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Title: The Blood of the Martyrs
   [The second story in Bent's 1937 collection
   Thirteen O'Clock: Stories of Several Worlds]
Author: Bent, Stephen Vincent (1898-1943)
Date of first publication: 1937
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York and Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, 1937
Date first posted: 3 February 2011
Date last updated: 3 February 2011
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #714

This ebook was produced by
Barbara Watson, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net






THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS

by Stephen Vincent Bent


The man who expected to be shot lay with his eyes open, staring at the
upper left-hand corner of his cell. He was fairly well over his last
beating, and they might come for him any time now. There was a yellow
stain in the cell corner near the ceiling; he had liked it at first,
then disliked it; now he was coming back to liking it again.

He could see it more clearly with his glasses on, but he only put on his
glasses for special occasions now--the first thing in the morning, and
when they brought the food in, and for interviews with the General. The
lenses of the glasses had been cracked in a beating some months before,
and it strained his eyes to wear them too long. Fortunately, in his
present life he had very few occasions demanding clear vision. But,
nevertheless, the accident to his glasses worried him, as it worries all
near-sighted people. You put your glasses on the first thing in the
morning and the world leaps into proportion; if it does not do so,
something is wrong with the world.

The man did not believe greatly in symbols, but his chief nightmare,
nowadays, was an endless one in which, suddenly and without warning, a
large piece of glass would drop out of one of the lenses and he would
grope around the cell, trying to find it. He would grope very carefully
and gingerly, for hours of darkness, but the end was always the
same--the small, unmistakable crunch of irreplaceable glass beneath his
heel or his knee. Then he would wake up sweating, with his hands cold.
This dream alternated with the one of being shot, but he found no great
benefit in the change.

As he lay there, you could see that he had an intellectual head--the
head of a thinker or a scholar, old and bald, with the big, domed brow.
It was, as a matter of fact, a well-known head; it had often appeared in
the columns of newspapers and journals, sometimes when the surrounding
text was in a language Professor Malzius could not read. The body,
though stooped and worn, was still a strong peasant body and capable of
surviving a good deal of ill-treatment, as his captors had found out. He
had fewer teeth than when he came to prison, and both the ribs and the
knee had been badly set, but these were minor matters. It also occurred
to him that his blood count was probably poor. However, if he could ever
get out and to a first-class hospital, he was probably good for at least
ten years more of work. But, of course, he would not get out. They would
shoot him before that, and it would be over.

Sometimes he wished passionately that it would be over--tonight--this
moment; at other times he was shaken by the mere blind fear of death.
The latter he tried to treat as he would have treated an attack of
malaria, knowing that it was an attack, but not always with success. He
should have been able to face it better than most--he was Gregor
Malzius, the scientist--but that did not always help. The fear of death
persisted, even when one had noted and classified it as a purely
physical reaction. When he was out of here, he would be able to write a
very instructive little paper on the fear of death. He could even do it
here, if he had writing materials, but there was no use asking for
those. Once they had been given him and he had spent two days quite
happily. But they had torn up the work and spat upon it in front of his
face. It was a childish thing to do, but it discouraged a man from
working.

It seemed odd that he had never seen anybody shot, but he never had.
During the war, his reputation and his bad eyesight had exempted him
from active service. He had been bombed a couple of times when his
reserve battalion was guarding the railway bridge, but that was quite
different. You were not tied to a stake, and the airplanes were not
trying to kill you as an individual. He knew the place where it was done
here, of course. But prisoners did not see the executions, they merely
heard, if the wind was from the right quarter.

He had tried again and again to visualize how it would be, but it always
kept mixing with an old steel engraving he had seen in boyhood--the
execution of William Walker, the American filibuster, in Honduras.
William Walker was a small man with a white semi-Napoleonic face. He was
standing, very correctly dressed, in front of an open grave, and before
him a ragged line of picturesque natives were raising their muskets.
When he was shot he would instantly and tidily fall into the grave, like
a man dropping through a trap door; as a boy, the extreme neatness of
the arrangement had greatly impressed Gregor Malzius. Behind the wall
there were palm trees, and, somewhere off to the right, blue and warm,
the Caribbean Sea. It would not be like that at all, for his own
execution; and yet, whenever he thought of it, he thought of it as being
like that.

