"So the moment has come." "This time, it is of the utmost importance." "Please do not talk." "Please do not seem nervous." "Immer wenn wir über die Grenze gehen, tuhe ich dass." "Es bedeutet Gutes glück." "Papa told you it is good manners to speak the language of the country you visit." "Therefore, speak in English." "I said, whenever we have crossed a border I so fix my feet from one country to the other." "I have found it to be of good luck." " And so I advise all of you..." " Yes." "You are one of the many people who are so pleased with what they say that the 10th time they have said it, it is as fresh to them as the first." "Spare us." " I can't believe it, darling." " I give you orders to believe it." "And now you are in your own land, Sara." "And that is good." "Your face is most happy, Sara." "And most pretty." "[Train whistle blowing]" "Are you comfortable?" "Oh, yes, mama." "This is most luxurious." "I am surprised." "The United states of america is a sun-lighted, dusty country with vegetation of no great height and..." "You are ready to write a book about it?" "Sara:" "This part of it is, Bodo." "But this part of the country is strange to me too." "Perhaps all of it will be strange to me." "It's been 17 years." "Carterville, next stop." "Carterville." "There are, I think, others here who are not americans." "You do not know that people from the utmost different parts of the world have found refuge in the United states of america?" "We know that." "[Whispering] I did not imagine houses in America to be as those I have seen from this train." "Do you think the house of mama's mother is one such?" "[Whispering] I do not know." "Is it that you have been accustomed to palaces?" "I do not complain." "I only ask." "I live where mama and papa take us." "But it is only natural i have curiosity for our relatives." "Joseph." " Morning." " Good morning, madame." " Everybody down?" " No." "Nobody down." "I'll get your tea." "Breakfast is at 9:00 in this house, and will be until the day after I die." " Ring the bell." " But it ain't 9:00 yet, miss Fanny." "It's 8:30." "Well, put the clocks up to 9 and ring the bell." "Joseph:" "Mr. David told me not to ring it anymore." "He say it got too mean a ring, that bell." "It disturbs folks." "That's what it was put there for." "I like to disturb folks." "Yes'm." "I couldn't sleep." "I kept thinking of Sara coming home." "But you slept well, Anise." "You were asleep before I could dismantle myself." "I woke several times during the night." "Did you?" "Then you were careful not to stop snoring." "Now that Sara and her family are coming, we must get around to moving your room." "Jenny's daughter is still going with that actor." "An actor." "Fashions in sin change." "In my day, it was Englishmen." "Oh, my mail looks dull." "Anything in anybody else's mail?" "The usual advertisements for mr." "David." "For the count and countess de Brancovis nothing but what seems to be an invitation to a lower-class embassy tea." "And some letters asking for bills to get paid." "That's every morning." "In the weeks Marthe and her husband have been visiting us they seem to have run up many bills." "Yes, I told you that." "Why do you suppose anybody would give charge accounts to Romanian nobility?" "Perhaps because they are the guests of madame Joshua Farrelly." "Perhaps." "How does David's flirtation with Marthe get on?" "Anything happen?" "Happen?" "I don't know what you mean." "You know very well what I mean." "Oh, that." "Oh, no." "I don't think that." "I must..." " Joseph." " Yes'm." "[Bell clanging]" "Little birds, I don't blame you." "Joseph, stop that." "It ain't me, mr." "David." "I don't like any noise." "Miss Fanny told me." " She didn't tell you to hang yourself." "Joseph:" "I ain't hung." "Marthe:" "Good morning, David." " Good morning, Marthe." "I'm going to have a chicken house fixed up as a playroom for my mother." "I will hang it with bells and she can go into her second childhood in the proper privacy." "[Chuckles]" "She'll only make us have breakfast there." "Fanny:" "David." "Come to breakfast." "Shall we go down together?" "Couldn't you ask your admirer if it would be possible to have a breakfast a little later than 9:00?" "I don't mind that as much as having to eat it on the terrace." "Any morning it's not positively snowing." "Anything madame Fanny's long-dead husband did she thinks God intended everybody else to do." "It's unfortunate that early American liberals were such a hardy people." "Breakfast promptly at 9, outdoors." "Dinner promptly at 8." "I won't be in tonight to dinner." "Does that please you?" " You might have it with David." " I might." "With whom are you dining?" "Oh, you will not bump into me." "I'll be at the German embassy." "Teck, I've asked you..." "You slept well." "It doesn't seem to matter to you that your sister whom you haven't seen is coming home." "But they aren't coming today, mama." "I lay awake most of the night thinking of Sara and of your father." "Wondering what he would have thought..." "Three grandchildren." "He'd have liked that." " I hope I shall." " You will." "Anything in my mail, Anise?" " Advertisements only." " Thanks." "You and mama save me a lot of time reading." "I cannot speak for madame Fanny, but I have never opened a letter in my life." "You don't have to." "For you, they fly open." "It's true." "You're a snooper, Anise." "It shows an interest in life." " bonjour, mademoiselle Anise." "Anise: bonjour, madame." "Oh, there you are." "Don't people ever get out of bed in Romania?" " Good morning." " Not if they can help it." "But, my apologies." "[Bell rings]" "Joseph:" "Here I am, miss Fanny." "Has science a name for women who enjoy noise?" "Fanny's excited." "You're excited too." "A few more days and your Sara will be home." "I am excited." "And I'm afraid too." " Why?" " I don't know." "It's been so many years." " Afraid she won't like me anymore, I guess." " Oh, but she will." "Of course." "I remember Sara." "Mama brought me one day when your father was stationed in Paris." "I was about 6 and Sara was about 15, and you were... you were a pretty little girl." "Do you really remember me?" "You never told me." " I wanted you to remember me, but I..." "Fanny:" "Well." "Monsieur Chabeuf the upholsterer says, not a pincushion not even so much as, could he reupholster in two days." "In the matter of four chairs, a chaise longue, and two..." "Oh, nonsense." "Your monsieur Chabeuf is lazy." "Is he on the phone?" " Everybody's lazy." "Except me." " Indeed." "Madame Fanny has energy." "I find it most attractive." "Perhaps because you're not related to it." "But it works wonders." "What sort of man is the husband of your sister?" "I've never met him." "My mother did once, in Munich." "The day Sara met him, I think." "I remember mama telling me about it." "It was rather a scandal, wasn't it?" "The Farrelly daughter marrying a German who was poor and unknown." "Oh, mama wouldn't have minded that." "If only they'd come home and allowed her to arrange their lives for them." "But Sara didn't want it that way and that made mama angry." "But all was forgiven a long time ago." "And now that they are coming home... they're fortunate to be able to get out of Germany." "Oh, they've been out of Germany since the early '30s." "Oh?" " Where have they been living?" " They've moved around a great deal since." "Sara's letters come from all kinds of places Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France." "Kurt is an engineer." "But I'm not sure..." "Well, you'll have a house full of refugees soon." "Us and the... are you a refugee?" "I'm not sure I know what you're a refugee from." "From Europe." "From what Europe?" " Just Europe." "Fanny:" "David." "David!" "This is one of mama's screaming days." "I'm going to the office before she finds any more errands for me to do." "I've got to ask Penfield about the best school for 12-year-old girls." "Ask Walton about a school for boys." "Buy boys' books, buy girl's books, buy bicycles three puppies... from what Europe?" "I'm not sure what we're refugees from either." "Aren't you?" "A great many mistaken people seem to have given you a great many charge accounts." "It'd be nice to be able to pay bills again." "Do not act as though I refuse to pay them." "I did not sleep well last night." "I was worried." "We have $85 in American Express checks." " That is all we have, Marthe." " Maybe something will turn up." "It's due." "David?" " Money does not worry you?" " It worries me very much." "But I just lie still now and hope." "I'm glad to be here." "We've come to the end of a road." "It's been true for a long time." "Things will have to go one way or the other." "Maybe they'll go well for a change." "I have not come to the end of any road." "No?" "I admire you." "Perhaps because you think the road will lead you back to Europe again?" "You can't give up that dream, can you, Teck?" "That you can get back into their good graces again?" "That they'll let you come back and play?" "You ought to stay away from them." " You have political convictions?" " I don't know what I have." "But I've never liked nazis and you should have had enough of them." "They seem to have had enough of you." "They're smarter than you are and it's time you let them alone." "I think you're trying to say something to me." "What is it?" "That you ought not to be seen at the German embassy." "And that it's insane to go on playing poker there with only $85 left." "Suppose you lose this time?" "I don't think they'd like your not being able to pay up." " I shall try not to lose." " But suppose you do and you can't pay?" "Everyone in Washington will know it in an hour." "And we'll be out of here." "I think I want