There could be no doubt that he found pleasure in her company. She was a good listener, and appreciative of his intellectual gifts. She was interested in the same things as himself, and so far she had never failed to recognize his authority. But at the same time he was a little bit afraid of her mind as it had been revealed in her writings. Could it possibly be that in her secret soul she was looking at him with the same satirical questioning she had applied to the guests of the Pension Baumgartner in Berlin? And if she were ever to turn that loose on him, how would he like it?
In that Hauptstadt of Naziland he had saved her from what might have been an unpleasant experience, and during this process of saving she had been frightened and humble; he, knowing the situation in the country, had been the master and she had bowed to his authority. But could he expect that to continue indefinitely—a relationship so contrary to her nature, and to the matriarchal nature of American society? If he were to marry her—just supposing—she would come to know his weaknesses as well as his virtues, and some day, sooner or later, he would pick up a copy of the Bluebook and find in it a husband-and-wife story which he would recognize!
Lanny recalled Nietzsche’s saying that when you are considering marriage, the question is whether or not you will be interested in the woman’s conversation every morning at breakfast for the rest of your life. Lanny decided that he knew the answer; he would take two newspapers every morning and he would read one and Laurel the other; then, perhaps, they would exchange. It made an agreeable domestic scene, and the imagining of it warmed his heart like the cup of hot coffee he would be drinking. But then he thought: Suppose they should come to differ in their ideas about world affairs, as Hansi and Bess had done? Suppose, for example, that she wanted to read the Daily Worker while he was reading the New Leader? Suppose she couldn’t even bear to see the label of his paper held up before her eyes!
The answer to all that appeared to be Lizbeth Holdenhurst. The thought of this lovely girl came like balm to his wounded spirit; she was a soft cushion upon which his thoughts could always rest. Lizbeth would never trouble him with any criticism; she would never concern herself about what he was reading, she wouldn’t know where the New Leader was leading or what the Daily Worker was working at, daily including Sundays. Lizbeth would never weary of his conversation and never cease to think of him as the most wonderful man in the world.
When Lanny had these thoughts, he told himself that it was his lower nature which was tempted by this daughter of ease and luxury, this princess of parasites. He wanted his vanity flattered, his sensuality made comfortable. But no, that was only part of it; Lizbeth was kind, and as good as she knew how to be; and surely youth and beauty are not entirely superfluous in the scheme of things. Lizbeth represented the philoprogenitive instinct operating within him, so he told his learned self; she would make a perfect mother, and her children would be as lovely as herself. But didn’t nature want brains as well as body? Or was it that nature didn’t know anything about brains, and it was up to man to choose this higher gift, even though it was less comfortable, less safe—and less agreeable at the breakfast table?
Robbie Budd, discussing the daughter of the Holdenhursts, had said in his frank and hearty way: “If you ask me, I’d grab Lizbeth, and do all my analyzing of the situation afterwards.” That was what Robbie had done in the case of Mabel Blackless, alias Beauty; and the result of his prompt efficient action had been Lanny Budd. Could it be that somewhere in the realm of the about-to-be there was a Lanny junior, clamoring to come into the world? If he came through Lizbeth he would be handsome and hearty, while if he came through Laurel he might be small but mentally active. Which would Lanny choose? These biological controversies kept bringing back to his mind the words of the old English song: “How happy could I be with either were t’other dear charmer away!”
VIII
“Back to business!” commanded the stern voice of duty. The P.A. would have liked nothing better than to take Laurel Creston for another drive and show her, say, the beautiful Berkshire country, where the hills had acquired their autumnal tints; or the valley of the Hudson, along the Palisades and up to where the Squire of Krum Elbow maintained the so-called “summer White House.” But no, he had to call up a man whose very guts he hated, Forrest Quadratt, who called himself the most patriotic of Americans and was Hitler’s most highly paid propagandist in the New World. All that Lanny had to do was to ring, and he would be invited to an elegant apartment on Riverside Drive, to meet some Junker Nazi or some wealthy American who was a sucker for the job of saving the world from Bolshevism.
