Nothing So Strange by James Hilton
“You once said the aim of science was to save the world. You can’t do that if you don’t know what to save it from.”
“From politics, maybe—or from itself.” He laughed, then looked embarrassed. “Did I really say that about saving the world?”
“You did. One night at the Hampstead house when Julian Spee came in after dinner.”
“‘M, I remember. No wonder he asked me if I wouldn’t feel better in a pulpit than a laboratory. But even he didn’t go so far as to suggest a political career…. By the way, what happened to Julian?”
“He’s still doing quite well … but I’d rather talk about what’s happened to you. So you don’t think any more that science could save the world?”
“I don’t know what you mean exactly.”
“Whatever you meant that night.”
“Probably I was thinking of mere technics.”
“What’s that?”
“Oh … crop management, reforestation, sanitation, health and welfare … that sort of thing.”
“Nothing very mere about it.”
“True—and I expect there are a hundred men in the world today— most of them names one hasn’t heard of—who could blueprint a paradise on earth and organize it into existence … provided everyone else would take orders from them for a few generations. But what chance is there of that?”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
“It would be, until the politicians got hold of it. Then you’d see some changes made. Where would they be without the vested interests that make and duplicate their own jobs?”
“So you’d require science to stage a world-wide revolution as a first step?”
“That’s a big order too. There’s supposed to be a science of revolution, but I never heard of any scientist who was interested in it—only the politicians, for their own ends. Where are we, then, after all this argument? We agree that the world needs saving, and that’s as far as we get.”
“We also agree that the world could save itself by letting scientists save it if they would save it.”
“Maybe the world doesn’t want to save itself. It often behaves as if it didn’t. Anyhow, until it makes up its mind, science has enough to do to follow its own natural aim—which is to discover truth simply because it is truth.”
“Curiosity, Julian called it.”
“Yes—to an outsider it might look like that.”
“And I love that word ‘outsider.’ It fits in perfectly with the ivory tower.”
“If you knew us better you wouldn’t think so badly of us.”
“You put yourselves on a pedestal.”
“If we do, it only makes us a better target. The politicians all hate us. They’re also a bit afraid of what we might do someday—so they label as well as libel us whenever they can. Bolshevik science, Germanic science, Jewish science- -you hear plenty of that sort of nonsense nowadays in Vienna.”
“Tell me about your work.”
“You mean my own work—at Framm’s laboratory?”
“Yes. Or is it private?”
“Of course not—nothing’s private. But I think you’d find it a bit dull if I went into details. To put it vaguely, we’re trying to find what the world’s really made of—what makes it go….”
“And where it’s going?”
“Yes, that’s all included.”
“I suppose it’s silly to ask if you’ve had any luck yet.”
He smiled. “We’ve got a few ideas, but they can’t be expressed outside the language of mathematics.”
“I see. Not much good to the man in the street.”
“None at all. I know that sounds superior, but I can’t help it. From an everyday standpoint it certainly isn’t of any immediate practical importance.”
“You say ‘we.’ Do you mean yourself and Framm?”
“Well no, that would be flattering myself—yet. I should have said they—meaning a few investigators scattered about the world who don’t think a century or so’s too far to look ahead. They keep in touch. They exchange results through articles in scientific journals. They don’t bother about frontiers or nationalities. Even wars don’t interrupt them. During the last war, for instance, Einstein put out his general theory, and certain proofs of it required astronomical observations that could only be made on a certain date from a certain place in the Atlantic Ocean. British scientists wanted to make these observations, and I’ve been told that the German Navy was contacted and agreed not to torpedo the ship. As it happened, the war was over before the specified date, but the idea of pure science as something above and beyond ordinary affairs had survived a pretty good test…. Of course the whole thing had to be kept dark. Neither the British nor the German public in wartime could have endured the thought of anything international quietly going about its business as if all the nonsense weren’t happening.”
“Do you and Framm work together?”
“We have our separate angles of research, but they overlap somewhat the further one gets.”
“And your own angle … is it coming along well?”
His voice became slightly excited. “Yes, I’d say it is. That’s why I’ve been working my head off lately. I’m beginning to feel I’m nearsomething…. Remember that letter I once wrote you? Well, it’s like that again, only the whole thing’s bigger. Perhaps soon I’ll be ready to publish something. Of course it won’t make any headlines.”
“I’m sure it will make one person very happy.”
“Who—me?”
“Actually it was Pauli I was thinking of.”
“Oh, sure—and she’ll deserve it after the way I’ve been neglecting her lately. We could take a holiday somewhere—go on a real spree. You might not think it, but she can be very gay at times.”
“Thanks for telling me she’s human.”
“And I’m not—is that what you mean?”
