“That’s all very well,” replied Lanny. “But you overlook the fact that I’m in love. A man doesn’t enjoy going off and leaving his woman without knowing how he stands.”
“You can be sure there’s nobody in my heart but you, Lanny.”
“I wish I could accept your word, but I know there are a lot of other bodies in your heart. There’s a large body called ‘the world,’ which you are afraid to expel. Why it should be malicious and hateful is something I’ve never been able to figure out, but it is. It likes to destroy other people’s happiness. Look at what it did in the war—it has made a wreck of half Europe, just because some people couldn’t bear to see other people free and happy! And now it wants to take charge of your life and mine; to say ‘Verboten! Taboo! Keep off the grass! Défense d’aimer!’ It has words in every language.”
“I have given it hostages, Lanny. It will punish my two sons.”
“Think about those sons, and how you mean to bring them up. Do you want to make them into time-servers and conformists? Are they going to have their loves in slum bedrooms and behind haystacks? If not, you’d better tell them the truth about love, and begin early, before the other boys have debauched them. One way to begin is to say: ‘I have a lover, and you can see that he is honest and decent and kind, and nothing for you or me to be ashamed of.’”
They went into the house, and he closed the door of the drawing-room and took her in his arms, a long, long embrace. She clung to him, so that he knew she wasn’t going to hold out forever.
“Marie, I love you,” he declared, “and I’m not going to give you up—not for the Pope and all the hierarchy, the saints in heaven and the devils in hell. I’m coming for you, and I want to know I’ll have you.”
“All right, Lanny,” she answered. “I’ll work out a way.”
III
The little town of San Remo lies in a sheltered bay, with a crescent breakwater forming its harbor and range upon range of mountains sheltering it from the northern blasts. The narrow streets of the Old Town climb the hills wherever they can, and the houses have triple buttresses against earthquakes; on the main streets they have arched loggias running together, not one daring to stand apart. When Rick saw this he said it was a lesson for the peoples of Europe—let them learn to build their states as they had built their homes!
High up on one of the slopes, with a walled road approaching it, stood a pretentious two-story villa having in front a semi-circular portico with tall narrow columns; Villa Devachan was its name. It had been the “Second Paradise” of the Theosophists, and now it was the council place of the Allied premiers and their advisers. Lanny Budd had seen so much of European splendor that he knew what he would find inside, even before he had an opportunity to enter. Large rooms with huge chandeliers dangling from the ceiling—how he would hate to be under one of them when the next earthquake hit! Heavy plush curtains protecting the inmates from the deadly possibility of a change of air. Gilt chairs with silk or satin upholstery, of colors which would quickly reveal the stains of human contact. Tables with inlaid tops and hand-carved legs, their curves as standardized as the beards of Egyptian pharaohs. Lanny had guessed that Theosophical interior decoration would be no different from pseudo-Christian, and he found that he was right.
Each premier brought his elaborate staff, which had its own hotel or palace. From each nation came also a swarm of journalists, fending for themselves and grumbling bitterly over the sparsity of official “hand-outs.” Also came delegations from the little nations and oppressed minorities; Estonians, Letts, and Lithuanians; Ukrainians, Hungarians, and Caucasians; Armenians, Arabs, and Assyro-Chaldeans. They had been told that this was “the New Freedom,” this was “self-determination for all peoples,” and they believed it, or said they did as a matter of policy. Some brought credentials, and others only moral powers; they put up in pensions or poor lodgings, and labored earnestly but for the most part vainly to get somebody to listen to them. When their funds ran out they borrowed from one another, or from anyone who looked as if he might believe in the brotherhood of man.
It was all so familiar to Lanny Budd, it was as if he had had an elaborate nightmare and now was starting it all over again. When he made this remark to a journalist from America, the man advised him to get used to this nightmare, because he would be riding it several times every year for how long nobody could say. The nations would be wrangling and arguing over the Versailles treaty until they were at war again. Newspaper men are notoriously cynical.
