IV
Another season on the Riviera: from the point of view of the hotelkeepers the worst since the war, but for people who had money and liked quiet the pleasantest ever. The fortunate few had the esplanade and the beaches to themselves; the sunshine was just as bright, the sea as blue, and the flowers of the Cap as exquisite. Food was abundant and low in price, labor plentiful and willing— in short, Providence had fixed everything up for you.
When Irma and Beauty Budd emerged from the hands of modistes and friseurs, all ready for a party, they were very fancy showpieces; Lanny was proud to escort them and to see the attention they attracted. He kept himself clad according to their standards, did the. honors as he had been taught, and for a while was happy as a young man a la mode. His wife was deeply impressed by Emily Chattersworth, that serene and gracious hostess, and was taking her as a model. Irma would remark: "If we had a larger house, we could entertain as Emily does." She would try experiments, inviting this eminent person and that, and when they came she would say to her husband: "I believe you and I could have a salon if we went about it seriously."
Lanny came to recognize that she was considering this as a career. Emily was growing feeble, and couldn’t go on forever; there would have to be someone to take her place, to bring the fashionable French and the fashionable Americans together and let them meet intellectuals, writers and musicians and statesmen who had made names for themselves in the proper dignified way. As a rule such persons didn’t have the money or time to entertain, nor were their wives up to it; if you rendered that free service, it made you "somebody" in your own right.
Lanny had said, rather disconcertingly, that she didn’t know enough for the job; since which time Irma had been on watch. She had met a number of celebrities, and studied each one, thinking: "Could I handle you? What is it you want?" They seemed to like good food and wine, like other people; they appreciated a fine
house and liked to come into it and sun themselves. Certainly they liked beautiful women—these were the suns! Irma’s dressing-room in the Cottage was rather small, but it contained a pier-glass mirror, and she knew that what she saw there was all right. She knew that her manner of reserve impressed people; it gave her a certain air of mystery, and caused them to imagine things about her which weren’t really there. The problem was to keep them from finding out!
Each of the great men had his "line," something he did better than anybody else. Lanny assumed that you had to read his book, listen to his speeches, or whatever it was; but Irma made up her mind that this was her husband’s naivete. He would have had to, but a woman didn’t. A woman observed that a man wanted to talk about himself, and a woman who was good at listening to that was good enough for anything. She had to express admiration, but not too extravagantly; that was a mistake the gushy woman made, and the man decided that she was a fool. But the still, deep woman, the Mona Lisa woman, the one who said in a dignified way: "I have wanted very much to know about that—please tell me more," she was the one who warmed a celebrity’s heart.
The problem, Irma decided, was not to get them to talk, but to get them to stop! The function of a salonniere was to apportion the time, to watch the audience and perceive when it wanted a change and bring about the change so tactfully that nobody noticed it. Irma watched the technique of her hostess, and began asking questions; and this was by no means displeasing to Emily, for she too was not above being flattered and liked the idea of taking on an understudy. She showed Irma her address-book, full of secret marks which only her confidential secretary understood. Some meant good things and some bad.
Lanny perceived that this developing interest in a salon was based upon a study of his own peculiarities. He had always loved Emily and enjoyed her affairs, having been admitted to them even as a boy, because he had such good manners. What Irma failed to note was that Lanny was changing: the things which had satisfied him as a boy didn’t necessarily do so when he had passed his thirty-second birthday, and when the capitalist system had passed its apogee. He would come home from one of Emily’s soirees and open up a bunch of mail which was like a Sophoclean chorus lamenting the doom of the House of Oedipus. The front page of a newspaper was a record of calamities freshly befallen, while the editorial page was a betrayal of fears of others to come.
For years the orthodox thinkers of France had congratulated that country upon its immunity from depressions. Thanks to the French Revolution, the agriculture of the country was in the hands of peasant proprietors; also the industry was diversified, not concentrated and specialized like that of Germany, Britain, and America. France had already devalued her money, one step at a time; she possessed a great store of gold, and so had escaped that hurricane which had thrown Britain off the gold standard, followed by a dozen other countries in a row.
But now it appeared that the orthodox thinkers had been wishful. Hard times were hitting France; unemployment was spreading, the rich sending their money abroad, the poor hiding what they could get in their mattresses or under the oldest olive tree in the field. Suffering and fear everywhere—so if you were a young idealist with a tender heart, how could you be happy? Especially if your doctrines persuaded you that you had no right to the money you were spending! If you persisted in keeping company with revolutionists and malcontents who were only too ready to support your notions—and to draw the obvious conclusion that, since your money didn’t belong to you, it must belong to them! As a rule they asked you to give it for the "cause," and many were sincere and would really spend it for the printing of literature or the rental of meeting-places. That justified them in their own eyes and in yours, but hardly in the eyes of the conservative-minded ladies and gentlemen whom your wife expected to invite to a salon!
Some five years had passed since Lanny had begun helping workers' education in the Midi, and that was time enough for a generation of students to have passed through his hands and give him some idea of what he was accomplishing. Was he helping to train genuine leaders of the working class? Or was he preparing some careerist who would sell out the movement for a premiership? Sometimes Lanny was encouraged and sometimes depressed. That is the fate of every teacher, but Lanny had no one of experience to tell him so.
Bright lads and girls revealed themselves in the various classes, and became the objects of his affection and his hopes. He found that, being children of the Midi, they all wanted to learn to be orators. Many acquired the tricks of eloquence before they had got any solid foundation, and when you tried to restrain them and failed, you decided that you had spoiled a good mechanic. Many Were swept off their feet by the Communists, who for some reason were the most energetic, the most persistent among proletarian agitators; also they had a system of thought wearing the aspect and using the language of science, and thus being impressive to young minds. Lanny Budd, talking law and order, peaceable persuasion, gradual evolution, found himself pigeon-holed as vieux jeu, or in American a "back number." "Naturally," said the young Reds, "you feel that way because you have money. You can wait. But what have we got?"