I
LANNY BUDD was in a state of mental confusion. He had absorbed, as it were through the skin, the point of view of his chief and the latter's friends, the little group who called themselves “liberals.” According to these authorities, the President of the United States had muffed a chance to save the world and that world was “on the skids”; there was nothing anybody could do, except sit and watch the nations prepare for the next war. George D. Herron went back to his home in Geneva, sick in body and mind, and wrote his young friend a letter of blackest depression couched in the sublimest language. Uncle Jesse, on whom Lanny paid a call, had the same expectations — only he didn't worry, because he said it was the nature of capitalism on its way to collapse. “Capitalism is war,” said the painter, “and what it calls peace is merely time to get ready. To try to change it is like reforming a Bengal tiger.” A very young secretary listened to these ideas, bandied back and forth among the staff. He tried to sort them out and decide which he believed; it was hard, because each man was so persuasive while he talked. And meanwhile Lanny was young, and it was May in Paris, a beautiful time and place. Rains swept clean the streets and the air, and the sun came out with dazzling splendor. The acacia trees in the Bois, loaded with masses of small yellow blossoms, were bowed in the rain and then raised up to the sun. Children in bright colored dresses played on the grass, and bonnes with long ribbons dangling from the backs of their caps chatted together and flirted impartially with doughboys, Tommies, Anzacs, and chocolate soldiers from Africa. The beautiful monuments and buildings of Paris proclaimed victory, the traffic hummed and honked, and life was exciting, even though it might be on the way to death.
Lanny, walking on the boulevards, thought about his mother and Kurt, safe in Spain, and having a magical time. A letter had come from his friend, full of needless apologies, signed by that oddly unsuitable name of “Sam” which he had chosen without a moment's thought. Beauty had written also; no more about the past and its perils, but personal and happy news. A rugged and inspiring coast — the Bay of Biscay, O! Fascinating old towns, picturesque inns, sunshine and white clouds floating; peace and safety, heavenly anonymity, and, above all, love.
Lanny understood each of these words in its secret inner meaning. Voices told him that he was missing something in his life. Other people were finding it, but he was alone; no mother, no father, no girl — only a group of middle-aged and elderly gentlemen looking at the world through dark glasses, no two of them able to agree as to what they wanted to do — and powerless to do it anyhow!
II
“Society” was reviving. The fashionable folk were coming out of their five years' hibernation, hungry for pleasure as the bears for food. The Grand Prix was to be run at Longchamps, and President Wilson would attend, the first holiday that harassed man had allowed himself in a couple of months. Lanny resolved to attend, and to do it in style — with the help of the complaisant little army officer who had charge of the nice big open Cadillacs with army chauffeurs who took people on “official business” to the races or anywhere else in or near Paris.
His thoughts turned to that agreeable lass at the Hotel Majestic. She could get time off, and so could young Fessenden and the female member of the staff who was his special friend. The English are a sporting people, and the severe chaperon who looked after the welfare of the young ladies of their delegation would regard watching horses race under the eyes of President Wilson as a form of social duty. It is amazing how young women on very small salaries can manage to look as gay and new as the richest ones; they don't tell you how they do it, and Lanny had no means of guessing, but he saw that the toilettes of the professional beauties which were featured in the newspapers could hardly be distinguished from those of girls who worked all day typing letters and keeping files. It was democracy.
To look at that racetrack and its throngs of people, you would have had a hard time realizing that Paris had been in deadly peril less than a year ago; that long-range cannon had been peppering her streets and houses with shells, and that hundreds of thousands of her sons had given their lives to save her. The women who wore mourning did not attend the races; only those fortunate ones whose men had made profits out of the war. Now they wore hats full of flowers, and the most striking ensembles that dressmakers had been able to invent at short notice; they flaunted striped parasols and waved handkerchiefs which represented a month's wages for one of the working girls who made them. The beautiful sleek horses strained and struggled for their entertainment and roars of cheering swept over the stands and around the track.
In short, life had begun again for the leisure classes. The mood was to spend it while you had it, and Lanny's father had it. So the youth drank in sunshine and warm spring air and felt his soul expanding. He strolled among the smiling, chattering throngs, bowed to distinguished persons whom he knew, and told his friends who they were. The grand monde at its very grandest was here: important persons not merely of Paris and London and Washington, but of Greece and Egypt, Persia and India, China and Japan, Australia and New Zealand — and back to Paris by way of San Francisco and New York.
