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all Nazis, and if they exterminate one another, that will save the world a lot of trouble." But

then: "Suppose they should open the wrong cell door?" An embarrassing thought indeed! What

would he say? How would he convince them? As time passed he decided: "They have forgotten

me. Those fellows didn't book me, and maybe they just went off without a word." And then, a

still more confusing possibility: "Suppose they get shot somewhere and nobody remembers me!"

He had a vague memory of having read about a forgotten prisoner in the Bastille; when the

place was opened up, nobody knew why he had been put there. He had had a long gray beard.

Lanny felt the beginnings of his beard and wondered if it was gray.

He gave serious study to his jailers and their probable psychology. It seemed difficult to

believe that men who had followed such an occupation for many years could have any human

kindness left in their systems; but it could do no harm to make sure. So at every meal hour he

was lying on the floor close to the hole, delivering a carefully planned speech in a quiet,

friendly tone, explaining who he was, and how much he loved the German people, and why he

had come to Munich, and by what evil accident he had fallen under suspicion. All he wanted

was a chance to explain himself to somebody. He figured that if he didn't touch the heart of

any of the keepers, he might at least get them to gossiping, and the gossip might spread.

IX

He didn't know how long a person could live without food. It wasn't until the second day that

he began to suffer from hunger, and he gnawed some of the soggy dark bread, wondering what

was in it. He couldn't bring himself to eat the foul-smelling mash or the lukewarm boiled cabbage

with grease on top. As for the bitter-tasting drink that passed for coffee, he had been told that

they put sal soda into it in order to reduce the sexual cravings of the prisoners. He didn't feel any

craving except to get out of this black hole. He whispered to his keepers: "I had about six

thousand marks on me when I was brought in here, and I would be glad to pay for some decent

food." The second time he said this he heard the kind voice, which he imagined coming from an

elderly man with a wrinkled face and gray mustaches. "Alles geht d'runter und d'ruber, mein

Herr." . . . "Everything topsy-turvy, sir; and you will be safer if you stay quiet."

It was a tip; and Lanny thought it over and decided that he had better take it. There was a civil

war going on. Was the "Second Revolution" succeeding, or was it being put down? In either

case, an American art lover, trapped between the firing lines, was lucky to have found a shell-

hole in which to hide! Had the warder been a Cockney, he would have said: "If you knows of a

better 'ole, go to it!"

So Lanny lay still and occupied himself with the subject of psychology, which so far in his life

he had rather neglected. The world had been too much with him; getting and spending he had

laid waste his powers. But now the world had been reduced to a few hundred cubic feet, and

all he had was the clothes on his back and what ideas he had stored in his head. He began to

recall Parsifal Dingle, and to appreciate his point of view. Parsifal wouldn't have minded being

here; he would have taken it as a rare opportunity to meditate. Lanny thought: "What would

Parsifal meditate about?" Surely not the shooting, or the fate of a hypothetical revolution! No,

he would say that God was in this cell; that God was the same indoors as out, the same

yesterday, today, and forever.

Then Lanny thought about Freddi Robin. Freddi had been in places like this, and had had the

same sort of food put before him, not for three days but for more than a year. What had he said

to himself all that time? What had he found inside himself? What had he done and thought, to

pass the time, to enable him to endure what came and the anticipation of what might come? It

seemed time for Lanny to investigate his store of moral forces.

X

On Tuesday morning two jailers came to his cell and opened the door. " 'Raus, 'raus.'" they

said, and he obeyed to the best of his ability; he was weak from lack of food and exercise—not

having dared to use up the air in that cell. Also his heart was pounding, because all the

psychology exercises had failed to remove his disinclination to be shot, or the idea that this might

be his death march. Outside the cell he went dizzy, and had to lean against the wall; one of the

jailers helped him up the flight of stone stairs.

They were taking him toward an outside door. They were going to turn him loose!—so he

thought, for one moment. But then he saw, below the steps, a prison van—what in America is

called "Black Maria," and in Germany "Grüne Minna." The sunlight smote Lanny's eyes like a

blow, and he had to shut them tight. The jailers evidently were familiar with this phenomenon;

they led him as if he were a blind man and helped him as if he were a cripple. They put him