The response was what the editor had hoped. ‘Nothing could have been achieved by the Americans at Panama without the vision of the Frenchman, Ferdinand de Lesseps,’ Anton’s article concluded.

The French attempts ended in scandal and disaster, but this was not due to arrogance. The tragedy of de Lesseps was that he trusted the scientific advances of the last century too much. He viewed engineering not as a process, but as a kind of miracle – and believed that those more qualified than he would ‘find a way’. His was a nineteenth-century life: he was a man from an era when all things seemed possible – even the Canal, which represents the greatest liberty ever taken by mankind with nature. And in the end he was proved right. Without his self-belief and his ability to inspire others to complete what he had started, the oceans would never have been joined.

With a series of dizzying photographs taken from above the Cut and some from inside the West Indian quarters of Panama City, the articles helped the magazine to sell out and reprint. Readers, it seemed, liked to hear about yellow fever and mudslides from the comfort of their armchairs. At the tables of the buzzing cafés, they disagreed with Anton’s exoneration of de Lesseps and wrote to the magazine in their scores to say so. Anton was disappointed by this deluge, but the editor was delighted. ‘They don’t have to agree with us,’ he said, ‘they just need to buy the magazine to see what’s coming next.’

Friedrich took him out to lunch to congratulate him. ‘And your French governess. She must be pleased by your devotion to her countryman.’

‘I’m sure Delphine appreciates the force of my argument. And the facts on which it’s based.’

‘And I expect she’ll find a way of showing her appreciation …’

‘Are you a little jealous, Friedrich? Are you still spending your evenings with the chorus girls?’

‘No, I have a proper girlfriend of my own. Not in a love-nest in the Vienna Woods. She lives with her parents and two sisters in a fine apartment. Time didn’t stand still while you were away.’

‘Ilse? I met her. She was charming, but I thought she seemed out of your—’

‘Enough! Your Panama piece has really irritated a lot of people, you know, Heideck. Having been away so long you may not be aware how much feeling has hardened against the French. Most people think they’re in league with the English. Privately.’

‘League for what? I don’t believe these noises about war. According to the Berlin papers, the Germans have stopped building battleships in any case. And what possible point could a war serve? When the whole continent’s flourishing.’

‘Control of the seas, I suppose,’ said Friedrich. ‘But mostly, I think, the problem is that everyone expects a war, but they don’t want to be the one to declare it. As that French fool Poincaré said, “It’s difficult to declare a defensive war without appearing aggressive.”’