o 3b3e7475144cf77c

her jewels to this place. It wasn't safe anyhow, for the National Socialists often raided the

crowds coming out from Red meetings, and there were rights and sometimes shootings.

V

The Social-Democrats also were holding great meetings. They were by far the largest party in

the Republic, but had never had an outright majority, either of votes or of representation;

therefore they had not been able to have their way. If they had, would they have known what

to do? Would they have dared trying to bring Socialism to the Fatherland? Hansi and Bess

declared that they were paralyzed by their notions of legality; it was a party of officeholders, of

bureaucrats warming swivel-chairs and thinking how to keep their jobs and salaries. They

continued to call themselves Socialist and to repeat the party shibboleths, but that was simply

bait for the voters. How to get Socialism they had no idea, and they didn't consider it

necessary to find out.

Lanny, yearning after the orderly methods of democracy, considered that it was up to him to

help this party. In days past he had brought letters of introduction from Longuet, and now he

went to renew old acquaintanceships, and to prove his sincerity by making a contribution to

the party's campaign chest. He took his family to one of the mass meetings, and certainly, if

there was any tiredness or deadness, it didn't show on this public occasion. The hall was

packed to the doors, banners and streamers were everywhere, and when the party's favorite

orators made their appearance volumes of cheering rolled to the roof and back. These men

didn't rave and threaten as the Communists did; they discussed the practical problems

confronting the German workers, and denounced both groups of extremists for leading the

people astray with false promises. It was a dignified meeting, and Irma felt more comfortable;

there didn't seem to be anything to start a fight about.

On their way home the young people discussed what they had heard. Bess, who used the same

phonograph records as Uncle Jesse, said that the party was old—a grandfather party—so it had the

machinery for getting out the crowds. "But," she added, "those municipal councilors repeating

their formulas make one think of stout, well-fed parrots dressed up in frock-coats."

"The Communists don't have any formulas, of course!" countered Lanny, not without a touch

of malice. These two loved each other, but couldn't discuss politics without fighting.

Bess was referring to officials who had reported on their efforts to increase the city's milk

supply and reduce its price. Lanny had found the Socialists discussing the same subject in New

York; it was no unimportant matter to the women of the poor. "Of course it's dull and prosy,"

he admitted; "not so exciting as calling for the revolution next week—"

"I know," broke in the sister; "but while you're discussing milk prices, the Nazis are getting

arms caches and making their plans to bring about the counter-revolution next week."

"And the reactionary princes conspiring with them, and the great capitalists putting up

money to pay for the arms!" Thus Hansi, stepping onto dangerous ground, since his father was

one of those capitalists. How much longer was that secret going to be kept in the Robin family?

VI

Lanny wanted to hear all sides; he wanted to know what the Nazis were doing and saying, if

only so as to send Rick an account of it. Among his acquaintances in Berlin was Heinrich Jung,

blue-eyed "Aryan" enthusiast from Upper Silesia. Heinrich had spent three years training

himself to succeed his father as head forester of Graf Stubendorf's domain; but now all that

had been set aside, and Heinrich was an official of the National Socialist German Workingmen's

Party, high up in what they called the Hitler Youth. For seven or eight years he had been

mailing propaganda to Lanny Budd in Bienvenu, having never given up hope that a pure-blooded

"Aryan" would feel the pull of his racial ties.

Lanny called him on the telephone, and Heinrich was delighted and begged him to come to

party headquarters. The visitor didn't consider it necessary to mention the fact that he was

staying in the home of one of the most notorious of Jewish Schieber. It wouldn't really have

mattered, for such eccentricities in an American didn't mean what they would have meant in a

German. A German traveler had described America as "the land of unlimited possibilities,"

and rich, successful persons from that fabulous region walked the common earth of Europe as

demigods. Even the Führer himself was in awe of them, having heard the report that they had

not run away from the mighty German army. A bright feather in the cap of a young party

official if he should bring in such a convert to the new religion of blood and soil.

The blue-eyed and fair-haired young Prussian had matured greatly in the three or four years

since Lanny had seen him. He had his private office in the great Nazi building, and was

surrounded by the appurtenances of power: files and charts, a telephone on his desk, and a