Penelope Selden was slender and quick-moving, with hair that glinted without dye and cheeks that were bright without rouge. Certainly she was happy without any effort that afternoon; they all made jokes, and bubbled with laughter at the poorest of them, and no shadow of the world's trouble crossed their souls. They bet no more money than they could afford to lose, and oddly enough they won, and enjoyed the delight of getting something for nothing.
Fessenden had an engagement for the evening, so they were driven back to town. Then, because all the restaurants of Paris would be packed to the doors on the evening of the Grand Prix, Lanny and Penelope took a taxi to the suburbs and found a little inn, having outdoor tables in a garden, an obliging moon to provide the right amount of light, and a host who was not obtrusive. The cooking was good, the wine tolerable, and afterwards they strolled in the garden and sat on a bench. Someone in the inn was playing a concertina — not the highest type of music, but it sufficed.
Lanny reflected upon the dutiful life he had been living these past five months or so; and also that in places such as this were rooms which could be hired with no questions asked. He had already made up his mind that he would take the good the gods provided him. He permitted the conversation to become personal, and when he put his arm on the top of the bench behind the girl, and then about her shoulders, she did not withdraw. But when he began to whisper his feelings, she exclaimed, in a voice of pain: “Oh, Lanny, why did you wait so long?”
“Is it too late?” he asked.
“I've gone and got myself engaged!”
“Oh, damn!” thought Lanny — to himself. Aloud he replied: “Oh, dear! I'm sorry!” Then, after a pause: “Who is it?”
“Somebody in England.”
She didn't tell him more. Did that mean that she wasn't altogether pleased with her choice? They sat for a while, watching the tree shadows in the moonlight, which had become suddenly melancholy; the concertina was playing adagio lamentoso.
“What was the matter, Lanny? Did you think I was a gold digger, or something horrid?”
“No, dear,” said he, truthfully. “I was afraid I mightn't be fair to you.”
“Couldn't you have left that to me?”
“Perhaps I should have. It's hard to be sure what's right.”
“I wouldn't have made any claims on you — honestly not. I've learned to take care of myself, and I mean to.” They were silent once more; then she put her hand on his and said: “I'm truly sad about it.”
“Me too,” he replied; and again they watched the wavering shadows of the trees.
III
They talked about the relationship of the sexes, so much in the thoughts of young people in these days. They had thrown overboard the fixed principles of their forefathers, and were groping to find a code which had to do with their own happiness, the thing they really believed in. If you were going to have babies, that was another matter; but so long as you couldn't afford to have babies, and didn't mean to — what then?
Lanny told about his two adventures; and Penelope said: “Oh, those were horrid girls! I would never have treated you like that, Lanny.”
“There's something to be said for both of them. The English girl belongs to a class and she owes a duty to her family. Don't your parents feel that way?”
“A stockbroker isn't so much in England — unless he's a big one, and my father isn't. He has other people to take care of besides me; that's why I went out on my own. So long as I earn my way, I think I've a right to run my own life. At any rate, I'm doing it.”
“Have you ever had an affair?” he made bold to inquire.
She answered that she had loved a youth in the business school she had attended. His parents were well-to-do, and wouldn't let him marry. “I guess we didn't really care enough for each other to make a fight for it,” she said. “Anyhow, we didn't. It messes things all up when one has more money than the other. That's why I was afraid to let you know that I liked you so much, Lanny. A girl can generally start things up if she wants to.”
“I haven't much money,” said he, quickly.
“I know, you say that. But you have what looks like it to a girl on the salary our Foreign Office pays. I waited, hoping you would speak, but you didn't.”
It was a dangerous conversation. Their hearts were bared to each other and their feelings were stirred; it wouldn't have taken much to “start things up.” But something like an alarm bell was ringing in the young man's soul. This was a lovely girl, and she was entitled to a square deal. It might be that she would call off her engagement and take a chance with him; from vague hints he guessed that the man in London was in business, and was not glamorous to her. But to break with him would be a serious step. If Lanny caused her to do it, he would be under obligations — and was he prepared to keep them? The Peace Conference was drawing to its close and their ways would part. Did he want to invite Penelope to Juan? If so, what would become of her job and her boasted independence? On the other hand, would he follow her to London?
