Dragon's Teeth

by Sinclair, Upton;

  He was in the position only too familiar to the members of his race through two thousand years of the Diaspora: surrounded by enemies, and having to play them one against another, to placate them by subtle arts. Johannes had risen to power by his shrewdness as a speculator, knowing whom to pay for inside information and how to separate the true from the false. Having made huge sums out of the collapse of the mark, he had bought up concerns which were on the verge of bankruptcy. To hold them and keep them going meant, in these days of governmental interference with business, some sort of alliance with politicians; it meant paying them money which was close to blackmail and became ever closer as time passed. It meant not merely knowing the men who were in power, but guessing who might be in power next week, and making some sort of deal with them.

  So it came about that Johannes was helping to maintain the coalition government of the Republic and at the same time supporting several of the ambitious Nazis; for, under the strain of impending national bankruptcy, who could tell what might happen? Knowing that his children were in touch with the Reds, and continually being importuned for money—who wasn’t, that had money?—Johannes would give them generous sums, knowing that they would pass these on to be used for their “cause.” Yet another form of insurance! But do not let any of these groups know that you are giving to the others, for they are in a deadly three-cornered war, each against the other two.

  All this meant anxious days and sleepless nights. And Mama, from whom nothing could be hidden, would argue: “What is it for? Why do we need so much money?” It was hard for her to understand that you must get more in order to protect what you had. She and the children would join in efforts to get Papa away from it all. For the past three summers they had lured him into a yachting-trip. This year they had started earlier, on account of the two young mothers, and they were hoping to keep him away all summer.

  But it appeared that troubles were piling up in Berlin: business troubles, political troubles. Johannes was receiving batches of mail at the different ports, and he would shut himself up with his secretary and dictate long telegrams. That was one of his complaints concerning the Soviet Union: letters might be opened, and telegrams were uncertain; you paid for them but couldn’t be sure they would arrive. Everything was in the hands of bureaucrats, and you were wound up in miles of red tape—God pity the poor people who had to get a living in such a world. Johannes, man of swift decisions, plowman of his own field, builder of his own road, couldn’t stand Odessa, and asked them to give up seeing the beautiful Sochi. “There are just as grand palaces near Istanbul, and the long-distance telephone works!”

  XI

  The Bessie Budd returned in her own wake, and in Istanbul its owner received more telegrams which worried him. The yacht had to wait until he sent answers and received more answers, and in the end he announced that he couldn’t possibly go on. There was serious trouble involving one of the banks he controlled. Decisions had to be made which couldn’t be left to subordinates. He had made a mistake to come away in such unsettled times!—the Wall Street crash had shaken all Europe, and little by little the cracks were revealing themselves. Johannes had to beg his guests to excuse him. He took a plane for Vienna, and from there to Berlin.

  It had come to be that way now; there were planes every day between all the great capitals of Europe. You stepped in, hardly knew that you were flying, and in a few hours stepped out and went about your affairs. Not the slightest danger; but it tormented Mama to think of Jascha up there amid thunder and lightning, and so many things to bump into when you came down. They waited in Istanbul until a telegram arrived, saying that the traveler was safe in his own palace and that Freddi was well and happy, and sent love to all.

  It was too late to visit the coast of Africa—the rains had come, and it was hot, and there would be mosquitoes. They made themselves contented on the yacht, and did not bother to go ashore. The dairy farm prospered; the ample refrigerators provided the two young mothers with fresh foods, and they in turn provided for the infants. The grandmothers hovered over the scene in such a flutter of excitement as made you think of humming-birds’ wings. Really, it appeared as if there had never been two babies in the world before and never would be again. Grandmothers, mothers, babies, and attendants formed a closed corporation, a secret society, an organization of, by, and for women.

