Boswell Read Free Page B

political movements—that was his specialty. Groundfloorism. A familiar figure in every important basement in Europe. He was in on everything. Oh boy, what wasn’t he in on! Communism, Fascism, the Fourteen Points.
    “Well, it was tragic. A very sweet man. He used to emphasize that it was life, life which was important, my kindness to you here, now, which counts; your politeness to me in this place at this moment which is all-important. He believed only in surfaces, Schmerler. Oh boy, was he deep! ‘Herlitz,’ he’d say, ’the most important thing is to live with yourself. We do terrible things. Remember, whatever you do in this world you’ve got to forgive it. You’ve got to remind yourself and remind yourself, it’s not your fault.’ Well, everybody took advantage. Moses had Pharaoh, Christ, Judas. Marx, of course, nobody liked. But Schmerler —it was painful to see it.
    “Heinmacher—it disgusts me even to say his name—and that other one, Perflidowitz. All right, everyone knew he was a gangster, when he betrayed, nobody could be surprised. And Reuss. Hmm, that such a father could have such a lovely boy! I did him in Berlin in the old days. He’s in monorails, the great monorail developer.”
    He waved his finger at me. He took his cane from the desk and touched my chest with it. “All right, now I have something to tell you. Listen. Wait.” He got up and went to the door and opened it. He looked for a moment up and down the corridor and then closed the door, locking it. He motioned for me to pull my chair closer to his. He was not satisfied until we were both sitting behind Fossier’s desk. Then he put his elbow on the desk, and carefully fitting his yellow head into his white cupped palm, he slid the elbow three or four inches forward along the smooth glass top. In this position he turned to me, looking not so much conspiratorial as despairing, his old, baggy skin upwardly taut, like a younger man’s.
    “I was the last man on the Continent to remain faithful to Schmerler. Did 1 remain faithful to him! He would have been the loneliest man in Europe if it weren’t for me. Sure. What did they care, Heinmacher and that gang?
    “Do you understand the wickedness, the elaborate trap? They helped him with the grand design. Well, grand. That was the irony, it wasn’t grand—just a very, minor experimental Slavic revolution, that’s all, just to keep his hand in. That whole part about the disposition of the Magyar royal family was Heinmacher’s idea. I never said Heinmacher wasn’t clever; of course he’s clever. Imagine. Making shotgun weddings between the royal family and its servants! It would have fouled the blood lines for generations! And then to fail to come forward like that when the gunboats were already in the harbor, not to have prepared the people, the underground press, not even to have told the leaders—Schmerler never suspected the conspiracy against him, the jealousy. To his dying day he thought that anybody who opposed him opposed him on principle. Principle! I’ll give them principle! What a scene. Terrible. They disclaimed everything, everything. He looked like a fool. I’ll never forget that laughter. All right. I admit it I was there. What could I do? As it was I did what I could. We stood there—together—outside the summer palace, waiting for the tanks.
    “I will tell you a lesson. Look for the power. The power is always responsible. Well, it was simple. Who had the power in 1923? Perflidowitz and Heinmacher and Reuss, of course. Their sellout was all that was needed to undermine Europe’s confidence in Schmerler. What, finally, do people know about things? These men were professionals. They wanted to ruin him. And I know for a fact that it was Perflidowitz himself who started that shameful name going around— ‘Basement Schmerler!’
    “I’ll tell you something. History is the record of great men’s jealousies. That’s all.
    “You see, don’t you, they had forgiven