They have bigger matters on their minds. We were a pair of nobodies. I would guess that Goering wanted it to take place, and that Hitler, being there in Karinhall anyway, didn't mind. I got the feeling that he enjoyed sounding off to a pair of Americans who would report directly to you. All three men acted as though the offensive in the west is ready to roll. I don't think they give a damn whether Welles comes or not. If the British are really as set on their terms as Hitler is on his, you'll have all-out war in the spring. The parties are too far apart. Goering, it.;eems to me, is playing a side game by his peace talk. This man is the biggest thug in the Third Reich-He looks like a circus freakthe man is really disgustingly fat and dolled up-but he is the supreme realist in that crowd, and the unchallenged number two man. He has made a good thing out of Nazism, much more than the others. Mr. Gianelli will no doubt describe Karinhall to you. It's vulgar but stupendous. Goering may be smart enough, even though he's riding high, he must realize that no string of good luck lasts forever. If the offensive should happen to go sour, then the man who always wanted peace will be right there, weeping tears over the fallen Fuhrer and happy to take on the job. Ribbentrop can only he described-if you will forgive me, Mr. President-as the classic German son of a bitch. He is right out of the books with his arrogance, bad manners, obtuseness, obstinacy, and self-righteousness. I think this is his nature, but I also believe he echoes how Hitler feels. This is just the old Navy business of the commanding officer being the impressive 'old man," while the exec is the mean crab doing his dirty work. Hitler unquestionably hates your guts and feels you've interfered and crossed him up far too much. He also feels fairly safe defying the USA, because he knows how public opinion is divided. All this'Ribbentrop exprd for him in no uncertain terms, leaving the boss free to be the magnanimous German Napoleon and the savior of Europe. Driving away from Karinhall, I had a reaction like coming out of a trance. I began to remember things about Hitler that I really forgot while I was listening to him and translating his words: the ravings in Mein Kampf, the way he has broken his word time after time, his wild lies, the fact that he started the war, the _Rmesome bombing of Warsaw, and his persecution of the Jews. It's a measure of his persuasiveness that I could forget such things for a while, facing the man who has done them. He's a spellbinder. For big crowds I've heard him do coarse belligerent yelling, but in a room with a couple of nenous foreigners he can be-if it suits him-the reasonable, charming world leader. They say he can also throw a foaming rage; we saw just a hint of that, and I certainly believe it. But the picture of him as a ludicrous nut is a falsehood. He never sounded more confident than when he said that he and the Germans are one. He simply knows this to be the truth. Take away his mustache, and he sort of looks like all the Germans rolled into one.
He isn't an aristocrat, or a businessman, or an intellectual, or anything whatever except the German man in the street, somehow inspired. It's vital to understand this relationship between Hitler and the German people. The present aim of the Allies seems to be to pry the two apart. I have become convinced that it can't be done. For better or worse, the Allies still have the choice of knuckling under to Hitler or beating the Germans. They had the same choice in 1936, when beating the Germans would have been a cinch. Nothing has changed, except that the Germans may now be invincible. The glimpse of cross-purposes at the top may have showed a weakness of the Nazi structure, but if so it's all internal politics, it has nothing to do with Hitler's hold on the Germans. That includes Goering and Ribbentrop. When he entered the room they stood and cringed. If Hitler were the hal&crazy, half-comical gangster we've been reading about, this war would be a pushover, because running a war takes brains, steadiness, strategic vision, and skill. Unfortunately for the Allies, he is a very able man. Rhoda hugged and kissed Pug when he told her about the weekend. He didn't mention Steller's part in what Fred Fearing called robbing the Jews. It wasn't precisely that; it was a sort of legalized expropriation, and damned unsavory, but that was life in Nazi Germany. There was no point in making Rhoda share his uneasy feelings, when one reason for accepting Steller's hospitality was to give her a good time. The chauffeur sent by Steller drove past the colonnaded entrance to Abendrub and dropped them at a back door, where a maid conducted them two flights up narrow servants' stairs. Pug wondered whether this was a calculated German insult. But the spacious, richly furnished bedroom and -sitting room looked out on a fine snowy vista of laKn, firs, winding river, and thatched outbuildings; two servants came to help them dress; and the mystery of the back stairs geared up when they went to dinner. The curving ipain staircase of Abendruh, two stories high, balustraded in red marble, had been entirely covered with a polished wooden slide. Guests in dinner clothes stood on the brink, the men laughing, the ladies giggling and shrieking-Down below other guests stood with the stellers, watching an elegantly dressed couple sliding down, the woman hysterical with laughter as her gireen silk dress pulled away from her gartered thighs. 