Regel starts to make his case:
‘But why brand them with the name of villain and wild beast? Why? After all, they derive more strength and glamour from the sensual pleasures of lying and raping than we find in the dismal bed of precept and convention from which we produce only spineless cretins whom the herd are already quietly driving to the very edge of the abyss, our way of extricating ourselves from the old herd was very fine, two consciousnesses face to face, living people who acknowledge each other, each demonstrating to the other that they are there, without one killing the other, and the other one has no need to run away, not like animals, each one needing the other, a struggle which leaves a place for the weak, the loser, attached to life he stays and becomes a servant, and he wins, he is told that he has won, but the master can see in his servant only an object, which means he has no one facing him to acknowledge his consciousness, whereas the servant sees in his master the perfect form of the self, an authentic being, this being deigns to look at him, it is enough for him, he sets to work, and he can contemplate his own self in the fruits of his labour, his labour and a master, a false master, it was a fine thing, except that no one foresaw that the masters would begin killing in earnest, return of the herd! Spineless cretins whom the herd are already quietly driving to the edge of the abyss while all the time telling them that some blessing or other mingles with the mountain dew.’
Regel has moved closer to the window.
‘See how the dew makes the leaves of the tall poplars sparkle and cools our presence in the world! No more need to think, it is enough just to be, to celebrate being, to contemplate the forest, the poplars will march in step with the warrior populace, the tall poplars, let’s take a walk in the woods, yes, and in our absence we are robbed of the space in which we might have struck a discordant note against the night-black diapason even now in rehearsal! Ich hatt’einen Kameraden, einen bess’ren, while, albeit making space for us, they enlarge the cemeteries.’
Regel looks at Hans:
‘Be quiet, Hans! I don’t need any help, I’m not raving, this is a moment of lucidity, Berlin, headship of the Department of Philosophy, forty years of toil, the votes of thirty professors, a life’s work, twelve hours a day! A life played by the rules, a life of rebuffs suffered in silence and with the most respectful politeness even when I felt like ramming a dustbin over the head of the most arrogant of the two-faced hypocrites, the one who broke open the champagne when his little friends killed Rathenau, Rathenau whom I loved like a brother, one of the great men of the Empire and the Republic! The man who opened the champagne is with us now, which is no trifling matter, he had the nerve to say on the day those swine sent by the extreme right and the Casque d’acier killed Rathenau, he said the major ministries should be reserved for men of more “intrinsic” origins, that way there’d be less resentment and violence, bastards! I had right on my side! And the law! And the fact of a democratic majority! But I’d forgotten one thing and some snivelling boot-licker, a member of a government of snivelling boot-lickers incapable of standing up to the scum in brown shirts, some gutless wimp at a desk decided I wouldn’t get the Berlin job, that the job should go to someone more intrinsic! More intrinstic! To the friend and colleague who only moments ago greeted me with open arms, though that friend and colleague knew everything, long before the telegram, more intrinsic, more radiant! It’s all so obvious, when the supporters of people like him turn a spotlight on the power which makes cowards keep silent! Do you enjoy seeing me behaving like some demented puppet on a string? And the philosophers? They say their farewells, they form a circle to applaud my old friend Professor Merken whose origins are much more intrinsic! Make a circle, not a circle, a ring, these days there are no reserved seats for philosophers, they have to put on gloves and fight, like everyone else!’
The only person who dared register a protest with Regel was Frédérique, she tried to treat him as if he wasn’t raving, she thought that by arguing with him they could bring him back to reality.
‘That’s unfair, Professor, the man you refer to has never compromised himself either with the people you say point spotlights or the brown shirts.’
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‘Him? Never! He is pure thought, never an obscene word, a direct gaze, so straight it never pauses to settle on the person he’s speaking to, his look is lost in thought, in the purity of thought, the wonderful flow of ideas, such new ideas, so necessary, so strong, so true, leave it to others to tamper with votes, get their hands dirty grubbing around in the mud.’
Regel’s body suddenly crumples, sags to one side, his elbows pressed against his stomach, hands clenched, knees bent, Erna, his secretary, has tried to talk sense to him.
‘Erna, is that you? Erna, they’ve given your dear old mentor his marching orders and you haven’t downed tools yet? Serves him right? Red Erna, watching while the old social democrat is used as an arse-wipe by the riff-raff, Erna’s little ultra-Red comrades warned her: old Regel is enemy number one, got nothing to say, Erna? You like wolves?’
Erna also talked back at Regel, it was the right way to keep him here with people, talk to him just as if he was fully compos mentis, she told him he was a bit late in the day finding out they were wolves, after believing they’d make very obedient dogs, she started talking as though addressing a public meeting, the place to strike is the fertile womb that spawns the wolves!
It hasn’t calmed Regel down.
‘Ah! the revolutionary exhilaration of knowing you were right all along! Erna is overjoyed when the centrists are flat on their backs!’
Erna going on:
‘The matrix, that’s where we must strike the beast!’
Hans realises that she’s going too far:
‘Professor, won’t you sit down? we can think about this together!’
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‘Think, sleep, hope, we shall all disappear, Hans, anyone who’s extrinsic is going to have to disappear to make way for certifiable madmen!’
He backs into the lounge. The madness contorts him, doubles him up, propels him, swoops down on him again, releases him then puts out its claws almost playfully, he becomes calm, in a slow voice:
‘Nothing to worry about, friends, a passing upset, you know, there are times when I admire what Merken says, it’s very fine, it’s poetry, except that no one should be allowed to poeticise philosophy, meanwhile the poplars, the warriors, I don’t want him to shake my the hand, let’s take a walk in the woods while the wolf s not about, are you there, Mister Wolf? can you hear?’
Then Regel disappears.
*
A week of ideas, of battles over ideas, of monocles, splendour, courtly manners, the men make the rules and the women set the tone, there are Pan-Europeans, nationalists, internationalists, conservatives, defenders of the giant dirigible, socialists, liberals, economic liberals who are conservative in politics and vice versa, progressives, advocates of the four-turret battleship who are there to plan the forthcoming naval conference, anticolonialists, economists, philosophers of rule and balance, jurists, imperialists and proud of it, criss-crossing battle lines, for example supporters of the League of Nations internally split between those who remain faithful to the cellulo-linen choker-collar and those who have gone over to the close-woven, lightly starched, semi-stiff collar, it doesn’t catch the folds under the chin as much, but the soft collar is out, you can leave that to the moneymen.