XII
Lanny listened to their stories and wished he had that sort of mind and could enjoy that firm clear faith. But at any rate he was free to hear them without having any sense of guilt! He could talk to any sort of people he liked, and not feel that he was displeasing his wife! He told about his interview with Hitler; what the Fuhrer had said about the Comintern Congress, and then what Irma had said to the Fuhrer. Lanny had been asking himself over and over: “Did she really mean that, or was it just a burst of rage?” He put the question to Hansi and Bess, and the latter said: “Those Nazis will be swarming to Shore Acres, and she’ll be running the most elegant salon for Jew-baiters!”
Lanny mentioned the queer regime under which he was now living. The Perglers had heard of the Hansi Robins and clamored to meet them; so, toward sundown, the Pensionar drove his relatives back to Salzburg. He packed his bag and paid his debts, and then treated the family to a grand farewell supper, also to a song recital of a unique sort—the American Negro contralto, Marian Anderson, setting a sophisticated European audience on fire with her singing of spirituals. A perfect evening—except that at the parting the lovelorn Gusti fell into a dead swoon, and Lanny had to take her and her mother home in the car. He carried the girl upstairs to the apartment and she fainted again in his arms. It certainly made a dramatic climax to a festival week.
After midnight the three travelers set out on their journey, and spent the night at a roadside inn. Next morning they rolled southward through the Brenner Pass with its steep pine-tree-covered mountainsides, its roaring streams and small green lake. Here is the main gateway into Italy, by which the Teutonic invaders came; later, over a period of six hundred years, the historians are able to count sixty-six emperors who traversed these twenty-five miles upon one errand or another. To Lanny Budd the most real was an empress by the name of Irma Barnes, whom he had driven down these slopes several times—the last time less than two years ago, after their futile attempt to get Freddi Robin released from the Dachau concentration camp. Lanny didn’t mention it to the stern granddaughter of the Puritans, but one half his being was an ache of longing for Irma, and he kept thinking: “Can I let her go?”
BOOK FOUR
Truth Forever on the Scaffold
14
WHEN WE TWO PARTED
I
Bienvenu was vacant except for the servants, who had been well content to own the place for a while and be paid for it. The pale-blue paint was beginning to look dingy on the wood trim of the stucco buildings, and ordinarily Lanny would have set workmen to sprucing things up before the season began. But now Irma was gone, and perhaps they were going to be poor; he ignored the suggestions in his mother’s letters and saved her money. He and his guests took possession of the Villa for sleeping and meals; the rest of the time they spent in Lanny’s studio, waking the Cap d’Antibes with music, and afterward swimming off the rocks in the Golfe Juan.
Hansi and Bess had been doing a lot of traveling, and were glad of this respite, the pleasantest they could have imagined. Nobody to bother them; no company save the greatest and best. “A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life”—so John Milton had written; and here were books, including Milton’s, lining the walls, and in the vacant spaces paintings of Marcel Detaze, and several cabinets with stacks of music for both violin and piano, Lanny’s accumulation from boyhood. These master-spirits did not intrude themselves, but awaited your convenience; when you took them from the shelves they poured out treasures more precious than all the wealth of Ormuz and of Ind, or where the gorgeous East with richest hand show’rs on her kings barbaric pearl and gold.
It was unfortunate that Lanny and his relatives couldn’t have lived with the poets and composers, and left the evil problems of the time to solve themselves. But Bess was full of the propagandist spirit acquired in Moscow, and was hoping to convert her half-brother once for all and dedicate him to righteousness as a member of the Communist party of France. It all seemed so obvious and simple to her; she had a set of formulas as carefully worked out as any proposition of Euclid—and to her mind as compelling. All that one had to do was to understand and accept them, and further thought on the subject became superfluous.
It was a military view of society. The great mass of the world’s workers were in chains, the invisible chains of the competitive wage system; there were only two things to be done: first, make them aware of the chains and, second, guide them in throwing them off. This double job required a discipline known as the dictatorship of the proletariat; then, when both jobs were done, the evil state machine would wither away and the workers would rule themselves in a free society. All this was elementary, and after the demonstration in the Soviet Union there was no longer any possibility of doubting it; the Russians had set the pattern, and workers of other lands had only to follow in their footsteps.
But to Lanny it seemed more complicated. Old Russia had had virtually no middle class, and the governing class had been paralyzed by defeat in war. But other countries had a large middle class, self-conscious and powerful, and when you tried to jam through your proletarian revolution, what you got was Mussolini or Hitler! So then came arguments: Who was to blame for the wrong kind of dictators? How had they come? Lanny thought he ought to know, for he had been there and seen. Grant that Mussolini and Hitler were agents of the capitalist class, subsidized to put down the Communists; that didn’t change the fact that they had succeeded, or the fact that success was based upon their posing as members of the lower middle class, saving it from being ground between the millstones of capital and labor.
Lanny argued: “In the English-speaking countries we have at least partial democracy in political affairs, and why not use it to get more and to extend it into the economic sphere? Wouldn’t that be wiser than risking everything, and perhaps losing it as you have seen the workers do in Italy and Germany?”
