VII
Lanny went back to Paris, that strange, half-deserted city, with a curfew at nine o’clock and a blackout from sundown. The greater part of the shops were covered with iron shutters, and there was practically no traffic except military in the streets. Imagine, if you could, being able to cross the Place de l’Opéra at your leisure, and with no danger to your bones! The shouting traffic police were gone, the Café de la Paix was closed tight, and the front of the great opera house was covered with sandbags. Only two newspapers now on the kiosks, both humbly subservient—one, Le Matin, and the other, oddly enough, La Victoire! It wouldn’t be many days before the Nazis would revive others—the old names but new policies. Already they had taken over the radio stations, and had set up loudspeakers in the public squares, to tell the French what they were going to think for the next thousand years.
The government had been bombed out of Tours, and was now being bombed in Bordeaux. Lanny could imagine the scenes there: the frantic debates, the Cabinet shifts, the futile balloting—and Hélène de Portes sitting on the Premier’s desk, shrieking at politicians and officials who dared to differ with her. Lanny put his wits to work on the problem of how to get to Bordeaux; it appeared to be his job to find out what the decision would be—surrender, or continuing the fight from Africa. Before he could hit upon a plan, he stopped in a crowd to listen to a loudspeaker on a street corner, and heard the quavering voice of Marshal Pétain, telling his beloved children that the welfare of la patrie required him to ask an armistice of the Germans.
There could be no doubt that it was his voice, and the P.A. found no difficulty in believing it; but to the people about him it came like a thunderbolt, staggering, paralyzing. They had assumed that the grande armée was falling back, as armies did, in order to fight from a better position. They had understood that Paris must be abandoned, so as to save it from destruction. But to surrender, to turn all France over to the boches, to desert Britain and give up the promised aid from America?—c’était la honte, la trahison! Some stood with tears running down their cheeks.
Lanny thought, it was as he had said to Kurt, the French body had been separated from the head, and the body was paralyzed. He put what he had learned from Kurt and from Denis into a report and mailed it to the Embassy, which was still functioning. The head Nazis hated Bill Bullitt like poison, but he had stayed on, and they treated him with careful formality. They wanted no trouble with America at this stage.
They were formal with Paris, too, for they wanted no trouble there. The armistice was almost as unbelievable to them as to the French. The troops had strict orders to be polite to everyone; when they were off duty they wandered about staring at the sights, exactly like tourists. Oddly enough, they all appeared to be camera fiends, and wanted pictures of the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame and the Arc de Triomphe to send home. Standing before the eternal flame which guards the Unknown Soldier’s tomb, they bared their shaven blond heads. If they were officers, they saluted, and it was all absolut korrect. When the shopkeepers discovered how it was going to be, the iron shutters came down, and the “Fridolins” poured into the shops, and soon there was a flood of silk stockings and kid gloves and perfumes going back to the pregnant Mädchen of Naziland. “Pregnant Mädchen” might sound like a joke, and so it was—a Nazi joke.
VIII
Long trains poured in from Berlin, bringing staffs, editorial, radio, administrative staffs. They were going to take charge not merely of Paris but of all Northern France, the part where the great factories and mines were. They had been in training for their jobs for years, and all spoke French of a sort. The Crillon became a beehives—bees who clicked their heels and saluted, this way and that way, wherever they flew. Lanny went among them, because it was his job; he watched for signs whether the Wehrmacht was going after England at once, or whether it would wait and give the Quislings a chance. Hitler had told him, but Lanny was one of those foolish people who didn’t know whether to believe Hitler or not. Perhaps he would tell the truth fifty times, and then on the supreme occasion he would lie.
