Presidential Agent (The Lanny Budd Novels)

by Upton Sinclair

  “It was bought by friends in Pittsburgh.”

  “Also, I listened to Hansi Robin play at the country club. You have done more for us provincial people than you can have any idea of.”

  “It is kind of you to tell me,” said Lanny. So there were persons in this home town who lived obscure lives and were poor according to his standards, but who eagerly reached out for cultural opportunities! Lanny would be a romantic figure to them. The women would know that manners and morals in France were different, and they might find him a disturbing figure.

  Everybody had left, and they were alone, or so it appeared. Miss Priscilla Hoyle made out a card for him, and while she did so he watched her delicate slender hand moving swiftly, and also the fine little dark hairs at the back of her neck. When she gave him the books he said, on an impulse: “Could I have the pleasure of driving you home?”

  She was startled, and revealed that there was blood in the marble cheeks. “Oh! But—it is out of your way.”

  “How do you know my way?” he asked, with a smile. “I have kept you overtime.”

  “It is kind of you,” she said; and then, more precisely: “With pleasure.”

  V

  She turned off the lights and they went together down the steps of the old building. Was Lanny right in his impression that she looked about nervously, to see if anyone was observing this unprecedented behavior? He offered her his arm and she took it; was he right in his impression that her hand trembled? He didn’t know her voice well, but he knew it was full of feeling as she explained that Newcastle was culturally a backward town; its body was growing much too fast for its brain, to say nothing of its soul, and those who cared for the higher things of life had a hard struggle here. Lanny understood what this meant; the town librarian was close to the seats of power for a brief period, and if she could cause the stepson of Esther Remsen Budd to take an interest in her library’s cause, the scales might be tipped in favor of the appropriation.

  Lanny could imagine without being told how she had served for years at this post, coming every weekday for long hours and patiently telling all sorts of persons, old and young, rich and poor, whatever they wanted to know about books. The library was her life, and now she was fighting for it. But was that all? What were her thoughts about this handsome man who must be middle-aged but looked young because he had taken good care of himself; who wore a little brown mustache and was dressed so elegantly, spoke several languages, and had met all the great ones of the earth? She sat alone with him, almost touching him; a prim daughter of the Puritans, strictly brought up, a church member and almost certainly a virgin, or she could never have obtained this post in the town of Esther Remsen Budd.

  She had given her address and he was driving, not at break-neck speed. He said: “I know about the library’s need, and I’ll say a good word for it.”

  “Oh, thank you!” she answered—and was that more soulful than needed? Was there a voice crying somewhere in this worthy soul: “Youth is passing, and your last chances”?

  She had a sweet personality, and he thought it could do no harm if he laid one hand gently on hers, by way of expressing his appreciation. Immediately then he got his answer to all the questions; she gave the faintest of sighs, and inclined toward him and rested her head on his shoulder. Amazing!

  So he asked: “Shall we drive a little?” and she whispered: “Yes.” He turned off the road and toward the river. He knew this drive well; there were wooded points, and lanes in which lovers stopped. He knew that there was a moon rising on the other side of the river, toward the east, as is the immemorial custom of moons. It had been a warm day in April, and spring was softening this stern and rockbound coast.

  It was a silent petting party. Perhaps both of them knew that the less they said the better. He held her frail hand and it responded to his pressure. When he came to a quiet spot he drew up a little way from the road and turned off the ignition and lights of his car. He put his arms about her and she put hers about him; he kissed her, and she didn’t murmur any conventional protest, or feign any reluctance; evidently she had made up her mind that it was now or never; she kissed him in return—delicately, even modestly, but unmistakably.

  This was most agreeable; but the question always arises, how far is it to go? Was he meaning to seduce the librarian of his father’s, and more especially of his stepmother’s town? Seduction it would certainly be called, no matter how willing the lady might be. Once before Lanny had come to almost this same spot and gone through the same procedure, with a girl called Gracyn Phillipson, later Phyllis Gracyn. Then he had been only eighteen, and it had been possible to forgive him; but now he was more than twice that, and it would no longer be possible.