There had been a letter waiting for Lanny at Newcastle saying: “I want very much to see you; have something special in mind.” So when he telephoned, the ex-poet exclaimed: “Oh, I’m so glad! Could you come up to dinner? I’ll break another engagement.”
The fashionable Lanny Budd, who was staying at the Ritzy-Waldorf, treated himself to the luxury of a walk. Really there wasn’t much use in having a car in New York City, especially in the crowded hours toward evening; you got caught in the traffic of Fifth Avenue and crept along more slowly than a brisk pedestrian. The well-to-do had forgotten how to use their legs, but Lanny had walked on the shore paths of the Mediterranean, and along the lanes of England, and in the Tiergarten, and here in a park which had been miraculously preserved in the middle of Manhattan Island. It was badly needed by seven million inhabitants who were in danger of slow suffocation.
On this rocky soil had once been forests, and Indians hunting deer and wild turkeys with bows and arrows. Up this great river the tiny ship of Henry Hudson had sailed, seeking a passage to the Far East and certain that this must be it. The white men had bought the island from the Indians for twenty-four dollars’ worth of goods, and had cut down the forests and blasted the rocks and covered the twelve-mile island with hundreds of long narrow canyons having walls of brownstone and granite and floors of asphalt and concrete. The inhabitants had become a new breed of troglodytes, cave-dwellers, or one might better say box-dwellers; their children hardly knew what norses and cows looked like, and assuredly had never seen a deer or a wild turkey unless it was in the Bronx Park Zoo. Literally thousands of boxes were piled together, all numbered so that you could find the one you wanted, and the canyons also numbered for the same reason. Both boxes and canyons were bright by night as well as by day, and it was a fascinating thing to walk and observe the variety of human types that had sought refuge on this small island: more Jews than in Jerusalem, more Italians than in Rome, more Greeks than in Athens, more Negroes than in many an African nation.
So Lanny strolled up Fifth Avenue with its shops exhibiting diamond tiaras and double ropes of pearls, tiny bottles of perfume for which you might pay as much as a hundred dollars, coats of sable and blue fox and chinchilla that might stand you in many thousands; every form of seduction with which a woman might tempt a man, and elegant limousines in which they might be sped away to a rendezvous. The luxury trades had gradually worked their way up Fifth Avenue, crowding the millionaires from the palaces, and even the gods from their temples. The traffic poured out gray fumes, unpleasant to the lungs, so Lanny was glad when he got into the wide spaces of Central Park, and from there to the splendid view of Riverside Drive and the sunset over the Hudson.
IX
Lanny Budd was ill-equipped for a secret agent in one respect: he found so much difficulty in believing evil of human beings. He had seen a lot of it, but that hadn’t changed his nature. He would go off and think about the person he had talked with, trying to find excuses for him, to figure out what particular set of circumstances, what unhappy experiences, had made him the deformity he was. So now, confronting this German-American casuist with the pale, pasty face, the thick-lensed eyeglasses, the soft rapid voice, and the gentle, even deprecating manner—what had caused him to tie himself to the tail of the wild Nazi kite? Desire for money? But he was an able writer, and would never have had difficulty in earning his share. Vexation because he had tho
ught himself a great poet and the critics had not given him the attention he demanded? Ambition, a craving for power? Had he made up his mind that Adolf Hitler was really going to conquer the world, and that Forrest Quadratt might become the Dr. Goebbels of the western hemisphere, or the Gauleiter of New York, or both?
This much Lanny had made sure of: this not too robust and by no means attractive-looking little man had really taken up the notion of the Herrenrasse, and was certain that he belonged to a superior grade of being. He was said to be an illegitimate grandson of one of the Kaisers, and perhaps that was the source of his craving to exercise authority. He was American-born, and tireless in calling himself an American and a believer in democracy, but that was pure camouflage, his stock in trade; all his ideas and tastes were those of an aristocrat, as were his habits, so far as circumstances permitted.
