Upton Sinclair - Dragons’s teeth

He was known as "the mystery man of Europe," and doubtless there had been mysteries enough about what he was doing in the political and financial worlds; but so far as his character was concerned, Lanny no longer found any mystery. An aged plutocrat had fought his way up in the world by many deeds of which he now did not enjoy the contemplation. He had intrigued and threatened, bribed and cajoled, made promises and broken them; by tire­less scheming and pushing he had acquired the mastery of those great establishments which the various countries of Europe needed in order to wage their wars of power. But all the time he had remained in his soul a Greek peasant living among cruel oppressing Turks. He had been afraid of a thousand things: of his own memories, of the men he had thwarted and ruined, of slanderers, black­mailers, assassins, Reds—and, above all, of what he had helped to make Europe. A man who wanted to sell munitions, who wanted all the nations of the earth to spend their incomes upon munitions, but who didn’t want any munitions shot off—at least not anywhere within his own hearing! Unaccountably the shooting continued, Europe seemed to be going from bad to worse, and Zaharoff’s conversation revealed that he trusted nobody in power and had very little hope of anything.

A bitter, sad old man, he felt his powers waning, and had hidden himself away from dangers. He would soon be gone; and did he worry about where he was going? Or was it about what was going to become of his possessions? He mourned his beloved Spanish duquesa of the many names. Did he contemplate the possibility of being reunited to her? Lanny had something to say to him on that subject, but must wait until the two traders had got through with their duel of wits.

It was Robbie Budd who had sought this interview, and he who would have to say what he had come for. Zaharoff, while waiting, would be gravely interested in what Robbie had to tell about the state of Wall Street and the great American financial world. The visitor was optimistic, sure that the clouds would soon blow over. Lanny knew that his father really believed that, but would Zaharoff believe that he believed it? No, the Greek would think that Robbie, having something to sell, was playing the optimist. Zaharoff, the prospective buyer, was a pessimist.

At last Robbie saw fit to get down to business. He explained that his father was very old, and the cares of the Budd enterprise might soon be on Robbie’s shoulders. Budd’s was largely out of munitions; it was making everything from needles to freight elevators. Robbie would no longer be in a position to travel—in short, he and his friends were looking for someone to take the New England-Arabian shares off their hands at a reasonable figure.

There it was; and Zaharoff’s pessimism assumed the hues of the nethermost stage of Dante’s inferno. The world was in a most horrible state; the Arabians were on the point of declaring a jihad and wiping out every European on their vast desolate hot peninsula; Zaharoff himself was a feeble old man, his doctors had given him final warning, he must avoid every sort of responsibility and strain —in short, he couldn’t buy anything, and didn’t have the cash anyhow.

A flat turn-down; but Lanny had heard a Levantine trader talk, and knew that Zaharoff’s real purpose and desire would not be revealed until the last minute, when his two guests had their hats in their hands, perhaps when they were outside the front door. Meanwhile they mustn’t show that they knew this; they mustn’t betray disappointment; they must go on chatting, as if it didn’t really mean very much to them, as if Robbie Budd had crossed the ocean to have one more look at Zaharoff’s blue eyes, or perhaps at his very fine Ingres.

It was time for Lanny to mention the paintings, which he had been invited to inspect. He asked if he might stroll about the room, and the Knight Commander and Grand Officer rose from his seat and strolled with him, pointing out various details. Lanny said: "You know I am interested in the value of paintings, that being my business." The remark gave no offense; quite the contrary. The old man told the prices, which he had at his fingertips: a hundred thousand francs for this Fragonard, a hundred and fifty thousand for that David. "Before-the-war francs," he added.

They went into the great library, a magnificent room with a balcony all around it, having heavy bronze railings. Then they inspected the dining-room, in which was a startling Goya, the portrait of an abnormally tall and thin Spanish gentleman wearing brilliant-colored silks with much lace and jewelry. "An ancestor of my wife," remarked the old man. "She didn’t care for it much; she found it cynical."

An opening which Lanny had been waiting for. "By the way, Sir Basil, here is something which might interest you. Have you ever tried any experiments with mediums?"

"Spiritualist mediums, you mean? Why do you ask?"

"Because of something" strange which has been happening in our family. My stepfather interested my mother in the subject, and in New York they found a Polish woman with whom they held seances, and she gave them such convincing results that we brought her to the Riviera with us, and she has become a sort of member of our family."

"You think she brings you messages from—" The old man stopped, as if hesitating to say "the dead."

"We get innumerable messages from what claim to be spirits, and they tell us things which astonish us, because we cannot see how this old and poorly educated Polish woman can possibly have had any means of finding them out."

"There is a vast system of fraud of that sort, I have been told," said the cautious Greek.

"I know, Sir Basil; and if this were an alert-minded woman, I might think it possible. But she is dull and quite unenterprising. How could she possibly have known that the duquesa was fond of tulips, and the names of the varieties she showed me?"

"What?" exclaimed the host.

"She mentioned the names Bybloem and Bizarre, and spoke of Turkestan, though she didn’t get it as the name of a tulip. She even gave me a very good description of the garden of your town house, and the number "fifty-three. She was trying to get Avenue Hoche, but could only get the H."

Lanny had never before seen this cautious old man reveal such emotion. Evidently a secret spring had been touched. "Sit down," he said, and they took three of the dining-room chairs. "Is this really true, Lanny?"

"Indeed it is. I have the records of a hundred or more sittings."

"This concerns me deeply, because of late years I have had very strange feelings, as if my wife was in the room and trying to communicate with me. I have told myself that it could only be the product of my own grief and loneliness. I don’t need to tell you how I felt about her."

"No, Sir Basil, I have always understood; the little I saw of her was enough to convince me that she was a lovely person."

"Six years have passed, and my sorrow has never diminished. Tell me—where is this Polish woman?" When Lanny explained about the yacht, he wanted to know: "Do you suppose it would be possible for me to have a séance with her?"

"It could be arranged some time, without doubt. We should be deeply interested in the results."

For half an hour or more the rich but unhappy old man sat asking questions about Madame Zyszynski and her procedure. Lanny explained the curious obligation of pretending to believe in an Iroquois Indian chieftain who spoke with a Polish accent. No easy matter for an intellectual person to take such a thing seriously; but Lanny told about a lady who had been his amie for many years prior to her death; she had sent him messages, including little details such as two lovers remember, but which would have no mean­ing for others: the red-and-white-striped jacket of the servant who attended them in the inn where they had spent their first night, the pear and apricot trees against the walls of the lady’s garden. Such things might have come out of Lanny’s subconscious mind, but even so, it was a curious experience to have somebody dig them up.