to be out of here." "I find that I do not like the picture of you and our host." "There's no picture, as you put it, to like or dislike." "Not yet, eh?" "I am glad to hear that." "Marthe, you understand that I'm not really a fool?" "You understand it's unwise to calculate me that way?" "Yes, I understand that." "And I understand that I'm getting tired, just plain tired." "The whole thing is too much for me." "I've always wanted to ask you, since you play on so many sides why we don't come out any better." "I've always wanted to ask you how it happened." "I'm tired, see?" "And I just want to sit down." "Just sit down in a chair and stay." "You have thus arranged it, with David?" "I have arranged nothing." "But you are trying, eh?" "I think not." "I would not like that." "I would not like that at all." "[Train whistle blowing]" "Bodo:" "I like to talk to foreigners." "It is not polite to speak of people in a country you are visiting as foreigners." "Thank you." "Thank you." "It was swell of you to take him off our hands a while." "That little Joe." "He knows when he's with nice people." " May I borrow him again?" " Yes." "He's a fine baby." " And you have fine children." " Thank you." " May I come with you?" " Yes." "Bodo:" "You are Italian?" " Italian, yes, but American." "Do you know a Tullio Tipaldi who fought in Spain with papa?" " No." " You ought to." "He was a soldier of much excellence in Spain." "So was papa." "Papa was brave, he was calm, he was expert, he was resourceful... my biographer." "And as accurate as most of them." " You are German?" " Yes." " What side do you fight on in Spain?" " I beg your pardon." "Be still, papa says." "I fought with the army of the republic." "I am not a nazi or a fascist." "I'm a big fool." "I beg your pardon." "Don't... forgive me, please." "I might have known which side a man like you would be on." "It used to make me feel good that Italians and Germans went to fight against the fascists in Spain." "Kind of showed people that all Germans and Italians weren't..." " Are you just come from Europe?" " Yes." "What's happening over there?" "I can't make any sense out of what I read." "Nobody seems to be doing anything, and no fighting, I mean." "It will come soon now, I think." "But ain't there some chance the German people themselves will kick Hitler out?" "You read about men in underground organizations." " Is that just talk?" "Kurt:" "No." "It is not talk." "These men, in what you call underground organizations work most hard and in great danger." "But..." "Well, it looks bad to me." "It is not all black." "Take my word." "There are men in your country and in mine who fight on." "I know." " I have friends among them." " What do you do?" " I mean, what's your trade?" " I?" "I fight against fascism." "That is my trade." "[Vacuum buzzing]" "Try it there, Horace." " It won't fit in there, miss Fanny." " Nonsense." "Try it." "No, that's awful." "It looks like a dentist's waiting room." "Take it out of there." "Mellie:" "Fanny." "Really." "I've been sitting here waiting for an hour to drive you to Washington." "All you're doing is messing up this lovely room." "Joseph." "Joseph." " Yes'm?" " Find a place to put that sofa." "Put it back where it's been doing all right for 15 years." "And you'd better get back to your gardening." "There will be children." "My grandchildren." "They will climb on furniture." "I always did." "My grandchildren will be healthy children so don't use any of your dainty, sleazy materials." " This isn't mrs." "Sewell's house." " I had no children." "Therefore, it's impossible for me to have grandchildren." "If I'd had a daughter, I'd have named her Emmeline Lou." "Well, everything turns out for the best." "Have you got that list?" "We're going into Washington." "[Mumbling]" "Very well." "You'll never have time to get all that." "I've got to have a fitting on my evening dresses." "I never understand why you need so many evening dresses, Mellie." "Do you lead a secret life at your age?" "[Scoffs]" "Mellie:" "Oh, hello, Marthe." "Hello, mrs." "Sewell." "I think Marthe is a very pretty girl, don't you, Fanny?" "What?" "Oh, all the Randolphs were good-looking." " No matter what else they weren't." " I reckon men find her most attractive." "Don't you think so, Fanny?" "Don't you think she is most attractive to men?" "I'm sure I don't know." "I'm not a man." "Of course, Jennie Randolph wanted her to marry nobility." "It was a brilliant wedding." "Remember, Fanny, in Paris?" "Now, doesn't it seem strange that she's back here?" "And the circle is completed, as they say, right in your house and... what circle?" "What are you talking about?" "Candy." "I'll buy messy candy." "That's what my grandchildren would like." "Messy candy." "If you'd had grandchildren, Mellie, heaven forbid they'd have been children who never ate between meals, who were sickly." "All your family were sickly." "I think you've made up a good deal of it." "Licorice." "That's what I'll buy." "Mellie:" "Really, Fanny, you've wasted all afternoon for me." "Now it's too late to try on my dresses." "Oh, do be careful of the candy, Mellie." "Close up the box." "Acting like a 6-year-old over Sara's homecoming." "It might be better if you spent your time worrying a little about David." "It isn't that I believe everything that Cora says, but she says everybody is talking." "Especially after he took her to the colonel's dinner party." "People said... what are you chattering about?" "You must get new upper teeth, Mellie." "Nobody can understand a word you say anymore" " you used to have lovely teeth." " You can't understand me." "You can't even understand that all Washington's talking about your son and the countess de Brancovis." "Everybody says it's serious too." "Not just, you know." "If it was just, you know, people would gossip a little and then stop." "What is "just you know"?" "Mellie, you're old enough to say what you mean." "Let me off at the next block." "I promised to fetch David." "Take these things home for me, darling, and thanks for the car." "Do be careful of the packages, Mellie." "Don't let them bump around." "And be very careful when you take them out and give them to Joseph himself." "Bye-bye, dear." " Hello, miss Drake." " Hello, mrs." "Farrelly." "Fanny:" "Come." "Take me home." "I don't like that picture of your father." "It's not big enough." "Get a bigger one." "Goodness, my Joshua was handsome." "Wasn't he?" "Cyrus:" " Upon the warranties..." "Fanny:" "Hello, Cyrus." "Hello, miss Hall." " Fanny." "Cyrus, my german son-in-law is coming tomorrow." "He's an engineer." "The government or somebody must have use for engineers." "Find him something really good, Cyrus." "How's Marjorie?" "Looking her age, Fanny, which you never do." "It's remarkable." "Not very remarkable." "I was a great beauty." "You remember, Cyrus." "We always remember." "When Joshua snapped you up, I was heartbroken." "All of Washington was heartbroken." "Most of it." "Anyway... goodbye, Cyrus." "And thanks for arranging the fine job for my son-in-law." "Fanny, what kind of engineer is he?" "What kind?" "Any kind." "What does Cyrus mean?" "There are kinds of engineers." "Civil, mining, electrical." "He used to work for Dornier." " I guess that would make him..." " he's all kinds of an engineer, I'm sure." "Goodbye, Cyrus." "Bring Marjorie for dinner." "But not soon." "In about five or six years." "[Giggling]" "How much longer do you think the de Brancovises are going to be with us?" "I don't know." "Now that Sara, Kurt and the children are coming, even our house might be crowded." "I feel sorry for Marthe." "I suppose, after all, her mother was my good friend, and Teck rather amuses me." "Plays good cribbage and tells jokes." "But that's not enough for a lifetime guest." "And they've been here six weeks." "Have they borrowed much money from you?" " None." " Don't bite me." "I didn't know." "I hope you haven't been urging them to stay." "You invited them, mama." "They're your guests." "Oh, they were mine." "But that was before you became enamored of Marthe." "She was such a pretty young girl." " I think she's still pretty." " Naturally, or you wouldn't be so ardent." "I don't know why I say that." "You were ardent with that Carter girl." "And you couldn't have thought her pretty." "She had a nice disposition." "Why not?" "Who would have spoiled her?" "Oh, look here, David." "What is going on between you and Marthe?" "I don't like that question, mama." "Nothing is going on." "I like her very much." "I hope she likes me." "I can assure you she does." "So can all of Washington." "There's a great deal of gossip about both of you." " Gossip?" " Oh, nothing serious." "Most of it is rather amusing." "There is nothing to gossip about." "That's never stopped anybody from gossiping." "You and Marthe haven't been very good at hiding whatever there is to hide." "You know, I wonder whether it has reached Teck." " Now, look here, mama..." " I only wanted to say, David that I have a feeling that he isn't really a very good-natured man." "Underneath the manners and the calmness I have a feeling he isn't good-natured at all." " Enchanting evening." "Good night, admiral." " Good night, madame." " A most pleasant good night, sir." " Good night, sir." " Good night, admiral." " Good night, sir." "[Speaking in italian]" "[Speaking in spanish]" "[Speaking in german]" "[Speaking in italian]" "Woman 1:" "It's been a great pleasure to have been here." "Good night." "General:" "Thank you." "Good night." "Man 1:" "I hope your stay, your excellency, will be long." "General:" "Thank you." "Good night, sir." "Man 1:" "Good night." "I do not think I envy you, dr." "Klauber." "Envy me?" "Of course not." "Perhaps publishing