Wide Is the Gate

by Upton Sinclair

  “If you know any way to do it, Senora. I doubt if the ordinary means of transportation are available now. You must understand that Seville has become the base of an army of one or two hundred thousand men, and railroad and truck transportation must be taxed to the limit. Probably everything has been commandeered, as it was on the government side.”

  “Would you be interested to get my paintings and market them, Monsieur Budd?” inquired the Senora.

  “I have hesitated to suggest that,” he replied, “because I felt that you didn’t know me well enough. But if you have sufficient confidence in me, I would be willing to travel to Seville, get your paintings, and if possible take them to New York and show them to my clients. I feel sure enough of my ability to market them to be willing to do it at my own expense, charging you only the customary ten per cent upon whatever I am able to get. You would have to set a minimum price on each work, and if I was not able to obtain that price I would bring the work back to you.”

  The Senora hastened to declare that she had sufficient confidence in Monsieur Budd and would be glad to have such help. They took up each painting in turn; Lanny said what he would hope to get, and the Senora stated her minimum. After they had come to agreement, he said: “I will draw up a contract embodying our understanding and mail it to you; I suggest that you take two or three days to study it, and have your lawyer or somebody go over it for you. I should feel more comfortable if that was done, so that you could never feel that I had rushed you into something.”

  She assured him that she wouldn’t feel that way; but of course as a lone widow she appreciated his efforts to reassure her. He pointed out that his ability to execute the agreement would of necessity depend upon his being able to get into Nationalist Spain and to bring out the paintings; he would have to specify that in the contract, and would look to her to give him aid. To this she assented, and offered him letters to various persons in Seville whose influence might be helpful. This of course was what he had come to get.

  III

  Lanny’s next move was to take his mother into the plot. Beauty would never be a political person; her motives were personal, and when she knew anybody, she would be against keeping him in jail. She knew the Pomeroy-Nielson family intimately and was moved by their sufferings individual and collective. She was wretched over the thought of Lanny going into danger again, but when she saw that his mind was made up, she agreed to help him and to keep his secret.

  What he wanted, first of all, was to understand the foreign branch of their family, the San Girolamos. Lanny put it that way because it seemed to him that Marceline had become a new being since her marriage, and he wasn’t sure how to approach her.

  “I find it so with many of the young people,” Beauty said. “They are so selfish and so hard; they have no hearts and are proud of it.”

  “Hearts are luxuries,” Lanny told her; “like the frills on your dresses and the lace on your handkerchiefs. You could afford them, because you were born in a secure society where ideals and standards were fixed and you knew exactly what was right. But now the world is changing, and the young people don’t understand it; they know that the old standards are false but they haven’t found any new ones.”

  “So far as I am able to find out, their standards are whatever gives them pleasure. Marceline is happy when she’s dancing and when people are watching her; she doesn’t seem to care who is dancing with her, provided he dances well. One of the troubles with Vittorio is that he can’t dance—or won’t try to, with only one arm.”

  “They aren’t happy, then?”

  “Who is, entirely? Marceline pretends to be, and sticks it out, because she has had her own way and would die before she would admit it was a mistake.”

  “It’s important that I should understand them both; so tell me—what is wrong between them?”

  “First of all, lack of money. Vittorio is chafing dreadfully. He expected an important appointment; he says he has a right to it but he doesn’t get it. He writes letters to Rome, and promises come, but nothing more. Now he wants to go and find out about it; he wants me to give him the money, and of course Marceline has to go along; she thinks she can help him, and perhaps she’s afraid to be separated from him. But it would cost a lot.”

  “You have been giving them money?”

  “A little. I gave him a couple of thousand francs the other day, and he lost it playing trente et quarante.”

  “Oh, my God!”

  “It was a social game, and he couldn’t very well have kept out.” Beauty had to defend her daughter’s husband. “I don’t think he gambles in the casinos—at least if he does Marceline hasn’t told me. You know how it is when a man needs money: he is sure his luck will change and he will win a lot.”

  Lanny hadn’t lived all his life on the Riviera without knowing all about that trap for the human mind and spirit. “So you’re going to pay his gambling debts!”

  “I gave him a good scolding and he swore he wouldn’t play again. But it’s hard, when you know how everybody expects you to. One can lose a lot of money even at bridge.”

  Lanny knew that. He knew the many forces which were undermining smart society. A few enjoyed money and ease, and they set the standards, very high; a swarm of lesser folk tried to imitate them, in dress, entertainment, a thousand forms of extravagance; the result was a mob of people ravenous for money and ready to commit any sort of indecency to get it. But Lanny wasn’t here to preach sermons just now, so he said: “Tell me about Vittorio’s character.”

  “I think somewhere in him there’s a decent boy, but it’s hard to get at. I’m afraid you are right, he has been taught a very ugly creed.”

  “It derives from a perverted philosopher, Sorel, who established a cult of violence and anti-humanity. These young Fascists mean to take the world, and nobody can stop them, nobody can shame them. They are utter and complete materialists.”

  “Vittorio denies that. He insists they are true idealists, because they face the fact that life is a struggle, and they stand together and win because they deserve to.”