The Senate of the United States having refused to ratify the treaty or to join the League of Nations, Lanny’s country had no representative at San Remo, not even an unofficial observer. But of course the American press had a large delegation, and among these were men whom Lanny had come to know in Paris, where he had served as a sort of secret pipeline through which news was permitted to leak. These men were under obligations to him, and greeted him cordially and took him and his aviator friend into their confidence. Lanny had advised Rick to say nothing about his proposed article, but to make his way with Americans on his war record, and with his compatriots on the basis of being the son of Sir Alfred Pomeroy-Nielson, Bart. Rick wouldn’t be violating any confidences, because these correspondents were cabling “spot news” for various deadlines, and by the time a magazine article could appear they would be off on some other assignment.
IV
The Englishman, endeavoring to save his money, wanted to live en pension, but Lanny was used to living en prince and insisted that Rick should be his guest; it would be fatal to stop anywhere but at the most expensive hotel, for only there would you meet the people who were on the inside of affairs. On account of the crowds the pair had to bunk in one small room and bathe in a hand-basin; but they put on their “smokings” and went down into the dining-room, and the first person the American laid eyes on was the tall, sandy-haired young Fessenden who had been a member of the British secretariat in Paris. The last time they had met, this chap had been decidedly cool, because Lanny had resigned in protest against the concessions made by the American Commission, and Fessenden, a “career man,” had been afraid for his future. But that had been nearly a year ago, and the world had changed greatly.
Now the secretary jumped up and greeted Lanny. He was introduced to Rick, and when he heard his accent and saw that he was “right,” he invited the pair to his table, where two other young members of the staff were sitting. All three had been in war service, and they and Rick appeared to have secret passwords or insignia, for they fell to talking about one another’s families and friends, old school ties, boat-races, cricket-matches, and other esoteric matters. Lanny, being an American, was not expected to produce credentials or to understand this conversation.
Before long they began talking about the task on which they were engaged, and it was better than listening to journalists who were being deliberately kept in the dark. These chaps had handled confidential memoranda, and one had just had a session with a department head in his portable bathtub. Rick remarked what a pleasant place the statesmen had picked out for themselves; whereupon Fessenden chimed in: “Did you hear what Lloyd George said to the premiers? A red-hot one! ‘Well, gentlemen, we are in the Garden of Eden, and I wonder who will play the snake!’”
The San Remo conference had assembled amid direful forebodings. Many bitter disputes had arisen among the former Allies: over the remains of the Turkish Empire—Constantinople and Armenia, Syria and Palestine, the Hejaz, and especially Mesopotamia with its treasure of oil, vital alike to British, French, and Italian navies; over Russia and its Bolshevik government, and the war against it which had collapsed; over the cordon sanitaire, and Poland invading Russia and most of her neighbors at the same time; over German reparations and how they were to be shared; above all, over the new French invasion of the Rhineland, and the risk that France was taking of dragging Europe into another war.
There had recently been an attempted revolt of German reactionaries, known as the “Ka
pp Putsch.” It had been put down by a general strike of the German workers, and there had followed a Communist revolt in the Ruhr, and the Socialist government of Germany had sent in troops to put that down. The move was a technical violation of the treaty of Versailles, and the French army had promptly seized a couple of German towns on the far side of the Rhine. Were they going to conquer their ancient enemy all over again, and were they expecting to get British sanction? This was the question these budding diplomats discussed with solemn faces. They told of the firm resolve of their chiefs that the French must be made to back down, and allow trade to be resumed and the German people to be saved from starvation and chaos.
To Lanny it seemed an odd thing to hear these official persons saying the very things for which the liberals on the American staff had been called “Pinkos” and troublemakers. So rapidly had opinion changed under the pressure of events! The British were now giving all their efforts to trying to get blockades lifted and trade started. But the French still lived under the shadow of a dreadful fear. Was German militarism to be allowed to come back? And if it did, would France again have Britain’s help? With the French it was dominate or be dominated—and the moment they took to dominating, the British would begin giving help to the Germans, raising them up as a counter-force to France. As Robbie Budd had told his son repeatedly, it was dog eat dog all over Europe; and when Lanny had watched it for a while, he wanted to go back to Bienvenu and play the piano!
