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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13496-0.txt b/13496-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..65e4d5f --- /dev/null +++ b/13496-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3400 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13496 *** + +THE WHITE MORNING + +A Novel of the Power of the German Women in Wartime + +by + +GERTRUDE ATHERTON + + + + + + + +[Illustration: GISELA +_Photograph by Arnold Genthe, N.Y._] + + + + +I + + +1 + +Countess Gisela Niebuhr sat in the long dusk of Munich staring over at +the beautiful park that in happier days had been famous in the world as +the Englischer Garten, and deliberately recalled on what might be the +last night of her life the successive causes that had led to her +profound dissatisfaction with her country as a woman. She was so +thoroughly disgusted with it as a German that personal grievances were +far from necessary to fortify her for the momentous rôle she was to play +with the dawn; but in this rare hour of leisure it amused her naturally +introspective mind to rehearse certain episodes whose sum had made her +what she was. + +When she was fourteen and her sisters Lili and Elsa sixteen and eighteen +they had met in the attic of their home in Berlin one afternoon when +their father was automatically at his club and their mother taking her +prescribed hour of rest, and solemnly pledged one another never to +marry. The causes of this vital conclave were both cumulative and +immediate. Their father, the Herr Graf, a fine looking junker of sixty +odd, with a roving eye and a martial air despite a corpulence which +annoyed him excessively, had transferred his lost authority over his +regiment to his household. The boys were in their own regiments and rid +of parental discipline, but the countess and the girls received the full +benefit of his military, and Prussian, relish for despotism. + +In his essence a kind man and fond of his women, he balked their every +individual wish and allowed them practically no liberty. They never left +the house unattended, like the American girls and those fortunate beings +of the student class. Lili had a charming voice and was consumed with +ambition to be an operatic star. She had summoned her courage upon one +memorable occasion and broached the subject to her father. All the +terrified family had expected his instant dissolution from apoplexy, and +in spite of his petty tyrannies they loved him. The best instructor in +Berlin continued to give her lessons, as nothing gave the Graf more +pleasure of an evening than her warblings. + +The household, quite apart from the Frau Gräfin's admirable management, +ran with military precision, and no one dared to be the fraction of a +minute late for meals or social engagements. They attended the theater, +the opera, court functions, dinners, balls, on stated nights, and unless +the Kaiser took a whim and altered a date, there was no deviation from +this routine year in and out. They walked at the same hour, drove in the +Tiergarten with the rest of fashionable Berlin, started for their castle +in the Saxon Alps not only upon the same day but on the same train every +summer, and the electric lights went out at precisely the same moment +every night; the count's faithful steward manipulated a central stop. +They were encouraged to read and study, but not--oh, by no means--to +have individual opinions. The men of Germany were there to do the +thinking and they did it. + +Perhaps the rebellion of the Niebuhr girls would never have crystallized +(for, after all, their everyday experience was much like that of other +girls of their class, merely intensified by their father's persistence +of executive ardors) had it not been for two subtle influences, quite +unsuspected by the haughty Kammerherr: they had an American friend, Kate +Terriss, who was "finishing her voice" in Berlin, and their married +sister, Mariette, had recently spent a fortnight in the paternal nest. + +The count despised the entire American race, as all good Prussians did, +but he was as wax to feminine blandishments outside of his family, and +Miss Terriss was pretty, diplomatic, alluring, and far cleverer than he +would have admitted any woman could be. She wound the old martinet +round her finger, subdued her rampant Americanism in his society, and +amused herself sowing the seeds of rebellion in the minds of "those poor +Niebuhr girls." As the countess also liked her, she had been "in and out +of the house" for nearly a year. The young Prussians had alternately +gasped and wept at the amazing stories of the liberty, the petting, the +procession of "good times" enjoyed by American girls of their own class, +to say nothing of the invariable prerogative of these fortunate girls to +choose their own husbands; who, according to the unprincipled Miss +Terriss, invariably spoiled their wives, and permitted them to go and +come, to spend their large personal allowances, as they listed. Gisela +closed her beloved volume of Grimm's fairy tales and never opened it +again. + +But it was the visit of Mariette that had marshalled vague +dissatisfactions to an ordered climax. She had left her husband in the +garrison town she had married with the excellent young officer, making +a trifling indisposition of her mother a pretext for escape. On the +night before her departure the four girls huddled in her bed after the +opera and listened to an incisive account of her brief but distasteful +period of matrimony. Not that she suffered from tyranny. Quite the +reverse. Of her several suitors she had cannily engineered into her +father's favor a young man of pleasing appearance, good title and +fortune, but quite without character behind his fierce upstanding +mustache. Inheriting her father's rigid will, she had kept the young +officer in a state of abject submission. She stroked his hair in public +as if he had been her pet dachshund, and patted his hand at kindly +intervals as had he been her dear little son. + +"But Karl has the soul of a sheep," she informed the breathless trio. +"You might not be so fortunate. Far, far from it. How can any one more +than guess before one is fairly married and done for? Look at papa. Does +he not pass in society as quite a charming person? The women like him, +and if poor mama died he could get another quick as a wink. But at the +best, my dear girls, matrimony--in Germany, at least--is an unmitigated +bore. And in a garrison town! Literally, there is no liberty, even with +one's husband under the thumb. We live by rote. Every afternoon I have +to take coffee at some house or other, when all those tiresome women are +not at my own. And what do you suppose they talk about--but invariably? +_Love!_" (With ineffable disdain.) "Nothing else, barring gossip and +scandal; as if they got any good out of _love_! But they are stupid for +the most part and gorged with love novels. They discuss the opera or the +play for the love element only, or the sensual quality of the music. Let +me tell you that although I married to get rid of papa, if I had it to +do over I should accept parental tyranny as the lesser evil. Not that I +am not fond of Karl in a way. He is a dear and would be quite harmless +if he were not in love with me. But garrison society--Gott, how German +wives would rejoice in a war! Think of the freedom of being a Red Cross +nurse, and all the men at the front. Officers would be your fate, too. +Papa would not look at a man who was not in the army. He despises men +who live on their estates. So take my advice while you may. Sit tight, +as the English say. Even German fathers do not live forever. The lime in +our soil sees to that. I notice papa's face gets quite purple after +dinner, and when he is angry. His arteries must have been hardening for +twenty years." + +Lili and Elsa were quite aghast at this naked ratiocination, but Gisela +whispered: "We might elope, you know." + +"With whom? No Englishman or American ever crosses the threshold, and +Kate has no brothers. The students have no money and no morals, and, +what is worse, no baths. A burgess or a professional would be quite as +intolerable, and no man of our class would consent to an elopement. +Germans may be sentimental but they are not romantic when it comes to +settlements. Now take my advice." + +They were taking it on this fateful day in the attic. They vowed never +to marry even if their formidable papa locked them up on bread and +water. + +"Which would be rather good for us," remarked the practical Elsa. "I am +sure we eat too much, and Gisela has a tendency to plumpness. But your +turn will not come for four years yet, dear child. It is poor us that +will need all our vows." + +After some deliberation they concluded to inform their mother of their +grim resolve. Naturally sympathetic, a pregnant upheaval had taken place +in that good lady's psychology during the past year. Her marriage, +although arranged by the two families, had been a love match on both +sides. The Graf was a handsome dashing and passionate lover and she a +beautiful girl, lively and companionable. Disillusion was slow in +coming, for she had been brought up on the soundest German principles +and believed in the natural superiority of the male as she did in the +House of Hohenzollern and the Lutheran religion. + +But she suspected, during her thirties, that she was, after all, the +daughter of a brilliant father as well as of an obsequious mother, and +that she had possibilities of mind and spirit that clamored for +development and fired the imagination, while utterly without hope. In +other words she was, like many another German woman, in her secret +heart, an individual. But she was not a rebel; her social code forbade +that. She manufactured interests for herself as rapidly, and as various, +as possible, preserved her good looks in spite of her eight children +(the two that followed Gisela died in infancy), dressed far better than +most German women, cultivated society, gave four notable musicales a +season, and was devoted to her sons and daughters, although she never +opposed her husband's stern military discipline of those seemingly +typical mädchens. It was her policy to keep the martinet in a good +humor, and after all--she had condemned herself not to think--what +better destiny than to be a German woman of the higher aristocracy? They +might have been born into the middle class, where there were quite as +many tyrants as in the patrician, and vastly fewer compensations. At the +age of forty-four she believed herself to be a philosopher. + +Six months before Mariette's marriage and shortly after the birth and +death of her last child, Frau von Niebuhr suddenly returned to her bed, +prostrate, on the verge of collapse. The count raged that any wife of +his should dare to be ill or absent (when not fulfilling patriotic +obligations), consult her own selfish whims by having nerves and lying +speechless in bed. But he had a very considerable respect for Herr +Doktor Meyers--a rank plebeian but the best doctor in Berlin--and when +that family adviser, as autocratic as himself, ordered the Frau Gräfin +to go to a sanatorium in the Austrian Dolomites--but alone, mind +you!--and remain as long as he--I, myself, Herr Graf!--deemed advisable, +with no intercourse, personal or chirographical with her family, the +Head of the House of Niebuhr angrily gave his consent and sent for a +sister to chaperon his girls. + +The countess remained until the eve of Mariette's wedding, and she +passed those six months in one of the superlatively beautiful mountain +resorts of Austria. She was solitary, for the most part, and she did an +excessive amount of thinking. She returned to her duties with a deep +disgust of life as she knew it, a cynical contempt for women, and a +profound sense of revolt. Her natural diplomacy she had increased +tenfold. + +When the three girls, their eyes very large, and speaking in whispers, +although their father was at a yearly talk-fest with his old brothers in +arms, confided to their mother their resolution never in any +circumstances to adopt a household tyrant of their own, she nodded +understandingly. + +"Leave it to me," she said. "Your father can be managed, little as he +suspects it. I'll find the weak spot in each of the suitors he brings +to the house and set him against all of them." + +"And my voice?" asked Lili timidly. But the Frau Gräfin shook her head. +"There I cannot help you. He thinks an artistic career would disgrace +his family, and that is the end of it. Moreover, he regards women of any +class in public life as a disgrace to Germany. My assistance must be +passive--apparently. It will be enough to have no worse. Take my word +and Mariette's for that." + +The Gräfin, true to her word, quietly disposed of the several suitors +approved by her husband, and although the autocrat sputtered and +raged--the Gräfin, her youngest daughter shrewdly surmised, rather +encouraged these exciting tempers--arguing that these three girls bade +fair to remain on his hands for ever, he ended always by agreeing that +the young officers were unworthy of an alliance with the ancient and +honorable House of Niebuhr. + +The battles ended abruptly when Gisela was eighteen and a fat Lieutenant +of Uhlans, suing for the hand of the youngest born, and vehemently +supported by the Graf, had just been turned adrift. The Graf dropped +dead in his club. He left a surprisingly small estate for one who had +presented so pompous a front to the world. But not only had his sons +been handsomely portioned when they entered the army, and Mariette when +she married, but the excellent count, to relieve the increasing monotony +of days no longer enlivened by maneuvers and boudoirs, had amused +himself on the stock exchange. His judgment had been singularly bad and +he had dropped most of his capital and lived on the rest. + +The town house must be sold and the countess and her daughters retire to +her castle in the Saxon Alps. As there were no portions for the girls, +the haunting terrors of matrimony were laid. + +The four women took their comparative poverty with equanimity. The +countess had been as practical and economical as all German housewives, +even when relieved by housekeepers and stewards, and she calculated +that with a meager staff of servants and two years of seclusion she +should be able to furnish a flat in Berlin and pay a year's rent in +advance. Then by living for half the year on her estate she should save +enough for six highly agreeable months in the capital. Perhaps she might +let her castle to some rich brewer or American; and this she eventually +did. + +Lili was given permission to study for the operatic stage and spend the +following winter in Dresden, where Mariette's husband was now quartered. +It was just before they moved to the country that the Gräfin said to her +girls as they sat at coffee in the dismantled house: + +"You shall have all that I never had, fulfil all the secret ambitions of +my younger heart. If you are individuals, prove it. You may go on the +stage, write, paint, study law, medicine, what you will. You have been +bred aristocrats and aristocrats you will remain. It is not liberty that +vulgarizes. Don't hate men. They have charming phases and moods; but +avoid entangling alliances until you are thirty. After that you will +know them well enough to avoid that fatal initial submergence. The whole +point is to begin with your eyes open and your campaign clearly thought +out. + +"I, too, purpose to get a great deal out of life now that my fate is in +my own hands. By the summer we shall even be able to travel a little. +Third-class, yet that will be far more amusing than stuffed into one of +those plush carriages with the windows closed and forbidden to speak +with any one in the corridor. And forced to carry all the hand-luggage +off the train (when your father had an economical spasm and would not +take a footman) while he stalked out first as if we did not exist. I +shall never marry again--Gott in Himmel, no!--but I shall gather about +me all the interesting men I never have been able to have ten minutes' +conversation with alone; and, so far as is humanly possible, do exactly +as I please. My ego has been starved. I shall always be your best +friend--but think for yourselves." + +Gisela had no gift that she was aware of, but she was intellectual and +had longed to finish her education at one of the great universities. As +she was not strong, however, she was content to spend a year in the +mountains; and then, robust, and on a meager income, she went to Munich +to attend the lectures on art and literature and to perfect herself in +French and English. She took a small room in an old tower near the +Frauenkirche and lived the students' life, probably the freest of any +city in the world. She dropped her title and name lest she be barred +from that socialistic community as well as discovered by horrified +relatives, and called herself Gisela Döring. After she had taken her +degree she passed a month in Berlin with her mother, who already had +established a salon, but she was determined to support herself and see +the world at the same time. Herr Doktor Meyers found her a position as +governess with a wealthy American patient, and, under her assumed name, +she sailed immediately for New York. + +The Bolands had a house in upper Fifth Avenue and others at Newport, +Aiken and Bar Harbor; and when not occupying these stations were in +Europe or southern California. The two little girls passed the summer at +Bar Harbor with their governess. + +It took Gisela some time to accustom herself to the position of upper +servant in that household of many servants, but she possessed humor and +she had had governesses herself. Her salary was large, she had one +entire day in the week to herself, except at Bar Harbor, and during her +last summer in the United States Mrs. Boland had a violent attack of +"America first" and took her children and their admirable governess not +only to California but to the Yellowstone Park, the Grand Cañon and +Canada. They traveled in a private car, and Gisela, who could enjoy the +comfortless quarters of a student flat in Munich with all that life +meant in the free and beautiful city by the Isar, could also revel in +luxury; and this wonderful summer, following as it did the bitter climax +of her first serious love affair, seemed to her all the consolation that +a mere woman could ask. At all events she felt for it an intense and +lasting gratitude. + + +2 + +It was during her first summer at Bar Harbor that the second determining +experience of her life began, and it lasted for three years. She dwelt +upon it to-night with humor, sadness, and, for a moment, thrilling +regret, but without bitterness. That had passed long since. + +She was virtual mistress of the house at Bar Harbor, and as the children +had a trained nurse and a maid, besides many little friends, she had +more leisure than in the city with her one day of complete detachment. +She met Freiherr Franz von Nettelbeck when she was walking with her +charges and he was strolling with the little girls of the Howland +family. The introductions were informal, and as they fell naturally +into German there was an immediate bond. Nettelbeck was an attaché of +the German Embassy who preferred to spend his summers at Bar Harbor. He +was of the fair type of German most familiar to Americans, with a fine +slim military figure, deep fiery blue eyes and a lively mind. His golden +hair and mustache stood up aggressively, and his carriage was exceeding +haughty, but those were details too familiar to be counted against him +by Gisela. Her rich brunette beauty was now as ripe as her tall full +figure, and she was one of those women, rare in Germany, who could dress +well on nothing at all. She too possessed a lively mind, and after her +long New York winter was feeling her isolation. Her first interview +(which included a long stroll and a canoe ride) with this young diplomat +of her own land, visibly lifted her spirits, and she sang as she braided +her heavy mass of hair that night. + +Franz, like most unattached young Germans, was on the lookout for a +soul-mate (which he was far too sophisticated to anticipate in +matrimony), and this handsome, brilliant, subtly responsive, and wholly +charming young woman of the only country worth mentioning entered his +life when he too was lonely and rather bored. It was his third year in +the United States of America and he did not like the life nor the +people. Nevertheless, he was trying to make up his mind to pay court to +Ann Howland, a young lady whose dashing beauty was somewhat overpoised +by salient force of character and an uncompromisingly keen and direct +mind, but whose fortune eclipsed by several millions that of the +high-born maiden selected by his family. + +Here was a heaven-sent interval, with intellectual companionship in +addition to the game of the gods. Being a German girl, Gisela Döring +would be aware that he could not marry out of his class, unless the +plebeian pill were heavily gilded. To do him justice, he would not have +married the wealthiest plebeian in Germany. An American: that was +another matter. If there were such a thing as an aristocracy in this +absurd country which pretended to be a democracy and whose "society" was +erected upon the visible and screaming American dollar, no doubt Miss +Howland belonged to the highest rank. In Germany she would have been a +princess--probably of a mediatized house, and, he confessed it amiably +enough, she looked the part more unapologetically than several he could +mention. + +So did Gisela Döring. He sighed that a woman who would have graced the +court of his Kaiser should have been tossed by a bungling fate into the +rank and file of the good German people; so laudably content to play +their insignificant part in their country's magnificent destiny. + +Gisela never told him the truth. Sometimes, irritated by his subtle +arrogance, she was tempted. Also consuming love tempted her. But of what +use? She was without fortune and he must add to his. He had a limited +income and expensive tastes, and when a young nobleman in the diplomatic +service marries he must take a house and live with a certain amount of +state. Moreover, he intended to be an ambassador before he was +forty-five, and he was justified in his ambitions, for he was +exceptionally clever and his rise had been rapid. But now he was +care-free and young, and love was his right. + +Gisela understood him perfectly. Not only was she of his class, but her +brother Karl had madly loved a girl in a chocolate shop and wept +tempestuously beside her bed while their father slept. He married +philosophically when his hour struck. + +But if she understood she was also romantic. She forgot her vow to live +alone, her mother's advice, and dreamed of a moment of overwhelming +madness which would sweep them both up to the little church on the +mountain. There, like a true heroine of old-time fiction, she would +announce her own name at the altar. This moment, however, did not +arrive. Nettelbeck, too, was romantic, but his head was as level within +as it was flat behind. He never went near the church on the mountain. + +There was no surface lovemaking during the first two summers, or in the +winter following the second summer, when he came over from Washington on +her Wednesday as often as he could, and they had luncheon and tea in +byway restaurants. They were both fascinated by the game, and they had +an infinite number of things to talk about, for their minds were really +congenial. They disputed with fire and fury. It was a part of Gisela's +dormant genius to grasp instinctively the psychology of foreign nations, +and before she had been in the United States a year she understood it +far better than Nettelbeck ever would. Even if he had despised it less +he would have lavished all the resources of his wit upon a country so +different from Germany in every phase that it must necessarily be +negligible save as a future colony of Prussia, if only for the pleasure +of seeing Gisela's long eyes open and flash, the dusky red in her +cheeks burn crimson and her bosom heave at his "junker narrow-mindedness +and stupid arrogance"--; "a stupidity that will be the ruin of Germany +in the end!" she exclaimed one day in a sudden moment of illumination, +for, as a matter of fact, she had given little thought to politics. +However, she recalled her typical papa. + +Of course they talked their German souls inside out. At least Nettelbeck +did. As time went on, Gisela used her frankness as a mask while her soul +dodged in panic. She believed him to be lightly and agreeably in love +with her (she had witnessed many summer flirtations at Bar Harbor, and +been laid siege to by more than one young American, idle, enterprising, +charming and quite irresponsible), and she was appalled at her own +capacity for love and suffering, the complete rout of her theories, +based on harsh experience, before the ancient instinct to unleash her +womanhood at any cost. + +She plunged into a serious study of the country, which she had +heretofore absorbed with her avid mental conduits, and read innumerable +newspapers, magazines, elucidating literature of all sorts, besides the +best histories of the nation and the illuminating biographies of its +distinguished men in politics and the arts. She was deeply responsive to +the freedom of the individual in this great whirling heterogeneous land, +and as her duties at any time were the reverse of onerous, it was +imperative to keep her consciousness as detached from her inner life as +possible. + +But at the back of her mind was always the haunting terror that he never +would come again, that he was really more attracted to Ann Howland than +he knew; and of all American women whom Gisela had met she admired Miss +Howland preëminently. She was not only beautiful in the grand manner but +she possessed intellect as distinguished from the surface "brightness" +of so many of her countrywomen, and had made a deep impression upon even +the superlatively educated German girl when they had chanced to meet and +talk at children's picnics at Bar Harbor, or when the triumphant young +beauty ran up to the nursery in town to bring a message to the little +Bolands from her sisters. It was true that hers was not the seductive +type of beauty, that her large gray eyes were cool and appraising, her +fine skin quite without color, and her soft abundant hair little darker +than Franz's own, but she could be feminine and charming when she chose +and she would be a wife in whom even a German would experience a secret +and swelling pride. + +What chance had she--she--Gisela Döring? + +There were days and weeks, during that second winter, when she was +tormented by a sort of sub-hysteria, a stifled voice in the region of +her heart threatening to force its way out and shriek. There were times +when she gave way to despair, and thought of her vigorous youth with a +shudder, and at other times she was so angry and humiliated at her +surrender and secret chaos, that she was on the point more than once of +breaking definitely with Franz Nettelbeck, or even of going back to +Germany. If he missed a Wednesday, or failed to write, she slipped out +of the house at night and paced Central Park for hours, fighting her +rebellious nerves with her pride and the strong independent will that +she had believed would enable her to leap lightly over every pitfall in +life. + +Then he would come and her spirits would soar, her whole awakened being +possessed by a sort of reckless fury, a desperate resolve to enjoy the +meager portion of happiness allotted to her by an always grudging fate; +and for a few days after he left she would give herself up to blissful +and extravagant dreams. + +But Nettelbeck was by no means lightly in love with Gisela Döring. +During the third summer, partly owing to the increased independence of +her growing charges, partly to his own expert management, they met in +long solitudes seldom disturbed. Gisela dismissed fears, ignored the +inevitable end, plunged headlong and was wildly happy. Nettelbeck was an +ardent and absorbed lover, for he knew that his time was short, and he +was determined to have one perfect memory in his secret life that the +woman who bore his name should never violate. Miss Howland had meted him +the portion his dilatoriness invited and married a fine upstanding young +American whose career was in Washington; and his family had peremptorily +commanded him to return in the spring (with the Kaiser's permission, a +mandate in itself) and marry the patient Baronin Irma Hammorwörth. + +And so for a summer and a winter they were happy. + +Gisela averted her mind tonight from the parting with something of the +almost forgotten panic. She had never dared to dwell upon it, nor on the +month that followed. Her powerful will had rebelled finally and she had +fought down and out of her consciously functioning mind the details of +her tragic passion, and even reveled arrogantly in the sensation of +deliverance from the slavery of love. Simultaneously she was swept off +to see the great natural wonders of the American continent and they had +intoned the requiem. + +The following autumn she returned to Germany and paid her mother another +brief visit. + +There all was well. Frau von Niebuhr, who had not developed a white hair +and whose Viennese maid was a magician in the matter of gowns and +complexion, was enjoying life and had a daring salon; that is to say +gatherings in which all the men did not wear uniforms nor prefix the +sacred von. She drew the line at bad manners, but otherwise all (and of +any nation) who had distinguished themselves, or possessed the priceless +gift of personality, were welcome there; and although she lived to be +amused and make up what she had lost during thirty unspeakable years, +she progressed inevitably in keenness of insight and breadth of vision. +She had become a student of politics and stared into the future with +deepening apprehension, but of this she gave not a hint to Gisela. +Mariette was her closest friend and only confidante. Mariette was now +living in Berlin, and amusing herself in ways Frau von Niebuhr +disapproved, mainly because she thought it wiser to banish men from +one's inner life altogether; but, true to her code, she forebore +remonstrance. + +Lili, having discovered that her voice was not for grand opera, had +philosophically descended to the concert stage and was excitedly happy +in her success and independence. Elsa was a Red Cross nurse. + +Gisela met Franz von Nettelbeck at a court function and had her little +revenge. He was furious, and vowed, quite audibly, that he would never +forgive her. But Gisela was merely disturbed lest the Obersthofmeisterin +who stood but three feet away overhear his caustic remarks. +Distinguished professors (without their wives) might go to court as a +reward for shedding added luster upon the German Empire, but lesser +mortals who had received payment for services rendered might not. Her +independent mother, still a favorite, for she was exceeding discreet, +would have incurred the imperial displeasure if the truth were known. +However, the incident passed unnoticed, and Franz, whatever his +shortcomings, was a gentleman and kept her secret. + +The scene at the palace had been brilliant and sustaining and she had +received much personal homage, for she was looking very beautiful and +radiant, and the little adventure had been incense to her pride +(moreover the young Freifrau von Nettelbeck, whom she saw on his arm +later, was an insignificant little hausfrau); but when she was in her +room after midnight she realized grimly that if she had not done her +work so well during that terrible month in New York and buried her sex +heart, she should once more be beating the floor or the wall with her +impotent hands. But the knowledge of her immunity made her a little sad. + + +3 + +The next episode to her grim humor was wholly amusing, although it +played its part in her developing sense of revolt against the attitude +of the German male to the sex of the mother that bore him. She returned +to Munich after a month in Berlin, for by this time she had made up her +mind to write, and the city by the Isar was the most beautiful in the +world to write and to dream in. Moreover, she wished to attend the +lectures on drama at the University. + +The four years in America, during which she had, in spite of her +sentimental preoccupation, studied diligently every phase that passed +before her keen critical vision, analyzed every person she had met, and +passed many of her evenings in the study of the best contemporary +fiction, had, associated with the spur of her own upheaval, developed +her imagination, and her head was full of unwritten stories. They were +highly realistic, of course, as became a modern German, but unmistakably +dramatic. + +She attended the lectures, practising on short stories meanwhile, +devoting most of her effort to becoming a stylist, that she might attain +immediate recognition whatever her matter. She lived in a small but +comfortable hotel, for not only had she saved the greater part of her +salary, but the Bolands, however oblivious socially of a paid attendant, +had a magnificent way with them at Christmas, and had given her an even +larger cheque at parting. + +In Munich she was once more Gisela Döring, once more led the student +life. There are liberties even for people of rank in Munich, and many +nobles, exasperated with the rigid class lines of Berlin and other +German capitals, move there, and, while careful to attend court +functions, make intelligent friends in all sets. They are, or were, the +happiest people in Germany. Here Gisela could sit alone in a café by the +hour reading the illustrated papers and smoking with her coffee, +attracting no attention whatever. She joined parties of students during +the summer and tramped the Bavarian Alps, and she danced all night at +student balls. Nevertheless, she managed to hold herself somewhat aloof +and it was understood that she did not live the "loose" life of the +"artist class." She was much admired for her stately beauty and her +style, and if the young people of that free and easy community were at +times inclined to resent a manifest difference, they succumbed to her +magnetism, and respected her obvious devotion to a high literary ideal. + +It was during her second winter that she met Georg Zottmyer. + +He was a tall, narrow, angular young man with a small clipped head and +preëminent ears. His narrow face was set with narrower features, and his +eyes were very bright, and the windows of his conceit. Although his +income was minute he boasted a father of note in the University of +Leipzig, and his mother had traveled and written a scathing satire on +the United States of America. He had not a grain of originality or +imagination, but he too was taking the course in dramatic art, and +reading for that degree without whose magic letters he could not hope to +take his place in the world of art to which his parts entitled him. He +met Gisela in the lecture room and immediately became her cavalier. + +At first Gisela endeavored to get rid of him by an icy front, but this +he took for feminine coquetry and his own front was serene. As he had +made up his mind to be a dramatist merely because the career appealed +acutely to his itching ambition, so did he in due course make up his +mind to marry this handsome brunette (what hair he had was drab) who +bore all the earmarks of secret wealth in spite of the fact that she +lived in a small hotel. As time went on, Gisela resigned herself and put +his little ego under her microscope. + +His wooing was methodical. He not only walked home with her after every +lecture, but he gave her a series of teas in his high little flat, and +he really did know "people." His parental introductions had given him +the entrée to the professional circles, and he cultivated society both +semi-fashionable and ultra-literary. He knew no one who had not +"arrived." + +He chose an unpropitious day for a tentative declaration of his +intentions. It was very cold. White mufflers protected his outstanding +ears, a gray woolen scarf was wound about his long neck and almost +covered his tight little mouth. He wore mitts and wristlets, and his +nose was crimson. Gisela, in a new set of furs, sent her for Christmas +by Mariette, and a smart gown of wine-colored cloth, looked radiant. Her +dark eyes shone with joy in the cold electric air of that high plateau, +her cheeks were red, her warm full-lipped mouth was parted over her even +white teeth. They walked from the University down the great +Leopoldstrasse, one of the finest streets in Europe, toward the Café +Luitpold, where he had invited her to drink coffee. + +There was little conversation during that brisk walk. He was frozen, and +she was not thinking of him at all. At the café he selected an alcove as +far from the noisy groups of students as possible. All the "trees" were +hung with colored caps and the atmosphere was dense with smoke. + +Zottmyer, who, after all, was young, soon thawed out in the warm room, +and when he had cheered his interior with a large cup of hot coffee and +lit a cigarette, he brought up the subject of matrimony. He had no +intention of proposing in these surroundings, but it was time to pave +the way--or set the pattern of the tiling; he cultivated the divergent +phrase. + +"It is time I married," he announced, and, not to appear too serious, he +smiled into her glowing face. She looked happy enough to encourage a man +far less fatuous than Georg Zottmyer. + +"Yes?" Gisela's eyes had wandered to the nearest group of students and +she was wondering if they might not have made handsome men had they +permitted their duel wounds to heal instead of excoriating them with +salt and pepper. "Most German men marry young." + +"I am not conventional. I should not dream of marrying unless I found a +young lady who possessed everything that I demand in a wife." + +"Ah? What then do you demand?" + +"Everything." + +"That is a large order. What do you mean, exactly." + +"I mean, of course, that I should not marry a woman who did not have in +the first place beauty, that I might be proud of her in public, besides +refreshing myself with the sight of her in private. She must have beauty +of figure as well as of face, as I detest our dumpy type of German +women. And she must have style, and dress well. It would mortify me to +death, particularly after I had made my position, to go about with one +of those wives that seem to fall to the lot of most intellectuals. +Soft-waisted, bulging women," he added spitefully, "how I hate them!" + +"Your taste is admirable. Our women are much too careless, particularly +after marriage. And the second requirement?" + +"Oh, a small fortune, at least. I could not afford to marry, otherwise, +and although I shall no doubt make a large income in due course, I must +begin well. I prefer a house, as it gives an artist a more serious and +dignified position." + +"Indeed, yes." + +"And of course my wife must be of good birth, as good as my own. I +should never dream of marrying even a Venus in this Bohemian class. That +sort of thing is all very well--" He waved his hand, and arched an +eyebrow, and Gisela inferred she was to take quite a number of amours +for granted; much, for instance, as she would those of a handsome +officer who sat alone at the next table and who looked infinitely bored +with love and longing for war. + +"She must--it goes without saying--be intellectual, clever, bright, +amusing. I must have companionship. Not an artist, however. I should +never permit my wife to write or model or sing for the public. And she +must have the social talent, magnetism, the power to charm whom she +will. That would help me infinitely in my career." + +"Is that all?" + +"Oh, she must be affectionate and a good housekeeper, but most German +women have the domestic virtues. Naturally, she must have perfect +health. I detest women with nerves and moods." + +Gisela had been leaning forward, her elbows on the table, her little +square chin on her hands, and if there were wondering contempt in her +eyes he saw only their brilliance and fixed regard. + +"And what, may I ask, do you purpose to give her in return for all +that?" + +He flicked the ashes from his cigarette, and the gesture was quite +without affectation. "What has that to do with it?" + +"Well--only--you think, then, that in return for all--but all!--that +a woman has to offer a man--any man--you should not feel yourself bound +to give her an equal measure in return?" + +"I have not given the matter a thought. Naturally the woman I select +will see all in me that I see in her. Shall we get out of this? I feel +I have taken a cold. Fresh air is a drastic but efficient corrective." + +He escorted her to her hotel, although he gazed longingly down his own +street as they passed it. His head felt overburdened and it was awkward +manipulating a handkerchief with mitts. + +Within half a block of the hotel Gisela, who had been walking +rapidly, bending a little against the wind, paused and drew herself +up to her stately height. Cold as he was he thrilled slightly as he +reflected that she possessed real distinction; almost she might be +hochwohlgeboren--yes, quite. He tingled less agreeably as he recalled +a snub administered by a great lady with whom he had presumed to attempt +conversation at the house of a liberal little Russian baroness. This +woman would snub any hochwohlgeboren who presumed to snub him in the +future. + +"Herr Zottmyer," said Gisela, and her tones were as crisp as the air +blowing down from the Alps, "you must permit me to give you a note of +introduction to my mother when you go to Berlin next week. I hope you +will find time to call on her." + +Zottmyer's eyes snapped at this covert encouragement, although it was +rather forward in a German girl practically to ask a man his intentions. +"I shall be delighted to call on Frau Dörmer--" + +"Countess Niebuhr. I have practised a little innocent deception here in +Munich--for obvious reasons. Also, during my four years' sojourn in +America--" + +"In America?" His brain, a fine, concentrated, Teutonic organ, strove to +grapple with two ideas at once. "You have been in America!" + +"Rather. I feel half an American. You have no idea how it changed my +point of view--oh, but in many ways! The men, you see, are so different +from ours. The American woman has a magnificent position--" + +"Ridiculous, uppish, spoilt creatures--" + +"But how delicious to be spoiled. You will call on my mother?" + +Zottmyer almost choked. "I hate the Prussians--above all, that arrogant +junker class. And the name of Niebuhr!--why, it stands for all that +junkerdom means in its most virulent form!" + +"I am afraid it does. My brothers are junkers unalloyed. But I can +assure you that my mother is as democratic as one may be in Berlin. She +has quite a number of friends among the intellectuals--" + +"Would she consent to your marriage with a--a--_mere_ intellectual?" + +"What has that to do with it! It would never occur to me to marry +out of my own class. That is always a mistake. There are, you +see,--well--subtle differences that forbid harmony--" + +"You are a snob. I might have seen it before this. You give yourself +airs--" He was now so torn between fury and disappointment, +mortification and Teutonic resentment at being obliged to diverge +abruptly from precisely thought-out tactics, that he forgot his +physical discomfort--and incidentally to use his handkerchief. + +"A snob? When I am true to the best traditions of my race? Did you not +tell me that you would not marry a Venus if she happened to be born +outside of your own class? But it is rather cold here--not? Shall I send +the note of introduction to your flat?" + +"I would not put my foot in any supercilious junker palace, and I never +wish to see you again!" He whirled about, burying his nose in his +handkerchief, and tore down the street. + +Gisela laughed, but with little amusement. Her sympathy for German women +took a long stride. But she forgot him a few moments later at her desk. + + +4 + +During the next five years she wrote many short stories and essays, and +four plays. Her work appealed subtly but clearly to the growing +rebellion of the German women; she was too much of an artist to write +frank propaganda and the critics were long waking up to the object of +her work. Her first three plays were failures, but the fourth ran for +two years and a half and was played all over Germany and Austria. It was +a brilliant, dramatic, half-humorous, half-tragic exposition of the +German woman's enforced subservience to man as compared with the +glorious liberty of the somewhat exaggerated American co-heroine. + +There was talk of suppressing this play at first, but Countess Niebuhr +brought all her influence to bear, and as the widow of one esteemed +junker and the daughter of another far more important, her argument that +her daughter merely labored to make the German woman a still more +powerful factor in upholding the might of German Kultur--that being the +secret hidden in what was after all but a fantasy--caused the powers to +shrug their shoulders and dismiss the matter. + +After all, was not the play by a woman, and were not the German women +the best trained in the world? Besides, the play was amusing, and humor +destroyed the serious purpose always. Humor made the Americans the +contemptible race they were--fortunately for the future plans of +Germany. They took nothing seriously. In time they would! + +Those who have not lived in Germany have not even an inkling of the deep +slow secret revolt against the insolent and inconsiderate attitude of +the German male that had been growing among its women for some fifteen +years before the outbreak of the war. They ventured no public meetings +or militant acts of any sort, for men were far too strong for them yet, +and the German woman is by nature retiring, however individualistic her +ego. Their only outward manifestation was the hideous _reformkleid_, a +typical manifestation in even the women of a nation whose art is as ugly +as it often is interesting. But thousands of them were muttering to one +another and reading with envy the literature of woman's revolt in other +lands. When one of their own sex rose, a woman of the highest +intelligence and an impeccable style, who, although she signed herself +Gisela Döring, was said to be a rebellious member of the Prussian +aristocracy, their own vague protests slowly crystallized and they grew +to look upon her as a leader, who one day would show them the path out +of bondage. Her correspondence grew to enormous proportions, but she +answered every letter, fully determined by this time to accomplish +something more than a name in letters while incidentally amusing herself +with stirring up the women and annoying the men. But although clubs were +formed to discuss her work and letters, they were still unsuspected of +the arrogant men who controlled the destinies of Germany. And as the +German woman is the reverse of frank, as little indication of the slow +revolution was found in the home. The solution was as far off as ever, +but German women are patient and they bided their time, exulting in +their secret. It gave them a sense of revenge and power. + +Then came the war. + + + + +II + + +1 + +Gisela, like all the good women of Germany, flamed with patriotism and +righteous indignation. Russia and France with no provocation, with no +motive but insensate ambition on the one hand and a festering desire for +revenge on the other, had crossed the sacred frontiers of the great +Teutonic Empire. A French aviator had dropped bombs on Neuremburg, one +of the artistic treasures of Europe, although, mercifully, his bombs had +inadvertently been filled with air. Then followed the even more +indefensible act of Great Britain, whose only motive in joining forces +with paper allies was to aim a blow at the glorious commercial prestige +of Germany, the object of her fear and hate these many years. + +Gisela immediately entered the hospital opened by her mother in Berlin +and took a rapid first-aid course, concentrating upon the work all the +fine powers of her mind and strong young body. Literature, fame, +propaganda among women, all were dismissed. Although victory was certain +in a few months there would be many thousands of wounded and she was +filled with a passionate desire to serve those heroes and martyrs of +foreign hatred. She forgot her personal experience of the German male, +forgot herself. Her beloved Fatherland was attacked, and the German male +in his heroic resistance, his triumphal progress, was become a god. +_Dienen! Dienen!_ + +She had no time to ponder upon the violation of Belgium and knew nothing +of the curious escape of medieval psychology from the formal harness of +modern times. She was engaged in hard menial labor during those first +weeks and it was sufficient to know that Germany had been violated. It +is true that her warrior parent had sometimes boasted of the day when +Germany should rule the world, and that he had referred to the Great +European War as a foregone conclusion, as so many had been doing these +past ten or fifteen years; but he had been careful to say nothing about +throwing the torch into the powder. Gisela, like the vast majority of +civilians in the Central Empires, had grown too accustomed to the +evidences of a great standing army to give them more than a passing +thought. Were they not, then, situate in the very middle of Europe? +Surrounded by envious and powerful enemies? What more natural than that +they should be ever on the alert? + +That Germany herself would strike at the peace of Europe, a peace which +had brought her an unexampled prosperity and eminence, never had crossed +Gisela's mind. Nevertheless, knowing the German male as she did, she was +quite sure that the officers reveled in the exchange of peace for war as +much as the men in the ranks detested it. She could see Franz von +Nettelbeck barking out orders for the irresistible advance, his keen +blue eyes flashing with triumph, his Prussian upper lip curling with +impatient scorn, and Georg Zottmyer grinding his teeth in the trenches +and suffering acutely from dyspepsia. + +Until the summer of 1916 she was very busy, either in her mother's +hospital or in one in Munich run by a group of Socialist friends under +Marie von Erkel. She glanced at the English papers sometimes, but +assumed that their versions of the war's origin, and of Germanic +methods, were for home effect, and smiled at their occasional claims of +victory. + +Poor things! By this time she had seen so much mortal suffering, soothed +so many dying men who raved of unimaginable horrors, written so many +pathetic last letters to mothers and wives and sweethearts, that the +first mood of fury and hatred had long since passed. Her mind, normally +clear, acute, just, regained its poise. Moreover, those five years +preceding the war, during which she had learned to use her gifts for the +benefit of her sex instead of for her own amusement and fame, played +their insidious part. + +When she was ordered to take charge of a hospital in Lille in June of +the second year of the war she had forced herself to accept the present +state of Europe with a certain philosophy. After all, war was its +normal, its historic, condition. Following a somewhat unusual interval +of peace, owing to the beneficent reign of the German Emperor, the war +microbes of Europe, cultured in the Balkan swamps, had, through some +miscalculation, after a deplorable assassination, ravaged the entire +continent instead of being localized as heretofore. Men were men and +kings were kings and war was war. Gisela sometimes wondered if the +hideous upheaval were anybody's fault, if the desire to fight had not +been more or less simultaneous in spite of the fact that Germany was +caught napping and permitted Russia and France to sneak over her +frontiers. + +The sinking of the _Lusitania_ and other passenger ships, or rather the +results, had filled her with a horror that might have developed into +protest had she not been assured that the U-boats had purposely waited +for a calm sea, not too far from shore, that the passengers might have +every opportunity for escape; and that they had been the victims of +contraband cargoes of ammunition exploding, badly adjusted life-boats, +panic among themselves, and utter inefficiency and selfishness of the +officers and crew. + +These excuses sounded plausible to a young woman still too occupied to +ponder; but during her journey through Belgium and the invaded districts +of France her mind grew more and more uneasy. Surely an army so +uniformly victorious, an army which only forebore to press forward in a +battle--like that of the Marne, for instance--for sound strategic +reasons, should have found it unnecessary to destroy whole towns with +their priceless monuments of art, level countless insignificant +villages, and reduce their inhabitants to cowering misery. She had been +a student of history and had inferred that modern warfare was as humane +as war may be; witness the fine magnanimity of the Japanese, an Oriental +race. This passing country, which she had known well in its hey-day, +looked extraordinarily like the historical pictures of the invasions of +Goths and Vandals and Huns. + +"Huns!" She had resented the constant use of the word in the English +papers, dismissing it finally as childish spite. Had its usurpation of +the classic and noble word "Germans" been one of those quick, merciless, +simultaneous designations that fly through every army in wartime and are +as apt as they are inevitable? + +She felt a sudden desire to "talk it out" with Franz von Nettelbeck, +whose mind, despite his prejudices, was the most stimulating she had +ever known. But although she heard of him often, for he had covered +himself with glory, she had seen him only once--from a window in Berlin +as he promenaded Unter den Linden; a superb and haughty figure, his +swelling chest covered with medals. + +In Lille she met Elsa, who had been in charge of a hospital for a year, +Mimi Brandt and Heloise von Erkel, with whom she had been intimately +associated in Munich. She found all three horrified and appalled at the +atrocious cruelties, the persistent and needless severities, the +arrogant and swaggering attitude, accompanied by countless petty +tyrannies, unworthy of an army in possession; the wholly unmodern and +dishonorable treatment of a prostrate and wretched people. Above all, +the deportations of the young girls of Lille, torn from their families, +driven in herds through the streets, their faces stamped with despair or +abject terror, condemned to God knew what horrible fate, had shaken +these three humane and thinking women to the core. + +All three, while serving far behind the lines, had thought their German +army an army of demi-gods, and all three were bitterly ashamed of their +countrymen and disposed to question a sovereign, and a military caste, +that not only encouraged the saddist lust of their fighters and seemed +unable to spare sufficient food for the civilians, in spite of the great +leakage through neutral countries, but which persisted in calling +themselves victorious when they were either perpetually on the defensive +or in the act of being beaten, despite their irresistible rush. The +Somme Drive had not begun but there was not a nurse in Lille that did +not know the truth about Verdun. + +"And believe me, as the Americans say," remarked Mimi Brandt, "when the +German people know the truth, particularly the German women, there will +be some circus." + +Mimi had been far more of an active rebel than the Niebuhr girls, +possibly because her life-stream was closer to the source, patently to +herself because she had a magnificent voice which needed only technique +to assure her a welcome in any of the great opera houses of Germany. +Adroitly persuaded by her parents to marry when she was not quite +seventeen, she had conceived an abhorrence of the rodent-visaged young +burgess who had been her lot; not only was he personally distasteful to +the ardent romantic girl, but he would not permit her to cultivate her +voice, much less study for the stage. Her revenge had been a cruel +disdain, to which he had responded by lying under the bed all night and +howling. Twice she had run away, visiting prosperous and sympathetic +relatives in Milwaukee, and both times returned at the passionate +solicitations of her parents; not only outraged in their dearest +conventions but anxious to be rid of the small rodent born of the union. + +Her last return had been but a month before the outbreak of the war, and +Hans Brandt, to his growling disgust, was promptly swept off by the +searching German broom. He was as much in love with his wife as a man so +meagerly equipped in all but national conceit may be, for Mimi was a +handsome girl with a buxom but graceful figure, and a laughing face +whose golden brown eyes sparkled with the pure fun of living when they +were not somber with disgust and rebellion. + +Gisela had always looked upon Heloise von Erkel as the most tragic +figure in Munich. In appearance she had distinction rather than beauty, +for although her features were delicate her complexion and hair were +faded and there were faint lines on her charming face. She was a blonde +of the French type, and her light figure, although indifferently carried +and a stranger to gowns, possessed an indefinable elegance. + +Under heaven knew what impulse of romantic madness Frau von Erkel, then +Heloise d'Oremont, had married a young German officer, and although both +fancied themselves deeply in love the breach began shortly after they +had settled to the routine life of the frontier town where he was +stationed, and had widened rapidly in spite of the fact that she +produced six children as automatically as the most devoted (and +detested) hausfrau of her acquaintance. Shortly after the birth of +Marie, the breach became a chasm, for the chocolate firm, inherited +through her bourgeoise mother and the source of Frau von Erkel's wealth, +failed, and the haughty Bavarian aristocrat was forced to keep up his +position in the army and maintain his growing family on an income, +accruing from chocolate investments, that should have been reserved for +pleasure alone. + +However, there was help for it. He renounced cards and such other costly +diversions as was possible without lowering his standard as a gentleman +and an officer, and of course the real privation was borne by the women +of the family. He even ceased to rage at his wife, for she merely sat in +her favorite chair, her hands folded, and looked at him with her subtle +ironic smile. + +When Gisela met them, Frau von Erkel and her three daughters (all in +their late twenties and unmarried) were living in a dingy old house in a +respectable quarter, with one beer-sodden maid to relieve them of the +heavy work and bake the cake for the Sunday "Coffee." + +Colonel von Erkel and his three sons lived in bachelor quarters and +called upon the women of the family every Sunday afternoon at precisely +four o'clock. In full uniform, and imposing specimens of the German +officer, they sat stiffly upon the uncomfortable chairs for about thirty +minutes and then simultaneously escaped and were seen no more for a +week. + +At first Gisela was intensely amused at the vagaries of the Erkels, but +when she saw the four narrow beds in a row in one small monastic room +(the first floor was let to lodgers to pay the rent), and still more of +their almost hopeless contriving to hold their position in Munich +society, to say nothing of a bare sufficiency of food and raiment, her +sympathies, always more deep than quick, were permanently aroused. But +they were confined to the girls. Charming and graceful as the old lady +was, it was evident that if above the arrogance of her German husband +she was afflicted with the intense conservatism of her own race. It had +taken Aimée, the oldest of the girls, three years of persistent begging, +nagging, arguments, tears, and threats of abrupt demise, to obtain +permission to move her piano--a present from relatives who occasionally +came to the rescue--a bookcase and three chairs up to the garret and +have a room she could call her own. Frau von Erkel was scandalized that +a French girl (she systematically ignored the German infusion in her +daughters) should wish for hours of solitude. But Aimée had the national +genius for pegging away, and her mother, who came in time to feel that +one nerve was being gnawed with maddening reiteration, finally +succumbed; relieving her mind daily. + +After that it was comparatively easy, although there were several +notable engagements, for Heloise to become secretary to Gisela Döring. +She never dared admit that she received a generous monthly cheque for +her services, but Gisela was a favorite with the old lady (always +sitting placidly in her chair, with her hands in her lap, a faint ironic +smile on her still pretty face), and as her literary style was extolled +by her exacting daughters (Frau von Erkel never read even a German +newspaper, but subscribed for _Le Figaro_), and as she knew Gisela to +be a member of her own class, the new connection was harmonious; and +Heloise at last experienced something like real liberty in the tiny +garden house of the parterre apartment of Gisela Döring on the +Königinstrasse. + + +2 + +There is little time in the war zones to meet and talk, but even nurses +must rest and take the air, and during the month before the frightful +rush of wounded after the British offensive on the Somme began, the four +girls, all in different hospitals, maneuvered to obtain leave of absence +at the same hour, early in the evening. They promenaded the desolate +streets arm in arm, their heads together, relieving their burdened +souls. There was no idea of treason in any one of those rebellious +minds, for they still believed their Fatherland to have been on the +defensive from the first, the victim of a conspiracy, and they knew from +the expression of the officers' faces, to say nothing of their tempers, +that the danger was by no means past. + +But being women, and women who had thought for themselves for many +years, they must talk it out, and when too overcharged to trust their +comments to the narrow streets, they retired to a hillock outside the +city which no spy could approach unseen. However, nothing was farther +from the minds of the German men of war than that the women cogs of +their supremely organized land should presume to criticize methods which +had, to their best belief, terrorized the world. + +"But we are not the only ones," said Heloise grimly, as they sat on +their refuge one dusky evening. "All but the sheep have a word to say +now and then. Of course there always will be women who will grovel at +the feet of men merely because they are men; but look out for the others +when this accursed war is over. God! How I hate men! To think that once +I dreamed and hoped like the silly romantic girl I was that some day +some man would marry me in spite of my poverty. Now I would not marry +one of the Kaiser's sons. Sick or well, German, English, French, I +loathe them all alike. Obscene beasts every one of them; but I hate the +Germans most, for they are the most disgusting invalids. And I am a +German girl, too. France has never had any call for me. It is Marie who +would be all French if she could. Poor little Marie, with her drab face +and hair, her poverty, her dynamic body, mad to marry, and climbing out +of the window when mother is asleep, to go to Socialists' meetings and +scream off her pent-up passions. What a hideous world!" + +She sprang to her feet and flung her arms above her head and glared at +the unresponsive stars. + +"O God!" she prayed. "Deliver us! Deliver us from war and deliver us +from men! Deliver us from Kings and deliver us from criminal jealousies +and ambitions and greeds that the innocent millions expiate in blood and +tears! Deliver us from cowards--" She whirled suddenly upon Gisela. +"You--you--why don't you lead us out? You have more mind than any woman +in Germany. You have more influence. I have always placed my hopes on +you. But now--now--you are doing nothing but nurse disgusting men like +the rest of us." + +"Hush! You are talking too loud. And you are carrying your revolt too +far. These poor deluded men you nurse are only to be pitied, and if they +merely revolt you, you have no vocation--" + +"When did I ever pretend to have a vocation for nursing? Like all the +rest I felt I must do my part, and heaven knows it is better than +sitting at home making bandages and watching my mother slowly starve. If +I had rolled one more bandage I should have gone mad." + +"Well, dear Heloise, as far as I am concerned, the time for women to +battle for their rights is when their country is safe, not in mortal +danger. Be sure that when this war is over--" + +She fell silent. A little flame had leapt in her brain. She +extinguished it hurriedly, but it burnt the fingers of her will, always +enthroned and always on guard. As she stared at Heloise, lovely in her +Red Cross uniform, a white torch against the dark horizon, her tragic +eyes once more searching the heavens, it struggled for life again and +again. She loved Heloise and she felt a sudden inclusive love of her +sex, an overpowering desire to deliver it from the sadness and horror of +war; a profounder emotion than anything it had inspired in those far off +days of peace. After all, however serious she had believed herself to +be, it had been a game, a career; for in times of peace one must invent +the vital interests of life, and one's success or failure depends upon +one's powers of creating and sustaining the delusion. Only two things in +life were real, love and war. + +Gisela, like many women of dominating intellect and personality, had +exhausted her power of sex-love with her first unfortunate but prolonged +passion, and although she had no hatred of men, and indeed liked many +and craved their society, she gave her real sympathies and affections +to her women friends. She had no intimates, and this, perhaps, was one +secret of her power. A certain aloofness is essential in intellectual +leadership. But if she had no talent for intimacy she had much for +friendship, and the friends of her inner circle were all women, partly +because there was no waste of time fending off love-making, partly +because there were more interests in common, consequently a deeper bond. +To-night she was filled with an irresistible pity and a longing to set +them free. But her hands were tied. She dared not even go to Great +Headquarters and protest against the terrible fate of the young girls of +Lille. She would have accomplished no good and become an instant object +of suspicion. + + +3 + +For many months she did her duty doggedly, her indignation routed by the +disquieting fact that the Germans were retreating from the Somme; inch +by inch, but still retreating. Once she might have been satisfied with +grandiose phrases and scornful assurances. But the long attack on Verdun +had ended in dark humiliation; a failure that the most resourceful +vocabulary was unable to translate into a German advantage, optically +inverted. + +More than half a million young Germans had fallen before Verdun, and for +what? That France, disdained these many years by the mighty Teutonic +Empire, and numerically inferior, might demonstrate to the world that +she was the greater military nation of the two. + +What was it all for? What of the ever-receding fields of peace, grown +green and fat again? What of the racing past dotted with the broken +headstones of promises of victory by this means or that? + +But to attempt to answer historical enigmas while working day and night +over the mangled victims of the Somme was beyond her powers. It was not +until she broke down, and, with Heloise von Erkel and Mimi Brandt, +obtained leave to spend a month at St. Moritz, that she found her +answer. + + + + +III + + +1 + +The three girls went to a little hotel that had been a favorite resort +of Gisela's in times of peace when she had felt an imperative need of +the high solitudes and eternal snows. They planned a week's rest, and a +fortnight or more of mountain climbing, dismissing the world war from +their minds as far as possible. But their gentle plans were upset on the +eighth day after their arrival, when at the end of an hour's hard +skating, clad in the bright sweaters and caps of old, Gisela suddenly +stopped short and returned the hard stare of two young women who had +drawn apart and were evidently discussing her. That they were Americans +Gisela recognized at a glance, but for a moment she saw them through a +curtain of fire and smoke and shrieking shells and dying groans, so +deep in the background of her memory were the people and events of her +merely personal life. One of the young women was very tall, with a slim +dashing figure, fine fair hair, keen cold gray eyes, a haughty nostril +and upper lip: a beauty of the patrician American type. The other was +shorter but also excessively thin, with dark dancing eyes, a warm color, +a coquettish nose and pouting lips--which somehow invoked the complacent +visage of the late Herr Graf Niebuhr--and a brilliant smile. In a moment +Gisela recognized Ann Howland Prentiss and Kate Terriss, now Mrs. Tolby. +This American friend of her childhood had married an American whose +business kept him in London, and her path and Gisela's had never crossed +since her finishing days in Berlin; although she had corresponded with +Lili for two or three years and knew the family history in vague +outline. + +Gisela skated directly over to them and held out her hand to Kate. "It +is a long while," she said, "but perhaps you remember me--" + +"Do I? Ann will not believe me--that you are Gisela von Niebuhr not +Döring. What a lark that was to run off to America and fool everybody! I +wish I had come across you. It would have been quite dramatic to tear +off the mask of the governess and reveal the junker. I think it was too +stupid of you, Ann, that you didn't guess." + +"I noticed many inconsistencies," said Mrs. Prentiss dryly. She added, +holding out her hand with a charming smile: "But later, I was so proud +to have known Gisela Döring, that personal curiosity seemed impertinent. +How we have missed your writings these last dreadful years!" + +Then all three began to talk at once and Gisela gathered that Mrs. Tolby +had nursed behind the British lines in France since the early days of +the war, and that her old friend, Mrs. Prentiss, had joined her a few +months since. Kate asked innumerable questions about the other girls, +particularly Mariette, whom she remembered as a Germanic blonde of warm +coloring, the coldest eyes, the most subtly rigid and ruthless mouth +she had ever seen. She had found some difficulty picturing her as a Red +Cross nurse and was not surprised to hear that she was in charge of an +enormous organization for the supply of cantines. Of her executive +ability and quick determination there could be no doubt--as she told Ann +Prentiss later. + +In the excitement and exhilaration of this purely feminine +conversation--which soon included Heloise and Mimi--the two parties +forgot the gory chasm that divided them. When they dropped suddenly at a +chance word to the present that gripped even these glittering snow +fields with its red insatiable fingers, Kate, as ever, was equal to the +formidable moment and cried out, snapping her fingers at the blue ether +so tranquilly aloof from warring hosts: + +"Forget it! For to-day, at least. What are you thinking about so hard, +Ann?" + +"I'll tell you later. Let us go in and have tea and then skate again. I +noticed how well my step suited Countess Gisela's." + +Ann Howland, as the wife of an eminent politician, had long since +cultivated the art of mental suppleness and had learned to fascinate the +most diverse intelligences and egos. Gisela, who was always warmly +responsive to personal charm when not too obviously insincere, enjoyed +the hour on the ice so exclusively devoted to her by the distinguished +American and went to bed that night well content to bury the war during +this period of necessary rest, grateful for this fresh current that +swept her for the moment into one of those old backwaters of mere +femininity. Mrs. Prentiss had not related a single anecdote of the +front, nor alluded to the fact that she was a Red Cross nurse. + +But she and Kate Terriss sat up until midnight. They were both women +capable of seizing those rare opportunities for service that flit past +so many intelligent women lacking initiative, and here was one that the +most clear-thinking man would have envied. It was a piece of +unbelievable luck; Gisela Döring was not only here to their hand in a +relaxed and friendly mood, but she possessed charm combined with a +great intelligence and an iron will: she was far more the obvious leader +than they had inferred from her work, and they guessed something of the +powerful influence she must quietly have obtained over the women of +Germany. Mrs. Prentiss had by no means approved of her at an earlier +period, for she had shrewdly suspected that it was the handsome German +governess, not the high-born Irma, who thwarted her designs upon the +most attractive "foreigner" she had ever met. But even if she had +cherished a grudge, and her life had been far too happy and successful +for that, she would have been so profoundly grateful to Gisela for +saving her from the anomalous and wretched position of other modern +American women married to medieval Germans, that she felt almost as +great a desire to serve her as civilization in general. + +When the two Americans parted for the night a methodical program had +been worked out, with every date at command and every fact in damning +sequence. The result of this momentous conference was that none of the +five went to bed on the following night, but sat about a large oval +table in the common sitting-room of Mrs. Prentiss and Mrs. Tolby, and +wrangled until dawn. + + +2 + +The challenge was given by the Americans and accepted by the Germans, +whose curiosity had been carefully pricked, and all had agreed that no +matter how intensely distasteful any argument might be they would not +separate for at least eight hours, and that there should be as little +"hot stuff" (quoting Mimi Brandt) as possible. + +The avowed object of the Americans was to prove conclusively that +Germany, carrying out a deliberate program, had precipitated the war in +1914, believing Russia to be deliquescent, France riddled with +syndicalism, and Britain on the verge of civil war; consequently that +the exact moment had come for the swift execution of her scientifically +wrought plan for world dominion. + +The three German girls, deep and many as were their causes for +resentment and disgust, had clung fast to the belief in their country's +defensive attitude in the face of a gigantic conspiracy, and were not +pried apart from it without hours of argument, hot and resentful on the +one side, cool, precise, and logical on the other. But those acute +German brains responded to the high intelligence of their opponents and +to their manifest honesty. Moreover, it was indisputable that from the +beginning the Americans had been in a position to know every side and +detail of the ghastly story, while the Germans, confined within their +own narrow borders and taught that the foreign newspapers were a tissue +of "strategic lies," had been wholly dependent upon their government for +"facts." + +During this long debate Gisela sat at the head of the table, rigid and +watchful, when she was not fiercely arguing; Mimi Brandt sprawled in an +easy chair, satirical and slangy, enveloped in smoke; Heloise, very pale +and the first to be convinced, sat with her little hands clenched +against her cheek bones; Ann Prentiss, unshakenly cool quick and +precise; the more brilliant Mrs. Tolby flashing her beacon light into +recesses darkened these three years by systematic lies, but incapable of +the final stupidity. + +That long argument need not be reproduced here. All the world has made +up its mind about Germany, knows her far better than as yet she knows +herself. It was the deliberate effort of the Americans to force these +three intelligent Germans, one of them a leader of the first importance, +to realize that their country stood to the rest of the world for lying, +treachery, cruelty, brutality, degeneracy, bad sportsmanship, ostrich +psychology; above all, that she had forfeited her place among modern and +honest nations. + +When these facts had been hammered in, Mrs. Prentiss moved on to the +two cardinal facts for whose elucidation the rest had been a mere +preamble: that the Central Powers were beaten and knew it, but were +determined to go on sacrificing the manhood of the country, reducing the +population to the ultimate miseries of mind and body rather than yield; +and that the only hope of obtaining mercy from the Entente Allies in the +inevitable hour of surrender was to dethrone the Hohenzollerns and +establish a Republic. Otherwise as a nation they would cease to exist +and their last fate would be infinitely worse than their present. A +German Republic would be welcomed into the family of nations and receive +a friendly and helping hand from every one of the great adversaries, +whose prestige and wealth were still unshaken, and who all desired to +preserve the balance of power in Europe. Above all might they rely upon +the United States of America, the friendly hints of whose President had +been systematically distorted by the anxious Pan-Germans still in the +saddle; who would cheerfully witness the loss of every drop of the +people's life blood rather than their own power. + +A conquered empire that had been hypnotized to the end by the monster +criminals of history, whose word no man would ever take again, would be +a mere collection of enslaved States for generations to come; the +conquerors, having given them their choice, would show no mercy. + +Britain could not be starved. The submarine war, whatever its +devastations, and the vast inconveniences it had caused, was a failure. +And the colossal wealth of the United States in money, in food, in men! +Who knew her resources better than Gisela, who had lived in the country +for four years and found it an absorbing study, who had continued to +read American books, newspapers, and reviews up to the outbreak of the +war? Well, they were all at the disposal of democracy; and as the +Entente Allies, including the United States, were already many times +stronger than Germany, how could they fail to win in the end, no matter +how many millions of lives on all sides Germany continued to shovel +into Moloch? + +All of these three clever German girls had been more or less prepared to +hear Germany proved a liar. They knew from British wounded that London +was neither a fortified city nor reduced to ashes; also that all the +Zeppelin raids on defenseless towns put together had been of less +strategical value to Germany than the taking of one village in the war +zone; she had merely piled up a mountain of hatred and contempt which +must be leveled by the quick repudiation of her people if they would +regain their lost intercourse with a triumphant world. Like all the +other women who had nursed near the front and knew the truth, they +translated into their own cynical vernacular such grandiose collocations +as "Strategic retreats" from that of the Battle of the Marne to those +which had been occurring periodically on the Western front since the +beginning of the Somme offensive of 1916. + + +3 + +Gisela's mind was complex and subtle, but it was also honest. When it +yielded a point, it yielded audibly. It was during the preliminary +discussion that she exclaimed: + +"It is true--certain things come back to me--Mimi, open the window. The +air is blue and we are all hardy and can stand the night air. It was +after the Agadir incident that I felt a change. I say felt because I was +so absorbed in my work that I had no inclination for world politics and +never discussed them. Up to that time I had never heard a hint of war +for aggression on the part of Germany.... While, as far back as I can +remember, it was taken for granted there would be a great war some day, +I doubt if any but the military party really believed in it. We thought +the time had passed for real wars, that we were far too highly +civilized. Of course I knew that the military party to which my father +belonged would have welcomed a war, for war was their profession, their +game, their excuse for being, and I heard more or less talk among my +brothers of Pan-Germanism; but still I imagined that it was merely a +defensive Teutonic ideal, just as our oppressive standing army was a +necessity owing to our geographical position. My brother Karl said +once--it comes back to me, although I had quite forgotten it--that it +was futile for the military caste to try to work up a war, because every +moneyed man in the Empire--financiers, merchants, manufacturers, all the +rest--never would hear of it. The country was too prosperous. Our wealth +was growing at a pace which even the United States could not rival, and +poverty was practically eliminated. That is the reason no hint made any +impression on me. It seemed to me that we were the most fortunate and +advanced nation in Europe and had only to wait for our kultur to pervade +the earth. + +"But--after Agadir--I seem to look back upon a slowly rising tide, +muttering, sullen, determined--even in Bavaria the old serenity, the +settled feeling, was gone--war was discussed as a possibility less +casually than of old--" + +"I recall a good deal more than that," interrupted Mimi. "Remember that +I was the daughter of a manufacturer, and the wife, so-called, of a +merchant. They were always grinding their teeth--and from about the time +you speak of--over the wrongs of Germany. What the wrongs were I never +could make out, and I am bound to say I did not listen very attentively, +being absorbed in my own--but it would seem that Germany being the +greatest country in the world was somehow not being permitted to let the +rest of the world find it out--" + +"It is all simple enough, now that I have the key. Germany tried to +bully France, and not only was France anxious to avoid war but Britain +showed her teeth. Germany was not then prepared to fight the world and +was forced to compromise. France gave her a slice of the Kongo in +exchange for Germany's consent to a French Protectorate in Morocco. Of +course--after that it must have been evident to all the business brains +of Germany that however great and prosperous the Empire might be she was +not strong enough to dictate to Europe; nor presume to demand any more +of the great prizes than she had already. + +"In other words, she was shown her place. It was also more than possible +that her aggressive prosperity might one of these days excite the +apprehension of Great Britain, who would then show more than her teeth. +Gradually the idea must have permeated, taken possession of the minds of +men who had vast fortunes to increase or lose, that sooner or later they +must fight for what they had and that it were better perhaps to strike +first, at a moment they might choose themselves--however little they +might sympathize with the ambitions of the Pan-German Party for supreme +power in Europe--" + +"Perhaps nothing," said Mimi. "They made up their minds to do it and +they did it. It is as plain as daylight. I'd forgive them, too, if +they'd won in six months, as they were so sure they would. What I don't +forgive them for is that they have proved themselves the most criminal +fools unhung. I'm glad that I am a Bavarian, and that Prussia, whom we +have always so hated and despised that we have never turned the lions +about on the Siegesthor, should be the prime offenders, humiliating as +it may be that we fell for their lies and got into this rotten mess. But +go ahead, Mrs. Prentiss. What's your next? Gee, but you can hand it out. +You must have kept tab since August 1st, 1914." + +"I took merely an intelligent American woman's interest," said Mrs. +Prentiss, momentarily haughty. "And I spent the first two years and a +half in Washington, where I often knew more than the newspapers; at all +events where I was constantly in the society of thinking men. Also +honest men, for war was the last thing we wanted, until our honor became +too deeply involved to permit us to hold aloof and fatten on your misery +any longer. Also, to be frank, our interests." + +The fact which impressed the Germans and reduced all that had gone +before to a heated academic discussion, was that Germany was beaten, and +that the United States embargo would reduce the Central Empires to +actual starvation, not merely devitalizing subnourishment; combined with +their own certainty that the Teutonic Powers would go on fighting, under +the lash of Prussia, sacrificing hundreds of thousands of loyal German +and Austrian boys, plunge countless more families into hopeless grief, +doom all the children in the land to sheer hunger and tuberculosis. + +Starvation! That was the inevitable fate of Germany if she prolonged the +war. And for what? Prostration, physical, financial, economic. To suffer +for a generation, at least, the fate of the outlaw, mangy dogs nosing +among rotten bones, kicked by the victors whenever they stood on their +hind legs and whined for mercy. + +And the Americans were prepared to pour into France and Britain billions +of dollars and millions of men and incalculable tons of food and +ammunition. + + +4 + +The two Americans had a deeper purpose in forcing this long argument +than hammering the truth into those intelligent but Prussianized brains. +As the hours wore toward the dawn they observed with satisfaction that +Gisela's face grew whiter and grimmer, until finally it set itself in +rigid lines. Her mouth was hard, her eyes expanded as if they saw far +beyond the crystal mountains glittering before the open windows. Her +mass of dark hair had fallen, and Mrs. Tolby whispered to Mrs. Prentiss +that she looked like the Medusa in the Glyptothek in Munich, lovely but +relentless. + +Gisela was no longer the radiant and voluptuous beauty who had incurred +the secret wrath of Ann Howland at Bar Harbor. These years of war, +during which she had known hard physical labor and often insufficient +nourishment, more rarely still a full night's sleep, had taken her +lovely curves of cheek and form, her brilliant color. She was thin, +almost gaunt; but the dissolving of the flesh had given her intellect, +her force of character, her aspiring spirit, their first real +opportunity to stamp her features. She would always be handsome, with +her long dark eyes and masses of soft dark hair, her noble outlines; and +her womanly sympathies had preserved their balance between a +devitalizing horror on the one hand and callousness on the other; but it +was a spiritualized beauty, devoid of that appeal to sex of which she +had been, even after she had buried the memory of Franz von Nettelbeck +and all desire for love, femininely tenacious, however disdainful. + +Mimi was the first to speak after a long interval of silence. + +"You've got me, all right. I've been digging up a few more things. We're +up against it for keeps, and it's get out or starve out. I've a notion +to sneak off to my relations in Milwaukee. Mrs. Prentiss, I'll go as +your maid--" + +"You'll do nothing of the sort!" Gisela's voice cut through the ripples +of laughter which always greeted Mimi's redundant slang. "You'll go back +to Germany with me and do your part in putting an end to this war!" All +but Heloise half arose, but she sat staring at that hard drawn face as +if in telepathic communication. + +"Can you do anything--really?" gasped Kate. "We have been hoping for a +revolution, but had given up the idea--until after the war. Your +Socialists either eat out of the Kaiser's hand or sputter and fizzle +out. And all your able-bodied men are at the front--" + +"But not the women." + +"The what?" + +"You have both lived in Germany. You know that German women are big +strong creatures--what you call husky. They are stronger than many of +the men because they have led more decent lives. The men at the front +are hopeless as revolutionary material--at present. They are hypnotized. +They have been taught not to think. They are sick of the war, they +suffer when they come home and see their women reduced to shadows, or go +to the cemeteries to visit the graves of their little brothers and +sisters; but the teaching of a lifetime: the omnipotence of their +sovereigns, whom they innocently believe to rule by divine right, sends +them back submissive, patient, sad. I know what you had in mind when you +brought us here to convince us that our country was not only responsible +for the war, but beaten. You hoped we would somehow bring about the +assassination of the Kaiser and the Crown Prince Ruprecht of +Bavaria--all the great generals. Is it not so? That would, assuredly, +break down the morale of the army, give it a more smashing blow than any +it has received even on the Western front. Well, it cannot be done. Even +I could not obtain a pass into Great Headquarters. You might as well +expect a British soldier to be permitted to saunter over from his lines +and make sketches of the German trenches. Those men guard +themselves--day and night, at every point--as if haunted with the fear +of assassination. Perhaps they are. And remember that the downfall of +Cæsarism means the downfall not only of junkerism but of all the other +kings and Grand Dukes--who are powerful and wealthy in their own +domains. They have no doubt cursed Prussia daily since September, 1914, +but now they all sink or swim together. They will force Germany to die a +thousand deaths in the hope of a miracle that will save a class to which +the rest of poor Germany is a breeding-ground for their mighty armies. I +belong to that class. One of my brothers is on the staff of the Crown +Prince of Prussia. Take my word for it: the solution of Germany's +deliverance is not to be found in the simple antidote of political +assassination, for only men bound up in the success of the German arms, +or their terrorized creatures of our own sex, are near enough to throw +the bomb." + +"It was rather a commonplace idea," said Kate, gracefully, "but what can +you do?" + +"Quite aside from the women of the industrial and lower classes +generally, who have given the municipalities serious trouble with their +food riots--far more than you know about--the German women altogether +are restless and dissatisfied. They were promised a short and triumphant +war. They are daily more skeptical of promises. They have suffered death +in life. All that early exaltation--exhilaration--has gone long since. +They shut their teeth and endure because they still believe the cunning +official lies--that Britain must be starved by the submersibles, that +France's man power is nearly exhausted, that the United States cannot +prepare an army in less than two years and needs all her trained men at +home to quell the riots of the masses who disapprove of the war. They +are taught to believe that ultimate victory for Germany is +inevitable--that it is merely a question of months. + +"But--convince them that Germany cannot win, that their own conquest is +inevitable after three or four more years of horror and torment and +personal despair, turn their blind hatred of England and America upon +their own conscienceless rulers--" + +"Jimminy!" cried Mimi. "That's the dope. Pound it into them that the +Enemy Allies will give them a square deal as a Republic and put them +under the steam-roller with the Hohenzollerns if they stand pat, and +you'll get them. No more hungry and tubercular babies, no more babies +born with a cuticle short in theirs. They'd rise as one man--I +mean--damn the men!--as one woman." + +Heloise left her seat like a whirlwind and flung herself at Gisela's +feet. Her face was flaming white. She looked like a sibyl. "I knew it +would be you!" she cried in her sweet bell-like tones. "I have had +visions of you leading us out of this awful war. You have only to talk +to the women--your word was gospel to them before the war--they too will +have the vision and they will make it fact." + +"Yes--but--" interrupted the practical Ann. "How shall you go to work? +It is a stupendous idea. But you never could keep such a propaganda +movement a secret. Some one would be sure to betray you. German women +are perfect fools about men." + +"No longer. Nor were they for several years before the war as +subservient (inwardly) to men as they had been in the past. Far from it. +And now! They have suffered too much at the hands of men. They have no +illusions left. Love and marriage are ghastly caricatures to women who +have lived in a time when men are slaughtered like pigs in massed +formation; when their little boys are driven to war; when young +girls--and widows!--are forced to bring more males into the world with +the sanction of neither love nor marriage; when those too young for the +trench or the casual bed wail incessantly for bread. Oh, no! The German +man's day of any but legal dominion is over. Of course there is always +the danger of spies and traitors, but--" + +"The wall for you at sunrise if you get caught," cried Mimi, with +another subsidence of enthusiasm. + +"If that happen to be my destiny. Can any one experience what we have +done during these three years and not be as fatalistic as the men in the +trenches? I'd rather die before a firing squad after an attempt to save +my wretched country than live to see it set back a hundred years. But I +refuse to believe that I shall be betrayed or that I shall fail. _That_ +I believe to be my destiny. For a long time the idea has been fumbling +in the back of my mind, but it lacked the current which would switch it +into my consciousness. You two have supplied the current." + +Kate threw back her head and gave her merry, ringing laugh. "What +delicious irony! Germany defeated by its women! When I think of your +august papa, dear Gisela! That kulturistically typical, that naïve yet +Jovian symbol of all the arrogance and conceit, the simple creed of +Kaiserism über alles, and will-to-rule, that hurled this colossus on +the back of Europe--" + +"Quite so. You of all present know that I received the proper training +for the part I am about to play. If all goes well we women will erect a +tablet to my father's memory in the cathedral at Berlin." She leaned +down and patted the rapt face of Heloise, then scowled at Mimi. "May I +not count on you?" she asked sternly. + +"May you? Well, say, what are you taking me for? I'm more afraid of you +than I am of a firing squad, and anyhow I seem to know we'll win out. +I'm going to carry a club in case I mix up with Hans. But what's your +plan?" + +"This is neither the time nor place to work out a campaign. The first +move will be to train lieutenants in every State in Germany--women whom +we know either personally or through correspondence. You, Heloise, will +return to Munich at once and make out the lists. We shall have no +difficulty obtaining permits to travel all over the Empire, for it will +never enter the insanely stupid official head to doubt whatever excuse +we may choose to give. Not only are we German women and therefore sheep, +but we are Red Cross nurses.... And remember that nearly all the men who +are still in the factories are Socialists--and that women swarm in all +of those factories--" + +"Marie!" cried Heloise. "How she will work! She has the confidence of +the Socialist party--both wings--wherever she is known; and she can +talk--like a torrent of liquid fire." + +"And the next chapter?" asked Mrs. Prentiss curiously. "You led the +German women in thought for five years. Shall you have a Woman's +Republic, with you as President?" + +"Certainly not. It is not in the German women--not yet--to crave the +grinding cares of public life. We shall make the men do the work, and we +will live for the first time. Delivered from Cæsarism and junkerism and +with the advanced men of Germany at the head of a Republic, I should +feel too secure of Germany's future to demand any of the ugly duties of +government--although the women will speak through the men. Their day of +silence and submission is forever passed--" + +"Same here," remarked Mimi, stretching and yawning. "Let's go to bed. I +have smoked fifty-three cigarettes and my voice is ruined. Nevertheless +I shall be a great prima donna, and you, Gisela, can chuck propaganda, +and write romance. The world will devour it after these years of +undiluted realism written in red ink on a black page. Look at the sun +trying to climb out of that mist and give us his blessing." + +"I shall go for a walk," said Gisela, "and I shall go alone." + + + + +IV + + +1 + +Mrs. Prentiss and Mrs. Tolby placed a large sum of money to Gisela's +account in a Swiss bank, and this she transferred to the Bayerischer +Vereinsbank in Munich. As she had collected large sums for war relief, +and was on the board of nine war charities, no suspicion was excited. +She had given to these organizations the greater part of the small +fortune she had made from her play and other writings, not absorbed by +taxation and bond subscriptions, but there were many wealthy women, +hungry, sad, apprehensive that peace would find them paupers, upon whom +she could depend to give liberally. + +There was to be no printed matter nor correspondence, but an army of +lieutenants, who, starting from certain centers, would augment their +numbers from Gisela's long list of correspondents, until it would be +possible to sound personally all the women of a district whom it was +thought wise to trust. + +Gisela returned to Germany as soon as she had worked out the details of +her campaign and received the enthusiastic donation of her American +friends. Mimi Brandt, Marie von Erkel (who looked like an ecstatic fury +of the French Revolution when she realized that at last she had a rôle +to play in life that would not only vent her consuming energies and +ambition, but enable her to assist in the downfall of a race of men whom +she hated, both for their tyranny and indifference to brains without +beauty, with all the diverted passion of her nature), Aimée von Erkel, +who was persistent, incisive, and so alarmed at the prospect of all the +men in the world being killed, that she would have hastened peace on any +terms; Princess Starnwörth, a Socialist and idealist, a brilliant and +persuasive speaker, to whom war was the ultimate horror; Johanna Stück, +whose revolt had been deep and bitter long before the war and who was +one of Gisela's fervent disciples and aides--these and six others were +sent on one pretense or another into the various States of Germany--the +kingdoms, principalities, grand duchies, duchies, and "free towns"--to +bear Gisela's personal message and select the proper leaders. + +Gisela went at once to Berlin and had a long interview with Mariette, +who was ripe for revolution: her lover had been killed and her husband +had not. Mariette was not of the type that sorrow and loss ennoble. She +was still a handsome woman, particularly in her uniform, but the pink +and white cheeks that once had covered her harsh bones were sunken and +sallow. Her mouth was like a narrow bar of iron. Her eyes were half +closed as if to hide the cold and deadly flame that never flickered; +even her nostrils were rigid. All her hard and sensual nature, devoid of +tenderness, but dissolved with sentimentality while the man who had +conquered her had lived, she had centered on her lover, and with his +death she was a tool to Gisela's hand to wreak vengeance upon the powers +that had sent him out of the world. + +"Leave it to me," she said grimly. "There are not only the women in the +towns where I have been stationed these many years, but, here in Berlin, +the wives of men whose money is financing this war: men who permitted +the war because they hoped for infinite riches but are now terrified +that they will not have a pfennig if the war goes on much longer. They +dare not rebel, for they would be shot, and their fortunes be +confiscated: their banks, industries, shops, run by cowed minor +officials. But the women--I can count on many of them. Even if their +husbands suspected, they would wink at it, willing that the women should +take the risk and they reap the benefit. God! How they hate the +war--every woman I know. Leave this part of Germany to me, and be +prepared for Schrecklichkeit. There will be no mercy, no politics, in +this revolution--merely one end in view. The Russians are babies but we +are not. 'Huns' shall cease to be a term of opprobrium, for female Huns +will end the war." + +Countess Niebuhr, whose love of intrigue had not diminished with the +years, and who had known more of the Pan-Germanic mind than her naïve +husband had guessed--who, moreover, had had a long and enlightening +interview with one of her sons but a month before--undertook to win over +many women of her own class who had suffered death and disillusion. + +Elsa's transfer to a hospital in Saxony was skilfully managed; and Lili +went on a concert tour for the Red Cross. It was not worth while to +campaign in Austria; the moment Germany was helpless she would collapse +automatically. + +In the course of a month the secret propaganda was moving with the +invisible, sinister, irresistible suction of an undertow. The immense +army of women who did Gisela's work proved themselves true Germans, +logical products of generations of discipline, concentration, +secretiveness, and a thoroughness, even in trifling details, as +implacable as it was automatic. They made few mistakes. When they +discovered--and their spy service was also Teutonic--that they had +confided in some girl or woman whose inherent weakness or venality +threatened betrayal, she disappeared immediately and for ever. + +Gisela, obtaining a commission to inspect the leading hospitals "back of +the front," visited each of the states in turn and addressed thousands +of women in groups of two or three hundred, gathered under the eyes of +the police in the name of one of the many war charities in which all +women were engaged. The lieutenants prepared these women, and Gisela +inspired, crystallized, cohered. The timid she shamed with the example +of the Russian women (and German women despise all other women); the +desperate she had little difficulty in convincing that there was but one +egress from their insupportable agony. Victory under her leadership if +they stood firm, was inevitable. + +She had the gift of a fiery torrent of speech, a clear steady eye, even +when it flashed and blazed, and a warm and irresistible magnetism that +convinced the individual as well as the mass that she had but one +object, the liberation of the miserable women of her country, their +deliverance from further sorrow; and that she was wholly lacking in +personal ambition. + +These women had known the gnawing sensation of unappeased appetite for +two years. They had seen old men and women, sometimes their own, fall in +the streets dead or dying, because they no longer had the reserves of +men and women in their youth or prime. They had seen men blow out their +brains in front of municipal buildings, cursing the Emperor, the +military autocracy, and even the Government, always at odds with the war +lords. They knew of suicides and child murder by despairing mothers that +they hardly whispered to one another. And all the children were +emaciated and wailed continually for food, sleeping little, playing +less, stunted in their growth and threatened with disease; if the war +went on another year they would join the little Polish victims on their +shadowy playground.... They feared for their daughters at home even as +they feared for their young sons in the trenches.... Barring a +revolution, the war might last for years ... _years_.... "Peace +Proposals" irritated what little humor they had left to ghastly obscene +joking.... "Victories" left them as cold as the mid-winter bed.... The +Hohenzollerns, the other kings and princes, the cast-iron junkers, would +cling fast to their own until the Enemy Allies' day of judgment, for +surrender meant their quicker extermination; now, at least, they were +still in the saddle, able to cheer their haunted egos with the Wine of +Lies. + +It was the Hohenzollerns and defeat, or a Republic and easy terms from +the victors who would welcome a sound de-brutalized Germany, jealous of +her lost honor, into the family of nations. The arguments were brief and +simple. Gisela would have won over women far less despairing than +these. And the fact that she had spent four years in America studying +its institutions and resources, convinced the most susceptible to +official lies that the United States could pour money, men, ammunition, +munitions and food into Europe for countless years; and that the +agitations of her pacifists, syndicalists, German agents, and +bribe-takers were but picturesque ripples on the surface of a nation +covering over three million five hundred thousand square miles and +embracing more than one hundred million people. + +And with all the insidious subtlety of her supple mind she changed the +prevailing hatred of President Wilson into a profound and pathetic +confidence. She had long since made them envy and admire the women of +America, and if these fortunate beings had enthusiastically reëlected +him and were now giving his policy as persistent and effective +assistance as the men, it was for the desperate women of Germany to +believe in his promises of deliverance. Above all he had now the +approval of their own Gisela Döring. + +It was the mothers of Germany, balked, potential, or veritable, who were +ready to rise and rescue what was left of the youth of Germany. If +victory for the German arms were hopeless they would risk their own +lives to force a peace that would leave them with the rags of their old +honor and prosperity, that would give them revenge upon the men who had, +for their own criminal ambitions--ambitions which belonged to the Middle +Ages--doomed them to lifelong sorrow; and that would save the lives of +their children--save husbands also for a few of these stern and weary +girls. Even in the Rhine Valley, where the greater number of the +munition and ammunition factories were grouped, there were incessant +meetings, among the night and day shifts, of the thousands of women +employed there, and Gisela herself addressed each of them. + + + + +V + + +1 + +Gisela, who had been staring across the Königinstrasse into the heavy +branches that hung over the wall of the park, her mental vision too +actively raking the past to spare a beam for the familiar picture, +suddenly switched her searchlight away from those milestones in her +historic progress and concentrated it upon a suspicious shadow opposite. +Surely it had moved, and there was not a breath of wind. The night was +mild and still. + +She did not move a muscle but narrowed her gaze until it detached the +figure of a man from the dark background of wall and trees. Always +apprehensive of spies, although the Gott commandeered by the Kaiser +seemed to have adjusted blinders to eyes strained west, east, and +south, she leapt to the conclusion that she was under surveillance at +last, and her heart beat thickly. She who had believed that the long +strain, the constant danger, the incessant demand for resource and ever +more resource, had transformed her nerves to pure steel, realized +angrily that on this last night when she had permitted herself an hour's +idle retrospect before commanding sleep, her nerves more nearly +resembled the strings of a violin. + +Her apartment was on the ground floor. She stood up, revealing herself +disdainfully in the moonlight that now lay full on her window, then went +out quickly into the vestibule and unlocked the house door. Her only +fear was that the man would have gone, but if he were still there she +was determined to walk boldly over to his skulking-place and pretend she +believed him to be a burglar or a foreign spy. In these days she carried +a small pistol and a dagger. + +When she had stepped out on the pavement she glanced quickly up and down +the street. Not even a _polizeidiener_ was in sight, for this +aristocratic quarter was, in peace and war, the quietest part of an +always orderly town. It was evident that the man spied alone. + +Holding her head very high, she started across the street; but she had +not taken three steps when the shadow detached itself and walked rapidly +out into the moonlight. She gave a sharp cry and shrank back. It was +Franz von Nettelbeck. + +"You--" she stammered. "They sent you--" + +"They? And why should I alarm you? Am I so formidable?" He uttered his +short harsh laugh and lifted his cap. His head was bandaged; there was a +deep scar along the outer line of his right cheek. His face was gaunt +and lined; and his shoulders sagged until he suddenly bethought himself +and flung them back with a deathless instinct. + +Gisela smiled and gave him her hand with a graceful spontaneity. "The +sense of being watched always shakes the nerves a bit, and I have felt +up to nothing myself for a long time. Why did not you come up to the +window when you recognized me?" + +"I was so sure of welcome! And yet as soon as I was fit to travel I came +here to see you. I intended to send in my card to-morrow. But I could +not help haunting your window to-night, and when I had the good fortune +to see you sitting there--with the moon shining on your beautiful +face--" + +"My face is no longer beautiful, dear Franz--" + +"You are a thousand times more beautiful than ever--" + +Something else vibrated along those steel nerves, but she said briskly: +"Standing so long must have tired you. Come in and rest. It is late; but +if there are still conventions in this crashing world I have forgotten +them." + +Her rooms were always prepared for a sudden visit of the police. If a +firing squad were her fate it would not have been invited through the +usual channels. Even the arms to be worn on the morrow were in the +cellars and attics of citizens so respectable as almost to be nameless. + +He followed her through the common entrance of the apartment house into +her _Saal_. It was a large comfortable room with many deep chairs, and +on the gray walls were a few portraits of her scowling ancestors, +contributed long since by her mother. A tall porcelain stove glowed +softly. Gisela drew the curtains and lit several candles. She disliked +the hard glare of electricity at any time, and she admitted with a +curious thrill of satisfaction that those manifestly sincere words of +her old lover had given her vanity a momentary resurrection. Her +suspicions were by no means allayed, even when she met his eyes blazing +with passionate admiration, but why not play the old game of the gods +for an hour? What better preparation for the morrow than to relax and +forget? + +"Poor Franz!" Her voice was the same rich contralto whose promise had +routed the Howland millions years ago. "Our poor gallant men! When will +this terrible war finish?" + +"Ask your United States of America!" And he cursed that superfluous +nation roundly. "We had some chance before. Not so much, but still some. +Now we shall be beaten to our knees, stamped into the dust, straight +down to hell." He threw himself into a chair and pressed his hands +against his face. + +"But when?" Gisela watched him warily. If these were tactics they were +admirable; but who more full of theatric devices than the Kaiser he +adored? + +"Years hence, no doubt--if we continue to hold the Social-Democrats in +hand and drug the people. We'll fight on until our enemies' might proves +that they are right and we were fools. That is all there is to war." + +Gisela sat down and let her hands fall into her lap with a little +pathetic motion of weakness. "Sometimes I wish the Socialists were +strong enough to win and end it all," she said plaintively. + +"Oh, no, you don't. You are a junker, for all your independent notions, +and trying to put some of your own nerve into the women. I read you with +great amusement before the war. But no one knows better than yourself +that the triumph of democracy in Germany would mean the end of us." + +"I cannot see that we are enjoying many privileges at present--unless it +be the privilege to lie rather than be lied to. And when our enemies do +win we shall be pried out, root and branch. So, why not save our skins +at all events? I do not mean mine, of course--nor, for that matter, am I +thinking of our class; but of the hundreds of thousands of our dear +young men who might be spared--" + +"Better die and have done with it. And there is always hope--" + +"Hope?" + +"Oh--in the separate peace, the ultimate submersible, some new +invention--the miracle that has come to the rescue more than once in +history. There are times when my faith in the destiny of Germany to +dominate the world is so great that I cannot believe it possible for +her to fail--in spite of everything, everything! And everything is +against us! I never realized it until I lay there in the hospital. I was +too busy before, and that was my first serious wound. Oh, God! what +fools we were. What rotten diplomacy. Even I despised the United States; +but as I lay there in Berlin their irresistible almighty power seemed to +pass before me in a procession that nearly destroyed my reason. I knew +the country well enough, but I would not see." + +"They are a very soft-hearted people and would let us down agreeably if +the Social-Democrats overturned the House of Hohenzollern and stretched +out the imploring hand of a young Republic--" + +"No! No! A thousand times rather die to the last man than be beaten +within. That would be the one insupportable humiliation. _Canaille!