Dragon's Teeth

by Sinclair, Upton;

  Margy, Dowager Lady Eversham-Watson, came from London, bringing Nina and Rick for a short holiday. Rick was a celebrity now, and the hostesses were after him. Also General Graf Stubendorf was invited, in return for his hospitality, and to Lanny’s surprise he accepted. Others of the fashionable Berliners came, and it was hands across the Rhein again—but Lanny was no longer naïve, and couldn’t persuade himself that this was going to keep the peace among the great European powers. The Conference on Arms Limitation was still arguing at Geneva, and facing complete breakdown. The statesmen and fashionable folk, even the army men, would wine and dine one another and be the best of friends; but they would go on piling up weapons and intriguing, each against all the others—until one day an alerte would be sounded, and you would see them all scurrying back to their own side of the river, or mountains, or whatever the boundary line might be.

  It didn’t take Irma long to become the accomplished hostess. With Emily Chattersworth and the other ladies coaching her, she played her part with dignity and success; everybody liked her, and the most fastidious denizens of St. Germain, le gratin, could find no fault in her. She wasn’t presuming to attempt a salon—that would take time, and perhaps might grow as it were by accident. Meanwhile she gave elegant entertainments with no sign of skimping, at a time when all but a few were forced to that least pardonable of improprieties.

  For three years the business prophets had been telling the world that the slump was only temporary, that prosperity was just around the corner. But apparently it was a round house. Apparently some devil had got into the economic structure and was undermining it. In Wall Street, at the culmination of a furious political campaign, there was a new wave of bank failures; dividends seemed to have stopped, and now interest on bonds was stopping. Irma’s income for the third quarter of the year had fallen to less than a hundred thousand dollars. She said to her husband: “We’ll have a splurge for the rest of this lease and then go back and crawl into our storm-cellar.”

  He answered: “All right,” and let it go at that. He knew that he couldn’t change Irma’s idea that she was helping to preserve the social order by distributing money among domestic servants, wine merchants, florists, dressmakers, and all the train that came to the side-door of this palace—as they had come in the days of Marie Antoinette a hundred and fifty years ago. It hadn’t succeeded in saving feudalism, and Lanny doubted if it was going to save capitalism; but there was no use upsetting anybody ahead of time!

  Lanny worried because his life was too easy; he had worried about that for years—but how could he make it hard? Even the harsh and bitter Jesse Blackless, député de la république française, couldn’t forget the fact that he owed his election to Irma’s contributions, and that sooner or later he would have to be elected again. Even Jean Longuet, man of letters as well as Socialist editor, didn’t presume to question the judgment of a wealthy young American who brought him some drawings by a German art student. He said he would be delighted to use them, and Trudi Schultz was made happy by a modest honorarium from Le Populaire. She had no idea that the money came out of a contribution which Lanny had made to the war-chest of that party organ.

  XI

  Hitler’s program of “opposition to the last ditch” had forced the dissolution of the Reichstag, and a new election campaign was going on. It was hard on Adolf, for he couldn’t get the money which such an effort required, and when the election took place, early in November, it was found that he had lost nearly two million votes in three months. Johannes Robin was greatly relieved, and wrote that it was the turning of the tide; he felt justified in his faith in the German people, who couldn’t be persuaded to entrust their affairs to a mentally disordered person. Johannes said that the Führer’s conduct since the setback showed that he couldn’t control himself and ought to be in an institution of some sort.

  Two days after the German elections came those in the United States. Robbie Budd had his faith in the American people, and he clung to it up to 7:00 p.m. on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November 1932, but then it was completely and irremediably shattered. The Great Engineer, Robbie’s friend and idol, went down in ignominious defeat, and “that man Roosevelt” carried all the states but six. One that he failed to carry was Robbie’s home state, and a rock-ribbed Republican could thank God for that small atom of self-respect left to him! Adi Hitler might be a mental case, but he had the wisdom of Jove compared with Roosevelt as Robbie saw him; a candidate who had gone on a joy-ride about the country, promising everything to everybody—completely incompatible things such as the balancing of the budget and a program of government expansion which would run the public debt up to figures of the sort used by astronomers.

