"I do not want to seem rebellious," I stammered, "but I wish to be relieved of this duty."
"Very well," said Zimmern, "you may be relieved. If you have no objection I will sign the recommendation as it stands."
Surely, I thought, this man does not seem very bitter toward my traitorous instincts.
Zimmern smiled and eyed me curiously. "You know," he said, "that to possess a thought and to speak of it indiscreetly are two different things."
"Certainly," I replied, emboldened by his words. "A man cannot do original work in science if he possesses a mind that never thinks contrary to the established order of things."
The clerks in the outer office must have thought my case a grievous one for I was closeted with their chief for nearly an hour. Though our conversation was vague and guarded, I knew that I had discovered in Dr. Ludwig Zimmern, Chief of the Eugenic Staff, a man guilty himself of the very crime of possessing rebellious instincts for which he had decided me unfit to sire German children. And when I finally took my leave I carried with me his private card and an invitation to call at his apartment to continue our conversation.
~7~
In the weeks that followed, my acquaintance with the Chief of the Eugenic Staff ripened rapidly into a warm friendship. The frank manner in which he revealed his dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in Germany pleased me greatly. Zimmern was interested in my chemical researches and quickly comprehended their importance.
"I know so little of chemistry," he deplored, "yet on it our whole life hangs. That is why I am so glad of an opportunity to talk to you. I do not approve of so much ignorance of each other's work on the part of our scientists. Our old university system was better. Then a scientist in any field knew something of the science in all fields. But now we are specialized from childhood. Take, for example, yourself. You are at work on a great problem by which all of our labour stands to be undone if you chemists do not solve it, and yet you do not understand how we will all be undone. I think you should know more of what it means, then you will work better. Is it not so?"
"Perhaps," I said, "but I have little time. I am working too hard now."