a pro-nazi paper in the United states isn't the best of all occupations." "There may be no future in it, but it pays." "Phill:" "Good night." " I'll be expecting you on Wednesday." "Phill:" "Yes." " Good night." " Good night, baron." " Glad to have seen you again." " Good night." "[Man 2 speaking in italian]" " Good night." "Woman 2:" "Good night." "Well, that should be enough of the handshaking." "Are we ready?" "Phill:" "How many of them come here?" "Our herr Hitler violates their morality in the morning but by the evening, they've recovered and they're here to dinner at the embassy." "And so it's gone in most places in the world for over seven years." "One might almost suspect their morality." "Klauber:" "That would be cynical." " I daresay." "Good evening, Blecher." "Herr Blecher, here first, as usual." "How was the tea party?" "It was a distinguished gathering." "A tribute to the diplomacy of the fatherland." "Don't put this in your paper but his excellency acts the host as if he were on a beer party in a cellar." "He's a dull man." "Ribbentrop did not send him here to amuse people." "Then he's doing very well." "In my paper, he is all things to all men." "Tomorrow we will have a little talk about your paper." "You and I." "Gladly." "The cost of everything rises." "Paper, ink, wages." "That is not what we will talk about." "It is generally supposed, mr." "Chandler that these little talks of Blecher's are most instructive and unpleasant." "Baron von Ramme, too much may be generally supposed." "A threat, butcher boy?" "Butcher boy." "That is funny, yes." "We nazis are always funny." "And we have a funny leader with a funny mustache." "His name used to be Schicklgruber and he was a paperhanger." "That too is funny." "Yes." "And so we have divided the world into two parts." "Those like you who want to work for us or with us." "And those others who lie awake trembling and hating us because they are afraid of us." "Tell me, is not that also funny?" "No, I wouldn't threaten you, Phili." "You could not be handled that way." "With all your duties, you still had time to make a study of me." " You are not complicated." " No?" "No." "Aristocrat." "Bred to government service." "Contemptuous of us and our methods, but chiefly because we are not gentlemen." "Would be satisfied enough doing the same things... or worse, under some stupid Hohenzollern." "Got too cynical to be really dangerous, baron von Ramme." "Bravo." "You make me ashamed of being so simple." "Do Klauber for us." "Money." "That is all." "Nothing else." "He becomes too expensive." "But he will remedy that before it is too late." " One makes a living." "Phill:" "And mr." "Chandler?" "A man who wishes to sell us quantities of oil he has by some means come into control of." "Later and always, he will have other things to sell." "They always do." " Now, look here." "I..." " and Oberdorff?" "Oberdorff, I do not know." "I have tried." "A pale lump of a man." "He sits." "He observes." "He says nothing." "He writes no letters." "He gets none." "Perhaps he is of the secret police." "Perhaps he is even writing a book." "I do not give up." "But I do not know." "His credentials are of the best." "We must see more of one another." "You've stumped Blecher." "Your credentials are of the best." "Perhaps he's a member of the underground anti-nazi movement." "[Klauber chuckles]" "That should be very amusing." "Perhaps he is even Max Freidank." "No, Oberdorff's not Max Freidank." "I know Freidank." "You know the legendary hero of the underground movement?" "No legend." "We were in school together." "Yes." "And you and he met by accident on a street in Prague in 1936." "He had with him a man called Götter." "Oberdorff, I admire you more and more." "I feel slighted, herr Blecher." "You haven't spoken of me." "Because it has not been necessary to consider you, count de Brancovis." "One knows, of course, the routine things." "Romanian, former diplomat." "A gambler." "Like Phil, an aristocrat who would rather be with his own class." "But the career goes a little wrong." "I do not know how or why, but I make the guess." "I also make the guess that you, like mr." "Chandler, are a man who sells things." "But I would guess also that at the moment, you are a man who has nothing to sell." " I'll call on you when I have." " Good." "That's why I'm here." "Teck:" "Another stack of blues, please." "Blecher:" "All right." "Your deal." "[Bell clanging]" "Sara." "Sara." "Been such a long, long time." "I got to thinking it would never happen." "David." "David, darling." "Isn't it strange to see each other?" "Where is everybody?" "That's mama." "She's expected you every minute, though she knew when you were coming." "Now that the time's here, she's off someplace else." "I'll find her." "I've always known you must have grown up in a lovely house like this." "Sit down." "Be comfortable." "Is it allowed?" "Yes, it is allowed." "The door of the home was not locked." "We just came in." "You find it curious to believe there are people who live and do not need to watch, eh, Joshua?" "It is strange." "But it must be good, I think." "Yes." "Isn't it a lovely house?" "I'd almost forgotten." "That was my father when he was the famous Joshua Farrelly." "We were very proud of him." "Almost 18 years." "You were born here, mama?" "Upstairs." "David and I used to have our own garden across the pond." "I like a garden." "I've always hoped that some day we'd have a home of our own and settle down and... [sighs]" "I'm talking so foolish." "Sentimental." "At my age." "Gardens and homes." " I haven't wanted anything." " Now stop that, Sara." "This is a fine room, fine place to be." "Everything is so pleasant and full of comfort." "That will be a good piano on which to play again." "And it is all so clean." "I like that." "You must enjoy your house, Sara." "You shall not be a baby." "You shall not be afraid that you will hurt me because I have not given you a house like this." " Yes?" " Yes, of course." "It's strange, that's all." "We've never been together in a place like this." "Oh, but that does not mean and should not mean that we do not remember how to enjoy what comes our way." "We are on a holiday." "Anise:" "Miss Sara." "Miss Sara." "Sara:" "Anise." "I would have known you." "Yes, I would." "I would have." "You look the same." "I think you look the same." "Just the way I've always remembered." "This is the Anise I've told you so much about." "She was here long before I was born." "How do you do, sir?" "How do you do?" "How do you do?" "Thank you." "We are in good health." "Madame Fanny will have a fit." "Where is she?" " You are French, madame Anise?" "Anise:" "Yes." "From the Bas-Rhin." "Sara's husband, that is nice." "That is nice." "Yes, your accent is from the north." "That is fine country." "We were in hiding there once." "Anise:" "Hiding." "You were in hiding?" "Fanny:" "Sara." "Hello, mama." "Sara." "Sara, darling." "You're here." "You're really here." "Welcome." "Welcome." "Welcome to your house." " You're not young, Sara." " No, mama." " I'm 38." " Thirty-eight." "Of course." "You look more like your father now." "That's good." "The years have helped you." "Welcome to this house, sir." "Thank you, madame." "You're a good-looking man for a German." "I like a good-looking man." "I always have." "And I like a good-looking woman." "I always have." "Ist das grossmama?" "Yes, I am your grandmother." "Also, I speak German, so don't talk about me." "I speak languages well." "But there's no longer anyone to speak with." "Anise has half forgotten her French and..." "Oh, it's good to have you home." "I keep chattering away..." "Joshua:" "Now you have us, madame." "We speak ignorantly but fluently in German, French, Italian, Spanish... and sometimes boastfully in English." "There is never a need of boasting." "If we are to fight for the good of all men it is to be accepted that we must be among the most advanced." "My goodness." "Are these your children or are they dressed-up midgets?" "These are my children, mama." "This, Babette." "This, Joshua." "This is Bodo." "You were named for your grandfather." "You bear a great name." "Two great names." "My last name is Müller." "Yes." "You look a little like your grandfather." "And so do you." "You're a nice-looking girl." "That's good." "You look like nobody." "Yes, I am not beautiful." "Well, Sara, well." "Three children." "You've done well." "You too, sir, of course." " But you don't look well." " Oh, it is only that I am a little tired." " In a short while, I will be all right." "I..." "Fanny:" "You look more than tired." " We must take good care of you." " Thank you." "Thank you." "That was my Joshua." "We were very much in love." "Hard to believe of people nowadays, isn't it?" "No." "Kurt and I love each other." "But there are ways and ways of loving." " How dare you, mama." " Ladies." "Ladies." "I was almost mad then." "I don't think I've been mad since I last saw you." "We must not get angry." "Anger is protest and should only be used for the good of one's fellow men." "That is correct, papa?" "If you grow up to talk like that and stay as ugly as you are you're going to have one of those careers on the lecture platform." "[Joshua laughing]" "It is a great pleasure to hear grandma speak with you." "I think I shall wash you." "Wash us?" "Do people wash each other?" "No." "But the washing is a good idea." "Run along now and change your clothes." "Come." "Sara:" "And then we'll all have a fine, big lunch again." "Fanny:" "Again?" "Don't you usually have a good lunch?" "No, madame, only sometimes." "We do all right usually." "It's good to be here." "I want to see everything." "My old room, and the lake and..." " haven't I fine