  It was a machine that ran as by clockwork, and the balance wheel was the grave Miss Severne. She had been employed to manage only Baby Frances; but she was so highly educated, so perfectly equipped, that she overawed the Robins; she was the voice of modern science, speaking the last word as to the phenomena of infancy. Equally important, she had the English manner, she was Britannia which rules the waves and most of the shores; she was authority, and the lesser breeds without the law decided to come in. What one grandmother was forbidden to do was obviously bad form for the other to do; what little Frances’s nursemaid was ordered to do was obviously desirable for little Johannes’s nursemaid to do. So in the end Jerusalem placed itself under the British flag; Rahel made Miss Severne a present now and then, and she ran the whole enterprise.

  Every morning Marceline was in Miss Addington’s cabin, reciting her lessons. Mr. Dingle was in his cabin thinking his new thoughts and saying his old prayers. Madame Zyszynski was in hers, playing solitaire, or perhaps giving a “sitting.” That left Hansi, Bess, and Lanny in the saloon, the first two working out their interpretation of some great violin classic, and Lanny listening critically while they played a single passage many times, trying the effect of this and that. Just what did Beethoven mean by the repetition of this rhythmic pattern? Here he had written sforzando, but he often wrote that when he meant tenuto, an expressive accent, the sound to be broadened—but be careful, it is a trick which becomes a bad habit, a meretricious device. They would discuss back and forth, but always in the end they deferred to Hansi; he was the one who had the gift, he was the genius who lived music in his soul. Sometimes the spirit caught them, they became not three souls but one, and it was an hour of glory.

  These young people could never be bored on the longest yachting-cruise. They took their art with them, a storehouse of loveliness, a complex of ingenuities, a treasure-chest of delights which you could never empty. Lanny had stabbed away at the piano all his life, but now he discovered that he had been skimming over the surface of a deep ocean. Now he analyzed scientifically what before he had enjoyed emotionally. Hansi Robin had had a thorough German training, and had read learned books on harmony, acoustics, the history of music. He studied the personalities of composers, and he tried to present these to his audiences; he did not try to turn Mozart into Beethoven, or Gluck into Liszt. He would practice the most difficult Paganini or Wieniawski stuff, but wouldn’t play it in public unless he could find a soul in it. Finger gymnastics were for your own use.

  XII

  Every afternoon, if the weather was right, the vessel would come to a halt, and the guests, all but Mama Robin, would emerge on the deck in bathing-suits; the gangway would be let down over the side, and they would troop down and plunge into the water. A sailor stood by with a life-belt attached to a rope, in case of accident; they were all good swimmers, but the efficient Captain Moeller took no chances and was always on watch himself. When they had played themselves tired, they would climb up, and the yacht would resume her course. The piano on little rubber wheels would be rolled out from the saloon, and Hansi and Bess would give an alfresco concert; Rahel would sing, and perhaps lead them all in a chorus. Twilight would fall, “the dusk of centuries and of song.”

  There was only one trouble on this cruise so far as concerned Lanny, and that was the game of bridge. Beauty and Irma had to play; not for money, but for points, for something to do. These ladies knew how to read, in the sense that they knew the meaning of the signs on paper, but neither knew how to lose herself in a book or apply herself to the mastering of its contents. They grew sleepy when they tried it; they wanted other people to tell them what was in books
; and Irma at least had always been able to pay for the service. Now she had married a poor man, and understood it to mean that he was to keep her company. In the world of Irma Barnes the nursery rhyme had been turned about, and every Jill must have her Jack.

  Lanny didn’t really mind playing bridge—only there were so many more interesting things to do. He wanted to continue child study with the two specimens he had on board. He wanted to read history about the places he visited, so that a town would be where a great mind had functioned or a martyr had died. But Beauty and Irma were willing to bid five no trumps while the yacht was passing the scene of the battle of Salamis. They would both think it inconsiderate of Lanny if he refused to make a fourth hand because he wanted to write up his notes of the last séance with Madame Zyszynski. Lanny thought it was important to keep proper records, and index them, so that the statements of Tecumseh on one occasion could be compared with those on another. He had the books of Osty and Geley, scientists who had patiently delved into these phenomena and tried to evolve theories to explain them. This seemed much more important than whether Culbertson was right in his rules about the total honor-trick-content requirement of hands.

