XIII
Lanny was here to buy a picture. He inspected it, and cabled his client a description and his opinion that it was well worth the price. Two days later the money was in the bank for him, and he paid it and got his receipt in duplicate, and had the work carried to his car, then packed, insured, and shipped. That was all; now he would drive down the valley of the Rhone, and through Bourg to Paris—the route over which he had taken Marie de Bruyne before he had quite come of age. Lanny’s memories of roads in Europe were bound up with loves and the pursuit of pleasure, with moneymaking, political strife, and diplomatic bargaining, war and the flight from it, agony, fear, and hatred—in short, the soul of Lanny Budd was the soul of that old Continent.
Most of the way he thought about Trudi, and made up his mind that he would talk to her about love. She was a sensible woman, and enlightened; she would know what was in his heart, and they could talk frankly about what it would mean to them both. He arrived in the evening and went straight to see her.
Summer had come, and it was a warm evening; all Paris that was too poor to get into the country was sitting on its doorsteps or wandering about in search of a cooler spot. Lanny wired, and Trudi was waiting in her studio. He offered to take her for a drive—no, he wasn’t exhausted, he was used to long-distance touring. He took her into the Bois and treated her to a privately manufactured breeze; he told her about Mont Blanc in the sunset, and about the swans on Lac Leman, and about the staid old Protestant city of watchmakers and money-lenders. They had made money out of the League as a tourist attraction, but had put little trust in it so far as concerned themselves. Every man in that mountain land was a sharpshooter; their liberties for more than four hundred years had depended upon their aim, and they were not afraid to trust their citizenry with guns. Now they were carrying out an elaborate plan for the storage of wheat and other food in enormous caissons which were sunk to the bottom of their lakes, where the food would be preserved at near-freezing temperatures against the day when Nazis or Fascists might seek passage through the mountain passes. The Swiss would make it as hard as possible.
Trudi told what she was doing, so far as discretion permitted; Lanny told about England, and what Rick thought of the world situation. He gave her what money he could spare; then, on a sudden impulse, he decided that she might like to hear about Rosemary—not by name, but as the sort of story that every woman in the world is interested in. He didn’t say that he was cruelly tempted, but only that his old life was beckoning to him and that he wanted to keep out of it. He told about his mother and Margy, and their scheming, including the “stream of consciousness” lady; altogether Trudi could get the impression that he was a young gentleman with a wide range of choice in the field of romance, and she wouldn’t fail to realize that he had a purpoee in talking about such matters to her.
She handled the problem with tact which would have done credit even to Beauty Budd. She began telling him about her life with Ludi; how they had met at the art school, and had gone on excursions in the summer and swimming in the lakes. Her parents had been opposed to the match, because Ludi had been a working boy, and had had to make his own way as student and commercial artist, whereas Trudi’s parents had been of the official class. He was kind and intelligent, but very dependent upon her, and she was haunted by his tragic fate. She just couldn’t bring herself to believe that he was dead, but saw him coming back to her, in a condition like Freddi Robin, and she having to care for him.
Lanny saw that she was sparing him embarrassment. She couldn’t very well offer to help him find a wife, as the older ladies were inspired to do; probably she didn’t know any of the right sort here in a strange land. But she said that Rick was right, he ought to meet women of his own way of thinking and not yield to the spell which the parasitic classes evidently still held for him. “Those women are very beautiful, Lanny; but keeping that way takes an awful lot of time and bother, and doesn’t leave them much for developing their minds.” Trudi was decidedly stern in what she said, although kind and motherly.
Lanny agreed; she was right, and that was why he was on his way to Bienvenu instead of to London. Perhaps he would find some mail awaiting him, opening up a market for Spanish pictures; if so, he would take a trip with Raoul Palma and make some more money for the cause. He didn’t repeat Rick’s smart crack about the Andalusian senorita!
19
WHERE MEN DECAY
I
On the heights above Nice, a district known as Californie, a Spanish lady had rented a rather sumptuous villa; Senora Villareal was her name, a widow belonging to two old landowning families. When Lanny arrived in Bienvenu the fact was mentioned in the local paper, and a couple of days later he received a note from this lady, reminding him that he had been introduced to her at the home of the Baroness de la Tourette. Now the Senora asked Monsieur Budd if he would come to tea, as she wished to talk to him about a matter of interest.
The stately dark lady from the south of Spain looked, like so many, as if she might have Moorish blood. She had two lovely daughters of marriageable age, with velvety complexions and drooping eyelashes; they sipped the tea, and blushed whenever Lanny dropped a word to them. They made him think of the two daughters of Zaharoff’s duquesa, whom he had had the honor of meeting in the days of the Peace Conference, when the munitions king had sought to enlist a young secretary-translator in his intelligence department. For a while Lanny wondered if the existence of Reno, Nevada, could have become known to the Sevillanas and if conceivably a Spanish lady had become so far Americanized that she was willing to submit her daughters for the consideration of a man who had not yet been legally parted from his wife!