children?" " Very fine." "You're lucky." "I wish I had them." "How could you?" "All the women you like are too drafty, if you know what I mean." "[Chuckling]" "None of them could have children." "Which, as God in his wisdom, would have it." "Mama hasn't changed." "That's good too." " I hope you'll like me." " I hope so." "I have fine plans." "I'm having the wing done over for you, walls taken out... oh, that's very kind of you, mama, but we won't make any plans for a while." "A good long vacation for Kurt and..." "A vacation?" "You're staying, of course." "David is seeing schools for the children." "Cyrus Penfield has promised to find an engineering post for Kurt." "But I have not worked as an engineer since many years, madame." "Haven't you?" "Well, didn't you work for Dornier?" "Yes but before '33." "You must have worked in other places." "Many other places." "Every letter of Sara's seemed to have a new postmark." "Kurt:" "Well, we moved most often." "You gave up engineering?" "Gave it up?" " Well, one could say it that way." " What do you do?" " Mama, we..." "Kurt:" "It is very difficult to explain." " If you'd rather not..." " No, I'm trying to find out something." " May I ask it right out?" " Let me help you, madame." "You wish to know whether not being an engineer buys adequate lunches for my family." "It does not." "I have no wish to make a mystery of what I've been doing." "It is only that it is awkward to place it neatly." "It sounds so big." "And it is so small." "I am an anti-fascist." "And to answer your question, that does not pay well." "But we are all anti-fascists." "Yes, but Kurt works at it." "What kind of work?" "Any kind." "Anywhere." " I will stop asking questions." " Yes, mama, that would be sensible." "Darling, don't be angry." "We've been worried about you, naturally." "We knew so little except that you were having a hard time." "Sara:" "I didn't have a hard time." "We never..." "Kurt:" "Do not lie for me, Sara, please." "I'm not lying." "I didn't have a hard time the way they mean." "Not ever." "For almost 12 years, Kurt went to work every morning and came home to me every night and we lived modestly and happily." "As happily as people could in a starved Germany that was going to pieces." "Sara, please." " I do not like you to be angry." " Well, I..." "Let me try to find a way to tell it with quickness." "Yes." "I was born in a town called Fürth." "And we have a holiday in this town." "We call it kirchweih." "It was a gay holiday with games, music and hot white sausage to eat with the wine." "When I grow up, I move away to school, to work, get married." "But I always come back for kirchweih." "For me, it is the great day of the year." "After the war, the First world war, that day begins to change." "The sausage begins to be made of bad stuffs." "Country people come in without shoes." "Children are too sick." "It is bad for my people, those years." "But always, I have hope." "In the festival of August 1931, more than a year before the nazi storm I find out that hope by itself is not enough." "On that day, I see 27 men murdered in a nazi street fight." "I cannot longer just look on." "My time has come to do more." "I say with the great Luther:" ""I must make my stand." "I can do nothing else." "God help me." "Amen."" "We had seen the evil coming every day, more and more." "But that festival was the symbol of the end." "It hit Kurt hard." "It doesn't pay in money to fight for what we believe in." "But I wanted it the way Kurt wanted it." "I always will." "Kurt is not very well." "There aren't many parts of Europe anymore where... where he could rest." "You've always said you wanted us." "So Kurt brought us home." "If you don't want us, we will understand." "David:" "We want you very much." "Forever, or however long you want." "I'm old and made of dry cork and bad-mannered." "Forgive me." "Oh, be still, mama." "We're all being foolish." "I only want to be foolishly happy." " Is our old garden still there?" " No." "But we've made the pond larger and put blackberries on the island." "Oh, let's go." "Go on." "You're a kind woman, madame." "That's what she's always said." "I have disrespectful children." "[Kurt chuckles]" "My children are together again." "That makes me feel good." "Come now, you shall have a rest before lunch." "I shall send you up a sherry and some biscuits." "And perhaps an eggnog too." "I'm a great believer in eggnogs if they have enough liquor in them." " How do you do?" " This is the count de Brancovis." "He and his wife are staying for a while." "My son-in-law, Kurt Müller." "Kurt:" "How do you do?" "Would it be impertinent for one European to make welcome another?" " Thank you, sir." " Have we met before, mr." "Müller?" "Did you live in Paris?" "I was in the legation there and I thought..." "No, we have not met before." "If it is possible to believe, i am the exile who is not famous." "Strange." "I have a feeling..." "It is interesting." "I have always had a good ear for the accents of your country." "But yours is most difficult to place." "Is it south German or...?" "My accent is difficult to place, count de Brancovis because I speak other languages." " Yours would be Romanian?" " Goodness." "Is it as bad as that?" "My grandchildren are charming." "You shall see them." " Your grandchildren have to be charming." " Of course." "Papa, this is the house of great wonders." "Each has his bed." "Each has his bathroom." "The arrangement of it, that is splendorous." "You're a fancy talker, Bodo." "Oh, yes." "In many languages." "Please do correct me when I am wrong." "Papa, the plumbing is such as you have never seen." "Here, each implement is placed on the floor." "And all are simultaneous in the same room." "You will therefore see that being placed solidly on the floor allows of no rats, rodents or crawlers, and is most sanitary." "Papa likes to know how each thing is put together." "And he is so fond of being clean." "I am a hero to my children." "It bores everybody but me." "Yes, it is a fine bathroom." "Better than in Brussels, eh?" "Well, trapping the mice there was most interesting." "Goodness." "And now you must have your rest before lunch." "I hear they've arrived." "Have you met them?" "What has David told you about herr Müller?" "What has David told me?" "Nothing more than he's told you." " What is there to tell?" " I do not know, but I would like to." "David said they'd been in Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Poland, France and Switzerland." "These are all countries that Germany has either threatened or gone into." "It is the German practice to send into such countries men to prepare the way." "I had thought herr Müller might be such a man." "I do not think so now." " What are you doing?" " Wondering why luggage is unlocked." "And a shabby briefcase is so carefully locked." "You're very curious about mr." "Müller." "I'm curious about a daughter of the Farrellys who marries a German who has bullet scars and broken bones in his hands." "Is he any business of yours?" " Why, anything might be my business now." " Yes, unfortunately." "Well, you sound very bitter about me, Marthe." "Are you in love with David?" " What kind of talk is this?" " Answer me." "I like him." "Yes, and he likes you." "Please find out from him about herr Müller." "I will certainly do no such thing." "Ask your friends at the embassy." "They always know their nationals." "Yes." "But I do not like to ask questions without knowing the value of the answers." "Teck, leave these people alone." "They've evidently had a tough enough time." "I won't let you interfere." "Won't let me interfere?" "You are in love with David." "Do not make any plans, Marthe." "You will go with me when I am ready to go." "On Saturday, madame Fanny and I arrived at Savitt's." "Before that I have taken all the measurements in secret." "First, madame Fanny has delivered a most sharp ultimatum that all must be finished in a week." "Savitt's?" "What must be finished in a week?" "Clothes for all of you." "In an amount you have not previously considered." "Dresses, suits, summer clothes, stockings." "All must be done with the hand sewing." "How nice." "How very, very nice of mama." "What is so nice of mama?" "You are to say nothing." "I gave my word." "Everything is nice of mama." "Mama is a great darling." "Certainly." "We've been in the attic looking over some old books." "You know, I find that Joshua is an educated boy." "Your father would have liked that." "Goodness." "You are a handsome woman, Sara." " Where did the dress come from?" " From me." "I make it." "Remember when I was a little girl and you taught me to sew?" "That came in handy years later." "Often when Kurt..." "when Kurt was away for a long while I made dresses and earned enough to pay the rent and food and send the children to school." "Fanny:" "You sewed for a living?" "Really, were these things necessary?" "Why couldn't you have written to us?" "Mama, you've asked me that 20 times in the four days we've been here." "I think it is only that grandma feels sorry for us." "Grandma has not seen much of the world." "She does not understand that a great many work hard in order that they eat." "Now, don't you start giving me lectures." "I get enough from Bodo." "Come along." "Psst." "[Whispering] Ask herr Müller to come up here." " Why?" " Why?" "Why?" "Because he is a man in love with his wife and because his wife looks most beautiful." "You are getting so old you no longer understand the matters of delicacy between the men and the women." "[Laughs]" "Me?" "I had forgotten." "Liebe, Sara." "You are beautiful." "How many years have I kept you from looking like that?" "It makes you have tears." "It also makes me have tears." "If