_" He +spat out the word. "I refuse to recognize their existence--" + +He sprang to his feet and before her mind could flash to attention he +had caught her from her chair and was straining her to him, his arms, +his entire body, betraying no evidence whatever of depleted vitality. +"Let us forget it all!" he muttered. "We are still young and I am free. +I was a fool once and you will believe me when I tell you that I would +beg you on my knees to marry me even if you were Gisela Döring.... I +have leave of absence for a month ... let us be happy once more...." + +"It was a long while ago ... all that ... do you realize how long?" + +Gisela stood rigid, her eyes expanded. To her terror and dismay she was +thrilling and flaming from head to foot. This lover of her life might +have released her from one of their immortal hours but yesterday. But +although she had to brace her body from yielding, her mind (and it is +the curse of intellectual women of individual powers that the mind +never, in any circumstances, ceases to function) realized that while the +human will may be strong enough to banish memories, and readjust the +lonely soul, its most triumphant acts may be annihilated by the physical +contact of its mate. Unless replaced. Fool that she had been merely to +have buried the memory of this man by an act of will. She should have +taken a commonplace lover, or husband, put out that flaming midnight +torch with the standardizing light of day. + +Her mind seemed to be darting from peak to peak in a swift and dazzling +flight as he talked rapidly and brokenly, kissing her cheek, her neck, +straining her so close to him that she could hardly breathe. Suddenly it +poised above the memory of an old book of Renan's, "The Abbess Juarre," +in which the eminent skeptic had somewhat clumsily attempted to +demonstrate that if the world unmistakably announced its finish within +three days the inhabitants would give themselves up to an orgy of love. + +Well, her world might end to-morrow. Why should she not live to-night? + +Her arrogant will demanded the happiness that this man, whom she had +never ceased to love for a moment, to whom she had been unconsciously +faithful, alone could give her. Moreover, her reason working side by +side with her imperious desires, assured her that if he really were +spying, and, whatever his passion, meant to remold her will to his and +snatch the keystone from the arch, it were wise to keep him here. It was +evident that he had no suspicion of the imminence of the revolution. + +And it was years since she had felt all woman, not a mere intellect +ignoring the tides in the depths of her being. The revelation that she +was still young and that her will and all the proud achievements of her +mind could dissolve at this man's touch in the crucible of her passion +filled her with exultation. + +She melted into his arms and lifted hers heavily to his neck. + +"Franz! Franz!" she whispered. + + +2 + +Gisela moved softly about the room looking for fresh candles. Those that +had replaced the moonlight hours ago had burned out and she did not +dare draw the curtains apart: it was too near the dawn. She had no idea +what time it was. But she must have light, for to think was imperative, +and her mental processes were always clogged in the dark. + +She found the old box of candles and placed four in the brackets and lit +them. Then she went over to the couch and looked down upon Franz von +Nettelbeck. He slept heavily, on his side, his arms relaxed but slightly +curved. In a few moments she went down the hall to her bedroom and took +a cold bath and made a cup of strong coffee; then dressed herself in a +suit of gray cloth, straight and loose, that her swiftest movements +might not be impeded. In the belt under the jacket she adjusted her +pistol and dagger. + +She returned to the _Saal_ and once more looked down upon the +unconscious man. How long he had been falling asleep! She had offered +him wine, meaning to drug it, but he had refused lest it inflame his +wounds. She had offered to make him coffee, but he would not let her +go. + +It was in the complete admission of her reluctance to leave him, even +after he slept, and while disturbed by the fear that the dawn was nearer +than in fact it was, that she stared down upon the man who was more to +her than Germany and all its enslaved women and men. He knew nothing of +her plans, had not a suspicion of the revolution, but he had vowed they +never should be parted again. He had great influence and could set +wheels in motion that would return him to the diplomatic service and +procure him an appointment to Spain; where good diplomatists were badly +needed. + +It was an enchanting picture that he drew in spite of the horror that +must ever mutter at their threshold; but to the awfulness of war they +were both by this time more or less callous, although he was mortally +sick of the war itself; and Gisela, who doled half-measures neither to +herself nor others, had dismissed the morrow and yielded herself to the +joy of the future as of the present. What she had felt for this man in +her early twenties seemed a mere partnership of romance and sentiment +fused by young nerves, compared with the mature passion he had shocked +from its long recuperative sleep. He was her mate, her other part. Her +long fidelity, unshaken by time, her own temperament and many +opportunities, all were proof of that. + +The caste of great lovers in this unfinished world is small and almost +inaccessible, but they had taken their place by immemorial right. Were +it not for this history of her own making they would find every phase of +happiness in each other as long as they both lived. Women, at least, +know instinctively the difference between the transient passion, no +matter how powerful, and the deathless bond. + +Gisela glanced at her wrist watch. It was within seventy minutes of the +dawn. If she could only be sure that he would sleep until Munich herself +awoke him. But he had told her that he never slept these days more than +two or three hours at a time, no matter how weary. + +If he awoke before it was time for her to leave the house and renewed +his love-making, her response would be as automatic as the progress of +life itself. + +If she attempted to leave the house before sunrise, on no matter what +pretext, his suspicions would be aroused, for she had told him that she +had been given a week for rest. For the same reason she dared not awaken +him and ask him to go. He would refuse, for it was no time to slip out +of a woman's apartment; far better wait until ten o'clock, when there +were always visitors of both sexes in her office. Moreover, he would no +more wish to go than he would permit her to leave him. + +She was utterly in his power if he awakened and chose to exert it. He +had mastered her, conquered her, routed her career and her peace, and +she had gloried in her submission; gloried in it still. A commonplace +woman would have been satisfied, satiated, felt free for the moment, +turned with relief to the dry convention of the daily adventure, rather +resenting, if she had a pretty will, the supreme surrender to the race +in an unguarded hour. + +Gisela was cast in the heroic mold. She came down from the old race of +goddesses of her own Nibelungenlied, whose passions might consume them +but had nothing in common with the ebb and flow of mortals. But great +brains are fed by stormy souls, and in the souls of women there is an +element of weakness, unknown, save in a few notable instances, to great +men in the crises of their destiny; for women are the slaves of the +race, and nature when permitting them the abnormality of genius takes +her revenge. + +If he awakened.... There was little time for thought. She must plan +quickly. If she left the house at once he might awaken immediately and +after searching the apartment, follow her; there was the dire +possibility that he would learn too much before the terrific drama of +the revolution opened, and manage to thwart their plans. He was a man of +quick brain and ruthless will; no consideration for her would stop him, +although he would save her from the consequences of her act, no doubt of +that. Save her for himself. + +Mimi Brandt, and Heloise and Marie von Erkel were asleep in rooms at the +end of the hall.... She had a mad idea of binding him hand and foot and +locking him in her bedroom.... Either he would hate her for the +humiliation he--Franz von Nettelbeck, glorious on the field of honor, a +bound prisoner in a woman's bedroom while his class was blown to atoms, +and his caste was roaring its impotent fury to a napping Gott!... Oh, an +insufferable affront to a man of his order who held even the dearest +woman as the favored pensioner on his bounty ... or she would be +consumed with remorse, melt ... it was positive that she must visit +him--not leave him to starve ... nor could she keep him bound ... and +once more she would be his slave ... could she hold out even for a day? + +The first blow of a revolution is, after all, only its first. There is +always the danger of a swift reaction. + +Unremitting vigilance, work, encouragement are the part of its leaders +for months, possibly years, to come. All revolutions are dependent for +ultimate success upon one preëminent figure. + +Franz stirred under the unconscious fixity of her gaze and changed his +position, lying on his back. She hastily averted her eyes. Her hands +clenched and spread. Even to-morrow if this man found her ... one soft +moment ... when she needed all her energy, her fire, her powers of +concentration, of depersonalization, for the millions of tortured women +who would follow her straight out to meet any division the Emperor might +detach in the vain hope of subduing an army far outnumbering all that he +had left of men. + +Nothing but a miracle could halt the initial stage of the revolution; +the wireless plants were all operated by women in her service, and no +telephone message had advised her of danger. No matter what her +defection at this moment the revolution would begin at dawn; but +although Germany happily lacked the disintegrating forces of Russia, +comfortable as she had been for two generations, and proud in her +discipline, that very discipline would dissolve its new backbone without +the stimulating force of her own inexorable will. And if she deserted +them!... + +It was a woman's revolution. A necessary number of men Socialists had +been admitted to the secret and were to strike the second blow. But the +women must strike the first, and according to program. Not only were the +men under surveillance, but where women would be pardoned in case of a +failure, they would be shot. And most of them had more brain than brawn, +were past the fighting age; the girls, and women of middle years, were a +magnificent army which would make the graybeards appear absurd in the +open. + +These women worshiped her, believed her to be a super-being created to +save them and their children; but if she betrayed them, proved herself +the merest woman of them all--a childless woman at that--the very bones +would melt out of them, they would prostrate themselves in the ashes of +their final despair. + +Spain! Franz! For a moment her imagination rioted. + +She smiled ironically. Happiness? Four-walled happiness? Hardly for her, +even without the blood of murdered thousands soaking her doorstep. Love, +for women like her ... even eternal love ... must be episodical. Life +forces the duties of leadership on such women whether they resent them +or not. They must take their love where they find it as great men do, +subordinated to their chosen careers and the tremendous duties and +responsibilities that are the fruit of all achieved ambition. + +It was true that she had no political ambition, but for an unpredictive +period she must be the beacon-light of the new Republic, no matter how +successful the coup of the Socialists; until some one man (she knew of +none) or some group of men became strong enough to control its +destinies. The women must stand firm, a solid critical body led by +herself, until the tragically disciplined soldiers who had survived +these years of warfare had ceased to be sheep, or run bleating to the +new fold. + +Even if she won Franz over, her power would be sapped; not for a moment +would he be out of her consciousness; her imagination would drift +incessantly from the vital work in hand to the hour of their reunion. +The hurtling power of her eloquence would be diminished, her magnetism +weakened. + +Her memory flashed backward to those three years when he was an +ever-rising obsession--personifying love and completion as he +did--before which her proud will fell back again and again, powerless +and humiliated. + +Why, in God's name could not he have come back into her life six months +hence? + +No woman should risk a sex cataclysm when she has great work to do. +Nature is too subtle for any woman's will as long as the man be +accessible. And the strongest and the proudest woman that ever lived may +have her life disorganized by a man if she possess the power to charm +him. + +She moved softly from the couch and walked up and down the room, +striving to visualize her manifest destiny and erect the grim ideal of +duty. Her mind, working at lightning speed, recalled moments, days, in +the past, when she had let her will relax, ignored her duties, floated +idly with the tide; the sensation of panic with which she had recaptured +at a bound the ideals that governed her life. Mortal happiness was not +for her. Duty done, with or without exaltation of spirit, would at least +keep her in tune with life, preserve her from that disintegrating horror +of soul that could end only with self-annihilation. + +And end her usefulness. It was a vicious circle. + +Suddenly a wave of humiliation, of insupportable shame, swept her from +sole to crown, and she returned swiftly to her post above the sleeping +man. One moment had undone the work of all those proud years during +which she had made herself over from the quintessential lover into one +of the intellectual leaders of the world, a woman who had accomplished +what no man had dared to attempt, and who, if the revolution were the +finality which before this man came had seemed to be written in the Book +of Germany, would be immortal in history. Wild fevers of the blood, +passionate longing for completion in man, oneness, the "organic +unit"--were not for her. + +All feeling ebbed slowly out of her, leaving her cold, collected, alert. +She was, over all, a woman of genius, the custodian of peculiar gifts, +sleeping throughout the ages, perhaps, like Brunhilde on her rock, to +awaken not at the kiss of man, but at the summons of Germany in her +darkest hour. + +She bent over the man who belonged to the woman alone in her and whose +power over her would be exerted as ruthlessly as her own should be over +herself. He looked a very gallant gentleman as he lay there, and he had +been a very brave soldier. His own place was secure in the annals of the +war, but at this moment, following upon his triumphant swoop after +happiness, he was the one deadly menace to the future of his country. + +Gisela opened his shirt gently and bared his breast. She held her +breath, but he slept on and she took the dagger from her belt and with a +swift hard propulsion drove it into his heart to the guard. He gave a +long expiring sigh and lay still. A gallant gentleman, a brave soldier, +and a great lover had the honor to be the first man to pay the price of +his country's crime, on the altar of the Woman's Revolution. + + +3 + +Gisela went swiftly down the hall and awakened Heloise, Mimi, and Marie +and told them what she had done. No novelty in horror could startle +European women in those days. They dressed themselves hastily in their +gray uniforms and followed her to the _Saal_. With Mimi's assistance she +put on his coat, the hilt of the dagger thrusting forward the row of +medals on his breast. Marie went out into the street and flitted up and +down like a big gray moth, her gray little face tense with rapture. Her +devotion to Gisela had been fanatical from the first but now she begged +what invisible power her wild little mind still recognized to be +permitted to die for her. + +In a moment she signaled that the street was deserted. Gisela and Mimi +carried the body over to the park and dropped it into the swiftly +flowing Isar. The clear jade green of the lovely river reflected the +points of the stars, and Franz von Nettelbeck as he drifted down the +tide looked as if attended by innumerable candles dropped graciously +from on high to watch at his bier. But it was to Heloise this fancy +came, and she lifted her face and thanked the stars for their silent +funeral march. Not for her would the supreme sacrifice have been +possible, and for the moment she did not envy Gisela Döring. + +The four girls walked rapidly over to the Maximilianstrasse and crossed +the bridge to the Maximilianeum. The long symmetrical brown building +with its open galleries filled with the cold starlight was distorted by +a wireless station on its highest point and by a biplane on the extreme +left of the roof. It stood on a lofty terrace and commanded a view of +all Munich and of the tumbled peaks of the Alps. + +They ran up the stairs and called to the operator from the higher +gallery. She answered in a hard and weary voice: "Nothing." Then they +walked down the gallery to the open tower facing the Alps. For half an +hour longer they stood in silence, alternately glancing from their wrist +watches to the faintly glittering peaks whose first reflection of dawn, +if all went well, would change the face of the world. + + + + +VI + + +1 + +The eyes of the four women traveled to the lofty towers of the +Frauenkirche. Its bells rang out a wild authoritative summons. +Coincidentally the streets filled with women dressed uniformly in +gray--big powerfully built women, sturdy products of the strong soil of +Germany. They did not march, nor form in ranks, but stood silent, alert, +shouldering rifles with fixed bayonets. + +Involuntarily Gisela and her three lieutenants braced themselves against +the pillars of the tower. An instant later the walls of the +Maximilianeum rocked under the terrific impact of what sounded like a +thousand explosions. The roar of parting walls, the shriek of shells and +bombs bursting high in the air, the sharp short cry of shattered metal, +the deep _approaching_ voice of dynamite prolonging itself in echoes +that seemed to reverberate among the distant Alps, shook the souls of +even those inured to the murderous uproar of the battlefield. + +Grotesquely combined with this terrific but majestic confusion of sound +were the screams of innocent citizens hanging out of the windows, waving +their arms, staring distraught at the sky, convinced, in so far as they +could think at all, that a great enemy air fleet was bombarding Germany +at last. + +Masses of flame and smoke shot upward. The pale morning sky turned +black, rent with darting crimson tongues and lit with prismatic stars. +Other explosions followed in rapid succession, some coming down the +light morning wind from a long distance. Blasts of heat swept audibly +through the long galleries of the Maximilianeum. + +"It is an inferno!" Marie von Erkel for the moment was almost +hysterical. "Will Munich be destroyed? Oh, not that!" + +"The fire brigades know their business." Gisela glanced up at the +Marconi station. Even through the din she could hear the faint crackling +of the wireless. "If all Germany--" + +But her eyes were wild.... If the revolutionists in the rest of the +empire had been as prompt and fearless as those of Bavaria, every +munition and ammunition factory, every aerodrome and public hangar, save +those taken possession of by powerfully armed squads of women, every +arsenal, every warehouse for what gasoline and lubricating oils were +left, every telegraph and telephone wire, every railway station near +either frontier, with thousands of cars and miles of track had been +destroyed simultaneously. The armies would be isolated, without arms or +ammunition but what they had on hand or could manufacture in the invaded +countries; no food but what they had in storage. They could not fight +the enemy seven days longer; if the Enemy Allies heard immediately of +the revolution through neutral channels and believed in it after so +many false alarms, the finish of the German forces would come in two +days. + +But had the women of the other states been as prompt and ruthless as the +women of Bavaria? Spandau, Essen, all the centers in the Rhine Valley +for the manufacture of munitions on a grand scale ... the great Krupp +factories ... unless they were in ruins the revolution was a failure.... + +She could not be everywhere at once. War and misery and starving +children, the loss of the men and boys they loved, and a profound +distrust of their rulers, had filled them with a cold and bitter hatred +of an autocracy convicted of lying and aggressive purpose out of its own +mouth; but would the iron in their souls carry them triumphantly past +the final test? Women were women and Germans were not Russians. They had +little fatalism in their make-up, and their brain cells were packed with +the tradition of centuries of submission to man. True, their quiet +revolt had begun long before the war, and this last year had wrought +extraordinary changes, quickening their mental processes, forcing them +to think and act for themselves; but their hearts might have turned to +water during those last dispiriting hours before the dawn. + +And how could it be possible that all traitors had been detected, +exterminated, with millions in the secret? Troops might even now be in +Prussia. Great Headquarters (Grosse Hauptquartier) were in Pless, and +although the women of that city were not in the confidence of the +revolutionaries, and it was to remain in ignorance as long as possible, +the abrupt cessation of telephone and telegraph communication would +advise that group of alert brains that something was wrong. Moreover, +even with interrupted communications they would soon learn of the +blowing up of factories in other Silesian towns; no doubt hear them. It +was true the railways and bridges between Pless and Berlin were--if they +were!--destroyed, but there were always automobiles; enough for a small +force.... And the police, the police of Berlin! They were still +formidable in spite of the drain on men for the front. Mariette had +written her grimly that she would "take care of 'the rats in the +granary,'" meaning the police; but although Mariette was the most +thorough and merciless person she knew, she doubted even her in this +awful moment. + +How could she have dreamed of accomplishing a universal revolution in +a country possessing the most perfect secret service system in the +world?... a country with eyes in the back of its head? True, the +Socialists in her confidence had been noisy and bumptious of late in +order to concentrate attention upon their sex, and at the same time +careful to refrain from definite statements or overt acts.... It would +never enter the stupid official head that German women could conceive, +much less precipitate, a revolution; but there _must_ be traitors, +women who fundamentally were the slaves of men, weak spirits, spirits +rotten with imperialism, militarism, but cunning in the art of +dissimulation.... What an accursed fool and criminal she had been ... +egotistical dreamer! ... led on by the extraordinary power she had +acquired over the women of her race.... + +For a moment she clung to the embrasure, so overwhelming was her impulse +to hurl herself down into oblivion. In that dark and shrieking uproar +she had the illusion that she was in hell, in hell with her miserable +victims. + +But although Gisela's long slumbering nerves had had their revenge last +night, they had given up the fight when she had destroyed their only +ally, and these last protesting vibrations were very brief. Her eyes +fell on the ranks of women standing in the wide Maximilianstrasse,--a +street a mile long and seventy-five feet across--undisturbed by the +turmoil they had anticipated, calmly awaiting her orders. The obsession +passed, and after a brief tribute of hatred to her imagination, which +was, after all, one root of her power, she turned and glanced +critically at her three companions. Marie, looking like a little gray +gnome, was dancing about and waving her arms in ecstasy. Heloise, her +long blonde hair hanging about her fine French face, was gazing out with +rapt eyes and lips apart, as if every sense were drinking in the vision +of a Germany delivered. Mimi was standing with her arms akimbo, nodding +her head emphatically. + +"Great work," she said as she met Gisela's stern eyes. "Better go up to +the wireless." + +They ran rapidly up to the roof and looked into the little room. The +girl who sat there nodded but did not speak. Her face was gray and +tense, but there was no evidence of despair. Gisela and Mimi stood +motionless for what seemed to them a stifling hour, but at last the +operator laid down the receiver. + +"All," she said. "Every one." + +"The Rhine Valley?" + +The girl nodded, then rolled her jacket into a pillow, lay down before +the door and immediately fell asleep. It had been a night of ghastly +suspense. Another operator was already running up the stair to her +relief. + +"Fate!" cried Mimi. "The same fate that sank the Armada and drove +Napoleon to Moscow. You had the vision--" + +"I was the chosen instrument--" Gisela walked rapidly over to the +biplane. A girl sat at the joy-stick looking as if carved out of wood. +There was no more expression on her face than if she were sitting in the +gallery at a rather dull play. Her lover and six brothers were dead in +France. She had watched her little brother and her old grandmother die +of malnutrition. Her sister was "officially pregnant" and under +surveillance lest she kill herself. No more perfect machine was at the +disposal of Gisela Döring. Whether Germany were delivered or razed to +the earth was all one to her, but she was more than willing, as a +Bavarian with a traditional hatred of Prussia, to play her part in the +downfall of a race that presumed to call itself German. + + +2 + +Gisela stepped into the machine and it glided downward and skimmed +lightly over the great length of the Maximilianstrasse. + +The compact ranks, which had listened unmoved to the roar of dynamite +and the detonations of bursting shells, raised their faces at the +humming of the machine and broke into harsh abrupt cheering. Then they +leaned their rifles against their powerful bodies and unfurled their +flags and waved them in the faces of the half paralyzed people in the +windows. It was a white flag with a curious device sketched in crimson: +a hen in successive stages of evolution. The final phase was an eagle. +The body was modeled after the Prussian emblem of might, but the face, +grim, leering, vengeful, pitiless, was unmistakably that of a woman. +However humor may be lacking in the rest of that grandiose Empire it was +grafted into the Bavarians by Satan himself. + +Gisela nodded. "The hens are eagles--all over Germany," she announced +in her full carrying voice. "Word has come through from every quarter." + +She flew down the Leopoldstrasse. It was packed with women from the +Feldherrnhalle to the Siegesthor, cheering women, waving their flags, +armed to the teeth. So was the great Park of the Residenz, the +Hofgarten, where the guards were either bound or dead. It took her but a +few moments to fly all over Munich. The narrow streets were deserted, +save for the prostrate policemen bound suddenly from ambush; but in all +the beautiful squares, with their pompous statues, and in all the wider +streets, and out in the wide Theresien Field before the colossal figure +of Bavaria, the women were gathered; relapsing into phlegmatic calm as +soon as she had given her message and passed. + +But it was by no means a scene of unbroken dignity and silence. Here and +there groups of men in uniform lay dead, sword or pistol in hand. Once +Gisela flew low and discharged her revolver into the shoulder of a big +officer, half dressed and barely recovered from his wounds, who was +keeping off half a dozen women with magnificent sword play. The women +gave one another first aid, then lifted and pitched him into his house. + +There was sniping, of course, from the windows, but the women made a +concerted rush and disposed of the terrified offender as remorselessly +as their own men had punished the desperate civilians of the lands they +had invaded. They had heard their men brag for too many years about +their admirable policy of Schrecklichkeit to forget the lesson in this +fateful hour. + +The most exciting scenes and the only ones in which any of the women +were killed were in the vicinity of the garrison. These interior +garrisons of the country had been one of the long debated problems. As +no women entered them and as it was not safe to attempt the corruption +of any of the men, there were but two alternatives: blow them up and +sacrifice the men wholesale or meet them with a superior force as they +rushed out to ascertain the nature of the explosions, and fight them in +open battle. Gisela had finally decided to give them a chance for their +lives, as she had no mind to shed any more blood than was unavoidable; +and these men, being no longer in their prime, must be overcome +eventually, no matter what their fury. + +When she hovered over the Marztplatz in front of the garrison a few +moments after the last of the explosions, and while fire was still +raging in this military quarter of magazines, arsenals and laboratories, +men and women were mixed in a hideous confusion, shooting and slashing +indiscriminately. But there were thousands of women and only a few +hundred men, all of whom at one time or another had been wounded. +Finally the captain of this regiment of women ordered a swift retreat, +and simultaneously three machine guns opened fire from innocent looking +windows, but on the garrison building, not on the square. They ceased +after one round, and the captain of the women gave such men as were +alive and unwounded their choice between death and surrender. They chose +the sensible alternative, were driven within, and placed under a heavy +guard. + +It was not safe to venture too close to the still exploding and blazing +structures, but it was quite apparent that the work had been done +thoroughly. The fire brigades were busy, and there was little danger of +Munich, one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in the world, +falling a victim to the revolution. Many lives had been sacrificed, no +doubt. The women night-workers in the factories, fifteen minutes before +the signal from the Frauenkirche, had pretended to strike, seized all +the hand arms available and shot down the men who attempted to control +them. The men in the secret had gone with them and were already about +their business. + +The officers in charge of the Class of 1920 were too few in number to +make any resistance, too dazed to grasp a situation for which there was +no precedent; they had surrendered to the Amazons grimly awaiting their +decision. The poor boys in the Kadettenkorps had run home to their +mothers, and, finding them in the streets, had either taken refuge in +the cellars, or joined those formidable warriors in gray, promising +obedience and yielding their arms. + +Other aeroplanes were darting about the city. The greater number were +driven by women, directing the fire brigades, but now and again a man, +whose monoplane had been in his private shed, flew upward primed for +battle. After a few parleys he retired to await events, one only +shooting a woman, and crashing to earth riddled with avenging bullets. + +Such air men as were in Munich were too callous to danger of all sorts, +too accustomed to the horrors of the battlefield, to take this +outpouring of women and mere civilians seriously; even in spite of the +explosions, which, to be sure, denoted an appalling amount of +destruction. Any attempt to sally forth on foot and ascertain the extent +of the damage was met by bayonets and pistols in the hands of brigades +of women whose like they had never seen in Germany. They inferred they +were Russians, who had managed to cross the frontier with the infernal +subtlety of their race. At all events they would be exterminated with no +effort of men lacking authority to act. + + +3 + +Several of the women flew out into the country, but except where people +were gathered about smoking ruins the land was at peace; there was no +sign of a rally to the blue and white flag of Bavaria, no sign of an +avenging army. In the course of the morning there were hundreds of these +aviators darting about Bavaria, descending to tell the peasants or +shop-keepers of the small towns that Germany was in revolution, the +armies deprived of all support, and that the Republic had been +proclaimed in Berlin. The Social Democrats had possession of the +Reichstaggebäude, and every official head still affixed to its +shoulders was as helpless--a fuming prisoner in its own house--as if +those arrogant brains had turned to porridge. Every royal and official +residence throughout the Empire was surrounded by an army of women with +fixed bayonets, and before noon every unsubmissive member of the old +régime would be in either a fortress or the common prison. + +This news Gisela heard at ten o'clock when she returned to the wireless +station on the Maximilianeum. The Berlin news came from Mariette. + +In Munich the old King had been returned to the Red Palace which he had +occupied during the long years of his father's regency, and it too was +surrounded by an alert but silent army. The other royal palaces were +guarded in a similar manner, but the women had no intention of killing +these kindly Wittelsbachs if it could be avoided. All they asked of them +was to keep quiet, and keep quiet they did. After all, they had reigned +a thousand years. Perhaps they were tired. Certainly they always looked +bored to the verge of dissolution. + +The Munich Socialists had taken possession of the Residenz in which to +proclaim their victory and the new Republic, and by this time were +crowding the Hofgarten and adjoining streets. They were unarmed and many +of the women moved constantly among them, ready at a second's notice to +dispose summarily of any man who even scowled his antagonism to the +downfall of monarchy. + +Six hundred women, according to the prearranged program, and under +Gisela's direct supervision, were turning such outlying buildings as +commanded the highways leading toward the frontiers into fortifications. +They had little apprehension that their sons and fathers, their husbands +and lovers, would fire on the women to whom they had brought home food +from their rations these two years past, or that the General Staff would +risk the demolition of the cities of Germany. But they took no chances, +knowing that an attempt might be made to rush them. In that case they +were determined to remember only that their husbands and sons, fathers +and lovers, were bent upon their final subjection. Moreover, the term +"brain storm" had long since found its way from the United States to +Germany, and the women thought it singularly applicable to their former +masters when in a state of baffled rage. + + + + +VII + + +1 + +Mariette's communications by wireless were very brief, and on the second +day of the revolution Gisela went by special train to Berlin. It was +the King's own train, and always ready to start. The engineer and +fireman avowed themselves "friends of the revolution," but they +performed their duties with two armed women in the cab and fifty more in +the car behind the engine. + +The cities through which Gisela passed, as well as the small towns and +wayside villages, presented a uniform appearance: smoking ruins in the +outlying sections which had been devoted to the war factories, and +streets deserted save for women sentries. One or two of the smaller +towns had burned, owing to lack of fire brigades. The food trains +destined for the front, which had been moved out of danger before the +general destruction, were being systematically unloaded, and a portion +of the contents doled out to thousands of emaciated men, women, and +children. The rest would be as methodically returned to the warehouses. + +Gisela arrived in Berlin half an hour before the Kaiser. + +The city was as dark as interstellar space and she would have been +forced to spend the night in the Anhalt Bahnhof if Mariette had not met +her. They walked from the station, keeping close to the walls of the +silent houses and entering Unter den Linden from the Friedrichstrasse. +There was not a sound but the high whirr of airplanes keeping guard over +a city that seemed stifled in the embrace of death, its life current +switched off by the proudest achievement of its pestilent laboratories. + +Mariette did not take the trouble to lower her hard incisive voice as +she told her sister the brief story of the revolution in Berlin. + +"I left not a loophole for failure. Two minutes before the bells rang +every policeman on duty was shot dead from a doorway or window. The +police offices and stations were blown up. There is not a policeman +alive in Berlin. I also ordered the garrisons blown up. Both the police +and the garrisons here were too strong. I dared not risk an encounter. +Criticize me if you will. It is done." + +"But the Emperor, the General Staff?" Gisela was in no mood to waste a +thought upon means, nor even upon accomplished ends. "If they left Pless +at once they should have been here before this." + +"They did not leave Pless at once. When they began to send out questions +by wireless after they found their telephone and telegraph wires cut, +they were kept quiet for several hours by soothing messages sent by our +women in Breslau and nearer towns. An abortive uprising of a handful of +starving Socialists! Even when their fliers went out they could learn +nothing because they dared not land even at Breslau; high-firing guns +threatened them everywhere. All they could report was that the streets +were full of armed women, which, of course, the General Staff took as an +unseemly joke. But toward night a soldier who had managed to escape from +Breslau came staggering into Great Headquarters with information that +penetrated even that composite Prussian skull: the women of Germany had +risen _en masse_ and effected a revolution. Of course they refused to +believe the worst--that every ounce and inch of war material had been +destroyed; and the entire Staff, escorted by a thousand troops--all they +had on hand--started for Berlin. They did not omit to wireless in both +directions for troops to march on Berlin at once; but, needless to say, +these messages were deflected. As the tracks were torn up they were +obliged to travel by automobile, and as the bridges over the Kloonitz +Canal and the Oder tributaries had been blown up, they were unable to +ameliorate what must have been an apoplectic impatience. No doubt a few +of them are dead. Of course their progress has been watched and reported +every hour, but they have not been molested. We want them here. Only +their small air squadron has been shot down." + +They felt their way along Unter den Linden by the trees and entered the +Opernplatz. Two biplanes awaited them before the arsenal. There were +lights in the great pile of the Hohenzollerns across the bridge. Uneasy +spirits prowled there, no doubt, but none of the women of the Imperial +family had made any attempt to escape, accepting the assurances of the +revolutionists that no harm should come to them, and, knowing nothing of +the thorough methods taken to reduce the army to impotence, awaited with +what patience they could muster--and royal women are the most patient in +the world--the invincible troops that must come within a day or two to +their rescue. + +The two biplanes flew over to the streets east of the Emperor's palace +and hovered just above the house tops until the eyes of Gisela and +Mariette, now accustomed to a darkness unpierced by moon or stars, made +out a long line of moving blackness in the narrow gloom of the +Königinstrasse. The forward cars entered the palace from the +Schlossplatz, and as lights immediately appeared in the courtyards +Gisela saw eight or ten men alight stiffly and hurriedly enter the inner +portals. The other automobiles ranged themselves in an apparently +unbroken line on all sides of the palace. Gisela had amused herself +imagining the nervous speculations of those war-hardened potentates and +warriors as they crawled through the sinister darkness of the +capital--proud witness of a thousand triumphal marches; of the sharp and +darting gaze above the guns of the armored cars, expecting an ambush at +every corner. How they must hate a situation so utterly without +precedent. + +Gisela almost laughed aloud as she saw the purple flag, denoting that +the Emperor was in residence, run up on the north side of the palace. +However, automatic discipline worked both ways. + +Once more Berlin was as silent as if at rest for ever under the pall of +darkness that seemed to have descended from the dark and threatening +sky. + +But only for a moment. + +Berlin suddenly burst into a blinding glare of light. Unter den +Linden from end to end--excepting only the royal palaces--with +its long line of imposing public buildings, hotels, and shops, +the Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Platz, the Zeugplatz, the Lustgarten--the +Schlossplatz--all the magnificent expanse from the Brandenburg gate to a +quarter of a mile beyond the river Spree--had been strung and looped +with electric lights, and the scene looked as if touched with a royal +fairy's wand. The side streets from the Royal Library and the old Kaiser +Wilhelm palace as far as the Schlossbrücke, were also brilliantly +illuminated. + +And in all these streets and squares women stood in close ranks, silent, +phlegmatic women, with pistols in their belts and rifles with fixed +bayonets on their shoulders, the steel reflecting the terrific downpour +of light with a steady and menacing glitter. These women wore gray +uniforms and there were shining Prussian helmets on their heads. + +In every window was a double row of women, armed; and the housetops were +crowded with them. There were also machine guns on the roofs, pointing +downward or toward the roof of the palace. + +Mariette laughed. "Theatric enough to please even his taste? Our last +tribute. Let us hope he will enjoy it." + +A moment later the expected happened. A window of the palace overlooking +the great Schlossplatz opened and the Emperor stepped out into the +narrow balcony. His uniform was caked with dust and mud and his face was +drawn with a mortal fatigue; but as he stood there scowling haughtily +down upon that upturned sea of woman's faces, the most singular vision +that ever had greeted imperial eyes, he was an imposing figure enough +to those who knew that he was the Kaiser Wilhelm II, King of Prussia and +Alsace-Lorraine, and Emperor in Germany. + +It was evident that he had no intention of speaking, but expected this +grotesque mob to be overwhelmed by the imperial presence and dissolve. + +Frau Kathie Meyers, with the figure of an Amazon and the voice of a +megaphone, stepped forth from the ranks and lifted her placid red face +to the balcony. + +"You will abdicate, William Hohenzollern," she announced in tones that +rolled down toward the Brandenburg gate like the overtones of a Death +Symphony at the Front. "Germany is a Republic. And the palace is mined. +If your soldiers fire one shot from the windows the palace goes up to +meet the ghosts of every arsenal and every ammunition factory in what +two days ago was the Empire of Germany. Your armies are helpless. You +will remain a prisoner within your palace until we have decided whether +to deliver you to Great Britain, incarcerate you in a fortress, or +permit you to live in exile. It will depend upon the behavior of the +army when it returns. If you attempt to leave the palace you will be +shot." + +The Emperor stared down upon that mass of calm implacable faces, so +unmistakably German; not brilliant nor beautiful, but persistent as +death, and stamped with the watermark of kultur; stared for a long +moment, his gray face twitching, the familiar gray blaze in his eyes. +But he turned without a word or even a disdainful gesture and reëntered +the palace, the window closing immediately behind him. + +The Amazon addressed the men in the armored automobiles that surrounded +the palace. + +"Fire upon us if you like. Our ranks are close and you will kill many. +But not one of you will live to eat rat sausage tomorrow morning. Now +disarm and march to the guard house." + +The contemptible little army of the Kaiser, hypnotized as much by the +glare as by this solid mass of vindictive females--singly so +negligible--shrugged their shoulders, surrendered their arms, and +marched off under guard. After all, they would have a blessed rest, +however brief, before the great generals sent back a few brigades to +execute summary vengeance upon these presumptuous women, who had used +their incidental superiority in numbers so basely. + + +2 + +But nothing came from the front but frantic orders by wireless to the +staunch but impotent pillars of the old régime. The British, French, and +American forces, convinced at last that German women actually had +effected a revolution--God knew how!--attacked every point of the line +from Flanders to Belfort, and their aviators dropped newspapers +containing the extraordinary but verified story, into the German +trenches and back of the lines. + +The destruction of the railways leading to the Austria-Hungarian Empire, +as well as all the rolling stock within three miles of the frontier, +balked any attempt to rush supplies in from the east, and in two days +Austria was in the throes of a revolution far more devastating +internally than Germany's, for that excitable and harassed people, long +on the verge of despair, merely caught the revolution-microbe and went +mad. + +To supply either the army opposing Italy or that in Roumania and +Gallicia, to say nothing of that in the Northeast, was no longer even +considered. The young Emperor sought only to come to an understanding +with his people. + +It was a matter of days before both ammunition and food would be +exhausted on the two fronts, and neither had a superfluous man to send +to Berlin, or even to repair the tracks. + + +3 + +By Friday there was no longer any doubt of the complete success of the +Revolution. Britain, France, Russia, Italy, the United States, with a +prompt and canny statesmanship, remarkable in Governments, had formally +acknowledged the German Republic, and offered terms of peace possible +for an ambitious and self-respecting but beaten people to accept. At all +events there would be no commercial boycott, and the young Republic +would be given every assistance in restoring the shattered finances of +Germany, and its economic relations with the rest of the world. + +The good German people were flattered in phrases that they rolled on +their tongues. Even those too schooled in lies to believe the statesmen +of their own or any land reflected that, after all, the Enemy Allies had +demonstrated they were sportsmen, that German prisoners had been well +treated, and that before the war there had been no restrictions upon +German commerce save in insidious reiterated words of men determined +upon war at any cost. As a matter of fact, Germany had been absorbing +the commerce of the world, and Britain had been reprehensibly supine. + +As the Socialists now did all the talking, and unhindered, it was not +difficult to persuade even the reluctant minority that the military +party had precipitated the war in a sudden panic at the rapidly +developing power of the proletariat. + +Night fliers dropped millions of leaflets in the vicinity of the armies +on the Eastern and Western fronts, signed (at the pistol point) by the +most powerful names in the former Government, as well as by the +well-known Social-Democrat leaders, containing the details of the +Revolution and proofs of its success. The Empire had fallen. A Republic, +acknowledged by the great powers of the world, was established. Would +the soldiers stack their arms and return to their homes? If the generals +or under officers attempted to restrain them it was to be remembered +that the soldiers were as a hundred thousand to one. + +The women felt no real apprehension of an avenging army. They knew the +average German male. His innate subserviency to power would turn him +automatically about to the party whose power was supreme. And the +soldiers hated their officers. + + + + +VIII + + +On Friday night Gisela left her apartment in the Königinstrasse, where +she had slept for a few hours after a visit to the principal cities of +the Empire, and walked out to Schwabing, that picturesque "village" that +looked like a bit of the Alps transferred to the edge of Munich. She had +not forgotten the man she had sacrificed, and at the end of the first +day of the Revolution she had learned that his body had been caught +under the Schwabing bridge, rescued, and placed temporarily in the vault +of the little church. + +It was a bright starlight night, and the old white church with its +bulbous tower, last outpost of Turkey in her heyday, looked like a lone +mourner for the dream of Mittel-Europa. Gisela climbed the mound and +entered the quiet enclosure. She had met no one in the peaceful suburb, +although she had heard the deep guttural voices of elderly men still +lingering at the tables in the beer gardens. + +She had sent orders to leave the door of the church unlocked, and she +entered the barren room, guiding herself with her electric torch to the +stair that led down to the vault. Fear of any sort had long since been +crowded out of her, but it was a lonely pilgrimage she hardly would have +undertaken ten days ago. + +She descended the short flight of steps and flashed her light about the +vault. It was a small room, oppressively musty and humid. All Schwabing +is damp but the Isar itself might have washed the walls of this dripping +sepulcher. The coffin stood on a rough trestle in the center of the +chamber, and it was covered with the military cloak that, with his sword +and helmet, she had ordered sent from his hotel. + +She stood beside the coffin, trying to visualize the man who lay within, +wondering if the orders still bulged above the hilt of the dagger she +had driven in with so firm a hand ... or if they had taken the time to +remove it ... or if that symbol of Germany's freedom would be found ages +hence in a handful of dust when the man who had taught her all she would +ever know of love or living was long forgotten.... + +But in a moment these vagrant fancies, drifting from a tired brain, took +flight, her reluctant mind focused itself, and she knelt beside the +bier, pressing the folds of the cloak about her face and weeping +heavily. + +It was her final tribute to her womanhood. That she had rescued her +country and incidentally the world, making democracy and liberty safe +for the first time in its history, mattered nothing to her then. Nor her +immortal fame. + +To regret was impossible. Strong souls are inaccessible to regret. But +she hated life and her bitter destiny, for she had sacrificed the life +that gave meaning to her own, and she wished that the implacable Powers +that rule the destinies of individuals and nations had foreborne their +accustomed irony and presented her gifts to some woman mercifully +lacking her own terrible power to love and suffer--and the imagination +which would keep for ever vivid in her mind the poignant happiness that +had been hers and that she had immolated on the cold altar of duty. She +was still young, and her sole hope, glimmering at the end of an +interminable perspective, was that it would be her privilege to lie at +last in the grave with this man; who had been her other part and whose +heart and hers she had slain. + + + + +THE WOMEN OF GERMANY + +An Argument for my "The White Morning" + +From _The Bookman_, February, 1918, +by courtesy of Dodd, Mead & Co. + + + + +THE WOMEN OF GERMANY + +An Argument for my "The White Morning" + + +I have been asked by the Editor of _The Bookman_ to state my authority +for writing _The White Morning_; in other words for daring to believe +that a revolution conceived and engineered by women is possible in +Germany. + +Before giving my own reasons, stripped of what glamor of fiction I have +been able to surround the story with, I should like to say that when I +began to put the idea into form I thought it was entirely my own. But +while it is always pleasant to offer this sort of incense to one's +vanity, I should have been more than glad to quote to my editor and +publisher some reliable male authority; a man's opinion, on all +momentous subjects, by force of tradition, far outweighing any theory or +guess that a woman, no matter what her intimate personal experience, may +advance. + +Imagine then my delight, when the story was half finished, to read an +article by A. Curtis Roth, in the _Saturday Evening Post_, in which he +stated unequivocally that it was among the possibilities that the women +of Germany, driven to desperation by suffering and privation, and +disillusion, would arise suddenly and overturn the dynasty. Mr. Roth, +who was American vice-consul at Plauen, Saxony, until we entered the +war, has written some of the most enlightening and brilliant articles +that have appeared on the internal conditions of any of the belligerent +countries since August, 1914. He remained at his post until the last +moment and then left Germany a physical wreck from malnutrition. In +spite of the fact that he was an officer in the consular service of a +neutral country, with ample means at his command, and standing in close +personal relations with the authorities, he could not get enough to eat; +and what he was forced to swallow--lest he starve--completely broke down +his digestion. + +On the other hand, he never ceased to observe; and having made friends +of all classes of Germans, and been given facilities for observation and +study of conditions enjoyed by few Americans in the Teutonic Empire at +the time, he noted every phase and change, both subtle and manifest, +through which these afflicted people passed during the first three years +of the war. They are in far worse case now. + +Later (in November) I read an article by a German, J. Koettgen, in the +New York _Chronicle_, which was even more explicit. + +Herr Koettgen is one of the agents in this country of Hermann Fernau, an +eminent intellectual of Germany, who escaped into Switzerland, and wages +relentless war upon the dynasty and the military caste of Prussia; which +he holds categorically responsible for the world war. There is a price +on Fernau's head. He dares not walk abroad without a bodyguard, and +cannon are concealed among the oleanders that surround his house. Not +only has he written two books, _Because I am a German_, and _The Coming +Democracy_, which if circulated in Germany would prick thousands of +dazed despairing brains into immediate rebellion, but he is the head of +those German Radical Democrats which have united in an organization +called "Friends of German Democracy." + +Their avowed object, through the medium of a bi-weekly journal, _Die +Freie Zeitung_, and other propaganda, is to plant sound democratic ideas +and ideals in the minds of German prisoners in the Entente countries, +and to recruit the saner exiles everywhere. These publications reach men +and women of German blood whose grandfathers fled from military tyranny +after their abortive revolution in 1848, and, with their descendants, +have enjoyed freedom and independence in the United States ever since. +The best of them are expected to exert pressure upon their friends and +relatives in Germany. There are already branches of this epochal +organization in the larger American cities. + +Herr Koettgen (who has written a book called _The Hausfrau and +Democracy_, by the way) walked into the office of the _Chronicle_ some +time in November and presented a letter to the editor, Mr. Fletcher. In +the course of the heated conversation that ensued, Herr Koettgen +exclaimed with bitter scorn: "Oh, so you think yourself as fiercely +anti-German as a man may be? Well, let me tell you that you are not +capable of one-tenth the passionate hatred I feel for a dynasty and a +caste that has made me so ashamed of being a German that I could eat the +dust." + +In Herr Koettgen's article occur the following paragraphs: "At the first +glance German women hardly appear likely material for the coming +Revolution which will turn Germany into a modern country. But many +incidents point to the fact that German women are growing with their +increasing task. They are beginning to replace their men not only +economically but politically. Most of the public demonstrations in +Germany during this war have been led and arranged by women. The very +first demonstration in 1915 consisted of women. As Mr. Gerard tells us +in his book, they had no very definite idea of what they wanted; only +they wanted their men back. But since that time their political +education has made rapid progress.... With their men in the field and +their former leaders (Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, Louise Zietz) in +prison, German women are learning to act for themselves. Their +demonstrations point to it, as do also letters written by German women +to their men who are now prisoners of war in France and England. In one +of these letters which escaped the watchful eye of the censor, a German +hausfrau described how she made the officials of Muenster sit up by her +energetic and persistent demands." + +A girl upon one occasion said to Herr Koettgen: "Only women and children +were employed in our factory. We had more than one strike. Two women +would go round to every woman and girl in the shop and tell them: 'We +have asked for twenty or thirty pfennings more. To-morrow we are going +on strike. She who does not come out will have the thrashing of her +life.' We were all frightened and stayed away, for they really meant +it." + +Herr Koettgen continues: "Novel circumstances are reawakening in the +meek German hausfrau some of that combative spirit which characterized +the Teuton women in the time of Tacitus, when they often fought +alongside of their men in the wagon camp.... German women will show +their men the way to freedom. Doing more than their share of the +nation's work, they insist upon being heard, and their growing influence +is one of the greatest dangers to German autocracy in its present +predicament. As politicians German women have the advantage of not +having gone through the soul-destroying, brutalizing school of Prussian +militarism, and of not being burdened with the rigmarole of theory which +formed the content of German politics before the war. They can be +trusted to make a bee-line for the real obstacle to peace and +liberty--to eradicate the autocratic militaristic régime which enslaved +the German people in order to enslave the world." + +Now that the way has been cleared by two men of affairs who have never +condescended to write fiction, I will give my own reasons for belief in +the German women, and also for the general plan of _The White Morning_. + +I had an apartment for seven years in Munich and spent six or eight +months alternately in that delightful city and traveling in Europe, +passing a month or two in England, or returning for an equal length of +time to my own country. During that long residence in Germany I +naturally met many of its inhabitants, and of as many classes as +possible. German women do not tell you the history of their lives the +first time you meet them, not by any means; they are naturally secretive +and the reverse of frank. But they are human, and when you have won +their confidence they will tell you surprising things. The confidences I +received were for the most part from girls, and one and all assured me +they never should marry. Having grown up under one House Tyrant, for +whom they were not responsible, why in heaven's name should they +deliberately annex another? Far, far better bear with the one whose +worst at least they knew (and who could not live forever), than marry +some man who might be loathsome as well as tyrannical, and who, unless +there happened to be a war, might outlive them? + +The idea in my novel of the four Niebuhr girls and their initial +rebellion was suggested to me by a family of Prussian junkerdom that I +met at a watering place in Denmark. The baroness was a charming woman +who used a moderate invalidism in a smiling imperturbable fashion to +insure herself a certain immunity from the demands of her autocratic +lord. The girls were lively, intelligent, splendidly educated. They were +in love with society and court functions, but deeply rebellious at the +attitude of the German male, and determined never to marry. That is to +say the three younger girls; the oldest had married a tame puppy, and +anything less like a tyrant I never beheld. No American husband could be +more subservient. But there was no question that he belonged to a small +exceptional class: while his wife, with all the dominating qualities of +her father, was one of a rapidly increasing number of German women, +silently but firmly rebellious. + +The Herr baron was a typical Prussian aristocrat and autocrat. The girls +could hardly have had less liberty in a convent. When they came from +their hotel to mine he escorted them over and often came in. Luckily he +liked me or I never should have had the opportunity to know them as well +as I did. Nor should I have been able to continue the acquaintance +after the day I wickedly induced them to run away with me to Copenhagen, +where we shopped, promenaded all the principal streets, then took ices +on the terrace of one of the restaurants. When we returned he was +storming up and down the platform of the station, and he fairly raved at +the girls. "And you dared, you dared, to go to Copenhagen, without +permission, without your mother, without me!" The girls listened meekly, +but whenever he wheeled laughed behind his military back. Then he turned +on me, but I called him a tyrant and gave him my opinion of his +nonsensical attitude generally. As I was not his daughter he gradually +calmed down and seemed rather to relish the tirade. Finally they all +came over to my hotel to tea. + +"You see!" said one of the girls to me afterward. "I have not +exaggerated. Do you think I want another like that?" And, so far as I +know, they have never married. + +I did not draw any of my characters on these four delightful girls, but +took the episode as a foundation for the incidents and characters that +grew under my hand after I got round to the story. + +The episode of Georg Zottmyer was also told me by a German girl whom I +got to know very well in Munich, and who distantly suggested the +character of Gisela (that is to say in the very beginning. As Gisela +developed she became more like her own legendary Brunhilda).[1] + +This young woman was as independent in her life and in her ideas as any +I ever met in England or the United States. But fortune had been kind to +her. Her father died just after her education was finished, and as he +left little money, she went to Brazil as governess in a wealthy family. +She remained in South America for several years, gaining, of course, +poise and experience. Then a relative died and left her a comfortable +fortune. When I met her she was living in Munich from choice, like so +many other Germans who were bored with routine and rigid class lines. + +She was a beautiful young woman, with dark hair and eyes and a brilliant +complexion, and dressed to perfection, although she wore no stays. This +may have been a bit of vanity on her part, as the awful reformkleid was +in vogue, and fat German women were displaying themselves in lumps and +creases and billows and sections that rolled like the untrammelled waves +of the sea. Her own figure was so firmly molded and so erect and supple +that it was, for all her fashionable clothes, quite independent of the +corset. She had charming manners combined with an imperturbable +serenity, and always seemed faintly amused. On the other hand, she +displayed none of the offensive German conceit and arrogance. + +We spent several days together at Partenkirchen, one of the most +picturesque spots in the Bavarian Alps, and as we were both good +walkers, and there was no one else in the hotel who interested us, we +became quite intimate. She was one of the first to talk to me about the +deep discontent and disgust of the German women, and of her own utter +contempt for the meek hausfrau type, and for the tyrannies, petty, +coarse, often brutal, of the man in his home. Nothing, she was +determined, would ever tempt her to marry, and she could name many +others who were making an independent life for themselves, although, +lacking fortune, often in secret. No matter how much she might fancy +herself in love (and I imagine that she had had her enlightening +experiences) she would not risk a lifelong clash of wills with a man who +might turn out to be a medieval despot. + +It was then that she told me of the tentative proposal of one of her +beaux (she had many) "Georg Zottmyer," which I have recorded almost +literally in the scene between this passing character and Gisela in the +Café Luitpolt. My object in doing so was to give as realistic an +impression as possible of what the German woman is up against in +dealings with her male. I knew Zottmyer personally, and he interested me +the more (as one is interested in a bug under a microscope) because he +had less excuse for his conceit and arrogance than most German men: he +was brought up in California, where his father is a successful doctor. +But that only seemed to have made him worse. He returned to Germany as +soon as he was of age, more German than the Germans, and despising +Americans. + +I had often wondered what became of this highly interesting young woman, +and when I began to write _The White Morning_ she popped into my mind. I +believe she could be a leader of some kind if she chose. Perhaps she is. + +The cases could be multiplied indefinitely. The Erkels and Mimi Brandt +are drawn, together with their conditions, almost photographically. +"Heloise" finally married a Scot and went with him to his own country, +but her sisters were dragging out their tragic lives when I left Munich. + +A few days ago I met a highly intelligent American woman of German +blood who, before the war, used to visit her relatives in Germany every +year. I told her that I had written this story and she agreed with me +that it was on the cards the women would instigate a revolution. +"Never," she said, "in any country have I known such discontent among +women, heard so many bitter confidences. Their feelings against their +fathers or husbands were the more intense and violent because they dared +not speak out like English or American women." + +There is no question that for about fifteen years before the war there +was a thinking, secret, silent, watchful but outwardly passive revolt +going on among the women of Germany. I do not think it had then reached +the working women. It took the war to wake them up. But in that vast +class which, in spite of racial industry, had a certain amount of +leisure, owing to the almost total absence of poverty in the Teutonic +Empire, and whose minds were educated and systematically trained, there +was persistent reading, meditating upon the advance of women in other +nations, quiet debating unsuspected of their masters; and they were +growing in numbers and in an almost sinister determination every year. +Of course there were plenty of hausfraus cowed to the door mat, and, +like the proletariat, needing a war to wake them up; but there were +several hundred thousand of the other sort. + +Now, all these women need is a leader. The working women have their Rosa +Luxemburgs, who think out loud in public and get themselves locked up; +and, moreover, do not appeal to the other classes--for Germany is the +most snobbish country in the world. If there were--or if there is--such +a woman as Gisela Döring, who before the war had acquired a widespread +intellectual influence over the awakening women of her race, and then, +when they were approaching the breaking point, had gone quietly and +systematically about making a revolution, there is no question in my +mind as to the outcome. + +Just consider for a moment what the German women have suffered during +this war--a war that they were told was forced upon their country by the +aggressive military acts of Russia and France, but which, owing to +Germany's might, would hardly last three months. For nearly three years +they have never known the sensation of appeased hunger, and, having +always been immense eaters, have suffered the tortures of dyspepsia in +addition to hunger. But, far worse, they have listened almost +continuously to the wails of their children for satisfying food, +children who are forever hungry and who often succumb. Karl Ackerman, +whose accuracy no one has questioned, states in his book, _Germany, The +Next Republic?_, that in 1916 sixty thousand children died of +malnutrition in Berlin alone. + +These women have lost their fathers, husbands, sons--well, that is the +fortune of any war; but they are beginning to understand that they have +lost them, not in a war of self-defense, but to gratify the insane +ambitions and greed of a dynasty and a military caste that are out of +date in the twentieth century. Their parents, when over sixty, have died +from the same cause as the children. Their daughters, both unmarried and +newly widowed, are "officially pregnant," or the mothers of brats the +name of whose fathers they do not know. The young girls of Lille hardly +have suffered more. The German victims are sent for, then sent home to +bear another child for Germany. + +Now, we know what the German men are. These women are the mothers and +wives and sisters of the German men; in other words, they are Germans, +body, and bone and brain-cells, capable of precisely the same ruthless +tactics when pushed too hard--if they have a leader. That, to my mind, +is the whole point. Given that leader, they would effect a revolution +precisely as I have described in my story. Nor would they run the risk +of failure. The German race is not eight-tenths illiterates and +two-tenths intellectuals, emotional firebrands, anarchists and +sellers-out like the Russians. They are uniformly educated, uniformly +disciplined. They will do nothing futile, nothing without the most +secret and methodical preparation of which even the German mind is +capable. It will be like turning over in bed in camp: they will all turn +over together. They are damnably efficient. + +It may be said: "But you may have spoiled their chances with your book. +You not only have revealed them in their true character to their men, +but all the details of their probable methods in working up and +precipitating a revolution. You have, in other words, put the German +authorities on their guard." + +The answer to this is that no German of the dominant sex could be made +to believe in anything so unprecedented as German women taking the law +into their own hands, uniting, and overthrowing a dynasty. Nothing can +penetrate a German official skull but what has been trained into it from +birth. Unlike the women, the system has made the men of the ruling +class into the sort of machine which is perfect in its way but admits of +no modern improvements. That has been the secret of their strength and +of their weakness, and will be the chief assistance to the Allies in +bringing about their final defeat. I am positive they go to sleep every +night murmuring: "Two and two make four. Two and two make four." + +The women could hold meetings under their very noses, so long as they +were not in the street, lay their plans to the last fuse, and apply the +match at the preconcerted moment from one end of Germany to the other +unhindered, unless betrayed. The angry and restless male socialists +would not have a chance with the alert members of their own sex--who +regard women with an even and contemptuous tolerance. Useful but +harmless. + +I made Gisela a junker by birth, because a rebel from the top, with +qualities of leadership, would make a deeper impression in Germany than +one of the many avowed extremists of humbler origin. On the other hand, +it was necessary to drop the von, and take a middle-class name, or she +would have failed to win confidence, in the beginning, as well as +literary success; from opposite reasons. It is very difficult for an +aristocratic German of artistic talents to obtain a hearing. +Practically all the intellectuals belong to the middle-class, the +aristocrats being absorbed by the army and navy. The arrogance and often +brutal lack of consideration of the ruling caste, to say nothing of +common politeness, have inspired universal jealousy and hatred, the more +poignant as it must be silent. But even the silent may find their means +of vengeance, as the noble discovers when he attempts recognition in the +intellectual world. But if he were a propagandist, with the welfare of +all Germany at heart, and won his influence under an assumed name, as +Gisela Döring did, the revelation of his identity, together with proof +of dissociation from his own class, would enhance his popularity +immensely. Moreover, it would be incense to the vanity of classes that +never are permitted to forget their inferior rank. + +In this country there is a snobbish tendency to exalt and boom any +writer who is known to belong to one of the old and wealthy families; +and the more snobbish the writer the more infectious the disease. But +then in this country, which has never suffered from militarism, there is +a naïve tendency to worship success in any form. In Germany my heroine +would have doomed herself to failure if she had signed her work Gisela +von Niebuhr. But her early education, surroundings, position,--to say +nothing of her four years in the United States--were just what gave her +the requisite advantages, and preserved her from many mistakes. She +starts out with no prejudices against any caste, and an intense sympathy +for all German women who lack even the compensation of being +_hochwohlgeboren_. + +No one knows what the future holds, or what unexpected event will +suddenly end the war; but I should not have written _The White Morning_ +if I had not been firmly convinced that a Gisela might arise at any +moment and deliver the world. + + +GERTRUDE ATHERTON. + +[Footnote 1: For this reason I asked the most beautiful woman I have +ever seen of the heroic or goddess type to be photographed for the +frontispiece.--G.A.] + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13496 *** diff --git a/13496-h/13496-h.htm b/13496-h/13496-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e6f178f --- /dev/null +++ b/13496-h/13496-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3476 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The White Morning, by Gertrude Atherton</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + } + HR { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .note {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} /* footnote */ + hr.full { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + pre {font-size: 9pt;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13496 ***</div> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The White Morning, by Gertrude Atherton</h1> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img src='images/whitemorning.jpg' width='249' height='359' alt='GISELA' title='GISELA' /> +<br /> +<i>Photograph by Arnold Genthe, N.Y.</i> +</center> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<h1>THE WHITE MORNING</h1> + +<h2>A NOVEL OF THE POWER OF THE GERMAN WOMEN IN WARTIME</h2> + + +<h3>BY</h3> +<h2>GERTRUDE ATHERTON</h2> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<h3>Contents.</h3> + + <a href='#I'><b>Chapter I</b></a><br /> + <a href='#II'><b>Chapter II</b></a><br /> + <a href='#III'><b>Chapter III</b></a><br /> + <a href='#IV'><b>Chapter IV</b></a><br /> + <a href='#V'><b>Chapter V</b></a><br /> + <a href='#VI'><b>Chapter VI</b></a><br /> + <a href='#VII'><b>Chapter VII</b></a><br /> + <a href='#VIII'><b>Chapter VIII</b></a><br /><br /> + <a href='#THE_WOMEN_OF_GERMANY'><b>THE WOMEN OF GERMANY</b></a><br /> + +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='THE_WHITE_MORNING'></a><h2>THE WHITE MORNING</h2> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='I'></a><h2>I</h2> +<br /> + +<h3>1</h3> + +<p>Countess Gisela Niebuhr sat in the long dusk of Munich staring over at +the beautiful park that in happier days had been famous in the world as +the Englischer Garten, and deliberately recalled on what might be the +last night of her life the successive causes that had led to her +profound dissatisfaction with her country as a woman. She was so +thoroughly disgusted with it as a German that personal grievances were +far from necessary to fortify her for the momentous rôle she was to play +with the dawn; but in this rare hour of leisure it amused her naturally +introspective mind to rehearse certain episodes whose sum had made her +what she was. </p> + +<p>When she was fourteen and her sisters Lili and Elsa sixteen and eighteen +they had met in the attic of their home in Berlin one afternoon when +their father was automatically at his club and their mother taking her +prescribed hour of rest, and solemnly pledged one another never to +marry. The causes of this vital conclave were both cumulative and +immediate. Their father, the Herr Graf, a fine looking junker of sixty +odd, with a roving eye and a martial air despite a corpulence which +annoyed him excessively, had transferred his lost authority over his +regiment to his household. The boys were in their own regiments and rid +of parental discipline, but the countess and the girls received the full +benefit of his military, and Prussian, relish for despotism.</p> + +<p>In his essence a kind man and fond of his women, he balked their every +individual wish and allowed them practically no liberty. They never left +the house unattended, like the American girls and those fortunate beings +of the student class. Lili had a charming voice and was consumed with +ambition to be an operatic star. She had summoned her courage upon one +memorable occasion and broached the subject to her father. All the +terrified family had expected his instant dissolution from apoplexy, and +in spite of his petty tyrannies they loved him. The best instructor in +Berlin continued to give her lessons, as nothing gave the Graf more +pleasure of an evening than her warblings.</p> + +<p>The household, quite apart from the Frau Gräfin's admirable management, +ran with military precision, and no one dared to be the fraction of a +minute late for meals or social engagements. They attended the theater, +the opera, court functions, dinners, balls, on stated nights, and unless +the Kaiser took a whim and altered a date, there was no deviation from +this routine year in and out. They walked at the same hour, drove in the +Tiergarten with the rest of fashionable Berlin, started for their castle +in the Saxon Alps not only upon the same day but on the same train every +summer, and the electric lights went out at precisely the same moment +every night; the count's faithful steward manipulated a central stop. +They were encouraged to read and study, but not—oh, by no means—to +have individual opinions. The men of Germany were there to do the +thinking and they did it.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the rebellion of the Niebuhr girls would never have crystallized +(for, after all, their everyday experience was much like that of other +girls of their class, merely intensified by their father's persistence +of executive ardors) had it not been for two subtle influences, quite +unsuspected by the haughty Kammerherr: they had an American friend, Kate +Terriss, who was "finishing her voice" in Berlin, and their married +sister, Mariette, had recently spent a fortnight in the paternal nest.</p> + +<p>The count despised the entire American race, as all good Prussians did, +but he was as wax to feminine blandishments outside of his family, and +Miss Terriss was pretty, diplomatic, alluring, and far cleverer than he +would have admitted any woman could be. She wound the old martinet +round her finger, subdued her rampant Americanism in his society, and +amused herself sowing the seeds of rebellion in the minds of "those poor +Niebuhr girls." As the countess also liked her, she had been "in and out +of the house" for nearly a year. The young Prussians had alternately +gasped and wept at the amazing stories of the liberty, the petting, the +procession of "good times" enjoyed by American girls of their own class, +to say nothing of the invariable prerogative of these fortunate girls to +choose their own husbands; who, according to the unprincipled Miss +Terriss, invariably spoiled their wives, and permitted them to go and +come, to spend their large personal allowances, as they listed. Gisela +closed her beloved volume of Grimm's fairy tales and never opened it +again.</p> + +<p>But it was the visit of Mariette that had marshalled vague +dissatisfactions to an ordered climax. She had left her husband in the +garrison town she had married with the excellent young officer, making +a trifling indisposition of her mother a pretext for escape. On the +night before her departure the four girls huddled in her bed after the +opera and listened to an incisive account of her brief but distasteful +period of matrimony. Not that she suffered from tyranny. Quite the +reverse. Of her several suitors she had cannily engineered into her +father's favor a young man of pleasing appearance, good title and +fortune, but quite without character behind his fierce upstanding +mustache. Inheriting her father's rigid will, she had kept the young +officer in a state of abject submission. She stroked his hair in public +as if he had been her pet dachshund, and patted his hand at kindly +intervals as had he been her dear little son.</p> + +<p>"But Karl has the soul of a sheep," she informed the breathless trio. +"You might not be so fortunate. Far, far from it. How can any one more +than guess before one is fairly married and done for? Look at papa. Does +he not pass in society as quite a charming person? The women like him, +and if poor mama died he could get another quick as a wink. But at the +best, my dear girls, matrimony—in Germany, at least—is an unmitigated +bore. And in a garrison town! Literally, there is no liberty, even with +one's husband under the thumb. We live by rote. Every afternoon I have +to take coffee at some house or other, when all those tiresome women are +not at my own. And what do you suppose they talk about—but invariably? +<i>Love!</i>" (With ineffable disdain.) "Nothing else, barring gossip and +scandal; as if they got any good out of <i>love</i>! But they are stupid for +the most part and gorged with love novels. They discuss the opera or the +play for the love element only, or the sensual quality of the music. Let +me tell you that although I married to get rid of papa, if I had it to +do over I should accept parental tyranny as the lesser evil. Not that I +am not fond of Karl in a way. He is a dear and would be quite harmless +if he were not in love with me. But garrison society—Gott, how German +wives would rejoice in a war! Think of the freedom of being a Red Cross +nurse, and all the men at the front. Officers would be your fate, too. +Papa would not look at a man who was not in the army. He despises men +who live on their estates. So take my advice while you may. Sit tight, +as the English say. Even German fathers do not live forever. The lime in +our soil sees to that. I notice papa's face gets quite purple after +dinner, and when he is angry. His arteries must have been hardening for +twenty years."</p> + +<p>Lili and Elsa were quite aghast at this naked ratiocination, but Gisela +whispered: "We might elope, you know."</p> + +<p>"With whom? No Englishman or American ever crosses the threshold, and +Kate has no brothers. The students have no money and no morals, and, +what is worse, no baths. A burgess or a professional would be quite as +intolerable, and no man of our class would consent to an elopement. +Germans may be sentimental but they are not romantic when it comes to +settlements. Now take my advice."</p> + +<p>They were taking it on this fateful day in the attic. They vowed never +to marry even if their formidable papa locked them up on bread and +water.</p> + +<p>"Which would be rather good for us," remarked the practical Elsa. "I am +sure we eat too much, and Gisela has a tendency to plumpness. But your +turn will not come for four years yet, dear child. It is poor us that +will need all our vows."</p> + +<p>After some deliberation they concluded to inform their mother of their +grim resolve. Naturally sympathetic, a pregnant upheaval had taken place +in that good lady's psychology during the past year. Her marriage, +although arranged by the two families, had been a love match on both +sides. The Graf was a handsome dashing and passionate lover and she a +beautiful girl, lively and companionable. Disillusion was slow in +coming, for she had been brought up on the soundest German principles +and believed in the natural superiority of the male as she did in the +House of Hohenzollern and the Lutheran religion.</p> + +<p>But she suspected, during her thirties, that she was, after all, the +daughter of a brilliant father as well as of an obsequious mother, and +that she had possibilities of mind and spirit that clamored for +development and fired the imagination, while utterly without hope. In +other words she was, like many another German woman, in her secret +heart, an individual. But she was not a rebel; her social code forbade +that. She manufactured interests for herself as rapidly, and as various, +as possible, preserved her good looks in spite of her eight children +(the two that followed Gisela died in infancy), dressed far better than +most German women, cultivated society, gave four notable musicales a +season, and was devoted to her sons and daughters, although she never +opposed her husband's stern military discipline of those seemingly +typical mädchens. It was her policy to keep the martinet in a good +humor, and after all—she had condemned herself not to think—what +better destiny than to be a German woman of the higher aristocracy? They +might have been born into the middle class, where there were quite as +many tyrants as in the patrician, and vastly fewer compensations. At the +age of forty-four she believed herself to be a philosopher.</p> + +<p>Six months before Mariette's marriage and shortly after the birth and +death of her last child, Frau von Niebuhr suddenly returned to her bed, +prostrate, on the verge of collapse. The count raged that any wife of +his should dare to be ill or absent (when not fulfilling patriotic +obligations), consult her own selfish whims by having nerves and lying +speechless in bed. But he had a very considerable respect for Herr +Doktor Meyers—a rank plebeian but the best doctor in Berlin—and when +that family adviser, as autocratic as himself, ordered the Frau Gräfin +to go to a sanatorium in the Austrian Dolomites—but alone, mind +you!—and remain as long as he—I, myself, Herr Graf!—deemed advisable, +with no intercourse, personal or chirographical with her family, the +Head of the House of Niebuhr angrily gave his consent and sent for a +sister to chaperon his girls.</p> + +<p>The countess remained until the eve of Mariette's wedding, and she +passed those six months in one of the superlatively beautiful mountain +resorts of Austria. She was solitary, for the most part, and she did an +excessive amount of thinking. She returned to her duties with a deep +disgust of life as she knew it, a cynical contempt for women, and a +profound sense of revolt. Her natural diplomacy she had increased +tenfold.</p> + +<p>When the three girls, their eyes very large, and speaking in whispers, +although their father was at a yearly talk-fest with his old brothers in +arms, confided to their mother their resolution never in any +circumstances to adopt a household tyrant of their own, she nodded +understandingly.</p> + +<p>"Leave it to me," she said. "Your father can be managed, little as he +suspects it. I'll find the weak spot in each of the suitors he brings +to the house and set him against all of them."</p> + +<p>"And my voice?" asked Lili timidly. But the Frau Gräfin shook her head. +"There I cannot help you. He thinks an artistic career would disgrace +his family, and that is the end of it. Moreover, he regards women of any +class in public life as a disgrace to Germany. My assistance must be +passive—apparently. It will be enough to have no worse. Take my word +and Mariette's for that."</p> + +<p>The Gräfin, true to her word, quietly disposed of the several suitors +approved by her husband, and although the autocrat sputtered and +raged—the Gräfin, her youngest daughter shrewdly surmised, rather +encouraged these exciting tempers—arguing that these three girls bade +fair to remain on his hands for ever, he ended always by agreeing that +the young officers were unworthy of an alliance with the ancient and +honorable House of Niebuhr.</p> + +<p>The battles ended abruptly when Gisela was eighteen and a fat Lieutenant +of Uhlans, suing for the hand of the youngest born, and vehemently +supported by the Graf, had just been turned adrift. The Graf dropped +dead in his club. He left a surprisingly small estate for one who had +presented so pompous a front to the world. But not only had his sons +been handsomely portioned when they entered the army, and Mariette when +she married, but the excellent count, to relieve the increasing monotony +of days no longer enlivened by maneuvers and boudoirs, had amused +himself on the stock exchange. His judgment had been singularly bad and +he had dropped most of his capital and lived on the rest.</p> + +<p>The town house must be sold and the countess and her daughters retire to +her castle in the Saxon Alps. As there were no portions for the girls, +the haunting terrors of matrimony were laid.</p> + +<p>The four women took their comparative poverty with equanimity. The +countess had been as practical and economical as all German housewives, +even when relieved by housekeepers and stewards, and she calculated +that with a meager staff of servants and two years of seclusion she +should be able to furnish a flat in Berlin and pay a year's rent in +advance. Then by living for half the year on her estate she should save +enough for six highly agreeable months in the capital. Perhaps she might +let her castle to some rich brewer or American; and this she eventually +did.</p> + +<p>Lili was given permission to study for the operatic stage and spend the +following winter in Dresden, where Mariette's husband was now quartered. +It was just before they moved to the country that the Gräfin said to her +girls as they sat at coffee in the dismantled house:</p> + +<p>"You shall have all that I never had, fulfil all the secret ambitions of +my younger heart. If you are individuals, prove it. You may go on the +stage, write, paint, study law, medicine, what you will. You have been +bred aristocrats and aristocrats you will remain. It is not liberty that +vulgarizes. Don't hate men. They have charming phases and moods; but +avoid entangling alliances until you are thirty. After that you will +know them well enough to avoid that fatal initial submergence. The whole +point is to begin with your eyes open and your campaign clearly thought +out.</p> + +<p>"I, too, purpose to get a great deal out of life now that my fate is in +my own hands. By the summer we shall even be able to travel a little. +Third-class, yet that will be far more amusing than stuffed into one of +those plush carriages with the windows closed and forbidden to speak +with any one in the corridor. And forced to carry all the hand-luggage +off the train (when your father had an economical spasm and would not +take a footman) while he stalked out first as if we did not exist. I +shall never marry again—Gott in Himmel, no!—but I shall gather about +me all the interesting men I never have been able to have ten minutes' +conversation with alone; and, so far as is humanly possible, do exactly +as I please. My ego has been starved. I shall always be your best +friend—but think for yourselves."</p> + +<p>Gisela had no gift that she was aware of, but she was intellectual and +had longed to finish her education at one of the great universities. As +she was not strong, however, she was content to spend a year in the +mountains; and then, robust, and on a meager income, she went to Munich +to attend the lectures on art and literature and to perfect herself in +French and English. She took a small room in an old tower near the +Frauenkirche and lived the students' life, probably the freest of any +city in the world. She dropped her title and name lest she be barred +from that socialistic community as well as discovered by horrified +relatives, and called herself Gisela Döring. After she had taken her +degree she passed a month in Berlin with her mother, who already had +established a salon, but she was determined to support herself and see +the world at the same time. Herr Doktor Meyers found her a position as +governess with a wealthy American patient, and, under her assumed name, +she sailed immediately for New York.</p> + +<p>The Bolands had a house in upper Fifth Avenue and others at Newport, +Aiken and Bar Harbor; and when not occupying these stations were in +Europe or southern California. The two little girls passed the summer at +Bar Harbor with their governess.</p> + +<p>It took Gisela some time to accustom herself to the position of upper +servant in that household of many servants, but she possessed humor and +she had had governesses herself. Her salary was large, she had one +entire day in the week to herself, except at Bar Harbor, and during her +last summer in the United States Mrs. Boland had a violent attack of +"America first" and took her children and their admirable governess not +only to California but to the Yellowstone Park, the Grand Cañon and +Canada. They traveled in a private car, and Gisela, who could enjoy the +comfortless quarters of a student flat in Munich with all that life +meant in the free and beautiful city by the Isar, could also revel in +luxury; and this wonderful summer, following as it did the bitter climax +of her first serious love affair, seemed to her all the consolation that +a mere woman could ask. At all events she felt for it an intense and +lasting gratitude.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>2</h3> + +<p>It was during her first summer at Bar Harbor that the second determining +experience of her life began, and it lasted for three years. She dwelt +upon it to-night with humor, sadness, and, for a moment, thrilling +regret, but without bitterness. That had passed long since.</p> + +<p>She was virtual mistress of the house at Bar Harbor, and as the children +had a trained nurse and a maid, besides many little friends, she had +more leisure than in the city with her one day of complete detachment. +She met Freiherr Franz von Nettelbeck when she was walking with her +charges and he was strolling with the little girls of the Howland +family. The introductions were informal, and as they fell naturally +into German there was an immediate bond. Nettelbeck was an attaché of +the German Embassy who preferred to spend his summers at Bar Harbor. He +was of the fair type of German most familiar to Americans, with a fine +slim military figure, deep fiery blue eyes and a lively mind. His golden +hair and mustache stood up aggressively, and his carriage was exceeding +haughty, but those were details too familiar to be counted against him +by Gisela. Her rich brunette beauty was now as ripe as her tall full +figure, and she was one of those women, rare in Germany, who could dress +well on nothing at all. She too possessed a lively mind, and after her +long New York winter was feeling her isolation. Her first interview +(which included a long stroll and a canoe ride) with this young diplomat +of her own land, visibly lifted her spirits, and she sang as she braided +her heavy mass of hair that night.</p> + +<p>Franz, like most unattached young Germans, was on the lookout for a +soul-mate (which he was far too sophisticated to anticipate in +matrimony), and this handsome, brilliant, subtly responsive, and wholly +charming young woman of the only country worth mentioning entered his +life when he too was lonely and rather bored. It was his third year in +the United States of America and he did not like the life nor the +people. Nevertheless, he was trying to make up his mind to pay court to +Ann Howland, a young lady whose dashing beauty was somewhat overpoised +by salient force of character and an uncompromisingly keen and direct +mind, but whose fortune eclipsed by several millions that of the +high-born maiden selected by his family.</p> + +<p>Here was a heaven-sent interval, with intellectual companionship in +addition to the game of the gods. Being a German girl, Gisela Döring +would be aware that he could not marry out of his class, unless the +plebeian pill were heavily gilded. To do him justice, he would not have +married the wealthiest plebeian in Germany. An American: that was +another matter. If there were such a thing as an aristocracy in this +absurd country which pretended to be a democracy and whose "society" was +erected upon the visible and screaming American dollar, no doubt Miss +Howland belonged to the highest rank. In Germany she would have been a +princess—probably of a mediatized house, and, he confessed it amiably +enough, she looked the part more unapologetically than several he could +mention.</p> + +<p>So did Gisela Döring. He sighed that a woman who would have graced the +court of his Kaiser should have been tossed by a bungling fate into the +rank and file of the good German people; so laudably content to play +their insignificant part in their country's magnificent destiny.</p> + +<p>Gisela never told him the truth. Sometimes, irritated by his subtle +arrogance, she was tempted. Also consuming love tempted her. But of what +use? She was without fortune and he must add to his. He had a limited +income and expensive tastes, and when a young nobleman in the diplomatic +service marries he must take a house and live with a certain amount of +state. Moreover, he intended to be an ambassador before he was +forty-five, and he was justified in his ambitions, for he was +exceptionally clever and his rise had been rapid. But now he was +care-free and young, and love was his right.</p> + +<p>Gisela understood him perfectly. Not only was she of his class, but her +brother Karl had madly loved a girl in a chocolate shop and wept +tempestuously beside her bed while their father slept. He married +philosophically when his hour struck.</p> + +<p>But if she understood she was also romantic. She forgot her vow to live +alone, her mother's advice, and dreamed of a moment of overwhelming +madness which would sweep them both up to the little church on the +mountain. There, like a true heroine of old-time fiction, she would +announce her own name at the altar. This moment, however, did not +arrive. Nettelbeck, too, was romantic, but his head was as level within +as it was flat behind. He never went near the church on the mountain.</p> + +<p>There was no surface lovemaking during the first two summers, or in the +winter following the second summer, when he came over from Washington on +her Wednesday as often as he could, and they had luncheon and tea in +byway restaurants. They were both fascinated by the game, and they had +an infinite number of things to talk about, for their minds were really +congenial. They disputed with fire and fury. It was a part of Gisela's +dormant genius to grasp instinctively the psychology of foreign nations, +and before she had been in the United States a year she understood it +far better than Nettelbeck ever would. Even if he had despised it less +he would have lavished all the resources of his wit upon a country so +different from Germany in every phase that it must necessarily be +negligible save as a future colony of Prussia, if only for the pleasure +of seeing Gisela's long eyes open and flash, the dusky red in her +cheeks burn crimson and her bosom heave at his "junker narrow-mindedness +and stupid arrogance"—; "a stupidity that will be the ruin of Germany +in the end!" she exclaimed one day in a sudden moment of illumination, +for, as a matter of fact, she had given little thought to politics. +However, she recalled her typical papa.</p> + +<p>Of course they talked their German souls inside out. At least Nettelbeck +did. As time went on, Gisela used her frankness as a mask while her soul +dodged in panic. She believed him to be lightly and agreeably in love +with her (she had witnessed many summer flirtations at Bar Harbor, and +been laid siege to by more than one young American, idle, enterprising, +charming and quite irresponsible), and she was appalled at her own +capacity for love and suffering, the complete rout of her theories, +based on harsh experience, before the ancient instinct to unleash her +womanhood at any cost.</p> + +<p>She plunged into a serious study of the country, which she had +heretofore absorbed with her avid mental conduits, and read innumerable +newspapers, magazines, elucidating literature of all sorts, besides the +best histories of the nation and the illuminating biographies of its +distinguished men in politics and the arts. She was deeply responsive to +the freedom of the individual in this great whirling heterogeneous land, +and as her duties at any time were the reverse of onerous, it was +imperative to keep her consciousness as detached from her inner life as +possible.</p> + +<p>But at the back of her mind was always the haunting terror that he never +would come again, that he was really more attracted to Ann Howland than +he knew; and of all American women whom Gisela had met she admired Miss +Howland preëminently. She was not only beautiful in the grand manner but +she possessed intellect as distinguished from the surface "brightness" +of so many of her countrywomen, and had made a deep impression upon even +the superlatively educated German girl when they had chanced to meet and +talk at children's picnics at Bar Harbor, or when the triumphant young +beauty ran up to the nursery in town to bring a message to the little +Bolands from her sisters. It was true that hers was not the seductive +type of beauty, that her large gray eyes were cool and appraising, her +fine skin quite without color, and her soft abundant hair little darker +than Franz's own, but she could be feminine and charming when she chose +and she would be a wife in whom even a German would experience a secret +and swelling pride.</p> + +<p>What chance had she—she—Gisela Döring?</p> + +<p>There were days and weeks, during that second winter, when she was +tormented by a sort of sub-hysteria, a stifled voice in the region of +her heart threatening to force its way out and shriek. There were times +when she gave way to despair, and thought of her vigorous youth with a +shudder, and at other times she was so angry and humiliated at her +surrender and secret chaos, that she was on the point more than once of +breaking definitely with Franz Nettelbeck, or even of going back to +Germany. If he missed a Wednesday, or failed to write, she slipped out +of the house at night and paced Central Park for hours, fighting her +rebellious nerves with her pride and the strong independent will that +she had believed would enable her to leap lightly over every pitfall in +life.</p> + +<p>Then he would come and her spirits would soar, her whole awakened being +possessed by a sort of reckless fury, a desperate resolve to enjoy the +meager portion of happiness allotted to her by an always grudging fate; +and for a few days after he left she would give herself up to blissful +and extravagant dreams.</p> + +<p>But Nettelbeck was by no means lightly in love with Gisela Döring. +During the third summer, partly owing to the increased independence of +her growing charges, partly to his own expert management, they met in +long solitudes seldom disturbed. Gisela dismissed fears, ignored the +inevitable end, plunged headlong and was wildly happy. Nettelbeck was an +ardent and absorbed lover, for he knew that his time was short, and he +was determined to have one perfect memory in his secret life that the +woman who bore his name should never violate. Miss Howland had meted him +the portion his dilatoriness invited and married a fine upstanding young +American whose career was in Washington; and his family had peremptorily +commanded him to return in the spring (with the Kaiser's permission, a +mandate in itself) and marry the patient Baronin Irma Hammorwörth.</p> + +<p>And so for a summer and a winter they were happy.</p> + +<p>Gisela averted her mind tonight from the parting with something of the +almost forgotten panic. She had never dared to dwell upon it, nor on the +month that followed. Her powerful will had rebelled finally and she had +fought down and out of her consciously functioning mind the details of +her tragic passion, and even reveled arrogantly in the sensation of +deliverance from the slavery of love. Simultaneously she was swept off +to see the great natural wonders of the American continent and they had +intoned the requiem. </p> + +<p>The following autumn she returned to Germany and paid her mother another +brief visit.</p> + +<p>There all was well. Frau von Niebuhr, who had not developed a white hair +and whose Viennese maid was a magician in the matter of gowns and +complexion, was enjoying life and had a daring salon; that is to say +gatherings in which all the men did not wear uniforms nor prefix the +sacred von. She drew the line at bad manners, but otherwise all (and of +any nation) who had distinguished themselves, or possessed the priceless +gift of personality, were welcome there; and although she lived to be +amused and make up what she had lost during thirty unspeakable years, +she progressed inevitably in keenness of insight and breadth of vision. +She had become a student of politics and stared into the future with +deepening apprehension, but of this she gave not a hint to Gisela. +Mariette was her closest friend and only confidante. Mariette was now +living in Berlin, and amusing herself in ways Frau von Niebuhr +disapproved, mainly because she thought it wiser to banish men from +one's inner life altogether; but, true to her code, she forebore +remonstrance.</p> + +<p>Lili, having discovered that her voice was not for grand opera, had +philosophically descended to the concert stage and was excitedly happy +in her success and independence. Elsa was a Red Cross nurse.</p> + +<p>Gisela met Franz von Nettelbeck at a court function and had her little +revenge. He was furious, and vowed, quite audibly, that he would never +forgive her. But Gisela was merely disturbed lest the Obersthofmeisterin +who stood but three feet away overhear his caustic remarks. +Distinguished professors (without their wives) might go to court as a +reward for shedding added luster upon the German Empire, but lesser +mortals who had received payment for services rendered might not. Her +independent mother, still a favorite, for she was exceeding discreet, +would have incurred the imperial displeasure if the truth were known. +However, the incident passed unnoticed, and Franz, whatever his +shortcomings, was a gentleman and kept her secret.</p> + +<p>The scene at the palace had been brilliant and sustaining and she had +received much personal homage, for she was looking very beautiful and +radiant, and the little adventure had been incense to her pride +(moreover the young Freifrau von Nettelbeck, whom she saw on his arm +later, was an insignificant little hausfrau); but when she was in her +room after midnight she realized grimly that if she had not done her +work so well during that terrible month in New York and buried her sex +heart, she should once more be beating the floor or the wall with her +impotent hands. But the knowledge of her immunity made her a little sad.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>3</h3> + +<p>The next episode to her grim humor was wholly amusing, although it +played its part in her developing sense of revolt against the attitude +of the German male to the sex of the mother that bore him. She returned +to Munich after a month in Berlin, for by this time she had made up her +mind to write, and the city by the Isar was the most beautiful in the +world to write and to dream in. Moreover, she wished to attend the +lectures on drama at the University.</p> + +<p>The four years in America, during which she had, in spite of her +sentimental preoccupation, studied diligently every phase that passed +before her keen critical vision, analyzed every person she had met, and +passed many of her evenings in the study of the best contemporary +fiction, had, associated with the spur of her own upheaval, developed +her imagination, and her head was full of unwritten stories. They were +highly realistic, of course, as became a modern German, but unmistakably +dramatic.</p> + +<p>She attended the lectures, practising on short stories meanwhile, +devoting most of her effort to becoming a stylist, that she might attain +immediate recognition whatever her matter. She lived in a small but +comfortable hotel, for not only had she saved the greater part of her +salary, but the Bolands, however oblivious socially of a paid attendant, +had a magnificent way with them at Christmas, and had given her an even +larger cheque at parting.</p> + +<p>In Munich she was once more Gisela Döring, once more led the student +life. There are liberties even for people of rank in Munich, and many +nobles, exasperated with the rigid class lines of Berlin and other +German capitals, move there, and, while careful to attend court +functions, make intelligent friends in all sets. They are, or were, the +happiest people in Germany. Here Gisela could sit alone in a café by the +hour reading the illustrated papers and smoking with her coffee, +attracting no attention whatever. She joined parties of students during +the summer and tramped the Bavarian Alps, and she danced all night at +student balls. Nevertheless, she managed to hold herself somewhat aloof +and it was understood that she did not live the "loose" life of the +"artist class." She was much admired for her stately beauty and her +style, and if the young people of that free and easy community were at +times inclined to resent a manifest difference, they succumbed to her +magnetism, and respected her obvious devotion to a high literary ideal.</p> + +<p>It was during her second winter that she met Georg Zottmyer.</p> + +<p>He was a tall, narrow, angular young man with a small clipped head and +preëminent ears. His narrow face was set with narrower features, and his +eyes were very bright, and the windows of his conceit. Although his +income was minute he boasted a father of note in the University of +Leipzig, and his mother had traveled and written a scathing satire on +the United States of America. He had not a grain of originality or +imagination, but he too was taking the course in dramatic art, and +reading for that degree without whose magic letters he could not hope to +take his place in the world of art to which his parts entitled him. He +met Gisela in the lecture room and immediately became her cavalier.</p> + +<p>At first Gisela endeavored to get rid of him by an icy front, but this +he took for feminine coquetry and his own front was serene. As he had +made up his mind to be a dramatist merely because the career appealed +acutely to his itching ambition, so did he in due course make up his +mind to marry this handsome brunette (what hair he had was drab) who +bore all the earmarks of secret wealth in spite of the fact that she +lived in a small hotel. As time went on, Gisela resigned herself and put +his little ego under her microscope.</p> + +<p>His wooing was methodical. He not only walked home with her after every +lecture, but he gave her a series of teas in his high little flat, and +he really did know "people." His parental introductions had given him +the entrée to the professional circles, and he cultivated society both +semi-fashionable and ultra-literary. He knew no one who had not +"arrived." </p> + +<p>He chose an unpropitious day for a tentative declaration of his +intentions. It was very cold. White mufflers protected his outstanding +ears, a gray woolen scarf was wound about his long neck and almost +covered his tight little mouth. He wore mitts and wristlets, and his +nose was crimson. Gisela, in a new set of furs, sent her for Christmas +by Mariette, and a smart gown of wine-colored cloth, looked radiant. Her +dark eyes shone with joy in the cold electric air of that high plateau, +her cheeks were red, her warm full-lipped mouth was parted over her even +white teeth. They walked from the University down the great +Leopoldstrasse, one of the finest streets in Europe, toward the Café +Luitpold, where he had invited her to drink coffee.</p> + +<p>There was little conversation during that brisk walk. He was frozen, and +she was not thinking of him at all. At the café he selected an alcove as +far from the noisy groups of students as possible. All the "trees" were +hung with colored caps and the atmosphere was dense with smoke. </p> + +<p>Zottmyer, who, after all, was young, soon thawed out in the warm room, +and when he had cheered his interior with a large cup of hot coffee and +lit a cigarette, he brought up the subject of matrimony. He had no +intention of proposing in these surroundings, but it was time to pave +the way—or set the pattern of the tiling; he cultivated the divergent +phrase.</p> + +<p>"It is time I married," he announced, and, not to appear too serious, he +smiled into her glowing face. She looked happy enough to encourage a man +far less fatuous than Georg Zottmyer.</p> + +<p>"Yes?" Gisela's eyes had wandered to the nearest group of students and +she was wondering if they might not have made handsome men had they +permitted their duel wounds to heal instead of excoriating them with +salt and pepper. "Most German men marry young."</p> + +<p>"I am not conventional. I should not dream of marrying unless I found a +young lady who possessed everything that I demand in a wife."</p> + +<p>"Ah? What then do you demand?"</p> + +<p>"Everything."</p> + +<p>"That is a large order. What do you mean, exactly."</p> + +<p>"I mean, of course, that I should not marry a woman who did not have in +the first place beauty, that I might be proud of her in public, besides +refreshing myself with the sight of her in private. She must have beauty +of figure as well as of face, as I detest our dumpy type of German +women. And she must have style, and dress well. It would mortify me to +death, particularly after I had made my position, to go about with one +of those wives that seem to fall to the lot of most intellectuals. +Soft-waisted, bulging women," he added spitefully, "how I hate them!"</p> + +<p>"Your taste is admirable. Our women are much too careless, particularly +after marriage. And the second requirement?" </p> + +<p>"Oh, a small fortune, at least. I could not afford to marry, otherwise, +and although I shall no doubt make a large income in due course, I must +begin well. I prefer a house, as it gives an artist a more serious and +dignified position."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, yes."</p> + +<p>"And of course my wife must be of good birth, as good as my own. I +should never dream of marrying even a Venus in this Bohemian class. That +sort of thing is all very well—" He waved his hand, and arched an +eyebrow, and Gisela inferred she was to take quite a number of amours +for granted; much, for instance, as she would those of a handsome +officer who sat alone at the next table and who looked infinitely bored +with love and longing for war.</p> + +<p>"She must—it goes without saying—be intellectual, clever, bright, +amusing. I must have companionship. Not an artist, however. I should +never permit my wife to write or model or sing for the public. And she +must have the social talent, magnetism, the power to charm whom she +will. That would help me infinitely in my career."</p> + +<p>"Is that all?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, she must be affectionate and a good housekeeper, but most German +women have the domestic virtues. Naturally, she must have perfect +health. I detest women with nerves and moods."</p> + +<p>Gisela had been leaning forward, her elbows on the table, her little +square chin on her hands, and if there were wondering contempt in her +eyes he saw only their brilliance and fixed regard.</p> + +<p>"And what, may I ask, do you purpose to give her in return for all +that?"</p> + +<p>He flicked the ashes from his cigarette, and the gesture was quite +without affectation. "What has that to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"Well—only—you think, then, that in return for all—but all!—that +a woman has to offer a man—any man—you should not feel yourself bound +to give her an equal measure in return?"</p> + +<p>"I have not given the matter a thought. Naturally the woman I select +will see all in me that I see in her. Shall we get out of this? I feel +I have taken a cold. Fresh air is a drastic but efficient corrective."</p> + +<p>He escorted her to her hotel, although he gazed longingly down his own +street as they passed it. His head felt overburdened and it was awkward +manipulating a handkerchief with mitts.</p> + +<p>Within half a block of the hotel Gisela, who had been walking +rapidly, bending a little against the wind, paused and drew herself +up to her stately height. Cold as he was he thrilled slightly as he +reflected that she possessed real distinction; almost she might be +hochwohlgeboren—yes, quite. He tingled less agreeably as he recalled +a snub administered by a great lady with whom he had presumed to attempt +conversation at the house of a liberal little Russian baroness. This +woman would snub any hochwohlgeboren who presumed to snub him in the +future.</p> + +<p>"Herr Zottmyer," said Gisela, and her tones were as crisp as the air +blowing down from the Alps, "you must permit me to give you a note of +introduction to my mother when you go to Berlin next week. I hope you +will find time to call on her."</p> + +<p>Zottmyer's eyes snapped at this covert encouragement, although it was +rather forward in a German girl practically to ask a man his intentions. +"I shall be delighted to call on Frau Dörmer—"</p> + +<p>"Countess Niebuhr. I have practised a little innocent deception here in +Munich—for obvious reasons. Also, during my four years' sojourn in +America—"</p> + +<p>"In America?" His brain, a fine, concentrated, Teutonic organ, strove to +grapple with two ideas at once. "You have been in America!"</p> + +<p>"Rather. I feel half an American. You have no idea how it changed my +point of view—oh, but in many ways! The men, you see, are so different +from ours. The American woman has a magnificent position—"</p> + +<p>"Ridiculous, uppish, spoilt creatures—" </p> + +<p>"But how delicious to be spoiled. You will call on my mother?"</p> + +<p>Zottmyer almost choked. "I hate the Prussians—above all, that arrogant +junker class. And the name of Niebuhr!—why, it stands for all that +junkerdom means in its most virulent form!"</p> + +<p>"I am afraid it does. My brothers are junkers unalloyed. But I can +assure you that my mother is as democratic as one may be in Berlin. She +has quite a number of friends among the intellectuals—"</p> + +<p>"Would she consent to your marriage with a—a—<i>mere</i> intellectual?"</p> + +<p>"What has that to do with it! It would never occur to me to marry +out of my own class. That is always a mistake. There are, you +see,—well—subtle differences that forbid harmony—"</p> + +<p>"You are a snob. I might have seen it before this. You give yourself +airs—" He was now so torn between fury and disappointment, +mortification and Teutonic resentment at being obliged to diverge +abruptly from precisely thought-out tactics, that he forgot his +physical discomfort—and incidentally to use his handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"A snob? When I am true to the best traditions of my race? Did you not +tell me that you would not marry a Venus if she happened to be born +outside of your own class? But it is rather cold here—not? Shall I send +the note of introduction to your flat?"</p> + +<p>"I would not put my foot in any supercilious junker palace, and I never +wish to see you again!" He whirled about, burying his nose in his +handkerchief, and tore down the street.</p> + +<p>Gisela laughed, but with little amusement. Her sympathy for German women +took a long stride. But she forgot him a few moments later at her desk.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>4</h3> + +<p>During the next five years she wrote many short stories and essays, and +four plays. Her work appealed subtly but clearly to the growing +rebellion of the German women; she was too much of an artist to write +frank propaganda and the critics were long waking up to the object of +her work. Her first three plays were failures, but the fourth ran for +two years and a half and was played all over Germany and Austria. It was +a brilliant, dramatic, half-humorous, half-tragic exposition of the +German woman's enforced subservience to man as compared with the +glorious liberty of the somewhat exaggerated American co-heroine.</p> + +<p>There was talk of suppressing this play at first, but Countess Niebuhr +brought all her influence to bear, and as the widow of one esteemed +junker and the daughter of another far more important, her argument that +her daughter merely labored to make the German woman a still more +powerful factor in upholding the might of German Kultur—that being the +secret hidden in what was after all but a fantasy—caused the powers to +shrug their shoulders and dismiss the matter.</p> + +<p>After all, was not the play by a woman, and were not the German women +the best trained in the world? Besides, the play was amusing, and humor +destroyed the serious purpose always. Humor made the Americans the +contemptible race they were—fortunately for the future plans of +Germany. They took nothing seriously. In time they would!</p> + +<p>Those who have not lived in Germany have not even an inkling of the deep +slow secret revolt against the insolent and inconsiderate attitude of +the German male that had been growing among its women for some fifteen +years before the outbreak of the war. They ventured no public meetings +or militant acts of any sort, for men were far too strong for them yet, +and the German woman is by nature retiring, however individualistic her +ego. Their only outward manifestation was the hideous <i>reformkleid</i>, a +typical manifestation in even the women of a nation whose art is as ugly +as it often is interesting. But thousands of them were muttering to one +another and reading with envy the literature of woman's revolt in other +lands. When one of their own sex rose, a woman of the highest +intelligence and an impeccable style, who, although she signed herself +Gisela Döring, was said to be a rebellious member of the Prussian +aristocracy, their own vague protests slowly crystallized and they grew +to look upon her as a leader, who one day would show them the path out +of bondage. Her correspondence grew to enormous proportions, but she +answered every letter, fully determined by this time to accomplish +something more than a name in letters while incidentally amusing herself +with stirring up the women and annoying the men. But although clubs were +formed to discuss her work and letters, they were still unsuspected of +the arrogant men who controlled the destinies of Germany. And as the +German woman is the reverse of frank, as little indication of the slow +revolution was found in the home. The solution was as far off as ever, +but German women are patient and they bided their time, exulting in +their secret. It gave them a sense of revenge and power.</p> + +<p>Then came the war. </p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='II'></a><h2>II</h2> +<br /> + +<h3>1</h3> + +<p>Gisela, like all the good women of Germany, flamed with patriotism and +righteous indignation. Russia and France with no provocation, with no +motive but insensate ambition on the one hand and a festering desire for +revenge on the other, had crossed the sacred frontiers of the great +Teutonic Empire. A French aviator had dropped bombs on Neuremburg, one +of the artistic treasures of Europe, although, mercifully, his bombs had +inadvertently been filled with air. Then followed the even more +indefensible act of Great Britain, whose only motive in joining forces +with paper allies was to aim a blow at the glorious commercial prestige +of Germany, the object of her fear and hate these many years. </p> + +<p>Gisela immediately entered the hospital opened by her mother in Berlin +and took a rapid first-aid course, concentrating upon the work all the +fine powers of her mind and strong young body. Literature, fame, +propaganda among women, all were dismissed. Although victory was certain +in a few months there would be many thousands of wounded and she was +filled with a passionate desire to serve those heroes and martyrs of +foreign hatred. She forgot her personal experience of the German male, +forgot herself. Her beloved Fatherland was attacked, and the German male +in his heroic resistance, his triumphal progress, was become a god. +<i>Dienen! Dienen!