Between Two Worlds

by Upton Sinclair

  Kurt couldn’t deny any of that. He remembered their talks in Hellerau, and on the height in front of the church of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Port. Yes, he had said it, and he believed it still, at least with half his mind, the better half; but the other half hated the Polish usurpers and invaders, the preachers of militant nationalism—of the wrong nation. That half of Kurt was a trained artillery officer and wanted to go and serve a battery of field-guns to protect his homeland.

  Lanny poured out his soul to his friend. “Perhaps you think I am just a playboy, and that it comes natural to me to be happy and to live in music. But let me tell you that I too am having moral struggles, I too wonder if I have a right to be happy while so many children are starving and half of Europe is in chaos. I don’t know just what I could do about it, but I have crazy impulses to drop everything and try. I think maybe I’ll do like Barbara Pugliese—go and live in the slums, and meet the poor, and help them to climb out of the pit. I know how dreadfully unhappy I’d make Robbie, but, after all, Robbie belongs to an earlier generation and he won’t have to live in the world he’s making. Then I think about you, Kurt; I say that you are wise and self-contained—at least that’s the way you’ve appeared to me. Now I ask, if you can’t survive as an artist, who in all Europe can?”

  So they argued; and the disciple of Bach was convinced against his will. They renewed their pledges, and went back to their music—while Korfanty went on organizing the nationalist youth of Poland!

  X

  Happiness inside the safe retreat of Bienvenu, happiness for all the creatures which made it their home. The birds built nests in the vines and the high bushes, and raised and fed their young, and if these fell out they were replaced by friendly humans. The dogs barked at the birds, but it was merely an expression of the joy of living. Baby Marceline ran a little faster every day, chattered a little more freely, picked up some new ideas. Beauty, the loving mother, kept watch over all her pets and babies of various sorts and sizes; studied them, and within the limits of her understanding did what she could to fill their needs.

  Lanny had brought from Paris the good tidings that the German ambassador had at last been formally received by the French government, so Germany was again a friendly nation and its citizens were free to come into France. They would sell the products of their country, or study at the Sorbonne or the Conservatoire, or sun their large fat backs on the beach at Juan—and while people might look askance at them, no one would call for the police. This meant that Kurt might emerge from his hiding-place and have himself fitted with a suit of clothes; also visit the music-store and make his own selection of compositions. Next winter it might be possible for Mrs. Emily to have him give a recital at Sept Chênes; something which Beauty looked forward to as a child toward Christmas.

  The happy solution of Marie’s marital problem made it possible for her to come and stay at Bienvenu. She took one of the guestrooms, and combined forces with the mistress of the villa. It is hard enough for a mature woman to hold a young man, and if there are two such women, it is certainly the part of wisdom to make a co-operative enterprise of it. So Marie shared all the secrets that her man’s mother knew about him, and Beauty had the advantage of the opinions that her man’s best friend’s sweetheart had formed about her man. This sounds complicated—but then Herbert Spencer taught that progress is a development from the simple to the complex.

  So Lanny Budd enjoyed the most expert attention and service that the heart of youth could have desired. Marie de Bruyne laughed and sang with him, she danced and played with him, she climbed the hills and swam in the sea with him, she went sailing and fishing with him, she played his music and read his books, she adored him and praised everything he did, and at the same time spurred him to new efforts; she gave him sound ideas—in short, she was sweetheart, wife, mother, guide, and friend, and nowhere on the horizon of their life was there the tiniest trace of a cloud. Could you blame him for thinking that French arrangements for marriage and afterward are not so bad as they are represented in those Anglo-Saxon countries where premarital chastity and postmarital fidelity so generally prevail?

  XI

  Marie and Lanny in the goodness of their hearts had a guilty feeling as to Mme. Scelles, who had helped them so loyally and who now saw less of them. They decided to devote a day to her entertainment; so they loaded up the car and packed the old lady into the seat between them, and drove up one of the valleys where the cork trees grow, and had a delightful time. In the afternoon they called on friends of hers in a place called Cimiez, and played tennis and had tea; then, since the old lady was still game, they drove to “Monty” and had a sumptuous dinner at Ciro’s, and gave their guest a twenty-franc note to lose in the Casino and feel devilish.

