I
RIDING in a taxi to the Préfecture de Police, Lanny thought as hard as he had ever done in his life. Had these agents been following him because they had learned about his connections with a German spy? Or had they been following the notorious Jesse Blackless and seen him hand papers to Lanny? Everything seemed to indicate the latter; but doubtless at the Préfecture they would have Lanny listed in connection with Lincoln Steffens, and with Herron, and Alston — who could guess where these trails might lead? Lanny decided that he had talked enough and would take refuge in the fact that he was not yet of age. Even in wartime they could hardly shoot you for refusing to answer questions; and, besides, the war was coming to an end this very afternoon! Many, many times in five years he had heard Frenchmen exclaim: “C'est la guerre!” Now, for once, he would be able to answer: “C'est la paix!” The Préfecture is on the Île de la Cité, the oldest part of Paris, having as much history to the square meter as any other place in the world. Like most old buildings it had a vague musty odor. They booked him, and took away his billfold, his watch, his keys; then they put him in a small room with a barred window high up, and an odor of ammonia, the source of which was obvious. The younger of the two detectives sat and watched him, but did not speak. In half an hour or so he was escorted to an office, where he found no less than three officials waiting to question him. All three were polite, grave, and determined. The eldest, the commissaire, was dressed as if he were going to have tea at Mrs. Emily's. At a second desk sat a clerk, ready to begin writing vigorously — the so-called procès verbal.
“Messieurs,” said Lanny, “please believe that I intend no discourtesy; but I consider this arrest an indignity and I intend to stand upon my rights. I am a minor and it is my father who is legally responsible for me. I demand that he be summoned, and I refuse to answer any questions whatsoever until that has been done.”
You would have thought that the three officials had never before in their lives heard of anyone refusing to answer questions. They were shocked, they were hurt, they were everything they could think of that might make an impression upon a sensitive youth. They demanded to know: was it the natural course for an innocent man not to tell frankly what was necessary to secure his liberty? They wished him no harm; they were greatly embarrassed to have to detain him for a moment; the simple and obvious thing would be for him to tell them for what innocent reason he had come into possession of documents inciting to the overthrow of la république française, the murder of its citizens, the confiscation of their property, and the burning of their homes. The three officials had the incendiary documents spread out before them, and passed them from hand to hand with exclamations of dismay.
Was all that really in the documents? Lanny didn't know; but he knew that if he asked the question, he would be answering a very important one for the officials — he would be telling them that he didn't know, or at least claimed not to know, their contents. So he said again and again: “Messieurs, be so kind as to send word to my father.”
Never had courteous French officials had their patience put to a severer test. They took turns arguing and pleading. The oldest, the commissaire, was paternal; he pleaded with the young gentleman not to subject himself to being held behind bars like a common felon. It was really unkind of him to inflict upon them the necessity of inflicting this embarrassment upon a visitor from the land to which France owed such a debt of gratitude. In this the commissaire, for all his lifetime training, was letting slip something of importance. They took him for a tourist; they had not connected him with Juan-les-Pins, and probably not with Madame Detaze, veuve, and her German lover now traveling in Spain!
The second official was a man accustomed to dealing with evildoers, and his faith in human nature had been greatly weakened. He told Lanny that la patrie was at war, and that all men of right feeling were willing to aid the authorities in thwarting the murderous intrigues of the abominable Reds. It was difficult for anyone to understand how a man would have such documents in his pocket and not be eager to explain the reason. And what was the significance of the mysterious figures penciled upon each sheet? If a man refused to perform the obvious duty of clearing up such a mystery, could he blame the authorities for looking upon him as a suspicious character?
The third official was younger, wore glasses, and looked like a student. Apparently he was the one whose duty it was to read incendiary literature, classify it, and take its temperature. He said that he had never read anything worse in his life than this stuff which Lanny had had in his pocket. It was hard for him to believe that a youth of good manners and morals could have read such incitements without aversion. Was Lanny a student, investigating the doctrines of these Reds? Did he know any of them personally? Had he been associated with them in America? Lanny didn't answer, but listened attentively and asked questions in his own mind. Were they just avoiding giving him any clues? Or had the two flics really not known who it was that gave him the papers?
Certainly Lanny wasn't going to involve his uncle unnecessarily. To all attempts to trap him he replied, as courteously as ever: “Messieurs, I know it is tedious to hear me say this; but think how much trouble you could save yourselves if you would just call my father.”
“If you refuse to answer,” said the commissaire, at last, “we have no recourse but to hold you until you do.”