But that meant the parliamentary system; it meant going into bourgeois politics—and so came a vehement debate. Look at Ramsay MacDonald, look at boondoggling and the N.R.A. and the other messes of the New Deal! Look at what had happened in Spain in the last four or five years! The people had made a revolution, they had driven out the wretched Alfonso and put in a jurist and man of letters named Azana, who had believed so completely in moving gradually that he had stood entirely still, and the starving workers and peasants had been so discouraged that two years later the so-called Anti-Marxist Coalition had been able to carry the elections.
“You will see the same thing here in France if you elect a parlor aesthete for your Premier!” exclaimed Bess. “A Socialist lawyer who makes elegant speeches, but wouldn’t dream of doing anything to hurt the feelings of your two hundred families!”
“Is that the way you look upon Blum?” asked Lanny, surprised—or pretending to be. “I thought your Comintern Congress had just ordered a front populaire?”
“We’re willing to do our part,” replied the granddaughter of the Puritans. “But that doesn’t obligate us to fool ourselves as to the outcome.”
Said Lanny: “I doubt very much if anybody can give effective co-operation in a cause that he feels is bound to fail. It will be humanly impossible not to show your real attitude, and you’ll be helping to bring about the very failure you expect.”
II
So went the controversy; and after a few days and nights of it they had to agree that they disagreed, and would not talk about current problems any more. The same truce that Lanny had had to make with Irma! The fact was, these issues had become so urgent and feelings ran so high that tolerance was too difficult. All over France the various groups isolated themselves, and didn’t go where they would meet their political rivals. The task of a salonniere such as Emily Chattersworth now exceeded her powers. In the old days she had been able to act as moderator, and when arguments became too hot to turn them off with a witticism; but now the contending intellectuals would almost come to blows, and the
more dignified and less noisy would refuse to return unless they were assured that only their sort was to be present.
It was the same also in the Ecole des Travailleurs du Midi; the Socialist and the Communist students had been arguing for years, and while Lanny was overseas they had come to a break. The Communists were accused of trying to sabotage the institution and were expelled in a body. Raoul had written Lanny a long letter about it, which Lanny hadn’t known how to answer. Now, as the first effect of the front populaire program, the Communists wanted to be taken back and have another chance. But the moderates insisted that the Communists had shown themselves incapable of co-operation; they wouldn’t and couldn’t be sincere about anything except the promotion of their party, and, no matter what promises they made, they would always be “boring from within.”
Raoul Palma of course had to know what Lanny advised. Irma being gone and Beauty not yet come, Lanny could invite him over to Bienvenu to lunch—cautioning him not to bring up the question in the presence of two Red musicians! No, said Raoul, it was his hope that Hansi and Bess would come over and play at an evening affair, which might serve as a kind of ceremony of reconciliation. At least both Reds and Pinks could listen to the same music!
Lanny went for a walk with his friend, enjoying the opportunity to exchange ideas with somebody who didn’t consider him an idler and a weakling. What was this about Spain? he asked, knowing that refugees were coming and going and that Raoul was in touch with most of them. A terrible situation, the school director replied; in a so-called republic the workers and peasants were being ground under the heel of the army and the church forces, and thirty thousand were starving and dying in the foul prisons of that unhappy land. Elections were to take place early in the new year, and already the campaign was under way. All the workers’ groups throughout France were being asked to contribute funds. If Comrade Lanny could make a donation—and Comrade Lanny of course said that he would.
Conditions were disturbing here in the Midi, also. The Fascist groups were becoming more and more active, and were resorting to gangsterism, as in all the countries bordering on Italy and Germany. They were provided with funds not only from French capitalist sources, but also from abroad. Italian agents were working openly, boasting that they meant to bring all the Mediterranean shores under their system. Some fourteen years ago Lanny had heard Mussolini declare: “Fascismo is not for export.” He had accepted the statement then, but now he understood that what Fascismo said and what Fascismo did bore no necessary relationship.
What were the workers going to do in the face of such a situation? Arm themselves? But that gave the enemy a basis for charging that the workers were planning civil war. The reactionaries had nine-tenths of the money, also nine-tenths of the press with which to spread confusion and fear. Said Raoul: “The extreme Left has Russia for a pattern and the Right has Italy and Germany, but where is the pattern for those who believe in the democratic process?”
“We have to make our own pattern,” was the reply. “We have to educate the people and organize them into our new united front. We must oust Laval and his gang, and put in Leon Blum.”
What was Lanny himself going to do? Merely give advice, which is so cheap all over the world? No, there was something expected of those few among the Socialists who had money. The grandson of Budd’s must give until it hurt; he must give not merely the cost of a new coat of paint for the wood trim of the Bienvenu houses, but also what he would have to spend for new clothes in order to please his mother and her fashionable friends. He must get a stenographer, and study his card-file, and write more letters so as to find customers for paintings.
