Upton Sinclair - Dragons’s teeth

There was nothing very novel to Lanny Budd in the idea of living in Paris. He had spent a winter here during the Peace Conference, and another during the period of his vie a trois with Marie de Bruyne. Paris offered every kind of art and entertainment, and it was centrally situated; roads and cars had been so improved that you could reach London or Geneva or Amsterdam in a few hours. They could step into their car in the morning and be in Bienvenu by nightfall. "Really, it’ll be about the same as commuting," said Irma.

What astonished him was the zest with which she set to work, and the speed with which she put the job through. She was the daughter of J. Paramount Barnes, and all her life she had been used to hearing decisions made and orders given. As soon as Lanny gave his consent she seated herself at the telephone and put in a call for Jerry Pendleton in Cannes. "How’s business?" she asked, and when the familial cheery voice informed her that it was dead and buried, she asked if he would like to have a job. He answered that he would jump for it, and she said: "Jump for the night express, and don’t miss your hold."

"But darling!" objected Lanny. "He doesn’t know anything about running a palace!"

"He’s honest, he’s lived in France for fifteen years, and employed some help. It won’t take him long to learn the ropes."

When the red-headed ex-lieutenant from Kansas arrived, she put it up to him. He would become steward, or perhaps Controleur-General, like Herr Meissner in Stubendorf. "Put on lots of side," she advised, "and be taken at your own valuation." He would engage a first-class major domo and a butler who would know what was done and what wasn’t. He would be paid enough so that he could have his own car, and run down to see his family now and then.

Jerry Pendleton had once undertaken to tutor Lanny Budd without any preparation, and now he was taking another such chance. No time even to read a book on the duties of a Controleur-General! Go right to work; for the "season" was soon to begin, and Irma wanted what she wanted when she wanted it. The elaborate inventory of the contents of the palace was made and checked and signed on every page; the lease was signed, the money paid, and the keys delivered. Emily’s butler had a brother who was also in the profession, and knew everything there was to know about Paris society. Also he knew servants, enough for an emergency staff, and they came and took off the dust-covers and got things ready with American speed.

Irma and her prince consort and her Controleur-General moved into their new home, and it was but a few hours before the newspapers had got word of it, and the doorbell was ringing and the flashlight bulbs of the photographers exploding. Lanny saw that his wife was once more getting her money’s worth; they were back in cafe society, with the spotlight centered upon them. Paris was going to have a new hostess, a famous one. The marble steps of the palace were worn by the feet of chauffeurs and lackeys leaving calling cards with distinguished names on them, and the side entrance bell was ringing to announce the presence of bijoutiers and couturiers and marchands de modes.

Irma said: "Your mother must come and help us." So Lanny wrote at once, and that old war-mare said "Ha, ha!" and scented the battle afar off. It would have been a mortal affront to invite one mother-in-law and not the other, so Irma sent a cablegram to Shore Acres, and that older and more experienced charger dropped all her plans and took the first steamer. Even Emily came to town for a few days, bringing her calling lists with the secret symbols. Feathers sat by her side with a stenographer’s notebook, collecting pearls of information which dropped from the lips of the most esteemed of Franco-American hostesses.

In short, Lanny Budd found himself in the midst of a social whirlwind; and it would have been cruelly unkind of him not to like it. Once more the ladies were in charge of his life, and what they considered proper was what he did. He listened to their talk and he met the people they brought for him to meet; if he wanted to play the piano it had to be done at odd moments between social engagements; while, as for sitting down in a splendid library and burying himself in a book—well, it was just too selfish, too solitary, too inconsiderate of all those persons who wanted to pay their attentions to the lessee of so much magnificence.

The election results had given a tremendous jolt to the conservative elements in France. The party of Jesse Blackless had gained only two seats, but the party of Leon Blum had gained seventeen, while the "Radicals" had gained forty-eight. To be sure that word didn’t mean what it meant in the United States; it was the party of the peasants and the small business men, but it was expected to combine with the Socialists, and France would have a government of the left, badly tainted with pacifism, and likely to make dangerous concessions to the Germans. The groups which had been governing France, the representatives of big industry and finance capital, popularly known as the mur d’argent, the "wall of money," were in a state of great alarm.

One of Lanny’s duties in Paris was to keep in touch with his exfamily, the de Bruynes. Having now a suitable home of his own, he invited them to dinner and they came, father, two sons, and the young wife of Denis fils. Irma hadn’t met them before, but had heard a lot about them, and felt herself being fascinatingly French when she welcomed the family of her husband’s former mistress. They, for their part, appeared to take it as a matter of course, which made it still more French. They were people of high culture and agreeable manners, so Irma was pleased to assist in carrying out the death-bed promises which Lanny had made to the woman who had done so much to prepare him to be a good and satisfactory husband.

They talked about politics and the state of the world. That was what this splendid home was for; so that Lanny wouldn’t have to meet his friends in crowded cafes, where they were jostled and could hardly hear one another’s voices, but might sit in comfort and express themselves with leisure and dignity. It was Irma’s hope that the things said would take on something of the tone of the surroundings; and certainly this appeared to be true with the de Bruynes, who were Nationalists, all four of them, and in a state of great concern as to the trend of the country and its position in the world.

Said the proprietor of a great fleet of taxicabs, speaking with some hesitation to a hostess from overseas: "I am afraid that the people of your country do not have a clear realization of the position in which they have placed my country."

"Do feel at liberty to speak freely, Monsieur," replied Irma, in her most formal French.

"There is a natural barrier which alone can preserve this land from the invasion of barbarians, and that is the River Rhein. It was our intention to hold and fortify it, but your President Veelson"— so they called him, ending with their sharp nasal "n"—"your President Veelson forced us back from that boundary, onto ground which is almost indefensible, no matter how hard we may try with our Maginot line. We made that concession because of your President’s pledge of a protective agreement against Germany; but your Congress ignored that agreement, and so today we stand well-nigh defenseless. Now your President Oovay has declared a moratorium on reparations, so that chapter is at an end—and we have received almost nothing."

Lanny wanted to say: "You received twenty-five billions of francs under the Dawes plan, and the products have glutted the world markets." But he had learned in Denis’s home that it was futile to argue with him, and it would be no less so in the palace of the Duc de Belleaumont, one of Denis’s financial associates.