Paris was the world’s center of fashion and luxury, and this included every form of vice that had been devised by mankind. No use to say that this was all for the tourists, for that didn’t change the fact that it was Parisians, both men and women, who performed the services, and they were molded by the work they did. In the same block with the cafe where Lanny sat you could find a place where women dressed themselves as men and danced with women, and another place where men curled their hair, powdered and painted themselves, put on frills and flounces, and danced with other men. Upstairs were rooms where unnatural vices were practiced, and if you had a curiosity to witness them, the price would be within any means; benevolent laissez faire favored the customer in the field of depravity as in all others. For a few francs you could get a ticket to the Quatz-Arts ball, conducted by the art students, and there you could see naked orgies conducted on an open dance floor; you strolled about the great hall and observed raised platforms against the walls, with men and women giving demonstrations of every sort of abnormal procedure.
Such things had always been a part of the meaning of the word Paris, but they were far more open and more widespread since the war, so Jesse declared. This to him was a part of the breakdown of capitalism. As far back as one could peer into the mists of the past were civilizations arising, always based upon some form of slavery, the exploitation of man by his fellows; and always these great empires had been undermined by luxury at the top and misery at the bottom. To Lanny’s Red uncle the spectacle of decadence was gratifying, because it proved his thesis that a parasitic society could not survive. Upon the walls of every splendid building of Paris he saw the handwriting of the ancient legend: Thou art weighed in the balance, and art found wanting!
VIII
Lanny had girls on his mind, and was thinking: “How would it be if I should find a Red one?” He looked at Françoise, the older of the sisters; she was somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five, one couldn’t be sure because she sacrificed her appearance for the cause. It had become the fashion for women to have their hair “shingled,” but Françoise had done it for years, because it saved time and trouble. She wore cotton stockings, low-heeled shoes, and a brown dress with no aesthetic properties. She worked all day as a stenographer in the party office; she came home and prepared supper and cleaned up the rooms, and often they went out to a meeting, where she would sell “literature.” Her talk was of party problems and personalities; Lanny knew that if he chose one like that he would have to follow the party line, and he couldn’t depend upon himself.
Suzette was different; she was only twenty or so, her sister’s mignonne. She had a thin, eager little face, decorated with purple rouge; the fashion of knee-length skirts suited her, both because it was economical and because she had shapely legs. She was a midinette, earning nine francs a day, which was little more than the price of the dinner to which the princely American was treating her. He asked questions about her life and that of her fellow-workers, collecting data which’ he could use the next time he got into an argument with his mother. He realized that Red doctrines wouldn’t mean so much to this petite; she wanted a man, and her state of mind was such that it was the part of wisdom not to study her features or to smile at her with too great friendliness. He felt certain that if he crooked his elbow she would slip her little hand into it and go along with him to any place in Paris that he chose.
Parting from his three guests, Lanny set out to walk to his hotel. But it was difficult for a man to walk alone in Paris; he was favored with the companionship of a succession of brightly decorated ladies, each of whom would insist upon taking his arm. Lanny had been told that the easiest formula was: “Je couche seulement avec des hommes.” He couldn’t bring himself to say that, but he would say: “I have une amie, and am on my way to her.” He was always polite, because he had come to understand the economic basis of the oldest profession in the world. He knew that rich women deliberately starved themselves because they were commanded to be svelte; but these poor creatures of the trottoirs stayed in fashion whether they wished to or not.
There came one with a soft, murmuring voice which reminded him tragically of Marie’s. He looked into her face, and saw anxiety and nothing worse, so he said “Vous avez faim?” She answered promptly, and he took her into the first café and ordered a plat du jour and sat and watched her devour it; meanwhile he asked questions about her life and state of mind. So Jesus had done, and brought censure upon himself in ancient Judea, but it attracted no attention in modern France. When she had finished he gave her a ten-franc note, and the waiter a five-franc note, and went his way, leaving the two to speculate about him. “Hélas,” exclaimed the woman, “it is always the best fish that gets away!”
IX
Mrs. Emily had been fishing also. Lanny found a telegram at his hotel summoning him to lunch next day. “I have a catch for you,” it read, and Lanny replied that he would be on hand. At Christie’s, and at the Vente Drouot in Paris, they set up pictures on an easel; at an auction of horses they trotted them out into the ring; while in the marriage market, the practice was that they came to lunch and you looked at them across the table and sampled their conversation. Always with decorum, pretending that it was a casual affair and that your mind was entirely absorbed in the conversation. Lanny was appreciative of the kindness of an old friend, and would do anything he could to oblige her—except marry some girl whom he didn’t especially care about!
Emily had caught a whale this time; the young lady whose arrival was awaited bore the name of Hellstein, one of the most widely known Jewish banking-houses in Europe. Lanny didn’t need to ask if it was the real thing, for the chatelaine of Les Forêts did not deal in imitation goods. He understood that she must have taken some trouble, for the daughters of such houses do not go out unguarded, and do not meet strange men except after careful inquiry.