</i></p> + +<p>She had no time to ponder upon the violation of Belgium and knew nothing +of the curious escape of medieval psychology from the formal harness of +modern times. She was engaged in hard menial labor during those first +weeks and it was sufficient to know that Germany had been violated. It +is true that her warrior parent had sometimes boasted of the day when +Germany should rule the world, and that he had referred to the Great +European War as a foregone conclusion, as so many had been doing these +past ten or fifteen years; but he had been careful to say nothing about +throwing the torch into the powder. Gisela, like the vast majority of +civilians in the Central Empires, had grown too accustomed to the +evidences of a great standing army to give them more than a passing +thought. Were they not, then, situate in the very middle of Europe? +Surrounded by envious and powerful enemies? What more natural than that +they should be ever on the alert?</p> + +<p>That Germany herself would strike at the peace of Europe, a peace which +had brought her an unexampled prosperity and eminence, never had crossed +Gisela's mind. Nevertheless, knowing the German male as she did, she was +quite sure that the officers reveled in the exchange of peace for war as +much as the men in the ranks detested it. She could see Franz von +Nettelbeck barking out orders for the irresistible advance, his keen +blue eyes flashing with triumph, his Prussian upper lip curling with +impatient scorn, and Georg Zottmyer grinding his teeth in the trenches +and suffering acutely from dyspepsia.</p> + +<p>Until the summer of 1916 she was very busy, either in her mother's +hospital or in one in Munich run by a group of Socialist friends under +Marie von Erkel. She glanced at the English papers sometimes, but +assumed that their versions of the war's origin, and of Germanic +methods, were for home effect, and smiled at their occasional claims of +victory.</p> + +<p>Poor things! By this time she had seen so much mortal suffering, soothed +so many dying men who raved of unimaginable horrors, written so many +pathetic last letters to mothers and wives and sweethearts, that the +first mood of fury and hatred had long since passed. Her mind, normally +clear, acute, just, regained its poise. Moreover, those five years +preceding the war, during which she had learned to use her gifts for the +benefit of her sex instead of for her own amusement and fame, played +their insidious part.</p> + +<p>When she was ordered to take charge of a hospital in Lille in June of +the second year of the war she had forced herself to accept the present +state of Europe with a certain philosophy. After all, war was its +normal, its historic, condition. Following a somewhat unusual interval +of peace, owing to the beneficent reign of the German Emperor, the war +microbes of Europe, cultured in the Balkan swamps, had, through some +miscalculation, after a deplorable assassination, ravaged the entire +continent instead of being localized as heretofore. Men were men and +kings were kings and war was war. Gisela sometimes wondered if the +hideous upheaval were anybody's fault, if the desire to fight had not +been more or less simultaneous in spite of the fact that Germany was +caught napping and permitted Russia and France to sneak over her +frontiers.</p> + +<p>The sinking of the <i>Lusitania</i> and other passenger ships, or rather the +results, had filled her with a horror that might have developed into +protest had she not been assured that the U-boats had purposely waited +for a calm sea, not too far from shore, that the passengers might have +every opportunity for escape; and that they had been the victims of +contraband cargoes of ammunition exploding, badly adjusted life-boats, +panic among themselves, and utter inefficiency and selfishness of the +officers and crew.</p> + +<p>These excuses sounded plausible to a young woman still too occupied to +ponder; but during her journey through Belgium and the invaded districts +of France her mind grew more and more uneasy. Surely an army so +uniformly victorious, an army which only forebore to press forward in a +battle—like that of the Marne, for instance—for sound strategic +reasons, should have found it unnecessary to destroy whole towns with +their priceless monuments of art, level countless insignificant +villages, and reduce their inhabitants to cowering misery. She had been +a student of history and had inferred that modern warfare was as humane +as war may be; witness the fine magnanimity of the Japanese, an Oriental +race. This passing country, which she had known well in its hey-day, +looked extraordinarily like the historical pictures of the invasions of +Goths and Vandals and Huns.</p> + +<p>"Huns!" She had resented the constant use of the word in the English +papers, dismissing it finally as childish spite. Had its usurpation of +the classic and noble word "Germans" been one of those quick, merciless, +simultaneous designations that fly through every army in wartime and are +as apt as they are inevitable?</p> + +<p>She felt a sudden desire to "talk it out" with Franz von Nettelbeck, +whose mind, despite his prejudices, was the most stimulating she had +ever known. But although she heard of him often, for he had covered +himself with glory, she had seen him only once—from a window in Berlin +as he promenaded Unter den Linden; a superb and haughty figure, his +swelling chest covered with medals. </p> + +<p>In Lille she met Elsa, who had been in charge of a hospital for a year, +Mimi Brandt and Heloise von Erkel, with whom she had been intimately +associated in Munich. She found all three horrified and appalled at the +atrocious cruelties, the persistent and needless severities, the +arrogant and swaggering attitude, accompanied by countless petty +tyrannies, unworthy of an army in possession; the wholly unmodern and +dishonorable treatment of a prostrate and wretched people. Above all, +the deportations of the young girls of Lille, torn from their families, +driven in herds through the streets, their faces stamped with despair or +abject terror, condemned to God knew what horrible fate, had shaken +these three humane and thinking women to the core.</p> + +<p>All three, while serving far behind the lines, had thought their German +army an army of demi-gods, and all three were bitterly ashamed of their +countrymen and disposed to question a sovereign, and a military caste, +that not only encouraged the saddist lust of their fighters and seemed +unable to spare sufficient food for the civilians, in spite of the great +leakage through neutral countries, but which persisted in calling +themselves victorious when they were either perpetually on the defensive +or in the act of being beaten, despite their irresistible rush. The +Somme Drive had not begun but there was not a nurse in Lille that did +not know the truth about Verdun.</p> + +<p>"And believe me, as the Americans say," remarked Mimi Brandt, "when the +German people know the truth, particularly the German women, there will +be some circus."</p> + +<p>Mimi had been far more of an active rebel than the Niebuhr girls, +possibly because her life-stream was closer to the source, patently to +herself because she had a magnificent voice which needed only technique +to assure her a welcome in any of the great opera houses of Germany. +Adroitly persuaded by her parents to marry when she was not quite +seventeen, she had conceived an abhorrence of the rodent-visaged young +burgess who had been her lot; not only was he personally distasteful to +the ardent romantic girl, but he would not permit her to cultivate her +voice, much less study for the stage. Her revenge had been a cruel +disdain, to which he had responded by lying under the bed all night and +howling. Twice she had run away, visiting prosperous and sympathetic +relatives in Milwaukee, and both times returned at the passionate +solicitations of her parents; not only outraged in their dearest +conventions but anxious to be rid of the small rodent born of the union.</p> + +<p>Her last return had been but a month before the outbreak of the war, and +Hans Brandt, to his growling disgust, was promptly swept off by the +searching German broom. He was as much in love with his wife as a man so +meagerly equipped in all but national conceit may be, for Mimi was a +handsome girl with a buxom but graceful figure, and a laughing face +whose golden brown eyes sparkled with the pure fun of living when they +were not somber with disgust and rebellion.</p> + +<p>Gisela had always looked upon Heloise von Erkel as the most tragic +figure in Munich. In appearance she had distinction rather than beauty, +for although her features were delicate her complexion and hair were +faded and there were faint lines on her charming face. She was a blonde +of the French type, and her light figure, although indifferently carried +and a stranger to gowns, possessed an indefinable elegance.</p> + +<p>Under heaven knew what impulse of romantic madness Frau von Erkel, then +Heloise d'Oremont, had married a young German officer, and although both +fancied themselves deeply in love the breach began shortly after they +had settled to the routine life of the frontier town where he was +stationed, and had widened rapidly in spite of the fact that she +produced six children as automatically as the most devoted (and +detested) hausfrau of her acquaintance. Shortly after the birth of +Marie, the breach became a chasm, for the chocolate firm, inherited +through her bourgeoise mother and the source of Frau von Erkel's wealth, +failed, and the haughty Bavarian aristocrat was forced to keep up his +position in the army and maintain his growing family on an income, +accruing from chocolate investments, that should have been reserved for +pleasure alone.</p> + +<p>However, there was help for it. He renounced cards and such other costly +diversions as was possible without lowering his standard as a gentleman +and an officer, and of course the real privation was borne by the women +of the family. He even ceased to rage at his wife, for she merely sat in +her favorite chair, her hands folded, and looked at him with her subtle +ironic smile.</p> + +<p>When Gisela met them, Frau von Erkel and her three daughters (all in +their late twenties and unmarried) were living in a dingy old house in a +respectable quarter, with one beer-sodden maid to relieve them of the +heavy work and bake the cake for the Sunday "Coffee."</p> + +<p>Colonel von Erkel and his three sons lived in bachelor quarters and +called upon the women of the family every Sunday afternoon at precisely +four o'clock. In full uniform, and imposing specimens of the German +officer, they sat stiffly upon the uncomfortable chairs for about thirty +minutes and then simultaneously escaped and were seen no more for a +week.</p> + +<p>At first Gisela was intensely amused at the vagaries of the Erkels, but +when she saw the four narrow beds in a row in one small monastic room +(the first floor was let to lodgers to pay the rent), and still more of +their almost hopeless contriving to hold their position in Munich +society, to say nothing of a bare sufficiency of food and raiment, her +sympathies, always more deep than quick, were permanently aroused. But +they were confined to the girls. Charming and graceful as the old lady +was, it was evident that if above the arrogance of her German husband +she was afflicted with the intense conservatism of her own race. It had +taken Aimée, the oldest of the girls, three years of persistent begging, +nagging, arguments, tears, and threats of abrupt demise, to obtain +permission to move her piano—a present from relatives who occasionally +came to the rescue—a bookcase and three chairs up to the garret and +have a room she could call her own. Frau von Erkel was scandalized that +a French girl (she systematically ignored the German infusion in her +daughters) should wish for hours of solitude. But Aimée had the national +genius for pegging away, and her mother, who came in time to feel that +one nerve was being gnawed with maddening reiteration, finally +succumbed; relieving her mind daily.</p> + +<p>After that it was comparatively easy, although there were several +notable engagements, for Heloise to become secretary to Gisela Döring. +She never dared admit that she received a generous monthly cheque for +her services, but Gisela was a favorite with the old lady (always +sitting placidly in her chair, with her hands in her lap, a faint ironic +smile on her still pretty face), and as her literary style was extolled +by her exacting daughters (Frau von Erkel never read even a German +newspaper, but subscribed for <i>Le Figaro</i>), and as she knew Gisela to +be a member of her own class, the new connection was harmonious; and +Heloise at last experienced something like real liberty in the tiny +garden house of the parterre apartment of Gisela Döring on the +Königinstrasse.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>2</h3> + +<p>There is little time in the war zones to meet and talk, but even nurses +must rest and take the air, and during the month before the frightful +rush of wounded after the British offensive on the Somme began, the four +girls, all in different hospitals, maneuvered to obtain leave of absence +at the same hour, early in the evening. They promenaded the desolate +streets arm in arm, their heads together, relieving their burdened +souls. There was no idea of treason in any one of those rebellious +minds, for they still believed their Fatherland to have been on the +defensive from the first, the victim of a conspiracy, and they knew from +the expression of the officers' faces, to say nothing of their tempers, +that the danger was by no means past.</p> + +<p>But being women, and women who had thought for themselves for many +years, they must talk it out, and when too overcharged to trust their +comments to the narrow streets, they retired to a hillock outside the +city which no spy could approach unseen. However, nothing was farther +from the minds of the German men of war than that the women cogs of +their supremely organized land should presume to criticize methods which +had, to their best belief, terrorized the world.</p> + +<p>"But we are not the only ones," said Heloise grimly, as they sat on +their refuge one dusky evening. "All but the sheep have a word to say +now and then. Of course there always will be women who will grovel at +the feet of men merely because they are men; but look out for the others +when this accursed war is over. God! How I hate men! To think that once +I dreamed and hoped like the silly romantic girl I was that some day +some man would marry me in spite of my poverty. Now I would not marry +one of the Kaiser's sons. Sick or well, German, English, French, I +loathe them all alike. Obscene beasts every one of them; but I hate the +Germans most, for they are the most disgusting invalids. And I am a +German girl, too. France has never had any call for me. It is Marie who +would be all French if she could. Poor little Marie, with her drab face +and hair, her poverty, her dynamic body, mad to marry, and climbing out +of the window when mother is asleep, to go to Socialists' meetings and +scream off her pent-up passions. What a hideous world!"</p> + +<p>She sprang to her feet and flung her arms above her head and glared at +the unresponsive stars.</p> + +<p>"O God!" she prayed. "Deliver us! Deliver us from war and deliver us +from men! Deliver us from Kings and deliver us from criminal jealousies +and ambitions and greeds that the innocent millions expiate in blood and +tears! Deliver us from cowards—" She whirled suddenly upon Gisela. +"You—you—why don't you lead us out? You have more mind than any woman +in Germany. You have more influence. I have always placed my hopes on +you. But now—now—you are doing nothing but nurse disgusting men like +the rest of us."</p> + +<p>"Hush! You are talking too loud. And you are carrying your revolt too +far. These poor deluded men you nurse are only to be pitied, and if they +merely revolt you, you have no vocation—"</p> + +<p>"When did I ever pretend to have a vocation for nursing? Like all the +rest I felt I must do my part, and heaven knows it is better than +sitting at home making bandages and watching my mother slowly starve. If +I had rolled one more bandage I should have gone mad."</p> + +<p>"Well, dear Heloise, as far as I am concerned, the time for women to +battle for their rights is when their country is safe, not in mortal +danger. Be sure that when this war is over—"</p> + +<p>She fell silent. A little flame had leapt in her brain. She +extinguished it hurriedly, but it burnt the fingers of her will, always +enthroned and always on guard. As she stared at Heloise, lovely in her +Red Cross uniform, a white torch against the dark horizon, her tragic +eyes once more searching the heavens, it struggled for life again and +again. She loved Heloise and she felt a sudden inclusive love of her +sex, an overpowering desire to deliver it from the sadness and horror of +war; a profounder emotion than anything it had inspired in those far off +days of peace. After all, however serious she had believed herself to +be, it had been a game, a career; for in times of peace one must invent +the vital interests of life, and one's success or failure depends upon +one's powers of creating and sustaining the delusion. Only two things in +life were real, love and war.</p> + +<p>Gisela, like many women of dominating intellect and personality, had +exhausted her power of sex-love with her first unfortunate but prolonged +passion, and although she had no hatred of men, and indeed liked many +and craved their society, she gave her real sympathies and affections +to her women friends. She had no intimates, and this, perhaps, was one +secret of her power. A certain aloofness is essential in intellectual +leadership. But if she had no talent for intimacy she had much for +friendship, and the friends of her inner circle were all women, partly +because there was no waste of time fending off love-making, partly +because there were more interests in common, consequently a deeper bond. +To-night she was filled with an irresistible pity and a longing to set +them free. But her hands were tied. She dared not even go to Great +Headquarters and protest against the terrible fate of the young girls of +Lille. She would have accomplished no good and become an instant object +of suspicion.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>3</h3> + +<p>For many months she did her duty doggedly, her indignation routed by the +disquieting fact that the Germans were retreating from the Somme; inch +by inch, but still retreating. Once she might have been satisfied with +grandiose phrases and scornful assurances. But the long attack on Verdun +had ended in dark humiliation; a failure that the most resourceful +vocabulary was unable to translate into a German advantage, optically +inverted.</p> + +<p>More than half a million young Germans had fallen before Verdun, and for +what? That France, disdained these many years by the mighty Teutonic +Empire, and numerically inferior, might demonstrate to the world that +she was the greater military nation of the two.</p> + +<p>What was it all for? What of the ever-receding fields of peace, grown +green and fat again? What of the racing past dotted with the broken +headstones of promises of victory by this means or that?</p> + +<p>But to attempt to answer historical enigmas while working day and night +over the mangled victims of the Somme was beyond her powers. It was not +until she broke down, and, with Heloise von Erkel and Mimi Brandt, +obtained leave to spend a month at St. Moritz, that she found her +answer. </p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='III'></a><h2>III</h2> +<br /> + +<h3>1</h3> + +<p>The three girls went to a little hotel that had been a favorite resort +of Gisela's in times of peace when she had felt an imperative need of +the high solitudes and eternal snows. They planned a week's rest, and a +fortnight or more of mountain climbing, dismissing the world war from +their minds as far as possible. But their gentle plans were upset on the +eighth day after their arrival, when at the end of an hour's hard +skating, clad in the bright sweaters and caps of old, Gisela suddenly +stopped short and returned the hard stare of two young women who had +drawn apart and were evidently discussing her. That they were Americans +Gisela recognized at a glance, but for a moment she saw them through a +curtain of fire and smoke and shrieking shells and dying groans, so +deep in the background of her memory were the people and events of her +merely personal life. One of the young women was very tall, with a slim +dashing figure, fine fair hair, keen cold gray eyes, a haughty nostril +and upper lip: a beauty of the patrician American type. The other was +shorter but also excessively thin, with dark dancing eyes, a warm color, +a coquettish nose and pouting lips—which somehow invoked the complacent +visage of the late Herr Graf Niebuhr—and a brilliant smile. In a moment +Gisela recognized Ann Howland Prentiss and Kate Terriss, now Mrs. Tolby. +This American friend of her childhood had married an American whose +business kept him in London, and her path and Gisela's had never crossed +since her finishing days in Berlin; although she had corresponded with +Lili for two or three years and knew the family history in vague +outline.</p> + +<p>Gisela skated directly over to them and held out her hand to Kate. "It +is a long while," she said, "but perhaps you remember me—" </p> + +<p>"Do I? Ann will not believe me—that you are Gisela von Niebuhr not +Döring. What a lark that was to run off to America and fool everybody! I +wish I had come across you. It would have been quite dramatic to tear +off the mask of the governess and reveal the junker. I think it was too +stupid of you, Ann, that you didn't guess."</p> + +<p>"I noticed many inconsistencies," said Mrs. Prentiss dryly. She added, +holding out her hand with a charming smile: "But later, I was so proud +to have known Gisela Döring, that personal curiosity seemed impertinent. +How we have missed your writings these last dreadful years!"</p> + +<p>Then all three began to talk at once and Gisela gathered that Mrs. Tolby +had nursed behind the British lines in France since the early days of +the war, and that her old friend, Mrs. Prentiss, had joined her a few +months since. Kate asked innumerable questions about the other girls, +particularly Mariette, whom she remembered as a Germanic blonde of warm +coloring, the coldest eyes, the most subtly rigid and ruthless mouth +she had ever seen. She had found some difficulty picturing her as a Red +Cross nurse and was not surprised to hear that she was in charge of an +enormous organization for the supply of cantines. Of her executive +ability and quick determination there could be no doubt—as she told Ann +Prentiss later.</p> + +<p>In the excitement and exhilaration of this purely feminine +conversation—which soon included Heloise and Mimi—the two parties +forgot the gory chasm that divided them. When they dropped suddenly at a +chance word to the present that gripped even these glittering snow +fields with its red insatiable fingers, Kate, as ever, was equal to the +formidable moment and cried out, snapping her fingers at the blue ether +so tranquilly aloof from warring hosts:</p> + +<p>"Forget it! For to-day, at least. What are you thinking about so hard, +Ann?"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you later. Let us go in and have tea and then skate again. I +noticed how well my step suited Countess Gisela's." </p> + +<p>Ann Howland, as the wife of an eminent politician, had long since +cultivated the art of mental suppleness and had learned to fascinate the +most diverse intelligences and egos. Gisela, who was always warmly +responsive to personal charm when not too obviously insincere, enjoyed +the hour on the ice so exclusively devoted to her by the distinguished +American and went to bed that night well content to bury the war during +this period of necessary rest, grateful for this fresh current that +swept her for the moment into one of those old backwaters of mere +femininity. Mrs. Prentiss had not related a single anecdote of the +front, nor alluded to the fact that she was a Red Cross nurse.</p> + +<p>But she and Kate Terriss sat up until midnight. They were both women +capable of seizing those rare opportunities for service that flit past +so many intelligent women lacking initiative, and here was one that the +most clear-thinking man would have envied. It was a piece of +unbelievable luck; Gisela Döring was not only here to their hand in a +relaxed and friendly mood, but she possessed charm combined with a +great intelligence and an iron will: she was far more the obvious leader +than they had inferred from her work, and they guessed something of the +powerful influence she must quietly have obtained over the women of +Germany. Mrs. Prentiss had by no means approved of her at an earlier +period, for she had shrewdly suspected that it was the handsome German +governess, not the high-born Irma, who thwarted her designs upon the +most attractive "foreigner" she had ever met. But even if she had +cherished a grudge, and her life had been far too happy and successful +for that, she would have been so profoundly grateful to Gisela for +saving her from the anomalous and wretched position of other modern +American women married to medieval Germans, that she felt almost as +great a desire to serve her as civilization in general.</p> + +<p>When the two Americans parted for the night a methodical program had +been worked out, with every date at command and every fact in damning +sequence. The result of this momentous conference was that none of the +five went to bed on the following night, but sat about a large oval +table in the common sitting-room of Mrs. Prentiss and Mrs. Tolby, and +wrangled until dawn.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>2</h3> + +<p>The challenge was given by the Americans and accepted by the Germans, +whose curiosity had been carefully pricked, and all had agreed that no +matter how intensely distasteful any argument might be they would not +separate for at least eight hours, and that there should be as little +"hot stuff" (quoting Mimi Brandt) as possible.</p> + +<p>The avowed object of the Americans was to prove conclusively that +Germany, carrying out a deliberate program, had precipitated the war in +1914, believing Russia to be deliquescent, France riddled with +syndicalism, and Britain on the verge of civil war; consequently that +the exact moment had come for the swift execution of her scientifically +wrought plan for world dominion.</p> + +<p>The three German girls, deep and many as were their causes for +resentment and disgust, had clung fast to the belief in their country's +defensive attitude in the face of a gigantic conspiracy, and were not +pried apart from it without hours of argument, hot and resentful on the +one side, cool, precise, and logical on the other. But those acute +German brains responded to the high intelligence of their opponents and +to their manifest honesty. Moreover, it was indisputable that from the +beginning the Americans had been in a position to know every side and +detail of the ghastly story, while the Germans, confined within their +own narrow borders and taught that the foreign newspapers were a tissue +of "strategic lies," had been wholly dependent upon their government for +"facts."</p> + +<p>During this long debate Gisela sat at the head of the table, rigid and +watchful, when she was not fiercely arguing; Mimi Brandt sprawled in an +easy chair, satirical and slangy, enveloped in smoke; Heloise, very pale +and the first to be convinced, sat with her little hands clenched +against her cheek bones; Ann Prentiss, unshakenly cool quick and +precise; the more brilliant Mrs. Tolby flashing her beacon light into +recesses darkened these three years by systematic lies, but incapable of +the final stupidity.</p> + +<p>That long argument need not be reproduced here. All the world has made +up its mind about Germany, knows her far better than as yet she knows +herself. It was the deliberate effort of the Americans to force these +three intelligent Germans, one of them a leader of the first importance, +to realize that their country stood to the rest of the world for lying, +treachery, cruelty, brutality, degeneracy, bad sportsmanship, ostrich +psychology; above all, that she had forfeited her place among modern and +honest nations.</p> + +<p>When these facts had been hammered in, Mrs. Prentiss moved on to the +two cardinal facts for whose elucidation the rest had been a mere +preamble: that the Central Powers were beaten and knew it, but were +determined to go on sacrificing the manhood of the country, reducing the +population to the ultimate miseries of mind and body rather than yield; +and that the only hope of obtaining mercy from the Entente Allies in the +inevitable hour of surrender was to dethrone the Hohenzollerns and +establish a Republic. Otherwise as a nation they would cease to exist +and their last fate would be infinitely worse than their present. A +German Republic would be welcomed into the family of nations and receive +a friendly and helping hand from every one of the great adversaries, +whose prestige and wealth were still unshaken, and who all desired to +preserve the balance of power in Europe. Above all might they rely upon +the United States of America, the friendly hints of whose President had +been systematically distorted by the anxious Pan-Germans still in the +saddle; who would cheerfully witness the loss of every drop of the +people's life blood rather than their own power.</p> + +<p>A conquered empire that had been hypnotized to the end by the monster +criminals of history, whose word no man would ever take again, would be +a mere collection of enslaved States for generations to come; the +conquerors, having given them their choice, would show no mercy.</p> + +<p>Britain could not be starved. The submarine war, whatever its +devastations, and the vast inconveniences it had caused, was a failure. +And the colossal wealth of the United States in money, in food, in men! +Who knew her resources better than Gisela, who had lived in the country +for four years and found it an absorbing study, who had continued to +read American books, newspapers, and reviews up to the outbreak of the +war? Well, they were all at the disposal of democracy; and as the +Entente Allies, including the United States, were already many times +stronger than Germany, how could they fail to win in the end, no matter +how many millions of lives on all sides Germany continued to shovel +into Moloch?</p> + +<p>All of these three clever German girls had been more or less prepared to +hear Germany proved a liar. They knew from British wounded that London +was neither a fortified city nor reduced to ashes; also that all the +Zeppelin raids on defenseless towns put together had been of less +strategical value to Germany than the taking of one village in the war +zone; she had merely piled up a mountain of hatred and contempt which +must be leveled by the quick repudiation of her people if they would +regain their lost intercourse with a triumphant world. Like all the +other women who had nursed near the front and knew the truth, they +translated into their own cynical vernacular such grandiose collocations +as "Strategic retreats" from that of the Battle of the Marne to those +which had been occurring periodically on the Western front since the +beginning of the Somme offensive of 1916. </p> +<br /> + +<h3>3</h3> + +<p>Gisela's mind was complex and subtle, but it was also honest. When it +yielded a point, it yielded audibly. It was during the preliminary +discussion that she exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"It is true—certain things come back to me—Mimi, open the window. The +air is blue and we are all hardy and can stand the night air. It was +after the Agadir incident that I felt a change. I say felt because I was +so absorbed in my work that I had no inclination for world politics and +never discussed them. Up to that time I had never heard a hint of war +for aggression on the part of Germany.... While, as far back as I can +remember, it was taken for granted there would be a great war some day, +I doubt if any but the military party really believed in it. We thought +the time had passed for real wars, that we were far too highly +civilized. Of course I knew that the military party to which my father +belonged would have welcomed a war, for war was their profession, their +game, their excuse for being, and I heard more or less talk among my +brothers of Pan-Germanism; but still I imagined that it was merely a +defensive Teutonic ideal, just as our oppressive standing army was a +necessity owing to our geographical position. My brother Karl said +once—it comes back to me, although I had quite forgotten it—that it +was futile for the military caste to try to work up a war, because every +moneyed man in the Empire—financiers, merchants, manufacturers, all the +rest—never would hear of it. The country was too prosperous. Our wealth +was growing at a pace which even the United States could not rival, and +poverty was practically eliminated. That is the reason no hint made any +impression on me. It seemed to me that we were the most fortunate and +advanced nation in Europe and had only to wait for our kultur to pervade +the earth.</p> + +<p>"But—after Agadir—I seem to look back upon a slowly rising tide, +muttering, sullen, determined—even in Bavaria the old serenity, the +settled feeling, was gone—war was discussed as a possibility less +casually than of old—"</p> + +<p>"I recall a good deal more than that," interrupted Mimi. "Remember that +I was the daughter of a manufacturer, and the wife, so-called, of a +merchant. They were always grinding their teeth—and from about the time +you speak of—over the wrongs of Germany. What the wrongs were I never +could make out, and I am bound to say I did not listen very attentively, +being absorbed in my own—but it would seem that Germany being the +greatest country in the world was somehow not being permitted to let the +rest of the world find it out—"</p> + +<p>"It is all simple enough, now that I have the key. Germany tried to +bully France, and not only was France anxious to avoid war but Britain +showed her teeth. Germany was not then prepared to fight the world and +was forced to compromise. France gave her a slice of the Kongo in +exchange for Germany's consent to a French Protectorate in Morocco. Of +course—after that it must have been evident to all the business brains +of Germany that however great and prosperous the Empire might be she was +not strong enough to dictate to Europe; nor presume to demand any more +of the great prizes than she had already.</p> + +<p>"In other words, she was shown her place. It was also more than possible +that her aggressive prosperity might one of these days excite the +apprehension of Great Britain, who would then show more than her teeth. +Gradually the idea must have permeated, taken possession of the minds of +men who had vast fortunes to increase or lose, that sooner or later they +must fight for what they had and that it were better perhaps to strike +first, at a moment they might choose themselves—however little they +might sympathize with the ambitions of the Pan-German Party for supreme +power in Europe—"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps nothing," said Mimi. "They made up their minds to do it and +they did it. It is as plain as daylight. I'd forgive them, too, if +they'd won in six months, as they were so sure they would. What I don't +forgive them for is that they have proved themselves the most criminal +fools unhung. I'm glad that I am a Bavarian, and that Prussia, whom we +have always so hated and despised that we have never turned the lions +about on the Siegesthor, should be the prime offenders, humiliating as +it may be that we fell for their lies and got into this rotten mess. But +go ahead, Mrs. Prentiss. What's your next? Gee, but you can hand it out. +You must have kept tab since August 1st, 1914."</p> + +<p>"I took merely an intelligent American woman's interest," said Mrs. +Prentiss, momentarily haughty. "And I spent the first two years and a +half in Washington, where I often knew more than the newspapers; at all +events where I was constantly in the society of thinking men. Also +honest men, for war was the last thing we wanted, until our honor became +too deeply involved to permit us to hold aloof and fatten on your misery +any longer. Also, to be frank, our interests." </p> + +<p>The fact which impressed the Germans and reduced all that had gone +before to a heated academic discussion, was that Germany was beaten, and +that the United States embargo would reduce the Central Empires to +actual starvation, not merely devitalizing subnourishment; combined with +their own certainty that the Teutonic Powers would go on fighting, under +the lash of Prussia, sacrificing hundreds of thousands of loyal German +and Austrian boys, plunge countless more families into hopeless grief, +doom all the children in the land to sheer hunger and tuberculosis.</p> + +<p>Starvation! That was the inevitable fate of Germany if she prolonged the +war. And for what? Prostration, physical, financial, economic. To suffer +for a generation, at least, the fate of the outlaw, mangy dogs nosing +among rotten bones, kicked by the victors whenever they stood on their +hind legs and whined for mercy.</p> + +<p>And the Americans were prepared to pour into France and Britain billions +of dollars and millions of men and incalculable tons of food and +ammunition.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>4</h3> + +<p>The two Americans had a deeper purpose in forcing this long argument +than hammering the truth into those intelligent but Prussianized brains. +As the hours wore toward the dawn they observed with satisfaction that +Gisela's face grew whiter and grimmer, until finally it set itself in +rigid lines. Her mouth was hard, her eyes expanded as if they saw far +beyond the crystal mountains glittering before the open windows. Her +mass of dark hair had fallen, and Mrs. Tolby whispered to Mrs. Prentiss +that she looked like the Medusa in the Glyptothek in Munich, lovely but +relentless.</p> + +<p>Gisela was no longer the radiant and voluptuous beauty who had incurred +the secret wrath of Ann Howland at Bar Harbor. These years of war, +during which she had known hard physical labor and often insufficient +nourishment, more rarely still a full night's sleep, had taken her +lovely curves of cheek and form, her brilliant color. She was thin, +almost gaunt; but the dissolving of the flesh had given her intellect, +her force of character, her aspiring spirit, their first real +opportunity to stamp her features. She would always be handsome, with +her long dark eyes and masses of soft dark hair, her noble outlines; and +her womanly sympathies had preserved their balance between a +devitalizing horror on the one hand and callousness on the other; but it +was a spiritualized beauty, devoid of that appeal to sex of which she +had been, even after she had buried the memory of Franz von Nettelbeck +and all desire for love, femininely tenacious, however disdainful.</p> + +<p>Mimi was the first to speak after a long interval of silence.</p> + +<p>"You've got me, all right. I've been digging up a few more things. We're +up against it for keeps, and it's get out or starve out. I've a notion +to sneak off to my relations in Milwaukee. Mrs. Prentiss, I'll go as +your maid—"</p> + +<p>"You'll do nothing of the sort!" Gisela's voice cut through the ripples +of laughter which always greeted Mimi's redundant slang. "You'll go back +to Germany with me and do your part in putting an end to this war!" All +but Heloise half arose, but she sat staring at that hard drawn face as +if in telepathic communication.</p> + +<p>"Can you do anything—really?" gasped Kate. "We have been hoping for a +revolution, but had given up the idea—until after the war. Your +Socialists either eat out of the Kaiser's hand or sputter and fizzle +out. And all your able-bodied men are at the front—"</p> + +<p>"But not the women."</p> + +<p>"The what?"</p> + +<p>"You have both lived in Germany. You know that German women are big +strong creatures—what you call husky. They are stronger than many of +the men because they have led more decent lives. The men at the front +are hopeless as revolutionary material—at present. They are hypnotized. +They have been taught not to think. They are sick of the war, they +suffer when they come home and see their women reduced to shadows, or go +to the cemeteries to visit the graves of their little brothers and +sisters; but the teaching of a lifetime: the omnipotence of their +sovereigns, whom they innocently believe to rule by divine right, sends +them back submissive, patient, sad. I know what you had in mind when you +brought us here to convince us that our country was not only responsible +for the war, but beaten. You hoped we would somehow bring about the +assassination of the Kaiser and the Crown Prince Ruprecht of +Bavaria—all the great generals. Is it not so? That would, assuredly, +break down the morale of the army, give it a more smashing blow than any +it has received even on the Western front. Well, it cannot be done. Even +I could not obtain a pass into Great Headquarters. You might as well +expect a British soldier to be permitted to saunter over from his lines +and make sketches of the German trenches. Those men guard +themselves—day and night, at every point—as if haunted with the fear +of assassination. Perhaps they are. And remember that the downfall of +Cæsarism means the downfall not only of junkerism but of all the other +kings and Grand Dukes—who are powerful and wealthy in their own +domains. They have no doubt cursed Prussia daily since September, 1914, +but now they all sink or swim together. They will force Germany to die a +thousand deaths in the hope of a miracle that will save a class to which +the rest of poor Germany is a breeding-ground for their mighty armies. I +belong to that class. One of my brothers is on the staff of the Crown +Prince of Prussia. Take my word for it: the solution of Germany's +deliverance is not to be found in the simple antidote of political +assassination, for only men bound up in the success of the German arms, +or their terrorized creatures of our own sex, are near enough to throw +the bomb." </p> + +<p>"It was rather a commonplace idea," said Kate, gracefully, "but what can +you do?"</p> + +<p>"Quite aside from the women of the industrial and lower classes +generally, who have given the municipalities serious trouble with their +food riots—far more than you know about—the German women altogether +are restless and dissatisfied. They were promised a short and triumphant +war. They are daily more skeptical of promises. They have suffered death +in life. All that early exaltation—exhilaration—has gone long since. +They shut their teeth and endure because they still believe the cunning +official lies—that Britain must be starved by the submersibles, that +France's man power is nearly exhausted, that the United States cannot +prepare an army in less than two years and needs all her trained men at +home to quell the riots of the masses who disapprove of the war. They +are taught to believe that ultimate victory for Germany is +inevitable—that it is merely a question of months.</p> + +<p>"But—convince them that Germany cannot win, that their own conquest is +inevitable after three or four more years of horror and torment and +personal despair, turn their blind hatred of England and America upon +their own conscienceless rulers—"</p> + +<p>"Jimminy!" cried Mimi. "That's the dope. Pound it into them that the +Enemy Allies will give them a square deal as a Republic and put them +under the steam-roller with the Hohenzollerns if they stand pat, and +you'll get them. No more hungry and tubercular babies, no more babies +born with a cuticle short in theirs. They'd rise as one man—I +mean—damn the men!—as one woman."</p> + +<p>Heloise left her seat like a whirlwind and flung herself at Gisela's +feet. Her face was flaming white. She looked like a sibyl. "I knew it +would be you!" she cried in her sweet bell-like tones. "I have had +visions of you leading us out of this awful war. You have only to talk +to the women—your word was gospel to them before the war—they too will +have the vision and they will make it fact." </p> + +<p>"Yes—but—" interrupted the practical Ann. "How shall you go to work? +It is a stupendous idea. But you never could keep such a propaganda +movement a secret. Some one would be sure to betray you. German women +are perfect fools about men."</p> + +<p>"No longer. Nor were they for several years before the war as +subservient (inwardly) to men as they had been in the past. Far from it. +And now! They have suffered too much at the hands of men. They have no +illusions left. Love and marriage are ghastly caricatures to women who +have lived in a time when men are slaughtered like pigs in massed +formation; when their little boys are driven to war; when young +girls—and widows!—are forced to bring more males into the world with +the sanction of neither love nor marriage; when those too young for the +trench or the casual bed wail incessantly for bread. Oh, no! The German +man's day of any but legal dominion is over. Of course there is always +the danger of spies and traitors, but—" </p> + +<p>"The wall for you at sunrise if you get caught," cried Mimi, with +another subsidence of enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"If that happen to be my destiny. Can any one experience what we have +done during these three years and not be as fatalistic as the men in the +trenches? I'd rather die before a firing squad after an attempt to save +my wretched country than live to see it set back a hundred years. But I +refuse to believe that I shall be betrayed or that I shall fail. <i>That</i> +I believe to be my destiny. For a long time the idea has been fumbling +in the back of my mind, but it lacked the current which would switch it +into my consciousness. You two have supplied the current."</p> + +<p>Kate threw back her head and gave her merry, ringing laugh. "What +delicious irony! Germany defeated by its women! When I think of your +august papa, dear Gisela! That kulturistically typical, that naïve yet +Jovian symbol of all the arrogance and conceit, the simple creed of +Kaiserism über alles, and will-to-rule, that hurled this colossus on +the back of Europe—"</p> + +<p>"Quite so. You of all present know that I received the proper training +for the part I am about to play. If all goes well we women will erect a +tablet to my father's memory in the cathedral at Berlin." She leaned +down and patted the rapt face of Heloise, then scowled at Mimi. "May I +not count on you?" she asked sternly.</p> + +<p>"May you? Well, say, what are you taking me for? I'm more afraid of you +than I am of a firing squad, and anyhow I seem to know we'll win out. +I'm going to carry a club in case I mix up with Hans. But what's your +plan?"</p> + +<p>"This is neither the time nor place to work out a campaign. The first +move will be to train lieutenants in every State in Germany—women whom +we know either personally or through correspondence. You, Heloise, will +return to Munich at once and make out the lists. We shall have no +difficulty obtaining permits to travel all over the Empire, for it will +never enter the insanely stupid official head to doubt whatever excuse +we may choose to give. Not only are we German women and therefore sheep, +but we are Red Cross nurses.... And remember that nearly all the men who +are still in the factories are Socialists—and that women swarm in all +of those factories—"</p> + +<p>"Marie!" cried Heloise. "How she will work! She has the confidence of +the Socialist party—both wings—wherever she is known; and she can +talk—like a torrent of liquid fire."</p> + +<p>"And the next chapter?" asked Mrs. Prentiss curiously. "You led the +German women in thought for five years. Shall you have a Woman's +Republic, with you as President?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not. It is not in the German women—not yet—to crave the +grinding cares of public life. We shall make the men do the work, and we +will live for the first time. Delivered from Cæsarism and junkerism and +with the advanced men of Germany at the head of a Republic, I should +feel too secure of Germany's future to demand any of the ugly duties of +government—although the women will speak through the men. Their day of +silence and submission is forever passed—"</p> + +<p>"Same here," remarked Mimi, stretching and yawning. "Let's go to bed. I +have smoked fifty-three cigarettes and my voice is ruined. Nevertheless +I shall be a great prima donna, and you, Gisela, can chuck propaganda, +and write romance. The world will devour it after these years of +undiluted realism written in red ink on a black page. Look at the sun +trying to climb out of that mist and give us his blessing."</p> + +<p>"I shall go for a walk," said Gisela, "and I shall go alone." </p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='IV'></a><h2>IV</h2> +<br /> + +<h3>1</h3> + +<p>Mrs. Prentiss and Mrs. Tolby placed a large sum of money to Gisela's +account in a Swiss bank, and this she transferred to the Bayerischer +Vereinsbank in Munich. As she had collected large sums for war relief, +and was on the board of nine war charities, no suspicion was excited. +She had given to these organizations the greater part of the small +fortune she had made from her play and other writings, not absorbed by +taxation and bond subscriptions, but there were many wealthy women, +hungry, sad, apprehensive that peace would find them paupers, upon whom +she could depend to give liberally.</p> + +<p>There was to be no printed matter nor correspondence, but an army of +lieutenants, who, starting from certain centers, would augment their +numbers from Gisela's long list of correspondents, until it would be +possible to sound personally all the women of a district whom it was +thought wise to trust.</p> + +<p>Gisela returned to Germany as soon as she had worked out the details of +her campaign and received the enthusiastic donation of her American +friends. Mimi Brandt, Marie von Erkel (who looked like an ecstatic fury +of the French Revolution when she realized that at last she had a rôle +to play in life that would not only vent her consuming energies and +ambition, but enable her to assist in the downfall of a race of men whom +she hated, both for their tyranny and indifference to brains without +beauty, with all the diverted passion of her nature), Aimée von Erkel, +who was persistent, incisive, and so alarmed at the prospect of all the +men in the world being killed, that she would have hastened peace on any +terms; Princess Starnwörth, a Socialist and idealist, a brilliant and +persuasive speaker, to whom war was the ultimate horror; Johanna Stück, +whose revolt had been deep and bitter long before the war and who was +one of Gisela's fervent disciples and aides—these and six others were +sent on one pretense or another into the various States of Germany—the +kingdoms, principalities, grand duchies, duchies, and "free towns"—to +bear Gisela's personal message and select the proper leaders.</p> + +<p>Gisela went at once to Berlin and had a long interview with Mariette, +who was ripe for revolution: her lover had been killed and her husband +had not. Mariette was not of the type that sorrow and loss ennoble. She +was still a handsome woman, particularly in her uniform, but the pink +and white cheeks that once had covered her harsh bones were sunken and +sallow. Her mouth was like a narrow bar of iron. Her eyes were half +closed as if to hide the cold and deadly flame that never flickered; +even her nostrils were rigid. All her hard and sensual nature, devoid of +tenderness, but dissolved with sentimentality while the man who had +conquered her had lived, she had centered on her lover, and with his +death she was a tool to Gisela's hand to wreak vengeance upon the powers +that had sent him out of the world.</p> + +<p>"Leave it to me," she said grimly. "There are not only the women in the +towns where I have been stationed these many years, but, here in Berlin, +the wives of men whose money is financing this war: men who permitted +the war because they hoped for infinite riches but are now terrified +that they will not have a pfennig if the war goes on much longer. They +dare not rebel, for they would be shot, and their fortunes be +confiscated: their banks, industries, shops, run by cowed minor +officials. But the women—I can count on many of them. Even if their +husbands suspected, they would wink at it, willing that the women should +take the risk and they reap the benefit. God! How they hate the +war—every woman I know. Leave this part of Germany to me, and be +prepared for Schrecklichkeit. There will be no mercy, no politics, in +this revolution—merely one end in view. The Russians are babies but we +are not. 'Huns' shall cease to be a term of opprobrium, for female Huns +will end the war."</p> + +<p>Countess Niebuhr, whose love of intrigue had not diminished with the +years, and who had known more of the Pan-Germanic mind than her naïve +husband had guessed—who, moreover, had had a long and enlightening +interview with one of her sons but a month before—undertook to win over +many women of her own class who had suffered death and disillusion.</p> + +<p>Elsa's transfer to a hospital in Saxony was skilfully managed; and Lili +went on a concert tour for the Red Cross. It was not worth while to +campaign in Austria; the moment Germany was helpless she would collapse +automatically.</p> + +<p>In the course of a month the secret propaganda was moving with the +invisible, sinister, irresistible suction of an undertow. The immense +army of women who did Gisela's work proved themselves true Germans, +logical products of generations of discipline, concentration, +secretiveness, and a thoroughness, even in trifling details, as +implacable as it was automatic. They made few mistakes. When they +discovered—and their spy service was also Teutonic—that they had +confided in some girl or woman whose inherent weakness or venality +threatened betrayal, she disappeared immediately and for ever.</p> + +<p>Gisela, obtaining a commission to inspect the leading hospitals "back of +the front," visited each of the states in turn and addressed thousands +of women in groups of two or three hundred, gathered under the eyes of +the police in the name of one of the many war charities in which all +women were engaged. The lieutenants prepared these women, and Gisela +inspired, crystallized, cohered. The timid she shamed with the example +of the Russian women (and German women despise all other women); the +desperate she had little difficulty in convincing that there was but one +egress from their insupportable agony. Victory under her leadership if +they stood firm, was inevitable. </p> + +<p>She had the gift of a fiery torrent of speech, a clear steady eye, even +when it flashed and blazed, and a warm and irresistible magnetism that +convinced the individual as well as the mass that she had but one +object, the liberation of the miserable women of her country, their +deliverance from further sorrow; and that she was wholly lacking in +personal ambition.</p> + +<p>These women had known the gnawing sensation of unappeased appetite for +two years. They had seen old men and women, sometimes their own, fall in +the streets dead or dying, because they no longer had the reserves of +men and women in their youth or prime. They had seen men blow out their +brains in front of municipal buildings, cursing the Emperor, the +military autocracy, and even the Government, always at odds with the war +lords. They knew of suicides and child murder by despairing mothers that +they hardly whispered to one another. And all the children were +emaciated and wailed continually for food, sleeping little, playing +less, stunted in their growth and threatened with disease; if the war +went on another year they would join the little Polish victims on their +shadowy playground.... They feared for their daughters at home even as +they feared for their young sons in the trenches.... Barring a +revolution, the war might last for years ... <i>years</i>.... "Peace +Proposals" irritated what little humor they had left to ghastly obscene +joking.... "Victories" left them as cold as the mid-winter bed.... The +Hohenzollerns, the other kings and princes, the cast-iron junkers, would +cling fast to their own until the Enemy Allies' day of judgment, for +surrender meant their quicker extermination; now, at least, they were +still in the saddle, able to cheer their haunted egos with the Wine of +Lies.</p> + +<p>It was the Hohenzollerns and defeat, or a Republic and easy terms from +the victors who would welcome a sound de-brutalized Germany, jealous of +her lost honor, into the family of nations. The arguments were brief and +simple. Gisela would have won over women far less despairing than +these. And the fact that she had spent four years in America studying +its institutions and resources, convinced the most susceptible to +official lies that the United States could pour money, men, ammunition, +munitions and food into Europe for countless years; and that the +agitations of her pacifists, syndicalists, German agents, and +bribe-takers were but picturesque ripples on the surface of a nation +covering over three million five hundred thousand square miles and +embracing more than one hundred million people.</p> + +<p>And with all the insidious subtlety of her supple mind she changed the +prevailing hatred of President Wilson into a profound and pathetic +confidence. She had long since made them envy and admire the women of +America, and if these fortunate beings had enthusiastically reëlected +him and were now giving his policy as persistent and effective +assistance as the men, it was for the desperate women of Germany to +believe in his promises of deliverance. Above all he had now the +approval of their own Gisela Döring.</p> + +<p>It was the mothers of Germany, balked, potential, or veritable, who were +ready to rise and rescue what was left of the youth of Germany. If +victory for the German arms were hopeless they would risk their own +lives to force a peace that would leave them with the rags of their old +honor and prosperity, that would give them revenge upon the men who had, +for their own criminal ambitions—ambitions which belonged to the Middle +Ages—doomed them to lifelong sorrow; and that would save the lives of +their children—save husbands also for a few of these stern and weary +girls. Even in the Rhine Valley, where the greater number of the +munition and ammunition factories were grouped, there were incessant +meetings, among the night and day shifts, of the thousands of women +employed there, and Gisela herself addressed each of them. </p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='V'></a><h2>V</h2> +<br /> + +<h3>1</h3> + +<p>Gisela, who had been staring across the Königinstrasse into the heavy +branches that hung over the wall of the park, her mental vision too +actively raking the past to spare a beam for the familiar picture, +suddenly switched her searchlight away from those milestones in her +historic progress and concentrated it upon a suspicious shadow opposite. +Surely it had moved, and there was not a breath of wind. The night was +mild and still.</p> + +<p>She did not move a muscle but narrowed her gaze until it detached the +figure of a man from the dark background of wall and trees. Always +apprehensive of spies, although the Gott commandeered by the Kaiser +seemed to have adjusted blinders to eyes strained west, east, and +south, she leapt to the conclusion that she was under surveillance at +last, and her heart beat thickly. She who had believed that the long +strain, the constant danger, the incessant demand for resource and ever +more resource, had transformed her nerves to pure steel, realized +angrily that on this last night when she had permitted herself an hour's +idle retrospect before commanding sleep, her nerves more nearly +resembled the strings of a violin.</p> + +<p>Her apartment was on the ground floor. She stood up, revealing herself +disdainfully in the moonlight that now lay full on her window, then went +out quickly into the vestibule and unlocked the house door. Her only +fear was that the man would have gone, but if he were still there she +was determined to walk boldly over to his skulking-place and pretend she +believed him to be a burglar or a foreign spy. In these days she carried +a small pistol and a dagger.</p> + +<p>When she had stepped out on the pavement she glanced quickly up and down +the street. Not even a <i>polizeidiener</i> was in sight, for this +aristocratic quarter was, in peace and war, the quietest part of an +always orderly town. It was evident that the man spied alone.</p> + +<p>Holding her head very high, she started across the street; but she had +not taken three steps when the shadow detached itself and walked rapidly +out into the moonlight. She gave a sharp cry and shrank back. It was +Franz von Nettelbeck.</p> + +<p>"You—" she stammered. "They sent you—"</p> + +<p>"They? And why should I alarm you? Am I so formidable?" He uttered his +short harsh laugh and lifted his cap. His head was bandaged; there was a +deep scar along the outer line of his right cheek. His face was gaunt +and lined; and his shoulders sagged until he suddenly bethought himself +and flung them back with a deathless instinct.</p> + +<p>Gisela smiled and gave him her hand with a graceful spontaneity. "The +sense of being watched always shakes the nerves a bit, and I have felt +up to nothing myself for a long time. Why did not you come up to the +window when you recognized me?"</p> + +<p>"I was so sure of welcome! And yet as soon as I was fit to travel I came +here to see you. I intended to send in my card to-morrow. But I could +not help haunting your window to-night, and when I had the good fortune +to see you sitting there—with the moon shining on your beautiful +face—"</p> + +<p>"My face is no longer beautiful, dear Franz—"</p> + +<p>"You are a thousand times more beautiful than ever—"</p> + +<p>Something else vibrated along those steel nerves, but she said briskly: +"Standing so long must have tired you. Come in and rest. It is late; but +if there are still conventions in this crashing world I have forgotten +them."</p> + +<p>Her rooms were always prepared for a sudden visit of the police. If a +firing squad were her fate it would not have been invited through the +usual channels. Even the arms to be worn on the morrow were in the +cellars and attics of citizens so respectable as almost to be nameless.</p> + +<p>He followed her through the common entrance of the apartment house into +her <i>Saal</i>. It was a large comfortable room with many deep chairs, and +on the gray walls were a few portraits of her scowling ancestors, +contributed long since by her mother. A tall porcelain stove glowed +softly. Gisela drew the curtains and lit several candles. She disliked +the hard glare of electricity at any time, and she admitted with a +curious thrill of satisfaction that those manifestly sincere words of +her old lover had given her vanity a momentary resurrection. Her +suspicions were by no means allayed, even when she met his eyes blazing +with passionate admiration, but why not play the old game of the gods +for an hour? What better preparation for the morrow than to relax and +forget?</p> + +<p>"Poor Franz!" Her voice was the same rich contralto whose promise had +routed the Howland millions years ago. "Our poor gallant men! When will +this terrible war finish?"</p> + +<p>"Ask your United States of America!" And he cursed that superfluous +nation roundly. "We had some chance before. Not so much, but still some. +Now we shall be beaten to our knees, stamped into the dust, straight +down to hell." He threw himself into a chair and pressed his hands +against his face.</p> + +<p>"But when?" Gisela watched him warily. If these were tactics they were +admirable; but who more full of theatric devices than the Kaiser he +adored?</p> + +<p>"Years hence, no doubt—if we continue to hold the Social-Democrats in +hand and drug the people. We'll fight on until our enemies' might proves +that they are right and we were fools. That is all there is to war."</p> + +<p>Gisela sat down and let her hands fall into her lap with a little +pathetic motion of weakness. "Sometimes I wish the Socialists were +strong enough to win and end it all," she said plaintively. </p> + +<p>"Oh, no, you don't. You are a junker, for all your independent notions, +and trying to put some of your own nerve into the women. I read you with +great amusement before the war. But no one knows better than yourself +that the triumph of democracy in Germany would mean the end of us."</p> + +<p>"I cannot see that we are enjoying many privileges at present—unless it +be the privilege to lie rather than be lied to. And when our enemies do +win we shall be pried out, root and branch. So, why not save our skins +at all events? I do not mean mine, of course—nor, for that matter, am I +thinking of our class; but of the hundreds of thousands of our dear +young men who might be spared—"</p> + +<p>"Better die and have done with it. And there is always hope—"</p> + +<p>"Hope?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—in the separate peace, the ultimate submersible, some new +invention—the miracle that has come to the rescue more than once in +history. There are times when my faith in the destiny of Germany to +dominate the world is so great that I cannot believe it possible for +her to fail—in spite of everything, everything! And everything is +against us! I never realized it until I lay there in the hospital. I was +too busy before, and that was my first serious wound. Oh, God! what +fools we were. What rotten diplomacy. Even I despised the United States; +but as I lay there in Berlin their irresistible almighty power seemed to +pass before me in a procession that nearly destroyed my reason. I knew +the country well enough, but I would not see."</p> + +<p>"They are a very soft-hearted people and would let us down agreeably if +the Social-Democrats overturned the House of Hohenzollern and stretched +out the imploring hand of a young Republic—"</p> + +<p>"No! No! A thousand times rather die to the last man than be beaten +within. That would be the one insupportable humiliation. <i>Canaille!</i>" He +spat out the word. "I refuse to recognize their existence—"</p> + +<p>He sprang to his feet and before her mind could flash to attention he +had caught her from her chair and was straining her to him, his arms, +his entire body, betraying no evidence whatever of depleted vitality. +"Let us forget it all!" he muttered. "We are still young and I am free. +I was a fool once and you will believe me when I tell you that I would +beg you on my knees to marry me even if you were Gisela Döring.... I +have leave of absence for a month ... let us be happy once more...."</p> + +<p>"It was a long while ago ... all that ... do you realize how long?"</p> + +<p>Gisela stood rigid, her eyes expanded. To her terror and dismay she was +thrilling and flaming from head to foot. This lover of her life might +have released her from one of their immortal hours but yesterday. But +although she had to brace her body from yielding, her mind (and it is +the curse of intellectual women of individual powers that the mind +never, in any circumstances, ceases to function) realized that while the +human will may be strong enough to banish memories, and readjust the +lonely soul, its most triumphant acts may be annihilated by the physical +contact of its mate. Unless replaced. Fool that she had been merely to +have buried the memory of this man by an act of will. She should have +taken a commonplace lover, or husband, put out that flaming midnight +torch with the standardizing light of day.</p> + +<p>Her mind seemed to be darting from peak to peak in a swift and dazzling +flight as he talked rapidly and brokenly, kissing her cheek, her neck, +straining her so close to him that she could hardly breathe. Suddenly it +poised above the memory of an old book of Renan's, "The Abbess Juarre," +in which the eminent skeptic had somewhat clumsily attempted to +demonstrate that if the world unmistakably announced its finish within +three days the inhabitants would give themselves up to an orgy of love.</p> + +<p>Well, her world might end to-morrow. Why should she not live to-night?</p> + +<p>Her arrogant will demanded the happiness that this man, whom she had +never ceased to love for a moment, to whom she had been unconsciously +faithful, alone could give her. Moreover, her reason working side by +side with her imperious desires, assured her that if he really were +spying, and, whatever his passion, meant to remold her will to his and +snatch the keystone from the arch, it were wise to keep him here. It was +evident that he had no suspicion of the imminence of the revolution.</p> + +<p>And it was years since she had felt all woman, not a mere intellect +ignoring the tides in the depths of her being. The revelation that she +was still young and that her will and all the proud achievements of her +mind could dissolve at this man's touch in the crucible of her passion +filled her with exultation.</p> + +<p>She melted into his arms and lifted hers heavily to his neck.</p> + +<p>"Franz! Franz!" she whispered.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>2</h3> + +<p>Gisela moved softly about the room looking for fresh candles. Those that +had replaced the moonlight hours ago had burned out and she did not +dare draw the curtains apart: it was too near the dawn. She had no idea +what time it was. But she must have light, for to think was imperative, +and her mental processes were always clogged in the dark.</p> + +<p>She found the old box of candles and placed four in the brackets and lit +them. Then she went over to the couch and looked down upon Franz von +Nettelbeck. He slept heavily, on his side, his arms relaxed but slightly +curved. In a few moments she went down the hall to her bedroom and took +a cold bath and made a cup of strong coffee; then dressed herself in a +suit of gray cloth, straight and loose, that her swiftest movements +might not be impeded. In the belt under the jacket she adjusted her +pistol and dagger.</p> + +<p>She returned to the <i>Saal</i> and once more looked down upon the +unconscious man. How long he had been falling asleep! She had offered +him wine, meaning to drug it, but he had refused lest it inflame his +wounds. She had offered to make him coffee, but he would not let her +go.</p> + +<p>It was in the complete admission of her reluctance to leave him, even +after he slept, and while disturbed by the fear that the dawn was nearer +than in fact it was, that she stared down upon the man who was more to +her than Germany and all its enslaved women and men. He knew nothing of +her plans, had not a suspicion of the revolution, but he had vowed they +never should be parted again. He had great influence and could set +wheels in motion that would return him to the diplomatic service and +procure him an appointment to Spain; where good diplomatists were badly +needed.</p> + +<p>It was an enchanting picture that he drew in spite of the horror that +must ever mutter at their threshold; but to the awfulness of war they +were both by this time more or less callous, although he was mortally +sick of the war itself; and Gisela, who doled half-measures neither to +herself nor others, had dismissed the morrow and yielded herself to the +joy of the future as of the present. What she had felt for this man in +her early twenties seemed a mere partnership of romance and sentiment +fused by young nerves, compared with the mature passion he had shocked +from its long recuperative sleep. He was her mate, her other part. Her +long fidelity, unshaken by time, her own temperament and many +opportunities, all were proof of that.</p> + +<p>The caste of great lovers in this unfinished world is small and almost +inaccessible, but they had taken their place by immemorial right. Were +it not for this history of her own making they would find every phase of +happiness in each other as long as they both lived. Women, at least, +know instinctively the difference between the transient passion, no +matter how powerful, and the deathless bond.</p> + +<p>Gisela glanced at her wrist watch. It was within seventy minutes of the +dawn. If she could only be sure that he would sleep until Munich herself +awoke him. But he had told her that he never slept these days more than +two or three hours at a time, no matter how weary.</p> + +<p>If he awoke before it was time for her to leave the house and renewed +his love-making, her response would be as automatic as the progress of +life itself.</p> + +<p>If she attempted to leave the house before sunrise, on no matter what +pretext, his suspicions would be aroused, for she had told him that she +had been given a week for rest. For the same reason she dared not awaken +him and ask him to go. He would refuse, for it was no time to slip out +of a woman's apartment; far better wait until ten o'clock, when there +were always visitors of both sexes in her office. Moreover, he would no +more wish to go than he would permit her to leave him.</p> + +<p>She was utterly in his power if he awakened and chose to exert it. He +had mastered her, conquered her, routed her career and her peace, and +she had gloried in her submission; gloried in it still. A commonplace +woman would have been satisfied, satiated, felt free for the moment, +turned with relief to the dry convention of the daily adventure, rather +resenting, if she had a pretty will, the supreme surrender to the race +in an unguarded hour.</p> + +<p>Gisela was cast in the heroic mold. She came down from the old race of +goddesses of her own Nibelungenlied, whose passions might consume them +but had nothing in common with the ebb and flow of mortals. But great +brains are fed by stormy souls, and in the souls of women there is an +element of weakness, unknown, save in a few notable instances, to great +men in the crises of their destiny; for women are the slaves of the +race, and nature when permitting them the abnormality of genius takes +her revenge.</p> + +<p>If he awakened.... There was little time for thought. She must plan +quickly. If she left the house at once he might awaken immediately and +after searching the apartment, follow her; there was the dire +possibility that he would learn too much before the terrific drama of +the revolution opened, and manage to thwart their plans. He was a man of +quick brain and ruthless will; no consideration for her would stop him, +although he would save her from the consequences of her act, no doubt of +that. Save her for himself.</p> + +<p>Mimi Brandt, and Heloise and Marie von Erkel were asleep in rooms at the +end of the hall.... She had a mad idea of binding him hand and foot and +locking him in her bedroom.... Either he would hate her for the +humiliation he—Franz von Nettelbeck, glorious on the field of honor, a +bound prisoner in a woman's bedroom while his class was blown to atoms, +and his caste was roaring its impotent fury to a napping Gott!... Oh, an +insufferable affront to a man of his order who held even the dearest +woman as the favored pensioner on his bounty ... or she would be +consumed with remorse, melt ... it was positive that she must visit +him—not leave him to starve ... nor could she keep him bound ... and +once more she would be his slave ... could she hold out even for a day?</p> + +<p>The first blow of a revolution is, after all, only its first. There is +always the danger of a swift reaction.</p> + +<p>Unremitting vigilance, work, encouragement are the part of its leaders +for months, possibly years, to come. All revolutions are dependent for +ultimate success upon one preëminent figure.</p> + +<p>Franz stirred under the unconscious fixity of her gaze and changed his +position, lying on his back. She hastily averted her eyes. Her hands +clenched and spread. Even to-morrow if this man found her ... one soft +moment ... when she needed all her energy, her fire, her powers of +concentration, of depersonalization, for the millions of tortured women +who would follow her straight out to meet any division the Emperor might +detach in the vain hope of subduing an army far outnumbering all that he +had left of men.</p> + +<p>Nothing but a miracle could halt the initial stage of the revolution; +the wireless plants were all operated by women in her service, and no +telephone message had advised her of danger. No matter what her +defection at this moment the revolution would begin at dawn; but +although Germany happily lacked the disintegrating forces of Russia, +comfortable as she had been for two generations, and proud in her +discipline, that very discipline would dissolve its new backbone without +the stimulating force of her own inexorable will. And if she deserted +them!...</p> + +<p>It was a woman's revolution. A necessary number of men Socialists had +been admitted to the secret and were to strike the second blow. But the +women must strike the first, and according to program. Not only were the +men under surveillance, but where women would be pardoned in case of a +failure, they would be shot. And most of them had more brain than brawn, +were past the fighting age; the girls, and women of middle years, were a +magnificent army which would make the graybeards appear absurd in the +open.</p> + +<p>These women worshiped her, believed her to be a super-being created to +save them and their children; but if she betrayed them, proved herself +the merest woman of them all—a childless woman at that—the very bones +would melt out of them, they would prostrate themselves in the ashes of +their final despair.</p> + +<p>Spain! Franz! For a moment her imagination rioted.</p> + +<p>She smiled ironically. Happiness? Four-walled happiness? Hardly for her, +even without the blood of murdered thousands soaking her doorstep. Love, +for women like her ... even eternal love ... must be episodical. Life +forces the duties of leadership on such women whether they resent them +or not. They must take their love where they find it as great men do, +subordinated to their chosen careers and the tremendous duties and +responsibilities that are the fruit of all achieved ambition.</p> + +<p>It was true that she had no political ambition, but for an unpredictive +period she must be the beacon-light of the new Republic, no matter how +successful the coup of the Socialists; until some one man (she knew of +none) or some group of men became strong enough to control its +destinies. The women must stand firm, a solid critical body led by +herself, until the tragically disciplined soldiers who had survived +these years of warfare had ceased to be sheep, or run bleating to the +new fold.</p> + +<p>Even if she won Franz over, her power would be sapped; not for a moment +would he be out of her consciousness; her imagination would drift +incessantly from the vital work in hand to the hour of their reunion. +The hurtling power of her eloquence would be diminished, her magnetism +weakened.</p> + +<p>Her memory flashed backward to those three years when he was an +ever-rising obsession—personifying love and completion as he +did—before which her proud will fell back again and again, powerless +and humiliated.</p> + +<p>Why, in God's name could not he have come back into her life six months +hence?</p> + +<p>No woman should risk a sex cataclysm when she has great work to do. +Nature is too subtle for any woman's will as long as the man be +accessible. And the strongest and the proudest woman that ever lived may +have her life disorganized by a man if she possess the power to charm +him.</p> + +<p>She moved softly from the couch and walked up and down the room, +striving to visualize her manifest destiny and erect the grim ideal of +duty. Her mind, working at lightning speed, recalled moments, days, in +the past, when she had let her will relax, ignored her duties, floated +idly with the tide; the sensation of panic with which she had recaptured +at a bound the ideals that governed her life. Mortal happiness was not +for her. Duty done, with or without exaltation of spirit, would at least +keep her in tune with life, preserve her from that disintegrating horror +of soul that could end only with self-annihilation.</p> + +<p>And end her usefulness. It was a vicious circle. </p> + +<p>Suddenly a wave of humiliation, of insupportable shame, swept her from +sole to crown, and she returned swiftly to her post above the sleeping +man. One moment had undone the work of all those proud years during +which she had made herself over from the quintessential lover into one +of the intellectual leaders of the world, a woman who had accomplished +what no man had dared to attempt, and who, if the revolution were the +finality which before this man came had seemed to be written in the Book +of Germany, would be immortal in history. Wild fevers of the blood, +passionate longing for completion in man, oneness, the "organic +unit"—were not for her.</p> + +<p>All feeling ebbed slowly out of her, leaving her cold, collected, alert. +She was, over all, a woman of genius, the custodian of peculiar gifts, +sleeping throughout the ages, perhaps, like Brunhilde on her rock, to +awaken not at the kiss of man, but at the summons of Germany in her +darkest hour.</p> + +<p>She bent over the man who belonged to the woman alone in her and whose +power over her would be exerted as ruthlessly as her own should be over +herself. He looked a very gallant gentleman as he lay there, and he had +been a very brave soldier. His own place was secure in the annals of the +war, but at this moment, following upon his triumphant swoop after +happiness, he was the one deadly menace to the future of his country.</p> + +<p>Gisela opened his shirt gently and bared his breast. She held her +breath, but he slept on and she took the dagger from her belt and with a +swift hard propulsion drove it into his heart to the guard. He gave a +long expiring sigh and lay still. A gallant gentleman, a brave soldier, +and a great lover had the honor to be the first man to pay the price of +his country's crime, on the altar of the Woman's Revolution.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>3</h3> + +<p>Gisela went swiftly down the hall and awakened Heloise, Mimi, and Marie +and told them what she had done. No novelty in horror could startle +European women in those days. They dressed themselves hastily in their +gray uniforms and followed her to the <i>Saal</i>. With Mimi's assistance she +put on his coat, the hilt of the dagger thrusting forward the row of +medals on his breast. Marie went out into the street and flitted up and +down like a big gray moth, her gray little face tense with rapture. Her +devotion to Gisela had been fanatical from the first but now she begged +what invisible power her wild little mind still recognized to be +permitted to die for her.</p> + +<p>In a moment she signaled that the street was deserted. Gisela and Mimi +carried the body over to the park and dropped it into the swiftly +flowing Isar. The clear jade green of the lovely river reflected the +points of the stars, and Franz von Nettelbeck as he drifted down the +tide looked as if attended by innumerable candles dropped graciously +from on high to watch at his bier. But it was to Heloise this fancy +came, and she lifted her face and thanked the stars for their silent +funeral march. Not for her would the supreme sacrifice have been +possible, and for the moment she did not envy Gisela Döring.</p> + +<p>The four girls walked rapidly over to the Maximilianstrasse and crossed +the bridge to the Maximilianeum. The long symmetrical brown building +with its open galleries filled with the cold starlight was distorted by +a wireless station on its highest point and by a biplane on the extreme +left of the roof. It stood on a lofty terrace and commanded a view of +all Munich and of the tumbled peaks of the Alps.</p> + +<p>They ran up the stairs and called to the operator from the higher +gallery. She answered in a hard and weary voice: "Nothing." Then they +walked down the gallery to the open tower facing the Alps. For half an +hour longer they stood in silence, alternately glancing from their wrist +watches to the faintly glittering peaks whose first reflection of dawn, +if all went well, would change the face of the world. </p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='VI'></a><h2>VI</h2> +<br /> + +<h3>1</h3> + +<p>The eyes of the four women traveled to the lofty towers of the +Frauenkirche. Its bells rang out a wild authoritative summons. +Coincidentally the streets filled with women dressed uniformly in +gray—big powerfully built women, sturdy products of the strong soil of +Germany. They did not march, nor form in ranks, but stood silent, alert, +shouldering rifles with fixed bayonets.</p> + +<p>Involuntarily Gisela and her three lieutenants braced themselves against +the pillars of the tower. An instant later the walls of the +Maximilianeum rocked under the terrific impact of what sounded like a +thousand explosions. The roar of parting walls, the shriek of shells and +bombs bursting high in the air, the sharp short cry of shattered metal, +the deep <i>approaching</i> voice of dynamite prolonging itself in echoes +that seemed to reverberate among the distant Alps, shook the souls of +even those inured to the murderous uproar of the battlefield.</p> + +<p>Grotesquely combined with this terrific but majestic confusion of sound +were the screams of innocent citizens hanging out of the windows, waving +their arms, staring distraught at the sky, convinced, in so far as they +could think at all, that a great enemy air fleet was bombarding Germany +at last.</p> + +<p>Masses of flame and smoke shot upward. The pale morning sky turned +black, rent with darting crimson tongues and lit with prismatic stars. +Other explosions followed in rapid succession, some coming down the +light morning wind from a long distance. Blasts of heat swept audibly +through the long galleries of the Maximilianeum.</p> + +<p>"It is an inferno!" Marie von Erkel for the moment was almost +hysterical. "Will Munich be destroyed? Oh, not that!"</p> + +<p>"The fire brigades know their business." Gisela glanced up at the +Marconi station. Even through the din she could hear the faint crackling +of the wireless. "If all Germany—"</p> + +<p>But her eyes were wild.... If the revolutionists in the rest of the +empire had been as prompt and fearless as those of Bavaria, every +munition and ammunition factory, every aerodrome and public hangar, save +those taken possession of by powerfully armed squads of women, every +arsenal, every warehouse for what gasoline and lubricating oils were +left, every telegraph and telephone wire, every railway station near +either frontier, with thousands of cars and miles of track had been +destroyed simultaneously. The armies would be isolated, without arms or +ammunition but what they had on hand or could manufacture in the invaded +countries; no food but what they had in storage. They could not fight +the enemy seven days longer; if the Enemy Allies heard immediately of +the revolution through neutral channels and believed in it after so +many false alarms, the finish of the German forces would come in two +days.</p> + +<p>But had the women of the other states been as prompt and ruthless as the +women of Bavaria? Spandau, Essen, all the centers in the Rhine Valley +for the manufacture of munitions on a grand scale ... the great Krupp +factories ... unless they were in ruins the revolution was a failure....</p> + +<p>She could not be everywhere at once. War and misery and starving +children, the loss of the men and boys they loved, and a profound +distrust of their rulers, had filled them with a cold and bitter hatred +of an autocracy convicted of lying and aggressive purpose out of its own +mouth; but would the iron in their souls carry them triumphantly past +the final test? Women were women and Germans were not Russians. They had +little fatalism in their make-up, and their brain cells were packed with +the tradition of centuries of submission to man. True, their quiet +revolt had begun long before the war, and this last year had wrought +extraordinary changes, quickening their mental processes, forcing them +to think and act for themselves; but their hearts might have turned to +water during those last dispiriting hours before the dawn.</p> + +<p>And how could it be possible that all traitors had been detected, +exterminated, with millions in the secret? Troops might even now be in +Prussia. Great Headquarters (Grosse Hauptquartier) were in Pless, and +although the women of that city were not in the confidence of the +revolutionaries, and it was to remain in ignorance as long as possible, +the abrupt cessation of telephone and telegraph communication would +advise that group of alert brains that something was wrong. Moreover, +even with interrupted communications they would soon learn of the +blowing up of factories in other Silesian towns; no doubt hear them. It +was true the railways and bridges between Pless and Berlin were—if they +were!—destroyed, but there were always automobiles; enough for a small +force.... And the police, the police of Berlin! They were still +formidable in spite of the drain on men for the front. Mariette had +written her grimly that she would "take care of 'the rats in the +granary,'" meaning the police; but although Mariette was the most +thorough and merciless person she knew, she doubted even her in this +awful moment.</p> + +<p>How could she have dreamed of accomplishing a universal revolution in a +country possessing the most perfect secret service system in the world?... a +country with eyes in the back of its head? True, the Socialists in +her confidence had been noisy and bumptious of late in order to +concentrate attention upon their sex, and at the same time careful to +refrain from definite statements or overt acts.... It would never enter +the stupid official head that German women could conceive, much less +precipitate, a revolution; but there <i>must</i> be traitors, women who +fundamentally were the slaves of men, weak spirits, spirits rotten with +imperialism, militarism, but cunning in the art of dissimulation.... +What an accursed fool and criminal she had been ... egotistical dreamer!... led +on by the extraordinary power she had acquired over the women of +her race....</p> + +<p>For a moment she clung to the embrasure, so overwhelming was her impulse +to hurl herself down into oblivion. In that dark and shrieking uproar +she had the illusion that she was in hell, in hell with her miserable +victims.</p> + +<p>But although Gisela's long slumbering nerves had had their revenge last +night, they had given up the fight when she had destroyed their only +ally, and these last protesting vibrations were very brief. Her eyes +fell on the ranks of women standing in the wide Maximilianstrasse,—a +street a mile long and seventy-five feet across—undisturbed by the +turmoil they had anticipated, calmly awaiting her orders. The obsession +passed, and after a brief tribute of hatred to her imagination, which +was, after all, one root of her power, she turned and glanced +critically at her three companions. Marie, looking like a little gray +gnome, was dancing about and waving her arms in ecstasy. Heloise, her +long blonde hair hanging about her fine French face, was gazing out with +rapt eyes and lips apart, as if every sense were drinking in the vision +of a Germany delivered. Mimi was standing with her arms akimbo, nodding +her head emphatically.</p> + +<p>"Great work," she said as she met Gisela's stern eyes. "Better go up to +the wireless."</p> + +<p>They ran rapidly up to the roof and looked into the little room. The +girl who sat there nodded but did not speak. Her face was gray and +tense, but there was no evidence of despair. Gisela and Mimi stood +motionless for what seemed to them a stifling hour, but at last the +operator laid down the receiver.</p> + +<p>"All," she said. "Every one."</p> + +<p>"The Rhine Valley?"</p> + +<p>The girl nodded, then rolled her jacket into a pillow, lay down before +the door and immediately fell asleep. It had been a night of ghastly +suspense. Another operator was already running up the stair to her +relief.</p> + +<p>"Fate!" cried Mimi. "The same fate that sank the Armada and drove +Napoleon to Moscow. You had the vision—"</p> + +<p>"I was the chosen instrument—" Gisela walked rapidly over to the +biplane. A girl sat at the joy-stick looking as if carved out of wood. +There was no more expression on her face than if she were sitting in the +gallery at a rather dull play. Her lover and six brothers were dead in +France. She had watched her little brother and her old grandmother die +of malnutrition. Her sister was "officially pregnant" and under +surveillance lest she kill herself. No more perfect machine was at the +disposal of Gisela Döring. Whether Germany were delivered or razed to +the earth was all one to her, but she was more than willing, as a +Bavarian with a traditional hatred of Prussia, to play her part in the +downfall of a race that presumed to call itself German. </p> +<br /> + +<h3>2</h3> + +<p>Gisela stepped into the machine and it glided downward and skimmed +lightly over the great length of the Maximilianstrasse.</p> + +<p>The compact ranks, which had listened unmoved to the roar of dynamite +and the detonations of bursting shells, raised their faces at the +humming of the machine and broke into harsh abrupt cheering. Then they +leaned their rifles against their powerful bodies and unfurled their +flags and waved them in the faces of the half paralyzed people in the +windows. It was a white flag with a curious device sketched in crimson: +a hen in successive stages of evolution. The final phase was an eagle. +The body was modeled after the Prussian emblem of might, but the face, +grim, leering, vengeful, pitiless, was unmistakably that of a woman. +However humor may be lacking in the rest of that grandiose Empire it was +grafted into the Bavarians by Satan himself.</p> + +<p>Gisela nodded. "The hens are eagles—all over Germany," she announced +in her full carrying voice. "Word has come through from every quarter."</p> + +<p>She flew down the Leopoldstrasse. It was packed with women from the +Feldherrnhalle to the Siegesthor, cheering women, waving their flags, +armed to the teeth. So was the great Park of the Residenz, the +Hofgarten, where the guards were either bound or dead. It took her but a +few moments to fly all over Munich. The narrow streets were deserted, +save for the prostrate policemen bound suddenly from ambush; but in all +the beautiful squares, with their pompous statues, and in all the wider +streets, and out in the wide Theresien Field before the colossal figure +of Bavaria, the women were gathered; relapsing into phlegmatic calm as +soon as she had given her message and passed.</p> + +<p>But it was by no means a scene of unbroken dignity and silence. Here and +there groups of men in uniform lay dead, sword or pistol in hand. Once +Gisela flew low and discharged her revolver into the shoulder of a big +officer, half dressed and barely recovered from his wounds, who was +keeping off half a dozen women with magnificent sword play. The women +gave one another first aid, then lifted and pitched him into his house.</p> + +<p>There was sniping, of course, from the windows, but the women made a +concerted rush and disposed of the terrified offender as remorselessly +as their own men had punished the desperate civilians of the lands they +had invaded. They had heard their men brag for too many years about +their admirable policy of Schrecklichkeit to forget the lesson in this +fateful hour.</p> + +<p>The most exciting scenes and the only ones in which any of the women +were killed were in the vicinity of the garrison. These interior +garrisons of the country had been one of the long debated problems. As +no women entered them and as it was not safe to attempt the corruption +of any of the men, there were but two alternatives: blow them up and +sacrifice the men wholesale or meet them with a superior force as they +rushed out to ascertain the nature of the explosions, and fight them in +open battle. Gisela had finally decided to give them a chance for their +lives, as she had no mind to shed any more blood than was unavoidable; +and these men, being no longer in their prime, must be overcome +eventually, no matter what their fury.</p> + +<p>When she hovered over the Marztplatz in front of the garrison a few +moments after the last of the explosions, and while fire was still +raging in this military quarter of magazines, arsenals and laboratories, +men and women were mixed in a hideous confusion, shooting and slashing +indiscriminately. But there were thousands of women and only a few +hundred men, all of whom at one time or another had been wounded. +Finally the captain of this regiment of women ordered a swift retreat, +and simultaneously three machine guns opened fire from innocent looking +windows, but on the garrison building, not on the square. They ceased +after one round, and the captain of the women gave such men as were +alive and unwounded their choice between death and surrender. They chose +the sensible alternative, were driven within, and placed under a heavy +guard.</p> + +<p>It was not safe to venture too close to the still exploding and blazing +structures, but it was quite apparent that the work had been done +thoroughly. The fire brigades were busy, and there was little danger of +Munich, one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in the world, +falling a victim to the revolution. Many lives had been sacrificed, no +doubt. The women night-workers in the factories, fifteen minutes before +the signal from the Frauenkirche, had pretended to strike, seized all +the hand arms available and shot down the men who attempted to control +them. The men in the secret had gone with them and were already about +their business.</p> + +<p>The officers in charge of the Class of 1920 were too few in number to +make any resistance, too dazed to grasp a situation for which there was +no precedent; they had surrendered to the Amazons grimly awaiting their +decision. The poor boys in the Kadettenkorps had run home to their +mothers, and, finding them in the streets, had either taken refuge in +the cellars, or joined those formidable warriors in gray, promising +obedience and yielding their arms.</p> + +<p>Other aeroplanes were darting about the city. The greater number were +driven by women, directing the fire brigades, but now and again a man, +whose monoplane had been in his private shed, flew upward primed for +battle. After a few parleys he retired to await events, one only +shooting a woman, and crashing to earth riddled with avenging bullets.</p> + +<p>Such air men as were in Munich were too callous to danger of all sorts, +too accustomed to the horrors of the battlefield, to take this +outpouring of women and mere civilians seriously; even in spite of the +explosions, which, to be sure, denoted an appalling amount of +destruction. Any attempt to sally forth on foot and ascertain the extent +of the damage was met by bayonets and pistols in the hands of brigades +of women whose like they had never seen in Germany. They inferred they +were Russians, who had managed to cross the frontier with the infernal +subtlety of their race. At all events they would be exterminated with no +effort of men lacking authority to act.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>3</h3> + +<p>Several of the women flew out into the country, but except where people +were gathered about smoking ruins the land was at peace; there was no +sign of a rally to the blue and white flag of Bavaria, no sign of an +avenging army. In the course of the morning there were hundreds of these +aviators darting about Bavaria, descending to tell the peasants or +shop-keepers of the small towns that Germany was in revolution, the +armies deprived of all support, and that the Republic had been +proclaimed in Berlin. The Social Democrats had possession of the +Reichstaggebäude, and every official head still affixed to its +shoulders was as helpless—a fuming prisoner in its own house—as if +those arrogant brains had turned to porridge. Every royal and official +residence throughout the Empire was surrounded by an army of women with +fixed bayonets, and before noon every unsubmissive member of the old +régime would be in either a fortress or the common prison.</p> + +<p>This news Gisela heard at ten o'clock when she returned to the wireless +station on the Maximilianeum. The Berlin news came from Mariette.</p> + +<p>In Munich the old King had been returned to the Red Palace which he had +occupied during the long years of his father's regency, and it too was +surrounded by an alert but silent army. The other royal palaces were +guarded in a similar manner, but the women had no intention of killing +these kindly Wittelsbachs if it could be avoided. All they asked of them +was to keep quiet, and keep quiet they did. After all, they had reigned +a thousand years. Perhaps they were tired. Certainly they always looked +bored to the verge of dissolution.</p> + +<p>The Munich Socialists had taken possession of the Residenz in which to +proclaim their victory and the new Republic, and by this time were +crowding the Hofgarten and adjoining streets. They were unarmed and many +of the women moved constantly among them, ready at a second's notice to +dispose summarily of any man who even scowled his antagonism to the +downfall of monarchy.</p> + +<p>Six hundred women, according to the prearranged program, and under +Gisela's direct supervision, were turning such outlying buildings as +commanded the highways leading toward the frontiers into fortifications. +They had little apprehension that their sons and fathers, their husbands +and lovers, would fire on the women to whom they had brought home food +from their rations these two years past, or that the General Staff would +risk the demolition of the cities of Germany. But they took no chances, +knowing that an attempt might be made to rush them. In that case they +were determined to remember only that their husbands and sons, fathers +and lovers, were bent upon their final subjection. Moreover, the term +"brain storm" had long since found its way from the United States to +Germany, and the women thought it singularly applicable to their former +masters when in a state of baffled rage. </p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='VII'></a><h2>VII</h2> +<br /> + +<h3>1</h3> + +<p>Mariette's communications by wireless were very brief, and on the second +day of the revolution Gisela went by special train to Berlin. It was +the King's own train, and always ready to start. The engineer and +fireman avowed themselves "friends of the revolution," but they +performed their duties with two armed women in the cab and fifty more in +the car behind the engine.</p> + +<p>The cities through which Gisela passed, as well as the small towns and +wayside villages, presented a uniform appearance: smoking ruins in the +outlying sections which had been devoted to the war factories, and +streets deserted save for women sentries. One or two of the smaller +towns had burned, owing to lack of fire brigades. The food trains +destined for the front, which had been moved out of danger before the +general destruction, were being systematically unloaded, and a portion +of the contents doled out to thousands of emaciated men, women, and +children. The rest would be as methodically returned to the warehouses.</p> + +<p>Gisela arrived in Berlin half an hour before the Kaiser.</p> + +<p>The city was as dark as interstellar space and she would have been +forced to spend the night in the Anhalt Bahnhof if Mariette had not met +her. They walked from the station, keeping close to the walls of the +silent houses and entering Unter den Linden from the Friedrichstrasse. +There was not a sound but the high whirr of airplanes keeping guard over +a city that seemed stifled in the embrace of death, its life current +switched off by the proudest achievement of its pestilent laboratories.</p> + +<p>Mariette did not take the trouble to lower her hard incisive voice as +she told her sister the brief story of the revolution in Berlin. </p> + +<p>"I left not a loophole for failure. Two minutes before the bells rang +every policeman on duty was shot dead from a doorway or window. The +police offices and stations were blown up. There is not a policeman +alive in Berlin. I also ordered the garrisons blown up. Both the police +and the garrisons here were too strong. I dared not risk an encounter. +Criticize me if you will. It is done."</p> + +<p>"But the Emperor, the General Staff?" Gisela was in no mood to waste a +thought upon means, nor even upon accomplished ends. "If they left Pless +at once they should have been here before this."</p> + +<p>"They did not leave Pless at once. When they began to send out questions +by wireless after they found their telephone and telegraph wires cut, +they were kept quiet for several hours by soothing messages sent by our +women in Breslau and nearer towns. An abortive uprising of a handful of +starving Socialists! Even when their fliers went out they could learn +nothing because they dared not land even at Breslau; high-firing guns +threatened them everywhere. All they could report was that the streets +were full of armed women, which, of course, the General Staff took as an +unseemly joke. But toward night a soldier who had managed to escape from +Breslau came staggering into Great Headquarters with information that +penetrated even that composite Prussian skull: the women of Germany had +risen <i>en masse</i> and effected a revolution. Of course they refused to +believe the worst—that every ounce and inch of war material had been +destroyed; and the entire Staff, escorted by a thousand troops—all they +had on hand—started for Berlin. They did not omit to wireless in both +directions for troops to march on Berlin at once; but, needless to say, +these messages were deflected. As the tracks were torn up they were +obliged to travel by automobile, and as the bridges over the Kloonitz +Canal and the Oder tributaries had been blown up, they were unable to +ameliorate what must have been an apoplectic impatience. No doubt a few +of them are dead. Of course their progress has been watched and reported +every hour, but they have not been molested. We want them here. Only +their small air squadron has been shot down."</p> + +<p>They felt their way along Unter den Linden by the trees and entered the +Opernplatz. Two biplanes awaited them before the arsenal. There were +lights in the great pile of the Hohenzollerns across the bridge. Uneasy +spirits prowled there, no doubt, but none of the women of the Imperial +family had made any attempt to escape, accepting the assurances of the +revolutionists that no harm should come to them, and, knowing nothing of +the thorough methods taken to reduce the army to impotence, awaited with +what patience they could muster—and royal women are the most patient in +the world—the invincible troops that must come within a day or two to +their rescue.</p> + +<p>The two biplanes flew over to the streets east of the Emperor's palace +and hovered just above the house tops until the eyes of Gisela and +Mariette, now accustomed to a darkness unpierced by moon or stars, made +out a long line of moving blackness in the narrow gloom of the +Königinstrasse. The forward cars entered the palace from the +Schlossplatz, and as lights immediately appeared in the courtyards +Gisela saw eight or ten men alight stiffly and hurriedly enter the inner +portals. The other automobiles ranged themselves in an apparently +unbroken line on all sides of the palace. Gisela had amused herself +imagining the nervous speculations of those war-hardened potentates and +warriors as they crawled through the sinister darkness of the +capital—proud witness of a thousand triumphal marches; of the sharp and +darting gaze above the guns of the armored cars, expecting an ambush at +every corner. How they must hate a situation so utterly without +precedent.</p> + +<p>Gisela almost laughed aloud as she saw the purple flag, denoting that +the Emperor was in residence, run up on the north side of the palace. +However, automatic discipline worked both ways.</p> + +<p>Once more Berlin was as silent as if at rest for ever under the pall of +darkness that seemed to have descended from the dark and threatening +sky.</p> + +<p>But only for a moment.</p> + +<p>Berlin suddenly burst into a blinding glare of light. Unter den +Linden from end to end—excepting only the royal palaces—with +its long line of imposing public buildings, hotels, and shops, +the Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Platz, the Zeugplatz, the Lustgarten—the +Schlossplatz—all the magnificent expanse from the Brandenburg gate to a +quarter of a mile beyond the river Spree—had been strung and looped +with electric lights, and the scene looked as if touched with a royal +fairy's wand. The side streets from the Royal Library and the old Kaiser +Wilhelm palace as far as the Schlossbrücke, were also brilliantly +illuminated.</p> + +<p>And in all these streets and squares women stood in close ranks, silent, +phlegmatic women, with pistols in their belts and rifles with fixed +bayonets on their shoulders, the steel reflecting the terrific downpour +of light with a steady and menacing glitter. These women wore gray +uniforms and there were shining Prussian helmets on their heads.</p> + +<p>In every window was a double row of women, armed; and the housetops were +crowded with them. There were also machine guns on the roofs, pointing +downward or toward the roof of the palace.</p> + +<p>Mariette laughed. "Theatric enough to please even his taste? Our last +tribute. Let us hope he will enjoy it."</p> + +<p>A moment later the expected happened. A window of the palace overlooking +the great Schlossplatz opened and the Emperor stepped out into the +narrow balcony. His uniform was caked with dust and mud and his face was +drawn with a mortal fatigue; but as he stood there scowling haughtily +down upon that upturned sea of woman's faces, the most singular vision +that ever had greeted imperial eyes, he was an imposing figure enough +to those who knew that he was the Kaiser Wilhelm II, King of Prussia and +Alsace-Lorraine, and Emperor in Germany.</p> + +<p>It was evident that he had no intention of speaking, but expected this +grotesque mob to be overwhelmed by the imperial presence and dissolve.</p> + +<p>Frau Kathie Meyers, with the figure of an Amazon and the voice of a +megaphone, stepped forth from the ranks and lifted her placid red face +to the balcony.</p> + +<p>"You will abdicate, William Hohenzollern," she announced in tones that +rolled down toward the Brandenburg gate like the overtones of a Death +Symphony at the Front. "Germany is a Republic. And the palace is mined. +If your soldiers fire one shot from the windows the palace goes up to +meet the ghosts of every arsenal and every ammunition factory in what +two days ago was the Empire of Germany. Your armies are helpless. You +will remain a prisoner within your palace until we have decided whether +to deliver you to Great Britain, incarcerate you in a fortress, or +permit you to live in exile. It will depend upon the behavior of the +army when it returns. If you attempt to leave the palace you will be +shot."</p> + +<p>The Emperor stared down upon that mass of calm implacable faces, so +unmistakably German; not brilliant nor beautiful, but persistent as +death, and stamped with the watermark of kultur; stared for a long +moment, his gray face twitching, the familiar gray blaze in his eyes. +But he turned without a word or even a disdainful gesture and reëntered +the palace, the window closing immediately behind him.</p> + +<p>The Amazon addressed the men in the armored automobiles that surrounded +the palace.</p> + +<p>"Fire upon us if you like. Our ranks are close and you will kill many. +But not one of you will live to eat rat sausage tomorrow morning. Now +disarm and march to the guard house."</p> + +<p>The contemptible little army of the Kaiser, hypnotized as much by the +glare as by this solid mass of vindictive females—singly so +negligible—shrugged their shoulders, surrendered their arms, and +marched off under guard. After all, they would have a blessed rest, +however brief, before the great generals sent back a few brigades to +execute summary vengeance upon these presumptuous women, who had used +their incidental superiority in numbers so basely.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>2</h3> + +<p>But nothing came from the front but frantic orders by wireless to the +staunch but impotent pillars of the old régime. The British, French, and +American forces, convinced at last that German women actually had +effected a revolution—God knew how!—attacked every point of the line +from Flanders to Belfort, and their aviators dropped newspapers +containing the extraordinary but verified story, into the German +trenches and back of the lines.</p> + +<p>The destruction of the railways leading to the Austria-Hungarian Empire, +as well as all the rolling stock within three miles of the frontier, +balked any attempt to rush supplies in from the east, and in two days +Austria was in the throes of a revolution far more devastating +internally than Germany's, for that excitable and harassed people, long +on the verge of despair, merely caught the revolution-microbe and went +mad.</p> + +<p>To supply either the army opposing Italy or that in Roumania and +Gallicia, to say nothing of that in the Northeast, was no longer even +considered. The young Emperor sought only to come to an understanding +with his people.</p> + +<p>It was a matter of days before both ammunition and food would be +exhausted on the two fronts, and neither had a superfluous man to send +to Berlin, or even to repair the tracks.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>3</h3> + +<p>By Friday there was no longer any doubt of the complete success of the +Revolution. Britain, France, Russia, Italy, the United States, with a +prompt and canny statesmanship, remarkable in Governments, had formally +acknowledged the German Republic, and offered terms of peace possible +for an ambitious and self-respecting but beaten people to accept. At all +events there would be no commercial boycott, and the young Republic +would be given every assistance in restoring the shattered finances of +Germany, and its economic relations with the rest of the world.</p> + +<p>The good German people were flattered in phrases that they rolled on +their tongues. Even those too schooled in lies to believe the statesmen +of their own or any land reflected that, after all, the Enemy Allies had +demonstrated they were sportsmen, that German prisoners had been well +treated, and that before the war there had been no restrictions upon +German commerce save in insidious reiterated words of men determined +upon war at any cost. As a matter of fact, Germany had been absorbing +the commerce of the world, and Britain had been reprehensibly supine.</p> + +<p>As the Socialists now did all the talking, and unhindered, it was not +difficult to persuade even the reluctant minority that the military +party had precipitated the war in a sudden panic at the rapidly +developing power of the proletariat.</p> + +<p>Night fliers dropped millions of leaflets in the vicinity of the armies +on the Eastern and Western fronts, signed (at the pistol point) by the +most powerful names in the former Government, as well as by the +well-known Social-Democrat leaders, containing the details of the +Revolution and proofs of its success. The Empire had fallen. A Republic, +acknowledged by the great powers of the world, was established. Would +the soldiers stack their arms and return to their homes? If the generals +or under officers attempted to restrain them it was to be remembered +that the soldiers were as a hundred thousand to one. </p> + +<p>The women felt no real apprehension of an avenging army. They knew the +average German male. His innate subserviency to power would turn him +automatically about to the party whose power was supreme. And the +soldiers hated their officers. </p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='VIII'></a><h2>VIII</h2> +<br /> + +<p>On Friday night Gisela left her apartment in the Königinstrasse, where +she had slept for a few hours after a visit to the principal cities of +the Empire, and walked out to Schwabing, that picturesque "village" that +looked like a bit of the Alps transferred to the edge of Munich. She had +not forgotten the man she had sacrificed, and at the end of the first +day of the Revolution she had learned that his body had been caught +under the Schwabing bridge, rescued, and placed temporarily in the vault +of the little church.</p> + +<p>It was a bright starlight night, and the old white church with its +bulbous tower, last outpost of Turkey in her heyday, looked like a lone +mourner for the dream of Mittel-Europa. Gisela climbed the mound and +entered the quiet enclosure. She had met no one in the peaceful suburb, +although she had heard the deep guttural voices of elderly men still +lingering at the tables in the beer gardens.</p> + +<p>She had sent orders to leave the door of the church unlocked, and she +entered the barren room, guiding herself with her electric torch to the +stair that led down to the vault. Fear of any sort had long since been +crowded out of her, but it was a lonely pilgrimage she hardly would have +undertaken ten days ago.</p> + +<p>She descended the short flight of steps and flashed her light about the +vault. It was a small room, oppressively musty and humid. All Schwabing +is damp but the Isar itself might have washed the walls of this dripping +sepulcher. The coffin stood on a rough trestle in the center of the +chamber, and it was covered with the military cloak that, with his sword +and helmet, she had ordered sent from his hotel.</p> + +<p>She stood beside the coffin, trying to visualize the man who lay within, +wondering if the orders still bulged above the hilt of the dagger she +had driven in with so firm a hand ... or if they had taken the time to +remove it ... or if that symbol of Germany's freedom would be found ages +hence in a handful of dust when the man who had taught her all she would +ever know of love or living was long forgotten....</p> + +<p>But in a moment these vagrant fancies, drifting from a tired brain, took +flight, her reluctant mind focused itself, and she knelt beside the +bier, pressing the folds of the cloak about her face and weeping +heavily.