City of Endless Night Part 13

I glanced rather proudly at my insignia as a research chemist of the first rank. "Do you know," I asked, "how much income that insignia carries?"

"Well, no," she admitted, "I know the income of military officers, but there are so many of the professional ranks and cla.s.ses that I get all mixed up."

"That means," I said, "ten thousand marks a year."

"So much as that!" she exclaimed in astonishment. "And I can live here on two hundred a month, but no, I did not mean that--you wouldn't,--I couldn't--let you give me so much."

"Much!" I exclaimed; "you may have five hundred if you need it."

"You make love very nicely," she replied with aloofness.

"But I am not making love," I protested.

"Then why do you say these things? Do you prefer some one else? If so why waste your funds on me?"

"No, no!" I cried, "it is not that; but you see I want to tell you things; many things that you do not know. I want to see you often and talk to you. I want to bring you books to read. And as for money, that is so you will not starve while you read my books and listen to me talk.

But you are to remain mistress of your own heart and your own person.

You see, I believe there are ways to win a woman's love far better than buying her cheap when she is starved into selling in this brutal fashion."

She looked at me dubiously. "You are either very queer," she said, "or else a very great liar."

"But I am neither," I protested, piqued that the girl in her innocence should yet brand me either mentally deficient or deceitful. "It is impossible to make you understand me," I went on, "and yet you must trust me. These other men, they approve the system under which you live, but I do not. I offer you money, I insist on your taking it because there is no other way, but it is not to force you to accept me but only to make it unnecessary for you to accept some one else. You have been very brave, to stand out so long. You must accept my money now, but you need never accept me at all--unless you really want me. If I am to make love to you I want to make love to a woman who is really free; a woman free to accept or reject love, not starved into accepting it in this so-called freedom."

"It is all very wonderful," she repeated; "a minute ago I thought you deceitful, and now I want to believe you. I can not stand out much longer and what would be the use for just a few more days?"

"There will be no need," I said gently, "your courage has done its work well--it has saved you for yourself. And now," I continued, "we will bind this bargain before you again decide me crazy."

Taking out my check book I filled in a check for two hundred marks payable to--"To whom shall I make it payable?" I asked.

"To Bertha, 34 R 6," she said, and thus I wrote it, cursing the prost.i.tuted science and the devils of autocracy that should give an innocent girl a number like a convict in a jail or a mare in a breeder's herd book.

And so I bought a German girl with a German check--bought her because I saw no other way to save her from being lashed by starvation to the slave block and sold piecemeal to men in whom honour had not even died, but had been strangled before it was born.

With my check neatly tucked in her bosom, Bertha walked out of the cafe clinging to my arm, and so, pa.s.sing unheeding through the throng of indifferent revellers, we came to her apartment.

At the door I said, "Tomorrow night I come again. Shall it be at the cafe or here?"

"Here," she whispered, "away from them all."

I stooped and kissed her hand and then fled into the mult.i.tude.

~3~

I had promised Bertha that I would bring her books, but the narrow range of technical books permitted me were obviously unsuitable, nor did I feel that the unspeakably morbid novels available on the Level of Free Women would serve my purpose of awakening the girl to more wholesome aspirations. In this emergency I decided to appeal to my friend, Zimmern.

Leaving the laboratory early, I made my way toward his apartment, puzzling my brain as to what kind of a book I could ask for that would be at once suitable to Bertha's child-like mind and also be a volume which I could logically appear to wish to read myself. As I walked along the answer flashed into my mind--I would ask for a geography of the outer world.

Happily I found Zimmern in. "I have come to ask," I said, "if you could loan me a book of description of the outer world, one with maps, one that tells all that is known of the land and seas and people."

"Oh, yes," smiled Zimmern, "you mean a geography. Your request," he continued, "does me great honour. Books telling the truth about the world without are very carefully guarded. I shall be pleased to get the geography for you at once. In fact I had already decided that when you came again I would take you with me to our little secret library.

Germany is facing a great crisis, and I know no better way I can serve her than doing my part to help prepare as many as possible of our scientists to cope with the impending problems. Unless you chemists avert it, we shall all live to see this outer world, or die that others may."

Dr. Zimmern led the way to the elevator. We alighted on the Level of Free Women. Instead of turning towards the halls of revelry we took our course in the opposite direction along the quiet streets among the apartments of the women. We turned into a narrow pa.s.sage-way and Dr.

Zimmern rang the bell at an apartment door. But after waiting a moment for an answer he took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door.

"I am sorry Marguerite is out," he said, as he conducted me into a reception room. The walls were hung with seal-brown draperies. There were richly upholstered chairs and a divan piled high with fluffy pillows. In one corner stood a bookcase of burnished metal filigree.

Zimmern waved his hand at the case with an expression of disdain. "Only the conventional literature of the level, to keep up appearances," he said; "our serious books are in here"; and he thrust open the door of a room which was evidently a young lady's boudoir.