'Oh my gawd, Pug, I'll DIEI" chortled Rhoda. "I can't possimly! I've practically NOMwGon undemeatbf y don't they wmm a girl!" But of course she made the slide, screaming with embarrassed delight, exposing her legs-which were very shapely-clear up to her lacy underwear. She arrived at the bottom scarlet-faced and convulsed, amid cheers and congratulations, to be welcomed by the hosts and introduced tofellow weekenders. It was a sure icebreaker, Victor Henry though if a trifle gross. The Germans certainly had the touch for these things, Next day when he woke he found a green leather hunting costume laid out for him, complete with feathered hat, belt, and dagger. The men were a varied crowd: Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht officers, other bankers, the president of an electrical works, a prominent actor. Pug was the only foreigner. The jolly group took him wamily into their horseplay and joking, and then into the serious business of the hunt. Pug liked duck-hunting, but killing deer had never appealed to him. General Armin von Roon was in the party, and Pug lagged behind with the hook-nosed general, who remarked that to see a deer shot made him feel ill. In this meeting Roon was more loquacious than before. The forest was dank and cold, and like the others he had been drinking schnapps. They talked first about the United States, where, as it.turned out, Roon had attended the Army War College. Then the general discussed the Polish campaign, and the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, which he surprisingly called a disaster, because of all the ground Stalin had gained without firing a shot. His grasp of the field operations was masterly. His estimate of Hitler, Victor Henry thought, was cold-blooded and honest. Roon scarcely veiled his contempt for the master race theories of the Nazis, or for the Party itself, but he was making out a strong case for Hitler as a German leader, when shots rang out and a nearby hullabaloo drew them to join the party, ringed around a small deer lying dead in blood-spattered snow. A ceremony ensued of horn-blowing and pushing a sprig of fir into the dead mouth over the bloody lolling tongue. Henry became separated from the general. That evening he looked for him before dinner, and was sorry to learn that Roon had been summoned back to Berlin. After dinner, a string quartet played Beethoven in a cream-and-gold French music room, and a fat-bosomed famous soprano sang Schubert songs. The guests listened with more attention than Pug could muster; some, during the lieder, had tears in their eyes. Rhoda felt in her element, for in washington she was a patroness of music. She sat beaming, whispering expert comments between numbers. Dancing followed, and one German after another danced with her. From the floor, she kept darting sparkling looks of gratitude at her husband, until Steller took him in tow to a library, where the actor and Dr. Knopfinann, the head of the electrical works, sat over brandy. As yet, on the weekend, Pug had not heard a word about the war. Conversation had stayed on personal chatter, business, or the arts. 'Ah, here is Captain Henry," said the actor in a rich -ringing voice. "What better authority do you want? Let's put it to him." A gray-moustached man with thick hair, he played emperors, generals, and older men in love with young women. Pug had seen his famous King Lear at the Schauspielhaus. His face just now was purple-red over his stiff collar and buckling starched shirt.
'It might embarrass him," Dr. Knopfmann said. "No war talk now. That's out," said Steller. "This weekend is for pleasure." "I don't mind," Pug said, accepting brandy and settling in a leather chair. "What's the question?" "I create illusions for a living," rumbled the actor, 'and I believe illusions should be confined to the stage. And I say it is an illusion to hope that the United States will ever allow England to go down." 'Oh, to hell with all that," said the banker. Dr. Knopfrnann, a twinkling-eyed, round-faced man like the captain of the Bremen, but much shorter and fatter, said, 'And I maintain that it isn't 1917. The Americans pulled England's chestnuts out of the fire once, and what did they get for it? A bellyful of ingratitude and repudiation. The Americans will accept the fait accompli. They are realists. Once Europe is normalized, we can have a hundred years of a firm Atlantic peace." 