</p> + +<p>It was her final tribute to her womanhood. That she had rescued her +country and incidentally the world, making democracy and liberty safe +for the first time in its history, mattered nothing to her then. Nor her +immortal fame.</p> + +<p>To regret was impossible. Strong souls are inaccessible to regret. But +she hated life and her bitter destiny, for she had sacrificed the life +that gave meaning to her own, and she wished that the implacable Powers +that rule the destinies of individuals and nations had foreborne their +accustomed irony and presented her gifts to some woman mercifully +lacking her own terrible power to love and suffer—and the imagination +which would keep for ever vivid in her mind the poignant happiness that +had been hers and that she had immolated on the cold altar of duty. She +was still young, and her sole hope, glimmering at the end of an +interminable perspective, was that it would be her privilege to lie at +last in the grave with this man; who had been her other part and whose +heart and hers she had slain. </p> + + + + + +<hr style='width: 100%;' /> +<a name='THE_WOMEN_OF_GERMANY'></a><h2>THE WOMEN OF GERMANY</h2> + +<h3>An Argument for my "The White Morning"</h3> + +<h4>From <i>The Bookman</i>, February, 1918, +by courtesy of Dodd, Mead & Co.</h4> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<h2>THE WOMEN OF GERMANY</h2> + +<h3>An Argument for my "The White Morning"</h3> +<br /> + +<p>I have been asked by the Editor of <i>The Bookman</i> to state my authority +for writing <i>The White Morning</i>; in other words for daring to believe +that a revolution conceived and engineered by women is possible in +Germany.</p> + +<p>Before giving my own reasons, stripped of what glamor of fiction I have +been able to surround the story with, I should like to say that when I +began to put the idea into form I thought it was entirely my own. But +while it is always pleasant to offer this sort of incense to one's +vanity, I should have been more than glad to quote to my editor and +publisher some reliable male authority; a man's opinion, on all +momentous subjects, by force of tradition, far outweighing any theory or +guess that a woman, no matter what her intimate personal experience, may +advance.</p> + +<p>Imagine then my delight, when the story was half finished, to read an +article by A. Curtis Roth, in the <i>Saturday Evening Post</i>, in which he +stated unequivocally that it was among the possibilities that the women +of Germany, driven to desperation by suffering and privation, and +disillusion, would arise suddenly and overturn the dynasty. Mr. Roth, +who was American vice-consul at Plauen, Saxony, until we entered the +war, has written some of the most enlightening and brilliant articles +that have appeared on the internal conditions of any of the belligerent +countries since August, 1914. He remained at his post until the last +moment and then left Germany a physical wreck from malnutrition. In +spite of the fact that he was an officer in the consular service of a +neutral country, with ample means at his command, and standing in close +personal relations with the authorities, he could not get enough to eat; +and what he was forced to swallow—lest he starve—completely broke down +his digestion.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, he never ceased to observe; and having made friends +of all classes of Germans, and been given facilities for observation and +study of conditions enjoyed by few Americans in the Teutonic Empire at +the time, he noted every phase and change, both subtle and manifest, +through which these afflicted people passed during the first three years +of the war. They are in far worse case now. </p> + +<p>Later (in November) I read an article by a German, J. Koettgen, in the +New York <i>Chronicle</i>, which was even more explicit.</p> + +<p>Herr Koettgen is one of the agents in this country of Hermann Fernau, an +eminent intellectual of Germany, who escaped into Switzerland, and wages +relentless war upon the dynasty and the military caste of Prussia; which +he holds categorically responsible for the world war. There is a price +on Fernau's head. He dares not walk abroad without a bodyguard, and +cannon are concealed among the oleanders that surround his house. Not +only has he written two books, <i>Because I am a German</i>, and <i>The Coming +Democracy</i>, which if circulated in Germany would prick thousands of +dazed despairing brains into immediate rebellion, but he is the head of +those German Radical Democrats which have united in an organization +called "Friends of German Democracy."</p> + +<p>Their avowed object, through the medium of a bi-weekly journal, <i>Die +Freie Zeitung</i>, and other propaganda, is to plant sound democratic ideas +and ideals in the minds of German prisoners in the Entente countries, +and to recruit the saner exiles everywhere. These publications reach men +and women of German blood whose grandfathers fled from military tyranny +after their abortive revolution in 1848, and, with their descendants, +have enjoyed freedom and independence in the United States ever since. +The best of them are expected to exert pressure upon their friends and +relatives in Germany. There are already branches of this epochal +organization in the larger American cities.</p> + +<p>Herr Koettgen (who has written a book called <i>The Hausfrau and +Democracy</i>, by the way) walked into the office of the <i>Chronicle</i> some +time in November and presented a letter to the editor, Mr. Fletcher. In +the course of the heated conversation that ensued, Herr Koettgen +exclaimed with bitter scorn: "Oh, so you think yourself as fiercely +anti-German as a man may be? Well, let me tell you that you are not +capable of one-tenth the passionate hatred I feel for a dynasty and a +caste that has made me so ashamed of being a German that I could eat the +dust."</p> + +<p>In Herr Koettgen's article occur the following paragraphs: "At the first +glance German women hardly appear likely material for the coming +Revolution which will turn Germany into a modern country. But many +incidents point to the fact that German women are growing with their +increasing task. They are beginning to replace their men not only +economically but politically. Most of the public demonstrations in +Germany during this war have been led and arranged by women. The very +first demonstration in 1915 consisted of women. As Mr. Gerard tells us +in his book, they had no very definite idea of what they wanted; only +they wanted their men back. But since that time their political +education has made rapid progress.... With their men in the field and +their former leaders (Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, Louise Zietz) in +prison, German women are learning to act for themselves. Their +demonstrations point to it, as do also letters written by German women +to their men who are now prisoners of war in France and England. In one +of these letters which escaped the watchful eye of the censor, a German +hausfrau described how she made the officials of Muenster sit up by her +energetic and persistent demands."</p> + +<p>A girl upon one occasion said to Herr Koettgen: "Only women and children +were employed in our factory. We had more than one strike. Two women +would go round to every woman and girl in the shop and tell them: 'We +have asked for twenty or thirty pfennings more. To-morrow we are going +on strike. She who does not come out will have the thrashing of her +life.' We were all frightened and stayed away, for they really meant +it."</p> + +<p>Herr Koettgen continues: "Novel circumstances are reawakening in the +meek German hausfrau some of that combative spirit which characterized +the Teuton women in the time of Tacitus, when they often fought +alongside of their men in the wagon camp.... German women will show +their men the way to freedom. Doing more than their share of the +nation's work, they insist upon being heard, and their growing influence +is one of the greatest dangers to German autocracy in its present +predicament. As politicians German women have the advantage of not +having gone through the soul-destroying, brutalizing school of Prussian +militarism, and of not being burdened with the rigmarole of theory which +formed the content of German politics before the war. They can be +trusted to make a bee-line for the real obstacle to peace and +liberty—to eradicate the autocratic militaristic régime which enslaved +the German people in order to enslave the world."</p> + +<p>Now that the way has been cleared by two men of affairs who have never +condescended to write fiction, I will give my own reasons for belief in +the German women, and also for the general plan of <i>The White Morning</i>.</p> + +<p>I had an apartment for seven years in Munich and spent six or eight +months alternately in that delightful city and traveling in Europe, +passing a month or two in England, or returning for an equal length of +time to my own country. During that long residence in Germany I +naturally met many of its inhabitants, and of as many classes as +possible. German women do not tell you the history of their lives the +first time you meet them, not by any means; they are naturally secretive +and the reverse of frank. But they are human, and when you have won +their confidence they will tell you surprising things. The confidences I +received were for the most part from girls, and one and all assured me +they never should marry. Having grown up under one House Tyrant, for +whom they were not responsible, why in heaven's name should they +deliberately annex another? Far, far better bear with the one whose +worst at least they knew (and who could not live forever), than marry +some man who might be loathsome as well as tyrannical, and who, unless +there happened to be a war, might outlive them?</p> + +<p>The idea in my novel of the four Niebuhr girls and their initial +rebellion was suggested to me by a family of Prussian junkerdom that I +met at a watering place in Denmark. The baroness was a charming woman +who used a moderate invalidism in a smiling imperturbable fashion to +insure herself a certain immunity from the demands of her autocratic +lord. The girls were lively, intelligent, splendidly educated. They were +in love with society and court functions, but deeply rebellious at the +attitude of the German male, and determined never to marry. That is to +say the three younger girls; the oldest had married a tame puppy, and +anything less like a tyrant I never beheld. No American husband could be +more subservient. But there was no question that he belonged to a small +exceptional class: while his wife, with all the dominating qualities of +her father, was one of a rapidly increasing number of German women, +silently but firmly rebellious.</p> + +<p>The Herr baron was a typical Prussian aristocrat and autocrat. The girls +could hardly have had less liberty in a convent. When they came from +their hotel to mine he escorted them over and often came in. Luckily he +liked me or I never should have had the opportunity to know them as well +as I did. Nor should I have been able to continue the acquaintance +after the day I wickedly induced them to run away with me to Copenhagen, +where we shopped, promenaded all the principal streets, then took ices +on the terrace of one of the restaurants. When we returned he was +storming up and down the platform of the station, and he fairly raved at +the girls. "And you dared, you dared, to go to Copenhagen, without +permission, without your mother, without me!" The girls listened meekly, +but whenever he wheeled laughed behind his military back. Then he turned +on me, but I called him a tyrant and gave him my opinion of his +nonsensical attitude generally. As I was not his daughter he gradually +calmed down and seemed rather to relish the tirade. Finally they all +came over to my hotel to tea.</p> + +<p>"You see!" said one of the girls to me afterward. "I have not +exaggerated. Do you think I want another like that?" And, so far as I +know, they have never married.</p> + +<p>I did not draw any of my characters on these four delightful girls, but +took the episode as a foundation for the incidents and characters that +grew under my hand after I got round to the story.</p> + +<p>The episode of Georg Zottmyer was also told me by a German girl whom I +got to know very well in Munich, and who distantly suggested the +character of Gisela (that is to say in the very beginning. As Gisela +developed she became more like her own legendary Brunhilda).<a name='FNanchor_1_1'></a><a href='#Footnote_1_1'><sup>[1]</sup></a></p> + +<p>This young woman was as independent in her life and in her ideas as any +I ever met in England or the United States. But fortune had been kind to +her. Her father died just after her education was finished, and as he +left little money, she went to Brazil as governess in a wealthy family. +She remained in South America for several years, gaining, of course, +poise and experience. Then a relative died and left her a comfortable +fortune. When I met her she was living in Munich from choice, like so +many other Germans who were bored with routine and rigid class lines.</p> + +<p>She was a beautiful young woman, with dark hair and eyes and a brilliant +complexion, and dressed to perfection, although she wore no stays. This +may have been a bit of vanity on her part, as the awful reformkleid was +in vogue, and fat German women were displaying themselves in lumps and +creases and billows and sections that rolled like the untrammelled waves +of the sea. Her own figure was so firmly molded and so erect and supple +that it was, for all her fashionable clothes, quite independent of the +corset. She had charming manners combined with an imperturbable +serenity, and always seemed faintly amused. On the other hand, she +displayed none of the offensive German conceit and arrogance.</p> + +<p>We spent several days together at Partenkirchen, one of the most +picturesque spots in the Bavarian Alps, and as we were both good +walkers, and there was no one else in the hotel who interested us, we +became quite intimate. She was one of the first to talk to me about the +deep discontent and disgust of the German women, and of her own utter +contempt for the meek hausfrau type, and for the tyrannies, petty, +coarse, often brutal, of the man in his home. Nothing, she was +determined, would ever tempt her to marry, and she could name many +others who were making an independent life for themselves, although, +lacking fortune, often in secret. No matter how much she might fancy +herself in love (and I imagine that she had had her enlightening +experiences) she would not risk a lifelong clash of wills with a man who +might turn out to be a medieval despot.</p> + +<p>It was then that she told me of the tentative proposal of one of her +beaux (she had many) "Georg Zottmyer," which I have recorded almost +literally in the scene between this passing character and Gisela in the +Café Luitpolt. My object in doing so was to give as realistic an +impression as possible of what the German woman is up against in +dealings with her male. I knew Zottmyer personally, and he interested me +the more (as one is interested in a bug under a microscope) because he +had less excuse for his conceit and arrogance than most German men: he +was brought up in California, where his father is a successful doctor. +But that only seemed to have made him worse. He returned to Germany as +soon as he was of age, more German than the Germans, and despising +Americans.</p> + +<p>I had often wondered what became of this highly interesting young woman, +and when I began to write <i>The White Morning</i> she popped into my mind. I +believe she could be a leader of some kind if she chose. Perhaps she is.</p> + +<p>The cases could be multiplied indefinitely. The Erkels and Mimi Brandt +are drawn, together with their conditions, almost photographically. +"Heloise" finally married a Scot and went with him to his own country, +but her sisters were dragging out their tragic lives when I left Munich.</p> + +<p>A few days ago I met a highly intelligent American woman of German +blood who, before the war, used to visit her relatives in Germany every +year. I told her that I had written this story and she agreed with me +that it was on the cards the women would instigate a revolution. +"Never," she said, "in any country have I known such discontent among +women, heard so many bitter confidences. Their feelings against their +fathers or husbands were the more intense and violent because they dared +not speak out like English or American women."</p> + +<p>There is no question that for about fifteen years before the war there +was a thinking, secret, silent, watchful but outwardly passive revolt +going on among the women of Germany. I do not think it had then reached +the working women. It took the war to wake them up. But in that vast +class which, in spite of racial industry, had a certain amount of +leisure, owing to the almost total absence of poverty in the Teutonic +Empire, and whose minds were educated and systematically trained, there +was persistent reading, meditating upon the advance of women in other +nations, quiet debating unsuspected of their masters; and they were +growing in numbers and in an almost sinister determination every year. +Of course there were plenty of hausfraus cowed to the door mat, and, +like the proletariat, needing a war to wake them up; but there were +several hundred thousand of the other sort.</p> + +<p>Now, all these women need is a leader. The working women have their Rosa +Luxemburgs, who think out loud in public and get themselves locked up; +and, moreover, do not appeal to the other classes—for Germany is the +most snobbish country in the world. If there were—or if there is—such +a woman as Gisela Döring, who before the war had acquired a widespread +intellectual influence over the awakening women of her race, and then, +when they were approaching the breaking point, had gone quietly and +systematically about making a revolution, there is no question in my +mind as to the outcome.</p> + +<p>Just consider for a moment what the German women have suffered during +this war—a war that they were told was forced upon their country by the +aggressive military acts of Russia and France, but which, owing to +Germany's might, would hardly last three months. For nearly three years +they have never known the sensation of appeased hunger, and, having +always been immense eaters, have suffered the tortures of dyspepsia in +addition to hunger. But, far worse, they have listened almost +continuously to the wails of their children for satisfying food, +children who are forever hungry and who often succumb. Karl Ackerman, +whose accuracy no one has questioned, states in his book, <i>Germany, The +Next Republic?</i>, that in 1916 sixty thousand children died of +malnutrition in Berlin alone.</p> + +<p>These women have lost their fathers, husbands, sons—well, that is the +fortune of any war; but they are beginning to understand that they have +lost them, not in a war of self-defense, but to gratify the insane +ambitions and greed of a dynasty and a military caste that are out of +date in the twentieth century. Their parents, when over sixty, have died +from the same cause as the children. Their daughters, both unmarried and +newly widowed, are "officially pregnant," or the mothers of brats the +name of whose fathers they do not know. The young girls of Lille hardly +have suffered more. The German victims are sent for, then sent home to +bear another child for Germany.</p> + +<p>Now, we know what the German men are. These women are the mothers and +wives and sisters of the German men; in other words, they are Germans, +body, and bone and brain-cells, capable of precisely the same ruthless +tactics when pushed too hard—if they have a leader. That, to my mind, +is the whole point. Given that leader, they would effect a revolution +precisely as I have described in my story. Nor would they run the risk +of failure. The German race is not eight-tenths illiterates and +two-tenths intellectuals, emotional firebrands, anarchists and +sellers-out like the Russians. They are uniformly educated, uniformly +disciplined. They will do nothing futile, nothing without the most +secret and methodical preparation of which even the German mind is +capable. It will be like turning over in bed in camp: they will all turn +over together. They are damnably efficient.</p> + +<p>It may be said: "But you may have spoiled their chances with your book. +You not only have revealed them in their true character to their men, +but all the details of their probable methods in working up and +precipitating a revolution. You have, in other words, put the German +authorities on their guard."</p> + +<p>The answer to this is that no German of the dominant sex could be made +to believe in anything so unprecedented as German women taking the law +into their own hands, uniting, and overthrowing a dynasty. Nothing can +penetrate a German official skull but what has been trained into it from +birth. Unlike the women, the system has made the men of the ruling +class into the sort of machine which is perfect in its way but admits of +no modern improvements. That has been the secret of their strength and +of their weakness, and will be the chief assistance to the Allies in +bringing about their final defeat. I am positive they go to sleep every +night murmuring: "Two and two make four. Two and two make four."</p> + +<p>The women could hold meetings under their very noses, so long as they +were not in the street, lay their plans to the last fuse, and apply the +match at the preconcerted moment from one end of Germany to the other +unhindered, unless betrayed. The angry and restless male socialists +would not have a chance with the alert members of their own sex—who +regard women with an even and contemptuous tolerance. Useful but +harmless.</p> + +<p>I made Gisela a junker by birth, because a rebel from the top, with +qualities of leadership, would make a deeper impression in Germany than +one of the many avowed extremists of humbler origin. On the other hand, +it was necessary to drop the von, and take a middle-class name, or she +would have failed to win confidence, in the beginning, as well as +literary success; from opposite reasons. It is very difficult for an +aristocratic German of artistic talents to obtain a hearing. +Practically all the intellectuals belong to the middle-class, the +aristocrats being absorbed by the army and navy. The arrogance and often +brutal lack of consideration of the ruling caste, to say nothing of +common politeness, have inspired universal jealousy and hatred, the more +poignant as it must be silent. But even the silent may find their means +of vengeance, as the noble discovers when he attempts recognition in the +intellectual world. But if he were a propagandist, with the welfare of +all Germany at heart, and won his influence under an assumed name, as +Gisela Döring did, the revelation of his identity, together with proof +of dissociation from his own class, would enhance his popularity +immensely. Moreover, it would be incense to the vanity of classes that +never are permitted to forget their inferior rank.</p> + +<p>In this country there is a snobbish tendency to exalt and boom any +writer who is known to belong to one of the old and wealthy families; +and the more snobbish the writer the more infectious the disease. But +then in this country, which has never suffered from militarism, there is +a naïve tendency to worship success in any form. In Germany my heroine +would have doomed herself to failure if she had signed her work Gisela +von Niebuhr. But her early education, surroundings, position,—to say +nothing of her four years in the United States—were just what gave her +the requisite advantages, and preserved her from many mistakes. She +starts out with no prejudices against any caste, and an intense sympathy +for all German women who lack even the compensation of being +<i>hochwohlgeboren</i>.</p> + +<p>No one knows what the future holds, or what unexpected event will +suddenly end the war; but I should not have written <i>The White Morning</i> +if I had not been firmly convinced that a Gisela might arise at any +moment and deliver the world.</p> +<br /> + +<p>GERTRUDE ATHERTON.</p> + +<a name='Footnote_1_1'></a><a href='#FNanchor_1_1'>[1]</a><div class='note'><p> For this reason I asked the most beautiful woman I have +ever seen of the heroic or goddess type to be photographed for the +frontispiece.—G.A.</p></div> + + +<br> +<br> +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13496 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/13496-h/images/whitemorning.jpg b/13496-h/images/whitemorning.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0876697 --- /dev/null +++ b/13496-h/images/whitemorning.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..655912d --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #13496 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13496) diff --git a/old/13496-8.txt b/old/13496-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6a575cf --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13496-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3790 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The White Morning, by Gertrude Atherton + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The White Morning + +Author: Gertrude Atherton + +Release Date: September 18, 2004 [eBook #13496] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHITE MORNING*** + + +E-text prepared by Sandra Bannatyne and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +THE WHITE MORNING + +A Novel of the Power of the German Women in Wartime + +by + +GERTRUDE ATHERTON + + + + + + + +[Illustration: GISELA +_Photograph by Arnold Genthe, N.Y._] + + + + +I + + +1 + +Countess Gisela Niebuhr sat in the long dusk of Munich staring over at +the beautiful park that in happier days had been famous in the world as +the Englischer Garten, and deliberately recalled on what might be the +last night of her life the successive causes that had led to her +profound dissatisfaction with her country as a woman. She was so +thoroughly disgusted with it as a German that personal grievances were +far from necessary to fortify her for the momentous rôle she was to play +with the dawn; but in this rare hour of leisure it amused her naturally +introspective mind to rehearse certain episodes whose sum had made her +what she was. + +When she was fourteen and her sisters Lili and Elsa sixteen and eighteen +they had met in the attic of their home in Berlin one afternoon when +their father was automatically at his club and their mother taking her +prescribed hour of rest, and solemnly pledged one another never to +marry. The causes of this vital conclave were both cumulative and +immediate. Their father, the Herr Graf, a fine looking junker of sixty +odd, with a roving eye and a martial air despite a corpulence which +annoyed him excessively, had transferred his lost authority over his +regiment to his household. The boys were in their own regiments and rid +of parental discipline, but the countess and the girls received the full +benefit of his military, and Prussian, relish for despotism. + +In his essence a kind man and fond of his women, he balked their every +individual wish and allowed them practically no liberty. They never left +the house unattended, like the American girls and those fortunate beings +of the student class. Lili had a charming voice and was consumed with +ambition to be an operatic star. She had summoned her courage upon one +memorable occasion and broached the subject to her father. All the +terrified family had expected his instant dissolution from apoplexy, and +in spite of his petty tyrannies they loved him. The best instructor in +Berlin continued to give her lessons, as nothing gave the Graf more +pleasure of an evening than her warblings. + +The household, quite apart from the Frau Gräfin's admirable management, +ran with military precision, and no one dared to be the fraction of a +minute late for meals or social engagements. They attended the theater, +the opera, court functions, dinners, balls, on stated nights, and unless +the Kaiser took a whim and altered a date, there was no deviation from +this routine year in and out. They walked at the same hour, drove in the +Tiergarten with the rest of fashionable Berlin, started for their castle +in the Saxon Alps not only upon the same day but on the same train every +summer, and the electric lights went out at precisely the same moment +every night; the count's faithful steward manipulated a central stop. +They were encouraged to read and study, but not--oh, by no means--to +have individual opinions. The men of Germany were there to do the +thinking and they did it. + +Perhaps the rebellion of the Niebuhr girls would never have crystallized +(for, after all, their everyday experience was much like that of other +girls of their class, merely intensified by their father's persistence +of executive ardors) had it not been for two subtle influences, quite +unsuspected by the haughty Kammerherr: they had an American friend, Kate +Terriss, who was "finishing her voice" in Berlin, and their married +sister, Mariette, had recently spent a fortnight in the paternal nest. + +The count despised the entire American race, as all good Prussians did, +but he was as wax to feminine blandishments outside of his family, and +Miss Terriss was pretty, diplomatic, alluring, and far cleverer than he +would have admitted any woman could be. She wound the old martinet +round her finger, subdued her rampant Americanism in his society, and +amused herself sowing the seeds of rebellion in the minds of "those poor +Niebuhr girls." As the countess also liked her, she had been "in and out +of the house" for nearly a year. The young Prussians had alternately +gasped and wept at the amazing stories of the liberty, the petting, the +procession of "good times" enjoyed by American girls of their own class, +to say nothing of the invariable prerogative of these fortunate girls to +choose their own husbands; who, according to the unprincipled Miss +Terriss, invariably spoiled their wives, and permitted them to go and +come, to spend their large personal allowances, as they listed. Gisela +closed her beloved volume of Grimm's fairy tales and never opened it +again. + +But it was the visit of Mariette that had marshalled vague +dissatisfactions to an ordered climax. She had left her husband in the +garrison town she had married with the excellent young officer, making +a trifling indisposition of her mother a pretext for escape. On the +night before her departure the four girls huddled in her bed after the +opera and listened to an incisive account of her brief but distasteful +period of matrimony. Not that she suffered from tyranny. Quite the +reverse. Of her several suitors she had cannily engineered into her +father's favor a young man of pleasing appearance, good title and +fortune, but quite without character behind his fierce upstanding +mustache. Inheriting her father's rigid will, she had kept the young +officer in a state of abject submission. She stroked his hair in public +as if he had been her pet dachshund, and patted his hand at kindly +intervals as had he been her dear little son. + +"But Karl has the soul of a sheep," she informed the breathless trio. +"You might not be so fortunate. Far, far from it. How can any one more +than guess before one is fairly married and done for? Look at papa. Does +he not pass in society as quite a charming person? The women like him, +and if poor mama died he could get another quick as a wink. But at the +best, my dear girls, matrimony--in Germany, at least--is an unmitigated +bore. And in a garrison town! Literally, there is no liberty, even with +one's husband under the thumb. We live by rote. Every afternoon I have +to take coffee at some house or other, when all those tiresome women are +not at my own. And what do you suppose they talk about--but invariably? +_Love!_" (With ineffable disdain.) "Nothing else, barring gossip and +scandal; as if they got any good out of _love_! But they are stupid for +the most part and gorged with love novels. They discuss the opera or the +play for the love element only, or the sensual quality of the music. Let +me tell you that although I married to get rid of papa, if I had it to +do over I should accept parental tyranny as the lesser evil. Not that I +am not fond of Karl in a way. He is a dear and would be quite harmless +if he were not in love with me. But garrison society--Gott, how German +wives would rejoice in a war! Think of the freedom of being a Red Cross +nurse, and all the men at the front. Officers would be your fate, too. +Papa would not look at a man who was not in the army. He despises men +who live on their estates. So take my advice while you may. Sit tight, +as the English say. Even German fathers do not live forever. The lime in +our soil sees to that. I notice papa's face gets quite purple after +dinner, and when he is angry. His arteries must have been hardening for +twenty years." + +Lili and Elsa were quite aghast at this naked ratiocination, but Gisela +whispered: "We might elope, you know." + +"With whom? No Englishman or American ever crosses the threshold, and +Kate has no brothers. The students have no money and no morals, and, +what is worse, no baths. A burgess or a professional would be quite as +intolerable, and no man of our class would consent to an elopement. +Germans may be sentimental but they are not romantic when it comes to +settlements. Now take my advice." + +They were taking it on this fateful day in the attic. They vowed never +to marry even if their formidable papa locked them up on bread and +water. + +"Which would be rather good for us," remarked the practical Elsa. "I am +sure we eat too much, and Gisela has a tendency to plumpness. But your +turn will not come for four years yet, dear child. It is poor us that +will need all our vows." + +After some deliberation they concluded to inform their mother of their +grim resolve. Naturally sympathetic, a pregnant upheaval had taken place +in that good lady's psychology during the past year. Her marriage, +although arranged by the two families, had been a love match on both +sides. The Graf was a handsome dashing and passionate lover and she a +beautiful girl, lively and companionable. Disillusion was slow in +coming, for she had been brought up on the soundest German principles +and believed in the natural superiority of the male as she did in the +House of Hohenzollern and the Lutheran religion. + +But she suspected, during her thirties, that she was, after all, the +daughter of a brilliant father as well as of an obsequious mother, and +that she had possibilities of mind and spirit that clamored for +development and fired the imagination, while utterly without hope. In +other words she was, like many another German woman, in her secret +heart, an individual. But she was not a rebel; her social code forbade +that. She manufactured interests for herself as rapidly, and as various, +as possible, preserved her good looks in spite of her eight children +(the two that followed Gisela died in infancy), dressed far better than +most German women, cultivated society, gave four notable musicales a +season, and was devoted to her sons and daughters, although she never +opposed her husband's stern military discipline of those seemingly +typical mädchens. It was her policy to keep the martinet in a good +humor, and after all--she had condemned herself not to think--what +better destiny than to be a German woman of the higher aristocracy? They +might have been born into the middle class, where there were quite as +many tyrants as in the patrician, and vastly fewer compensations. At the +age of forty-four she believed herself to be a philosopher. + +Six months before Mariette's marriage and shortly after the birth and +death of her last child, Frau von Niebuhr suddenly returned to her bed, +prostrate, on the verge of collapse. The count raged that any wife of +his should dare to be ill or absent (when not fulfilling patriotic +obligations), consult her own selfish whims by having nerves and lying +speechless in bed. But he had a very considerable respect for Herr +Doktor Meyers--a rank plebeian but the best doctor in Berlin--and when +that family adviser, as autocratic as himself, ordered the Frau Gräfin +to go to a sanatorium in the Austrian Dolomites--but alone, mind +you!--and remain as long as he--I, myself, Herr Graf!--deemed advisable, +with no intercourse, personal or chirographical with her family, the +Head of the House of Niebuhr angrily gave his consent and sent for a +sister to chaperon his girls. + +The countess remained until the eve of Mariette's wedding, and she +passed those six months in one of the superlatively beautiful mountain +resorts of Austria. She was solitary, for the most part, and she did an +excessive amount of thinking. She returned to her duties with a deep +disgust of life as she knew it, a cynical contempt for women, and a +profound sense of revolt. Her natural diplomacy she had increased +tenfold. + +When the three girls, their eyes very large, and speaking in whispers, +although their father was at a yearly talk-fest with his old brothers in +arms, confided to their mother their resolution never in any +circumstances to adopt a household tyrant of their own, she nodded +understandingly. + +"Leave it to me," she said. "Your father can be managed, little as he +suspects it. I'll find the weak spot in each of the suitors he brings +to the house and set him against all of them." + +"And my voice?" asked Lili timidly. But the Frau Gräfin shook her head. +"There I cannot help you. He thinks an artistic career would disgrace +his family, and that is the end of it. Moreover, he regards women of any +class in public life as a disgrace to Germany. My assistance must be +passive--apparently. It will be enough to have no worse. Take my word +and Mariette's for that." + +The Gräfin, true to her word, quietly disposed of the several suitors +approved by her husband, and although the autocrat sputtered and +raged--the Gräfin, her youngest daughter shrewdly surmised, rather +encouraged these exciting tempers--arguing that these three girls bade +fair to remain on his hands for ever, he ended always by agreeing that +the young officers were unworthy of an alliance with the ancient and +honorable House of Niebuhr. + +The battles ended abruptly when Gisela was eighteen and a fat Lieutenant +of Uhlans, suing for the hand of the youngest born, and vehemently +supported by the Graf, had just been turned adrift. The Graf dropped +dead in his club. He left a surprisingly small estate for one who had +presented so pompous a front to the world. But not only had his sons +been handsomely portioned when they entered the army, and Mariette when +she married, but the excellent count, to relieve the increasing monotony +of days no longer enlivened by maneuvers and boudoirs, had amused +himself on the stock exchange. His judgment had been singularly bad and +he had dropped most of his capital and lived on the rest. + +The town house must be sold and the countess and her daughters retire to +her castle in the Saxon Alps. As there were no portions for the girls, +the haunting terrors of matrimony were laid. + +The four women took their comparative poverty with equanimity. The +countess had been as practical and economical as all German housewives, +even when relieved by housekeepers and stewards, and she calculated +that with a meager staff of servants and two years of seclusion she +should be able to furnish a flat in Berlin and pay a year's rent in +advance. Then by living for half the year on her estate she should save +enough for six highly agreeable months in the capital. Perhaps she might +let her castle to some rich brewer or American; and this she eventually +did. + +Lili was given permission to study for the operatic stage and spend the +following winter in Dresden, where Mariette's husband was now quartered. +It was just before they moved to the country that the Gräfin said to her +girls as they sat at coffee in the dismantled house: + +"You shall have all that I never had, fulfil all the secret ambitions of +my younger heart. If you are individuals, prove it. You may go on the +stage, write, paint, study law, medicine, what you will. You have been +bred aristocrats and aristocrats you will remain. It is not liberty that +vulgarizes. Don't hate men. They have charming phases and moods; but +avoid entangling alliances until you are thirty. After that you will +know them well enough to avoid that fatal initial submergence. The whole +point is to begin with your eyes open and your campaign clearly thought +out. + +"I, too, purpose to get a great deal out of life now that my fate is in +my own hands. By the summer we shall even be able to travel a little. +Third-class, yet that will be far more amusing than stuffed into one of +those plush carriages with the windows closed and forbidden to speak +with any one in the corridor. And forced to carry all the hand-luggage +off the train (when your father had an economical spasm and would not +take a footman) while he stalked out first as if we did not exist. I +shall never marry again--Gott in Himmel, no!--but I shall gather about +me all the interesting men I never have been able to have ten minutes' +conversation with alone; and, so far as is humanly possible, do exactly +as I please. My ego has been starved. I shall always be your best +friend--but think for yourselves." + +Gisela had no gift that she was aware of, but she was intellectual and +had longed to finish her education at one of the great universities. As +she was not strong, however, she was content to spend a year in the +mountains; and then, robust, and on a meager income, she went to Munich +to attend the lectures on art and literature and to perfect herself in +French and English. She took a small room in an old tower near the +Frauenkirche and lived the students' life, probably the freest of any +city in the world. She dropped her title and name lest she be barred +from that socialistic community as well as discovered by horrified +relatives, and called herself Gisela Döring. After she had taken her +degree she passed a month in Berlin with her mother, who already had +established a salon, but she was determined to support herself and see +the world at the same time. Herr Doktor Meyers found her a position as +governess with a wealthy American patient, and, under her assumed name, +she sailed immediately for New York. + +The Bolands had a house in upper Fifth Avenue and others at Newport, +Aiken and Bar Harbor; and when not occupying these stations were in +Europe or southern California. The two little girls passed the summer at +Bar Harbor with their governess. + +It took Gisela some time to accustom herself to the position of upper +servant in that household of many servants, but she possessed humor and +she had had governesses herself. Her salary was large, she had one +entire day in the week to herself, except at Bar Harbor, and during her +last summer in the United States Mrs. Boland had a violent attack of +"America first" and took her children and their admirable governess not +only to California but to the Yellowstone Park, the Grand Cañon and +Canada. They traveled in a private car, and Gisela, who could enjoy the +comfortless quarters of a student flat in Munich with all that life +meant in the free and beautiful city by the Isar, could also revel in +luxury; and this wonderful summer, following as it did the bitter climax +of her first serious love affair, seemed to her all the consolation that +a mere woman could ask. At all events she felt for it an intense and +lasting gratitude. + + +2 + +It was during her first summer at Bar Harbor that the second determining +experience of her life began, and it lasted for three years. She dwelt +upon it to-night with humor, sadness, and, for a moment, thrilling +regret, but without bitterness. That had passed long since. + +She was virtual mistress of the house at Bar Harbor, and as the children +had a trained nurse and a maid, besides many little friends, she had +more leisure than in the city with her one day of complete detachment. +She met Freiherr Franz von Nettelbeck when she was walking with her +charges and he was strolling with the little girls of the Howland +family. The introductions were informal, and as they fell naturally +into German there was an immediate bond. Nettelbeck was an attaché of +the German Embassy who preferred to spend his summers at Bar Harbor. He +was of the fair type of German most familiar to Americans, with a fine +slim military figure, deep fiery blue eyes and a lively mind. His golden +hair and mustache stood up aggressively, and his carriage was exceeding +haughty, but those were details too familiar to be counted against him +by Gisela. Her rich brunette beauty was now as ripe as her tall full +figure, and she was one of those women, rare in Germany, who could dress +well on nothing at all. She too possessed a lively mind, and after her +long New York winter was feeling her isolation. Her first interview +(which included a long stroll and a canoe ride) with this young diplomat +of her own land, visibly lifted her spirits, and she sang as she braided +her heavy mass of hair that night. + +Franz, like most unattached young Germans, was on the lookout for a +soul-mate (which he was far too sophisticated to anticipate in +matrimony), and this handsome, brilliant, subtly responsive, and wholly +charming young woman of the only country worth mentioning entered his +life when he too was lonely and rather bored. It was his third year in +the United States of America and he did not like the life nor the +people. Nevertheless, he was trying to make up his mind to pay court to +Ann Howland, a young lady whose dashing beauty was somewhat overpoised +by salient force of character and an uncompromisingly keen and direct +mind, but whose fortune eclipsed by several millions that of the +high-born maiden selected by his family. + +Here was a heaven-sent interval, with intellectual companionship in +addition to the game of the gods. Being a German girl, Gisela Döring +would be aware that he could not marry out of his class, unless the +plebeian pill were heavily gilded. To do him justice, he would not have +married the wealthiest plebeian in Germany. An American: that was +another matter. If there were such a thing as an aristocracy in this +absurd country which pretended to be a democracy and whose "society" was +erected upon the visible and screaming American dollar, no doubt Miss +Howland belonged to the highest rank. In Germany she would have been a +princess--probably of a mediatized house, and, he confessed it amiably +enough, she looked the part more unapologetically than several he could +mention. + +So did Gisela Döring. He sighed that a woman who would have graced the +court of his Kaiser should have been tossed by a bungling fate into the +rank and file of the good German people; so laudably content to play +their insignificant part in their country's magnificent destiny. + +Gisela never told him the truth. Sometimes, irritated by his subtle +arrogance, she was tempted. Also consuming love tempted her. But of what +use? She was without fortune and he must add to his. He had a limited +income and expensive tastes, and when a young nobleman in the diplomatic +service marries he must take a house and live with a certain amount of +state. Moreover, he intended to be an ambassador before he was +forty-five, and he was justified in his ambitions, for he was +exceptionally clever and his rise had been rapid. But now he was +care-free and young, and love was his right. + +Gisela understood him perfectly. Not only was she of his class, but her +brother Karl had madly loved a girl in a chocolate shop and wept +tempestuously beside her bed while their father slept. He married +philosophically when his hour struck. + +But if she understood she was also romantic. She forgot her vow to live +alone, her mother's advice, and dreamed of a moment of overwhelming +madness which would sweep them both up to the little church on the +mountain. There, like a true heroine of old-time fiction, she would +announce her own name at the altar. This moment, however, did not +arrive. Nettelbeck, too, was romantic, but his head was as level within +as it was flat behind. He never went near the church on the mountain. + +There was no surface lovemaking during the first two summers, or in the +winter following the second summer, when he came over from Washington on +her Wednesday as often as he could, and they had luncheon and tea in +byway restaurants. They were both fascinated by the game, and they had +an infinite number of things to talk about, for their minds were really +congenial. They disputed with fire and fury. It was a part of Gisela's +dormant genius to grasp instinctively the psychology of foreign nations, +and before she had been in the United States a year she understood it +far better than Nettelbeck ever would. Even if he had despised it less +he would have lavished all the resources of his wit upon a country so +different from Germany in every phase that it must necessarily be +negligible save as a future colony of Prussia, if only for the pleasure +of seeing Gisela's long eyes open and flash, the dusky red in her +cheeks burn crimson and her bosom heave at his "junker narrow-mindedness +and stupid arrogance"--; "a stupidity that will be the ruin of Germany +in the end!" she exclaimed one day in a sudden moment of illumination, +for, as a matter of fact, she had given little thought to politics. +However, she recalled her typical papa. + +Of course they talked their German souls inside out. At least Nettelbeck +did. As time went on, Gisela used her frankness as a mask while her soul +dodged in panic. She believed him to be lightly and agreeably in love +with her (she had witnessed many summer flirtations at Bar Harbor, and +been laid siege to by more than one young American, idle, enterprising, +charming and quite irresponsible), and she was appalled at her own +capacity for love and suffering, the complete rout of her theories, +based on harsh experience, before the ancient instinct to unleash her +womanhood at any cost. + +She plunged into a serious study of the country, which she had +heretofore absorbed with her avid mental conduits, and read innumerable +newspapers, magazines, elucidating literature of all sorts, besides the +best histories of the nation and the illuminating biographies of its +distinguished men in politics and the arts. She was deeply responsive to +the freedom of the individual in this great whirling heterogeneous land, +and as her duties at any time were the reverse of onerous, it was +imperative to keep her consciousness as detached from her inner life as +possible. + +But at the back of her mind was always the haunting terror that he never +would come again, that he was really more attracted to Ann Howland than +he knew; and of all American women whom Gisela had met she admired Miss +Howland preëminently. She was not only beautiful in the grand manner but +she possessed intellect as distinguished from the surface "brightness" +of so many of her countrywomen, and had made a deep impression upon even +the superlatively educated German girl when they had chanced to meet and +talk at children's picnics at Bar Harbor, or when the triumphant young +beauty ran up to the nursery in town to bring a message to the little +Bolands from her sisters. It was true that hers was not the seductive +type of beauty, that her large gray eyes were cool and appraising, her +fine skin quite without color, and her soft abundant hair little darker +than Franz's own, but she could be feminine and charming when she chose +and she would be a wife in whom even a German would experience a secret +and swelling pride. + +What chance had she--she--Gisela Döring? + +There were days and weeks, during that second winter, when she was +tormented by a sort of sub-hysteria, a stifled voice in the region of +her heart threatening to force its way out and shriek. There were times +when she gave way to despair, and thought of her vigorous youth with a +shudder, and at other times she was so angry and humiliated at her +surrender and secret chaos, that she was on the point more than once of +breaking definitely with Franz Nettelbeck, or even of going back to +Germany. If he missed a Wednesday, or failed to write, she slipped out +of the house at night and paced Central Park for hours, fighting her +rebellious nerves with her pride and the strong independent will that +she had believed would enable her to leap lightly over every pitfall in +life. + +Then he would come and her spirits would soar, her whole awakened being +possessed by a sort of reckless fury, a desperate resolve to enjoy the +meager portion of happiness allotted to her by an always grudging fate; +and for a few days after he left she would give herself up to blissful +and extravagant dreams. + +But Nettelbeck was by no means lightly in love with Gisela Döring. +During the third summer, partly owing to the increased independence of +her growing charges, partly to his own expert management, they met in +long solitudes seldom disturbed. Gisela dismissed fears, ignored the +inevitable end, plunged headlong and was wildly happy. Nettelbeck was an +ardent and absorbed lover, for he knew that his time was short, and he +was determined to have one perfect memory in his secret life that the +woman who bore his name should never violate. Miss Howland had meted him +the portion his dilatoriness invited and married a fine upstanding young +American whose career was in Washington; and his family had peremptorily +commanded him to return in the spring (with the Kaiser's permission, a +mandate in itself) and marry the patient Baronin Irma Hammorwörth. + +And so for a summer and a winter they were happy. + +Gisela averted her mind tonight from the parting with something of the +almost forgotten panic. She had never dared to dwell upon it, nor on the +month that followed. Her powerful will had rebelled finally and she had +fought down and out of her consciously functioning mind the details of +her tragic passion, and even reveled arrogantly in the sensation of +deliverance from the slavery of love. Simultaneously she was swept off +to see the great natural wonders of the American continent and they had +intoned the requiem. + +The following autumn she returned to Germany and paid her mother another +brief visit. + +There all was well. Frau von Niebuhr, who had not developed a white hair +and whose Viennese maid was a magician in the matter of gowns and +complexion, was enjoying life and had a daring salon; that is to say +gatherings in which all the men did not wear uniforms nor prefix the +sacred von. She drew the line at bad manners, but otherwise all (and of +any nation) who had distinguished themselves, or possessed the priceless +gift of personality, were welcome there; and although she lived to be +amused and make up what she had lost during thirty unspeakable years, +she progressed inevitably in keenness of insight and breadth of vision. +She had become a student of politics and stared into the future with +deepening apprehension, but of this she gave not a hint to Gisela. +Mariette was her closest friend and only confidante. Mariette was now +living in Berlin, and amusing herself in ways Frau von Niebuhr +disapproved, mainly because she thought it wiser to banish men from +one's inner life altogether; but, true to her code, she forebore +remonstrance. + +Lili, having discovered that her voice was not for grand opera, had +philosophically descended to the concert stage and was excitedly happy +in her success and independence. Elsa was a Red Cross nurse. + +Gisela met Franz von Nettelbeck at a court function and had her little +revenge. He was furious, and vowed, quite audibly, that he would never +forgive her. But Gisela was merely disturbed lest the Obersthofmeisterin +who stood but three feet away overhear his caustic remarks. +Distinguished professors (without their wives) might go to court as a +reward for shedding added luster upon the German Empire, but lesser +mortals who had received payment for services rendered might not. Her +independent mother, still a favorite, for she was exceeding discreet, +would have incurred the imperial displeasure if the truth were known. +However, the incident passed unnoticed, and Franz, whatever his +shortcomings, was a gentleman and kept her secret. + +The scene at the palace had been brilliant and sustaining and she had +received much personal homage, for she was looking very beautiful and +radiant, and the little adventure had been incense to her pride +(moreover the young Freifrau von Nettelbeck, whom she saw on his arm +later, was an insignificant little hausfrau); but when she was in her +room after midnight she realized grimly that if she had not done her +work so well during that terrible month in New York and buried her sex +heart, she should once more be beating the floor or the wall with her +impotent hands. But the knowledge of her immunity made her a little sad. + + +3 + +The next episode to her grim humor was wholly amusing, although it +played its part in her developing sense of revolt against the attitude +of the German male to the sex of the mother that bore him. She returned +to Munich after a month in Berlin, for by this time she had made up her +mind to write, and the city by the Isar was the most beautiful in the +world to write and to dream in. Moreover, she wished to attend the +lectures on drama at the University. + +The four years in America, during which she had, in spite of her +sentimental preoccupation, studied diligently every phase that passed +before her keen critical vision, analyzed every person she had met, and +passed many of her evenings in the study of the best contemporary +fiction, had, associated with the spur of her own upheaval, developed +her imagination, and her head was full of unwritten stories. They were +highly realistic, of course, as became a modern German, but unmistakably +dramatic. + +She attended the lectures, practising on short stories meanwhile, +devoting most of her effort to becoming a stylist, that she might attain +immediate recognition whatever her matter. She lived in a small but +comfortable hotel, for not only had she saved the greater part of her +salary, but the Bolands, however oblivious socially of a paid attendant, +had a magnificent way with them at Christmas, and had given her an even +larger cheque at parting. + +In Munich she was once more Gisela Döring, once more led the student +life. There are liberties even for people of rank in Munich, and many +nobles, exasperated with the rigid class lines of Berlin and other +German capitals, move there, and, while careful to attend court +functions, make intelligent friends in all sets. They are, or were, the +happiest people in Germany. Here Gisela could sit alone in a café by the +hour reading the illustrated papers and smoking with her coffee, +attracting no attention whatever. She joined parties of students during +the summer and tramped the Bavarian Alps, and she danced all night at +student balls. Nevertheless, she managed to hold herself somewhat aloof +and it was understood that she did not live the "loose" life of the +"artist class." She was much admired for her stately beauty and her +style, and if the young people of that free and easy community were at +times inclined to resent a manifest difference, they succumbed to her +magnetism, and respected her obvious devotion to a high literary ideal. + +It was during her second winter that she met Georg Zottmyer. + +He was a tall, narrow, angular young man with a small clipped head and +preëminent ears. His narrow face was set with narrower features, and his +eyes were very bright, and the windows of his conceit. Although his +income was minute he boasted a father of note in the University of +Leipzig, and his mother had traveled and written a scathing satire on +the United States of America. He had not a grain of originality or +imagination, but he too was taking the course in dramatic art, and +reading for that degree without whose magic letters he could not hope to +take his place in the world of art to which his parts entitled him. He +met Gisela in the lecture room and immediately became her cavalier. + +At first Gisela endeavored to get rid of him by an icy front, but this +he took for feminine coquetry and his own front was serene. As he had +made up his mind to be a dramatist merely because the career appealed +acutely to his itching ambition, so did he in due course make up his +mind to marry this handsome brunette (what hair he had was drab) who +bore all the earmarks of secret wealth in spite of the fact that she +lived in a small hotel. As time went on, Gisela resigned herself and put +his little ego under her microscope. + +His wooing was methodical. He not only walked home with her after every +lecture, but he gave her a series of teas in his high little flat, and +he really did know "people." His parental introductions had given him +the entrée to the professional circles, and he cultivated society both +semi-fashionable and ultra-literary. He knew no one who had not +"arrived." + +He chose an unpropitious day for a tentative declaration of his +intentions. It was very cold. White mufflers protected his outstanding +ears, a gray woolen scarf was wound about his long neck and almost +covered his tight little mouth. He wore mitts and wristlets, and his +nose was crimson. Gisela, in a new set of furs, sent her for Christmas +by Mariette, and a smart gown of wine-colored cloth, looked radiant. Her +dark eyes shone with joy in the cold electric air of that high plateau, +her cheeks were red, her warm full-lipped mouth was parted over her even +white teeth. They walked from the University down the great +Leopoldstrasse, one of the finest streets in Europe, toward the Café +Luitpold, where he had invited her to drink coffee. + +There was little conversation during that brisk walk. He was frozen, and +she was not thinking of him at all. At the café he selected an alcove as +far from the noisy groups of students as possible. All the "trees" were +hung with colored caps and the atmosphere was dense with smoke. + +Zottmyer, who, after all, was young, soon thawed out in the warm room, +and when he had cheered his interior with a large cup of hot coffee and +lit a cigarette, he brought up the subject of matrimony. He had no +intention of proposing in these surroundings, but it was time to pave +the way--or set the pattern of the tiling; he cultivated the divergent +phrase. + +"It is time I married," he announced, and, not to appear too serious, he +smiled into her glowing face. She looked happy enough to encourage a man +far less fatuous than Georg Zottmyer. + +"Yes?" Gisela's eyes had wandered to the nearest group of students and +she was wondering if they might not have made handsome men had they +permitted their duel wounds to heal instead of excoriating them with +salt and pepper. "Most German men marry young." + +"I am not conventional. I should not dream of marrying unless I found a +young lady who possessed everything that I demand in a wife." + +"Ah? What then do you demand?" + +"Everything." + +"That is a large order. What do you mean, exactly." + +"I mean, of course, that I should not marry a woman who did not have in +the first place beauty, that I might be proud of her in public, besides +refreshing myself with the sight of her in private. She must have beauty +of figure as well as of face, as I detest our dumpy type of German +women. And she must have style, and dress well. It would mortify me to +death, particularly after I had made my position, to go about with one +of those wives that seem to fall to the lot of most intellectuals. +Soft-waisted, bulging women," he added spitefully, "how I hate them!" + +"Your taste is admirable. Our women are much too careless, particularly +after marriage. And the second requirement?" + +"Oh, a small fortune, at least. I could not afford to marry, otherwise, +and although I shall no doubt make a large income in due course, I must +begin well. I prefer a house, as it gives an artist a more serious and +dignified position." + +"Indeed, yes." + +"And of course my wife must be of good birth, as good as my own. I +should never dream of marrying even a Venus in this Bohemian class. That +sort of thing is all very well--" He waved his hand, and arched an +eyebrow, and Gisela inferred she was to take quite a number of amours +for granted; much, for instance, as she would those of a handsome +officer who sat alone at the next table and who looked infinitely bored +with love and longing for war. + +"She must--it goes without saying--be intellectual, clever, bright, +amusing. I must have companionship. Not an artist, however. I should +never permit my wife to write or model or sing for the public. And she +must have the social talent, magnetism, the power to charm whom she +will. That would help me infinitely in my career." + +"Is that all?" + +"Oh, she must be affectionate and a good housekeeper, but most German +women have the domestic virtues. Naturally, she must have perfect +health. I detest women with nerves and moods." + +Gisela had been leaning forward, her elbows on the table, her little +square chin on her hands, and if there were wondering contempt in her +eyes he saw only their brilliance and fixed regard. + +"And what, may I ask, do you purpose to give her in return for all +that?" + +He flicked the ashes from his cigarette, and the gesture was quite +without affectation. "What has that to do with it?" + +"Well--only--you think, then, that in return for all--but all!--that +a woman has to offer a man--any man--you should not feel yourself bound +to give her an equal measure in return?" + +"I have not given the matter a thought. Naturally the woman I select +will see all in me that I see in her. Shall we get out of this? I feel +I have taken a cold. Fresh air is a drastic but efficient corrective." + +He escorted her to her hotel, although he gazed longingly down his own +street as they passed it. His head felt overburdened and it was awkward +manipulating a handkerchief with mitts. + +Within half a block of the hotel Gisela, who had been walking +rapidly, bending a little against the wind, paused and drew herself +up to her stately height. Cold as he was he thrilled slightly as he +reflected that she possessed real distinction; almost she might be +hochwohlgeboren--yes, quite. He tingled less agreeably as he recalled +a snub administered by a great lady with whom he had presumed to attempt +conversation at the house of a liberal little Russian baroness. This +woman would snub any hochwohlgeboren who presumed to snub him in the +future. + +"Herr Zottmyer," said Gisela, and her tones were as crisp as the air +blowing down from the Alps, "you must permit me to give you a note of +introduction to my mother when you go to Berlin next week. I hope you +will find time to call on her." + +Zottmyer's eyes snapped at this covert encouragement, although it was +rather forward in a German girl practically to ask a man his intentions. +"I shall be delighted to call on Frau Dörmer--" + +"Countess Niebuhr. I have practised a little innocent deception here in +Munich--for obvious reasons. Also, during my four years' sojourn in +America--" + +"In America?" His brain, a fine, concentrated, Teutonic organ, strove to +grapple with two ideas at once. "You have been in America!" + +"Rather. I feel half an American. You have no idea how it changed my +point of view--oh, but in many ways! The men, you see, are so different +from ours. The American woman has a magnificent position--" + +"Ridiculous, uppish, spoilt creatures--" + +"But how delicious to be spoiled. You will call on my mother?" + +Zottmyer almost choked. "I hate the Prussians--above all, that arrogant +junker class. And the name of Niebuhr!--why, it stands for all that +junkerdom means in its most virulent form!" + +"I am afraid it does. My brothers are junkers unalloyed. But I can +assure you that my mother is as democratic as one may be in Berlin. She +has quite a number of friends among the intellectuals--" + +"Would she consent to your marriage with a--a--_mere_ intellectual?" + +"What has that to do with it! It would never occur to me to marry +out of my own class. That is always a mistake. There are, you +see,--well--subtle differences that forbid harmony--" + +"You are a snob. I might have seen it before this. You give yourself +airs--" He was now so torn between fury and disappointment, +mortification and Teutonic resentment at being obliged to diverge +abruptly from precisely thought-out tactics, that he forgot his +physical discomfort--and incidentally to use his handkerchief. + +"A snob? When I am true to the best traditions of my race? Did you not +tell me that you would not marry a Venus if she happened to be born +outside of your own class? But it is rather cold here--not? Shall I send +the note of introduction to your flat?" + +"I would not put my foot in any supercilious junker palace, and I never +wish to see you again!" He whirled about, burying his nose in his +handkerchief, and tore down the street. + +Gisela laughed, but with little amusement. Her sympathy for German women +took a long stride. But she forgot him a few moments later at her desk. + + +4 + +During the next five years she wrote many short stories and essays, and +four plays. Her work appealed subtly but clearly to the growing +rebellion of the German women; she was too much of an artist to write +frank propaganda and the critics were long waking up to the object of +her work. Her first three plays were failures, but the fourth ran for +two years and a half and was played all over Germany and Austria. It was +a brilliant, dramatic, half-humorous, half-tragic exposition of the +German woman's enforced subservience to man as compared with the +glorious liberty of the somewhat exaggerated American co-heroine. + +There was talk of suppressing this play at first, but Countess Niebuhr +brought all her influence to bear, and as the widow of one esteemed +junker and the daughter of another far more important, her argument that +her daughter merely labored to make the German woman a still more +powerful factor in upholding the might of German Kultur--that being the +secret hidden in what was after all but a fantasy--caused the powers to +shrug their shoulders and dismiss the matter. + +After all, was not the play by a woman, and were not the German women +the best trained in the world? Besides, the play was amusing, and humor +destroyed the serious purpose always. Humor made the Americans the +contemptible race they were--fortunately for the future plans of +Germany. They took nothing seriously. In time they would! + +Those who have not lived in Germany have not even an inkling of the deep +slow secret revolt against the insolent and inconsiderate attitude of +the German male that had been growing among its women for some fifteen +years before the outbreak of the war. They ventured no public meetings +or militant acts of any sort, for men were far too strong for them yet, +and the German woman is by nature retiring, however individualistic her +ego. Their only outward manifestation was the hideous _reformkleid_, a +typical manifestation in even the women of a nation whose art is as ugly +as it often is interesting. But thousands of them were muttering to one +another and reading with envy the literature of woman's revolt in other +lands. When one of their own sex rose, a woman of the highest +intelligence and an impeccable style, who, although she signed herself +Gisela Döring, was said to be a rebellious member of the Prussian +aristocracy, their own vague protests slowly crystallized and they grew +to look upon her as a leader, who one day would show them the path out +of bondage. Her correspondence grew to enormous proportions, but she +answered every letter, fully determined by this time to accomplish +something more than a name in letters while incidentally amusing herself +with stirring up the women and annoying the men. But although clubs were +formed to discuss her work and letters, they were still unsuspected of +the arrogant men who controlled the destinies of Germany. And as the +German woman is the reverse of frank, as little indication of the slow +revolution was found in the home. The solution was as far off as ever, +but German women are patient and they bided their time, exulting in +their secret. It gave them a sense of revenge and power. + +Then came the war. + + + + +II + + +1 + +Gisela, like all the good women of Germany, flamed with patriotism and +righteous indignation. Russia and France with no provocation, with no +motive but insensate ambition on the one hand and a festering desire for +revenge on the other, had crossed the sacred frontiers of the great +Teutonic Empire. A French aviator had dropped bombs on Neuremburg, one +of the artistic treasures of Europe, although, mercifully, his bombs had +inadvertently been filled with air. Then followed the even more +indefensible act of Great Britain, whose only motive in joining forces +with paper allies was to aim a blow at the glorious commercial prestige +of Germany, the object of her fear and hate these many years. + +Gisela immediately entered the hospital opened by her mother in Berlin +and took a rapid first-aid course, concentrating upon the work all the +fine powers of her mind and strong young body. Literature, fame, +propaganda among women, all were dismissed. Although victory was certain +in a few months there would be many thousands of wounded and she was +filled with a passionate desire to serve those heroes and martyrs of +foreign hatred. She forgot her personal experience of the German male, +forgot herself. Her beloved Fatherland was attacked, and the German male +in his heroic resistance, his triumphal progress, was become a god. +_Dienen! Dienen!_ + +She had no time to ponder upon the violation of Belgium and knew nothing +of the curious escape of medieval psychology from the formal harness of +modern times. She was engaged in hard menial labor during those first +weeks and it was sufficient to know that Germany had been violated. It +is true that her warrior parent had sometimes boasted of the day when +Germany should rule the world, and that he had referred to the Great +European War as a foregone conclusion, as so many had been doing these +past ten or fifteen years; but he had been careful to say nothing about +throwing the torch into the powder. Gisela, like the vast majority of +civilians in the Central Empires, had grown too accustomed to the +evidences of a great standing army to give them more than a passing +thought. Were they not, then, situate in the very middle of Europe? +Surrounded by envious and powerful enemies? What more natural than that +they should be ever on the alert? + +That Germany herself would strike at the peace of Europe, a peace which +had brought her an unexampled prosperity and eminence, never had crossed +Gisela's mind. Nevertheless, knowing the German male as she did, she was +quite sure that the officers reveled in the exchange of peace for war as +much as the men in the ranks detested it. She could see Franz von +Nettelbeck barking out orders for the irresistible advance, his keen +blue eyes flashing with triumph, his Prussian upper lip curling with +impatient scorn, and Georg Zottmyer grinding his teeth in the trenches +and suffering acutely from dyspepsia. + +Until the summer of 1916 she was very busy, either in her mother's +hospital or in one in Munich run by a group of Socialist friends under +Marie von Erkel. She glanced at the English papers sometimes, but +assumed that their versions of the war's origin, and of Germanic +methods, were for home effect, and smiled at their occasional claims of +victory. + +Poor things! By this time she had seen so much mortal suffering, soothed +so many dying men who raved of unimaginable horrors, written so many +pathetic last letters to mothers and wives and sweethearts, that the +first mood of fury and hatred had long since passed. Her mind, normally +clear, acute, just, regained its poise. Moreover, those five years +preceding the war, during which she had learned to use her gifts for the +benefit of her sex instead of for her own amusement and fame, played +their insidious part. + +When she was ordered to take charge of a hospital in Lille in June of +the second year of the war she had forced herself to accept the present +state of Europe with a certain philosophy. After all, war was its +normal, its historic, condition. Following a somewhat unusual interval +of peace, owing to the beneficent reign of the German Emperor, the war +microbes of Europe, cultured in the Balkan swamps, had, through some +miscalculation, after a deplorable assassination, ravaged the entire +continent instead of being localized as heretofore. Men were men and +kings were kings and war was war. Gisela sometimes wondered if the +hideous upheaval were anybody's fault, if the desire to fight had not +been more or less simultaneous in spite of the fact that Germany was +caught napping and permitted Russia and France to sneak over her +frontiers. + +The sinking of the _Lusitania_ and other passenger ships, or rather the +results, had filled her with a horror that might have developed into +protest had she not been assured that the U-boats had purposely waited +for a calm sea, not too far from shore, that the passengers might have +every opportunity for escape; and that they had been the victims of +contraband cargoes of ammunition exploding, badly adjusted life-boats, +panic among themselves, and utter inefficiency and selfishness of the +officers and crew. + +These excuses sounded plausible to a young woman still too occupied to +ponder; but during her journey through Belgium and the invaded districts +of France her mind grew more and more uneasy. Surely an army so +uniformly victorious, an army which only forebore to press forward in a +battle--like that of the Marne, for instance--for sound strategic +reasons, should have found it unnecessary to destroy whole towns with +their priceless monuments of art, level countless insignificant +villages, and reduce their inhabitants to cowering misery. She had been +a student of history and had inferred that modern warfare was as humane +as war may be; witness the fine magnanimity of the Japanese, an Oriental +race. This passing country, which she had known well in its hey-day, +looked extraordinarily like the historical pictures of the invasions of +Goths and Vandals and Huns. + +"Huns!" She had resented the constant use of the word in the English +papers, dismissing it finally as childish spite. Had its usurpation of +the classic and noble word "Germans" been one of those quick, merciless, +simultaneous designations that fly through every army in wartime and are +as apt as they are inevitable? + +She felt a sudden desire to "talk it out" with Franz von Nettelbeck, +whose mind, despite his prejudices, was the most stimulating she had +ever known. But although she heard of him often, for he had covered +himself with glory, she had seen him only once--from a window in Berlin +as he promenaded Unter den Linden; a superb and haughty figure, his +swelling chest covered with medals. + +In Lille she met Elsa, who had been in charge of a hospital for a year, +Mimi Brandt and Heloise von Erkel, with whom she had been intimately +associated in Munich. She found all three horrified and appalled at the +atrocious cruelties, the persistent and needless severities, the +arrogant and swaggering attitude, accompanied by countless petty +tyrannies, unworthy of an army in possession; the wholly unmodern and +dishonorable treatment of a prostrate and wretched people. Above all, +the deportations of the young girls of Lille, torn from their families, +driven in herds through the streets, their faces stamped with despair or +abject terror, condemned to God knew what horrible fate, had shaken +these three humane and thinking women to the core. + +All three, while serving far behind the lines, had thought their German +army an army of demi-gods, and all three were bitterly ashamed of their +countrymen and disposed to question a sovereign, and a military caste, +that not only encouraged the saddist lust of their fighters and seemed +unable to spare sufficient food for the civilians, in spite of the great +leakage through neutral countries, but which persisted in calling +themselves victorious when they were either perpetually on the defensive +or in the act of being beaten, despite their irresistible rush. The +Somme Drive had not begun but there was not a nurse in Lille that did +not know the truth about Verdun. + +"And believe me, as the Americans say," remarked Mimi Brandt, "when the +German people know the truth, particularly the German women, there will +be some circus." + +Mimi had been far more of an active rebel than the Niebuhr girls, +possibly because her life-stream was closer to the source, patently to +herself because she had a magnificent voice which needed only technique +to assure her a welcome in any of the great opera houses of Germany. +Adroitly persuaded by her parents to marry when she was not quite +seventeen, she had conceived an abhorrence of the rodent-visaged young +burgess who had been her lot; not only was he personally distasteful to +the ardent romantic girl, but he would not permit her to cultivate her +voice, much less study for the stage. Her revenge had been a cruel +disdain, to which he had responded by lying under the bed all night and +howling. Twice she had run away, visiting prosperous and sympathetic +relatives in Milwaukee, and both times returned at the passionate +solicitations of her parents; not only outraged in their dearest +conventions but anxious to be rid of the small rodent born of the union. + +Her last return had been but a month before the outbreak of the war, and +Hans Brandt, to his growling disgust, was promptly swept off by the +searching German broom. He was as much in love with his wife as a man so +meagerly equipped in all but national conceit may be, for Mimi was a +handsome girl with a buxom but graceful figure, and a laughing face +whose golden brown eyes sparkled with the pure fun of living when they +were not somber with disgust and rebellion. + +Gisela had always looked upon Heloise von Erkel as the most tragic +figure in Munich. In appearance she had distinction rather than beauty, +for although her features were delicate her complexion and hair were +faded and there were faint lines on her charming face. She was a blonde +of the French type, and her light figure, although indifferently carried +and a stranger to gowns, possessed an indefinable elegance. + +Under heaven knew what impulse of romantic madness Frau von Erkel, then +Heloise d'Oremont, had married a young German officer, and although both +fancied themselves deeply in love the breach began shortly after they +had settled to the routine life of the frontier town where he was +stationed, and had widened rapidly in spite of the fact that she +produced six children as automatically as the most devoted (and +detested) hausfrau of her acquaintance. Shortly after the birth of +Marie, the breach became a chasm, for the chocolate firm, inherited +through her bourgeoise mother and the source of Frau von Erkel's wealth, +failed, and the haughty Bavarian aristocrat was forced to keep up his +position in the army and maintain his growing family on an income, +accruing from chocolate investments, that should have been reserved for +pleasure alone. + +However, there was help for it. He renounced cards and such other costly +diversions as was possible without lowering his standard as a gentleman +and an officer, and of course the real privation was borne by the women +of the family. He even ceased to rage at his wife, for she merely sat in +her favorite chair, her hands folded, and looked at him with her subtle +ironic smile. + +When Gisela met them, Frau von Erkel and her three daughters (all in +their late twenties and unmarried) were living in a dingy old house in a +respectable quarter, with one beer-sodden maid to relieve them of the +heavy work and bake the cake for the Sunday "Coffee." + +Colonel von Erkel and his three sons lived in bachelor quarters and +called upon the women of the family every Sunday afternoon at precisely +four o'clock. In full uniform, and imposing specimens of the German +officer, they sat stiffly upon the uncomfortable chairs for about thirty +minutes and then simultaneously escaped and were seen no more for a +week. + +At first Gisela was intensely amused at the vagaries of the Erkels, but +when she saw the four narrow beds in a row in one small monastic room +(the first floor was let to lodgers to pay the rent), and still more of +their almost hopeless contriving to hold their position in Munich +society, to say nothing of a bare sufficiency of food and raiment, her +sympathies, always more deep than quick, were permanently aroused. But +they were confined to the girls. Charming and graceful as the old lady +was, it was evident that if above the arrogance of her German husband +she was afflicted with the intense conservatism of her own race. It had +taken Aimée, the oldest of the girls, three years of persistent begging, +nagging, arguments, tears, and threats of abrupt demise, to obtain +permission to move her piano--a present from relatives who occasionally +came to the rescue--a bookcase and three chairs up to the garret and +have a room she could call her own. Frau von Erkel was scandalized that +a French girl (she systematically ignored the German infusion in her +daughters) should wish for hours of solitude. But Aimée had the national +genius for pegging away, and her mother, who came in time to feel that +one nerve was being gnawed with maddening reiteration, finally +succumbed; relieving her mind daily. + +After that it was comparatively easy, although there were several +notable engagements, for Heloise to become secretary to Gisela Döring. +She never dared admit that she received a generous monthly cheque for +her services, but Gisela was a favorite with the old lady (always +sitting placidly in her chair, with her hands in her lap, a faint ironic +smile on her still pretty face), and as her literary style was extolled +by her exacting daughters (Frau von Erkel never read even a German +newspaper, but subscribed for _Le Figaro_), and as she knew Gisela to +be a member of her own class, the new connection was harmonious; and +Heloise at last experienced something like real liberty in the tiny +garden house of the parterre apartment of Gisela Döring on the +Königinstrasse. + + +2 + +There is little time in the war zones to meet and talk, but even nurses +must rest and take the air, and during the month before the frightful +rush of wounded after the British offensive on the Somme began, the four +girls, all in different hospitals, maneuvered to obtain leave of absence +at the same hour, early in the evening. They promenaded the desolate +streets arm in arm, their heads together, relieving their burdened +souls. There was no idea of treason in any one of those rebellious +minds, for they still believed their Fatherland to have been on the +defensive from the first, the victim of a conspiracy, and they knew from +the expression of the officers' faces, to say nothing of their tempers, +that the danger was by no means past. + +But being women, and women who had thought for themselves for many +years, they must talk it out, and when too overcharged to trust their +comments to the narrow streets, they retired to a hillock outside the +city which no spy could approach unseen. However, nothing was farther +from the minds of the German men of war than that the women cogs of +their supremely organized land should presume to criticize methods which +had, to their best belief, terrorized the world. + +"But we are not the only ones," said Heloise grimly, as they sat on +their refuge one dusky evening. "All but the sheep have a word to say +now and then. Of course there always will be women who will grovel at +the feet of men merely because they are men; but look out for the others +when this accursed war is over. God! How I hate men! To think that once +I dreamed and hoped like the silly romantic girl I was that some day +some man would marry me in spite of my poverty. Now I would not marry +one of the Kaiser's sons. Sick or well, German, English, French, I +loathe them all alike. Obscene beasts every one of them; but I hate the +Germans most, for they are the most disgusting invalids. And I am a +German girl, too. France has never had any call for me. It is Marie who +would be all French if she could. Poor little Marie, with her drab face +and hair, her poverty, her dynamic body, mad to marry, and climbing out +of the window when mother is asleep, to go to Socialists' meetings and +scream off her pent-up passions. What a hideous world!" + +She sprang to her feet and flung her arms above her head and glared at +the unresponsive stars. + +"O God!" she prayed. "Deliver us! Deliver us from war and deliver us +from men! Deliver us from Kings and deliver us from criminal jealousies +and ambitions and greeds that the innocent millions expiate in blood and +tears! Deliver us from cowards--" She whirled suddenly upon Gisela. +"You--you--why don't you lead us out? You have more mind than any woman +in Germany. You have more influence. I have always placed my hopes on +you. But now--now--you are doing nothing but nurse disgusting men like +the rest of us." + +"Hush! You are talking too loud. And you are carrying your revolt too +far. These poor deluded men you nurse are only to be pitied, and if they +merely revolt you, you have no vocation--" + +"When did I ever pretend to have a vocation for nursing? Like all the +rest I felt I must do my part, and heaven knows it is better than +sitting at home making bandages and watching my mother slowly starve. If +I had rolled one more bandage I should have gone mad." + +"Well, dear Heloise, as far as I am concerned, the time for women to +battle for their rights is when their country is safe, not in mortal +danger. Be sure that when this war is over--" + +She fell silent. A little flame had leapt in her brain. She +extinguished it hurriedly, but it burnt the fingers of her will, always +enthroned and always on guard. As she stared at Heloise, lovely in her +Red Cross uniform, a white torch against the dark horizon, her tragic +eyes once more searching the heavens, it struggled for life again and +again. She loved Heloise and she felt a sudden inclusive love of her +sex, an overpowering desire to deliver it from the sadness and horror of +war; a profounder emotion than anything it had inspired in those far off +days of peace. After all, however serious she had believed herself to +be, it had been a game, a career; for in times of peace one must invent +the vital interests of life, and one's success or failure depends upon +one's powers of creating and sustaining the delusion. Only two things in +life were real, love and war. + +Gisela, like many women of dominating intellect and personality, had +exhausted her power of sex-love with her first unfortunate but prolonged +passion, and although she had no hatred of men, and indeed liked many +and craved their society, she gave her real sympathies and affections +to her women friends. She had no intimates, and this, perhaps, was one +secret of her power. A certain aloofness is essential in intellectual +leadership. But if she had no talent for intimacy she had much for +friendship, and the friends of her inner circle were all women, partly +because there was no waste of time fending off love-making, partly +because there were more interests in common, consequently a deeper bond. +To-night she was filled with an irresistible pity and a longing to set +them free. But her hands were tied. She dared not even go to Great +Headquarters and protest against the terrible fate of the young girls of +Lille. She would have accomplished no good and become an instant object +of suspicion. + + +3 + +For many months she did her duty doggedly, her indignation routed by the +disquieting fact that the Germans were retreating from the Somme; inch +by inch, but still retreating. Once she might have been satisfied with +grandiose phrases and scornful assurances. But the long attack on Verdun +had ended in dark humiliation; a failure that the most resourceful +vocabulary was unable to translate into a German advantage, optically +inverted. + +More than half a million young Germans had fallen before Verdun, and for +what? That France, disdained these many years by the mighty Teutonic +Empire, and numerically inferior, might demonstrate to the world that +she was the greater military nation of the two. + +What was it all for? What of the ever-receding fields of peace, grown +green and fat again? What of the racing past dotted with the broken +headstones of promises of victory by this means or that? + +But to attempt to answer historical enigmas while working day and night +over the mangled victims of the Somme was beyond her powers. It was not +until she broke down, and, with Heloise von Erkel and Mimi Brandt, +obtained leave to spend a month at St. Moritz, that she found her +answer. + + + + +III + + +1 + +The three girls went to a little hotel that had been a favorite resort +of Gisela's in times of peace when she had felt an imperative need of +the high solitudes and eternal snows. They planned a week's rest, and a +fortnight or more of mountain climbing, dismissing the world war from +their minds as far as possible. But their gentle plans were upset on the +eighth day after their arrival, when at the end of an hour's hard +skating, clad in the bright sweaters and caps of old, Gisela suddenly +stopped short and returned the hard stare of two young women who had +drawn apart and were evidently discussing her. That they were Americans +Gisela recognized at a glance, but for a moment she saw them through a +curtain of fire and smoke and shrieking shells and dying groans, so +deep in the background of her memory were the people and events of her +merely personal life. One of the young women was very tall, with a slim +dashing figure, fine fair hair, keen cold gray eyes, a haughty nostril +and upper lip: a beauty of the patrician American type. The other was +shorter but also excessively thin, with dark dancing eyes, a warm color, +a coquettish nose and pouting lips--which somehow invoked the complacent +visage of the late Herr Graf Niebuhr--and a brilliant smile. In a moment +Gisela recognized Ann Howland Prentiss and Kate Terriss, now Mrs. Tolby. +This American friend of her childhood had married an American whose +business kept him in London, and her path and Gisela's had never crossed +since her finishing days in Berlin; although she had corresponded with +Lili for two or three years and knew the family history in vague +outline. + +Gisela skated directly over to them and held out her hand to Kate. "It +is a long while," she said, "but perhaps you remember me--" + +"Do I? Ann will not believe me--that you are Gisela von Niebuhr not +Döring. What a lark that was to run off to America and fool everybody! I +wish I had come across you. It would have been quite dramatic to tear +off the mask of the governess and reveal the junker. I think it was too +stupid of you, Ann, that you didn't guess." + +"I noticed many inconsistencies," said Mrs. Prentiss dryly. She added, +holding out her hand with a charming smile: "But later, I was so proud +to have known Gisela Döring, that personal curiosity seemed impertinent. +How we have missed your writings these last dreadful years!" + +Then all three began to talk at once and Gisela gathered that Mrs. Tolby +had nursed behind the British lines in France since the early days of +the war, and that her old friend, Mrs. Prentiss, had joined her a few +months since. Kate asked innumerable questions about the other girls, +particularly Mariette, whom she remembered as a Germanic blonde of warm +coloring, the coldest eyes, the most subtly rigid and ruthless mouth +she had ever seen. She had found some difficulty picturing her as a Red +Cross nurse and was not surprised to hear that she was in charge of an +enormous organization for the supply of cantines. Of her executive +ability and quick determination there could be no doubt--as she told Ann +Prentiss later. + +In the excitement and exhilaration of this purely feminine +conversation--which soon included Heloise and Mimi--the two parties +forgot the gory chasm that divided them. When they dropped suddenly at a +chance word to the present that gripped even these glittering snow +fields with its red insatiable fingers, Kate, as ever, was equal to the +formidable moment and cried out, snapping her fingers at the blue ether +so tranquilly aloof from warring hosts: + +"Forget it! For to-day, at least. What are you thinking about so hard, +Ann?" + +"I'll tell you later. Let us go in and have tea and then skate again. I +noticed how well my step suited Countess Gisela's." + +Ann Howland, as the wife of an eminent politician, had long since +cultivated the art of mental suppleness and had learned to fascinate the +most diverse intelligences and egos. Gisela, who was always warmly +responsive to personal charm when not too obviously insincere, enjoyed +the hour on the ice so exclusively devoted to her by the distinguished +American and went to bed that night well content to bury the war during +this period of necessary rest, grateful for this fresh current that +swept her for the moment into one of those old backwaters of mere +femininity. Mrs. Prentiss had not related a single anecdote of the +front, nor alluded to the fact that she was a Red Cross nurse. + +But she and Kate Terriss sat up until midnight. They were both women +capable of seizing those rare opportunities for service that flit past +so many intelligent women lacking initiative, and here was one that the +most clear-thinking man would have envied. It was a piece of +unbelievable luck; Gisela Döring was not only here to their hand in a +relaxed and friendly mood, but she possessed charm combined with a +great intelligence and an iron will: she was far more the obvious leader +than they had inferred from her work, and they guessed something of the +powerful influence she must quietly have obtained over the women of +Germany. Mrs. Prentiss had by no means approved of her at an earlier +period, for she had shrewdly suspected that it was the handsome German +governess, not the high-born Irma, who thwarted her designs upon the +most attractive "foreigner" she had ever met. But even if she had +cherished a grudge, and her life had been far too happy and successful +for that, she would have been so profoundly grateful to Gisela for +saving her from the anomalous and wretched position of other modern +American women married to medieval Germans, that she felt almost as +great a desire to serve her as civilization in general. + +When the two Americans parted for the night a methodical program had +been worked out, with every date at command and every fact in damning +sequence. The result of this momentous conference was that none of the +five went to bed on the following night, but sat about a large oval +table in the common sitting-room of Mrs. Prentiss and Mrs. Tolby, and +wrangled until dawn. + + +2 + +The challenge was given by the Americans and accepted by the Germans, +whose curiosity had been carefully pricked, and all had agreed that no +matter how intensely distasteful any argument might be they would not +separate for at least eight hours, and that there should be as little +"hot stuff" (quoting Mimi Brandt) as possible. + +The avowed object of the Americans was to prove conclusively that +Germany, carrying out a deliberate program, had precipitated the war in +1914, believing Russia to be deliquescent, France riddled with +syndicalism, and Britain on the verge of civil war; consequently that +the exact moment had come for the swift execution of her scientifically +wrought plan for world dominion. + +The three German girls, deep and many as were their causes for +resentment and disgust, had clung fast to the belief in their country's +defensive attitude in the face of a gigantic conspiracy, and were not +pried apart from it without hours of argument, hot and resentful on the +one side, cool, precise, and logical on the other. But those acute +German brains responded to the high intelligence of their opponents and +to their manifest honesty. Moreover, it was indisputable that from the +beginning the Americans had been in a position to know every side and +detail of the ghastly story, while the Germans, confined within their +own narrow borders and taught that the foreign newspapers were a tissue +of "strategic lies," had been wholly dependent upon their government for +"facts." + +During this long debate Gisela sat at the head of the table, rigid and +watchful, when she was not fiercely arguing; Mimi Brandt sprawled in an +easy chair, satirical and slangy, enveloped in smoke; Heloise, very pale +and the first to be convinced, sat with her little hands clenched +against her cheek bones; Ann Prentiss, unshakenly cool quick and +precise; the more brilliant Mrs. Tolby flashing her beacon light into +recesses darkened these three years by systematic lies, but incapable of +the final stupidity. + +That long argument need not be reproduced here. All the world has made +up its mind about Germany, knows her far better than as yet she knows +herself. It was the deliberate effort of the Americans to force these +three intelligent Germans, one of them a leader of the first importance, +to realize that their country stood to the rest of the world for lying, +treachery, cruelty, brutality, degeneracy, bad sportsmanship, ostrich +psychology; above all, that she had forfeited her place among modern and +honest nations. + +When these facts had been hammered in, Mrs. Prentiss moved on to the +two cardinal facts for whose elucidation the rest had been a mere +preamble: that the Central Powers were beaten and knew it, but were +determined to go on sacrificing the manhood of the country, reducing the +population to the ultimate miseries of mind and body rather than yield; +and that the only hope of obtaining mercy from the Entente Allies in the +inevitable hour of surrender was to dethrone the Hohenzollerns and +establish a Republic. Otherwise as a nation they would cease to exist +and their last fate would be infinitely worse than their present. A +German Republic would be welcomed into the family of nations and receive +a friendly and helping hand from every one of the great adversaries, +whose prestige and wealth were still unshaken, and who all desired to +preserve the balance of power in Europe. Above all might they rely upon +the United States of America, the friendly hints of whose President had +been systematically distorted by the anxious Pan-Germans still in the +saddle; who would cheerfully witness the loss of every drop of the +people's life blood rather than their own power. + +A conquered empire that had been hypnotized to the end by the monster +criminals of history, whose word no man would ever take again, would be +a mere collection of enslaved States for generations to come; the +conquerors, having given them their choice, would show no mercy. + +Britain could not be starved. The submarine war, whatever its +devastations, and the vast inconveniences it had caused, was a failure. +And the colossal wealth of the United States in money, in food, in men! +Who knew her resources better than Gisela, who had lived in the country +for four years and found it an absorbing study, who had continued to +read American books, newspapers, and reviews up to the outbreak of the +war? Well, they were all at the disposal of democracy; and as the +Entente Allies, including the United States, were already many times +stronger than Germany, how could they fail to win in the end, no matter +how many millions of lives on all sides Germany continued to shovel +into Moloch? + +All of these three clever German girls had been more or less prepared to +hear Germany proved a liar. They knew from British wounded that London +was neither a fortified city nor reduced to ashes; also that all the +Zeppelin raids on defenseless towns put together had been of less +strategical value to Germany than the taking of one village in the war +zone; she had merely piled up a mountain of hatred and contempt which +must be leveled by the quick repudiation of her people if they would +regain their lost intercourse with a triumphant world. Like all the +other women who had nursed near the front and knew the truth, they +translated into their own cynical vernacular such grandiose collocations +as "Strategic retreats" from that of the Battle of the Marne to those +which had been occurring periodically on the Western front since the +beginning of the Somme offensive of 1916. + + +3 + +Gisela's mind was complex and subtle, but it was also honest. When it +yielded a point, it yielded audibly. It was during the preliminary +discussion that she exclaimed: + +"It is true--certain things come back to me--Mimi, open the window. The +air is blue and we are all hardy and can stand the night air. It was +after the Agadir incident that I felt a change. I say felt because I was +so absorbed in my work that I had no inclination for world politics and +never discussed them. Up to that time I had never heard a hint of war +for aggression on the part of Germany.... While, as far back as I can +remember, it was taken for granted there would be a great war some day, +I doubt if any but the military party really believed in it. We thought +the time had passed for real wars, that we were far too highly +civilized. Of course I knew that the military party to which my father +belonged would have welcomed a war, for war was their profession, their +game, their excuse for being, and I heard more or less talk among my +brothers of Pan-Germanism; but still I imagined that it was merely a +defensive Teutonic ideal, just as our oppressive standing army was a +necessity owing to our geographical position. My brother Karl said +once--it comes back to me, although I had quite forgotten it--that it +was futile for the military caste to try to work up a war, because every +moneyed man in the Empire--financiers, merchants, manufacturers, all the +rest--never would hear of it. The country was too prosperous. Our wealth +was growing at a pace which even the United States could not rival, and +poverty was practically eliminated. That is the reason no hint made any +impression on me. It seemed to me that we were the most fortunate and +advanced nation in Europe and had only to wait for our kultur to pervade +the earth. + +"But--after Agadir--I seem to look back upon a slowly rising tide, +muttering, sullen, determined--even in Bavaria the old serenity, the +settled feeling, was gone--war was discussed as a possibility less +casually than of old--" + +"I recall a good deal more than that," interrupted Mimi. "Remember that +I was the daughter of a manufacturer, and the wife, so-called, of a +merchant. They were always grinding their teeth--and from about the time +you speak of--over the wrongs of Germany. What the wrongs were I never +could make out, and I am bound to say I did not listen very attentively, +being absorbed in my own--but it would seem that Germany being the +greatest country in the world was somehow not being permitted to let the +rest of the world find it out--" + +"It is all simple enough, now that I have the key. Germany tried to +bully France, and not only was France anxious to avoid war but Britain +showed her teeth. Germany was not then prepared to fight the world and +was forced to compromise. France gave her a slice of the Kongo in +exchange for Germany's consent to a French Protectorate in Morocco. Of +course--after that it must have been evident to all the business brains +of Germany that however great and prosperous the Empire might be she was +not strong enough to dictate to Europe; nor presume to demand any more +of the great prizes than she had already. + +"In other words, she was shown her place. It was also more than possible +that her aggressive prosperity might one of these days excite the +apprehension of Great Britain, who would then show more than her teeth. +Gradually the idea must have permeated, taken possession of the minds of +men who had vast fortunes to increase or lose, that sooner or later they +must fight for what they had and that it were better perhaps to strike +first, at a moment they might choose themselves--however little they +might sympathize with the ambitions of the Pan-German Party for supreme +power in Europe--" + +"Perhaps nothing," said Mimi. "They made up their minds to do it and +they did it. It is as plain as daylight. I'd forgive them, too, if +they'd won in six months, as they were so sure they would. What I don't +forgive them for is that they have proved themselves the most criminal +fools unhung. I'm glad that I am a Bavarian, and that Prussia, whom we +have always so hated and despised that we have never turned the lions +about on the Siegesthor, should be the prime offenders, humiliating as +it may be that we fell for their lies and got into this rotten mess. But +go ahead, Mrs. Prentiss. What's your next? Gee, but you can hand it out. +You must have kept tab since August 1st, 1914." + +"I took merely an intelligent American woman's interest," said Mrs. +Prentiss, momentarily haughty. "And I spent the first two years and a +half in Washington, where I often knew more than the newspapers; at all +events where I was constantly in the society of thinking men. Also +honest men, for war was the last thing we wanted, until our honor became +too deeply involved to permit us to hold aloof and fatten on your misery +any longer. Also, to be frank, our interests." + +The fact which impressed the Germans and reduced all that had gone +before to a heated academic discussion, was that Germany was beaten, and +that the United States embargo would reduce the Central Empires to +actual starvation, not merely devitalizing subnourishment; combined with +their own certainty that the Teutonic Powers would go on fighting, under +the lash of Prussia, sacrificing hundreds of thousands of loyal German +and Austrian boys, plunge countless more families into hopeless grief, +doom all the children in the land to sheer hunger and tuberculosis. + +Starvation! That was the inevitable fate of Germany if she prolonged the +war. And for what? Prostration, physical, financial, economic. To suffer +for a generation, at least, the fate of the outlaw, mangy dogs nosing +among rotten bones, kicked by the victors whenever they stood on their +hind legs and whined for mercy. + +And the Americans were prepared to pour into France and Britain billions +of dollars and millions of men and incalculable tons of food and +ammunition. + + +4 + +The two Americans had a deeper purpose in forcing this long argument +than hammering the truth into those intelligent but Prussianized brains. +As the hours wore toward the dawn they observed with satisfaction that +Gisela's face grew whiter and grimmer, until finally it set itself in +rigid lines. Her mouth was hard, her eyes expanded as if they saw far +beyond the crystal mountains glittering before the open windows. Her +mass of dark hair had fallen, and Mrs. Tolby whispered to Mrs. Prentiss +that she looked like the Medusa in the Glyptothek in Munich, lovely but +relentless. + +Gisela was no longer the radiant and voluptuous beauty who had incurred +the secret wrath of Ann Howland at Bar Harbor. These years of war, +during which she had known hard physical labor and often insufficient +nourishment, more rarely still a full night's sleep, had taken her +lovely curves of cheek and form, her brilliant color. She was thin, +almost gaunt; but the dissolving of the flesh had given her intellect, +her force of character, her aspiring spirit, their first real +opportunity to stamp her features. She would always be handsome, with +her long dark eyes and masses of soft dark hair, her noble outlines; and +her womanly sympathies had preserved their balance between a +devitalizing horror on the one hand and callousness on the other; but it +was a spiritualized beauty, devoid of that appeal to sex of which she +had been, even after she had buried the memory of Franz von Nettelbeck +and all desire for love, femininely tenacious, however disdainful. + +Mimi was the first to speak after a long interval of silence. + +"You've got me, all right. I've been digging up a few more things. We're +up against it for keeps, and it's get out or starve out. I've a notion +to sneak off to my relations in Milwaukee. Mrs. Prentiss, I'll go as +your maid--" + +"You'll do nothing of the sort!" Gisela's voice cut through the ripples +of laughter which always greeted Mimi's redundant slang. "You'll go back +to Germany with me and do your part in putting an end to this war!" All +but Heloise half arose, but she sat staring at that hard drawn face as +if in telepathic communication. + +"Can you do anything--really?" gasped Kate. "We have been hoping for a +revolution, but had given up the idea--until after the war. Your +Socialists either eat out of the Kaiser's hand or sputter and fizzle +out. And all your able-bodied men are at the front--" + +"But not the women." + +"The what?" + +"You have both lived in Germany. You know that German women are big +strong creatures--what you call husky. They are stronger than many of +the men because they have led more decent lives. The men at the front +are hopeless as revolutionary material--at present. They are hypnotized. +They have been taught not to think. They are sick of the war, they +suffer when they come home and see their women reduced to shadows, or go +to the cemeteries to visit the graves of their little brothers and +sisters; but the teaching of a lifetime: the omnipotence of their +sovereigns, whom they innocently believe to rule by divine right, sends +them back submissive, patient, sad. I know what you had in mind when you +brought us here to convince us that our country was not only responsible +for the war, but beaten. You hoped we would somehow bring about the +assassination of the Kaiser and the Crown Prince Ruprecht of +Bavaria--all the great generals. Is it not so? That would, assuredly, +break down the morale of the army, give it a more smashing blow than any +it has received even on the Western front. Well, it cannot be done. Even +I could not obtain a pass into Great Headquarters. You might as well +expect a British soldier to be permitted to saunter over from his lines +and make sketches of the German trenches. Those men guard +themselves--day and night, at every point--as if haunted with the fear +of assassination. Perhaps they are. And remember that the downfall of +Cæsarism means the downfall not only of junkerism but of all the other +kings and Grand Dukes--who are powerful and wealthy in their own +domains. They have no doubt cursed Prussia daily since September, 1914, +but now they all sink or swim together. They will force Germany to die a +thousand deaths in the hope of a miracle that will save a class to which +the rest of poor Germany is a breeding-ground for their mighty armies. I +belong to that class. One of my brothers is on the staff of the Crown +Prince of Prussia. Take my word for it: the solution of Germany's +deliverance is not to be found in the simple antidote of political +assassination, for only men bound up in the success of the German arms, +or their terrorized creatures of our own sex, are near enough to throw +the bomb." + +"It was rather a commonplace idea," said Kate, gracefully, "but what can +you do?" + +"Quite aside from the women of the industrial and lower classes +generally, who have given the municipalities serious trouble with their +food riots--far more than you know about--the German women altogether +are restless and dissatisfied. They were promised a short and triumphant +war. They are daily more skeptical of promises. They have suffered death +in life. All that early exaltation--exhilaration--has gone long since. +They shut their teeth and endure because they still believe the cunning +official lies--that Britain must be starved by the submersibles, that +France's man power is nearly exhausted, that the United States cannot +prepare an army in less than two years and needs all her trained men at +home to quell the riots of the masses who disapprove of the war. They +are taught to believe that ultimate victory for Germany is +inevitable--that it is merely a question of months. + +"But--convince them that Germany cannot win, that their own conquest is +inevitable after three or four more years of horror and torment and +personal despair, turn their blind hatred of England and America upon +their own conscienceless rulers--" + +"Jimminy!" cried Mimi. "That's the dope. Pound it into them that the +Enemy Allies will give them a square deal as a Republic and put them +under the steam-roller with the Hohenzollerns if they stand pat, and +you'll get them. No more hungry and tubercular babies, no more babies +born with a cuticle short in theirs. They'd rise as one man--I +mean--damn the men!--as one woman." + +Heloise left her seat like a whirlwind and flung herself at Gisela's +feet. Her face was flaming white. She looked like a sibyl. "I knew it +would be you!" she cried in her sweet bell-like tones. "I have had +visions of you leading us out of this awful war. You have only to talk +to the women--your word was gospel to them before the war--they too will +have the vision and they will make it fact." + +"Yes--but--" interrupted the practical Ann. "How shall you go to work? +It is a stupendous idea. But you never could keep such a propaganda +movement a secret. Some one would be sure to betray you. German women +are perfect fools about men." + +"No longer. Nor were they for several years before the war as +subservient (inwardly) to men as they had been in the past. Far from it. +And now! They have suffered too much at the hands of men. They have no +illusions left. Love and marriage are ghastly caricatures to women who +have lived in a time when men are slaughtered like pigs in massed +formation; when their little boys are driven to war; when young +girls--and widows!