Really there wasn’t any reason for their getting into each other’s hair. Esther didn’t begrudge the thousand dollars a month which Robbie paid to his former mistress, or the simple villa he had given her. In order to put his wife’s mind at peace concerning his frequent visits to Bienvenu, Robbie had told her about Beauty’s new lover. That, of course, seemed disgusting to a daughter of the Puritans; but so long as Esther didn’t have to go there or to let the children go there, it wasn’t her concern. She was prepared to believe that her husband’s former mistress was no worse than most of the women who left their own country in order to enjoy the license of France. Esther knew how many had come in order to escape Prohibition, and she considered it a good riddance. Now when she saw this Madame Detaze, blooming so offensively, finding such pleasure in having paintings of herself hung in a gallery for the public to stare at, she was glad that the family program allowed only a week’s stay in Paris, and none at all on that dreadful “Coast of Pleasure.”
Knowing how her husband loved his first-born son and was determined to protect him, Esther said how greatly all her friends had been pleased with the Bocklins which Lanny had selected for her. It was her intention to visit the exhibition and perhaps acquire one or more Detazes for her home. Beauty said: “Frankly, we have put the prices very high because we don’t want to sell too many. I’ll tell Mr. Kertezsi to make them right for you.” Esther replied: “Not at all! Please let me pay what anybody else would pay.” That might be a way of making friends; or it might be a way of patronizing your husband’s cast-off sweetheart. How difficult to be sure!
VI
Lanny said: “I hope you are free for tomorrow, for Mrs. Emily has asked me to bring you out to Les Forêts. Hansi and Freddi Robin are coming, and she has invited friends to hear Hansi play.” Esther knew about Mrs. Chattersworth, and she had heard much about the Robin boys, their father being her husband’s partner in so many profitable enterprises. She replied that they would enjoy visiting a great French château, and of course they must hear the young musician.
Lanny motored the family, Bess riding beside him and the mother and the boys in back. All the way it was history: the flight of King Louis and Marie Antoinette from Paris, and then the battle of the Marne, the first one, in which the Château Les Forêts had been so nearly wrecked, and the second one, in which Marcel Detaze had given his life to save Paris. Lanny told how the Germans had dumped the furniture of the château out of the windows, and how the old librarian had died of a broken heart. He told how Anatole France had talked on the lawn—the old gentleman had passed away just recently and had had a grand funeral in Paris. He told how Isadora had danced in the drawing-room—but not how she had tried to take her musician for a ride!
They arrived at the estate, and in the drawing-room where the best wits of modern France had exercised themselves the chatelaine received them graciously and introduced them to her guests—one of them the shepherd boy out of ancient Judea, the tall young David who had played the harp before the mad King Saul, the minstrel who had heard the voice of the Lord. At the luncheon table Hansi and Bess sat opposite, and each looked into the other’s face and found something that neither had ever seen before. Bess saw fire in those large dark eyes; in the ascetic face she saw exquisite sensitiveness, as of someone who had come from a world where things were better. Hansi saw what seemed to him the face of all his dreams, that would live in all the music he played from that hour forth. Each of them saw eager intelligence, asking a thousand questions of life and rarely satisfied with the answers it got.
In due course Hansi took his violin and stood by Mrs. Emily’s grand piano, with Lanny sitting before it. On the rack was the piano part of Beethoven’s violin concerto, a composition born of the master’s deep stress. When Hansi sounded the opening theme it was as if the gates of heaven swung suddenly open before Bessie Budd; this strange-looking, tall young Jew took on the aspect of an archangel descending from the skies. She had never known that such sounds could be produced on earth. She needed nobody to explain this music, nobody to point out first and second themes, working out portions, modulations, harmonic intervals, or other technicalities; the music took her into its arms and carried her along through the many moods of which the human soul is capable. When Hansi came to the slow movement, the tears streamed down the maiden’s cheeks; no use trying to stop them, she didn’t even know they were there. Her mother, who never forgot the proprieties, not even for Beethoven, gazed at her in dismay. Bess’s eyes were fixed as if she were in a trance; her jaw hung loose, as if she were trying to absorb the music through her mouth; she looked silly, and her mother wanted to nudge her—but unfortunately she was out of reach.
Esther was fond of music, or so she would have said; but she liked it to have dignity and restraint. She had been made uncomfortable by watching the seventeen-year-old Lanny in her home, pounding the piano as he did, losing himself so completely in it that he wouldn’t know when his stepmother entered the room. Now here were two of them in that state, and no doubt it represented a lot of study and hard work, it was considered to be “classical,” and all that; but the daughter of the Puritans disliked it, just as she would have disliked Beethoven if she had seen him composing it—roaming through the fields, waving his arms and shouting, or pacing up and down in his room, muttering to himself, rolling his eyeballs, carrying on like a crazy person.