  Irma had persuaded Rahel to prepare herself for life in the beau monde, and Lanny had helped to teach her. Then he had given the same sort of help to Marceline, who was going to be thirteen in a short while, and already was the most perfect little society lady you could imagine. Even on board a yacht she spent much time in front of the mirror, studying her charms and keeping them at their apex; surely she ought to be preparing to defend herself against those harpies with signaling-systems who would soon be trying to deprive her of her pocket-money. After she had been taught, Lanny could plead that he wasn’t needed any more, and go back to the study of Liszt’s four-hand piano compositions with Bess: the Concerto Pathétique, a marvel of brilliant color, turning two pianos into an orchestra; the Don Juan Fantaisie, most delightful of showpieces—Hansi came in while they were playing it, and said they really ought to give it on a concert stage. A memorable moment for two humble amateurs.

  XIII

  The Bessie Budd came to rest in the harbor of Cannes, and the company returned to Bienvenu for a few days. Beauty wished to renew her wardrobe—one gets so tired of wearing the same things. Lanny wished to renew the stock of music-scores—one’s auditors get tired of hearing the same compositions. Also, there were stacks of magazines which had been coming in, and letters with news of one’s friends. Lanny opened one from his father, and exclaimed: “Robbie’s coming to Paris! He’s due there now!”

  “Oh, dear!” said the wife. She knew what was coming next.

  “I really ought to see him, Irma. It’s been eight months.”

  “It’s been exactly as long since I’ve seen my mother.”

  “Surely if your mother were in Paris, I’d be offering to take you.”

  “It’ll be so dreadfully lonesome on the yacht, Lanny!”

  “I’ll take a plane and join you at Lisbon in three or four days. You know Robbie’s been in a crisis and I ought to find out how he’s getting along.”

  Irma gave up, but not without inner revolt. She was going through such a trying ordeal, and people ought to do everything to make it easier for her. A violent change from being the glamour girl of Broadway, the observed of all observers, the darling of the columnists and target of the spotlights—and now to be in exile, almost in jail for all these months! Would anybody ever appreciate it? Would Baby appreciate it? Irma’s observation of children suggested that Baby probably would not.

  She thought of taking a couple of cars and transporting her half of the lactation apparatus up to Paris. But no, it would upset all the arrangements of the admirable Miss Severne; Baby might pick up a germ in the streets of a crowded city; it was so much safer out at sea, where the air was loaded with a stuff called ozone. And there was Rahel, with whom Irma had agreed to stick it out; knowing it would be hard, she had wanted to tie herself down, and had made a bargain.

  “Another thing,” Lanny said; “Zoltan Kertezsi should be in Paris and might help me to sell a picture or two.”

  “Oh, dear!” exclaimed the wife. “Do you still want to fool with that business?”

  “A little cash would come in handy to both Beauty and me.”

  “I don’t think it’s kind of you, Lanny. There’s no sense in your bothering to make money when I have it. If you have any time to sell, do please let me buy it!”

  They had talked about this many times. Since Robbie couldn’t afford to send Beauty her thousand dollars a month, Irma insisted upon putting it up. She wanted the life of Bienvenu to go on exactly as before. The cost was nothing to her, and she liked the people around her to be happy. She would send money to Lanny’s account in Cannes, and then she didn’t want anybody to talk or think about the subject. That her husband might actually enjoy earning a few thousand dollars by selling Marcel’s paintings, or those of old masters, was something hard for her to make real to herself. It was harder still for Lanny to explain that he sometimes wanted to do other things than entertain an adored young wife!