--are forced to bring more males into the world with +the sanction of neither love nor marriage; when those too young for the +trench or the casual bed wail incessantly for bread. Oh, no! The German +man's day of any but legal dominion is over. Of course there is always +the danger of spies and traitors, but--" + +"The wall for you at sunrise if you get caught," cried Mimi, with +another subsidence of enthusiasm. + +"If that happen to be my destiny. Can any one experience what we have +done during these three years and not be as fatalistic as the men in the +trenches? I'd rather die before a firing squad after an attempt to save +my wretched country than live to see it set back a hundred years. But I +refuse to believe that I shall be betrayed or that I shall fail. _That_ +I believe to be my destiny. For a long time the idea has been fumbling +in the back of my mind, but it lacked the current which would switch it +into my consciousness. You two have supplied the current." + +Kate threw back her head and gave her merry, ringing laugh. "What +delicious irony! Germany defeated by its women! When I think of your +august papa, dear Gisela! That kulturistically typical, that naïve yet +Jovian symbol of all the arrogance and conceit, the simple creed of +Kaiserism über alles, and will-to-rule, that hurled this colossus on +the back of Europe--" + +"Quite so. You of all present know that I received the proper training +for the part I am about to play. If all goes well we women will erect a +tablet to my father's memory in the cathedral at Berlin." She leaned +down and patted the rapt face of Heloise, then scowled at Mimi. "May I +not count on you?" she asked sternly. + +"May you? Well, say, what are you taking me for? I'm more afraid of you +than I am of a firing squad, and anyhow I seem to know we'll win out. +I'm going to carry a club in case I mix up with Hans. But what's your +plan?" + +"This is neither the time nor place to work out a campaign. The first +move will be to train lieutenants in every State in Germany--women whom +we know either personally or through correspondence. You, Heloise, will +return to Munich at once and make out the lists. We shall have no +difficulty obtaining permits to travel all over the Empire, for it will +never enter the insanely stupid official head to doubt whatever excuse +we may choose to give. Not only are we German women and therefore sheep, +but we are Red Cross nurses.... And remember that nearly all the men who +are still in the factories are Socialists--and that women swarm in all +of those factories--" + +"Marie!" cried Heloise. "How she will work! She has the confidence of +the Socialist party--both wings--wherever she is known; and she can +talk--like a torrent of liquid fire." + +"And the next chapter?" asked Mrs. Prentiss curiously. "You led the +German women in thought for five years. Shall you have a Woman's +Republic, with you as President?" + +"Certainly not. It is not in the German women--not yet--to crave the +grinding cares of public life. We shall make the men do the work, and we +will live for the first time. Delivered from Cæsarism and junkerism and +with the advanced men of Germany at the head of a Republic, I should +feel too secure of Germany's future to demand any of the ugly duties of +government--although the women will speak through the men. Their day of +silence and submission is forever passed--" + +"Same here," remarked Mimi, stretching and yawning. "Let's go to bed. I +have smoked fifty-three cigarettes and my voice is ruined. Nevertheless +I shall be a great prima donna, and you, Gisela, can chuck propaganda, +and write romance. The world will devour it after these years of +undiluted realism written in red ink on a black page. Look at the sun +trying to climb out of that mist and give us his blessing." + +"I shall go for a walk," said Gisela, "and I shall go alone." + + + + +IV + + +1 + +Mrs. Prentiss and Mrs. Tolby placed a large sum of money to Gisela's +account in a Swiss bank, and this she transferred to the Bayerischer +Vereinsbank in Munich. As she had collected large sums for war relief, +and was on the board of nine war charities, no suspicion was excited. +She had given to these organizations the greater part of the small +fortune she had made from her play and other writings, not absorbed by +taxation and bond subscriptions, but there were many wealthy women, +hungry, sad, apprehensive that peace would find them paupers, upon whom +she could depend to give liberally. + +There was to be no printed matter nor correspondence, but an army of +lieutenants, who, starting from certain centers, would augment their +numbers from Gisela's long list of correspondents, until it would be +possible to sound personally all the women of a district whom it was +thought wise to trust. + +Gisela returned to Germany as soon as she had worked out the details of +her campaign and received the enthusiastic donation of her American +friends. Mimi Brandt, Marie von Erkel (who looked like an ecstatic fury +of the French Revolution when she realized that at last she had a rôle +to play in life that would not only vent her consuming energies and +ambition, but enable her to assist in the downfall of a race of men whom +she hated, both for their tyranny and indifference to brains without +beauty, with all the diverted passion of her nature), Aimée von Erkel, +who was persistent, incisive, and so alarmed at the prospect of all the +men in the world being killed, that she would have hastened peace on any +terms; Princess Starnwörth, a Socialist and idealist, a brilliant and +persuasive speaker, to whom war was the ultimate horror; Johanna Stück, +whose revolt had been deep and bitter long before the war and who was +one of Gisela's fervent disciples and aides--these and six others were +sent on one pretense or another into the various States of Germany--the +kingdoms, principalities, grand duchies, duchies, and "free towns"--to +bear Gisela's personal message and select the proper leaders. + +Gisela went at once to Berlin and had a long interview with Mariette, +who was ripe for revolution: her lover had been killed and her husband +had not. Mariette was not of the type that sorrow and loss ennoble. She +was still a handsome woman, particularly in her uniform, but the pink +and white cheeks that once had covered her harsh bones were sunken and +sallow. Her mouth was like a narrow bar of iron. Her eyes were half +closed as if to hide the cold and deadly flame that never flickered; +even her nostrils were rigid. All her hard and sensual nature, devoid of +tenderness, but dissolved with sentimentality while the man who had +conquered her had lived, she had centered on her lover, and with his +death she was a tool to Gisela's hand to wreak vengeance upon the powers +that had sent him out of the world. + +"Leave it to me," she said grimly. "There are not only the women in the +towns where I have been stationed these many years, but, here in Berlin, +the wives of men whose money is financing this war: men who permitted +the war because they hoped for infinite riches but are now terrified +that they will not have a pfennig if the war goes on much longer. They +dare not rebel, for they would be shot, and their fortunes be +confiscated: their banks, industries, shops, run by cowed minor +officials. But the women--I can count on many of them. Even if their +husbands suspected, they would wink at it, willing that the women should +take the risk and they reap the benefit. God! How they hate the +war--every woman I know. Leave this part of Germany to me, and be +prepared for Schrecklichkeit. There will be no mercy, no politics, in +this revolution--merely one end in view. The Russians are babies but we +are not. 'Huns' shall cease to be a term of opprobrium, for female Huns +will end the war." + +Countess Niebuhr, whose love of intrigue had not diminished with the +years, and who had known more of the Pan-Germanic mind than her naïve +husband had guessed--who, moreover, had had a long and enlightening +interview with one of her sons but a month before--undertook to win over +many women of her own class who had suffered death and disillusion. + +Elsa's transfer to a hospital in Saxony was skilfully managed; and Lili +went on a concert tour for the Red Cross. It was not worth while to +campaign in Austria; the moment Germany was helpless she would collapse +automatically. + +In the course of a month the secret propaganda was moving with the +invisible, sinister, irresistible suction of an undertow. The immense +army of women who did Gisela's work proved themselves true Germans, +logical products of generations of discipline, concentration, +secretiveness, and a thoroughness, even in trifling details, as +implacable as it was automatic. They made few mistakes. When they +discovered--and their spy service was also Teutonic--that they had +confided in some girl or woman whose inherent weakness or venality +threatened betrayal, she disappeared immediately and for ever. + +Gisela, obtaining a commission to inspect the leading hospitals "back of +the front," visited each of the states in turn and addressed thousands +of women in groups of two or three hundred, gathered under the eyes of +the police in the name of one of the many war charities in which all +women were engaged. The lieutenants prepared these women, and Gisela +inspired, crystallized, cohered. The timid she shamed with the example +of the Russian women (and German women despise all other women); the +desperate she had little difficulty in convincing that there was but one +egress from their insupportable agony. Victory under her leadership if +they stood firm, was inevitable. + +She had the gift of a fiery torrent of speech, a clear steady eye, even +when it flashed and blazed, and a warm and irresistible magnetism that +convinced the individual as well as the mass that she had but one +object, the liberation of the miserable women of her country, their +deliverance from further sorrow; and that she was wholly lacking in +personal ambition. + +These women had known the gnawing sensation of unappeased appetite for +two years. They had seen old men and women, sometimes their own, fall in +the streets dead or dying, because they no longer had the reserves of +men and women in their youth or prime. They had seen men blow out their +brains in front of municipal buildings, cursing the Emperor, the +military autocracy, and even the Government, always at odds with the war +lords. They knew of suicides and child murder by despairing mothers that +they hardly whispered to one another. And all the children were +emaciated and wailed continually for food, sleeping little, playing +less, stunted in their growth and threatened with disease; if the war +went on another year they would join the little Polish victims on their +shadowy playground.... They feared for their daughters at home even as +they feared for their young sons in the trenches.... Barring a +revolution, the war might last for years ... _years_.... "Peace +Proposals" irritated what little humor they had left to ghastly obscene +joking.... "Victories" left them as cold as the mid-winter bed.... The +Hohenzollerns, the other kings and princes, the cast-iron junkers, would +cling fast to their own until the Enemy Allies' day of judgment, for +surrender meant their quicker extermination; now, at least, they were +still in the saddle, able to cheer their haunted egos with the Wine of +Lies. + +It was the Hohenzollerns and defeat, or a Republic and easy terms from +the victors who would welcome a sound de-brutalized Germany, jealous of +her lost honor, into the family of nations. The arguments were brief and +simple. Gisela would have won over women far less despairing than +these. And the fact that she had spent four years in America studying +its institutions and resources, convinced the most susceptible to +official lies that the United States could pour money, men, ammunition, +munitions and food into Europe for countless years; and that the +agitations of her pacifists, syndicalists, German agents, and +bribe-takers were but picturesque ripples on the surface of a nation +covering over three million five hundred thousand square miles and +embracing more than one hundred million people. + +And with all the insidious subtlety of her supple mind she changed the +prevailing hatred of President Wilson into a profound and pathetic +confidence. She had long since made them envy and admire the women of +America, and if these fortunate beings had enthusiastically reëlected +him and were now giving his policy as persistent and effective +assistance as the men, it was for the desperate women of Germany to +believe in his promises of deliverance. Above all he had now the +approval of their own Gisela Döring. + +It was the mothers of Germany, balked, potential, or veritable, who were +ready to rise and rescue what was left of the youth of Germany. If +victory for the German arms were hopeless they would risk their own +lives to force a peace that would leave them with the rags of their old +honor and prosperity, that would give them revenge upon the men who had, +for their own criminal ambitions--ambitions which belonged to the Middle +Ages--doomed them to lifelong sorrow; and that would save the lives of +their children--save husbands also for a few of these stern and weary +girls. Even in the Rhine Valley, where the greater number of the +munition and ammunition factories were grouped, there were incessant +meetings, among the night and day shifts, of the thousands of women +employed there, and Gisela herself addressed each of them. + + + + +V + + +1 + +Gisela, who had been staring across the Königinstrasse into the heavy +branches that hung over the wall of the park, her mental vision too +actively raking the past to spare a beam for the familiar picture, +suddenly switched her searchlight away from those milestones in her +historic progress and concentrated it upon a suspicious shadow opposite. +Surely it had moved, and there was not a breath of wind. The night was +mild and still. + +She did not move a muscle but narrowed her gaze until it detached the +figure of a man from the dark background of wall and trees. Always +apprehensive of spies, although the Gott commandeered by the Kaiser +seemed to have adjusted blinders to eyes strained west, east, and +south, she leapt to the conclusion that she was under surveillance at +last, and her heart beat thickly. She who had believed that the long +strain, the constant danger, the incessant demand for resource and ever +more resource, had transformed her nerves to pure steel, realized +angrily that on this last night when she had permitted herself an hour's +idle retrospect before commanding sleep, her nerves more nearly +resembled the strings of a violin. + +Her apartment was on the ground floor. She stood up, revealing herself +disdainfully in the moonlight that now lay full on her window, then went +out quickly into the vestibule and unlocked the house door. Her only +fear was that the man would have gone, but if he were still there she +was determined to walk boldly over to his skulking-place and pretend she +believed him to be a burglar or a foreign spy. In these days she carried +a small pistol and a dagger. + +When she had stepped out on the pavement she glanced quickly up and down +the street. Not even a _polizeidiener_ was in sight, for this +aristocratic quarter was, in peace and war, the quietest part of an +always orderly town. It was evident that the man spied alone. + +Holding her head very high, she started across the street; but she had +not taken three steps when the shadow detached itself and walked rapidly +out into the moonlight. She gave a sharp cry and shrank back. It was +Franz von Nettelbeck. + +"You--" she stammered. "They sent you--" + +"They? And why should I alarm you? Am I so formidable?" He uttered his +short harsh laugh and lifted his cap. His head was bandaged; there was a +deep scar along the outer line of his right cheek. His face was gaunt +and lined; and his shoulders sagged until he suddenly bethought himself +and flung them back with a deathless instinct. + +Gisela smiled and gave him her hand with a graceful spontaneity. "The +sense of being watched always shakes the nerves a bit, and I have felt +up to nothing myself for a long time. Why did not you come up to the +window when you recognized me?" + +"I was so sure of welcome! And yet as soon as I was fit to travel I came +here to see you. I intended to send in my card to-morrow. But I could +not help haunting your window to-night, and when I had the good fortune +to see you sitting there--with the moon shining on your beautiful +face--" + +"My face is no longer beautiful, dear Franz--" + +"You are a thousand times more beautiful than ever--" + +Something else vibrated along those steel nerves, but she said briskly: +"Standing so long must have tired you. Come in and rest. It is late; but +if there are still conventions in this crashing world I have forgotten +them." + +Her rooms were always prepared for a sudden visit of the police. If a +firing squad were her fate it would not have been invited through the +usual channels. Even the arms to be worn on the morrow were in the +cellars and attics of citizens so respectable as almost to be nameless. + +He followed her through the common entrance of the apartment house into +her _Saal_. It was a large comfortable room with many deep chairs, and +on the gray walls were a few portraits of her scowling ancestors, +contributed long since by her mother. A tall porcelain stove glowed +softly. Gisela drew the curtains and lit several candles. She disliked +the hard glare of electricity at any time, and she admitted with a +curious thrill of satisfaction that those manifestly sincere words of +her old lover had given her vanity a momentary resurrection. Her +suspicions were by no means allayed, even when she met his eyes blazing +with passionate admiration, but why not play the old game of the gods +for an hour? What better preparation for the morrow than to relax and +forget? + +"Poor Franz!" Her voice was the same rich contralto whose promise had +routed the Howland millions years ago. "Our poor gallant men! When will +this terrible war finish?" + +"Ask your United States of America!" And he cursed that superfluous +nation roundly. "We had some chance before. Not so much, but still some. +Now we shall be beaten to our knees, stamped into the dust, straight +down to hell." He threw himself into a chair and pressed his hands +against his face. + +"But when?" Gisela watched him warily. If these were tactics they were +admirable; but who more full of theatric devices than the Kaiser he +adored? + +"Years hence, no doubt--if we continue to hold the Social-Democrats in +hand and drug the people. We'll fight on until our enemies' might proves +that they are right and we were fools. That is all there is to war." + +Gisela sat down and let her hands fall into her lap with a little +pathetic motion of weakness. "Sometimes I wish the Socialists were +strong enough to win and end it all," she said plaintively. + +"Oh, no, you don't. You are a junker, for all your independent notions, +and trying to put some of your own nerve into the women. I read you with +great amusement before the war. But no one knows better than yourself +that the triumph of democracy in Germany would mean the end of us." + +"I cannot see that we are enjoying many privileges at present--unless it +be the privilege to lie rather than be lied to. And when our enemies do +win we shall be pried out, root and branch. So, why not save our skins +at all events? I do not mean mine, of course--nor, for that matter, am I +thinking of our class; but of the hundreds of thousands of our dear +young men who might be spared--" + +"Better die and have done with it. And there is always hope--" + +"Hope?" + +"Oh--in the separate peace, the ultimate submersible, some new +invention--the miracle that has come to the rescue more than once in +history. There are times when my faith in the destiny of Germany to +dominate the world is so great that I cannot believe it possible for +her to fail--in spite of everything, everything! And everything is +against us! I never realized it until I lay there in the hospital. I was +too busy before, and that was my first serious wound. Oh, God! what +fools we were. What rotten diplomacy. Even I despised the United States; +but as I lay there in Berlin their irresistible almighty power seemed to +pass before me in a procession that nearly destroyed my reason. I knew +the country well enough, but I would not see." + +"They are a very soft-hearted people and would let us down agreeably if +the Social-Democrats overturned the House of Hohenzollern and stretched +out the imploring hand of a young Republic--" + +"No! No! A thousand times rather die to the last man than be beaten +within. That would be the one insupportable humiliation. _Canaille!_" He +spat out the word. "I refuse to recognize their existence--" + +He sprang to his feet and before her mind could flash to attention he +had caught her from her chair and was straining her to him, his arms, +his entire body, betraying no evidence whatever of depleted vitality. +"Let us forget it all!" he muttered. "We are still young and I am free. +I was a fool once and you will believe me when I tell you that I would +beg you on my knees to marry me even if you were Gisela Döring.... I +have leave of absence for a month ... let us be happy once more...." + +"It was a long while ago ... all that ... do you realize how long?" + +Gisela stood rigid, her eyes expanded. To her terror and dismay she was +thrilling and flaming from head to foot. This lover of her life might +have released her from one of their immortal hours but yesterday. But +although she had to brace her body from yielding, her mind (and it is +the curse of intellectual women of individual powers that the mind +never, in any circumstances, ceases to function) realized that while the +human will may be strong enough to banish memories, and readjust the +lonely soul, its most triumphant acts may be annihilated by the physical +contact of its mate. Unless replaced. Fool that she had been merely to +have buried the memory of this man by an act of will. She should have +taken a commonplace lover, or husband, put out that flaming midnight +torch with the standardizing light of day. + +Her mind seemed to be darting from peak to peak in a swift and dazzling +flight as he talked rapidly and brokenly, kissing her cheek, her neck, +straining her so close to him that she could hardly breathe. Suddenly it +poised above the memory of an old book of Renan's, "The Abbess Juarre," +in which the eminent skeptic had somewhat clumsily attempted to +demonstrate that if the world unmistakably announced its finish within +three days the inhabitants would give themselves up to an orgy of love. + +Well, her world might end to-morrow. Why should she not live to-night? + +Her arrogant will demanded the happiness that this man, whom she had +never ceased to love for a moment, to whom she had been unconsciously +faithful, alone could give her. Moreover, her reason working side by +side with her imperious desires, assured her that if he really were +spying, and, whatever his passion, meant to remold her will to his and +snatch the keystone from the arch, it were wise to keep him here. It was +evident that he had no suspicion of the imminence of the revolution. + +And it was years since she had felt all woman, not a mere intellect +ignoring the tides in the depths of her being. The revelation that she +was still young and that her will and all the proud achievements of her +mind could dissolve at this man's touch in the crucible of her passion +filled her with exultation. + +She melted into his arms and lifted hers heavily to his neck. + +"Franz! Franz!" she whispered. + + +2 + +Gisela moved softly about the room looking for fresh candles. Those that +had replaced the moonlight hours ago had burned out and she did not +dare draw the curtains apart: it was too near the dawn. She had no idea +what time it was. But she must have light, for to think was imperative, +and her mental processes were always clogged in the dark. + +She found the old box of candles and placed four in the brackets and lit +them. Then she went over to the couch and looked down upon Franz von +Nettelbeck. He slept heavily, on his side, his arms relaxed but slightly +curved. In a few moments she went down the hall to her bedroom and took +a cold bath and made a cup of strong coffee; then dressed herself in a +suit of gray cloth, straight and loose, that her swiftest movements +might not be impeded. In the belt under the jacket she adjusted her +pistol and dagger. + +She returned to the _Saal_ and once more looked down upon the +unconscious man. How long he had been falling asleep! She had offered +him wine, meaning to drug it, but he had refused lest it inflame his +wounds. She had offered to make him coffee, but he would not let her +go. + +It was in the complete admission of her reluctance to leave him, even +after he slept, and while disturbed by the fear that the dawn was nearer +than in fact it was, that she stared down upon the man who was more to +her than Germany and all its enslaved women and men. He knew nothing of +her plans, had not a suspicion of the revolution, but he had vowed they +never should be parted again. He had great influence and could set +wheels in motion that would return him to the diplomatic service and +procure him an appointment to Spain; where good diplomatists were badly +needed. + +It was an enchanting picture that he drew in spite of the horror that +must ever mutter at their threshold; but to the awfulness of war they +were both by this time more or less callous, although he was mortally +sick of the war itself; and Gisela, who doled half-measures neither to +herself nor others, had dismissed the morrow and yielded herself to the +joy of the future as of the present. What she had felt for this man in +her early twenties seemed a mere partnership of romance and sentiment +fused by young nerves, compared with the mature passion he had shocked +from its long recuperative sleep. He was her mate, her other part. Her +long fidelity, unshaken by time, her own temperament and many +opportunities, all were proof of that. + +The caste of great lovers in this unfinished world is small and almost +inaccessible, but they had taken their place by immemorial right. Were +it not for this history of her own making they would find every phase of +happiness in each other as long as they both lived. Women, at least, +know instinctively the difference between the transient passion, no +matter how powerful, and the deathless bond. + +Gisela glanced at her wrist watch. It was within seventy minutes of the +dawn. If she could only be sure that he would sleep until Munich herself +awoke him. But he had told her that he never slept these days more than +two or three hours at a time, no matter how weary. + +If he awoke before it was time for her to leave the house and renewed +his love-making, her response would be as automatic as the progress of +life itself. + +If she attempted to leave the house before sunrise, on no matter what +pretext, his suspicions would be aroused, for she had told him that she +had been given a week for rest. For the same reason she dared not awaken +him and ask him to go. He would refuse, for it was no time to slip out +of a woman's apartment; far better wait until ten o'clock, when there +were always visitors of both sexes in her office. Moreover, he would no +more wish to go than he would permit her to leave him. + +She was utterly in his power if he awakened and chose to exert it. He +had mastered her, conquered her, routed her career and her peace, and +she had gloried in her submission; gloried in it still. A commonplace +woman would have been satisfied, satiated, felt free for the moment, +turned with relief to the dry convention of the daily adventure, rather +resenting, if she had a pretty will, the supreme surrender to the race +in an unguarded hour. + +Gisela was cast in the heroic mold. She came down from the old race of +goddesses of her own Nibelungenlied, whose passions might consume them +but had nothing in common with the ebb and flow of mortals. But great +brains are fed by stormy souls, and in the souls of women there is an +element of weakness, unknown, save in a few notable instances, to great +men in the crises of their destiny; for women are the slaves of the +race, and nature when permitting them the abnormality of genius takes +her revenge. + +If he awakened.... There was little time for thought. She must plan +quickly. If she left the house at once he might awaken immediately and +after searching the apartment, follow her; there was the dire +possibility that he would learn too much before the terrific drama of +the revolution opened, and manage to thwart their plans. He was a man of +quick brain and ruthless will; no consideration for her would stop him, +although he would save her from the consequences of her act, no doubt of +that. Save her for himself. + +Mimi Brandt, and Heloise and Marie von Erkel were asleep in rooms at the +end of the hall.... She had a mad idea of binding him hand and foot and +locking him in her bedroom.... Either he would hate her for the +humiliation he--Franz von Nettelbeck, glorious on the field of honor, a +bound prisoner in a woman's bedroom while his class was blown to atoms, +and his caste was roaring its impotent fury to a napping Gott!... Oh, an +insufferable affront to a man of his order who held even the dearest +woman as the favored pensioner on his bounty ... or she would be +consumed with remorse, melt ... it was positive that she must visit +him--not leave him to starve ... nor could she keep him bound ... and +once more she would be his slave ... could she hold out even for a day? + +The first blow of a revolution is, after all, only its first. There is +always the danger of a swift reaction. + +Unremitting vigilance, work, encouragement are the part of its leaders +for months, possibly years, to come. All revolutions are dependent for +ultimate success upon one preëminent figure. + +Franz stirred under the unconscious fixity of her gaze and changed his +position, lying on his back. She hastily averted her eyes. Her hands +clenched and spread. Even to-morrow if this man found her ... one soft +moment ... when she needed all her energy, her fire, her powers of +concentration, of depersonalization, for the millions of tortured women +who would follow her straight out to meet any division the Emperor might +detach in the vain hope of subduing an army far outnumbering all that he +had left of men. + +Nothing but a miracle could halt the initial stage of the revolution; +the wireless plants were all operated by women in her service, and no +telephone message had advised her of danger. No matter what her +defection at this moment the revolution would begin at dawn; but +although Germany happily lacked the disintegrating forces of Russia, +comfortable as she had been for two generations, and proud in her +discipline, that very discipline would dissolve its new backbone without +the stimulating force of her own inexorable will. And if she deserted +them!... + +It was a woman's revolution. A necessary number of men Socialists had +been admitted to the secret and were to strike the second blow. But the +women must strike the first, and according to program. Not only were the +men under surveillance, but where women would be pardoned in case of a +failure, they would be shot. And most of them had more brain than brawn, +were past the fighting age; the girls, and women of middle years, were a +magnificent army which would make the graybeards appear absurd in the +open. + +These women worshiped her, believed her to be a super-being created to +save them and their children; but if she betrayed them, proved herself +the merest woman of them all--a childless woman at that--the very bones +would melt out of them, they would prostrate themselves in the ashes of +their final despair. + +Spain! Franz! For a moment her imagination rioted. + +She smiled ironically. Happiness? Four-walled happiness? Hardly for her, +even without the blood of murdered thousands soaking her doorstep. Love, +for women like her ... even eternal love ... must be episodical. Life +forces the duties of leadership on such women whether they resent them +or not. They must take their love where they find it as great men do, +subordinated to their chosen careers and the tremendous duties and +responsibilities that are the fruit of all achieved ambition. + +It was true that she had no political ambition, but for an unpredictive +period she must be the beacon-light of the new Republic, no matter how +successful the coup of the Socialists; until some one man (she knew of +none) or some group of men became strong enough to control its +destinies. The women must stand firm, a solid critical body led by +herself, until the tragically disciplined soldiers who had survived +these years of warfare had ceased to be sheep, or run bleating to the +new fold. + +Even if she won Franz over, her power would be sapped; not for a moment +would he be out of her consciousness; her imagination would drift +incessantly from the vital work in hand to the hour of their reunion. +The hurtling power of her eloquence would be diminished, her magnetism +weakened. + +Her memory flashed backward to those three years when he was an +ever-rising obsession--personifying love and completion as he +did--before which her proud will fell back again and again, powerless +and humiliated. + +Why, in God's name could not he have come back into her life six months +hence? + +No woman should risk a sex cataclysm when she has great work to do. +Nature is too subtle for any woman's will as long as the man be +accessible. And the strongest and the proudest woman that ever lived may +have her life disorganized by a man if she possess the power to charm +him. + +She moved softly from the couch and walked up and down the room, +striving to visualize her manifest destiny and erect the grim ideal of +duty. Her mind, working at lightning speed, recalled moments, days, in +the past, when she had let her will relax, ignored her duties, floated +idly with the tide; the sensation of panic with which she had recaptured +at a bound the ideals that governed her life. Mortal happiness was not +for her. Duty done, with or without exaltation of spirit, would at least +keep her in tune with life, preserve her from that disintegrating horror +of soul that could end only with self-annihilation. + +And end her usefulness. It was a vicious circle. + +Suddenly a wave of humiliation, of insupportable shame, swept her from +sole to crown, and she returned swiftly to her post above the sleeping +man. One moment had undone the work of all those proud years during +which she had made herself over from the quintessential lover into one +of the intellectual leaders of the world, a woman who had accomplished +what no man had dared to attempt, and who, if the revolution were the +finality which before this man came had seemed to be written in the Book +of Germany, would be immortal in history. Wild fevers of the blood, +passionate longing for completion in man, oneness, the "organic +unit"--were not for her. + +All feeling ebbed slowly out of her, leaving her cold, collected, alert. +She was, over all, a woman of genius, the custodian of peculiar gifts, +sleeping throughout the ages, perhaps, like Brunhilde on her rock, to +awaken not at the kiss of man, but at the summons of Germany in her +darkest hour. + +She bent over the man who belonged to the woman alone in her and whose +power over her would be exerted as ruthlessly as her own should be over +herself. He looked a very gallant gentleman as he lay there, and he had +been a very brave soldier. His own place was secure in the annals of the +war, but at this moment, following upon his triumphant swoop after +happiness, he was the one deadly menace to the future of his country. + +Gisela opened his shirt gently and bared his breast. She held her +breath, but he slept on and she took the dagger from her belt and with a +swift hard propulsion drove it into his heart to the guard. He gave a +long expiring sigh and lay still. A gallant gentleman, a brave soldier, +and a great lover had the honor to be the first man to pay the price of +his country's crime, on the altar of the Woman's Revolution. + + +3 + +Gisela went swiftly down the hall and awakened Heloise, Mimi, and Marie +and told them what she had done. No novelty in horror could startle +European women in those days. They dressed themselves hastily in their +gray uniforms and followed her to the _Saal_. With Mimi's assistance she +put on his coat, the hilt of the dagger thrusting forward the row of +medals on his breast. Marie went out into the street and flitted up and +down like a big gray moth, her gray little face tense with rapture. Her +devotion to Gisela had been fanatical from the first but now she begged +what invisible power her wild little mind still recognized to be +permitted to die for her. + +In a moment she signaled that the street was deserted. Gisela and Mimi +carried the body over to the park and dropped it into the swiftly +flowing Isar. The clear jade green of the lovely river reflected the +points of the stars, and Franz von Nettelbeck as he drifted down the +tide looked as if attended by innumerable candles dropped graciously +from on high to watch at his bier. But it was to Heloise this fancy +came, and she lifted her face and thanked the stars for their silent +funeral march. Not for her would the supreme sacrifice have been +possible, and for the moment she did not envy Gisela Döring. + +The four girls walked rapidly over to the Maximilianstrasse and crossed +the bridge to the Maximilianeum. The long symmetrical brown building +with its open galleries filled with the cold starlight was distorted by +a wireless station on its highest point and by a biplane on the extreme +left of the roof. It stood on a lofty terrace and commanded a view of +all Munich and of the tumbled peaks of the Alps. + +They ran up the stairs and called to the operator from the higher +gallery. She answered in a hard and weary voice: "Nothing." Then they +walked down the gallery to the open tower facing the Alps. For half an +hour longer they stood in silence, alternately glancing from their wrist +watches to the faintly glittering peaks whose first reflection of dawn, +if all went well, would change the face of the world. + + + + +VI + + +1 + +The eyes of the four women traveled to the lofty towers of the +Frauenkirche. Its bells rang out a wild authoritative summons. +Coincidentally the streets filled with women dressed uniformly in +gray--big powerfully built women, sturdy products of the strong soil of +Germany. They did not march, nor form in ranks, but stood silent, alert, +shouldering rifles with fixed bayonets. + +Involuntarily Gisela and her three lieutenants braced themselves against +the pillars of the tower. An instant later the walls of the +Maximilianeum rocked under the terrific impact of what sounded like a +thousand explosions. The roar of parting walls, the shriek of shells and +bombs bursting high in the air, the sharp short cry of shattered metal, +the deep _approaching_ voice of dynamite prolonging itself in echoes +that seemed to reverberate among the distant Alps, shook the souls of +even those inured to the murderous uproar of the battlefield. + +Grotesquely combined with this terrific but majestic confusion of sound +were the screams of innocent citizens hanging out of the windows, waving +their arms, staring distraught at the sky, convinced, in so far as they +could think at all, that a great enemy air fleet was bombarding Germany +at last. + +Masses of flame and smoke shot upward. The pale morning sky turned +black, rent with darting crimson tongues and lit with prismatic stars. +Other explosions followed in rapid succession, some coming down the +light morning wind from a long distance. Blasts of heat swept audibly +through the long galleries of the Maximilianeum. + +"It is an inferno!" Marie von Erkel for the moment was almost +hysterical. "Will Munich be destroyed? Oh, not that!" + +"The fire brigades know their business." Gisela glanced up at the +Marconi station. Even through the din she could hear the faint crackling +of the wireless. "If all Germany--" + +But her eyes were wild.... If the revolutionists in the rest of the +empire had been as prompt and fearless as those of Bavaria, every +munition and ammunition factory, every aerodrome and public hangar, save +those taken possession of by powerfully armed squads of women, every +arsenal, every warehouse for what gasoline and lubricating oils were +left, every telegraph and telephone wire, every railway station near +either frontier, with thousands of cars and miles of track had been +destroyed simultaneously. The armies would be isolated, without arms or +ammunition but what they had on hand or could manufacture in the invaded +countries; no food but what they had in storage. They could not fight +the enemy seven days longer; if the Enemy Allies heard immediately of +the revolution through neutral channels and believed in it after so +many false alarms, the finish of the German forces would come in two +days. + +But had the women of the other states been as prompt and ruthless as the +women of Bavaria? Spandau, Essen, all the centers in the Rhine Valley +for the manufacture of munitions on a grand scale ... the great Krupp +factories ... unless they were in ruins the revolution was a failure.... + +She could not be everywhere at once. War and misery and starving +children, the loss of the men and boys they loved, and a profound +distrust of their rulers, had filled them with a cold and bitter hatred +of an autocracy convicted of lying and aggressive purpose out of its own +mouth; but would the iron in their souls carry them triumphantly past +the final test? Women were women and Germans were not Russians. They had +little fatalism in their make-up, and their brain cells were packed with +the tradition of centuries of submission to man. True, their quiet +revolt had begun long before the war, and this last year had wrought +extraordinary changes, quickening their mental processes, forcing them +to think and act for themselves; but their hearts might have turned to +water during those last dispiriting hours before the dawn. + +And how could it be possible that all traitors had been detected, +exterminated, with millions in the secret? Troops might even now be in +Prussia. Great Headquarters (Grosse Hauptquartier) were in Pless, and +although the women of that city were not in the confidence of the +revolutionaries, and it was to remain in ignorance as long as possible, +the abrupt cessation of telephone and telegraph communication would +advise that group of alert brains that something was wrong. Moreover, +even with interrupted communications they would soon learn of the +blowing up of factories in other Silesian towns; no doubt hear them. It +was true the railways and bridges between Pless and Berlin were--if they +were!--destroyed, but there were always automobiles; enough for a small +force.... And the police, the police of Berlin! They were still +formidable in spite of the drain on men for the front. Mariette had +written her grimly that she would "take care of 'the rats in the +granary,'" meaning the police; but although Mariette was the most +thorough and merciless person she knew, she doubted even her in this +awful moment. + +How could she have dreamed of accomplishing a universal revolution in +a country possessing the most perfect secret service system in the +world?... a country with eyes in the back of its head? True, the +Socialists in her confidence had been noisy and bumptious of late in +order to concentrate attention upon their sex, and at the same time +careful to refrain from definite statements or overt acts.... It would +never enter the stupid official head that German women could conceive, +much less precipitate, a revolution; but there _must_ be traitors, +women who fundamentally were the slaves of men, weak spirits, spirits +rotten with imperialism, militarism, but cunning in the art of +dissimulation.... What an accursed fool and criminal she had been ... +egotistical dreamer! ... led on by the extraordinary power she had +acquired over the women of her race.... + +For a moment she clung to the embrasure, so overwhelming was her impulse +to hurl herself down into oblivion. In that dark and shrieking uproar +she had the illusion that she was in hell, in hell with her miserable +victims. + +But although Gisela's long slumbering nerves had had their revenge last +night, they had given up the fight when she had destroyed their only +ally, and these last protesting vibrations were very brief. Her eyes +fell on the ranks of women standing in the wide Maximilianstrasse,--a +street a mile long and seventy-five feet across--undisturbed by the +turmoil they had anticipated, calmly awaiting her orders. The obsession +passed, and after a brief tribute of hatred to her imagination, which +was, after all, one root of her power, she turned and glanced +critically at her three companions. Marie, looking like a little gray +gnome, was dancing about and waving her arms in ecstasy. Heloise, her +long blonde hair hanging about her fine French face, was gazing out with +rapt eyes and lips apart, as if every sense were drinking in the vision +of a Germany delivered. Mimi was standing with her arms akimbo, nodding +her head emphatically. + +"Great work," she said as she met Gisela's stern eyes. "Better go up to +the wireless." + +They ran rapidly up to the roof and looked into the little room. The +girl who sat there nodded but did not speak. Her face was gray and +tense, but there was no evidence of despair. Gisela and Mimi stood +motionless for what seemed to them a stifling hour, but at last the +operator laid down the receiver. + +"All," she said. "Every one." + +"The Rhine Valley?" + +The girl nodded, then rolled her jacket into a pillow, lay down before +the door and immediately fell asleep. It had been a night of ghastly +suspense. Another operator was already running up the stair to her +relief. + +"Fate!" cried Mimi. "The same fate that sank the Armada and drove +Napoleon to Moscow. You had the vision--" + +"I was the chosen instrument--" Gisela walked rapidly over to the +biplane. A girl sat at the joy-stick looking as if carved out of wood. +There was no more expression on her face than if she were sitting in the +gallery at a rather dull play. Her lover and six brothers were dead in +France. She had watched her little brother and her old grandmother die +of malnutrition. Her sister was "officially pregnant" and under +surveillance lest she kill herself. No more perfect machine was at the +disposal of Gisela Döring. Whether Germany were delivered or razed to +the earth was all one to her, but she was more than willing, as a +Bavarian with a traditional hatred of Prussia, to play her part in the +downfall of a race that presumed to call itself German. + + +2 + +Gisela stepped into the machine and it glided downward and skimmed +lightly over the great length of the Maximilianstrasse. + +The compact ranks, which had listened unmoved to the roar of dynamite +and the detonations of bursting shells, raised their faces at the +humming of the machine and broke into harsh abrupt cheering. Then they +leaned their rifles against their powerful bodies and unfurled their +flags and waved them in the faces of the half paralyzed people in the +windows. It was a white flag with a curious device sketched in crimson: +a hen in successive stages of evolution. The final phase was an eagle. +The body was modeled after the Prussian emblem of might, but the face, +grim, leering, vengeful, pitiless, was unmistakably that of a woman. +However humor may be lacking in the rest of that grandiose Empire it was +grafted into the Bavarians by Satan himself. + +Gisela nodded. "The hens are eagles--all over Germany," she announced +in her full carrying voice. "Word has come through from every quarter." + +She flew down the Leopoldstrasse. It was packed with women from the +Feldherrnhalle to the Siegesthor, cheering women, waving their flags, +armed to the teeth. So was the great Park of the Residenz, the +Hofgarten, where the guards were either bound or dead. It took her but a +few moments to fly all over Munich. The narrow streets were deserted, +save for the prostrate policemen bound suddenly from ambush; but in all +the beautiful squares, with their pompous statues, and in all the wider +streets, and out in the wide Theresien Field before the colossal figure +of Bavaria, the women were gathered; relapsing into phlegmatic calm as +soon as she had given her message and passed. + +But it was by no means a scene of unbroken dignity and silence. Here and +there groups of men in uniform lay dead, sword or pistol in hand. Once +Gisela flew low and discharged her revolver into the shoulder of a big +officer, half dressed and barely recovered from his wounds, who was +keeping off half a dozen women with magnificent sword play. The women +gave one another first aid, then lifted and pitched him into his house. + +There was sniping, of course, from the windows, but the women made a +concerted rush and disposed of the terrified offender as remorselessly +as their own men had punished the desperate civilians of the lands they +had invaded. They had heard their men brag for too many years about +their admirable policy of Schrecklichkeit to forget the lesson in this +fateful hour. + +The most exciting scenes and the only ones in which any of the women +were killed were in the vicinity of the garrison. These interior +garrisons of the country had been one of the long debated problems. As +no women entered them and as it was not safe to attempt the corruption +of any of the men, there were but two alternatives: blow them up and +sacrifice the men wholesale or meet them with a superior force as they +rushed out to ascertain the nature of the explosions, and fight them in +open battle. Gisela had finally decided to give them a chance for their +lives, as she had no mind to shed any more blood than was unavoidable; +and these men, being no longer in their prime, must be overcome +eventually, no matter what their fury. + +When she hovered over the Marztplatz in front of the garrison a few +moments after the last of the explosions, and while fire was still +raging in this military quarter of magazines, arsenals and laboratories, +men and women were mixed in a hideous confusion, shooting and slashing +indiscriminately. But there were thousands of women and only a few +hundred men, all of whom at one time or another had been wounded. +Finally the captain of this regiment of women ordered a swift retreat, +and simultaneously three machine guns opened fire from innocent looking +windows, but on the garrison building, not on the square. They ceased +after one round, and the captain of the women gave such men as were +alive and unwounded their choice between death and surrender. They chose +the sensible alternative, were driven within, and placed under a heavy +guard. + +It was not safe to venture too close to the still exploding and blazing +structures, but it was quite apparent that the work had been done +thoroughly. The fire brigades were busy, and there was little danger of +Munich, one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in the world, +falling a victim to the revolution. Many lives had been sacrificed, no +doubt. The women night-workers in the factories, fifteen minutes before +the signal from the Frauenkirche, had pretended to strike, seized all +the hand arms available and shot down the men who attempted to control +them. The men in the secret had gone with them and were already about +their business. + +The officers in charge of the Class of 1920 were too few in number to +make any resistance, too dazed to grasp a situation for which there was +no precedent; they had surrendered to the Amazons grimly awaiting their +decision. The poor boys in the Kadettenkorps had run home to their +mothers, and, finding them in the streets, had either taken refuge in +the cellars, or joined those formidable warriors in gray, promising +obedience and yielding their arms. + +Other aeroplanes were darting about the city. The greater number were +driven by women, directing the fire brigades, but now and again a man, +whose monoplane had been in his private shed, flew upward primed for +battle. After a few parleys he retired to await events, one only +shooting a woman, and crashing to earth riddled with avenging bullets. + +Such air men as were in Munich were too callous to danger of all sorts, +too accustomed to the horrors of the battlefield, to take this +outpouring of women and mere civilians seriously; even in spite of the +explosions, which, to be sure, denoted an appalling amount of +destruction. Any attempt to sally forth on foot and ascertain the extent +of the damage was met by bayonets and pistols in the hands of brigades +of women whose like they had never seen in Germany. They inferred they +were Russians, who had managed to cross the frontier with the infernal +subtlety of their race. At all events they would be exterminated with no +effort of men lacking authority to act. + + +3 + +Several of the women flew out into the country, but except where people +were gathered about smoking ruins the land was at peace; there was no +sign of a rally to the blue and white flag of Bavaria, no sign of an +avenging army. In the course of the morning there were hundreds of these +aviators darting about Bavaria, descending to tell the peasants or +shop-keepers of the small towns that Germany was in revolution, the +armies deprived of all support, and that the Republic had been +proclaimed in Berlin. The Social Democrats had possession of the +Reichstaggebäude, and every official head still affixed to its +shoulders was as helpless--a fuming prisoner in its own house--as if +those arrogant brains had turned to porridge. Every royal and official +residence throughout the Empire was surrounded by an army of women with +fixed bayonets, and before noon every unsubmissive member of the old +régime would be in either a fortress or the common prison. + +This news Gisela heard at ten o'clock when she returned to the wireless +station on the Maximilianeum. The Berlin news came from Mariette. + +In Munich the old King had been returned to the Red Palace which he had +occupied during the long years of his father's regency, and it too was +surrounded by an alert but silent army. The other royal palaces were +guarded in a similar manner, but the women had no intention of killing +these kindly Wittelsbachs if it could be avoided. All they asked of them +was to keep quiet, and keep quiet they did. After all, they had reigned +a thousand years. Perhaps they were tired. Certainly they always looked +bored to the verge of dissolution. + +The Munich Socialists had taken possession of the Residenz in which to +proclaim their victory and the new Republic, and by this time were +crowding the Hofgarten and adjoining streets. They were unarmed and many +of the women moved constantly among them, ready at a second's notice to +dispose summarily of any man who even scowled his antagonism to the +downfall of monarchy. + +Six hundred women, according to the prearranged program, and under +Gisela's direct supervision, were turning such outlying buildings as +commanded the highways leading toward the frontiers into fortifications. +They had little apprehension that their sons and fathers, their husbands +and lovers, would fire on the women to whom they had brought home food +from their rations these two years past, or that the General Staff would +risk the demolition of the cities of Germany. But they took no chances, +knowing that an attempt might be made to rush them. In that case they +were determined to remember only that their husbands and sons, fathers +and lovers, were bent upon their final subjection. Moreover, the term +"brain storm" had long since found its way from the United States to +Germany, and the women thought it singularly applicable to their former +masters when in a state of baffled rage. + + + + +VII + + +1 + +Mariette's communications by wireless were very brief, and on the second +day of the revolution Gisela went by special train to Berlin. It was +the King's own train, and always ready to start. The engineer and +fireman avowed themselves "friends of the revolution," but they +performed their duties with two armed women in the cab and fifty more in +the car behind the engine. + +The cities through which Gisela passed, as well as the small towns and +wayside villages, presented a uniform appearance: smoking ruins in the +outlying sections which had been devoted to the war factories, and +streets deserted save for women sentries. One or two of the smaller +towns had burned, owing to lack of fire brigades. The food trains +destined for the front, which had been moved out of danger before the +general destruction, were being systematically unloaded, and a portion +of the contents doled out to thousands of emaciated men, women, and +children. The rest would be as methodically returned to the warehouses. + +Gisela arrived in Berlin half an hour before the Kaiser. + +The city was as dark as interstellar space and she would have been +forced to spend the night in the Anhalt Bahnhof if Mariette had not met +her. They walked from the station, keeping close to the walls of the +silent houses and entering Unter den Linden from the Friedrichstrasse. +There was not a sound but the high whirr of airplanes keeping guard over +a city that seemed stifled in the embrace of death, its life current +switched off by the proudest achievement of its pestilent laboratories. + +Mariette did not take the trouble to lower her hard incisive voice as +she told her sister the brief story of the revolution in Berlin. + +"I left not a loophole for failure. Two minutes before the bells rang +every policeman on duty was shot dead from a doorway or window. The +police offices and stations were blown up. There is not a policeman +alive in Berlin. I also ordered the garrisons blown up. Both the police +and the garrisons here were too strong. I dared not risk an encounter. +Criticize me if you will. It is done." + +"But the Emperor, the General Staff?" Gisela was in no mood to waste a +thought upon means, nor even upon accomplished ends. "If they left Pless +at once they should have been here before this." + +"They did not leave Pless at once. When they began to send out questions +by wireless after they found their telephone and telegraph wires cut, +they were kept quiet for several hours by soothing messages sent by our +women in Breslau and nearer towns. An abortive uprising of a handful of +starving Socialists! Even when their fliers went out they could learn +nothing because they dared not land even at Breslau; high-firing guns +threatened them everywhere. All they could report was that the streets +were full of armed women, which, of course, the General Staff took as an +unseemly joke. But toward night a soldier who had managed to escape from +Breslau came staggering into Great Headquarters with information that +penetrated even that composite Prussian skull: the women of Germany had +risen _en masse_ and effected a revolution. Of course they refused to +believe the worst--that every ounce and inch of war material had been +destroyed; and the entire Staff, escorted by a thousand troops--all they +had on hand--started for Berlin. They did not omit to wireless in both +directions for troops to march on Berlin at once; but, needless to say, +these messages were deflected. As the tracks were torn up they were +obliged to travel by automobile, and as the bridges over the Kloonitz +Canal and the Oder tributaries had been blown up, they were unable to +ameliorate what must have been an apoplectic impatience. No doubt a few +of them are dead. Of course their progress has been watched and reported +every hour, but they have not been molested. We want them here. Only +their small air squadron has been shot down." + +They felt their way along Unter den Linden by the trees and entered the +Opernplatz. Two biplanes awaited them before the arsenal. There were +lights in the great pile of the Hohenzollerns across the bridge. Uneasy +spirits prowled there, no doubt, but none of the women of the Imperial +family had made any attempt to escape, accepting the assurances of the +revolutionists that no harm should come to them, and, knowing nothing of +the thorough methods taken to reduce the army to impotence, awaited with +what patience they could muster--and royal women are the most patient in +the world--the invincible troops that must come within a day or two to +their rescue. + +The two biplanes flew over to the streets east of the Emperor's palace +and hovered just above the house tops until the eyes of Gisela and +Mariette, now accustomed to a darkness unpierced by moon or stars, made +out a long line of moving blackness in the narrow gloom of the +Königinstrasse. The forward cars entered the palace from the +Schlossplatz, and as lights immediately appeared in the courtyards +Gisela saw eight or ten men alight stiffly and hurriedly enter the inner +portals. The other automobiles ranged themselves in an apparently +unbroken line on all sides of the palace. Gisela had amused herself +imagining the nervous speculations of those war-hardened potentates and +warriors as they crawled through the sinister darkness of the +capital--proud witness of a thousand triumphal marches; of the sharp and +darting gaze above the guns of the armored cars, expecting an ambush at +every corner. How they must hate a situation so utterly without +precedent. + +Gisela almost laughed aloud as she saw the purple flag, denoting that +the Emperor was in residence, run up on the north side of the palace. +However, automatic discipline worked both ways. + +Once more Berlin was as silent as if at rest for ever under the pall of +darkness that seemed to have descended from the dark and threatening +sky. + +But only for a moment. + +Berlin suddenly burst into a blinding glare of light. Unter den +Linden from end to end--excepting only the royal palaces--with +its long line of imposing public buildings, hotels, and shops, +the Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Platz, the Zeugplatz, the Lustgarten--the +Schlossplatz--all the magnificent expanse from the Brandenburg gate to a +quarter of a mile beyond the river Spree--had been strung and looped +with electric lights, and the scene looked as if touched with a royal +fairy's wand. The side streets from the Royal Library and the old Kaiser +Wilhelm palace as far as the Schlossbrücke, were also brilliantly +illuminated. + +And in all these streets and squares women stood in close ranks, silent, +phlegmatic women, with pistols in their belts and rifles with fixed +bayonets on their shoulders, the steel reflecting the terrific downpour +of light with a steady and menacing glitter. These women wore gray +uniforms and there were shining Prussian helmets on their heads. + +In every window was a double row of women, armed; and the housetops were +crowded with them. There were also machine guns on the roofs, pointing +downward or toward the roof of the palace. + +Mariette laughed. "Theatric enough to please even his taste? Our last +tribute. Let us hope he will enjoy it." + +A moment later the expected happened. A window of the palace overlooking +the great Schlossplatz opened and the Emperor stepped out into the +narrow balcony. His uniform was caked with dust and mud and his face was +drawn with a mortal fatigue; but as he stood there scowling haughtily +down upon that upturned sea of woman's faces, the most singular vision +that ever had greeted imperial eyes, he was an imposing figure enough +to those who knew that he was the Kaiser Wilhelm II, King of Prussia and +Alsace-Lorraine, and Emperor in Germany. + +It was evident that he had no intention of speaking, but expected this +grotesque mob to be overwhelmed by the imperial presence and dissolve. + +Frau Kathie Meyers, with the figure of an Amazon and the voice of a +megaphone, stepped forth from the ranks and lifted her placid red face +to the balcony. + +"You will abdicate, William Hohenzollern," she announced in tones that +rolled down toward the Brandenburg gate like the overtones of a Death +Symphony at the Front. "Germany is a Republic. And the palace is mined. +If your soldiers fire one shot from the windows the palace goes up to +meet the ghosts of every arsenal and every ammunition factory in what +two days ago was the Empire of Germany. Your armies are helpless. You +will remain a prisoner within your palace until we have decided whether +to deliver you to Great Britain, incarcerate you in a fortress, or +permit you to live in exile. It will depend upon the behavior of the +army when it returns. If you attempt to leave the palace you will be +shot." + +The Emperor stared down upon that mass of calm implacable faces, so +unmistakably German; not brilliant nor beautiful, but persistent as +death, and stamped with the watermark of kultur; stared for a long +moment, his gray face twitching, the familiar gray blaze in his eyes. +But he turned without a word or even a disdainful gesture and reëntered +the palace, the window closing immediately behind him. + +The Amazon addressed the men in the armored automobiles that surrounded +the palace. + +"Fire upon us if you like. Our ranks are close and you will kill many. +But not one of you will live to eat rat sausage tomorrow morning. Now +disarm and march to the guard house." + +The contemptible little army of the Kaiser, hypnotized as much by the +glare as by this solid mass of vindictive females--singly so +negligible--shrugged their shoulders, surrendered their arms, and +marched off under guard. After all, they would have a blessed rest, +however brief, before the great generals sent back a few brigades to +execute summary vengeance upon these presumptuous women, who had used +their incidental superiority in numbers so basely. + + +2 + +But nothing came from the front but frantic orders by wireless to the +staunch but impotent pillars of the old régime. The British, French, and +American forces, convinced at last that German women actually had +effected a revolution--God knew how!--attacked every point of the line +from Flanders to Belfort, and their aviators dropped newspapers +containing the extraordinary but verified story, into the German +trenches and back of the lines. + +The destruction of the railways leading to the Austria-Hungarian Empire, +as well as all the rolling stock within three miles of the frontier, +balked any attempt to rush supplies in from the east, and in two days +Austria was in the throes of a revolution far more devastating +internally than Germany's, for that excitable and harassed people, long +on the verge of despair, merely caught the revolution-microbe and went +mad. + +To supply either the army opposing Italy or that in Roumania and +Gallicia, to say nothing of that in the Northeast, was no longer even +considered. The young Emperor sought only to come to an understanding +with his people. + +It was a matter of days before both ammunition and food would be +exhausted on the two fronts, and neither had a superfluous man to send +to Berlin, or even to repair the tracks. + + +3 + +By Friday there was no longer any doubt of the complete success of the +Revolution. Britain, France, Russia, Italy, the United States, with a +prompt and canny statesmanship, remarkable in Governments, had formally +acknowledged the German Republic, and offered terms of peace possible +for an ambitious and self-respecting but beaten people to accept. At all +events there would be no commercial boycott, and the young Republic +would be given every assistance in restoring the shattered finances of +Germany, and its economic relations with the rest of the world. + +The good German people were flattered in phrases that they rolled on +their tongues. Even those too schooled in lies to believe the statesmen +of their own or any land reflected that, after all, the Enemy Allies had +demonstrated they were sportsmen, that German prisoners had been well +treated, and that before the war there had been no restrictions upon +German commerce save in insidious reiterated words of men determined +upon war at any cost. As a matter of fact, Germany had been absorbing +the commerce of the world, and Britain had been reprehensibly supine. + +As the Socialists now did all the talking, and unhindered, it was not +difficult to persuade even the reluctant minority that the military +party had precipitated the war in a sudden panic at the rapidly +developing power of the proletariat. + +Night fliers dropped millions of leaflets in the vicinity of the armies +on the Eastern and Western fronts, signed (at the pistol point) by the +most powerful names in the former Government, as well as by the +well-known Social-Democrat leaders, containing the details of the +Revolution and proofs of its success. The Empire had fallen. A Republic, +acknowledged by the great powers of the world, was established. Would +the soldiers stack their arms and return to their homes? If the generals +or under officers attempted to restrain them it was to be remembered +that the soldiers were as a hundred thousand to one. + +The women felt no real apprehension of an avenging army. They knew the +average German male. His innate subserviency to power would turn him +automatically about to the party whose power was supreme. And the +soldiers hated their officers. + + + + +VIII + + +On Friday night Gisela left her apartment in the Königinstrasse, where +she had slept for a few hours after a visit to the principal cities of +the Empire, and walked out to Schwabing, that picturesque "village" that +looked like a bit of the Alps transferred to the edge of Munich. She had +not forgotten the man she had sacrificed, and at the end of the first +day of the Revolution she had learned that his body had been caught +under the Schwabing bridge, rescued, and placed temporarily in the vault +of the little church. + +It was a bright starlight night, and the old white church with its +bulbous tower, last outpost of Turkey in her heyday, looked like a lone +mourner for the dream of Mittel-Europa. Gisela climbed the mound and +entered the quiet enclosure. She had met no one in the peaceful suburb, +although she had heard the deep guttural voices of elderly men still +lingering at the tables in the beer gardens. + +She had sent orders to leave the door of the church unlocked, and she +entered the barren room, guiding herself with her electric torch to the +stair that led down to the vault. Fear of any sort had long since been +crowded out of her, but it was a lonely pilgrimage she hardly would have +undertaken ten days ago. + +She descended the short flight of steps and flashed her light about the +vault. It was a small room, oppressively musty and humid. All Schwabing +is damp but the Isar itself might have washed the walls of this dripping +sepulcher. The coffin stood on a rough trestle in the center of the +chamber, and it was covered with the military cloak that, with his sword +and helmet, she had ordered sent from his hotel. + +She stood beside the coffin, trying to visualize the man who lay within, +wondering if the orders still bulged above the hilt of the dagger she +had driven in with so firm a hand ... or if they had taken the time to +remove it ... or if that symbol of Germany's freedom would be found ages +hence in a handful of dust when the man who had taught her all she would +ever know of love or living was long forgotten.... + +But in a moment these vagrant fancies, drifting from a tired brain, took +flight, her reluctant mind focused itself, and she knelt beside the +bier, pressing the folds of the cloak about her face and weeping +heavily. + +It was her final tribute to her womanhood. That she had rescued her +country and incidentally the world, making democracy and liberty safe +for the first time in its history, mattered nothing to her then. Nor her +immortal fame. + +To regret was impossible. Strong souls are inaccessible to regret. But +she hated life and her bitter destiny, for she had sacrificed the life +that gave meaning to her own, and she wished that the implacable Powers +that rule the destinies of individuals and nations had foreborne their +accustomed irony and presented her gifts to some woman mercifully +lacking her own terrible power to love and suffer--and the imagination +which would keep for ever vivid in her mind the poignant happiness that +had been hers and that she had immolated on the cold altar of duty. She +was still young, and her sole hope, glimmering at the end of an +interminable perspective, was that it would be her privilege to lie at +last in the grave with this man; who had been her other part and whose +heart and hers she had slain. + + + + +THE WOMEN OF GERMANY + +An Argument for my "The White Morning" + +From _The Bookman_, February, 1918, +by courtesy of Dodd, Mead & Co. + + + + +THE WOMEN OF GERMANY + +An Argument for my "The White Morning" + + +I have been asked by the Editor of _The Bookman_ to state my authority +for writing _The White Morning_; in other words for daring to believe +that a revolution conceived and engineered by women is possible in +Germany. + +Before giving my own reasons, stripped of what glamor of fiction I have +been able to surround the story with, I should like to say that when I +began to put the idea into form I thought it was entirely my own. But +while it is always pleasant to offer this sort of incense to one's +vanity, I should have been more than glad to quote to my editor and +publisher some reliable male authority; a man's opinion, on all +momentous subjects, by force of tradition, far outweighing any theory or +guess that a woman, no matter what her intimate personal experience, may +advance. + +Imagine then my delight, when the story was half finished, to read an +article by A. Curtis Roth, in the _Saturday Evening Post_, in which he +stated unequivocally that it was among the possibilities that the women +of Germany, driven to desperation by suffering and privation, and +disillusion, would arise suddenly and overturn the dynasty. Mr. Roth, +who was American vice-consul at Plauen, Saxony, until we entered the +war, has written some of the most enlightening and brilliant articles +that have appeared on the internal conditions of any of the belligerent +countries since August, 1914. He remained at his post until the last +moment and then left Germany a physical wreck from malnutrition. In +spite of the fact that he was an officer in the consular service of a +neutral country, with ample means at his command, and standing in close +personal relations with the authorities, he could not get enough to eat; +and what he was forced to swallow--lest he starve--completely broke down +his digestion. + +On the other hand, he never ceased to observe; and having made friends +of all classes of Germans, and been given facilities for observation and +study of conditions enjoyed by few Americans in the Teutonic Empire at +the time, he noted every phase and change, both subtle and manifest, +through which these afflicted people passed during the first three years +of the war. They are in far worse case now. + +Later (in November) I read an article by a German, J. Koettgen, in the +New York _Chronicle_, which was even more explicit. + +Herr Koettgen is one of the agents in this country of Hermann Fernau, an +eminent intellectual of Germany, who escaped into Switzerland, and wages +relentless war upon the dynasty and the military caste of Prussia; which +he holds categorically responsible for the world war. There is a price +on Fernau's head. He dares not walk abroad without a bodyguard, and +cannon are concealed among the oleanders that surround his house. Not +only has he written two books, _Because I am a German_, and _The Coming +Democracy_, which if circulated in Germany would prick thousands of +dazed despairing brains into immediate rebellion, but he is the head of +those German Radical Democrats which have united in an organization +called "Friends of German Democracy." + +Their avowed object, through the medium of a bi-weekly journal, _Die +Freie Zeitung_, and other propaganda, is to plant sound democratic ideas +and ideals in the minds of German prisoners in the Entente countries, +and to recruit the saner exiles everywhere. These publications reach men +and women of German blood whose grandfathers fled from military tyranny +after their abortive revolution in 1848, and, with their descendants, +have enjoyed freedom and independence in the United States ever since. +The best of them are expected to exert pressure upon their friends and +relatives in Germany. There are already branches of this epochal +organization in the larger American cities. + +Herr Koettgen (who has written a book called _The Hausfrau and +Democracy_, by the way) walked into the office of the _Chronicle_ some +time in November and presented a letter to the editor, Mr. Fletcher. In +the course of the heated conversation that ensued, Herr Koettgen +exclaimed with bitter scorn: "Oh, so you think yourself as fiercely +anti-German as a man may be? Well, let me tell you that you are not +capable of one-tenth the passionate hatred I feel for a dynasty and a +caste that has made me so ashamed of being a German that I could eat the +dust." + +In Herr Koettgen's article occur the following paragraphs: "At the first +glance German women hardly appear likely material for the coming +Revolution which will turn Germany into a modern country. But many +incidents point to the fact that German women are growing with their +increasing task. They are beginning to replace their men not only +economically but politically. Most of the public demonstrations in +Germany during this war have been led and arranged by women. The very +first demonstration in 1915 consisted of women. As Mr. Gerard tells us +in his book, they had no very definite idea of what they wanted; only +they wanted their men back. But since that time their political +education has made rapid progress.... With their men in the field and +their former leaders (Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, Louise Zietz) in +prison, German women are learning to act for themselves. Their +demonstrations point to it, as do also letters written by German women +to their men who are now prisoners of war in France and England. In one +of these letters which escaped the watchful eye of the censor, a German +hausfrau described how she made the officials of Muenster sit up by her +energetic and persistent demands." + +A girl upon one occasion said to Herr Koettgen: "Only women and children +were employed in our factory. We had more than one strike. Two women +would go round to every woman and girl in the shop and tell them: 'We +have asked for twenty or thirty pfennings more. To-morrow we are going +on strike. She who does not come out will have the thrashing of her +life.' We were all frightened and stayed away, for they really meant +it." + +Herr Koettgen continues: "Novel circumstances are reawakening in the +meek German hausfrau some of that combative spirit which characterized +the Teuton women in the time of Tacitus, when they often fought +alongside of their men in the wagon camp.... German women will show +their men the way to freedom. Doing more than their share of the +nation's work, they insist upon being heard, and their growing influence +is one of the greatest dangers to German autocracy in its present +predicament. As politicians German women have the advantage of not +having gone through the soul-destroying, brutalizing school of Prussian +militarism, and of not being burdened with the rigmarole of theory which +formed the content of German politics before the war. They can be +trusted to make a bee-line for the real obstacle to peace and +liberty--to eradicate the autocratic militaristic régime which enslaved +the German people in order to enslave the world." + +Now that the way has been cleared by two men of affairs who have never +condescended to write fiction, I will give my own reasons for belief in +the German women, and also for the general plan of _The White Morning_. + +I had an apartment for seven years in Munich and spent six or eight +months alternately in that delightful city and traveling in Europe, +passing a month or two in England, or returning for an equal length of +time to my own country. During that long residence in Germany I +naturally met many of its inhabitants, and of as many classes as +possible. German women do not tell you the history of their lives the +first time you meet them, not by any means; they are naturally secretive +and the reverse of frank. But they are human, and when you have won +their confidence they will tell you surprising things. The confidences I +received were for the most part from girls, and one and all assured me +they never should marry. Having grown up under one House Tyrant, for +whom they were not responsible, why in heaven's name should they +deliberately annex another? Far, far better bear with the one whose +worst at least they knew (and who could not live forever), than marry +some man who might be loathsome as well as tyrannical, and who, unless +there happened to be a war, might outlive them? + +The idea in my novel of the four Niebuhr girls and their initial +rebellion was suggested to me by a family of Prussian junkerdom that I +met at a watering place in Denmark. The baroness was a charming woman +who used a moderate invalidism in a smiling imperturbable fashion to +insure herself a certain immunity from the demands of her autocratic +lord. The girls were lively, intelligent, splendidly educated. They were +in love with society and court functions, but deeply rebellious at the +attitude of the German male, and determined never to marry. That is to +say the three younger girls; the oldest had married a tame puppy, and +anything less like a tyrant I never beheld. No American husband could be +more subservient. But there was no question that he belonged to a small +exceptional class: while his wife, with all the dominating qualities of +her father, was one of a rapidly increasing number of German women, +silently but firmly rebellious. + +The Herr baron was a typical Prussian aristocrat and autocrat. The girls +could hardly have had less liberty in a convent. When they came from +their hotel to mine he escorted them over and often came in. Luckily he +liked me or I never should have had the opportunity to know them as well +as I did. Nor should I have been able to continue the acquaintance +after the day I wickedly induced them to run away with me to Copenhagen, +where we shopped, promenaded all the principal streets, then took ices +on the terrace of one of the restaurants. When we returned he was +storming up and down the platform of the station, and he fairly raved at +the girls. "And you dared, you dared, to go to Copenhagen, without +permission, without your mother, without me!" The girls listened meekly, +but whenever he wheeled laughed behind his military back. Then he turned +on me, but I called him a tyrant and gave him my opinion of his +nonsensical attitude generally. As I was not his daughter he gradually +calmed down and seemed rather to relish the tirade. Finally they all +came over to my hotel to tea. + +"You see!" said one of the girls to me afterward. "I have not +exaggerated. Do you think I want another like that?" And, so far as I +know, they have never married. + +I did not draw any of my characters on these four delightful girls, but +took the episode as a foundation for the incidents and characters that +grew under my hand after I got round to the story. + +The episode of Georg Zottmyer was also told me by a German girl whom I +got to know very well in Munich, and who distantly suggested the +character of Gisela (that is to say in the very beginning. As Gisela +developed she became more like her own legendary Brunhilda).[1] + +This young woman was as independent in her life and in her ideas as any +I ever met in England or the United States. But fortune had been kind to +her. Her father died just after her education was finished, and as he +left little money, she went to Brazil as governess in a wealthy family. +She remained in South America for several years, gaining, of course, +poise and experience. Then a relative died and left her a comfortable +fortune. When I met her she was living in Munich from choice, like so +many other Germans who were bored with routine and rigid class lines. + +She was a beautiful young woman, with dark hair and eyes and a brilliant +complexion, and dressed to perfection, although she wore no stays. This +may have been a bit of vanity on her part, as the awful reformkleid was +in vogue, and fat German women were displaying themselves in lumps and +creases and billows and sections that rolled like the untrammelled waves +of the sea. Her own figure was so firmly molded and so erect and supple +that it was, for all her fashionable clothes, quite independent of the +corset. She had charming manners combined with an imperturbable +serenity, and always seemed faintly amused. On the other hand, she +displayed none of the offensive German conceit and arrogance. + +We spent several days together at Partenkirchen, one of the most +picturesque spots in the Bavarian Alps, and as we were both good +walkers, and there was no one else in the hotel who interested us, we +became quite intimate. She was one of the first to talk to me about the +deep discontent and disgust of the German women, and of her own utter +contempt for the meek hausfrau type, and for the tyrannies, petty, +coarse, often brutal, of the man in his home. Nothing, she was +determined, would ever tempt her to marry, and she could name many +others who were making an independent life for themselves, although, +lacking fortune, often in secret. No matter how much she might fancy +herself in love (and I imagine that she had had her enlightening +experiences) she would not risk a lifelong clash of wills with a man who +might turn out to be a medieval despot. + +It was then that she told me of the tentative proposal of one of her +beaux (she had many) "Georg Zottmyer," which I have recorded almost +literally in the scene between this passing character and Gisela in the +Café Luitpolt. My object in doing so was to give as realistic an +impression as possible of what the German woman is up against in +dealings with her male. I knew Zottmyer personally, and he interested me +the more (as one is interested in a bug under a microscope) because he +had less excuse for his conceit and arrogance than most German men: he +was brought up in California, where his father is a successful doctor. +But that only seemed to have made him worse. He returned to Germany as +soon as he was of age, more German than the Germans, and despising +Americans. + +I had often wondered what became of this highly interesting young woman, +and when I began to write _The White Morning_ she popped into my mind. I +believe she could be a leader of some kind if she chose. Perhaps she is. + +The cases could be multiplied indefinitely. The Erkels and Mimi Brandt +are drawn, together with their conditions, almost photographically. +"Heloise" finally married a Scot and went with him to his own country, +but her sisters were dragging out their tragic lives when I left Munich. + +A few days ago I met a highly intelligent American woman of German +blood who, before the war, used to visit her relatives in Germany every +year. I told her that I had written this story and she agreed with me +that it was on the cards the women would instigate a revolution. +"Never," she said, "in any country have I known such discontent among +women, heard so many bitter confidences. Their feelings against their +fathers or husbands were the more intense and violent because they dared +not speak out like English or American women." + +There is no question that for about fifteen years before the war there +was a thinking, secret, silent, watchful but outwardly passive revolt +going on among the women of Germany. I do not think it had then reached +the working women. It took the war to wake them up. But in that vast +class which, in spite of racial industry, had a certain amount of +leisure, owing to the almost total absence of poverty in the Teutonic +Empire, and whose minds were educated and systematically trained, there +was persistent reading, meditating upon the advance of women in other +nations, quiet debating unsuspected of their masters; and they were +growing in numbers and in an almost sinister determination every year. +Of course there were plenty of hausfraus cowed to the door mat, and, +like the proletariat, needing a war to wake them up; but there were +several hundred thousand of the other sort. + +Now, all these women need is a leader. The working women have their Rosa +Luxemburgs, who think out loud in public and get themselves locked up; +and, moreover, do not appeal to the other classes--for Germany is the +most snobbish country in the world. If there were--or if there is--such +a woman as Gisela Döring, who before the war had acquired a widespread +intellectual influence over the awakening women of her race, and then, +when they were approaching the breaking point, had gone quietly and +systematically about making a revolution, there is no question in my +mind as to the outcome. + +Just consider for a moment what the German women have suffered during +this war--a war that they were told was forced upon their country by the +aggressive military acts of Russia and France, but which, owing to +Germany's might, would hardly last three months. For nearly three years +they have never known the sensation of appeased hunger, and, having +always been immense eaters, have suffered the tortures of dyspepsia in +addition to hunger. But, far worse, they have listened almost +continuously to the wails of their children for satisfying food, +children who are forever hungry and who often succumb. Karl Ackerman, +whose accuracy no one has questioned, states in his book, _Germany, The +Next Republic?_, that in 1916 sixty thousand children died of +malnutrition in Berlin alone. + +These women have lost their fathers, husbands, sons--well, that is the +fortune of any war; but they are beginning to understand that they have +lost them, not in a war of self-defense, but to gratify the insane +ambitions and greed of a dynasty and a military caste that are out of +date in the twentieth century. Their parents, when over sixty, have died +from the same cause as the children. Their daughters, both unmarried and +newly widowed, are "officially pregnant," or the mothers of brats the +name of whose fathers they do not know. The young girls of Lille hardly +have suffered more. The German victims are sent for, then sent home to +bear another child for Germany. + +Now, we know what the German men are. These women are the mothers and +wives and sisters of the German men; in other words, they are Germans, +body, and bone and brain-cells, capable of precisely the same ruthless +tactics when pushed too hard--if they have a leader. That, to my mind, +is the whole point. Given that leader, they would effect a revolution +precisely as I have described in my story. Nor would they run the risk +of failure. The German race is not eight-tenths illiterates and +two-tenths intellectuals, emotional firebrands, anarchists and +sellers-out like the Russians. They are uniformly educated, uniformly +disciplined. They will do nothing futile, nothing without the most +secret and methodical preparation of which even the German mind is +capable. It will be like turning over in bed in camp: they will all turn +over together. They are damnably efficient. + +It may be said: "But you may have spoiled their chances with your book. +You not only have revealed them in their true character to their men, +but all the details of their probable methods in working up and +precipitating a revolution. You have, in other words, put the German +authorities on their guard." + +The answer to this is that no German of the dominant sex could be made +to believe in anything so unprecedented as German women taking the law +into their own hands, uniting, and overthrowing a dynasty. Nothing can +penetrate a German official skull but what has been trained into it from +birth. Unlike the women, the system has made the men of the ruling +class into the sort of machine which is perfect in its way but admits of +no modern improvements. That has been the secret of their strength and +of their weakness, and will be the chief assistance to the Allies in +bringing about their final defeat. I am positive they go to sleep every +night murmuring: "Two and two make four. Two and two make four." + +The women could hold meetings under their very noses, so long as they +were not in the street, lay their plans to the last fuse, and apply the +match at the preconcerted moment from one end of Germany to the other +unhindered, unless betrayed. The angry and restless male socialists +would not have a chance with the alert members of their own sex--who +regard women with an even and contemptuous tolerance. Useful but +harmless. + +I made Gisela a junker by birth, because a rebel from the top, with +qualities of leadership, would make a deeper impression in Germany than +one of the many avowed extremists of humbler origin. On the other hand, +it was necessary to drop the von, and take a middle-class name, or she +would have failed to win confidence, in the beginning, as well as +literary success; from opposite reasons. It is very difficult for an +aristocratic German of artistic talents to obtain a hearing. +Practically all the intellectuals belong to the middle-class, the +aristocrats being absorbed by the army and navy. The arrogance and often +brutal lack of consideration of the ruling caste, to say nothing of +common politeness, have inspired universal jealousy and hatred, the more +poignant as it must be silent. But even the silent may find their means +of vengeance, as the noble discovers when he attempts recognition in the +intellectual world. But if he were a propagandist, with the welfare of +all Germany at heart, and won his influence under an assumed name, as +Gisela Döring did, the revelation of his identity, together with proof +of dissociation from his own class, would enhance his popularity +immensely. Moreover, it would be incense to the vanity of classes that +never are permitted to forget their inferior rank. + +In this country there is a snobbish tendency to exalt and boom any +writer who is known to belong to one of the old and wealthy families; +and the more snobbish the writer the more infectious the disease. But +then in this country, which has never suffered from militarism, there is +a naïve tendency to worship success in any form. In Germany my heroine +would have doomed herself to failure if she had signed her work Gisela +von Niebuhr. But her early education, surroundings, position,--to say +nothing of her four years in the United States--were just what gave her +the requisite advantages, and preserved her from many mistakes. She +starts out with no prejudices against any caste, and an intense sympathy +for all German women who lack even the compensation of being +_hochwohlgeboren_. + +No one knows what the future holds, or what unexpected event will +suddenly end the war; but I should not have written _The White Morning_ +if I had not been firmly convinced that a Gisela might arise at any +moment and deliver the world. + + +GERTRUDE ATHERTON. + +[Footnote 1: For this reason I asked the most beautiful woman I have +ever seen of the heroic or goddess type to be photographed for the +frontispiece.--G.A.] + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHITE MORNING*** + + +******* This file should be named 13496-8.txt or 13496-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/9/13496 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The White Morning</p> +<p>Author: Gertrude Atherton</p> +<p>Release Date: September 18, 2004 [eBook #13496]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHITE MORNING***</p> +<br> +<br> +<h3>E-text prepared by Sandra Bannatyne<br> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</h3> +<br> +<br> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img src='images/whitemorning.jpg' width='249' height='359' alt='GISELA' title='GISELA' /> +<br /> +<i>Photograph by Arnold Genthe, N.Y.</i> +</center> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<h1>THE WHITE MORNING</h1> + +<h2>A NOVEL OF THE POWER OF THE GERMAN WOMEN IN WARTIME</h2> + + +<h3>BY</h3> +<h2>GERTRUDE ATHERTON</h2> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<h3>Contents.</h3> + + <a href='#I'><b>Chapter I</b></a><br /> + <a href='#II'><b>Chapter II</b></a><br /> + <a href='#III'><b>Chapter III</b></a><br /> + <a href='#IV'><b>Chapter IV</b></a><br /> + <a href='#V'><b>Chapter V</b></a><br /> + <a href='#VI'><b>Chapter VI</b></a><br /> + <a href='#VII'><b>Chapter VII</b></a><br /> + <a href='#VIII'><b>Chapter VIII</b></a><br /><br /> + <a href='#THE_WOMEN_OF_GERMANY'><b>THE WOMEN OF GERMANY</b></a><br /> + +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='THE_WHITE_MORNING'></a><h2>THE WHITE MORNING</h2> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='I'></a><h2>I</h2> +<br /> + +<h3>1</h3> + +<p>Countess Gisela Niebuhr sat in the long dusk of Munich staring over at +the beautiful park that in happier days had been famous in the world as +the Englischer Garten, and deliberately recalled on what might be the +last night of her life the successive causes that had led to her +profound dissatisfaction with her country as a woman. She was so +thoroughly disgusted with it as a German that personal grievances were +far from necessary to fortify her for the momentous rôle she was to play +with the dawn; but in this rare hour of leisure it amused her naturally +introspective mind to rehearse certain episodes whose sum had made her +what she was. </p> + +<p>When she was fourteen and her sisters Lili and Elsa sixteen and eighteen +they had met in the attic of their home in Berlin one afternoon when +their father was automatically at his club and their mother taking her +prescribed hour of rest, and solemnly pledged one another never to +marry. The causes of this vital conclave were both cumulative and +immediate. Their father, the Herr Graf, a fine looking junker of sixty +odd, with a roving eye and a martial air despite a corpulence which +annoyed him excessively, had transferred his lost authority over his +regiment to his household. The boys were in their own regiments and rid +of parental discipline, but the countess and the girls received the full +benefit of his military, and Prussian, relish for despotism.</p> + +<p>In his essence a kind man and fond of his women, he balked their every +individual wish and allowed them practically no liberty. They never left +the house unattended, like the American girls and those fortunate beings +of the student class. Lili had a charming voice and was consumed with +ambition to be an operatic star. She had summoned her courage upon one +memorable occasion and broached the subject to her father. All the +terrified family had expected his instant dissolution from apoplexy, and +in spite of his petty tyrannies they loved him. The best instructor in +Berlin continued to give her lessons, as nothing gave the Graf more +pleasure of an evening than her warblings.</p> + +<p>The household, quite apart from the Frau Gräfin's admirable management, +ran with military precision, and no one dared to be the fraction of a +minute late for meals or social engagements. They attended the theater, +the opera, court functions, dinners, balls, on stated nights, and unless +the Kaiser took a whim and altered a date, there was no deviation from +this routine year in and out. They walked at the same hour, drove in the +Tiergarten with the rest of fashionable Berlin, started for their castle +in the Saxon Alps not only upon the same day but on the same train every +summer, and the electric lights went out at precisely the same moment +every night; the count's faithful steward manipulated a central stop. +They were encouraged to read and study, but not—oh, by no means—to +have individual opinions. The men of Germany were there to do the +thinking and they did it.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the rebellion of the Niebuhr girls would never have crystallized +(for, after all, their everyday experience was much like that of other +girls of their class, merely intensified by their father's persistence +of executive ardors) had it not been for two subtle influences, quite +unsuspected by the haughty Kammerherr: they had an American friend, Kate +Terriss, who was "finishing her voice" in Berlin, and their married +sister, Mariette, had recently spent a fortnight in the paternal nest.</p> + +<p>The count despised the entire American race, as all good Prussians did, +but he was as wax to feminine blandishments outside of his family, and +Miss Terriss was pretty, diplomatic, alluring, and far cleverer than he +would have admitted any woman could be. She wound the old martinet +round her finger, subdued her rampant Americanism in his society, and +amused herself sowing the seeds of rebellion in the minds of "those poor +Niebuhr girls." As the countess also liked her, she had been "in and out +of the house" for nearly a year. The young Prussians had alternately +gasped and wept at the amazing stories of the liberty, the petting, the +procession of "good times" enjoyed by American girls of their own class, +to say nothing of the invariable prerogative of these fortunate girls to +choose their own husbands; who, according to the unprincipled Miss +Terriss, invariably spoiled their wives, and permitted them to go and +come, to spend their large personal allowances, as they listed. Gisela +closed her beloved volume of Grimm's fairy tales and never opened it +again.</p> + +<p>But it was the visit of Mariette that had marshalled vague +dissatisfactions to an ordered climax. She had left her husband in the +garrison town she had married with the excellent young officer, making +a trifling indisposition of her mother a pretext for escape. On the +night before her departure the four girls huddled in her bed after the +opera and listened to an incisive account of her brief but distasteful +period of matrimony. Not that she suffered from tyranny. Quite the +reverse. Of her several suitors she had cannily engineered into her +father's favor a young man of pleasing appearance, good title and +fortune, but quite without character behind his fierce upstanding +mustache. Inheriting her father's rigid will, she had kept the young +officer in a state of abject submission. She stroked his hair in public +as if he had been her pet dachshund, and patted his hand at kindly +intervals as had he been her dear little son.</p> + +<p>"But Karl has the soul of a sheep," she informed the breathless trio. +"You might not be so fortunate. Far, far from it. How can any one more +than guess before one is fairly married and done for? Look at papa. Does +he not pass in society as quite a charming person? The women like him, +and if poor mama died he could get another quick as a wink. But at the +best, my dear girls, matrimony—in Germany, at least—is an unmitigated +bore. And in a garrison town! Literally, there is no liberty, even with +one's husband under the thumb. We live by rote. Every afternoon I have +to take coffee at some house or other, when all those tiresome women are +not at my own. And what do you suppose they talk about—but invariably? +<i>Love!</i>" (With ineffable disdain.) "Nothing else, barring gossip and +scandal; as if they got any good out of <i>love</i>! But they are stupid for +the most part and gorged with love novels. They discuss the opera or the +play for the love element only, or the sensual quality of the music. Let +me tell you that although I married to get rid of papa, if I had it to +do over I should accept parental tyranny as the lesser evil. Not that I +am not fond of Karl in a way. He is a dear and would be quite harmless +if he were not in love with me. But garrison society—Gott, how German +wives would rejoice in a war! Think of the freedom of being a Red Cross +nurse, and all the men at the front. Officers would be your fate, too. +Papa would not look at a man who was not in the army. He despises men +who live on their estates. So take my advice while you may. Sit tight, +as the English say. Even German fathers do not live forever. The lime in +our soil sees to that. I notice papa's face gets quite purple after +dinner, and when he is angry. His arteries must have been hardening for +twenty years."</p> + +<p>Lili and Elsa were quite aghast at this naked ratiocination, but Gisela +whispered: "We might elope, you know."</p> + +<p>"With whom? No Englishman or American ever crosses the threshold, and +Kate has no brothers. The students have no money and no morals, and, +what is worse, no baths. A burgess or a professional would be quite as +intolerable, and no man of our class would consent to an elopement. +Germans may be sentimental but they are not romantic when it comes to +settlements. Now take my advice."</p> + +<p>They were taking it on this fateful day in the attic. They vowed never +to marry even if their formidable papa locked them up on bread and +water.</p> + +<p>"Which would be rather good for us," remarked the practical Elsa. "I am +sure we eat too much, and Gisela has a tendency to plumpness. But your +turn will not come for four years yet, dear child. It is poor us that +will need all our vows."</p> + +<p>After some deliberation they concluded to inform their mother of their +grim resolve. Naturally sympathetic, a pregnant upheaval had taken place +in that good lady's psychology during the past year. Her marriage, +although arranged by the two families, had been a love match on both +sides. The Graf was a handsome dashing and passionate lover and she a +beautiful girl, lively and companionable. Disillusion was slow in +coming, for she had been brought up on the soundest German principles +and believed in the natural superiority of the male as she did in the +House of Hohenzollern and the Lutheran religion.</p> + +<p>But she suspected, during her thirties, that she was, after all, the +daughter of a brilliant father as well as of an obsequious mother, and +that she had possibilities of mind and spirit that clamored for +development and fired the imagination, while utterly without hope. In +other words she was, like many another German woman, in her secret +heart, an individual. But she was not a rebel; her social code forbade +that. She manufactured interests for herself as rapidly, and as various, +as possible, preserved her good looks in spite of her eight children +(the two that followed Gisela died in infancy), dressed far better than +most German women, cultivated society, gave four notable musicales a +season, and was devoted to her sons and daughters, although she never +opposed her husband's stern military discipline of those seemingly +typical mädchens. It was her policy to keep the martinet in a good +humor, and after all—she had condemned herself not to think—what +better destiny than to be a German woman of the higher aristocracy? They +might have been born into the middle class, where there were quite as +many tyrants as in the patrician, and vastly fewer compensations. At the +age of forty-four she believed herself to be a philosopher.</p> + +<p>Six months before Mariette's marriage and shortly after the birth and +death of her last child, Frau von Niebuhr suddenly returned to her bed, +prostrate, on the verge of collapse. The count raged that any wife of +his should dare to be ill or absent (when not fulfilling patriotic +obligations), consult her own selfish whims by having nerves and lying +speechless in bed. But he had a very considerable respect for Herr +Doktor Meyers—a rank plebeian but the best doctor in Berlin—and when +that family adviser, as autocratic as himself, ordered the Frau Gräfin +to go to a sanatorium in the Austrian Dolomites—but alone, mind +you!—and remain as long as he—I, myself, Herr Graf!—deemed advisable, +with no intercourse, personal or chirographical with her family, the +Head of the House of Niebuhr angrily gave his consent and sent for a +sister to chaperon his girls.</p> + +<p>The countess remained until the eve of Mariette's wedding, and she +passed those six months in one of the superlatively beautiful mountain +resorts of Austria. She was solitary, for the most part, and she did an +excessive amount of thinking. She returned to her duties with a deep +disgust of life as she knew it, a cynical contempt for women, and a +profound sense of revolt. Her natural diplomacy she had increased +tenfold.</p> + +<p>When the three girls, their eyes very large, and speaking in whispers, +although their father was at a yearly talk-fest with his old brothers in +arms, confided to their mother their resolution never in any +circumstances to adopt a household tyrant of their own, she nodded +understandingly.</p> + +<p>"Leave it to me," she said. "Your father can be managed, little as he +suspects it. I'll find the weak spot in each of the suitors he brings +to the house and set him against all of them."</p> + +<p>"And my voice?" asked Lili timidly. But the Frau Gräfin shook her head. +"There I cannot help you. He thinks an artistic career would disgrace +his family, and that is the end of it. Moreover, he regards women of any +class in public life as a disgrace to Germany. My assistance must be +passive—apparently. It will be enough to have no worse. Take my word +and Mariette's for that."</p> + +<p>The Gräfin, true to her word, quietly disposed of the several suitors +approved by her husband, and although the autocrat sputtered and +raged—the Gräfin, her youngest daughter shrewdly surmised, rather +encouraged these exciting tempers—arguing that these three girls bade +fair to remain on his hands for ever, he ended always by agreeing that +the young officers were unworthy of an alliance with the ancient and +honorable House of Niebuhr.</p> + +<p>The battles ended abruptly when Gisela was eighteen and a fat Lieutenant +of Uhlans, suing for the hand of the youngest born, and vehemently +supported by the Graf, had just been turned adrift. The Graf dropped +dead in his club. He left a surprisingly small estate for one who had +presented so pompous a front to the world. But not only had his sons +been handsomely portioned when they entered the army, and Mariette when +she married, but the excellent count, to relieve the increasing monotony +of days no longer enlivened by maneuvers and boudoirs, had amused +himself on the stock exchange. His judgment had been singularly bad and +he had dropped most of his capital and lived on the rest.</p> + +<p>The town house must be sold and the countess and her daughters retire to +her castle in the Saxon Alps. As there were no portions for the girls, +the haunting terrors of matrimony were laid.</p> + +<p>The four women took their comparative poverty with equanimity. The +countess had been as practical and economical as all German housewives, +even when relieved by housekeepers and stewards, and she calculated +that with a meager staff of servants and two years of seclusion she +should be able to furnish a flat in Berlin and pay a year's rent in +advance. Then by living for half the year on her estate she should save +enough for six highly agreeable months in the capital. Perhaps she might +let her castle to some rich brewer or American; and this she eventually +did.</p> + +<p>Lili was given permission to study for the operatic stage and spend the +following winter in Dresden, where Mariette's husband was now quartered. +It was just before they moved to the country that the Gräfin said to her +girls as they sat at coffee in the dismantled house:</p> + +<p>"You shall have all that I never had, fulfil all the secret ambitions of +my younger heart. If you are individuals, prove it. You may go on the +stage, write, paint, study law, medicine, what you will. You have been +bred aristocrats and aristocrats you will remain. It is not liberty that +vulgarizes. Don't hate men. They have charming phases and moods; but +avoid entangling alliances until you are thirty. After that you will +know them well enough to avoid that fatal initial submergence. The whole +point is to begin with your eyes open and your campaign clearly thought +out.</p> + +<p>"I, too, purpose to get a great deal out of life now that my fate is in +my own hands. By the summer we shall even be able to travel a little. +Third-class, yet that will be far more amusing than stuffed into one of +those plush carriages with the windows closed and forbidden to speak +with any one in the corridor. And forced to carry all the hand-luggage +off the train (when your father had an economical spasm and would not +take a footman) while he stalked out first as if we did not exist. I +shall never marry again—Gott in Himmel, no!—but I shall gather about +me all the interesting men I never have been able to have ten minutes' +conversation with alone; and, so far as is humanly possible, do exactly +as I please. My ego has been starved. I shall always be your best +friend—but think for yourselves."</p> + +<p>Gisela had no gift that she was aware of, but she was intellectual and +had longed to finish her education at one of the great universities. As +she was not strong, however, she was content to spend a year in the +mountains; and then, robust, and on a meager income, she went to Munich +to attend the lectures on art and literature and to perfect herself in +French and English. She took a small room in an old tower near the +Frauenkirche and lived the students' life, probably the freest of any +city in the world. She dropped her title and name lest she be barred +from that socialistic community as well as discovered by horrified +relatives, and called herself Gisela Döring. After she had taken her +degree she passed a month in Berlin with her mother, who already had +established a salon, but she was determined to support herself and see +the world at the same time. Herr Doktor Meyers found her a position as +governess with a wealthy American patient, and, under her assumed name, +she sailed immediately for New York.</p> + +<p>The Bolands had a house in upper Fifth Avenue and others at Newport, +Aiken and Bar Harbor; and when not occupying these stations were in +Europe or southern California. The two little girls passed the summer at +Bar Harbor with their governess.</p> + +<p>It took Gisela some time to accustom herself to the position of upper +servant in that household of many servants, but she possessed humor and +she had had governesses herself. Her salary was large, she had one +entire day in the week to herself, except at Bar Harbor, and during her +last summer in the United States Mrs. Boland had a violent attack of +"America first" and took her children and their admirable governess not +only to California but to the Yellowstone Park, the Grand Cañon and +Canada. They traveled in a private car, and Gisela, who could enjoy the +comfortless quarters of a student flat in Munich with all that life +meant in the free and beautiful city by the Isar, could also revel in +luxury; and this wonderful summer, following as it did the bitter climax +of her first serious love affair, seemed to her all the consolation that +a mere woman could ask. At all events she felt for it an intense and +lasting gratitude.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>2</h3> + +<p>It was during her first summer at Bar Harbor that the second determining +experience of her life began, and it lasted for three years. She dwelt +upon it to-night with humor, sadness, and, for a moment, thrilling +regret, but without bitterness. That had passed long since.</p> + +<p>She was virtual mistress of the house at Bar Harbor, and as the children +had a trained nurse and a maid, besides many little friends, she had +more leisure than in the city with her one day of complete detachment. +She met Freiherr Franz von Nettelbeck when she was walking with her +charges and he was strolling with the little girls of the Howland +family. The introductions were informal, and as they fell naturally +into German there was an immediate bond. Nettelbeck was an attaché of +the German Embassy who preferred to spend his summers at Bar Harbor. He +was of the fair type of German most familiar to Americans, with a fine +slim military figure, deep fiery blue eyes and a lively mind. His golden +hair and mustache stood up aggressively, and his carriage was exceeding +haughty, but those were details too familiar to be counted against him +by Gisela. Her rich brunette beauty was now as ripe as her tall full +figure, and she was one of those women, rare in Germany, who could dress +well on nothing at all. She too possessed a lively mind, and after her +long New York winter was feeling her isolation. Her first interview +(which included a long stroll and a canoe ride) with this young diplomat +of her own land, visibly lifted her spirits, and she sang as she braided +her heavy mass of hair that night.</p> + +<p>Franz, like most unattached young Germans, was on the lookout for a +soul-mate (which he was far too sophisticated to anticipate in +matrimony), and this handsome, brilliant, subtly responsive, and wholly +charming young woman of the only country worth mentioning entered his +life when he too was lonely and rather bored. It was his third year in +the United States of America and he did not like the life nor the +people. Nevertheless, he was trying to make up his mind to pay court to +Ann Howland, a young lady whose dashing beauty was somewhat overpoised +by salient force of character and an uncompromisingly keen and direct +mind, but whose fortune eclipsed by several millions that of the +high-born maiden selected by his family.</p> + +<p>Here was a heaven-sent interval, with intellectual companionship in +addition to the game of the gods. Being a German girl, Gisela Döring +would be aware that he could not marry out of his class, unless the +plebeian pill were heavily gilded. To do him justice, he would not have +married the wealthiest plebeian in Germany. An American: that was +another matter. If there were such a thing as an aristocracy in this +absurd country which pretended to be a democracy and whose "society" was +erected upon the visible and screaming American dollar, no doubt Miss +Howland belonged to the highest rank. In Germany she would have been a +princess—probably of a mediatized house, and, he confessed it amiably +enough, she looked the part more unapologetically than several he could +mention.</p> + +<p>So did Gisela Döring. He sighed that a woman who would have graced the +court of his Kaiser should have been tossed by a bungling fate into the +rank and file of the good German people; so laudably content to play +their insignificant part in their country's magnificent destiny.</p> + +<p>Gisela never told him the truth. Sometimes, irritated by his subtle +arrogance, she was tempted. Also consuming love tempted her. But of what +use? She was without fortune and he must add to his. He had a limited +income and expensive tastes, and when a young nobleman in the diplomatic +service marries he must take a house and live with a certain amount of +state. Moreover, he intended to be an ambassador before he was +forty-five, and he was justified in his ambitions, for he was +exceptionally clever and his rise had been rapid. But now he was +care-free and young, and love was his right.</p> + +<p>Gisela understood him perfectly. Not only was she of his class, but her +brother Karl had madly loved a girl in a chocolate shop and wept +tempestuously beside her bed while their father slept. He married +philosophically when his hour struck.</p> + +<p>But if she understood she was also romantic. She forgot her vow to live +alone, her mother's advice, and dreamed of a moment of overwhelming +madness which would sweep them both up to the little church on the +mountain. There, like a true heroine of old-time fiction, she would +announce her own name at the altar. This moment, however, did not +arrive. Nettelbeck, too, was romantic, but his head was as level within +as it was flat behind. He never went near the church on the mountain.</p> + +<p>There was no surface lovemaking during the first two summers, or in the +winter following the second summer, when he came over from Washington on +her Wednesday as often as he could, and they had luncheon and tea in +byway restaurants. They were both fascinated by the game, and they had +an infinite number of things to talk about, for their minds were really +congenial. They disputed with fire and fury. It was a part of Gisela's +dormant genius to grasp instinctively the psychology of foreign nations, +and before she had been in the United States a year she understood it +far better than Nettelbeck ever would. Even if he had despised it less +he would have lavished all the resources of his wit upon a country so +different from Germany in every phase that it must necessarily be +negligible save as a future colony of Prussia, if only for the pleasure +of seeing Gisela's long eyes open and flash, the dusky red in her +cheeks burn crimson and her bosom heave at his "junker narrow-mindedness +and stupid arrogance"—; "a stupidity that will be the ruin of Germany +in the end!" she exclaimed one day in a sudden moment of illumination, +for, as a matter of fact, she had given little thought to politics. +However, she recalled her typical papa.