  Both Robbie and Johannes made it a practice to send Lanny carbon copies of their letters containing comments on public affairs. For the first time since the World War the Jewish trader was the optimist. He repeated his favorite culinary formula, that no soup is ever eaten as hot as it is cooked. He offered to prove his faith in the land of the pilgrims’ pride by letting Robbie buy more Budd shares for him; but Robbie wrote in the strictest confidence—typing the letter himself—that Budd’s might soon be closing down entirely; only Hoover’s wise and merciful Reconstruction Finance Corporation had kept it from having to default on its bonds.

  Under the American system, four months had to elapse between Roosevelt’s election and his taking of power. Robbie thought that would be a breathing-spell, but it proved to be one of paralysis; nothing could be done, and each side blamed the other. Herbert was sure that Franklin wanted to see the country go to wreck in order that he might have the glory of saving it. Anyhow, there it was, wave after wave of bank failures, and people hiding their money in mattresses, business men buying gold because of the expected inflation, and people in Europe who had shipped their money to America now calling it back. Seventeen million workers were said to be without jobs—a world record!

  XII

  Meanwhile the deadlock in Germany continued. The Socialists had lost another big chunk of votes to the Communists, and they hated each other more than ever. Hitler had another interview with Hindenburg, and demanded the chancellorship, but didn’t get it. The Nazi extremists were infuriated by Hitler’s “legality complex,” and clamored for him to seize power. There was another violent quarrel between the Führer and his Reich Organization Leader Number One, Gregor Strasser; the former threatened suicide again, and the latter threatened to resign from the party and set up a new one of his own.

  Strasser began intriguing with the gentlemen of the Herren Klub, who were ready to make a deal with anybody who could deliver votes. General von Schleicher wanted to supplant von Papen, who was supposed to be his friend and ally; he had the bright idea of a cabinet which would combine the extreme Junkers with the extreme Nazis—they could browbeat Hitler, because his party was bankrupt, his paymasters had drawn the purse-strings, and he himself was in a state of distraction. Schleicher and Strasser combined would threaten another dissolution of the Reichstag and another election, with the certainty that without money the Nazi vote would be cut in half. Such was the X-ray picture of German politics which Johannes Robin sent to his trusted friends; he didn’t say in so many words that both the conspirators had come to him for funds, but he said that he hadn’t got the above information at second hand.

  This deal apparently went through. When the members of the Budd family drove to Bienvenu to spend Christmas, the “office general” was Chancellor of the German Republic, Gregor Strasser had broken with Hitler and was being talked of for a cabinet post, and Hitler had been browbeaten into consenting to an adjournment of the Reichstag until January.

  From Connecticut and from Long Island came Christmas letters in which you could see that the writers had labored hard to think of something cheerful to say. Irma, reading them, said to her husband: “Maybe we’d better close up the palace and save money, so that we can take care of my mother and your father if we have to.”

  “Bless
your heart!” replied the prince consort. “You’ve hired that white elephant until April, so you might as well ride him that long.”

  “But suppose they get really stuck, Lanny!”

  “Robbie isn’t playing the market, and I don’t suppose your mother is, so they can’t be broke entirely.”

  Irma thought for a while, then remarked: “You know, Lanny, it’s really wonderful the way you’ve turned out to be right about business affairs. All the important people have been wrong, while you’ve hit the nail on the head.”

  Said the young Pink: “It’s worth going through a depression to hear that from one’s wife!”

