So really it appeared that patriotism was just a screen, behind which selfish interests were operating; old Dr. Samuel Johnson had been right in his bitter saying that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Lanny didn’t want to think such thoughts about his father, and tried with all his might to keep them from sneaking into his mind. He sat there with nothing to do but listen, and of course he couldn’t help seeing how Robbie was deftly leading a man who was a good deal of a nincompoop into telling exactly what instructions he had received from the State Department regarding the support he was to give to Standard Oil and its agents in Genoa.
The ambassador was a bitter hater of the Bolsheviks, and spoke contemptuously of statesmen such as Lloyd George, who were willing to compromise with them; “shaking hands with murder,” was the phrase. Of course Mr. Child didn’t know what a lot of such handshaking Robbie had been doing, and Robbie didn’t mention the matter. He listened, and learned how Mr. Child was working with Barthou, French Foreign Minister, against the British in their efforts for a compromise. The French wanted to suspend all the trade treaties with the Bolsheviks and go back to the policy of the blockade, the cordon saniatire; that was Secretary Hughes’s idea of statesmanship, and how should “Cradle,” his agent, guess that Robbie Budd would be on the British side in a struggle for the rights of property against Red revolution?
VII
The ambassador told what he had seen in Italy during the year since his appointment. He considered that the country was in a deplorable plight, in imminent danger of a revolution on the Bolshevik model. The cost of living was ten times what it had been before the war, and everywhere you went were beggars asking for a soldo. The people were hungry, the factories idle, the steel mills working on half-time. Already there were regular Soviets in the factories, and the police and army were utterly unreliable; the government was so benevolent that it took everybody on its payroll, and it was so liberal that it couldn’t enforce order.
“You can’t imagine how it is unless you live here,” said Mr. Child. “You wish to ride on a street car, but there is a strike; you are told that a carabiniere has struck a street-car worker, so they are all insulted. Next day—ecco!—the carabiniere has apologized to the worker, and the cars are running again!”
The ambassador went on to tell a story which he thought would amuse Mr. Budd, who came from New England. A couple of Italian anarchists in Massachusetts had recently been convicted of a payroll hold-up and murder, and sentenced to death. Mr. Child searched his memory and recalled the names, Sacco and Vanzetti. Had Mr. Budd ever heard of them? Robbie said he hadn’t. Well, it appeared that the anarchists in Rome had heard of them, and a deputation of five young fellows had come to the American Embassy to demand justice for their comrades and fellow-countrymen. Mr. Child had had an agreeable chat with them, and sent them away satisfied with his promise to have the matter investigated. Subsequently one of these young men had come back and asked for a job! So matters went in this nation which had had sixty-eight governments in the course of sixty years.
The ambassador had been able to find only one hopeful thing in Italy, and that was a new movement called Fascismo, about which he talked a great deal. Here was a spirit of unity and resolution. Perhaps that always happens in human societies, he said; when the need grows desperate enough, the organism evolves a remedy. The Fascisti were organizing the young men of Italy and teaching them a program of action. Their leader was a former soldier named Mussolini; Mr. Child had never met him, but had heard a lot about him, had read some of his articles and admired him greatly.
Lanny spoke up, saying that he had met him. The other was interested to hear about the interview, and asked Lanny’s impressions of the man. Mr. Child confirmed Mussolini’s claims as to the character of the movement. “Everywhere I see these young blackshirts marching I get the feeling of clean-cut, vigorous youth, conscious of its reforming mission.”
“Aren’t they sometimes rather violent?” asked Lanny.
“Well, but you have to consider the provocation. It seems to me we’re going to need a movement like that at home, if the Reds go on extending their activities as they are doing. Don’t you think so, Mr. Budd?”