</p> + +<p>Of course they talked their German souls inside out. At least Nettelbeck +did. As time went on, Gisela used her frankness as a mask while her soul +dodged in panic. She believed him to be lightly and agreeably in love +with her (she had witnessed many summer flirtations at Bar Harbor, and +been laid siege to by more than one young American, idle, enterprising, +charming and quite irresponsible), and she was appalled at her own +capacity for love and suffering, the complete rout of her theories, +based on harsh experience, before the ancient instinct to unleash her +womanhood at any cost.</p> + +<p>She plunged into a serious study of the country, which she had +heretofore absorbed with her avid mental conduits, and read innumerable +newspapers, magazines, elucidating literature of all sorts, besides the +best histories of the nation and the illuminating biographies of its +distinguished men in politics and the arts. She was deeply responsive to +the freedom of the individual in this great whirling heterogeneous land, +and as her duties at any time were the reverse of onerous, it was +imperative to keep her consciousness as detached from her inner life as +possible.</p> + +<p>But at the back of her mind was always the haunting terror that he never +would come again, that he was really more attracted to Ann Howland than +he knew; and of all American women whom Gisela had met she admired Miss +Howland preëminently. She was not only beautiful in the grand manner but +she possessed intellect as distinguished from the surface "brightness" +of so many of her countrywomen, and had made a deep impression upon even +the superlatively educated German girl when they had chanced to meet and +talk at children's picnics at Bar Harbor, or when the triumphant young +beauty ran up to the nursery in town to bring a message to the little +Bolands from her sisters. It was true that hers was not the seductive +type of beauty, that her large gray eyes were cool and appraising, her +fine skin quite without color, and her soft abundant hair little darker +than Franz's own, but she could be feminine and charming when she chose +and she would be a wife in whom even a German would experience a secret +and swelling pride.</p> + +<p>What chance had she—she—Gisela Döring?</p> + +<p>There were days and weeks, during that second winter, when she was +tormented by a sort of sub-hysteria, a stifled voice in the region of +her heart threatening to force its way out and shriek. There were times +when she gave way to despair, and thought of her vigorous youth with a +shudder, and at other times she was so angry and humiliated at her +surrender and secret chaos, that she was on the point more than once of +breaking definitely with Franz Nettelbeck, or even of going back to +Germany. If he missed a Wednesday, or failed to write, she slipped out +of the house at night and paced Central Park for hours, fighting her +rebellious nerves with her pride and the strong independent will that +she had believed would enable her to leap lightly over every pitfall in +life.</p> + +<p>Then he would come and her spirits would soar, her whole awakened being +possessed by a sort of reckless fury, a desperate resolve to enjoy the +meager portion of happiness allotted to her by an always grudging fate; +and for a few days after he left she would give herself up to blissful +and extravagant dreams.</p> + +<p>But Nettelbeck was by no means lightly in love with Gisela Döring. +During the third summer, partly owing to the increased independence of +her growing charges, partly to his own expert management, they met in +long solitudes seldom disturbed. Gisela dismissed fears, ignored the +inevitable end, plunged headlong and was wildly happy. Nettelbeck was an +ardent and absorbed lover, for he knew that his time was short, and he +was determined to have one perfect memory in his secret life that the +woman who bore his name should never violate. Miss Howland had meted him +the portion his dilatoriness invited and married a fine upstanding young +American whose career was in Washington; and his family had peremptorily +commanded him to return in the spring (with the Kaiser's permission, a +mandate in itself) and marry the patient Baronin Irma Hammorwörth.</p> + +<p>And so for a summer and a winter they were happy.</p> + +<p>Gisela averted her mind tonight from the parting with something of the +almost forgotten panic. She had never dared to dwell upon it, nor on the +month that followed. Her powerful will had rebelled finally and she had +fought down and out of her consciously functioning mind the details of +her tragic passion, and even reveled arrogantly in the sensation of +deliverance from the slavery of love. Simultaneously she was swept off +to see the great natural wonders of the American continent and they had +intoned the requiem. </p> + +<p>The following autumn she returned to Germany and paid her mother another +brief visit.</p> + +<p>There all was well. Frau von Niebuhr, who had not developed a white hair +and whose Viennese maid was a magician in the matter of gowns and +complexion, was enjoying life and had a daring salon; that is to say +gatherings in which all the men did not wear uniforms nor prefix the +sacred von. She drew the line at bad manners, but otherwise all (and of +any nation) who had distinguished themselves, or possessed the priceless +gift of personality, were welcome there; and although she lived to be +amused and make up what she had lost during thirty unspeakable years, +she progressed inevitably in keenness of insight and breadth of vision. +She had become a student of politics and stared into the future with +deepening apprehension, but of this she gave not a hint to Gisela. +Mariette was her closest friend and only confidante. Mariette was now +living in Berlin, and amusing herself in ways Frau von Niebuhr +disapproved, mainly because she thought it wiser to banish men from +one's inner life altogether; but, true to her code, she forebore +remonstrance.</p> + +<p>Lili, having discovered that her voice was not for grand opera, had +philosophically descended to the concert stage and was excitedly happy +in her success and independence. Elsa was a Red Cross nurse.</p> + +<p>Gisela met Franz von Nettelbeck at a court function and had her little +revenge. He was furious, and vowed, quite audibly, that he would never +forgive her. But Gisela was merely disturbed lest the Obersthofmeisterin +who stood but three feet away overhear his caustic remarks. +Distinguished professors (without their wives) might go to court as a +reward for shedding added luster upon the German Empire, but lesser +mortals who had received payment for services rendered might not. Her +independent mother, still a favorite, for she was exceeding discreet, +would have incurred the imperial displeasure if the truth were known. +However, the incident passed unnoticed, and Franz, whatever his +shortcomings, was a gentleman and kept her secret.</p> + +<p>The scene at the palace had been brilliant and sustaining and she had +received much personal homage, for she was looking very beautiful and +radiant, and the little adventure had been incense to her pride +(moreover the young Freifrau von Nettelbeck, whom she saw on his arm +later, was an insignificant little hausfrau); but when she was in her +room after midnight she realized grimly that if she had not done her +work so well during that terrible month in New York and buried her sex +heart, she should once more be beating the floor or the wall with her +impotent hands. But the knowledge of her immunity made her a little sad.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>3</h3> + +<p>The next episode to her grim humor was wholly amusing, although it +played its part in her developing sense of revolt against the attitude +of the German male to the sex of the mother that bore him. She returned +to Munich after a month in Berlin, for by this time she had made up her +mind to write, and the city by the Isar was the most beautiful in the +world to write and to dream in. Moreover, she wished to attend the +lectures on drama at the University.</p> + +<p>The four years in America, during which she had, in spite of her +sentimental preoccupation, studied diligently every phase that passed +before her keen critical vision, analyzed every person she had met, and +passed many of her evenings in the study of the best contemporary +fiction, had, associated with the spur of her own upheaval, developed +her imagination, and her head was full of unwritten stories. They were +highly realistic, of course, as became a modern German, but unmistakably +dramatic.</p> + +<p>She attended the lectures, practising on short stories meanwhile, +devoting most of her effort to becoming a stylist, that she might attain +immediate recognition whatever her matter. She lived in a small but +comfortable hotel, for not only had she saved the greater part of her +salary, but the Bolands, however oblivious socially of a paid attendant, +had a magnificent way with them at Christmas, and had given her an even +larger cheque at parting.</p> + +<p>In Munich she was once more Gisela Döring, once more led the student +life. There are liberties even for people of rank in Munich, and many +nobles, exasperated with the rigid class lines of Berlin and other +German capitals, move there, and, while careful to attend court +functions, make intelligent friends in all sets. They are, or were, the +happiest people in Germany. Here Gisela could sit alone in a café by the +hour reading the illustrated papers and smoking with her coffee, +attracting no attention whatever. She joined parties of students during +the summer and tramped the Bavarian Alps, and she danced all night at +student balls. Nevertheless, she managed to hold herself somewhat aloof +and it was understood that she did not live the "loose" life of the +"artist class." She was much admired for her stately beauty and her +style, and if the young people of that free and easy community were at +times inclined to resent a manifest difference, they succumbed to her +magnetism, and respected her obvious devotion to a high literary ideal.</p> + +<p>It was during her second winter that she met Georg Zottmyer.</p> + +<p>He was a tall, narrow, angular young man with a small clipped head and +preëminent ears. His narrow face was set with narrower features, and his +eyes were very bright, and the windows of his conceit. Although his +income was minute he boasted a father of note in the University of +Leipzig, and his mother had traveled and written a scathing satire on +the United States of America. He had not a grain of originality or +imagination, but he too was taking the course in dramatic art, and +reading for that degree without whose magic letters he could not hope to +take his place in the world of art to which his parts entitled him. He +met Gisela in the lecture room and immediately became her cavalier.</p> + +<p>At first Gisela endeavored to get rid of him by an icy front, but this +he took for feminine coquetry and his own front was serene. As he had +made up his mind to be a dramatist merely because the career appealed +acutely to his itching ambition, so did he in due course make up his +mind to marry this handsome brunette (what hair he had was drab) who +bore all the earmarks of secret wealth in spite of the fact that she +lived in a small hotel. As time went on, Gisela resigned herself and put +his little ego under her microscope.</p> + +<p>His wooing was methodical. He not only walked home with her after every +lecture, but he gave her a series of teas in his high little flat, and +he really did know "people." His parental introductions had given him +the entrée to the professional circles, and he cultivated society both +semi-fashionable and ultra-literary. He knew no one who had not +"arrived." </p> + +<p>He chose an unpropitious day for a tentative declaration of his +intentions. It was very cold. White mufflers protected his outstanding +ears, a gray woolen scarf was wound about his long neck and almost +covered his tight little mouth. He wore mitts and wristlets, and his +nose was crimson. Gisela, in a new set of furs, sent her for Christmas +by Mariette, and a smart gown of wine-colored cloth, looked radiant. Her +dark eyes shone with joy in the cold electric air of that high plateau, +her cheeks were red, her warm full-lipped mouth was parted over her even +white teeth. They walked from the University down the great +Leopoldstrasse, one of the finest streets in Europe, toward the Café +Luitpold, where he had invited her to drink coffee.</p> + +<p>There was little conversation during that brisk walk. He was frozen, and +she was not thinking of him at all. At the café he selected an alcove as +far from the noisy groups of students as possible. All the "trees" were +hung with colored caps and the atmosphere was dense with smoke. </p> + +<p>Zottmyer, who, after all, was young, soon thawed out in the warm room, +and when he had cheered his interior with a large cup of hot coffee and +lit a cigarette, he brought up the subject of matrimony. He had no +intention of proposing in these surroundings, but it was time to pave +the way—or set the pattern of the tiling; he cultivated the divergent +phrase.</p> + +<p>"It is time I married," he announced, and, not to appear too serious, he +smiled into her glowing face. She looked happy enough to encourage a man +far less fatuous than Georg Zottmyer.</p> + +<p>"Yes?" Gisela's eyes had wandered to the nearest group of students and +she was wondering if they might not have made handsome men had they +permitted their duel wounds to heal instead of excoriating them with +salt and pepper. "Most German men marry young."</p> + +<p>"I am not conventional. I should not dream of marrying unless I found a +young lady who possessed everything that I demand in a wife."</p> + +<p>"Ah? What then do you demand?"</p> + +<p>"Everything."</p> + +<p>"That is a large order. What do you mean, exactly."</p> + +<p>"I mean, of course, that I should not marry a woman who did not have in +the first place beauty, that I might be proud of her in public, besides +refreshing myself with the sight of her in private. She must have beauty +of figure as well as of face, as I detest our dumpy type of German +women. And she must have style, and dress well. It would mortify me to +death, particularly after I had made my position, to go about with one +of those wives that seem to fall to the lot of most intellectuals. +Soft-waisted, bulging women," he added spitefully, "how I hate them!"</p> + +<p>"Your taste is admirable. Our women are much too careless, particularly +after marriage. And the second requirement?" </p> + +<p>"Oh, a small fortune, at least. I could not afford to marry, otherwise, +and although I shall no doubt make a large income in due course, I must +begin well. I prefer a house, as it gives an artist a more serious and +dignified position."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, yes."</p> + +<p>"And of course my wife must be of good birth, as good as my own. I +should never dream of marrying even a Venus in this Bohemian class. That +sort of thing is all very well—" He waved his hand, and arched an +eyebrow, and Gisela inferred she was to take quite a number of amours +for granted; much, for instance, as she would those of a handsome +officer who sat alone at the next table and who looked infinitely bored +with love and longing for war.</p> + +<p>"She must—it goes without saying—be intellectual, clever, bright, +amusing. I must have companionship. Not an artist, however. I should +never permit my wife to write or model or sing for the public. And she +must have the social talent, magnetism, the power to charm whom she +will. That would help me infinitely in my career."</p> + +<p>"Is that all?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, she must be affectionate and a good housekeeper, but most German +women have the domestic virtues. Naturally, she must have perfect +health. I detest women with nerves and moods."</p> + +<p>Gisela had been leaning forward, her elbows on the table, her little +square chin on her hands, and if there were wondering contempt in her +eyes he saw only their brilliance and fixed regard.</p> + +<p>"And what, may I ask, do you purpose to give her in return for all +that?"</p> + +<p>He flicked the ashes from his cigarette, and the gesture was quite +without affectation. "What has that to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"Well—only—you think, then, that in return for all—but all!—that +a woman has to offer a man—any man—you should not feel yourself bound +to give her an equal measure in return?"</p> + +<p>"I have not given the matter a thought. Naturally the woman I select +will see all in me that I see in her. Shall we get out of this? I feel +I have taken a cold. Fresh air is a drastic but efficient corrective."</p> + +<p>He escorted her to her hotel, although he gazed longingly down his own +street as they passed it. His head felt overburdened and it was awkward +manipulating a handkerchief with mitts.</p> + +<p>Within half a block of the hotel Gisela, who had been walking +rapidly, bending a little against the wind, paused and drew herself +up to her stately height. Cold as he was he thrilled slightly as he +reflected that she possessed real distinction; almost she might be +hochwohlgeboren—yes, quite. He tingled less agreeably as he recalled +a snub administered by a great lady with whom he had presumed to attempt +conversation at the house of a liberal little Russian baroness. This +woman would snub any hochwohlgeboren who presumed to snub him in the +future.</p> + +<p>"Herr Zottmyer," said Gisela, and her tones were as crisp as the air +blowing down from the Alps, "you must permit me to give you a note of +introduction to my mother when you go to Berlin next week. I hope you +will find time to call on her."</p> + +<p>Zottmyer's eyes snapped at this covert encouragement, although it was +rather forward in a German girl practically to ask a man his intentions. +"I shall be delighted to call on Frau Dörmer—"</p> + +<p>"Countess Niebuhr. I have practised a little innocent deception here in +Munich—for obvious reasons. Also, during my four years' sojourn in +America—"</p> + +<p>"In America?" His brain, a fine, concentrated, Teutonic organ, strove to +grapple with two ideas at once. "You have been in America!"</p> + +<p>"Rather. I feel half an American. You have no idea how it changed my +point of view—oh, but in many ways! The men, you see, are so different +from ours. The American woman has a magnificent position—"</p> + +<p>"Ridiculous, uppish, spoilt creatures—" </p> + +<p>"But how delicious to be spoiled. You will call on my mother?"</p> + +<p>Zottmyer almost choked. "I hate the Prussians—above all, that arrogant +junker class. And the name of Niebuhr!—why, it stands for all that +junkerdom means in its most virulent form!"</p> + +<p>"I am afraid it does. My brothers are junkers unalloyed. But I can +assure you that my mother is as democratic as one may be in Berlin. She +has quite a number of friends among the intellectuals—"</p> + +<p>"Would she consent to your marriage with a—a—<i>mere</i> intellectual?"</p> + +<p>"What has that to do with it! It would never occur to me to marry +out of my own class. That is always a mistake. There are, you +see,—well—subtle differences that forbid harmony—"</p> + +<p>"You are a snob. I might have seen it before this. You give yourself +airs—" He was now so torn between fury and disappointment, +mortification and Teutonic resentment at being obliged to diverge +abruptly from precisely thought-out tactics, that he forgot his +physical discomfort—and incidentally to use his handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"A snob? When I am true to the best traditions of my race? Did you not +tell me that you would not marry a Venus if she happened to be born +outside of your own class? But it is rather cold here—not? Shall I send +the note of introduction to your flat?"</p> + +<p>"I would not put my foot in any supercilious junker palace, and I never +wish to see you again!" He whirled about, burying his nose in his +handkerchief, and tore down the street.</p> + +<p>Gisela laughed, but with little amusement. Her sympathy for German women +took a long stride. But she forgot him a few moments later at her desk.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>4</h3> + +<p>During the next five years she wrote many short stories and essays, and +four plays. Her work appealed subtly but clearly to the growing +rebellion of the German women; she was too much of an artist to write +frank propaganda and the critics were long waking up to the object of +her work. Her first three plays were failures, but the fourth ran for +two years and a half and was played all over Germany and Austria. It was +a brilliant, dramatic, half-humorous, half-tragic exposition of the +German woman's enforced subservience to man as compared with the +glorious liberty of the somewhat exaggerated American co-heroine.</p> + +<p>There was talk of suppressing this play at first, but Countess Niebuhr +brought all her influence to bear, and as the widow of one esteemed +junker and the daughter of another far more important, her argument that +her daughter merely labored to make the German woman a still more +powerful factor in upholding the might of German Kultur—that being the +secret hidden in what was after all but a fantasy—caused the powers to +shrug their shoulders and dismiss the matter.</p> + +<p>After all, was not the play by a woman, and were not the German women +the best trained in the world? Besides, the play was amusing, and humor +destroyed the serious purpose always. Humor made the Americans the +contemptible race they were—fortunately for the future plans of +Germany. They took nothing seriously. In time they would!</p> + +<p>Those who have not lived in Germany have not even an inkling of the deep +slow secret revolt against the insolent and inconsiderate attitude of +the German male that had been growing among its women for some fifteen +years before the outbreak of the war. They ventured no public meetings +or militant acts of any sort, for men were far too strong for them yet, +and the German woman is by nature retiring, however individualistic her +ego. Their only outward manifestation was the hideous <i>reformkleid</i>, a +typical manifestation in even the women of a nation whose art is as ugly +as it often is interesting. But thousands of them were muttering to one +another and reading with envy the literature of woman's revolt in other +lands. When one of their own sex rose, a woman of the highest +intelligence and an impeccable style, who, although she signed herself +Gisela Döring, was said to be a rebellious member of the Prussian +aristocracy, their own vague protests slowly crystallized and they grew +to look upon her as a leader, who one day would show them the path out +of bondage. Her correspondence grew to enormous proportions, but she +answered every letter, fully determined by this time to accomplish +something more than a name in letters while incidentally amusing herself +with stirring up the women and annoying the men. But although clubs were +formed to discuss her work and letters, they were still unsuspected of +the arrogant men who controlled the destinies of Germany. And as the +German woman is the reverse of frank, as little indication of the slow +revolution was found in the home. The solution was as far off as ever, +but German women are patient and they bided their time, exulting in +their secret. It gave them a sense of revenge and power.</p> + +<p>Then came the war. </p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='II'></a><h2>II</h2> +<br /> + +<h3>1</h3> + +<p>Gisela, like all the good women of Germany, flamed with patriotism and +righteous indignation. Russia and France with no provocation, with no +motive but insensate ambition on the one hand and a festering desire for +revenge on the other, had crossed the sacred frontiers of the great +Teutonic Empire. A French aviator had dropped bombs on Neuremburg, one +of the artistic treasures of Europe, although, mercifully, his bombs had +inadvertently been filled with air. Then followed the even more +indefensible act of Great Britain, whose only motive in joining forces +with paper allies was to aim a blow at the glorious commercial prestige +of Germany, the object of her fear and hate these many years. </p> + +<p>Gisela immediately entered the hospital opened by her mother in Berlin +and took a rapid first-aid course, concentrating upon the work all the +fine powers of her mind and strong young body. Literature, fame, +propaganda among women, all were dismissed. Although victory was certain +in a few months there would be many thousands of wounded and she was +filled with a passionate desire to serve those heroes and martyrs of +foreign hatred. She forgot her personal experience of the German male, +forgot herself. Her beloved Fatherland was attacked, and the German male +in his heroic resistance, his triumphal progress, was become a god. +<i>Dienen! Dienen!</i></p> + +<p>She had no time to ponder upon the violation of Belgium and knew nothing +of the curious escape of medieval psychology from the formal harness of +modern times. She was engaged in hard menial labor during those first +weeks and it was sufficient to know that Germany had been violated. It +is true that her warrior parent had sometimes boasted of the day when +Germany should rule the world, and that he had referred to the Great +European War as a foregone conclusion, as so many had been doing these +past ten or fifteen years; but he had been careful to say nothing about +throwing the torch into the powder. Gisela, like the vast majority of +civilians in the Central Empires, had grown too accustomed to the +evidences of a great standing army to give them more than a passing +thought. Were they not, then, situate in the very middle of Europe? +Surrounded by envious and powerful enemies? What more natural than that +they should be ever on the alert?</p> + +<p>That Germany herself would strike at the peace of Europe, a peace which +had brought her an unexampled prosperity and eminence, never had crossed +Gisela's mind. Nevertheless, knowing the German male as she did, she was +quite sure that the officers reveled in the exchange of peace for war as +much as the men in the ranks detested it. She could see Franz von +Nettelbeck barking out orders for the irresistible advance, his keen +blue eyes flashing with triumph, his Prussian upper lip curling with +impatient scorn, and Georg Zottmyer grinding his teeth in the trenches +and suffering acutely from dyspepsia.</p> + +<p>Until the summer of 1916 she was very busy, either in her mother's +hospital or in one in Munich run by a group of Socialist friends under +Marie von Erkel. She glanced at the English papers sometimes, but +assumed that their versions of the war's origin, and of Germanic +methods, were for home effect, and smiled at their occasional claims of +victory.</p> + +<p>Poor things! By this time she had seen so much mortal suffering, soothed +so many dying men who raved of unimaginable horrors, written so many +pathetic last letters to mothers and wives and sweethearts, that the +first mood of fury and hatred had long since passed. Her mind, normally +clear, acute, just, regained its poise. Moreover, those five years +preceding the war, during which she had learned to use her gifts for the +benefit of her sex instead of for her own amusement and fame, played +their insidious part.</p> + +<p>When she was ordered to take charge of a hospital in Lille in June of +the second year of the war she had forced herself to accept the present +state of Europe with a certain philosophy. After all, war was its +normal, its historic, condition. Following a somewhat unusual interval +of peace, owing to the beneficent reign of the German Emperor, the war +microbes of Europe, cultured in the Balkan swamps, had, through some +miscalculation, after a deplorable assassination, ravaged the entire +continent instead of being localized as heretofore. Men were men and +kings were kings and war was war. Gisela sometimes wondered if the +hideous upheaval were anybody's fault, if the desire to fight had not +been more or less simultaneous in spite of the fact that Germany was +caught napping and permitted Russia and France to sneak over her +frontiers.</p> + +<p>The sinking of the <i>Lusitania</i> and other passenger ships, or rather the +results, had filled her with a horror that might have developed into +protest had she not been assured that the U-boats had purposely waited +for a calm sea, not too far from shore, that the passengers might have +every opportunity for escape; and that they had been the victims of +contraband cargoes of ammunition exploding, badly adjusted life-boats, +panic among themselves, and utter inefficiency and selfishness of the +officers and crew.</p> + +<p>These excuses sounded plausible to a young woman still too occupied to +ponder; but during her journey through Belgium and the invaded districts +of France her mind grew more and more uneasy. Surely an army so +uniformly victorious, an army which only forebore to press forward in a +battle—like that of the Marne, for instance—for sound strategic +reasons, should have found it unnecessary to destroy whole towns with +their priceless monuments of art, level countless insignificant +villages, and reduce their inhabitants to cowering misery. She had been +a student of history and had inferred that modern warfare was as humane +as war may be; witness the fine magnanimity of the Japanese, an Oriental +race. This passing country, which she had known well in its hey-day, +looked extraordinarily like the historical pictures of the invasions of +Goths and Vandals and Huns.</p> + +<p>"Huns!" She had resented the constant use of the word in the English +papers, dismissing it finally as childish spite. Had its usurpation of +the classic and noble word "Germans" been one of those quick, merciless, +simultaneous designations that fly through every army in wartime and are +as apt as they are inevitable?</p> + +<p>She felt a sudden desire to "talk it out" with Franz von Nettelbeck, +whose mind, despite his prejudices, was the most stimulating she had +ever known. But although she heard of him often, for he had covered +himself with glory, she had seen him only once—from a window in Berlin +as he promenaded Unter den Linden; a superb and haughty figure, his +swelling chest covered with medals. </p> + +<p>In Lille she met Elsa, who had been in charge of a hospital for a year, +Mimi Brandt and Heloise von Erkel, with whom she had been intimately +associated in Munich. She found all three horrified and appalled at the +atrocious cruelties, the persistent and needless severities, the +arrogant and swaggering attitude, accompanied by countless petty +tyrannies, unworthy of an army in possession; the wholly unmodern and +dishonorable treatment of a prostrate and wretched people. Above all, +the deportations of the young girls of Lille, torn from their families, +driven in herds through the streets, their faces stamped with despair or +abject terror, condemned to God knew what horrible fate, had shaken +these three humane and thinking women to the core.</p> + +<p>All three, while serving far behind the lines, had thought their German +army an army of demi-gods, and all three were bitterly ashamed of their +countrymen and disposed to question a sovereign, and a military caste, +that not only encouraged the saddist lust of their fighters and seemed +unable to spare sufficient food for the civilians, in spite of the great +leakage through neutral countries, but which persisted in calling +themselves victorious when they were either perpetually on the defensive +or in the act of being beaten, despite their irresistible rush. The +Somme Drive had not begun but there was not a nurse in Lille that did +not know the truth about Verdun.</p> + +<p>"And believe me, as the Americans say," remarked Mimi Brandt, "when the +German people know the truth, particularly the German women, there will +be some circus."</p> + +<p>Mimi had been far more of an active rebel than the Niebuhr girls, +possibly because her life-stream was closer to the source, patently to +herself because she had a magnificent voice which needed only technique +to assure her a welcome in any of the great opera houses of Germany. +Adroitly persuaded by her parents to marry when she was not quite +seventeen, she had conceived an abhorrence of the rodent-visaged young +burgess who had been her lot; not only was he personally distasteful to +the ardent romantic girl, but he would not permit her to cultivate her +voice, much less study for the stage. Her revenge had been a cruel +disdain, to which he had responded by lying under the bed all night and +howling. Twice she had run away, visiting prosperous and sympathetic +relatives in Milwaukee, and both times returned at the passionate +solicitations of her parents; not only outraged in their dearest +conventions but anxious to be rid of the small rodent born of the union.</p> + +<p>Her last return had been but a month before the outbreak of the war, and +Hans Brandt, to his growling disgust, was promptly swept off by the +searching German broom. He was as much in love with his wife as a man so +meagerly equipped in all but national conceit may be, for Mimi was a +handsome girl with a buxom but graceful figure, and a laughing face +whose golden brown eyes sparkled with the pure fun of living when they +were not somber with disgust and rebellion.</p> + +<p>Gisela had always looked upon Heloise von Erkel as the most tragic +figure in Munich. In appearance she had distinction rather than beauty, +for although her features were delicate her complexion and hair were +faded and there were faint lines on her charming face. She was a blonde +of the French type, and her light figure, although indifferently carried +and a stranger to gowns, possessed an indefinable elegance.</p> + +<p>Under heaven knew what impulse of romantic madness Frau von Erkel, then +Heloise d'Oremont, had married a young German officer, and although both +fancied themselves deeply in love the breach began shortly after they +had settled to the routine life of the frontier town where he was +stationed, and had widened rapidly in spite of the fact that she +produced six children as automatically as the most devoted (and +detested) hausfrau of her acquaintance. Shortly after the birth of +Marie, the breach became a chasm, for the chocolate firm, inherited +through her bourgeoise mother and the source of Frau von Erkel's wealth, +failed, and the haughty Bavarian aristocrat was forced to keep up his +position in the army and maintain his growing family on an income, +accruing from chocolate investments, that should have been reserved for +pleasure alone.</p> + +<p>However, there was help for it. He renounced cards and such other costly +diversions as was possible without lowering his standard as a gentleman +and an officer, and of course the real privation was borne by the women +of the family. He even ceased to rage at his wife, for she merely sat in +her favorite chair, her hands folded, and looked at him with her subtle +ironic smile.</p> + +<p>When Gisela met them, Frau von Erkel and her three daughters (all in +their late twenties and unmarried) were living in a dingy old house in a +respectable quarter, with one beer-sodden maid to relieve them of the +heavy work and bake the cake for the Sunday "Coffee."</p> + +<p>Colonel von Erkel and his three sons lived in bachelor quarters and +called upon the women of the family every Sunday afternoon at precisely +four o'clock. In full uniform, and imposing specimens of the German +officer, they sat stiffly upon the uncomfortable chairs for about thirty +minutes and then simultaneously escaped and were seen no more for a +week.</p> + +<p>At first Gisela was intensely amused at the vagaries of the Erkels, but +when she saw the four narrow beds in a row in one small monastic room +(the first floor was let to lodgers to pay the rent), and still more of +their almost hopeless contriving to hold their position in Munich +society, to say nothing of a bare sufficiency of food and raiment, her +sympathies, always more deep than quick, were permanently aroused. But +they were confined to the girls. Charming and graceful as the old lady +was, it was evident that if above the arrogance of her German husband +she was afflicted with the intense conservatism of her own race. It had +taken Aimée, the oldest of the girls, three years of persistent begging, +nagging, arguments, tears, and threats of abrupt demise, to obtain +permission to move her piano—a present from relatives who occasionally +came to the rescue—a bookcase and three chairs up to the garret and +have a room she could call her own. Frau von Erkel was scandalized that +a French girl (she systematically ignored the German infusion in her +daughters) should wish for hours of solitude. But Aimée had the national +genius for pegging away, and her mother, who came in time to feel that +one nerve was being gnawed with maddening reiteration, finally +succumbed; relieving her mind daily.</p> + +<p>After that it was comparatively easy, although there were several +notable engagements, for Heloise to become secretary to Gisela Döring. +She never dared admit that she received a generous monthly cheque for +her services, but Gisela was a favorite with the old lady (always +sitting placidly in her chair, with her hands in her lap, a faint ironic +smile on her still pretty face), and as her literary style was extolled +by her exacting daughters (Frau von Erkel never read even a German +newspaper, but subscribed for <i>Le Figaro</i>), and as she knew Gisela to +be a member of her own class, the new connection was harmonious; and +Heloise at last experienced something like real liberty in the tiny +garden house of the parterre apartment of Gisela Döring on the +Königinstrasse.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>2</h3> + +<p>There is little time in the war zones to meet and talk, but even nurses +must rest and take the air, and during the month before the frightful +rush of wounded after the British offensive on the Somme began, the four +girls, all in different hospitals, maneuvered to obtain leave of absence +at the same hour, early in the evening. They promenaded the desolate +streets arm in arm, their heads together, relieving their burdened +souls. There was no idea of treason in any one of those rebellious +minds, for they still believed their Fatherland to have been on the +defensive from the first, the victim of a conspiracy, and they knew from +the expression of the officers' faces, to say nothing of their tempers, +that the danger was by no means past.</p> + +<p>But being women, and women who had thought for themselves for many +years, they must talk it out, and when too overcharged to trust their +comments to the narrow streets, they retired to a hillock outside the +city which no spy could approach unseen. However, nothing was farther +from the minds of the German men of war than that the women cogs of +their supremely organized land should presume to criticize methods which +had, to their best belief, terrorized the world.</p> + +<p>"But we are not the only ones," said Heloise grimly, as they sat on +their refuge one dusky evening. "All but the sheep have a word to say +now and then. Of course there always will be women who will grovel at +the feet of men merely because they are men; but look out for the others +when this accursed war is over. God! How I hate men! To think that once +I dreamed and hoped like the silly romantic girl I was that some day +some man would marry me in spite of my poverty. Now I would not marry +one of the Kaiser's sons. Sick or well, German, English, French, I +loathe them all alike. Obscene beasts every one of them; but I hate the +Germans most, for they are the most disgusting invalids. And I am a +German girl, too. France has never had any call for me. It is Marie who +would be all French if she could. Poor little Marie, with her drab face +and hair, her poverty, her dynamic body, mad to marry, and climbing out +of the window when mother is asleep, to go to Socialists' meetings and +scream off her pent-up passions. What a hideous world!"</p> + +<p>She sprang to her feet and flung her arms above her head and glared at +the unresponsive stars.</p> + +<p>"O God!" she prayed. "Deliver us! Deliver us from war and deliver us +from men! Deliver us from Kings and deliver us from criminal jealousies +and ambitions and greeds that the innocent millions expiate in blood and +tears! Deliver us from cowards—" She whirled suddenly upon Gisela. +"You—you—why don't you lead us out? You have more mind than any woman +in Germany. You have more influence. I have always placed my hopes on +you. But now—now—you are doing nothing but nurse disgusting men like +the rest of us."</p> + +<p>"Hush! You are talking too loud. And you are carrying your revolt too +far. These poor deluded men you nurse are only to be pitied, and if they +merely revolt you, you have no vocation—"</p> + +<p>"When did I ever pretend to have a vocation for nursing? Like all the +rest I felt I must do my part, and heaven knows it is better than +sitting at home making bandages and watching my mother slowly starve. If +I had rolled one more bandage I should have gone mad."</p> + +<p>"Well, dear Heloise, as far as I am concerned, the time for women to +battle for their rights is when their country is safe, not in mortal +danger. Be sure that when this war is over—"</p> + +<p>She fell silent. A little flame had leapt in her brain. She +extinguished it hurriedly, but it burnt the fingers of her will, always +enthroned and always on guard. As she stared at Heloise, lovely in her +Red Cross uniform, a white torch against the dark horizon, her tragic +eyes once more searching the heavens, it struggled for life again and +again. She loved Heloise and she felt a sudden inclusive love of her +sex, an overpowering desire to deliver it from the sadness and horror of +war; a profounder emotion than anything it had inspired in those far off +days of peace. After all, however serious she had believed herself to +be, it had been a game, a career; for in times of peace one must invent +the vital interests of life, and one's success or failure depends upon +one's powers of creating and sustaining the delusion. Only two things in +life were real, love and war.</p> + +<p>Gisela, like many women of dominating intellect and personality, had +exhausted her power of sex-love with her first unfortunate but prolonged +passion, and although she had no hatred of men, and indeed liked many +and craved their society, she gave her real sympathies and affections +to her women friends. She had no intimates, and this, perhaps, was one +secret of her power. A certain aloofness is essential in intellectual +leadership. But if she had no talent for intimacy she had much for +friendship, and the friends of her inner circle were all women, partly +because there was no waste of time fending off love-making, partly +because there were more interests in common, consequently a deeper bond. +To-night she was filled with an irresistible pity and a longing to set +them free. But her hands were tied. She dared not even go to Great +Headquarters and protest against the terrible fate of the young girls of +Lille. She would have accomplished no good and become an instant object +of suspicion.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>3</h3> + +<p>For many months she did her duty doggedly, her indignation routed by the +disquieting fact that the Germans were retreating from the Somme; inch +by inch, but still retreating. Once she might have been satisfied with +grandiose phrases and scornful assurances. But the long attack on Verdun +had ended in dark humiliation; a failure that the most resourceful +vocabulary was unable to translate into a German advantage, optically +inverted.</p> + +<p>More than half a million young Germans had fallen before Verdun, and for +what? That France, disdained these many years by the mighty Teutonic +Empire, and numerically inferior, might demonstrate to the world that +she was the greater military nation of the two.</p> + +<p>What was it all for? What of the ever-receding fields of peace, grown +green and fat again? What of the racing past dotted with the broken +headstones of promises of victory by this means or that?</p> + +<p>But to attempt to answer historical enigmas while working day and night +over the mangled victims of the Somme was beyond her powers. It was not +until she broke down, and, with Heloise von Erkel and Mimi Brandt, +obtained leave to spend a month at St. Moritz, that she found her +answer. </p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='III'></a><h2>III</h2> +<br /> + +<h3>1</h3> + +<p>The three girls went to a little hotel that had been a favorite resort +of Gisela's in times of peace when she had felt an imperative need of +the high solitudes and eternal snows. They planned a week's rest, and a +fortnight or more of mountain climbing, dismissing the world war from +their minds as far as possible. But their gentle plans were upset on the +eighth day after their arrival, when at the end of an hour's hard +skating, clad in the bright sweaters and caps of old, Gisela suddenly +stopped short and returned the hard stare of two young women who had +drawn apart and were evidently discussing her. That they were Americans +Gisela recognized at a glance, but for a moment she saw them through a +curtain of fire and smoke and shrieking shells and dying groans, so +deep in the background of her memory were the people and events of her +merely personal life. One of the young women was very tall, with a slim +dashing figure, fine fair hair, keen cold gray eyes, a haughty nostril +and upper lip: a beauty of the patrician American type. The other was +shorter but also excessively thin, with dark dancing eyes, a warm color, +a coquettish nose and pouting lips—which somehow invoked the complacent +visage of the late Herr Graf Niebuhr—and a brilliant smile. In a moment +Gisela recognized Ann Howland Prentiss and Kate Terriss, now Mrs. Tolby. +This American friend of her childhood had married an American whose +business kept him in London, and her path and Gisela's had never crossed +since her finishing days in Berlin; although she had corresponded with +Lili for two or three years and knew the family history in vague +outline.</p> + +<p>Gisela skated directly over to them and held out her hand to Kate. "It +is a long while," she said, "but perhaps you remember me—" </p> + +<p>"Do I? Ann will not believe me—that you are Gisela von Niebuhr not +Döring. What a lark that was to run off to America and fool everybody! I +wish I had come across you. It would have been quite dramatic to tear +off the mask of the governess and reveal the junker. I think it was too +stupid of you, Ann, that you didn't guess."</p> + +<p>"I noticed many inconsistencies," said Mrs. Prentiss dryly. She added, +holding out her hand with a charming smile: "But later, I was so proud +to have known Gisela Döring, that personal curiosity seemed impertinent. +How we have missed your writings these last dreadful years!"</p> + +<p>Then all three began to talk at once and Gisela gathered that Mrs. Tolby +had nursed behind the British lines in France since the early days of +the war, and that her old friend, Mrs. Prentiss, had joined her a few +months since. Kate asked innumerable questions about the other girls, +particularly Mariette, whom she remembered as a Germanic blonde of warm +coloring, the coldest eyes, the most subtly rigid and ruthless mouth +she had ever seen. She had found some difficulty picturing her as a Red +Cross nurse and was not surprised to hear that she was in charge of an +enormous organization for the supply of cantines. Of her executive +ability and quick determination there could be no doubt—as she told Ann +Prentiss later.</p> + +<p>In the excitement and exhilaration of this purely feminine +conversation—which soon included Heloise and Mimi—the two parties +forgot the gory chasm that divided them. When they dropped suddenly at a +chance word to the present that gripped even these glittering snow +fields with its red insatiable fingers, Kate, as ever, was equal to the +formidable moment and cried out, snapping her fingers at the blue ether +so tranquilly aloof from warring hosts:</p> + +<p>"Forget it! For to-day, at least. What are you thinking about so hard, +Ann?"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you later. Let us go in and have tea and then skate again. I +noticed how well my step suited Countess Gisela's." </p> + +<p>Ann Howland, as the wife of an eminent politician, had long since +cultivated the art of mental suppleness and had learned to fascinate the +most diverse intelligences and egos. Gisela, who was always warmly +responsive to personal charm when not too obviously insincere, enjoyed +the hour on the ice so exclusively devoted to her by the distinguished +American and went to bed that night well content to bury the war during +this period of necessary rest, grateful for this fresh current that +swept her for the moment into one of those old backwaters of mere +femininity. Mrs. Prentiss had not related a single anecdote of the +front, nor alluded to the fact that she was a Red Cross nurse.</p> + +<p>But she and Kate Terriss sat up until midnight. They were both women +capable of seizing those rare opportunities for service that flit past +so many intelligent women lacking initiative, and here was one that the +most clear-thinking man would have envied. It was a piece of +unbelievable luck; Gisela Döring was not only here to their hand in a +relaxed and friendly mood, but she possessed charm combined with a +great intelligence and an iron will: she was far more the obvious leader +than they had inferred from her work, and they guessed something of the +powerful influence she must quietly have obtained over the women of +Germany. Mrs. Prentiss had by no means approved of her at an earlier +period, for she had shrewdly suspected that it was the handsome German +governess, not the high-born Irma, who thwarted her designs upon the +most attractive "foreigner" she had ever met. But even if she had +cherished a grudge, and her life had been far too happy and successful +for that, she would have been so profoundly grateful to Gisela for +saving her from the anomalous and wretched position of other modern +American women married to medieval Germans, that she felt almost as +great a desire to serve her as civilization in general.</p> + +<p>When the two Americans parted for the night a methodical program had +been worked out, with every date at command and every fact in damning +sequence. The result of this momentous conference was that none of the +five went to bed on the following night, but sat about a large oval +table in the common sitting-room of Mrs. Prentiss and Mrs. Tolby, and +wrangled until dawn.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>2</h3> + +<p>The challenge was given by the Americans and accepted by the Germans, +whose curiosity had been carefully pricked, and all had agreed that no +matter how intensely distasteful any argument might be they would not +separate for at least eight hours, and that there should be as little +"hot stuff" (quoting Mimi Brandt) as possible.</p> + +<p>The avowed object of the Americans was to prove conclusively that +Germany, carrying out a deliberate program, had precipitated the war in +1914, believing Russia to be deliquescent, France riddled with +syndicalism, and Britain on the verge of civil war; consequently that +the exact moment had come for the swift execution of her scientifically +wrought plan for world dominion.</p> + +<p>The three German girls, deep and many as were their causes for +resentment and disgust, had clung fast to the belief in their country's +defensive attitude in the face of a gigantic conspiracy, and were not +pried apart from it without hours of argument, hot and resentful on the +one side, cool, precise, and logical on the other. But those acute +German brains responded to the high intelligence of their opponents and +to their manifest honesty. Moreover, it was indisputable that from the +beginning the Americans had been in a position to know every side and +detail of the ghastly story, while the Germans, confined within their +own narrow borders and taught that the foreign newspapers were a tissue +of "strategic lies," had been wholly dependent upon their government for +"facts."</p> + +<p>During this long debate Gisela sat at the head of the table, rigid and +watchful, when she was not fiercely arguing; Mimi Brandt sprawled in an +easy chair, satirical and slangy, enveloped in smoke; Heloise, very pale +and the first to be convinced, sat with her little hands clenched +against her cheek bones; Ann Prentiss, unshakenly cool quick and +precise; the more brilliant Mrs. Tolby flashing her beacon light into +recesses darkened these three years by systematic lies, but incapable of +the final stupidity.</p> + +<p>That long argument need not be reproduced here. All the world has made +up its mind about Germany, knows her far better than as yet she knows +herself. It was the deliberate effort of the Americans to force these +three intelligent Germans, one of them a leader of the first importance, +to realize that their country stood to the rest of the world for lying, +treachery, cruelty, brutality, degeneracy, bad sportsmanship, ostrich +psychology; above all, that she had forfeited her place among modern and +honest nations.</p> + +<p>When these facts had been hammered in, Mrs. Prentiss moved on to the +two cardinal facts for whose elucidation the rest had been a mere +preamble: that the Central Powers were beaten and knew it, but were +determined to go on sacrificing the manhood of the country, reducing the +population to the ultimate miseries of mind and body rather than yield; +and that the only hope of obtaining mercy from the Entente Allies in the +inevitable hour of surrender was to dethrone the Hohenzollerns and +establish a Republic. Otherwise as a nation they would cease to exist +and their last fate would be infinitely worse than their present. A +German Republic would be welcomed into the family of nations and receive +a friendly and helping hand from every one of the great adversaries, +whose prestige and wealth were still unshaken, and who all desired to +preserve the balance of power in Europe. Above all might they rely upon +the United States of America, the friendly hints of whose President had +been systematically distorted by the anxious Pan-Germans still in the +saddle; who would cheerfully witness the loss of every drop of the +people's life blood rather than their own power.</p> + +<p>A conquered empire that had been hypnotized to the end by the monster +criminals of history, whose word no man would ever take again, would be +a mere collection of enslaved States for generations to come; the +conquerors, having given them their choice, would show no mercy.</p> + +<p>Britain could not be starved. The submarine war, whatever its +devastations, and the vast inconveniences it had caused, was a failure. +And the colossal wealth of the United States in money, in food, in men! +Who knew her resources better than Gisela, who had lived in the country +for four years and found it an absorbing study, who had continued to +read American books, newspapers, and reviews up to the outbreak of the +war? Well, they were all at the disposal of democracy; and as the +Entente Allies, including the United States, were already many times +stronger than Germany, how could they fail to win in the end, no matter +how many millions of lives on all sides Germany continued to shovel +into Moloch?</p> + +<p>All of these three clever German girls had been more or less prepared to +hear Germany proved a liar. They knew from British wounded that London +was neither a fortified city nor reduced to ashes; also that all the +Zeppelin raids on defenseless towns put together had been of less +strategical value to Germany than the taking of one village in the war +zone; she had merely piled up a mountain of hatred and contempt which +must be leveled by the quick repudiation of her people if they would +regain their lost intercourse with a triumphant world. Like all the +other women who had nursed near the front and knew the truth, they +translated into their own cynical vernacular such grandiose collocations +as "Strategic retreats" from that of the Battle of the Marne to those +which had been occurring periodically on the Western front since the +beginning of the Somme offensive of 1916. </p> +<br /> + +<h3>3</h3> + +<p>Gisela's mind was complex and subtle, but it was also honest. When it +yielded a point, it yielded audibly. It was during the preliminary +discussion that she exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"It is true—certain things come back to me—Mimi, open the window. The +air is blue and we are all hardy and can stand the night air. It was +after the Agadir incident that I felt a change. I say felt because I was +so absorbed in my work that I had no inclination for world politics and +never discussed them. Up to that time I had never heard a hint of war +for aggression on the part of Germany.... While, as far back as I can +remember, it was taken for granted there would be a great war some day, +I doubt if any but the military party really believed in it. We thought +the time had passed for real wars, that we were far too highly +civilized. Of course I knew that the military party to which my father +belonged would have welcomed a war, for war was their profession, their +game, their excuse for being, and I heard more or less talk among my +brothers of Pan-Germanism; but still I imagined that it was merely a +defensive Teutonic ideal, just as our oppressive standing army was a +necessity owing to our geographical position. My brother Karl said +once—it comes back to me, although I had quite forgotten it—that it +was futile for the military caste to try to work up a war, because every +moneyed man in the Empire—financiers, merchants, manufacturers, all the +rest—never would hear of it. The country was too prosperous. Our wealth +was growing at a pace which even the United States could not rival, and +poverty was practically eliminated. That is the reason no hint made any +impression on me. It seemed to me that we were the most fortunate and +advanced nation in Europe and had only to wait for our kultur to pervade +the earth.</p> + +<p>"But—after Agadir—I seem to look back upon a slowly rising tide, +muttering, sullen, determined—even in Bavaria the old serenity, the +settled feeling, was gone—war was discussed as a possibility less +casually than of old—"</p> + +<p>"I recall a good deal more than that," interrupted Mimi. "Remember that +I was the daughter of a manufacturer, and the wife, so-called, of a +merchant. They were always grinding their teeth—and from about the time +you speak of—over the wrongs of Germany. What the wrongs were I never +could make out, and I am bound to say I did not listen very attentively, +being absorbed in my own—but it would seem that Germany being the +greatest country in the world was somehow not being permitted to let the +rest of the world find it out—"</p> + +<p>"It is all simple enough, now that I have the key. Germany tried to +bully France, and not only was France anxious to avoid war but Britain +showed her teeth. Germany was not then prepared to fight the world and +was forced to compromise. France gave her a slice of the Kongo in +exchange for Germany's consent to a French Protectorate in Morocco. Of +course—after that it must have been evident to all the business brains +of Germany that however great and prosperous the Empire might be she was +not strong enough to dictate to Europe; nor presume to demand any more +of the great prizes than she had already.</p> + +<p>"In other words, she was shown her place. It was also more than possible +that her aggressive prosperity might one of these days excite the +apprehension of Great Britain, who would then show more than her teeth. +Gradually the idea must have permeated, taken possession of the minds of +men who had vast fortunes to increase or lose, that sooner or later they +must fight for what they had and that it were better perhaps to strike +first, at a moment they might choose themselves—however little they +might sympathize with the ambitions of the Pan-German Party for supreme +power in Europe—"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps nothing," said Mimi. "They made up their minds to do it and +they did it. It is as plain as daylight. I'd forgive them, too, if +they'd won in six months, as they were so sure they would. What I don't +forgive them for is that they have proved themselves the most criminal +fools unhung. I'm glad that I am a Bavarian, and that Prussia, whom we +have always so hated and despised that we have never turned the lions +about on the Siegesthor, should be the prime offenders, humiliating as +it may be that we fell for their lies and got into this rotten mess. But +go ahead, Mrs. Prentiss. What's your next? Gee, but you can hand it out. +You must have kept tab since August 1st, 1914."</p> + +<p>"I took merely an intelligent American woman's interest," said Mrs. +Prentiss, momentarily haughty. "And I spent the first two years and a +half in Washington, where I often knew more than the newspapers; at all +events where I was constantly in the society of thinking men. Also +honest men, for war was the last thing we wanted, until our honor became +too deeply involved to permit us to hold aloof and fatten on your misery +any longer. Also, to be frank, our interests." </p> + +<p>The fact which impressed the Germans and reduced all that had gone +before to a heated academic discussion, was that Germany was beaten, and +that the United States embargo would reduce the Central Empires to +actual starvation, not merely devitalizing subnourishment; combined with +their own certainty that the Teutonic Powers would go on fighting, under +the lash of Prussia, sacrificing hundreds of thousands of loyal German +and Austrian boys, plunge countless more families into hopeless grief, +doom all the children in the land to sheer hunger and tuberculosis.</p> + +<p>Starvation! That was the inevitable fate of Germany if she prolonged the +war. And for what? Prostration, physical, financial, economic. To suffer +for a generation, at least, the fate of the outlaw, mangy dogs nosing +among rotten bones, kicked by the victors whenever they stood on their +hind legs and whined for mercy.</p> + +<p>And the Americans were prepared to pour into France and Britain billions +of dollars and millions of men and incalculable tons of food and +ammunition.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>4</h3> + +<p>The two Americans had a deeper purpose in forcing this long argument +than hammering the truth into those intelligent but Prussianized brains. +As the hours wore toward the dawn they observed with satisfaction that +Gisela's face grew whiter and grimmer, until finally it set itself in +rigid lines. Her mouth was hard, her eyes expanded as if they saw far +beyond the crystal mountains glittering before the open windows. Her +mass of dark hair had fallen, and Mrs. Tolby whispered to Mrs. Prentiss +that she looked like the Medusa in the Glyptothek in Munich, lovely but +relentless.</p> + +<p>Gisela was no longer the radiant and voluptuous beauty who had incurred +the secret wrath of Ann Howland at Bar Harbor. These years of war, +during which she had known hard physical labor and often insufficient +nourishment, more rarely still a full night's sleep, had taken her +lovely curves of cheek and form, her brilliant color. She was thin, +almost gaunt; but the dissolving of the flesh had given her intellect, +her force of character, her aspiring spirit, their first real +opportunity to stamp her features. She would always be handsome, with +her long dark eyes and masses of soft dark hair, her noble outlines; and +her womanly sympathies had preserved their balance between a +devitalizing horror on the one hand and callousness on the other; but it +was a spiritualized beauty, devoid of that appeal to sex of which she +had been, even after she had buried the memory of Franz von Nettelbeck +and all desire for love, femininely tenacious, however disdainful.</p> + +<p>Mimi was the first to speak after a long interval of silence.</p> + +<p>"You've got me, all right. I've been digging up a few more things. We're +up against it for keeps, and it's get out or starve out. I've a notion +to sneak off to my relations in Milwaukee. Mrs. Prentiss, I'll go as +your maid—"</p> + +<p>"You'll do nothing of the sort!" Gisela's voice cut through the ripples +of laughter which always greeted Mimi's redundant slang. "You'll go back +to Germany with me and do your part in putting an end to this war!" All +but Heloise half arose, but she sat staring at that hard drawn face as +if in telepathic communication.</p> + +<p>"Can you do anything—really?" gasped Kate. "We have been hoping for a +revolution, but had given up the idea—until after the war. Your +Socialists either eat out of the Kaiser's hand or sputter and fizzle +out. And all your able-bodied men are at the front—"</p> + +<p>"But not the women."</p> + +<p>"The what?"</p> + +<p>"You have both lived in Germany. You know that German women are big +strong creatures—what you call husky. They are stronger than many of +the men because they have led more decent lives. The men at the front +are hopeless as revolutionary material—at present. They are hypnotized. +They have been taught not to think. They are sick of the war, they +suffer when they come home and see their women reduced to shadows, or go +to the cemeteries to visit the graves of their little brothers and +sisters; but the teaching of a lifetime: the omnipotence of their +sovereigns, whom they innocently believe to rule by divine right, sends +them back submissive, patient, sad. I know what you had in mind when you +brought us here to convince us that our country was not only responsible +for the war, but beaten. You hoped we would somehow bring about the +assassination of the Kaiser and the Crown Prince Ruprecht of +Bavaria—all the great generals. Is it not so? That would, assuredly, +break down the morale of the army, give it a more smashing blow than any +it has received even on the Western front. Well, it cannot be done. Even +I could not obtain a pass into Great Headquarters. You might as well +expect a British soldier to be permitted to saunter over from his lines +and make sketches of the German trenches. Those men guard +themselves—day and night, at every point—as if haunted with the fear +of assassination. Perhaps they are. And remember that the downfall of +Cæsarism means the downfall not only of junkerism but of all the other +kings and Grand Dukes—who are powerful and wealthy in their own +domains. They have no doubt cursed Prussia daily since September, 1914, +but now they all sink or swim together. They will force Germany to die a +thousand deaths in the hope of a miracle that will save a class to which +the rest of poor Germany is a breeding-ground for their mighty armies. I +belong to that class. One of my brothers is on the staff of the Crown +Prince of Prussia. Take my word for it: the solution of Germany's +deliverance is not to be found in the simple antidote of political +assassination, for only men bound up in the success of the German arms, +or their terrorized creatures of our own sex, are near enough to throw +the bomb." </p> + +<p>"It was rather a commonplace idea," said Kate, gracefully, "but what can +you do?"</p> + +<p>"Quite aside from the women of the industrial and lower classes +generally, who have given the municipalities serious trouble with their +food riots—far more than you know about—the German women altogether +are restless and dissatisfied. They were promised a short and triumphant +war. They are daily more skeptical of promises. They have suffered death +in life. All that early exaltation—exhilaration—has gone long since. +They shut their teeth and endure because they still believe the cunning +official lies—that Britain must be starved by the submersibles, that +France's man power is nearly exhausted, that the United States cannot +prepare an army in less than two years and needs all her trained men at +home to quell the riots of the masses who disapprove of the war. They +are taught to believe that ultimate victory for Germany is +inevitable—that it is merely a question of months.</p> + +<p>"But—convince them that Germany cannot win, that their own conquest is +inevitable after three or four more years of horror and torment and +personal despair, turn their blind hatred of England and America upon +their own conscienceless rulers—"</p> + +<p>"Jimminy!" cried Mimi. "That's the dope. Pound it into them that the +Enemy Allies will give them a square deal as a Republic and put them +under the steam-roller with the Hohenzollerns if they stand pat, and +you'll get them. No more hungry and tubercular babies, no more babies +born with a cuticle short in theirs. They'd rise as one man—I +mean—damn the men!—as one woman."</p> + +<p>Heloise left her seat like a whirlwind and flung herself at Gisela's +feet. Her face was flaming white. She looked like a sibyl. "I knew it +would be you!" she cried in her sweet bell-like tones. "I have had +visions of you leading us out of this awful war. You have only to talk +to the women—your word was gospel to them before the war—they too will +have the vision and they will make it fact." </p> + +<p>"Yes—but—" interrupted the practical Ann. "How shall you go to work? +It is a stupendous idea. But you never could keep such a propaganda +movement a secret. Some one would be sure to betray you. German women +are perfect fools about men."</p> + +<p>"No longer. Nor were they for several years before the war as +subservient (inwardly) to men as they had been in the past. Far from it. +And now! They have suffered too much at the hands of men. They have no +illusions left. Love and marriage are ghastly caricatures to women who +have lived in a time when men are slaughtered like pigs in massed +formation; when their little boys are driven to war; when young +girls—and widows!—are forced to bring more males into the world with +the sanction of neither love nor marriage; when those too young for the +trench or the casual bed wail incessantly for bread. Oh, no! The German +man's day of any but legal dominion is over. Of course there is always +the danger of spies and traitors, but—" </p> + +<p>"The wall for you at sunrise if you get caught," cried Mimi, with +another subsidence of enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"If that happen to be my destiny. Can any one experience what we have +done during these three years and not be as fatalistic as the men in the +trenches? I'd rather die before a firing squad after an attempt to save +my wretched country than live to see it set back a hundred years. But I +refuse to believe that I shall be betrayed or that I shall fail. <i>That</i> +I believe to be my destiny. For a long time the idea has been fumbling +in the back of my mind, but it lacked the current which would switch it +into my consciousness. You two have supplied the current."</p> + +<p>Kate threw back her head and gave her merry, ringing laugh. "What +delicious irony! Germany defeated by its women! When I think of your +august papa, dear Gisela! That kulturistically typical, that naïve yet +Jovian symbol of all the arrogance and conceit, the simple creed of +Kaiserism über alles, and will-to-rule, that hurled this colossus on +the back of Europe—"</p> + +<p>"Quite so. You of all present know that I received the proper training +for the part I am about to play. If all goes well we women will erect a +tablet to my father's memory in the cathedral at Berlin." She leaned +down and patted the rapt face of Heloise, then scowled at Mimi. "May I +not count on you?" she asked sternly.</p> + +<p>"May you? Well, say, what are you taking me for? I'm more afraid of you +than I am of a firing squad, and anyhow I seem to know we'll win out. +I'm going to carry a club in case I mix up with Hans. But what's your +plan?"</p> + +<p>"This is neither the time nor place to work out a campaign. The first +move will be to train lieutenants in every State in Germany—women whom +we know either personally or through correspondence. You, Heloise, will +return to Munich at once and make out the lists. We shall have no +difficulty obtaining permits to travel all over the Empire, for it will +never enter the insanely stupid official head to doubt whatever excuse +we may choose to give. Not only are we German women and therefore sheep, +but we are Red Cross nurses.... And remember that nearly all the men who +are still in the factories are Socialists—and that women swarm in all +of those factories—"</p> + +<p>"Marie!" cried Heloise. "How she will work! She has the confidence of +the Socialist party—both wings—wherever she is known; and she can +talk—like a torrent of liquid fire."</p> + +<p>"And the next chapter?" asked Mrs. Prentiss curiously. "You led the +German women in thought for five years. Shall you have a Woman's +Republic, with you as President?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not. It is not in the German women—not yet—to crave the +grinding cares of public life. We shall make the men do the work, and we +will live for the first time. Delivered from Cæsarism and junkerism and +with the advanced men of Germany at the head of a Republic, I should +feel too secure of Germany's future to demand any of the ugly duties of +government—although the women will speak through the men. Their day of +silence and submission is forever passed—"</p> + +<p>"Same here," remarked Mimi, stretching and yawning. "Let's go to bed. I +have smoked fifty-three cigarettes and my voice is ruined. Nevertheless +I shall be a great prima donna, and you, Gisela, can chuck propaganda, +and write romance. The world will devour it after these years of +undiluted realism written in red ink on a black page. Look at the sun +trying to climb out of that mist and give us his blessing."</p> + +<p>"I shall go for a walk," said Gisela, "and I shall go alone." </p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='IV'></a><h2>IV</h2> +<br /> + +<h3>1</h3> + +<p>Mrs. Prentiss and Mrs. Tolby placed a large sum of money to Gisela's +account in a Swiss bank, and this she transferred to the Bayerischer +Vereinsbank in Munich. As she had collected large sums for war relief, +and was on the board of nine war charities, no suspicion was excited. +She had given to these organizations the greater part of the small +fortune she had made from her play and other writings, not absorbed by +taxation and bond subscriptions, but there were many wealthy women, +hungry, sad, apprehensive that peace would find them paupers, upon whom +she could depend to give liberally.</p> + +<p>There was to be no printed matter nor correspondence, but an army of +lieutenants, who, starting from certain centers, would augment their +numbers from Gisela's long list of correspondents, until it would be +possible to sound personally all the women of a district whom it was +thought wise to trust.</p> + +<p>Gisela returned to Germany as soon as she had worked out the details of +her campaign and received the enthusiastic donation of her American +friends. Mimi Brandt, Marie von Erkel (who looked like an ecstatic fury +of the French Revolution when she realized that at last she had a rôle +to play in life that would not only vent her consuming energies and +ambition, but enable her to assist in the downfall of a race of men whom +she hated, both for their tyranny and indifference to brains without +beauty, with all the diverted passion of her nature), Aimée von Erkel, +who was persistent, incisive, and so alarmed at the prospect of all the +men in the world being killed, that she would have hastened peace on any +terms; Princess Starnwörth, a Socialist and idealist, a brilliant and +persuasive speaker, to whom war was the ultimate horror; Johanna Stück, +whose revolt had been deep and bitter long before the war and who was +one of Gisela's fervent disciples and aides—these and six others were +sent on one pretense or another into the various States of Germany—the +kingdoms, principalities, grand duchies, duchies, and "free towns"—to +bear Gisela's personal message and select the proper leaders.</p> + +<p>Gisela went at once to Berlin and had a long interview with Mariette, +who was ripe for revolution: her lover had been killed and her husband +had not. Mariette was not of the type that sorrow and loss ennoble. She +was still a handsome woman, particularly in her uniform, but the pink +and white cheeks that once had covered her harsh bones were sunken and +sallow. Her mouth was like a narrow bar of iron. Her eyes were half +closed as if to hide the cold and deadly flame that never flickered; +even her nostrils were rigid. All her hard and sensual nature, devoid of +tenderness, but dissolved with sentimentality while the man who had +conquered her had lived, she had centered on her lover, and with his +death she was a tool to Gisela's hand to wreak vengeance upon the powers +that had sent him out of the world.</p> + +<p>"Leave it to me," she said grimly. "There are not only the women in the +towns where I have been stationed these many years, but, here in Berlin, +the wives of men whose money is financing this war: men who permitted +the war because they hoped for infinite riches but are now terrified +that they will not have a pfennig if the war goes on much longer. They +dare not rebel, for they would be shot, and their fortunes be +confiscated: their banks, industries, shops, run by cowed minor +officials. But the women—I can count on many of them. Even if their +husbands suspected, they would wink at it, willing that the women should +take the risk and they reap the benefit. God! How they hate the +war—every woman I know. Leave this part of Germany to me, and be +prepared for Schrecklichkeit. There will be no mercy, no politics, in +this revolution—merely one end in view. The Russians are babies but we +are not. 'Huns' shall cease to be a term of opprobrium, for female Huns +will end the war."</p> + +<p>Countess Niebuhr, whose love of intrigue had not diminished with the +years, and who had known more of the Pan-Germanic mind than her naïve +husband had guessed—who, moreover, had had a long and enlightening +interview with one of her sons but a month before—undertook to win over +many women of her own class who had suffered death and disillusion.</p> + +<p>Elsa's transfer to a hospital in Saxony was skilfully managed; and Lili +went on a concert tour for the Red Cross. It was not worth while to +campaign in Austria; the moment Germany was helpless she would collapse +automatically.</p> + +<p>In the course of a month the secret propaganda was moving with the +invisible, sinister, irresistible suction of an undertow. The immense +army of women who did Gisela's work proved themselves true Germans, +logical products of generations of discipline, concentration, +secretiveness, and a thoroughness, even in trifling details, as +implacable as it was automatic. They made few mistakes. When they +discovered—and their spy service was also Teutonic—that they had +confided in some girl or woman whose inherent weakness or venality +threatened betrayal, she disappeared immediately and for ever.</p> + +<p>Gisela, obtaining a commission to inspect the leading hospitals "back of +the front," visited each of the states in turn and addressed thousands +of women in groups of two or three hundred, gathered under the eyes of +the police in the name of one of the many war charities in which all +women were engaged. The lieutenants prepared these women, and Gisela +inspired, crystallized, cohered. The timid she shamed with the example +of the Russian women (and German women despise all other women); the +desperate she had little difficulty in convincing that there was but one +egress from their insupportable agony. Victory under her leadership if +they stood firm, was inevitable. </p> + +<p>She had the gift of a fiery torrent of speech, a clear steady eye, even +when it flashed and blazed, and a warm and irresistible magnetism that +convinced the individual as well as the mass that she had but one +object, the liberation of the miserable women of her country, their +deliverance from further sorrow; and that she was wholly lacking in +personal ambition.</p> + +<p>These women had known the gnawing sensation of unappeased appetite for +two years. They had seen old men and women, sometimes their own, fall in +the streets dead or dying, because they no longer had the reserves of +men and women in their youth or prime. They had seen men blow out their +brains in front of municipal buildings, cursing the Emperor, the +military autocracy, and even the Government, always at odds with the war +lords. They knew of suicides and child murder by despairing mothers that +they hardly whispered to one another. And all the children were +emaciated and wailed continually for food, sleeping little, playing +less, stunted in their growth and threatened with disease; if the war +went on another year they would join the little Polish victims on their +shadowy playground.... They feared for their daughters at home even as +they feared for their young sons in the trenches.... Barring a +revolution, the war might last for years ... <i>years</i>.... "Peace +Proposals" irritated what little humor they had left to ghastly obscene +joking.... "Victories" left them as cold as the mid-winter bed.... The +Hohenzollerns, the other kings and princes, the cast-iron junkers, would +cling fast to their own until the Enemy Allies' day of judgment, for +surrender meant their quicker extermination; now, at least, they were +still in the saddle, able to cheer their haunted egos with the Wine of +Lies.</p> + +<p>It was the Hohenzollerns and defeat, or a Republic and easy terms from +the victors who would welcome a sound de-brutalized Germany, jealous of +her lost honor, into the family of nations. The arguments were brief and +simple. Gisela would have won over women far less despairing than +these. And the fact that she had spent four years in America studying +its institutions and resources, convinced the most susceptible to +official lies that the United States could pour money, men, ammunition, +munitions and food into Europe for countless years; and that the +agitations of her pacifists, syndicalists, German agents, and +bribe-takers were but picturesque ripples on the surface of a nation +covering over three million five hundred thousand square miles and +embracing more than one hundred million people.</p> + +<p>And with all the insidious subtlety of her supple mind she changed the +prevailing hatred of President Wilson into a profound and pathetic +confidence. She had long since made them envy and admire the women of +America, and if these fortunate beings had enthusiastically reëlected +him and were now giving his policy as persistent and effective +assistance as the men, it was for the desperate women of Germany to +believe in his promises of deliverance. Above all he had now the +approval of their own Gisela Döring.</p> + +<p>It was the mothers of Germany, balked, potential, or veritable, who were +ready to rise and rescue what was left of the youth of Germany. If +victory for the German arms were hopeless they would risk their own +lives to force a peace that would leave them with the rags of their old +honor and prosperity, that would give them revenge upon the men who had, +for their own criminal ambitions—ambitions which belonged to the Middle +Ages—doomed them to lifelong sorrow; and that would save the lives of +their children—save husbands also for a few of these stern and weary +girls. Even in the Rhine Valley, where the greater number of the +munition and ammunition factories were grouped, there were incessant +meetings, among the night and day shifts, of the thousands of women +employed there, and Gisela herself addressed each of them. </p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='V'></a><h2>V</h2> +<br /> + +<h3>1</h3> + +<p>Gisela, who had been staring across the Königinstrasse into the heavy +branches that hung over the wall of the park, her mental vision too +actively raking the past to spare a beam for the familiar picture, +suddenly switched her searchlight away from those milestones in her +historic progress and concentrated it upon a suspicious shadow opposite. +Surely it had moved, and there was not a breath of wind. The night was +mild and still.</p> + +<p>She did not move a muscle but narrowed her gaze until it detached the +figure of a man from the dark background of wall and trees. Always +apprehensive of spies, although the Gott commandeered by the Kaiser +seemed to have adjusted blinders to eyes strained west, east, and +south, she leapt to the conclusion that she was under surveillance at +last, and her heart beat thickly. She who had believed that the long +strain, the constant danger, the incessant demand for resource and ever +more resource, had transformed her nerves to pure steel, realized +angrily that on this last night when she had permitted herself an hour's +idle retrospect before commanding sleep, her nerves more nearly +resembled the strings of a violin.</p> + +<p>Her apartment was on the ground floor. She stood up, revealing herself +disdainfully in the moonlight that now lay full on her window, then went +out quickly into the vestibule and unlocked the house door. Her only +fear was that the man would have gone, but if he were still there she +was determined to walk boldly over to his skulking-place and pretend she +believed him to be a burglar or a foreign spy. In these days she carried +a small pistol and a dagger.</p> + +<p>When she had stepped out on the pavement she glanced quickly up and down +the street. Not even a <i>polizeidiener</i> was in sight, for this +aristocratic quarter was, in peace and war, the quietest part of an +always orderly town. It was evident that the man spied alone.</p> + +<p>Holding her head very high, she started across the street; but she had +not taken three steps when the shadow detached itself and walked rapidly +out into the moonlight. She gave a sharp cry and shrank back. It was +Franz von Nettelbeck.</p> + +<p>"You—" she stammered. "They sent you—"</p> + +<p>"They? And why should I alarm you? Am I so formidable?" He uttered his +short harsh laugh and lifted his cap. His head was bandaged; there was a +deep scar along the outer line of his right cheek. His face was gaunt +and lined; and his shoulders sagged until he suddenly bethought himself +and flung them back with a deathless instinct.</p> + +<p>Gisela smiled and gave him her hand with a graceful spontaneity. "The +sense of being watched always shakes the nerves a bit, and I have felt +up to nothing myself for a long time. Why did not you come up to the +window when you recognized me?"</p> + +<p>"I was so sure of welcome! And yet as soon as I was fit to travel I came +here to see you. I intended to send in my card to-morrow. But I could +not help haunting your window to-night, and when I had the good fortune +to see you sitting there—with the moon shining on your beautiful +face—"</p> + +<p>"My face is no longer beautiful, dear Franz—"</p> + +<p>"You are a thousand times more beautiful than ever—"</p> + +<p>Something else vibrated along those steel nerves, but she said briskly: +"Standing so long must have tired you. Come in and rest. It is late; but +if there are still conventions in this crashing world I have forgotten +them."</p> + +<p>Her rooms were always prepared for a sudden visit of the police. If a +firing squad were her fate it would not have been invited through the +usual channels. Even the arms to be worn on the morrow were in the +cellars and attics of citizens so respectable as almost to be nameless.</p> + +<p>He followed her through the common entrance of the apartment house into +her <i>Saal</i>. It was a large comfortable room with many deep chairs, and +on the gray walls were a few portraits of her scowling ancestors, +contributed long since by her mother. A tall porcelain stove glowed +softly. Gisela drew the curtains and lit several candles. She disliked +the hard glare of electricity at any time, and she admitted with a +curious thrill of satisfaction that those manifestly sincere words of +her old lover had given her vanity a momentary resurrection. Her +suspicions were by no means allayed, even when she met his eyes blazing +with passionate admiration, but why not play the old game of the gods +for an hour? What better preparation for the morrow than to relax and +forget?</p> + +<p>"Poor Franz!" Her voice was the same rich contralto whose promise had +routed the Howland millions years ago. "Our poor gallant men! When will +this terrible war finish?"</p> + +<p>"Ask your United States of America!" And he cursed that superfluous +nation roundly. "We had some chance before. Not so much, but still some. +Now we shall be beaten to our knees, stamped into the dust, straight +down to hell." He threw himself into a chair and pressed his hands +against his face.</p> + +<p>"But when?" Gisela watched him warily. If these were tactics they were +admirable; but who more full of theatric devices than the Kaiser he +adored?</p> + +<p>"Years hence, no doubt—if we continue to hold the Social-Democrats in +hand and drug the people. We'll fight on until our enemies' might proves +that they are right and we were fools. That is all there is to war."</p> + +<p>Gisela sat down and let her hands fall into her lap with a little +pathetic motion of weakness. "Sometimes I wish the Socialists were +strong enough to win and end it all," she said plaintively. </p> + +<p>"Oh, no, you don't. You are a junker, for all your independent notions, +and trying to put some of your own nerve into the women. I read you with +great amusement before the war. But no one knows better than yourself +that the triumph of democracy in Germany would mean the end of us."</p> + +<p>"I cannot see that we are enjoying many privileges at present—unless it +be the privilege to lie rather than be lied to. And when our enemies do +win we shall be pried out, root and branch. So, why not save our skins +at all events? I do not mean mine, of course—nor, for that matter, am I +thinking of our class; but of the hundreds of thousands of our dear +young men who might be spared—"</p> + +<p>"Better die and have done with it. And there is always hope—"</p> + +<p>"Hope?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—in the separate peace, the ultimate submersible, some new +invention—the miracle that has come to the rescue more than once in +history. There are times when my faith in the destiny of Germany to +dominate the world is so great that I cannot believe it possible for +her to fail—in spite of everything, everything! And everything is +against us! I never realized it until I lay there in the hospital. I was +too busy before, and that was my first serious wound. Oh, God! what +fools we were. What rotten diplomacy. Even I despised the United States; +but as I lay there in Berlin their irresistible almighty power seemed to +pass before me in a procession that nearly destroyed my reason. I knew +the country well enough, but I would not see."</p> + +<p>"They are a very soft-hearted people and would let us down agreeably if +the Social-Democrats overturned the House of Hohenzollern and stretched +out the imploring hand of a young Republic—"</p> + +<p>"No! No! A thousand times rather die to the last man than be beaten +within. That would be the one insupportable humiliation. <i>Canaille!</i>" He +spat out the word. "I refuse to recognize their existence—"</p> + +<p>He sprang to his feet and before her mind could flash to attention he +had caught her from her chair and was straining her to him, his arms, +his entire body, betraying no evidence whatever of depleted vitality. +"Let us forget it all!" he muttered. "We are still young and I am free. +I was a fool once and you will believe me when I tell you that I would +beg you on my knees to marry me even if you were Gisela Döring.... I +have leave of absence for a month ... let us be happy once more...."</p> + +<p>"It was a long while ago ... all that ... do you realize how long?"</p> + +<p>Gisela stood rigid, her eyes expanded. To her terror and dismay she was +thrilling and flaming from head to foot. This lover of her life might +have released her from one of their immortal hours but yesterday. But +although she had to brace her body from yielding, her mind (and it is +the curse of intellectual women of individual powers that the mind +never, in any circumstances, ceases to function) realized that while the +human will may be strong enough to banish memories, and readjust the +lonely soul, its most triumphant acts may be annihilated by the physical +contact of its mate. Unless replaced. Fool that she had been merely to +have buried the memory of this man by an act of will. She should have +taken a commonplace lover, or husband, put out that flaming midnight +torch with the standardizing light of day.</p> + +<p>Her mind seemed to be darting from peak to peak in a swift and dazzling +flight as he talked rapidly and brokenly, kissing her cheek, her neck, +straining her so close to him that she could hardly breathe. Suddenly it +poised above the memory of an old book of Renan's, "The Abbess Juarre," +in which the eminent skeptic had somewhat clumsily attempted to +demonstrate that if the world unmistakably announced its finish within +three days the inhabitants would give themselves up to an orgy of love.</p> + +<p>Well, her world might end to-morrow. Why should she not live to-night?</p> + +<p>Her arrogant will demanded the happiness that this man, whom she had +never ceased to love for a moment, to whom she had been unconsciously +faithful, alone could give her. Moreover, her reason working side by +side with her imperious desires, assured her that if he really were +spying, and, whatever his passion, meant to remold her will to his and +snatch the keystone from the arch, it were wise to keep him here. It was +evident that he had no suspicion of the imminence of the revolution.</p> + +<p>And it was years since she had felt all woman, not a mere intellect +ignoring the tides in the depths of her being. The revelation that she +was still young and that her will and all the proud achievements of her +mind could dissolve at this man's touch in the crucible of her passion +filled her with exultation.</p> + +<p>She melted into his arms and lifted hers heavily to his neck.</p> + +<p>"Franz! Franz!" she whispered.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>2</h3> + +<p>Gisela moved softly about the room looking for fresh candles. Those that +had replaced the moonlight hours ago had burned out and she did not +dare draw the curtains apart: it was too near the dawn. She had no idea +what time it was. But she must have light, for to think was imperative, +and her mental processes were always clogged in the dark.</p> + +<p>She found the old box of candles and placed four in the brackets and lit +them. Then she went over to the couch and looked down upon Franz von +Nettelbeck. He slept heavily, on his side, his arms relaxed but slightly +curved. In a few moments she went down the hall to her bedroom and took +a cold bath and made a cup of strong coffee; then dressed herself in a +suit of gray cloth, straight and loose, that her swiftest movements +might not be impeded. In the belt under the jacket she adjusted her +pistol and dagger.</p> + +<p>She returned to the <i>Saal</i> and once more looked down upon the +unconscious man. How long he had been falling asleep! She had offered +him wine, meaning to drug it, but he had refused lest it inflame his +wounds. She had offered to make him coffee, but he would not let her +go.</p> + +<p>It was in the complete admission of her reluctance to leave him, even +after he slept, and while disturbed by the fear that the dawn was nearer +than in fact it was, that she stared down upon the man who was more to +her than Germany and all its enslaved women and men. He knew nothing of +her plans, had not a suspicion of the revolution, but he had vowed they +never should be parted again. He had great influence and could set +wheels in motion that would return him to the diplomatic service and +procure him an appointment to Spain; where good diplomatists were badly +needed.</p> + +<p>It was an enchanting picture that he drew in spite of the horror that +must ever mutter at their threshold; but to the awfulness of war they +were both by this time more or less callous, although he was mortally +sick of the war itself; and Gisela, who doled half-measures neither to +herself nor others, had dismissed the morrow and yielded herself to the +joy of the future as of the present. What she had felt for this man in +her early twenties seemed a mere partnership of romance and sentiment +fused by young nerves, compared with the mature passion he had shocked +from its long recuperative sleep. He was her mate, her other part. Her +long fidelity, unshaken by time, her own temperament and many +opportunities, all were proof of that.</p> + +<p>The caste of great lovers in this unfinished world is small and almost +inaccessible, but they had taken their place by immemorial right. Were +it not for this history of her own making they would find every phase of +happiness in each other as long as they both lived. Women, at least, +know instinctively the difference between the transient passion, no +matter how powerful, and the deathless bond.</p> + +<p>Gisela glanced at her wrist watch. It was within seventy minutes of the +dawn. If she could only be sure that he would sleep until Munich herself +awoke him. But he had told her that he never slept these days more than +two or three hours at a time, no matter how weary.</p> + +<p>If he awoke before it was time for her to leave the house and renewed +his love-making, her response would be as automatic as the progress of +life itself.</p> + +<p>If she attempted to leave the house before sunrise, on no matter what +pretext, his suspicions would be aroused, for she had told him that she +had been given a week for rest. For the same reason she dared not awaken +him and ask him to go. He would refuse, for it was no time to slip out +of a woman's apartment; far better wait until ten o'clock, when there +were always visitors of both sexes in her office. Moreover, he would no +more wish to go than he would permit her to leave him.</p> + +<p>She was utterly in his power if he awakened and chose to exert it. He +had mastered her, conquered her, routed her career and her peace, and +she had gloried in her submission; gloried in it still. A commonplace +woman would have been satisfied, satiated, felt free for the moment, +turned with relief to the dry convention of the daily adventure, rather +resenting, if she had a pretty will, the supreme surrender to the race +in an unguarded hour.</p> + +<p>Gisela was cast in the heroic mold. She came down from the old race of +goddesses of her own Nibelungenlied, whose passions might consume them +but had nothing in common with the ebb and flow of mortals. But great +brains are fed by stormy souls, and in the souls of women there is an +element of weakness, unknown, save in a few notable instances, to great +men in the crises of their destiny; for women are the slaves of the +race, and nature when permitting them the abnormality of genius takes +her revenge.</p> + +<p>If he awakened.... There was little time for thought. She must plan +quickly. If she left the house at once he might awaken immediately and +after searching the apartment, follow her; there was the dire +possibility that he would learn too much before the terrific drama of +the revolution opened, and manage to thwart their plans. He was a man of +quick brain and ruthless will; no consideration for her would stop him, +although he would save her from the consequences of her act, no doubt of +that. Save her for himself.</p> + +<p>Mimi Brandt, and Heloise and Marie von Erkel were asleep in rooms at the +end of the hall.... She had a mad idea of binding him hand and foot and +locking him in her bedroom.... Either he would hate her for the +humiliation he—Franz von Nettelbeck, glorious on the field of honor, a +bound prisoner in a woman's bedroom while his class was blown to atoms, +and his caste was roaring its impotent fury to a napping Gott!... Oh, an +insufferable affront to a man of his order who held even the dearest +woman as the favored pensioner on his bounty ... or she would be +consumed with remorse, melt ... it was positive that she must visit +him—not leave him to starve ... nor could she keep him bound ... and +once more she would be his slave ... could she hold out even for a day?</p> + +<p>The first blow of a revolution is, after all, only its first. There is +always the danger of a swift reaction.</p> + +<p>Unremitting vigilance, work, encouragement are the part of its leaders +for months, possibly years, to come. All revolutions are dependent for +ultimate success upon one preëminent figure.</p> + +<p>Franz stirred under the unconscious fixity of her gaze and changed his +position, lying on his back. She hastily averted her eyes. Her hands +clenched and spread. Even to-morrow if this man found her ... one soft +moment ... when she needed all her energy, her fire, her powers of +concentration, of depersonalization, for the millions of tortured women +who would follow her straight out to meet any division the Emperor might +detach in the vain hope of subduing an army far outnumbering all that he +had left of men.</p> + +<p>Nothing but a miracle could halt the initial stage of the revolution; +the wireless plants were all operated by women in her service, and no +telephone message had advised her of danger. No matter what her +defection at this moment the revolution would begin at dawn; but +although Germany happily lacked the disintegrating forces of Russia, +comfortable as she had been for two generations, and proud in her +discipline, that very discipline would dissolve its new backbone without +the stimulating force of her own inexorable will. And if she deserted +them!...</p> + +<p>It was a woman's revolution. A necessary number of men Socialists had +been admitted to the secret and were to strike the second blow. But the +women must strike the first, and according to program. Not only were the +men under surveillance, but where women would be pardoned in case of a +failure, they would be shot. And most of them had more brain than brawn, +were past the fighting age; the girls, and women of middle years, were a +magnificent army which would make the graybeards appear absurd in the +open.</p> + +<p>These women worshiped her, believed her to be a super-being created to +save them and their children; but if she betrayed them, proved herself +the merest woman of them all—a childless woman at that—the very bones +would melt out of them, they would prostrate themselves in the ashes of +their final despair.</p> + +<p>Spain! Franz! For a moment her imagination rioted.</p> + +<p>She smiled ironically. Happiness? Four-walled happiness? Hardly for her, +even without the blood of murdered thousands soaking her doorstep. Love, +for women like her ... even eternal love ... must be episodical. Life +forces the duties of leadership on such women whether they resent them +or not. They must take their love where they find it as great men do, +subordinated to their chosen careers and the tremendous duties and +responsibilities that are the fruit of all achieved ambition.</p> + +<p>It was true that she had no political ambition, but for an unpredictive +period she must be the beacon-light of the new Republic, no matter how +successful the coup of the Socialists; until some one man (she knew of +none) or some group of men became strong enough to control its +destinies. The women must stand firm, a solid critical body led by +herself, until the tragically disciplined soldiers who had survived +these years of warfare had ceased to be sheep, or run bleating to the +new fold.</p> + +<p>Even if she won Franz over, her power would be sapped; not for a moment +would he be out of her consciousness; her imagination would drift +incessantly from the vital work in hand to the hour of their reunion. +The hurtling power of her eloquence would be diminished, her magnetism +weakened.</p> + +<p>Her memory flashed backward to those three years when he was an +ever-rising obsession—personifying love and completion as he +did—before which her proud will fell back again and again, powerless +and humiliated.</p> + +<p>Why, in God's name could not he have come back into her life six months +hence?</p> + +<p>No woman should risk a sex cataclysm when she has great work to do. +Nature is too subtle for any woman's will as long as the man be +accessible. And the strongest and the proudest woman that ever lived may +have her life disorganized by a man if she possess the power to charm +him.</p> + +<p>She moved softly from the couch and walked up and down the room, +striving to visualize her manifest destiny and erect the grim ideal of +duty. Her mind, working at lightning speed, recalled moments, days, in +the past, when she had let her will relax, ignored her duties, floated +idly with the tide; the sensation of panic with which she had recaptured +at a bound the ideals that governed her life. Mortal happiness was not +for her. Duty done, with or without exaltation of spirit, would at least +keep her in tune with life, preserve her from that disintegrating horror +of soul that could end only with self-annihilation.</p> + +<p>And end her usefulness. It was a vicious circle. </p> + +<p>Suddenly a wave of humiliation, of insupportable shame, swept her from +sole to crown, and she returned swiftly to her post above the sleeping +man. One moment had undone the work of all those proud years during +which she had made herself over from the quintessential lover into one +of the intellectual leaders of the world, a woman who had accomplished +what no man had dared to attempt, and who, if the revolution were the +finality which before this man came had seemed to be written in the Book +of Germany, would be immortal in history. Wild fevers of the blood, +passionate longing for completion in man, oneness, the "organic +unit"—were not for her.</p> + +<p>All feeling ebbed slowly out of her, leaving her cold, collected, alert. +She was, over all, a woman of genius, the custodian of peculiar gifts, +sleeping throughout the ages, perhaps, like Brunhilde on her rock, to +awaken not at the kiss of man, but at the summons of Germany in her +darkest hour.</p> + +<p>She bent over the man who belonged to the woman alone in her and whose +power over her would be exerted as ruthlessly as her own should be over +herself. He looked a very gallant gentleman as he lay there, and he had +been a very brave soldier. His own place was secure in the annals of the +war, but at this moment, following upon his triumphant swoop after +happiness, he was the one deadly menace to the future of his country.</p> + +<p>Gisela opened his shirt gently and bared his breast. She held her +breath, but he slept on and she took the dagger from her belt and with a +swift hard propulsion drove it into his heart to the guard. He gave a +long expiring sigh and lay still. A gallant gentleman, a brave soldier, +and a great lover had the honor to be the first man to pay the price of +his country's crime, on the altar of the Woman's Revolution.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>3</h3> + +<p>Gisela went swiftly down the hall and awakened Heloise, Mimi, and Marie +and told them what she had done. No novelty in horror could startle +European women in those days. They dressed themselves hastily in their +gray uniforms and followed her to the <i>Saal</i>. With Mimi's assistance she +put on his coat, the hilt of the dagger thrusting forward the row of +medals on his breast. Marie went out into the street and flitted up and +down like a big gray moth, her gray little face tense with rapture. Her +devotion to Gisela had been fanatical from the first but now she begged +what invisible power her wild little mind still recognized to be +permitted to die for her.</p> + +<p>In a moment she signaled that the street was deserted. Gisela and Mimi +carried the body over to the park and dropped it into the swiftly +flowing Isar. The clear jade green of the lovely river reflected the +points of the stars, and Franz von Nettelbeck as he drifted down the +tide looked as if attended by innumerable candles dropped graciously +from on high to watch at his bier. But it was to Heloise this fancy +came, and she lifted her face and thanked the stars for their silent +funeral march. Not for her would the supreme sacrifice have been +possible, and for the moment she did not envy Gisela Döring.</p> + +<p>The four girls walked rapidly over to the Maximilianstrasse and crossed +the bridge to the Maximilianeum. The long symmetrical brown building +with its open galleries filled with the cold starlight was distorted by +a wireless station on its highest point and by a biplane on the extreme +left of the roof. It stood on a lofty terrace and commanded a view of +all Munich and of the tumbled peaks of the Alps.</p> + +<p>They ran up the stairs and called to the operator from the higher +gallery. She answered in a hard and weary voice: "Nothing." Then they +walked down the gallery to the open tower facing the Alps. For half an +hour longer they stood in silence, alternately glancing from their wrist +watches to the faintly glittering peaks whose first reflection of dawn, +if all went well, would change the face of the world. </p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='VI'></a><h2>VI</h2> +<br /> + +<h3>1</h3> + +<p>The eyes of the four women traveled to the lofty towers of the +Frauenkirche. Its bells rang out a wild authoritative summons. +Coincidentally the streets filled with women dressed uniformly in +gray—big powerfully built women, sturdy products of the strong soil of +Germany. They did not march, nor form in ranks, but stood silent, alert, +shouldering rifles with fixed bayonets.</p> + +<p>Involuntarily Gisela and her three lieutenants braced themselves against +the pillars of the tower. An instant later the walls of the +Maximilianeum rocked under the terrific impact of what sounded like a +thousand explosions. The roar of parting walls, the shriek of shells and +bombs bursting high in the air, the sharp short cry of shattered metal, +the deep <i>approaching</i> voice of dynamite prolonging itself in echoes +that seemed to reverberate among the distant Alps, shook the souls of +even those inured to the murderous uproar of the battlefield.</p> + +<p>Grotesquely combined with this terrific but majestic confusion of sound +were the screams of innocent citizens hanging out of the windows, waving +their arms, staring distraught at the sky, convinced, in so far as they +could think at all, that a great enemy air fleet was bombarding Germany +at last.</p> + +<p>Masses of flame and smoke shot upward. The pale morning sky turned +black, rent with darting crimson tongues and lit with prismatic stars. +Other explosions followed in rapid succession, some coming down the +light morning wind from a long distance. Blasts of heat swept audibly +through the long galleries of the Maximilianeum.</p> + +<p>"It is an inferno!" Marie von Erkel for the moment was almost +hysterical. "Will Munich be destroyed? Oh, not that!"</p> + +<p>"The fire brigades know their business." Gisela glanced up at the +Marconi station. Even through the din she could hear the faint crackling +of the wireless. "If all Germany—"</p> + +<p>But her eyes were wild.... If the revolutionists in the rest of the +empire had been as prompt and fearless as those of Bavaria, every +munition and ammunition factory, every aerodrome and public hangar, save +those taken possession of by powerfully armed squads of women, every +arsenal, every warehouse for what gasoline and lubricating oils were +left, every telegraph and telephone wire, every railway station near +either frontier, with thousands of cars and miles of track had been +destroyed simultaneously. The armies would be isolated, without arms or +ammunition but what they had on hand or could manufacture in the invaded +countries; no food but what they had in storage. They could not fight +the enemy seven days longer; if the Enemy Allies heard immediately of +the revolution through neutral channels and believed in it after so +many false alarms, the finish of the German forces would come in two +days.</p> + +<p>But had the women of the other states been as prompt and ruthless as the +women of Bavaria? Spandau, Essen, all the centers in the Rhine Valley +for the manufacture of munitions on a grand scale ... the great Krupp +factories ... unless they were in ruins the revolution was a failure....</p> + +<p>She could not be everywhere at once. War and misery and starving +children, the loss of the men and boys they loved, and a profound +distrust of their rulers, had filled them with a cold and bitter hatred +of an autocracy convicted of lying and aggressive purpose out of its own +mouth; but would the iron in their souls carry them triumphantly past +the final test? Women were women and Germans were not Russians. They had +little fatalism in their make-up, and their brain cells were packed with +the tradition of centuries of submission to man. True, their quiet +revolt had begun long before the war, and this last year had wrought +extraordinary changes, quickening their mental processes, forcing them +to think and act for themselves; but their hearts might have turned to +water during those last dispiriting hours before the dawn.</p> + +<p>And how could it be possible that all traitors had been detected, +exterminated, with millions in the secret? Troops might even now be in +Prussia. Great Headquarters (Grosse Hauptquartier) were in Pless, and +although the women of that city were not in the confidence of the +revolutionaries, and it was to remain in ignorance as long as possible, +the abrupt cessation of telephone and telegraph communication would +advise that group of alert brains that something was wrong. Moreover, +even with interrupted communications they would soon learn of the +blowing up of factories in other Silesian towns; no doubt hear them. It +was true the railways and bridges between Pless and Berlin were—if they +were!—destroyed, but there were always automobiles; enough for a small +force.... And the police, the police of Berlin! They were still +formidable in spite of the drain on men for the front. Mariette had +written her grimly that she would "take care of 'the rats in the +granary,'" meaning the police; but although Mariette was the most +thorough and merciless person she knew, she doubted even her in this +awful moment.</p> + +<p>How could she have dreamed of accomplishing a universal revolution in a +country possessing the most perfect secret service system in the world?... a +country with eyes in the back of its head? True, the Socialists in +her confidence had been noisy and bumptious of late in order to +concentrate attention upon their sex, and at the same time careful to +refrain from definite statements or overt acts.... It would never enter +the stupid official head that German women could conceive, much less +precipitate, a revolution; but there <i>must</i> be traitors, women who +fundamentally were the slaves of men, weak spirits, spirits rotten with +imperialism, militarism, but cunning in the art of dissimulation.... +What an accursed fool and criminal she had been ... egotistical dreamer!... led +on by the extraordinary power she had acquired over the women of +her race....</p> + +<p>For a moment she clung to the embrasure, so overwhelming was her impulse +to hurl herself down into oblivion. In that dark and shrieking uproar +she had the illusion that she was in hell, in hell with her miserable +victims.</p> + +<p>But although Gisela's long slumbering nerves had had their revenge last +night, they had given up the fight when she had destroyed their only +ally, and these last protesting vibrations were very brief. Her eyes +fell on the ranks of women standing in the wide Maximilianstrasse,—a +street a mile long and seventy-five feet across—undisturbed by the +turmoil they had anticipated, calmly awaiting her orders. The obsession +passed, and after a brief tribute of hatred to her imagination, which +was, after all, one root of her power, she turned and glanced +critically at her three companions. Marie, looking like a little gray +gnome, was dancing about and waving her arms in ecstasy. Heloise, her +long blonde hair hanging about her fine French face, was gazing out with +rapt eyes and lips apart, as if every sense were drinking in the vision +of a Germany delivered. Mimi was standing with her arms akimbo, nodding +her head emphatically.</p> + +<p>"Great work," she said as she met Gisela's stern eyes. "Better go up to +the wireless."</p> + +<p>They ran rapidly up to the roof and looked into the little room. The +girl who sat there nodded but did not speak. Her face was gray and +tense, but there was no evidence of despair. Gisela and Mimi stood +motionless for what seemed to them a stifling hour, but at last the +operator laid down the receiver.</p> + +<p>"All," she said. "Every one."</p> + +<p>"The Rhine Valley?"</p> + +<p>The girl nodded, then rolled her jacket into a pillow, lay down before +the door and immediately fell asleep. It had been a night of ghastly +suspense. Another operator was already running up the stair to her +relief.</p> + +<p>"Fate!" cried Mimi. "The same fate that sank the Armada and drove +Napoleon to Moscow. You had the vision—"</p> + +<p>"I was the chosen instrument—" Gisela walked rapidly over to the +biplane. A girl sat at the joy-stick looking as if carved out of wood. +There was no more expression on her face than if she were sitting in the +gallery at a rather dull play. Her lover and six brothers were dead in +France. She had watched her little brother and her old grandmother die +of malnutrition. Her sister was "officially pregnant" and under +surveillance lest she kill herself. No more perfect machine was at the +disposal of Gisela Döring. Whether Germany were delivered or razed to +the earth was all one to her, but she was more than willing, as a +Bavarian with a traditional hatred of Prussia, to play her part in the +downfall of a race that presumed to call itself German. </p> +<br /> + +<h3>2</h3> + +<p>Gisela stepped into the machine and it glided downward and skimmed +lightly over the great length of the Maximilianstrasse.</p> + +<p>The compact ranks, which had listened unmoved to the roar of dynamite +and the detonations of bursting shells, raised their faces at the +humming of the machine and broke into harsh abrupt cheering. Then they +leaned their rifles against their powerful bodies and unfurled their +flags and waved them in the faces of the half paralyzed people in the +windows. It was a white flag with a curious device sketched in crimson: +a hen in successive stages of evolution. The final phase was an eagle. +The body was modeled after the Prussian emblem of might, but the face, +grim, leering, vengeful, pitiless, was unmistakably that of a woman. +However humor may be lacking in the rest of that grandiose Empire it was +grafted into the Bavarians by Satan himself.