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devils, drowning out all other emotion whatsoever. He hated them so that he lost all thought

about himself, he forgot all fear and the possibility of pain. They wanted to break him; all

right, he would show them that he was as strong as they; he would deny them the pleasure of

seeing him weaken, of hearing him cry out. He had read that the American Indians had made

it a matter of pride never to groan under torture. All right, what an American Indian could do,

any American could do; it was something in the climate, in the soil. Lanny's father had

hammered that pride into him in boyhood, and Bub Smith and Jerry had helped. Lanny

resolved that the Nazis could kill him, but they wouldn't get one word out of him, not one

sound. Neither now nor later. Go to hell, and stay there!

It was hot in this underground hole, and perhaps that was why the sweat gathered on Lanny's

forehead and ran down into his eyes. But he didn't wipe it away; that might be taken for a

gesture of fright or agitation; he preferred to stand rigid, like a soldier, as he had seen the Nazis

do. He realized now what they meant. All right, he would learn their technique; he would

become a fanatic, as they. Not a muscle must move; his face must be hard, turned to stone with

defiance. It could be done. He had told himself all his life that he was soft; he had been

dissatisfied with himself in a hundred ways. Here was where he would reform himself.

He was expecting to be told to strip, and he was ready to do it. His muscles were aching to

begin. But no, apparently they knew that; their science had discovered this very reaction, and

knew a subtler form of torture. They would keep him waiting a while, until his mood of rage

had worn off; until his imagination had had a chance to work on his nerves; until energy of the

soul, or whatever it was, had spent itself. The two men who led him by the arms took him to

one side of the room, against the wall, and there they stood, one on each side of him, two

statues, and he a third.

VIII

The door was opened again, and another trio entered; two S.S. men, leading an elderly

civilian, rather stout, plump, with gray mustaches, a gray imperial neatly trimmed; a Jew by his

features, a business man by his clothes—and suddenly Lanny gave a start, in spite of all his

resolutions. He had talked to that man, and had joked about him, the rather comical resemblance

of his hirsute adornments to those of an eminent and much-portrayed citizen of France, the

Emperor Napoleon the Third. Before Lanny's eyes loomed the resplendent drawing-room of

Johannes Robin's Berlin palace, with Beauty and Irma doing the honors so graciously, and this

genial old gentleman chatting, correct in his white tie and tails, diamond shirtstuds no longer in

fashion in America, and a tiny square of red ribbon in his buttonhole—some order that Lanny

didn't recognize. But he was sure about the man—Solomon Hellstein, the banker.

Such a different man now: tears in his eyes and terror in his face; weeping, pleading,

cowering, having to be half dragged. "I didn't do it, I tell you! I know nothing about it! My

God, my God, I would tell you if I could! Pity! Have pity!"

They dragged him to the bench. They pulled his clothes off, since he was incapable of doing it

himself. Still pleading, still protesting, screaming, begging for mercy, he was told to lie down on

the bench. His failure to obey annoyed them and they threw him down on his belly, with his

bare back and buttocks and thighs looming rather grotesque, his flabby white arms hanging

down to the floor. The four shirtless Nazis took their places, two on each side, and the officer

in command raised his hand in signal.

The thin steel rods whistled as they came down through the air; they made four clean cuts

across the naked body, followed by four quick spurts of blood. The old man started up with a

frightful scream of pain. They grabbed him and threw him down, and the officer cried: "Lie

still, Juden-Schwein! For that you get ten more blows!"

The poor victim lay shuddering and moaning, and Lanny, tense and sick with horror, waited

for the next strokes. He imagined the mental anguish of the victim because they did not fall at

once. The officer waited, and finally demanded: "You like that?"

"Nein, nein! Um Himmel's Willen!"

"Then tell us who took that gold out!"

"I have said a thousand times—if I knew, I would tell you. What more can I say? Have

mercy on me! I am a helpless old man!"

The leader raised his hand again, and the four rods whistled and fell as one. The man

shuddered; each time the anguish shook him, he shrieked like a madman. He knew nothing

about it, he would tell anything he knew, it had been done by somebody who had told him

nothing. His tones grew more piercing; then gradually they began to die, they became a

confused babble, the raving of a man in delirium. His words tripped over one another, his sobs

choked his cries.

Of the four beaters, the one who was working on the victim's shoulders apparently held the

post of honor, and it was his duty to keep count. Each time he struck he called aloud, and

when he said "Zehn" they all stopped. Forty strokes had been ordered, and the leader signed to

the civilian in spectacles, who proved to be a doctor; the high scientific function of this disciple

of Hippocrates was to make sure how much the victim could stand. He put a stethoscope to the

raw flesh of the old Jew's back, and listened. Then he nodded and said: "Noch eins."

The leader was in the act of moving his finger to give the signal when there came an

interruption to the proceedings; a voice speaking loud and clear: "You dirty dogs!" It rushed

on: "Ihr dreckigen Schweinehunde, Ihr seid eine Schandfleck der Menschheit!"

For a moment everybody in the room seemed to be paralyzed. It was utterly unprecedented,

unprovided for in any military regulations. But not for long. The officer shouted: " 'Rrraus mit

ihm!" and the two statues besides Lanny came suddenly to life and led him away. But not until

he had repeated loudly and clearly: "I say that you dishonor the form of men!"

IX

Back in his cell, Lanny thought: "Now I've cooked my goose!" He thought: "They'll invent

something special for me." He discovered that his frenzy, his inspiration, whatever it was, had

passed quickly; in darkness and silence he realized that he had done some thing very foolish,

something that could do no good to the poor old banker and could do great harm to himself.

But there was no undoing it, and no good lamenting, no good letting his bones turn to pulp

again. He had to get back that mood of rage and determination, and learn to hold it, no matter

what might come. It was a psychological exercise, a highly difficult one. Sometimes he thought he

was succeeding, but then he would hear with his mind's ears the whistle of those terrible steel

rods, and he would find that a disgraceful trembling seized him.

Waiting was the worst of all; he actually thought he would feel relief when his cell door was

opened. But when he heard the steps coming, he found that he was frightened again, and had to

start work all over. He must not let them think that they could cow an American. He clenched

his hands tightly, set his teeth, and looked out into the corridor. There in the dim light was the

S.S. man to whom he had been handcuffed for a whole night—and behind that man, looking over

his shoulder, the deeply concerned face of Ober-leutnant Furtwaengler!