By the side of the millionairess sat a blond young Russian, speaking to her in English, which made things easier; he had just come out of the Soviet Union, that place about which she had heard so many terrible stories. He told her about the Five-Year Plan, which was nearing completion. Already every part of its program had been overfulfilled; the great collective farms were sowing this spring more grain than ever before in Russian history; it meant a complete new era in the annals of mankind. The young stranger was quietly confident, and Irma shivered, confronting the doom of the world in which she had been brought up. From the attitude of the others she gathered that he was an important person, an agent of the Comintern, perhaps sent to see that the campaign followed the correct party line; perhaps he was the bearer of some of that "Moscow gold" about which one heard so much talk!
Across the table sat Hansi and Bess; and presently they were telling the Comintern man details about the situation in Germany. Elections to the diets of the various states had just been held, and the parties of the two extremes had made tremendous gains; the middle classes were being wiped out, and with them the middle-class point of view. Hansi said that the battle for the streets of the German cities, which had been waged for the last two or three years, was going against the Communists; their foes had the money and the arms. Hansi had witnessed a battle in broad daylight in Berlin. A squad of Stormtroopers had been marching with their Hakenkreuz banners and a fife and drum, and passing a co-operative store they had hurled stones through the windows; the men inside had rushed out and there had been a general clubbing and stabbing. The Jewish violinist hadn’t stayed to see the outcome. "I don’t suppose I ought to use my hands to beat people," he said, spreading them out apologetically.
"Poor Hansi!" thought Irma. He and Freddi were unhappy, having discovered how their father was dealing with all sides in this German civil war. The Nazis were using Budd machine guns in killing the workers, and how could that have come about without the firm of "R & R" knowing about it? The boys hadn’t quarreled with their father—they couldn’t bear to—but their peace of mind was gone and they were wondering how they could go on living in that home.
Also Irma thought: "Poor Lanny!" She saw her husband buffeted between the warring factions. The Reds were polite to him in this crowd because he was Jesse’s nephew, and also because he was paying for the supper, a duty he invariably assumed. He seemed to feel that he had to justify himself for being alive: a person who didn’t enjoy fighting, and couldn’t make up his mind even to hate wholeheartedly.
Yet he couldn’t keep out of arguments. When the Communist candidate for the Chamber of Deputies put on his phonograph record and remarked that the Social-Democrats were a greater barrier to progress than the Fascists, Lanny replied: "If you keep on asking for it, Uncle Jesse, you may have the Fascists to deal with."
Said the phonograph: "Whether they mean to or not, they will help to smash the capitalist system."
"Go and tell that to Mussolini!" jeered Lanny. "You’ve had ten years to deal with him, and how far have you got?"
"He knows that he’s near the end of his rope."
"But we’re talking about capitalism! Have you studied the dividend reports of Fiat and Ansaldo?"
So they sparred, back and forth; and Irma thought: "Oh, dear, how I dislike the intelligentsia!"
But she couldn’t help being impressed when the elections came off, and Zhess Block-less, as the voters called him, showed up at the top of the poll in his district. On the following Sunday came a runoff election, in which the two highest candidates, who happened to be the Red and the Pink, fought it out between them. Uncle Jesse came to Irma secretly to beg for funds, and she gave him two thousand francs, which cost her seventy-nine dollars. As it happened, the Socialist candidate was a friend of Jean Longuet, and went to Lanny and got twice as much; but even so, Zhess Block-less came out several hundred votes ahead, and Lanny had the distinction of having an uncle who was a member of the Chamber of Deputies of the French Republic. Many a young man had made his fortune from such a connection, but all Lanny could expect was a few more additions—that is to say, accounts for food and wine consumed by parties in restaurants.
IV
The Pomeroy-Nielsons had gone to London, where Rick was engaging a stage director and a business manager. The Budds and the Robins went for a visit to Les Forêts, where Emily Chattersworth had just arrived. Hansi and Bess played for her; and later, while Bess and Lanny practiced piano duets, Irma sought out the hostess to ask her advice about the problems of a Pink husband and a Red uncle-in-law.
Mrs. Chattersworth had always been open-minded in the matter of politics; she had allowed her friends and guests to believe and say what they chose, and as a salonnière had been content to steer the conversation away from quarrels. Now, she said, the world appeared to be changing; ever since the war it had been becoming more difficult for gentlemen—yes, and ladies, too—to keep their political discussions within the limits of courtesy. It seemed to have begun with the Russian Revolution, which had been such an impolite affair. "You have to be either for it or against it," remarked Emily; "and whichever you are, you cannot tolerate anyone’s being on the other side."
Said Irma: "The trouble with Lanny is that he’s willing to tolerate anybody, and so he’s continually being imposed upon."
"I watched him as a little boy," replied her friend. "It seemed very sweet, his curiosity about people and his efforts to understand them. But like any virtue, it can be carried to extremes."
Lanny’s ears would have burned if he could have heard those two women taking him to pieces and trying to put him together according to their preferences. The wise and kind Emily, who had been responsible for his marriage, wanted to make it and keep it a success, and she invited the young people to stay for a while so that she might probe into the problem. Caution and tact were necessary, she pointed out to the young wife, for men are headstrong creatures and do not take kindly to being manipulated and maneuvered. Lanny’s toleration for Reds and Pinks was rooted in his sympathy for suffering, and Irma would love him less if that were taken out of his disposition.
"I don’t mind his giving money away," said Irma. "If only he didn’t have to meet such dreadful people—and so many of them!"
"He’s interested in ideas; and apparently they come nowadays from the lower strata. You and I mayn’t like it, but it’s a fact that they are crashing the gates. Perhaps it’s wiser to let in a few at a time."
Irma was willing to take any amount of trouble to understand her husband and to keep him entertained; she was trying to acquire ideas, but she wanted them to be safe, having to do with music and art and books and plays, and not politics and the overthrowing of the capitalist system. "What he calls the capitalist system," was the way she phrased it, as if it were a tactical error to admit that such a thing existed. "I’ve made sure that he’ll never be interested in my friends in New York," she explained. "But he seems to be impressed by the kind of people he meets at your affairs, and if you’ll show me how, I’ll do what I can to cultivate them—before it’s too late. I mean, if he goes much further with his Socialists and Communists, the right sort of people won’t want to have anything to do with him." "I doubt if that will happen," said Emily, smiling. "They’ll tolerate him on your account. Also, they make allowances for Americans— we’re supposed to be an eccentric people, and the French find us entertaining, much as Lanny finds his Reds and Pinks."