'IMat do you say, Captain Henry?" the actor asked. "The problem may never come up. You still have to lick England." None of the three men looked very pleased. The actor said, "Oh, I think we can assume that's in the cards-providing the Americans don't step in. That's the whole argument." Steller said, "Your President doesn't try to hide his British sympathies, Victor, does he? Quite natural, in view of his Anglo-Dutch ancestry. But wouldn't you say the people are against him, or at least sharply split?" "Yes, but America is a strange country, Dr. Steller. Public opinion can shift fast. Nobody should forget that, in dealing with us." The eyes of the Germans flickered at each other. Dr. Knopfmann said, "A shift in public opinion doesn't just happen. It's manufactured." "There's the live nerve," Steller said. "And that's what I've found difficult to convey even to the air marshal, who's usually so hardheaded. Germans who haven't been across the water are impossibly provincial about America. I'm sorry to say this goes for the Fuhrer himself. I don't believe he yet truly grasps the vast power of the American Jews. It's a vital factor in the war picture." "Don't exaggerate that factor," Henry said. "You fellows tend to, and it's a form of kidding yourselves." "My dear Victor, I've been in the United States nine times and I lived for a year in San Francisco. Who's your Minister of the Treasury? The Jew Morgenthau. Who sits on your highest court, wielding the most influence? The Jew Frankfurter."He proceeded to reel off a list of Jewish officials in Washington, stale and boring to Pug from endless repetition in Nazi propaganda; and he made the usual assertion that the Jews had American finance, communications, justice, and even the Presidency in their pockets. Steller delivered all this calmly and pleasantly. He kept repeating 'Der jude, tier jude' without a sneer. There was no glare in his eye, such as Pug had now and then observed when Rhoda challenged some vocal anti-Semite. The banker presented his statements as though they were the day's stock market report. "To begin with," Pug replied, a bit wearily, "the Treasury post in our country has little power. It's a minor political reward. Christians hold all the other cabinet posts. Financial power lies with the banks, the insurance companies, the oil, rail, lumber, shipping, steel, and auto industries, and such. They're wholly in Christian hands. Always have been." "Lehman is a banker," said Dr. Knopfmann. "Yes, he is. The famous exception." Pug went on with his stock answers to stock anti-Semitism: the all but solid Christian ownership of newspapers, magazines, and publishing houses, the Christian composition of Congress, the cabinet, and the executive branch, the eight Christian judges out of rune on the Supreme Court, the paramount White House influence of a Christian, Harry Hopkins, and all the rest. On the faces of his hearers appeared the curious universal smirk of Germans when discussing Jews: condescending, facetious, and cold, with superior awareness of a very private inside joke. Steller said in a kindly tone, "That's always the Jewish line, you know, how unimportant they are." 'Would you recommend that we take away what businesses they do have? Make Obiekte of them?" Steller looked surprised and laughed, not in the least offended. "You're better informed than many Americans, Victor. It would be an excellent idea for the health of your economy. You'll come to it sooner or later." "Is it your position," the actor said earnestly, "that the Jewish question really has no bearing on America's entry into the war?" 'I didn't say that. Americans do react sharply to injustice and suffering." The smirk reappeared on the three faces, and Knopfmann said, "And your Negroes in the South?" Pug paused, "It's bad, but it's improving, and we don't put them behind barbed wire." The actor said in a lowered voice, "That's a political penalty. A Jew who behaves himself doesn't go to a camp." lighting a large cigar, his eyes on the match, Steller said, "Victor speaks very diplomatically.
But his connections are okay. One man who's really in the picture is Congressman Ike Lacouture of Florida. He fought a great battle against revising the Neutrality Act." With a sly glance at Pug, he added, "Practically in the family, isn't he?" This caught Pug off guard, but he said calmly, "You're pretty well informed. That's not exactly public knowledge." Steller laughed. "The air minister knew about it. He told me. He admires Lacouture. What happened to the dance music? Ach, look at the time. How did it get to be half past one? There's a little supper on, gentlemen, nothing elaborate-" He rose, puffing on the cigar. 