Between Two Worlds

by Upton Sinclair

  IV

  One thing the panic had done: it had knocked the picture business flat. Plenty of people came to the show rooms to look at Detazes and talk about them, but not one bought anything, and few even asked the prices. Zoltan continued to play the perfect host; loving good art as he did, he was able and willing to forget the commercial side; the rooms had been paid for in advance, so those last three days might be taken as a gift to the public, a solace to those in trouble, a reminder of higher and better things than stock prices.

  Lanny realized with a pang that in the turmoil of these days he had completely forgotten the existence, or whatever you might call it, of Marie de Bruyne. Suppose—just suppose—that she had been trying to communicate with him, and that he had failed to give her a chance, what would she think? Did they know about Wall Street in the spirit world? Seeing that the market held steady on Saturday, and knowing that his father was safe, Lanny decided to take another of his stepfather’s appointments with the Polish medium. He went to the apartment and watched her go into the trance, and sat and waited for Tecumseh to tell him what else his amie might have to communicate.

  But it wasn’t Marie who “came through” this time; it was a strange creature who said that her name was “Roberta,” and that she had gone very, very young into the spirit world, but that now she was happy here with “Madeleine.” Lanny couldn’t think of any Madeleine, and said so, but Roberta refused to be disconcerted, she said that she knew Lanny well, and watched him with love, and that her life-span had been short; also that Madeleine wore a white uniform here also, and that her hands were very gentle, and that she no longer felt any of the pain of the accident—a whole lot of stuff like that, and Lanny was bored, because Tecumseh was off the track, but you couldn’t tell him so because Madame Zyszynski had said you must be polite to him, because if he got angry it made her ill.

  So Lanny paid his two dollars, and went home and told his mother about this futile business; but to his great astonishment Beauty began to tremble, and turned pale, and exclaimed: “Oh, my God, Lanny, my God!” When he asked her what it was, she hid her face in her hands and began to weep, and said she couldn’t tell him, she couldn’t bear to think of it. Finally, when he insisted, she blurted out: “Lanny, you might have had a little sister! It was when you were only two years old, and I wanted her so much, and I thought it would be a little girl.”

  “What happened?” he kept asking, and finally she said: “I didn’t dare to have her. I thought that two accidents were too much for one amie, and I was afraid Robbie would stop loving me. I never told him about it, but while he was in the States I went and had an abortion. You know, Lanny, you can’t blame me—women do it.”

  “I know.”

  “I never knew if it would be a little girl—I don’t know if it’s possible to tell, the doctor never said. But I had imagined a little girl, and I was going to call her Roberta, after Robbie. And maybe it was a girl—and, oh, God, do they have souls when they aren’t anything?”

  “I don’t know,” Lanny answered. “Was there a Madeleine?”

  “Madeleine was the nurse who attended me in the hospital. She was so kind, and I used to say that her hands were gentle. I brought her to Bienvenu for a while.”

  “And what became of her?”

  “She was killed in a motor-car accident a year or two later.”

  “Really, that’s extraordinary!” Lanny was quite awe-stricken for a while, and pictured the air around him filled almost solid with spirits. But then again came the idea of that thing called telepathy. Had the medium been dipping into Beauty’s subconscious mind, pulling out memories that she would have been glad to banish? In any case, it was something to think about.

  “Lanny,” said the mother, “it really seems too bad to go off and leave that woman and not find out what else she can tell us.”

  “It does,” he agreed. “I wonder if we could take her with us.”

  “Oh, do you suppose we could afford to?”

  “It oughtn’t to cost so much. She can’t be making a fortune at two dollars a sitting.”

  “Parsifal and I have been talking about it; but I feel so terrified over this panic, and Robbie losing all his money.”

  “Robbie’s a businessman, and he’ll make more. Go have a talk with Madame and find out if she’d like to come. We can put her up at the Pension Flavin, and pay her a little in addition. Offer it to her in francs—a thousand a month will sound like a fortune to her.”

  Lanny went away thinking: “Bienvenu will be a queer place after all!” He wondered which would be worse—sexual irregularity or the presence of disembodied spirits?

