"All the same, it's not pleasant to know that I took the money which you had got by selling
Marcel's paintings."
"If it hadn't been for you," said the young philosopher, "I wouldn't have been here,
Beauty would have married some third-rate painter in Montmartre, and Marceline wouldn't
have been traveling about in a private yacht. I have pointed that out to them."
"All the same," said Robbie, "I came over here to sell those shares. Let's get as much of the
old rascal's money as we can."
Lanny had made jokes about the firm of "R and R." In the days when his mother and Bess
had been trying to find him a wife, there had been a firm of "B and B." Now he said: "We'll have a
'Z and Z.' "
VII
Back in Paris Lanny might have sat in at a conference and learned about the rearmament
plans of the Rumanian government; but he had an engagement with Zoltan Kertezsi to visit the
Salon and discuss the state of the picture market. The blond Hungarian was one of those happy
people who never look a day older; always he had just discovered something new and exciting in
the art world, always he wanted to tell you about it with a swift flow of words, and always his
rebellious hair and fair mustache seemed to be sharing in his gestures. There wasn't anything
first rate in the Salon, he reported, but there was a young Russian genius, Alexander Jacovleff,
being shown at one of the galleries; a truly great draftsman, and Lanny must come and have a
look right away. Also, Zoltan had come upon a discovery, a set of Blake water-color drawings
which had been found in an old box in a manor-house in Surrey; they were genuine, and still
fresh in color; nobody else on earth could have done such angels and devils; doubtless they had
been colored by Blake's wife, but that was true of many Blakes. They ought to fetch at least a
thousand pounds apiece
Immediately Lanny began running over in his mind the names of persons who might be
interested in such a treasure trove. It wasn't only because Zoltan would pay him half the
commission; it was because it was a game that he had learned to play. No use for Irma to
object, no use to think that the money she deposited to his account would ever bring him the same
thrills as he got from putting through a deal.
"We shan't be able to get what we used to," said the friend. "You'd be astonished the way
prices are being cut."
No matter; the pictures were just as beautiful, and if you kept your tastes simple, you could
live and enjoy them. But the dealers who had loaded themselves up were going to have trouble
paying their high rents; and the poor devils who did the painting would wander around with
their canvases under their arms, and set them up in the windows of tobacco-shops and every
sort of place, coming back two or three times a day and gazing at them wistfully, hoping that this
might cause some passer-by to stop and take an interest.
Paris in the springtime was lovely, as always, and the two friends strolled along, feasting
their eyes upon the chestnut blossoms and their olfactories upon the scents of flowerbeds.
Zoltan was near fifty, but he acted and talked as young as his friend; he was full of plans to
travel here and there, to see this and that. He was always meeting some delightful new person,
discovering some new art treasure. Happy indeed is the man with whom business and
pleasure are thus combined! A thousand old masters had made life easy for him, by producing
works over which he could rave and feel proud when he secured one for some customer.
There were always wealthy persons on the hunt for famous works of art; and Zoltan would
caution his Pink friend not to be too contemptuous in his attitude toward such persons. Many
were ignorant and pretentious, but others were genuine art lovers who could be helped and
encouraged; and that was not only good business, it was a public service, for many of these
collections would come to museums in the end. Zoltan didn't know much about economics, and
didn't bother his head with Lanny's revolutionary talk; he said that, no matter what happened,
the paintings would survive, and people would want to see them, and there would be occupation
for the man who had cultivated his tastes and could tell the rare and precious from the cheap
and common.
VIII
Lanny rented a car and motored Zoltan out to have lunch with Emily Chattersworth at her
estate, Les Forêts, where she spent the greater part of each year, a very grand place of which
Lanny had memories from childhood. On this lawn under the great beech-trees he had
listened to Anatole France exposing the scandals of the kings and queens of old-time France. In
this drawing-room he had played the piano for Isadora Duncan, and had been invited to elope
with her. Here also he had played accompaniments for Hansi, the day when Hansi and Bess
had met and fallen irrevocably in love.
The white-haired chatelaine wanted to hear the news of all the families. She was interested in
the story of Zaharoff and the duquesa, whom she had known. Emily had had a seance with
Madame Zys-zynski, but hadn't got any significant results; it must be because she was hostile
to the idea, and had frightened the spirits! She preferred to ask Zoltan's opinion of the Salon,
which she had visited. Having a couple of paintings which no longer appealed to her taste, she
showed them to the expert and heard his estimate of what they might bring. She told him not to
hurry; she had lost a lot of money, as everybody else had, but apparently it was only a paper
loss, for the stocks were still paying dividends. Lanny advised her not to count on that.
A young Pink wouldn't come to Paris without calling at the office of Le Populaire and
exchanging ideas with Jean Longuet and Leon Blum. Lanny knew what they thought, because he
read their paper, but they would want to hear how the workers' education movement was going
in the Midi, and what the son of an American industrialist had seen in the Soviet Union. From a
luncheon with Longuet, Lanny strolled to look at picture exhibitions, and then climbed the
Butte de Montmartre to the unpretentious apartment where Jesse Blackless was in the midst of
composing a manifesto to be published in L'Humanite, denouncing Longuet and his paper as
agents and tools of capitalist reaction. When Jesse learned that his nephew had been to Odessa he
began to ply him with questions, eager for every crumb of reassurance as to the progress of the
Five-Year Plan.
Jesse lived here with his companion, a Communist newspaper employee. Theirs was a
hard-working life with few pleasures; Jesse had no time to paint, he said; the
reactionaries were getting ready to shut down upon the organized workers and put them
out of business. The next elections in France might be the last to be held under the
Republic. Lanny's Red uncle lived under the shadow of impending class war; his life was
consecrated to hating the capitalist system and teaching others to share that feeling.
