The Return of Lanny Budd

by Upton Sinclair

  The defence lawyers tried their best to break down those three witnesses and to imply that they had been trained as part of the frame-up. All the Jonesville residents who had testified for the defence took the stand and denied that they had ever been approached by Mary Huggins or had ever seen her or heard of her. So it was a square issue of veracity, and great indeed was the excitement among the newspaper reporters—including Rose Pippin. All over town and indeed all over the country the issue was debated, and sums of money were wagered on the outcome. After twenty-four hours of discussion and after twice coming back and asking questions of the judge, the twelve good men and true women brought in a verdict of guilty against all four of the accused.

  XI

  Lanny got that news over the radio; he was in the room alone, and he sat motionless and let the tears run down his cheeks without any effort to wipe them away. It was one of the saddest moments of his life. His imagination swept back over the years; he was in his father’s home in Newcastle, a smaller home then, meeting Bess for the first time. He was seventeen and she was nine. He seemed wonderful to her because he had lived in Europe and had seen so many sights and met with adventures thrilling to a child. She had been tall for her age, with thin features like her mother’s, but differing from her mother in being eager and demonstrative. Lanny had no other sister at that time and the relationship was new and delightful to him. She asked questions about everything he had seen and experienced; she listened to him play the piano, and he was the cause of her own eager determination to learn to play well. He had taken her with him upon a visit to their great-uncle Eli Budd, a Congregational minister who went back to Emerson and Bronson Alcott, and who played a part in Lanny’s future development by willing him his library.

  It was perfectly true, as Robbie had said, that Lanny was in good part responsible for the development of Bess’s thought. They had been utopian idealists, all three of them, dreaming about a world of equality and justice, and never for a moment imagining the violence and terror which would turn that dream into a nightmare. They had come to a fork in their ideological road, and those two roads would never meet again; it would not be belabouring a metaphor to say that they might curve gradually and meet head on—upon a battlefield.

  Lanny got up and went to Laurel and told her what had happened. She was firmly prepared for it in her own mind and thought only of him. He had wiped his tears away, but she knew there were more inside. She put her arms around him and told him there was nothing he could do about it, and there was no emotion in the world more wasteful than grief. Bess had chosen a bed of martyrdom, and in her own Puritan way she would enjoy lying in it; her fanatical pride would sustain her. Anyhow, it would be a long time before she had to go to jail; those shrewd lawyers would use all the delaying tactics and would carry the case right up to the United States Supreme Court. It was all good propaganda, and the Communists had plenty of money for that. Meantime Bess would go on working for her cause; she would appear on public platforms, wearing her martyr’s crown of thorns. Laurel had never known the young Bess as Lanny had, so she could not be blamed if there was a touch of acid in her comments.

  They put their minds upon the problem of Hansi. His difficult task was done; he would no longer have to take orders from the F.B.I. or from the United States Attorney for the New York district. But it put him in a rather awkward position regarding his wife. He had espoused her doctrines and had publicly painted himself a bright red. And now that she was a convicted felon was he going to desert her? Of course he could say that he had been an informer, and no doubt the F.B.I. would back him up; but many people would find it hard to forgive him for having denounced his wife.

  Lanny said he hoped that Hansi wouldn’t take to brooding over that problem; and Laurel said, ‘Rubbish! He’s been miserable with Bess for years, and now he’s got a woman he can love. My guess is she’ll take charge’.

  XII

  Lanny considered it his duty to drive out at once to Newcastle and see his father and stepmother. He did not take Laurel along, because this was a family matter. They were proud people and would not wish to discuss their disgrace in the presence of an in-law.

  Poor old Robbie! He would not say it now, but Lanny knew he had not given up his idea that his oldest son was responsible for this calamity; it was the son who had taught strange notions to the young Bess, notions the father had fought with all the energy he possessed. The distinction between revolutionary communism and truly democratic socialism was entirely metaphysical in Robbie’s eyes; to him both doctrines threatened the American way of life—which meant his control of Budd-Erling Aircraft. He suspected that Socialists were merely Communists who thought it bad tactics to announce their true aims; if ever they got a chance they would revolt and seize the great plant and turn it over to the control of the labour union, which Robbie now had in his place and had to deal with politely but which in his secret heart he both hated and feared.

  This much concession he would make; he would say, ‘I am old and tired and the future belongs to the young’. There were his other two sons, Robert, Jr., and Percy, who had learned to run the plant, and he was gradually turning over authority to them. He observed that they got along amiably with the labour leaders, took them for granted, and didn’t seem to be afraid of them. Robbie would shrug his heavy shoulders and say, ‘All right, all right, maybe there can be such a thing as industrial democracy; maybe they can work it out, even if it means squabbling and corruption. I judge by the politicians I have known’.

  Lanny would grin and say, ‘Yes, Robbie; you used to buy politicians, but now the price is getting too high’.

