“Have you written her?”

“Actually, no.”

“No wonder you haven’t heard from her. But a personal visit will be better than ten letters.”

“I’ll agree with that. What’s the occasion, anyway?”

“You know the Germans. They’re constantly trying to pretend that nothing in Europe has changed even though their twentieth-century Napoleon has mustered the largest army on the globe and is making menacing moves everywhere. Their way of doing it is to dress up and bring out the wine and string ensembles and talk and laugh and make merry as if all is calm and serene. After the Austrian Anschluss last year, there were two or three high-level parties and receptions every weekend!”

“But why? Why did they invite you?”

“To show the world that nothing has changed, that Hitler brings only joy and happiness,” answered Thaddeus cynically.

“Are you saying they’re hypocrites?”

“You be the judge, Matt. To use an old phrase the Indians used to say about the white man in our country: Nazi speak with forked tongue!”

Matthew laughed.

“If you want my opinion,” his father went on, “I have the feeling that all this rash of Nazi goodwill going around this summer means that Hitler is up to something. He’s trying to lull us all to sleep.”

“Then why do you go?”

“It’s all part of the diplomatic game, part of my job. So I brush and mix and talk with the Nazis as if nothing is wrong, listening to them carry on and pretend they’re not up to anything and pretending myself that I don’t notice what they’re up to. It’s called diplomacy. But it’s all a charade.”

Several days later, the following letter arrived for the baron at the Dortmann estate.

MY DEAR BARON VON DORTMANN,

It has been far too long since we saw one another. I have managed to keep some distant tabs on you through my son’s correspondence with your daughter. Alas, the time passes too quickly, and, as you are certainly aware, events have been moving on a very rapid track. This is no time, of course, to enter into a discussion of those events, only to say that I have been extremely busy here at the embassy.

Both Matthew and I would very much like to see you and your family once again. It so happens that all of us here on the ambassador’s staff, myself included, have received an invitation to attend a social gathering at the villa of Count Ernst von Schmundt. No doubt you know him and perhaps you will be in attendance as well.