“I do indeed,” said Robbie, cordially. So they were better friends than ever, and Mr. Child told delightful stories about his adventures in the strange role of ambassador. He was much taken with the King of Italy, an energetic little pint-sized man—really a liberal, and quite democratic in his tastes. He had been standing on the piazza, talking with Child, and it was a cold day; the King had bidden the ambassador put his hat on his head. Could anything have been more considerate? Robbie agreed again, but Lanny couldn’t help his rebellious thoughts. If you were going to have your king democratic, why have one at all? And why should an ambassador from a republic be so very keen about kings?
VIII
Lanny told Rick about this conversation—the parts having to do with Mussolini—and Rick agreed that the American envoy was a poor judge of Italian character and social forces. They saw Benito Mussolini now and then in the Casa della Stampa, and thought less of him each time. Being now in his homeland, he was even more the braggart and poseur. He made a bid for Rick to write about the progress of his Fascismo during the past two years; he insisted that he now had four hundred thousand youth of Italy enrolled under his banner. Rick wanted to say: “In your eye!” but remembered that he was a gentleman, even if Mussolini wasn’t.
Talking about the Blessed Little Pouter Pigeon and his movement made Lanny remember Barbara Pugliese. He had received a letter from her, thanking him for his kindness and giving him an address in Turin. Since her work of speaking and organizing caused her to do considerable traveling, it occurred to Lanny that she might be coming to the conference, so he wrote a note to the Turin address, giving the name of his hotel. Then he forgot about the matter, because at this moment another bombshell exploded under the conference—the publication of a report that the Soviet government had made a deal with Standard Oil, giving them an exclusive lease upon the Baku field.
An anti-Bolshevik delegate had handed to a New York newspaperman a typewritten sheet containing the substance of the alleged agreement. The newsman tried to verify it, and only got laughed at; for two or three days he went about with that possible great “scoop” burning a hole in his pocket. His newspaper, the World, was anti-Standard as well as anti-Bolshevik, so he took a chance and put the story on the wire; it was published, and in an hour or two was back in Genoa, where’ nobody but the Russians and the Standard people could know whether it was true or not, and nobody would believe anything that either of these groups might say. There was a great uproar, and Robbie had to jump into his car and hurry off to Monty to reassure the frantic Sir Basil. Robbie was quite sure it was a canard, because his man Bub was on intimate terms with the young lady secretary of one of the Standard agents.
The fuss died down in two or three days, but it had the disagreeable effect of concentrating the attention of the entire world upon the subject of oil at Genoa and causing the newspapermen to ask prying questions. The Bolsheviks referred to themselves as “proletarians,” a fancy word that the American newspapers always put in quotes; now their reporters began writing about “petroletarians” at Genoa, and that wasn’t so funny as it sounded. The plain people were sick of war and famine, and didn’t care to risk any more of it to help private interests grab some Russian oil.
IX
One evening Lanny went to the opera and, finding a poor performance, came home early. Rick was at a reception in one of the English villas, and Robbie was in conference with some of Zaharoff’s men. Lanny had just begun to undress and have a quiet read in his pajamas when a “buttons” tapped on his door and informed him that down in the lobby was uno ragazzo asking to see him. Lanny hadn’t met any of these in Genoa, nor was he enlightened when the other kept insisting that the ragazzo was molto stracciato; Lanny had never had occasion to use or hear the word “ragged” in Italy, though he had s
een the condition in abundance. He went down into the lobby, and met a street urchin with large dark eyes and peaked face, having in his hand an envelope which he held out to the well-dressed American. Lanny saw at a glance that it was the letter he had written to Barbara Pugliese in Turin.
“La signora ammalata,” said the boy, and Lanny knew what that meant; he had seen her ill before. The boy was clearly in a state of fright, and having once got started he talked with rapidity. Lanny didn’t know all the words, but made out that la signora had been beaten, that she was badly injured, perhaps dying, they had found her in the street, she had had this letter with her. The name of the hotel was upon it, and Lanny’s name as the sender, so the boy had come in haste to him.