  4

  I Can Call Spirits

  I

  From the windows of the Hotel Crillon Lanny Budd had looked out upon quite a lot of history: the World War beginning, with soldiers bivouacked in the Place de la Concorde; the war in progress, with enemy planes overhead and anti-aircraft firing; after the armistice, with a great park of captured German cannon, and May Day mobs being sabered by cuirassiers. In the hotel had lived and worked a couple of hundred American peace-makers, all of them kind to a very young secretary-translator and willing to assist with his education. The only trouble was, they differed so greatly among themselves that Lanny’s mind had reached a state of confusion from which it had not yet recovered.

  Now the hotel had been restored to the system of private enterprise in which Robbie Budd so ardently believed and which he was pleased to patronize regardless of cost. In view of his reduced circumstances, he might well have gone to a less expensive place, but that would have been to admit defeat and to declass himself. No, he was still European representative of Budd Gunmakers, still looking for big deals and certain that Europe was going to need American weapons before long. Keep your chin up, and make a joke out of the fact that you have lost five or six million dollars. Everybody knows that you had to be somebody to have that happen to you.

  Here he was, comfortably ensconced in his suite, with a spare room for Lanny; his whisky and soda and ice early in the morning, his little portable typewriter and papers spread out on another table. He was in his middle fifties, but looked younger than he had in New York under the strain of the panic. He had got back his ruddy complexion and well-nourished appearance; a little bit portly, but still vigorous and ready to tackle the world. Already he was in the midst of affairs; there was a Rumanian purchasing-commission in town, and a couple of Soviet agents—Robbie grinned as he said that he was becoming quite chummy with the “comrades”; he knew how to “talk their language,” thanks to Lanny’s help. He meant, not that he could speak Russian, but that he could speak Red.

  Lanny told the news about the Dingles and the Robins, and Robbie in turn reported on the family in Newcastle. Amazing the way the head of the Budd tribe was holding on; at the age of eighty-three he insisted upon knowing every detail of the company’s affairs; he sat in his study and ran the business by telephone. Esther, Lanny’s stepmother, was well. “I really think she’s happier since the crash,” said the husband. He didn’t add: “I have kept my promise to stay out of the market.” Lanny knew he didn’t break promises.

  They talked about Wall Street, about that “little bull market” which had everybody so stirred up, a mixture of hope and fear currently known as the “jitters.” When the Bessie Budd was setting out, the market had been booming, and Robbie in a letter had repeated his old formula: “Don’t sell America short.” Now stocks were slipping again, business going to pot, unemployment spreading; but Robbie h
ad to keep up his courage, all America had to hold itself up by its bootstraps. The most popular song of the moment announced: “Happy days are here again.”

  II

  They discussed Johannes Robin and his affairs, in which Robbie was deeply interested. He was going to Berlin on this trip: a subtle change in the relationship of the two associates, for in the old days it had been Johannes who came to Paris to see Robbie. The Jewish trader was on top; he hadn’t lost any part of his fortune, and wasn’t going to. He would never make Robbie Budd’s mistake of being too optimistic about this world, for he had made most of his money by expecting trouble. Now he had sent a message, by Lanny, that he was going to help Robbie to come back; but it would have to be by the same judicious pessimism.

  “He’s a good sort,” said Robbie, English-fashion. He knew, of course, that his old associate couldn’t very well drop him, even if he had wished to, because Hansi and Bess had made them relatives. Moreover, Johannes was one of those Jews who desire to associate with gentiles and are willing to pay liberally for it.

  Having had long talks with the financier on board the yacht, Lanny could tell what was in his mind. He considered that Germany was approaching the end of her rope; she couldn’t make any more reparations payments, even if she wished. Taxation had about reached its limits, foreign credit was drying up, and Johannes couldn’t see any chance of Germany’s escaping another bout of inflation. The government was incompetent, also very costly to deal with; that, of course, was a money-man’s polite way of intimating that it was corrupt and that he was helping to keep it so. Elections were scheduled for the end of the summer, and there would be a bitter campaign; sooner or later the various factions would fall to fighting, and that wouldn’t help the financial situation any. Johannes was trimming his sails and getting ready for rough weather. He was taking some of his investments out of the country. Those he kept in Germany were mostly in industries which produced goods for export.