Bemelmans v. the Nazis

THE BLUE DANUBE--Ludwig Bemelmans--Viking ($3).

"Ist das nicht ein schones Schwein?" cried the barmaid in the Nazi beer garden, when a pig fell into the beautiful blue Danube (which was muddy-brown) and floated on a board past the ancient German city of Regensburg. "Ja, das ist ein schoenes Schwein!" wailed the hungry, war-worn customers. Even the portly mayor of Regensburg forgot his civic dignity, flopped on his belly, and lost his umbrella trying to hook the pig. "Swim after it, drag it ashore--and report to me!" roared Nazi Gauleiter Stoltz. But the pig was deaf to Hitlerism. It only stepped ashore ("as one coming home from a casual . . . voyage") when the board grounded on a tiny, sandy island in mid-Danube. Old Anton Fischer, who lived on the island, welcomed the independent pig and escorted it to his shack, gravely holding the mayor's umbrella over his head.

The Gardener & the Gauleiter. For years, old Anton and his beautiful niece. Leni, had raised succulent beer-radishes on the little island, while his two old sisters, Martha and Anna, sailing up & down at opposite ends of a seesaw, had pumped the Danube water over the crop. "Bolshevist swine," said Gauleiter Stoltz, when he saw the Fischers after the affair of the pig. "Lord & Lady of Radish Island, and two old crows." Old Anton rose from his seat in the beer garden, carefully removed the Gauleiter's spectacles, and smacked both sides of the Nazi's fat face until his old arm was tired.

"A cold wind blew from the Danube, and-one by one the tables in the beer garden emptied." But soon the massive Bishop of Regensburg entered, his tiny dog jumping up & down beside him "as if ... suspended from a rubber band." "Where's old Anton?" asked the bishop. "He isn't here any more," murmured the waitress. ("It was a phrase that everyone in Regensburg understood.") "Oh," said the bishop.

A few days later, the bishop rowed to the island. "It's hard to keep things straight," said the old ladies. "We pump all day, and the leaves still lie on the ground." "You need a man," said the bishop, "a [French] prisoner to come and work." "Herr Bishop!" screeched the old ladies, "a Frenchman--with a young girl on the island?" But a few days later young Paul Laprade arrived. "Permit me, Madame," he said, bowing to each surprised old lady and gently helping her onto the seesaw. "Love is stronger than death, and that is what will save us," he told Leni, when they began holding hands.

The Bishop's Miracle. The Gauleiter, who wanted Leni himself, was furious. He pestered the Fischers mercilessly, but he was too afraid of the bishop's popularity to go too far. His thugs smashed the windows in the bishop's palace, ruined the Fischers' radish crop. But when the 'Gauleiter finally stormed over to the island in person, Paul killed him with a spade. "[Now] they will come for all of us," sighed the bishop. "Pray, bishop . . . ask for a miracle," cried the Frenchman.

The miracle came: a fleet of silver bombers .that left part of Regensburg in flames. Next day, the Gauleiter was buried --as one of the victims of the raid--and the Fischers breathed again. The bishop generously attended the funeral service--"The mass was at its beginning. He climbed the circular stone steps to the choir, sat down at the organ, and pulled all the stops. Through the immense structure surged a storm of music, a roar as wild as the sound of the Danube." But the people of Regensburg only hung their heads, and "it was evident that if, in the long night in which they lived, any light would come to them, it had to come from outside--for those within the walls who had courage and spirit were too few, too old, and much too sentimental."

Wand & Club. Readers who expect The Blue Danube to be a replica of Author Bemelmans' earlier, inimitable works, My War with the United States (TIME, July 5, 1937), The Donkey Inside (TIME, Jan. 20, 1941) and I Love You, I Love You, I Love You (TIME, Sept. 14, 1942), will be disappointed. In its 153 pages they will find the usual bitter-sweet taste and tragicomic personalities--freakish but heartwarming outcasts; birds and animals with the attractiveness of charming children; the waiters scurrying to & fro with black bread, liverwurst and seidels of foaming beer; chestnut and willow trees; nostalgia, trouble and human patience. But at the heart of these things is a brood of despicable Nazis; and when he comes down to earth to describe their piggish, ruthless natures, Bemelmans drops his magic wand for an unwieldy club. The art and appeal .of The Blue Danube are mostly in the trimmings--and particularly in Author-Artist Bemelmans' 14 admirable, full-color illustrations.

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