you say that, I'll tear it off." "No." "No." "Then I do not say it." "I do not think it." "I only think with pride how beautiful is my Sara." "Anise has put me together with pins." "I'm a porcupine." "If you had not married me so many years ago ...would you have married me today?" "I'm so tired, so shabby." "And you are so..." "I would have married you any day in my life." "With mama, what you need is not to be afraid of making a fool of yourself." "Anything she doesn't like, she makes seem silly." "Yes." "And it's worked for a good many years." "She thinks of me only as a monument to papa." "And a not-very-well-made monument at that." "Yes." "And since you're worth a good deal on your own, do what you want." "Marthe's a nice girl, I think." "Kurt thinks so too, and Kurt's smart about people." "You are very much in love with Kurt." "Oh, yes." "I've been a happy woman." "David, Kurt's a sick man." "Sicker than he knows." "The wound he got in Spain never healed right." "And then about six months ago over there..." "oh, he's better." "Even the week here has done him good." "But he'll never be able to go back and do the kind of work... you know, darling I don't think I understand what kind of work he was doing." "Sara:" "Come along, Babbie." "How long has Marthe been married to the count?" "I don't know." "When she was very young." "You know, the count de Brancovis scares me a little." "Scares you?" "You and mama, most people here, I guess you don't know what it is to be frightened." "Unfortunately, I think you'll have to learn." "Uncle David, I have invited the countess Marthe to join our sightseeing trip." "I hope you find it agreeable." "Very, very agreeable." " You're a nice girl, Babbie." " Thank you, mama." "To look down at such a great height makes even me dizzy." "Where is our house?" "Uh... see beyond the city?" "Yes." "Where the road bends away from the river, through the trees?" " Yes." " Back of that." "Joseph:" "But, miss Fanny, you know I've always been a good silver cleaner." " You're getting out of practice." " I have given it careful thought." "Miss Sara is better-looking." "Don't you think so, joseph?" "Don't you think miss Sara is better-looking than miss Fanny?" "You call that good cleaning?" "That silver has lasted for 200 years and it's going to last for 200 more." "Not the way you treat it, miss Fanny." "Why, sometimes you scratch it." "I watch you at the table and I say to myself:" ""There's miss Fanny, doing it to that knife again."" "I was using a knife and fork before you arrived to show me how." "You told me the next time you screamed at me to remind you to ask my pardon." "Fanny:" "You call that screaming?" " Yes'm." "All right." "I ask your pardon." "Now clean that silver." "It's very warm in Washington today." "You'll forgive us." "We are dining in town tonight." " I will forgive you." " You seen Marthe?" "She went on the sightseeing trip with the children." " And David." " Oh." "Well, I daresay she'll be back in plenty of time to dress for dinner." "I hope so." "Baron von Ramme, please." "Phili?" "How are you?" "The other night in the poker game, you mentioned a man called Freidank." "Wasn't that his name?" "Yes." "Max Freidank." "I think you said you went to school with him." "What does he look like?" "That is not my department." "That I have not as yet reached." "Blecher, the bloody butcher boy, is perhaps your man." "If you're up to what I think, you're wasting your time." "Max Freidank, more dead than alive from wounds was arrested in Frankfurt a few days ago." " What?" "Phill: it's in the papers this afternoon." "You've come a long way, haven't you, Teck?" "Hello." "I..." "Hello." "Home again." "Shall I wait for you, Sara?" "Sara:" "No." "Go along downstairs." "I find I'm becoming very vain." "It takes me a long time to get dressed." "Each night now, I wait for you to tell me if I look nice." "Herr Müller, all day a discussion has been raging." "You shall settle it." "Who is the better-looking, miss Sara or madame Fanny?" "Many years away, of course." "Fanny:" "I don't consider him an impartial judge." "Both are of a great beauty." "I am not a man who walks himself into trouble." "No." "I should not think you were." "[Kurt playing piano]" " Mellie Sewell called this afternoon." " With more gossip?" "Mrs. Sewell brings mama all the news of Washington." "She gets it all wrong, but that doesn't worry either mama or her." "Mama fixes it." ""Wits it up," papa used to say." "Certainly, I sharpen it." "Mellie has no sense of humor." " Twenty-five." " Did you know the old baron von Ramme?" "Yes." "He was stationed in Paris when I was there." "Fanny:" "I forget that you were a diplomat." " It's just as well." "Something insane about a Romanian diplomat." "Pure insane." "Twenty-eight with a pair." "Well, I could have married old baron von Ramme." "Any American, not crippled, whose father had money." "He was crazy about me." "Most men were in those days." "Later, when he was ambassador and had married the rich, hideous Calloway girl someone asked if I didn't regret not marrying him." "I said, "I regret it every day and I'm happy about it every night."" "You understand what I mean?" "Styles in wit change so." "David:" "We understood." "Teck:" "Go." "[Whispering] The briefcase has been opened." "[Sara playing piano]" "There's no money missing, but the case has been examined." "The gun was put back in a different place." "Teck:" "Seventeen for goal." "Fanny:" "Oh, as I was saying, Mellie Sewell told me that you were playing in a gambling game at the German embassy with the young Phili von Ramme and Sam Chandler, who is a relative of mine and who's always been a scandal." "Nazis and Sam Chandler must make an unpleasant game." "I do not gamble to be amused." "Oh, really?" "Then we'll certainly stop." "I owe you $8 and 50 cents." "Herr Müller, the young baron von Ramme was your government military attaché in Spain." "My government attaché?" "He was the German government attaché in Spain." "I know his name, of course." "But he was not attached to the side on which I fought." "Teck:" "I thought you might have known him." "We do not know nazis, count de Brancovis." "No?" "I should have known that." "You are people who have lived close to the borders of Germany." "You, therefore, must have had hopes that national socialism would be overthrown on every tomorrow." "We have not given up that hope." " Have you?" " I never had it." "Then it must be most difficult for you to sleep." "What is that you're playing?" "It was a German soldier's song." "They sang it as they straggled back in '18." "I remember hearing it in Berlin." " Were you there then, herr Müller?" " I was not in Berlin." " But you were in the war, of course." " Yes, I was in the war." "You didn't think then you'd live to see another war." "Many of us were afraid we would." "All of us haven't been so isolated as you seem to have been in this house." "What are the words?" "This is what you heard in 1918 in Berlin." "[Singing in german]" "[Singing] We come home, we come home some of us are gone some of us are lost but we are friends our blood is on the earth together someday, someday we shall meet again farewell and then at quarter to 6 in the morning on november 7th, 1936 18 years later, 500 of us Germans were walking through the Madrid streets on our way to fight the fascist swine along the Manzanares river." "We felt good that morning." "You know how it is to feel you're good when it is needed to be good?" "So we had the need of new words to say that to ourselves." "I translate, of course, with awkwardness, you understand?" "[Singing] And so we have met again the blood did not have time to dry and we lived to stand and fight again this time we fight for people this time we'll keep their hands away those who sell the blood of other men this time, they keep their hands away" "for us to stand, for us to fight this time, no farewell, no farewell" "Well, we did not win." "It would have been a different world if we had." "Herr Müller, it does not seem natural to me that you should settle yourself into this quiet, country life." "Perhaps." "When did you leave the diplomatic service, count?" "In 1931." "After the Budapest oil deal?" "[Chuckles]" "That must have been a thing of high comedy, that conference." "Fritz Thyssen, who made the money available for Hitler, was buying oil." "Everybody was trying to guess whether this talk of national socialism was just a smart blind of Thyssen's or whether his rivals were... it is too bad." " You guessed an inch off, eh?" " More than that." " And nazis have good memories?" " Most uncomfortable memories." "You seem to know more about me than I do about you." "And yet, I still have a feeling that I've seen you or heard about you." "And that feeling has been so insistent that I make guesses." "But bad guesses." "I thought you might be Max Freidank." "Freidank is a great hero to my people." " You do me too much honor." " Yes." "I found that out." "This is in today's Washington papers." ""Zurich, Switzerland:" "Zurich papers reprinted today a dispatch from the Berliner Tageblatt on the capture of colonel Max Freidank." "Freidank is said to be the chief of the anti-nazi underground movement." "The son of the famous general Freidank, he was a world war officer and a distinguished physicist before the advent of Hitler."" "That is bad news for you, mrs." "Müller?" "I'm most sorry." "He was a friend of yours?" "He was a friend to all decent Germans." "A friend to all decent people, count de Brancovis." "Well, it's what often happens to heroes, unfortunately." "Marthe must be ready by now." "We will be back early, herr Müller." "I do not like long dinner parties." "Your hands are shaking." "My