Well, it was his own fault. He could have accepted the new regime; some
respectable people had done that. He could have fled the country; many
honorable people had. A scientist should be concerned with the eternal,
not with transient political phenomena; and a scientist should be able
to live anywhere. But thirty years at the university were thirty years,
and, after all, he was Malzius, one of the first biochemists in the
world. To the last, he had not believed that they would touch him. Well,
he had been wrong about that.

The truth, of course, was the truth. One taught it or one did not teach
it. If one did not teach it, it hardly mattered what one did. But he had
no quarrel with any established government; he was willing to run up a
flag every Tuesday, as long as they let him alone. Most people were
fools, and one government was as good as another for them--it had taken
them twenty years to accept his theory of cell mutation. Now, if he'd
been like his friend Bonnard--a fellow who signed protests, attended
meetings for the cause of world peace, and generally played the fool in
public--they'd have had some reason to complain. An excellent man in his
field, Bonnard--none better--but, outside of it, how deplorably like an
actor, with his short gray beard, his pink cheeks and his impulsive
enthusiasms! Any government could put a fellow like Bonnard in
prison--though it would be an injury to science and, therefore, wrong.
For that matter, he thought grimly, Bonnard would enjoy being a martyr.
He'd walk gracefully to the execution post with a begged cigarette in
his mouth, and some theatrical last quip. But Bonnard was safe in his
own land--doubtless writing heated and generous articles on The Case of
Professor Malzius--and he, Malzius, was the man who was going to be
shot. He would like a cigarette, too, on his way to execution; he had
not smoked in five months. But he certainly didn't intend to ask for
one, and they wouldn't think of offering him any. That was the
difference between him and Bonnard.

His mind went back with longing to the stuffy laboratory and stuffier
lecture hall at the university; his feet yearned for the worn steps he
had climbed ten thousand times, and his eyes for the long steady look
through the truthful lens into worlds too tiny for the unaided eye. They
had called him "The Bear" and "Old Prickly," but they had fought to work
under him, the best of the young men. They said he would explain the
Last Judgment in terms of cellular phenomena, but they had crowded to
his lectures. It was Williams, the Englishman, who had made up the
legend that he carried a chocolate clair and a set of improper post
cards in his battered brief case. Quite untrue, of course--chocolate
always made him ill, and he had never looked at an improper post card in
his life. And Williams would never know that he knew the legend, too;
for Williams had been killed long ago in the war. For a moment,
Professor Malzius felt blind hate at the thought of an excellent
scientific machine like Williams being smashed in a war. But blind hate
was an improper emotion for a scientist, and he put it aside.

He smiled grimly again; they hadn't been able to break up his
classes--lucky he was The Bear! He'd seen one colleague hooted from his
desk by a band of determined young hoodlums--too bad, but if a man
couldn't keep order in his own classroom, he'd better get out. They'd
wrecked his own laboratory, but not while he was there.

It was so senseless, so silly. "In God's name," he said reasonably, to
no one, "what sort of conspirator do you think I would make? A man of my
age and habits! I am interested in cellular phenomena!" And yet they
were beating him because he would not tell about the boys. As if he had
even paid attention to half the nonsense! There were certain passwords
and greetings--a bar of music you whistled, entering a restaurant; the
address of a firm that specialized, ostensibly, in vacuum cleaners. But
they were not his own property. They belonged to the young men who had
trusted The Bear. He did not know what half of them meant, and the one
time he had gone to a meeting, he had felt like a fool. For they were
fools and childish--playing the childish games of conspiracy that people
like Bonnard enjoyed. Could they even make a better world than the
present? He doubted it extremely. And yet, he could not betray them;
they had come to him, looking over their shoulders, with darkness in
their eyes.

