House of All Nations

by Christina Stead

  Léon irritatedly stared at Jules with half-closed eyes. Alphendéry rippled all over with laughter again. Jules tipped his chair back on to the back legs and balanced with a dreamy expression, while he repeated the theme of his life music.

  ‘You and I both believe in altruism, Henri, because altruism is selfishness out with a pair of field glasses and imagination.

  The sinewy, slower timbre of William’s voice followed. Aristide called him ‘the stupid brother.’ William gave a faint hiccough of laughter. ‘Imagination! Hey, you don’t want imagination, you want a credit balance! Let the other chaps, on the outside, imagine. You can’t draw checks on imagination. Or if you do you soon find yourself studying geology. Imagination is making little ones into big ones and its end is the reverse.’

  Aristide arrived behind the door at this moment, knocked, and was let in. Léon was walking up and down hastily, with his hands in his pockets, his short-tailed coat flirted over his hips. Jules was leaning back in his chair, slim hands in pockets, looking like a star of the Russian Ballet, playing bank manager in some goblin set. He was as thin as spun sugar, with spun-sugar skin, large clear eyes, set wide in a narrow skull, a long, voluntary nose with prominent nodule and irregular fleshy tip, the gambler’s nose.

  Léon was withdrawing an impatient thunderous glance from William. Jules looked at him with patronizing, smiling irritability. William, unperturbed, threw his last dart wide of the mark, ‘Imagination is the first stop on the road to the nuthatch.’

  ‘Ah, shut up, William, we’re trying to do some business.’

  William went on in the same level voice, ‘Business? Poker, you mean. Stay out of commodities, Jules; it isn’t your game. Only doctors and opera singers punt on commodities.’

  ‘Even a Mussolini, in his half-blind miserable way,’ Alphendéry erupted, ‘a confused, nineteenth-century tyrant, sees that there has to be a semblance of socialist organization to keep the people contented.’

  Léon slapped his hand down hard on the table. ‘Yes, You’ve got something there! Perhaps I see that because I’ve dealt in grain futures all my life and I see in Russia great grain futures, and a giant, unhindered consumption. People free to eat as much bread as they want: when they get to that day,’ he said solemnly, facing them, ‘we can make fortunes on the bull side. And the bull side is the side it’s natural to take.’ He nodded at them, then shouted, ‘She’ll pay her debts. Her paper’s good. I’ll take it!’ His golden humming began, forerunner of a clap of laughter: ‘I’ll take it!’ The vortex of laughter. He took a turn up and down, his head thrown back. Then he came back to them, elfishly, ‘At the same time, if we can get someone else to take it instead, it will be one move ahead. That idea of yours, Bertillon, German paper was a pick-me-up. I immediately thought, Now, what’s everyone bearing? Not only German paper, but Russian paper. Surely we can work out something for the two. Now, let’s set our minds to work. With your brains and mine, Bertillon—we’ll work out something. With this boy here,’ he put his hand on Alphendéry’s shoulder, ‘we’ll make money.’ The clap of laughter. ‘I’m only in business (I was telling Alphendéry) to keep myself from getting into trouble with women, but while I’m in, I’ll lead them a dance. When I find a girl that can give me real romance, I’ll get out.’ His merriment dried up and he began to look for his hat and stick.

  ‘I’ll go with you, Léon,’ said Alphendéry hastily. They went out, leaving Aristide weaving gloom uncertainly in a corner of the room. At the door Léon turned round. ‘It’s good! Luther—wit’s end: get ’em purged—Russian paper. Russian gold. Ha ha! The Reds get Russian gold. We get Russian paper.’

  ‘With our great wits, ha ha,’ Alphendéry seethed behind him, ‘with our great wits—with our great wits—and the Reds in jail get gold. They say. They, they—ha ha—with our great wits. H’m.’

  ‘They seem to hit it off,’ said Jules genially to Raccamond. ‘Léon put fifty thousand francs in the bank and insisted on its being put down to Alphendéry’s account. Michel doesn’t want it. Anyhow, we’ll make it up to you, Raccamond.’

  Aristide went out meekly. He had lost Léon but gained the bank.