  V

  It was most inconvenient for Irma, not having any business manager; and just while she was getting ready for a voyage. She had to make all sorts of decisions, and Lanny had to help; so he learned a lot about the burdens of royalty. Uncle Joseph, that penurious person, had to be forced to sell more stocks on a very depressed market, in order that Irma might be able to sign checks for the many friends who were about to be turned out of their homes. Feathers had to write the checks and keep account of them—for the disagreeable experience of having one “bounce” must surely not recur.

  Feathers would have to assume a lot of new duties; but she was so well terrified by her financial losses that she had dropped every trace of that great lady attitude which “social” secretaries are supposed to wear. She begged Irma not to leave her behind, and Irma agreed to take her on condition that she would become a plain ordinary secretary and do whatever she was told. There wouldn’t be much social life for Irma, on account of her advancing pregnancy. The haughty Miss Featherstone, who was a college graduate and daughter of a decayed “old family,” promised to make herself useful, even if she had to “mind the baby.” That became one of the jokes in the establishment; any time there was something unusual for Feathers to do, it was called “minding the baby.”

  Irma and her mother drove out to Shore Acres on Sunday. Irma wanted to say good-by to her family and friends. Lanny wasn’t needed, so he went by train to Newcastle. Esther was happy, smiling through her tears; her gratitude to Lanny was touching. Robbie said nothing about the market, but Lanny knew what was in his thoughts. If he had waited until Saturday morning he might have got more than he got on Friday! If there was another rise on Monday, he would be wishing he had waited until that day. Uncle Horace had been allowed to wait—why not Robbie? But he would be a good sport and not say it to his son. That book was closed, and Robbie would forget his dream of becoming a really rich man; at least, he would forget it for a while.

  Lanny went to say good-by to his grandfather, who was failing, and who said: “My boy, you will probably not see me again in this world.” Lanny would have liked to tell him about his research into the next one, but he knew that it wasn’t entirely orthodox, and so wouldn’t please the president of Budd Gunmakers. And anyhow, it might be only telepathy! But Lanny thought, what a funny thing; the good Christians were all taught to believe that your soul survived, and yet they ridiculed the suggestion that after a soul had got settled in the beyond, it might have a desire to get in touch with those whom it had left behind. Didn’t they really believe what their church taught them? Or did they think that the souls would forget everything? If a soul did forget, what would be left of it?

  Lanny’s steamer was making one of those midnight sailings; and it happened that Phyllis Gracyn’s new play was to open on that evening. Lanny said to his father: “You remember the last time we sailed—how we went to see Gracyn?” December of 1918, nearly eleven years ago; right after the actress had jilted Lanny, and he was feeling that he had made a mess of his life. Now he was supposed to be sitting on the top of the world, and if it turned out to be the top of a volcano, he was still expected to enjoy it. Irma was intensely curious about Gracyn, and wanted to see how she made love—which of course she would have to do in any play. Did Irma expect to get points from her? Anyhow, they were going to the opening; and Lanny sa
id, wouldn’t Robbie and Esther drive down and join them? They’d have dinner at the hotel, and go to the show, and thence to the steamer, and Robbie and Esther could spend the night in New York and drive home in the morning.

  Esther had always refused to see the actress whom she considered the seductress of her stepson. But now she had decided that she mustn’t be so strait-laced, she must try to get along with the people in her world; show her gratitude to her stepson, and do what she could to divert her husband’s mind from his troubles. She agreed to come, and Lanny, knowing it was an effort, gave her a kiss and called her a good sport.

  VI

  So many interesting and important things in New York, and Lanny had missed them, on account of the Detaze show, and Irma and her smart friends, and the panic, and the spirits! But he didn’t want to leave without seeing the great art collection at the Metropolitan. Zoltan said it was an “old fogy sort of place,” but it had a few new things—and Lanny hadn’t seen the old ones for eleven years. Zoltan couldn’t go because he had the job of getting all the pictures packed—they were going on the same steamer to Marseille. Irma couldn’t go to the museum, because she had ordered some dresses which she had to pay for, and they had to be fitted. Lanny went alone, and spent a happy morning looking at Egyptian mummies, Greek sculpture, and early American painting. He could never get through such a place as this, because he would run into something that held him too long.