  They had been having arguments like that for just about thirty years. Lanny would point out that the workingman’s sons had been to high school and the politician’s sons had been to college and there was a new generation with different ideas; they couldn’t all be boss and they couldn’t be held down, but they could be reasoned with and programmes could be worked out. Percy once told Lanny that one of the young labour men had said, ‘If only we could keep the old man out of it’! Lanny mentioned the fact that over in England he had met one of the young Tories who had spoken the very same words—meaning Winston Churchill.

  They did not talk about such matters now. They talked about Bess, and the chances of an appeal, and would the Communists be able to raise the money. Lanny said, ‘Sure thing—and let them’! They talked about the sentence she was likely to get and could she stand it. Lanny said she wouldn’t mind it too much; she was too certain of her own rightness. She would be conscious of her role and sure that she would be more useful in jail than out. ‘She has learned to find her happiness in hatred’, he said—a hard saying to her parents.

  Seeking to comfort his stepmother, Lanny pointed out that Bess was just one more of the stern old Puritans, clinging stubbornly to what her conscience told her and lacking only in sound judgment. How many, many Puritans had been like that! But driving home and thinking the matter over, he was more strict with himself. He told himself that he was being sentimental about his sister and that he had to put sympathy out of his mind. She had her own world. Sooner or later she would find some man who agreed with her ideas and so her personal problem would be solved. If she had to go to jail she would busy herself making converts among her fellow prisoners and changing them from individual to collective crime. Instead of breaking into houses they would break into nations; instead of stealing purses and jewellery they would steal a world.

  XIII

  Back in Edgemere the telephone rang, and Lanny heard a familiar voice, this time not disguised. ‘This is Moishe Zinsenheimer. We want to see you’.

  Lanny replied, ‘I am glad to hear the word “we”. Will you drive out here?’

  ‘Yes, but we don’t want to come to the house. We’ll meet you in front of the post office at Shepherdstown at six o’clock, and we’ll go somewhere for dinner’.

  ‘Fine’, said Lanny and repeated the message to Laurel.

  ‘I
told you that Rose would see to it’, said she, who was so often right. ‘My guess is they’re on their way to Nevada’.

  When the Budds reached the spot the Zinsenheimers were already there, and a single glance at their car told the story; the back seat was piled with belongings, and doubtless there were more in the trunk. The runaway couple got into the Budd car and told their story. Hansi had been at home, waiting for the verdict, and Rose had phoned it to him. He had a note for Bess already written, telling her that he had tried his best to adjust himself to her way of life and had failed. He was going away and would not return. He had put that on her dressing table, together with a cheque for a thousand dollars. She had money, but he thought it proper for him to pay a share of the cost of closing up their domestic affairs.

  He had packed his suitcases, piled his clothes and his music scores and other papers into boxes. He had called a taxicab and been driven into New York to meet Rose. She had dictated her last article to a stenographer, collected her fat cheque, which she said was now burning a hole in her handbag, and made certain that no newspaper reporters were trailing her.

  Here they were, she said, footloose and fancy free as any pair of wild rabbits. They were setting out that night for Nevada, delaying only long enough to dine with their two best friends on earth. Rose said that Hansi had promised to wipe his memory free of everything in the past except musical notes. She added, ‘I have told him if I catch him brooding I’ll break his fiddle over his noodle’.

  That was the robust way of looking at it, and Laurel hastened to back it up. She spoke first because she did not trust Lanny to be sufficiently emphatic. She said that Hansi had done everything in the world a man could do to restrain Bess from a course which was a peril to the entire free world. Laurel could testify to that, because she had been present at their arguments and had taken part in them. All three, Laurel, Lanny, and Hansi, had pleaded with Bess and used every argument they knew. Long before they had any idea of espionage they had tried to make it clear that Stalinism was a betrayal of socialism; really it was fascism using a more clever camouflage.

  The deal that Stalin had made with Hitler in the late summer of 1939 had proved it, and Bess had almost been convinced. But of course when Hitler attacked Russia the face of the problem had changed and Russia had perforce become an ally; millions of Socialists and other liberals all over the world had decided that this ally must be trusted. Three years of cold war should have been enough to open their eyes; yet many of them chose to shut their eyes to the evidence, and surely they had no right to expect their friends to walk into the trap with them.

  Lanny backed this up, and not merely because he knew that otherwise Laurel would have broken a fiddle over his noodle. He did it because his reason told him it was right, and it was Hansi’s only chance at happiness. He was lucky to have such a chance; the breaking up of a marriage has wrecked the lives of many a man less sensitive than a musical genius.

  XIV

  They drove to a town where nobody knew them and had dinner, talking in the meantime in low tones about the extraordinary trial and the efficiency with which the government had gathered the evidence and presented it. Too bad they couldn’t have started earlier, and before the atom-bomb secrets had been stolen. But during the war everybody from Franklin Roosevelt down had been deluded by Stalin’s cunning—and that had included Lanny and Laurel as well as Hansi and Bess.