  * * *

  ‘

  Scene Twelve: The Revolution

  Do you know what I did with the two per cent commission you gave me on Léon’s account?’ asked Michel Alphendéry, the next morning.

  ‘Went to Auld Reekie and got a suit?’ suggested Jules.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You should have then,’ cried Jules, with one of his unexplained tempers.

  ‘I bought myself fifty German communist books for my library.’

  ‘Hey, I thought you knew enough already,’ said Jules, just as suddenly restored to good temper. ‘I’m surprised at you, Michel, being such a mooch for the Reds. Stalin found out that the workers don’t know what to do with money. That’s all right. It isn’t the Stalins that bother me. They know their game. But a man like you, Michel! A guy makes the money he can. Anyone who doesn’t is a bit crazy. If there were the difference of a hair in your brain, Michel, you’d be batty: you’d be standing on soapboxes. That’s a tomfool idea to want to try to make everyone rich by confiscating from the smart guys who knew how to get out of the tangle early! Why, if all the rich men in the world divided up their money amongst themselves, there wouldn’t be enough to go round! It all proves there are constitutional dreamers—they’re sick; you’re sick, Michel.

  ‘I say, don’t you realize if you gave everyone the same amount of money today, in a fortnight, somebody, some Citroën, some Oustric, some De Wendel would have got half of it back! You’re too intelligent, Michel, not to see that! Why, types like me only think in money. Why, take me. When I take off my pants I’m thinking up a gag, when I make water, what the deuce! I’m asking myself why I didn’t take a crack at the cheap crook who tried to do me in yesterday. I dream all night and I get up at three o’clock to write down all I’ve dreamed because there are some good schemes among them. When I wake up, I think of a check with a big figure, if I’m good-tempered, and of petty cash if I’m out of my humor: big or little, but I only think of money. How can the workers beat a man like me? They think of all sorts of things, what the boss will say if they’re late, how much he’s going to cheat them at the end of the week, whether they’re too tired to go to the Trade Union meeting, whether they ought to knock the block off the blackleg fellow, whether they can get their wife an abortion. And all the time I’m thinking of money, money, money.’

  His face clouded. He looked irritably at Michel. ‘Michel, it’s not the Stalins or the Lenins or the Hitlers that worry me. They know the game. They’ll play along with us once they get to the top. It’s the fanatics that follow them. They’re nitwits and when they get themselves warm with thinking up a few slogans, they think the rest of mankind has got central heating that way. It’s dangerous to give guns to a lunatic. And these nitwits do that. Then they can’t control them. Because they’re dreamers. Now these agitators are smart men, but it’s cheaper to lock them up than to employ them, because they’re unbalanced.’

  William was in a good temper. ‘What do they get up a constitution for, that’s what beats me? They ought to just put in one rule: I have the right to jail anyone I don’t like. It all comes down to that.’

  ‘With a constitution you fool all the people all the time,’ said Jules. ‘Listen, Lenin and Stalin know just as well as you and me, that all the rebelling in the world wouldn’t get men to work for monkeys. Why? Because we’ve got guns and we’ve got organization. And we’ve got something to fight for. Well, compared with us, the workers are monkeys. They talk, they speak our language, but it doesn’t mean the same thing. They live, but as far as we’re concerned, they only live from the time they punch the time clock in the morning till the time they punch it in the evening. In between those times, they’re only moving pictures of men to us. Why should we worry about what
they think? But you’re a puzzle to me, Michel. You take them seriously.’

