New York - The Novel

of the Old World. Three years ago, when the countries of Europe, trapped in their complex tangle of rivalries and alliances, had begun the Great War, William and Rose Master, like most thinking Americans, had hoped their country could stay out of the futile quarrel. And for a while it had seemed that this would be accomplished.
    Was there a strategic necessity to become engaged? Not really. Was there an emotional reason? Although most Americans assumed that their country was predominantly English, there were in fact more Americans of German descent than either English or Irish. Nor, in the year 1917, were the British too popular. For Britain’s cruel crushing of the Easter Rising had enraged Irish Americans, at least; and the British naval blockade had harassed countless American vessels. President Woodrow Wilson, who still liked the British, sent them food. But that was about it. If the Europeans wanted to tear themselves apart again, most people said, that was their problem. Avoid foreign entanglements.
    In the end, it was Germany that brought America into the war. Up until recently Wilson, trying to keep his country neutral, had managed to handle the Germans. When their submarines sank the
Lusitania
with Americans on board, he’d protested, and the German high command had stopped the submarine war. Now, however, everything had changed. The Germans had behaved abominably: seeing Russia collapsing into chaos, and the British nearly starving, they had concluded that they could winthe war with a final push. Suddenly, German submarines had gone into action again. “Since your ships carry food to the British,” Germany told President Wilson, “we’ll torpedo any American vessel on the seas.” In an astounding insult to the United States, German representatives even told Mexico: “Attack America, and we’ll help you take back Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.”
    It had to be war after that. The massive American mobilization now in progress would soon teach the Germans what it meant to tangle with the free nation across the Atlantic. Only last week, William and Rose had gone down Fifth to Washington Square Park to see the big bonfire where some enterprising young people were burning an effigy of the German Kaiser.
    To date, the faraway European conflict had not affected the Master family very much. Indeed, William Master had been surprised to find that he had done quite well out of it. For a few months in 1914, the Stock Exchange had been closed, but a busy market in war bonds had developed, and soon there had been huge business to be done supplying the warring nations of Europe. American manufacturing was still forging ahead; Henry Ford was mass-producing cars on his new assembly lines.
    In fact, the greatest immediate worry confronting Rose and William was their son Charlie.
    He had not had to register for the draft, at least. That was something. The Draft Registration of May 1917 applied only to men aged twenty-one to thirty-one. But Charlie had given his parents plenty of other reasons to be apprehensive.
    Rose had been concerned when Charlie had insisted on going to Columbia University instead of Harvard. “He likes being in New York,” her husband pointed out. “I know,” she’d answered. “That’s what worries me.” Quite apart from the fact that Harvard was Harvard, she’d also reckoned that Charlie would get into less trouble in Boston. “I’m just afraid that he’ll make undesirable friends.”
    He had. Before he’d even gone to Columbia, Charlie had shown a precocious interest in the nightlife of the great city. He’d disappear into the theater district or Greenwich Village, and nobody would know where he was. More than once he’d come home drunk.
    “And yet, underneath,” his mother quite correctly pointed out, “he’s still a child.”
    As for his opinions, now that he was at university, one never knewwhat he was going to say next. He’d already told her that the Bolsheviks in Russia had a good cause; the other day he’d said he was thinking of joining an anti-war protest. His ideas and enthusiasms seemed to alter every week.
    Her husband William might find it all amusing, but she was well aware that Nicholas Murray Butler at Columbia was determined that his university should be seen as patriotic and politically sound at this critical time. He’d warned the faculty and undergraduates that if they started any public protest against the war, they’d be dismissed, and recently