IX
Amid this oddly assorted family Parsifal Dingle went on living his quietist life. He had the firm faith that it was impermissible to argue with people; the only thing was to set an example, and be certain that in due course it would have its effect. He took no part in any controversy, and never offered an opinion unless it was asked for. He sought nothing for himself, because, he said, everything was within him. He went here and there about the place, a friend of the flowers and the birds and the dogs. He read a great deal, and often closed his eyes; you wouldn’t know whether he was praying or asleep. He was kind to everybody, and treated rich and poor the same; the servants revered him, having become certain that he was some kind of saint. His fame spread, and he would be asked to come and heal this person and that. The doctors resented this, and so did the clergy of the vicinity; it was unsanctioned, a grave violation of the proprieties.
At least an hour every day Mr. Dingle spent with Madame Zyszynski, and often Beauty was with him. The spirits possessed the minds of this pair, and the influence of the other world spread through the little community. Beauty began asking the spirits' advice, and taking it in all sorts of matters. They told her that these were dangerous times, and to be careful of her money. The spirit of Marcel told her this, and so did the spirit of the Reverend Blackless—so he referred to himself. Beauty had never taken his advice while he was living, but assumed he would be ultra-wise in the beyond. As economy was what Lanny wanted her to practice, he felt indebted to the shades. Being a talkative person, Beauty told her friends about her "guides," and Bienvenu acquired- a queerer reputation than it had ever had, even when it was a haunt of painters, munitions buyers, and extra-marital couples.
Lanny would try his luck with a seance now and then. The character of his spirit life underwent a change; Marie receded into the background and her place was taken by Marcel and Great-Great-Uncle Eli Budd. These two friends of his boyhood told him much about themselves, and held high converse with each other in the limbo where they dwelt; just so had Lanny imagined them after their death, and it confirmed his idea that he was getting an ingenious reconstruction of the contents of his own mind. Now and then would appear some fact which he hadn’t known before; but he argued that he might have heard it and forgotten it. He had had many intimate talks with both his former relatives, and surely couldn’t remember every detail.
His theory was confirmed by the fact that he received a cordial letter from Mr. Ezra Hackabury, who was trying to keep out of bankruptcy in the town of Reubens, Indiana. Terrible times, he reported; but he hoped people would still have to have kitchen soap. The question was being answered in monthly sales reports, and meanwhile Mr. Hackabury pitched horseshoes behind the barn, as in the old days, and wondered if Lanny had kept up his skill in this art. When Lanny wrote what the spirits had said, the soapman replied that it was with him as it had been with Mark Twain: the report of his death was exaggerated. In the course of a year and a half of intercourse with Tecumseh, Lanny had recorded several cases of the chieftain’s failure to distinguish between the living and the dead, and Lanny drew from this fact the conclusion which satisfied his own mind—at the same time overlooking a number of other facts which didn’t. In this behavior he had the example of many leading men of science.
X
So passed a pleasant period in the well-cushioned limousine in which Lanny Budd was rolling through life. He was unhappy about the sufferings of the world, but not so unhappy that he couldn’t eat the excellent meals which the servants of both the villa and the Cottage prepared; not so unhappy that he couldn’t read the manuscripts which Rick sent him, and the first draft of a Silesian Suite which Kurt submitted. He taught his Pink class, and argued with the young Reds who came to bait him—and at the same time to borrow money when they got into trouble. He spent his own funds, and some of Irma’s, playing patron to the social discontent of the Midi; but Irma didn’t mind especially, because she had the money, and had the instinctive feeling that the more the family was dependent upon-her, the more agreeable they would make themselves. Who eats my bread, he sings my song!
A surprising incident. One afternoon Lanny was in his studio, playing that very grand piano which he had bought for Kurt, but which was beginning to show the effects of a decade of sea air. A sunshiny afternoon of spring; Lanny had the doors and windows open, and was filling the surrounding atmosphere with the strains of Rubinstein’s Waltz Caprice. The telephone rang, for they now had phones in all the buildings on the estate; to Irma it had seemed ridiculous to have to send a servant every time she wished to invite Beauty over to the Cottage for lunch, or when she wanted to tell Lanny to come swimming. Now a servant was calling from the villa, reporting that there was an elderly gentleman who said his name was "Monsieur Jean". Lanny wasn’t usually slow, but this time he had to have the name repeated. Suddenly he remembered the town of Dieppe.
The Knight Commander of the Bath and Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor had held off for the better part of a year, until Lanny had given up the idea of hearing from him. It seemed hard to believe, for Zaharoff was bound to know that he had got something real at that seance—and how could he bear not to get more? At last he had decided to give way, and characteristically he wasn’t taking half-measures; he had come in person, the first time he had ever thus honored the Budd family. He honored very few persons in that manner.
"Monsieur Jean" was alone. He had seated himself on the edge of a straight chair, as if he wasn’t sure that he would be welcomed; he had kept his walking-stick, and was leaning on it with both hands folded over it. The cold blue eyes met Lanny’s. Was Lanny mistaken in thinking that there was an anxious look on the face of the old spider, the old wolf, the old devil? Anyhow, the younger man greeted his caller with cordiality, and the latter said quickly: "For a long time I have known that I owed you an apology."
"Don’t bother about it, Monsieur Jean," said the younger man. He used that name because some servant might overhear. "I realized that you were upset. Several times in these seances I have been told things which didn’t happen to be true, and which would have been embarrassing if there had been others present." Nothing could have been more tactful.
"I should have written to you," continued the other. "But I put it off, thinking you might come to see me."
"I had no way of knowing what your wishes would be." To himself Lanny added: "You were trying other mediums, to see if you could get what you want!"
"I decided that the proper thing to do was to make my apologies in person. I will make them to the medium, if she is still with you."
"She is." Lanny would wait, and make the old man ask for what he wanted.