  ‘Listen,’ said William, kindly argumentative, to Alphendéry, ‘you know, Michel, it’s a racket, too: it must be. You don’t tell me that if a chap in Arcos is offered a commission in London or Paris, he won’t pocket it behind their backs. Why shouldn’t he? What harm is he doing them? It’s human nature. Why are they running it otherwise? Why do they fight that way to hold their jobs? What’s the incentive? Of course, it’s some sort of a racket. Only the Russians are smart Orientals. It’s not so easy to catch them at it. And they know how to advertise. They’ve got the Genghis Khan technique. You know, glory. And if they did catch them at it, would they advertise it?’ he asked with intense cunning. ‘Do you mean to say they’d do all that for just the same wage as a carpenter? Did you see the latest, eh? Piecework is paid for! Ah, they’re wonderful advertisers. Better than the Boches. They know the trick better. Isn’t their line the same as this Adolf Hitler’s, or Mussolini’s? What’s the difference? Isn’t it a dictatorship too? Only they add “of the proletariat”! I don’t want to live under a dictatorship. I want to make money without being fenced round. If it isn’t a dictatorship, why don’t you see Stalin getting down occasionally and saying to some carpenter, “Comrade, you take the job”? You’re just a sentimentalist on Russia. You don’t know human nature. You judge everyone by yourself. I bet if you offered Stalin a million bucks to go and live in the Engadine he’d do it, wouldn’t he? Blum has money, hasn’t he?’ William shrugged and lighted a cigarette, having used up all his usual arguments in one breath.

  ‘What about Lenin?’ said Alphendéry, peacefully.

  ‘Oh, he was just a fanatic; he wanted power. Power’s—well, you can’t talk about that. It’s like loving a woman. You can’t predict what a man will do once he wants that.’

  ‘What about William Z. Foster, the American leader: he was offered a position in industry and he refused it.’

  ‘Oh, well, a man like that’s just a madman. Most men aren’t like that. What’s the matter with him; has he got anything wrong?’

  ‘Naturally, like most men, he’s not perfect: and in fact, he is a great sufferer …’

  ‘You see! What did I say? You see!’

  ‘Listen,’ said Jules sharply, ‘don’t go telling Léon you’re a Red. These Central Europeans are funny.’

  ‘I like your knowledge of human nature,’ said Alphendéry with asperity. ‘Léon’s a follower of MacDonald in England, Blum in France, Louis de Brouckère in Belgium, Fritz Adler in Austria—Fritz Napthali—all the great beans of the Second International. That’s your conservative for you! You boys are comic in your ignorance.’

  Jules, at ease in his chair, spouted one of his ideas. ‘The world’s getting down to a Woolworth level. Woolworth saw that what we’ve got now is a pauper economy. Dress them up in colored shirts, give them grass slippers or wooden sabots, get them to work for nothing, and sing at it, too. What does it matter what they sing? The “Internationale,” or “Horst-Wessel,” or “Hallelujah” down in the swamps of the U.S.A. That’s the only way profit is going to be made from now on. The history of everything is down from now on. The only investment now is in a crash. I saw that in 1929. Everyone else was wringing their hands. I was short a few stocks in the American market. I made a bit of petty cash: but the next day I figured it all out to myself. I said to myself: I won’t weep. I won’t cry. I’ve got the hang of this—first the Russians started to smash the works and then the Americans had to. That’s it! The history of the world is down!’

  ‘You’re a superb natural economist, Jules,’ said Alphendéry, ‘although you don’t realize it.’

  ‘Don’t I!’ cried Jules.

  ‘You have hit the nail on the head. There are going to be three quick sweeps between the last war and the next. The expropriation of the Russian bourgeoisie on October 30, 1917, the expropriation of the American bourgeoisie via the stock market, October 29, 1929, the smashing of the German bourgeoisie, if a type like Hitler ever gets in. But a Hitler will never get in in Germany: they’ve got to do it some other way.’

  ‘Yes. You see what it is?’ went on Jules. ‘We’ve got to get ready to make money in a declining economy! Now, I think Léon sees that, too.’

  * * *

  Scene Thirteen: The Bank

  The telephone rang. Jules said, ‘All right. Send him up!’ To Alphendéry, ‘It’s Jacques: Jacques Carrière. He’s trying to sell the brewery his uncle left him at Burton-upon-Trent—in England, isn’t it? He’s very worried about the payments. He’s afraid the pound won’t hold. His payments won’t be completed till 1933 or 1934, according to the plan they’re working out. I told him the pound wouldn’t go off. There’s India, isn’t there? While the maharajahs rally round, the Bank of England can still clear petty cash without inflating it … I wouldn’t mind being on the inside of a game like that, would you?’

