Book: Villa Elsa

S >> Stuart Henry >> Villa Elsa




Gard, when touched with loneliness, went there several times and
struck up quite an intimacy with her, the proprietor and his wife.
It was a snug spot and she was picturesque. The _Lebkuchen_ and
famous sausages, which would have been a deadly combination in
America, seemed to agree with him, soothed with beer. While Fritzi
appeared _keck_ at intervals, Gard did not see any excuse for
agreeing with the scandalous hints Von Tielitz and Messer threw out
about her. They would naturally see the wench in every domestic.

It was from the inn that Kirtley frequently went to Anderson's for
the afternoon. Gard had found it desirable to write down in a
notebook some of the facts and reflections he was accumulating on
the subject of the German. He would want to show them to his old
tutor when home was reached again. Among them, Anderson's ideas and
comments were included, flanked by an occasional apothegm.

Gard copied off a sample of their many talks in somewhat the
abridged form as given below. It was when, on one of these days,
Kirtley learned that Anderson had moved, and traced him to his new
abode. From the window of this apartment they could see, through the
bleary March light, the dowager-like Grosse Garten where Deming
paraded in style with Frau Bucher and Fraeulein. Although the trees
and shrubbery were now so gaunt and chilly of aspect, soon they
would be green and gay with beautiful spring, and Anderson would
find them cheering.

"I _am_ getting old," he said. "I have never wanted May to hurry up
so much as this year. Here I can get a good view and the birds will
come and nest in these branches. They will whistle to me. I can fill
my pocket with crumbs and go out and make their acquaintance in the
sunshine and flowers. Since the war failed me again, I can see that
my friends pull away from me. They doubtless think that no one is
more worthless than a prophet who cannot pull off his 'stunt' and
has short gray hair in the bargain. Everyone is blissfully lolling
in the embraces of enduring tranquillity and I am seeking the
companionship of trees and birds that are not troubled with the
machinations and delusions of mankind.

"So there will be this delightful summer of 1914 ahead. Christian
civilization is spreading rapidly everywhere. More Bibles being sold
than ever. More Hottentots and cannibals wearing clothes and losing
their taste for human flesh. And so universal Peace has come to
stay. There will not be another war.

"And yet the Dresden barracks were never so full of soldiers, and
the German bases of military supplies are crammed. The munition
factories are running on extra-time schedules. Has the world turned
topsy-turvy or have I? Does what one actually see and hear have no
meaning any more?"

"Why do you stay in Germany?" asked Gard. "The Germans antagonize
you. And you look upon their Government as a wicked monster prepared
to leap upon its innocent prey?"

"For about the same reasons that you remain at the Buchers'. Because
it's so often exasperating here. And that's always exciting. I guess
it's the Irish strain in us. Want to stick around where there's a
good prospect for trouble--want something to swear at. And I
consider it my duty to remain here as a sign post of warning. I am
carrying about a small red flag with DANGER on it. If the Germans
win command of the world, I will be here on the ground all ready to
start in as a German and will have a great advantage over nearly all
Yankees. I have conned my green book of irregular verbs, which I
think would bother most of them considerably. I have got accustomed
to the German eating and drinking which I imagine would prove the
death of most of them, too. I have learned to sleep athwart the
German bed--no small feat, as you know. For everything must become
Germanized under German rule. Teutons know no other method."

"Is that the meaning of the sort of happy, triumphant feeling that
one finds in Germany? It seems to pervade the whole Empire--rich and
poor, merchant and peasant, housewife and children."

"Yes, because they know a victorious war is coming and they will all
be lords and masters. The Empire will stretch out wide and there
will be work at the highest wages and plenty of money. The German
will be able to travel on his own railroads throughout most of
Europe and Turkey. No matter how servile he may be at home, everyone
will kowtow to him abroad.

"It will be a short, decisive campaign. It will cost some blood and
some treasure, but then--the German millennium! The people a eager,
ripe, fit for it. The coveted Government jobs will be more numerous
and remunerative. They will confer more power on the incumbents,
for they will be largely connected with conquered provinces. The
German Michel will be no longer cramped up in his mid-continent."...