Kurt invited his old friend to the Crillon to lunch, and the invitation was accepted. A strange thing, to sit in that spacious elegant dining room full of every sort of Nazi uniform, and look back twenty-one years to the time when it had been full of American uniforms, and a few French and British; also with the sack coats of American professors, some of whom were now dead, and others who were college presidents, or diplomats, or members of the “brain trust.” At this very table, or at any rate a table in this same position, Lincoln Steffens and Bill Bullitt had sat after their mission to Russia, and Stef had teased the conservative professors, asking them questions in his Socratic way, and assuring them that the Communist revolution was not the flash in the pan as they chose to believe, but a new stage in social evolution. “I have seen the future, and it works!”
Now at this table sat Kurt and his agreeable blonde secretary; also Graf Herzenberg and his schöne Lili, and red-headed Otto Abetz, handsome, genial, full of conversation. Victory is such a delightful thing; it expands the ego, and produces amazing sensations. This once humble student, who had thought he had reached the heights when he was able to lecture fashionable ladies in the Cinéma Bonaparte, was now the master of all Paris; he was all Paris, for practical purposes. He had been chased out in disgrace, and now the chasers were the chased, and if any of them hadn’t got away, he was going to find them and lock them up.
These Nazi great ones were taking their duties with the utmost seriousness, and wanted all the help Lanny could give them. Who was there among the French who had not fled, and could be trusted to co-operate? Lanny mentioned Denis de Bruyne and others who should be consulted, and perhaps used in some official capacity. In return for such advice, he was privileged to hear an outline of Nazi intentions regarding Spain, Italy, France, and French North Africa. All most interesting, and he returned to his hotel room and wrote a report and mailed it to Mr. W. C. Bullitt, just around the corner. He would have liked nothing better than to drop in and have a chat about times old and new, but he didn’t dare to, for fear that Bill might connect him in his mind with those mysterious reports which came frequently for periods and then stopped for still longer periods. Somebody was going to the Big Boss over the ambassador’s head, and who the devil could it be, and what the devil would he be saying, perhaps about the ambassador!
IX
The Führer’s train chugged to Munich, so that he could consult with Mussolini about the armistice terms for France. The train chugged back, and the Führer proceeded to put through that elaborate insult which he had outlined to his American visitor. Rumors of it had leaked out, but not through Lanny. Perhaps it was because the sacred armistice car was rolled out of the Invalides, and put upon two heavy trailers; it disappeared into the night, and the natural inference was that it might be on the way to the place where it had acquired its special status, making it different from all other dining cars on the railroads of France.
The ceremony took place on the 21st of June. Lanny didn’t attend because, for one thing, he was sick of Nazi glory, and for another, he didn’t want to make himself conspicuous. He could imagine the scene well enough, and a few hours later could see it in the newspapers which the Nazis had set up, and which from now on would be full of Nazi glory. The Führer had a court favorite by the name of Hoffmann who had become the official photographer; small, alert, with bright blue eyes and a sharp nose like a dog’s, he haunted die grosse Welt with a tiny Leica camera, snapping shots of everybody and everything. So posterity would be assured of being able to see the Führer eating his vegetable plate with a poached egg on top, the Führer playing with his seven German shepherd dogs, the Führer smiling at or scolding premiers and kings.
The sacred car was moved to the spot in the forest which had been marked with a great flat stone inscribed Le Maréchal Foch. A park had been built around it, with a statue of the victorious commander. Now a German guard of honor marched and stood at sal
ute; then came Hitler, in his simple gray uniform, and no decoration but his iron cross. Admiral Raeder marched on his right and Marshal Göring on his left, both carrying their batons of office. General Brauchitsch marched on Raeder’s right, and behind them came Hess and Ribbentrop, both in uniform and with their decorations. In front of the armistice car was a huge granite block with an inscription, and no doubt Hitler had read its. insulting words many times; but it was part of the ceremony that he should stop and read them in the granite original: “Here on the eleventh of November 1918 succumbed the criminal pride of the German Empire … vanquished by the free peoples which it tried to enslave.”