“You may try it,” said Lanny; “but I think my father will manage to find out where I am. Certainly if an American disappears from the Hotel Vendéme, the story will be in the American newspapers in a few hours.”
The official pressed a button and an attendant came and escorted Lanny down a corridor and into a room that was full of apparatus. In the old days it might have been a torture chamber, but in this advanced age it was the laboratory of a new science. Lanny, to complete his education, was going to learn about the Bertillon system for the identification of criminals. The operations were carried out by a young man who looked like a doctor, wearing a white duck jacket; they were supervised by a large elderly gentleman wearing a black morning coat and striped trousers, and with a black spade beard almost to his waist. They photographed their prisoner from several angles; they took his fingerprints; they measured with calipers his skull, his ears, his nose, his eyes, his fingers, his feet. They told him to strip, and searched him minutely for scars and spots, birthmarks, moles — and noted them all down on an elaborate chart. When they got through, Lanny Budd could be absolutely certain that the next time he committed a crime in France, they would know him for the same felon they had had in the Préfecture on the twenty-eighth of June 1919.
II
Lanny Budd sat on a wooden stool in a stone cell with a narrow slit for a window, and a cot which had obviously been occupied by many predecessors in misfortune. Perhaps the police were trying to frighten him, and again, perhaps they were just treating him impartially. For company he had his thoughts: a trooping procèssion, taking their tone-color from the dismal clang of an iron door. Impossible to imagine anything more final, or more crushing! So far, emotions such as this had been communicated to Lanny through the medium of art works. But the reality was far different. You could turn away from a picture, stop playing music, close a book; but in a jail cell you stayed.
Lanny had no idea how old this barracks was. Had it stood here in the days when Richelieu was breaking the proud French nobility, and had some of them paced the floor of this cell? Had it stood when the Sun King was issuing his lettres de cachet? Had the Cardinal de Rohan been brought here when he was accused of stealing the diamond necklace? It seemed a reasonable guess that some of the aristocrats had sojourned here on their way à la lanterne; and doubtless a long string of those poisoners and wife stranglers who provided the French populace with their daily doses of thrill. All through the Peace Conference Paris had been entertained by the exploits of a certain Landru, who had married, murdered, and buried some eight or nine women. Every now and then the authorities would dig up a new one, and the press would forget the problems of the peace. This happened whenever the situation became tense, and it was freely said at the Crillon that it was done to divert attention from what the delegates were doing.
The jailers brought Lanny food and water; but he didn't like the looks of the former, and was afraid the latter might be drugged. He spent most of his time walking up and down — five steps one way and five the other — thinking about his possible mistakes and regretting them. Almost surely the bureau would be digging in its files, and coming upon the name of Lanning Budd as a nephew of Jesse Blackless, revolutionary. Would they find him as son of Beauty Detaze, mistress of Kurt Meissner, alias Dalcroze, much wanted German agent? Phrased in the language of police files, it was certainly most sinister. Lanny recalled the melodramas he had seen on the screen, with the hero lined up before the firing squad and rescuers galloping on horses, or rushing madly through automobile traffic. Invariably they arrived just before the triggers were pulled; but Lanny had been told that the movies were not always reliable. Ride, Robbie, ride!
The father was supposed to be in conference with some “big” men. Sooner or later he would return to the hotel and find that his belongings had been rifled. He would learn from the elevator boy that Lanny had gone away with two strange men. Would he think that his son had been kidnaped, and apply to the police? That, indeed, would be funny. But Robbie had a shrewd mind, and he knew about his revolutionary brother-in-law, also about Kurt Meissner, alias Dalcroze. He wouldn't fail to take these into his calculations. He had friends in high position in the city, and Mrs. Emily had still others. The commissaire of the Sûreté Générale would surely get a jolt before many hours had passed!
The trouble was, the hours passed so slowly. Lanny's watch was gone, so he couldn't follow them. He could only observe the slit of light; and at the end of June the days linger long in Paris. Lanny recalled that at three o'clock the treaty was to be signed, and he occupied his mind with picturing that historic scene. He knew the Galerie des Glaces, and how they would fix it up with a long horseshoe table, and gilded chairs for the delegates from all the nations of the earth. Most of them would be black-clad; but the military ones would be wearing bright-colored uniforms with rows of medals, and there would be silk-robed pashas and emirs and maharajas and mandarins from where the gorgeous East showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold. He could picture the equipages rolling up the great avenue, lined with cavalry in steel-blue helmets, with red and white pennants fluttering on their lances. He visioned the palace, with the important personages ascending the great flight of steps, between rows of the Gardes Républicaine, clad in brass cuirasses, white pants, and high black patent-leather boots; on their heads the shiniest of brass helmets with long horsetails stuck in the tops. There would be two of them to each step, their shining sabers at present arms. Inside, the hall would be crowded, and there would be a babel of whispering, the polite chit-chat of the grand monde which Lanny knew so well. How everlastingly delightful to be in places where you were assured that only the really important could come!
