An agonizing thing to Hansi and Bess, to have to sit with folded hands while this horror was
going on. But the Nazis had made plain that they were going to revive the ancient barbarian
custom of punishing innocent members of a family in order to intimidate the guilty ones. A
man doesn't make quite such a good anti-Nazi fighter when he knows that he may be causing
his wife and children, his parents, his brothers and sisters, to be thrown into concentration
camps and tortured. Hansi had no choice but to cancel engagements he had made to play at
concerts for the benefit of refugees.
"Wait at least until the family is out of Germany," pleaded Beauty; and the young Reds
asked their consciences: "What then?" Did they have the right to go off on a pleasure yacht
while friends and comrades were suffering agonies? On the other hand, what about Papa's
need of rest? The sense of family solidarity is strong among the Jews. "Honor thy father and
thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." The
Lord in His wisdom had seen fit to take away the land, but the commandment still stood,
and Hansi thought of his father, who had given him the best of everything in the world, and now
would surely get no rest if his oldest son should declare war upon the Nazis. Also, there was
the mother, who had lived for her family and hardly had a thought of any other happiness.
Was she to be kept in terror from this time on?
"What do you think, Lanny?" asked the son of ancient Judea who wanted to be artist and
reformer at the same time. Lanny was moved to reveal to him the scheme which was cooking
in his mind for the entrapment of Johannes and the harnessing of his money. Hansi was
greatly pleased; this would put his conscience at rest and he could go on with his violin
studies. But Bess, the tough-minded one, remarked: "It'll be just one more liberal magazine."
"You can have a Red section, and put in your comments," replied Lanny, with a grin.
"It would break up the family," declared the granddaughter of the Puritans.
IV
Johannes wrote that he had got passports for his party, and set the date for the yacht to
arrive at Calais. Thence they would proceed to Ramsgate, run up to London for a few days, and
perhaps visit the Pomeroy-Nielsons—for this was going to be a pleasure trip, with time to do
anything that took anybody's fancy. "We have all earned a vacation," said the letter. Lanny
reflected that this might apply to Johannes Robin—but did it apply to Mr. Irma Barnes?
He wrote in answer: "Emily Chattersworth has arrived at Les Forêts, and Hansi is to give her
a concert with a very fine program. Why don't you and the family come at once and have a
few days in Paris? We are extremely anxious to see you. The spring Salon is the most
interesting I have seen in years. Zoltan is here and will sell you some fine pictures. Zaharoff is at
Balincourt, and Madame is out there with him; I will take you and you can have a seance, and
perhaps meet once more the spirits of your deceased uncles. There are other pleasures I might
suggest, and other reasons I might give why we are so very impatient to see you."
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
