VI
They took her to the operating-table, and the two men sat side by side in a waiting-room and tried to talk about other things, but found it difficult. She did not die, but perhaps it would have been better if she had. The surgeon reported that it was a cancer, and that it already involved the liver and was impossible to remove. Nothing to do but sew her up, and make life as easy as possible during the time that was left to her. It might be half a year, but probably less. She would have a great deal of pain, but they would ease her with opiates. The surgeon would leave it to them to tell her what they thought best.
The two men took their hats and walked down the corridor of the hospital. Exeunt duo; a melancholy stage direction. They had feared the worst and they had got something almost as bad. They got into Lanny’s car, and he said: “We shall have to be friends, Denis. We must do the best we can for her sake.” The other pressed his hand, and they sat for a while in silence before Lanny started the car.
When she was recovered enough, they brought her home and got a nurse to attend her. The two boys got leave and came to hear the tragic news, and to hear the messages of love and wisdom which she had for them. Each day was harder for her; the pain of the surgical wound was replaced by the pain of the gnawing demon. The local doctor agreed that she should not be allowed to suffer; there was nothing to be gained by denying her drugs. The law did not permit them to put her out of her misery all at once, but it permitted them to accomplish the same result by stages.
Lanny was young and rebellious, and did not submit readily to these hammer-blows of fate. Once more he was in rebellion against a universe, a Creator, whatever one chose to call it, which decreed the snuffing out of his happiness. Even after having passed through the horrors of a world war and an abortive peace he could not become reconciled to the idea that Marie de Bruyne, a bubble on the surface of the stream of life, was about to break, and lose all her rainbow colors, and return to the substance of the stream. He wouldn’t give her up; when he had worn himself out cursing the universe, he cursed the doctors who didn’t know their business, who couldn’t stop large wild carcinoma cells from eating up the normal, well-behaved cells in a female abdomen.
He went to an American surgeon, to see if he knew any more. This man called up the French surgeon and heard his account of the conditions in the interior of Madame de Bruyne, and then confirmed the diagnosis of doom. No, there was nothing new in the treatment of cancer; at least nothing that could affect such a case. Some day, perhaps, the world would know more; it might know it now if men had not expended so great a part of their energies upon the destruction of their fellows instead of upon the conquest of nature’s hostile forces. The American surgeon had almost Pink tendencies, it appeared.
Still Lanny would not give up. He took to reading the medical books, and acquired a mass of information, most of it far from cheering; he went to the libraries and read the latest periodicals in French, English, and German which reported on the vast field of cancer research; he learned a great deal about the chemistry of cancer cells, their biology and habits, but he didn’t find any hint as to how to stop their invasion of a woman’s liver. There were left only the quacks, whose advertisements were prominent in the newspapers; also the various kinds of cultists, who were ready to tell him that cancer could be cured by a change of diet, the omission of meat, the use of whole grains, raw foods, or what not; also the faith healers, who would assure him that God could stop the growth of cancer cells, and would do it if the patient believed it. That mental changes in a human being might also change his body chemistry was a not altogether absurd idea, but Lanny had never heard of it, and if Marie had she did not mention it. The religion which she had been taught concentrated upon her sins and left her diseases to the doctors.
VII
Lanny went back to live at the château and devoted himself to nursing his beloved. When the sun shone he would help her into the garden by the south wall where the pear and apricot trees were trained like vines; there amid the colors and the scents of tulips and fleurs-de-lis, hyacinths and crocuses and narcissi, he would read her sad stories of the death of kings, and of the course of true love which never did run smooth. It had been springtime when he had first carriee her away from this land of gentle streams and well-tended gardens; it would be springtime when an angel of mercy would come and perform the same service for her. When the weather was inclement, he would play music for her, gentle music which turned sorrow into beauty, gay dances to remind her of old days, brave marches to escort her into eternity. When her pains became too great for endurance, he would put her to bed and give her some of the sleeping-tablets which had been entrusted to him. Always he took pains to hide the bottle, lest she be tempted to take more than her due allowance.
He didn’t want to do anything but stay with her. Business became a profanation, and meeting the Reds seemed like breaking faith with her. Pretty soon she would be gone, and then he would have no more of her time, so make the most of what was left. They talked long and deeply, probing the mysterious thing that is called life. They were in a state of ignorance very trying, but apparently not to be remedied in their time. If there was any plausible theory as to what, life was, or why it was, that theory had not been brought to their attention. Marcel Detaze had speculated about these matters, but his ideas hadn’t meant as much to a happy boy as they would have meant to an unhappy man. Apparently unhappiness had something to do with the teaching of wisdom, but that was another thing that didn’t make sense to Lanny; he couldn’t get up any interest in anything that he was learning or gaining just then. What he wanted was for Marie to get well; instead of which she was subjected to torture and destined to blind annihilation, and no philosophy or religion was anything but empty wind in the face of that cruelty.
