Her lips tightened. “So you think it is just … a stunt?” She often used words like that, with great deliberation and as if they were bound to effect some miraculous conveyance of ideas between an Austrian and an American.
“Perhaps hardly that. There doesn’t seem anything catchpenny about it … like a cancer cure or a new rejuvenation technique—that’s the sort of stuff to make the headlines. Electromagnetism is for scientists…. What does Brad say about it?”
“That is just the point.” She tried hard to be calm. “Because … because … it is his own discovery … Mark’s … and Hugo Framm has stolen it.” This took a little time to take in, and meanwhile she had to go on saying the hated word. “Do you not understand? Hugo Framm has stolen it. It is Mark’s work, not Framm’s at all.”
“That’s a pretty serious accusation,” I said at length. “How would you prove it?”
“I have hundreds of proofs. Pages and pages of Mark’s notes. I have been copying them out for him every night when he came home from the laboratory— every night for months. And I know his work enough to recognize that all the conclusions are the same … Mark was only waiting for some final tests before assembling the whole material into a thesis.” She tried to give me technical details, but they weren’t comprehensible; she could only assure me that the theft was flagrant, and one thing I was convinced of, her sincerity. My silence made her exclaim: “You do not think I speak the truth? You think it is impossible?”
“Of course not. It just takes my breath away—the idea of Brad doing all the work and Framm getting all the credit—”
“Oh no…. Because I am not going to let that happen. Something must be done to upset this. Something will be done. Do you think I would stand by and see my husband cheated?”
Her face then, lit by passion, seemed almost that of another person. She was even speaking loudly enough to be overheard, if anyone else in the cafe were acutely listening. The “carefulness” had been like a mask, suddenly dropped, or perhaps like a habit, momentarily forgotten.
“You didn’t tell me what Brad said. You can’t do much on your own.”
“I know. That is why I sent for you. Because you are of his nationality and would understand perhaps better how to talk to him.”
“You mean he doesn’t even know about it yet? You haven’t told him?”
“He knows. He saw it in the paper himself. But he refuses to do anything…. That is the trouble. That is what you have to talk to him about…. I shall go back now—alone. You visit us later, then I can tell you all this again, in front of him, and you can say how much it shocks you.” She stared at me hard. “But perhaps you are not so shocked?”
“Of course I am. It’s a scandalous thing that a man’s work should be—”
“But it does not surprise you that he refuses to do anything? Perhaps you understand him better than I?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“You have known him longer.”
“But not so intimately … ever…. And I am surprised, except that I’m not surprised to be surprised, if you know what I mean….”
“Intimately?” she repeated. I could see she was thinking of a specific meaning of the word. But that was equally true, and what I had partly meant, and it certainly gave her the edge, if she needed one. There was a deep, friendly, and highly intelligent jealousy between us, something both of us recognized, concealed, and refused to waste time in worrying about. It had its own queer limits too; she did not, for instance, in the least object to my walking with Brad in the Burggarten while she stayed at home to do his typing. But once, when she had seen me using my own portable, she had said, almost cattishly: “Only two fingers? That would not do for me. It is necessary for me to be quite expert when I work for Mark.”
* * * * *
It was towards ten o’clock when I reached the apartment, and what happened was much simpler than Pauli had planned. I told Brad I had seen in the Prague paper a report of Framm’s lecture, and this was to have been Pauli’s cue, but Brad picked it up quicker. “You’ve touched on a tender spot,” he said, suddenly reaching for his hat and overcoat. “Pauli and I have just had our first quarrel about it…. Tell her if you want, Pauli—I’m going round the corner for a glass of beer.”
And he stalked out, leaving us to a conversation that was not part of our program.
“It is unlike him to do that,” Pauli said anxiously.
I said a few drinks might not be a bad thing, they might loosen him up and we could then hammer the whole thing out with fewer inhibitions. I asked if there had really been a quarrel and she replied: “Of course not. I told him what he must do and he said he could not do it, that was all.” But that, I reflected, might well be his idea of a quarrel, even if not hers.
He came back about midnight, looking relaxed, good-humored, almost jaunty. Perhaps the beer had done this, though there was certainly no sign that he had drunk too much. He said he had found someone to play chess with, and had won the game. I asked if it was the same man he had played with that night he wrote me the long letter about science, and he answered: “No. I don’t know his name and he didn’t ask mine. That’s the good thing about chess. You just play it with anyone who can.”
I had suggested to Pauli that she leave us alone to talk things over, and this she now did, though rather reluctantly. As soon as I heard her busying herself in the kitchen I said: “Well now, Brad, what’s it all about?”
“Our little quarrel? Didn’t she tell you?”
“Yes … and is she right, that’s what I want to know. Did Framm steal your stuff?”
He smiled, as to a child who has asked something uncomfortably naďve. “I like simple words, Jane, but when they’re too simple they don’t always help…. You talk about somebody stealing my stuff. What stuff? A few pages of algebra—how can such a thing be my stuff—or anybody’s stuff? So what do you mean by stealing? Mathematicians don’t take out patents. We don’t have copyrights, trademarks, Good Housekeeping seals of approval…. And besides, Pauli’s prejudiced—she hates Framm. Well, that’s all right—I don’t blame her. But it’s no reason why I should accept her viewpoint in everything. She has a great sense of possession—most women have. To her the whole thing’s just as if I’d left an umbrella on the tram and someone had run off with it.”