</p> + +<p>Gisela nodded. "The hens are eagles—all over Germany," she announced +in her full carrying voice. "Word has come through from every quarter."</p> + +<p>She flew down the Leopoldstrasse. It was packed with women from the +Feldherrnhalle to the Siegesthor, cheering women, waving their flags, +armed to the teeth. So was the great Park of the Residenz, the +Hofgarten, where the guards were either bound or dead. It took her but a +few moments to fly all over Munich. The narrow streets were deserted, +save for the prostrate policemen bound suddenly from ambush; but in all +the beautiful squares, with their pompous statues, and in all the wider +streets, and out in the wide Theresien Field before the colossal figure +of Bavaria, the women were gathered; relapsing into phlegmatic calm as +soon as she had given her message and passed.</p> + +<p>But it was by no means a scene of unbroken dignity and silence. Here and +there groups of men in uniform lay dead, sword or pistol in hand. Once +Gisela flew low and discharged her revolver into the shoulder of a big +officer, half dressed and barely recovered from his wounds, who was +keeping off half a dozen women with magnificent sword play. The women +gave one another first aid, then lifted and pitched him into his house.</p> + +<p>There was sniping, of course, from the windows, but the women made a +concerted rush and disposed of the terrified offender as remorselessly +as their own men had punished the desperate civilians of the lands they +had invaded. They had heard their men brag for too many years about +their admirable policy of Schrecklichkeit to forget the lesson in this +fateful hour.</p> + +<p>The most exciting scenes and the only ones in which any of the women +were killed were in the vicinity of the garrison. These interior +garrisons of the country had been one of the long debated problems. As +no women entered them and as it was not safe to attempt the corruption +of any of the men, there were but two alternatives: blow them up and +sacrifice the men wholesale or meet them with a superior force as they +rushed out to ascertain the nature of the explosions, and fight them in +open battle. Gisela had finally decided to give them a chance for their +lives, as she had no mind to shed any more blood than was unavoidable; +and these men, being no longer in their prime, must be overcome +eventually, no matter what their fury.</p> + +<p>When she hovered over the Marztplatz in front of the garrison a few +moments after the last of the explosions, and while fire was still +raging in this military quarter of magazines, arsenals and laboratories, +men and women were mixed in a hideous confusion, shooting and slashing +indiscriminately. But there were thousands of women and only a few +hundred men, all of whom at one time or another had been wounded. +Finally the captain of this regiment of women ordered a swift retreat, +and simultaneously three machine guns opened fire from innocent looking +windows, but on the garrison building, not on the square. They ceased +after one round, and the captain of the women gave such men as were +alive and unwounded their choice between death and surrender. They chose +the sensible alternative, were driven within, and placed under a heavy +guard.</p> + +<p>It was not safe to venture too close to the still exploding and blazing +structures, but it was quite apparent that the work had been done +thoroughly. The fire brigades were busy, and there was little danger of +Munich, one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in the world, +falling a victim to the revolution. Many lives had been sacrificed, no +doubt. The women night-workers in the factories, fifteen minutes before +the signal from the Frauenkirche, had pretended to strike, seized all +the hand arms available and shot down the men who attempted to control +them. The men in the secret had gone with them and were already about +their business.</p> + +<p>The officers in charge of the Class of 1920 were too few in number to +make any resistance, too dazed to grasp a situation for which there was +no precedent; they had surrendered to the Amazons grimly awaiting their +decision. The poor boys in the Kadettenkorps had run home to their +mothers, and, finding them in the streets, had either taken refuge in +the cellars, or joined those formidable warriors in gray, promising +obedience and yielding their arms.</p> + +<p>Other aeroplanes were darting about the city. The greater number were +driven by women, directing the fire brigades, but now and again a man, +whose monoplane had been in his private shed, flew upward primed for +battle. After a few parleys he retired to await events, one only +shooting a woman, and crashing to earth riddled with avenging bullets.</p> + +<p>Such air men as were in Munich were too callous to danger of all sorts, +too accustomed to the horrors of the battlefield, to take this +outpouring of women and mere civilians seriously; even in spite of the +explosions, which, to be sure, denoted an appalling amount of +destruction. Any attempt to sally forth on foot and ascertain the extent +of the damage was met by bayonets and pistols in the hands of brigades +of women whose like they had never seen in Germany. They inferred they +were Russians, who had managed to cross the frontier with the infernal +subtlety of their race. At all events they would be exterminated with no +effort of men lacking authority to act.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>3</h3> + +<p>Several of the women flew out into the country, but except where people +were gathered about smoking ruins the land was at peace; there was no +sign of a rally to the blue and white flag of Bavaria, no sign of an +avenging army. In the course of the morning there were hundreds of these +aviators darting about Bavaria, descending to tell the peasants or +shop-keepers of the small towns that Germany was in revolution, the +armies deprived of all support, and that the Republic had been +proclaimed in Berlin. The Social Democrats had possession of the +Reichstaggebäude, and every official head still affixed to its +shoulders was as helpless—a fuming prisoner in its own house—as if +those arrogant brains had turned to porridge. Every royal and official +residence throughout the Empire was surrounded by an army of women with +fixed bayonets, and before noon every unsubmissive member of the old +régime would be in either a fortress or the common prison.</p> + +<p>This news Gisela heard at ten o'clock when she returned to the wireless +station on the Maximilianeum. The Berlin news came from Mariette.</p> + +<p>In Munich the old King had been returned to the Red Palace which he had +occupied during the long years of his father's regency, and it too was +surrounded by an alert but silent army. The other royal palaces were +guarded in a similar manner, but the women had no intention of killing +these kindly Wittelsbachs if it could be avoided. All they asked of them +was to keep quiet, and keep quiet they did. After all, they had reigned +a thousand years. Perhaps they were tired. Certainly they always looked +bored to the verge of dissolution.</p> + +<p>The Munich Socialists had taken possession of the Residenz in which to +proclaim their victory and the new Republic, and by this time were +crowding the Hofgarten and adjoining streets. They were unarmed and many +of the women moved constantly among them, ready at a second's notice to +dispose summarily of any man who even scowled his antagonism to the +downfall of monarchy.</p> + +<p>Six hundred women, according to the prearranged program, and under +Gisela's direct supervision, were turning such outlying buildings as +commanded the highways leading toward the frontiers into fortifications. +They had little apprehension that their sons and fathers, their husbands +and lovers, would fire on the women to whom they had brought home food +from their rations these two years past, or that the General Staff would +risk the demolition of the cities of Germany. But they took no chances, +knowing that an attempt might be made to rush them. In that case they +were determined to remember only that their husbands and sons, fathers +and lovers, were bent upon their final subjection. Moreover, the term +"brain storm" had long since found its way from the United States to +Germany, and the women thought it singularly applicable to their former +masters when in a state of baffled rage. </p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='VII'></a><h2>VII</h2> +<br /> + +<h3>1</h3> + +<p>Mariette's communications by wireless were very brief, and on the second +day of the revolution Gisela went by special train to Berlin. It was +the King's own train, and always ready to start. The engineer and +fireman avowed themselves "friends of the revolution," but they +performed their duties with two armed women in the cab and fifty more in +the car behind the engine.</p> + +<p>The cities through which Gisela passed, as well as the small towns and +wayside villages, presented a uniform appearance: smoking ruins in the +outlying sections which had been devoted to the war factories, and +streets deserted save for women sentries. One or two of the smaller +towns had burned, owing to lack of fire brigades. The food trains +destined for the front, which had been moved out of danger before the +general destruction, were being systematically unloaded, and a portion +of the contents doled out to thousands of emaciated men, women, and +children. The rest would be as methodically returned to the warehouses.</p> + +<p>Gisela arrived in Berlin half an hour before the Kaiser.</p> + +<p>The city was as dark as interstellar space and she would have been +forced to spend the night in the Anhalt Bahnhof if Mariette had not met +her. They walked from the station, keeping close to the walls of the +silent houses and entering Unter den Linden from the Friedrichstrasse. +There was not a sound but the high whirr of airplanes keeping guard over +a city that seemed stifled in the embrace of death, its life current +switched off by the proudest achievement of its pestilent laboratories.</p> + +<p>Mariette did not take the trouble to lower her hard incisive voice as +she told her sister the brief story of the revolution in Berlin. </p> + +<p>"I left not a loophole for failure. Two minutes before the bells rang +every policeman on duty was shot dead from a doorway or window. The +police offices and stations were blown up. There is not a policeman +alive in Berlin. I also ordered the garrisons blown up. Both the police +and the garrisons here were too strong. I dared not risk an encounter. +Criticize me if you will. It is done."</p> + +<p>"But the Emperor, the General Staff?" Gisela was in no mood to waste a +thought upon means, nor even upon accomplished ends. "If they left Pless +at once they should have been here before this."</p> + +<p>"They did not leave Pless at once. When they began to send out questions +by wireless after they found their telephone and telegraph wires cut, +they were kept quiet for several hours by soothing messages sent by our +women in Breslau and nearer towns. An abortive uprising of a handful of +starving Socialists! Even when their fliers went out they could learn +nothing because they dared not land even at Breslau; high-firing guns +threatened them everywhere. All they could report was that the streets +were full of armed women, which, of course, the General Staff took as an +unseemly joke. But toward night a soldier who had managed to escape from +Breslau came staggering into Great Headquarters with information that +penetrated even that composite Prussian skull: the women of Germany had +risen <i>en masse</i> and effected a revolution. Of course they refused to +believe the worst—that every ounce and inch of war material had been +destroyed; and the entire Staff, escorted by a thousand troops—all they +had on hand—started for Berlin. They did not omit to wireless in both +directions for troops to march on Berlin at once; but, needless to say, +these messages were deflected. As the tracks were torn up they were +obliged to travel by automobile, and as the bridges over the Kloonitz +Canal and the Oder tributaries had been blown up, they were unable to +ameliorate what must have been an apoplectic impatience. No doubt a few +of them are dead. Of course their progress has been watched and reported +every hour, but they have not been molested. We want them here. Only +their small air squadron has been shot down."</p> + +<p>They felt their way along Unter den Linden by the trees and entered the +Opernplatz. Two biplanes awaited them before the arsenal. There were +lights in the great pile of the Hohenzollerns across the bridge. Uneasy +spirits prowled there, no doubt, but none of the women of the Imperial +family had made any attempt to escape, accepting the assurances of the +revolutionists that no harm should come to them, and, knowing nothing of +the thorough methods taken to reduce the army to impotence, awaited with +what patience they could muster—and royal women are the most patient in +the world—the invincible troops that must come within a day or two to +their rescue.</p> + +<p>The two biplanes flew over to the streets east of the Emperor's palace +and hovered just above the house tops until the eyes of Gisela and +Mariette, now accustomed to a darkness unpierced by moon or stars, made +out a long line of moving blackness in the narrow gloom of the +Königinstrasse. The forward cars entered the palace from the +Schlossplatz, and as lights immediately appeared in the courtyards +Gisela saw eight or ten men alight stiffly and hurriedly enter the inner +portals. The other automobiles ranged themselves in an apparently +unbroken line on all sides of the palace. Gisela had amused herself +imagining the nervous speculations of those war-hardened potentates and +warriors as they crawled through the sinister darkness of the +capital—proud witness of a thousand triumphal marches; of the sharp and +darting gaze above the guns of the armored cars, expecting an ambush at +every corner. How they must hate a situation so utterly without +precedent.</p> + +<p>Gisela almost laughed aloud as she saw the purple flag, denoting that +the Emperor was in residence, run up on the north side of the palace. +However, automatic discipline worked both ways.</p> + +<p>Once more Berlin was as silent as if at rest for ever under the pall of +darkness that seemed to have descended from the dark and threatening +sky.</p> + +<p>But only for a moment.</p> + +<p>Berlin suddenly burst into a blinding glare of light. Unter den +Linden from end to end—excepting only the royal palaces—with +its long line of imposing public buildings, hotels, and shops, +the Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Platz, the Zeugplatz, the Lustgarten—the +Schlossplatz—all the magnificent expanse from the Brandenburg gate to a +quarter of a mile beyond the river Spree—had been strung and looped +with electric lights, and the scene looked as if touched with a royal +fairy's wand. The side streets from the Royal Library and the old Kaiser +Wilhelm palace as far as the Schlossbrücke, were also brilliantly +illuminated.</p> + +<p>And in all these streets and squares women stood in close ranks, silent, +phlegmatic women, with pistols in their belts and rifles with fixed +bayonets on their shoulders, the steel reflecting the terrific downpour +of light with a steady and menacing glitter. These women wore gray +uniforms and there were shining Prussian helmets on their heads.</p> + +<p>In every window was a double row of women, armed; and the housetops were +crowded with them. There were also machine guns on the roofs, pointing +downward or toward the roof of the palace.</p> + +<p>Mariette laughed. "Theatric enough to please even his taste? Our last +tribute. Let us hope he will enjoy it."</p> + +<p>A moment later the expected happened. A window of the palace overlooking +the great Schlossplatz opened and the Emperor stepped out into the +narrow balcony. His uniform was caked with dust and mud and his face was +drawn with a mortal fatigue; but as he stood there scowling haughtily +down upon that upturned sea of woman's faces, the most singular vision +that ever had greeted imperial eyes, he was an imposing figure enough +to those who knew that he was the Kaiser Wilhelm II, King of Prussia and +Alsace-Lorraine, and Emperor in Germany.</p> + +<p>It was evident that he had no intention of speaking, but expected this +grotesque mob to be overwhelmed by the imperial presence and dissolve.</p> + +<p>Frau Kathie Meyers, with the figure of an Amazon and the voice of a +megaphone, stepped forth from the ranks and lifted her placid red face +to the balcony.</p> + +<p>"You will abdicate, William Hohenzollern," she announced in tones that +rolled down toward the Brandenburg gate like the overtones of a Death +Symphony at the Front. "Germany is a Republic. And the palace is mined. +If your soldiers fire one shot from the windows the palace goes up to +meet the ghosts of every arsenal and every ammunition factory in what +two days ago was the Empire of Germany. Your armies are helpless. You +will remain a prisoner within your palace until we have decided whether +to deliver you to Great Britain, incarcerate you in a fortress, or +permit you to live in exile. It will depend upon the behavior of the +army when it returns. If you attempt to leave the palace you will be +shot."</p> + +<p>The Emperor stared down upon that mass of calm implacable faces, so +unmistakably German; not brilliant nor beautiful, but persistent as +death, and stamped with the watermark of kultur; stared for a long +moment, his gray face twitching, the familiar gray blaze in his eyes. +But he turned without a word or even a disdainful gesture and reëntered +the palace, the window closing immediately behind him.</p> + +<p>The Amazon addressed the men in the armored automobiles that surrounded +the palace.</p> + +<p>"Fire upon us if you like. Our ranks are close and you will kill many. +But not one of you will live to eat rat sausage tomorrow morning. Now +disarm and march to the guard house."</p> + +<p>The contemptible little army of the Kaiser, hypnotized as much by the +glare as by this solid mass of vindictive females—singly so +negligible—shrugged their shoulders, surrendered their arms, and +marched off under guard. After all, they would have a blessed rest, +however brief, before the great generals sent back a few brigades to +execute summary vengeance upon these presumptuous women, who had used +their incidental superiority in numbers so basely.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>2</h3> + +<p>But nothing came from the front but frantic orders by wireless to the +staunch but impotent pillars of the old régime. The British, French, and +American forces, convinced at last that German women actually had +effected a revolution—God knew how!—attacked every point of the line +from Flanders to Belfort, and their aviators dropped newspapers +containing the extraordinary but verified story, into the German +trenches and back of the lines.</p> + +<p>The destruction of the railways leading to the Austria-Hungarian Empire, +as well as all the rolling stock within three miles of the frontier, +balked any attempt to rush supplies in from the east, and in two days +Austria was in the throes of a revolution far more devastating +internally than Germany's, for that excitable and harassed people, long +on the verge of despair, merely caught the revolution-microbe and went +mad.</p> + +<p>To supply either the army opposing Italy or that in Roumania and +Gallicia, to say nothing of that in the Northeast, was no longer even +considered. The young Emperor sought only to come to an understanding +with his people.</p> + +<p>It was a matter of days before both ammunition and food would be +exhausted on the two fronts, and neither had a superfluous man to send +to Berlin, or even to repair the tracks.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>3</h3> + +<p>By Friday there was no longer any doubt of the complete success of the +Revolution. Britain, France, Russia, Italy, the United States, with a +prompt and canny statesmanship, remarkable in Governments, had formally +acknowledged the German Republic, and offered terms of peace possible +for an ambitious and self-respecting but beaten people to accept. At all +events there would be no commercial boycott, and the young Republic +would be given every assistance in restoring the shattered finances of +Germany, and its economic relations with the rest of the world.</p> + +<p>The good German people were flattered in phrases that they rolled on +their tongues. Even those too schooled in lies to believe the statesmen +of their own or any land reflected that, after all, the Enemy Allies had +demonstrated they were sportsmen, that German prisoners had been well +treated, and that before the war there had been no restrictions upon +German commerce save in insidious reiterated words of men determined +upon war at any cost. As a matter of fact, Germany had been absorbing +the commerce of the world, and Britain had been reprehensibly supine.</p> + +<p>As the Socialists now did all the talking, and unhindered, it was not +difficult to persuade even the reluctant minority that the military +party had precipitated the war in a sudden panic at the rapidly +developing power of the proletariat.</p> + +<p>Night fliers dropped millions of leaflets in the vicinity of the armies +on the Eastern and Western fronts, signed (at the pistol point) by the +most powerful names in the former Government, as well as by the +well-known Social-Democrat leaders, containing the details of the +Revolution and proofs of its success. The Empire had fallen. A Republic, +acknowledged by the great powers of the world, was established. Would +the soldiers stack their arms and return to their homes? If the generals +or under officers attempted to restrain them it was to be remembered +that the soldiers were as a hundred thousand to one. </p> + +<p>The women felt no real apprehension of an avenging army. They knew the +average German male. His innate subserviency to power would turn him +automatically about to the party whose power was supreme. And the +soldiers hated their officers. </p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='VIII'></a><h2>VIII</h2> +<br /> + +<p>On Friday night Gisela left her apartment in the Königinstrasse, where +she had slept for a few hours after a visit to the principal cities of +the Empire, and walked out to Schwabing, that picturesque "village" that +looked like a bit of the Alps transferred to the edge of Munich. She had +not forgotten the man she had sacrificed, and at the end of the first +day of the Revolution she had learned that his body had been caught +under the Schwabing bridge, rescued, and placed temporarily in the vault +of the little church.</p> + +<p>It was a bright starlight night, and the old white church with its +bulbous tower, last outpost of Turkey in her heyday, looked like a lone +mourner for the dream of Mittel-Europa. Gisela climbed the mound and +entered the quiet enclosure. She had met no one in the peaceful suburb, +although she had heard the deep guttural voices of elderly men still +lingering at the tables in the beer gardens.</p> + +<p>She had sent orders to leave the door of the church unlocked, and she +entered the barren room, guiding herself with her electric torch to the +stair that led down to the vault. Fear of any sort had long since been +crowded out of her, but it was a lonely pilgrimage she hardly would have +undertaken ten days ago.</p> + +<p>She descended the short flight of steps and flashed her light about the +vault. It was a small room, oppressively musty and humid. All Schwabing +is damp but the Isar itself might have washed the walls of this dripping +sepulcher. The coffin stood on a rough trestle in the center of the +chamber, and it was covered with the military cloak that, with his sword +and helmet, she had ordered sent from his hotel.</p> + +<p>She stood beside the coffin, trying to visualize the man who lay within, +wondering if the orders still bulged above the hilt of the dagger she +had driven in with so firm a hand ... or if they had taken the time to +remove it ... or if that symbol of Germany's freedom would be found ages +hence in a handful of dust when the man who had taught her all she would +ever know of love or living was long forgotten....</p> + +<p>But in a moment these vagrant fancies, drifting from a tired brain, took +flight, her reluctant mind focused itself, and she knelt beside the +bier, pressing the folds of the cloak about her face and weeping +heavily.</p> + +<p>It was her final tribute to her womanhood. That she had rescued her +country and incidentally the world, making democracy and liberty safe +for the first time in its history, mattered nothing to her then. Nor her +immortal fame.</p> + +<p>To regret was impossible. Strong souls are inaccessible to regret. But +she hated life and her bitter destiny, for she had sacrificed the life +that gave meaning to her own, and she wished that the implacable Powers +that rule the destinies of individuals and nations had foreborne their +accustomed irony and presented her gifts to some woman mercifully +lacking her own terrible power to love and suffer—and the imagination +which would keep for ever vivid in her mind the poignant happiness that +had been hers and that she had immolated on the cold altar of duty. She +was still young, and her sole hope, glimmering at the end of an +interminable perspective, was that it would be her privilege to lie at +last in the grave with this man; who had been her other part and whose +heart and hers she had slain. </p> + + + + + +<hr style='width: 100%;' /> +<a name='THE_WOMEN_OF_GERMANY'></a><h2>THE WOMEN OF GERMANY</h2> + +<h3>An Argument for my "The White Morning"</h3> + +<h4>From <i>The Bookman</i>, February, 1918, +by courtesy of Dodd, Mead & Co.</h4> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<h2>THE WOMEN OF GERMANY</h2> + +<h3>An Argument for my "The White Morning"</h3> +<br /> + +<p>I have been asked by the Editor of <i>The Bookman</i> to state my authority +for writing <i>The White Morning</i>; in other words for daring to believe +that a revolution conceived and engineered by women is possible in +Germany.</p> + +<p>Before giving my own reasons, stripped of what glamor of fiction I have +been able to surround the story with, I should like to say that when I +began to put the idea into form I thought it was entirely my own. But +while it is always pleasant to offer this sort of incense to one's +vanity, I should have been more than glad to quote to my editor and +publisher some reliable male authority; a man's opinion, on all +momentous subjects, by force of tradition, far outweighing any theory or +guess that a woman, no matter what her intimate personal experience, may +advance.</p> + +<p>Imagine then my delight, when the story was half finished, to read an +article by A. Curtis Roth, in the <i>Saturday Evening Post</i>, in which he +stated unequivocally that it was among the possibilities that the women +of Germany, driven to desperation by suffering and privation, and +disillusion, would arise suddenly and overturn the dynasty. Mr. Roth, +who was American vice-consul at Plauen, Saxony, until we entered the +war, has written some of the most enlightening and brilliant articles +that have appeared on the internal conditions of any of the belligerent +countries since August, 1914. He remained at his post until the last +moment and then left Germany a physical wreck from malnutrition. In +spite of the fact that he was an officer in the consular service of a +neutral country, with ample means at his command, and standing in close +personal relations with the authorities, he could not get enough to eat; +and what he was forced to swallow—lest he starve—completely broke down +his digestion.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, he never ceased to observe; and having made friends +of all classes of Germans, and been given facilities for observation and +study of conditions enjoyed by few Americans in the Teutonic Empire at +the time, he noted every phase and change, both subtle and manifest, +through which these afflicted people passed during the first three years +of the war. They are in far worse case now. </p> + +<p>Later (in November) I read an article by a German, J. Koettgen, in the +New York <i>Chronicle</i>, which was even more explicit.</p> + +<p>Herr Koettgen is one of the agents in this country of Hermann Fernau, an +eminent intellectual of Germany, who escaped into Switzerland, and wages +relentless war upon the dynasty and the military caste of Prussia; which +he holds categorically responsible for the world war. There is a price +on Fernau's head. He dares not walk abroad without a bodyguard, and +cannon are concealed among the oleanders that surround his house. Not +only has he written two books, <i>Because I am a German</i>, and <i>The Coming +Democracy</i>, which if circulated in Germany would prick thousands of +dazed despairing brains into immediate rebellion, but he is the head of +those German Radical Democrats which have united in an organization +called "Friends of German Democracy."</p> + +<p>Their avowed object, through the medium of a bi-weekly journal, <i>Die +Freie Zeitung</i>, and other propaganda, is to plant sound democratic ideas +and ideals in the minds of German prisoners in the Entente countries, +and to recruit the saner exiles everywhere. These publications reach men +and women of German blood whose grandfathers fled from military tyranny +after their abortive revolution in 1848, and, with their descendants, +have enjoyed freedom and independence in the United States ever since. +The best of them are expected to exert pressure upon their friends and +relatives in Germany. There are already branches of this epochal +organization in the larger American cities.</p> + +<p>Herr Koettgen (who has written a book called <i>The Hausfrau and +Democracy</i>, by the way) walked into the office of the <i>Chronicle</i> some +time in November and presented a letter to the editor, Mr. Fletcher. In +the course of the heated conversation that ensued, Herr Koettgen +exclaimed with bitter scorn: "Oh, so you think yourself as fiercely +anti-German as a man may be? Well, let me tell you that you are not +capable of one-tenth the passionate hatred I feel for a dynasty and a +caste that has made me so ashamed of being a German that I could eat the +dust."</p> + +<p>In Herr Koettgen's article occur the following paragraphs: "At the first +glance German women hardly appear likely material for the coming +Revolution which will turn Germany into a modern country. But many +incidents point to the fact that German women are growing with their +increasing task. They are beginning to replace their men not only +economically but politically. Most of the public demonstrations in +Germany during this war have been led and arranged by women. The very +first demonstration in 1915 consisted of women. As Mr. Gerard tells us +in his book, they had no very definite idea of what they wanted; only +they wanted their men back. But since that time their political +education has made rapid progress.... With their men in the field and +their former leaders (Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, Louise Zietz) in +prison, German women are learning to act for themselves. Their +demonstrations point to it, as do also letters written by German women +to their men who are now prisoners of war in France and England. In one +of these letters which escaped the watchful eye of the censor, a German +hausfrau described how she made the officials of Muenster sit up by her +energetic and persistent demands."</p> + +<p>A girl upon one occasion said to Herr Koettgen: "Only women and children +were employed in our factory. We had more than one strike. Two women +would go round to every woman and girl in the shop and tell them: 'We +have asked for twenty or thirty pfennings more. To-morrow we are going +on strike. She who does not come out will have the thrashing of her +life.' We were all frightened and stayed away, for they really meant +it."</p> + +<p>Herr Koettgen continues: "Novel circumstances are reawakening in the +meek German hausfrau some of that combative spirit which characterized +the Teuton women in the time of Tacitus, when they often fought +alongside of their men in the wagon camp.... German women will show +their men the way to freedom. Doing more than their share of the +nation's work, they insist upon being heard, and their growing influence +is one of the greatest dangers to German autocracy in its present +predicament. As politicians German women have the advantage of not +having gone through the soul-destroying, brutalizing school of Prussian +militarism, and of not being burdened with the rigmarole of theory which +formed the content of German politics before the war. They can be +trusted to make a bee-line for the real obstacle to peace and +liberty—to eradicate the autocratic militaristic régime which enslaved +the German people in order to enslave the world."</p> + +<p>Now that the way has been cleared by two men of affairs who have never +condescended to write fiction, I will give my own reasons for belief in +the German women, and also for the general plan of <i>The White Morning</i>.</p> + +<p>I had an apartment for seven years in Munich and spent six or eight +months alternately in that delightful city and traveling in Europe, +passing a month or two in England, or returning for an equal length of +time to my own country. During that long residence in Germany I +naturally met many of its inhabitants, and of as many classes as +possible. German women do not tell you the history of their lives the +first time you meet them, not by any means; they are naturally secretive +and the reverse of frank. But they are human, and when you have won +their confidence they will tell you surprising things. The confidences I +received were for the most part from girls, and one and all assured me +they never should marry. Having grown up under one House Tyrant, for +whom they were not responsible, why in heaven's name should they +deliberately annex another? Far, far better bear with the one whose +worst at least they knew (and who could not live forever), than marry +some man who might be loathsome as well as tyrannical, and who, unless +there happened to be a war, might outlive them?</p> + +<p>The idea in my novel of the four Niebuhr girls and their initial +rebellion was suggested to me by a family of Prussian junkerdom that I +met at a watering place in Denmark. The baroness was a charming woman +who used a moderate invalidism in a smiling imperturbable fashion to +insure herself a certain immunity from the demands of her autocratic +lord. The girls were lively, intelligent, splendidly educated. They were +in love with society and court functions, but deeply rebellious at the +attitude of the German male, and determined never to marry. That is to +say the three younger girls; the oldest had married a tame puppy, and +anything less like a tyrant I never beheld. No American husband could be +more subservient. But there was no question that he belonged to a small +exceptional class: while his wife, with all the dominating qualities of +her father, was one of a rapidly increasing number of German women, +silently but firmly rebellious.</p> + +<p>The Herr baron was a typical Prussian aristocrat and autocrat. The girls +could hardly have had less liberty in a convent. When they came from +their hotel to mine he escorted them over and often came in. Luckily he +liked me or I never should have had the opportunity to know them as well +as I did. Nor should I have been able to continue the acquaintance +after the day I wickedly induced them to run away with me to Copenhagen, +where we shopped, promenaded all the principal streets, then took ices +on the terrace of one of the restaurants. When we returned he was +storming up and down the platform of the station, and he fairly raved at +the girls. "And you dared, you dared, to go to Copenhagen, without +permission, without your mother, without me!" The girls listened meekly, +but whenever he wheeled laughed behind his military back. Then he turned +on me, but I called him a tyrant and gave him my opinion of his +nonsensical attitude generally. As I was not his daughter he gradually +calmed down and seemed rather to relish the tirade. Finally they all +came over to my hotel to tea.</p> + +<p>"You see!" said one of the girls to me afterward. "I have not +exaggerated. Do you think I want another like that?" And, so far as I +know, they have never married.</p> + +<p>I did not draw any of my characters on these four delightful girls, but +took the episode as a foundation for the incidents and characters that +grew under my hand after I got round to the story.</p> + +<p>The episode of Georg Zottmyer was also told me by a German girl whom I +got to know very well in Munich, and who distantly suggested the +character of Gisela (that is to say in the very beginning. As Gisela +developed she became more like her own legendary Brunhilda).<a name='FNanchor_1_1'></a><a href='#Footnote_1_1'><sup>[1]</sup></a></p> + +<p>This young woman was as independent in her life and in her ideas as any +I ever met in England or the United States. But fortune had been kind to +her. Her father died just after her education was finished, and as he +left little money, she went to Brazil as governess in a wealthy family. +She remained in South America for several years, gaining, of course, +poise and experience. Then a relative died and left her a comfortable +fortune. When I met her she was living in Munich from choice, like so +many other Germans who were bored with routine and rigid class lines.</p> + +<p>She was a beautiful young woman, with dark hair and eyes and a brilliant +complexion, and dressed to perfection, although she wore no stays. This +may have been a bit of vanity on her part, as the awful reformkleid was +in vogue, and fat German women were displaying themselves in lumps and +creases and billows and sections that rolled like the untrammelled waves +of the sea. Her own figure was so firmly molded and so erect and supple +that it was, for all her fashionable clothes, quite independent of the +corset. She had charming manners combined with an imperturbable +serenity, and always seemed faintly amused. On the other hand, she +displayed none of the offensive German conceit and arrogance.</p> + +<p>We spent several days together at Partenkirchen, one of the most +picturesque spots in the Bavarian Alps, and as we were both good +walkers, and there was no one else in the hotel who interested us, we +became quite intimate. She was one of the first to talk to me about the +deep discontent and disgust of the German women, and of her own utter +contempt for the meek hausfrau type, and for the tyrannies, petty, +coarse, often brutal, of the man in his home. Nothing, she was +determined, would ever tempt her to marry, and she could name many +others who were making an independent life for themselves, although, +lacking fortune, often in secret. No matter how much she might fancy +herself in love (and I imagine that she had had her enlightening +experiences) she would not risk a lifelong clash of wills with a man who +might turn out to be a medieval despot.</p> + +<p>It was then that she told me of the tentative proposal of one of her +beaux (she had many) "Georg Zottmyer," which I have recorded almost +literally in the scene between this passing character and Gisela in the +Café Luitpolt. My object in doing so was to give as realistic an +impression as possible of what the German woman is up against in +dealings with her male. I knew Zottmyer personally, and he interested me +the more (as one is interested in a bug under a microscope) because he +had less excuse for his conceit and arrogance than most German men: he +was brought up in California, where his father is a successful doctor. +But that only seemed to have made him worse. He returned to Germany as +soon as he was of age, more German than the Germans, and despising +Americans.</p> + +<p>I had often wondered what became of this highly interesting young woman, +and when I began to write <i>The White Morning</i> she popped into my mind. I +believe she could be a leader of some kind if she chose. Perhaps she is.</p> + +<p>The cases could be multiplied indefinitely. The Erkels and Mimi Brandt +are drawn, together with their conditions, almost photographically. +"Heloise" finally married a Scot and went with him to his own country, +but her sisters were dragging out their tragic lives when I left Munich.</p> + +<p>A few days ago I met a highly intelligent American woman of German +blood who, before the war, used to visit her relatives in Germany every +year. I told her that I had written this story and she agreed with me +that it was on the cards the women would instigate a revolution. +"Never," she said, "in any country have I known such discontent among +women, heard so many bitter confidences. Their feelings against their +fathers or husbands were the more intense and violent because they dared +not speak out like English or American women."</p> + +<p>There is no question that for about fifteen years before the war there +was a thinking, secret, silent, watchful but outwardly passive revolt +going on among the women of Germany. I do not think it had then reached +the working women. It took the war to wake them up. But in that vast +class which, in spite of racial industry, had a certain amount of +leisure, owing to the almost total absence of poverty in the Teutonic +Empire, and whose minds were educated and systematically trained, there +was persistent reading, meditating upon the advance of women in other +nations, quiet debating unsuspected of their masters; and they were +growing in numbers and in an almost sinister determination every year. +Of course there were plenty of hausfraus cowed to the door mat, and, +like the proletariat, needing a war to wake them up; but there were +several hundred thousand of the other sort.</p> + +<p>Now, all these women need is a leader. The working women have their Rosa +Luxemburgs, who think out loud in public and get themselves locked up; +and, moreover, do not appeal to the other classes—for Germany is the +most snobbish country in the world. If there were—or if there is—such +a woman as Gisela Döring, who before the war had acquired a widespread +intellectual influence over the awakening women of her race, and then, +when they were approaching the breaking point, had gone quietly and +systematically about making a revolution, there is no question in my +mind as to the outcome.</p> + +<p>Just consider for a moment what the German women have suffered during +this war—a war that they were told was forced upon their country by the +aggressive military acts of Russia and France, but which, owing to +Germany's might, would hardly last three months. For nearly three years +they have never known the sensation of appeased hunger, and, having +always been immense eaters, have suffered the tortures of dyspepsia in +addition to hunger. But, far worse, they have listened almost +continuously to the wails of their children for satisfying food, +children who are forever hungry and who often succumb. Karl Ackerman, +whose accuracy no one has questioned, states in his book, <i>Germany, The +Next Republic?</i>, that in 1916 sixty thousand children died of +malnutrition in Berlin alone.</p> + +<p>These women have lost their fathers, husbands, sons—well, that is the +fortune of any war; but they are beginning to understand that they have +lost them, not in a war of self-defense, but to gratify the insane +ambitions and greed of a dynasty and a military caste that are out of +date in the twentieth century. Their parents, when over sixty, have died +from the same cause as the children. Their daughters, both unmarried and +newly widowed, are "officially pregnant," or the mothers of brats the +name of whose fathers they do not know. The young girls of Lille hardly +have suffered more. The German victims are sent for, then sent home to +bear another child for Germany.</p> + +<p>Now, we know what the German men are. These women are the mothers and +wives and sisters of the German men; in other words, they are Germans, +body, and bone and brain-cells, capable of precisely the same ruthless +tactics when pushed too hard—if they have a leader. That, to my mind, +is the whole point. Given that leader, they would effect a revolution +precisely as I have described in my story. Nor would they run the risk +of failure. The German race is not eight-tenths illiterates and +two-tenths intellectuals, emotional firebrands, anarchists and +sellers-out like the Russians. They are uniformly educated, uniformly +disciplined. They will do nothing futile, nothing without the most +secret and methodical preparation of which even the German mind is +capable. It will be like turning over in bed in camp: they will all turn +over together. They are damnably efficient.</p> + +<p>It may be said: "But you may have spoiled their chances with your book. +You not only have revealed them in their true character to their men, +but all the details of their probable methods in working up and +precipitating a revolution. You have, in other words, put the German +authorities on their guard."</p> + +<p>The answer to this is that no German of the dominant sex could be made +to believe in anything so unprecedented as German women taking the law +into their own hands, uniting, and overthrowing a dynasty. Nothing can +penetrate a German official skull but what has been trained into it from +birth. Unlike the women, the system has made the men of the ruling +class into the sort of machine which is perfect in its way but admits of +no modern improvements. That has been the secret of their strength and +of their weakness, and will be the chief assistance to the Allies in +bringing about their final defeat. I am positive they go to sleep every +night murmuring: "Two and two make four. Two and two make four."</p> + +<p>The women could hold meetings under their very noses, so long as they +were not in the street, lay their plans to the last fuse, and apply the +match at the preconcerted moment from one end of Germany to the other +unhindered, unless betrayed. The angry and restless male socialists +would not have a chance with the alert members of their own sex—who +regard women with an even and contemptuous tolerance. Useful but +harmless.</p> + +<p>I made Gisela a junker by birth, because a rebel from the top, with +qualities of leadership, would make a deeper impression in Germany than +one of the many avowed extremists of humbler origin. On the other hand, +it was necessary to drop the von, and take a middle-class name, or she +would have failed to win confidence, in the beginning, as well as +literary success; from opposite reasons. It is very difficult for an +aristocratic German of artistic talents to obtain a hearing. +Practically all the intellectuals belong to the middle-class, the +aristocrats being absorbed by the army and navy. The arrogance and often +brutal lack of consideration of the ruling caste, to say nothing of +common politeness, have inspired universal jealousy and hatred, the more +poignant as it must be silent. But even the silent may find their means +of vengeance, as the noble discovers when he attempts recognition in the +intellectual world. But if he were a propagandist, with the welfare of +all Germany at heart, and won his influence under an assumed name, as +Gisela Döring did, the revelation of his identity, together with proof +of dissociation from his own class, would enhance his popularity +immensely. Moreover, it would be incense to the vanity of classes that +never are permitted to forget their inferior rank.</p> + +<p>In this country there is a snobbish tendency to exalt and boom any +writer who is known to belong to one of the old and wealthy families; +and the more snobbish the writer the more infectious the disease. But +then in this country, which has never suffered from militarism, there is +a naïve tendency to worship success in any form. In Germany my heroine +would have doomed herself to failure if she had signed her work Gisela +von Niebuhr. But her early education, surroundings, position,—to say +nothing of her four years in the United States—were just what gave her +the requisite advantages, and preserved her from many mistakes. She +starts out with no prejudices against any caste, and an intense sympathy +for all German women who lack even the compensation of being +<i>hochwohlgeboren</i>.</p> + +<p>No one knows what the future holds, or what unexpected event will +suddenly end the war; but I should not have written <i>The White Morning</i> +if I had not been firmly convinced that a Gisela might arise at any +moment and deliver the world.</p> +<br /> + +<p>GERTRUDE ATHERTON.</p> + +<a name='Footnote_1_1'></a><a href='#FNanchor_1_1'>[1]</a><div class='note'><p> For this reason I asked the most beautiful woman I have +ever seen of the heroic or goddess type to be photographed for the +frontispiece.—G.A.</p></div> + + +<br> +<br> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHITE MORNING***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 13496-h.txt or 13496-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/9/13496">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/9/13496</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL">https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/old/13496-h/images/whitemorning.jpg b/old/13496-h/images/whitemorning.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0876697 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13496-h/images/whitemorning.jpg diff --git a/old/13496.txt b/old/13496.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..84699c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13496.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3790 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The White Morning, by Gertrude Atherton + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The White Morning + +Author: Gertrude Atherton + +Release Date: September 18, 2004 [eBook #13496] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHITE MORNING*** + + +E-text prepared by Sandra Bannatyne and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +THE WHITE MORNING + +A Novel of the Power of the German Women in Wartime + +by + +GERTRUDE ATHERTON + + + + + + + +[Illustration: GISELA +_Photograph by Arnold Genthe, N.Y._] + + + + +I + + +1 + +Countess Gisela Niebuhr sat in the long dusk of Munich staring over at +the beautiful park that in happier days had been famous in the world as +the Englischer Garten, and deliberately recalled on what might be the +last night of her life the successive causes that had led to her +profound dissatisfaction with her country as a woman. She was so +thoroughly disgusted with it as a German that personal grievances were +far from necessary to fortify her for the momentous role she was to play +with the dawn; but in this rare hour of leisure it amused her naturally +introspective mind to rehearse certain episodes whose sum had made her +what she was. + +When she was fourteen and her sisters Lili and Elsa sixteen and eighteen +they had met in the attic of their home in Berlin one afternoon when +their father was automatically at his club and their mother taking her +prescribed hour of rest, and solemnly pledged one another never to +marry. The causes of this vital conclave were both cumulative and +immediate. Their father, the Herr Graf, a fine looking junker of sixty +odd, with a roving eye and a martial air despite a corpulence which +annoyed him excessively, had transferred his lost authority over his +regiment to his household. The boys were in their own regiments and rid +of parental discipline, but the countess and the girls received the full +benefit of his military, and Prussian, relish for despotism. + +In his essence a kind man and fond of his women, he balked their every +individual wish and allowed them practically no liberty. They never left +the house unattended, like the American girls and those fortunate beings +of the student class. Lili had a charming voice and was consumed with +ambition to be an operatic star. She had summoned her courage upon one +memorable occasion and broached the subject to her father. All the +terrified family had expected his instant dissolution from apoplexy, and +in spite of his petty tyrannies they loved him. The best instructor in +Berlin continued to give her lessons, as nothing gave the Graf more +pleasure of an evening than her warblings. + +The household, quite apart from the Frau Graefin's admirable management, +ran with military precision, and no one dared to be the fraction of a +minute late for meals or social engagements. They attended the theater, +the opera, court functions, dinners, balls, on stated nights, and unless +the Kaiser took a whim and altered a date, there was no deviation from +this routine year in and out. They walked at the same hour, drove in the +Tiergarten with the rest of fashionable Berlin, started for their castle +in the Saxon Alps not only upon the same day but on the same train every +summer, and the electric lights went out at precisely the same moment +every night; the count's faithful steward manipulated a central stop. +They were encouraged to read and study, but not--oh, by no means--to +have individual opinions. The men of Germany were there to do the +thinking and they did it. + +Perhaps the rebellion of the Niebuhr girls would never have crystallized +(for, after all, their everyday experience was much like that of other +girls of their class, merely intensified by their father's persistence +of executive ardors) had it not been for two subtle influences, quite +unsuspected by the haughty Kammerherr: they had an American friend, Kate +Terriss, who was "finishing her voice" in Berlin, and their married +sister, Mariette, had recently spent a fortnight in the paternal nest. + +The count despised the entire American race, as all good Prussians did, +but he was as wax to feminine blandishments outside of his family, and +Miss Terriss was pretty, diplomatic, alluring, and far cleverer than he +would have admitted any woman could be. She wound the old martinet +round her finger, subdued her rampant Americanism in his society, and +amused herself sowing the seeds of rebellion in the minds of "those poor +Niebuhr girls." As the countess also liked her, she had been "in and out +of the house" for nearly a year. The young Prussians had alternately +gasped and wept at the amazing stories of the liberty, the petting, the +procession of "good times" enjoyed by American girls of their own class, +to say nothing of the invariable prerogative of these fortunate girls to +choose their own husbands; who, according to the unprincipled Miss +Terriss, invariably spoiled their wives, and permitted them to go and +come, to spend their large personal allowances, as they listed. Gisela +closed her beloved volume of Grimm's fairy tales and never opened it +again. + +But it was the visit of Mariette that had marshalled vague +dissatisfactions to an ordered climax. She had left her husband in the +garrison town she had married with the excellent young officer, making +a trifling indisposition of her mother a pretext for escape. On the +night before her departure the four girls huddled in her bed after the +opera and listened to an incisive account of her brief but distasteful +period of matrimony. Not that she suffered from tyranny. Quite the +reverse. Of her several suitors she had cannily engineered into her +father's favor a young man of pleasing appearance, good title and +fortune, but quite without character behind his fierce upstanding +mustache. Inheriting her father's rigid will, she had kept the young +officer in a state of abject submission. She stroked his hair in public +as if he had been her pet dachshund, and patted his hand at kindly +intervals as had he been her dear little son. + +"But Karl has the soul of a sheep," she informed the breathless trio. +"You might not be so fortunate. Far, far from it. How can any one more +than guess before one is fairly married and done for? Look at papa. Does +he not pass in society as quite a charming person? The women like him, +and if poor mama died he could get another quick as a wink. But at the +best, my dear girls, matrimony--in Germany, at least--is an unmitigated +bore. And in a garrison town! Literally, there is no liberty, even with +one's husband under the thumb. We live by rote. Every afternoon I have +to take coffee at some house or other, when all those tiresome women are +not at my own. And what do you suppose they talk about--but invariably? +_Love!_" (With ineffable disdain.) "Nothing else, barring gossip and +scandal; as if they got any good out of _love_! But they are stupid for +the most part and gorged with love novels. They discuss the opera or the +play for the love element only, or the sensual quality of the music. Let +me tell you that although I married to get rid of papa, if I had it to +do over I should accept parental tyranny as the lesser evil. Not that I +am not fond of Karl in a way. He is a dear and would be quite harmless +if he were not in love with me. But garrison society--Gott, how German +wives would rejoice in a war! Think of the freedom of being a Red Cross +nurse, and all the men at the front. Officers would be your fate, too. +Papa would not look at a man who was not in the army. He despises men +who live on their estates. So take my advice while you may. Sit tight, +as the English say. Even German fathers do not live forever. The lime in +our soil sees to that. I notice papa's face gets quite purple after +dinner, and when he is angry. His arteries must have been hardening for +twenty years." + +Lili and Elsa were quite aghast at this naked ratiocination, but Gisela +whispered: "We might elope, you know." + +"With whom? No Englishman or American ever crosses the threshold, and +Kate has no brothers. The students have no money and no morals, and, +what is worse, no baths. A burgess or a professional would be quite as +intolerable, and no man of our class would consent to an elopement. +Germans may be sentimental but they are not romantic when it comes to +settlements. Now take my advice." + +They were taking it on this fateful day in the attic. They vowed never +to marry even if their formidable papa locked them up on bread and +water. + +"Which would be rather good for us," remarked the practical Elsa. "I am +sure we eat too much, and Gisela has a tendency to plumpness. But your +turn will not come for four years yet, dear child. It is poor us that +will need all our vows." + +After some deliberation they concluded to inform their mother of their +grim resolve. Naturally sympathetic, a pregnant upheaval had taken place +in that good lady's psychology during the past year. Her marriage, +although arranged by the two families, had been a love match on both +sides. The Graf was a handsome dashing and passionate lover and she a +beautiful girl, lively and companionable. Disillusion was slow in +coming, for she had been brought up on the soundest German principles +and believed in the natural superiority of the male as she did in the +House of Hohenzollern and the Lutheran religion. + +But she suspected, during her thirties, that she was, after all, the +daughter of a brilliant father as well as of an obsequious mother, and +that she had possibilities of mind and spirit that clamored for +development and fired the imagination, while utterly without hope. In +other words she was, like many another German woman, in her secret +heart, an individual. But she was not a rebel; her social code forbade +that. She manufactured interests for herself as rapidly, and as various, +as possible, preserved her good looks in spite of her eight children +(the two that followed Gisela died in infancy), dressed far better than +most German women, cultivated society, gave four notable musicales a +season, and was devoted to her sons and daughters, although she never +opposed her husband's stern military discipline of those seemingly +typical maedchens. It was her policy to keep the martinet in a good +humor, and after all--she had condemned herself not to think--what +better destiny than to be a German woman of the higher aristocracy? They +might have been born into the middle class, where there were quite as +many tyrants as in the patrician, and vastly fewer compensations. At the +age of forty-four she believed herself to be a philosopher. + +Six months before Mariette's marriage and shortly after the birth and +death of her last child, Frau von Niebuhr suddenly returned to her bed, +prostrate, on the verge of collapse. The count raged that any wife of +his should dare to be ill or absent (when not fulfilling patriotic +obligations), consult her own selfish whims by having nerves and lying +speechless in bed. But he had a very considerable respect for Herr +Doktor Meyers--a rank plebeian but the best doctor in Berlin--and when +that family adviser, as autocratic as himself, ordered the Frau Graefin +to go to a sanatorium in the Austrian Dolomites--but alone, mind +you!--and remain as long as he--I, myself, Herr Graf!--deemed advisable, +with no intercourse, personal or chirographical with her family, the +Head of the House of Niebuhr angrily gave his consent and sent for a +sister to chaperon his girls. + +The countess remained until the eve of Mariette's wedding, and she +passed those six months in one of the superlatively beautiful mountain +resorts of Austria. She was solitary, for the most part, and she did an +excessive amount of thinking. She returned to her duties with a deep +disgust of life as she knew it, a cynical contempt for women, and a +profound sense of revolt. Her natural diplomacy she had increased +tenfold. + +When the three girls, their eyes very large, and speaking in whispers, +although their father was at a yearly talk-fest with his old brothers in +arms, confided to their mother their resolution never in any +circumstances to adopt a household tyrant of their own, she nodded +understandingly. + +"Leave it to me," she said. "Your father can be managed, little as he +suspects it. I'll find the weak spot in each of the suitors he brings +to the house and set him against all of them." + +"And my voice?" asked Lili timidly. But the Frau Graefin shook her head. +"There I cannot help you. He thinks an artistic career would disgrace +his family, and that is the end of it. Moreover, he regards women of any +class in public life as a disgrace to Germany. My assistance must be +passive--apparently. It will be enough to have no worse. Take my word +and Mariette's for that." + +The Graefin, true to her word, quietly disposed of the several suitors +approved by her husband, and although the autocrat sputtered and +raged--the Graefin, her youngest daughter shrewdly surmised, rather +encouraged these exciting tempers--arguing that these three girls bade +fair to remain on his hands for ever, he ended always by agreeing that +the young officers were unworthy of an alliance with the ancient and +honorable House of Niebuhr. + +The battles ended abruptly when Gisela was eighteen and a fat Lieutenant +of Uhlans, suing for the hand of the youngest born, and vehemently +supported by the Graf, had just been turned adrift. The Graf dropped +dead in his club. He left a surprisingly small estate for one who had +presented so pompous a front to the world. But not only had his sons +been handsomely portioned when they entered the army, and Mariette when +she married, but the excellent count, to relieve the increasing monotony +of days no longer enlivened by maneuvers and boudoirs, had amused +himself on the stock exchange. His judgment had been singularly bad and +he had dropped most of his capital and lived on the rest. + +The town house must be sold and the countess and her daughters retire to +her castle in the Saxon Alps. As there were no portions for the girls, +the haunting terrors of matrimony were laid. + +The four women took their comparative poverty with equanimity. The +countess had been as practical and economical as all German housewives, +even when relieved by housekeepers and stewards, and she calculated +that with a meager staff of servants and two years of seclusion she +should be able to furnish a flat in Berlin and pay a year's rent in +advance. Then by living for half the year on her estate she should save +enough for six highly agreeable months in the capital. Perhaps she might +let her castle to some rich brewer or American; and this she eventually +did. + +Lili was given permission to study for the operatic stage and spend the +following winter in Dresden, where Mariette's husband was now quartered. +It was just before they moved to the country that the Graefin said to her +girls as they sat at coffee in the dismantled house: + +"You shall have all that I never had, fulfil all the secret ambitions of +my younger heart. If you are individuals, prove it. You may go on the +stage, write, paint, study law, medicine, what you will. You have been +bred aristocrats and aristocrats you will remain. It is not liberty that +vulgarizes. Don't hate men. They have charming phases and moods; but +avoid entangling alliances until you are thirty. After that you will +know them well enough to avoid that fatal initial submergence. The whole +point is to begin with your eyes open and your campaign clearly thought +out. + +"I, too, purpose to get a great deal out of life now that my fate is in +my own hands. By the summer we shall even be able to travel a little. +Third-class, yet that will be far more amusing than stuffed into one of +those plush carriages with the windows closed and forbidden to speak +with any one in the corridor. And forced to carry all the hand-luggage +off the train (when your father had an economical spasm and would not +take a footman) while he stalked out first as if we did not exist. I +shall never marry again--Gott in Himmel, no!--but I shall gather about +me all the interesting men I never have been able to have ten minutes' +conversation with alone; and, so far as is humanly possible, do exactly +as I please. My ego has been starved. I shall always be your best +friend--but think for yourselves." + +Gisela had no gift that she was aware of, but she was intellectual and +had longed to finish her education at one of the great universities. As +she was not strong, however, she was content to spend a year in the +mountains; and then, robust, and on a meager income, she went to Munich +to attend the lectures on art and literature and to perfect herself in +French and English. She took a small room in an old tower near the +Frauenkirche and lived the students' life, probably the freest of any +city in the world. She dropped her title and name lest she be barred +from that socialistic community as well as discovered by horrified +relatives, and called herself Gisela Doering. After she had taken her +degree she passed a month in Berlin with her mother, who already had +established a salon, but she was determined to support herself and see +the world at the same time. Herr Doktor Meyers found her a position as +governess with a wealthy American patient, and, under her assumed name, +she sailed immediately for New York. + +The Bolands had a house in upper Fifth Avenue and others at Newport, +Aiken and Bar Harbor; and when not occupying these stations were in +Europe or southern California. The two little girls passed the summer at +Bar Harbor with their governess. + +It took Gisela some time to accustom herself to the position of upper +servant in that household of many servants, but she possessed humor and +she had had governesses herself. Her salary was large, she had one +entire day in the week to herself, except at Bar Harbor, and during her +last summer in the United States Mrs. Boland had a violent attack of +"America first" and took her children and their admirable governess not +only to California but to the Yellowstone Park, the Grand Canon and +Canada. They traveled in a private car, and Gisela, who could enjoy the +comfortless quarters of a student flat in Munich with all that life +meant in the free and beautiful city by the Isar, could also revel in +luxury; and this wonderful summer, following as it did the bitter climax +of her first serious love affair, seemed to her all the consolation that +a mere woman could ask. At all events she felt for it an intense and +lasting gratitude. + + +2 + +It was during her first summer at Bar Harbor that the second determining +experience of her life began, and it lasted for three years. She dwelt +upon it to-night with humor, sadness, and, for a moment, thrilling +regret, but without bitterness. That had passed long since. + +She was virtual mistress of the house at Bar Harbor, and as the children +had a trained nurse and a maid, besides many little friends, she had +more leisure than in the city with her one day of complete detachment. +She met Freiherr Franz von Nettelbeck when she was walking with her +charges and he was strolling with the little girls of the Howland +family. The introductions were informal, and as they fell naturally +into German there was an immediate bond. Nettelbeck was an attache of +the German Embassy who preferred to spend his summers at Bar Harbor. He +was of the fair type of German most familiar to Americans, with a fine +slim military figure, deep fiery blue eyes and a lively mind. His golden +hair and mustache stood up aggressively, and his carriage was exceeding +haughty, but those were details too familiar to be counted against him +by Gisela. Her rich brunette beauty was now as ripe as her tall full +figure, and she was one of those women, rare in Germany, who could dress +well on nothing at all. She too possessed a lively mind, and after her +long New York winter was feeling her isolation. Her first interview +(which included a long stroll and a canoe ride) with this young diplomat +of her own land, visibly lifted her spirits, and she sang as she braided +her heavy mass of hair that night. + +Franz, like most unattached young Germans, was on the lookout for a +soul-mate (which he was far too sophisticated to anticipate in +matrimony), and this handsome, brilliant, subtly responsive, and wholly +charming young woman of the only country worth mentioning entered his +life when he too was lonely and rather bored. It was his third year in +the United States of America and he did not like the life nor the +people. Nevertheless, he was trying to make up his mind to pay court to +Ann Howland, a young lady whose dashing beauty was somewhat overpoised +by salient force of character and an uncompromisingly keen and direct +mind, but whose fortune eclipsed by several millions that of the +high-born maiden selected by his family. + +Here was a heaven-sent interval, with intellectual companionship in +addition to the game of the gods. Being a German girl, Gisela Doering +would be aware that he could not marry out of his class, unless the +plebeian pill were heavily gilded. To do him justice, he would not have +married the wealthiest plebeian in Germany. An American: that was +another matter. If there were such a thing as an aristocracy in this +absurd country which pretended to be a democracy and whose "society" was +erected upon the visible and screaming American dollar, no doubt Miss +Howland belonged to the highest rank. In Germany she would have been a +princess--probably of a mediatized house, and, he confessed it amiably +enough, she looked the part more unapologetically than several he could +mention. + +So did Gisela Doering. He sighed that a woman who would have graced the +court of his Kaiser should have been tossed by a bungling fate into the +rank and file of the good German people; so laudably content to play +their insignificant part in their country's magnificent destiny. + +Gisela never told him the truth. Sometimes, irritated by his subtle +arrogance, she was tempted. Also consuming love tempted her. But of what +use? She was without fortune and he must add to his. He had a limited +income and expensive tastes, and when a young nobleman in the diplomatic +service marries he must take a house and live with a certain amount of +state. Moreover, he intended to be an ambassador before he was +forty-five, and he was justified in his ambitions, for he was +exceptionally clever and his rise had been rapid. But now he was +care-free and young, and love was his right. + +Gisela understood him perfectly. Not only was she of his class, but her +brother Karl had madly loved a girl in a chocolate shop and wept +tempestuously beside her bed while their father slept. He married +philosophically when his hour struck. + +But if she understood she was also romantic. She forgot her vow to live +alone, her mother's advice, and dreamed of a moment of overwhelming +madness which would sweep them both up to the little church on the +mountain. There, like a true heroine of old-time fiction, she would +announce her own name at the altar. This moment, however, did not +arrive. Nettelbeck, too, was romantic, but his head was as level within +as it was flat behind. He never went near the church on the mountain. + +There was no surface lovemaking during the first two summers, or in the +winter following the second summer, when he came over from Washington on +her Wednesday as often as he could, and they had luncheon and tea in +byway restaurants. They were both fascinated by the game, and they had +an infinite number of things to talk about, for their minds were really +congenial. They disputed with fire and fury. It was a part of Gisela's +dormant genius to grasp instinctively the psychology of foreign nations, +and before she had been in the United States a year she understood it +far better than Nettelbeck ever would. Even if he had despised it less +he would have lavished all the resources of his wit upon a country so +different from Germany in every phase that it must necessarily be +negligible save as a future colony of Prussia, if only for the pleasure +of seeing Gisela's long eyes open and flash, the dusky red in her +cheeks burn crimson and her bosom heave at his "junker narrow-mindedness +and stupid arrogance"--; "a stupidity that will be the ruin of Germany +in the end!" she exclaimed one day in a sudden moment of illumination, +for, as a matter of fact, she had given little thought to politics. +However, she recalled her typical papa. + +Of course they talked their German souls inside out. At least Nettelbeck +did. As time went on, Gisela used her frankness as a mask while her soul +dodged in panic. She believed him to be lightly and agreeably in love +with her (she had witnessed many summer flirtations at Bar Harbor, and +been laid siege to by more than one young American, idle, enterprising, +charming and quite irresponsible), and she was appalled at her own +capacity for love and suffering, the complete rout of her theories, +based on harsh experience, before the ancient instinct to unleash her +womanhood at any cost. + +She plunged into a serious study of the country, which she had +heretofore absorbed with her avid mental conduits, and read innumerable +newspapers, magazines, elucidating literature of all sorts, besides the +best histories of the nation and the illuminating biographies of its +distinguished men in politics and the arts. She was deeply responsive to +the freedom of the individual in this great whirling heterogeneous land, +and as her duties at any time were the reverse of onerous, it was +imperative to keep her consciousness as detached from her inner life as +possible. + +But at the back of her mind was always the haunting terror that he never +would come again, that he was really more attracted to Ann Howland than +he knew; and of all American women whom Gisela had met she admired Miss +Howland preeminently. She was not only beautiful in the grand manner but +she possessed intellect as distinguished from the surface "brightness" +of so many of her countrywomen, and had made a deep impression upon even +the superlatively educated German girl when they had chanced to meet and +talk at children's picnics at Bar Harbor, or when the triumphant young +beauty ran up to the nursery in town to bring a message to the little +Bolands from her sisters. It was true that hers was not the seductive +type of beauty, that her large gray eyes were cool and appraising, her +fine skin quite without color, and her soft abundant hair little darker +than Franz's own, but she could be feminine and charming when she chose +and she would be a wife in whom even a German would experience a secret +and swelling pride. + +What chance had she--she--Gisela Doering? + +There were days and weeks, during that second winter, when she was +tormented by a sort of sub-hysteria, a stifled voice in the region of +her heart threatening to force its way out and shriek. There were times +when she gave way to despair, and thought of her vigorous youth with a +shudder, and at other times she was so angry and humiliated at her +surrender and secret chaos, that she was on the point more than once of +breaking definitely with Franz Nettelbeck, or even of going back to +Germany. If he missed a Wednesday, or failed to write, she slipped out +of the house at night and paced Central Park for hours, fighting her +rebellious nerves with her pride and the strong independent will that +she had believed would enable her to leap lightly over every pitfall in +life. + +Then he would come and her spirits would soar, her whole awakened being +possessed by a sort of reckless fury, a desperate resolve to enjoy the +meager portion of happiness allotted to her by an always grudging fate; +and for a few days after he left she would give herself up to blissful +and extravagant dreams. + +But Nettelbeck was by no means lightly in love with Gisela Doering. +During the third summer, partly owing to the increased independence of +her growing charges, partly to his own expert management, they met in +long solitudes seldom disturbed. Gisela dismissed fears, ignored the +inevitable end, plunged headlong and was wildly happy. Nettelbeck was an +ardent and absorbed lover, for he knew that his time was short, and he +was determined to have one perfect memory in his secret life that the +woman who bore his name should never violate. Miss Howland had meted him +the portion his dilatoriness invited and married a fine upstanding young +American whose career was in Washington; and his family had peremptorily +commanded him to return in the spring (with the Kaiser's permission, a +mandate in itself) and marry the patient Baronin Irma Hammorwoerth. + +And so for a summer and a winter they were happy. + +Gisela averted her mind tonight from the parting with something of the +almost forgotten panic. She had never dared to dwell upon it, nor on the +month that followed. Her powerful will had rebelled finally and she had +fought down and out of her consciously functioning mind the details of +her tragic passion, and even reveled arrogantly in the sensation of +deliverance from the slavery of love. Simultaneously she was swept off +to see the great natural wonders of the American continent and they had +intoned the requiem. + +The following autumn she returned to Germany and paid her mother another +brief visit. + +There all was well. Frau von Niebuhr, who had not developed a white hair +and whose Viennese maid was a magician in the matter of gowns and +complexion, was enjoying life and had a daring salon; that is to say +gatherings in which all the men did not wear uniforms nor prefix the +sacred von. She drew the line at bad manners, but otherwise all (and of +any nation) who had distinguished themselves, or possessed the priceless +gift of personality, were welcome there; and although she lived to be +amused and make up what she had lost during thirty unspeakable years, +she progressed inevitably in keenness of insight and breadth of vision. +She had become a student of politics and stared into the future with +deepening apprehension, but of this she gave not a hint to Gisela. +Mariette was her closest friend and only confidante. Mariette was now +living in Berlin, and amusing herself in ways Frau von Niebuhr +disapproved, mainly because she thought it wiser to banish men from +one's inner life altogether; but, true to her code, she forebore +remonstrance. + +Lili, having discovered that her voice was not for grand opera, had +philosophically descended to the concert stage and was excitedly happy +in her success and independence. Elsa was a Red Cross nurse. + +Gisela met Franz von Nettelbeck at a court function and had her little +revenge. He was furious, and vowed, quite audibly, that he would never +forgive her. But Gisela was merely disturbed lest the Obersthofmeisterin +who stood but three feet away overhear his caustic remarks. +Distinguished professors (without their wives) might go to court as a +reward for shedding added luster upon the German Empire, but lesser +mortals who had received payment for services rendered might not. Her +independent mother, still a favorite, for she was exceeding discreet, +would have incurred the imperial displeasure if the truth were known. +However, the incident passed unnoticed, and Franz, whatever his +shortcomings, was a gentleman and kept her secret. + +The scene at the palace had been brilliant and sustaining and she had +received much personal homage, for she was looking very beautiful and +radiant, and the little adventure had been incense to her pride +(moreover the young Freifrau von Nettelbeck, whom she saw on his arm +later, was an insignificant little hausfrau); but when she was in her +room after midnight she realized grimly that if she had not done her +work so well during that terrible month in New York and buried her sex +heart, she should once more be beating the floor or the wall with her +impotent hands. But the knowledge of her immunity made her a little sad. + + +3 + +The next episode to her grim humor was wholly amusing, although it +played its part in her developing sense of revolt against the attitude +of the German male to the sex of the mother that bore him. She returned +to Munich after a month in Berlin, for by this time she had made up her +mind to write, and the city by the Isar was the most beautiful in the +world to write and to dream in. Moreover, she wished to attend the +lectures on drama at the University. + +The four years in America, during which she had, in spite of her +sentimental preoccupation, studied diligently every phase that passed +before her keen critical vision, analyzed every person she had met, and +passed many of her evenings in the study of the best contemporary +fiction, had, associated with the spur of her own upheaval, developed +her imagination, and her head was full of unwritten stories. They were +highly realistic, of course, as became a modern German, but unmistakably +dramatic. + +She attended the lectures, practising on short stories meanwhile, +devoting most of her effort to becoming a stylist, that she might attain +immediate recognition whatever her matter. She lived in a small but +comfortable hotel, for not only had she saved the greater part of her +salary, but the Bolands, however oblivious socially of a paid attendant, +had a magnificent way with them at Christmas, and had given her an even +larger cheque at parting. + +In Munich she was once more Gisela Doering, once more led the student +life. There are liberties even for people of rank in Munich, and many +nobles, exasperated with the rigid class lines of Berlin and other +German capitals, move there, and, while careful to attend court +functions, make intelligent friends in all sets. They are, or were, the +happiest people in Germany. Here Gisela could sit alone in a cafe by the +hour reading the illustrated papers and smoking with her coffee, +attracting no attention whatever. She joined parties of students during +the summer and tramped the Bavarian Alps, and she danced all night at +student balls. Nevertheless, she managed to hold herself somewhat aloof +and it was understood that she did not live the "loose" life of the +"artist class." She was much admired for her stately beauty and her +style, and if the young people of that free and easy community were at +times inclined to resent a manifest difference, they succumbed to her +magnetism, and respected her obvious devotion to a high literary ideal. + +It was during her second winter that she met Georg Zottmyer. + +He was a tall, narrow, angular young man with a small clipped head and +preeminent ears. His narrow face was set with narrower features, and his +eyes were very bright, and the windows of his conceit. Although his +income was minute he boasted a father of note in the University of +Leipzig, and his mother had traveled and written a scathing satire on +the United States of America. He had not a grain of originality or +imagination, but he too was taking the course in dramatic art, and +reading for that degree without whose magic letters he could not hope to +take his place in the world of art to which his parts entitled him. He +met Gisela in the lecture room and immediately became her cavalier. + +At first Gisela endeavored to get rid of him by an icy front, but this +he took for feminine coquetry and his own front was serene. As he had +made up his mind to be a dramatist merely because the career appealed +acutely to his itching ambition, so did he in due course make up his +mind to marry this handsome brunette (what hair he had was drab) who +bore all the earmarks of secret wealth in spite of the fact that she +lived in a small hotel. As time went on, Gisela resigned herself and put +his little ego under her microscope. + +His wooing was methodical. He not only walked home with her after every +lecture, but he gave her a series of teas in his high little flat, and +he really did know "people." His parental introductions had given him +the entree to the professional circles, and he cultivated society both +semi-fashionable and ultra-literary. He knew no one who had not +"arrived." + +He chose an unpropitious day for a tentative declaration of his +intentions. It was very cold. White mufflers protected his outstanding +ears, a gray woolen scarf was wound about his long neck and almost +covered his tight little mouth. He wore mitts and wristlets, and his +nose was crimson. Gisela, in a new set of furs, sent her for Christmas +by Mariette, and a smart gown of wine-colored cloth, looked radiant. Her +dark eyes shone with joy in the cold electric air of that high plateau, +her cheeks were red, her warm full-lipped mouth was parted over her even +white teeth. They walked from the University down the great +Leopoldstrasse, one of the finest streets in Europe, toward the Cafe +Luitpold, where he had invited her to drink coffee. + +There was little conversation during that brisk walk. He was frozen, and +she was not thinking of him at all. At the cafe he selected an alcove as +far from the noisy groups of students as possible. All the "trees" were +hung with colored caps and the atmosphere was dense with smoke. + +Zottmyer, who, after all, was young, soon thawed out in the warm room, +and when he had cheered his interior with a large cup of hot coffee and +lit a cigarette, he brought up the subject of matrimony. He had no +intention of proposing in these surroundings, but it was time to pave +the way--or set the pattern of the tiling; he cultivated the divergent +phrase. + +"It is time I married," he announced, and, not to appear too serious, he +smiled into her glowing face. She looked happy enough to encourage a man +far less fatuous than Georg Zottmyer. + +"Yes?" Gisela's eyes had wandered to the nearest group of students and +she was wondering if they might not have made handsome men had they +permitted their duel wounds to heal instead of excoriating them with +salt and pepper. "Most German men marry young." + +"I am not conventional. I should not dream of marrying unless I found a +young lady who possessed everything that I demand in a wife." + +"Ah? What then do you demand?" + +"Everything." + +"That is a large order. What do you mean, exactly." + +"I mean, of course, that I should not marry a woman who did not have in +the first place beauty, that I might be proud of her in public, besides +refreshing myself with the sight of her in private. She must have beauty +of figure as well as of face, as I detest our dumpy type of German +women. And she must have style, and dress well. It would mortify me to +death, particularly after I had made my position, to go about with one +of those wives that seem to fall to the lot of most intellectuals. +Soft-waisted, bulging women," he added spitefully, "how I hate them!" + +"Your taste is admirable. Our women are much too careless, particularly +after marriage. And the second requirement?" + +"Oh, a small fortune, at least. I could not afford to marry, otherwise, +and although I shall no doubt make a large income in due course, I must +begin well. I prefer a house, as it gives an artist a more serious and +dignified position." + +"Indeed, yes." + +"And of course my wife must be of good birth, as good as my own. I +should never dream of marrying even a Venus in this Bohemian class. That +sort of thing is all very well--" He waved his hand, and arched an +eyebrow, and Gisela inferred she was to take quite a number of amours +for granted; much, for instance, as she would those of a handsome +officer who sat alone at the next table and who looked infinitely bored +with love and longing for war. + +"She must--it goes without saying--be intellectual, clever, bright, +amusing. I must have companionship. Not an artist, however. I should +never permit my wife to write or model or sing for the public. And she +must have the social talent, magnetism, the power to charm whom she +will. That would help me infinitely in my career." + +"Is that all?" + +"Oh, she must be affectionate and a good housekeeper, but most German +women have the domestic virtues. Naturally, she must have perfect +health. I detest women with nerves and moods." + +Gisela had been leaning forward, her elbows on the table, her little +square chin on her hands, and if there were wondering contempt in her +eyes he saw only their brilliance and fixed regard. + +"And what, may I ask, do you purpose to give her in return for all +that?" + +He flicked the ashes from his cigarette, and the gesture was quite +without affectation. "What has that to do with it?" + +"Well--only--you think, then, that in return for all--but all!--that +a woman has to offer a man--any man--you should not feel yourself bound +to give her an equal measure in return?" + +"I have not given the matter a thought. Naturally the woman I select +will see all in me that I see in her. Shall we get out of this? I feel +I have taken a cold. Fresh air is a drastic but efficient corrective." + +He escorted her to her hotel, although he gazed longingly down his own +street as they passed it. His head felt overburdened and it was awkward +manipulating a handkerchief with mitts. + +Within half a block of the hotel Gisela, who had been walking +rapidly, bending a little against the wind, paused and drew herself +up to her stately height. Cold as he was he thrilled slightly as he +reflected that she possessed real distinction; almost she might be +hochwohlgeboren--yes, quite. He tingled less agreeably as he recalled +a snub administered by a great lady with whom he had presumed to attempt +conversation at the house of a liberal little Russian baroness. This +woman would snub any hochwohlgeboren who presumed to snub him in the +future. + +"Herr Zottmyer," said Gisela, and her tones were as crisp as the air +blowing down from the Alps, "you must permit me to give you a note of +introduction to my mother when you go to Berlin next week. I hope you +will find time to call on her." + +Zottmyer's eyes snapped at this covert encouragement, although it was +rather forward in a German girl practically to ask a man his intentions. +"I shall be delighted to call on Frau Doermer--" + +"Countess Niebuhr. I have practised a little innocent deception here in +Munich--for obvious reasons. Also, during my four years' sojourn in +America--" + +"In America?" His brain, a fine, concentrated, Teutonic organ, strove to +grapple with two ideas at once. "You have been in America!" + +"Rather. I feel half an American. You have no idea how it changed my +point of view--oh, but in many ways! The men, you see, are so different +from ours. The American woman has a magnificent position--" + +"Ridiculous, uppish, spoilt creatures--" + +"But how delicious to be spoiled. You will call on my mother?" + +Zottmyer almost choked. "I hate the Prussians--above all, that arrogant +junker class. And the name of Niebuhr!--why, it stands for all that +junkerdom means in its most virulent form!" + +"I am afraid it does. My brothers are junkers unalloyed. But I can +assure you that my mother is as democratic as one may be in Berlin. She +has quite a number of friends among the intellectuals--" + +"Would she consent to your marriage with a--a--_mere_ intellectual?" + +"What has that to do with it! It would never occur to me to marry +out of my own class. That is always a mistake. There are, you +see,--well--subtle differences that forbid harmony--" + +"You are a snob. I might have seen it before this. You give yourself +airs--" He was now so torn between fury and disappointment, +mortification and Teutonic resentment at being obliged to diverge +abruptly from precisely thought-out tactics, that he forgot his +physical discomfort--and incidentally to use his handkerchief. + +"A snob? When I am true to the best traditions of my race? Did you not +tell me that you would not marry a Venus if she happened to be born +outside of your own class? But it is rather cold here--not? Shall I send +the note of introduction to your flat?" + +"I would not put my foot in any supercilious junker palace, and I never +wish to see you again!" He whirled about, burying his nose in his +handkerchief, and tore down the street. + +Gisela laughed, but with little amusement. Her sympathy for German women +took a long stride. But she forgot him a few moments later at her desk. + + +4 + +During the next five years she wrote many short stories and essays, and +four plays. Her work appealed subtly but clearly to the growing +rebellion of the German women; she was too much of an artist to write +frank propaganda and the critics were long waking up to the object of +her work. Her first three plays were failures, but the fourth ran for +two years and a half and was played all over Germany and Austria. It was +a brilliant, dramatic, half-humorous, half-tragic exposition of the +German woman's enforced subservience to man as compared with the +glorious liberty of the somewhat exaggerated American co-heroine. + +There was talk of suppressing this play at first, but Countess Niebuhr +brought all her influence to bear, and as the widow of one esteemed +junker and the daughter of another far more important, her argument that +her daughter merely labored to make the German woman a still more +powerful factor in upholding the might of German Kultur--that being the +secret hidden in what was after all but a fantasy--caused the powers to +shrug their shoulders and dismiss the matter. + +After all, was not the play by a woman, and were not the German women +the best trained in the world? Besides, the play was amusing, and humor +destroyed the serious purpose always. Humor made the Americans the +contemptible race they were--fortunately for the future plans of +Germany. They took nothing seriously. In time they would! + +Those who have not lived in Germany have not even an inkling of the deep +slow secret revolt against the insolent and inconsiderate attitude of +the German male that had been growing among its women for some fifteen +years before the outbreak of the war. They ventured no public meetings +or militant acts of any sort, for men were far too strong for them yet, +and the German woman is by nature retiring, however individualistic her +ego. Their only outward manifestation was the hideous _reformkleid_, a +typical manifestation in even the women of a nation whose art is as ugly +as it often is interesting. But thousands of them were muttering to one +another and reading with envy the literature of woman's revolt in other +lands. When one of their own sex rose, a woman of the highest +intelligence and an impeccable style, who, although she signed herself +Gisela Doering, was said to be a rebellious member of the Prussian +aristocracy, their own vague protests slowly crystallized and they grew +to look upon her as a leader, who one day would show them the path out +of bondage. Her correspondence grew to enormous proportions, but she +answered every letter, fully determined by this time to accomplish +something more than a name in letters while incidentally amusing herself +with stirring up the women and annoying the men. But although clubs were +formed to discuss her work and letters, they were still unsuspected of +the arrogant men who controlled the destinies of Germany. And as the +German woman is the reverse of frank, as little indication of the slow +revolution was found in the home. The solution was as far off as ever, +but German women are patient and they bided their time, exulting in +their secret. It gave them a sense of revenge and power. + +Then came the war. + + + + +II + + +1 + +Gisela, like all the good women of Germany, flamed with patriotism and +righteous indignation. Russia and France with no provocation, with no +motive but insensate ambition on the one hand and a festering desire for +revenge on the other, had crossed the sacred frontiers of the great +Teutonic Empire. A French aviator had dropped bombs on Neuremburg, one +of the artistic treasures of Europe, although, mercifully, his bombs had +inadvertently been filled with air. Then followed the even more +indefensible act of Great Britain, whose only motive in joining forces +with paper allies was to aim a blow at the glorious commercial prestige +of Germany, the object of her fear and hate these many years. + +Gisela immediately entered the hospital opened by her mother in Berlin +and took a rapid first-aid course, concentrating upon the work all the +fine powers of her mind and strong young body. Literature, fame, +propaganda among women, all were dismissed. Although victory was certain +in a few months there would be many thousands of wounded and she was +filled with a passionate desire to serve those heroes and martyrs of +foreign hatred. She forgot her personal experience of the German male, +forgot herself. Her beloved Fatherland was attacked, and the German male +in his heroic resistance, his triumphal progress, was become a god. +_Dienen! Dienen!_ + +She had no time to ponder upon the violation of Belgium and knew nothing +of the curious escape of medieval psychology from the formal harness of +modern times. She was engaged in hard menial labor during those first +weeks and it was sufficient to know that Germany had been violated. It +is true that her warrior parent had sometimes boasted of the day when +Germany should rule the world, and that he had referred to the Great +European War as a foregone conclusion, as so many had been doing these +past ten or fifteen years; but he had been careful to say nothing about +throwing the torch into the powder. Gisela, like the vast majority of +civilians in the Central Empires, had grown too accustomed to the +evidences of a great standing army to give them more than a passing +thought. Were they not, then, situate in the very middle of Europe? +Surrounded by envious and powerful enemies? What more natural than that +they should be ever on the alert? + +That Germany herself would strike at the peace of Europe, a peace which +had brought her an unexampled prosperity and eminence, never had crossed +Gisela's mind. Nevertheless, knowing the German male as she did, she was +quite sure that the officers reveled in the exchange of peace for war as +much as the men in the ranks detested it. She could see Franz von +Nettelbeck barking out orders for the irresistible advance, his keen +blue eyes flashing with triumph, his Prussian upper lip curling with +impatient scorn, and Georg Zottmyer grinding his teeth in the trenches +and suffering acutely from dyspepsia. + +Until the summer of 1916 she was very busy, either in her mother's +hospital or in one in Munich run by a group of Socialist friends under +Marie von Erkel. She glanced at the English papers sometimes, but +assumed that their versions of the war's origin, and of Germanic +methods, were for home effect, and smiled at their occasional claims of +victory. + +Poor things! By this time she had seen so much mortal suffering, soothed +so many dying men who raved of unimaginable horrors, written so many +pathetic last letters to mothers and wives and sweethearts, that the +first mood of fury and hatred had long since passed. Her mind, normally +clear, acute, just, regained its poise. Moreover, those five years +preceding the war, during which she had learned to use her gifts for the +benefit of her sex instead of for her own amusement and fame, played +their insidious part. + +When she was ordered to take charge of a hospital in Lille in June of +the second year of the war she had forced herself to accept the present +state of Europe with a certain philosophy. After all, war was its +normal, its historic, condition. Following a somewhat unusual interval +of peace, owing to the beneficent reign of the German Emperor, the war +microbes of Europe, cultured in the Balkan swamps, had, through some +miscalculation, after a deplorable assassination, ravaged the entire +continent instead of being localized as heretofore. Men were men and +kings were kings and war was war. Gisela sometimes wondered if the +hideous upheaval were anybody's fault, if the desire to fight had not +been more or less simultaneous in spite of the fact that Germany was +caught napping and permitted Russia and France to sneak over her +frontiers. + +The sinking of the _Lusitania_ and other passenger ships, or rather the +results, had filled her with a horror that might have developed into +protest had she not been assured that the U-boats had purposely waited +for a calm sea, not too far from shore, that the passengers might have +every opportunity for escape; and that they had been the victims of +contraband cargoes of ammunition exploding, badly adjusted life-boats, +panic among themselves, and utter inefficiency and selfishness of the +officers and crew. + +These excuses sounded plausible to a young woman still too occupied to +ponder; but during her journey through Belgium and the invaded districts +of France her mind grew more and more uneasy. Surely an army so +uniformly victorious, an army which only forebore to press forward in a +battle--like that of the Marne, for instance--for sound strategic +reasons, should have found it unnecessary to destroy whole towns with +their priceless monuments of art, level countless insignificant +villages, and reduce their inhabitants to cowering misery. She had been +a student of history and had inferred that modern warfare was as humane +as war may be; witness the fine magnanimity of the Japanese, an Oriental +race. This passing country, which she had known well in its hey-day, +looked extraordinarily like the historical pictures of the invasions of +Goths and Vandals and Huns. + +"Huns!" She had resented the constant use of the word in the English +papers, dismissing it finally as childish spite. Had its usurpation of +the classic and noble word "Germans" been one of those quick, merciless, +simultaneous designations that fly through every army in wartime and are +as apt as they are inevitable? + +She felt a sudden desire to "talk it out" with Franz von Nettelbeck, +whose mind, despite his prejudices, was the most stimulating she had +ever known. But although she heard of him often, for he had covered +himself with glory, she had seen him only once--from a window in Berlin +as he promenaded Unter den Linden; a superb and haughty figure, his +swelling chest covered with medals. + +In Lille she met Elsa, who had been in charge of a hospital for a year, +Mimi Brandt and Heloise von Erkel, with whom she had been intimately +associated in Munich. She found all three horrified and appalled at the +atrocious cruelties, the persistent and needless severities, the +arrogant and swaggering attitude, accompanied by countless petty +tyrannies, unworthy of an army in possession; the wholly unmodern and +dishonorable treatment of a prostrate and wretched people. Above all, +the deportations of the young girls of Lille, torn from their families, +driven in herds through the streets, their faces stamped with despair or +abject terror, condemned to God knew what horrible fate, had shaken +these three humane and thinking women to the core. + +All three, while serving far behind the lines, had thought their German +army an army of demi-gods, and all three were bitterly ashamed of their +countrymen and disposed to question a sovereign, and a military caste, +that not only encouraged the saddist lust of their fighters and seemed +unable to spare sufficient food for the civilians, in spite of the great +leakage through neutral countries, but which persisted in calling +themselves victorious when they were either perpetually on the defensive +or in the act of being beaten, despite their irresistible rush. The +Somme Drive had not begun but there was not a nurse in Lille that did +not know the truth about Verdun. + +"And believe me, as the Americans say," remarked Mimi Brandt, "when the +German people know the truth, particularly the German women, there will +be some circus." + +Mimi had been far more of an active rebel than the Niebuhr girls, +possibly because her life-stream was closer to the source, patently to +herself because she had a magnificent voice which needed only technique +to assure her a welcome in any of the great opera houses of Germany. +Adroitly persuaded by her parents to marry when she was not quite +seventeen, she had conceived an abhorrence of the rodent-visaged young +burgess who had been her lot; not only was he personally distasteful to +the ardent romantic girl, but he would not permit her to cultivate her +voice, much less study for the stage. Her revenge had been a cruel +disdain, to which he had responded by lying under the bed all night and +howling. Twice she had run away, visiting prosperous and sympathetic +relatives in Milwaukee, and both times returned at the passionate +solicitations of her parents; not only outraged in their dearest +conventions but anxious to be rid of the small rodent born of the union. + +Her last return had been but a month before the outbreak of the war, and +Hans Brandt, to his growling disgust, was promptly swept off by the +searching German broom. He was as much in love with his wife as a man so +meagerly equipped in all but national conceit may be, for Mimi was a +handsome girl with a buxom but graceful figure, and a laughing face +whose golden brown eyes sparkled with the pure fun of living when they +were not somber with disgust and rebellion. + +Gisela had always looked upon Heloise von Erkel as the most tragic +figure in Munich. In appearance she had distinction rather than beauty, +for although her features were delicate her complexion and hair were +faded and there were faint lines on her charming face. She was a blonde +of the French type, and her light figure, although indifferently carried +and a stranger to gowns, possessed an indefinable elegance. + +Under heaven knew what impulse of romantic madness Frau von Erkel, then +Heloise d'Oremont, had married a young German officer, and although both +fancied themselves deeply in love the breach began shortly after they +had settled to the routine life of the frontier town where he was +stationed, and had widened rapidly in spite of the fact that she +produced six children as automatically as the most devoted (and +detested) hausfrau of her acquaintance. Shortly after the birth of +Marie, the breach became a chasm, for the chocolate firm, inherited +through her bourgeoise mother and the source of Frau von Erkel's wealth, +failed, and the haughty Bavarian aristocrat was forced to keep up his +position in the army and maintain his growing family on an income, +accruing from chocolate investments, that should have been reserved for +pleasure alone. + +However, there was help for it. He renounced cards and such other costly +diversions as was possible without lowering his standard as a gentleman +and an officer, and of course the real privation was borne by the women +of the family. He even ceased to rage at his wife, for she merely sat in +her favorite chair, her hands folded, and looked at him with her subtle +ironic smile. + +When Gisela met them, Frau von Erkel and her three daughters (all in +their late twenties and unmarried) were living in a dingy old house in a +respectable quarter, with one beer-sodden maid to relieve them of the +heavy work and bake the cake for the Sunday "Coffee." + +Colonel von Erkel and his three sons lived in bachelor quarters and +called upon the women of the family every Sunday afternoon at precisely +four o'clock. In full uniform, and imposing specimens of the German +officer, they sat stiffly upon the uncomfortable chairs for about thirty +minutes and then simultaneously escaped and were seen no more for a +week. + +At first Gisela was intensely amused at the vagaries of the Erkels, but +when she saw the four narrow beds in a row in one small monastic room +(the first floor was let to lodgers to pay the rent), and still more of +their almost hopeless contriving to hold their position in Munich +society, to say nothing of a bare sufficiency of food and raiment, her +sympathies, always more deep than quick, were permanently aroused. But +they were confined to the girls. Charming and graceful as the old lady +was, it was evident that if above the arrogance of her German husband +she was afflicted with the intense conservatism of her own race. It had +taken Aimee, the oldest of the girls, three years of persistent begging, +nagging, arguments, tears, and threats of abrupt demise, to obtain +permission to move her piano--a present from relatives who occasionally +came to the rescue--a bookcase and three chairs up to the garret and +have a room she could call her own. Frau von Erkel was scandalized that +a French girl (she systematically ignored the German infusion in her +daughters) should wish for hours of solitude. But Aimee had the national +genius for pegging away, and her mother, who came in time to feel that +one nerve was being gnawed with maddening reiteration, finally +succumbed; relieving her mind daily. + +After that it was comparatively easy, although there were several +notable engagements, for Heloise to become secretary to Gisela Doering. +She never dared admit that she received a generous monthly cheque for +her services, but Gisela was a favorite with the old lady (always +sitting placidly in her chair, with her hands in her lap, a faint ironic +smile on her still pretty face), and as her literary style was extolled +by her exacting daughters (Frau von Erkel never read even a German +newspaper, but subscribed for _Le Figaro_), and as she knew Gisela to +be a member of her own class, the new connection was harmonious; and +Heloise at last experienced something like real liberty in the tiny +garden house of the parterre apartment of Gisela Doering on the +Koeniginstrasse. + + +2 + +There is little time in the war zones to meet and talk, but even nurses +must rest and take the air, and during the month before the frightful +rush of wounded after the British offensive on the Somme began, the four +girls, all in different hospitals, maneuvered to obtain leave of absence +at the same hour, early in the evening. They promenaded the desolate +streets arm in arm, their heads together, relieving their burdened +souls. There was no idea of treason in any one of those rebellious +minds, for they still believed their Fatherland to have been on the +defensive from the first, the victim of a conspiracy, and they knew from +the expression of the officers' faces, to say nothing of their tempers, +that the danger was by no means past. + +But being women, and women who had thought for themselves for many +years, they must talk it out, and when too overcharged to trust their +comments to the narrow streets, they retired to a hillock outside the +city which no spy could approach unseen. However, nothing was farther +from the minds of the German men of war than that the women cogs of +their supremely organized land should presume to criticize methods which +had, to their best belief, terrorized the world. + +"But we are not the only ones," said Heloise grimly, as they sat on +their refuge one dusky evening. "All but the sheep have a word to say +now and then. Of course there always will be women who will grovel at +the feet of men merely because they are men; but look out for the others +when this accursed war is over. God! How I hate men! To think that once +I dreamed and hoped like the silly romantic girl I was that some day +some man would marry me in spite of my poverty. Now I would not marry +one of the Kaiser's sons. Sick or well, German, English, French, I +loathe them all alike. Obscene beasts every one of them; but I hate the +Germans most, for they are the most disgusting invalids. And I am a +German girl, too. France has never had any call for me. It is Marie who +would be all French if she could. Poor little Marie, with her drab face +and hair, her poverty, her dynamic body, mad to marry, and climbing out +of the window when mother is asleep, to go to Socialists' meetings and +scream off her pent-up passions. What a hideous world!" + +She sprang to her feet and flung her arms above her head and glared at +the unresponsive stars. + +"O God!" she prayed. "Deliver us! Deliver us from war and deliver us +from men! Deliver us from Kings and deliver us from criminal jealousies +and ambitions and greeds that the innocent millions expiate in blood and +tears! Deliver us from cowards--" She whirled suddenly upon Gisela. +"You--you--why don't you lead us out? You have more mind than any woman +in Germany. You have more influence. I have always placed my hopes on +you. But now--now--you are doing nothing but nurse disgusting men like +the rest of us." + +"Hush! You are talking too loud. And you are carrying your revolt too +far. These poor deluded men you nurse are only to be pitied, and if they +merely revolt you, you have no vocation--" + +"When did I ever pretend to have a vocation for nursing? Like all the +rest I felt I must do my part, and heaven knows it is better than +sitting at home making bandages and watching my mother slowly starve. If +I had rolled one more bandage I should have gone mad." + +"Well, dear Heloise, as far as I am concerned, the time for women to +battle for their rights is when their country is safe, not in mortal +danger. Be sure that when this war is over--" + +She fell silent. A little flame had leapt in her brain. She +extinguished it hurriedly, but it burnt the fingers of her will, always +enthroned and always on guard. As she stared at Heloise, lovely in her +Red Cross uniform, a white torch against the dark horizon, her tragic +eyes once more searching the heavens, it struggled for life again and +again. She loved Heloise and she felt a sudden inclusive love of her +sex, an overpowering desire to deliver it from the sadness and horror of +war; a profounder emotion than anything it had inspired in those far off +days of peace. After all, however serious she had believed herself to +be, it had been a game, a career; for in times of peace one must invent +the vital interests of life, and one's success or failure depends upon +one's powers of creating and sustaining the delusion. Only two things in +life were real, love and war. + +Gisela, like many women of dominating intellect and personality, had +exhausted her power of sex-love with her first unfortunate but prolonged +passion, and although she had no hatred of men, and indeed liked many +and craved their society, she gave her real sympathies and affections +to her women friends. She had no intimates, and this, perhaps, was one +secret of her power. A certain aloofness is essential in intellectual +leadership. But if she had no talent for intimacy she had much for +friendship, and the friends of her inner circle were all women, partly +because there was no waste of time fending off love-making, partly +because there were more interests in common, consequently a deeper bond. +To-night she was filled with an irresistible pity and a longing to set +them free. But her hands were tied. She dared not even go to Great +Headquarters and protest against the terrible fate of the young girls of +Lille. She would have accomplished no good and become an instant object +of suspicion. + + +3 + +For many months she did her duty doggedly, her indignation routed by the +disquieting fact that the Germans were retreating from the Somme; inch +by inch, but still retreating. Once she might have been satisfied with +grandiose phrases and scornful assurances. But the long attack on Verdun +had ended in dark humiliation; a failure that the most resourceful +vocabulary was unable to translate into a German advantage, optically +inverted. + +More than half a million young Germans had fallen before Verdun, and for +what? That France, disdained these many years by the mighty Teutonic +Empire, and numerically inferior, might demonstrate to the world that +she was the greater military nation of the two. + +What was it all for? What of the ever-receding fields of peace, grown +green and fat again? What of the racing past dotted with the broken +headstones of promises of victory by this means or that? + +But to attempt to answer historical enigmas while working day and night +over the mangled victims of the Somme was beyond her powers. It was not +until she broke down, and, with Heloise von Erkel and Mimi Brandt, +obtained leave to spend a month at St. Moritz, that she found her +answer. + + + + +III + + +1 + +The three girls went to a little hotel that had been a favorite resort +of Gisela's in times of peace when she had felt an imperative need of +the high solitudes and eternal snows. They planned a week's rest, and a +fortnight or more of mountain climbing, dismissing the world war from +their minds as far as possible. But their gentle plans were upset on the +eighth day after their arrival, when at the end of an hour's hard +skating, clad in the bright sweaters and caps of old, Gisela suddenly +stopped short and returned the hard stare of two young women who had +drawn apart and were evidently discussing her. That they were Americans +Gisela recognized at a glance, but for a moment she saw them through a +curtain of fire and smoke and shrieking shells and dying groans, so +deep in the background of her memory were the people and events of her +merely personal life. One of the young women was very tall, with a slim +dashing figure, fine fair hair, keen cold gray eyes, a haughty nostril +and upper lip: a beauty of the patrician American type. The other was +shorter but also excessively thin, with dark dancing eyes, a warm color, +a coquettish nose and pouting lips--which somehow invoked the complacent +visage of the late Herr Graf Niebuhr--and a brilliant smile. In a moment +Gisela recognized Ann Howland Prentiss and Kate Terriss, now Mrs. Tolby. +This