  Alphendéry said,

  ‘Germany probably won’t be through till next year: neither will England. I wouldn’t bet on it. Perhaps Britain will see Wilhelm II or his son back on the throne before she permits the rise of a pseudosocialist regime in Germany. No one knows what her game is. She doesn’t herself: that’s why it’s so deep. If you ask me, I don’t think there’s fifty per cent of the gold they allege there is, in the vaults of the Bank of England. If a private company can cook its accounts, how much easier it is for the Bank of England, synonymous with security and the credit of the State, in England and throughout the world. Who dares question it? Who looks over its accounts? In London, lots of people think the Old Lady finds her purse half empty, but she can be kept going on prestige and on the new financial business of the world, the balance of debit-paper. That’s her new game. So far, she’s done nothing to discourage Hitler and as Hitler, representing fascism, represents nothing but an empty treasury—for it’s a last expedient, everyone hates it, including the reigning bourgeoisie—that’s a bad indication for Britain. Still, it’s a long bet. In Germany, too, the masters, powers, thrones, dominions, are watching carefully, watching their step … Go slow with Jacques Carrière … You may laugh at me, Jules, for being romantic but I wouldn’t do business with a man of his private habits. In doing business, you should bank on the one sound spot a man has: Carrière has none.’

  Jules waved his hand, wading in his own speculations. ‘All right, Michel, thanks. I’ll see you after? See if Carrière is coming up, will you?’

  Alphendéry looked over the balcony and saw a sprinkling of clients and visitors downstairs. Carrière, a dumpy red-haired young man, showily imperative, wearing upper-class mannerisms like a toga, was talking to Aristide Raccamond earnestly. The room, a soundingchamber at this point, carried up the tones of their voices. Mme. Marianne Raccamond stood waiting for Aristide to take her to lunch and had got into conversation with Fred Pharion, the new cinema star, a loose-limbed, weak-jawed young man with curly brown hair and large brown eyes, handsome and gay in general appearance and towards this woman gentle and receptive.

  A brilliant middle-aged society harridan in black talked sympathetically with Ignace Dvorjine, a cashier, a Russian exile, formerly proprietor of a small estate in Kharkov (he said) and violently anti-Soviet. Although his personality, made up of airs, a frozen reticence, and bitter pride, was unpleasant to many of the employees and some of the clients, he drew white Russians to the bank and was a very able accountant. His son, Arthur Dvorjine, an émigré at the age of five, had been reared in a poor apartment in Maisons-Lafitte with children of French socialists and was himself ‘a Red’ as he said, although actually a Left democrat.

  Next to Arthur, who was idle and reading, stood Jacques Husson, a Quaker, a small, thickset, rheumaticky womanish man of forty-five, who loved to chat with the women clients, told them his backaches, asked their advice and always had a long line of ‘fans’ at his window. Beside him was André Ribot, the pale, tubercular
, young teller and beside him Henri Martin, a man of superior intelligence and experience who ‘knew what the game was about’ in their cant phrase, who had been a high officer in the secret service during the war and had sent more than a dozen men to the firing squad in the time of his service. He considered himself superior to the commission men and even to William, the elder brother but junior member of the firm. He had got out of hand when he first entered the bank, and had begun to do peculiar business for himself on its books, but Jules had brought him up short and since then he had had a clean record. After a long period of sniffing and superiority he had decided to work in with Alphendéry, regarding him as the leading, the only mature intelligence in the bank. He looked up and smiled at Alphendéry now. He was acutely conscious of every person in the bank at the moment.

  In the end booth stood darkly twinkling, like a sweet ferret, a debile, polished youth of dark complexion, François Vallat, the clients’ secretary. He attended to the little personal wants of the customers without charge by the bank. He ran messages for them, got them opera seats, seats at the boxing matches, took their passports and identity cards to the préfecture, knew people in embassies who sent the long-winded identification papers through like lightning, gave advice about triptyques (automobile permits for the Continent), knew addresses, recommended restaurants, and in general gave the advice that a private secretary of Mr. Bertillon would give to Mr. Bertillon’s friends. He was well dressed, sensitive, servile, and had perfect taste.