The Last Ride of German Freddie Read Free Page A

stupid,.” he said. “I learned that in Germany, in 1870.”
    “Why so gloomy, boys?.” cried a woman's voice in a surprising New York accent. “Don't you know it's a party?.” Behan's girl leaned toward them, half-lying across the polished mahogany bar. She was younger than Freddie had expected—not yet twenty, he thought.
    Ringo brightened a little—he liked the ladies. “Have you met German Freddie, Josie?” he said. “Freddie here doesn't like elections”
    Josie laughed and waved her glass of champagne. “I don't know that we had a  real election,  Freddie,” she called. “Think of it as being more like a  great big felony.”
    Cowboy voices roared with laughter. Freddie found himself smiling behind his bushy mustache. Ringo, suddenly merry, grabbed Freddie's arm and hauled him toward Josie.
    “Freddie here used to be a Professor of Philosophy back in Germany,” Ringo said. “He was told to come West for his health.” Ringo looked at Freddie in a kind of amazement. “Can you picture that?”
    Freddie—who had come West to die—said merely, “Philology. Switzerland,.” and sipped his soda water.
    “You should have him tell you about how we're all Supermen,” Ringo said.
    Freddie stiffened. “You are  not   Supermen,” he said.
    “ You're   the Superman, then,” Ringo said, swaying. The drunken raillery smoothed the sad lines of his eyes.
    “I am the Superman's prophet,” Freddie said with careful dignity. “And the Superman will be among your children, I think—he will come from America.”
    “I suppose I'd better get busy and have some children, then, Ringo said.
    Josie watched this byplay with interest. Her hair was raven black, Freddie saw, and worn long, streaming down her shoulders. Her nose was proudly arched. Her eyes were large and brown and heavy-lidded—the heavy lids gave her a sultry look. She leaned toward Freddie.
    “Tell me some philology,” she said.
    He looked up at her. “You are the first American I have met who knows the word.”
    “I know a lot of words.” With a laugh she pressed his wrist—it was all Freddie could do not to jump a foot at the unexpected touch. Instead he looked at her sternly.
    “Do you know the Latin word  bonus ?” he demanded.
    She shook her head. “It doesn't mean something extra?”
    “In English, yes. In Latin,   bonus  means ‘good.’ Good as opposed to bad. But my question—the important question to a philologist—“ He gave a nervous shrug of his shoulders. “The question is what the Romans meant by ‘good,’ you see? Because   bonus  is derived from   duonus,   or   duen-lum,  and from   duen-lum   is also derived   duellum,   thence   bellum.   Which means  war.”
    Josie followed this with interest. “So war was good, to a Roman?”
    Freddie shook his head. “Not quite. It was the   warlike man,   the bringer of strife, that was good, as we see also from  bellus,   which is clearly derived from   bellum   and means handsome—another way of saying   good.   You understand?”
    He could see thoughts working their way across her face. She was drunk, of course, and that slowed things down. “So the Romans—the Roman warriors—thought of themselves as good? By definition, good?”
    Freddie nodded. “All the aristocrats did— all   aristocrats, all conquerors. The aristocratic political party in ancient Rome called themselves the  boni —the good. They  assumed  their own values were universal virtues, that all goodness was embedded in themselves—and that the values which were not theirs were debased. Look at the words they use to describe the opposite of their  bonus — plebeian,  common, base. Even in English—'debased' means  made common.” He warmed to the subject, English words spilling out past his thick German tongue. “And in Greece the rulers of Megara used  esthlos  to describe themselves—'the true,' the real, as opposed to the ordinary, which for them did not