hands were broken." "They are bad when I have fear." "Fear for Freidank, you mean?" "I am a man who has many kinds of fears." "I do not think you would understand that." "No." "I do not think I have ever been very frightened." "That is bad." "It is sometimes the road to trouble." "I daresay." "Good night." "Kurt." "Kurt." "It may not be true." "I am going to use the phone in your study for a long-distance call, please." " What is it, darling?" "What...?" " What is this all about, Sara?" "I don't know all of it yet." "I do know that he broke open Kurt's briefcase." "And he saw what we carry with us." "And he knows about Freidank which probably means he's guessing about Kurt." "What do you mean, what you carry with you and guessing about Kurt?" " I..." " Kurt works in an illegal organization." "He has for seven years." "We're carrying with us $23,000 dollars." "It's been collected here and in Mexico from the pennies and nickels of poor people who don't like fascism and who believe in the work we do." "It was to be picked up and taken back by the first men going." "Max and Kurt." "They loved each other." "They were in the war together." "And they were in Spain together." "Once in Spain, Max made a medal from a ring." ""I make you a medal because you're a fine soldier," he said." "And once, six months ago Max rescued Kurt from the Gestapo on a train and Kurt was badly hurt." "Max carried him on his back for seven miles across the border." "But they caught him in the end." "If Max was caught nobody's got much of a chance anymore." "Nobody." "But wasn't it careless to have $23,000 lying around to be seen?" "No, it wasn't careless." "We've carried money that way for years." "There didn't seem to be any safer place than my house." "It was careless of you and David to have a man like that in this house." " Yes." "It was very careless." " But how could we know?" "The world has changed, mama." "And some of the people in it are dangerous." "It's time you knew that." "It is true." "But he is not dead." "Hans and Ernst were taken with him." "Max is not an easy man to kill." "But most of his face and one arm... it is not nice when it comes." "Well, Sara..." " No." " It must be yes." "But Max knows you're not well enough." "He sent you here." "But now I am more well than he is." "When?" "I think tonight, Sara, darling." "But I do not know." "It will depend on the count de Brancovis." "What will depend upon the count?" "Did he steal the money?" "He's not a man who steals." "It will come another way." "But why are you afraid of him?" "You're in this country now." "There's nothing he can do." "We will see." "We will wait and we will see." "Kurt's not going to be in this country." "He's going back to get them out." "Is that right, Kurt?" "Is that right?" "Yes, darling." "I must try." "They were taken to Sonnenberg and guards can be bribed there." "It has been done once before at Sonnenberg." "I will try for it that way." "Of course you must go back." "I guess I was trying to think it wouldn't come." "Kurt's got to go back." "He's got to go home." "It's hard enough to get back but if they knew he was coming... they want Kurt bad." "All right, Kurt." "You'll do it." "You'll get them out." "Kurt will do it." "You'll see." "Don't be afraid, darling." "You'll get back." "You'll get Max out all right." "And then you'll do his work, won't you?" "And you'll do a good job." "The way you've always done." "Don't be afraid, darling." "You'll get home." "Yes, you will." "You'll get home." "[Sara crying]" "What is it, mama?" "You will be told later." "Don't worry now." "Will you go in to dinner, please?" "We'll come in a minute." "Marthe much has been going wrong." "With us and between us." "But suppose... suppose we could go back to Europe again." "And with a little money." "Do you think we might pick up again what we've lost?" "What we've lost?" "I don't think there was ever very much to lose." "And I left nothing in Europe that I'd want to go back to." "You have other plans?" "If so, you're wasting your time." "I will tell you what to do." "We are leaving the Farrelly house." "You and I. You understand?" "Anything going wrong back there?" " Drop me at the German embassy." " Like a hot potato, boss." "Now, go on to dinner." "I'll pick you up later." "Well, how did you manage in the game the other night?" "Count de Brancovis, in this room I work." "That is commendable." "Your people caught Max Freidank." "Are there any others close to Freidank perhaps that you want?" "Blecher:" "We want them all." "If I should know where one or more of such men could be found what would that information be worth to your government?" "It would depend on who they were or where they were." "In the United states, they would be worth very little." " Nothing." " Nothing at all?" "What are we to do here?" "Have them assassinated in an alley?" "Kidnap them?" "Follow them for months, hoping we'll know when they go back to Germany?" "Here are the lists." "With such men as these, that is not easy." "But show us where we can put our hands on one of them in the fatherland or in any of the countries where we have influence, that is another matter." "You could name your own price, in reason." "We might also manage a visa for you." "I'm sure you are homesick for shabby palaces and gaudy cafés and the rest of the decaying things that represent Europe to you." "Blecher, we do not like each other." "But that will not stand in the way of our doing business." "Would you stop that pacing about?" "Please." "And tomorrow, because it's Babbie's birthday I shall go and buy presents for everybody." "We always do that here." "It started because I didn't like not getting presents on other people's birthdays." "And we'll have music in the evening." "Yes." "Yes, we'll have a fine time." " You think you fool us." " What?" "Something has gone wrong." "Always mama and papa look like that when it happens so." "You must not be nervous for our sake, grandma." "We will do whatever it is mama and papa will ask of us." "Yes, you... you always have." "Now, would you go upstairs?" "Later I will come and say good night." " Good night." " Good night." "You're going away again, aren't you, papa?" "Yes." "You must let me come along." "I will help in... in small ways." "I will learn." "You will teach me." "I am not as yet a man and it would not be of such importance if anything happened to me." "I will give you some rules now." "Please remember them, Joshua." "And never to disobey them." "Our forces are small." "Therefore, we must risk no more men in any enterprise than it is needed to carry it out." "Always in our work, a man will wish to go with you." "That is wrong." "We are not here to show that we are brave and not to be modest, either, and say:" ""I am not important." "Let me take the risk."" "He takes the risk who is entitled to it." "Soon you will be a man." "Never have I doubted that for you." "Also this will be what a man should most do." "I'm right?" "Of course, papa." "You are young." "You are smart." "You are strong." "You are a fine investment for our work when the time comes." "In the meantime, I give you orders." "You think you've trained yourself in mind and body." "Your day is not so distant." "If it should come and I have not as yet returned... it is not wise, perhaps, to speak so far in the future but the world goes bad and who knows how long that will last." "Therefore, with delicacy and care, I wish you also to prepare Bodo when his time too shall come." "God help us." "Go upstairs now." "Say nothing to the others." "I will come later." "Fanny:" "Does Kurt intend to bribe his friends out of prison?" " Is that what he said?" " Yes." "Fanny:" "It's all very strange to me." "I thought things were so well run that... what wonderful work fascists have done in convincing people they are men from legends." "They've done very well for themselves, unfortunately." "But not by themselves." "We don't like to remember, do we, that they came in on the shoulders of some of the most powerful men in the world." "That makes us feel guilty so we prefer to believe that they're mysterious men from the planets." "Well, they aren't." "They're smart and they're sick and they're cruel." "But, given men who know what they fight for, and will fight hard..." "Yes." "Given men who know what they fight for." "I will console you." "A year ago last month, 3:00 in the morning Freidank and I, with two elderly pistols raided the home of the Gestapo chief in Konstanz." "We got what we wanted, and the following morning Freidank was eating his breakfast three blocks away and I was over the Swiss border." "Fanny:" "You are brave men." "I do not tell you the story to prove that we are remarkable but to prove that they are not." "Would you like a drink?" "You look... you look very tired." "It is waiting waiting that is bad for me." "Fanny:" "But I really don't understand what you're waiting for." "Now, I mean." "I think the count de Brancovis will try tonight to find out who I am." "I wait now to see if he has so found me out." "Beyond that, I myself, do not understand." "But there's nothing he can do." "Waiting." "Once, in Spain I waited two days for the fascist planes to exhaust themselves." "I say finally to myself, if I must reach up with my naked hands I will stop them." "It is such waiting for which I am not fit." "You will not think that when the time comes." " It will go." " Of a certainty." "But must it always be your hands?" "For each man, his own hands." "He has to sleep with them." "That's right." "I guess it's the way we should all feel." "But... but you have a family." "Isn't there somebody else who hasn't a wife and children?" "Each could find his own excuse." "Some have