  So it was after midnight when Lanny got home; and there he encountered a distressing scene—his mother, pacing the floor of her boudoir, her eyes red with long weeping, her face set in grim and bitter anger. “It’s all over,” she said. “Kurt is gone.”

  “Gone? Where?”

  “To fight the Poles.”

  “Oh, my God! What happened?”

  “There’s a letter—he left it for you to read. From his father.”

  She indicated the escritoire and Lanny looked, but did not take the letter at once. “What is it about?”

  “One of Kurt’s friends has been killed in some of their rows. There’s a long account of how Korfanty is overthrowing the plebiscite. He has declared himself dictator.”

  “And the Allies are allowing it?”

  “So Kurt’s father says; and the Germans are defending themselves. Kurt is wild about it, and I couldn’t do anything with him. We spent hours wrangling.”

  “Couldn’t you get him to wait until I came home?”

  “I didn’t try. If he doesn’t care enough for me to stay on my account, I might as well know it now as later.”

  “Poor dear!” exclaimed Lanny. His mother’s face was gray with anguish, and he saw that she had been through a siege. He put his arm around her and led her to the bed and sat beside her. “Don’t take it too desperately. This Silesian question is bound to be settled before long, and he will come back.”

  “Never! I told him if he went it would be the end. It’s the very same thing that I went through with Marcel, and I will not live such a life.”

  “Many women have to, Beauty.”

  “I am one who won’t. If the men can find nothing to do but kill one another, I am through with them for the rest of my days.”

  “Let me stay, anyhow,” said Lanny. “I don’t want to kill anybody.”

  He judged it best not to argue with her. There was nothing very good he could say about the men, except that they loved their native land and their families, but didn’t have enough collective intelligence to handle the new industrial forces they had created. Perhaps later on they might; but Beauty had chosen a bad time to be born on earth, and there was no way to save her from the consequences of that mistake. He said what he could to comfort her; they were as they had been before Kurt had come into their home—except that Beauty now had Baby Marceline, very good company and improving all the time. They would get along somehow.

  XII

  He got her into bed and gave her something to make her sleep. He himself had had practice in not worrying about what he couldn’t help, so he didn’t need drugs. In the morning he was awakened by the maid tapping on his door—M. Kurt on the telephone, she reported. Lanny threw on his dressing-grown and answered.

  “Allo,” said the voice of his friend. “I am at the railroad station in Nice. I want to tell you that I have changed my mind, and will come back.”

  “Oh, thank God, Kurt!”

  “Do you want me?”

  “What a question! Of course!”

  “Does Beauty want me?”

  “I gave her a sleeping-powder, so she doesn’t want anything right now. But when she wakes up she will kill the fatted calf for you. Where have you been?”

  “I spent hours wa
lking up and down on the station platform at Cannes, waiting for the morning train. Here at Nice I saw a newspaper and read that the British government has sent six battalions to Silesia to enforce order. So I guess the torment of my people will end.”

  “I hope so, Kurt. But you ought to make up your mind to something and stick by it. You haven’t the right to keep Beauty on tenterhooks all the time.” Lanny, the young moralist, exhibiting firmness!

  “You are right,” said the other. “I have had it out with myself, and I will give you my word.”

  “Hurrah!” cried Lanny. “The death warrant of the fatted calf.”

  When Beauty awakened, she said that she herself was the calf, and she was dead, and had no interest in the news he gave her. He set to work to tempt her back to life—the first step being to ring for a pot of coffee. “You have won, old dear. He has tied himself down.”

  “I don’t care, Lanny. I can’t stand any more. I never want to see another man.”