  In the course of a fashionable career Lanny had met numbers of men who took their pleasure where they found it, and talked freely about their adventures. Among them more than one had made known that they put only one restraint upon themselves: they would never consent to be the first man. He recalled their phrases: “The first time means so much to a woman; they expect such a lot,”—and so on. These phrases rang a warning bell in the soul of Lanny Budd. If he “went the limit” with Priscilla Hoyle, she would expect him to call at her home, meet her relatives and friends, and escort her on Sunday morning to the First Congregational Church, thus regularizing their courtship. Esther would be astonished, but would accept the strange mishap in the all-powerful name of “democracy.”

  But again the problem, what would he do with his bride? Set up an establishment in Newcastle, and visit her several times a year? Invent some pretext for never taking her along on his many journeys—not even one honeymoon tour? She might make him a good wife—but how could he know? How could he guess what might be her reaction to his abnormal ideas? He hardly knew her mind; he hadn’t even had a chance to ask her what she thought of Newcastle’s pet phobia—That Man in the White House!

  Thus conscience did make a coward of Lanny Budd, and thus his native hue of resolution was sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought; thus his enterprise of great pith and moment had its currents turned awry and lost the name of action. The frequency of his kisses diminished, and he began gently stroking the forehead of this estimable lady. Presently he whispered: “This has been very sweet of you.”

  What had been going on in her own mind? Doubtless the same operations of the conscience; for she said: “Mother will be worried about me.” An old-established device for the protecting and preserving of virginity—to mention “Mother”!

  Lanny drove her home, asking if he might have the pleasure of calling upon her when he came to town again—he was under the necessity of returning to Europe in a short time, he revealed. Fair warning to Priscilla of the Puritans; the fiend whose lantern lights the mead were better mate than I! He left her with one more kiss, stolen in the darkness in front of the modest cottage in which she and her mother resided. She would cherish this in memory for the rest of her spinster-hood, and would associate the son of Budd-Erling with every line of love poetry she had read in the course of a life with books. Lanny, for his part, went away half glad and half sorry for his renunciation. Exactly the way he had felt about Janet Sloane, now Mrs. Sidney Armstrong, with whom he had had the same sort of perilous passage-at-arms so long, long ago!

  VI

  Hansi and Bess lived within comfortable motoring distance, and Lanny spent much time with them. He listened while they practiced for a new concert; then, while Hansi gave lessons to favored pupils, Lanny and his half-sister played four-hand piano arrangements. Bess was going to have another baby, and that was to be all, she declared. Americans had taken an old formula, “Two’s company, three’s a crowd,” and applied it in a new field.

  Lanny swore this couple to secrecy and told them the story of Trudi and his efforts to save her; it was a form of release to talk about her and have the sympathy of these dear friends. Lanny had got from his father’s safe the sealed envelope containing his will and Trudi’s photograph; he had destroyed t
he will and now carried the photograph with him. He showed it to Hansi and Bess; dwelling on the lovely delicate features, and telling about her ideas, her manners and way of life, until the young couple had tears in their eyes. Lanny was having the photo enlarged and would leave the copies here; he would not dare to take one with him on his travels.

  Of course all this had the effect of setting one more woman to figuring over the problem of finding a proper mate for the incomparable Lanny Budd. Bess saw this dream-woman as a follower of the Party line, who would keep her erratic half-brother in the strait and narrow path. He, of course, treated this line with irreverence, insisting that it had been erratic, while he had held steadily toward the goal of democratic Socialism. But Bess wouldn’t give up hoping; there were many ladies of wealth and culture who were classed as “fellow-travelers,” and whenever Bess met a new one she wondered how Lanny might hit it off with her. Just how he could go on pretending to fellow-travel with the Nazis while his wife fellow-traveled with the Reds was something Bess hadn’t figured out precisely.

