City of Endless Night, Milo Hastings [books to get back into reading .TXT] 📗

The doctor nodded his head and smiled in satisfaction. "You ask interesting questions," he said. "I shall try to answer them. Money or bank credit is merely a symbol of wealth. In ancient times wealth was represented by the private ownership of physical property, which was the basis of capitalistic or competitive society. Racial progress was then achieved by the mating of the men of superior brain with the most beautiful women. Women do not appreciate the mental power of man in its direct expression, or even its social use; they can only comprehend that power when it is translated into wealth. After the destruction of private property women refused to accept as mates the men of intellectual power, but preferred instead men of physical strength and personal beauty.

"At first this was considered to be a proof of the superiority of the proletariat. For, with all men economically equal, the beautiful women turned from the anemic intellectual and the sons of aristocracy, to the strong arms of labour. Believing themselves to be the source of all wealth, and by that right vested with sole political power, and now finding themselves preferred by the beautiful women, the labourer would soon have eliminated all other classes from human society. Had unbridled socialism with its free mating continued, we should have become merely a horde of handsome savages.

"Such would have been the destiny of our race had not William III foreseen the outcome and restored war, the blessings of which had been all but lost to the world. The progress of peace depended upon the competition of capitalism, but in peace progress is incidental. In war it is essential. Because war requires invention, it saved the intellectual classes, and because war requires authority it made possible the restoration of our Royal House. Labour, the tyrant of peace, became again the slave of war, and under the plea of patriotic necessity eugenics was established, which again restored the beautiful women to the superior men. And thus by Imperial Socialism the race was preserved from deterioriation."

"But surely," I said, "eugenics has more than remedied this defect of socialism, for the selection of men of superior mentality is much more rigid than it could have been under the capricious matings of capitalistic society. Why then this need of wealth?"

"Eugenics," replied Boehm, "breeds superior children, but eugenic mating is a cold scientific thing which fails to fan the flame of man's ambition to do creative work. That is why we have the Level of Free Women and have not bred the virility out of the intellectual group. That is also the reason we have retained the Free Level on a competitive commercial basis, and have given the intellectual man the bank credit, a symbol of wealth, that he may use it, as men have always used wealth, for the purpose of increasing his importance in the eyes of woman. This function of wealth is psychically necessary to the creative impulse, for the power of sexual conquest and the stimulus to creative thought are but different expressions of the same instinct. Wealth, or its symbol, is a medium of translating the one into the other. For example, take your discovery; it is important to you and to the state. Your fellow scientists appreciate it, His Majesty appreciates it, but women cannot appreciate it. But give it a money value and women appreciate it immediately. They know that the unlimited bank credit will give you the power to keep as many women on your list as you choose, and this means that you can select freely those you wish. So the most attractive women will compete for your preferment. We bow before the Emperor, we salute the Statue of God, but we make out our checks to buy baubles for women, and it is that which keeps the wheels of progress turning."

"So," I said, "this is your philosophy of wealth. I see, and yet I do not see. The legal limit a man may contribute to a woman is but twenty-four hundred marks a year, what then does he want with a million?"

"But there is no legal limit," replied the Doctor, "to the number of women a man may have on his list. His relation to them may be the most casual, but the pursuit is stimulating to the creative imagination. But you forget, Herr von Armstadt, that with the compensation that was to be yours goes also the social privilege of the Royal Level. Evidently you have been so absorbed in your research that you had no time to think of the magnificent rewards for which you were working."

"Then perhaps you will explain them to me."

"With pleasure," said Dr. Boehm; "your social privilege on the Royal Level includes the right to marry and that means that you should have children for whom inheritance is permitted. How else did you suppose the ever-increasing numbers of the House of Hohenzollern should have maintained their wealth?"

"The question has never occurred to me," I answered, "but if it had, I should have supposed that their expenses were provided by appropriations from the state treasury."

Dr. Boehm chuckled. "Then they should all be dependents on the state like cripples and imbeciles. It would be a rather poor way to derive the pride of aristocracy. That can only come from inherited wealth: the principle is old, very old. The nobleman must never needs work to live. Then, if he wishes to give service to the state, he may give it without pay, and thus feel his nobility. You cannot aspire to full social equality with the Royal House both because you lack divinity of blood and because you receive your wealth for that which you have yourself given to the state. But because of your wealth you will find a wife of the Royal House, and she will bear you children who, receiving the divine blood of the Hohenzollerns from the mother and inherited wealth from the father, will thus be twice ennobled. To have such children is a rare privilege; not even Herr von Uhl with his thousands of descendants can feel such a pride of paternity.

"It is well, Herr von Armstadt, that you talked to me of these matters. Should you be restored to your full mental powers and be permitted to assume the rights of your new station, it would be most unfortunate if you should seem unappreciative of these ennobling privileges."