A horrible, an appalling thing--to be trusted. He had no wish to be a
guide and counselor of young men. He wanted to do his work. Suppose they
were poor and ragged and oppressed; he had been a peasant himself, he
had eaten black bread. It was by his own efforts that he was Professor
Malzius. He did not wish the confidences of boys like Gregopolous and
the others--for, after all, what was Gregopolous? An excellent and
untiring laboratory assistant--and a laboratory assistant he would
remain to the end of his days. He had pattered about the laboratory like
a fox terrier, with a fox terrier's quick bright eyes. Like a devoted
dog, he had made a god of Professor Malzius. "I don't want your
problems, man. I don't want to know what you are doing outside the
laboratory." But Gregopolous had brought his problems and his terrible
trust none the less, humbly and proudly, like a fox terrier with a bone.
After that--well, what was a man to do?

He hoped they would get it over with, and quickly. The world should be
like a chemical formula, full of reason and logic. Instead, there were
all these young men, and their eyes. They conspired, hopelessly and
childishly, for what they called freedom against the new regime. They
wore no overcoats in winter and were often hunted and killed. Even if
they did not conspire, they had miserable little love affairs and ate
the wrong food--yes, even before, at the university, they had been the
same. Why the devil would they not accept? Then they could do their
work. Of course, a great many of them would not be allowed to
accept--they had the wrong ideas or the wrong politics--but then they
could run away. If Malzius, at twenty, had had to run from his country,
he would still have been a scientist. To talk of a free world was a
delusion; men were not free in the world. Those who wished got a space
of time to get their work done. That was all. And yet, he had not
accepted--he did not know why.

Now he heard the sound of steps along the corridor. His body began to
quiver and the places where he had been beaten hurt him. He noted it as
an interesting reflex. Sometimes they merely flashed the light in the
cell and passed by. On the other hand, it might be death. It was a hard
question to decide.

The lock creaked, the door opened. "Get up, Malzius!" said the hard,
bright voice of the guard. Gregor Malzius got up, a little stiffly, but
quickly.

"Put on your glasses, you old fool!" said the guard, with a laugh. "You
are going to the General."

Professor Malzius found the stone floors of the corridor uneven, though
he knew them well enough. Once or twice the guard struck him, lightly
and without malice, as one strikes an old horse with a whip. The blows
were familiar and did not register on Professor Malzius' consciousness;
he merely felt proud of not stumbling. He was apt to stumble; once he
had hurt his knee.

He noticed, it seemed to him, an unusual tenseness and officiousness
about his guard. Once, even, in a brightly lighted corridor the guard
moved to strike him, but refrained. However, that, too, happened
occasionally, with one guard or another, and Professor Malzius merely
noted the fact. It was a small fact, but an important one in the economy
in which he lived.

But there could be no doubt that something unusual was going on in the
castle. There were more guards than usual, many of them strangers. He
tried to think, carefully, as he walked, if it could be one of the new
national holidays. It was hard to keep track of them all. The General
might be in a good humor. Then they would merely have a cat-and-mouse
conversation for half an hour and nothing really bad would happen.
Once, even, there had been a cigar. Professor Malzius, the scientist,
licked his lips at the thought.

Now he was being turned over to a squad of other guards, with salutings.
This was really unusual; Professor Malzius bit his mouth,
inconspicuously. He had the poignant distrust of a monk or an old
prisoner at any break in routine. Old prisoners are your true
conservatives; they only demand that the order around them remains
exactly the same.

It alarmed him as well that the new guards did not laugh at him. New
guards almost always laughed when they saw him for the first time. He
was used to the laughter and missed it--his throat felt dry. He would
have liked, just once, to eat at the university restaurant before he
died. It was bad food, ill cooked and starchy, food good enough for poor
students and professors, but he would have liked to be there, in the big
smoky room that smelt of copper boilers and cabbage, with a small cup of
bitter coffee before him and a cheap cigarette. He did not ask for his
dog or his notebooks, the old photographs in his bedroom, his incomplete
experiments or his freedom. Just to lunch once more at the university
restaurant and have people point out The Bear. It seemed a small thing
to ask, but of course it was quite impossible.