All of which impressed me only until I realized how completely it evaded the issue. I answered: “Brad … will you answer me this question … honestly … how much of Framm’s discovery covers the same ground as your own work?”
“Oh, a great deal. It actually confirms my work. That’s fine. To have a scientist of Framm’s eminence state with confidence something which you yourself have postulated only tentatively—it’s a great encouragement if you look at it the right way.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“I thought you understood me better than that.”
“I don’t. Or rather, I don’t know whether I do or not. But I think I understand Framm a little, even though I’ve only met him once. He’s ambitious and unscrupulous and I’d say he’s quite capable of grabbing anybody else’s work to bolster his reputation—to cut a dash in Berlin so that if events move the Nazi way he’ll get a big job.”
“Might be. As a politician he’s probably the worst shyster in the world— it’s only as a scientist that I can guarantee him.”
“How about him as a man—a man of honor?”
“I haven’t any idea. We don’t cover that territory.”
“You mean you’re indifferent? Don’t you really mind what he’s done? You don’t think any less of him for it? It’s what you were willing to have happen? You feel you can go on working with him—”
“One question at a time,” he interrupted, “or I won’t remember them. To begin with, you’re making all this far too personal. It isn’t a question of whether I like Framm less or more or even at all. As I told you once he’s the kind of man you don’t have to like—not when you work with him professionally.
And if you ask me whether I’m willing for him to use my work, then that’s an easy one—of course I am. Any scientist can use my work. And I can use his. We take that for granted…. Don’t look so indignant. Your slant’s a bit better than Pauli’s, but it still makes everything too simple. From pinching an umbrella we’ve progressed to quoting from a copyrighted author without proper permission … am I right?”
“Brad, if you were in this mood with Pauli I don’t wonder she quarreled with you. What I’m trying to get at, and what you’ve evaded so far, is whether Framm did anything which in your own world, amongst scientists who knew all the facts, would be considered unethical. I can’t answer that question—maybe Pauli can’t—but you can. And so far you haven’t. Why not?”
“Suppose I said because it’s nobody else’s damned business.”
“All right. That’s a straight answer and it leaves me nothing else to say. I’ll go now … let me know when you’re next free for a walk.”
He answered with sudden cordiality: “Any time—tomorrow if you like, provided we don’t get onto arguments like this.”
I went to the kitchen and whispered to Pauli that I hadn’t had any luck in influencing him, maybe it would be better to try again some other time when we’d both had a chance to think things over. “I’ve a feeling if I stay I shall mess things up. It’s late, anyhow, and I’m tired.”
So I said good-night. Brad came downstairs and accompanied me along the street to the corner where I usually found a taxi. There were still crowds everywhere; a Nazi rally had just broken up and the participants, inflamed with oratory, were drifting belligerently home. As we passed a cafe that was open late, Brad suggested going in for a drink.
We found a table. The place was very hot, smoky, and noisy. “Is this where you played chess?” I asked, for something to say.
“No, I’ve never been here before. It’s pretty bad, isn’t it? Do you mind?”
“Not a bit, if you don’t. But I’m not exactly in sympathy with these roisterers.”
“Neither am I. They’re getting bolder—they’re not afraid of being arrested nowadays…. We’ll find somewhere else if you like.”
“No, there’s not time. I’ll have to go soon.”
We drank beer. A mechanical piano struck up to add to the racket. A girl began to sing shrilly.
Brad said, contemplatively: “So you don’t like my mood.”
“I don’t, but as it isn’t normal, I guess I can stand it. In some ways it’s an improvement. You wouldn’t normally ask me to drink beer with you at one in the morning, and never before have you said ‘any time’ when I’ve asked when you were free for a walk.” He called for another beer. “And it’s the first time, to my knowledge, that you’ve drunk so much.”
“Do you mean so much or too much?”
“So much. You’re not an alcoholic yet.”
“Five beers.”
“Good. You ought to do this oftener.”
“Then you ought to be here oftener with me.”
“That clinches it. You’re not normal. I’ve never known you gallant before.”
He laughed. The surface badinage was working us both into a feeling of intimacy. “To tell you the truth, Jane, I got tired of arguing when I knew Pauli was listening from the kitchen all the time.”
“It’s a small apartment.”
“I know. But she does have several attributes of the successful female spy. Among them a great loyalty to whoever or whatever it is that she serves.”
“You,” I said.
“I know. And I’m not really worth the kind of devotion she gives me.”
“I don’t think she’s wise to give it, anyway. She might come a cropper sometime.”
“She doesn’t get as much out of me as she’d like. That’s my fault. I don’t think any woman would. I guess the truth is, my work comes first. But she knew that when she married me—she’d seen the way I work at the lab—she knew how it—consumes me.”
“She probably fancied herself as a reformer. Women do. And there are women who could reform you, I daresay.”
