Between Two Worlds

by Upton Sinclair

  Zaharoff’s last words had been addressed to Lanny: “Come to the Château de Balincourt some time during the summer and let me show you my paintings.” So Lanny asked his father: “What does he mean by that?”

  “He’ll try to find out things from you, as usual. He’ll ask you how I am and what I’m doing, and maybe he can get some hints—just as I got some from him. He guesses that we’re in trouble; but you see how shrewd and cautious he is—he doesn’t want to make any enemies, and if he takes our shares, it will be as a favor. But somebody has made more than one attempt to burn that oil field.”

  “But, Robbie, wouldn’t that hurt Zaharoff, too?”

  “The greater part of the wealth of an oil field is underground, where fire can’t get at it. But if your derricks and your tanks burn, you have to raise a lot of new working capital, and that’s where he figures he’d have us.”

  Lanny was silent for a while; then he said: “It’s hard for me to look into a man’s face and imagine him plotting devilish things like that!”

  The father gave a little snort. “He has been doing things like that for fifty years. My guess is he has a dozen men in his employ, to any one of whom he can hand a hundred thousand francs and say: ‘There’ll be a million for you if that field should burn.’ After that he can forget the matter and not let it worry him.”

  Lanny thought: “Thank God I didn’t go into the oil game!” He didn’t say it, of course; there wasn’t a soul on earth to whom he could say it. He had been born in the crater of a volcano, and he still played about its slopes, catching pretty butterflies and making garlands out of flowers; but he heard the rumble and smelled the sulphur, and knew what was going on below.

  VII

  Kurt gave his annual recital at Sept Chênes. Each year he made a deeper impression, and this year he was asked to conduct a program of his symphonic works with an orchestra at Nice; it was the nearest thing to a rapprochement between France and Germany that Lanny had been able to achieve, and he was happy about it, and proud of the man whom he had encouraged and promoted. For Beauty Budd it was a personal triumph, a vindication of her career. The gossips might say what they pleased about her, but how many women had helped two geniuses to flower? Whenever Zoltan came with a dealer to buy a Detaze, or whenever a critic referred to the classic dignity of Germany’s newest Komponist, Beauty’s sins were turned to glories, and she went out and bought herself a new evening gown.

  More Germans were coming to the Riviera, and Kurt was beginning to have some social life; he was more willing to meet people since he had found a new hope for the Fatherland. He talked a great deal about Adolf Hitler and his movement, and to Lanny it sounded like propaganda, but nobody objected, because it was of a respectable kind. Lanny observed that whenever the Nazis talked among themselves it was of the glorious destiny of the Aryan race to rule Europe; but when they talked to foreigners it was of the Nazi purpose to put down the Reds. Practically all people of property and social position wanted that done; they looked with favor upon Mussolini for that reason, and never got tired of hearing how all the labor unions had been put down in Italy. Now they were glad to hear that Germany had a capable and determined man who hated Marxism and wasn’t afraid to fight it with its own weapons. One and all they said: “We need something like that here.”

  Lanny was amused to see how under Kurt’s influence his own darling mother was evolving into a Nazi. She tried not to show it to her son, but she got the formulas in her head, and the emotional attitudes, and every once in a while something would pop out of her mouth. Lanny knew his mother pretty well and understood that she had to believe what her man believed; the son tried not to make it hard for her, and kept out of arguments with both of them. He didn’t have much time for his Red friends these days, but he salved his conscience by giving them money to help them out of trouble. He learned to say: “Don’t come to the house, please. You understand how it is with one’s family.”