All the hatred in the fiercest heart in Europe showed in the Führer’s face as he walked from that granite block to the steps of the car. He entered, followed by his friends, and sat waiting. The French aelegates arrived promptly on time, and there were salutes by the military men outside, but no handshakes. When the French entered the car, Hitler and the others rose and gave the Nazi salute, but did not speak. They sat, and General Keitel read the preamble to the armistice terms, in which Adi exploited the theme upon which he had been pounding for twenty-one years, the “dishonor and humiliation,” the “broken promises and perjury” of the Versailles Diktat. The terms proper were long, some thirty pages, and Hitler knew them and did not choose to hear them again. When the preamble was finished, he and his party rose, saluted, and stalked out, leaving General Keitel to complete the reading.
For a day the discussions over the terms went on, the French delegates and their government leaders telephoning back and forth. Hitler had set a time limit, and just before it expired the French gave way. There was a second meeting in the armistice car, and the document was signed. When the Führer came out from that ceremony he could no longer contain himself, but executed a series of capers, a sort of little jig, in front of the cameras of the world. The French would pay—and oh, how they would pay! Four hundred million francs per day for the keep of the German army of occupation—as long as they chose to invite themselves!
X
So came the New Order to Paris; and now the conqueror paid a visit to that frivolous city about which he had heard so much. He drove down the Champs-Élysées and surveyed the Place de la Concorde, perhaps the most splendid in the world; he stopped at the Arc de Triomphe and gave the Nazi salute to the Unknown Soldier of France. After this tour he came into the Crillon, where Kurt and Lanny paid him a call. Kurt brought two manuscript copies of the Führermarsch, one reverently inscribed to the greatest man in the world; upon the other the greatest man wrote: “Dem Meister Musikanten des Nattionalsocialismus.” Kurt would cherish this all his life, and then bequeath it to the Staats Bibliothek in Berlin.
The American unveiled his little Defregger: an accidental discovery, he explained, not that painter’s greatest work, but a rather charming genre piece. Hitler agreed, and thanked him cordially. He said he didn’t know if he ought to accept so valuable a gift when he was not permitted to make any sort of return. Lanny replied: “Mein Führer, you have made a return to the human race.” The way to get along with dictators!
The greatest man was going to pay a visit to the tomb of Napoleon in Les Invalides, and graciously invited his two friends to accompany him. They accepted; but after Lanny had time to think, he said to Kurt: “There will be photographers there, and it won’t be a good thing for either of us to be in the newspapers.” Kurt agreed, and spoke to Hitler, who laughed and said: “You can join the photographers instead of the photographed.” That eager little blue-eyed beaver, Hoffmann, was in the room, and Adi said: “Lend each of them a camera, and see that they have passes.”
So Kurt and Lanny strolled across the Place to the group of buildings constructed by the Sun King for his invalid soldiers. It includes the royal church, a golden-domed building to whose crypt the bones of the dead Emperor had been brought, exactly a century ago. On the way they talked about him, and the curious resemblances between his career and that of the man who was about to honor him. Napoleon had been known as “the little corporal,” and Adolf had been almost a corporal and was almost little. Both had been foreigners, from the point of view of the country they had led to glory: Napoleon a Corsican and Adolf an Austrian. The difference between them was that Napoleon had failed, whereas Adolf was going to succeed; so declared Kurt, and Lanny hastened to assent. The dictator of France had written a code of laws, a part of which still survived; the Austrian was going to write a code for Europe which he himself predicted would last for a thousand years.
XI
The walls of the Église Royale, like most of the other public buildings of Paris, were now protected by sandbags. The building was closed to the public for this occasion, but accredited photographers, including some from America, were admitted by one entrance; they were to stand on one side of the circular gallery which runs around the crypt, while the Führer and his staff would stand on the opposite side. The lighting comes from above, and thus from the point of view of photography the situation would be ideal. Lanny and Kurt stood apart, attracting no attention; when the new master of Europe entered with his entourage and the cameras began to click, they took their shots also.