"Halt!" said a voice, and he halted. There were, for the third time,
salutings. Then the door of the General's office opened and he was told
to go in.

He stood, just inside the door, in the posture of attention, as he had
been taught. The crack in the left lens of his glasses made a crack
across the room, and his eyes were paining him already, but he paid no
attention to that. There was the familiar figure of the General, with
his air of a well-fed and extremely healthy tomcat, and there was
another man, seated at the General's desk. He could not see the other
man very well--the crack made him bulge and waver--but he did not like
his being there.

"Well, professor," said the General, in an easy, purring voice.

Malzius's entire body jerked. He had made a fearful, an unpardonable
omission. He must remedy it at once. "Long live the state," he shouted
in a loud thick voice, and saluted. He knew, bitterly, that his salute
was ridiculous and that he looked ridiculous, making it. But perhaps the
General would laugh--he had done so before. Then everything would be all
right, for it was not quite as easy to beat a man after you had laughed
at him.

The General did not laugh. He made a half turn instead, toward the man
at the desk. The gesture said, "You see, he is well trained." It was the
gesture of a man of the world, accustomed to deal with unruly peasants
and animals--the gesture of a man fitted to be General.

The man at the desk paid no attention to the General's gesture. He
lifted his head, and Malzius saw him more clearly and with complete
unbelief. It was not a man but a picture come alive. Professor Malzius
had seen the picture a hundred times; they had made him salute and take
off his hat in front of it, when he had had a hat. Indeed, the picture
had presided over his beatings. The man himself was a little smaller,
but the picture was a good picture. There were many dictators in the
world, and this was one type. The face was white, beaky and
semi-Napoleonic; the lean, military body sat squarely in its chair. The
eyes dominated the face, and the mouth was rigid. I remember also a
hypnotist, and a woman Charcot showed me, at his clinic in Paris,
thought Professor Malzius. But there is also, obviously, an endocrine
unbalance. Then his thoughts stopped.

"Tell the man to come closer," said the man at the desk. "Can he hear
me? Is he deaf?"

"No, Your Excellency," said the General, with enormous, purring respect.
"But he is a little old, though perfectly healthy. . . . Are you not,
Professor Malzius?"

"Yes, I am perfectly healthy. I am very well treated here," said
Professor Malzius, in his loud thick voice. They were not going to catch
him with traps like that, not even by dressing up somebody as the
Dictator. He fixed his eyes on the big old-fashioned inkwell on the
General's desk--that, at least, was perfectly sane.

"Come closer," said the man at the desk to Professor Malzius, and the
latter advanced till he could almost touch the inkwell with his fingers.
Then he stopped with a jerk, hoping he had done right. The movement
removed the man at the desk from the crack in his lenses, and Professor
Malzius knew suddenly that it was true. This was, indeed, the Dictator,
this man with the rigid mouth. He began to talk.

"I have been very well treated here and the General has acted with the
greatest consideration," he said. "But I am Professor Gregor
Malzius--professor of biochemistry. For thirty years I have lectured at
the university; I am a fellow of the Royal Society, a corresponding
member of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin, at Rome, at Boston, at
Paris and Stockholm. I have received the Nottingham Medal, the Lamarck
Medal, the Order of St. John of Portugal and the Nobel Prize. I think my
blood count is low, but I have received a great many degrees and my
experiments on the migratory cells are not finished. I do not wish to
complain of my treatment, but I must continue my experiments."

He stopped, like a clock that has run down, surprised to hear the sound
of his own voice. He noted, in one part of his mind, that the General
had made a move to silence him, but had himself been silenced by the
Dictator.

"Yes, Professor Malzius," said the man at the desk, in a harsh, toneless
voice. "There has been a regrettable error." The rigid face stared at
Professor Malzius. Professor Malzius stared back. He did not say
anything.

