After the surgeon had gone, Jerry said: "When do we eat?" Lanny wanted to say that he couldn’t eat, but he knew that Jerry was there for the purpose of making him change his mind. It was dinner-hour at the Pension Flavin, and Jerry recited a jingle to the effect that he knew a boarding-house not far away where they had ham and eggs three times a day. "Oh, how those boarders yell when they hear the dinner-bell!"—and so on. This was the sporting way to deal with the fact that your mother-in-law runs a medium-priced pension in the most fashionable of Riviera towns. Lanny knew also that he hadn’t visited the Pendleton family for some time, and that, having won the biggest matrimonial sweepstakes, it was up to him to show that he didn’t mean to "high-hat" his poor friends.
"All right," he said; "but I’ll be glum company."
''The boarders know all about it," responded Jerry.
Indeed they did! Wherever the boarders came from and whatever they were, they knew about the Budd family and felt themselves members of it. For sixteen years Jerry Pendleton had been going fishing with Lanny Budd, and the boarders had eaten the fish. At the outset Jerry had been a boarder like themselves, but after he had driven the Boches out of France he had married the daughter of the pension. And then had come the time when another of the boarders had married Lanny’s mother; from that time on, the boarders had all regarded themselves as Budds, and entitled to every scrap of gossip concerning the family.
IX
Driving back to the hospital, Lanny took the precaution to stop and purchase several magazines, French, English, and American. He would equip himself for a siege, and if one subject failed to hold his attention he would try others. Arriving at the reception-room, he found that he was no longer alone; in one of the chairs sat a French gentleman, stoutish and prosperous, betraying in aspect and manner those symptoms which Lanny recognized.
The stranger’s misery loved company, and he introduced himself as an avocat from a near-by town. It was his wife’s first accouchement, and he was in a terrible state of fidgets and could hardly keep his seat; he wanted to bother the nurses with questions every time one entered the room. He seemed to Lanny absurdly naive; he actually didn’t know about the "bearing-down pains," that they were according' to the arrangements of la nature, and that women didn’t very often die of them. Speaking as a veteran of some ten hours, Lanny explained about the stretching of tissues, and comforted the stranger as best he could. Later on, seeing that his advice was without effect, Lanny became bored, and buried himself in the latest issue of the New Statesman.
He would have liked very much to inquire whether there had been any change in the status of his wife; but the egregious emotionalism of Monsieur Fouchard reminded him that the Budds were stern Anglo-Saxons and should behave accordingly. He resolutely fixed his attention upon an article dealing with the final reparations settlement of the World War, now more than eleven years in the past, and the probable effects of that settlement upon the various nations involved. This was a subject of interest to a young man who had been born in Switzerland of American parents and had lived chunks of his life in France, Germany, England, and "the States." His many friends in these countries belonged to the ruling classes and took political and economic developments as their personal affairs.
The surgeon was a long time in returning, and Lanny began once more to feel himself a defrauded client. He forgot that there are telephones, whereby an obstetrician can keep informed as to his patient while reading the latest medical journal at home or playing a game of billiards at his club. When the Englishman at last appeared, he informed the anxious husband that the time for action was approaching, and that Mrs. Budd would soon be taken to the delivery-room. After that Lanny found it impossible to interest himself in what L’illustration had to report about the prospects for the spring Salons—important though this subject was to one who earned his living by buying or selling works of art on commission.
There was no use trying to be Anglo-Saxon any longer. Better give up and admit the hegemony of mother nature. Lanny put down his magazine and watched Monsieur Fouchard pacing the floor of the reception-room, and when Monsieur Fouchard sat down and lighted a cigarette, Lanny got up and did the pacing. Meanwhile they talked. The Frenchman told about his wife; she was only nineteen, her charms were extraordinary, and Monsieur Fouchard spared no details in describing them. He wanted to tell the whole story of their courtship and marriage, and was grateful to a stranger for listening.
Lanny didn’t tell so much; nor was it necessary. Monsieur Fouchard had heard the surgeon call him by name, and was aware who this elegant young American must be. He had read about Irma Barnes, and began to talk as if he were an old friend of the family, indeed as if he were about to take charge of Irma’s convalescence and the nursing of her infant. Lanny, who had grown up in France, knew that it wasn’t worth while to take offense; much better to be human. They would set up a sort of temporary association, a League of Husbands in Labor. Others might be joining them before the night was over.
X
The accoucheuse of Madame Fouchard arrived, a Frenchwoman; she succeeded in persuading the husband that it would be a long time before the blessed event could take place, so that gentleman bade his fellow league-member a sentimental farewell. Lanny answered a call from his mother and reported on the situation; after pacing the floor some more, he sat down and tried to put his mind upon an account of a visit to the hanging monasteries of Greece. He had seen them as a boy, but now wouldn’t have cared if all the monks had been hanged along with the monasteries. He simply couldn’t believe that a normal delivery could take so long a time. He rang the bell and had a session with the night head nurse, only to find that she had learned the formulas. "Tout va bien, monsieur. Soyez tranquille."
Lanny was really glad when the door opened and a lady was escorted in, obviously in that condition in which ladies enter such places. With her came a French gentleman with a dark brown silky beard; Lanny recognized him as a piano-teacher well known in Cannes. The lady was turned over to the nurse’s care, and the gentleman became at once a member of Lanny’s league. Inasmuch as Lanny was a pianist himself, and had a brother-in-law who was a violin virtuoso, the two might have talked a lot of shop; but no, they preferred to tell each other how long they had been married, and how old their wives were, and how they felt and how their wives felt. This confrontation with nature in the raw had reduced them to the lowest common denominator of humanity. Art, science, and culture no longer existed; only bodies, blood, and babies.
Lanny would listen for a while, and then he would cease to hear what the bearded Frenchman was saying. Lanny was walking up and down the floor of the reception-room, with beads of perspiration standing oat upon his forehead. Oh, God, this surely couldn’t be right! Something dreadful must be happening in that delivery-room, some of those things which the encyclopedia told about: a failure of the mother’s heart, the breaking of the "waters," or one of those irregular presentations which occur in varying percentages of cases. Manifestly, if the accoucheur had encountered trouble, he wouldn’t come running out to tell the expectant father; he’d be busy, and so would the nurses. Only when it was all over would anyone break the tragic news; and then Lanny would never be able to forgive himself.