But no; Spain remained the fortress of propriety and maidenly virtue. The two blushing young ladies retired, and the mother proceeded to reveal that this was a business, not a matrimonial meeting. She referred to the disturbances which were plaguing her native land; the peasants embarking upon a sort of blind and dumb rent strike, helping themselves to the crops, and the Guardia Civil being only with difficulty persuaded to shoot them. Lanny informed his hostess that he had heard this evil news, and could understand the financial embarrassment it must be causing her. “With two such lovely daughters it would be difficult for you to reduce your scale of living.” The Senora appreciated this straightforward line of conversation, and without further delay explained that she had in the mansion on one of her estates some very fine paintings, and having heard that Lanny was an expert in this field, she had thought he might be willing to inspect them and perhaps lend her some money upon them.
This was no new experience for the husband of an heiress and grandson of Budd’s. He explained courteously that he had little money of his own; what he earned he spent quickly, being of that improvident disposition. Nor did he know anyone who would lend money on pictures; it was a difficult matter, for they would have to be put into the possession of the lender, or at any rate in escrow, and packing, shipping, storing, and insuring would make it expensive. Better for the Senora to select one or two of the works which she valued least and put a price upon them and let Lanny try to dispose of them. This service would cost her nothing.
The Senora replied that the pictures were heirlooms, part of the heritage of her daughters; she would find it difficult indeed to part with them. This was old stuff, of course; all the grandes dames said it, and were so skilled in the social arts that it took a while to make sure how much of it they meant. There was nothing to do but begin a patient siege—requiring as much of Lanny’s time and diplomatic skill as if he had been trying to make love to the lady. He must be the soul of courtesy and kindness, but at the same time as haughty as any grandee’s widow; he must make plain that his profession was one of great dignity and that he had his rigid principles. Also he must convey the fact that American millionaires were no one’s “suckers,” but on the contrary shrewd and hard-headed business men who insisted upon knowing what they were buying, and would come back with further patronage only in case t
hey were satisfied that what was shipped to them was in all respects as it had been represented.
Senora Villareal described her treasures: a head by Antonio Moro which she insisted was genuine; a very lively Lucas, a harvest scene by Sorolla, and three Zuloagas about whose charms she became eloquent. In addition there were several French works, including, to Lanny’s surprise, a Detaze which she had purchased from a dealer in Cannes some twenty-five years ago. Lanny assured the lady that these were all standard works and could be disposed of at fair prices. He mentioned that the new Spanish government had passed a regulation similar to that of Italy forbidding the export of the national art treasures. He did not know how strictly this was enforced, but the Senora said that it would not be necessary to take it too seriously, because those having the authority in Seville were among her friends.
At her urgent request he made an estimate of what each of the works might bring. She told him that his figures were much less than she had been told the paintings were worth, and he replied that those who made such remarks were not as a rule charged with the task of finding purchasers for art works. “The point you must bear in mind is that there has been a world financial crisis, and I doubt if old masters will ever again bring what they did before 1929—at least not in your lifetime or mine.”
So he talked, smoothly and persuasively, as Zoltan had taught him to do; and in the end he discovered that the Senora was not nearly so deeply attached to her heirlooms as she had wished him to believe. She was willing for him to take the trip to her estate on the basis of a promise that she would put a fair price upon at least two of her paintings, and she wrote him a note to her steward instructing him to permit Senor Budd to examine the collection as carefully as he might desire.
II
So now Lanny could no longer put off going into Spain. He drove at once to the school and told Raoul, who was delighted, and ready to start forthwith. Not long ago the school director had married one of his graduates, a competent Arlesienne who would look after things in his absence. Lanny said they would start in the morning, and he went home to write letters and cablegrams and pack his bags. It was an old and familiar kind of fun; any time when you were bored, or discouraged, or suspected that your liver wasn’t working properly, you tossed your things into several bags, saw your car provided with gas and oil and water and air, and set out for some new part of old Europe.
The Spanish intellectual made an excellent traveling-companion. He was unspoiled, and grateful for the smallest favor. He was an ardent believer in Lanny’s cause, and incidentally thought that Lanny himself was the most wonderful of persons—which certainly didn’t detract from the pleasure of having him along. Their passports had been duly visaed, and they had plenty of money in Lanny’s purse; they were going to take it easy, stop when they felt like it, look at palaces and cathedrals, and above all get acquainted with the people of Spain.
This land of ancient tyrannies had now become a safe place for Raoul Palma; the refugees of the Left had come swarming home, passing the refugees of the Right on their way out. Lanny explained that this would have to be a non-political tour, for he had letters to owners of private collections and must give no offense. “However,” he added, “we can use our eyes and ears.”
