Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [105]
“Quite.” The Englishman smiled up at a pretty waitress (for which L'Albertine in the morning was famous) and thanked her as she laid out the coffee things. “I have heard of certain experiments in which a beast's brain has been exchanged with that of a human being, but I don't believe they have ever been successful. Though,” and in this he was far more direct than was his usual habit, “some say that Adolf Hitler, the deposed Chancellor of Germany, succeeded and that he did indeed go quite mad as a result. Certainly his insolent folly in attacking three great Empires at once would indicate the theory perhaps has some substance!”
Only by the slightest movement of an eyebrow did Zenith indicate his surprise at Begg's raising this subject. He said nothing for a moment before mentioning how the Russo-Polish empire was already at the point of collapse. His own Middle European seat remained part of that sphere of influence, as Begg knew, and the fact was considered a source of some distress to the albino.
“As one who showed such courage on their side during the war, you cannot think Hitler should have been encouraged to attack the ‘alliance of eagles’?” Begg offered. “The other Great Powers have since made an oath to protect the Slavic empire. Perhaps you feel that we have not been more resolute in tracking down the Hitler gang? I cannot believe you share their views.”
“My dear Begg, the deposed Chancellor was a barrack-room lawyer supported by a frustrated military bully, a plump bore with aristocratic pretension and a third-rate broadcasting journalist!” References to Rohm, Goering and Goebbels, whose popular radio programme was thought to have helped Hitler to power. “It was a matter of duty for anyone of taste to frustrate his ambitions. He was warned often enough by the Duma, the Assembly and your Parliament. His refusal to sign the articles of confederation was the last straw. He should have been stopped then, before he was ever allowed to marshal his land leviathans and aerial battleships. As it was, it should have taken three days, not a year, to defeat him. And now we have the current situation where he and his riff-raff remain at large, doubtless somewhere in Bavaria, and far too many of our armed forces, as well as those of Germany herself, are engaged in putting a stop to his Freikorps' activities. I understand that some fools in the French foreign service think I yearn to ‘free’ my ancestral lands from the Pan-Slavic yoke, but believe me I have no such dream. If I were to deceive myself that the people were free under my family's reign, I would deserve the contempt of every realist on the planet. And if some self-esteeming coxcombs on the Quai D'Orsay continue to believe I would ally myself with degenerate opportunists, I shall, in my own time, seek them out and require them to repeat their presumptions.”
Begg permitted himself a small smile of acquiescence. He had needed only this statement to confirm his understanding. But what was Zenith doing here in Paris keeping such a strange, yet regular schedule? He knew that there was little chance of the albino offering him an explanation. All he had done was rule out the theory, as his French opposite number had hoped, of certain under-admired civil servants at the Quai d'Orsay. He regretted that he was not on terms of such intimacy with Mrs. Persson. Although unlikely, she could be allying herself with the Hitler gang to further her own schemes.
Of course Zenith had said nothing of any collaboration between himself and the Englishwoman, though it was probably not the first time he and she had worked together. Zenith required a great deal of money with which to maintain his lifestyle and finance