No, he hadn't intended anything so serious. He had been thinking about a little pleasure, in the mood of these days, when men and women had the feeling that life was cheating them. Penelope said something like that; she was leaning closer to him, practically in his arms, and all he had to do was to close them.
“Listen, dear,” he said; and his tone forecast what he was going to say: “If we do this, we'll get fond of each other, and then we'll be unhappy.”
“Do you think so, darling?”
“You may be thinking you can go back to that chap at home. But perhaps you'll find you don't care for him any more, and you'll make yourself miserable, and him too.”
“I've thought about it a lot, Lanny. We do what we think is right — and then we go off and spend many a lonely hour wondering if we didn't make a mistake.”
“I'm judging by the way I am with that English girl I told you about.”
“You can't forget her?”
“I've tried to, and I ought to, but I just don't.”
“I suppose that's what's the matter between us,” reflected Penelope. “There's a German poem that tells about a youth who loved a maiden who had chosen another.”
“I know — Heine. And whom it just touches, his heart breaks in two.”
“I don't suppose there'll ever be a remedy for that,” said the girl.
They sat listening to the concertina player, who was evidently a returned poilu; he played their songs, which Lanny knew from Marcel and the other mutilés. Many of them dealt with love, and as a rule were sad; the toughest old campaigner would sit with a mist of tears in his eyes, hearing about the girl he had left behind him and wouldn't see again. Lanny told Penelope what was in these songs, and with echoes of them in their ears they strolled to the car and drove back to the city. Afterward, it was just as she had said — they both wondered if they hadn't made a mistake.
IV
The Germans were continuing their bombardment of the treaty, and were getting the help of liberal and “radical” groups all over the world. The statesmen in Paris who had pledged themselves to “open covenants openly arrived at” were now doing their best to keep the terms of this treaty from reaching the public; the text was unobtainable in America, and even in France, but you could buy a copy for two francs in Belgium, and protests against it arose more loudly every day in the neutral lands. The British Labour Party denounced it, which meant many votes and had a disturbing effect upon the “mercurial” Prime Minister. He began wobbling again and caused an amusing situation.
Through all the battles, it had been the Presbyterian President against the cynical Tiger, with Lloyd George holding the balance of power, and generally giving the decision to the Tiger. But now, here was the little Welshman fighting the Tiger, and President Wilson having the decision — and he too giving it to the Tiger! This amazed the people at the Majestic. One of the staff, Mr. Keynes, said that Lloyd George had set out to bamboozle the American President and had succeeded too well; now, when he set out to “debamboozle” him, it couldn't be done. The agile-minded little Welshman was helpless before the stiff “Covenanter” temperament, which had to convince itself that what it did was divinely inspired, and then, having acquired that conviction, had to stand by it, no matter how many votes it might cost.
Lanny heard the President's side from Davisson and others who were defending him in hot arguments with Alston. At the time when Wilson had needed Lloyd George's help it had been refused. Now the treaty had been presented to the enemy, and it was a question of making him sign it. What time was this for the Allies to start weakening? Clemenceau couldn't give way, for he had Foch on his back, and Poincaré watching for the moment to trip him. All that could be brought about was another deadlock, such as they had had two months ago, and starting the whole weary wrangle all over again.
One aspect of the problem could be mentioned only in whispers. General Pershing wasn't sure how long he could control his troops. His armies were melting away. All over France, Belgium, Switzerland, were not merely doughboys but also officers who had quit in disgust. No need for Jerry Pendleton to hide, or for Lanny to worry about him any more! And if the Germans should refuse to sign the treaty, would the men still under arms consent to march and fight? Congress had been summoned in special session, and there was a resolution before the Senate declaring that a state of peace existed with Germany. Just as easy as that!
Clemenceau and Marshal Foch wouldn't yield an inch; no, not an inch; but having said that and sworn it, they began to yield, a fraction of an inch here and a fraction there. Germany was going to be admitted to the League of Nations after all. And there was going to be a plebiscite for a part of Upper Silesia — not the part containing Schloss Stubendorf, alas, but the part with the coal mines, which the Poles wanted so badly, and which the French wanted to use against Germany the next time. So it went, and each small concession was a bite out of the body and soul of France; the screams were loud and terrifying — and Lanny, most of whose life had been lived among the French, couldn't make up his mind whether to listen to his boyhood friends, or to these new ones who talked so impressively about justice, chivalry, democracy, and other abstractions.