  Also Lanny visited the home of the Robin family, and kissed his Jewish near-mother, and told once more the sad story of Aaron Schönhaus. Not a word had come from the missing man, and carefully veiled inquiries of friends in Naziland had brought no results. Lanny had to think up an excuse for his own inactivity, and he said: “I am afraid I broke the law, and it would do Robbie great harm if I involved myself any further.” Poor Jews, who had to take what crumbs of kindness anybody gave them!

  Lanny played with the sweetly serious little eight-year-old boy who looked so much like Freddi Robin, his father. Little Johannes still remembered Bienvenu, and his playmate, Baby Frances, and Lanny told about her way of life in a grand old English castle. It sounded like a fairy tale, and Lanny left it that way; the tale was not apt to come true, for Irma would hardly consent to have her twenty-three-million-dollar baby renew the intimacy with German-Jewish refugees tinged with the hated Pink color.

  VII

  New York was near, and its call was loud. There was art business to be done, and more to be planned—which meant the acceptance of a certain number of dinner invitations and the pouring out of great gobs of social charm. In the story of Hitler and Schuschnigg Lanny had a passport to the wealthiest circles, and, just as in Newcastle, a full drawing-room would hang on his words and ply him with questions. The seizure of Austria had startled the world into attention and forced it to recognize the arrival of a new social force. Men and women who hated the New Deal with such vehemence that they became incoherent when they talked about it, found themselves wondering whether they might not have to follow the National-Socialist lead. If so, they wanted to know how to set about it.

  Lanny gave them the benefit of his observations. Adi Schicklgruber had got power because he had spread in the sky of middle- and lower-class Germans a glittering rainbow of hopes. To be sure, he hadn’t carried out his promises, save only the plundering of Jews; everything else had been just springes to catch woodcocks. He had caught these birds in the twin snares of nationalism and militarism, and now he had them fast. Lanny didn’t say: “Do you propose to do the same to the American people?” He just fell silent and let them talk about when and how it could be done, and where on the political horizon was a leader who had what it took.

  Amusing if it hadn’t been so terrifying. Their problem was made almost impossible of solution, because they loved their money and their power so that they couldn’t contemplate letting any demagogue say anything against it—not even for purposes of camouflage! What they really wanted was another conservative regime, another President Harding, the whole cycle of Harding, Coolidge, Hoover. Lanny was tempted to add: “And another Wall Street smash?” But no, they had forgotten that, and their gratitude to That Man who had enabled the banks to reopen. They just wanted twelve more years of peace and plenty, in which time they could get such a grip upon the nation’s affairs as to make it impossible for another demagogue to get started.

  They would take the conversation out of Lanny’s hands and begin talking about some promising Republican governor in some reactionary state; the visitor would listen, and think that he was back in the days of the Sun King, who had proclaimed: “L’état, c’est moi.” But occasionally there would be one or two of more intelligence, who realized that this Europeanized American really had something for them; they would draw him aside and ask, where could they get the Nazi Party program to study it? They would fall to canvassing the rabble-rousers of America, in search of one who really had the stuff, and who might be depended upon to stay bought.

  A chance for the son of Budd-Erling to learn something about his own country! Huey Long, unfortunately, had been shot; a shrewd devil, he had said: “It will be easy to bring Fascism in America. Just call it Anti-Fascism.” That was something to be made note of! There was Father Coughlin—but unfortunately a Catholic couldn’t be elected. There were Gold Shirts and Silver Shirts, Gray Shirts and Crusader White Shirts, Ku Klux nighties and many other odd costumes. There was an oratorical fellow named Gerald Smith—somebody ought to make a thorough study of all these friends of the “pee-pul” and choose one who knew where the butter on his bread would come from.

  VIII

  Departing from one of these Park Avenue parties, Lanny walked to his hotel. A pleasant evening in spring, and he liked to walk, and watch the speeding traffic on this wide avenue, divided into two lanes by a parkway with a four-track electric railroad underneath. He thought about the men he had been talking to; the masters of America—and what were they going to make of their country? They had business dealings with the German cartels, and knew that the German big businessmen as a rule were getting along with the Nazis, working day and night on war goods, earning big profits, and plowing the money back into plant. The gentlemen of Wall Street and Park Avenue were doing the same, and meant to go on doing it; they had the money, and knew that money talks, money makes the mare go, money pays the piper and calls the tunes. Right now they were Nazi tunes, raucous to Lanny Budd’s ear.