  “There are a lot of us around, and you can’t wear blinders; so cheer up and don’t be a goose. It’s no crime for Kurt to love his Fatherland, and if he finds it hard to choose between two duties, remember what a time you had making up your mind whether you were going to stick by Marcel or run off to be the plateglass queen of Pittsburgh!”

  He began to cajole her, and reawaken her interest in making a career for a musical artist. After his recent encounter with Isadora, he was in position to explain these unstable creatures. Kurt had had a tremendous brain-storm, and as soon as he had got settled down he would proceed to see it sub specie artis, and make it the basis of a sublime tone poem or at least a piano sonata. A stormy first movement, allegro molto, in which the world breaks in upon the artist soul and a powerful war theme conflicts with and tramples down the lovely-woman theme! Second movement, andante, the woman mourns the departed man! Third movement, scherzo, the soul of the artist triumphs over the world! Finale, alla marcia, the themes of the first movement blend in a triumphant choral hymn, the victory of love over all the other forces of the world! “Can’t you hear it, Beauty?”

  He offered to go and play it for her, and so got her to laughing. Then he led her to her dressing-table and let her see what a perfect fright she looked. To start to improve herself was automatic; and he persuaded her that when Kurt appeared she would be her loveliest, she would kiss him and make him happy, and not say a word about the quarrel.

  “I’ll attend to the rest,” said the determined youth, and he did; for when Kurt heard that outline of a piano sonata he said: “But, Lanny, that’s very interesting! Would you mind if I took it up some day?”

  “I’d brag about it for the rest of my life,” said the faithful friend. “But I thought you didn’t like program music.”

  “I wouldn’t go into details,” said the disciple of Bach, “but a hint doesn’t hurt.”

  “So knocks fate upon the door!” said Lanny, smiling.

  * Details of these episodes have been taken from Isadora Duncan’s My Life, and a few of her words have been quoted by permission of the publishers, Liveright Publishing Corporation.

  10

  From Precedent to Precedent

  I

  In the middle of June the boys were to come home from school, and Denis de Bruyne very politely invited Lanny to spend the summer; the home didn’t seem the same without Marie in it, he said, and Lanny was able to believe him. While the pair of lovers were discussing their plans there came a letter from Rick, saying that he had a commission from his editor to visit Geneva and report on the unfolding activities of the new League of Nations, upon which many liberals were now centering their hopes. “Big things may be happening soon,” wrote the baronet’s son. “I must get at the men who count. You know many of them, and I’m relying on you.”

  Lanny recalled that members of the American staff in Paris had transferred their services to the League. Also there was Dr. Herron, whose home was in Geneva and with whom Lanny had exchanged a couple of letters. It would be interesting to talk to him after two years. “Marie,” he said, on the spur of the moment, “how would you like a trip to Switzerland?”

  The idea took her breath away. She had missed the San Remo conference because she didn’t dare risk a scandal; but now, being duly established as Lanny’s amie, she could travel with him and be received with honors. “We could drive there in a couple of days,” he said, “and spend a week or so, and get to your home in time to meet the boys. You’d enjoy knowing Rick, I’m sure.”

  “Oh, Lanny, I’d love it!”

  “All right, chuck your things into your bags!”

  That was how it was with the delightful leisure classes; a whim seized you, and you “chucked,” and away you went. No need to bother about money, you bought a bunch of traveler’s checks and cashed them one by one. No need to think about the car, for that was kept in order all the time. Just “hop in” and “step on the gas.” These lively American phrases were coming into use all over Europe, largely because the movies had made that country so popular. You practiced le sport and le flirt, you offered le handshake, you drank le coqtail, you danced le jazz, and you aimed to be and were très snob.

  Now Lanny “shot a wire” to Rick, and told Beauty and Kurt of their plans, and drove to Mme. Scelles’s and told her; then, their last duty done, they drove once more up the wide valley of the Rhone. But this time they didn’t turn off toward the west; they followed the upper reaches of the stream, winding through hills and climbing steadily into country where tall pine trees grew and the air was fresh and chilly in June. The stream became narrower and its course more rapid, until they were among high mountains with snow-capped peaks in the distance. In front of them was a great dam over which the river flowed in torrents of green foam; and when their car had got above the level of this dam, there was a long blue lake, on the far side of it the mighty peak of Mont Blanc, and along both shores the tall houses of a shining white city of watch-makers and money-changers and tourists.