'The American Jews will make the greatest possible mistake, Victor, to drag in the United States. Lacouture is their friend, if they'll only listen to him. You know what the Fuhrer said in his January speech-if they start another world war, that will be the end of them. He was in deadly earnest, I assure you." Aware that he was butting a stone wall, but unable to let these things pass, Pug said, 'Peace or war isn't up to the Jews. And you grossly misunderstand Lacouture." "Do I? But my dear Captain, what do you call the British guarantee to Poland? Politically and strategically it was frivolous, if not insane. All it did was bring in two big powers against Germany on the trivial issue of Danzig, which was what the Jews wanted. Churchill is a notorious Zionist. All this was clearly stated between the lines in Lacouture's last speech. I tell you, men like him may still manage to restore the peace and incidentally to save the Jews from a very bad fate they seem determined to bring on themselves. Well-how about an omelette and a glass of champagne?" On Christmas Eve, Victor Henry left the embassy early to walk home. The weather was threatening, but he wanted air and exercise. Berlin was having a lugubrious Yuletide. The scrawny newspapers had no good war news, and the Russian attack on Finland was bringing little joy to Germans. The shop windows offered colorful cornucopias of appliances, clothing, toys, wines, and food, but people burned sullenly along the cold windy streets under dark skies, hardly glancing at the mocking displays. None of the stuff was actually for sale. As Pug walked, evening fell and the blackout began. Hearing muffled Christmas songs from behind curtained windows, he could picture the Berliners sitting in dimly fit apartments in their overcoats around tinsel-draped fir trees, trying to make merry on watery beer, potatoes, and salt mackerel. At Abendruh, the Henrys had almost forgotten that there was a war on, if a dominant one, and that serious shortages existed. For Wolf Steller there were no shortages. Yielding to Rhoda's urging, he had accepted an invitation to come back to Abendruh in January, though he had not enjoyed himself there. More and more, especially since his glimpse of the National Socialist leaders at Karinhall, hethought of the Germans as people he would one day have to fight. He felt hypocritical putting on the good fellow with them. But intelligence opportunities did exist at Steller's estate. Pug had sent home a five-page account just of his talk with General von Roon. By pretending he agreed at heart with Ike Lacouture-something Steller already believed, bel-ause he wanted to-he could increase those opportunities. It meant being a liar, expressing ideas he thought pernicious, and abusing a man's hospitality-a hell of a way to serve one's country! But if Steller was trying games with the American naval attache, he had to take the risks. Victor Henry was mulling over all this as he strode along, muffled to his eyes against a sleety rain that was starting to fall, when out of the darkness a stooped figure approached and touched his arm. 'Captain Henry?" "Who are you?" "Rosenthal. You are living in my house." They were near a corner, and in the glow of the blue streetlight Pug saw that the Jew had lost a lot of weight; the skin of his face hung in folds, and his nose seemed far more prominent. He was stooped over, and his confident bearing had given way to a whipped and sickly look. It was a shocking change. Holding out his hand, Pug said, "Oh, yes. Hello." "Forgive me. My wife and I are going to be sent to Poland soon. Or at least we have heard such a rumor and we want to prepare, in case it's true. We can't take our things, and we were just wondering whether there are any articles in our home you and Mrs. Henry would care to buy. You could have anything you wished, and I could make you a very reasonable price." Pug had also heard vague stories of the "resettlement" of the Berlin Jews, a wholesale shipping-off to newly formed Polish ghettos, where conditions were, according to the reports you chose to believe, either moderately bad or fantastically horrible. It was disturbing to talk to a man actually menaced with this dark misty fate. "You have a factory here," he said. "Can't your people keep an eye on your property until conditions get better?" "The fact is I've sold my firm, so there's nobody." Rosenthal held up the frayed lapels of his coat against the cutting sleet and wind. "Did you sell out to the Steller bank?" The Jew's face showed astonishment and timorous suspicion. "You know about these matters? Yes, the Steller bank. I received a very fair price. Very fair." The Jew permitted himself a single ironic glance into Henry's eyes. "But the proceeds were tied up to settle other matters. My wife and I will be more comfortable in Poland with a little ready money. it always helps. So-perhaps the carpets-the plate, or some china?" "Come along and k it ov m taler with my wife. She makes all those decisions. Maybe you can have dinner with us."Rosenthal sadly smiled. 'I don't think SO, but you're very kind." Pug nodded, remembering his Gestapo-planted servants. "Herr Rosenthal, I have to repeat to you what I said when we rented your place. I don't want to take advantage of your misfortune." 