The treaty would be bulky, printed on vellum sheets decorated with numèrous red seals. Presumably somebody would have checked it this time and made certain it was right. The enemy signers would be escorted by those huissiers with silver chains who had been the bane of Lanny's life, because they were forever trying to stop a secretary-translator from entering rooms where his chief had told him to go. Lanny had seen pictures of the two unhappy Germans: one big and beefy, like the proprietor of a Bierstube, the other lean and timid-looking, like a private tutor. They were the scapegoats, carrying the sins of their people, and signing a confession on two dotted lines.
The huissiers would command silence, and a hush would fall while the pens scratched. A tedious ceremony, for the plenipotentiaries from all over the world had to fall in line and sign four documents: the treaty proper, the protocol with modifications extracted by the German clamor, an agreement regarding the administration of the Rhine districts, and an agreement with Poland regarding the treatment of minorities — she would keep the minorities but not the agreement, Professor Alston had remarked while helping to draft this document.
Lanny's imaginings were interrupted by the thunder of cannon. So! It was signed! Those would be the guns on the Place d'Armes; and then a booming farther away — that would be the old fort at Mont Valerien. Shouts from the crowds in the near-by streets — Lanny knew how people would behave, he had done it himself on Armistice day at St. Thomas's Academy in Connecticut. The biggest banker in that state had warned him that he might get into jail if he didn't mend his ideas; and sure enough, here he was! He got up and began to pace the floor again.
Better to go on thinking about the treaty. He had been told by some of the insiders that General Smuts, head of the South African delegation, was going to sign under protest, stating that “We have not yet achieved the real peace for which the peoples are looking.” So, after all, the little group of liberals had not protested in vain! Alston had said that this treaty would keep the world in turmoil for ten years, twenty years, whatever time it took to bring it into line with the Fourteen Points. Was he right? Or was that French general right who had announced to the company at Mrs. Emily's: “This treaty is turning loose a wounded tiger on the world. He will crawl into a hole and nurse his wounds, and come out hungrier and fiercer than ever”?
Lanny couldn't make up his mind about it; nothing to do but wait and see. Some day he would know — provided, of course, the French army didn't shoot him at sunrise tomorrow morning.
III
The sun's rays do not linger very long in any place, and the light faded quickly from Lanny's cell. He sat in twilight, and thought: “Surely Robbie must have returned by now!” His stomach was complaining, and in many ways he was tiring of this bad joke. When at last he heard a jailer approaching his cell he was glad, even though it might mean a court martial. “Venez,” said the man; and escorted him to the office of the commissaire again.
There were the same three officials, and with them, not Robbie, as the prisoner had hoped, but Uncle Jesse! So once more Lanny had to think fast. What did it mean? Doubtless his uncle had been brought in, like himself, as a suspect. Had he talked? And if so, what had he said?
“M. Budd,” said the commissaire, “your uncle has come here of his own free will to tell us the circumstances by which you came into possession of those documents.” He paused as if expecting Lanny to speak; but Lanny waited. “Will you be so kind as to answer a few questions in his presence?”
“Monsieur le Commissaire” said Lanny, “I have already told you that I will answer no questions until my father has come.”
“You mean that you don't trust your uncle?” A silence. “Or is it that the gentleman is not your uncle?”
“It would be such a very simple matter to telephone to my father's hotel, Monsieur!”
“We have already done that; but your father is not there.”
“He is quite certain to arrive before long.”
“You mean you intend to force us to keep you in this uncomfortable position until we can find your father?”
“No, Monsieur, I haven't the least desire to do that. I am willing for you to release me at any time.”
There was a long silence. Lanny kept his eyes on the commissaire, whose face wore a stern frown. The prisoner wouldn't have been entirely surprised if the man had said: “Take him out and shoot him now!” He was really surprised when he perceived a slow smile spreading over the features of the elderly official. “Eh blen, mon garçon” he said, finally. “If I let you have your way, will you promise to harbor no ill feelings?”
“Yes, sir,” said Lanny, as quickly as he was able to take in the meaning.