They had been happy, and it pleased her to go back and remember the perfect days. Pain became endurable when they recalled the scenes of their honeymoon trip through north western France, and of their sojourn in Geneva; she saw with her mind’s eye the cold blue waters of Lac Leman, the old city with the plane trees, the snow-capped mountains turning pink in the twilight. He recalled his later visit to that city, and told her about the American secretary who had fallen pathetically in love with him. She said: “That sounds like a very sweet woman, Lanny. Tell me more about her.” When he did so, she said: “Why don’t you go back there and meet her again?” When he said that no woman would ever be able to-take the place of Marie de Bruyne, he brought down upon himself a gentle scolding.
“Dear,” she said, “I cannot go and leave you to grief. I grieved for my mother, and then for my brother. It is the most futile of all emotions; it gets you nowhere, brings you no growth, no help. You have to promise me to put it out of your heart, and do something constructive, something that will be of help to other people.”
She came back to this again and again, forcing it upon his attention; he must take it as a psychological exercise, to think of the good things he had got from her, and to lift himself out of grief. As a part of that, he must face the idea that he would fall in love again, and would marry; he must talk about it sensibly, and let her give him the advice which she would be unable to give later. She knew about women, and she knew about him; he would not be an easy person to mate. She voiced again the thought that she should have performed an act of renunciation some time ago. She saw herself going to some suitable damsel and saying: “I am growing too old for the man I love; will you consider taking my place?”
Lanny couldn’t keep from smiling. He couldn’t imagine any of the American misses he had met relishing that method of wooing. She answered: “You Americans leave engagements to chance, and you have many divorces.”
“In America they have divorces, and in France they have liaisons.”
“But there are liaisons in America, too.” He couldn’t answer that, statistics being difficult to obtain. He subdued himself to listen to her monitions, and promised to profit by them if ever the time came.
V
III
The pains increased, and the drugs she was taking reduced her strength; she could no longer walk alone and pretty soon she could not walk at all. It was evident that the final agony was approaching, and she didn’t want him to see it. She begged him to go, so that his memories of her might not be defaced by these hideous things. But he wouldn’t listen to her. He had loved her in happiness and would prove that he could love her in sorrow. He would drink the cup to the dregs.
Poor Denis didn’t know what kind of friend he was, or what he could do. He loved pleasure and he hated pain; when she begged him to go she provided him with a good excuse; he could say that he was de trop, that she wanted to be with her lover. But his conscience tormented him; he would come back, and sit by her, and listen to her gasping out a few words, begging him not to grieve. She was determined to spare her sons this futile suffering. They had their military duties; let them stay and learn to serve their country.
Late one night she talked to Lanny with infinite tenderness, with all the yearning of her soul. There wasn’t anything new she could say; there cannot be, when you have had so many years together. But she told him again of her devotion, and the bliss that he had given her; she left him her blessings, and then begged him to get some sleep. He counted out her tablets for her, a dose which increased almost daily; she told him to put them on her table; she wanted to write a letter to her boys before she took the drug. He went into the next room and lay down.
He slept deeply; he had made the discovery that painful emotions can be as exhausting as physical toil. When he opened his eyes, daylight had come, and he went to her room to see how she was, and found her lying still, her eyes closed. Something told him; he touched her and found her cold. On the table beside her was the bottle in which the tablets had been kept; she had got up in the night and crawled or dragged herself into his room, and slipped her hand under his pillow and found the bottle. It must have been an agony to her to get back into bed, but in the interest of decency she had achieved it; she had taken all the tablets, and her troubles were over. In past days she had said to him more than once: “Whatever may be the truth about the hereafter, I shall have got rid of the cancer, and you of the knowledge that I am suffering. Count that blessing—count it over and over.”
So he obeyed her. He put the empty bottle into his pocket, and would take that secret to his grave. No need to shock a Catholic husband and sons. The surgeon who had opened her abdomen would have no difficulty in certifying that she had died of cancer.
She left a letter to the sons; and a little note for Denis: “Je pardonne tout, et dieu le pardonnera.” Another note, perhaps the last, very feebly written. “Adieu, chéri.” Underneath it, as if an afterthought: “Ange de dieu.” She meant that to apply to him, but he could take it as a signature; she had surely been an angel to him, and would accompany him wherever he might travel, here or hereafter. He put the note into his pocket, along with the bottle.
IX
The sons were summoned, also the relatives of Marie, and they had a proper French funeral in the village church which had been built five hundred years ago, and from which the husband’s family had been buried. The elderly priest who had been their genial guest on occasions asked no questions about sleeping-tablets, and what he did not know could not hurt him with his heavenly powers. The neighbors came, in decorous black; they had gossiped about her in life, but in death they knew that she had been a good woman. The servants came, and tradespeople of the village who had known and esteemed her. In the family pew of the de Bruynes sat four men in mourning, and when they walked out two by two, the older pair leading, everybody bowed respectfully, and nobody considered it a scandal any more. These things happen, and it is well if there is only one extra mourner, male or female.