  Having promised Irma to be back for lunch, he rode down on a Fifth Avenue bus. He passed one of the great hotels which had a brokers’ office on the ground floor, and there was a crowd of the sort which had become familiar. He thought: “Good Lord, what is happening now?” Lanny was a natural-born optimist, but he had to be a “bear” on this market for the sake of his reputation with all three of his families. On the other hand, if it was another slump, that too was serious, for this was the day when Uncle Joseph was scheduled to be selling out.

  Lanny couldn’t wait to reach his own hotel, but hopped off the bus and joined the crowd. One glance was enough—he knew by the faces that it was another panic! The excited people on the edge of the crowd were saying that this time was worse than Thursday; the bottom had dropped clean out from under the market. Every figure on the Translux showed a drop, and the ticker was again way behind.

  Lanny took a taxi to his hotel, and there were Fanny and her brother; tears streaming down Uncle Horace’s flabby cheeks, and his hands shaking as if he had the palsy. “Irma, for God’s sake, it means everything I have in this world!”

  “I gave you your chance,” the girl was saying. “I begged you to get out. Father Budd did so, and he’s all right; but you had to hold on, you were the one that knew all about it—and how could I fight you?”

  “But, Irma, if I can only hold on through today—”

  “I know—one day, and then one more day. But I’m not going to dump any more stocks at panic prices.”

  “You don’t have to sell them, Irma; it’s enough if you deposit them with the brokers.”

  “I know; and when the market drops again, I deposit more.”

  Lanny wanted to say: “Stand firm, Irma.” But he saw that he didn’t have to; she was remembering the things he had explained to her on the drive to Newcastle. She’d be quite a businesswoman before she got through.

  Uncle Horace’s pleading was in vain. “You had your chance; you had what you asked for.” Such was her majesty’s decision.

  The burly and once so energetic man sank into a chair with his bald head in his hands. “What is going to become of me?”

  “You don’t have to worry, Uncle Horace. You know I’ll always take care of you. I’ll set you up in some other business; but stock-gambling is out, so far as my money is concerned.”

  So that was the end of one “market operator.” Lanny had learned enough about New York to imagine the rest. Horace Vandringham would become an insurance broker, and peddle policies to Irma’s friends; if he failed at that, he would become one of those querulous old folks at Shore Acres. Already there were too many of them, and this panic, or series of panics, would increase the number; Lanny remarked that the place would become another Hampton Court—and when Irma asked what that was, he told her about the aged servants of the British royal family, who lived out their appointed days looking out upon beautiful formal gardens.

  Lanny hadn’t been there, and couldn’t say what they talked about, but he knew how it would be with the pensioners at Shore Acres. Thursday’s panic had filled New York with people who had formerly boasted of how much they had gained and were now almost as proud of their heavy losses. “Cleaned me out!” you would hear one exclaim. “Gutted me like a fish! I lost half a million that first day!” Now there would be a new lot, ready to chime in: “It was Monday that finished me. I played the market for a comeback, and I saw three million blow away in an hour!” As with fish stories, the biggest fortunes got away; and contrary to the laws of perspective, the farther they receded into the distance the bigger they grew.

  VII

  All that day the tormented city was in an uproar. It had been as Lanny had foretold—the “big fellows” had “protected the market” just long enough to get out from under. They had done their unloading on Friday and Saturday, and now, on Monday, there was nobody to buy anything. It was like the collapse of a house of cards. General Electric, the greatest electrical manufacturing concern in the country, lost 47 points that day; Western Union lost 39; Telephone, which Robbie had bought at 287 and a half, closed the day at 232. The exhausted brokers and clerks and messengers and secretaries and bookkeepers, who had been working day and night over the week-end, now faced a sixteen-million-share day, breaking all records, surpassing all nightmares. It was estimated that the value of securities in the United States shrank fourteen billions of dollars in five hours; and it wasn’t the end.