“Don't think that we are naive, M. Bloc-less,” said the commissaire to the painter. “We have investigated your story. We knew most of it before you came.”
“I was quite sure that would be the case,” replied Uncle Jesse, with one of his twisted smiles. “Otherwise I might not have come.”
“You are playing a dangerous game,” continued the other. “I don't suppose you wish any advice from me; but if we are forced to ask you to leave the country, it will not be without fair warning — now repeated for the second time.”
“If that misfortune befalls me, Monsieur, I shall be extremely sorry, for France has been my home for the greater part of my life. I shall be sorrier still for the sake of the republic, whose reputation as a shelter for the politically persecuted is the fairest jewel in her crown.”
“You are a shrewd man, M. Blocless. You know the language of liberty and idealism, and you use it in the service of tyranny and hate.”
“That is a subject about which we might argue for a long while, Monsieur le Commissaire. I don't think it would be proper for me to dispute with you in your professional capacity; but if at any time you care to meet me socially, I'll be most happy to explain my ideas.”
There was a twinkle in the elderly Frenchman's eye. Esprit is their specialty, and he knew a good answer when he heard it. He turned to Lanny. “As for you, mon garçon” — taking Lanny into the family — “it appears that you have been the victim of persons older and less scrupulous than yourself. Next time I would advise you to look at papers before you put them into your pocket.”
“I assure you, Monsieur,” said the youth, respectfully, “I intended to do it as soon as I got to my room.” This too had the light play of humor in which the French delight; so the commissaire said he hoped his guest hadn't minded his misadventure. Lanny replied that he had found the experience educational, and that stories of crime and detection would be far more vivid to him in future. The suitcase containing Robbie's papers was restored to Robbie's son, and the three officials shook hands with him — but not with Uncle Jesse, he noticed. “M. Bloc-less” was one of the “older and less scrupulous persons.”
IV
Nephew and uncle stepped out into the twilight; and it seemed to Lanny the most delightful moment he had spent in Paris. Very certainly the Île de la Cité with its bridges and its great cathedral had never appeared more beautiful than in the summer twilight. Flags were out, and the holiday atmosphere prevailed. To everybody else it was because of the signing of the treaty, but there was nothing to prevent Lanny Budd's applying it to his emergence from the Préfecture.
The moment was made perfect when a taxi came whirling up the Boulevard du Palais, and there was Robbie Budd peering forth. “Well, what the devil is this?” he cried.
“You got my note?” inquired Jesse, as Robbie jumped out. “That — and your telegram.”
“I wanted to be sure of reaching you. I was afraid they might hold me, too.”
“But what is it all about?”
“Get back into the cab,” said Uncle Jesse. “We can't talk about it here.”
The two got in, and Lanny handed in the suitcase, and followed it. When the Préfecture was behind them, the painter said: “Now, Robbie, I'll tell you the story I just told the commissaire. You remember how, several months back, Professor Alston sent Lanny to me to arrange for a conference between Colonel House and some of the Russian agents in Paris?”
“I was told about it,” said Robbie, with no cordiality in his tone. “Don't forget that it was United States government business. Lanny did it because it was his job, and I did it because his chief urged me to. I have made it a matter of honor never to force myself upon your son. I have done that out of regard for my sister. Lanny will tell you that it is so.”
“It really is, Robbie,” put in the youth. “Go on,” said Robbie, between his clenched teeth. “Well, this morning a French labor leader came to me. You know the blockade of Germany is still going on, the war on the Soviet government is still going on — and both are products of French government policy.”
“You may assume that I have read the newspapers,” replied the father. “Kindly tell me what the police wanted with Lanny.”
“This labor man of course would like to have American support for a policy more liberal and humane. He brought me a bundle of leaflets presenting the arguments of the French workers, and asked if it wouldn't be possible for my nephew at the Crillon to get these into the hands of Colonel House, so that he might know how the workers felt. I said: 'My nephew has broken with the Crillon, because he doesn't approve its policies.' The answer was: 'Well, he may be in touch with some of the staff there and might be able to get the documents to Colonel House.' So I said: 'All right, I'll take them to him and ask him to try.' I took them, and advised Lanny not to read them himself, but to get them to the right person if he had a chance.”
Lanny sat rigid in his seat, his mind torn between dismay and admiration. Oh, what a beautiful story! It brought him to realize how ill equipped he was for the career of an intriguer, a secret agent; all those hours he had spent in the silence of his cell — and never once had he thought of that absolutely perfect story!
