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confiscated, the people could either believe that or believe nothing. The foreigners, of course,

laughed; they knew that they weren't awed, and the mass meetings and distribution of boycott

leaflets went on. But the Nazi leaders chose to declare otherwise, and next day there was a

washing of windows throughout Germany, and "business as usual" became the motto for both

Aryans and non-Aryans.

IX

There were curious outgrowths of this anti-Semitic frenzy. An "Association of German

National Jews" was formed, and issued a manifesto saying that the Jews were being fairly

treated and there was no truth in the stories of atrocities; some leading Jews signed this, and

the name of Johannes Robin was among them. Perhaps he really believed it, who could say?

He had to read German newspapers, like everybody else; those foreign papers which reported

the atrocities were banned. Perhaps he considered that the outside boycotts would really do

more harm than good, and that the six hundred thousand native Jews in the Fatherland were

not in position to offer resistance to a hundred times as many Germans. The Jews had

survived through the centuries by bending like the willow instead of standing like the oak.

Johannes didn't mention the subject in his letters, either signed or unsigned. Was he a little

ashamed of what he did?

It seemed to an American that a man could hardly be happy living under such conditions.

Lanny wrote a carefully guarded letter to the effect that Hansi was giving important concerts

and Irma various social events; they would be delighted to have the family present. Johannes

replied that some business matters kept him from leaving just now; he bade them not to worry

about the new decrees forbidding anyone to leave Germany without special passports, for he

could get them for himself and family whenever he wished. He added that Germany was their

home and they all loved the German people. That was the right sort of letter for a Jew, and

maybe the statements were true, with a few qualifications.

The Nazis had learned a lesson from the boycott, even though they would never admit it. The

brass band stage of persecution was at an end, and they set to work to achieve their purpose

quietly. The weeding out of Jews, and of those married to Jews, went on rapidly. No Jew could

teach in any school or university in Germany; no Jewish lawyer could practice; no Jew could

hold any official post, down to the smallest clerkship. This meant tens of thousands of

positions for the rank and file Nazis, and was a way of keeping promises to them, much easier

than socializing industry or breaking up the great landed estates.

The unemployed intellectuals found work carrying on genealogical researches for the

millions of persons who desired to establish their ancestry. An extraordinary development—

there were persons who had an Aryan mother and a Jewish father, or an Aryan grandmother

and a Jewish grandfather, who instituted researches as to the morals of their female ancestors,

and established themselves as Aryans by proving themselves to be bastards! Before long the

Nazis discovered that there were some Jews who were useful, so there was officially

established a caste of "honorary Aryans." Truly it seemed that a great people had gone mad;

but it is a fact well known to alienists that you cannot convince a madman of his own

condition, and only make him madder by trying.

By one means or another it was conveyed to leading Jews that they had better resign from

directorships of corporations, and from executive positions which were desired by the nephews

or cousins of some Nazi official. Frequently the methods used were such that the Jew

committed suicide; and while these events were not reported in the press, word about them

spread by underground channels. That was the way with the terror; people disappeared, and

rumors started, and sometimes the rumors became worse than the reality. Old prisons and

state institutions, old army barracks which had stood empty since the Versailles treaty, were

turned into concentration camps and rapidly filled with men and women; motor trucks

brought new loads daily, until the total came near to a hundred thousand.

Lanny wrote again to say what a mistake his friends were making not to come and witness

Hansi's musical and Irma's social triumphs. This time Johannes's reply was that his business

cares were beginning to wear on him, and that his physicians advised a sea trip. He was

getting the Bessie Budd ready for another cruise, this time a real one; he wanted Hansi and

Bess to meet him at one of the northern French ports, and he hoped that the Budds would

come along— the whole family, Lanny and Irma, Mr. and Mrs. Dingle, Marceline and Baby

Frances, with as many governesses and nurses as they pleased. As before, the cruise would be

to whatever part of the world the Budd family preferred; Johannes suggested crossing the

Atlantic again and visiting Newcastle and Long Island; then, in the autumn, they might go

down to the West Indies, and perhaps through the Panama Canal to California, and if they

wished, to Honolulu and Japan, Bali, Java, India, Persia—all the romantic and scenic and

historic places they could think of. A university under Diesel power!

X

This made it necessary for Irma to come to a decision which she had postponed to the last

moment. Was she going to take the palace for another year? She had got used to it, and had a

competent staff well trained; also she was established as a hostess, and it seemed a shame to

lose all this momentum. But, on the other hand, money was growing scarcer and scarcer. The

dreadful depression—Lanny had shown her the calculations of an economist that it had cost

the United States half a dozen times the cost of the World War. Thanks to the Reconstruction

Finance Corporation, interest payments on industrial bonds were being met, but many of

Irma's "blue chip" stocks were paying no dividends, and she was telling her friends that she

was living on chocolate, biscuits, and Coca-Cola—meaning not that these were her diet, but

her dividends.

She had Shore Acres on her hands with its enormous overhead; she had had to cut down on

her mother, and the mother in turn had notified all the help that they might stay on and work

for their keep, but there would be no more salaries. Even so, the food bill was large, and the

taxes exorbitant—when were taxes not? Mrs. Barnes's letters conveyed to her daughter a sense

of near destitution.

"You don't really care very much for this palace, do you, Lanny?" So asked the distressed one,

lying in the pink satin splendor of the bed in which Madame de Maintenon was reputed to

have entertained the Sun King.

"You know, dear, I don't undertake to tell you how to spend your money."

"But I'm asking you."

"You know without asking. If you spend more money than you have, you're poor, no matter

what the amount is."

"Do you think if we come back to Paris after the depression, I'll be able to start as a hostess

again?"

"It depends entirely upon how much of your money you have managed to hold on to."

"Oh, Lanny, you're horrid!" exclaimed the hostess.

"You asked for it," he chuckled.

Nearly a year had passed since the Queen Mother had seen her grandchild, and that was

something to be taken into consideration. Her satisfaction would be boundless; and it would

be a pleasure to meet all those New York friends and hear the gossip. Lanny could stand it if it