'Captain Henry, you can't possibly do me and my wife a greater kindness. I hope you will buy something." Rosenthal put a card in his hand and melted into the blackout. When Pug got home Rhoda was dressing for the charge's dinner, so there was no chance to talk about the offer. The embassys Christmas party had none of the opulence of an Abendruh banquet, but it was good enough. Nearly all the Americans left in Berlin were there, chatting over eggnogs and then assembling at three long tables for a meal of roast goose, pumpkin pie, fruit, cheese, and cakes, all from Denmark. Diplomatic import privileges made this possible, and the guests grew merry over the unaccustomed abundance. Victor Henry loved being back among American faces, American talk, offhand open manners, laughter from the diaphragm and not from the face muscles; not a bow or a clicked pair of heels, not a woman's European smile, gleaming on and off like an electric sign. But trouble broke out with Rhoda. He heard her raising her voice at Fred Fearing, who was sucking his corncob pipe and glaring at her far down the table. Pug called, "Hey, what's it about, Fred?" 'The Wolf Stellers, Pug, the loveliest people your Wife has ever met." 'I said the nicest Germans," Rhoda shrilled, "and it's quite true. You're blindly prejudiced." "It's time you went home, Rhoda," Fearing said. 'And just what does that mean?" she snapped back, still much too loud. At Abendruh Rhoda had loosened up on her count of drinks, and tonight she app ar fuer ong than usual. Her gestures were e ed to berth al getting broad, she was holding her eyes half-closed, and her voice tones were going up into her nose. "Well, kid, if you think people like Wolf Steller and his wife are nice, You'll believe next that Hitler just wants to reunite the German folk peacelily. About that time you need to go back for a while on American chow and the New York Times." 'I just know that Germans are not monsters with horns and tails," said Rhoda, "but ordinary people, however misgidded. Or did one of your frauleins show up in bed with cloven hoofs, dear?" The crude jibe caused a silence. Fearing was an ugly fellow, tall, long-faced, curly-beaded, with a narrow foxy nose; upright, idealistic, full of rigid liberal ideas, and severe on injustice and political hypocrisy.
But he had his human side. He had seduced the wife of his collaborator on a best seller about the Spanish Civil War. This lady he had recently parked in England with an infant daughter, and he was now-so the talk ran-making passes at every available German woman, and even some American wives. Rhoda had once half-seriously told Pug that she had had trouble with Freddy on the dance floor. All the same, Fred Fearing was a famous, able reporter. Because he detested the Nazis, he tried hard to be fair to them, and the propaganda ministry understood this. Most Americans got their picture of Nazi Germany at war from Fearinles broadcasts. Victor Henry said, as amiably as he could, to break the silence, "It might be easier to navigate in this country, Rhoda, if the bad ones would sprout horns or grow hair in their palms or something." nWhat Wolf Steller has in his palms is blood, lots of it," Fearing said, with a swift whiskeyed-up pugnacity, 'He acts unaware of it. You and Rhoda encourage this slight color blindness, Pug, by acting the same way." it's Pug's job to socialize with people like Steller," said the charge mildly, from the head of the table. "I propose a moratorium tonight on discussing the Germans." Colonel Forrest was rubbing his broken nose, a mannerism that signalled an itch to argue, though his moon face remained placid. He put in, nasally, 'Say, Freddy, I happen to think Hitler just wants to reorganize central Europe as a German sphere, peacefully if he can, and that he'll call off the war if the Allies will agree. Think I should go home, too?" Fearing en-dtted a column of blue smoke and red sparks from his pipe. "What about Mein Kampf, Bill?" 'Campaign document of a thirty-year-old hothead," snapped the military attache, "written eighteen years ago in jail. Now he's the head of state. He's never moved beyond his strength. Mein Kampf's all about tearing off the southern half of Russia and making a German breadbasket of it. That's an old Vienna coffeehouse fantasy. It went out of the window once and for all with the pact. The Jewish business is bad, but the man's doing his job with the crude tools at hand. That unfortunately includes anti-Semitism. He didn't invent it. It was big on the German scene before he was born." "Yes, time for you to go home," said Fearing, gulping Moselle. "Well, what's your version?" Now plainly irritated, the military attache put on an imitation of the broadcaster's voice. "Adolf Hitler the mad house painter is out to conquer the world?" "Oh, hell, Hitler's revolution doesn't know where it's going, Bill, any more than the French or Russian revolutions did," exclaimed Fearing, with an exasperated wave of his corncob-"it's just raging along the way those did and it'll keep going and spreading till it's stopped. Sure he moves peacefully where he can. Why not? Everywhere he's pushed in there have