Lanny had met not a few daughters of the rich, and had got the general impression that they needed only money, and so they had very little but money. But now from a limousine with a chauffeur and a footman in livery there descended a vision straight out of the Old Testament pages. What shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? She had all those charms which had inspired the fervor of the Song of Songs. Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me! They were large dark eyes, very gentle, such as poets are wont to compare to a gazelle’s; they were shaded by dusky lashes, which dropped modestly when a young man gazed. She was soft, tender, and well rounded, not more than eighteen, Lanny judged; the color which came and went in her cheeks and throat was not to be purchased in any cosmetic establishment.
Her mother, it transpired, was an old friend of Emily’s, and her father had attended Emily’s salon in years long past. He was a connoisseur of the arts, so his daughter had heard about them. Also, she had that which King Lear described as an excellent thing in woman, a soft voice. Had the hostess given her any hint that Lanny liked to talk? Anyhow, she listened, and interrupted rarely. She was greatly intrigued by the business of finding and purchasing old masters, and he told her enough, but not too much, for by no chance must it appear that he might be thinking of Olivie’s family as possible customers. When they finished lunch they went into the drawing-room, and Lanny sat at the piano and made the discovery that she had a pleasing voice which she did not try to force beyond its capacity. In fact she seemed to be content to be what she was in all things.
Lanny found that he could think of her only in Old Testament language. How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter! the joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. Thy neck is a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fishpools of Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim. How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights! Lanny remembered these phrases from the King James version, because he had been so amused by the efforts of the pious church scholars to interpret a torrent of sensuality into conf
ormity with their doctrinal proprieties. They had put at the head of this chapter the heading: “A further description of the church’s graces. The church professeth her faith and desire.” Truly there was no way to keep men from believing that which they were determined to believe! Three hundred years ago the Anglicans had set out to prove that all sexuality was religion, and now came the Freudians to prove that all religion was sexuality!
“Well, how would it be if I chose this one?” he asked himself. Fate had given poor Beauty one Jewish near-relative, and if now it gave her a Jewish daughter-in-law she would be like the people of Jericho surrounded by armies of the Israelites. But the family was among the richest, and they would undoubtedly make a settlement that would smother any mother’s objections. The girl would be devoted and submissive—or would she? That was the devil of it, you couldn’t guess what any eighteen-year-old might turn into later on!
X
Lanny’s destiny might have been on the way to being decided. He offered to call upon Olivie Hellstein, and she was pleased. He guessed that he would meet the great banking lady, her mother, and he would ask permission to escort the daughter of Zion to the salon, and there display the knowledge of the art of painting which he had acquired. Who could say what might have come of it? But chance was not planning for this playboy to chant the Song of Songs for the rest of his days; there came next morning a cablegram from his father, saying that he was sailing for London; also a letter forwarded from Juan, in a familiar square handwriting which he saw on the average about twice a year, and then not much of it.
“Dear Old Lannie,” this missive began, and continued: “How are things with you these days? It is mean of you never to write”—not exactly to the point, since it was not Lanny who owed a letter. “There isn’t much news here, I stay at home and am bored being domestic. Nina told me of your loss, and I meant to write, but you know how it is, every bally old thing has been said so many times. Cheerio! Come over and let me find a rich girl for you. We have brewers and South African diamond princesses and all sorts. I hear that you have got putrid rich selling old pictures. Do come and get rid of some of poor Bertie’s, for the government are taxing us visciously.” (She had never been quite sound on spelling.) “He is working hard for them and has to stay in town most of the time, but they don’t remit our taxes for that. About the pictures, I am serious, because we have a lot of old things which people make a fuss about but to me are a ghastly bore. Au revoir. Yours as always, Rosemary.”
It was a casual enough note, and the casual reader might have found nothing special in it; but Lanny was a different sort of reader, and knew what to look for between the lines. Rosemary, Countess of Sandhaven, was bored, and her thoughts had turned to that agreeable youth whom she had initiated into the arts of love more than ten years ago. All she had to do was to lift one finger and move it ever so slightly; if he was the same kind and understanding playmate, that would suffice. She conveyed the information that “poor Bertie” was in town; and when a woman precedes her husband’s name with that adjective, and continues the practice after eight years of marriage, it tells everything necessary to a one-time lover. She provided a proper business excuse for his coming—was that in the interest of propriety, or because of some doubt in her heart as to his present attitude? If so, it was a new Rosemary! The casual “au revoir” was more like her; to Lanny it meant: “I told you that the wheel would make a full turn, and here it is.”
The last time he had seen her was toward the close of the Peace Conference, after he had resigned in disgust. He had not offered to see her from then on, the reason being his preoccupation with Marie. Rosemary had known about the affair, for Rick’s sister had been a schoolmate of hers—it was at The Reaches that Lanny had met her and sat in the moonlight holding her in his arms, listening to Rick playing Mozart’s D-minor piano concerto. Lanny had been only fourteen then, and how wonderful she had seemed to him! Now he discovered that she hadn’t changed; at least, not to his mind.