The sarcophagus is of red porphyry, and of great size; its cover is shaped like the top of an Ionic column, a sweeping curve turning at each end into a circle. The great dome of the building is upheld by twelve massive figures, each representing one of Napoleon’s victories; as some of these had been won over Austrians and Germans, Hitler was not interested. He stood looking down at the tomb, a conspicuous figure in the gray linen duster which he always wore when motoring, and which he frequently did not trouble to remove. Perhaps it reminded him of the old raincoat he had worn all through the early days of his campaigning; it had become a sort of trademark, a proletarian symbol, and he had carried a riding whip, perhaps as a forecast of the authority he was going to win.
That was all there was to the ceremony; Hitler just stood and gazed at Napoleon’s tomb. But it was a long ceremony, even so; he did not move, and no one of the score of his staff members moved. The photographers, having duly shot the scene, waited on chance that he might do something else—make a speech to Napoleon, or give him the Nazi salute. But he didn’t speak or move; he just stood and stood and stood. Lanny wondered, was it a pose, a dramatic performance for the French public and for the world? He guessed it was more than that; for Adi had told him that he considered the Emperor one of the greatest of minds; and Adi was a man of fervors and transports. He would enter into spiritual communion with the soul of the great conqueror; he would say:
“Thank you, master, for all that you have taught me. You will see that I have learned your lessons. I will succeed where you failed. I will impose order upon Europe. I will give them a new code, adapted to modern conditions. I will establish a regime which will endure for a full millennium, and perhaps as long as the Continent exists. Be at peace, great soul, for your work was not in vain.”
And the others—what would be their thoughts during this long sojourn in the silences? The photographers would be thinking: “What the heck?” The staff members would be thinking: “Um Gottes Willen, wann essen wir?”—when do we eat! Kurt would be thinking: “He has recognized me as the Musikant of his New Order, and my name and work will go down into history with his.”
And the presidential agent? When he got through thinking about the others, he found himself saying: “Oh, God, when will the world be done with dictators? When will the people arise and take charge of their own destinies? When will they stop following leaders who build their monuments out of millions of human skulls?”
The son of Budd-Erling was perhaps the least happy man in that famous old church at the moment. He had little admiration for Napoleon Bonaparte, and still less for his Austrian imitator. If wishes had been magic, Adi Schicklgruber, gray uniform, linen duster, and all, would have vanished into nothingness and never been seen or heard of again. Indeed, Lanny had sometimes wondered whether he ought n
ot to use his privileged position to take a gun and shoot the one-time Gefreiter. But he realized that it wouldn’t help; the odious Nazi system would have a martyr, and Göring or Hess would carry on—and be no improvement.
France was down, Britain was sinking, and the one chance for freedom and human decency lay in the homeland of Lanny’s forefathers across the seas. He thought: “It is my duty to go back and make F.D. realize the frightfulness of this crisis.” But no, the great President of the United States understood; his speeches showed it, and he would do his best. He would act with every ounce of the strength that was in him. And sooner or later the freedom-loving people of America would understand, also. Theirs it would be to decide what was going to dominate the next thousand years, Hitler’s New Order or American democracy. Through Lanny Budd’s mind, tortured for so long by the roaring of Nazi blood songs and military marches, came the chorus of one of his own country’s so different hymns:
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!
Turn the page to continue reading from the Lanny Budd Novels
1
The Hurt That Honor Feels
I
Lanny kept thinking: This must be the only man in France who can smile. At least it was the only one Lanny had met, and Lanny had done some traveling in this time of agony and grief. The man whose name spelled backward the same as forward, and who all his life had taken this as an omen of good luck—this man was in power again; he was overcoming all his enemies, thousands of them, yes, even millions. He sat at his desk by the window of what had once been a luxurious hotel suite, and beamed upon his visitor, reminding him: “It has happened just about as I told you, M. Budd.” Lanny said it was so, and thought that the death of something like a hundred and twenty-five thousand Frenchmen, and the captivity of ten or twelve times as many, signified less to Pierre Laval than the ability to say: “C’est moi qui avait raison!”
Dragon Harvest Page 90