“My friend told me how many of these leaflets had been printed and distributed in Paris, and I jotted down the figures on each one, thinking it might help to impress Colonel House. It appears the Préfecture found those figures highly suspicious.”
“Tell me how it happened,” persisted Robbie.
“When I left the hotel I got a glimpse of a man strolling past the window and looking into the lobby. He happened to be one of the flics who had picked me up several months back. I saw him enter the hotel, and I looked through the window and saw him and another man go into the elevator with Lanny. I waited until they came down and put him into a taxi. Then I set out to find you. I was afraid to go into the hotel, so I used the telephone. When I failed to find you, I sent you a note by messenger, and also a telegram, and then I decided to go to the Préfecture and try my luck. It was a risk, of course, because Lanny might have talked, and I couldn't know what he had said.”
“You might have guessed that he would have told the truth,” said the father.
“I wasn't that clever. What I did was to fish around, until they told me Lanny had confessed that he was a Red — ”
“What?” cried Lanny, shocked.
“The commissaire said that himself; so I knew they were bluffing and that Lanny hadn't talked. I told them my story and they held me a couple of hours while they 'investigated.' What they did, I assume, was to phone to Colonel House. Of course they consider that most everybody in the Crillon is a Red, but they can't afford any publicity about it. That's why they turned us loose with a warning.”
Robbie turned to his son. “Lanny, is this story true?”
The next few moments were uncomfortable for the younger man. He had never lied to his father in his life. Was he going to do it now? Or was he going to “throw down” his Uncle Jesse, who had come to his rescue at real danger to himself — and who had invented such a beautiful story? There is an old saying that what you don't know won't hurt you; but Lanny had been taught a different moral code — that you mustn't ever lie except when you are selling munitions.
Great was the youth's relief when his uncle saved him from this predicament. “One moment, Robbie,” he put in. “I didn't say that story was true.”
“Oh, you didn't?”
“I said I would tell you what I told the commissaire.”
The father frowned angrily. “I am in no mood for jokes!” he exclaimed. “Am I to know about this business, or am I not? Lanny, will you kindly tell me?”
“Yes, Robbie,” replied the youth. “The truth is —”
“The fault is entirely mine,” broke in Uncle Jesse. “I brought Lanny those papers for a purpose of my own.”
“He is going to try to take the blame on himself,” objected Lanny. “I assure you — ”
“He can't tell you the real story, because he doesn't know it!” argued the painter.
“Nobody really knows it but me,” retorted Lanny. “Uncle Jesse only thinks he knows it.”
Robbie's sense of humor wasn't operating just then. “Will you two please agree which is going to talk?”
Said Lanny, quickly: “I think we'd all three better wait until we get back to the hotel.” He made a motion of the ringer toward the taxi driver in front of them. To be sure, they were speaking English — but then the driver might have been a waiter at Mouquin's on Sixth Avenue before the war. The two men fell silent; and Lanny remarked: “Well, I heard the guns. Has the treaty really been signed?”
V
When they were safely locked in their suite, Robbie got out his whisky bottle, which the flics hadn't taken. He had been under a severe strain, and took a nip without waiting for the soda and ice; so did the painter. Lanny had been under a longer strain than either of them, but he waited for the ginger beer, for he wasn't yet of age, and moreover he thought that his father was drinking too much, and was anxious not to encourage him. Meanwhile the youth strolled casually about the suite, looking into the bathroom and the closets and under the beds; he didn't know just how a dictograph worked, but he looked everywhere for any wires. After the bellboy had departed, the ex-prisoner opened the door and looked out. He was in a melodramatic mood.
At last they were settled, and the father said: “Now, please, may I have the honor of knowing about this affair?”
“First,” said Lanny, with a grin, “let me shut Uncle Jesse up. Uncle Jesse, you remember the Christmas before the war, I paid a visit to Germany?”
“I heard something about it.”
“I was staying with a friend of mine. Better not to use names. That friend was in Paris until recently, and he was the man who came to call on you at midnight.”
“Oh, so that's it!” exclaimed the painter.
“I gave him my word never to tell anybody. But I'm sure he won't mind your knowing, because you're likely to become his brother-in-law before long — you may be it now. Beauty and he are lovers, and that's why she's gone to Spain.”
“Oh, my God!” exclaimed Jesse. And then again: “Oh, my God!” He was speaking English, in which these words carry far more weight than in French.
“I told Robbie about it,” Lanny continued, “because he has a right to know about Beauty. But I didn't tell him about you, because that was your secret. May I tell him now?”
“Evidently he's not going to be happy till he hears it.”
