BOOK ONE: YESTERDAY S3 write something on a bigger scale, a big, epic work, a mirror of the age, a novel: "It is upon us to begin the work, It is not upon us to complete it, Take that to heart, my girl. Take that to heart, Sybil," 9 I n the Lower Sixth of the Queen Louise School, during the five minutes' recess between the mathematics and the Ger- man lesson, the boys stood about and talked excitedly. The authorities had now at last made up their minds who was to succeed Dr. Heinzius, the master who had come to so lamenta- ble an end. Their choice had finally fallen upon Dr, Bernd Vogel sang, hitherto senior master at Tilsit School, the man whom Rector Franccis had referred to at Gustav Oppermann's birthday party as causing hirn a certain amount of uneasiness. The boys were anxious to see their new form master. Much depended, for each one of thern, upon what type of man the new teacher was. As a rule, it was a snap for the Berlin boys to have to deal with provincial schoolmasters. They feIt them- selves superior to them from the very start, What could a man from Tilsit know about life? Was there asports pavilion there, or a subway, or a stadium, or an aviation field like the Tempelhof or a Luna Park or a Friedrich Strasse? Besides the boys knew already that Dr, Vogelsang was tainted with Na- tionalism. In the Queen Louise School, under the mild and liberal Rector Francois, Nationalism was not popular. Kurt Baumann, one of the boys, related far the hundredth time a case which had occurred in the Kaiser Friedrich SchooL

54 THE OPPERMANNS The fellows there had found a peach of a way of showing the Nationalist senior master, Schultes, which side his bread was buttered on. As soon as he got going with his nonsense they started humming with their mouths shut, They had practised for days, so that the combined humming drowned out the voice of the master, without anything being noticeable on the boys' faces. At first the senior master Schultes thought the reason for the noise was an aeroplane. He had been encouraged in this belief. When, however, the aeroplane regularly turned up every time he started his sickly rot about the Fatherland, he smelt a rat. But they kept their secret. Immense pains were taken to discover the reason for the noise, a thousand conjec- tures were made. Was it the central heating, the water supply, or men in the cellar? They kept the fellow guessing. He was a nervous, sensitive man, that Nationalist senior master Schultes, When the humming started for the fourth time, he burst into tears and turned his face to the wall. Later, to be sure, when the board of trustees took up the investigation, the Nationalists in the class gave the game away and the ring-leaders were punished. All the same, what the boys at the Kaiser Friedrich School had managed to do had been pretty good. The idea might also come in handy at the Queen Louise School, in case the gentleman from Tilsit tried to abuse them, Heinrich Lavendel did not consider the idea practicable. He was sitting on his desk opposite his place, fair-haired, sturdy, swinging his legs alternately as though he were doing gymnas- tics. Heinrich Lavendel, in spite of the fact that he was rather short, looked healthier and stronger than most of his compan- ions. They were nearly all pale and had an indoors look about them. His delicate skin was fresh and bronzed. He devoted all his spare time to taking exercise in the open air. Gazing with interest at the tips of his swinging legs as they flashed in and out, he said thoughtfully: "No, that's no use at all. It might work the first and second time, but we would be caught the third