Upton Sinclair - Dragons’s teeth

Freddi even talked to Fanny Barnes about the problem, wondering if it mightn’t be possible to organize some sort of society to teach children the ideal of kindness, in opposition to the dreadful cruelty that was now being taught in Germany. The stately Queen Mother was touched by a young Jew’s moral passion, but she feared that her many duties at home would leave her no time to organize a children’s peace group in New York. And besides, wasn’t Germany the country where it needed to be done?

Fanny set up a great complaint concerning the heat at Bienvenu; she became exhausted and had to lie down and fan herself and have iced drinks brought to her. But Beauty Budd, that old Riviera hand, smiled behind her embonpoint, knowing well that this was one more effort—and she hoped the last—to carry Baby Frances away. Beauty took pleasure in pointing out the great numbers of brown and healthy babies on the beaches and the streets of Juan; she pointed to Lanny and Marceline as proof that members of the less tough classes could be raised here successfully. Baby herself had developed no rashes or "summer complaints," but on the contrary rollicked in the sunshine and splashed in the water, slept long hours, ate everything she could get hold of, and met with no worse calamity than having a toe nipped by a crab.

So the disappointed Queen Mother let her bags be packed and stowed in the trunk of Lanny’s car, and herself and maid stowed in the back seat, from which she would do as much driving as her polite son-in-law would permit. On the evening of the following day they delivered her safely in London, and obtained for her a third-row seat on the aisle for the opening performance of The Dress-Suit Bribe, a play of which she wholly disapproved and did not hesitate to say so. Next day when most of the London critics agreed with her, she pointed out that fact to the author, who, being thirty-four years of age, ought to have sowed his literary wild oats and begun to realize the responsibilities he owed to his class which had built the mighty British Empire. The daughter of the Vandringhams and daughter-in-law of the Barneses was as Tory as the worst "diehard" in the House of Lords, and when she encountered a propagandist of subversion she wanted to say, in the words of another famous queen: "Off with her head!"—or with "his."

But not all the audience agreed with her point of view. The house divided horizontally; from the stalls came frozen silence and from the galleries storms of applause. The critics divided in the same way; those with a pinkish tinge hailed the play as an authentic picture of the part which fashionable society was playing in politics, an indictment of that variety of corruption peculiar to Britain, where privileges which would have to be paid for in cash in France or with office in America, go as a matter of hereditary right or of social prestige. In any case it was power adding to itself, "strength aiding still the strong."

It was the kind of play which is automatically labeled propaganda and therefore cannot be art. But it was written from inside knowledge of the things which were going on in British public life and it told the people what they needed to know. From the first night the theater became a battleground, the high-priced seats were only half filled but the cheap ones were packed, and Rick said: "It’s a question whether we can pay the rent for two or three weeks, until it has a chance to take hold."

Lanny replied: "We’ll pay, if I have to go and auction off some pictures." No easy matter raising money with hard times spreading all over the world; but he telephoned all the fashionable people he knew, begging them to see the play, and he cajoled Margy, Dowager Lady Eversham-Watson, to have a musicale and pay the Robin family a couple of hundred pounds to come and perform: the money to go for the play. Irma "chipped in," even though in her heart she didn’t like the play. As for Hansi, he wrote to his father, who put five hundred pounds to his son’s credit with his London bankers—a cheap and easy way to buy peace in his family, and to demonstrate once again how pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!

In one way or another they kept the play going. Gracyn, to whom it gave such a "fat" part, offered to postpone taking her salary for two weeks. Lanny wrote articles for the labor papers, pointing out what the production meant to the workers, and so they continued to attend and cheer. The affair grew into a scandal, which forced the privileged classes to talk about it, and then to want to know what they were talking about. In the end it turned out that Eric Vivian Pomeroy-Nielson had a "hit"—something he had been aiming at for more than ten years. He insisted on paying back all his friends, and after that he paid off some of the mortgages of "the Pater," who had been staking him for a long time. The main thing was that Rick had managed to say something to the British people, and had won a name so that he would be able to say more.

The Robins were begging the Budds to take a little run into Germany. Yachting time was at hand, and they had persuaded Papa to put the Bessie Budd into commission again; they wanted so much to get him away from the worries of business—and who could do it so well as the wonderful Lanny Budd and his equally wonderful wife? Lanny might even be able to persuade him to retire for good; or perhaps to take a long cruise around the world, where he couldn’t be reached by friends or foes.

Germany was in the midst of a hot election campaign. A new Reichstag was being chosen; the "Cabinet of the Barons," otherwise known as the "Monocle Cabinet," was asking for popular support. Elections were always interesting to Lanny, and the young people urged him to come and see. But Irma had another maternal seizure; she said "Let’s run down to Juan again, and come back for a cruise at the end of the campaign." Lanny said: "Any way you want it."

So the party broke up. Fanny took a steamer to New York, the Robins took the ferry to Flushing, and the Budds took one to Calais. They sent a telegram to the palace in Paris, and dinner was ready when they arrived. Irma observed: "It’s nice to have your own place; much nicer than going to a hotel." Lanny saw that she wished to justify herself for having spent all that money, so he admitted that it was "nicer." Jerry was there, and with a lot of checks ready for her to sign; he wanted her to go over the accounts, but she was sure they were all right, and she signed without looking. The three went to a cabaret show, very gay, with music and dancing and a scarcity of costumes; some of it made Irma blush, but she was trying to acquire the cosmopolitan tone.

The following evening they were at Bienvenu again. Baby was bigger and brighter; she knew more words; she remembered what you had taught her. She was growing a mind! "Oh, Lanny, come see this, come see that!" Lanny would have been glad to settle down to child study, and to swimming and target-shooting with Bub, and talking to the workers at the school; but they had made a date with the Robins; and also there came a letter from Pietro Corsatti, who was at Lausanne, reporting the conference for his paper. He said: "A great show! How come you’re missing it?"

At this time there were two of Europe’s international talk-fests being held on the same Swiss lake. For many years such gatherings had been Lanny’s favorite form of diversion; he had attended a dozen, and had met all the interesting people, the statesmen and writers, the reformers and cranks. Irma had never been to one, but had heard him tell about them, and always in glowing terms. Now he proposed: "Let’s stop off on our way to Berlin." "O.K. by me!" said Irma.

They followed the course of the River Rhone, every stage of which had some memory of Marie de Bruyne: the hotels where she and Lanny had stopped, the scenery they had admired, the history they had recalled. But Lanny judged it better for Irma to have her own memories, unscented by the perfume of any other woman. They climbed into the region of pine-trees and wound through rocky gorges where the air was still and clear. Many bridges and a great dam, and it was Lake Leman, with Geneva, home of the League of Nations, an institution which for a few years had been the hope of mankind, but now appeared to have fallen victim to a mysterious illness. Since the beginning of the year a great Conference on Arms Limitation, with six hundred delegates from thirteen nations, had been meeting here, and was to continue for a year longer; each nation in turn would bring forward a plea to limit the sort of weapon which it didn’t have or didn’t need, and then the other nations would show what was wrong with that plan.