“I haven’t had the pleasure.”
“I seldom see him myself. He’s a consulting engineer, you know, and his job takes him all over the country. He just got back from Canada and is taking a short holiday.”
“Really? Did he meet Ruth Esch?”
“No, I don’t believe so.”
“Of course not,” Peter Schneider said from the doorway. I turned and looked at him. If his pale eyes had not been incapable of expression, he would have been glaring at his father. “Canada is a large country, you know.”
His accent was surprisingly good, less evident than the old man’s, although Peter had only been in the country two years.
Dr. Schneider moved around me and said, “Of course, you were in Toronto, weren’t you? Peter, I’d like you to meet Dr. Branch. Dr. Branch, my son Peter.” There was no warmth and no fatherly condescension in his voice. The two spoke to each other as equals and their relation puzzled me.
“How-do-you-do,” Peter said and put out his hand. I answered him and stepped forward to shake it. It was soft and strong like his face, which was as rosy and smooth as a baby’s.
The strength of his face was in the bones. Under the light drift of hair the brow was wide, with bulbous ridges above the eyes. The nose was blunt and straight and the sharp, triangular chin looked determined, but the lower lip was thick and soft, like a woman’s or a sulky boy’s. His face, strong and petulant at once, was handsome enough, but two things made it strange. His eyelashes and eyebrows were so light that he seemed to have none, and his steady eyes were almost colorless and held no meaning. If the eyes are the windows of the soul, Peter Schneider’s soul had long ago pulled down the blinds and gone into another room.
“I know Toronto a bit,” I said.
“Really?”
I turned to Dr. Schneider. “Where was Ruth in Canada?”
He looked at his son and said nothing. Finally he spoke: “I don’t know.”
An elderly woman with drooping eyes and mouth and breasts came into the room and stood twisting her apron until Schneider said, “Ja?”
“Dinner is ready,” she said in German and stumped away on flat slippered feet.
I looked at Schneider and he said, “My housekeeper. I brought her with me from Germany and she has refused to learn English. Mrs. Shantz is an ignorant peasant, but she is a good cook.”
When the dinner had reached the coffee and cigarettes stage, I was ready to agree with him. Frau Shantz spoke only German but her cooking had a pleasant French accent. Good food and two Martinis had made me very comfortable from the neck down, and even Peter, though his invisible eyebrows kept their complacent scowl, had broken down and begun to talk.
Partly in the hope of finding out more than they had told me and partly for the sake of talking about her, I told them some of the things I knew about Ruth. I watched their faces when I described her attempt to protect the old Jewish doctor.
Dr. Schneider surprised me by looking entirely sympathetic and saying, “She was very brave, very brave. If more Germans had such moral courage, certain – ah – conditions would be impossible.”
“She’s a virtuous woman,” I said, “with the courage to follow it through.”
“Courageous, certainly,” Peter Schneider said. “Nobody can deny it. But why do you call her virtuous, Dr. Branch? Is virtue merely physical courage, the early Roman virtus?”
“Moral courage as well,” I said, looking into his eyes to see what he was getting at. His eyes said nothing: it was like looking into the depths of a wash-basin. I went on: “Her feelings were decent and right and she acted in accord with them.”
“Naturally, we sympathize with her feelings because they agree with our prejudices, against anti-Semitism for example. But is virtue merely a matter of the feelings of the individual? What if the feelings are wrong? Say I have an uncontrollable urge to maim small children, is such an act sanctioned and made virtuous by my mere possession of such an impulse? I distrust the feelings of men in general. I subscribe to the doctrine of original sin.”
“I hadn’t thought of you as a religious man, Mr. Schneider,” I said in the hope of insulting him. “You’d base your ethics in dogma or revelation then, would you?”
“Of course not, I was speaking figuratively. I base morality in the common good. If you act for the common good, you are doing the right thing.”
“Whose common good?”
“The good of the community. The political group or state, whatever the group happens to be.”
“Is there no morality above the state?”
“Obviously not. Morality varies from place to place. In Russia it is not considered moral to deprive colored people of civil rights. In America and India it is considered moral.”
“That merely proves that the state or community can be wrong.”
“Who is to decide that the state is wrong? The individual following some inner light?” There was a sneer in his tone but his face was blank of anything but the permanent scowl which grew more complacent by the minute. I looked towards Dr. Schneider at the head of the table. His eyes were hooded and his face was shut up.
“Call it inner light if you wish, or conscience or the superego. Whatever you call it, it knows that some things are wrong.”
“You are an unconscious anarchist, Dr. Branch. You would set up the feeling or impulses of the individual against the laws, against the good of the state.”
“If the laws are evil, they are not for the good of the state. Denying the validity of the individual conscience leaves no check on the state. Whatever it does is right.”
“If it is successful, yes,” Peter Schneider said, as if that clinched the argument. “If unsuccessful, no.”
“Successful in doing what?”
“In furthering the interests of its people, or as many of them as possible.”
“You’re arguing in a circle,” I said, “but let that pass. Can the good of the majority of the people sanction, or perhaps even include, the persecution or misery of a minority?”
“Obviously,” Peter said, and leaned forward across the table. “I cite the Negroes in the United States.”
“And the Jews in Germany?”
“You’re trying to drive me into an anti-Semitic position, Dr. Branch.”
“Not at all. I’m trying to drive you out of an anti-Semitic position.”
“Nonsense. I merely said that the individual could not be sure of being right when he takes the law into his own hands. Especially a woman, a young girl.”
“You seem to share Hitler’s prejudice against women,” I said, “as well as his prejudice against Jews.”
“I have no concern with Hitler,” Peter said.
Dr. Schneider spoke for the first time in minutes, “It is not entirely courteous to argue so strenuously with a guest. You must accept our apologies, Dr. Branch.” His voice was a light monotone which contrasted with his usual rich blatancy. It sounded as if he was afraid to speak but couldn’t help himself.
I said, “The conversation is both interesting and instructive. I believe that Mr. Schneider was about to expound an old Turkish doctrine regarding the inferiority of women.”
“Ach, women,” Peter said. “You Americans are hag-ridden by your women. They ride on your shoulders and strangle you with their legs. Their legs are pretty, of course. But why should they be treated as equals? Would you give equal civil rights to a race-horse?”
“If it had equal intelligence and other human qualities.”
“Are women equal in intelligence to men?”
“Not if they’re not educated. The Middle Ages proved that.”
“Why attempt to educate them? Women can perform their natural functions without education. Most of them are hardly more complicated than a child’s puzzle. Press three buttons in the proper sequence and the gates open. The gates of Aulis and the gates of hell. Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”