The dominating motive of his life, it seemed to Lanny, was hatred of the British Empire. The English aristocrats considered themselves the ruling race, and everywhere snubbed and insulted the Germans. The English had got there first and grabbed the best parts of the earth, and thought they had them forever, and by divine right. Everywhere they blocked off the Germans and surrounded them—die Einkreisung—and by superior cunning had been able to bamboozle the United States into fighting their wars. The ex-poet’s lifeless complexion became flushed when he spoke of how his native land had intervened to snatch the prize of victory from Germany’s grasp in World War I, and now he was laboring with fury to make certain that this should not happen a second time.
To that end he had written a shelfful of books under various pseudonyms. To that end he had composed speeches for congressmen and senators, had had them delivered, printed in the Congressional Record, and then mailed out under congressional frank all over the land. To that end he had collected money from wealthy Germans and Irish, from pacifists, mothers, and every sort of person who wanted to keep America out of war. He had helped in causing the White House to be picketed, Congress to be besieged, and mass meetings and parades to be organized all over the land. He was in deadly earnest about all this, but he had a cynical humor, too, and to the son of Budd-Erling, an insider, he laughed over the foibles of the people he had fooled.
Next to Britain, his special hatred was for Franklin D. Roosevelt. Lanny thought as he listened: Roosevelt is too clever for him! Roosevelt has tricks in his bag, too! In the ex-poet’s view the President was carrying the country straight into war, and doing it by a series of deceptions. To beat him at the impending election was second in a German’s mind only to having the Luftwaffe win the war of the skies over London. He asked Lanny’s opinion as to the chances in both these conflicts, and listened with eager attention to what his visitor had seen and learned in France. An extraordinary thing that a man should have strolled out and fallen in with the German Army and had several chats with its Führer; still more than he should tell about it in offhand, casual fashion, as if it were a most ordinary thing that anybody could have done if he had been interested enough in world affairs!
X
There came to this party another guest, a shaven-headed, middle-aged gentleman introduced as Baldur Heinsch, and said to be an official of one of the German steamship lines. He was, according to Quadratt, worthy of all trust; and he must have been told the same thing about the son of Budd-Erling. He talked freely, and, after they had drunk some wine and brandy, he assured Lanny that he held him in high esteem, and that he might speak to him as a trusted friend. First, he wanted to know if Lanny knew the publisher Hearst and when Lanny said No, he countered: “The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that you are the man who might best be able to influence him.”
“What do you want him to do?” inquired the false friend.
“First of all, to realize more than he does at present the desperate nature of this crisis, and to make more determined efforts to stave it off.”
“I have been reading his papers, and it seems to me he is doing about everything a publisher could do to help us.”
“But not as a man, Herr Budd. He has such great resources, and immense personal influence. If he wanted to, he could make all the other publishers print our side of the case—I mean, he could make news of it. But he sits off in that castle he has built in California and contents himself with sending telegrams instructing his editors about the make-up of tomorrow’s front page.”
“He’s quite an old man, isn’t he?”
“Seventy-seven; but he comes of a tough breed. Those western pioneers had to be; the weaklings were eliminated. May I speak to you in the strictest confidence, Herr Budd?”
“Always, of course.”
“Do you think we have a chance to beat Roosevelt?”
“I don’t know, Herr Heinsch. My job is overseas. When I come back here I can only ask other people’s opinions.”
“What does your father think?”
“My father and I are not on very good terms at present. He is making warplanes, and not thinking about anything else. Naturally, I find that repugnant, and I cut my visits short. Newcastle belongs to the merchants of death, and politics is out for the duration.”
“There you have it! The thing is spreading like a forest fire—a fire of greed. Roosevelt has persuaded Congress to vote twelve billion dollars for war preparations, and every dollar is a bribe to some businessman to reduce his opposition to our involvement. If we get into it, it will cost us a hundred billion, two hundred, five hundred—nobody can make a guess. The last war won’t be a circumstance in comparison.”