“No, I think you’re very human, but you sometimes don’t like people to know it…. Why didn’t you write to me about your marriage?”
He thought a moment, then said: “I’m wondering why myself. Maybe it was because of a talk your mother and I once had—that time she came to tea at my lab. I was so emphatic in saying I’d never marry, so I suppose I thought it would make me out a fool when I did … though she’s probably forgotten the whole thing long ago…. Where is she, by the way?”
“In New York.”
“She doesn’t come to England for the summers any more?”
“She didn’t last year and she probably won’t this year.”
“What’s happened to the house at Hampstead?”
“The painter died and the place was sold. My father didn’t know till too late, or he’d have bought it.”
“Is he in New York too?”
“I think he’s in Paris at present. We don’t keep exact track of each other’s movements.”
We walked on, through the park to the boulevards. One could feel the rise of tension like a physical change in the atmosphere, and on the tram there was some sort of row in progress that we couldn’t exactly diagnose—at one moment it sounded political, then it turned domestic and seemed to be concerned with the rival relationships of two women and a man. It went on, intermittently, till we got out, by which time it was political again; and I suppose many rows were like that, personal animosities fanned by and fanning a rising flame.
Pauli had finished typing when we reached the apartment. Brad seemed anxious to go over what she had done; he gathered up the script and went into the bedroom to be alone. Pauli then made coffee and talked. She was genuinely pleased that I had been able to persuade Brad to take even a few hours’ recreation, and I felt she had at last decided I was really a friend and to be trusted. We discussed the crowds in the park and the incident on the tram. Till then I had assumed, doubtless because she was always urging me to be “careful,” that she was nothing but that herself—and especially careful to avoid taking sides. I did not blame her, though I had made no secret of my own feelings.
“I’m glad you think I have, but really, I was always able to keep a secret—even in America.”
“In America surely there can be no secrets like ours.”
“Not quite like yours. But we have our own.”
“At least there can be no work for the agent provocateur.” She looked all at once conspiratorial, with a darting glance to the doorway as if to confirm that the handle wasn’t being slowly turned; and I reflected then, as I have often done, how in moments of complete sincerity yet of rather unusual tension, so many people adopt the attitudes and gestures they have seen on the stage. The phrase agent provocateur seemed to have touched off a series of them; presently she became once more her normal undemonstrative self. “We live in peculiar times,” she said, with apologetic triteness.
“Yes, indeed.”
“How is your study of the situation progressing?”
“It’s not exactly a study. I’m just looking round and sizing things up.”
“And writing articles for American newspapers?”
“Yes, a few. They don’t always take them.”
“I read one. I thought it very good.”
This startled me because she couldn’t possibly have seen any in print; she added, perhaps interpreting my look: “It was one evening we dined at your hotel and I went up to your room afterwards. There was a piece of typing in your machine and I could not help seeing it was an article for a newspaper.”
True, and I could imagine myself doing the same thing in somebody else’s room, only I doubt if I would have admitted it afterwards. Perhaps this also she read in my face, for she went on: “I wanted to tell you…. I wanted to tell you how much I liked it … and also to warn you not to leave things like that where anyone going into your room can read them…. But I did not know you well enough then.”
“Well, you do now, thank goodness—and as for leaving papers about, I’m careful not to do it any more.”
“You are wise. Though of course it will be known what you have written. The Nazis soon learn who their friends are.”
“But we don’t always learn who the Nazis are.”
She gave me a shrewd glance. “I think you understand things very well. It is a state of mind, to begin with. Even in the educational and scientific world you meet with it.” She waited a moment, then said: “Professor Framm, for instance.”
“Oh? Is he one of them? Secretly, I suppose?”
“I think today he does not mind so much if people suspect it.”
“Does Brad know?”
“Of course. But he says they never discuss politics.”
“So they get along?”
“I would not say they are friends. But doubtless they respect each other— as scientists.”
“I’m not sure that would be enough for me. Or for you either.”
“That is so…. And I am worried about the position Mark is in. It becomes more difficult every day. There have already been riots in the university. The students are divided, so are the professors. It is a grave problem.”
“What do you think he should do?”
“That is hard to say. I am so much against the Nazis myself—I have reasons that Mark does not have. If there were some other job, in another country … but that, I know, is not easy to find.”
“You worked for Framm yourself, didn’t you?”
“Formerly.” I waited for her to say more, and presently it came in a little rush of words through tightened lips. “He does not like me. He showed that when Mark and I were married.”
“Oh?”
“We had been hoping I might keep the job, so that with the two salaries there might have been more comfort.”
“I see.”
Though sympathetic, I could not help discounting a little after this confession, with its mixture of frankness and inconsistency, and its reminder of what I had seen on the tram—the personal and the political intermixed, each one inflaming the other. She added, clinchingly: “Well, it is good that you should know all this, then I do not have to mention him again.”