  He was interested to observe the attitude of his new sweetheart to his eccentricity. To Rosemary politics was a personal affair; that is, it meant that her friends got interesting assignments to do things for the Empire—in Africa, or India, or the South Seas, or whatever remote place. This was important for the younger sons of good families, who had to earn their livings; Rosemary knew a lot of them, and got word from one or about one every now and then, and would tell Lanny: “You remember that redheaded chap who danced so well at The Reaches? He’s been made secretary to the Commandant of the Port of Halifax”—or it might be Hong Kong. The idea of worrying about anything that could happen in political affairs just didn’t occur to the granddaughter of Lord Dewthorpe; she knew that there would always be a British ruling class and that she and her friends would belong to it. In her easy-going way she was amused by her lover’s notion of knowing Red agitators, calling them by their Christian names, and helping to support a Socialist Sunday school; she looked upon it as rather a lark to go to such a place and let grimy little gamins adore her. Noblesse oblige was the formula; and so long as Lanny’s hobby didn’t interfere with his putting on the right clothes and taking her out to dance, she was willing to have him called a Pinko and to pass it off with a joke. Why shouldn’t he be what he jolly well wanted to be?

  VIII

  Isadora Duncan came to the Riviera that season. In the outskirts of Nice she found a large studio, almost a cathedral, and hung her blue velvet curtains on the walls, laid a huge green carpet on the floor, and put couches around the walls, covered with old-rose velvet and great numbers of pillows made of the same stuff. Alabaster lamps in the ceiling shed their light upon immense vases filled with Easter lilies, producing a very gorgeous effect. The art lovers of the Coast of Pleasure were invited to pay a hundred francs to see Isadora dance, and as this was only a couple of dollars in American money they came in great numbers. She had grown heavy again, and didn’t dance very actively, but made as it were motions symbolic of dancing, and, strange as it may seem, she conveyed her charm by this means.

  Lanny and his countess were among the visitors. After the dancing there was a reception, and Isadora welcomed her old friend. She invited him to come and call on her, and he did so, taking his amie by way of precaution. The dancer talked about her adventures in Russia, and mentioned the sad fate of her ex-husband, the poet Essenin, who had sunk into the gutter and recently had hanged himself.

  Isadora herself was unhappy because her tours in Germany and America had not been a financial success. The newspapers made a scandal of her dancing with red scarves and delivering Red speeches. Isadora mentioned this with plaintive bewilderment; she never could understand the bourgeois world, or why it wouldn’t accept the love and kindness of her heart. She was childlike, and still charming, in spite of evidences of drink.

  Here on the Côte d’Azur were many friends who had helped her, but they seemed to have grown tired of it. She told Lanny how she had gone to Sept Chênes, and the chatelaine had received her kindly, but had refused to give her any more money because she disapproved of her way of life. Such things threw a genius égarée into a state of melancholy which lasted for days. She always had some marvelous dream, and just now it was to send for the children she had trained in Russia and have them dance in Paris and London and New York. Or she might set up a school in Nice and train the children of the residents! Here was this lovely studio, a true temple of art—but unfortunately there was neither water nor gas in it, and where could she live? Didn’t Lanny know some rich person who would help her? Couldn’t Rosemary appeal to some of her English friends?

  “Oh, Lanny darling, please, please!” she begged, and turned to the woman, saying: “Don’t think that I’ll try to seduce him again.” (Lanny hadn’t told Rosemary about the first time!) “I have a perfectly lovely Russian boy—he’s a divine pianist, and stays by me and never gets drunk but plays for all my practice, and I couldn’t get along without him. But you know that I can’t make my art pay—” and so on. It was embarrassing, because Lanny had no
such sums of money as Isadora would spend.

  He gave her a little, so that she could eat if she would, but the empty champagne bottles scattered about the place suggested that she mightn’t be hungry. He gave no more, because Beauty started making a fuss as soon as she heard about it. “The woman is crazy!” she declared, and begged Rosemary to keep him from going near her again. A day or two later the papers were full of a story about a drinking-party at the dancer’s home, in which a young American girl painter refused to drink, so Isadora’s feelings were wounded; she decided that her days of usefulness were over, and wrapped her green velvet mantle about her and stalked into the Mediterranean at midnight. She got in as far as her mouth when a one-legged British army officer came plunging after her and managed to drag her out unconscious. Assuredly a piteous story, and not a very good advertisement for a school for dancing children! Lanny was forced reluctantly to give up his idea of having Marceline sent to this school. The teacher went back to Paris, where she still had her empty house and her swarms of artists to appeal to.