First to Barcelona, then on to Valencia and Seville, and from there up to Madrid: such was the itinerary. Lanny promised that they would detour to the tiny village where Raoul had been raised, the son of a wretchedly paid schoolteacher who had been shot “while attempting to escape,” after having been arrested for protesting against the Moroccan war. Raoul had an older brother who had been to the Argentine as a sailor and recently had returned to his home. Raoul told about his boyhood and the galling poverty in which his family had existed; he was a slender and somewhat undersized man, and the delicacy of features which Lanny so admired might have been due to the fact that in childhood he had always been hungry. The intensity of feeling which made his nostrils quiver as he talked was due to beatings of the peasants which he had seen inflicted by the Guardia Civil, an austere and cruel armed force which had faithfully served the landowning masters; la Benemerita, the masters called it.
But all that was now changed; at least Raoul hoped it was. He wanted it changed without delay, and found it difficult to agree with Lanny’s notion that politicians had to have time to get themselves settled in the saddle before they started to ride. Men who were well paid for their time could afford to take things easy, but landless tillers of the soil who had no bread to put into their children’s mouths had been promised immediate help, and if they didn’t get it would resort to direct action. Lanny smilingly remarked: “According to Marxist principles, I, too, am for direct action. It brings old masters into the market!”
III
When you had entered Spain, you knew it right away, because the roads were poorer and likewise the people who walked by the side of them. Two amateur sociologists fell at once to discussing the reasons. Raoul, the rationalist, said it was the Catholic Church, which kept the masses blindfolded and in the chains of superstition. Raoul, the Marxist, added that the Church was one of the great landlords and great bankers of Spain. Under the monarchy the Jesuits had owned the Agrarian State Bank with its many branches, and when a peasant asked a loan to finance his crop, the question asked was not if he was honest and hard-working, but if he was a Republican or a Socialist. Four years ago the Jesuits had been legally disbanded; whereupon they had turned their properties over to dummy owners who maintained the same old system.
Lanny, who thought that Marx was a gospel but not the only one, pointed out that it was the fashion of civilized mankind to denude the hills and river-banks of the trees which nature had appointed to grow there; thus the topsoil was washed away, and there being nothing to hold the water, floods came in the spring and droughts in the summer. The older the civilization grew, the more you saw this: in China, the Near East, and the ancient empires which had crowded about the Mediterranean Sea. The same process was going on in the United States, and the end would be barren hills and deserts, with a straggling population scratching a living among the rocks and being killed off by famines.
The complete Marxist said: “Perhaps; but is that any reason for permitting one duke to own two hundred thousand acres of land, no matter how poor?”
Lanny said: “It might be an advantage, if he would apply the techniques of modern science to restoring the land and getting the maximum production out of it.”
“But he doesn’t!” exclaimed the other. “He puts it in charge of overseers, who rent it out and have no thought but to squeeze every peseta out of the peasants and kick them off if they fall behind. The duke comes to Cannes to play baccarat and polo and shoot pigeons.”
“I think I have the honor of his acquaintance,” smiled the American. “I am entirely in favor of the new agrarian laws.” These laws limited the amount of land which any individual could hold, giving the remainder to the peasants, compensating the owners, and letting the peasants pay the state out of their crops.
“The landlords are all scurrying to cheat that law,” said Raoul. “They are deeding portions of their land to their sons and daughters and other relatives whom they can trust, and thus making it appear that they do not own so much.”
Lanny was amused, perceiving that his friend had forgotten from what source he had derived this information. Lanny didn’t remind him, but said: “There should be a tax of the full rental value of all land; that would put an end to speculation and make land available to those who are willing to apply their labor to it.”
IV
They drove into Barcelona, which Raoul said was the least Spanish of all cities in Spain; it was a great port, and might as well have been Marseille. Lanny observed, as many times previously, how modern invention and commerce were putting their stamp upon all the accessible parts of the earth. Here were the same ships, the same tramcars and automobiles, the same fashions for all who could afford them, the same internationally advertised produ
cts.
They parked their car and strolled down the Ramblas, the wide tree-lined boulevard that runs through the old city; made lively by flower-sellers and cages full of singing birds. Visitors with money in their purses might have bought products from any of the other great ports of the earth. They might have gone in and seen a movie about an American heiress who ran away from her father’s home and married a handsome young garage mechanic, or one about an American newspaper reporter who jovially set the police authorities aside and ran down a band of gangsters all by himself. From those movies the Barcelones could learn about hundreds of different gadgets, everything from steam-rollers to cigarlighters, and if they searched they might find most of these gadgets on sale in their town. From a kiosk on the corner they might purchase a newspaper and learn about events which had happened a few hours previously in New York or Singapore. If they desired to communicate with these places, and had the price, it could be arranged in a few minutes. If they wished to get there quickly, a system of planes would take them to Singapore, and the system to New York was even then in process of being completed.
But Lanny didn’t want these things; what he wanted was to see Spain, so they wandered off the boulevards and down toward the docks, the district called Barceloneta, where they found a waterside cafe frequented by the workers. Bare wooden tables and sawdust on the floor, tobacco smoke in the air, and cuttlefish fried in olive oil on the menu—this, too, might have been Marseille or Genoa or Naples, ports in which Lanny had supped with curiosity and pleasure.
Wide Is the Gate Page 45