"In these days," said the Dictator, his voice rising, "the nation
demands the submission of every citizen. Encircled by jealous foes, our
reborn land yet steps forward toward her magnificent destiny." The words
continued for some time, the voice rose and fell. Professor Malzius
listened respectfully; he had heard the words many times before and they
had ceased to have meaning to him. He was thinking of certain cells of
the body that rebel against the intricate processes of Nature and set up
their own bellicose state. Doubtless they, too, have a destiny, he
thought, but in medicine it is called cancer.

"Jealous and spiteful tongues in other countries have declared that it
is our purpose to wipe out learning and science," concluded the
Dictator. "That is not our purpose. After the cleansing, the rebirth. We
mean to move forward to the greatest science in the world--our own
science, based on the enduring principles of our nationhood." He ceased
abruptly, his eyes fell into their dream. Very like the girl Charcot
showed me in my young days, thought Professor Malzius; there was first
the ebullition, then the calm.

"I was part of the cleansing? You did not mean to hurt me?" he asked
timidly.

"Yes, Professor Malzius," said the General, smiling, "you were part of
the cleansing. Now that is over. His Excellency has spoken."

"I do not understand," said Professor Malzius, gazing at the fixed face
of the man behind the desk.

"It is very simple," said the General. He spoke in a slow careful voice,
as one speaks to a deaf man or a child. "You are a distinguished man of
science--you have received the Nobel Prize. That was a service to the
state. You became, however, infected by the wrong political ideas. That
was treachery to the state. You had, therefore, as decreed by His
Excellency, to pass through a certain period for probation and
rehabilitation. But that, we believe, is finished."

"You do not wish to know the names of the young men any more?" said
Professor Malzius. "You do not want the addresses?"

"That is no longer of importance," said the General patiently. "There is
no longer opposition. The leaders were caught and executed three weeks
ago."

"There is no longer opposition," repeated Professor Malzius.

"At the trial, you were not even involved."

"I was not even involved," said Professor Malzius. "Yes."

"Now," said the General, with a look at the Dictator, "we come to the
future. I will be frank--the new state is frank with its citizens."

"It is so," said the Dictator, his eyes still sunk in his dream.

"There has been--let us say--a certain agitation in foreign countries
regarding Professor Malzius," said the General, his eyes still fixed on
the Dictator. "That means nothing, of course. Nevertheless, your
acquaintance, Professor Bonnard, and others have meddled in matters that
do not concern them."

"They asked after me?" said Professor Malzius, with surprise. "It is
true, my experiments were reaching a point that----"

"No foreign influence could turn us from our firm purpose," said the
Dictator. "But it is our firm purpose to show our nation first in
science and culture as we have already shown her first in manliness and
statehood. For that reason, you are here, Professor Malzius." He smiled.

Professor Malzius stared. His cheeks began to tremble.

"I do not understand," said Professor Malzius. "You will give me my
laboratory back?"

"Yes," said the Dictator, and the General nodded as one nods to a stupid
child.

Professor Malzius passed a hand across his brow.

"My post at the university?" he said. "My experiments?"

"It is the purpose of our regime to offer the fullest encouragement to
our loyal sons of science," said the Dictator.

"First of all," said Professor Malzius, "I must go to a hospital. My
blood count is poor. But that will not take long." His voice had become
impatient and his eyes glowed. "Then--my notebooks were burned, I
suppose. That was silly, but we can start in again. I have a very good
memory, an excellent memory. The theories are in my head, you know," and
he tapped it. "I must have assistants, of course; little Gregopolous was
my best one----"

"The man Gregopolous has been executed," said the General, in a stern
voice. "You had best forget him."

"Oh," said Professor Malzius. "Well, then, I must have someone else. You
see, these are important experiments. There must be some young
men--clever ones--they cannot all be dead. I will know them." He laughed
a little, nervously. "The Bear always got the pick of the crop," he
said. "They used to call me The Bear, you know." He stopped and looked
at them for a moment with ghastly eyes. "You are not fooling me?" he
said. He burst into tears.