He stared at the table, and suddenly I knew he was thinking of my mother, and that he knew I was also. It made us both somehow uncomfortable, so that I went on with forced lightness: “Well, we were talking about your apartment. I still think it’s small enough for her to have heard without listening.”
“And this place is noisy enough to listen without hearing. Wouldn’t you really like to try somewhere else?”
“No—the noise is all right—especially if we’re going to argue again.”
“But we’re not. I won’t, anyway. I don’t like the feeling you’re against me.”
“I’m not against you, Brad. But I’m against other people pushing you down and you pretending you accidentally fell…. Did Framm behave unscrupulously or not? It’s a simple question if you choose to answer it.”
“Better not mention names here.”
“I’m sorry. Let’s call him he. Did he?”
“Did he what?”
“Did he do what you would have done in his place?”
He looked at me quizzically for a moment, then said: “God, I wouldn’t be in his place for anything.”
“That’s evading the point again.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s the real point….” He leaned forward across the table so that our faces were close; it was the only way he could drop his voice and still be heard. “You know what Pauli wants? She’d have me raise a stink, hire lawyers, start a fight about it. I won’t do that. I wouldn’t even if it were actionable, which I doubt.”
“I could get an opinion. I know a very good lawyer here.”
“Don’t waste your time. I wouldn’t fight. And I don’t mind a bit if you call me a coward. Too many people have wasted time fighting just to be thought not a coward. Because in my own mind I’ve nothing to fight about. I was quite sincere when I said his lecture encouraged me.”
“Encouraged you?”
“Yes. I’d had just a slight doubt about a certain item in my chain of reasoning—it was beginning to keep me awake nights. His—his announcement cleared the matter up, because he wouldn’t have made it if he hadn’t been sure there wasn’t a flaw.”
“You have that much faith in him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because … because he’s a much better scientist than I am—or ever will be. Sorry to keep on using that word—scientist, scientist. Most people think of them as romantic pioneers, or else plodders trying one thing after another till the miracle simply has to happen—like the Curies with radium…. Actually it’s mostly plodding without the miracles and pioneering without the romance. Yet there aremoments—moments that none of those words suit— moments when what’s needed is the guess of sheer genius—the bull’s-eye of a first-class mind operating with a flair. It’s hard to explain, but there’s almost poetry in it as well as logic and luck. I’ve seen him at such moments. He may be other things too, but he’s a—here’s that word again, I can’t help it—he’s a scientist.”
There wasn’t much I could say to that. The beer had made him a little expansive. He went on: “Besides, the truth is, I’m not really ambitious in his way. All the fuss that was made over him in—in the place where he lectured—all that would just bore and bother me to distraction if I ever had to put up with it. And I certainly don’t hanker after some big administrative job where I’d have to play politics. So everything he can possibly have deprived me of, he’s welcome to.”
“Wouldn’t you even have liked the slightest acknowledgment from him?”
“That’s another ambition of his I don’t share—to sit pretty with the— those—” He checked himself in time. “Let’s call them them. You know what I mean.”
I nodded and glanced round the cafe. “There seem to be plenty here.”
“Sure. It’s too bad that science has to be interfered with by such arrogant nitwits. They’ve even closed down the laboratory.??
?
“Yes, Pauli told me.”
“Why are you smiling?”
“Because you called them arrogant. They are, but you are too, whenever you use the word ‘science.’”
“Am I? I can only say that my own work makes me feel very humble.”
“That’s only another form of arrogance. Mystics have it. Makes them pretty hard to get along with.”
“Then I can’t be one … and I don’t think I’m a mystic anyhow. A bit monkish, if you like—perhaps scientists are the modern monks. They shut themselves up in their cells and let the nonsense go on outside—and they have a distant goal that makes them myopic about the foreground…. I remember your mother once asked me if I felt my work as a sort of priesthood—it startled me at the time, but now I think she might have been partly right.”
“She also mentioned a vow of celibacy.”
He laughed. “Oh, count me out of that….”
“Good.”
“You too, I should think?”
“Should you?”
He laughed again. “Well, I’ve sometimes wondered. You’re attractive, intelligent, on your own, and you travel about the world meeting all kinds of interesting men…. What can I think?”
“Exactly.” We both laughed.
He began to assemble the saucers that would show the amount of his bill. “This conversation’s getting too personal. Shall we go?”
“Yes, after one more question. Mind?”
“I might. But go ahead.”
“Just this. You once told me that scientists are in constant touch through scientific journals—a sort of international freemasonry, quite small, but very elite. Now if he hadn’t jumped the gun, wouldn’t you have liked to see your work in one of these journals, with your own name on it?”
He said quietly: “Yes, it would have given me pleasure. But honestly, not as much as to know that for the last two years I’ve been on the right track, not the wrong one.”
“But you’d have had that too.”
“I have it now, that’s the main thing. That’s why I’m celebrating—like this.”
“Brad, I don’t believe you. I think you’re quite a bit hurt by what’s happened. Only you’re tied to an ideal—you feel you oughtn’t to care about credit, therefore you try to make yourself not care.”