  “Every gang does that; at least every one that succeeds. The question I have to determine is whether Vittorio is a loyal gangster or whether he is more interested in his personal success. You can see how it is—he could be useful to me in Franco Spain, and I would pay him well for his help; but if he’s a genuine fanatic, he would spurn my bribe and might even think it was his duty to betray me. I can’t hint at the subject until I’ve made sure about him.”

  “Let me handle it,” said Beauty. “It will be natural for me to talk about Alfy with Marceline, and I’ll find out what her attitude is, and maybe she’ll tell me more about Vittorio.”

  IV

  So began a strange four-cornered family intrigue. Lanny and his mother trusted each other reasonably well, but they trusted Marceline less and Vittorio not at all. As they went on they discovered that Marceline and Vittorio set sharp limitations upon their trust of each other. Marceline considered herself abused because neither her brother nor her mother would give her as much money as she needed and because they tried to put strings upon what they did give. Vittorio urged her to get more, and blamed her for keeping too large a share. They had fusses and then made up, because they were passionately in love with each other, and that was the one pleasure that was free of charge.

  The fifth member of the household, Mr. Dingle, flitted like a wraith about this scene. Physically a round-faced, rosy, and white-haired old gentleman didn’t resemble a wraith; but there was something uncanny about his practice of letting everybody alone and seeming not even to know what was going on about him. Lanny had long ago come to realize that he was observant and understood the strange quirks of human nature; but he never interfered, and if he made a comment it was in some indirect way, so that unless you knew him well you couldn’t be sure whether he intended it.

  Fate had presented Parsifal Dingle with a Fascist stepson-in-law, a new phenomenon, and perhaps the toughest nut that New
Thought had ever set out to crack. The Capitano repudiated on principle all those spiritual ideas which Parsifal made the center of his being; the clash of two opposing philosophies afforded a psychological spectacle which Lanny would have liked to stay and watch. The young aristocrat, trained as a killer and a cynic, was the product of an aged culture with its corruptions freshly renewed; the old man, born in a prairie village of parents who had lived in a sod hut, was self-educated, and sometimes committed errors in his native language, to say nothing of his French. Vittorio looked upon him as a freak and perhaps a crackpot, whose only usefulness lay in the fact that he had influence with Beauty, the keeper of the purse.

  Parsifal, on the other hand, looked upon Vittorio as a child of God, not to be criticized but simply to be loved. Vittorio didn’t in the least want to be loved by Parsifal, and indeed would consider it a presumption; but Parsifal would go on loving him, and some day, in God’s good time, a change would begin to dawn in Vittorio’s soul. He would realize that love is divine, and that it is infinite, the one thing in the universe which is really important; so much more important than killing people or even building an empire!

  Marceline had told Vittorio about Alfy, because it was a distinguished thing to have been engaged to the grandson of an English baronet. She had represented that Alfy had gone to the war because of a broken heart; and who could say that he hadn’t? Now it was romantic and picturesque for her to be worried about his fate—and she really was, so Beauty insisted, in telling her son. Marceline kept Vittorio jealous all the time—she couldn’t very well help it, he being of that nature, and moreover unable to dance, and Marceline accustomed to having so many dancing-partners. They quarreled about the ardor of her dancing, but, then she made it up by the ardor of her love.

  There was the question of Lanny’s pinkness, of first importance if he was going among the Fascists. Marceline had told her mother that Lanny was in part to blame for Alfy’s trouble, having encouraged him in his eccentric notions; but Marceline hadn’t said that to her husband, because she regarded it as a skeleton in the family closet. Now she understood that Lanny had gradually changed his tone; she granted him the right to do so, and was glad of it. She attributed it in part to the excesses of the Reds which had shocked everybody in her world, and in part to business reasons. That wasn’t very noble of him, but Marceline didn’t expect him to be noble; all she objected to was the idea he seemed to have that he was better than everybody else. “She can’t understand why it isn’t your duty to help her and her crippled husband,” explained Beauty.

  “I’m willing to help them both for a while,” was the reply; “they can help me at the same time.”

  V

  The Senora signed the contract and provided Lanny with letters which would give him access to the top flight of Seville society. She warned him that this society was formal and reserved, not free and easy as on the Cote d’Azur; Lanny said he understood and would be circumspect. He noticed that the Senora’s younger daughter was present at this session, and that the mother guided the conversation to enable the young lady to display her somewhat limited acquirements. Lanny was used to seeing mothers do this, and he smiled to himself, thinking: “She is prepared to overlook a Reno divorce!”

  He went back to his own mother and to a different sort of intrigue. At the family dinner-table he mentioned the contract he had just signed, and he saw immediate evidence of interest in both Marceline and Vittorio. “Oh, Lanny, what interesting adventures you do have!” exclaimed the girl. He answered: “I manage to get about and to have my expenses paid.” He must be careful not to say anything noble!

  “You ought to make a handsome sum out of that deal,” said Vittorio, significantly.

  “There is no greater gamble,” he replied. “I try to guess what American art collectors will appreciate, and sometimes I hit it and sometimes I miss.”

  “In our country,” declared the Capitano, “we do not permit our art to be carried away.”