III
There had been two letters awaiting him at Bienvenu. One from Irma, mailed in Bremen, telling him that she was sailing, and wishing him happiness and success. Not a word about her own feelings; she was going to let the wound heal by first intention, as the surgeons say; not reopening or disturbing it. Lanny had lost his wife. He was startled and dismayed every time he realized the fact. And right away he would begin thinking: Could he get her back? And did he want to? He would think: “I have affronted her mortally.” He would ask himself: “Am I sorry? Or would I do it again?”
The answer was sometimes “Yes,” and sometimes “No,” sometimes both. It was confusing, and he could think of overwhelming arguments on both sides. Could he have refused to help Trudi with money? Of course not! Could he have left her to wander about the streets all night and finally jump into one of the canals? No, again! On the other hand, perhaps the error had been in not telling Irma. Frankly and honestly, like a man, not playing the sneak and the cheat. He could hear her saying that, weeping into her pillow on a German steamer. He argued it with her in his mind: “Suppose I had told you, what difference would it have made? You’d have refused to go into Germany; but you’d have felt wronged, you’d have been angry. Sooner or later you’d have realized that you were being made to serve as the tail to the Pink kite, and you’d have told me not to come home. Isn’t that so?”
Irma would have to admit that it was; and so what difference did it make, really? What harm had he done by taking her into Germany? What harm could he have done? The Nazis would certainly not have arrested her. They might have asked her questions, but she would quickly have made plain that she had been imposed upon. Far from doing her harm, Lanny had got her an interview with Hitler—something that would be a feather in her cap for the rest of her life. Especially if she really felt as she had stated in the Berghof; if she was going to let herself serve as the tail to the Nazi kite!
“It’s the indignity of the thing that I object to”—so she would answer in these imaginary debates. He would say: “Tell me this: if I had left you in Shore Acres and gone into Germany, would you have told your mother what I had gone for? And would your mother have told your uncles? And how do you know how far it might have gone? Can you say it couldn’t have got into the gossip columns? Or that it couldn’t have reached some Bund member in New York? ‘The prince consort of a glamour girl is in Germany, giving money to the underground movement, trying to help undermine the Fuhrer of the Nazis!’ How many hours would it have taken to reach Berlin? How many minutes before the Gestapo got on the job?
“No, no, Irma! You have to admit that if your husband is going to be a secret agent, he has to be secret.” “But I don’t want that kind of husband,” Irma replies; “and so good-by and best wishes.” That is going to be her phrase; “I wish you all success.” But will she mean it? Will she say it also to Hitler and to his agents in New York? Certainly she cannot mean both; for if the Fuhrer of the Nazis gets what he wants, the grandson of Budd’s loses everything that he wants; and vice versa! The utility king’s daughter may wish to be polite to both sides in this war, but the time will come when even she will have to choose!
IV
The other letter was from “Kornmahler,” and it, too, was brief and formal. “Just a line to tell you that I am in Paris, and to say once more how grateful I am for your kindness. I will let you know when I have some sketches to show you, and when I have a permanent address.”
To this note also he gave no little thought. Trudi was going to keep her alias, even though she was safe in France; and what did that mean? She was going to do some sort of work which German agents in Paris were not to find out about. To manage that, she would have to keep away from other refugees; at any rate, from all but one or two whom she might trust. Perhaps she would have Lanny as her contact with Germany. Or perhaps she wanted to be free to go back now and then. She might even want him to take her back. Lanny shivered when he thought about it, but he knew he would have to stick by her. Whatever Trudi demanded of him, his uncomfortable conscience would compel him to do.
She gave him no address. That meant she didn’t want him to come until she was ready; until she had some “sketches”—that is, some plan worked out, requiring money or other help. Well, that was what he wanted, wasn’t it? Surely he didn’t expect to go to Paris and drink coffe
e with her, or take her to a show, or driving in the Bois! He wasn’t expecting to get her some presentable clothes and introduce her to his mother’s smart friends! What had bound him to her was precisely the fact that she was different from the other women he knew. She was that stern daughter of the voice of God whom Wordsworth had sung. She and her friends—Lanny thought once more of the line from an old German poem which made him quail: “Wir sind all des Todes Eigen.” We are all death’s own.
There came a cablegram from New York: “Arrived safely after pleasant trip Frances well and happy good luck to you Irma.” So she was doing the polite thing, as they had agreed. It was her duty to let him know about the child; but to say that the child was “happy” when her father was absent might be taken as a hint for the father to remain absent. How easy to have said: “Frances is well but misses you”! If she had said that, what would he have done? Bought a steamer ticket? Or sent a cablegram asking: “Would Frances like me to come and see her?”
They were neither of them accustomed to saving cable-tolls, and this message to her husband was perhaps the shortest that Irma Barnes had ever sent. “Pleasant trip,” she remarked; it wasn’t economy which kept her from saying: “Pleasant but lonely.” Lanny thought: “She’s really going to end matters!” He thought: “I wonder if she’s debating the problem as I am. I wonder what are the thoughts she doesn’t write.” Not wishing to be outdone in politeness, he answered: “Hansi and Bess here making music best love to daughter affectionate regards sorry.” He might have said less and he might have said more. He desired to meet her approximately half-way.
Wide Is the Gate (The Lanny Budd Novels) Page 32