Erik Dorn Part 33

The wine was vanis.h.i.+ng. The baron paused out of breath and sighed. His face that seemed to grow firmer and more ascetic as he drank, took on a far-away shrewdness as if new ideas had surprised it.

"I've felt many things," Dorn spoke, "but thought nothing yet. So far Europe has remained strange. I am in a theater watching a pantomime. I have entered in the middle of the second act and the plot is a bit hidden. But we will have to find some serious work to do. I must meet politicians, leaders; listen to laments and prophecies...."

"All in time, all in time," the baron interrupted. "Am I not your secretary? Well, then, trust me. You will talk to-morrow with Ebert. We begin thus at the bottom. Of all men in Germany who know nothing, he knows least. Thursday, Scheidemann. Treachery requires some shrewdness.

The man is not quite an imbecile. If your Roosevelt were a Socialist he would be a Scheidemann. Daumig, Pasadowsky, Erzburger--rely upon me, m'sieur. And Ludendorff. Ah, there we have real work. If Ludendorff will talk now. He is supposed to be in Berlin. I will find him and arrange for you. And so on. You will meet all the great minds, all the big stomachs. I will take you to Radek who is hiding with a price on his head. And Dr. Talheimer on the Rote Fahne, if they do not arrest him too soon. Bernstorff is in the hotel. A man with too much brains. Yes, an intelligent bungler. He will die some day with a sad smile, forgiving his enemies. And if we need women, mention your choice. Mine runs to the married woman of t.i.tle. A small t.i.tle is to be preferred. It is a slight insurance against disease. Others prefer the gamins. There is not enough difference to quarrel about. Or do you want a little red in your amours?

A _sans culotte_ from Ehrfurst or Spandau? In Essen you will find Belgian women. They will love for nothing. For that matter, a bottle of wine and a bar of chocolate and you can have anyone. There is no virtue left, thank G.o.d. And yet, for variety, I sometimes think there should be a little. Ah, yes, yes! I miss the virgins of my youth. Another bottle, eh? Where's the b.u.t.ton? What do you think of German plumbing? It is our Kultur. We are proud of our plumbing. It was the ideal for which we fought. To introduce our plumbing throughout Europe--make a German bathroom of the world."

A sound of heavier firing in the streets interrupted. The two sat listening, the baron's face alive with an odd humor.

"_Es lebe die Welt Revolution_," he whispered. "Do you hear it? Only a murmur. But it starts all over Germany again. Workingmen with guns. You will see them later. I among them. Stay in Europe, my friend, and see the ghost of Marat rising from a German bathtub."

"Who are shooting?" Dorn asked.

"Shadows," the baron laughed. "The government wishes to impress the good burgher that there is danger. So the government orders the soldiers to shoot at midnight. The good burgher wakes and trembles. _Mein Gott, das Bolshevismus treibt! Gott sei dank fur den Regierung._ ... So the good burgher gives enthusiastic a.s.sent to the increase in the military budget. Dear G.o.d, did he not hear shooting at midnight? But they play with more than ghosts. Noske's politik will end in another color.

To-night there are only shadows to shoot at. To-morrow ... remember what I tell you...."

The telephone rang and Dorn answered. A voice in English:

"The gentlemen will have to put out the lights. The Spartikusten are coming."

"Thank you...."

"What did he say?"

"We must put out the lights."

The baron laughed.

"It is nonsense. Come, your hat. We will go have a look."

They hurried down to the lobby. An iron door had been drawn across the entrance of the hotel. In the lobby the shooting seemed a bombardment of the building. A group of American and English correspondents were lounging in the heavy divans, drinking gin and talking to a trio of elaborately gowned women. The talk was in French.

"h.e.l.lo, Dorn," one of the Englishmen called. Dorn approached the table, von Stinnes following, and whispering, "I will request the porter to open the gate."

"Baron von Stinnes, Mr. Reading."

The Englishman shook hands and smiled.

"I know the baron, Dorn. Rather old friends, what? Have a drink, d.a.m.n it!"

"Later, if you please," von Stinnes bowed stiffly. Reading beckoned Dorn aside with an air of secrecy. Walking him to another part of the lobby he began whispering:

"I'd let that blighter alone if I were you, Dorn. I'm just telling you because you're rather new to these b.l.o.o.d.y swine."

Dorn nodded.

"I see," he said, and walked back to von Stinnes. Reading resumed his place with the party.

"Perhaps it was a timely warning," the baron murmured as Dorn drew near him. The gate had been opened and the two emerged. "I make a guess at what Reading told you," the baron pursued.

"It is immaterial," Dorn answered. "I engage you not for your honesty and many virtues, but because you're amusing...."

"Thus you relieve my conscience," von Stinnes sighed.

The wide avenue was deserted. Moonlight lay on the new-fallen snow. A line of soldiers wheeled suddenly out of the Brandenburger Tor and came marching quickly toward the walkers.

"_Weiter gehen, weiter gehen_," a voice from the troop called. Two detached themselves from the ranks and approached rapidly.

"_Ausweise...._"

Von Stinnes glared through his monocle and answered in German, "What is the matter with you? Are you crazy? I am Baron von Stinnes. My friend is a member of the American Commission."

Dorn extracted a bit of stamped paper--his special credentials from the German Foreign Office. The soldier glanced at it without troubling to read....

"_Sehr gut, mein Herrschaften_," he mumbled. Dorn caught a glimpse of his face. Its importance had vanished. The line of soldiers marched on.

When they had turned a corner the sound of firing suddenly resumed.

"Shadows again," chuckled von Stinnes.

Snow-covered streets, moonlight, waiting buildings, cold and shadows--here was reality. The thing under the gay tumult of the cafes.

Under the baron's laughter. They were pa.s.sing a stretch of empty shop windows.

"It's cold," Dorn muttered. The baron looked at him with a smile.

"It is cold everywhere in Germany," he said quietly. "Men's hearts are cold with hunger and fear. Brains are confused. Stomachs empty. The top has been knocked off. The soldiers in the streets are the sad little remains of a dead Germany. The new Germany lies cold and hungry in a workingman's bed. Life will come out of the ma.s.ses. And I am always on the side of life. Not so? The old is dead. We drink wine to the new."

The sound of dance music drifted out of a cafe.

"Shall we stop?" the baron hesitated.

Dorn shook his head.

"Enough cafes. The streets are better. Dark windows."

They walked in silence through the snow, the baron humming a Vienna waltz as the blurred echoes of machine-gun fire rose in the night around them.

... Hours later Dorn lay sleepless in his bed. The smoke of wine was slipping out of his thought.

"I'm alone," he murmured to himself. An emotionless regret came to him.

"There are still years to live." He wrapped himself closer in the silk-covered quilts. "But how? Does it matter? I have loved, and that is over. Rachel is ended. Haven't thought of her for weeks. And now, I am like I was, only older and alone; yet not sad. So people adjust themselves to decay. Senses that could have understood and wept at sorrow die, along with the things whose death causes sorrow. Ergo, there is no sorrow. Wings gone, tears gone, everything gone. Empty again, yet content. I want nothing.... No desires...."

His brain was mumbling sleepily as the cold wind from the opened window swept pleasantly through the room.

"Women to divert me. Wine to make me glad. And a companion--the baron.

Droll tragedian! And scenes for my eyes. Yes, yes.... They keep shooting outside. Still shooting after five years. Shooting each other. The world speaks a strange language. What imbecility! Yet life is in the ma.s.ses.

It'll come out, perhaps. From Russia. Russians--a pack of idealists ...

a pack of illiterate Wilsons with whiskers. I'm like the baron. I admire revolution. Why? Because it diverts."