When he recovered he was alone in the room with the General. The General
was looking at him as he himself had looked once at strange forms of
life under the microscope, with neither disgust nor attraction, but with
great interest.

"His Excellency forgives your unworthy suggestion," he said. "He knows
you are overwrought."

"Yes," said Professor Malzius. He sobbed once and dried his glasses.

"Come, come," said the General, with a certain bluff heartiness. "We
mustn't have our new president of the National Academy crying. It would
look badly in the photographs."

"President of the Academy?" said Professor Malzius quickly. "Oh, no; I
mustn't be that. They make speeches; they have administrative work. But
I am a scientist, a teacher."

"I'm afraid you can't very well avoid it," said the General, still
heartily, though he looked at Professor Malzius. "Your induction will be
quite a ceremony. His Excellency himself will preside. And you will
speak on the new glories of our science. It will be a magnificent answer
to the petty and jealous criticisms of our neighbors. Oh, you needn't
worry about the speech," he added quickly. "It will be prepared; you
will only have to read it. His Excellency thinks of everything."

"Very well," said Professor Malzius; "and then may I go back to my
work?"

"Oh, don't worry about that," said the General, smiling. "I'm only a
simple soldier; I don't know about those things. But you'll have plenty
of work."

"The more the better," said Malzius eagerly. "I still have ten good
years."

He opened his mouth to smile, and a shade of dismay crossed the
General's face.

"Yes," he said, as if to himself. "The teeth must be attended to. At
once. And a rest, undoubtedly, before the photographs are taken. Milk.
You are feeling sufficiently well, Professor Malzius?"

"I am very happy," said Professor Malzius. "I have been very well
treated and I come of peasant stock."

"Good," said the General. He paused for a moment, and spoke in a more
official voice.

"Of course, it is understood, Professor Malzius----" he said.

"Yes?" said Professor Malzius. "I beg your pardon. I was thinking of
something else."

"It is understood, Professor Malzius," repeated the General, "that
your--er--rehabilitation in the service of the state is a permanent
matter. Naturally, you will be under observation, but, even so, there
must be no mistake."

"I am a scientist," said Professor Malzius impatiently. "What have I to
do with politics? If you wish me to take oaths of loyalty, I will take
as many as you wish."

"I am glad you take that attitude," said the General, though he looked
at Professor Malzius curiously. "I may say that I regret the unpleasant
side of our interviews. I trust you bear no ill will."

"Why should I be angry?" said Professor Malzius. "You were told to do
one thing. Now you are told to do another. That is all."

"It is not quite so simple as that," said the General rather stiffly. He
looked at Professor Malzius for a third time. "And I'd have sworn you
were one of the stiff-necked ones," he said. "Well, well, every man has
his breaking point, I suppose. In a few moments you will receive the
final commands of His Excellency. Tonight you will go to the capitol and
speak over the radio. You will have no difficulty there--the speech is
written. But it will put a quietus on the activities of our friend
Bonnard and the question that has been raised in the British
Parliament. Then a few weeks of rest by the sea and the dental work, and
then, my dear president of the National Academy, you will be ready to
undertake your new duties. I congratulate you and hope we shall meet
often under pleasant auspices." He bowed from the waist to Malzius, the
bow of a man of the world, though there was still something feline in
his mustaches. Then he stood to attention, and Malzius, too, for the
Dictator had come into the room.

"It is settled?" said the Dictator. "Good. Gregor Malzius, I welcome you
to the service of the new state. You have cast your errors aside and are
part of our destiny."

"Yes," said Professor Malzius, "I will be able to do my work now."

The Dictator frowned a little.

"You will not only be able to continue your invaluable researches," he
said, "but you will also be able--and it will be part of your duty--to
further our national ideals. Our reborn nation must rule the world for
the world's good. There is a fire within us that is not in other stocks.
Our civilization must be extended everywhere. The future wills it. It
will furnish the subject of your first discourse as president of the
Academy."

"But," said Professor Malzius, in a low voice, "I am not a soldier. I am
a biochemist. I have no experience in these matters you speak of."