CHAPTER XXVI

SOME OF THE LESS KNOWN EFFICIENCY


"Why is it that this seems to be a nation of professionals while
ours seems to be a nation of amateurs? I suppose it is, of course,
because of the more general spread here of thorough instruction."

"Yes, with us unskilled mediocrity is the popular level because it
is within the reach of everyone in a democracy. With the German,
high skilled, highly instructed efficiency is the ideal. The failure
of America to rise into the expert level is due to our unenforced
higher education. We compel our people to have a common school
education in order to preserve the Republic. Its voters must know
how to read and write and 'figger' or they won't be able to vote
intelligently.

"Now if we did in addition what Germany does, we would insist, as
far as practicable, on advanced education or instruction in every
family. Then we, too, would have a wealth of trained talent.
Comparing the riches and population of the two countries there is a
much greater proportion of university men and other competently
instructed men in Germany. Only relatively few Americans can show
diplomas for genuine and severe mental training. Take your own
Bucher family as an illustration. All its men will have sheepskins
that are worth while to show. With us, out of such a family none
would have a sheepskin, or at most one. One of the boys might have
gone to a university. And as for the difference in the women--little
comparison. Your Frau, as you have told me, has several framed
diplomas to her credit.

"You can see what a tremendous advantage all this gives the German
people over us. You have hit it very well--we are nearly always
amateurs. They are nearly always able to be professionals."

"Is it the same with the laboring classes--the mechanics and all
that?"

"The same is true, in its way. A poor American boy thinks he will
like to be a machinist. He gets a job as a new hand on a salary. He
works at it a couple of years. Then somebody offers him ten dollars
a week more to drive a truck, which is a simple, elementary task. He
drops his machinist career for this. He gets more money and it
requires no tedious training. So he remains an indifferent mechanic.
It's the money he's looking for, not the satisfaction of proficiency
in a skilled trade.

"Now, by contrast, the future of the poor German child is decided in
a fashion at about the age of ten. When a boy is elected to go into
industry, for instance, he is apprenticed at about fourteen for,
say, four years to be a mechanic. He is given no wages. In fact he
has to pay something, very often, for the opportunity to learn. But
he must, at the same time, attend what they call here continuing
schools. It is these schools, which we do not have in America, that
hold him fixed to his line of work--prevent him from jumping from
one kind of thing to another. He not only works in the shop but is
forced to go to a continuing school.

"Hence at eighteen the German factory and Government are sure to
find in him just the kind of instructed worker they need. There has
never been any danger of his meanwhile changing to driving a truck.
He sticks to his trade through life. He becomes a master mechanic.
You can't lure him away into an unskilled channel by more money.
It's not the money alone he is thinking of. It is also the pride of
having a specific calling that lifts him out of the great
commonplace market of untrained labor. So Germany is full of
competent mechanical men while we limp along with our huge supply of
the partly experienced. Every such German knows how to do at least
one thing as well as and usually better than anyone else.

"This is one big reason why Germany is pushing ahead of every nation
in the industrial world and one reason why I fear her. No matter
what she wants to do, she has an abundance of efficient brain and
muscle right at hand with which to do it well and at once. In our
great United States the lack of this is the bane of American
industry and development, and causes such immense and continual loss
in time and money because of our having to deal with such a mass of
inexperienced young workmen.

"But more than this. The German who is taught a trade acquires not
only the technic of it in a shop or laboratory, but also acquires
in his studies something of an enlightening and inspiring knowledge
of its history and significance. He is, consequently, much more than
a mere drudge. He is made intelligent about his calling. This
particular feature, so pregnant and valuable, is not incorporated in
the American plan, if we can be said to have a plan in these
matters. For the Yankee ambition is to make plenty of money in _any_
quick way, and therefore to rise above a trade which a German is
content to remain in. We feel no keen necessity about careful
instruction in such vocations. Luck, "pull," "cheek," mere
cleverness, are prominently relied on in its stead.

"There is another thing in this trade instruction that we do not
have in any noticeable degree. It teaches the German mechanic to
become wedded to his Nation and Government. He is made to realize
the great benefits and responsibilities he owes to them. He becomes
an integral national citizen ready to serve his homeland. He is
taught to think of something higher than his pay envelope. Under our
system such a mechanic grows up loosely connected in thought and
acts with the governing public under which he enjoys all his
liberty and opportunity. In so far as national necessities go he is
apt to be a weakened unit or pulling the wrong way. Unlike the
German, he has been educated to have no self-sacrificing ideal of
state or country."

