Upton Sinclair - Dragons’s teeth

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.

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."

The husband wasn’t told of this conversation, or others of the kind which followed; but he became aware, not for the first time in his life, of female arms placed about him, exerting a gentle pressure in one direction and away from another. Not female elbows poked into his ribs, but soft, entwining arms; a feeling of warmth, and perhaps a contact of lips, or whispered words of cajolement: darling, and dear, and intimate pet names which would look silly in print and sound so from any but a chosen person. Never: "Let’s not go there, dear," but instead: "Let’s go here, dear." And always the "here" had to do with music or pictures, books or plays, and not with the overthrow of the so-called, alleged, or hypothetical capitalist system.

Under Emily’s guidance Irma decided that she had made a mistake in discouraging Lanny’s efforts as an art expert. To be sure, it seemed silly to try to make more money when she had so much, but the prejudices of men had to be respected; they just don’t like to take money from women, and they make it a matter of prestige to earn at least their pocket-money. Irma decided that Zoltan Kertezsi was an excellent influence in her husband’s life. So far she had looked upon him as a kind of higher servant, but now decided to cultivate him as a friend.

"Let’s stay in Paris a while, dear," she proposed. "I really want to understand about pictures, and it’s such a pleasure to have Zoltan’s advice."

Lanny, of course, was touched by this act of submission. They went to exhibitions, of which there appeared to be no end in Paris.

Also, there were private homes having collections, and Zoltan possessed the magic keys that opened doors to him and his guests. Pretty soon Irma discovered that she could enjoy looking at beautiful creations. She paid attention and tried to understand the points which Zoltan explained: the curves of mountains or the shape of trees which made a balanced design in a landscape; the contrasting colors of an interior; the way figures had been placed and lines arranged so as to lead the eye to one central feature. Yes, it was interesting, and if this was what Lanny liked, his wife would like it, too. Marriage was a lottery, she had heard, and you had to make the best of what you had drawn.