Пользователь - WORLD'S END

America was getting ready, upon a scale and with a speed never before known in history. You could feel the spirit of the country hardening in the face of world-wide danger. People talked about the war to the exclusion of everything else; even at St. Thomas's, even at the "bull sessions," the fellows discussed what was going on, and what part they hoped to have in it. The draft age was twenty-one, but you could volunteer younger, and now and then some upper classman would pack up his belongings and move to an officers' training camp.

Lanny was now eighteen, and his father worried over the possibility that his emotional temperament might take fire. Whenever the youth came home over Sunday, Robbie would sound him out to see if the bacteria of propaganda had found lodgment in his mind; if so, he would be subjected to a swift prophylaxis. "Did you ever hear of Lord Palmerston?" the father would inquire. "He was Prime Minister of England during our Civil War, and he said: 'England has no enduring friendships. She only has enduring interests.' "

Robbie and Esther didn't agree about England, or about America either, and Robbie's rule was to let her say anything she pleased, uncontradicted. He did the same thing with his friends; of course they all knew that he had special opportunities to get information, and their curiosity was aroused, but all he would say was that he made weapons for those who wanted to fight and had the cash. Now and then old Samuel would caution his son: "Tend to business and let fools shoot off their mouths." No one ever found out what the president of Budd Gunmakers thought about this war; all they knew was that he made munitions twenty-four hours every day, including the Lord's.

As a result of all this Lanny wasn't entirely happy through the war period. People weren't satisfied to let you think your own thoughts; they considered it their duty to probe you, to cross-examine you, and if you were wrong to try to set you right. At school the fellows decided that Lanny was lacking in appreciation of the land where his fathers died; his fashionable cousin told him so, and they agreed to have different roommates the following year. At the same time Lanny was deprived of the companionship of Mr. Baldwin, for the young master had been advised to confine his teaching to the subject of literature, and to avoid contacts with his pupils outside the classroom.

IV

There came a letter which gave Lanny an extraordinary thrill. The envelope was addressed by typewriter, with no sender's name, but with a United States stamp and a New York postmark; inside was a long missive from Kurt Meissner! At first Lanny wondered, had Kurt come to New York; but then he realized that his friend must have known somebody in a neutral country who was coming.

Anyhow, here was a real letter, the first Lanny had had from Germany since the outbreak of the war. Kurt gave the news about himself and his family. He was a captain of artillery, and had been twice wounded, once with a bullet through the thigh, and the second time having pieces of ribs torn out by a shell fragment. He was not at liberty to give the name of his unit or where it was stationed; only that he was writing from a billet in a town behind the front, while having a few days' recuperation. All three of his brothers had been in the war; one had been killed during the early invasion of East Prussia, and another was now at home recovering from a wound. Kurt's father had an important government post. His sister had married an officer, and was a widow with two babies.

Kurt told about the state of his soul, which was uncomplicated, and oddly like that of Marcel and of Rick. The country was at war, and it was necessary for a man to put aside everything else, and to help to overcome an arrogant and treacherous foe. Kurt said he was as much interested in music and philosophy as ever, but his duties as an artillery officer left him little time to think about these subjects. After the Fatherland had emerged victorious, as surely it must and would, he would hope to hear that his American friend had been able to go on with his studies.

This led to the main purpose of the letter, which was to plead with Lanny to resist the subtle wiles of the British propaganda machine. Kurt wasn't afraid that his friend might get physically hurt, for it was obvious that the British would be driven into the sea and the French would lose Paris long before the Americans could take any effective part in this war. But Kurt didn't want his friend's mind distorted and warped by the agents of British imperialism. These people, who had grabbed most of the desirable parts of the earth, now thought they had a chance to destroy the German fleet, build their Cape-to-Cairo railroad, keep the Germans from building the Berlin-to-Bagdad railroad, and in every way thwart the efforts of a vigorous and capable race to find their place in the sun.

It was to be expected that France would hate Germany and make war upon her, because the French were a jealous people, and thought of Germans as their hereditary enemies; they were pursuing their futОle dream of getting Alsace-Lorraine with its treasures of coal and iron. But Englishmen were blood kinsmen to the Germans, and their war upon Germany was fratricide; the crime of using black and brown and yellow troops to destroy the highest culture in Europe would outlaw its perpetrators forever. Now the desperate British militarists were spending their wealth circulating a mass of lies about Germany's war methods and war aims; what a tragedy that Americans, a free people, with three thousand miles of ocean between them and Europe's quarrels, had swallowed all this propaganda, and were wasting their money and their labor helping Britain to grab more territory and harness more peoples to her imperial chariot!

Lanny took that letter to his father, and they read it together, and Robbie pointed out how its arguments resembled those which you could read every day in the Newcastle Daily Courier - but with everything turned around! Each saw his own side, and was blind to the other fellow's. "You write Kurt and tell him that you are going on with your studies," said the father; and added: "Phrase it carefully, because you can't tell who may read a letter nowadays."

V

Now and then Lanny would write to his mother, reciting his adventures in the land of the pilgrims' pride: all the strange kinds of people he was meeting, and how different it was from Provence. Knowing how Beauty was interested in human beings, he went into detail about his stepmother: a good woman, but so inhibited - a word Lanny had learned from the conversation of Sophie, Baroness de la Tourette, who was very different from Esther Remson Budd, and would have been a scandal if she had ever come to Newcastle. Lanny left no doubt that he preferred Juan as a home, but he was doing his job here as his father wished.

Beauty wrote once or twice a month, nice gossipy letters. Baby Marceline was thriving upon her natural diet, and Beauty herself was well, and as happy as one could expect to be in these sad days. More and more widows on the streets, more and more mutilйs for Emily Chattersworth to crowd into her place. Prices were rising, and fear was universal - Beauty said she couldn't write all the alarming things that were reported. Everywhere an American went he heard one question: "When are your soldiers coming?" The Germans were preparing an enormous offensive by which they hoped to end the war; and poor France had scraped the bottom of the national pot for man power. There just weren't any more young men, hardly any middle-aged ones; you didn't see them on the streets, you didn't see them in the fields. "Oh, Lanny, I am praying to God it may be over before you grow up!"

Marcel would send a message, or scribble a line or two on the bottom of the page. Marcel didn't discuss the war, or his own problems; he would say something about the state of Lanny's soul: "Remember you are an artist, and don't let the Puritans frighten you." He would say: "I am painting a chasseur parting from his mother; it looks like this" - and he would give a little pencil sketch. He would say: "Seine Majestдt is worried," and make a comic drawing of the figure most hated in France. Lanny treasured these sketches, and showed them to his father, but not to anyone else. His stepmother would of course disapprove of his having a stepfather; if Lanny's mother had been a woman with a sense of propriety she would have expiated her sin by living a celibate life.