  IX

  Robbie Budd had been to London to see what he could do with the British officials; he had got promises, he wrote, but the language of bureaucracy was vague. He was at home again, but might be returning soon; there was to be a conference on naval limitation at Geneva. America had let herself be drawn into it, and some of the armament people, the boat-builders and armorplate manufacturers, were going to have representatives at this conference, so threatening to their common interests. “Let the rest of the world do the disarming,” said the father. “They have nothing to fear from us if they let us alone, and they know it. So why should they concern themselves whether we are armed or not?”

  In the month of April Herr Meissner was down with the flu, and Kurt was worried about him and wanted to visit him. It would be the first time in eight years that he had seen his family except for the Christmas week. Beauty would have been glad to go with him, but of course he couldn’t ask her; Lanny couldn’t go on account of Rosemary, and also Zoltan coming with an important customer. Sorrowfully Beauty saw her lover depart; the years were passing, and, she couldn’t hope to hold him forever. She tried hard to persuade herself that she had a right to try. He was producing worthwhile art, wasn’t he? And wasn’t that as important to the Fatherland as producing babies with blue eyes and straw-colored hair? If you argued that Kurt might produce both, Beauty was able to make out a good case, for he was earning very little money, certainly not enough to support a family, and if he had to earn it he would sacrifice that leisure to compose which he enjoyed at Bienvenu.

  The mother talked about it with her son, and he said: “There’s nothing you can do, old dear, but leave it to fate and take what comes. You know how much you wanted to get me away from Marie, and you can’t blame Kurt’s parents if they behave the same way. A grandbaby is bound to count for more with them than any number of musical compositions.”

  Lanny said this with bluntness, because he guessed what was in Kurt’s mind. For how many years could a German live outside his own country and associate almost entirely with foreigners without losing touch with the soul of his own people? Great events were preparing in Germany, or at any rate so Kurt believed, and he wanted to be the interpreter of them, perhaps their spiritual guide. If the day came when he made up his mind that he had to live in the Fatherland, what would Beauty do? Apart from the question of Aryan babies, which she, alas, was no longer able to provide, would she be willing to break up the home in Bienvenu? Would she expect to take Marcel’s daughter to Germany? Would she expect Lanny to come? Quite a complication of questions!

  X

  The son of Budd’s had a problem of somewhat the same sort. Rosemary had been away from her children for four months, and that was long enough; also, springtime was coming, and “Oh, to be in England!” It was Lanny’s turn to visit her, and it certainly would not be gallant of him to refuse. But he had invited Bess and Hansi to spend the summer at Bienvenu, and had been looking forward to that with joy. He kept quiet about the problem, because he didn’t know the answer.

  A solution presented itself, quite beyond guessing; a rising financier, Johannes Robin, appeared in the role of deus ex machina, cutter of Gordian knots, stander of eggs upon end, performer of all magical feats. It happened that during Lanny’s pre-Christmas visit he had talked to his friend about the array of Detazes which he had acquired. It was supposed to be Lanny’s duty to explain them. There being two of the Norwegian pictures, he had told about the cruise of the yacht Bluebird to those lovely fiords; there being a Greek picture and an African one, he had described the Mediterranean voyage, going into details of its delights: how Mr. Hackabury had bought a baby lamb for the larder; how his small boy guest had caught fish in the Channel of Atalante and the host had called them “lannies”; their visits to the hanging monasteries on Mount Athos; the music and dancing on the deck of the yacht—all sorts of goings-on which sounded leisurely, romantic, and snob.

  “How does one get a yacht?” Johannes had inquired.

  “One buys it.”

  “But where does one buy it? Do you go to a yacht shop?”

  “I guess you go to a shipbuilding concern, if you want a new one; or else you find somebody who has one to sell. Mr. Hackabury found a man who was in financial difficulties, and he bought the Bluebird, crew, captain, and all, even to the groceries on the storeroom shelves.”