  There was nothing that Irma or Lanny could do about it. A dreadful world to be in, but they hadn’t made it and couldn’t change it. Lanny had no more money to give, and Irma had to choose between giving away all she had or hardening her heart and closing her purse. Her friends didn’t show up very well in this crisis; they wanted all they could get, and it was more than Irma owned. No use blaming them too much; they were people who had never learned to do any useful thing in their lives, and the prospect of being without money broke their nerve. Lanny, whose money had come too easily, was harsh in his thoughts of them; he remembered the conversations he had been forced to listen to, the derision with which his words of caution had been greeted. Also he remembered the unborn baby, and he said: “Let’s take a drive and get away from the telephone.”

  Feathers assumed the duty of answering calls, and Lanny took the car and drove his wife up the valley of the Croton River to the great dam. In the lowlands the autumn foliage was still on the trees, and it was a sight you didn’t see on the Riviera. Lanny tried to interest her in nature, but it wasn’t an easy feat of the mind. What was she going to do about that huge country place? Would she be able to keep it up if her stocks went on tumbling to nothing? Would there continue to be dividends? Lanny wasn’t sure.

  They came to a swanky roadhouse, and went inside and had dinner. In between the numbers of the floor-show there were bulletins about the end of the world. Reports came over the radio; the ticker was hopelessly behind, but the bond ticker gave samples of the closing prices, and some people listened and went out without dining, because what they had in their pockets was all they had in the world.

  Lanny said: “Let’s not go back to the hotel tonight. You’ll just get yourself in for a lot of grief.”

  “Oh, I have so many things to attend to before we sail!”

  “Attend to them by mail after you get to Juan. Most of them will have settled themselves before that.”

  She gave way, and they drove over to the Hudson, and up to one of the towns where there was a good hotel. “They’ll think we’re not married, because we have no baggage, Lanny.” He answered that they wouldn’t se
nd them to jail. He wrote “Mr. and Mrs. L. P. Budd,” and was glad that the name was obscure.

  Irma phoned to her secretary and learned that her mother had taken Uncle Horace to Shore Acres. “I suppose she’s afraid he’ll shoot his head off,” Irma said to her husband. “I fear she’ll never forgive me for having let him down. Do you think I could have saved him, Lanny?”

  “Look at the market,” he answered. “One might as well try to guess about a bolt of lightning.”

  He called Robbie at his home—and this time Robbie was there. “Well, what do you think of it?”

  “You win,” was the father’s answer.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Esther and I are playing bridge with Jane and Tony—” that was Esther’s sister and her husband. “We have lost a couple of dollars and are worried.”

  Lanny didn’t say: “Aren’t you glad you’re out?” He said: “Well, see you Wednesday. I’m going to keep Irma on the road till then.”

  VIII

  The New York papers leave the city soon after midnight and you can have them on your breakfast table if you are anywhere within a couple of hundred miles. So Lanny and Irma sat up in bed and read three or four pages of details about the dreadful events of the day before. Pleasant indeed to be comfortable while you learn about other people’s misery—provided, of course, that you are without heart. Lanny, carrying that handicap, felt all his Red impulses reviving; he put on the old phonograph record, and heard his Uncle Jesse declaring that it was the downfall of the capitalist world. Very monotonous, the scratching of that old record; one had to remind oneself that a statement didn’t cease to be true when it became trite.

  The papers agreed that this was a “rich man’s panic.” The big investors, the speculators, had been hit, and many of them knocked flat. Lanny could believe it; but he knew also that millions of little people had been in that market, and had been the first to be swept away. Anyhow, when the big fellows were suffering, it didn’t take them long to pass it on to others. Lanny knew that when the rich stopped buying luxuries the salesclerks would lose their jobs, and before long the workers who made the goods would be turned off also. If Irma’s income dropped, wouldn’t the pensioners at Shore Acres suffer? Wouldn’t some of the servants have to be turned out? It was clear to his mind that a great business recession must be on the way, and he decided to warn his father about it. This time Robbie would listen!