VII
That stormy composition came to its end; and. Esther was fully prepared to find that all the other persons in this drawing-room considered it a great work, or would pretend to. She was used to the idea that she was fighting against the current of her time, and wasn’t succeeding in stopping it. Only the little bit around her, the members of her own family! Seeing her daughter sitting as if she thought the music was still being played, the mother arose and went to her and whispered: “Please, dear, try not to carry on so!” Bess started from her trance, and the mother went back to her seat and listened to excitable foreigners expressing their admiration for rare musical technique. Of course this dark-eyed Jewish youth loved his music, and maybe it was all right for him, it kept him busy and happy—but what did it do to people who let themselves get worked up to such frenzies?
They wanted him to play more, and the hostess said: “Some of your Jewish music.” Her wish was a command, and Hansi, with his brother accompanying, played a new work called Nigun, from the Baal Shem suite of Ernest Bloch. This music of grief and despair Esther could understand better; she knew a great deal about the Jews, their ancient literature having been taught to her as Holy Writ. God in His dealings with His chosen people had of course been God, and you couldn’t criticize Him; but the Jews in their dealings with God had been another matter, and Esther had got the feeling that they had been noisy, presumptuous, and disobedient, and had deserved most of the troubles that He had sent to them.
Their modern descendants in Newcastle, Connecticut, kept clothing-stores and drove shrewd bargains—to put it mildly. When Esther had learned from her husband that he had gone into business deals with one of them in Europe, mainly in order to please Lanny, she had been prepared for the worst, and when it didn’t happen, she explained it by saying that of course a Jewish speculator had much to gain by keeping Robert Budd for a friend; he and his family aspired to rise in the world by attaching their fortunes to those of a prominent New England family. When Robbie came back and reported that the two sons of his partner were fine musicians and that one might be a genius, that was part of the same thing to Robbie’s wife; now she saw the outcome—they had gained access to an elegant French chateau, and the musical genius was casting his net over Esther Budd’s susceptible young daughter!
Esther couldn’t find any fault with Hansi personally; she couldn’t deny that he was of refined appearance and excellent manners; but that only made matters worse, it deprived the mother of any pretext for interfering with the operations of destiny. When she saw her daughter listening to Ravel’s Kaddisch in that uncomfortable state of s
emi-hypnosis, she couldn’t scold her publicly or drag her off privately. When Bess told Hansi how much she had enjoyed his playing, and when he told her that he would be delighted to come and play for her again, what could the mother do to break it up?
She learned to her dismay that the two Jewish youths were staying in Paris, and that Lanny was taking it for granted that they would be a part of the various sight-seeing expeditions. He had arranged for one to Versailles; he was telling now about the Ile de la Cité and the sights to be seen there—Notre Dame, the Conciergerie where Marie Antoinette had been a prisoner, an old barracks occupied by the Sûreté Générale, where Lanny himself had been a prisoner on the day the treaty of Versailles was signed. He was telling the young people how he had been suspected of being a Red agent; he said it was a mistake of the police, but Esther knew about Lanny’s Red uncle and wished very much that he wouldn’t mention such unpleasant subjects to her carefully guarded children.
VIII
Whatever sins Esther Budd might have committed during her life she paid for during that unhappy week in Paris. She couldn’t bring herself to break up their long-planned schedule. What excuse could she give for dragging the children away without seeing those sights about which they had been talking for months—yes, for years, ever since Lanny had brought his dubious glamour into their home? She couldn’t say to her stepson: “We would rather see Paris by ourselves.” Nor could she say: “We prefer not to have your young friends with us.” Rack her brains as she might, she failed to find any reason why the Robin boys shouldn’t stroll about the grounds and the palaces of Versailles with her children. Being Jews, they were bound to be on the lookout for slights, and Robbie had said: “If you meet those young Robins in Paris, be polite to them, because I’ve made a pile of money through their father.” When Robbie used such a phrase, it meant a pile!
So there was nothing Esther could do but keep watch; and that didn’t seem to do any good at all, for what was happening was like a river flood, it went on regardless of spectators. It was plainly a case of the distressing phenomenon known as “love at first sight,” but it took forms to which the most exacting chaperon could make no objection. All that Bess wanted, apparently, was to listen to Hansi and her half-brother play duets. She wanted to hear everything they knew, and then hear it all over again, while she sat in her ridiculous pose, looking like St. Cecilia at the organ as painted by the German Naujok, a print of which Esther had hanging in her bedroom—never dreaming that it would come to life and plague her like this!
As for Hansi, he made matters more difficult by being so respectful that the mother couldn’t find the slightest flaw in his conduct. Apparently he was so stricken with admiration for Bess that he couldn’t bear so much as to touch her and, hardly even to look at her continuously. Of course that was the right attitude for a Jewish lad of no family to take to a daughter of the Brahmin Budds, and if it hadn’t been for Bess’s temperament it might have been all right; but was Bess going to be content to sit on a throne the rest of her days and have this young genius kneel before her and bow his head in adoration? Not if Esther knew anything about her daughter—and she thought she did!
