Between Two Worlds

by Sinclair, Upton;

  So it was plain that Kurt was no longer trusting his friend. Here in Berlin he was going about with these Nazis, attending their meetings and conferences, not saying a word about it to either Lanny or Beauty. Kurt had chosen his way and didn’t want any arguments about it. He was no longer interested in Lanny’s opinions, because Lanny wasn’t a German, and only Germans could understand German ways and German needs. Lanny realized that it would be better for him to follow this example and keep his thoughts to himself. For Kurt was not only his friend, he was Beauty’s lover, and it would be a tragedy indeed if Lanny should force himself between them, and make Bienvenu a place where Kurt no longer felt at home.

  IX

  Lanny walked or drove about the streets of Berlin, another city with the double spectacle of wealth deliberately flaunted and poverty that could not be concealed. The number of undernourished and overpainted women roaming the streets was no less than in Paris; the males who strolled and bargained for them were larger and stouter, but their clothing had apparently been cut from the same cloth and by the same pattern. The night life of Berlin was said to be worse than that of any other city; it lacked the touch of chic which the French gave to everything, and was merely brutal and hideous. Germany was a republic, and had a constitution that was fine on paper, but it didn’t seem to be living up to its language. The Social-Democrats, who had been preaching economic justice for half a century, appeared to be paralyzed by their notions of legality, and the bureaucrats were running the country in their ancient established way.

  In the working-class districts, if you troubled to go there, you would see the swarming millions who existed just over the borderline of hunger. Better not pursue your researches in these streets at night, and better not wear jewels or fine raiment—some Communist might spit on them. Better not attend Communist meetings, because the Nazis made a practice of raiding them—the technique which had been known as “cutting out” during the war; an armed party would swoop down in motor-cars, seize several men and carry them off, beat them and throw them into one of the canals. You were safer at the Nazi meetings, because they had armed men on guard all the time; but don’t express any disagreement with the speaker, and it would be safer to give the salute at the proper time.

  The Hitler movement was a different thing from what it had been four years ago. Then it had been poor and rather pitiable, its followers wearing old war uniforms, often turned inside out for double use; an armband with a swastika on it and a home-made banner at the head of the troop were the only insignia they could afford. But now the storm troopers, as they were called, wore brown shirts, trousers with black stripes, and shiny leather boots; they had banners and standards, and, what was more important, side-arms in abundance. Where had they got the money for all this? If you asked them, they would say that the German people were contributing their pfennigs, out of devotion to the Fatherland and the Fuhrer; but Johannes Robin said that it was well known in financial circles that Thyssen and his associates of the steel cartel had taken over the financing of the movement.

  The attitude of the Schieber to this phenomenon was a singular one. He was a man of peace, and wanted to be let alone; he was afraid of the Communists, considering them wreckers and killers; he wanted them put down, and knew that the government then ruling Germany had put them down sternly, but he was afraid that it might let them get up again, because they had four million votes, and politicians can hardly be indifferent to such power. These Nazis really meant to finish the Communists once for all; they said also that they were going to finish the Jews, but Johannes didn’t think they meant that, for some of their representatives had come to him privately and told him so; they had asked him for money and he had given it, so he felt that he had friends at court. His feelings as a Jew and his feelings as a rich man were in conflict, and he advanced contradictory opinions. If you call his attention to this fact, he would smile rather feebly and ask you, what could a man do in a world as crazy as this one?

  The pattern seemed even crazier when you considered the fact that the two sons whom Johannes adored and the daughter-in-law whom he had so eagerly embraced all declared themselves determined Reds. Johannes didn’t smile when you spoke of that; he said it was because they were so young, and didn’t really understand the world. They took party platforms and doctrines at their face value—whereas it was clear that such things were merely bait to draw young birds into the snare. Johannes said you had only to look at Russia to see the difference between Red profession and practice; the wonderful fine language about brotherhood and solidarity of the toilers, and the starvation and slavery which prevailed. Those things would become apparent to the young people in due course, and they would be sadder but wiser. Johannes said that the remedy for poverty was for people to stop fighting, and give trained executives like himself a chance to show what modern machinery could do to produce quantities of goods.

  “Yes,” said Lanny, “but what’s the use of producing so much, if the people haven’t money to buy it?”

  “They’ll have money if we pay them higher wages, as we can all afford to do in prosperous times.”

  “But suppose the manufacturers in other countries pay low wages and undersell you, what then?”

  The Schieber answered: “You know I never had much education, Lanny; I’ve just had to puzzle it out as I went along. I don’t pretend to know all the answers—maybe you smart people will have to get the governments together and agree on a schedule of wages, and divide up the markets. Maybe those League people in Geneva are on the right track. All I’m sure of is that it won’t do any good for either side to use force, because that doesn’t convince anybody or run any machines.”

  X

  Johannes Robin thought that he was putting money into circulation when he bought old masters; he thought also to win favor with the intelligentsia of Berlin by showing himself a man of taste. He was delighted with the pictures which Lanny and Zoltan had hung on his walls; many distinguished persons came to look at them, and the Schieber saw himself in the role of one of the old merchant princes, many of whom had been of his race. Being a person of expansive nature, happy to be seen and admired, Johannes turned his home into a sort of art gallery, to which any person with credentials would be welcome. He had engaged a man whom he called a “steward” to run his household, and one of his duties was to answer letters and make appointments, and then a footman in uniform would escort the visitors about.