  Crossing a side street, he heard the shout of a crowd, and looking toward Lexington Avenue saw the gleam of torchlights; he stood listening to volleys of sound, and then turned and strolled in that direction. Curiosity, not altogether idle, for it was worth while to know what was going on in this city whose population exceeded that of whole lands such as Sweden and Austria, now the Ostmark. New York was the center of the publishing industry, and impulses which originated here were spread quickly over the three million square miles of America. April was not the time for elections, and this must be some sort of propaganda meeting—Red or Pink, Black or Brown, White, Gray, Silver, Gold, Green, or Purple—there was hardly a shade of shirts or pants which did not have social significance in these frenzied times.

  It must be a religious meeting, Lanny thought, because he observed a large white cross standing above the speaker’s head in the light of the torches. The orator was standing on a truck, a large man with handsome features and heavy black hair which he tossed now and then. He was evidently at the climax of a great effort, shouting in tones which drowned out the traffic of a busy avenue; the side street, close to the corner, was packed solid with auditors, and every sentence was punctuated by volleys of applause. Lanny was surprised to find an evangelist arousing such fervor in this cynical metropolis; but then he saw a banner: “Christian Front,” and realized that this was American Nazism, and the orator a candidate for the attention of the Wall Street and Park Avenue gentlemen.

  This one clearly had the qualifications; personality, voice, energy, cunning—and, above all, hate! Hate for everybody and everything that the poor man, downtrodden and ignorant, believed to be his oppressors and his enemies: hatred for the money power, the idle rich, the educated and cultured; hatred for the government, the New Dealers, the bureaucrats, the politicians; hatred for the Reds, the Communists, the Socialists; hatred for the foreigners, the niggers, and above all, the Jews. Roosevelt was a Jew, and his government was
a Jew government. The New Deal was the Jew Deal: Morgenthau and J. P. Morgan, Felix Frankfurter and Frances Perkins, Baruch and Ickes—the tirade scrambled Jews and non-Jews, and nobody in the crowd knew or cared; they yelled for the blood of each one in turn.

  “Is this America?” demanded the orator, and the answer came like the hissing of snakes: “Yes! Yes!” Then: “Are we going to give it to the Jews?”—and the answer like a thunder clap: “No!” “Are we going to restore it to Americans?” “We are! We are!”

  It happened that Lanny had been reading The Island of Dr. Moreau, a story by H. G. Wells about a scientist on a tropical island who performs surgery upon animals, gives them brains and power of speech, and then teaches them formulas to discipline them and make them behave. So now these half-human creatures stood in the semi-darkness and shouted automatic answers to oft-repeated questions:

  “Do we love our little kike mayor?”

  “No! No!”

  “Do we like to have his cops crack our heads?”

  “No! No!”

  “Are we going to surrender our rights as American citizens?”

  “No! No!”—and sometimes “Nein! Nein!”

  IX

  Lanny, on the outskirts of the throng, observed those about him, screaming, shaking their clenched fists. Next to him a man stopped to catch his breath, and Lanny nudged him and asked: “Who is that?” The reply was: “Joe McWilliams, the greatest man in America.” Then, without stopping for a glance at the questioner: “Bully-boy Joe! Give it to ’em, Bully-boy! Down with the sheenies! Kill the kikes!”

  It made the son of Budd-Erling feel sick deep inside him. He knew every tone, every gesture, every emotion, every idea. He had heard it first in a huge Munich beerhall more than fifteen years ago; since then he had heard it at a score of meetings in various parts of Germany, and over the radio, and in the Braune Haus and the Berghof. The thought that the land of his fathers had to go through this dreadful cycle filled him with an impulse to flee to some desert isle. But no, there was no longer any refuge in these days of airplanes; this horror had to be faced and dealt with where it was.