It was a complex problem that taxed the mental powers of the ablest minds in the world, and would continue to be argued about by historians. Professor Davisson and others to whose arguments Lanny listened declared that these were not questions of right and wrong, of morality or immorality, but of statesmanship. Of course it wasn't just that Germany should be shut off from East Prussia; but wouldn't it be equally unjust if Poland should be shut off from the sea? The real question was, which course would provide for international security. Said Davisson: “The main lines of this settlement have been established by the procèsses of history. It is fighting against these procèsses not to recognize the successor states, especially Poland and Czechoslovakia, and give them the territory and resources to maintain and defend themselves.”
There were those who went even farther, driven by the mood of war; they insisted that the Allied armies should have marched to Berlin, to let the Germans know what war is really like, and cure them of their fondness for it. The peace terms should now provide for the dividing of Germany into a number of small states, as in the days before Bismarck. The Prussians were a tribe incapable of understanding any ideal save that of conquest, and it should be made impossible for them to use the peace-loving Germans of Bavaria and the Rhineland in their adventures. Lanny didn't associate with persons who held such views, because Alston and his group considered them outside the pale; but he met them among his mother's friends, and among those who came to Mrs. Emily's. They seemed to know a lot of history.
V
Bullitt and Steffens had journeyed to Russia on a mission, of a sort contrived by statesmen who wish to keep themselves free either to accept the results, in which case it was an official mission; or to reject the results, in which case the statesmen had nothing to do with the mission and didn't even know about it. In the case of the expedition to Russia, Wilson and Lloyd George had chosen the latter course; and now what were the expeditioners going to do?
Lincoln Steffens had already had his experience of martyrdom, and was having it still. He had written too sympathetically about various “radicals” in trouble, and as a result no magazine of any circulation was willing to have his name appear in its pages. Here he was, a highly trained journalist in Paris, enjoying contacts such as no other had; every day he collected marvelous stories — and could do nothing with them but hand them over to less competent men.
Lanny sat in Stef’s room, listening to some of these tales, when in came Bill Bullitt; bouncing, eager young newspaper fellow, now being suddenly matured and sobered. His was an old and wealthy family of Philadelphia, and young men of exalted social position perhaps have their own way too easily, and are impatient of neglect and frustration. Also, they can afford the luxury of moral scruples. It made young Bullitt furious when Lloyd George would send for him, and pump his mind of everything he had seen and heard in the land of the Soviets, express deep appreciation of the service which Bullitt had performed — and then get up in Parliament and officially lie about him. The young aristocrat was like a man who strolls in a lovely garden, picking the fruit and tasting it, and suddenly falls through the sod and discovers that the garden is made over a charnel pit. When Lanny first met him, Bill had just scrambled out, his eyes and mouth full of horrors. He was hating it in a blind fury, and determined to expose it to the world.
And here was Stef, middle-aged, sad, and accustomed to the odors of charnel pits; they were ancient institutions, all the national gardens of Europe were built over them. If any young fellow wanted to go on a crusade against lying and cheating in diplomacy, all right, but let him know what he was fighting. It was nothing less than the property system, which was the foundation of modern western culture; and were you prepared to scrap it? If not, why all this fuss about a few of its by-products?
Stef told about two French journalists who had come to him at the outset of the Peace Conference, obviously sent by Clemenceau or one of his agents, putting up to the Americans the question: Just how much of his Fourteen Points did President Wilson really mean, and how far were the Americans ready to go in support of these exalted principles? Did they mean to apply them to India, to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Gibraltar? Of course they didn't; of course they meant to let the British Empire keep on going — so why not a French empire? This put the Americans in a hole, as it was meant to do. The whole world saw, the first thing President Wilson did when he reached London was to begin hedging on his “freedom of the seas,” making plain that it didn't mean what everybody but statesmen had supposed it meant.
