Upton Sinclair - Dragons’s teeth

So they drove on. Lanny said: "Cheerio," English fashion, and the young Jew replied: "Thanks a million," which he knew was American. The car slowed up and he stepped out, and the great hole in the Berlin sidewalk swallowed him up. Irma had a mist in her eyes, but she winked it away and said: "I could do with some sleep." She too had learned to admire the English manner.

The Reichstag met in the Kroll Opera House that afternoon and listened to Adolf Hitler’s speech on foreign affairs. The speech took three-quarters of an hour and immediately afterward Goring moved approval, which was voted unanimously, and the Reichstag adjourned. Soon afterward the newsboys were crying the extra editions, and there was the full text, under banner headlines. Of course these gleichgeschaltete papers called it the most extraordinary piece of statesmanship.

Lanny glanced through it swiftly, and saw that it was a speech like none other in the Führer’s career. It was the first time he had ever read a prepared address; as it happened, the Wilhelmstrasse, the German foreign office, had put pressure on him and persuaded him that there was real danger of overt action by France. The Fatherland had no means of resisting, and certainly it was the last thing the infant Nazi regime wanted.

So here was a new Hitler. Such a convenient thing to be able to be something new whenever you wished, unhampered by anything you had been hitherto! The Führer spoke more in sorrow than in anger of the wrongs his country had suffered, and he told the Reichstag that he was a man utterly devoted to peace and justice among the nations; all he asked of the rest of the world was that it should follow the example of Germany and disarm. There was to be no more "force" among the nations; he called this "the eruption of insanity without end," and said that it would result in "a Europe sinking into Communistic chaos."

France and Britain, which had been worried, breathed a sigh of relief. The Führer really wasn’t as bad as he had been painted; his soup wasn’t going to scald anybody’s tongue. He would settle down and let others write his speeches for him and govern the country sanely. To the diplomats and statesmen of foreign lands it was obvious that a mere corporal and painter of picture-postcards couldn’t manage a great modern state. That called for trained men, and Germany had plenty of them. In an emergency they would take control.

Lanny wasn’t sure about it; but he saw that today’s speech was the best possible of omens for the Robin family. Adi was singing low; he wouldn’t want any family rows, any scandals going out to the world; he was in a position where he could be mildly and politely blackmailed, and Lanny had an idea how to set about it.

The telephone rang. His note to Heinrich Jung had been delivered promptly. Heinrich had attended the Reichstag meeting, and now he was taking the first opportunity to call his friend. "Oh, Lanny, the most marvelous affair! Have you read the speech?"

"Indeed I have, and I consider it a great piece of statesmanship."

"Wundervoll!" exclaimed Heinrich.

"Kolossal!" echoed Lanny. In German you sing it, with the accent on the last syllable, prolonging it like a tenor.

"Ganz grosse Staatskunst!"

"Absolut!" Another word which you accent on the last syllable; it sounds like a popgun.

"Wirkliches Genie!" declared the Nazi official.

So they chanted in bel canto, like a love duet in Italian opera. They sang the praises of Adolf, his speech, his party, his doctrine, his Fatherland. Heinrich, enraptured, exclaimed: "You really see it now!"

"I didn’t think he could do it," admitted the genial visitor.

"But he is doing it! He will go on doing it!" Heinrich remained lyrical; he even tried to become American. "How is it that you say— er geht damit hinweg?"

"He is getting away with it," chuckled Lanny.

"When can I see you?" demanded the young official.

"Are you busy this evening?"

"Nothing that I can’t break."

"Well, come on over. We were just about to order something to eat. We’ll wait for you."

Lanny hung up, and Irma said: "Isn’t that overdoing it just a little?"

Lanny put his finger to his lips. "Let’s dress and dine downstairs," he said. "Your best clothes. The moral effect will be worth while."

There were three of them in the stately dining-room of the most fashionable hotel in Berlin; the American heiress in the showiest rig she had brought, Lanny in a "smoking," and Heinrich in the elegant dress uniform he had worn to the Kroll Opera House. Die grosse Welt stared at them, and the heart of Heinrich Jung, the forester’s son, was bursting with pride—not for himself, of course, but for his Führer and the wonderful movement he had built. Respect for rank and station had been bred into the very bones of a lad on the estate of Stubendorf, and this was the highest he had ever climbed on the social pyramid. This smart American couple had been guests on two occasions at the Schloss; it might even happen that the General Graf would enter this room and be introduced to the son of his Oberförster! Lanny didn’t fail to mention that he had written to Seine Hochgeboren at his Berlin palace.

The orchestra played softly, and the waiters bowed obsequiously. Lanny, most gracious of hosts, revealed his mastery of the gastronomic arts. Did Heinrich have any preference? No, Heinrich would leave it to his host, and the host said they should have something echt berlinerisch- how about some Krebse, billed as ecrevisses? Heinrich said that these would please him greatly, and kept the dark secret that he had never before eaten them. They proved to be small crayfish served steaming hot on a large silver platter with a much embossed silver cover. The waiter exhibited the magnificence before he put some on separate plates. Heinrich had to be shown how to extract the hot pink body from the thin shell, and then dip it into a dish of hot butter. Yes, they were good!

And what would Heinrich like to drink? Heinrich left that, too, to his host, so he had Rheinwein, the color of a yellow diamond, and later he had sparkling champagne. Also he had wild strawberries with Schlagsahne, and tiny cakes with varicolored icing. "Shall we have the coffee in our suite?" said the heiress; they went upstairs, and on the way were observed by many, and Heinrich’s uniform with its special insignia indicating party rank left no doubt that Mr. and Mrs. Irma Barnes were all right; the word would go through the hotel, and the reporters would hear of it, and the social doings of the young couple would be featured in the controlled press. The Nazis would not love them, of course; the Nazis were not sentimental. But they were ready to see people climbing onto their bandwagon, and would let them ride so far as suited the convenience of the bandwagon Führer.

Up in the room they had coffee, also brandy in large but very thin goblets. Heinrich never felt better in his life, and he talked for a couple of hours about the N.S.D.A.P. and the wonders it had achieved and was going to achieve. Lanny listened intently, and explained his own position in a frank way. Twelve years ago, when the forester’s son had first made known Adi Schicklgruber’s movement, Lanny hadn’t had the faintest idea that it could succeed, or even attain importance. But he had watched it growing, step by step, and of course couldn’t help being impressed; now he had come to realize that it was what the German people wanted, and of course they had every right in the world to have it. Lanny couldn’t say that he was a convert, but he was a student of the movement; he was eager to talk with the leaders and question them, so that he could take back to the outside world a true and honest account of the changes taking place in the Fatherland. "I know a great many journalists," he said, "and I may be able to exert a little influence."