She had been not only his first love but his second mother; so kind, gentle, quiet—she had held him spellbound. She had always been a mystery to him, a combination of seemingly incompatible qualities; she was warm in love, but cool in the approach to love; cool in everything else, serene, matter-of-fact, sensible. He supposed it was the English temperament, which never loses self-control, never surrenders its integrity. “All right,” it seemed to say, “I love you, and you may have me, but never forget that I am myself, and can withdraw into myself and stay there to the end of time.”
Or was it the effect of the ideas of her age, that feminist movement for which she stood to him? Now she and her suffragette friends had got the vote they had fought so hard for; and what did it mean to them, what had they done with it? Lanny wanted to hear it from her own lips. He could think of a hundred things he would like to ask her, and to tell her. What a good time they would have, sitting in front of an open fire these chilly autumn days! He didn’t have to hesitate or debate with himself; he knew that he was going to England to meet Rosemary Codwilliger, pronounced Culliver, granddaughter of an English earl, wife of another, and mother of one to be.
XI
What was he going to do about the daughter of Jerusalem? He couldn’t be rude to her, if only for Emily’s sake. He must keep that engagement, but of course his attitude would be different; he would present himself as a candidate for friendship, not as a parti—at least not right now! He drove to the town house of the famous banker on the Parc Monceau; he passed Zaharoff’s, not far away, and was reminded of the aging Greek trader. Poor old man—he had waited thirty-four years for the thing he wanted most, and then had been able to keep it only eighteen months! His duquesa had died that spring, and left him without heart for anything, so people said; but Robbie Budd had written to his son: “He still knows where his money is kept!” Lanny, on his way to be inspected as a possible heir-in-law for another rich man, found his thoughts on the duquesa of the many names and on Zaharoff’s two nieces, either of whom he might have had for a very small price—just selling out the American Commission to Negotiate Peace and becoming a spy for the armament king of Europe!
What would he have to pay for the daughter of a banking-house with branches in all the capitals? Doubtless he could have found out, but he didn’t want to; he was resolved to be as reserved as any member of the English nobility. He met the daughter of Jerusalem, and her large-bosomed mama, wearing an Empire robe of purple velvet, with pearls on her neck and diamonds on her fingers in the afternoon. His sense of humor was too much for him; he couldn’t resist the temptation to mention number 53 Avenue Hoche and his visits to that mansion so difficult of access. He told what a sweet and gentle person the duquesa had been, and how she had shown him her bybloemen and bizarres; also how she had been buried in a lonely funeral on the estate of the Château de Balincourt, favorite property of that embittered old man who had discovered too late the limitations of his money.
Madame Hellstein could not help being greatly impressed by these philosophic profundities. One must indeed have a great deal of money, and have had it for a long time, in order to regard it so patronizingly! Also, one must have lived among highly cultured people to be able to speak of all the arts with such intimacy as was revealed by this young man of fashion. He praised the voice of Mademoiselle Olivie, and hoped that he might be able some day to bring to her home his brother-in-law, who had recently made his debut with the New York Philharmonic; Hansi, a son of Johannes Robin, perhaps known to Madame. Yes, indeed, she knew about this active man of affairs, and was still more impressed.
Lanny said that, after all, Europe was a small continent, and they probably had many friends in common. Had Madame by any chance known Walther Rathenau? Oh, yes, they were old friends of that Jewish family; Madame told about the broken-hearted mother of a dutiful son who had never married. Lanny narrated how his mother and Mrs. Emily had hoped to solve the problems of Europe, and how Rathenau and Briand had been scheduled to meet in Bienvenu, but
the Poincaré opposition in the Chamber had knocked the scheme on the head, and Europe had had to wait four years longer for Locarno. Lanny told the story with humor, and went on to mention funny things he had seen at the Peace Conference—Colonel House carrying his silk hat in a paper bag because he hated so to wear it, and so on, until the large lady with the pearls and diamonds found herself entertained in spite of herself.
Olivie Hellstein obliged her visitor with simple melodies such as a maiden will sing in the presence of her mother: Schubert’s Die Forelle and Hark, Hark, the Lark, then Florian’s Song in French. Lanny enjoyed these, and expressed regret that he couldn’t call again soon; his father was on the way to London and must be met, and after that he had promised to visit the Robins in Berlin, and he always spent Christmas at Schloss Stubendorf—did Madame know the place? It was in that part of Upper Silesia which had been turned over to Poland, and so was not very happy. Lanny didn’t know the politics of his hostess, but assumed that international bankers would have international sympathies, and this was a good guess. Nie mehr Krieg struck a warm note in the soul of this mother of several sons, and she invited the young man of brilliant conversation to repeat his visit whenever his multifarious social duties brought him to Paris.
Between Two Worlds (The Lanny Budd Novels) Page 61