been welcoming groups of leading citizens, or traitors, you might say. In Poland they swarmed, Why, You know that France and England have parties ready right this second to cooperate with him. He just has to strike hard enough in the west to knock out the ins and bring in the outs. He's already got Stalin cravenly feeding him al ssi ii I the Ru an o and wheat he needs, in return for the few bones he threw him in the Baltic." With swinging theatrical gestures of the smoking pipe, Fearing went on, "By 1942, the way things are going, you may see a world in which Germany will control the industries of Europe,the raw materials of the Soviet union, and the navies of England and France. Why, the French fleet would go over to him tomorrow if the right admiral sneezed. He'll have a working deal with the japs for exploiting Asia and the East Indies and ruling the Pacific and Indian oceans. Then what? Not to mention the network of dictatorships in South America, already in the Nazis' pocket. YOu know, of course, Bill, that the United States Army is now two hundred thousand strong, and that Congress intends to cut it." "Well, I'm against that, of course," said Colonel Forrest. 'I daresay! A new bloody dark age is threatening to engulf the whole world and COngress wants to cut down the Arinyl" 'An interesting vision," smiled the charge. "Slightly melodramatic." Rhoda Henry raised her wineglass, giggling noisily. "Lawks a mercy me! I never heard such wild-eyed poppycock. Freddy, you're the one who should go home. Merry Christmas.Fred Fearinies face reddened. He looked up and down the table. "Pug Henry, I like you. I guess I'll go for a walk." As the broadcaster strode away from the table, the charge rose and hurried after him, but did not bring him back. The Henrys went home early. Pug had to hold up Rhoda as they left, because she was halfasleep, and unsteady at the knees. The next pouch of Navy mail contained an Alnav listing changes of duty for most of the new captains. They were becoming execs of battleships, commanding officers of cruisers, chiefs of staff to admirals at sea. For Victor Henry there were no orders. He stared out of the window at Hitler's chancellery, at the black-clad SS men letting snow pile on their helmets and shoulders like statues. Suddenly, he had had enough. He told his yeoman not to disturb him, and wrote three letters. The first expressed regret to the Stellers that, due to unforeseen official problems, he and Rhoda would not be coming back to Abendruh. The second, two formal paragraphs to the Bureau of Personnel, requested transfer to sea duty. In the third, a long handwritten letter to Vice-Admiral Preble, Pug poured out his disgust with his assignment and his desire to go back to sea. He ended up: I've ed twenty-five years for combat at sea. I'm miserable, Admiral, and maybe for that reason my wife is miserable. She's falling apart here in Berlin. it's a nightmarish place. This isn't the Navy's concern, but it's mine. If I have been of any service to the Navy in my entire career, the only recompense I naw ask, and beg, is a transfer to sea duty. A few days later another White House envelope came with a scrawl in black, thick, slanting pendl. The postmark showed that it had crossed his letter.
PugYour report is really grand, and gives me a helpful picture. Hitler is at rybody's reaction is a little different. I'm destrange one, isn t he? Eve lighted that you are where you are, and I have told C.N.O that. He says you want to return briefly in May for a wedding- That will be arranged sure to drop in on me when you can spare a moment. FDR Victor Henry bought two of Rosenthal's C)riental carpets, and a set of English china that Rhoda particularly loved, at the prices the man named. His main motive was to cheer her up, and it worked; she gloated over the bargains for weeks, and never tired of saying, truly enough, that the poor Jewish man's thankfulness to her had been overwhelming. Pug also wrote the Stellers about this time that, if e invitation held, he and Rhoda would come back to Abendruh after all. If his job was intelligence, he adedded, he had better get on with it; moreover, the moral gap between him and Steller seemed to have narrowed. Notwithstanding Rosenthal's pathetic gratitude for the deal, his possessions were Obiekte. New Year's Eve Midnight Briny dearI can't think of a better way to start 1940 than by writing to you. I'm home, typing away in my old bedroom, which seems one-tend, as large as I remembered it. The whole house seems so cramped and cluttered, and God, how that sen,ll of insecticide wipes away the years. Oh, my love, what a Marvelous place the United States is! I had forgotten, completely forgotten. When I reached New York, my father was already out of the hospital -I learned this by phoning home-so I blew two hundred of my hundred dollars on a 1934 Dodge upend ve to 0 da I y dmiedn. tViYaes,WIaswhainntgton. I wan co I tiro Fl ri i really oo- More of that later, but let me assure ed to see Sltoetde tto see