and her entourage was made up of Miss Severne, a nurse, and the ex-cowboy from Texas. These ten persons arrived in the morning, and there was fuss and clamor, because they all wanted this or that before they got onto a yacht, and it seemed that so many bags and boxes had never before been heaped up in the entrance hall of a palace.

In the evening the expedition entrained for Calais; four more of them now: Irma and her husband, her maid and her Feathers—who, as Irma said over and over, was a fool, but a good one, doing all the errands, the shopping, and telephoning; keeping the accounts and getting hopelessly mixed up in them; talcing her scoldings with tears, and promising to reform and doing her best, poor soul, but not having it in her, since she had been brought up as a lady, and thought about her own ego more than she could ever think about her job.

There were now twice as many boxes and bags, and twice as much fuss, but carried on in low tones, because Irma was strict about having the dignity of the family preserved. It was a conspicuous family, and there were reporters at the station to see them off and to ask about their proposed trip. Millions of people would read about their doings and get vicarious thrills; millions would admire them and millions would envy them, but only a small handful would love them—such appeared to be the way of the world.

Next morning the party emerged on the station platform of the ancient seaport and bathing resort. They waited while Lanny got busy on the telephone and ascertained that the yacht had not yet been reported. They were loaded into taxis and taken to the Hotel du Commerce et Excelsior, where the mountain of luggage was stacked in a room and Feathers set to watch over it. A glorious spring day, and the family set out to find a point of vantage from which they could watch the approach of the trim white Bessie Budd. Irma and Lanny had a memory of this spectacle, never to be forgotten: the day at Ramsgate when they had been trying to get married in a hurry, and the yacht and its gay-spirited owner had provided them with a way of escape from the dominion of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Now the yacht was going to transport them to Utopia, or to some tropical isle with an ivory tower on it—any place in the world where there were no Nazis yelling and parading and singing songs about Jewish blood spurting from the knife. Oil-burning vessels make no smudges of smoke on the horizon, so they must look for a dim speck that grew gradually larger. Many such appeared from the east, but when they got larger they were something else. So the party went to lunch, fourteen at one long table, and it was quite a job getting them settled and all their orders taken and correctly distributed. Belonging to the important classes as they did, neither they nor their servants must do anything to attract attention to themselves in public, and this was impressed on a member of the family even at the age of three. Hush, hush, Baby!

They sat on the esplanade and watched all afternoon. Some of them took a swim, some looked at the sights of the town—the four-hundred-year-old bastion, the citadel, the church of Notre Dame with a painting by Rubens. They bought postcards and mailed them to various friends. Every now and then they would inspect the harbor again, but still there was no trim white Bessie Budd. Again they had tables put together in the restaurant, and the fourteen had supper; they went out and watched till dark—but still no sign of the yacht.

They were beginning to be worried. Johannes had set a definite hour for leaving Bremerhaven, and he was a precise man who did everything on time and had his employees do the same. If anything unforeseen had turned up he would surely have telegraphed or telephoned. He had specified in his last letter what hotel they should go to, so that he would know where to look for them. They had sailed so often with him that they knew how many hours it would take to reach Calais, and it had been planned for the yacht to arrive simultaneously with the train from Paris. She was now twelve hours overdue.

Something must have happened, and they spent time discussing possibilities. Private yachts which are properly cared for do not have machinery trouble in calm weather, nor do they butt into the Frisian islands on the way from Germany to France. They travel as safely by night as by day; but of course some fisherman’s boat or other obstruction might conceivably have got in the way. "Tire trouble!" said Lanny, the motorist.

When it was bedtime and still no word, he went to the telephone and put in a call for the yacht Bessie Budd at Bremerhaven—that being the quickest way to find out if she had taken her departure. Hansi and Bess sat with him, and after the usual delays he heard a guttural voice saying in German: "Dieselmotorjacht Bessie Budd."