City of Endless Night Part 21

It was plainly evident that Marguerite did not share my sense of embarra.s.sment, that she was aware of no breach of ethics. But her ease only served to impress upon me the greater burden of my responsibility and emphasize the breach of honour of which I was guilty in permitting this expression of my love to a woman whom circ.u.mstances had bound to Zimmern.

Pleading need for rest and for time to plan my interview with His Majesty, I hastened away, feeling that I dare not trust myself alone with her again.

~6~

I returned to my own apartment, and when another day had pa.s.sed, food and sleep had fully restored me to a normal state. I then recalled my promise to inform h.e.l.lar and Zimmern of the outcome of my demonstration.

I called at Zimmern's quarters but he was not at home. Hence I went to call on h.e.l.lar, to ask of Zimmern's whereabouts.

"I have an appointment to meet him tonight," said h.e.l.lar, "on the Level of Free Women. Will you not come along?"

I could not well do otherwise than accept, and h.e.l.lar led me again to the apartment from which I had fled twenty-four hours before. There we found Zimmern, who received me with his usual graciousness.

"I have already heard from Marguerite," said Zimmern, "of your success."

I glanced apprehensively at the girl but she was in no wise disturbed, and proceeded to relate for h.e.l.lar's information the story of my coming to her exhausted from my work and of my falling asleep in her apartment.

All of them seemed to think it amusing, but there was no evidence that any one considered it the least improper. Their matter-of-fact att.i.tude puzzled and annoyed me; they seemed to treat the incident as if it had been the experience of a couple of children.

This angered me, for it seemed proof that they considered Marguerite's love as the common property of any and all.

"Could it be," I asked myself, "that jealousy has been bred and trained out of this race? Is it possible they have killed the instinct that demands private and individual property in love?" Even as I pondered the problem it seemed answered, for as I sat and talked with Zimmern and h.e.l.lar of my chemical demonstration and the coming interview with His Majesty, Marguerite came and seated herself on the arm of my chair and pillowed her head on my shoulder.

Troubled and embarra.s.sed, yet not having the courage to repulse her caresses, I stared at Zimmern, who smiled on us with indulgence. In fact it seemed that he actually enjoyed the scene. My anger flamed up against him, but for Marguerite I had only pity, for her action seemed so natural and unaffected that I could not believe that she was making sport of me, and could only conclude that she had been so bred in the spirit of the place that she knew nothing else.

My talk with the men ended as had the last one, without arriving at any particular plan of action, and when h.e.l.lar arose first to go, I took the opportunity to escape from what to me was an intolerable situation.

~7~

I separated from h.e.l.lar and for an hour or more I wandered on the level.

Then resolving to end the strain of my enigmatical position I turned again toward Marguerite's apartment. She answered my ring. I entered and found her alone.

"Marguerite," I began, "I cannot stand this intolerable situation. I cannot share the love of a woman with another man--I cannot steal a woman's love from a man who is my friend--"

At this outburst Marguerite only stared at me in puzzled amazement.

"Then you do not want me to love you," she stammered.

"G.o.d knows," I cried, "how I do want you to love me, but it must not be while Dr. Zimmern is alive and you--"

"So," said a voice--and glancing up I saw Zimmern himself framed in the doorway of the book room. The old doctor looked from me to Marguerite, while a smile beamed on his courtly countenance.

"Sit down and calm yourself, Armstadt," said Zimmern. "It is time I spoke to you of Marguerite and of the relation I bear to her. As you know, I brought her to this level from the school for girls of forbidden birth. But what you do not know is that she was born on the Royal Level.

"I knew Marguerite's mother. She was Princess Fedora, a third cousin of the Empress. I was her physician, for I have not always been in the Eugenic Service. But Marguerite was born out of wedlock, and the mother declined to name the father of her child. Because of that the child was consigned to the school for forbidden love-children, which meant that she would be fated for the life of a free woman and become the property of such men as had the price to pay.

"When her child was taken away from her, the mother killed herself; and because I declined to testify as to what I knew of the case I lost my commission as a physician of Royalty. But still having the freedom of the school levels, I was permitted to keep track of Marguerite. As soon as she reached the age of her freedom I brought her here, and by the aid of her splendid birth and the companionship of thinking men she has become the woman you now find her."

In my jealousy I had listened to the first words of the old doctor with but little comprehension. But as he talked on so calmly and kindly an eager hope leaped up within me. Was it possible that it had been I who had misunderstood--and that Zimmern's love for Marguerite was of another sort than mine?

Tensely I awaited his further words, but I did not dare to look at Marguerite, who had taken her place beside him.

"I brought her here," Zimmern continued, "for there was no other place where she could go except into the keeping of some man. I have given her the work of guarding our books, and for that I could have well afforded to pay for her living.

"You find in Marguerite a woman of intelligence, and there are few enough like her. And she finds in you a man of rare gifts, and you are both young, so it is not strange that you two should love each other.

All this I considered before I brought you here to meet her. I was happy when Marguerite told me that it was so. But your happiness is marred, because you, Armstadt, think that I am in the way; you have believed that I bear the relation to Marguerite that the fact of my paying for her presence on this level would imply.