bullet holes, some have fear of the camps and many are getting older." "Each could find a reason." "Many find it." "And my children are not the only children in the world, even to me." "That's noble of you, of course, but... one means always in English to insult with that word, noble?" " Of course not." " It is not noble." "It is only the way I must live." "Fanny:" "But I was thinking of Sara." "I want it this way, mama." "The way Kurt wants it." "You wanted a good life for your children." "We want it for ours too." "This is Kurt's way of trying to get it for them." "Good evening." "There's something bad happening, isn't there?" "I have been to the German embassy tonight, herr Müller." "Yes." "That's where I thought you would go." "I don't know what this is all about, but I'm guessing, because I know Teck." "I have nothing to do with any of it." "And I have nothing to do with Teck anymore." "If you do not mean what you're saying, change your mind." "You are talking most unwisely." "You are trying to frighten me." "But you're not going to anymore." "I'm not going away with you and I'm never going away with you." " Shall we talk about this alone?" " You can't make me stay with you." "You can't make stay now that I'm not frightened anymore." " No, perhaps not." " Then there's nothing to talk about." "You're in love with him?" "You never can understand anything that hasn't got tricks to it." "I don't like you, Teck." "I never have." "We will not leave here together and we will not meet again." "Not now." "Good night." "Well... a great many things have been said in the past few minutes." "David, am I to understand...?" "You are to understand anything you like." "Without Marthe, I shall be a very lonely man." "Already, I'm a very poor one." "Before I go tonight, I should like to have $ 10,000." " You, blackmailing with your wife, you..." "Kurt:" "No, David." "The count de Brancovis is not bargaining with you or Marthe." "He is talking to me." "Is that correct?" "Good." "I see that you understand." "I got from the embassy a list and descriptions without, of course, saying why I wanted them." "But if I have to take any more of that, I shall go immediately back to them." "You will not again be interrupted." "Very well." "There were many names on the list." "And among the descriptions is this, of a man we shall call Götter because that is the name he has most often used." ""Age, 40 to 45. about 6 feet." "One hundred and seventy pounds." "Many descriptions." "All of them unreliable." "Married to a foreign woman, either English or American." "Three children." "Has used the names of Götter, Thomas Bodmor, Karl Francis." "Thought to have left Germany in 1933 and to have joined the notorious Max Freidank." "Known to have crossed border in 1934, February, May, June, October." "And again, with Freidank in 1935 and in August, October, November, 1936."" "An active man, this Götter." "Yes." "Very." "It would've been impossible for a magician to have crossed that often." "Really?" "Well, to go on." ""In 1934, outlaw radio station announcing itself as Radio European begins to operate." "Götter was known to have crossed border before and after three of the broadcasts." "Götter believed to have then appeared in Spain with Madrid government army." "Known to have lived in France the first months of 1938." "Again, crossed border sometime during week when Hitler's Hamburg radio speech was interrupted off the air."" "That was a daring deed, herr Müller." "I remember it well." "It amused me." " It was not done for that reason." " No?" ""Early in 1939, an informer in Konstanz reported Götter's arrival with Freidank carrying money exchanged in Paris and Brussels." "Following day, home of Konstanz Gestapo chief was raided by two men who took spy list and escaped."" "Herr Müller, that job took two good men." "Even you admire them." "Teck:" "Even I." "Now, I think you are Götter, Thomas Bodmor, Karl..." "Please do not describe me to myself again." "I think that because Freidank has been taken, you'll be traveling home." "If I am wrong, and you will not be going back, the German embassy will..." "Kurt:" "I am going back." "I will start tonight." "So." "You tell me free of charge." "Well, I will tell you free of charge that I do not believe they've forced information out of Freidank." "Thank you." "But I was sure they would not." "I know all three most well." "They will be able to stand up under..." "under whatever is given them." "Yes." "There is a deep sickness in the German character." "A love of death, a love of pain." " Spare us your moral judgments." " Yes, they're sickening." " Get on with your dirty business." " Fanny and David are Americans." "They do not understand our world." "And if they are fortunate, they never will." "All fascists are not of one mind, one stripe." "There are those who give the orders and there those who take them." "They came late." "Some of them were, up to a point, fastidious men." "For these, we may someday have pity." "They are lost men." "Their spoils are small." "Their days gone." "Yes?" "You have the understanding heart." " Someday, it will get in your way." "Kurt:" "I will watch it." "We are both men in trouble, herr Müller." "The world, perhaps ungratefully, seems to like your kind even less than it does mine." "Now let us do business." "You will not get back if I inform the embassy that you are going." " They will see that you are killed before." " You are wrong." "I will not be killed before I get there." "I will get back." "There are men they would like to have besides me." "I would be allowed to walk directly to them." "Until they had all the names and all the addresses." "Romanians would pick me up ahead of time." "Germans would not." " Still the national pride?" " And why not, for that which is good?" "I haven't felt what I feel now." "Whatever you are and however you became it the picture of a man selling other men's lives... is very ugly, madame Fanny." "I do not do it without some shame." "And I must therefore sink my shame in large money." " You have over $20,000 in your briefcase." " Yes." "You are an expert with locks." "For $ 10,000 you can go back to wherever you go." "No one will know that you go, I will give you my wishes." " What?" " No." "That money will go back with me as it is." "It was not given to me to save my life and I shall not so use it." "It is to save the lives and further the work of more than I." "And it is important to me to carry on that work." "And, count de Brancovis the first morning when we arrived in this country, my children were hungry." "That is because we were not able to buy sufficient breakfast for them." "If I wouldn't touch that money for them, I wouldn't for you." "It goes back with me as it is." "And if it does not get back, it is because I will not get back." "Teck:" "I do not think you will get back." "You're a brave one, herr Müller, but you will not get back." "I will send you a postal card and tell you all about my bravery." "Is it true that if this swine talks, you and the others...?" "Sara:" "Will be caught and killed." "If they're lucky enough to be killed quickly." "All right." "We'll give him the money." "Let's give it to him and get him out of here." "Do you want him to go back?" "Yes, I do." "David:" "All right." "You're a good girl, Sara." "If we give you the money, what's to keep you from selling to the embassy?" "I do not like your thinking I'd do that." "Look, I'm sick of what you'd like or wouldn't like." "We'll get this over without fancy talk from you." "I can't take much more of you at any cost." "But it is your anger which delays us." "I suggest that you give me a small amount of cash now and the rest in a check dated a month from now." "In a month, Müller should be home, let you know that he is safe and that I have kept my bargain." "We are taking chances on each other, of course." "But I suppose one always does on a deal of such delicacy as ours." "David:" "Is a month all right?" " What?" "I do not know." "Two months." "How do you want the check, how do you want the cash?" "One month." "That I will not discuss." "One month." "Please decide now." "All right." "How do you want it?" "Seventy-five hundred in a check, 2500 in cash." "Leave your address." "I'll send the money." "Address?" "I have no address." "And I wish it now." "I haven't that much cash in the house." "I have 15 or 1600 in the sitting-room safe." "Very well, that will do." "Make the rest in a check." "Get it, mama." "The new world has left the room." "I feel less discomfort with you." "We are Europeans, born to trouble and understanding it." " My wife is not European." " Almost." "They are young." "The world has gone well for most of them." "For us, the three of us we're like peasants watching the big frost:" "Work, trouble, ruin." "But no need to call curses at the frost." "There it is." "There it will be again." "Always for us." "Me and my husband and I do not have angry words for you." "It goes deeper than that with us." "We know how many there are of you." "They don't, yet." "My mother and brother feel shocked that you're in their house." "We have seen you in so many houses." "I do not say that you want to understand me, mrs." "Müller." "I say only that you do." "Yes, you are not difficult to understand." " Whiskey?" " No, thank you." "Brandy?" "Thank you, I will." "You, too, wish to go back to Europe, huh?" "Yes." "But they do not much want you there." "I do not think the embassy would pay you in money for a description of a man who has a month to travel." "But I think they would pay you in a visa." "And I think you want a visa almost as much as you want money." "I conclude that you will try for the money here and for the visa from the