the Capitol dome and the you that he got little comfort out of the meeting. But so help me, Briny, I mainly wanted to get the feel of the country again. Well, in dead of winter, in lousy weather, and despite the tragic Negro shantytowns that line the ds down South, t roa he Atlantic states are beautiful, spacious, raw, clean, full of wilderness still, exploding with energy and life. I loved every billboard, every filling station. it's really the New World Old World's might Th pretty in its rococo fashion, but it's rotten-ripe and going insane. Ilank God I'm out of it. Take Miami Beach. ive always loathed this place, y It's a measure of my present frame of mind that I regard evenou know. Miami Beach with affection. I left here a raging anti-Semite. It jars me even now to see these sleek Jews without a care in the world, ambling about in their heavy wearing furs, or pearls and tans and outlandish sun clothes-often diamonds, my dear with pink or orange shirts and shorts. The Miami Beachers don't believe in hiding what they've got. I think of Warsaw, and I getangry, but it passes. They're no different, in their obliviousness to the war, from the rest of the Americans. much The doctors say my father's coming along fine after a heart attack that all but did him in. don't like his fragile look, and he doesn't do but sit in the sun in the garden and listen to the news o, the radio. He's terribly worried about Uncle Aaron. He never used to speak much of him (actually he used to avoid the subject) but now he goes on and on about Aaron. My father is terrified of Hitler. He thinks he's a sort of devil who's going to conquer the world and murder all the Jews. But I guess you're waiting to hear about my little chat with Leslie Slote-eh, darling? Well-he was definitely not expecting the answer I brought back to his proposal! When I told him I'd fallen head over ears in love with you, it literally staggered him. I mean he tottered to a chair and fell in it, pale as a ghost. Poor old Slote! A conversation ensued that went on for hours, in a bar, in a restaurant, in my car, in half a dozen circuits on foot around the Lincoln Memorial in a freezing wind, and finally in his apartment. Lord, did he carry on! But after all, I had to give him his say. The main heads of the dialogue went something like this, round and round and round: Slote: It's just that you were isolated with him for so long. Me: I told Briny that myself. I said it's a triumph of propinquity. That doesn't change the fact that I love him now. Slote: You can't intend to marry him. It would be the greatest possible mistake. I say this as a friend, and somebody who knows you better than anyone else. Me: I told Byron that too. I said it would be ridiculous for me to marry him, and gave him all the reasons. Slote: Well, then, what on earth have you in mind? Me: I'm just reporting a fact to you. I haven't anything in mind. Slote: You had better snap out of it. You're an intellectual and a grown woman. Byron Henry is a pleasant light-headed loafer, who managed to avoid getting an education even in a school like Columbia. There can't be anything substantial between you. ME: I don't want to hurt you, dear, but-(this is the way I walked on eggs for a long while, but in the end I came flat out with it) the thing between Byron Henry and me is damned substantial. In fact by comparison, just now, nothing else seems very substantial. (SloteVlunged in horrid gloom.) Slote (he only asked this once): Have you slept with him? ME: None of your business. (Jastrow not giving Slote any cards to play she can help. Slote sunk even deeper in g.) SLo-rE: Well, 'la coeur a ses raisons," and all that, but I truly don't understand. He's a boy. He's very good-looking, or rather, charming-looking, and he is certainly courageous. Perhaps That's assumed an outsize importance for you. ME (ducking that sore , who needs trouble?): He has other nice qualities. He's a gentleman. I never knew the animal really existed outside of books any more. Slote: I'm not a gentleman, then? ME: I'm not saying you're a boot or a cad. I mean a gentleman in the old sense, not somebody who avoids bad manners. SLOTIR: You're talking like a shopgirl. You're obviously rationalizing a temporary physical infatuation. 'That's all right. But the words you're choosing are corny and embarrassing. Me: All that may be. Meantime I can't marry you. (Yawn) And I must go to sleep now. I want to drive four hundred miles tomorrow. ( xit Jastrow, at long last.) E All things considered, he took it well. He calmly says we're getting married once I'm over this nuttiness, and he's going ahead with his plans for it. He's remarkably sure of himself, to that extent he remains very much the old Slote. Physically he's like a stranger now. I never kissed him, and though we spent an hour in his apartment, very late, he never laid a hand on me. I wonder if the talk about gentlemen had anything to do with it? He never used to be like that, I assure you. (I daresay I've changed............