This torment went on during the excursion to Versailles and the one to Saint-Cloud. It went on amid the architectural glories of Notre Dame, the historical associations of the Hôtel de Ville, and even on top of the Eiffel Tower. It went on when Lanny purchased tickets and took them all to see Sacha Guitry. It went on in all the interims between excursions—for Lanny, in his role of young prince, had had a piano brought up to the family suite, and lugged over a stack of music which he had in his rooms, and at Bess’s suggestion Hansi kept his violin in the suite, so that every shining hour might be improved by the master-spirits of the past two centuries. Respect for “culture” required Esther to sit there and pretend to enjoy what was really an indecent spectacle, this open and public mating of two souls.
IX
The mother had had the fond idea that her little family of four, plus Miss Sutton, would “do” Europe as a group. But now it developed that the boys didn’t want to sit in a hotel room, however elegant, and listen to violin sonatas, however well played. They wanted to see Paris. Lanny knew what this meant, for “Junior” had approached him rather timidly and asked for help in getting away from his mother and the rest, so that they might visit some of the “hot spots.” These two youths had heard talk among the younger brothers of returned soldiers about the sights that were to be seen in such places; naked women dancing on the stage, and even more startling things. To come all the way across the ocean and miss them would mean being cheated badly.
Lanny didn’t show surprise, for he had met other Americans in Paris, and not all of them young. He surprised his half-brothers by telling them that, though he had lived here most of his life, he hadn’t ever been to those places. He said that they were run mostly for tourists, and that the French themselves didn’t go. He talked with the pair frankly and learned that their father had done for them what he had done for Lanny in his time—that is, warned them about venereal diseases and the predatory nature of prostitutes, but he hadn’t tried to teach them anything about idealism in sex. It was rather late now, because both boys had had experiences with girls in their factory town. Lanny told them that they really wouldn’t find naked women so interesting; it was just a question of what one was used to—and why not try the Rubenses in the Louvre? It was cheaper and a lot safer.
Esther didn’t know any of this, but she had her fears, and wasn’t going to turn those boys loose on the streets of this most wicked of cities. She realized that it would seem rather absurd to send a gray-haired governess with them, so she found excuses to go herself. She thought that it was safe to leave Bess and Hansi together, so long as Lanny played accompaniments; but that was only because Esther didn’t understand the many kinds of love-making which modern music has made possible. Hansi played Rubinstein’s Sphärenmusik and Bess fell in love with him one way, and then he played Schumann’s Widmung and she fell in love with him another way. He played the César Franck Sonata, which they had once played for Barbara; that set them to talking about an Italian syndicalist martyr—which caused Bess to fall in love in the most dangerous way of all!
She said she wanted to understand these ideas, but nobody would talk to her; either they didn’t know or they didn’t want her to know. Were the Socialists and Communists as bad as they were painted? What did Hansi believe about them and what did Lanny believe?—please tell her, and of course they did. Hansi expounded his beautiful dream of a world in which no man would exploit any other man’s labor, but in which the great machines would be used to produce abundance, so that all might have a share; no child would know hunger, no old person would be homeless, no man would shed his brother’s blood. It was an ancient Hebrew dream—Hansi quoted the prophet Isaiah: “And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat; for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.”
A wonderful Hebrew dream, twenty-five centuries old, but it hadn’t come true yet, and wasn’t apt to during the lifetime of Bess’s grandfather, the president of Budd Gunmakers, or of her other grandfather, the president of the First National Bank of Newcastle, Connecticut. The latter’s daughter came in during this conversation, and it didn’t stop when she appeared, for the reason that Bess had become kindled with the ancient Hebrew fire. Said she: “I always knew that it was wicked for some people to have so much and others to have nothing! … Oh, Mummy, you must hear what Hansi says about how machinery can make all the things we need now, so that nobody has to be poor!”
Lanny could understand everything that his half-sister felt, having been through it all when he was younger than she was. The sparks from the divine flame had leaped from Barbara’s soul to his; they had leaped to the souls of the two Jewish lads, and so had be
en carried from Juan to Rotterdam and to Berlin; now apparently they were going to be carried from Paris to New England! What fuel would they find on that stern and rockbound coast? Lanny knew that the fire of social justice changes those whom it touches; it fills them with fervor and consecration, or else with irritation and rage. Impossible for Esther to conceal what was in her mind as she said: “Yes, dear. It is time for you to get ready for dinner.”
X
At home in Bienvenu, before coming on this expedition, Lanny and his mother and Marie had discussed the entertainment of these guests from the land of the Pilgrims’ pride. Lanny had thought of the Château de Bruyne as a delightful place for them to visit, for tea at least; and of Denis, fils, and Charlot, as French boys who would interest three young Americans. But Marie had said it was impossible; no woman could see her with Lanny and not become suspicious; Robbie’s wife would think that he had committed an indecency in bringing her children to the scene of his offense against morality. “But how can she find out?” he argued; and his amie replied: “Women have a thousand ways of finding out. Suppose one of my boys makes a remark about your having stayed in our home, helped them with their piano lessons, gone fishing with them, played tennis—anything at all? Wouldn’t your stepmother take notice?”
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