  In accordance with Lanny’s suggestion of a collection of Dutch masters for the principal downstairs rooms of the house, a grave and impressive Rembrandt now confronted you in the entrance hall, while over the mantel of the dining-room was a fine van Huysum, and in the library a Bol, a Frans Hals, and a de Keyser. The great drawing-room was given over to various modern Dutchmen, Mauve, Israels, and Bosboom, Weissenbruch and the Maris brothers. A breakfast-room had been specially decorated according to Zoltan’s idea, harmonizing with the moderns, Jongkind and van Gogh—in one painting the latter had put three suns in the sky to make it brighter! Johannes didn’t own this particular work, but many people wanted to see anything by so original an artist.

  The visitors might be taken even to the bedrooms when these were not in use; for there were French masters delightfully adapted to bedrooms: drawings by Watteau and Fragonard, Lancret and Boucher. It had been hard for Johannes Robin to face the idea of paying forty thousand gold marks for a red-chalk drawing by the first-named of these painters; he had taken the precaution to bring in an independent expert and make certain that Lanny hadn’t committed a folly in that case. The man offered him fifty thousand, and Johannes felt vastly relieved.

  Visitors could stop in the hallway outside a door where Hansi was practicing furious arpeggios or difficult double stopping, or where Bess was running piano scales in octaves. Only one door was never opened, and that was where the Mama Robin had her nest; no pictures there, but all the old things from which she would never part, because they reminded her of the days when she and an ambit
ious young salesman had lived in one tenement room and had been lucky when they could have gefüllte fisch and blintzes for supper. Now they had dinner at eight in the evening, sat at opposite ends of a long mahogany table with silver service and hand-embroidered napery and two men servants to wait on them, and it wasn’t comfortable because you couldn’t talk about any of the intimate things you wanted to. You had to live that way because fashionable people like Mrs. Budd expected it; also the important business people whom Jascha—so she still called her husband—brought home with him. It was grand to know that her man had become so successful, but in her heart Mama would have been glad to take her little brood back to some poor street among the sort of people she could understand and be fond of.

  Lanny told Johannes a lot about the English masters which he had been purchasing for him and which were in process of being cleaned. The Schieber said he would be proud to own heirlooms of the Earl of Sandhaven; it would be something to tell visitors about. Lanny didn’t go into details about the countess, just said that she had been a girlhood friend, and that was how he had learned about the paintings. He knew that Johannes would be amused by the story of a noble English lady collecting a commission from her husband; incidentally this was a way of letting a man of business understand that Lanny and Zoltan meant what they said about never taking commissions from both parties. There was a lot of rascality in the world, and having elegant manners and even a title was no guarantee against it. Lanny took a haughty attitude about himself; he told his clients exactly what he would do, and then he did it, and if anyone so much as hinted at distrust of his word, he took up his hat and told that person that he would prefer to have him or her find some representative in whom he had confidence.

  XI

  Beauty of course couldn’t go to Stubendorf, for the Meissners were people with fixed notions of propriety and, while they had doubtless guessed the truth about Kurt’s stay on the Riviera, they couldn’t be asked to receive the woman in their home. That didn’t worry Beauty, because she had been used to such things all her mature life and was well content with her own world, somewhat more than demi. Kurt and Lanny would go to the Schloss, while Beauty continued to meet the smart set of Berlin and be made dizzy by the “social whirl.” So many fascinating men—and she was still at an age where she might have made a brilliant match, if it had not been for her sense of loyalty to a penniless genius.

  At Stubendorf life was quiet and happy. Locarno was having its effect; industry was reviving throughout Upper Silesia, both German and Polish, which meant that there was a ready market for country produce, and it was possible to get needles and thread and clothing and shoes as in old days. There was a member of the family whom Lanny had never met before—that shell-shocked brother whom Kurt had visited in the Polish town. A somber, sad-eyed man with prematurely gray hair, he was dealt with gently, a little fearfully, as if people weren’t sure what he might do next. Lanny didn’t know what to talk to him about, but found that he was fond of music, and after that it was easy.

  Heinrich Jung was there, having completed his studies in forestry; but he wasn’t going to work at it because he had become a party leader and gave all his time to that. He was the same ardent propagandist, but no longer naive, and Lanny didn’t like him so well. Was it just Lanny’s distrust of the Nazis, or was it the fact that Heinrich had become harsher and more cynical? Lanny listened to the conversation of the two friends about the details of party affairs, which appeared to be intrigues and treacheries, gossip concerning personalities, their weaknesses and inadequacies, and the methods of driving them to do what you wanted. It appeared that two wings had developed in the Nazi movement: in the north the party was under the control of one Gregor Strasser, and was “radical,” that is, it took seriously the party’s promises of economic change; whereas Hitler and his Munich group were now “conservative,” possibly because of the large sums they were getting from Thyssen and his steel cartel.