  The broad avenue along the lake front was lined with hotels having green shutters, terraced lawns shaded by horse-chestnuts, and dining-rooms with glass walls and roofs. In summertime the cafes moved out to the sidewalks and the kursaal was crowded with guests; the lake was gay with swans and ducks and gulls, two-decked steamers painted white and gold, and tiny sailboats with red lateen sails sliding over sun-sparkled water. But do not trust any Alpine lake, for a sudden storm called the bise swoops down from the mountains and throws things into confusion—all music lovers know it from the William Tell overture!

  It was an aged city, and somewhat faded; a Protestant city, still protesting the same things as four centuries ago. It had many memorials to John Calvin, and Lanny might stand and gaze at them and learn where the religion of his stern old grandfather had come from. There were a great many churches, and in most of them Lanny might have listened to a pastor resembling the Rev. Mr. Saddleback of the First Congregational Church of Newcastle, Connecticut—but Lanny didn’t. He learned about the town from American newspapermen who were assigned here and who called it a narrow and musty place, ruled by businessmen and bankers who professed pious orthodoxy but permitted a normal amount of old-world corruption for the benefit of the tourists. Geneva looked askance at the League, considering that it brought undesirable characters to town—including American journalists who put unorthodox ideas on the wires and padded their expense accounts for the benefit of the boites de nuit.

  II

  Eric Vivian Pomeroy-Nielson was already on the job, and welcomed them with dignity. Marie had heard so much about him, and here he was, a tall fellow with thin features and a keen expression, and wavy dark hair which resented efforts to control it. Marie’s heart warmed to him at once, for she sensed a proud spirit struggling with physical handicaps; she wanted to help him, but Lanny had told her to do nothing, just talk about the job, in which the budding journalist was all wrapped up. He had met a couple of colleagues who had been at Spa, so he was already in touch with affairs
. He was impressed by what he had found here; the League appeared to be really coming to life, and far too little attention had been given to it by the press.

  Rick had put up at a modest-priced hotel, and Lanny and Marie decided to go where he was. The hotel gave them connecting rooms and asked no questions—in spite of the statues of very stern Calvinists all over the city. The first thing Lanny did was to make inquiries concerning a young member of the Crillon staff who had become a minor functionary of the League; Lanny’s friends had been bitter against this chap Armstrong, being of the opinion that he had sold out his convictions for a soft berth; but he had taken the imputation mildly, saying there was work to be done and it interested him.

  Sidney Armstrong had pale sandy hair and a round amiable face with horn-rimmed spectacles; he looked like a good “Y” secretary, and was doing much that sort of work, having to do with international problems of child welfare. He came to dinner, and was glad to tell about what was going on, and to meet an English journalist who had written an article dealing with the results of San Remo and Spa. There was a quiet tug-of-war going on between the officials of this infant League of Nations and those more important persons who attended the conferences of the Allied premiers and of the Supreme Economic Council. The League people thought they ought to replace these two bodies, and meant to do so in the end.

  A number of different problems had been assigned to the League by the treaty of Versailles: the Saar district, Danzig, and all the “mandates”—a new name for a method of ruling the primitive races of the earth which it was hoped wouldn’t be so bad as the old colonial method of missionaries with Bibles and traders with rum and syphilis. Other problems had been assigned by the Supreme Allied Council—those in which the Allies had no overwhelming interest, and which were found to be difficult and dangerous. There were Lithuania and Armenia to be protected; there were famines to be relieved, refugees to be fed, and all the prisoners in Russia, Turkey, and other countries to be repatriated; there were questions of health and transit, intellectual intercourse and child welfare, and traffic in drugs and in women.