Lanny turned to his father. “I put my friend in touch with Uncle Jesse, and my friend brought money to help him stir up the workers against the blockade. I thought that was a worthy cause and I still think so.”
“You knew you were risking your life?” demanded the shocked father.
“I've seen people risking their lives for so long, it has sort of lost meaning. But you can imagine that I felt pretty uncomfortable this afternoon. Also, you can see what a risk Uncle Jesse took when he walked into that place.”
Robbie made no response. He had poured out the drinks for the red sheep of his former mistress's family, but not an inch farther did he mean to go.
“You see how it was,” continued Lanny. “When my friend stopped coming, Uncle Jesse wanted to know why; he brought me some literature so that this friend might see what he had been doing. He asked me to pass it on if I got a chance, and I said I would. He suggested that I didn't need to read it. I didn't say I wouldn't — I just said that I understood. Uncle Jesse has really been playing fair with you, Robbie. It was my friend and I who planned this whole scheme and brought it to him.”
“I hope you don't feel too proud of it,” said the father, grimly.
“I'm not defending myself, I'm trying to set you straight about Uncle Jesse. If I've picked up ideas that you don't like, it hasn't been from him, for he's avoided talking to me, and even told me I couldn't understand his ideas if I tried. I'm a parasite, a member of the wasting classes, all that sort of thing. What I've had explained has been by Alston, and Herron, and Steffens — ”
“Whom you met in Jesse's room, I believe!”
“Well, he could hardly refuse to introduce me to his friend when I walked in. As a matter of fact I'd have met Steffens anyway, because Alston's friends talked a lot about his visit to Russia, and he was at the dinner where they decided to resign. So whatever I've done that was wrong, you must blame me and not Uncle Jesse. I don't know whether he hasn't any use for me, or whether he just pretends that he hasn't, but anyhow that's the way things have been between us.”
Said Robbie, coldly: “Nothing alters the fact that he came to this hotel and brought a swarm of hornets down on both of us. Look at my room!” Robbie pointed to his effects strewn here and there. “And my business papers taken by the police, and copies made, no doubt — and sold by some crook to my business rivals!” Robbie knew how such things were done, having done them.
“You are perfectly right,” said the painter. “It is my fault, and I am sorry as can be.”
“All that I want to know is that I don't have to look forward to such things for the rest of my life. You are Beauty's brother, and if you decide to behave yourself as a decent human being, I'm ready to treat you that way. But if you choose to identify yourself with the scum of the earth, with the most dangerous criminals alive — all right, that's your privilege, but then I have to say: 'Keep away from me and mine.'”
“You are within your rights.” Uncle Jesse spoke in the same cold tones as his not quite brother-in-law. “If you will arrange it with your son to keep away from me, you may be sure that I will never again invade his life, or yours.”
VI
That was a fair demand and a fair assent; if only those two could have let it rest there! But they were like two stags in the forest, which might turn away and walk off in opposite directions — but they don't! Instead they stand and stare, paw the ground, and cannot get each other out of their minds.
The painter was moved to remark: “You may hang on to your dream of keeping modern thought from your son; but I assure you, Robbie, the forces against you are stronger than you realize.”
To which the man of business was moved to answer, with scorn: “Leave that to my son and me, if you please! When Lanny learns that 'modern thought' means class hate, greed, and murder, he may decide to remain an old-fashioned thinker like his father.”
“The fond father's dream throughout the ages!” exclaimed the other, in a tone of pity, even more exasperating than one of ridicule. “Let my son be exactly like me in all things! Let him think exactly what I think — and so he will be perfect! But the world is changing, and not all the fathers leagued together can stop it, or keep the sons from knowing about it.”
“My son has his own mind,” said the father. “He will judge for himself.”
“You say that,” answered the revolutionist, “but you don't feel nearly as secure as you pretend. Why else should you be so worried when someone presents a new idea to Lanny's mind? Don't you suppose he notices that? Don't you suppose he asks himself what it means?”
That was touching Robbie Budd on the rawest spot in his soul. The idea that anybody could claim to know Lanny better than his father knew him! The idea that the youth might be hiding things, that doubts and differences might be lurking in his mind, that the replica of Robbie's self might be turning traitor to him! In the father's subconscious mind Lanny remained a child, a budding youth, something that had to be guarded and cherished; so the feelings that stirred the father's soul were not so different from the jealous rage of the forest monarch over some sleek and slender doe.
“You are clever, Jesse,” said he; “but I think Lanny understands the malice in your heart.”,
“I'm sorry I can't call you clever,” retorted the other. “Your world is coming to an end. The thousands of your wage slaves have some other purpose than to build a throne for you to sit on.”