Perhaps it wasn’t altogether wise for Lanny to set out for an unknown destination with a stranger, especially since he had in his pocket a purse containing a considerable sum of money. But he thought of only one thing, that this woman who had so captured his admiration had fallen victim to the ruffians of the Blessed Little Pouter Pigeon; she was in need of help, and Lanny had no idea but to hurry to the garage where his car was stored, and set out to drive under the lad’s direction. They came to one of those slum neighborhoods which constitute a horror in every Mediterranean city; winding streets through which a car could hardly be driven, the remains of last week’s garbage polluting the air. They got out in front of a tall tenement, and Lanny locked the car and followed the lad through a pitch-dark hall, into a room lighted by one smoky kerosene lamp. There must have been a dozen people crowded into it, all chattering excitedly; but they fell silent when the stranger appeared, and moved back to give him access to a bed on which lay a dark form.
Lanny couldn’t see very well, so he took the lamp, and then had a hard time not to drop it, for the sight was the most dreadful that had come under his eyes since that day when he and his mother and Jerry Pendleton had taken Marcel to Paris with his crushed body and burned face. The face of Barbara Pugliese, about which Lanny had imagined so many romantic things, had been beaten until it looked like a piece of butcher’s meat; one eye was closed and the socket such a mass of blood that there was no way to know if there was any eye left. The ragged coverlet of the bed was soaked in blood, and so was Barbara’s dress.
“Is she alive?” Lanny asked; and that started everybody to talking. They didn’t seem to be sure, so Lanny put his hand over her heart, and found that it was beating faintly.
He managed to make out that the people in this tenement didn’t know Barbara, hadn’t ever heard of her. They had heard screams, they had rushed out and seen a group of youths pounding a woman with blackjacks. The reputation of the Fascisti was such that the bystanders didn’t dare make a move; they just stood and waited until the assailants had finished their job, and marched off singing their hymn of glory, Giovinezza. Then the people had carried her inside. They hadn’t dared to notify the police, for fear of being implicated with what they knew must be a Red; this was by now a familiar story in the slums of Italian cities. They had looked in the woman’s purse and found the letter; none of them had been able to read the contents, which were in French, but one had been able to read the name of the hotel on the envelope, and Lanny’s name above it.
Now they had but one idea, which was to get the povera signora off their hands, before the blackshirts came back to finish their job and perhaps to include her supposed friends in the lesson. The people were in a panic about it, and made plain their intention that if the signor wouldn’t take charge of his friend, they would carry her out in the street and leave her in front of some other house. So Lanny said all right, but they must help him; he took the woman’s feet, and two of the men took her by the shoulders, and they carried her to the car and laid her in the back seat. She was unconscious, and did not even groan. There was no time to think about protecting the car cushions; they just laid her down, blood and all. Lanny, afraid of getting lost in these tangled streets, promised the boy a lira to ride beside him and show him the way to one of the main thoroughfares.
As he drove, he tried to think what to do next. To appeal to the police would be futile, for had he not heard Mussolini boast how the police were in league with his blackshirts, or at any rate afraid to interfere with them? To take the victim to a hospital would be risky, for those in charge might themselves be Fascists; the same was true of any doctor to whom he might appeal. The Italians were making an omelet, and now Lanny had one of the eggs on his hands. He decided that he was going to get Barbara out of Italy; he would do it with only enough delay to let his father know what he was up to.
X
The good Samaritan parked his car and hurried into the hotel. Nothing else to do; he was no doctor, and knew very little about first aid to the injured. Robbie was still at his conference in the reception room of their suite, but Lanny interrupted, and took him into another room, where he told the distressing news.
“My God, son!” exclaimed the horrified man. “What is this woman to you?”
“It will be hard to explain, Robbie. You’ll just have to take my word that she has impressed me as a noble personality, perhaps the greatest I have ever met. I’ll tell you all about her some day, but not while she’s lying there perhaps dying. I have to save her if I can, and I don’t know anybody in Italy to trust.”