Anderson had, at one time, drawn Gard's attention to the immense
advantage Germany uniquely derived by completely organizing and
keeping at work that vast majority of incurable mediocrities--mere
plodders--who are found in every race and who often weigh down its
destiny to the point of sinking hopelessness.

Kirtley had since observed that one conspicuous German method was
largely to employ this empty talent in small Government jobs. In
general, these tasks seemed to be expressly for the swarming and
uninspired nonentities, and meant most trivial duties for trivial
pay. But such tasks kept this population occupied, orderly and more
than self-respecting. In America incurable mediocrity is left to
shift for itself in huge masses.

The natural ambition of a Teuton was to be in the national service.
Rare was the German family who had not one member in "Government
circles." Or if not, it was building expectations toward such a
future. One in every eight wage-earning men a bureaucrat! It was not
only a question of the salary, assured if small, but the honor. Any
Government clerk or roustabout, not to speak of functionaries in
higher duties, was looked up to in a way unfamiliar in America, for
under that continuous regime his position remained fixed for life.
Government officials and employees in the United States are quite
freely thrown out under the frequent election upheavals and may
to-morrow be ordinary citizens bereft of any sort of authority over
their fellows. So they enjoy only a passing deference.

In Germany, owing to the use of plodders who made up extensively its
ubiquitous and commanding official class, this bureaucratic scheme
proved useful in more ways than one. It put faith and expectation
into these stolid, menial lives and took them out of the ranks of
the idle and discontented dullards who, in other countries, are a
source of danger or decay. It attached Fritz firmly and loyally to
the Nation. It held the links between the ruling caste and the
people hard and tight. At the same time it tied his family and
friends to the Hohenzollern, uniting them in a bond almost servile.
The ever-swelling ranks of bureaucrats, in such a large measure
imbecile and applying themselves to imbecile occupations,
strengthened the incomparable solidarity of the race. And it was
this army of State employees who were actively helping diffuse
through Germany in 1913 the frothy ideas of a national triumph that
intoxicated the populace.

But Kirtley, admiring this manifestation of practical and
administrative wisdom, felt that there must be somewhere a
tremendous weak spot. The expense of this plan and its withdrawal of
muscle and even poor brain from directly productive channels, were
costly. And there was about it a pompous vacancy, an arrogant
nonsensicalness, a latent peril resulting from such a large number
of automatons in unquestioned positions, that should all logically
indicate this: If Germany once broke, it would collapse somewhat
like an eggshell. It would be a formidable eggshell but with a
content surprisingly void.

In a sentence, the mighty German bureaucracy kept the population
from thinking. It meant--Obey and make no inquiry! And where in
history, Gard asked himself, has a nation of such political and body
slaves endured as against nations where the common individual was
free to ask questions? Slavery in any important form is acknowledged
to be an outworn, decadent economic policy. It cannot compete in the
long run.

As a result of this bureaucratic domination in Germany there were,
as Kirtley observed, many aspects of the organized public life so
excessively worked out and applied in their development as to be
unbelievable to Americans who had not come in actual contact with
them. These logical extremes and exhaustive minutiae often enough
combined a ferocious ostentation and comical absurdness that were so
little realized by those afar who learned of the mighty seriousness
and intelligence of the Germans merely from the printed page. The
conduct and operations of the limitless bureaucracy were usually the
form in which the foreigner in the flesh ran counter to this
unconscionable discipline.

Of all this Government routine, the spy system stood out in relief,
although, at the same time, it was so dovetailed into the civil
administration as to be frequently indistinguishable. Like a
typical Yankee Gard, always greatly impressed by the general
emphasis everywhere laid on the perfection of the Germans and their
methods in everything, had regarded Anderson's remarks and hints
about the spy regime as exaggerations. He still could not believe
that Rudolph was a kind of Government sleuth or that Teuton
existence was honeycombed from cellar to roof with official
suspicion and the tyranny of the detective.

But this phase was now brought within range of his personal
knowledge, and he had a glimpse of this famous German service.
And through whom? Of all persons, Jim Deming. Strange to relate,
it brought to a sudden head the latter's stirring courtship of
Fraeulein Elsa.




