The fashion was to be “hard-boiled.” The world could not be worse than these men thought it, conferences couldn’t be more futile, conferees more stupid or tricky. The newsmen always predicted the worst—and so far their prophecies had been justified. Lanny and Rick preferred the Americans, because their point of view was more aloof, they were freer to say what they thought, both in conversation and in cabling. Now and then, however, Rick would decide that it was too easy to be cynical about the problems of Europe, and he would seek the company of some reserved and careful Englishman. The French and Italians one met less freely, because their points of view were apt to be official.
Lloyd George and Poincaré had had a meeting at Boulogne prior to this conference, and the former had been forced to agree that the question of reparations was not to be raised. That, everybody said, was like playing Hamlet without the Ghost. The French Premier was refusing to attend, but had sent his Foreign Minister, and was so afraid that this Barthou might fall under the spell of the Welsh wizard that he was sending him a dozen telegrams of instructions every day—actually he sent more than a thousand during the course of the affair!
When Lanny had had his fill of international intrigues he would go out for a walk on the funny cobbled streets of this half-medieval city. The principal ones were beflagged for the occasion, and the cab-drivers wore ribbons dangling from their hats—Lanny didn’t know whether that was a general custom or a special honor. At night everything was brilliantly illuminated, and the streets crowded with a holiday throng; girls and soldiers and carabinieri everywhere. There was opera every night, and dancing until morning in the cafes and the boites de nuit. Lanny looked at sixteenth-century churches with facades in stripes of black and white marble; he went through palaces in which the gentlemen of Shakespeare’s plays might have lived their tangled plots. Now the stage was bigger and the plots much harder to follow. How would a playwright manage to put twenty-nine nations into a drama? All the world was a stage in a sense that no sixteenth-century playwright could have dreamed!
VIII
Three years had passed since Lanny had seen Lincoln Steffens, but he didn’t look any older; his little gray mustache and goatee appeared to have been trimmed by the same barber, and his quiet business suit to have been cut by the same tailor. He was still the quizzical-kind philosopher, amusing himself with other people’s intellectual confusion. They ran into each other in the Casa della Stampa, and Stef took him off to lunch, because he had been drawn to this amiable playboy and wanted to find out what life had been doing to him. “Have you made up your mind to anything yet?” he asked, and Lanny, knowing the game, countered: “Have you?” The other said: “I don’t have to. I’m a philosopher.” Lanny replied: “I’ve decided that that’s what I am.”
In the inexhaustible library of his great-great-uncle, Lanny had come upon the Dialogues of Plato, and it seemed to him that Stef must have taken these as the model of his conversation. You’d have thought it was Socrates asking you questions, always friendly but searching your mind, leading you to the point where you realized that you didn’t know what you were talking about. But never would he tell you that; you would see it. Never would he say: “Don’t you perceive that inconsistency?” The time would come when you would begin to stammer and apologize for your own confusion of mind.
Lanny was in a trying position here in Genoa, having to keep one large part of his thoughts from Robbie and another large part from Rick. He wanted very much to be honest, and suddenly he blurted out: “See here, Stef, will you let me tell you something frankly?”
“Of course,” said the other. Looking at this handsome youth with all the signs of wealth on him, he asked: “Are you in love?”
“Indeed I am,” said Lanny, “but I don’t make any problem of that. It’s my father, and our business here in Genoa. Will you keep it to yourself, please?”
“Shoot!” said Stef.
“Well, you know about Budd’s; and now my father has gone in for oil, and he’s here on business.”
“The town is full of them. What is it the Bible says: ‘Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together’?”
“You know, Robbie has always taught me to hate the Reds. He raised merry hell with me in Paris because I met you and my Uncle Jesse. I got into a scrape with the Paris police that I never had a chance to tell you about. The result was that I had to swear off on meeting any more Bolsheviks.”
“And you’re breaking the rule now?”
“No, it’s just the other way. The Bolsheviks have oil.”
“Oh, I see!” exclaimed the muckraker, much amused.
“Now my father wants to meet them. He even wants to meet you.”
“Well, why not, Lanny? I’d be glad to meet him.”
“But you see, he won’t be interested in your ideas the least bit.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because—I know Robbie. He’s here on business.”
“Listen,” said the muckraker. “You never read any of my books, did you?”
“I’m ashamed to say I haven’t.”
“They’re not easy to find any more. But see if you can get a copy of The Shame of the Cities. You’ll see how, twenty years ago, I used to travel round and interview the toughest guys—the political bosses, and the businessmen who paid them and used them. There were some cases where they wouldn’t let me quote them, but I can’t recall a single case where they refused to talk to me frankly and tell me what they were doing—some of the very worst things. The System, I called it, and they had been following it all their lives, but they didn’t know it, and when I pointed it out to them, they were thunder-struck and thought I was some sort of wizard.”
“I don’t think you’ll find Robbie as naive as that; he knows what he is doing and he believes in it.”
“Maybe so; but this is what I’ve discovered—honest confession is one of the greatest luxuries the human soul can enjoy. There are few of even the richest men in the world who feel they can afford it.”