“Can’t you find any of her friends?”
“I can’t go driving around with a half-dead woman in the car, asking for the headquarters of the Socialist party—which have probably been smashed up or burned long ago.”
“Have you thought that these blackshirts may attack you yourself?”
“That’s a chance I have to take. If I didn’t take it, I’d never respect myself again as long as I live.”
“What do you plan to do with her when you get her into France?”
“Put her in a maison de sant and get proper care for her. After that I’ll wire Uncle Jesse. I’ve no doubt he’ll come, or give me the address of some of her friends. She has them everywhere, because she’s a speaker, a well-known person in her movement.”
“Suppose the woman dies before you get her to a hospital?”
“That’s another chance I have to take. All I can do is to tell the truth about what happened.”
“But don’t you see that you’ll be branding yourself as a Red sympathizer? The newspapers will be full of it.”
“I know, Robbie, and I’m sorry; but what can I do?”
“You can let me phone to a hospital here, and have them come and take the woman off your hands.”
“Even so, won’t the police want to know how I got hold of her? Won’t I have to show the letter I wrote her? I’ll be here in Genoa, in the hands of the gang—and what will Mr. Child’s great hero Mussolini do about it?”
“It’s hell!” exclaimed Robbie. “I’ve been warning you from the beginning about associating with these people, and writing them letters. God knows I tried hard enough to keep you out of the hands of Jesse Blackless and all his crew.”
“You did, Robbie, and it’s damned unfair that I may drag you into such a mess.”
“Well, what do you propose to do about that?” The father was greatly provoked, and made no effort to conceal it.
“I’ve thought about it a lot, Robbie. I don’t agree with your ideas, and I want to be free to think what I have to, so perhaps I ought to drop the name of Budd—I’m not really entitled to it, it’s just a sham. I ought to carry my mother’s name, and I’m perfectly willing to take it and set you free from this continual discomfort. I’m of age now, and ought to be responsible for myself, and not drag your family into scandals.”
Lanny meant it, and his father saw that he meant it, so he changed his tone quickly. “I’m not asking you to do anything like that, Lanny. I’ll excuse myself from my guests, and drive with you to France.”
“That’s not necessary, really. I’m not in any serious danger—no police are going to stop my car, once I get started. I’ll drive carefully, and the woman can just lie ther
e. When I get to the border and tell the French officials—well, it’s no crime to have found a wounded person, and to be trying to help her.”
Robbie said: “I’ll send Bub Smith with you. He can return on the train. I don’t think you ought to come back into Italy.”
“All right,” assented Lanny. “I’ve seen enough of this conference, God knows.”
“And one thing more, son. If you feel this urge to try to change the world, can’t you for Christ’s sake manage to work out some peaceable and orderly program?”
“Indeed I want to, Robbie!” Lanny said it with deep feeling. “Come and help me. Nothing would please me so well!”
XI
The good Samaritan didn’t stop for his things; they could be forwarded later. He grabbed the astonished Bub Smith, who was getting ready for bed. “Come on—right away. You’re driving with me to France. Bring your passport and your gun. Don’t stop for anything else—it’s an emergency.” When they were getting into the car: “There’s a woman in the back seat. I’ll tell you about her when we get started. She may be dead.” The ex-cowboy had had his share of adventure, and was not too easily jolted. He hoped his employer’s son hadn’t committed any serious crime; but if he had, it was all in a day’s work.
Lanny had known of persons being injured in automobile wrecks, and had learned that when one suffers from concussion of the brain and shock, the important thing is to keep him quiet. So he drove carefully, avoiding jolts and sudden turns; now and then Bub would look behind, to be sure that the body was safe on the seat. Just before they reached the border the ex-cowboy got into the rear seat and lifted the woman to a sitting position and held her in his arms. Not very pleasant, but part of the job.
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