CHAPTER XXVII

THE IMPERIAL SECRET SERVICE


After New Year he had organized a little informal dancing club among
the Americans. He called it the Cinderella Cotillion Coterie, in
alliterative compliment to the daintiness of the ladies. He was the
self-constituted secretary and sole official.

For the birthday of the Father of our country he sent out to the
members a rollicking printed invitation reading:

In honor of our George's birthday, which comes as usual this
year on February the twenty-second, the inimitable CCCs will
hold one of their regular reunions in pumps, beginning
punctually at nine. Full beer orchestra as usual. No flowers or
singing of hymns.

By order

JAMES ALEXANDER DEMING, Sec., CCC.
R. S. V. P.--the Senate and the Roman People.

The notice at least gave evidence that Jim had been in Italy.

Several weeks after the pleasant event, when he had forgotten all
about it, he was loafing in his room one morning after breakfast,
smoking an eccentric pipe from his collection, and comforting
himself over his decision once more that German teachers and
grammars are a failure.

A thump was heard at his door. He called out _Herein!_ whereat a
person in uniform strode in and stuck into Deming's hands a majestic
communication from which he made out with some difficulty that he
was peremptorily ordered to appear at Police Headquarters at eleven
that forenoon. Fully conscious of the political innocence of his
conduct, he welcomed this new diversion and, humming the latest
opera bouffe air, he dressed in his best with a posy in his lapel.

His gay feelings were a little dampened at the Platz where he
encountered a massive solemnity and sullen looks as if he were an
arch criminal of State. A ponderous minor individual, not unarmed,
commanded him to be seated in front of his desk and, eying him
sternly, handed over one of Jim's invitations to the George
Washington party.

"Do you know of this?"

"Yes, sir," replied Jim, surprised that this harmless missive had
turned up among the Police, and wondering what it could all be
about.

"Have you authorization?"

"Authorization, sir?"

"What _is_ this?" roared the petty functionary.

"Why, nothing at all. It means dance--ball--a little dance we had."

"Dance--ball." The other repeated the words with a severity that
champed upon its bits. "Are you this party?" He tried to pronounce
Jim's formidable name on the card.

"Yes, sir."

"What does this mean--Sec., CCC?" he roared again.

Deming was getting upset, confused besides by his inadequate
vocabulary.

"I don't know in German, but in English we say Secretary of the
Cinderella Cotillion Coterie."

"Ah, you say _Secretary_. It is English." And an enlightened
satisfaction furrowed the hardened face of the interlocutor. Then,
abruptly to Deming's relief:

"You may go."

As Jim rose to leave he found a court flunkey at either elbow. They
escorted him out with a military precision and flourish. He
congratulated himself on the easy way he had got through with it. He
must have somehow managed it pretty well.

Two days later, in the evening, an attendant from the Intelligence
Office ushered himself into Deming's room without announcement. He
bore a summons for the next day.

"Well, of all the damned fools!" Jim exclaimed to himself. "They
don't seem to know I'm a free American citizen. I'll tell them this
time. They are getting too familiar--walking into a chap's room
without waiting to be invited."

This time he was brought before a higher official with a more
exalted mien, and manners of inextinguishable anger. He held the
tell-tale notice of February twenty-second in his horny paw. Deming
was this time not asked to sit down.

"Who's this George?" was demanded.

"Why, that's our great George," confirmed Jim, sharing with jaunty
confidence this bit of universal knowledge.

"George--George--the king of England," was the gratifying
conclusion.

"And what does this mean?"

"That's Senate and the Roman People. That's just a joke."

"Senate--Senate! Official."

Several of the glowering army folk stood about. They took on
menacing airs of importance, following the lead of their chief. An
international intrigue, involving a foreign king and senate, was
being rapidly unraveled. Deming was so suddenly and summarily
dismissed again that he forgot to tell them proudly he was a free
American citizen--with a hundred million people behind them.

He was becoming worried and consulted the experience of Miles
Anderson whom he had, of course, met through Kirtley.

"In the toils of the German high police!" chuckled Anderson. "That
is certainly funny."