He was going into this campaign to fight both capitalists and Socialists. Lanny thought
it was a tragedy that the labor groups couldn't get together to oppose enemies so much
stronger than themselves. But there couldn't be collaboration between those who
thought the change might be brought about by parliamentary action and those who
thought that it would have to be done by force. When you used the last phrase to Jesse
Blackless, he would insist that it was the capitalists who would use force, and that the
attitude of the workers was purely defensive; they would be attacked, their organizations
overthrown—the whole pattern had been revealed in Italy.
Lanny would answer: "That is just quibbling. The Communists take an attitude which
makes force inevitable. If you start to draw a gun on a man, he knows that his life
depends upon his drawing first."
Could capitalism be changed gradually? Could the job be done by voting some
politicians out of office and voting others in? Lanny had come upon a quotation of Karl
Marx, admitting that a gradual change might be brought about in the Anglo-Saxon
countries, which had had parliamentary institutions for a long time. Most Reds didn't
know that their master had said that, and wouldn't believe it when you told them; it
seemed to give the whole Bolshevik case away. Jesse said that quoting Marx was like
quoting the Bible: you could find anything you wanted.
They went on arguing, saying little that they hadn't said before. Presently Francoise
came in, and they stopped, because she didn't share the carefree American sense of
humor, and would get irritated with Lanny. He told her the good things about the
Soviet Union; and soon came Suzette, her young sister, married to one of the murderous taxi
drivers of Paris. Uncle Jesse said this gargon had the right solution of the social problem: to
run over all the bourgeois, while using Suzette to increase the Red population. They had a
second baby.
The women set to work to prepare supper, and Lanny excused himself and walked back to
the Crillon to meet his father. When Robbie asked: "What have you been doing?" he answered:
"Looking at pictures." It was the truth and nothing but the truth—yet not the whole truth!
IX
One other duty: a visit to the Chateau de Bruyne. Lanny had promised Marie on her deathbed
that he would never forget her two boys. There wasn't much that he could do for them, but they
were friendly fellows and glad to tell him of their doings. He phoned to the father, who came
and motored him out. Denis de Bruyne, though somewhat over seventy, was vigorous; his hair
had become white, and his dark, sad eyes and pale aristocratic features made him a person of
distinction. He was glad to see Lanny because of the memories they shared.
On the way they talked politics, and it was curious to note how the same world could appear
so different to two different men. Denis de Bruyne, capitalist on a modest scale, owner of a fleet
of taxicabs and employer of Suzette's husband—though he didn't know it—agreed with Jesse
Blackless that the Communists were strong in Paris and other industrial centers and that they
meant to use force if they could get enough of it. Denis's conception of statesmanship was to draw
the gun first. He was a Nationalist, and was going to put up money to keep Jesse and his sort from
getting power. Lanny listened, and this was agreeable to an entrepreneur who was so certain of his
own position.
Denis de Bruyne was worried about the state of his country, which was in a bad way
financially, having counted upon German reparations and been cheated out of most of her
expectations. A French Nationalist blamed the British business men and statesmen; Britain
was no true ally of France, but a rival; Britain used Germany to keep France from growing
strong. Why did American business men further this policy, helping Germany to get on her feet,
which meant making her a danger to France? Foreign investors had lent Germany close to five
billion dollars since the end of the war: why did they take such risks?
Lanny replied: "Well, if they hadn't, how would Germany have paid France any reparations
at all?"
"She would have paid if she had been made to," replied Denis. He didn't say how, and Lanny
knew better than to pin him down. The men who governed France hadn't learned much by
their invasion of the Ruhr and its failure; they still thought that you could produce goods by
force, that you could get money with bayonets. It was useless to argue with them; their fear of
Germany was an obsession. And maybe they were right—how could Lanny be sure? Certainly
there were plenty of men in Germany who believed in force and meant to use it if they could
get enough of it. Lanny had met them also.
Denis wanted to know what was going to be the effect of the Wall Street collapse upon
French affairs. The season was beginning, and many of the fashionable folk were not here.
Would the tourists fail to show up this summer? A question of urgency to the owner of a fleet of
taxicabs! Lanny said he was afraid that Paris would have to do what New York had done—draw
in its belt. When Denis asked what Robbie thought about the prospects, Lanny reported his
father's optimism, and Denis was pleased, having more respect for Robbie's judgment than for
Lanny's.
The Chateau de Bruyne was no great showplace like Balincourt and Les Forêts, but a simple
country home of red stone; its title was a tribute to its age, and the respect of the countryside
for an old family. It had been one of Lanny's homes, off and on, for some six years. The servants
knew him, the old dog knew him, he felt that even the fruit trees knew him. Denis, fils, had got
himself a wife of the right sort, and she was here, learning the duties of a chatelaine; they had a
baby boy, so the two young fathers could make jokes about a possible future union of the
families. Chariot, the younger brother, was studying to be an engineer, which meant that he
might travel to far parts of the earth; incidentally, he was interested in politics, belonging to one
of the groups of aggressive French patriots. Lanny didn't say much about his own ideas—he never
had, for it had been his privilege to be the lover of Denis's wife, but not the cor-rupter of his
sons. All that he could hope for was to moderate their vehemence by talking about toleration
and open-mindedness.
The two young men—one was twenty-four and the other a year younger—looked up to Lanny
as to an abnormally wise and brilliant person. They knew about his marriage, and thought it a
coronation. In this opinion their mother would have joined, for she had had a Frenchwoman's
thorough-going respect for property. The French, along with most other Europeans, were fond
of saying that the Americans worshiped the dollar; a remark upon which Zoltan Kertezsi had
commented in a pithy sentence: "The Americans worship the dollar and the French worship
the sou."
5
FROM THE VASTY DEEP
I
Friendship is a delightful thing when you have had the good judgment to choose the right