  Would it have been the same if Lanny had been listening to the talk of Social-Democratic, or Centrist or Communist party organizers? He told himself that it was probably so, for human nature remained much the same, regardless of what theories or programs men adopted; those who acquired power in any field found themselves in conflict with others who coveted that power and who had to be held in subjection by fear or greed. Lanny wanted to go back to his ivory tower, but his heart was sore because he wouldn’t be able to take his old friend with him. Kurt was going to compose music for the Hitler movement, and was to be paid for it out of party funds; so there would be people intriguing for and against him, and the lofty serenity of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe would no longer be his prized possession!

  They had motored to Stubendorf, and as Heinrich wanted to attend some party affair in Berlin, Lanny brought them both back with him. Kurt and Heinrich sat in the back seat and talked all the way, and by the time they arrived there wasn’t much that Lanny didn’t know about the National Socialist movement. The Fuhrer, it appeared, was an ascetic who neither smoked nor drank nor ate meat; but he had on his hands a group of men who were far from saintly, and he had to rave and storm at them; sometimes he had to overlook their abnormal conduct because of their great ability, with which he could not dispense. Lanny heard about an ace aviator by the name of Goring who had fled to Sweden because he would not live under a Socialist government; now he had come back to help put the Reds of all sorts out of the Fatherland. He heard about a little club-footed dwarf named Goebbels who was the most marvelous propagandist in all Germany. He heard about others who had been police agents and still might be; some who had been criminals, but had fallen under the spell of the leader’s patriotic fervor. The war had deprived Germany of many things, but it had provided her with a superabundance of ex-soldiers, especially officers, some eight or nine hundred thousand of them—from the Fuhrer, who had been a corporal, up to the great General Ludendorff, commander of them all. From lowest to highest, all were discontented, and formed material from which this movement of patriotic resurgence had recruited both leaders and followers.

  XII

  Lanny delivered the pair safely at their destination, in spite of a snowstorm. He did not go to their party affair, saying that he had picture business to attend to. Later, Kurt told him that he wanted to go to Munich to make arrangements for the publication of the music he proposed to write; Beauty wanted to go with him, but didn’t want Lanny to motor through the high mountains in winter, so she and Kurt would return to Juan by train, and Lanny would drive to Holland and so into France. At Flushing he would be met by Rosemary; and what a blissful thing to be with an Englishwoman, after all the large beefy bodies, the loud guttural voices, the storm and stress and conflict of Germany! Lanny decided that except for Hansi and Bess and Freddi he didn’t care for anybody in Germany any more, and wouldn’t go there. He loved the English people, who were quiet and restrained and easygoing; practicing pacifists, safely tucked away on their foggy island; blundering and bungling, but managing to improve things little by little, and hating hatred and violence and unreason.

  So when he saw his sweetheart coming off the packet-boat, with only a few of her blond hairs ruffled by the January gale, he behaved just like a proper Englishman; that is to say, he shook hands with her and inquired: “Passage too beastly?” When she said: “No, not bad,” he knew that there would always be an England.

  29

  Let Joy Be Unconfined

  I

  A new stage began in Lanny Budd’s career. Living with the Countess of Sandhaven was a different thing from living with Marie de Bruyne. The latter had been a mature woman of quiet tastes; she had been content to stay at home and read or listen to Lanny’s music. But Rosemary was young and beautiful, popular and très snob; she liked to go about, see the gay world, and meet other young people. Be assured, if Lanny didn’t take her, plenty of others were eager to do so! Marie had been like a wife, upon whom he had claims; but Rosemary was a sweetheart, having to be perpetually courted. She didn�
�t ever make him jealous, but just took it for granted that he would look out for her, and, valuing his treasure highly, he did so.

  Never had the Riviera been so gay. Each season surpassed the last. By the beginning of 1927 prosperity had returned; industry was booming to make up for wartime destruction, and everybody who had money counted upon having more. Americans, escaping Prohibition, came pouring into France; with the franc at two cents, one-tenth its pre-war value, champagne was practically free. In the cold weather most Paris visitors came to Cannes or Nice, Menton or “Monty,” and the bands thumped, there was dancing all night, and insane gambling in the casinos—it was done mostly with thousand-franc notes, the highest the French government printed, and the devotees of roulette, baccarat, and “chemmy” brought great wads of the stuff into the gambling-rooms. Wild parties and every sort of excess became familiar, and suicides were decorously hushed up.

  In the daytime the outdoor sports flourished: golf and tennis tournaments, polo, and all sorts of water games, including the new device of water-planing; a sort of sled was towed by a fast motor-boat and you stood on it and had a wild time keeping your balance. The young people with nothing else to do sought thrills of danger and found them. The bathing-suits they wore or failed to wear became scandals which lasted for a week or two, until people found something else to be shocked by. Novelty was craved above all things; love-making took exotic forms, and at the afternoon parties and thés dansants the ladies were not content to have shoes and stockings and jewels and handkerchiefs to match their costumes, they now sought rouge to match, and daubed their faces with green or purple, like realizations of those futurist and surrealist paintings which had seemed to be nightmares but turned out to be prophecies.