Part 29 (2/2)

The sun fully risen now, we were led to a protruding observation platform that permitted us to view the wall of the city below. It was merely one vast grey wall without interruption or opening in the monotonous surface.

Amid the more troubled chaos of the ground immediately below we could see fragments of concrete blown from the parapet of the roof. The wall beneath us, we were told, was only of sufficient thickness to withstand fire of the aircraft guns. The havoc that might be wrought, should the defence mines ever be forced back and permit the walls of Berlin to come within range of larger field pieces, was easily imagined. But so long as the Ray defence held, the ma.s.sive fort of Berlin was quite impervious to attacks of the world forces of land and air and the stalemate of war might continue for other centuries.

With the coming of daylight we had heard the rumbling of trucks as the roof repairing force emerged to their task. Now that our party had become tired of gazing through their goggles at the sun, our guides led us in the direction where this work was in progress. On the way we pa.s.sed a single unfilled crater, a deep pit in the flinty quartz sand that spread a protecting blanket over the solid structure of the roof.

These craters in the sand proved quite harmless except for the labour involved in their refilling. Further on we came to another, now half-filled from a spouting pipe with ground quartz blown from some remote subterranean mine, so to keep up the wastage from wind and bombing.

Again we approached the edge of the city and this time found more of interest, for here an addition to the city was under construction. It was but a single prism, not a hundred metres across, which when completed would add but another block to the city's area. Already the outer pillars reached the full height and supported the temporary roof that offered at least a partial protection to the work in progress beneath. Though I watched but a few minutes I was awed with the evident rapidity of the building. Dimly I could see the forms below being swung into place with a clock-like regularity and from numerous spouts great streams of concrete poured like flowing lava.

It is at these building sections that the bombs were aimed and here alone that any effectual damage could be done, but the target was a small one for a plane flying above the reach of the German guns. The officer who guided our group explained this to us: these bombing raids were conducted only at times of particular cloud formations, when the veil of mist hung thick and low in an even stratum above which the air was clear. When such formation threatened, the roof of Berlin was cleared and the expected bombs fell and spent their fury blowing up the sand. It had been a futile warfare, for the means of defence were equal to the means of offence.

Our visit to the roof of Berlin was cut short as the sun rose higher, because the women, though they had donned gloves and veils, were fearful of sunburn. So we were led back to the covered ramp into the endless night of the city.

”Have we seen it all?” sighed Marguerite, as she removed her veil and gla.s.ses and gazed back blinkingly into the last light of day.

”Hardly,” I said; ”we have not seen a cloud, nor a drop of rain nor a flake of snow, nor a flash of lightning, nor heard a peal of thunder.”

Again she looked at me with wors.h.i.+pful adoration. ”I forget,” she whispered; ”and can you vision those things also?”

But I only smiled and did not answer, for I saw Admiral von Kufner glaring at me. I had monopolized Marguerite's company for the entire occasion, and I was well aware that his only reason for arranging this, to him a meaningless excursion, had been in the hopes of being with her.

~5~

But Admiral von Kufner, contending fairly for that share of Marguerite's time which she deigned to grant him, seemed to bear me no malice; and, as the months slipped by, I was gratified to find him becoming more cordial toward me. We frequently met at the informal gatherings in the salon of the Countess Luise. More rarely Dr. Zimmern came there also, for by virtue of his office he was permitted the social rights of the Royal Level. I surmised, however, that this privilege, in his case, had not included the right to marry on the level, for though the head of the Eugenic Staff, he had, so far as I could learn, neither wife nor children.

But Dr. Zimmern did not seem to relish royal society, for when he chanced to be caught with me among the members of the Royal House the flow of his brilliant conversations was checked like a spring in a drought, and he usually took his departure as soon as it was seemly.

On one of these occasions Admiral von Kufner came in as Zimmern sat chatting over cups and incense with Marguerite and me, and the Countess and her son. The doctor dropped quietly out of the conversation, and for a time the youthful Count Ulrich entertained us with a technical elaboration of the importance of the love pa.s.sion as the dominant appeal of the picture. Then the Countess broke in with a spirited exposition of the relation of soul harmony to ardent pa.s.sion.

Admiral von Kufner listened with ill-disguised impatience. ”But all this erotic pa.s.sion,” he interrupted, ”will soon again be swept away by the revival of the greater race pa.s.sion for world rule.”

”My dear Admiral,” said the Countess Luise, ”your ideas of race pa.s.sion are quite proper for the cla.s.ses who must be denied the free play of the love element in their psychic life, but your notion of introducing these ideas into the life of the Royal Level is wholly antiquated.”

”It is you who are antiquated,” returned the Admiral, ”for now the day is at hand when we shall again taste of danger. His Majesty has--”

”Of course His Majesty has told us that the day is at hand,” interrupted the Countess. ”Has not His Majesty always preserved this allegorical fable? It is part of the formal kultur.”

”But His Majesty now speaks the truth,” replied the Admiral gravely, ”and I say to you who are so absorbed with the light pa.s.sions of art and love that we shall not only taste of danger but will fight again in the sea and air and on the ground in the outer world. We shall conquer and rule the world.”

”And do you think, Admiral,” inquired Marguerite, ”that the German people will then be free in the outer world?”

”They will be free to rule the outer world,” replied the Admiral.

”But I mean,” said Marguerite calmly, ”to ask if they will be free again to love and marry and rear their own children.”

At this nave question the others exchanged significant glances.

”My dear child,” said the Countess, blus.h.i.+ng with embarra.s.sment, ”your defective training makes it extremely difficult for you to understand these things.”

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