“All right,” said Stef, “go in and fight; but don't start until you know who your enemy is, and have some idea of his strength. The war on Russia which we denounce, and the peace treaty, are parts of the same imperialist program. The Polish Corridor, the new Baltic states, and all the rest of it, are meant to keep Germany and Russia apart, so that the British Empire and the French Empire can deal with them separately. That's what empires do, and must do if they are to go on existing. What we Americans have to get clear is that the same forces are building the same kind of empire at home, and we'll be doing the same thing as the British and French, because we have to have foreign trade, and outposts like the Panama Canal and Hawaii. So why not start reforming ourselves, Bill?”
Young Bullitt didn't see that; and Lanny only half saw it. He listened to the muckraker talking in his quizzical fashion, teasing people with paradoxes, often saying the opposite of what he really meant; Lanny decided all over again that these radicals were damned irritating. But at the same time he was embarrassed to discover how much they knew, and how often their unpleasant predictions came true. He decided that maybe he'd agree with them after.they were able to agree among themselves.
VI
In a private dining room of the Crillon a small group met to choose their future course. They were in a painful situation, and some were wishing they had never crossed the seas. They had to choose whether to let their names and reputations be used in support of what they believed to be falsehoods and blunders, or to get themselves called unpatriotic and eccentric, to be looked upon as unreliable, perhaps touched with the poison of “radicalism.”
It was a not too luxurious dinner, for most of them were not well off. Even for those who had private fortunes it was a grave decision, for they didn't want to live idle lives — they had come with a fond dream of helping to make the world better, and the course they now contemplated might put them on the shelf for a long time, perhaps for life. Their wives came with them, and over a dinner table decorated with yellow jonquils and red roses they talked more solemnly and frankly than Lanny had ever heard from persons of their clever sort. Were they going to ride along on the bandwagon, or climb off as a gesture of protest?
It was a young people's party; the only middle-aged ones were Steffens and Alston. Bullitt was twenty-eight, and Adolf Berle, acting chief of the Russian Section, was only twenty-four; there were others of that age, and their wives were still younger. You could feel the spiritual wrestling going on; but they all tried, in the modern fashion, to take it lightly and not look or act like martyrs, or heroes, or anything that was bad form. Over the liqueurs and coffee everyone had his say, and heard what the others thought about his arguments, and even about his moral status.
Those who were not resigning built themselves a defense mechanism. They were members of a team and had to stand by their captain. He had done the best he could, and they had to exclude from their minds all arguments against his many surrenders. Or else they declared that they were subordinates, employed to furnish information, not to make decisions. Certainly they weren't signing any treaties. Some were in the army, and for them to resign would mean courtmartial!
Those who were resigning were none too patient with these excuses. Being young, their judgments were harsh; black was black and white was white, and no half-tones between. “Oh, yes!” they said. “Be a good boy and do what you're told! Feather your own nest and let the world go to hell!” One of the group had decided at the last minute not to attend; it was rumored that he had been promised a job on the Secretariat of the new League of Nations, which seemed the way to a glamorous European career. “He has his thirty pieces of silver!” exclaimed the resigners.
They had been sold out; that was the general sentiment of the rebels. Each had his own department, about which he knew, and on which he contributed information. Samuel Morison of the Russian Section was furious because the Allies were trying to use his favorite Baltic states as a springboard for White Russian interventions. Bullitt's anger was because the French General Staff had a mandate to run Europe. Berle was indignant because the Allied and associated powers remained untouched by the high moral principles which they were applying to their enemies. Said Alston: “It is not a new order in Europe but a piece of naked force.” Because of his age his words carried weight.
The non-resigners fought back, and their wives helped them. They talked about “futile gallantry”; one woman compared them to a group of mosquitoes charging a battleship. It was an old, old question, which Lanny had confronted in talks with Kurt and his father. What part do moral forces play in history? Is there any real use in making yourself uncomfortable for a lot of people who will never hear about it, and wouldn't appreciate it if they did? “It's going to be a long, long time before the verdict of history is rendered on this treaty,” said one; and when Alston appealed to the public at home, another said: “All they are thinking about is to punish the Germans; if you try to stop it, you're 'pro-German,' and that's the end of you.”
When it came Lanny's turn, he said that Alston was his chief, and he meant to follow him. Alston answered that it might be better if Lanny stayed, because he knew the files and the contents of many reports, and could be of help to whoever took over the job. But Lanny said: “I joined on your account. If you go, I'm sick of the whole business.” When the voting was over, one guest reached out and took some of the flowers which decorated the table and, pulling the blossoms off the stems, tossed one to each person — red roses to the resigners, and yellow jonquils to the “good boys” and their girls. It was highly poetical.
