Пользователь - WORLDS END

Lanny and his mother had also discussed Johannes Robin, prosperous speculator in cast-off armaments. He journeyed frequently to Paris and other places; surely he must know persons at the border, and could arrange to import a competent Swiss musician to play duets with his son! Lanny composed a nice sociable letter, telling the news about himself and his parents, and saying that he hoped to see Mr. Robin when he came to the city, and did he have any plans to come? So tactful was this letter that Mr. Robin missed the point and replied even more sociably, telling how happy his whole family was to hear from Lanny, and all about what they were doing and thinking. Only at the end did he mention that he had no plans to come to Paris just now, but that when he did, Lanny would be sure to hear from him. What Lanny said was: "Damn!"

III

On account of her secret "house guest," Madame Detaze was compelled to receive her friends in the parlor of the hotel, a circumstance which sooner or later was bound to awaken their curiosity. Only two persons, her brother and her son, were accustomed to come up unannounced; the next afternoon, when Lanny entered his mother's drawing room, he found his Uncle Jesse seated there. Kurt wasn't visible, so Lanny assumed that he must be hidden in Beauty's boudoir. The youth couldn't get away from the feeling that he was playing a part in a stage comedy. Suppose the German captain of artillery should happen to be seized by a fit of coughing or sneezing - there would be quite a job of explaining to Beauty's brother!

But this calamity did not befall. With more than one of his twisted smiles the brother told about his adventures with the agents of the Sыretй Gйnйrale, who had descended upon him within a couple of hours after the attack upon Clemenceau. Jesse hadn't heard about the incident, and was caught with a letter half-written on his table - fortunately it dealt with American affairs! The police took him to the Prйfecture and gave him a grilling, threatening among other things to expel him from the country. The painter had taken a high stand, declaring that this would make more propaganda than he could achieve by a hundred speeches.

"They wanted to know about my sister and my nephew," added Jesse. "I gather that few things would please them more than to be able to tie the Crillon up with the attempt on Clemenceau."

"They all think we're pro-German," replied the youth. "Or at any rate they say they do."

Beauty had been told about the rйunion, so Lanny was free to ask his uncle: "Do you know that fellow Cottin?"

"Never heard of him," was the reply. "I don't go much with anarchists. It's my judgment they nearly always have a screw loose."

Lanny had been taught by his father that all varieties of Reds were in that condition. Said he: "Do you remember a young workingman who came onto the platform at the meeting and shook hands with you?"

"There were several who did that."

"This one talked to you and you patted him on the back."

"Probably he was praising my speech," said Uncle Jesse. "If so, I liked him."

"Don't you remember one who wore corduroys?"

The painter searched his memory. "I believe I do. A rather frail chap, looking as if he'd been sick?"

"That was Cottin."

Jesse exhibited astonishment - and his nephew watched him closely. Was it genuine, or was it good acting? No doubt many comrades of the young anarchist were forgetting him just now. Distrust of his uncle had been so deeply ground into Lanny's mind that he was never sure if any of the painter's emotions were genuine.

Beauty interrupted the drama with some remark about the wickedness of shooting that poor old man who was doing so much for France. This caused her brother to turn upon her with what certainly seemed a genuine emotion. He said that attempts at assassination were foolish, because they didn't accomplish the purpose desired; but so far as wickedness was concerned, how about statesmen and diplomats who had caused the murder of ten million innocent persons and the destruction of three hundred billions of dollars' worth of property? And what were you going to say about bureaucrats and politicians who left the poor to stand in line for hours waiting for a chance to buy a few scraps of half-spoiled food at twice the prices charged before the war?

Jesse Blackless was started on the same speech he had made at the meeting. He told about food rotting in warehouses at Le Havre and Marseille, about freight cars rusting idle - and all because speculators reaped fortunes out of every increase in prices. "What does it mean to you that the cost of living in Paris has doubled, and that some foods cost five or six times as much? All you have to do is to ask Robbie for another check."

"I assure you you're mistaken," said Beauty, spunkily - for she had had plenty of practice quarreling with her brother. "I've lost ten pounds since I came to Paris."

"Well, it's probably due to dancing all night, not to going hungry. I don't go into the smart restaurants, but I pass them and see they're crowded all night with bemedaled men and half-naked women."

