BOOK ONE: YESTERDAY ss time." "What can we do, then?" asked Kurt Baumann, slightly hurt. Heinrich Lavendel stopped swinging his legs, looked round, opened his extremely red lips, and said lightly, shrug- ging his broad shoulders: "Passive resistance, my lad. That's the only sensible line to take." Berthold looked thoughtfully with his piercing grey eyes at his cousin Heinrich Lavendel. That chap had an easy time of it, Tobegin with he was an American. Sometimes, even now, an English word often rose to his lips out of memories of his early years. Secondly, he was the indispensable guard of the Lower Sixth's football team. These were two facts which were bound to make an impression on aNationalist teacher. His, Berthold's, position was more difficult, Not only because the new man was to teach German and history, Berthold's favourite subjects, but, above all, because it depended on this man whether he would be allowed to make his speech on "Hurnanism," A group had gathered round another of the boys, Werner Rittersteg. There were six or seven of them and they were the N ationalists of the class. They had not had an easy time of it so far, they were coming into their own now. They held their heads together. They whispered and laughed and put on im- portant airs. The senior master Vogelsang was a member of the executive committee of the "Y oung Eagles." That was im- portant. The Y oung Eagles were the secret society of the youth of Germany, the atmosphere around that society was full of adventure and secrecy. They formed blood-brotherhoods, they had a secret court. Whoever betrayed their slightest plan was cruelly punished. The whole thing was enormously exciting. The senior master Vogelsang would certainly let them join. This senior master Vogelsang, meanwhile, was sitting in Rector Francois's office. He sat erect, not leaning back, his red- dish hands, covered with downy fair hair, resting on his thighs, his pale blue eyes fixed unwaveringly on Francois, de-

THE OPPERMANNS termined to get this interview over with with as few gestures as possible. Involuntarily, Rector Franccis looked for the sabre at the side of his new senior master. Bernd Vogelsang was not tall, but he made up for his lack in stature by an excess of vigour. The upper and lower parts of his face were separted by a Haxen moustache. A long scar divided his right cheek into two sections and a straight parting divided his hair. Already, two days aga, when he reported to Rector Francois, Bernd Vogelsang had received DO favourable impression of the establishment. Everything he had hitherto seen confirmed all his previous gloorny forebodings. Of the entire staff of the place he only approved of a single person, Mellenthin the porter. He had stood at attention to the new senior master. "Were you in the Service?" Bernd Vogelsang had asked. "In the 94th," Mellenthin the porter had answered. "I was wounded three times." "Right," Vogelsang had replied. But so far that had been the only good mark he had been able to give. That milksop, Rector Francois, had let the school go to the dogs. It was a good job that he, Bernd Vogelsang, had turned up in time to put new life into the thing. Rector Franccis gave hirn a friendly smile from under his white, trim moustache. Frau Franccis had told hirn to be sure and make himself agreeable to the new master. The new mas- ter was not making it easy for Franccis. His eurt way of speak- ing, the concise, sharp, and at the same time banal arrangement of his phrases, his hackneyed, editorial style, were all deeply re- pugnant to hirn. The new man had turned, with a sudden jerky movement, to conternplate a fine, old marble bust. It was an ugly, pro- foundly shrewd head, that of the author and scholar, Franccis Marie Arouet Voltaire. "Do you like that bust, my dear col- league?" asked the Rector politely. "I like the other better," declared the new master bluntly in his broad, squeaking East Prussian accent, pointing to the opposite corner, at the bust of