The more I saw of Pauli the more I liked her, though the more she told me about herself the less I felt she gave me her complete confidence. It was a curious progress into intimacy—she letting me see into her life a little, I realizing with each new view how much more there was than I had previously suspected.
* * * * *
The following week I went to Prague. It was the first time I had been in Czechoslovakia, and after Austria it was a nerve tonic. The Czechs were prosperous and cheerful; Hider was unpopular among them, but it was still possible to believe in the Czech Army and the Czech Maginot Line and to have confidence in the future. Events, however, provided a fascinating though ominous drama across the border, for at such a distance the Austrian dilemma was in sharpest focus—less huge and blurred than in Vienna itself, yet arresting and of spectacular importance. There could not have been a better grandstand for an objective view of the European crisis, and as I was staying at the house of politically-minded people the days passed in a flurry of discussion, newspaper snatching, and radio dialing. Something would happen soon; rumors started that the Luftwaffe was already poised at Munich, waiting for the word; some said that if Austria resisted she would have the support of both France and Italy. I wrote a few articles for American papers, and for the first time in my life an editor cabled his acceptance and asked for more.
One afternoon, at a pavement cafe, I picked up a paper that someone had left on the table. Every journalist has a technical interest in newspapers, even in a language he doesn’t read; he likes to see the format, to judge how modern or antiquated the plant must be, and so on. My own Czech was limited to a few phrases; I could just make out the general sense of the headlines, which told of nothing particularly new that day. But on an inside page I caught a word that leapt to the eye as if it had been printed in red ink—the word Framm, embedded in a half-column of small type date-lined Berlin. I could not make anything else of it, so I took the paper to my friends and had them translate. Even for them it was not easy, for it appeared to be the report of a lecture delivered by Framm to some scientific group in Berlin—highly abstruse, but apparently of news value. Framm, I gathered, had done something to correlate a theory of electromagnetism with some other theory—an achievement which his Berlin audience had received with all the greater acclaim because of its Viennese origin. It demonstrated, one was asked to believe, the essential and triumphant unity of pan-Germanic science.
My friends were cynical enough to suggest that Framm was giving himself a sweet piece of publicity. They were unqualified to assess the value of his discovery, but of its timeliness there could be no doubt; for if Hitler should take over Austria there would be scientific plums as well as other kinds to be distributed among the faithful. My Czech friends, like Pauli and Julian, were clearly of the opinion that scientists did not live for science alone.
That evening I had a wire from Pauli. It asked me to return to Vienna, if I could possibly manage it, and she would meet me at the station. I felt a sudden aversion to mysteries, suspense, speculation of all kinds, so I wired back “Will come if necessary but what is wrong? Is anyone ill?”—which may not have been too courteous, but expressed some of the irritation I felt. I didn’t want to leave Prague; I only realized then how refreshing it was as an antidote. Back after a few hours came the answer: “No illness but please come it is very important.” So I left the next day, fully prepared for a small tiff with her if the reason for summoning me were not adequate. I couldn’t think of anything but illness that would b
* * * * *
She was a little distraught when we met. She rushed up to me amongst the crowd leaving the train and dragged me aside to assure me that Brad wasn’t ill.
I said: “Of course not—you told me in your wire that nobody was ill.”
“But I thought you might think I had said that just to reassure you.”
That was too subtle for me. I said: “No, I believed you. Illness isn’t a thing to fool people about—one way or the other.”
She said: “I am sorry. You are yourself so direct. It is much worse than his being ill, anyhow. Unless he were seriously ill.”
“Just tell me what’s the matter.” I took her arm as we crossed the concourse; she did not make for the cab rank, but turned into a small restaurant. It was fairly empty and there was a table in an alcove that offered privacy. I ordered coffee, and put my hand across the table as I had done once before to touch hers. It was cold but quite steady; the distraughtness was in her eyes. They roved over the restaurant as if apprehensive of who might be within seeing or hearing distance; then they searched the coffee cups for specks of dirt. She wiped them with a paper napkin before pouring. “I did not do this when we first met,” she said, “because I thought you would consider it not good manners. But it is a fact that they are not very careful in these places.”
I said: “Now, please, what is the matter?”
She watched the waiter back to his counter, then produced a folded newspaper from her handbag. It was a Vienna paper of the previous day; she passed it to me with her finger marking one of the pages. After a few seconds I could see that it was just the Framm news over again, in German instead of Czech and dressed up with a local personality angle.
I said: “Yes, I happened to see this in Prague.”
“There also?”
“Well, it’s news, I suppose. I don’t know how important it is, but Framm certainly seems to have done himself no harm by bringing it out just now.”