  14

  The Stormy Winds Do Blow

  I

  Back in Paris during the month of January Lanny would receive every morning a copy of the Berlin Vorwärts, twenty-four hours late; he would find on the front page details of the political situation, displayed under scare headlines and accompanied by editorial exhortations. All from the Socialist point of view, of course; but Lanny could check it by taking a stroll up the Butte de Montmartre and hearing the comments of his deputy-uncle, based on the reading of L’Humanité, the paper which Jaurès had founded but which now was in the hands of the Communists. This paper also had its Berlin news, set off with scare headlines and editorial exhortations. Because L’Humanité got its stories by wire, Lanny would sometimes swallow the antidote ahead of the poison.

  “You see!” the Red uncle would exclaim. “The Social-Democrats haven’t a single constructive proposal. They only denounce what we propose!”

  “But you do some denouncing also, Uncle Jesse.”

  “The workers know our program; and every time there’s an election, the Socialist bureaucrats lose half a million or a million votes, and we gain them.”

  “But suppose there aren’t any more elections, Uncle Jesse. Suppose Hitler takes power!”

  “He can’t do any harm to our monolithic party. We have educated and disciplined our members and they will stand firm.”

  “But suppose he outlaws your organization!”

  “You can’t destroy a party that has several hundred thousand members, and has polled four or five million votes.”

  “Don’t make the mistake of underestimating your enemy.”

  “Well, if necessary we’ll go underground. It has happened before, and you may be sure that we have made plans—in France as well as in Germany.”

  “I hope you’re not mistaken, Uncle Jesse.” Lanny said it and meant it. He argued against the Communists, but was only halfhearted about it, because after all, they were a workers’ party, and nobody could be sure they mightn’t be needed. The first Five Year Plan of the Soviet Union had been completed with success, and all the Reds were exulting over it; the Pinks couldn’t fail to be impressed, and many wavered and wondered if maybe the Russian way might be the only way. Anyhow, they had a right to be heard; Lanny did what he could to persuade both sides to stop quarreling, and he set them an example by refusing to let them quarrel with him.

  II

  Any time he was in doubt about what was really happening in Germany he had only to write to Johannes Robin. A letter from the Jewish money-master was like a gust of wind blowing away a fog and revealing the landscape. It disclosed the German nation traveling upon a perilous path, with yawning abysses on every side, earthquakes shaking the rocks loose and volcanoes hurling out clouds of fiery ashes. Assuredly neither of the Plinys, uncle or nephew, had confronted more terrifying natural phenomena than did the Weimar Republic at the beginning of this year 1933.

  The ceaselessly aggressive Nazis were waging daily and nightly battles with the Communists all over the country. And meantime the two ruling groups, the industrialists of the west and the landlords of the east, were concentrating their attention upon getting higher tariffs to protect their interests; one hundred per cent wasn’t enough in these days of failing markets. The workers, who wanted lower prices for goods and for food, had refused time after time to vote for candidates of these groups; but with less than five per cent of the votes, the reactionary politicians still clung to power, playing one faction against another, using cajolements mixed with threats.

  Chancellor von Schleicher had begun wooing the labor unions, calling himself the “social general,” and pointing out to the moderates among Socialists and Catholics how much worse things would be if either set of extremists came in. By such blandishments he lost favor with the paymasters of the Ruhr, who wanted the labor unions broken and were listening to the siren song of Hitler, promising this service. Also there was the problem of Osthilfe, a scandal hanging over the heads of the landed aristocrats of East Prussia. Huge public funds had been voted to save the farmers from ruin, but the owners of the big estates, the powerful aristocrats, had managed to get most of the money, and they had used it for other purposes than land improvements. Now hardly a day passed that the Socialist and Communist press didn’t print charges and demand investigations.

  Papen and Schleicher still pretended to be friends, while scheming to cut each other’s throats. Schleicher had ousted Papen by a deal with the Nazis, and two could play at that game. Papen, the “gentleman jockey,” was the most tireless of wirepullers. A pale blond aristocrat with a thin, lined face wearing a perpetual smile, he went from one secret meeting to another telling a different story to everybody—but all of them carefully calculated to injure his rival.