embassy." "I cannot get anywhere near Germany in a month and you know that." "I've been bored with this talk of paying you money." "If they are willing to try you in this fantasy, I am not." "Unlike you, I am not a gambler, I do not take chances." "Get up, please." "Mach die Tür auf." "I wish nobody to come outside." "Hello?" "What time is your next plane?" "To... to south." "To El Paso or Brownsville." "Yes." " Where is he, upstairs?" " They went out." "Outside." " They went outside?" " No, David." "Don't go out." "Yes?" "Oh, that's all right." "No, the ticket will be picked up at the airport." "Uh..." "Ritter." "R-i-t-t-e-r." "From Chicago." "Yes." "Sara, what is this?" "What's happening?" "No." "Don't interfere now." "Either of you." "I know when I'm a loser." "I give my word." "Your word." "What guarantees, what bonds could hold such a man as you?" "No substance to you." "Nothing that could be held to anything." "You are not even a coward." "If I try to frighten you into silence, by tomorrow, you'd have forgotten your fear." "You are a fool." "You play with men's lives to have money to live in worthlessness." "You and all your shabby kind." "Tonight, before you come home, I pray for you." "I pray that you will have done nothing." "That I will not have to touch you." "I do not like to kill this way." "Teck:" "Listen to me, I..." " I have seen many men die." "I give you advice." "It is easier without words." "They will not now do you good." "You will be better without them." "[Gunshot]" "I think it's all over now." "There's nothing you can do about it." "It's the way it had to be." "He's going away now." "I don't think he'll ever come back anymore." "Never." "Never, never." "I don't like to be alone at night." "I guess everybody in the world has got a time they don't like." "Me, it's right before I go to sleep." "And now it's going to be for always." "All the rest of my life." "I've told them." "I've made you a reservation on a midnight plane to Brownsville." "In the name of Ritter." "Liebe, Sara." "It is hard for you." " I am sorry." " Hard?" "I don't know." "I don't... before I come in I stand and think." "I say I will make Fanny and David understand." "I say, "how can I?"" "Does one understand the killing?" "No." "So in the end, what is there to say?" "Then do not try to explain, I say." "I do what must be done." "I have long sickened the words when I see the man who live by them." "I've stopped a man's life." "I sit here and listen to him." "I want only for you to believe that I pray it will not have to be and then I know I will have to kill him." "I know if I do not, it is only that I pamper myself risk the lives of others as well as my own." "So I want you from the room." "I know what I must do." "All right." "Do I now pretend sorrow?" "Do I now pretend it is not I who acts thus?" "No." "I do it." "I have done it before." "And I will do it again." "And I will always keep my hope that we may make a world in which all man can die in bed." "I have great hate for the violent." "They are the sick of the world." "Maybe I am sick now too." "Oh, stop it, Kurt." "That isn't true." "It's late." "You have to go soon." "Yes." "Now I am going to take your car." "I will take him with me." "After that, it is up to you." "Two ways:" "You can let me go and keep silent." "I believe I can hide him in the car." "At the end of two days, if they have not been found you call your police, tell them as much of the truth it is safe for you to say." "I will have left the country, there'll be no doubt who did the killing." "If you will give me those two days I believe I will be far enough away from here." "And if the car is found before then, I will still try to move with speed." "I do not think for the world you will be in bad trouble." "Inside yourselves that is for you to decide." "You may take the other way." "I'm going to say goodbye to my children now." "That will give you time to call the police." "I will still leave, but I will not get home." "Papa wrote it years ago." "Papa said the only men on earth worth their time on earth were the men who would fight for other men." "Papa said we have struggled through from darkness." "But man moves forward with each day and each hour to a better, freer life." "That desire to go forward that willingness to fight for it cannot be put in a man." "But when it is there... please let him go back." "Of course, darling." "He'll have his two days." "We'll take care of things here." "It's a fine thing to have you for a daughter, Sara." "I would like to have been like you." "We have said many goodbyes to each other, huh?" "Well, we will now have to say another one." "But this time, I will leave you with good people to whom you, I believe, also will be good." "Would you allow me to give away my share in you until I get back?" " If you would like it." " Good." "Then, to mama, her share." "My share to Fanny and David." "It is all and it is the most I have to give." "There." "I've made a will." "But now we will not joke." "I have something to say and it is important to me to say it." "You are talking to us as if we were children." "Am i, Babbie?" "I wish you were children." "I wish I could say to you, love your mother, do not eat too many sweets clean your teeth." "I cannot say these things to you." "You are not children." "I took your childhood all away from you." "We have had a most enjoyable life, papa." "You are a gallant little liar." "And I thank you for it." "I have done something bad tonight." " You could not do a bad thing." "Babette:" "You could not." "Now, let us get straight together." "The four of us." "Do you remember when we read Les miserables?" "You remember that we talked about it afterwards and Bodo got candy on mama's bed?" "I remember." "Well the man in the book stole bread." ""The world is out of shape," he said, "when there are hungry men."" "And until it gets in shape, men will steal and lie and kill." "But for whatever reason it's done, and whoever does it you understand it, it is all bad." "I want you to remember that." "Whoever does it, it's bad." "But you will live to see the day when it will not have to be." "All over the world, in every place, every town there are men who are going to make sure it will not have to be." "They want what I want." "A childhood for every child." "For my children, and I for theirs." "Think of that." "It will make you happy." "In every town, every village, every mud hut in the world there is always a man who loves children and who will fight to make a good world for them." "Goodbye now." "Wait for me." "I shall try to come back for you." "Or you shall come to me." "The boat will come in and it will be a fine and a safe land." "And I will be waiting on the dock for you." "And there will be the three of you and mama, Fanny and David." "And I will have ordered an extra big dinner and we will show them what our country can be like." "Of course, papa." "That is the way it will be." "Of course." " Gute Nacht, liebling!" " Gute Nacht, papa!" "Do it well." "Mach's gut!" " Good night, baby." " Good night, papa." "Mach's gut!" " Good night, son." " Good night, papa." "Mach's gut!" "You go with our blessing." "We will take care of things here." "David and I would like to give you this money to use for your friends." "A thank you is too small." "I..." "Goodbye." "Good luck." "Men who wish to live have the best chance to live." "I wish to live." "I wish to live with you." "Seventeen years." "It is as much for me today." "I have loved just once, and for all my life." "Come back for me, darling." "If you can." "I will try." "Goodbye to you all." "Joshua:" "Bodo cries." "Babette looks very queer." "I think you should come, mama." "Bodo talks so fancy." "We forget sometimes he is a baby." "[Engine revs]" "Well we've been shaken out of the magnolias." "Yes." "So we have." "Yes." "Well, tomorrow will be a hard day." "But we'll have Babbie's birthday dinner and we'll have music afterwards." "I think you'd better go up to Marthe now." "In the end, she will have to know." "Be as careful as you can." "Well, I think I'll go up and talk to Anise." "I like Anise best when I don't feel well." "Mama?" "We're going to be in for trouble." " You understand that?" " I understand it very well." "We will manage." "I'm not put together with flour paste." "And neither are you, I'm happy to learn." "Maybe we'll get a letter soon." "You can't tell." "After all, it isn't so easy to send word." "There have been long times before." "Don't you think so, Joshua?" "Don't you think, maybe?" "Maybe." "But you can't find papa on a map." "Joshua:" "No?" "Are you using the map for your lessons?" "No." "What do you mean, no?" "What are you doing with that map?" "Answer me, Joshua." "L..." "I was thinking about ways to get home." "What are you talking about?" "In five months, I will have a birthday." "If by then we have not yet had word from papa, I shall be going, mama." "You have known it and I have known it." "But we have not wanted to speak of it." "What kind of talk is that?" "You will not go." "You're only a child." "I will not let you." "Do you hear me, Joshua?" "I will not let you." "I do not believe that." "I believe that you will let me go." "I believe that when my time will come, you will want me to go." "I believe too, and I'll say it now that you will tell Bodo the things he needs to know and if the world stays bad so long you will send him after me when his time comes." "You are a brave lady, mama." "And that is the way you will want things to be." "Thank you, son." "That was a nice thing to say." "I'm not brave." "It isn't like that at all." "When the time comes when it comes I will do my best." "English spellchecking by Pippi Longstocking July 25, 2010"