"It speaks well of your honour," the doctor went on, "that you have felt as you did. I should have explained sooner, but I did not wish to speak of this until it was necessary to Marguerite's happiness. But now that I have spoken there is nothing to stand in the way of your happiness, for Marguerite is as worthy of your love as if she had but made her debut on the Royal Level to which she was born. As for what is to be between you, I can only leave it to the best that is in yourselves, and whatever that may be has my blessing."

As I listened to the doctor's words entranced with rapture, the vision of Marguerite floated hazily before my eyes as if she were an ethereal essence that might, at any moment, be s.n.a.t.c.hed away. But as the doctor's words ceased my eyes met Marguerite's and all else seemed to fade but the love light that shone from out their liquid depths.

Forgetting utterly the presence of the man whose words had set us free, our hearts reached out with hungry arms to claim their own.

For us, time lost her reckoning amidst our tears and kisses, and when my brain at last made known to me the existence of other souls than ours, I looked up and found that we were alone. A saucy little clock ticked rhythmically on a mantel. I felt an absurd desire to smash it, for the impudent thing had been running all the while.

CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH I SALUTE THE STATUE OF G.o.d AND A PSYCHIC EXPERT EXPLORES MY BRAIN AND FINDS NOTHING

~1~

The Chemical Staff called for me at my laboratory to conduct me to the presence of the Emperor. At the elevator we were met by an electric vehicle manned fore and aft by pompous guards. Through the wide, high streets we rolled noiselessly past the decorated facades of the s.p.a.cious apartments that housed the seventeen thousand members of the House of Hohenzollern.

At times the ample streets broadened into still more roomy avenues where potted trees alternated with the frescoed columns, and beyond which were luxurious gardens and vast statuary halls. On the Level of Free Women the life was one of crowded revelry, of the bauble and delights of carnival, but on the Royal Level there was an atmosphere of luxurious leisure, with vast s.p.a.ces given over to the privacy of aristocratic idleness.

An occasional vehicle rolled swiftly past us on the gla.s.sy smoothness of the pavement; more rarely lonely couples strolled among the potted trees or sat in dreamy indolence beside the fountains. There was no crowding, no ma.s.s of humanity, no narrow halls, no congested apartments. All structure here was on a scale of magnificent size and distances, while by comparison the men and women appeared dwarfed, but withal distinctive in their costumes and regal in their leisurely idleness.

After some kilometres of travel we came to His Majesty's palace, which stood detached from all other enclosed structures and was surrounded on all sides by ever-necessary columns that seemed like a forest of tree trunks s.p.a.ced and distanced in geometrical design.

As we approached the ma.s.sive doorway of the palace, our party paused, and stood stiffly erect. Before us were two colossal statues of glistening white crystal. My fellow scientists faced one of the figures, which I recognized as that of William II, and I, a little tardily, saluted with them. And now we turned sharply on our heels and saluted the second figure of these twin German heroes. For German it was unmistakably in every feature, save for the one oddity that the Teutonic face wore a flowing beard not unlike that of Michael Angelo's Moses. As we moved forward my eye swept in the lettering on the pedestal, _"Unser Alte Deutche Gott,"_ and I was aware that I had acknowledged my allegience to the supreme war lord--I had saluted the Statue of G.o.d.

Entering the palace we were conducted through a long hall-way hung with floral tapestries. We pa.s.sed through several great metal doors guarded by stalwart leaden-faced men and came at last into the imperial audience room, where His Majesty, Eitel I, satellited by his ministers, sat stiff and upright at the head of the council table.

Though he had seemed a small man when I had seen him in the dazzling beam of the reflected sunlight, I now perceived that he was of more than average stature. He wore no crown and no helmet, but only a crop of stiff iron grey hair brushed boldly upright. His face was stern, his nose beak-like, and his small eyes grey and piercing. Over the high back of his chair was thrown his cape, and he was clad in a jacket of white cellulose velvet b.u.t.toned to the throat with large platinum b.u.t.tons.

Formally presented by one of the secretaries we made our stiff bows and were seated at the table facing His Majesty across the unlittered surface of black gla.s.s.

The Emperor nodded to the Chief of the Chemical Staff who arose and read the report of my solution of the protium problem. He ended by advising that the process should immediately replace the one then in use in the extraction of the ore in the industrial works and that I was recommended for promotion to the place to be vacated by the retiring member of the Chemical Staff and should be given full charge of the protium industry.

Emperor Eitel listened with solemn nods of approval. When the reading was finished he arose and proclaimed the retirement with honour, and because of his advanced age, of Herr von Uhl. The old chemist now stepped forward and the Emperor removed from von Uhl's breast the insignia of active Staff service and replaced it with the insignia of honourable retirement.

In my turn I also stood before His Majesty, who when he had pinned upon my breast the Staff insignia said: "I hereby commission you as Member of the Chemical Staff and Director of the Protium Works. Against the fortune, to be accredited to you and your descendants, you are authorized to draw from the Imperial Bank a million marks a year. That you shall more graciously befit this fortune I confer upon you the t.i.tle of 'von' and the social privilege of the Royal Level."

When the formal ceremonies were ended I again arose and addressed the Emperor. "Your Majesty," I said, as I looked unflinchingly at his iron visage, "I beg leave to make a personal pet.i.tion."

"State it," commanded the Emperor.

"I wish to ask that you restore to the Royal Level a girl who is now in the Level of the Free Women, and known there as Marguerite 78 K 4, but who was born on the Royal Level as a daughter of Princess Fedora of the House of Hohenzollern."