  Rose explained that Hansi had telephoned the lawyer in Reno, instructing him to airmail a letter that had been prepared in advance, notifying Bess of Hansi’s intention to file suit for divorce and to claim the custody of the two children. Her conviction for a felony had destroyed any claim she might have had. Hansi wasn’t going to mention the conviction in his complaint, but of course the judge would know about it. It would suffice to allege that Bess was a member of the Communist party and that her activities were a source of humiliation and distress to her husband. Almost any grounds would do in Reno, for the prosperity of the town depended upon its reputation, and to have refused a divorce to a prominent person might have caused the loss of hundreds of other customers. If people wanted their freedom enough to be willing to travel two or three thousand miles to get it, they ought to get it with certainty and without delay.

  For a fortnight more there would be Mr and Mrs Zinsenheimer in retirement; then there would be the Hansiroses instead of the Hansibesses. This humour was in Rose’s style, and she proceeded to joke about the Laurelbudds and marvel that nobody had thought of that before. They all had another laugh when she stated that she had already ordered Hansi to shell out the contents of his coin purse and billfold; for it had been interstate commerce when she had brought him into New Jersey. Once more he wouldn’t be able to buy a newspaper until they got into the state of Nevada. She was serious about it—she had been getting lessons on the subject of legal evidence, and she wanted two witnesses to the fact that she was transporting Hansi and paying the bills. She could afford to do it, having received eleven thousand dollars for her services during the twenty-two working days of the trial. ‘Easy come, easy go’, she said but vowed it wasn’t going to be that way much longer. She was going to buy a real ranch and put Hansi on it and put a fence around it to keep out both the Reds and the rabbits!

  XV

  The talk came back more than once to the problem of Bess. Both Hansi and Lanny were inclined to be sentimental about her, while the two women were firmly in opposition. They insisted that Bess had chosen her bed, and if it proved to be a bed of spikes that was her hard luck. Laurel said that her means had become the end and the means were evil; so she had become an evil woman, and they all had to harden their hearts in dealing with her.

  Most important, of course, was the problem of those two boys. Laurel said to Hansi, ‘You have to make up your mind to just one thing: Do you want them to grow up into Communist conspirators? If you don’t, you have to take a firm stand; you have to separate them from Bess. You’ll have to tell them the truth about her, no matter how much it may hurt their feelings, or yours’. And Rose supported this, though more tactfully. Of course she didn’t want to have to raise two Communist stepsons or to have her life involved in such a problem. Hansi had promised that this was not to be.

  And then there was question of the property settlement. Hansi had always been generous with Bess, and as a result she had money. They had gone on concert tours together and she had been his piano accompanist. There could be no question that he had been the drawing card, and from the business point of view she was entitled to only a small share of the proceeds. But since it had been a matter of love he had gone fifty-fifty with her.

  Now he had the idea of giving her the house, and both Lanny and Laurel said this was preposterous. ‘What you have to ask yourself’, declared Laurel, ‘is whether you want to contribute fifty thousand dollars to the Communist party’s war chest. She will put the house on the market, and that is where the money will go. From her point of view that’s inevitable; from the point of view of a fellow traveller it’s very noble. If you feel under compulsion to be noble, give the house to the Peace Programme, and let us sell it and use the money to expose the fraudulent nature of Communist peace talk’.

  They had a laugh over that, and then Hansi, the sentimental one, expressed the idea that Bess might not want either the house or alimony; she would spurn the idea of taking a renegade’s money. Laurel replied, ‘Would she spurn it if the party ordered her to take it?’ When Hansi said he hadn’t thought of that, Laurel went on, ‘I have met some of their top intellectuals, and I assure you they don’t lead ascetic lives. They live in penthouses and enjoy luxuries which in the old days in Russia were reserved for the grand dukes’.

  Lanny’s sharp-tongued lady added one thing more. ‘Take my advice and keep Rose hidden until after the divorce has been granted. If there’s one thing that would provoke her to fight, Rose would be it’.

  Lanny took little part in this discussion. He sat listening, and every sentence they spoke incr
eased the ache in his heart. It was his sister they were talking about; and while Hansi had found another wife, Lanny could never have another sister to take the place of Bess. There was Marceline, but she lived a long way off and hadn’t the intellectual qualities to bring her as close as Bess had been. It was part of himself he had to cut away and bury in the cold ground. He had to do it, because he had no answer to his wife’s arguments.

  BOOK EIGHT

  Whom the Truth Makes Free

  22 AND BACK RESOUNDED, DEATH

  I

  In June and July the two major political parties held their presidential nominating conventions. To each of these quadrennial jamborees came more than two thousand delegates and alternates from places all over the country and as far away as Hawaii and Alaska. Twice as many newspaper reporters and photographers and radio men came, and so many spectators that the vast auditorium could hold but a small part of them. Standards bearing the names of states were set up on the floor, and the delegates were seated around them. Nominating orators invoked the American eagle and ego and the spirits of Washington and Lincoln; thunderous cheering echoed through the hall, bands crashed, and the heads of delegations seized the standards and began marching through the aisles. The popularity of a candidate was based upon whether the marching and the cheering continued for three minutes or thirty. The proceedings continued day and night, and during that time a million hotdogs would be eaten and several million soda-pop bottles emptied.