keep him from chasing every will-o'-the-wisp that crosses his path."
IX
So these two boyhood friends got together and renewed their confidences. Life had played
strange tricks upon them, beyond any foreseeing. Back in the peaceful Saxon village of
Hellerau where they had met just twenty years ago, dancing Gluck's
somebody had told them about the World War, less than a year off, and five years later Kurt
in Paris as a German secret agent, passing ten thousand francs at a time to Uncle Jesse to be
used in stirring up revolt among the French workers! Or suppose they had been told about a
pitiful artist
night among the bums and derelicts of Vienna— and destined twenty years later to become the
master of all Germany! What would they have said to that?
But here was Adolf Hitler, the one and only Führer of the Fatherland, sole possessor of a
solution to the social problem and at the same time of the power to put it into effect. Kurt
explained what Adi was doing and intended to do, and Lanny listened with deep attention. "It
sounds too good to be true," was the younger man's comment.
The Komponist replied: "You will see it, and then you will believe." To himself he said: "Poor
Lanny! He's good, but he's a weakling. Like all the rest of the world, he's impressed by
success."Having been Beauty's lover for eight years, Kurt knew the American language, and
thought: "He is getting ready to climb onto the bandwagon."
So, when the young couple drove away to Berlin, they left everything at Stubendorf the way
they wanted it. Kurt was again their friend, and ready to accept whatever good news might
come concerning them. They could ask him for advice, and for introductions, if needed; they
could invite him to Berlin to see the Detaze show, and exploit his musical reputation for their
own purposes. Lanny didn't let this trouble his conscience; it was for Freddi Robin, not for
himself. Freddi, too, was a musician, a child of Bach and Beethoven and Brahms just as much
as Kurt. Many compositions those two Germans had played together, and the clarinetist had
given the Komponist many practical hints about writing for that instrument.
When Lanny had mentioned to Kurt that Freddi had been missing since the month of May,
Kurt had said: "Oh, poor fellow!"
—but that was all. He hadn't said: "We must look into it, Lanny, because mistakes are often
made, and a harmless, gentle idealist must not be made to pay the penalties for other people's
offenses." Yes, Kurt should have said that, but he wouldn't, because he had become a full-
fledged Nazi, despising both Marxists and Jews, and unwilling to move a finger to help even
the best of them. But Lanny was going to help Freddi—and take the liberty of making Kurt
take part in the enterprise.
X
On the day that Irma and Lanny arrived at the Hotel Adlon, another guest, an elderly
American, was severely beaten by a group of Brownshirts because he failed to notice that a
parade was passing and to give the Nazi salute. When he went to the Polizeiwache to complain
about it, the police offered to show him how to give the Nazi salute. Episodes such as this,
frequently repeated, had had the effect of causing the trickle of tourists to stop; and this was
fortunate for an art expert and his wife, because it made them important, and caused space to be
given to Detaze and his work. Everybody desired to make it clear that the great art-loving
public of Berlin was not provincial in its tastes, but open to all the winds that blew across the
world.
Lanny talked about his former stepfather who had had his face burned off in the war and had
done his greatest painting in a white silk mask. His work was in the Luxembourg, in the
National Gallery of London, and the Metropolitan Museum of New York; now Lanny was
contemplating a one-man show in Berlin, and had invited the famous authority Zoltan Kertezsi
to take charge of it. Before giving out photographs or further publicity concerning the matter, he
wished to consult Reichsminister Doktor Joseph Goebbels, and be sure that his plans were
agreeable to the government. That was the proper way to handle matters with a controlled press;
the visitor's tact was appreciated, and the interviews received more space than would have been
given if he had appeared anxious to obtain it.
Lanny had already sent a telegram to Magda Goebbels, and her secretary had telephoned an
appointment for the next day. While Irma stayed in her rooms and practiced her German on
maids and manicurists and hair-dressers, Lanny drove to the apartment in the Reichstagplatz,
and bowed and kissed the hand of the first lady of the Fatherland—such was, presumably, her
position, Hitler being a bachelor and Göring a widower. Lanny had brought along two footmen
from the hotel, bearing paintings, just as had been done in the days of Marie Antoinette, and
those of her mother, the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. The