The Dictator nodded. "You are a distinguished man of science," he said.
"You will prove that our women must bear soldiers, our men abandon this
nonsense of republics and democracies for trust in those born to rule
them. You will prove by scientific law that certain races--our race in
particular--are destined to rule the world. You will prove they are
destined to rule by the virtues of war, and that war is part of our
heritage."

"But," said Professor Malzius, "it is not like that. I mean," he said,
"one looks and watches in the laboratory. One waits for a long time. It
is a long process, very long. And then, if the theory is not proved, one
discards the theory. That is the way it is done. I probably do not
explain it well. But I am a biochemist; I do not know how to look for
the virtues of one race against another, and I can prove nothing about
war, except that it kills. If I said anything else, the whole world
would laugh at me."

"Not one in this nation would laugh at you," said the Dictator.

"But if they do not laugh at me when I am wrong, there is no science,"
said Professor Malzius, knotting his brows. He paused. "Do not
misunderstand me," he said earnestly. "I have ten years of good work
left; I want to get back to my laboratory. But, you see, there are the
young men--if I am to teach the young men."

He paused again, seeing their faces before him. There were many. There
was Williams, the Englishman, who had died in the war, and little
Gregopolous with the fox-terrier eyes. There were all who had passed
through his classrooms, from the stupidest to the best. They had shot
little Gregopolous for treason, but that did not alter the case. From
all over the world they had come--he remembered the Indian student and
the Chinese. They wore cheap overcoats, they were hungry for knowledge,
they ate the bad, starchy food of the poor restaurants, they had
miserable little love affairs and played childish games of politics,
instead of doing their work. Nevertheless, a few were promising--all
must be given the truth. It did not matter if they died, but they must
be given the truth. Otherwise there could be no continuity and no
science.

He looked at the Dictator before him--yes, it was a hysteric face. He
would know how to deal with it in his classroom--but such faces should
not rule countries or young men. One was willing to go through a great
many meaningless ceremonies in order to do one's work--wear a uniform or
salute or be president of the Academy. That did not matter; it was part
of the due to Caesar. But not to tell lies to young men on one's own
subject. After all, they had called him The Bear and said he carried
improper post cards in his brief case. They had given him their terrible
confidence--not for love or kindness, but because they had found him
honest. It was too late to change.

The Dictator looked sharply at the General. "I thought this had been
explained to Professor Malzius," he said.

"Why, yes," said Professor Malzius. "I will sign any papers. I assure
you I am not interested in politics--a man like myself, imagine! One
state is as good as another. And I miss my tobacco--I have not smoked in
five months. But, you see, one cannot be a scientist and tell lies."

He looked at the two men.

"What happens if I do not?" he said, in a low voice. But, looking at the
Dictator, he had his answer. It was a fanatic face.

"Why, we shall resume our conversations, Professor Malzius," said the
General, with a simper.

"Then I shall be beaten again," said Professor Malzius. He stated what
he knew to be a fact.

"The process of rehabilitation is obviously not quite complete," said
the General, "but perhaps, in time----"

"It will not be necessary," said Professor Malzius. "I cannot be beaten
again." He stared wearily around the room. His shoulders
straightened--it was so he had looked in the classroom when they had
called him The Bear. "Call your other officers in," he said in a clear
voice. "There are papers for me to sign. I should like them all to
witness."

"Why----" said the General. "Why----" He looked doubtfully at the
Dictator.

An expression of gratification appeared on the lean, semi-Napoleonic
face. A white hand, curiously limp, touched the hand of Professor
Malzius.

"You will feel so much better, Gregor," said the hoarse, tense voice. "I
am so very glad you have given in."

"Why, of course, I give in," said Gregor Malzius. "Are you not the
Dictator? And besides, if I do not, I shall be beaten again. And I
cannot--you understand?--I cannot be beaten again."

He paused, breathing a little. But already the room was full of other
faces. He knew them well, the hard faces of the new regime. But youthful
some of them too.

The Dictator was saying something with regard to receiving the
distinguished scientist, Professor Gregor Malzius, into the service of
the state.

