Johannes replied, with a smile between the lines: "Your invitation is appreciated, but please explain to the spirits of my uncles that I still have important matters which must be cleared up. I am rendering services to some influential persons, and this will be to the advantage of all of us." Very cryptic, but Lanny could guess that Johannes was selling something, perhaps parting with control of a great enterprise, and couldn’t let go of a few million marks. The spirits of his uncles would understand this.
"Do not believe everything that the foreign press is publishing about Germany," wrote the master of caution. "Important social changes are taking place here, and the spirit of the people, except for certain small groups, is remarkable." Studying that sentence you could see that its words had been carefully selected, and there were several interpretations to be put upon them. Lanny knew his old friend’s mind, and not a few of his connections. The bankrupted landlords to whom he had loaned money, the grasping steel and coal lords with whom he had allied himself, were still carrying on their struggle for the mastery of Germany; they were working inside the Nazi party, and its factional strife was partly of their making. Lanny made note of the fact that the raids on the labor unions had been made by Robert Ley and his own gangs. Had the "drunken braggart" by any chance "jumped the gun" on his party comrades? If so, one might suspect that the steel hand of Thyssen had been at work behind the scenes. Who could figure how many billions of marks it would mean to the chairman of the Ruhr trust to be rid of the hated unions and safe against strikes from this day forth?
Robbie Budd wrote about this situation, important to him. He said: "There is a bitter fight going on for control of the industry in Germany. There are two groups, both powerful politically. It is Thyssen and Krupp vs. the Otto Wolff group. The latter is part Jewish, and the present set-up is not so good for them. Johannes believes he has friends in both camps, and I hope he is not fooling himself. He is sailing a small ship in a stormy sea."
Robbie also gave another item of news: "Father is failing and I fear you may not find him here when you arrive. It is no definite disease, just the slow breakdown of old age, very sad to witness. It means heavy responsibilities for me; a situation which I prefer not to write about, but will tell you when I see you. Write the old gentleman and assure him of your appreciation of his kindness to you; he tries to keep his hold on all the family as well as on the business. He forgets what I told him yesterday, but remembers clearly what happened long ago. That is hard on me, because I caused him a great deal of unhappiness in those days, whereas of late he had been learning to take me for what I am and make the best of it. I try not to grieve about him, because he has had more out of life than most men, and fate neither lets us live forever nor have our way entirely while we are here."
V
Adolf Hitler was the man who was having his own way, more than any who had lived in modern times. He was going ahead to get the mastery of everything in Germany, government, institutions, even cultural and social life. Every organization which stood in his way he proceeded to break, one after another, with such speed and ruthlessness that it left the opposition dizzy. The Nationalist party, which had fondly imagined it could control him, found itself helpless. Papen, Vice-Chancellor, was reduced to a figurehead; Goring took his place in control of the Prussian state. Hugenberg had several of his papers suppressed, and when he threatened to resign from the Cabinet, no one appeared to care. One by one the Nationalist members were forced out and Nazis replaced them. Subordinates were arrested, charged with defalcation or what not— the Minister of Information was in position to charge anybody with anything, and it was dangerous to answer.
On the tenth day of May there were ceremonies throughout Germany which riveted the attention of the civilized world. Quantities of books were collected from the great library of Berlin University, including most of the worthwhile books which had been written during the past hundred years: everything that touched even remotely upon political, social, or sexual problems. Some forty thousand volumes were heaped into a pile in the square between the University and the Opera House and drenched with gasoline. The students paraded, wearing their bright society caps and singing patriotic and Nazi songs. They solemnly lighted the pyre and a crowd stood in a drizzling rain to watch it burn. Thus modern thought was symbolically destroyed in the Fatherland, and a nation which had stood at the forefront of the intellectual life would learn to do its thinking with its "blood."
On that same tenth of May the schools of Germany were ordered to begin teaching the Nazi doctrines of "race." On that day the government confiscated all the funds belonging to the Socialist party and turned them over to the new Nazi-controlled unions. On that day Chancellor Hitler spoke to a Labor Congress, telling it that his own humble origin and upbringing fitted him to understand the needs of the workers and attend to them. On that day the correspondent of the New York Times was forbidden to cable news of the suicide of the daughter of Scheidemann, the Socialist leader, and of a woman tennis champion who had brought honor to Germany but who objected to the process of "co-ordinating" German sport with Nazi propaganda. Finally, on that day there was a parade of a hundred thousand persons down Broadway in New York, protesting against the treatment of German Jews.
VI
The members of the Budd family in Bienvenu and in Paris were packing and getting ready for a year’s absence from home. What should they take and what leave behind? Everything that was going on board the yacht had to be marked for the cabins or the hold. What was to be sent from Paris to Bienvenu was left in charge of Jerry Pendleton, who would see to its packing and unpacking. The ex-tutor and ex-lieutenant had saved most of his year’s salary, and would go back to the pension and wait for the tourists to return. Madame Zyszynski was to be loaned for a year to the munitions king—for the spirits of the Budds and Dingles appeared to have said their say, whereas the Duquesa Marqueni was still going strong. Bub Smith was to escort the priceless little Frances to the yacht and see her safely on board; then he would take a steamer and return to his job in Newcastle, until such time as the baby should arrive in the land of the gangsters and the home of the kidnapers.
The expedition from Bienvenu arrived in Paris by train: Hansi and Bess; Beauty and her husband; Marceline and her governess— the former nearly sixteen, an elegant young lady, but she would be made to study every day on the yacht, and if there was anything Miss Addington didn’t know, she would look it up in the encyclopedia, or the all-knowing Lanny would tell it to her. Frances was now three years old, and her entourage was made up of Miss Severne, a nurse, and the ex-cowboy from Texas. These ten persons arrived in the morning, and there was fuss and clamor, because they all wanted this or that before they got onto a yacht, and it seemed that so many bags and boxes had never before been heaped up in the entrance hall of a palace.