Conscious of a profane intrusion, I followed Dr. Zimmern into the dainty dressing chamber. Stepping across the room he pushed open a s.p.a.cious wardrobe, and thrusting aside a cleverly arranged shield of feminine apparel he revealed, upon some improvised shelves, a library of perhaps a hundred volumes. He ran his hand fondly along the bindings. "No other man of your age in Berlin," he said, "has ever had access to such a complete fund of knowledge as is in this library."

I hope the old doctor took for appreciation the smile that played upon my face as I contrasted his pitiful offering with the endless miles of book stacks in the libraries of the outer world where I had spent so many of my earlier days.

"Our books are safer here," said Zimmern, "for no one would suspect a girl on this level of being interested in serious reading. If perchance some inspector did think to perform his neglected duties we trust to him being content to glance over the few novels in the case outside and not to pry into her wardrobe closet. There is still some risk, but that we must take, since there is no absolute privacy anywhere. We must trust to chance to hide them in the place least likely to be searched."

"And how," I asked, "are these books acc.u.mulated?"

"It is the result of years of effort," explained Zimmern. "There are only a few of us who are in this secret group but all have contributed to the collection, and we come here to secure the books that the others bring. We prefer to read them here, and so avoid the chance of being detected carrying forbidden books. There is no restriction on the callers a girl may have at her apartment; the authorities of the level are content to keep records only of her monetary transactions, and that fact we take advantage of. Should a man's apartment on another level be so frequently visited by a group of men an inquiry would be made."

All this was interesting, but I inferred that I would again have opportunity to visit the library and now I was impatient to keep my appointment with Bertha. Making an excuse for haste, I asked Zimmern to get the geography for me. The stiff back of the book had been removed, and Zimmern helped me adjust the limp volume beneath my waistcoat.

"I am sorry you cannot remain and meet Marguerite tonight," he said as I stepped toward the door. "But tomorrow evening I will arrange for you to meet Colonel h.e.l.lar of the Information Staff, and Marguerite can be with us then. You may go directly to my booth in the cafe where you last dined with me."

~4~

After a brief walk I came to Bertha's apartment, and nervously pressed the bell. She opened the door stealthily and peered out, then recognizing me, she flung it wide.

"I have brought you a book," I said as I entered; and, not knowing what else to do, I went through the ridiculous operation of removing the geography from beneath my waistcoat.

"What a big book," exclaimed Bertha in amazement. However, she did not open the geography but laid it on the table, and stood staring at me with her child-like blue eyes.

"Do you know," she said, "that you are the first visitor I ever had in my apartment? May I show you about?"

As I followed her through the cosy rooms, I chafed to see the dainty luxury in which she was permitted to live while being left to starve.

The place was as well adapted to love-making as any other product of German science is adapted to its end. The walls were adorned with sensual prints; but happily I recalled that Bertha, having no education in the matter, was immune to the insult.

Antic.i.p.ating my coming she had ordered dinner, and this was presently delivered by a deaf-and-dumb mechanical servant, and we set it forth on the dainty dining table. Since the world was young, I mused, woman and man had eaten a first meal together with all the world shut out, and so we dined amid shy love and laughter in a tiny apartment in the heart of a city where millions of men never saw the face of woman--and where millions of babies were born out of love by the cold degree of science.

And this same science, bartering with licentious iniquity, had provided this refuge and permitted us to bar the door, and so we accepted our refuge and sanctified it with the purity that was within our own hearts--such at least was my feeling at the time.

And so we dined and cleared away, and talked joyfully of nothing. As the evening wore on Bertha, beside me upon the divan, snuggled contentedly against my shoulder. The nearness and warmth of her, and the innocence of her eyes thrilled yet maddened me.

With fast beating heart, I realized that I as well as Bertha was in the grip of circ.u.mstances against which rebellion was as futile as were thoughts of escape. There was no one to aid and no one to forbid or criticize. Whatever I might do to save her from the fate ordained for her would of necessity be worked out between us, unaided and unhampered by the ethics of civilization as I had known it in a freer, saner world.

In offering Bertha money and coming to her apartment I had thrust myself between her and the cra.s.s venality of the men of her race, but I had now to wrestle with the problem that such action had involved. If, I reasoned, I could only reveal to her my true ident.i.ty the situation would be easier, for I could then tell her of the rules of the game of love in the world I had known. Until she knew of that world and its ideals, how could I expect her to understand my motives? How else could I strengthen her in the battle against our own impulses?

And yet, did I dare to confess to her that I was not a German? Would not deep-seated ideals of patriotism drilled into the mind of a child place me in danger of betrayal at her hands? Such a move might place my own life in jeopardy and also destroy my opportunity of being of service to the world, could I contrive the means of escape from Berlin with the knowledge I had gained. Small though the possibilities of such escape might be, it was too great a hope for me to risk for sentimental reasons. And could she be expected to believe so strange a tale?

And so the temptation to confess that I was not Karl Armstadt pa.s.sed, and with its pa.s.sing, I recalled the geography that I had gone to so much trouble to secure, and which still lay unopened upon the table.

Here at least was something to get us away from the tumultuous consciousness of ourselves and I reached for the volume and spread it open upon my knees.