"Take the pen," said the General in an undertone. "The inkwell is there,
Professor Malzius. Now you may sign."

Professor Malzius stood, his fingers gripping the big, old-fashioned
inkwell. It was full of ink--the servants of the Dictator were very
efficient. They could shoot small people with the eyes of fox terriers
for treason, but their trains arrived on time and their inkwells did not
run dry.

"The state," he said, breathing. "Yes. But science does not know about
states. And you are a little man--a little, unimportant man."

Then, before the General could stop him, he had picked up the inkwell
and thrown it in the Dictator's face. The next moment the General's fist
caught him on the side of the head and he fell behind the desk to the
floor. But lying there, through his cracked glasses, he could still see
the grotesque splashes of ink on the Dictator's face and uniform, and
the small cut above his eye where the blood was gathering. They had not
fired; he had thought he would be too close to the Dictator for them to
fire in time.

"Take that man out and shoot him. At once," said the Dictator in a dry
voice. He did not move to wipe the stains from his uniform--and for that
Professor Malzius admired him. They rushed then, each anxious to be
first. But Professor Malzius made no resistance.

As he was being hustled along the corridors, he fell now and then. On
the second fall, his glasses were broken completely, but that did not
matter to him. They were in a great hurry, he thought, but all the
better--one did not have to think while one could not see.

Now and then he heard his voice make sounds of discomfort, but his voice
was detached from himself. There was little Gregopolous--he could see
him very plainly--and Williams, with his fresh English coloring--and all
the men whom he had taught.

He had given them nothing but work and the truth; they had given him
their terrible trust. If he had been beaten again, he might have
betrayed them. But he had avoided that.

He felt a last weakness--a wish that someone might know. They would not,
of course; he would have died of typhoid in the castle and there would
be regretful notices in the newspapers. And then he would be forgotten,
except for his work, and that was as it should be. He had never thought
much of martyrs--hysterical people in the main. Though he'd like Bonnard
to have known about the ink; it was in the coarse vein of humor that
Bonnard could not appreciate. But then, he was a peasant; Bonnard had
often told him so.

They were coming out into an open courtyard now; he felt the fresh air
of outdoors. "Gently," he said. "A little gently. What's the haste?" But
already they were tying him to the post. Someone struck him in the face
and his eyes watered. "A schoolboy covered with ink," he muttered
through his lost teeth. "A hysterical schoolboy too. But you cannot kill
truth."

They were not good last words, and he knew that they were not. He must
try to think of better ones--not shame Bonnard. But now they had a gag
in his mouth; just as well; it saved him the trouble.

His body ached, bound against the post, but his sight and his mind were
clearer. He could make out the evening sky, gray with fog, the sky that
belonged to no country, but to all the world.

He could make out the gray high buttress of the castle. They had made it
a jail, but it would not always be a jail. Perhaps in time it would not
even exist. But if a little bit of truth were gathered, that would
always exist, while there were men to remember and rediscover it. It was
only the liars and the cruel who always failed.

Sixty years ago, he had been a little boy, eating black bread and thin
cabbage soup in a poor house. It had been a bitter life, but he could
not complain of it. He had had some good teachers and they had called
him The Bear.

The gag hurt his mouth--they were getting ready now. There had been a
girl called Anna once; he had almost forgotten her. And his rooms had
smelt a certain way and he had had a dog. It did not matter what they
did with the medals. He raised his head and looked once more at the gray
foggy sky. In a moment there would be no thought, but, while there was
thought, one must remember and note. His pulse rate was lower than he
would have expected and his breathing oddly even, but those were not the
important things. The important thing was beyond, in the gray sky that
had no country, in the stones of the earth and the feeble human spirit.
The important thing was truth.

"Ready!" called the officer. "Aim! Fire!" But Professor Malzius did not
hear the three commands of the officer. He was thinking about the young
men.




TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

Minor variations in spelling and punctuation have been preserved.




[End of The Blood of the Martyrs, by Stephen Vincent Bent]