“Listen, Uncle Jesse,” interposed Lanny. “What's the use of all this ranting? You know you can't convince Robbie — ”
But the stags brushed him aside; they weren't interested in him any more, they were interested in their battle. “We'll be ready for them any time they choose to come,” declared Robbie. “We make machine guns!”
“You'll shoot them yourself?”
“You bet your life!”
“No!” said the painter with a smile. “You'll hire other men, as you always do. And if they turn the guns against you, what then?”
“I'll be on the watch for them! One of them was fool enough to forewarn me!”
“History has forewarned you, Robbie Budd, but you won't learn. The French Revolution told you that the days of divine right were over; but you've built a new system exactly like the old one in its practical results — blind squandering at the top, starvation and despair at the bottom, an insanity of greed ending in mass slaughter. Now you see the Russian revolt, but you scorn to learn from it!”
“We've learned to shut the sons-of-bitches up in their rat-holes, and let them freeze and starve, or die of typhus and eat their own corpses.”
“Please, Robbie!” interposed the son. “You're getting yourself all worked up — ”
Said the painter: “Typhus has a way of spreading beyond national boundaries; and so have ideas.”
“We can quarantine disease; and I promise you, we're going to put the right man in the White House, and step on your Red ideas and smash the guts out of them.”
“Listen, Robbie, do be sensible! You're wasting an awful lot of energy.”
“Stay in France, Jesse Blackless, and spit your poison all over the landscape; but don't try it in America — not in Newcastle, I warn you!”
“I'm not needed there, Robbie. You're making your own crop of revolutionists. Class arrogance carries its own seeds of destruction.”
“Listen, Uncle Jesse, what do you expect to accomplish by this? You know you can't convert my father. Do you just want to hurt each other?”
Yes, that was it. The two stags had their horns locked, and each wanted to butt the other, drive him back, beat him to the earth, mash him into it; each would rather die than give an inch. It was an old, old grudge; they had fought like this when they had first met, more than twenty years ago. Lanny hadn't been there, Lanny hadn't been anywhere then, but his mother had told him about it. Now it had got started again; the two stags couldn't get their horns apart, and it might mean the death of one or both!
“You and your gutter-rats imagining you can run industry!” snarled Robbie.
“If you're so sure we can't, why are you afraid to see us try? Why don't you call off your mercenaries that are fighting us on twenty-six fronts?”
“Why don't you call off your hellions that are spreading treason and hate in every nation?”
“Listen, Uncle Jesse! You promised Robbie you'd let me alone, but you're not doing it.”
“They don't let anybody alone,” sneered the father. “They don't keep any promises. We're the bourgeoisie, and we have no rights! We're parasites, and all we're fit for is to be 'liquidated'!”
“If you put yourself in front of a railroad train, it's suicide, not murder,” said the painter, with his twisted smile. He was keeping his temper, which only made Robbie madder.
Said he, addressing his son: “Our business is to clear the track and let a bunch of gangsters drive the train into a ditch. History won't be able to count the number they have slaughtered.”
“Oh, my God!” cried Uncle Jesse — he too addressing the youth. “He talks about slaughter — and he's just finished killing ten million men, with weapons he made for the purpose! God Almighty couldn't count the number he has wounded, and those who've died of disease and starvation. Yet he worries about a few counter-revolutionists shot by the Bolsheviks!”
VII
Lanny saw that he hadn't accomplished anything, so he sat for a while, listening to all the things his father didn't want him to hear. This raging argument became to him a symbol of the world in which he would have to live the rest of his life. His uncle was the uplifted fist of the workers, clenched in deadly menace. As for Robbie, he had proclaimed himself the man behind the machine gun; the man who made it, and was ready to use it, personally, if need be, to mow down the clenched uplifted fists! As for Lanny, he didn't have to be any symbol, he was what he was: the man who loved art and beauty, reason and fair play, and pleaded for these things and got brushed aside. It wasn't his world! It had no use for him! When the fighting started, he'd be caught between the lines and mowed down.
“If you kill somebody,” Uncle Jesse announced to the father, “that's law and order. But if a revolutionist kills one of your gangsters, that's murder, that's a crime wave. You own the world, you make the laws and enforce them. But we tell you we're tired of working for your profit, and that never again can you lead us out to die for your greed.”
“You're raving!” said Robbie Budd. “In a few months your Russia will be smashed flat, and you'll never get another chance. You've shown us your hand, and we've got you on a list.”