"But what am I to do to get rid of them?" inquired Jim anxiously.
"It seems I have no privacy. And I don't want to be going to the
Platz all the time. Hadn't I better turn it over to our Consulate?"

"Heavens, no. American consuls won't do anything for you. They are
considerably Germanic anyhow--work in with the local authorities.
It's our easy-going American way. If you want anything done, go to
the British or Japanese. Then you will get action. Our official
attitude seems to be that an American ought not to be away from
America. If he is away, he must look out for himself--has few rights
abroad. The Germans respect the English and Japs for they mean
business and their consular service is not to be trifled with."

"I don't want to go to foreigners--get this thing all advertised
about--go to all that trouble."

"Then tell the Germans to go to hell. That's the only way to get on
with Germans. They are used to being sworn at. They will quit you
then. If you don't, they will keep you trotting to Headquarters for
six months. If you try to be nice, try to placate them, you'll
simply get into hotter water. They don't understand such things.
They think they are uncovering a vast conspiracy. Cinderella
Cotillion Coterie! Gad, of all the farcical happenings I have come
across even in Germany!"

Deming was braced up by this advice, and if anything more came of
the incident he determined to see it through with some of Anderson's
good American bluff and independence.

The following morning he was plashing about in his bath tub when the
door was bluntly opened and then partly closed. He faced around in
amazement at the audacity of anyone boldly intruding into a bath
room--the only place left in Germany for the self-respecting Naked
Cult. His eyes fell upon another uniformed emissary from the Police.
This one was very obsequious and bowed and scraped his excuses for
the unseemly interruption.

"Excuse me, mein Herr, but I heard water splashing and I thought you
were at breakfast."

Jim had adopted the fashion of talking derogatorily in English to
Germans who, not understanding, usually agreed with his sentiments.
This always amused him and satisfied his injured feelings.

"That's the way with you Germans. When you hear a noise, you think
someone is eating."

"Ja wohl, ja wohl, mein Herr," assented the incomer with crude
agreeableness, all the while grinning in shamefacedness. And
floating in the water Jim received another order, from the
retreating and apologizing minion of the law, to stand at attention
at Headquarters. He was unfamiliar with courts of any sort and did
not know he should ask for an interpreter. That the officials had
not as yet used one showed apparently an attempt to let the accused,
thus handicapped, stumble into an incriminating confession.




CHAPTER XXVIII

JIM DEMING'S FATE


The scene was now transferred to a third chamber which looked
somewhat like an august tribunal of state. It was an imposing room
divided by a long high rostrum upon which sat a terrible looking
individual of the utmost lordliness. The attendants were numerous,
and if Deming had ever heard of the trial of Warren Hastings he
would have thought this appeared an occasion of almost equal
importance and gravity. When he arrived for his ordeal before the
bench, he seemed a rather small and defenseless figure.

For he was now to be subjected to a sort of "third degree," with a
court interpreter at hand. Every word that might be significant in
his bedeviling invitation of February twenty-second was gone over
with the minatory harshness of medieval inquisitors.

"February twenty-second. Why is that day?"

Deming explained through his intermediary. His interrogators
persisted in the idea that it was a pregnant date in English history
and had some sinister meaning like Guy Fawkes day. The pages of
British annals had evidently been scanned to find the hidden clew.

"'No flowers or singing of hymns.' What is all this?"

"Just a joke, tell him, just a little innocent fun," appealed Jim to
his translator.

"You signed yourself as Secretary. That contravenes the law. You had
no authority to assume an official position without conferring."

Then there was the mighty Senate and the Roman People again on the
mystic communication with its cryptic letters as full of mystery as
runes to these Germans. It was, of course, the language of a code.

"Tell him that there is no such thing in the world as the Roman
Senate and People," explained Deming with nervous despair. "That was
just fooling. Nothing political--nothing _political_!" he exclaimed.
Everything became less convincing and therefore visibly more
satisfactory, and looks and voices grew savage in proportion.

There was also the occult CCC.

"Who is Cinderella? Is he in Dresden with you? Where is he to be
found?" The word was indicated by a big thumb. Poor Jim, whose
specific information was as limited about Cinderella as about most
subjects, entered nevertheless on a long explanation not only
concerning her but concerning the playful innocence of the George
Washington meeting.

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