"Then, if I may, I shall ask you some further questions. It seems that the inherited incomes of the Royal Level are from time to time reinforced by marriage from without. Does that not dilute the Royal blood?"

"That question," replied Dr. Boehm, "more properly should be addressed to a eugenist, but I shall try to give you the answer. The blood of the House of Hohenzollern is of a very high order for it is the blood of divinity in human veins. Yet since there is no eugenic control, no selection, the quality of that blood would deteriorate from inbreeding, were there no fresh infusion. Then where better could such blood come than from the men of genius? No man is given the full social privilege of the Royal Level except he who has made some great contribution to the state. This at once marks him as a genius and gives his wealth a noble origin."

"But how is it," I asked, "that this addition of men from without does not disturb the balance of the sexes?"

"It does disturb it somewhat," replied the doctor, "but not seriously, for genius is rare. There are only a few hundred men in each generation who are received into Royal Society. Of course that means some of the young men of the Royal Level cannot marry. But some men decline marriage of their own free will; if they are not possessed of much wealth they prefer to go unmarried rather than to accept an unattractive woman as a wife when they may have their choice of mistresses from the most beautiful virgins intended for the Free Level. There is always an abundance of marriageable women on the Royal Level and with your wealth you will have your choice. Your credit, in fact, will be the largest that has been granted for over a decade."

"All that is very splendid," I answered. "I was not well informed on these matters. But why should His Majesty have been so incensed at my simple request for the restoration of the rights of the daughter of the Princess Fedora?"

"Your request was unusual; pardon if I may say, impudent; it seems to imply a lack of appreciation on your part of the honours freely conferred upon you--but I daresay His Majesty did not realize your ignorance of these things. You are very young and you have risen to your high station very quickly from an obscure position."

"And do you think," I asked, "that if you made these facts clear to him, he would relent and grant my request?"

Dr. Boehm looked at me with a penetrating gaze. "It is not my function," he said, "to intercede for you. I have only been commissioned to examine carefully the state of your mentality."

I smiled complacently at the psychic expert. "Now, doctor," I said, "you do not mean to tell me that you really think there is anything wrong with my mentality?"

A look of craftiness flashed from Boehm's eyes. "I have given you my diagnosis," he said, "but it may not be final. I have already communicated my first report to His Majesty and he has ordered me to remain with you for some days. If I should alter that opinion too quickly it would discredit me and gain you nothing. You had best be patient, and submit gracefully to further examination and treatment."

"And do you know," I asked, "what the chemical staff is doing about my formulas?"

"That is none of my affair," declared Boehm, emphatically.

There was a vigour in his declaration and a haste with which he began to talk of other matters that gave me a hint that the doctor knew more of the doings of the chemical staff than he cared to admit, but I thought it wise not to press the point.

The second day of Boehm's stay with me, he unmantled his apparatus and asked me to submit to a further examination. I had not the least conception of the purpose of this apparatus and with some misgivings I lay down on a couch while the psychic expert placed above my eyes a glass plate, on which, when he had turned on the current, there proceeded a slow rhythmic series of pale lights and shadows. At the doctor's command I fixed my gaze upon the lights, while he, in a monotonous voice, urged me to relax my mind and dismiss all active thought.

How long I stood for this infernal proceeding I do not know. But I recall a realization that I had lost grip on my thoughts and seemed to be floating off into a misty nowhere of unconsciousness. I struggled frantically to regain control of myself; and, for what seemed an eternity, I fought with a horrible nightmare unable to move a muscle or even close my eyelids to shut out that sickening sequence of creeping shadows. Then I saw the doctor's hand reaching slowly toward my face. It seemed to sway in its stealthy movement like the head of a serpent charming a bird, but in my helpless horror I could not ward it off.

At last the snaky fingers touched my eyelids as if to close them, and that touch, light though it was, served to snap the taut film of my helpless brain and I gave a blood-curdling yell and jumped up, knocking over the devilish apparatus and nearly upsetting the doctor.

"Calm yourself," said Boehm, as he attempted to push me again toward the couch. "There is nothing wrong, and you must surrender to the psychic equilibrator so that I can proceed with the examination."

"Examination be damned," I shouted fiercely; "you were trying to hypnotize me with that infernal machine."

Boehm did not reply but calmly proceeded to pick up the apparatus and restore it to its place in the corner, while I paced angrily about the room. He then seated himself and addressed me as I stood against the wall glaring at him. "You are labouring under hallucinations," he said. "I fear your case is even worse than I thought. But calm yourself. I shall attempt no further examination today."

I resumed a seat but refused to look at him. He did not talk further of my supposed mental state, but proceeded to entertain me with gossip of the Royal Level, and later discussed the novels in the bookcase.

It was difficult to keep up an open war with so charming a conversationalist, but I was thoroughly on my guard. I could now readily see through the whole fraud of my imputed mental derangement. I