“A hanging list?” inquired the painter, with a wink at the son.
“Hanging's not quick enough. You'll see how our Budd machine guns work!”
Lanny had never seen his father in such a rage. He was on his feet, and kept turning away and then back again. He had had several drinks, and that made it worse; his face was purple and his hands clenched. A little more and it might turn into a physical fight. Seeing him getting started on another tirade, Lanny grabbed his uncle by the arm and pulled him from his seat. “Please go, Uncle Jesse!” he exclaimed. “You said you would let me alone. Now do it!” He kept on, first pulling, then pushing. The uncle's hat had been hung on a chair, and Lanny took it and pressed it into his hand. “Please don't argue any more — just go!”
“All right,” said the painter, half angry, half amused. “Look after him — he's going to have his hands full putting down the Russian revolution!”
“Thanks,” said Lanny. “ll do my best.”
“You heard what I had to say to him!”
“Yes, I heard it.”
“And you see that he has no answer!”
“Yes, yes, please go!” Lanny kept shoving his exuberant relative out into the hall.
A parting shot: “Mark my words, Robbie Budd — it's the end of your world!”
“Good-by, Uncle Jesse!” and Lanny shut the door.
VIII
He came back into the room. His father was staring in front of him, frowning darkly. Lanny wondered: was the storm going to be turned upon him? And how much of it was left!
“Now, see here!” exclaimed the elder. “Have you learned your lesson from this?”
“Yes, indeed, Robbie; more than one lesson.” Lanny's tone was full of conviction.
“You put yourself in the hands of a fanatic like that, and he's in a position to blackmail you, to do anything his crazy fancy may suggest.”
“Please believe me, Robbie, I wasn't doing anything for Uncle Jesse. I was trying to help a friend.”
“How far will a man go to help a friend? You were bucking the French government!”
“I know. It was a mistake.”
“A man has to learn to have discretion; to take care of himself. You want friends, Lanny — but also you want to know where to draw a line. If people find out they can sponge on you, there's no limit to it. One wants you to sign a note and bankrupt yourself. One gets drunk and wants you to sober him up. One is in a mess with a woman, and you have to get her off his neck. You're a soft-shell crab, that every creature in the sea can bite a chunk out of. Nobody respects you, nobody thinks of anything but to use you.”
“I'll try to learn from this, Robbie.” Lanny really meant it; but his main thought was: Soothe him down; cool him off!
“You have a friend who's a German,” continued the father. “All right, make up your mind what it means. As long as you live, Germany's going to be making war on France, and France on her. It doesn't matter what they call it, business or diplomacy, reparations, any name — Germany's foes will be trying to undermine her and she will be fighting back. If Kurt Meissner is going to be a musician, that's one thing, but if he's going to be a German agent, that's another. Sooner or later you've got to make up your mind what it means to have such a friend — and your mother's got to make up her mind what it means to have such a lover.”
“Yes, Robbie; you're right. I see it clearly.”
“And those Reds you've been meeting — I don't doubt they're clever talkers, more so than decent people, perhaps. But think what must be in the minds of revolutionists when they waste their time upon a young fellow like you! You have money, and you're credulous — you're their meat, laid out on the butcher's block! Maybe those Russians are going to survive awhile; maybe the Allies are too exhausted to put them down. They can live as long as they can plunder other people's wealth. And you have to make up your mind, are you going to let them use you, and laugh at you while they play you for a sucker? What else can you be to them — a parasite, the son of Robbie Budd the bloated capitalist, the merchant of death! Don't you see that you're everything in the world they hate and want to destroy?”
“Yes, Robbie, of course. I've no idea of having anything more to do with them.”
“Well, for Christ's sake, mean that and stick to it! Go on down to Juan and fix up the house and play the piano!” The youth couldn't keep from laughing. “That's the program!” He put his arm about his father — knowing him well, and realizing how ashamed of himself he would be for having lost his temper and roared at a man who wasn't worth it.
Lanny was beginning to feel gay. A great relief to be out of jail — and also not to have to take any worse scolding than this. “The treaty's signed, Robbie!” he exclaimed. “And we've a League of Nations to keep things in order!”
“Like heck we have!” replied the father.
“Pax nobiscum! E pluribus unum! God save the king! And now let's get this room in order!” Lanny took the suitcase which he had brought from the Préfecture, and put it on the bed and began sorting out the precious papers, like the good secretary he had learned to be. “Tomorrow night I leave for the Céte d'Azur, and lie on the sand and get sunburned and watch the world come to an end!”