“All I can say is,” said Lanny, “if you can break through my father’s coat of chain mail, I’ll give you a certificate as a real wizard.”
“You arrange for me to have lunch with him—just us two. You keep away; for of course it would be something different if you were there, he has to play a part before you.”
“What he really wants, Stef, is for you to introduce him to some of the Soviet representatives.”
“Well, why not? He won’t shoot them, will he?”
“He wants to get oil concessions.”
“They have oil to sell, perhaps. Why shouldn’t they meet him?”
“It’s all right, only I wanted you to know what we are up to.”
The muckraker took this with good humor. “Bless your heart, I wasn’t born yesterday, and neither were the Russians. All I need say is ‘American oil man,’ and wink one eye, and they’ll buckle on their chain mail. They can take care of themselves, believe me!”
IX
The luncheon took place next day, in a private room of that particular “grand hotel” in which the Budds were staying; and just what happened was a secret which those two so different warriors would carry to their graves. What Robbie said was: “That’s a remarkable mind.”
“You bet!” said Lanny.
“Of course,” the other hastened to qualify, “it’s easy for a man who sits aloof and criticizes, and won’t take any stand one way or the other. If he had to act, he’d find he had to make up his mind what he really believes.”
“I don’t know,” said Lanny. “It seems to me he has some very firm convictions.”
“What, for example?”
“He believes in facing facts and not being fooled, by yourself or anybody else. It seems to me that’s fundamental.”
“Well, it’s like a gun, or a typewriter, or any other instrument; it depends on what use you make of it after you get it.”
Robbie didn’t say anything about having made a
ny confessions. Instead, he remarked, with quiet satisfaction: “I got what I was after. He has given me a letter to one of those Soviet people, a man named Krassin, who he says is their expert on foreign trade. Do you know anything about him?”
“He’s just a name to me; but I’ll see if I can find out. A lot of the newspapermen have been meeting them, and they talk freely.”
Lanny, of course, made haste to see Stef again to inquire what happened. It was rather disappointing, for the muckraker said: “He’s just like all the others: a man who is unhappy about the way the world is going, but can’t bring himself to face the idea that he has any responsibility for it.”
“Are you free to tell me about it?”
“I’m afraid not all of it. Your father is a very proud man, I would almost say arrogant; and of course he can’t have his own way, so he’s going to suffer like the devil.”
“I know that,” agreed Lanny. “I’ve known it since the war began. He hated that mess, yet he couldn’t help knowing in his heart that he had had a share in bringing it on.”
“I told him about elephant-hunting in Siam. He made me think of a powerful bull elephant that has just discovered that he’s inside a stockade, and he runs here and there and hurls himself against the barriers until he almost breaks his neck.”
“And Robbie took that?”
“I suppose he took it because he never expects to see me again. He probably wouldn’t take it from you.”
“I guess not!”
“I’ll tell you one thing that’s important to you,” said Stef. “I brought him to admit that he has no right to dominate your thinking. I pointed out to him that it wasn’t respecting your personality. I backed him down on that.”
“Oh, Stef, I can’t tell you what that would mean to me! I’ve been living in a sort of jail. Do you think he really means it?”
“He meant it when he said it. Whether he’ll be able to live up to it is another question, of course.”
X
On one of the decorated streets of festive Genoa Lanny ran into three of those Caucasian gentry in high black boots and large black astrakhan bonnets who, at the Paris Peace Conference, had put their excited faces close to his and enveloped him in a fine salivary spray, while telling him in atrocious French the sufferings of their country under the heel of Bolshevism. Now they were here, no longer as official representatives, but as exiles and outcasts; they had been sold out, and whoever got the oil of their native land would pay no royalties to them. Again they surrounded the amiable Lanny Budd and poured out their woes, and he had a hard time making clear to them that he no longer had an official position, was no longer any sort of pipeline for either news or propaganda.
All the little nations were here; they had been officially invited and their coming had been trumpeted; but now who was to pay any attention to them? Their broken and bankrupt peoples needed steel rails and freight-cars, plows and seeds, oil for their lamps and needles to mend their breeches—in short, money, money, money, and who was going to give or lend it? They were besieging the hotels and villas of statesmen, and making life miserable for secretaries; they were sitting in the cafes, drinking themselves melancholy, and ready to weep on the shoulder of any stranger who would listen. Especially they wanted to get hold of Americans, because America had all the money there was left in the world. Lloyd George had a marvelous new scheme for an international loan of two billion dollars for the reconstruction of Europe. America was to put up half; and a dozen times Lanny was asked: What did he know about it? When would it be available? How would it be divided? Where did you go to get your share?
Painful to an idealistic youth to have to confess that he wasn’t trying to help the world out of all these troubles! Painful to have to hear his own voice, speaking inside him: “I am one of the wolves, roaming the edges of the pack, looking for a stray or a weakling, a young one or an old that I can pick up! I am the son of a wolf; and no use telling myself that I don’t like what my father wolf is doing, because I live on what he kills.”