  Evidently he didn’t know about the Spanish law; and Lanny didn’t supply the information. “There is something to be said on the other side,” he commented. “When an old master goes to America it not only helps to spread the love of art in a more primitive country, but it is a good advertisement for la patria.”

  “America will hear about us without that,” replied the young Italian, proudly. “Abyssinia is only a beginning.” It was a cue for one of his discourses.

  Lanny listened politely, and left it for a frivolous young bride to become bored and bring it to a stop. Later the art expert remarked: “You must have many army comrades and friends in Seville.”

  “Undoubtedly; but it’s difficult to know. Their presence is not officially admitted.”

  “Find out, if you can,” said Lanny. “If you give me letters to them I’ll be glad to present your compliments.”

  VI

  That was all at the meal; but later, when Marceline was alone with her mother she remarked: “You see how it is; Lanny is always making money, yet he tries to pretend he hasn’t any to spare.”

  “An idea has occurred to me,” countered the tactful mother. “Would you and Vittorio like to take that trip to Seville with him?”

  “You didn’t hear him invite us, did you?”

  “No, but I might suggest it. Alfy is somewhere there in prison, and it’s not very kind of us not to do something about it if we can.”

  “What could we do?”

  “Vittorio might be able to do quite a lot, with his Army connections and all his friends. He might see Alfy, and perhaps arrange for him to have special food. It would seem like a nice thing for you to do, considering your lifelong friendship for the poor boy. It might even be that the Pomeroy-Nielsons would offer to pay the cost of having somebody go in and do such a service.”

  “It surely wouldn’t do any good to Vittorio to be known as a friend of a Red prisoner.”

  “Possibly not; but Vittorio hasn’t been getting much help from his government of late, and he might like to do something for himself. It’s possible he might arrange to smuggle Alfy out of Spain.”

  “But that’s a crazy idea!” exclaimed Marceline. The Budds had always been a plain-spoken household.

  “Maybe so; I don’t know the circumstances, and I can’t judge. I know that prisoners often do escape, and there are men in every army who are willing to wink at something for the sake of a good chunk of cash.”

  “I am certain that Vittorio wouldn’t do anything against his government. That would be treason, or something.”

  “Suppose that Alfy would give his word of honor not to do any more fighting against Franco, but shut his mouth and go back to Oxford and study whatever he was studying before he took up his crazy notion—what harm would that do to the Italian government or the Italian cause?”

  “That might be so—but how in the world could Vittorio manage such a thing?”

  “All I’m suggesting is that you and Vittorio might go and try to find a way. I feel pretty sure that Sir Alfred would be willing to pay a great deal of money to anyone who could arrange it; and Vittorio, who is so sick of sitting around idle, might find it something of an adventure.”

  “Is that what Lanny is going into Spain for?” inquired Marceline, sharply.

  Beauty had been expecting the question, and knew that she would have to lie boldly. It was by no means the first time in her life: “I haven’t brought up the subject with Lanny,” she said. Like all skillful liars, she preferred to do as little of it as possible, and the fact was that Lanny had brought up the subject with her. “There’d be no use talking about it unless Vittorio was interested, for Lanny would be helpless in such a matter. An Italian officer in uniform could go anywhere and do anything. It might even turn out that the jailers who are guarding Alfy are Italians. You’d just have to go in there and see. Needless to say, we’d all have to keep faith, and never breathe a word about it to anybody else.”

  VII

  As it turned out, Vittorio was by n
o means indifferent to his mother-in-law’s suggestion. He and Marceline came to her to talk it over, and the shrewd woman of the world listened and watched the young pair, trying to decide what was in their hearts. Marceline’s case was simple: to her it meant a free trip with expenses paid. Beauty’s daughter couldn’t have been Beauty’s daughter without being ready to travel to any part of the world where there were de luxe hotels and smart society. The mother’s whole life had been such a free trip, and she had made it her business to make herself useful to the sort of persons who would take her along. She had tried to teach the same art to her daughter, but the trouble was Marceline wanted the trip but didn’t want to pay the price.

  As for Vittorio, he, too, had had a mother and had had the worldly arts explained to him; but in addition Mussolini had taught him to be a fanatic, a new and dangerous element in any young person’s character. Just how much of a fanatic was he? Enough to stay poor the rest of his life and to be slighted by the officials who had sent him out to risk his life and lose an arm in Africa? Beauty dropped shrewd little hints along this line and saw the young officer rise to them like a trout to a fly. “He wants money more than he wants anything else,” she reported to her son.

  Lanny wasn’t supposed to know about these negotiations, but Vittorio now asked that he be called into the discussion. Lanny of course professed to be startled by the proposal, and afraid such an undertaking might jeopardize his position as art expert. But when it was pointed out that Vittorio might be willing to undertake the project on his own responsibility, Lanny could not refuse to write a letter to Sir Alfred Pomeroy-Nielson. In this letter he informed the baronet that a person of responsibility was willing to try to get Alfy out of Spain and desired to know whether Sir Alfred would advance the traveling-expenses of two persons for a month, what sums he would authorize to be paid out to others, and what reward in the event they were able to deliver Alfy alive in any neutral port.