V
Fessenden said: “You must meet Mrs. Plumer; that’s where everybody goes.” This was a member of the English colony who had a beautiful villa up on the Berigo Road. Wherever the English live they have places like that, to which you can go if you have a proper introduction. Also there is always an English club, where the men drink whiskies and soda, and play billiards, and talk about the stock market, trade, and politics, in a language that you have to be brought up on to understand. Lanny and Rick were invited to tea by Mrs. Plumer, and received guest-cards at the club, and so they heard what had been said that day in the council chamber at the Villa Devachan. Rick exclaimed to his friend: “If it hadn’t been for you, Lanny, I’d have been a fish tossed up on dry land!”
“I’m getting my share of fun,” replied Lanny. “Only don’t try to do too much in one day.” There was a ceaseless round of activities, all day and most of the night, and it was hard for a man with a steel leg to get in and out of cars and up flights of stairs. Lanny would persuade him to come back to the hotel in the afternoon for a siesta. Even at the end of April it was hot in this sun-bowl of San Remo.
While Rick lay propped up on the bed making notes of what he had heard, Lanny would go out and wander through the narrow streets where old pirates from Africa had charged up the hills, slaughtering the inhabitants or dragging them off in chains. He strolled on paths shaded by palm trees, or by pepper trees loaded with white blossoms. He climbed to the heights where the wild flowers spread sheets of purple, gold, and pink. He gazed down onto red-roofed houses, and the blue and green sea which each and every Mediterranean people claims as its own. Mare nostrum—how many had made the boast through the ages, and their blood had been drained into the sea and their dust blown over the hills, and the very names of their tribes were lost to history!
Lanny always had the fancy to know what the plain people were thinking and saying, as well as the great and important ones who made the headlines. He and Rick would attend a session of the journalists in which the new Italian Premier would expatiate on the dire need of his people for coal and wheat, and the necessity of reopening trade with the Russians through their Black Sea ports. From there Lanny would drive his friend to a trattoria on an obscure street where most of the conversation was in the Ligurian dialect. Lanny knew some of it, just as he knew Provençal, because in his childhood he had played with the fisherfolk, many of whom had dwelt on the Côte d’Azur since it had been a part of Italy. For a couple of lire you could have a good meal in this trattoria—though served on a plain board table set on a floor strewn with sawdust. Lanny would start jabbering away, half in French, half in Italian, with a dark-skinned workingman in a sweaty shirt, and would report to Rick how the declarations of the liberal Francesco Nitti sounded to the dwellers in musty old tenements with cracked walls and the darkness of caves inside.
What they learned was that the workers of Italy were in a dangerous ferment. They despised and distrusted their political leaders, calling them cheats and liars, hired agents of the capitalist class. These cattivi had dragged their country into a war to no purpose, and now they left the people to starve while they stuffed themselves with rich foods and fine wines. Here in San Remo the workers had elected a Socialist mayor, and what was he? A banker! And what did he do? The gesture of the angry dock-laborer imperiled the glassware on the table.
It might have been difficult for a stiff young Englishman, brought up in the public school tradition, to get into the confidence of such a person; but Lanny made it easy for him. He bought an extra bottle, and when others perceived that free wine and free conversation were available, they moved over to listen and take part. Horny dark fists were clenched and raucous voices proclaimed that a change was coming in Italy, and soon; what the workers had done in Russia was not so bad as le gazzette capitaliste had made it seem. Already many of the factories in Milan and Turin and other cities were in the hands of the workers, who would be running them for themselves and not for the padroni.
VI
When this piece of research had been completed and Lanny and Rick were on their way to the hotel, Rick said: “I’ve an idea there’s another story in Italy: the spread of Socialism.”
“Let’s go after it,” said his friend.