  “Papen has had a meeting with Hitler at the home of Thyssen’s friend, Baron von Schroeder,” wrote Johannes, and Lanny didn’t need to ask what that meant. “I am told that Papen and Hugenberg have got together;”—that, too, was not obscure. Hugenberg, the “silver fox,” had come to one of the Robin soirées; a big man with a walrus mustache, brutal but clever; leader of the Pan-German group and owner of the most powerful propaganda machine in the world, practically all of the big capitalist newspapers of Germany, plus U.F.A., the film monopoly. “Papen is raising funds for Hitler among the industrialists,” wrote Johannes. “I hear that the Führer has more than two million marks in notes which he cannot meet. It is a question whether he will go crazy before he becomes chancellor!”

  III

  The Nazis held one of their tremendous meetings in the Sport-palast, and Hitler delivered one of his inspired tirades, promising peace, order, and restoration of self respect to the German people. The conservative newspapers in Paris published his promises and half believed them; they were far more afraid of the Reds than of the Nazis, and Lanny found that Denis de Bruyne was inclined to look upon Hitler as a model for French politicians. Even Lanny himself began hesitating; he was so anxious to be sure that he was right. Hitler was calling upon Almighty God to give him courage and strength to save the German people and right the wrongs of Versailles. Lanny, who had protested so energetically against those wrongs, now wondered if it mightn’t be possible for Hitler to scare France and Britain into making the necessary concessions, and then to settle down and govern the country in the interest of those millions of oppressed “little people” for whom he spoke so eloquently.

  The son of Robbie Budd and husband of Irma Barnes might waver, but the German workers didn’t. A hundred thousand of them met in the Berlin Lustgarten, clamoring for the defense of the Republic against its traitor enemies. “Something is going to pop,” wrote Johannes, American fashion. “Der alte Herr is terrified at the prospect of having the Osthilfe affair discussed in the Reichstag. Schleicher is considering with the labor unions the idea of refusing to resign and holding on with their backing. I am told that the Catholics have assented, but the Socialists are afraid it wouldn’t be legal. What do you think?” Lanny knew that his old friend was teasing him, and didn’t offer any opinion on German constitutional law.

  Johannes didn’t say what he himself was doing in this crisis, but Lanny guessed that he was following his program of keeping friendly with all sides. Certainly he possessed an extraordinary knowledge of the intrigues. Now and then Lanny would call him on the long distance telepho
ne, a plaything of the very rich, and Johannes would speak a sort of camouflage. He would say: “My friend Fränzchen wants to be top dog, but so does his friend the publisher, and their schemes will probably fall through because they can’t agree.” Lanny understood that this meant Papen and Hugenberg; and when Johannes added: “They may harness up the Wild Man and get together to drive him,” Lanny had no trouble guessing about that. Presently Johannes said: “They are telling the Old Gent that the General is plotting a coup d’état against him.” It was like reading a blood and thunder novel in instalments, and having to wait for the next issue. Would the rescue party arrive in time?

  IV

  On the thirtieth of January the news went out to a startled world that President von Hindenburg had appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor of the German Republic. Even the Nazis were taken by surprise; they hadn’t been invited to the intrigues, and couldn’t imagine by what magic it had been brought about that their Führer’s enemies suddenly put him into office. Franz von Papen was Vice-Chancellor, and Hugenberg was in the Cabinet; in all there were nine reactionaries against three Nazis, and what could that mean? The newspapers outside Germany were certain that it meant the surrender of Hitler; he was going to be controlled, he was going to be another Ramsay MacDonald. They chose not to heed the proclamation which the Führer himself issued, telling his followers that the struggle was only beginning. But the Stormtroopers heeded, and turned out, exultant, parading with torchlights through Unter den Linden; seven hundred thousand persons marched past the Chancellery, with Hindenburg greeting them from one window and Hitler from another. The Communist call for a general strike went unheeded.