When they broke up, close to midnight, Lanny and young Berle walked twice around the Place de la Concorde, in the blue fog and between the rows of looming guns. The acting chief of the Russian Section reminded his still more youthful companion of the saying of Count Oxenstjerna, Swedish diplomat of nearly three hundred years back: “Go forth, my son, and learn with how little wisdom the world is governed!”
VII
The few protestants were in the mood of Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms: “God help me, I can no other!” Carefully and conscientiously each one composed a letter to the State Department, setting forth the reasons which impelled him to the grave step. These letters were duly handed in, and copies were given to the press representatives. Having fired the shot which was supposed to be heard round the world, each patriot held his breath and waited for the echoes.
Alas, they had things to learn about the world they lived in. One of the great New York papers gave an inch or two to the report of some resignations, naming no names; the rest of the press gave not a line to the matter. And then — a pathetic sort of anticlimax — the tactful secretary-general of the American Commission sent for each of the resigners separately and said that their objections had been duly recorded on the books of history; so their honor must now be considered to be satisfied. Wouldn't they kindly consent to stay on and perform their duties during the short time still remaining? No one else knew what they knew; they were really indispensable. Amateurs in diplomacy, they could hardly evade this trap. A couple of days later the department in Washington gave to the press a denial that anyone had resigned except Bullitt, and one professor who was returning on account of pressing duties at home.
Lanny parted from his friend Alston, who was going to teach summer school — a humble professor once more, with no presumptuous ideas of guiding the destiny of states. He had had a great influence upon his secretary, and would not be forgotten. That is the consolation of professors.
Lanny stayed resigned, and so was loose and alone in Paris. He no longer had the use of a room, paid for by the government; no more free meals, and no more honors. The doormen of the Crillon knew him, and would still let him in, but he became aware that persons who talked to him were a bit uneasy. It wasn't quite the safe thing to do.
More to his surprise, Lanny found the same sense of discomfort when he went to see his friend Fessenden. The American had understood, of course, that he was being used as a source of information, but he had assumed that the friendship was real, even so. Now the young Englishman wanted him to understand that it was really real, but Fessenden was dependent upon his career for a living — he wasn't a playboy like Lanny, and couldn't afford to get himself marked as a “pinko.” He was very busy now; but when the conference was over there would be time for sociability.
Mrs. Emily invited the homeless youth to be her guest, and he was glad to accept. Here was a comfortable place to stay, and quiet friendship to smooth his ruffled plumage. His hostess was nearing sixty, and with her white hair was a dignified and impressive figure. In her home he met mostly French people; and oddly enough, cultivated Frenchmen paid very little attention to his revolt. The French are a well-insulated people, and seldom bother to know what is going on outside their own world unless it is forced upon them. Disputes and disagreements among the American staff? Yes, they are a rather violent people; their cinema reveals it; they still have wild Indians, don't they? The French would shrug their shoulders.
Lanny was a man of leisure, with time to stroll on the boulevards and watch the sights of a great city and reflect upon them. He himself didn't realize to what extent his point of view had changed; how different his reflections from what they would have been a year ago. For example, the painful spectacle of the women of Paris. In the early days of the Peace Conference you hardly saw a spot on the Champs-Élysées where a person could sit that didn't have a doughboy with a French girl in his lap; now, when the doughboys were disappearing, the competition among the women had become ravenous. Three or four would sight Lanny at once, and come to him swiftly, each looking ready to tear the eyes out of her rival; when he politely told them in good French that he was living a chaste life, their enmity to one another would vanish, and they would gaze mournfully after him, saying: “Oh, but life is hard for the women!”
Six months ago, Lanny would have attributed all this to natural depravity, of a sort peculiar to the Gallic race; he would have recalled some phrases which M. Rochambeau had quoted from Tacitus, censuring the moral code of that race in its then barbaric state. But now Lanny had the phrases of Stef and his Uncle Jesse in his mind. His attention had been called to the fact that municipal authority under the stress of war had set the wages of French workingwomen at six francs per day; whereas to go into a restaurant and have a poor dinner would cost one of them at least seven. Yes, it was the stark, simple fact that hunger was driving them to sell their bodies; hunger was driving the poor of Europe to madness, and making the ferocious class struggles.