  “That sounds like fun to me,” said the man of great affairs. “I haven’t been sleeping well of late, and I know I’ve been worrying. If I got away on a yacht, I’d really have to rest, wouldn’t I?”

  “Surest thing in the world.”

  “Suppose I was to get one, and take Mama and the boys and Bess, and invite you and your friends, do you suppose they’d come?”

  “Some of them would, I’m sure,” said Lanny, using a bit of caution. “Those who didn’t happen to have engagements.”

  Now came a letter from Freddi, telling the news that Papa had bought a yacht called the Drachen, but unless Lanny objected he was going to change the name to the Bessie Budd. It was in the Kiel basin and was being refitted. They were planning a cruise up the Norwegian coast during the months of July and August, and of course it wouldn’t be any fun unless Lanny and his friends came along. Papa hoped that the whole family would come, even Marceline and the governess. Papa would leave it for Lanny and his mother to select the guests, so as to be sure they were all congenial.

  Nothing could be handsomer than that, and it suggested a solution for more than one problem. Lanny would motor Rosemary to England and she would spend part of May and June with her children, after which she and Lanny would go on the cruise. Nina and Rick would join them. As for Beauty, she said yes, but then became uneasy about Kurt, who would certainly not join such a party. Kurt’s father was getting better, and the son was talking of returning to Bienvenu for the summer; but if Beauty were not there, he would probably remain in Germany, and so she might lose him.

  That settled the matter, and Beauty decided to stay at home and take care of Baby Marceline, which the stern Kurt considered her first duty. She would manage to entertain herself, for Sophie was staying at the Cap this summer; and she had a beau, a retired businessman of settled habits, among which was contract bridge; old M. Rochambeau could always be depended upon for a fourth. “You young people go and enjoy yourselves,” said Beauty, wistfully. It was hard to give up the idea that she too was a young person!

  There was only one difficulty, a question of morals. Lanny sat down and wrote a letter to Johannes Robin, imparting a family secret, the story of the Countess of Sandhaven, that lady to whose initiative Johannes owed his Gainsborough, his full-length Raeburn, his Hoppner, his two Richard Wilsons and two Opies. Lanny explained that this unhappily married noble lady was for all purposes his wife, but maybe Mama Robin wouldn’t think so, and mightn’t be happy on the yacht with such unconventional company; therefore he thought it best to decline the kind invitation. He put it thu
s, so that the Robin family might have an easy “out” if they wanted it; but straightway came a telegram reading: “Das macht nichts aus. Wir sind nicht Kinder. Please reconsider. R.S.V.P.” This international message was signed jointly: Mama, Papa, Freddi, Hansi, Bess; so there was no more need for qualms, and Lanny, feeling gay over the solution of a difficult problem, telegraphed his Jewish friend a good-sized chunk out of Tennyson’s Ulysses, writing it the way he had seen his newspaper friends do it:

  Quote The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks Paragraph The long day wanes the slow moon climbs the deep Paragraph Moans round with many voices come my friends Paragraph Tis not too late to seek a newer world Paragraph Push off and sitting well in order smite Paragraph The sounding furrows for my purpose holds Paragraph To sail beyond the sunset and the baths Paragraph Of all the Western stars until I die Period Unquote Signed Lanny Budd.

  XI

  The Bessie Budd came to rest in the basin of Ramsgate, near the mouth of the Thames. She wouldn’t come up to London because her master told her owner that, on account of the traffic, that was the most dangerous stretch of water in the whole world.

  The yacht was not so big as the Bluebird, but big enough; graceful, trim, and white as any swan, a product of the German effort to show how much better work they could do than the British. She had been built since the war and was Diesel-powered; the owner had died, and Johannes had stepped in with an offer—he didn’t say how much, for he was playing the grand gentleman, showing these fashionable foreigners what a perfect host a Jew could be. Lanny and Rosemary, Rick and Nina, came on board with their belongings, and the proud owner was about to give the order to cast off when there came a telegram from Juan-les-Pins: “Will you wait for me if I fly? Beauty.”