American friend of her childhood had married an American whose +business kept him in London, and her path and Gisela's had never crossed +since her finishing days in Berlin; although she had corresponded with +Lili for two or three years and knew the family history in vague +outline. + +Gisela skated directly over to them and held out her hand to Kate. "It +is a long while," she said, "but perhaps you remember me--" + +"Do I? Ann will not believe me--that you are Gisela von Niebuhr not +Doering. What a lark that was to run off to America and fool everybody! I +wish I had come across you. It would have been quite dramatic to tear +off the mask of the governess and reveal the junker. I think it was too +stupid of you, Ann, that you didn't guess." + +"I noticed many inconsistencies," said Mrs. Prentiss dryly. She added, +holding out her hand with a charming smile: "But later, I was so proud +to have known Gisela Doering, that personal curiosity seemed impertinent. +How we have missed your writings these last dreadful years!" + +Then all three began to talk at once and Gisela gathered that Mrs. Tolby +had nursed behind the British lines in France since the early days of +the war, and that her old friend, Mrs. Prentiss, had joined her a few +months since. Kate asked innumerable questions about the other girls, +particularly Mariette, whom she remembered as a Germanic blonde of warm +coloring, the coldest eyes, the most subtly rigid and ruthless mouth +she had ever seen. She had found some difficulty picturing her as a Red +Cross nurse and was not surprised to hear that she was in charge of an +enormous organization for the supply of cantines. Of her executive +ability and quick determination there could be no doubt--as she told Ann +Prentiss later. + +In the excitement and exhilaration of this purely feminine +conversation--which soon included Heloise and Mimi--the two parties +forgot the gory chasm that divided them. When they dropped suddenly at a +chance word to the present that gripped even these glittering snow +fields with its red insatiable fingers, Kate, as ever, was equal to the +formidable moment and cried out, snapping her fingers at the blue ether +so tranquilly aloof from warring hosts: + +"Forget it! For to-day, at least. What are you thinking about so hard, +Ann?" + +"I'll tell you later. Let us go in and have tea and then skate again. I +noticed how well my step suited Countess Gisela's." + +Ann Howland, as the wife of an eminent politician, had long since +cultivated the art of mental suppleness and had learned to fascinate the +most diverse intelligences and egos. Gisela, who was always warmly +responsive to personal charm when not too obviously insincere, enjoyed +the hour on the ice so exclusively devoted to her by the distinguished +American and went to bed that night well content to bury the war during +this period of necessary rest, grateful for this fresh current that +swept her for the moment into one of those old backwaters of mere +femininity. Mrs. Prentiss had not related a single anecdote of the +front, nor alluded to the fact that she was a Red Cross nurse. + +But she and Kate Terriss sat up until midnight. They were both women +capable of seizing those rare opportunities for service that flit past +so many intelligent women lacking initiative, and here was one that the +most clear-thinking man would have envied. It was a piece of +unbelievable luck; Gisela Doering was not only here to their hand in a +relaxed and friendly mood, but she possessed charm combined with a +great intelligence and an iron will: she was far more the obvious leader +than they had inferred from her work, and they guessed something of the +powerful influence she must quietly have obtained over the women of +Germany. Mrs. Prentiss had by no means approved of her at an earlier +period, for she had shrewdly suspected that it was the handsome German +governess, not the high-born Irma, who thwarted her designs upon the +most attractive "foreigner" she had ever met. But even if she had +cherished a grudge, and her life had been far too happy and successful +for that, she would have been so profoundly grateful to Gisela for +saving her from the anomalous and wretched position of other modern +American women married to medieval Germans, that she felt almost as +great a desire to serve her as civilization in general. + +When the two Americans parted for the night a methodical program had +been worked out, with every date at command and every fact in damning +sequence. The result of this momentous conference was that none of the +five went to bed on the following night, but sat about a large oval +table in the common sitting-room of Mrs. Prentiss and Mrs. Tolby, and +wrangled until dawn. + + +2 + +The challenge was given by the Americans and accepted by the Germans, +whose curiosity had been carefully pricked, and all had agreed that no +matter how intensely distasteful any argument might be they would not +separate for at least eight hours, and that there should be as little +"hot stuff" (quoting Mimi Brandt) as possible. + +The avowed object of the Americans was to prove conclusively that +Germany, carrying out a deliberate program, had precipitated the war in +1914, believing Russia to be deliquescent, France riddled with +syndicalism, and Britain on the verge of civil war; consequently that +the exact moment had come for the swift execution of her scientifically +wrought plan for world dominion. + +The three German girls, deep and many as were their causes for +resentment and disgust, had clung fast to the belief in their country's +defensive attitude in the face of a gigantic conspiracy, and were not +pried apart from it without hours of argument, hot and resentful on the +one side, cool, precise, and logical on the other. But those acute +German brains responded to the high intelligence of their opponents and +to their manifest honesty. Moreover, it was indisputable that from the +beginning the Americans had been in a position to know every side and +detail of the ghastly story, while the Germans, confined within their +own narrow borders and taught that the foreign newspapers were a tissue +of "strategic lies," had been wholly dependent upon their government for +"facts." + +During this long debate Gisela sat at the head of the table, rigid and +watchful, when she was not fiercely arguing; Mimi Brandt sprawled in an +easy chair, satirical and slangy, enveloped in smoke; Heloise, very pale +and the first to be convinced, sat with her little hands clenched +against her cheek bones; Ann Prentiss, unshakenly cool quick and +precise; the more brilliant Mrs. Tolby flashing her beacon light into +recesses darkened these three years by systematic lies, but incapable of +the final stupidity. + +That long argument need not be reproduced here. All the world has made +up its mind about Germany, knows her far better than as yet she knows +herself. It was the deliberate effort of the Americans to force these +three intelligent Germans, one of them a leader of the first importance, +to realize that their country stood to the rest of the world for lying, +treachery, cruelty, brutality, degeneracy, bad sportsmanship, ostrich +psychology; above all, that she had forfeited her place among modern and +honest nations. + +When these facts had been hammered in, Mrs. Prentiss moved on to the +two cardinal facts for whose elucidation the rest had been a mere +preamble: that the Central Powers were beaten and knew it, but were +determined to go on sacrificing the manhood of the country, reducing the +population to the ultimate miseries of mind and body rather than yield; +and that the only hope of obtaining mercy from the Entente Allies in the +inevitable hour of surrender was to dethrone the Hohenzollerns and +establish a Republic. Otherwise as a nation they would cease to exist +and their last fate would be infinitely worse than their present. A +German Republic would be welcomed into the family of nations and receive +a friendly and helping hand from every one of the great adversaries, +whose prestige and wealth were still unshaken, and who all desired to +preserve the balance of power in Europe. Above all might they rely upon +the United States of America, the friendly hints of whose President had +been systematically distorted by the anxious Pan-Germans still in the +saddle; who would cheerfully witness the loss of every drop of the +people's life blood rather than their own power. + +A conquered empire that had been hypnotized to the end by the monster +criminals of history, whose word no man would ever take again, would be +a mere collection of enslaved States for generations to come; the +conquerors, having given them their choice, would show no mercy. + +Britain could not be starved. The submarine war, whatever its +devastations, and the vast inconveniences it had caused, was a failure. +And the colossal wealth of the United States in money, in food, in men! +Who knew her resources better than Gisela, who had lived in the country +for four years and found it an absorbing study, who had continued to +read American books, newspapers, and reviews up to the outbreak of the +war? Well, they were all at the disposal of democracy; and as the +Entente Allies, including the United States, were already many times +stronger than Germany, how could they fail to win in the end, no matter +how many millions of lives on all sides Germany continued to shovel +into Moloch? + +All of these three clever German girls had been more or less prepared to +hear Germany proved a liar. They knew from British wounded that London +was neither a fortified city nor reduced to ashes; also that all the +Zeppelin raids on defenseless towns put together had been of less +strategical value to Germany than the taking of one village in the war +zone; she had merely piled up a mountain of hatred and contempt which +must be leveled by the quick repudiation of her people if they would +regain their lost intercourse with a triumphant world. Like all the +other women who had nursed near the front and knew the truth, they +translated into their own cynical vernacular such grandiose collocations +as "Strategic retreats" from that of the Battle of the Marne to those +which had been occurring periodically on the Western front since the +beginning of the Somme offensive of 1916. + + +3 + +Gisela's mind was complex and subtle, but it was also honest. When it +yielded a point, it yielded audibly. It was during the preliminary +discussion that she exclaimed: + +"It is true--certain things come back to me--Mimi, open the window. The +air is blue and we are all hardy and can stand the night air. It was +after the Agadir incident that I felt a change. I say felt because I was +so absorbed in my work that I had no inclination for world politics and +never discussed them. Up to that time I had never heard a hint of war +for aggression on the part of Germany.... While, as far back as I can +remember, it was taken for granted there would be a great war some day, +I doubt if any but the military party really believed in it. We thought +the time had passed for real wars, that we were far too highly +civilized. Of course I knew that the military party to which my father +belonged would have welcomed a war, for war was their profession, their +game, their excuse for being, and I heard more or less talk among my +brothers of Pan-Germanism; but still I imagined that it was merely a +defensive Teutonic ideal, just as our oppressive standing army was a +necessity owing to our geographical position. My brother Karl said +once--it comes back to me, although I had quite forgotten it--that it +was futile for the military caste to try to work up a war, because every +moneyed man in the Empire--financiers, merchants, manufacturers, all the +rest--never would hear of it. The country was too prosperous. Our wealth +was growing at a pace which even the United States could not rival, and +poverty was practically eliminated. That is the reason no hint made any +impression on me. It seemed to me that we were the most fortunate and +advanced nation in Europe and had only to wait for our kultur to pervade +the earth. + +"But--after Agadir--I seem to look back upon a slowly rising tide, +muttering, sullen, determined--even in Bavaria the old serenity, the +settled feeling, was gone--war was discussed as a possibility less +casually than of old--" + +"I recall a good deal more than that," interrupted Mimi. "Remember that +I was the daughter of a manufacturer, and the wife, so-called, of a +merchant. They were always grinding their teeth--and from about the time +you speak of--over the wrongs of Germany. What the wrongs were I never +could make out, and I am bound to say I did not listen very attentively, +being absorbed in my own--but it would seem that Germany being the +greatest country in the world was somehow not being permitted to let the +rest of the world find it out--" + +"It is all simple enough, now that I have the key. Germany tried to +bully France, and not only was France anxious to avoid war but Britain +showed her teeth. Germany was not then prepared to fight the world and +was forced to compromise. France gave her a slice of the Kongo in +exchange for Germany's consent to a French Protectorate in Morocco. Of +course--after that it must have been evident to all the business brains +of Germany that however great and prosperous the Empire might be she was +not strong enough to dictate to Europe; nor presume to demand any more +of the great prizes than she had already. + +"In other words, she was shown her place. It was also more than possible +that her aggressive prosperity might one of these days excite the +apprehension of Great Britain, who would then show more than her teeth. +Gradually the idea must have permeated, taken possession of the minds of +men who had vast fortunes to increase or lose, that sooner or later they +must fight for what they had and that it were better perhaps to strike +first, at a moment they might choose themselves--however little they +might sympathize with the ambitions of the Pan-German Party for supreme +power in Europe--" + +"Perhaps nothing," said Mimi. "They made up their minds to do it and +they did it. It is as plain as daylight. I'd forgive them, too, if +they'd won in six months, as they were so sure they would. What I don't +forgive them for is that they have proved themselves the most criminal +fools unhung. I'm glad that I am a Bavarian, and that Prussia, whom we +have always so hated and despised that we have never turned the lions +about on the Siegesthor, should be the prime offenders, humiliating as +it may be that we fell for their lies and got into this rotten mess. But +go ahead, Mrs. Prentiss. What's your next? Gee, but you can hand it out. +You must have kept tab since August 1st, 1914." + +"I took merely an intelligent American woman's interest," said Mrs. +Prentiss, momentarily haughty. "And I spent the first two years and a +half in Washington, where I often knew more than the newspapers; at all +events where I was constantly in the society of thinking men. Also +honest men, for war was the last thing we wanted, until our honor became +too deeply involved to permit us to hold aloof and fatten on your misery +any longer. Also, to be frank, our interests." + +The fact which impressed the Germans and reduced all that had gone +before to a heated academic discussion, was that Germany was beaten, and +that the United States embargo would reduce the Central Empires to +actual starvation, not merely devitalizing subnourishment; combined with +their own certainty that the Teutonic Powers would go on fighting, under +the lash of Prussia, sacrificing hundreds of thousands of loyal German +and Austrian boys, plunge countless more families into hopeless grief, +doom all the children in the land to sheer hunger and tuberculosis. + +Starvation! That was the inevitable fate of Germany if she prolonged the +war. And for what? Prostration, physical, financial, economic. To suffer +for a generation, at least, the fate of the outlaw, mangy dogs nosing +among rotten bones, kicked by the victors whenever they stood on their +hind legs and whined for mercy. + +And the Americans were prepared to pour into France and Britain billions +of dollars and millions of men and incalculable tons of food and +ammunition. + + +4 + +The two Americans had a deeper purpose in forcing this long argument +than hammering the truth into those intelligent but Prussianized brains. +As the hours wore toward the dawn they observed with satisfaction that +Gisela's face grew whiter and grimmer, until finally it set itself in +rigid lines. Her mouth was hard, her eyes expanded as if they saw far +beyond the crystal mountains glittering before the open windows. Her +mass of dark hair had fallen, and Mrs. Tolby whispered to Mrs. Prentiss +that she looked like the Medusa in the Glyptothek in Munich, lovely but +relentless. + +Gisela was no longer the radiant and voluptuous beauty who had incurred +the secret wrath of Ann Howland at Bar Harbor. These years of war, +during which she had known hard physical labor and often insufficient +nourishment, more rarely still a full night's sleep, had taken her +lovely curves of cheek and form, her brilliant color. She was thin, +almost gaunt; but the dissolving of the flesh had given her intellect, +her force of character, her aspiring spirit, their first real +opportunity to stamp her features. She would always be handsome, with +her long dark eyes and masses of soft dark hair, her noble outlines; and +her womanly sympathies had preserved their balance between a +devitalizing horror on the one hand and callousness on the other; but it +was a spiritualized beauty, devoid of that appeal to sex of which she +had been, even after she had buried the memory of Franz von Nettelbeck +and all desire for love, femininely tenacious, however disdainful. + +Mimi was the first to speak after a long interval of silence. + +"You've got me, all right. I've been digging up a few more things. We're +up against it for keeps, and it's get out or starve out. I've a notion +to sneak off to my relations in Milwaukee. Mrs. Prentiss, I'll go as +your maid--" + +"You'll do nothing of the sort!" Gisela's voice cut through the ripples +of laughter which always greeted Mimi's redundant slang. "You'll go back +to Germany with me and do your part in putting an end to this war!" All +but Heloise half arose, but she sat staring at that hard drawn face as +if in telepathic communication. + +"Can you do anything--really?" gasped Kate. "We have been hoping for a +revolution, but had given up the idea--until after the war. Your +Socialists either eat out of the Kaiser's hand or sputter and fizzle +out. And all your able-bodied men are at the front--" + +"But not the women." + +"The what?" + +"You have both lived in Germany. You know that German women are big +strong creatures--what you call husky. They are stronger than many of +the men because they have led more decent lives. The men at the front +are hopeless as revolutionary material--at present. They are hypnotized. +They have been taught not to think. They are sick of the war, they +suffer when they come home and see their women reduced to shadows, or go +to the cemeteries to visit the graves of their little brothers and +sisters; but the teaching of a lifetime: the omnipotence of their +sovereigns, whom they innocently believe to rule by divine right, sends +them back submissive, patient, sad. I know what you had in mind when you +brought us here to convince us that our country was not only responsible +for the war, but beaten. You hoped we would somehow bring about the +assassination of the Kaiser and the Crown Prince Ruprecht of +Bavaria--all the great generals. Is it not so? That would, assuredly, +break down the morale of the army, give it a more smashing blow than any +it has received even on the Western front. Well, it cannot be done. Even +I could not obtain a pass into Great Headquarters. You might as well +expect a British soldier to be permitted to saunter over from his lines +and make sketches of the German trenches. Those men guard +themselves--day and night, at every point--as if haunted with the fear +of assassination. Perhaps they are. And remember that the downfall of +Caesarism means the downfall not only of junkerism but of all the other +kings and Grand Dukes--who are powerful and wealthy in their own +domains. They have no doubt cursed Prussia daily since September, 1914, +but now they all sink or swim together. They will force Germany to die a +thousand deaths in the hope of a miracle that will save a class to which +the rest of poor Germany is a breeding-ground for their mighty armies. I +belong to that class. One of my brothers is on the staff of the Crown +Prince of Prussia. Take my word for it: the solution of Germany's +deliverance is not to be found in the simple antidote of political +assassination, for only men bound up in the success of the German arms, +or their terrorized creatures of our own sex, are near enough to throw +the bomb." + +"It was rather a commonplace idea," said Kate, gracefully, "but what can +you do?" + +"Quite aside from the women of the industrial and lower classes +generally, who have given the municipalities serious trouble with their +food riots--far more than you know about--the German women altogether +are restless and dissatisfied. They were promised a short and triumphant +war. They are daily more skeptical of promises. They have suffered death +in life. All that early exaltation--exhilaration--has gone long since. +They shut their teeth and endure because they still believe the cunning +official lies--that Britain must be starved by the submersibles, that +France's man power is nearly exhausted, that the United States cannot +prepare an army in less than two years and needs all her trained men at +home to quell the riots of the masses who disapprove of the war. They +are taught to believe that ultimate victory for Germany is +inevitable--that it is merely a question of months. + +"But--convince them that Germany cannot win, that their own conquest is +inevitable after three or four more years of horror and torment and +personal despair, turn their blind hatred of England and America upon +their own conscienceless rulers--" + +"Jimminy!" cried Mimi. "That's the dope. Pound it into them that the +Enemy Allies will give them a square deal as a Republic and put them +under the steam-roller with the Hohenzollerns if they stand pat, and +you'll get them. No more hungry and tubercular babies, no more babies +born with a cuticle short in theirs. They'd rise as one man--I +mean--damn the men!--as one woman." + +Heloise left her seat like a whirlwind and flung herself at Gisela's +feet. Her face was flaming white. She looked like a sibyl. "I knew it +would be you!" she cried in her sweet bell-like tones. "I have had +visions of you leading us out of this awful war. You have only to talk +to the women--your word was gospel to them before the war--they too will +have the vision and they will make it fact." + +"Yes--but--" interrupted the practical Ann. "How shall you go to work? +It is a stupendous idea. But you never could keep such a propaganda +movement a secret. Some one would be sure to betray you. German women +are perfect fools about men." + +"No longer. Nor were they for several years before the war as +subservient (inwardly) to men as they had been in the past. Far from it. +And now! They have suffered too much at the hands of men. They have no +illusions left. Love and marriage are ghastly caricatures to women who +have lived in a time when men are slaughtered like pigs in massed +formation; when their little boys are driven to war; when young +girls--and widows!--are forced to bring more males into the world with +the sanction of neither love nor marriage; when those too young for the +trench or the casual bed wail incessantly for bread. Oh, no! The German +man's day of any but legal dominion is over. Of course there is always +the danger of spies and traitors, but--" + +"The wall for you at sunrise if you get caught," cried Mimi, with +another subsidence of enthusiasm. + +"If that happen to be my destiny. Can any one experience what we have +done during these three years and not be as fatalistic as the men in the +trenches? I'd rather die before a firing squad after an attempt to save +my wretched country than live to see it set back a hundred years. But I +refuse to believe that I shall be betrayed or that I shall fail. _That_ +I believe to be my destiny. For a long time the idea has been fumbling +in the back of my mind, but it lacked the current which would switch it +into my consciousness. You two have supplied the current." + +Kate threw back her head and gave her merry, ringing laugh. "What +delicious irony! Germany defeated by its women! When I think of your +august papa, dear Gisela! That kulturistically typical, that naive yet +Jovian symbol of all the arrogance and conceit, the simple creed of +Kaiserism ueber alles, and will-to-rule, that hurled this colossus on +the back of Europe--" + +"Quite so. You of all present know that I received the proper training +for the part I am about to play. If all goes well we women will erect a +tablet to my father's memory in the cathedral at Berlin." She leaned +down and patted the rapt face of Heloise, then scowled at Mimi. "May I +not count on you?" she asked sternly. + +"May you? Well, say, what are you taking me for? I'm more afraid of you +than I am of a firing squad, and anyhow I seem to know we'll win out. +I'm going to carry a club in case I mix up with Hans. But what's your +plan?" + +"This is neither the time nor place to work out a campaign. The first +move will be to train lieutenants in every State in Germany--women whom +we know either personally or through correspondence. You, Heloise, will +return to Munich at once and make out the lists. We shall have no +difficulty obtaining permits to travel all over the Empire, for it will +never enter the insanely stupid official head to doubt whatever excuse +we may choose to give. Not only are we German women and therefore sheep, +but we are Red Cross nurses.... And remember that nearly all the men who +are still in the factories are Socialists--and that women swarm in all +of those factories--" + +"Marie!" cried Heloise. "How she will work! She has the confidence of +the Socialist party--both wings--wherever she is known; and she can +talk--like a torrent of liquid fire." + +"And the next chapter?" asked Mrs. Prentiss curiously. "You led the +German women in thought for five years. Shall you have a Woman's +Republic, with you as President?" + +"Certainly not. It is not in the German women--not yet--to crave the +grinding cares of public life. We shall make the men do the work, and we +will live for the first time. Delivered from Caesarism and junkerism and +with the advanced men of Germany at the head of a Republic, I should +feel too secure of Germany's future to demand any of the ugly duties of +government--although the women will speak through the men. Their day of +silence and submission is forever passed--" + +"Same here," remarked Mimi, stretching and yawning. "Let's go to bed. I +have smoked fifty-three cigarettes and my voice is ruined. Nevertheless +I shall be a great prima donna, and you, Gisela, can chuck propaganda, +and write romance. The world will devour it after these years of +undiluted realism written in red ink on a black page. Look at the sun +trying to climb out of that mist and give us his blessing." + +"I shall go for a walk," said Gisela, "and I shall go alone." + + + + +IV + + +1 + +Mrs. Prentiss and Mrs. Tolby placed a large sum of money to Gisela's +account in a Swiss bank, and this she transferred to the Bayerischer +Vereinsbank in Munich. As she had collected large sums for war relief, +and was on the board of nine war charities, no suspicion was excited. +She had given to these organizations the greater part of the small +fortune she had made from her play and other writings, not absorbed by +taxation and bond subscriptions, but there were many wealthy women, +hungry, sad, apprehensive that peace would find them paupers, upon whom +she could depend to give liberally. + +There was to be no printed matter nor correspondence, but an army of +lieutenants, who, starting from certain centers, would augment their +numbers from Gisela's long list of correspondents, until it would be +possible to sound personally all the women of a district whom it was +thought wise to trust. + +Gisela returned to Germany as soon as she had worked out the details of +her campaign and received the enthusiastic donation of her American +friends. Mimi Brandt, Marie von Erkel (who looked like an ecstatic fury +of the French Revolution when she realized that at last she had a role +to play in life that would not only vent her consuming energies and +ambition, but enable her to assist in the downfall of a race of men whom +she hated, both for their tyranny and indifference to brains without +beauty, with all the diverted passion of her nature), Aimee von Erkel, +who was persistent, incisive, and so alarmed at the prospect of all the +men in the world being killed, that she would have hastened peace on any +terms; Princess Starnwoerth, a Socialist and idealist, a brilliant and +persuasive speaker, to whom war was the ultimate horror; Johanna Stueck, +whose revolt had been deep and bitter long before the war and who was +one of Gisela's fervent disciples and aides--these and six others were +sent on one pretense or another into the various States of Germany--the +kingdoms, principalities, grand duchies, duchies, and "free towns"--to +bear Gisela's personal message and select the proper leaders. + +Gisela went at once to Berlin and had a long interview with Mariette, +who was ripe for revolution: her lover had been killed and her husband +had not. Mariette was not of the type that sorrow and loss ennoble. She +was still a handsome woman, particularly in her uniform, but the pink +and white cheeks that once had covered her harsh bones were sunken and +sallow. Her mouth was like a narrow bar of iron. Her eyes were half +closed as if to hide the cold and deadly flame that never flickered; +even her nostrils were rigid. All her hard and sensual nature, devoid of +tenderness, but dissolved with sentimentality while the man who had +conquered her had lived, she had centered on her lover, and with his +death she was a tool to Gisela's hand to wreak vengeance upon the powers +that had sent him out of the world. + +"Leave it to me," she said grimly. "There are not only the women in the +towns where I have been stationed these many years, but, here in Berlin, +the wives of men whose money is financing this war: men who permitted +the war because they hoped for infinite riches but are now terrified +that they will not have a pfennig if the war goes on much longer. They +dare not rebel, for they would be shot, and their fortunes be +confiscated: their banks, industries, shops, run by cowed minor +officials. But the women--I can count on many of them. Even if their +husbands suspected, they would wink at it, willing that the women should +take the risk and they reap the benefit. God! How they hate the +war--every woman I know. Leave this part of Germany to me, and be +prepared for Schrecklichkeit. There will be no mercy, no politics, in +this revolution--merely one end in view. The Russians are babies but we +are not. 'Huns' shall cease to be a term of opprobrium, for female Huns +will end the war." + +Countess Niebuhr, whose love of intrigue had not diminished with the +years, and who had known more of the Pan-Germanic mind than her naive +husband had guessed--who, moreover, had had a long and enlightening +interview with one of her sons but a month before--undertook to win over +many women of her own class who had suffered death and disillusion. + +Elsa's transfer to a hospital in Saxony was skilfully managed; and Lili +went on a concert tour for the Red Cross. It was not worth while to +campaign in Austria; the moment Germany was helpless she would collapse +automatically. + +In the course of a month the secret propaganda was moving with the +invisible, sinister, irresistible suction of an undertow. The immense +army of women who did Gisela's work proved themselves true Germans, +logical products of generations of discipline, concentration, +secretiveness, and a thoroughness, even in trifling details, as +implacable as it was automatic. They made few mistakes. When they +discovered--and their spy service was also Teutonic--that they had +confided in some girl or woman whose inherent weakness or venality +threatened betrayal, she disappeared immediately and for ever. + +Gisela, obtaining a commission to inspect the leading hospitals "back of +the front," visited each of the states in turn and addressed thousands +of women in groups of two or three hundred, gathered under the eyes of +the police in the name of one of the many war charities in which all +women were engaged. The lieutenants prepared these women, and Gisela +inspired, crystallized, cohered. The timid she shamed with the example +of the Russian women (and German women despise all other women); the +desperate she had little difficulty in convincing that there was but one +egress from their insupportable agony. Victory under her leadership if +they stood firm, was inevitable. + +She had the gift of a fiery torrent of speech, a clear steady eye, even +when it flashed and blazed, and a warm and irresistible magnetism that +convinced the individual as well as the mass that she had but one +object, the liberation of the miserable women of her country, their +deliverance from further sorrow; and that she was wholly lacking in +personal ambition. + +These women had known the gnawing sensation of unappeased appetite for +two years. They had seen old men and women, sometimes their own, fall in +the streets dead or dying, because they no longer had the reserves of +men and women in their youth or prime. They had seen men blow out their +brains in front of municipal buildings, cursing the Emperor, the +military autocracy, and even the Government, always at odds with the war +lords. They knew of suicides and child murder by despairing mothers that +they hardly whispered to one another. And all the children were +emaciated and wailed continually for food, sleeping little, playing +less, stunted in their growth and threatened with disease; if the war +went on another year they would join the little Polish victims on their +shadowy playground.... They feared for their daughters at home even as +they feared for their young sons in the trenches.... Barring a +revolution, the war might last for years ... _years_.... "Peace +Proposals" irritated what little humor they had left to ghastly obscene +joking.... "Victories" left them as cold as the mid-winter bed.... The +Hohenzollerns, the other kings and princes, the cast-iron junkers, would +cling fast to their own until the Enemy Allies' day of judgment, for +surrender meant their quicker extermination; now, at least, they were +still in the saddle, able to cheer their haunted egos with the Wine of +Lies. + +It was the Hohenzollerns and defeat, or a Republic and easy terms from +the victors who would welcome a sound de-brutalized Germany, jealous of +her lost honor, into the family of nations. The arguments were brief and +simple. Gisela would have won over women far less despairing than +these. And the fact that she had spent four years in America studying +its institutions and resources, convinced the most susceptible to +official lies that the United States could pour money, men, ammunition, +munitions and food into Europe for countless years; and that the +agitations of her pacifists, syndicalists, German agents, and +bribe-takers were but picturesque ripples on the surface of a nation +covering over three million five hundred thousand square miles and +embracing more than one hundred million people. + +And with all the insidious subtlety of her supple mind she changed the +prevailing hatred of President Wilson into a profound and pathetic +confidence. She had long since made them envy and admire the women of +America, and if these fortunate beings had enthusiastically reelected +him and were now giving his policy as persistent and effective +assistance as the men, it was for the desperate women of Germany to +believe in his promises of deliverance. Above all he had now the +approval of their own Gisela Doering. + +It was the mothers of Germany, balked, potential, or veritable, who were +ready to rise and rescue what was left of the youth of Germany. If +victory for the German arms were hopeless they would risk their own +lives to force a peace that would leave them with the rags of their old +honor and prosperity, that would give them revenge upon the men who had, +for their own criminal ambitions--ambitions which belonged to the Middle +Ages--doomed them to lifelong sorrow; and that would save the lives of +their children--save husbands also for a few of these stern and weary +girls. Even in the Rhine Valley, where the greater number of the +munition and ammunition factories were grouped, there were incessant +meetings, among the night and day shifts, of the thousands of women +employed there, and Gisela herself addressed each of them. + + + + +V + + +1 + +Gisela, who had been staring across the Koeniginstrasse into the heavy +branches that hung over the wall of the park, her mental vision too +actively raking the past to spare a beam for the familiar picture, +suddenly switched her searchlight away from those milestones in her +historic progress and concentrated it upon a suspicious shadow opposite. +Surely it had moved, and there was not a breath of wind. The night was +mild and still. + +She did not move a muscle but narrowed her gaze until it detached the +figure of a man from the dark background of wall and trees. Always +apprehensive of spies, although the Gott commandeered by the Kaiser +seemed to have adjusted blinders to eyes strained west, east, and +south, she leapt to the conclusion that she was under surveillance at +last, and her heart beat thickly. She who had believed that the long +strain, the constant danger, the incessant demand for resource and ever +more resource, had transformed her nerves to pure steel, realized +angrily that on this last night when she had permitted herself an hour's +idle retrospect before commanding sleep, her nerves more nearly +resembled the strings of a violin. + +Her apartment was on the ground floor. She stood up, revealing herself +disdainfully in the moonlight that now lay full on her window, then went +out quickly into the vestibule and unlocked the house door. Her only +fear was that the man would have gone, but if he were still there she +was determined to walk boldly over to his skulking-place and pretend she +believed him to be a burglar or a foreign spy. In these days she carried +a small pistol and a dagger. + +When she had stepped out on the pavement she glanced quickly up and down +the street. Not even a _polizeidiener_ was in sight, for this +aristocratic quarter was, in peace and war, the quietest part of an +always orderly town. It was evident that the man spied alone. + +Holding her head very high, she started across the street; but she had +not taken three steps when the shadow detached itself and walked rapidly +out into the moonlight. She gave a sharp cry and shrank back. It was +Franz von Nettelbeck. + +"You--" she stammered. "They sent you--" + +"They? And why should I alarm you? Am I so formidable?" He uttered his +short harsh laugh and lifted his cap. His head was bandaged; there was a +deep scar along the outer line of his right cheek. His face was gaunt +and lined; and his shoulders sagged until he suddenly bethought himself +and flung them back with a deathless instinct. + +Gisela smiled and gave him her hand with a graceful spontaneity. "The +sense of being watched always shakes the nerves a bit, and I have felt +up to nothing myself for a long time. Why did not you come up to the +window when you recognized me?" + +"I was so sure of welcome! And yet as soon as I was fit to travel I came +here to see you. I intended to send in my card to-morrow. But I could +not help haunting your window to-night, and when I had the good fortune +to see you sitting there--with the moon shining on your beautiful +face--" + +"My face is no longer beautiful, dear Franz--" + +"You are a thousand times more beautiful than ever--" + +Something else vibrated along those steel nerves, but she said briskly: +"Standing so long must have tired you. Come in and rest. It is late; but +if there are still conventions in this crashing world I have forgotten +them." + +Her rooms were always prepared for a sudden visit of the police. If a +firing squad were her fate it would not have been invited through the +usual channels. Even the arms to be worn on the morrow were in the +cellars and attics of citizens so respectable as almost to be nameless. + +He followed her through the common entrance of the apartment house into +her _Saal_. It was a large comfortable room with many deep chairs, and +on the gray walls were a few portraits of her scowling ancestors, +contributed long since by her mother. A tall porcelain stove glowed +softly. Gisela drew the curtains and lit several candles. She disliked +the hard glare of electricity at any time, and she admitted with a +curious thrill of satisfaction that those manifestly sincere words of +her old lover had given her vanity a momentary resurrection. Her +suspicions were by no means allayed, even when she met his eyes blazing +with passionate admiration, but why not play the old game of the gods +for an hour? What better preparation for the morrow than to relax and +forget? + +"Poor Franz!" Her voice was the same rich contralto whose promise had +routed the Howland millions years ago. "Our poor gallant men! When will +this terrible war finish?" + +"Ask your United States of America!" And he cursed that superfluous +nation roundly. "We had some chance before. Not so much, but still some. +Now we shall be beaten to our knees, stamped into the dust, straight +down to hell." He threw himself into a chair and pressed his hands +against his face. + +"But when?" Gisela watched him warily. If these were tactics they were +admirable; but who more full of theatric devices than the Kaiser he +adored? + +"Years hence, no doubt--if we continue to hold the Social-Democrats in +hand and drug the people. We'll fight on until our enemies' might proves +that they are right and we were fools. That is all there is to war." + +Gisela sat down and let her hands fall into her lap with a little +pathetic motion of weakness. "Sometimes I wish the Socialists were +strong enough to win and end it all," she said plaintively. + +"Oh, no, you don't. You are a junker, for all your independent notions, +and trying to put some of your own nerve into the women. I read you with +great amusement before the war. But no one knows better than yourself +that the triumph of democracy in Germany would mean the end of us." + +"I cannot see that we are enjoying many privileges at present--unless it +be the privilege to lie rather than be lied to. And when our enemies do +win we shall be pried out, root and branch. So, why not save our skins +at all events? I do not mean mine, of course--nor, for that matter, am I +thinking of our class; but of the hundreds of thousands of our dear +young men who might be spared--" + +"Better die and have done with it. And there is always hope--" + +"Hope?" + +"Oh--in the separate peace, the ultimate submersible, some new +invention--the miracle that has come to the rescue more than once in +history. There are times when my faith in the destiny of Germany to +dominate the world is so great that I cannot believe it possible for +her to fail--in spite of everything, everything! And everything is +against us! I never realized it until I lay there in the hospital. I was +too busy before, and that was my first serious wound. Oh, God! what +fools we were. What rotten diplomacy. Even I despised the United States; +but as I lay there in Berlin their irresistible almighty power seemed to +pass before me in a procession that nearly destroyed my reason. I knew +the country well enough, but I would not see." + +"They are a very soft-hearted people and would let us down agreeably if +the Social-Democrats overturned the House of Hohenzollern and stretched +out the imploring hand of a young Republic--" + +"No! No! A thousand times rather die to the last man than be beaten +within. That would be the one insupportable humiliation. _Canaille!_" He +spat out the word. "I refuse to recognize their existence--" + +He sprang to his feet and before her mind could flash to attention he +had caught her from her chair and was straining her to him, his arms, +his entire body, betraying no evidence whatever of depleted vitality. +"Let us forget it all!" he muttered. "We are still young and I am free. +I was a fool once and you will believe me when I tell you that I would +beg you on my knees to marry me even if you were Gisela Doering.... I +have leave of absence for a month ... let us be happy once more...." + +"It was a long while ago ... all that ... do you realize how long?" + +Gisela stood rigid, her eyes expanded. To her terror and dismay she was +thrilling and flaming from head to foot. This lover of her life might +have released her from one of their immortal hours but yesterday. But +although she had to brace her body from yielding, her mind (and it is +the curse of intellectual women of individual powers that the mind +never, in any circumstances, ceases to function) realized that while the +human will may be strong enough to banish memories, and readjust the +lonely soul, its most triumphant acts may be annihilated by the physical +contact of its mate. Unless replaced. Fool that she had been merely to +have buried the memory of this man by an act of will. She should have +taken a commonplace lover, or husband, put out that flaming midnight +torch with the standardizing light of day. + +Her mind seemed to be darting from peak to peak in a swift and dazzling +flight as he talked rapidly and brokenly, kissing her cheek, her neck, +straining her so close to him that she could hardly breathe. Suddenly it +poised above the memory of an old book of Renan's, "The Abbess Juarre," +in which the eminent skeptic had somewhat clumsily attempted to +demonstrate that if the world unmistakably announced its finish within +three days the inhabitants would give themselves up to an orgy of love. + +Well, her world might end to-morrow. Why should she not live to-night? + +Her arrogant will demanded the happiness that this man, whom she had +never ceased to love for a moment, to whom she had been unconsciously +faithful, alone could give her. Moreover, her reason working side by +side with her imperious desires, assured her that if he really were +spying, and, whatever his passion, meant to remold her will to his and +snatch the keystone from the arch, it were wise to keep him here. It was +evident that he had no suspicion of the imminence of the revolution. + +And it was years since she had felt all woman, not a mere intellect +ignoring the tides in the depths of her being. The revelation that she +was still young and that her will and all the proud achievements of her +mind could dissolve at this man's touch in the crucible of her passion +filled her with exultation. + +She melted into his arms and lifted hers heavily to his neck. + +"Franz! Franz!" she whispered. + + +2 + +Gisela moved softly about the room looking for fresh candles. Those that +had replaced the moonlight hours ago had burned out and she did not +dare draw the curtains apart: it was too near the dawn. She had no idea +what time it was. But she must have light, for to think was imperative, +and her mental processes were always clogged in the dark. + +She found the old box of candles and placed four in the brackets and lit +them. Then she went over to the couch and looked down upon Franz von +Nettelbeck. He slept heavily, on his side, his arms relaxed but slightly +curved. In a few moments she went down the hall to her bedroom and took +a cold bath and made a cup of strong coffee; then dressed herself in a +suit of gray cloth, straight and loose, that her swiftest movements +might not be impeded. In the belt under the jacket she adjusted her +pistol and dagger. + +She returned to the _Saal_ and once more looked down upon the +unconscious man. How long he had been falling asleep! She had offered +him wine, meaning to drug it, but he had refused lest it inflame his +wounds. She had offered to make him coffee, but he would not let her +go. + +It was in the complete admission of her reluctance to leave him, even +after he slept, and while disturbed by the fear that the dawn was nearer +than in fact it was, that she stared down upon the man who was more to +her than Germany and all its enslaved women and men. He knew nothing of +her plans, had not a suspicion of the revolution, but he had vowed they +never should be parted again. He had great influence and could set +wheels in motion that would return him to the diplomatic service and +procure him an appointment to Spain; where good diplomatists were badly +needed. + +It was an enchanting picture that he drew in spite of the horror that +must ever mutter at their threshold; but to the awfulness of war they +were both by this time more or less callous, although he was mortally +sick of the war itself; and Gisela, who doled half-measures neither to +herself nor others, had dismissed the morrow and yielded herself to the +joy of the future as of the present. What she had felt for this man in +her early twenties seemed a mere partnership of romance and sentiment +fused by young nerves, compared with the mature passion he had shocked +from its long recuperative sleep. He was her mate, her other part. Her +long fidelity, unshaken by time, her own temperament and many +opportunities, all were proof of that. + +The caste of great lovers in this unfinished world is small and almost +inaccessible, but they had taken their place by immemorial right. Were +it not for this history of her own making they would find every phase of +happiness in each other as long as they both lived. Women, at least, +know instinctively the difference between the transient passion, no +matter how powerful, and the deathless bond. + +Gisela glanced at her wrist watch. It was within seventy minutes of the +dawn. If she could only be sure that he would sleep until Munich herself +awoke him. But he had told her that he never slept these days more than +two or three hours at a time, no matter how weary. + +If he awoke before it was time for her to leave the house and renewed +his love-making, her response would be as automatic as the progress of +life itself. + +If she attempted to leave the house before sunrise, on no matter what +pretext, his suspicions would be aroused, for she had told him that she +had been given a week for rest. For the same reason she dared not awaken +him and ask him to go. He would refuse, for it was no time to slip out +of a woman's apartment; far better wait until ten o'clock, when there +were always visitors of both sexes in her office. Moreover, he would no +more wish to go than he would permit her to leave him. + +She was utterly in his power if he awakened and chose to exert it. He +had mastered her, conquered her, routed her career and her peace, and +she had gloried in her submission; gloried in it still. A commonplace +woman would have been satisfied, satiated, felt free for the moment, +turned with relief to the dry convention of the daily adventure, rather +resenting, if she had a pretty will, the supreme surrender to the race +in an unguarded hour. + +Gisela was cast in the heroic mold. She came down from the old race of +goddesses of her own Nibelungenlied, whose passions might consume them +but had nothing in common with the ebb and flow of mortals. But great +brains are fed by stormy souls, and in the souls of women there is an +element of weakness, unknown, save in a few notable instances, to great +men in the crises of their destiny; for women are the slaves of the +race, and nature when permitting them the abnormality of genius takes +her revenge. + +If he awakened.... There was little time for thought. She must plan +quickly. If she left the house at once he might awaken immediately and +after searching the apartment, follow her; there was the dire +possibility that he would learn too much before the terrific drama of +the revolution opened, and manage to thwart their plans. He was a man of +quick brain and ruthless will; no consideration for her would stop him, +although he would save her from the consequences of her act, no doubt of +that. Save her for himself. + +Mimi Brandt, and Heloise and Marie von Erkel were asleep in rooms at the +end of the hall.... She had a mad idea of binding him hand and foot and +locking him in her bedroom.... Either he would hate her for the +humiliation he--Franz von Nettelbeck, glorious on the field of honor, a +bound prisoner in a woman's bedroom while his class was blown to atoms, +and his caste was roaring its impotent fury to a napping Gott!... Oh, an +insufferable affront to a man of his order who held even the dearest +woman as the favored pensioner on his bounty ... or she would be +consumed with remorse, melt ... it was positive that she must visit +him--not leave him to starve ... nor could she keep him bound ... and +once more she would be his slave ... could she hold out even for a day? + +The first blow of a revolution is, after all, only its first. There is +always the danger of a swift reaction. + +Unremitting vigilance, work, encouragement are the part of its leaders +for months, possibly years, to come. All revolutions are dependent for +ultimate success upon one preeminent figure. + +Franz stirred under the unconscious fixity of her gaze and changed his +position, lying on his back. She hastily averted her eyes. Her hands +clenched and spread. Even to-morrow if this man found her ... one soft +moment ... when she needed all her energy, her fire, her powers of +concentration, of depersonalization, for the millions of tortured women +who would follow her straight out to meet any division the Emperor might +detach in the vain hope of subduing an army far outnumbering all that he +had left of men. + +Nothing but a miracle could halt the initial stage of the revolution; +the wireless plants were all operated by women in her service, and no +telephone message had advised her of danger. No matter what her +defection at this moment the revolution would begin at dawn; but +although Germany happily lacked the disintegrating forces of Russia, +comfortable as she had been for two generations, and proud in her +discipline, that very discipline would dissolve its new backbone without +the stimulating force of her own inexorable will. And if she deserted +them!... + +It was a woman's revolution. A necessary number of men Socialists had +been admitted to the secret and were to strike the second blow. But the +women must strike the first, and according to program. Not only were the +men under surveillance, but where women would be pardoned in case of a +failure, they would be shot. And most of them had more brain than brawn, +were past the fighting age; the girls, and women of middle years, were a +magnificent army which would make the graybeards appear absurd in the +open. + +These women worshiped her, believed her to be a super-being created to +save them and their children; but if she betrayed them, proved herself +the merest woman of them all--a childless woman at that--the very bones +would melt out of them, they would prostrate themselves in the ashes of +their final despair. + +Spain! Franz! For a moment her imagination rioted. + +She smiled ironically. Happiness? Four-walled happiness? Hardly for her, +even without the blood of murdered thousands soaking her doorstep. Love, +for women like her ... even eternal love ... must be episodical. Life +forces the duties of leadership on such women whether they resent them +or not. They must take their love where they find it as great men do, +subordinated to their chosen careers and the tremendous duties and +responsibilities that are the fruit of all achieved ambition. + +It was true that she had no political ambition, but for an unpredictive +period she must be the beacon-light of the new Republic, no matter how +successful the coup of the Socialists; until some one man (she knew of +none) or some group of men became strong enough to control its +destinies. The women must stand firm, a solid critical body led by +herself, until the tragically disciplined soldiers who had survived +these years of warfare had ceased to be sheep, or run bleating to the +new fold. + +Even if she won Franz over, her power would be sapped; not for a moment +would he be out of her consciousness; her imagination would drift +incessantly from the vital work in hand to the hour of their reunion. +The hurtling power of her eloquence would be diminished, her magnetism +weakened. + +Her memory flashed backward to those three years when he was an +ever-rising obsession--personifying love and completion as he +did--before which her proud will fell back again and again, powerless +and humiliated. + +Why, in God's name could not he have come back into her life six months +hence? + +No woman should risk a sex cataclysm when she has great work to do. +Nature is too subtle for any woman's will as long as the man be +accessible. And the strongest and the proudest woman that ever lived may +have her life disorganized by a man if she possess the power to charm +him. + +She moved softly from the couch and walked up and down the room, +striving to visualize her manifest destiny and erect the grim ideal of +duty. Her mind, working at lightning speed, recalled moments, days, in +the past, when she had let her will relax, ignored her duties, floated +idly with the tide; the sensation of panic with which she had recaptured +at a bound the ideals that governed her life. Mortal happiness was not +for her. Duty done, with or without exaltation of spirit, would at least +keep her in tune with life, preserve her from that disintegrating horror +of soul that could end only with self-annihilation. + +And end her usefulness. It was a vicious circle. + +Suddenly a wave of humiliation, of insupportable shame, swept her from +sole to crown, and she returned swiftly to her post above the sleeping +man. One moment had undone the work of all those proud years during +which she had made herself over from the quintessential lover into one +of the intellectual leaders of the world, a woman who had accomplished +what no man had dared to attempt, and who, if the revolution were the +finality which before this man came had seemed to be written in the Book +of Germany, would be immortal in history. Wild fevers of the blood, +passionate longing for completion in man, oneness, the "organic +unit"--were not for her. + +All feeling ebbed slowly out of her, leaving her cold, collected, alert. +She was, over all, a woman of genius, the custodian of peculiar gifts, +sleeping throughout the ages, perhaps, like Brunhilde on her rock, to +awaken not at the kiss of man, but at the summons of Germany in her +darkest hour. + +She bent over the man who belonged to the woman alone in her and whose +power over her would be exerted as ruthlessly as her own should be over +herself. He looked a very gallant gentleman as he lay there, and he had +been a very brave soldier. His own place was secure in the annals of the +war, but at this moment, following upon his triumphant swoop after +happiness, he was the one deadly menace to the future of his country. + +Gisela opened his shirt gently and bared his breast. She held her +breath, but he slept on and she took the dagger from her belt and with a +swift hard propulsion drove it into his heart to the guard. He gave a +long expiring sigh and lay still. A gallant gentleman, a brave soldier, +and a great lover had the honor to be the first man to pay the price of +his country's crime, on the altar of the Woman's Revolution. + + +3 + +Gisela went swiftly down the hall and awakened Heloise, Mimi, and Marie +and told them what she had done. No novelty in horror could startle +European women in those days. They dressed themselves hastily in their +gray uniforms and followed her to the _Saal_. With Mimi's assistance she +put on his coat, the hilt of the dagger thrusting forward the row of +medals on his breast. Marie went out into the street and flitted up and +down like a big gray moth, her gray little face tense with rapture. Her +devotion to Gisela had been fanatical from the first but now she begged +what invisible power her wild little mind still recognized to be +permitted to die for her. + +In a moment she signaled that the street was deserted. Gisela and Mimi +carried the body over to the park and dropped it into the swiftly +flowing Isar. The clear jade green of the lovely river reflected the +points of the stars, and Franz von Nettelbeck as he drifted down the +tide looked as if attended by innumerable candles dropped graciously +from on high to watch at his bier. But it was to Heloise this fancy +came, and she lifted her face and thanked the stars for their silent +funeral march. Not for her would the supreme sacrifice have been +possible, and for the moment she did not envy Gisela Doering. + +The four girls walked rapidly over to the Maximilianstrasse and crossed +the bridge to the Maximilianeum. The long symmetrical brown building +with its open galleries filled with the cold starlight was distorted by +a wireless station on its highest point and by a biplane on the extreme +left of the roof. It stood on a lofty terrace and commanded a view of +all Munich and of the tumbled peaks of the Alps. + +They ran up the stairs and called to the operator from the higher +gallery. She answered in a hard and weary voice: "Nothing." Then they +walked down the gallery to the open tower facing the Alps. For half an +hour longer they stood in silence, alternately glancing from their wrist +watches to the faintly glittering peaks whose first reflection of dawn, +if all went well, would change the face of the world. + + + + +VI + + +1 + +The eyes of the four women traveled to the lofty towers of the +Frauenkirche. Its bells rang out a wild authoritative summons. +Coincidentally the streets filled with women dressed uniformly in +gray--big powerfully built women, sturdy products of the strong soil of +Germany. They did not march, nor form in ranks, but stood silent, alert, +shouldering rifles with fixed bayonets. + +Involuntarily Gisela and her three lieutenants braced themselves against +the pillars of the tower. An instant later the walls of the +Maximilianeum rocked under the terrific impact of what sounded like a +thousand explosions. The roar of parting walls, the shriek of shells and +bombs bursting high in the air, the sharp short cry of shattered metal, +the deep _approaching_ voice of dynamite prolonging itself in echoes +that seemed to reverberate among the distant Alps, shook the souls of +even those inured to the murderous uproar of the battlefield. + +Grotesquely combined with this terrific but majestic confusion of sound +were the screams of innocent citizens hanging out of the windows, waving +their arms, staring distraught at the sky, convinced, in so far as they +could think at all, that a great enemy air fleet was bombarding Germany +at last. + +Masses of flame and smoke shot upward. The pale morning sky turned +black, rent with darting crimson tongues and lit with prismatic stars. +Other explosions followed in rapid succession, some coming down the +light morning wind from a long distance. Blasts of heat swept audibly +through the long galleries of the Maximilianeum. + +"It is an inferno!" Marie von Erkel for the moment was almost +hysterical. "Will Munich be destroyed? Oh, not that!" + +"The fire brigades know their business." Gisela glanced up at the +Marconi station. Even through the din she could hear the faint crackling +of the wireless. "If all Germany--" + +But her eyes were wild.... If the revolutionists in the rest of the +empire had been as prompt and fearless as those of Bavaria, every +munition and ammunition factory, every aerodrome and public hangar, save +those taken possession of by powerfully armed squads of women, every +arsenal, every warehouse for what gasoline and lubricating oils were +left, every telegraph and telephone wire, every railway station near +either frontier, with thousands of cars and miles of track had been +destroyed simultaneously. The armies would be isolated, without arms or +ammunition but what they had on hand or could manufacture in the invaded +countries; no food but what they had in storage. They could not fight +the enemy seven days longer; if the Enemy Allies heard immediately of +the revolution through neutral channels and believed in it after so +many false alarms, the finish of the German forces would come in two +days. + +But had the women of the other states been as prompt and ruthless as the +women of Bavaria? Spandau, Essen, all the centers in the Rhine Valley +for the manufacture of munitions on a grand scale ... the great Krupp +factories ... unless they were in ruins the revolution was a failure.... + +She could not be everywhere at once. War and misery and starving +children, the loss of the men and boys they loved, and a profound +distrust of their rulers, had filled them with a cold and bitter hatred +of an autocracy convicted of lying and aggressive purpose out of its own +mouth; but would the iron in their souls carry them triumphantly past +the final test? Women were women and Germans were not Russians. They had +little fatalism in their make-up, and their brain cells were packed with +the tradition of centuries of submission to man. True, their quiet +revolt had begun long before the war, and this last year had wrought +extraordinary changes, quickening their mental processes, forcing them +to think and act for themselves; but their hearts might have turned to +water during those last dispiriting hours before the dawn. + +And how could it be possible that all traitors had been detected, +exterminated, with millions in the secret? Troops might even now be in +Prussia. Great Headquarters (Grosse Hauptquartier) were in Pless, and +although the women of that city were not in the confidence of the +revolutionaries, and it was to remain in ignorance as long as possible, +the abrupt cessation of telephone and telegraph communication would +advise that group of alert brains that something was wrong. Moreover, +even with interrupted communications they would soon learn of the +blowing up of factories in other Silesian towns; no doubt hear them. It +was true the railways and bridges between Pless and Berlin were--if they +were!--destroyed, but there were always automobiles; enough for a small +force.... And the police, the police of Berlin! They were still +formidable in spite of the drain on men for the front. Mariette had +written her grimly that she would "take care of 'the rats in the +granary,'" meaning the police; but although Mariette was the most +thorough and merciless person she knew, she doubted even her in this +awful moment. + +How could she have dreamed of accomplishing a universal revolution in +a country possessing the most perfect secret service system in the +world?... a country with eyes in the back of its head? True, the +Socialists in her confidence had been noisy and bumptious of late in +order to concentrate attention upon their sex, and at the same time +careful to refrain from definite statements or overt acts.... It would +never enter the stupid official head that German women could conceive, +much less precipitate, a revolution; but there _must_ be traitors, +women who fundamentally were the slaves of men, weak spirits, spirits +rotten with imperialism, militarism, but cunning in the art of +dissimulation.... What an accursed fool and criminal she had been ... +egotistical dreamer! ... led on by the extraordinary power she had +acquired over the women of her race.... + +For a moment she clung to the embrasure, so overwhelming was her impulse +to hurl herself down into oblivion. In that dark and shrieking uproar +she had the illusion that she was in hell, in hell with her miserable +victims. + +But although Gisela's long slumbering nerves had had their revenge last +night, they had given up the fight when she had destroyed their only +ally, and these last protesting vibrations were very brief. Her eyes +fell on the ranks of women standing in the wide Maximilianstrasse,--a +street a mile long and seventy-five feet across--undisturbed by the +turmoil they had anticipated, calmly awaiting her orders. The obsession +passed, and after a brief tribute of hatred to her imagination, which +was, after all, one root of her power, she turned and glanced +critically at her three companions. Marie, looking like a little gray +gnome, was dancing about and waving her arms in ecstasy. Heloise, her +long blonde hair hanging about her fine French face, was gazing out with +rapt eyes and lips apart, as if every sense were drinking in the vision +of a Germany delivered. Mimi was standing with her arms akimbo, nodding +her head emphatically. + +"Great work," she said as she met Gisela's stern eyes. "Better go up to +the wireless." + +They ran rapidly up to the roof and looked into the little room. The +girl who sat there nodded but did not speak. Her face was gray and +tense, but there was no evidence of despair. Gisela and Mimi stood +motionless for what seemed to them a stifling hour, but at last the +operator laid down the receiver. + +"All," she said. "Every one." + +"The Rhine Valley?" + +The girl nodded, then rolled her jacket into a pillow, lay down before +the door and immediately fell asleep. It had been a night of ghastly +suspense. Another operator was already running up the stair to her +relief. + +"Fate!" cried Mimi. "The same fate that sank the Armada and drove +Napoleon to Moscow. You had the vision--" + +"I was the chosen instrument--" Gisela walked rapidly over to the +biplane. A girl sat at the joy-stick looking as if carved out of wood. +There was no more expression on her face than if she were sitting in the +gallery at a rather dull play. Her lover and six brothers were dead in +France. She had watched her little brother and her old grandmother die +of malnutrition. Her sister was "officially pregnant" and under +surveillance lest she kill herself. No more perfect machine was at the +disposal of Gisela Doering. Whether Germany were delivered or razed to +the earth was all one to her, but she was more than willing, as a +Bavarian with a traditional hatred of Prussia, to play her part in the +downfall of a race that presumed to call itself German. + + +2 + +Gisela stepped into the machine and it glided downward and skimmed +lightly over the great length of the Maximilianstrasse. + +The compact ranks, which had listened unmoved to the roar of dynamite +and the detonations of bursting shells, raised their faces at the +humming of the machine and broke into harsh abrupt cheering. Then they +leaned their rifles against their powerful bodies and unfurled their +flags and waved them in the faces of the half paralyzed people in the +windows. It was a white flag with a curious device sketched in crimson: +a hen in successive stages of evolution. The final phase was an eagle. +The body was modeled after the Prussian emblem of might, but the face, +grim, leering, vengeful, pitiless, was unmistakably that of a woman. +However humor may be lacking in the rest of that grandiose Empire it was +grafted into the Bavarians by Satan himself. + +Gisela nodded. "The hens are eagles--all over Germany," she announced +in her full carrying voice. "Word has come through from every quarter." + +She flew down the Leopoldstrasse. It was packed with women from the +Feldherrnhalle to the Siegesthor, cheering women, waving their flags, +armed to the teeth. So was the great Park of the Residenz, the +Hofgarten, where the guards were either bound or dead. It took her but a +few moments to fly all over Munich. The narrow streets were deserted, +save for the prostrate policemen bound suddenly from ambush; but in all +the beautiful squares, with their pompous statues, and in all the wider +streets, and out in the wide Theresien Field before the colossal figure +of Bavaria, the women were gathered; relapsing into phlegmatic calm as +soon as she had given her message and passed. + +But it was by no means a scene of unbroken dignity and silence. Here and +there groups of men in uniform lay dead, sword or pistol in hand. Once +Gisela flew low and discharged her revolver into the shoulder of a big +officer, half dressed and barely recovered from his wounds, who was +keeping off half a dozen women with magnificent sword play. The women +gave one another first aid, then lifted and pitched him into his house. + +There was sniping, of course, from the windows, but the women made a +concerted rush and disposed of the terrified offender as remorselessly +as their own men had punished the desperate civilians of the lands they +had invaded. They had heard their men brag for too many years about +their admirable policy of Schrecklichkeit to forget the lesson in this +fateful hour. + +The most exciting scenes and the only ones in which any of the women +were killed were in the vicinity of the garrison. These interior +garrisons of the country had been one of the long debated problems. As +no women entered them and as it was not safe to attempt the corruption +of any of the men, there were but two alternatives: blow them up and +sacrifice the men wholesale or meet them with a superior force as they +rushed out to ascertain the nature of the explosions, and fight them in +open battle. Gisela had finally decided to give them a chance for their +lives, as she had no mind to shed any more blood than was unavoidable; +and these men, being no longer in their prime, must be overcome +eventually, no matter what their fury. + +When she hovered over the Marztplatz in front of the garrison a few +moments after the last of the explosions, and while fire was still +raging in this military quarter of magazines, arsenals and laboratories, +men and women were mixed in a hideous confusion, shooting and slashing +indiscriminately. But there were thousands of women and only a few +hundred men, all of whom at one time or another had been wounded. +Finally the captain of this regiment of women ordered a swift retreat, +and simultaneously three machine guns opened fire from innocent looking +windows, but on the garrison building, not on the square. They ceased +after one round, and the captain of the women gave such men as were +alive and unwounded their choice between death and surrender. They chose +the sensible alternative, were driven within, and placed under a heavy +guard. + +It was not safe to venture too close to the still exploding and blazing +structures, but it was quite apparent that the work had been done +thoroughly. The fire brigades were busy, and there was little danger of +Munich, one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in the world, +falling a victim to the revolution. Many lives had been sacrificed, no +doubt. The women night-workers in the factories, fifteen minutes before +the signal from the Frauenkirche, had pretended to strike, seized all +the hand arms available and shot down the men who attempted to control +them. The men in the secret had gone with them and were already about +their business. + +The officers in charge of the Class of 1920 were too few in number to +make any resistance, too dazed to grasp a situation for which there was +no precedent; they had surrendered to the Amazons grimly awaiting their +decision. The poor boys in the Kadettenkorps had run home to their +mothers, and, finding them in the streets, had either taken refuge in +the cellars, or joined those formidable warriors in gray, promising +obedience and yielding their arms. + +Other aeroplanes were darting about the city. The greater number were +driven by women, directing the fire brigades, but now and again a man, +whose monoplane had been in his private shed, flew upward primed for +battle. After a few parleys he retired to await events, one only +shooting a woman, and crashing to earth riddled with avenging bullets. + +Such air men as were in Munich were too callous to danger of all sorts, +too accustomed to the horrors of the battlefield, to take this +outpouring of women and mere civilians seriously; even in spite of the +explosions, which, to be sure, denoted an appalling amount of +destruction. Any attempt to sally forth on foot and ascertain the extent +of the damage was met by bayonets and pistols in the hands of brigades +of women whose like they had never seen in Germany. They inferred they +were Russians, who had managed to cross the frontier with the infernal +subtlety of their race. At all events they would be exterminated with no +effort of men lacking authority to act. + + +3 + +Several of the women flew out into the country, but except where people +were gathered about smoking ruins the land was at peace; there was no +sign of a rally to the blue and white flag of Bavaria, no sign of an +avenging army. In the course of the morning there were hundreds of these +aviators darting about Bavaria, descending to tell the peasants or +shop-keepers of the small towns that Germany was in revolution, the +armies deprived of all support, and that the Republic had been +proclaimed in Berlin. The Social Democrats had possession of the +Reichstaggebaeude, and every official head still affixed to its +shoulders was as helpless--a fuming prisoner in its own house--as if +those arrogant brains had turned to porridge. Every royal and official +residence throughout the Empire was surrounded by an army of women with +fixed bayonets, and before noon every unsubmissive member of the old +regime would be in either a fortress or the common prison. + +This news Gisela heard at ten o'clock when she returned to the wireless +station on the Maximilianeum. The Berlin news came from Mariette. + +In Munich the old King had been returned to the Red Palace which he had +occupied during the long years of his father's regency, and it too was +surrounded by an alert but silent army. The other royal palaces were +guarded in a similar manner, but the women had no intention of killing +these kindly Wittelsbachs if it could be avoided. All they asked of them +was to keep quiet, and keep quiet they did. After all, they had reigned +a thousand years. Perhaps they were tired. Certainly they always looked +bored to the verge of dissolution. + +The Munich Socialists had taken possession of the Residenz in which to +proclaim their victory and the new Republic, and by this time were +crowding the Hofgarten and adjoining streets. They were unarmed and many +of the women moved constantly among them, ready at a second's notice to +dispose summarily of any man who even scowled his antagonism to the +downfall of monarchy. + +Six hundred women, according to the prearranged program, and under +Gisela's direct supervision, were turning such outlying buildings as +commanded the highways leading toward the frontiers into fortifications. +They had little apprehension that their sons and fathers, their husbands +and lovers, would fire on the women to whom they had brought home food +from their rations these two years past, or that the General Staff would +risk the demolition of the cities of Germany. But they took no chances, +knowing that an attempt might be made to rush them. In that case they +were determined to remember only that their husbands and sons, fathers +and lovers, were bent upon their final subjection. Moreover, the term +"brain storm" had long since found its way from the United States to +Germany, and the women thought it singularly applicable to their former +masters when in a state of baffled rage. + + + + +VII + + +1 + +Mariette's communications by wireless were very brief, and on the second +day of the revolution Gisela went by special train to Berlin. It was +the King's own train, and always ready to start. The engineer and +fireman avowed themselves "friends of the revolution," but they +performed their duties with two armed women in the cab and fifty more in +the car behind the engine. + +The cities through which Gisela passed, as well as the small towns and +wayside villages, presented a uniform appearance: smoking ruins in the +outlying sections which had been devoted to the war factories, and +streets deserted save for women sentries. One or two of the smaller +towns had burned, owing to lack of fire brigades. The food trains +destined for the front, which had been moved out of danger before the +general destruction, were being systematically unloaded, and a portion +of the contents doled out to thousands of emaciated men, women, and +children. The rest would be as methodically returned to the warehouses. + +Gisela arrived in Berlin half an hour before the Kaiser. + +The city was as dark as interstellar space and she would have been +forced to spend the night in the Anhalt Bahnhof if Mariette had not met +her. They walked from the station, keeping close to the walls of the +silent houses and entering Unter den Linden from the Friedrichstrasse. +There was not a sound but the high whirr of airplanes keeping guard over +a city that seemed stifled in the embrace of death, its life current +switched off by the proudest achievement of its pestilent laboratories. + +Mariette did not take the trouble to lower her hard incisive voice as +she told her sister the brief story of the revolution in Berlin. + +"I left not a loophole for failure. Two minutes before the bells rang +every policeman on duty was shot dead from a doorway or window. The +police offices and stations were blown up. There is not a policeman +alive in Berlin. I also ordered the garrisons blown up. Both the police +and the garrisons here were too strong. I dared not risk an encounter. +Criticize me if you will. It is done." + +"But the Emperor, the General Staff?" Gisela was in no mood to waste a +thought upon means, nor even upon accomplished ends. "If they left Pless +at once they should have been here before this." + +"They did not leave Pless at once. When they began to send out questions +by wireless after they found their telephone and telegraph wires cut, +they were kept quiet for several hours by soothing messages sent by our +women in Breslau and nearer towns. An abortive uprising of a handful of +starving Socialists! Even when their fliers went out they could learn +nothing because they dared not land even at Breslau; high-firing guns +threatened them everywhere. All they could report was that the streets +were full of armed women, which, of course, the General Staff took as an +unseemly joke. But toward night a soldier who had managed to escape from +Breslau came staggering into Great Headquarters with information that +penetrated even that composite Prussian skull: the women of Germany had +risen _en masse_ and effected a revolution. Of course they refused to +believe the worst--that every ounce and inch of war material had been +destroyed; and the entire Staff, escorted by a thousand troops--all they +had on hand--started for Berlin. They did not omit to wireless in both +directions for troops to march on Berlin at once; but, needless to say, +these messages were deflected. As the tracks were torn up they were +obliged to travel by automobile, and as the bridges over the Kloonitz +Canal and the Oder tributaries had been blown up, they were unable to +ameliorate what must have been an apoplectic impatience. No doubt a few +of them are dead. Of course their progress has been watched and reported +every hour, but they have not been molested. We want them here. Only +their small air squadron has been shot down." + +They felt their way along Unter den Linden by the trees and entered the +Opernplatz. Two biplanes awaited them before the arsenal. There were +lights in the great pile of the Hohenzollerns across the bridge. Uneasy +spirits prowled there, no doubt, but none of the women of the Imperial +family had made any attempt to escape, accepting the assurances of the +revolutionists that no harm should come to them, and, knowing nothing of +the thorough methods taken to reduce the army to impotence, awaited with +what patience they could muster--and royal women are the most patient in +the world--the invincible troops that must come within a day or two to +their rescue. + +The two biplanes flew over to the streets east of the Emperor's palace +and hovered just above the house tops until the eyes of Gisela and +Mariette, now accustomed to a darkness unpierced by moon or stars, made +out a long line of moving blackness in the narrow gloom of the +Koeniginstrasse. The forward cars entered the palace from the +Schlossplatz, and as lights immediately appeared in the courtyards +Gisela saw eight or ten men alight stiffly and hurriedly enter the inner +portals. The other automobiles ranged themselves in an apparently +unbroken line on all sides of the palace. Gisela had amused herself +imagining the nervous speculations of those war-hardened potentates and +warriors as they crawled through the sinister darkness of the +capital--proud witness of a thousand triumphal marches; of the sharp and +darting gaze above the guns of the armored cars, expecting an ambush at +every corner. How they must hate a situation so utterly without +precedent. + +Gisela almost laughed aloud as she saw the purple flag, denoting that +the Emperor was in residence, run up on the north side of the palace. +However, automatic discipline worked both ways. + +Once more Berlin was as silent as if at rest for ever under the pall of +darkness that seemed to have descended from the dark and threatening +sky. + +But only for a moment. + +Berlin suddenly burst into a blinding glare of light. Unter den +Linden from end to end--excepting only the royal palaces--with +its long line of imposing public buildings, hotels, and shops, +the Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Platz, the Zeugplatz, the Lustgarten--the +Schlossplatz--all the magnificent expanse from the Brandenburg gate to a +quarter of a mile beyond the river Spree--had been strung and looped +with electric lights, and the scene looked as if touched with a royal +fairy's wand. The side streets from the Royal Library and the old Kaiser +Wilhelm palace as far as the Schlossbruecke, were also brilliantly +illuminated. + +And in all these streets and squares women stood in close ranks, silent, +phlegmatic women, with pistols in their belts and rifles with fixed +bayonets on their shoulders, the steel reflecting the terrific downpour +of light with a steady and menacing glitter. These women wore gray +uniforms and there were shining Prussian helmets on their heads. + +In every window was a double row of women, armed; and the housetops were +crowded with them. There were also machine guns on the roofs, pointing +downward or toward the roof of the palace. + +Mariette laughed. "Theatric enough to please even his taste? Our last +tribute. Let us hope he will enjoy it." + +A moment later the expected happened. A window of the palace overlooking +the great Schlossplatz opened and the Emperor stepped out into the +narrow balcony. His uniform was caked with dust and mud and his face was +drawn with a mortal fatigue; but as he stood there scowling haughtily +down upon that upturned sea of woman's faces, the most singular vision +that ever had greeted imperial eyes, he was an imposing figure enough +to those who knew that he was the Kaiser Wilhelm II, King of Prussia and +Alsace-Lorraine, and Emperor in Germany. + +It was evident that he had no intention of speaking, but expected this +grotesque mob to be overwhelmed by the imperial presence and dissolve. + +Frau Kathie Meyers, with the figure of an Amazon and the voice of a +megaphone, stepped forth from the ranks and lifted her placid red face +to the balcony. + +"You will abdicate, William Hohenzollern," she announced in tones that +rolled down toward the Brandenburg gate like the overtones of a Death +Symphony at the Front. "Germany is a Republic. And the palace is mined. +If your soldiers fire one shot from the windows the palace goes up to +meet the ghosts of every arsenal and every ammunition factory in what +two days ago was the Empire of Germany. Your armies are helpless. You +will remain a prisoner within your palace until we have decided whether +to deliver you to Great Britain, incarcerate you in a fortress, or +permit you to live in exile. It will depend upon the behavior of the +army when it returns. If you attempt to leave the palace you will be +shot." + +The Emperor stared down upon that mass of calm implacable faces, so +unmistakably German; not brilliant nor beautiful, but persistent as +death, and stamped with the watermark of kultur; stared for a long +moment, his gray face twitching, the familiar gray blaze in his eyes. +But he turned without a word or even a disdainful gesture and reentered +the palace, the window closing immediately behind him. + +The Amazon addressed the men in the armored automobiles that surrounded +the palace. + +"Fire upon us if you like. Our ranks are close and you will kill many. +But not one of you will live to eat rat sausage tomorrow morning. Now +disarm and march to the guard house." + +The contemptible little army of the Kaiser, hypnotized as much by the +glare as by this solid mass of vindictive females--singly so +negligible--shrugged their shoulders, surrendered their arms, and +marched off under guard. After all, they would have a blessed rest, +however brief, before the great generals sent back a few brigades to +execute summary vengeance upon these presumptuous women, who had used +their incidental superiority in numbers so basely. + + +2 + +But nothing came from the front but frantic orders by wireless to the +staunch but impotent pillars of the old regime. The British, French, and +American forces, convinced at last that German women actually had +effected a revolution--God knew how!--attacked every point of the line +from Flanders to Belfort, and their aviators dropped newspapers +containing the extraordinary but verified story, into the German +trenches and back of the lines. + +The destruction of the railways leading to the Austria-Hungarian Empire, +as well as all the rolling stock within three miles of the frontier, +balked any attempt to rush supplies in from the east, and in two days +Austria was in the throes of a revolution far more devastating +internally than Germany's, for that excitable and harassed people, long +on the verge of despair, merely caught the revolution-microbe and went +mad. + +To supply either the army opposing Italy or that in Roumania and +Gallicia, to say nothing of that in the Northeast, was no longer even +considered. The young Emperor sought only to come to an understanding +with his people. + +It was a matter of days before both ammunition and food would be +exhausted on the two fronts, and neither had a superfluous man to send +to Berlin, or even to repair the tracks. + + +3 + +By Friday there was no longer any doubt of the complete success of the +Revolution. Britain, France, Russia, Italy, the United States, with a +prompt and canny statesmanship, remarkable in Governments, had formally +acknowledged the German Republic, and offered terms of peace possible +for an ambitious and self-respecting but beaten people to accept. At all +events there would be no commercial boycott, and the young Republic +would be given every assistance in restoring the shattered finances of +Germany, and its economic relations with the rest of the world. + +The good German people were flattered in phrases that they rolled on +their tongues. Even those too schooled in lies to believe the statesmen +of their own or any land reflected that, after all, the Enemy Allies had +demonstrated they were sportsmen, that German prisoners had been well +treated, and that before the war there had been no restrictions upon +German commerce save in insidious reiterated words of men determined +upon war at any cost. As a matter of fact, Germany had been absorbing +the commerce of the world, and Britain had been reprehensibly supine. + +As the Socialists now did all the talking, and unhindered, it was not +difficult to persuade even the reluctant minority that the military +party had precipitated the war in a sudden panic at the rapidly +developing power of the proletariat. + +Night fliers dropped millions of leaflets in the vicinity of the armies +on the Eastern and Western fronts, signed (at the pistol point) by the +most powerful names in the former Government, as well as by the +well-known Social-Democrat leaders, containing the details of the +Revolution and proofs of its success. The Empire had fallen. A Republic, +acknowledged by the great powers of the world, was established. Would +the soldiers stack their arms and return to their homes? If the generals +or under officers attempted to restrain them it was to be remembered +that the soldiers were as a hundred thousand to one. + +The women felt no real apprehension of an avenging army. They knew the +average German male. His innate subserviency to power would turn him +automatically about to the party whose power was supreme. And the +soldiers hated their officers. + + + + +VIII + + +On Friday night Gisela left her apartment in the Koeniginstrasse, where +she had slept for a few hours after a visit to the principal cities of +the Empire, and walked out to Schwabing, that picturesque "village" that +looked like a bit of the Alps transferred to the edge of Munich. She had +not forgotten the man she had sacrificed, and at the end of the first +day of the Revolution she had learned that his body had been caught +under the Schwabing bridge, rescued, and placed temporarily in the vault +of the little church. + +It was a bright starlight night, and the old white church with its +bulbous tower, last outpost of Turkey in her heyday, looked like a lone +mourner for the dream of Mittel-Europa. Gisela climbed the mound and +entered the quiet enclosure. She had met no one in the peaceful suburb, +although she had heard the deep guttural voices of elderly men still +lingering at the tables in the beer gardens. + +She had sent orders to leave the door of the church unlocked, and she +entered the barren room, guiding herself with her electric torch to the +stair that led down to the vault. Fear of any sort had long since been +crowded out of her, but it was a lonely pilgrimage she hardly would have +undertaken ten days ago. + +She descended the short flight of steps and flashed her light about the +vault. It was a small room, oppressively musty and humid. All Schwabing +is damp but the Isar itself might have washed the walls of this dripping +sepulcher. The coffin stood on a rough trestle in the center of the +chamber, and it was covered with the military cloak that, with his sword +and helmet, she had ordered sent from his hotel. + +She stood beside the coffin, trying to visualize the man who lay within, +wondering if the orders still bulged above the hilt of the dagger she +had driven in with so firm a hand ... or if they had taken the time to +remove it ... or if that symbol of Germany's freedom would be found ages +hence in a handful of dust when the man who had taught her all she would +ever know of love or living was long forgotten.... + +But in a moment these vagrant fancies, drifting from a tired brain, took +flight, her reluctant mind focused itself, and she knelt beside the +bier, pressing the folds of the cloak about her face and weeping +heavily. + +It was her final tribute to her womanhood. That she had rescued her +country and incidentally the world, making democracy and liberty safe +for the first time in its history, mattered nothing to her then. Nor her +immortal fame. + +To regret was impossible. Strong souls are inaccessible to regret. But +she hated life and her bitter destiny, for she had sacrificed the life +that gave meaning to her own, and she wished that the implacable Powers +that rule the destinies of individuals and nations had foreborne their +accustomed irony and presented her gifts to some woman mercifully +lacking her own terrible power to love and suffer--and the imagination +which would keep for ever vivid in her mind the poignant happiness that +had been hers and that she had immolated on the cold altar of duty. She +was still young, and her sole hope, glimmering at the end of an +interminable perspective, was that it would be her privilege to lie at +last in the grave with this man; who had been her other part and whose +heart and hers she had slain. + + + + +THE WOMEN OF GERMANY + +An Argument for my "The White Morning" + +From _The Bookman_, February, 1918, +by courtesy of Dodd, Mead & Co. + + + + +THE WOMEN OF GERMANY + +An Argument for my "The White Morning" + + +I have been asked by the Editor of _The Bookman_ to state my authority +for writing _The White Morning_; in other words for daring to believe +that a revolution conceived and engineered by women is possible in +Germany. + +Before giving my own reasons, stripped of what glamor of fiction I have +been able to surround the story with, I should like to say that when I +began to put the idea into form I thought it was entirely my own. But +while it is always pleasant to offer this sort of incense to one's +vanity, I should have been more than glad to quote to my editor and +publisher some reliable male authority; a man's opinion, on all +momentous subjects, by force of tradition, far outweighing any theory or +guess that a woman, no matter what her intimate personal experience, may +advance. + +Imagine then my delight, when the story was half finished, to read an +article by A. Curtis Roth, in the _Saturday Evening Post_, in which he +stated unequivocally that it was among the possibilities that the women +of Germany, driven to desperation by suffering and privation, and +disillusion, would arise suddenly and overturn the dynasty. Mr. Roth, +who was American vice-consul at Plauen, Saxony, until we entered the +war, has written some of the most enlightening and brilliant articles +that have appeared on the internal conditions of any of the belligerent +countries since August, 1914. He remained at his post until the last +moment and then left Germany a physical wreck from malnutrition. In +spite of the fact that he was an officer in the consular service of a +neutral country, with ample means at his command, and standing in close +personal relations with the authorities, he could not get enough to eat; +and what he was forced to swallow--lest he starve--completely broke down +his digestion. + +On the other hand, he never ceased to observe; and having made friends +of all classes of Germans, and been given facilities for observation and +study of conditions enjoyed by few Americans in the Teutonic Empire at +the time, he noted every phase and change, both subtle and manifest, +through which these afflicted people passed during the first three years +of the war. They are in far worse case now. + +Later (in November) I read an article by a German, J. Koettgen, in the +New York _Chronicle_, which was even more explicit. + +Herr Koettgen is one of the agents in this country of Hermann Fernau, an +eminent intellectual of Germany, who escaped into Switzerland, and wages +relentless war upon the dynasty and the military caste of Prussia; which +he holds categorically responsible for the world war. There is a price +on Fernau's head. He dares not walk abroad without a bodyguard, and +cannon are concealed among the oleanders that surround his house. Not +only has he written two books, _Because I am a German_, and _The Coming +Democracy_, which if circulated in Germany would prick thousands of +dazed despairing brains into immediate rebellion, but he is the head of +those German Radical Democrats which have united in an organization +called "Friends of German Democracy." + +Their avowed object, through the medium of a bi-weekly journal, _Die +Freie Zeitung_, and other propaganda, is to plant sound democratic ideas +and ideals in the minds of German prisoners in the Entente countries, +and to recruit the saner exiles everywhere. These publications reach men +and women of German blood whose grandfathers fled from military tyranny +after their abortive revolution in 1848, and, with their descendants, +have enjoyed freedom and independence in the United States ever since. +The best of them are expected to exert pressure upon their friends and +relatives in Germany. There are already branches of this epochal +organization in the larger American cities. + +Herr Koettgen (who has written a book called _The Hausfrau and +Democracy_, by the way) walked into the office of the _Chronicle_ some +time in November and presented a letter to the editor, Mr. Fletcher. In +the course of the heated conversation that ensued, Herr Koettgen +exclaimed with bitter scorn: "Oh, so you think yourself as fiercely +anti-German as a man may be? Well, let me tell you that you are not +capable of one-tenth the passionate hatred I feel for a dynasty and a +caste that has made me so ashamed of being a German that I could eat the +dust." + +In Herr Koettgen's article occur the following paragraphs: "At the first +glance German women hardly appear likely material for the coming +Revolution which will turn Germany into a modern country. But many +incidents point to the fact that German women are growing with their +increasing task. They are beginning to replace their men not only +economically but politically. Most of the public demonstrations in +Germany during this war have been led and arranged by women. The very +first demonstration in 1915 consisted of women. As Mr. Gerard tells us +in his book, they had no very definite idea of what they wanted; only +they wanted their men back. But since that time their political +education has made rapid progress.... With their men in the field and +their former leaders (Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, Louise Zietz) in +prison, German women are learning to act for themselves. Their +demonstrations point to it, as do also letters written by German women +to their men who are now prisoners of war in France and England. In one +of these letters which escaped the watchful eye of the censor, a German +hausfrau described how she made the officials of Muenster sit up by her +energetic and persistent demands." + +A girl upon one occasion said to Herr Koettgen: "Only women and children +were employed in our factory. We had more than one strike. Two women +would go round to every woman and girl in the shop and tell them: 'We +have asked for twenty or thirty pfennings more. To-morrow we are going +on strike. She who does not come out will have the thrashing of her +life.' We were all frightened and stayed away, for they really meant +it." + +Herr Koettgen continues: "Novel circumstances are reawakening in the +meek German hausfrau some of that combative spirit which characterized +the Teuton women in the time of Tacitus, when they often fought +alongside of their men in the wagon camp.... German women will show +their men the way to freedom. Doing more than their share of the +nation's work, they insist upon being heard, and their growing influence +is one of the greatest dangers to German autocracy in its present +predicament. As politicians German women have the advantage of not +having gone through the soul-destroying, brutalizing school of Prussian +militarism, and of not being burdened with the rigmarole of theory which +formed the content of German politics before the war. They can be +trusted to make a bee-line for the real obstacle to peace and +liberty--to eradicate the autocratic militaristic regime which enslaved +the German people in order to enslave the world." + +Now that the way has been cleared by two men of affairs who have never +condescended to write fiction, I will give my own reasons for belief in +the German women, and also for the general plan of _The White Morning_. + +I had an apartment for seven years in Munich and spent six or eight +months alternately in that delightful city and traveling in Europe, +passing a month or two in England, or returning for an equal length of +time to my own country. During that long residence in Germany I +naturally met many of its inhabitants, and of as many classes as +possible. German women do not tell you the history of their lives the +first time you meet them, not by any means; they are naturally secretive +and the reverse of frank. But they are human, and when you have won +their confidence they will tell you surprising things. The confidences I +received were for the most part from girls, and one and all assured me +they never should marry. Having grown up under one House Tyrant, for +whom they were not responsible, why in heaven's name should they +deliberately annex another? Far, far better bear with the one whose +worst at least they knew (and who could not live forever), than marry +some man who might be loathsome as well as tyrannical, and who, unless +there happened to be a war, might outlive them? + +The idea in my novel of the four Niebuhr girls and their initial +rebellion was suggested to me by a family of Prussian junkerdom that I +met at a watering place in Denmark. The baroness was a charming woman +who used a moderate invalidism in a smiling imperturbable fashion to +insure herself a certain immunity from the demands of her autocratic +lord. The girls were lively, intelligent, splendidly educated. They were +in love with society and court functions, but deeply rebellious at the +attitude of the German male, and determined never to marry. That is to +say the three younger girls; the oldest had married a tame puppy, and +anything less like a tyrant I never beheld. No American husband could be +more subservient. But there was no question that he belonged to a small +exceptional class: while his wife, with all the dominating qualities of +her father, was one of a rapidly increasing number of German women, +silently but firmly rebellious. + +The Herr baron was a typical Prussian aristocrat and autocrat. The girls +could hardly have had less liberty in a convent. When they came from +their hotel to mine he escorted them over and often came in. Luckily he +liked me or I never should have had the opportunity to know them as well +as I did. Nor should I have been able to continue the acquaintance +after the day I wickedly induced them to run away with me to Copenhagen, +where we shopped, promenaded all the principal streets, then took ices +on the terrace of one of the restaurants. When we returned he was +storming up and down the platform of the station, and he fairly raved at +the girls. "And you dared, you dared, to go to Copenhagen, without +permission, without your mother, without me!" The girls listened meekly, +but whenever he wheeled laughed behind his military back. Then he turned +on me, but I called him a tyrant and gave him my opinion of his +nonsensical attitude generally. As I was not his daughter he gradually +calmed down and seemed rather to relish the tirade. Finally they all +came over to my hotel to tea. + +"You see!" said one of the girls to me afterward. "I have not +exaggerated. Do you think I want another like that?" And, so far as I +know, they have never married. + +I did not draw any of my characters on these four delightful girls, but +took the episode as a foundation for the incidents and characters that +grew under my hand after I got round to the story. + +The episode of Georg Zottmyer was also told me by a German girl whom I +got to know very well in Munich, and who distantly suggested the +character of Gisela (that is to say in the very beginning. As Gisela +developed she became more like her own legendary Brunhilda).[1] + +This young woman was as independent in her life and in her ideas as any +I ever met in England or the United States. But fortune had been kind to +her. Her father died just after her education was finished, and as he +left little money, she went to Brazil as governess in a wealthy family. +She remained in South America for several years, gaining, of course, +poise and experience. Then a relative died and left her a comfortable +fortune. When I met her she was living in Munich from choice, like so +many other Germans who were bored with routine and rigid class lines. + +She was a beautiful young woman, with dark hair and eyes and a brilliant +complexion, and dressed to perfection, although she wore no stays. This +may have been a bit of vanity on her part, as the awful reformkleid was +in vogue, and fat German women were displaying themselves in lumps and +creases and billows and sections that rolled like the untrammelled waves +of the sea. Her own figure was so firmly molded and so erect and supple +that it was, for all her fashionable clothes, quite independent of the +corset. She had charming manners combined with an imperturbable +serenity, and always seemed faintly amused. On the other hand, she +displayed none of the offensive German conceit and arrogance. + +We spent several days together at Partenkirchen, one of the most +picturesque spots in the Bavarian Alps, and as we were both good +walkers, and there was no one else in the hotel who interested us, we +became quite intimate. She was one of the first to talk to me about the +deep discontent and disgust of the German women, and of her own utter +contempt for the meek hausfrau type, and for the tyrannies, petty, +coarse, often brutal, of the man in his home. Nothing, she was +determined, would ever tempt her to marry, and she could name many +others who were making an independent life for themselves, although, +lacking fortune, often in secret. No matter how much she might fancy +herself in love (and I imagine that she had had her enlightening +experiences) she would not risk a lifelong clash of wills with a man who +might turn out to be a medieval despot. + +It was then that she told me of the tentative proposal of one of her +beaux (she had many) "Georg Zottmyer," which I have recorded almost +literally in the scene between this passing character and Gisela in the +Cafe Luitpolt. My object in doing so was to give as realistic an +impression as possible of what the German woman is up against in +dealings with her male. I knew Zottmyer personally, and he interested me +the more (as one is interested in a bug under a microscope) because he +had less excuse for his conceit and arrogance than most German men: he +was brought up in California, where his father is a successful doctor. +But that only seemed to have made him worse. He returned to Germany as +soon as he was of age, more German than the Germans, and despising +Americans. + +I had often wondered what became of this highly interesting young woman, +and when I began to write _The White Morning_ she popped into my mind. I +believe she could be a leader of some kind if she chose. Perhaps she is. + +The cases could be multiplied indefinitely. The Erkels and Mimi Brandt +are drawn, together with their conditions, almost photographically. +"Heloise" finally married a Scot and went with him to his own country, +but her sisters were dragging out their tragic lives when I left Munich. + +A few days ago I met a highly intelligent American woman of German +blood who, before the war, used to visit her relatives in Germany every +year. I told her that I had written this story and she agreed with me +that it was on the cards the women would instigate a revolution. +"Never," she said, "in any country have I known such discontent among +women, heard so many bitter confidences. Their feelings against their +fathers or husbands were the more intense and violent because they dared +not speak out like English or American women." + +There is no question that for about fifteen years before the war there +was a thinking, secret, silent, watchful but outwardly passive revolt +going on among the women of Germany. I do not think it had then reached +the working women. It took the war to wake them up. But in that vast +class which, in spite of racial industry, had a certain amount of +leisure, owing to the almost total absence of poverty in the Teutonic +Empire, and whose minds were educated and systematically trained, there +was persistent reading, meditating upon the advance of women in other +nations, quiet debating unsuspected of their masters; and they were +growing in numbers and in an almost sinister determination every year. +Of course there were plenty of hausfraus cowed to the door mat, and, +like the proletariat, needing a war to wake them up; but there were +several hundred thousand of the other sort. + +Now, all these women need is a leader. The working women have their Rosa +Luxemburgs, who think out loud in public and get themselves locked up; +and, moreover, do not appeal to the other classes--for Germany is the +most snobbish country in the world. If there were--or if there is--such +a woman as Gisela Doering, who before the war had acquired a widespread +intellectual influence over the awakening women of her race, and then, +when they were approaching the breaking point, had gone quietly and +systematically about making a revolution, there is no question in my +mind as to the outcome. + +Just consider for a moment what the German women have suffered during +this war--a war that they were told was forced upon their country by the +aggressive military acts of Russia and France, but which, owing to +Germany's might, would hardly last three months. For nearly three years +they have never known the sensation of appeased hunger, and, having +always been immense eaters, have suffered the tortures of dyspepsia in +addition to hunger. But, far worse, they have listened almost +continuously to the wails of their children for satisfying food, +children who are forever hungry and who often succumb. Karl Ackerman, +whose accuracy no one has questioned, states in his book, _Germany, The +Next Republic?_, that in 1916 sixty thousand children died of +malnutrition in Berlin alone. + +These women have lost their fathers, husbands, sons--well, that is the +fortune of any war; but they are beginning to understand that they have +lost them, not in a war of self-defense, but to gratify the insane +ambitions and greed of a dynasty and a military caste that are out of +date in the twentieth century. Their parents, when over sixty, have died +from the same cause as the children. Their daughters, both unmarried and +newly widowed, are "officially pregnant," or the mothers of brats the +name of whose fathers they do not know. The young girls of Lille hardly +have suffered more. The German victims are sent for, then sent home to +bear another child for Germany. + +Now, we know what the German men are. These women are the mothers and +wives and sisters of the German men; in other words, they are Germans, +body, and bone and brain-cells, capable of precisely the same ruthless +tactics when pushed too hard--if they have a leader. That, to my mind, +is the whole point. Given that leader, they would effect a revolution +precisely as I have described in my story. Nor would they run the risk +of failure. The German race is not eight-tenths illiterates and +two-tenths intellectuals, emotional firebrands, anarchists and +sellers-out like the Russians. They are uniformly educated, uniformly +disciplined. They will do nothing futile, nothing without the most +secret and methodical preparation of which even the German mind is +capable. It will be like turning over in bed in camp: they will all turn +over together. They are damnably efficient. + +It may be said: "But you may have spoiled their chances with your book. +You not only have revealed them in their true character to their men, +but all the details of their probable methods in working up and +precipitating a revolution. You have, in other words, put the German +authorities on their guard." + +The answer to this is that no German of the dominant sex could be made +to believe in anything so unprecedented as German women taking the law +into their own hands, uniting, and overthrowing a dynasty. Nothing can +penetrate a German official skull but what has been trained into it from +birth. Unlike the women, the system has made the men of the ruling +class into the sort of machine which is perfect in its way but admits of +no modern improvements. That has been the secret of their strength and +of their weakness, and will be the chief assistance to the Allies in +bringing about their final defeat. I am positive they go to sleep every +night murmuring: "Two and two make four. Two and two make four." + +The women could hold meetings under their very noses, so long as they +were not in the street, lay their plans to the last fuse, and apply the +match at the preconcerted moment from one end of Germany to the other +unhindered, unless betrayed. The angry and restless male socialists +would not have a chance with the alert members of their own sex--who +regard women with an even and contemptuous tolerance. Useful but +harmless. + +I made Gisela a junker by birth, because a rebel from the top, with +qualities of leadership, would make a deeper impression in Germany than +one of the many avowed extremists of humbler origin. On the other hand, +it was necessary to drop the von, and take a middle-class name, or she +would have failed to win confidence, in the beginning, as well as +literary success; from opposite reasons. It is very difficult for an +aristocratic German of artistic talents to obtain a hearing. +Practically all the intellectuals belong to the middle-class, the +aristocrats being absorbed by the army and navy. The arrogance and often +brutal lack of consideration of the ruling caste, to say nothing of +common politeness, have inspired universal jealousy and hatred, the more +poignant as it must be silent. But even the silent may find their means +of vengeance, as the noble discovers when he attempts recognition in the +intellectual world. But if he were a propagandist, with the welfare of +all Germany at heart, and won his influence under an assumed name, as +Gisela Doering did, the revelation of his identity, together with proof +of dissociation from his own class, would enhance his popularity +immensely. Moreover, it would be incense to the vanity of classes that +never are permitted to forget their inferior rank. + +In this country there is a snobbish tendency to exalt and boom any +writer who is known to belong to one of the old and wealthy families; +and the more snobbish the writer the more infectious the disease. But +then in this country, which has never suffered from militarism, there is +a naive tendency to worship success in any form. In Germany my heroine +would have doomed herself to failure if she had signed her work Gisela +von Niebuhr. But her early education, surroundings, position,--to say +nothing of her four years in the United States--were just what gave her +the requisite advantages, and preserved her from many mistakes. She +starts out with no prejudices against any caste, and an intense sympathy +for all German women who lack even the compensation of being +_hochwohlgeboren_. + +No one knows what the future holds, or what unexpected event will +suddenly end the war; but I should not have written _The White Morning_ +if I had not been firmly convinced that a Gisela might arise at any +moment and deliver the world. + + +GERTRUDE ATHERTON. + +[Footnote 1: For this reason I asked the most beautiful woman I have +ever seen of the heroic or goddess type to be photographed for the +frontispiece.--G.A.] + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHITE MORNING*** + + +******* This file should be named 13496.txt or 13496.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/9/13496 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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