In short; there was a moral crisis in the soul of Lanny Budd. The Genoa conference was for him no holiday, but a time of inner strife and deep-seated unhappiness. Except for his brief talk with Stef he never mentioned it; and certainly his father did nothing to make it easier for him—for Robbie’s mind was on the kill, and he had no time for foolishness. If he was aware that his son was disturbed over helping him to get an oil concession, he must have brushed it aside as something fanciful that a youngster would have to get over quickly. Time enough by and by to sit around and listen to radical chatter called “ideas”; but right now there was big money to be won or lost, and if Robbie needed an introduction he asked for it, if he needed information he asked Lanny to go and get it, and he didn’t stop to say: “If you wouldn’t mind,” or: “If it would be consistent with your notions of delicacy and good taste.”
So Lanny roamed the streets of this ancient city with a smoky fire of discontent inside him. Did he need so much money? Did anybody need it? Even granting that you needed it, did you have a right to wreck the world to get it? And after you had wrecked the world, did you have the right to call yourself a “practical man” and everybody else a “dreamer”? These questions had been shaping themselves in Lanny’s mind for a matter of eight years—ever since July 31, 1914, to be exact.
Yes, it was a crisis. Hitherto Lanny had been ordered to think what he didn’t want to think, and that had been trying enough; now he was ordered to say what he didn’t want to say and to do what he didn’t want to do, and that was far worse. He suddenly found himself thinking that this wonderful father who had been the ideal of his childhood and youth was somewhat of a bullheaded and insensitive person. Lanny still loved him, of course; that was what made it so miserable, so destructive of peace; it was possible to love your father, and still think such treasonable thoughts about him!
The thoughts took the form of imaginary dialogues, in which Lanny would say: “Look, Robbie, have you forgotten what your father did to you? He wrecked your whole life—so you told me many times—he made it impossible for you to be happy. And now are you going to do it to me?”
14
Blood of the Martyrs
I
Lloyd George set off the Genoa conference with one of his eloquent and most persuasive speeches. Where everybody else was worried and frightened, he was witty and gay. In his verbal flights he manifested both determination and generosity; this was the greatest gathering in Europe’s history, he said, and the Continent was going to be restored. It was such good news that the delegates from twenty-nine nations arose and cheered him to the echo. Then, the ceremony over, the British delegation retired to their Villa d’Albertis and began wrangling with the French and Belgians over the conditions upon which a loan might be made to Russia; they continued this procedure for a matter of six weeks, when the conference came to an end with nothing accomplished.
At the first meeting with the Russians Lloyd George put in the British claim against the country for British property damaged or confiscated; the amount was two thousand six hundred million pounds—quite a tidy sum which the Russians would kindly acknowledge as a debt. Chicherin, the Soviet Foreign Commissar and head of their delegation, replied courteously that they would be pleased to balance the claims against the Russian claims on the British government for damage done to Russia by British armies at Archangel and Murmansk, and by British-financed armies of Wrangel, Kolchak, and Yudenich, the total of which amounted to five thousand million pounds. After this exchange of bills due, the British retired for tea and the subject was dropped.
The French, of course, had a huge claim against Russia, the money which their bankers had lent to the Tsar. The Soviet’s argument was that this money had been used to arm. Russia for the benefit of France, and the debt had been paid by ten million lives. Also they advanced against the French a claim similar to that against Britain: Denikin’s White Russian armies had been munitioned by France and guided by French officers
, and they had ravaged the Ukraine for three dreadful years. Thus Bolshevik Russia versus bourgeois France, and on what basis could they settle such a quarrel?
Lloyd George, the practical fellow, said: “Let’s forget the old claims, which the Russians are obviously in no position to meet. Let’s get something real. Oil, for example! The Russians have it, and we can drill and pump it. Let’s lease the district for a matter of ninety years, and pay with a part of the oil.” But the stubborn Poincaré sat in his Paris office, poring day and night over his documents—he was a pasty-faced, pragmatical lawyer, and words were sacred to him, ancient bargains must be kept and ancient precedents followed. He made it a point of honor that the Bolsheviks should acknowledge the debt. Said the sarcastic Robbie Budd: “They should do what the French are doing to us—acknowledge, and then not pay!”
II
The Russians had been segregated at a little place called Santa Margherita, some twenty miles down the coast; they were in a comfortable hotel, but to reach it you had to travel by a slow train or motor on a dusty road. Robbie sent his letters of introduction to delegate Krassin, an appointment was made, and Lanny drove his father; they were escorted into the Russian’s office, and Robbie got a jolt, for he had expected to meet a proletarian roughneck, and instead here was a tall, old-world aristocrat with fine features, coldly polite and reserved, speaking better English than Robbie did French. Leonid Krassin was an engineer who had managed the great Putilov arms plant in St. Petersburg before the war; he knew all there was to know about the Baku oil-field, because in earlier days he had been in that city as manager for the A.E.G., the German electrical trust of which Walter Rathenau was head.