What about the.women of more prosperous classes, so many of whom were selling themselves for silk gowns, fur coats, and jeweled slippers? “Well,” Lanny could hear his uncle saying, “aren't these the tools of their trade?” The gentle and refined scholars whom Woodrow Wilson had brought to Paris were appalled at the behavior of females who wore the clothes of ladies and had been expected to behave that way: females of all nations, American included, some of them in Red Cross costumes. In the Crillon order was maintained, but in other hotels they peddled themselves from door to door like book agents. The shocked professors repeated a story about the American Ambassador to Belgium, who was lodged in the ultra-magnificent Palace Hotel of Brussels, owned by the King of Spain. Said the ambassador to his friends: “It is the custom in European hotels to leave your boots outside the door, to be gathered up by the porter and polished in the early morning hours. So I have bought myself a pair of ladies' shoes, and every night I place them outside my door along with my own boots!”
VIII
There were other aspects of life in Paris less depressing. There were theaters with more to show than troupes of naked women. There were concerts, to remind one that the life of the spirit still continued. Most interesting to Lanny was the spring salon in the Petit Palais. To think that in the midst of the last desperate agony of war, with several “Big Berthas” dropping shells into the city every twenty minutes, with food scarce and fuel unobtainable, more than three thousand men and women had sat at easels and maintained their faith that art could not be destroyed, but was and would remain the supreme achievement and goal of life!
Lanny went to this show day after day. There were many kinds of paintings, many subjects, many techniques; he studied them, and tried to understand what the artist was telling him. Beauty had had three of Marcel's last works brought to Paris, and they had been hung; Lanny now compared them with the work of other men, and confirmed his opinion that there was nothing better being shown. You could see how the crowds felt, for there were always people looking at Marcel's work, and asking questions concerning the painter. Not many knew about him, but they were going to; that would be one of Lanny's tasks, and his mother's — when she came back from her new honeymoon.
Lanny knew many of the artists at this show. Some came to the Cap and worked; for others Beauty had posed in her very young womanhood. They came to see how their work was being received, and to compare it uneasily with work that might be better. Lanny talked with them, got their addresses, and went to visit their studios and talk shop. They were glad to welcome a rich young man who might be a customer, or could send others. As a stepson of Marcel Detaze and nephew of Jesse Blackless, he was an insider; they talked freely, and it was like old times. He had expected to find them all starving and was happy to hear that art activities had come back with an astonishing rush. The bourgeoisie had money and wanted portraits of their beautiful ladies and their eminent selves; they were planning palaces and villas and wanted them made elegant. Artists, eternal enemies of the bourgeois, spoke of them with condescension; another form of the class struggle.
Beautiful things, always touched with sadness. Lanny would stop before a certain painting, and the thought would come to him: what would Marcel think of this? His stepfather's spirit hovered at his shoulder, and would do so at every exhibition for the rest of his life; pointing out brushwork, atmosphere, composition, meaning, all the things that painting conveys to the trained intelligence. If Lanny was puzzled, he would wait and Marcel would tell him; if Lanny had a conclusion to announce, it would take the form of a dialogue with Marcel. So it is with impressions which form our childhood, and which we pass on to others in their turn.
Kurt Meissner was here in Lanny's thoughts, because they had attended a salon the year before the war; Rick, too, because they had attended the one of 1917. With these two friends Lanny was hoping to resume the life of art, in London, on the Riviera, all over Europe — when finally the statesmen had settled their squabbles and men could begin to think about the things that mattered. Lanny was in a mood of intense repugnance toward politics and everything that had to do with it. He had been on the inside, and never again would he believe in a statesman, never would a stuffed shirt or a uniform decorated with medals produce the slightest stir in his mind. Lanny's dream was to build himself an ivory tower and invite his chosen friends; they would live gracious lives, such as you read about in the days of the Medicis, and the Esterhazys, and other patrons of the arts.
The future patron had in his pocket a letter from Rick, begging him to come to England for a visit. Lanny had replied that he would do so as soon as he could arrange it. He had written to both his mother and his father, telling them about his resignation and asking as to their plans. From Robbie the reply came in the form of a cablegram — the old familiar kind that had made life such an adventure: “Sailing for London steamer Ruritania meet me Hotel Cecil Monday.”