“It’s wonderful the way you can understand these people, Lanny.”
“When I was a kid I used to haul the seine with fisherboys who talked this dialect, and one would take me to his cabin where his mother would feed us on dandelion salad and shrimp fried in oil. They always thought it was funny if anybody didn’t know their words.”
“It would be difficult to do anything like that in Berkshire,” commented Rick. “But if I’m going to be a journalist I’ll have to learn. After I get the San Remo article off I want to do one on the state of mind of Italian labor. Let’s eat in places like that from now on.”
“The food agrees with me,” said Lanny.
They dined in a somewhat better place, frequented by intellectuals as well as workers. They watched the various types and Lanny speculated: this one might be a teacher at the accademia, and that one a musician in the orchestra of the Teatro Principe Umberto; a third might be the editor of the local labor paper. Rick asked: “Could that large gentleman with the black beard and pince-nez be the Socialist mayor?” “No,” said Lanny, “he’d have come here when he was campaigning, but he’d be too important now. Which one would you like to talk to?”
“Can you just go up and talk to anybody in the place?”
“Italians are always ready for conversation. They will take us for tourists.”
“But they’re angry with Americans right now.” Rick had been informed that on the previous day the city council of San Remo had voted to change the name of the Corso Wilson to the Corso Fiume—which was certainly a pointed gesture.
“They will tell us their grievances, of course,” replied Lanny; “but they will talk.”
Their attention was attracted to the table across the aisle, where several men were lingering over their coffee. Evidently it was a political discussion, and now and then a voice would be raised; they heard the word Americani more than once, and fell silent, listening.
At the head of the table, facing them, sat a dark-eyed Italian with a little black mustache; a smallish man with a pale, almost pasty face and melancholy expression when it was in repose. But now he was becoming excited, and waving his hands as he orated in a shrill, tense voice. “Porca Madonna!” Rick heard, and whispered to his friend: “What is Porca Madonna?”
“It is an
oath,” Lanny explained. “It is meant to be very offensive. It means that the Holy Virgin is a sow.” He listened again and added: “They are talking about Italy, and the way it has been robbed by the Allies. That dark fellow is telling the filthy English bastard that the Italians are going to stay in Fiume, and if Nitti dares to yield it, they will cut his throat on the steps of the Villa Devachan.”
“There’s nothing for us in that lot,” said Rick, hastily.
VII
The door of the trattoria opened and two persons came in, a man and a woman. It happened that Lanny was facing the door, and as the woman came up the aisle between the tables he had a good look at her. She was frail and gray-haired, with fine, ascetic features, and it struck him instantly that he had seen the face before. He tried to think where.
The pair were close to him when the woman’s escort noticed the orator seated at the table. He stopped, turned toward the man, raised his clenched hand, and cried in a fury: “Eh via, puh! Furfante! Traditore dei lavoratori!”
Instantly the place was in an uproar. The insulted one leaped to his feet—whether it was to fight or to run Lanny couldn’t know, for others on each side sprang up to restrain him. He began to yell curses at the invader, and the latter shouted back. The woman, greatly troubled, seized her escort’s arm and began pleading with him: ‘No, no, compagno! Restrain yourself. The weretch is not worth it!”
“I will not eat with that porco!” exclaimed the man.
“Su! Via!” cried the woman. “Let us go.” Amid jeers from those at the table the disturber let himself be persuaded to the door and outside.
The excitement was slow in subsiding. The diners talked volubly about what had been said and by whom. The dark-eyed man with the little black mustache considered that he had played the hero; he shook his fist and became inspired, telling what he would have done to the accursed one, the enemy of la patria. Working himself into a warlike mood, he challenged the enemies of Italy to come from all quarters of the earth and he would deal with them single-handed. It is the nature of Italians to say a lot about what they intend to do, and it is the nature of Englishmen to look upon them with an aloof expression which seems to say: “What unpleasant insects!” Lanny was amused by both types.
Between Two Worlds Page 10