As I now record these thoughts on the true significance of the perfected civilization of the Germans I realize that I was even more right than I then knew, for the sunless city of Berlin is of a truth a civilization gone to seed, its people are a domesticated species, they are the logical outcome of science applied to human affairs, with them the prodigality and waste of Nature have been eliminated, they have stamped out contagious diseases of every kind, they have substituted for the laws of Nature the laws that man may pick by scientific theory and experiment from the multitude of possibilities. Yes, the Germans were civilized. And as I pondered these things I recalled those fairy tales that naturalists tell of the stagnant and fixed society of ants in their subterranean catacombs. These insect species credited for industry and intelligence, have in their lesser world reached a similar perfection of civilization. Ants have a royal house, they have a highly specialized and fixed system of caste, a completely socialized state--yes, a Utopia--even as Berlin was a Utopia, with the light of the sun and the light of the soul, the soul of the wild free man, forever shut out. Yes, I was walking in Utopia, a nightmare at the end of man's long dream--Utopia--Black Utopia--City of Endless Night--diabolically compounded of the three elements of civilization in which the Germans had always been supreme--imperialism, science and socialism.
CHAPTER IV
I GO PLEASURING ON THE LEVEL OF FREE WOMEN AND DRINK SYNTHETIC BEER
~1~
I had returned from my adventure on the labour levels in a mood of sombre depression. Alone again in my apartment I found difficulty in getting my mind back upon chemical books. With a sense of relief I reported to Holknecht that I thought myself sufficiently recovered to return to work.
My laboratory I found to be almost as secluded as my living quarters. I was master there, and as a research worker I reported to no man until I had finished the problem assigned me. From my readings and from Holknecht's endless talking I had fairly well grasped the problem on which I was supposed to be working, and I now had Holknecht go carefully over the work he had done in my absence and we prepared a report. This I sent to headquarters with a request for permission to start work on another problem, the idea for which I claimed to have conceived on my visit to the attacked potash mines.
Permission to undertake the new problem was promptly granted. I now set to work to reproduce in a German laboratory the experiments by which I had originally conquered the German gas that had successfully defended those mines from the world for over a century. Though loath to make this revelation, I knew of no other "Discovery" wherewith to gain the stakes for which I was playing.
Events shaped themselves most rapidly along the lines of my best hopes. The new research proved a blanket behind which to hide my ignorance. We needed new material, new apparatus, and new data and I encouraged Holknecht to advise me as to where to obtain these things and so gained requisite working knowledge.
The experiments and demonstrations finished, I made my report. My immediate superior evidently quickly recognized it as a matter too important for his consideration and dutifully passed it up to his own superiors. In a few days I was notified to prepare for a demonstration before a committee of the Imperial Chemical Staff.