"That's because Paris is so full of strangers. People sit packed at the tables so that they haven't room to move their elbows."

"Well, they manage to get the food. But the people I know haven't tasted a morsel of sugar in four years, and now they stand in the rain and snow for hours for a loaf of bread or a basket of fuel. Is it any more wicked to kill a cynical old politician than to starve a million women and children so that they die of anemia or pneumonia?"

IV

Jesse Blackless went on in this strain until he saw that he was hurting his sister without helping his cause. Then he remembered that he had come to advise her on the subject of the exhibition of her late husband's paintings. He calmed down, and said that he had been thinking the matter over, and it would be better to wait until peace had been signed, when the newspapers would have more space to devote to painting. June would be a good month; the elderly vultures could hardly take that long to pick the bones of the German carcass. When Beauty answered that she couldn't stay away from Baby Marceline, Jesse advised her to go home and come back. When she said she wanted to be with Lanny, her brother said that her problems were too complicated for any man to solve.

He arose to take his departure, signing to Lanny to follow him. In the passage he said: "My comrades have got the habit of coming to me for funds, and I don't know what to tell them. Is your friend coming again?" What a sensation Lanny could have made if he had said that the friend had been in the adjoining room!

Having seen his uncle out of the building, Lanny went back and found Kurt talking to his mother. Kurt had heard the conversation, and made up his mind that he was no longer going to impose upon Beauty's too great kindness. "You try to hide your fears," he said; "but I know what a scandal it would make if the police were to arrest me here. I'm ashamed of myself for having stayed so long."

"You may be going to your death," protested Beauty.

"The worst of the storm has blown over. And anyhow it's wartime, and I'm a soldier."

There was another reason, which Lanny could guess. Kurt had written a letter to Switzerland and Lanny had mailed it for him. Now it was time for a reply to be at poste restante, and there was no keeping Kurt from going for it. "The letter will tell me a new place to report," said he, "and no one else must take the risk of getting it."

He thanked his two friends, and it was the old Kurt speaking, the man of conscience and exalted feelings. "I told you, Lanny, that life is a dedication; but neither of us knew how soon we'd have to prove it."

There were tears in Beauty's eyes. The poor soul was sending another man away to death! She was living again the partings with Marcel; and the fact that Kurt was fighting on the other side made no difference whatever. "Oh, God!" she exclaimed. "Will there never come a time on this earth when men stop killing one another?"

She tried to keep Lanny in the apartment, and he knew what that meant. The police might be waiting in the lobby of the hotel, and would get both of them! Lanny said: "I won't go very far; just escort him outside and make it respectable!"

What Lanny wanted was to deliver his uncle's message to Kurt; also to follow him at a safe distance and make sure of what happened at the post office. He watched his friend receive a letter and put it into his pocket and walk away. Lanny went to a telephone and told his mother that all was well. Then he returned to his safe job of trying to stop the fourteen little wars and one big one.

V

The Supreme Council decided to go ahead and complete the treaty with Germany, and ordered all the various commissions to deliver their reports and recommendations within a few days. That meant rush times for geographers, and also for secretaries and translators. Professor Alston's French was now equal to all demands, and Lanny's geography had improved to such an extent that he could pretty nearly substitute for his chief. There was work enough for both, and they hurried from place to place with briefcases and portfolios. A fascinating game they were playing, or rather a whole series of games - like the chess exhibitions in which some expert keeps a dozen contests in his head at the same time. In this case the chessboards were provinces and the pawns were national minorities comprising millions of human beings. Some games you were winning and some you were losing, and each was a series of surprises. At lunchtime and at dinner you compared notes with your colleagues; a busy chatter was poured out with the coffee, and human hopes were burned up with the cigarettes.

On the whole it was exhilarating, and contributed to the sense of importance of gentlemen whose domains had hitherto been classrooms with a score or two of undergraduates. Now they were playing parts in the great world. Their names were known; visitors sought them out; newspaper reporters waylaid them in lobbies and begged them for news. What a delicious thrill it gave to the nineteen-year-old Lanny Budd to say: "Really, Mr. Thompson, I'm not supposed to say anything about that; but if you will be careful not to indicate the source of your authority, I don't mind telling you that the French are setting their war damages at two hundred billion dollars, and of course we consider that preposterous. Colonel House has said that they play with billions the way children play with wooden blocks. There's no sense in it, because the Germans can never pay such sums."

