The Trespassers by Laura Z. Hobson Page B

university professor must ask himself one question…”
    Recently he had read a newspaper story that was offered as a highly humorous bit. It told of some hot argument among students at the University of Moscow or Odessa. The fight was whether the Mendelian Law had to be discarded—was it not “contrary to Marxian dialectic and thus counterrevolutionary”? He had not thought it even mildly funny. The world was sick, with this insane sickness of “The State.” Germany, Soviet Russia, now Austria.
    A month’s leeway? He wrenched his mind back to his half-formed plan. He could count on Margaretta van Morduyn, young as she was. He glanced at his watch. She would be reaching the office now. He walked more briskly.
    A uniformed messenger was waiting in the anteroom. He delivered a letter; it was in Christa’s handwriting, marked “Urgent” and “Private.” Paul? Ilse? Christa herself? No, about such matters she would have telephoned. He signed for it, took it into his office, ripped it open.
They are ransacking Freud’s house now—confiscating his and Anna’s papers, documents, etc. K. just came by and told me; it is still going on. Don’t know yet whether they will arrest him and family. Be careful.
    Freud. Two years ago his eightieth birthday had been an international event. During the celebration at the Wiener Konzerthaus, attended by scientists from a dozen countries, Thomas Mann had read a birthday oration written in tribute and homage. To Freud, in his summer residence, letters and telegrams had poured in from the whole international world of science. Now, here in his own Vienna, Freud…
    For a moment Franz Vederle cradled his face in tense hands. In his mind, an old and calm voice counseled him, “Hold fast to the truth.” Then composed again, he opened the door to the waiting room.
    “Good morning, Miss van Morduyn, come in now, please.”
    She came in, a pretty girl, the only child of a powerful banking family in Holland. She started for the analytic couch, but a gesture from him stopped her. He motioned her to a chair facing him.
    “Here, Herr Doktor ?”
    “Yes, please. We will not have your hour this morning. I am going to ask you instead to do something of great importance for me and my family.”
    “Oh, yes, of course.”
    “I have told you,” his voice was calm, “as I did all my patients, that it might become necessary to interrupt the analysis. Naturally, I hoped that it would not happen.”
    “Oh, Dr. Vederle, I thought—I hoped—”
    “I know. It is difficult and unfortunate for every patient if the analyst seems to desert him. You know that in Germany and now here, many patients have had to break the thread and continue elsewhere. You, for instance. I think Le Manion in Paris—”
    “Then you are leaving? Soon? Oh, I—”
    She gulped. He waited for a moment, his eyes sympathetic over her floundering look. Every patient was the same. But the adjustment would be made in the face of the necessity.
    “We have no visas as yet. There will be delay about it. I have decided that we should leave without them. So it would be wise to arrange our departure to look—not like a permanent exit. It is there you can help.”
    “Oh, I’ll do anything—anything you tell me.”
    “Good. Would you come with me now, to the Dutch Consul? I shall explain on our way there.”
    She showed astonishment, but only nodded and gathered her coat, gloves, and purse in readiness. Vederle telephoned his house.
    “Christl,” he said, his voice casual. “Thanks for your note. I think that the children need a holiday, perhaps in the mountains. Could you pack at once for a vacation?”
    “What—why are you—”
    “We will talk it out in an hour or so. But would you start the packing at once? Perhaps there will be accommodations on tonight’s train to Basel. Or tomorrow’s.”
    “Bas—ah, I see. Franz, I—” She hesitated. He waited. They had wondered whether or not telephones were being tapped.
    Then