“I agree with you about all that. It is a most dreadful thing.”
“That’s why my thoughts turn to Hearst. He is the most powerful single personality we have on our side. He has more money than all the people I know put together.”
“I thought he was in serious financial straits.”
“That doesn’t mean anything to a man like him. Maybe he has lost ten million, twenty million; but he has hundreds of millions; he owns more New York real estate than any other one person; his income would finance a dozen crusades to save America.”
“I read that he had had to sacrifice some of his papers, and that he had lost control of the whole set-up.”
“The financial control, but not the editorial. A syndicate handles the business end, but he still gets his share, don’t fool yourself.”
“What, precisely, do you have in mind for him to do?”
“First of all, to realize the emergency we face. If Roosevelt is re-elected, it means we enter the war, as certain as anything on this earth—unless we do something revolutionary.”
“Speak frankly, Herr Heinsch. You can count on me.”
“We Americans have got ourselves hypnotized by the idea of elections. We think that votes settle everything, votes come from God. But Hitler and Mussolini have shown us that governments are not immutable, and that the rabble doesn’t have to have its way.”
Long practice had taught a P.A. never to show any surprise; and besides, he didn’t feel so very much. “You’d be cheered if you knew how many people are talking about that idea, in the locker rooms of all the country clubs.”
“You have heard it, then?”
“No end of it; I had in mind to ask you about it. Their favorite formula is: ‘Somebody ought to shoot him!’”
“I don’t mean anything so extreme. Assassination would have a bad effect and might lead to reaction. All that is necessary is for a group of determined men to lead him away and keep him in some quiet spot until the trouble is over. Somebody should state: ‘You are still President, Mr. Roosevelt, but you’re not working at it for a time. The country is going to be run by men who are sane, and don’t intend to have their sons shot for the benefit of the British Empire and Bolshevik Russia.’ The men in this plan are all Americans, Herr Budd.”
“That is really interesting news, sir; and if anything of the sort is to be done, you can count upon my co-operation. You won’t want to name your friends, and please note that I’m
not asking. I understand how confidential such a matter has to be.”
“That is fine of you, Herr Budd, and the attitude I expected you to take. The question is: Would you be willing to go and see Hearst and try to persuade him to give us real help before it is too late? Assure him that wealthy Americans alone are involved.”
“But how can I sound a man out on matters like that, Herr Heinsch. He wouldn’t dream of speaking openly with a stranger.”
“You wouldn’t go as a stranger; I would furnish you with introductions from several highly influential men who would vouch for you. You would have to take a little time, of course, and get acquainted with the old gentleman. You have special equipment for handling him, because you are an art authority and he is the world’s greatest art collector; also, you are Hitler’s friend, and Hearst has met the Führer, and I know how tremendously he has been impressed. There won’t be anything novel in the ideas you present to him, I am certain.”
XI
Lanny said that he couldn’t give an offhand decision on a matter of such importance. He promised to think it over, and this promise he kept. What determined his thinking was the unceasing air war over the British Isles. There was a limit to the amount of radio listening and newspaper reading that anyone could stand. One day it was seventy-five enemy planes shot down and the next day it was only fifty; in either case it meant little, because you couldn’t be sure if the figures were correct, and you didn’t know how many planes either side had, or what was their replacement capacity. You read the news that this or that district of London had been hit, this or that landmark destroyed; but there was nothing you could do about it, and the agonies of your imagination wouldn’t help a single one of the unfortunates “sticking it” in damp and chilly cellars and tunnels underground.
The members of Lanny’s family begged him not to go back under those bombs. What could he accomplish there? When he asked himself the question, he couldn’t find an answer. Adi Schicklgruber had revealed all there was to reveal; he would invade Britain when his preparations were complete. The British people knew that, and were getting ready for him to the best of their ability; meantime, all the world had to wait. The air war was part of Adi’s preparation, and so long as it continued, you could be sure that Der Tag was not tomorrow. Until this was decided, there would be nothing important for a P.A. to do overseas.
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