When Lanny talked like this he wasn't being presumptuous, as you might imagine; rather he was following a policy and a technique. Over a period of two months and a half the experts had observed that confidential information leaked quickly to the French press whenever it was something to French advantage; the same was the case with the British - and now the Americans also were learning to have "leaks." Trusted newspapermen had found out where to come for tips, and would carefully keep secret the sources of their treasures.

Lanny didn't even have to have explicit instructions. He would hear his chief say to some colleague: "It mightn't be a bad thing if the American people were to know that one of the great powers is proposing to get rid of a large stock of rancid pork by selling it to the Germans and replacing it with fresh pork from America." Going out for a walk Lanny would run into Mr. Thompson of the Associated Press, and they would stroll together, and next day a carefully guarded secret of state would be read at twenty million American breakfast tables. A howl of protest would echo back to Paris, and Lanny's chief would remark to his colleague: "Well, that story got out, it seems! I don't know how it happened, but I can't say I'm sorry."

VI

In such ways the youth was kept so busy day and night that he had little time to think about his German friend. Beauty called up to ask if he had any news, and Lanny understood that his tenderhearted mother had taken another human fate into her keeping and had a new set of fears to mar her enjoyment of fashionable life in La Ville Lumiere. Lanny made note how little politics really meant to a woman. Beauty had been an ardent pacifist so long as she was hoping to keep Marcel away from the fighting; she had been a French patriot so long as that seemed the way to get the war over; now, tormented by the image of Lanny's friend being stood against a wall and shot, she was for letting bygones be bygones and giving the German babies food.

The youth didn't have time to call upon his uncle, but he got a little note saying: "Your friend called again. Thanks." That seemed to indicate that Kurt had got in touch with his organization and was carrying on as usual.

At one of the luncheons in the Crillon, Lanny met Captain Stratton, and brought up the subject of the spread of discontent in Paris. The intelligence officer said it was a truly alarming situation: a succession of angry strikes, and protest meetings every night in the working-class districts; incendiary speeches being made, and the city plastered with affiches containing all the standard Bolshevik demands - immediate peace, the lifting of the blockade, food for the workers, and the suppression of speculators.

"Aren't those all reasonable demands?" asked Alston; and so came another installment of the controversy among the staff. The young captain said the demands might be reasonable enough, taken by themselves, but they were mere camouflage for efforts to overthrow the French government and seize the factories and the banks.

"But why not grant the reasonable demands?" asked Lanny's chief. "Wouldn't that weaken the hands of the agitators and strip off their camouflage?"

"That's outside my province," replied the other. "My job is to find out who the agitators are and keep track of what they're plotting."

The stoutish and pugnacious Professor Davisson broke in. "My guess is you'll find they're operating with German gold."

"That's what we assume," replied the other. "But it's not easy to prove."

Said Alston: "My opinion is, you'll find that German gold in the eye of Maurras and his royalists. The French masses are suffering and they have every reason in the world to complain and to agitate."

Lanny smiled to himself. His chief called himself a "liberal," and Lanny had been trying to make up his mind just what that meant. He decided that a liberal was a high-minded gentleman who believed the world was made in his own image. But unfortunately only one small part of it was deserving of such trust. He had been looking for such a spot, and the only one he had found was the tiny country of Denmark, whose delegates had come to the conference determined not to take on any racial minorities. Others were trying hard to persuade them to accept a chunk of Germany down to the Kiel canal; but they would have no land of which the population was not preponderantly Danish - and they would insist upon a plebiscite before they took even that. If only the whole of Europe had been "liberal" according to that formula, how simple all the problems would have been!

VII

President Wilson returned to Paris in the middle of March, one month after his leaving. There were no tumultuous receptions this time; the various peoples of the world had learned that he wouldn't give them what they wanted, and couldn't if he would. He came a beaten man; for the expiring Congress had left unpassed three vital appropriation bills, in order to make certain that he would have to summon a special session of the new Congress. He arrived at a Peace Conference which had laid all his Fourteen Points on the shelf, and also its own resolution of seven weeks earlier, whereby the Covenant of the League of Nations was to become a part of the peace treaty.