Marie was laid to rest in the family crypt, and the living members drove back to the château. Lanny had promised to talk to the boys, and he waited for a chance. He found that they had known the Secret for years, and had no bitter feelings about it. They looked up to their mother’s lover as a young man with many kinds of prestige; he was good-looking, he had traveled widely, he had conversation, and he made large sums of money; they would model themselves upon him as far as possible. He told them what their mother had requested him to do, and the kind of wives she had hoped that they would choose; he told them that, contrary to widespread belief, it was possible for a young man to wait until he had found a woman who was worthy of his love. He invited them to Bienvenu and offered his mother’s help with heir matrimonial problems. Being French boys, they did not find anything strange in this offer.
Marie left a will. She had little property, but had bequeathed to Lanny a couple of paintings and some books that he loved, and smaller pieces of jewelry that would remind him of her. Denis told him to take these things without awaiting formalities. Lanny said his farewells to the weeping servants, and to Marie’s relatives; he embraced the three de Bruynes in French fashion, and remembered once more the saying of their poet: “To go away is to die a little.” He had lived in this château a great deal, and had died there still more. When he stepped into his car and drove out of its gates, it was the closing of a large and heavy volume of the life of Lanny Budd.
BOOK SIX
Some Sweet Oblivious Antidote
26
Pride and Prejudice
I
Hansi went to New York and made his debut at Carnegie Hall. This was shortly before Marie’s death, and the news of it helped to divert her mind in the intervals of her pain. Since Lanny had attended a concert in that auditorium, he could picture the scene to her; since they had both heard Hansi play Tchaikowsky’s concerto with Lanny’s piano accompaniment, she could hear the music in their minds at the very hour it was being played. The concert was given on Friday afternoon, and then repeated on Saturday evening; the first performance, allowing for the difference in time, was at the dinner hour in the Château de Bruyne, and Lanny could hardly eat for his excitement. He wanted to hold his breath while he imagined Hansi playing the long and difficult cadenza. He felt better during the canzonetta, which every violinist tries to play, for he knew what lovely tones would come floating forth from Hansi’s bow. He wanted to sit with his hands clenched tensely while he knew that his friend would be rushing through the frenzies of the finale; ecstasy alternating with depression, after the fashion of the old Russian soul. The Bolsheviks were laboring mightily to change that natural phenomenon, but whether they were succeeding was a subject for controversy.
Informed well in advance, Bess had extracted a promise from her parents to take her to this recital. How could they refuse, considering the nature of that institution known to Europe and America as “R and R”? Freddi was coming with his brother, and there was nothing that Esther could do but swallow her pride and prejudice and greet the sons of a man so important to her husband. The three Budds sat well up in front, where they could watch the bowing of the young violinist and every expression of his face. Whatever these things meant to them, they couldn’t fail to realize that he was making a success, for at the end of the stormy composition the audience rose to its feet and shouted approval, calling him back again and again; they wouldn’t take the conductor’s no, but forced Hansi to play an encore. He stood there alone, a tall, slender figure, and played the andante movement from one of Bach’s solo sonatas, very dignified, austere, and reverent.
What happened after that Lanny learned in letters from Hansi and Bess, and later by word of mouth; also from Robbie—for it was an important story to them all, and had elements of both drama and comedy. Returning with her parents to their hotel suite, with the plaudits of the multitude still ringing in their ears, Bess revealed that she was going to marry that young Jew. As Robbie admitted to his son, neither he nor his wife was taken by surprise, for Esther had told about their daughter’s extravagant behavior in Paris, and they had discussed the painful possibilities. Having watched the two Robin boys developing, the father admired them, and thought that Bess mig
ht go a long way and do worse; but out of consideration for his wife he had agreed to let her try to restrain the girl if it could be done.
To the mother it was a dreadful humiliation, and the more so because she dared not express all that she felt. Her prejudice against Jews was deep, but it was based upon the snobbery of the country club set, and she knew that this wouldn’t get her very far in controversy with an idealistic child. “You will have children with kinky hair and short legs! They will be dumpy and fat when they are thirty!” Of course Bess didn’t fail to point out that Hansi had long, thin legs, and hair that was only slightly wavy.
There wasn’t a thing to be said against the young violinist, except that his father had been born in a hut with a dirt floor in a Russian ghetto; and you wouldn’t have known that if he hadn’t been honest enough to tell it. Mama Robin was said to be without equipment for a career in society—but then she lived in Berlin, and would probably never cross the ocean. When Esther protested against losing her daughter to a foreigner, Bess replied that Hansi would probably be coming on a concert tour every year; playing the violin was as international an occupation as selling munitions.
The one real objection was the youth of both lovers; they couldn’t know their own minds at such an age. Hadn’t it always been Bess’s plan to go through college before she married? She answered that she was going to a different kind of college, one that she had learned about from Lanny; you could read books and teach yourself whatever you wanted to know. Bess was going to work at piano practice, so as to be able to accompany Hansi. She wasn’t going to have any babies, whether long-legged or short—it was amazing what young women knew nowadays, and would talk about even in the presence of their fathers! Bess said that when Hansi went on tour she was going with him, to keep the other women away from him. Mummy had always said that travel was educational, and so were languages, and meeting distinguished people all over the world. Look at what Lanny had got during the Peace Conference in Paris; the girl had heard her father expatiate on this and had treasured it in her mind.