Пользователь - WORLD'S END

The concern of many had been aroused at the outset by the fact that there was no peace conference under way, and no sign of getting ready for one. The French government had requested that President Wilson should arrive by the fourteenth of December and the President had done so. They had given him a grand reception - the people of Paris turning out and making it the most tumultuous in history. But nothing had been said about a conference; the French hadn't even named their delegates.

The more suspicious of the staff put their heads together. What did it mean? Doubtless they had wanted to get the President over here so that they could wine him and dine him and tell him that he was the greatest man in the world. They would study him, discover his weak points, and see what they could do with him. They offered to take him to inspect the war zones, and the meaning of that was obvious; they would stir up his emotions, fill him with the same hatred of the Germans which they themselves felt. Meanwhile the military men would go on weakening Germany, taking out of the country all those things which the armistice had required - five thousand locomotives, as many trucks, and a hundred and fifty thousand freight cars. Germany would be blockaded, and its remaining stocks of food exhausted - in short, those who wanted a Carthaginian peace would be getting it.

Within the Allied lines there was a struggle getting under way between those who wanted to make peace and those who wanted to wage the next war. In general the French were on one side and the Americans on the other, with the British wavering between the two. Lloyd George, who had become Prime Minister during the war, had only a faction behind him, and had seen the opportunity to cement his power by throwing the country into a general election - the "khaki election," it was called, because of the spirit in which it was carried on. Lloyd George had promised that the Kaiser should be tried, and at the hustings the cry had arisen for him to be hanged. The German people must somehow be made to suffer, as the British and French and Belgians had done. But there was a liberal element among the British representatives in Paris, especially the younger ones, who were sympathetic to the American program of peace with reconciliation. These, of course, wished to meet and know the Americans. Was it proper for the Americans to meet them? Or would that, too, be "propaganda"?

VII

Lanny had sent his mother a telegram upon his arrival in Brest, mentioning the exciting tidings that he had got a job. It meant that he could not come to Juan - at least, not until he had finished solving the problems of Europe. He wrote, suggesting that she should come to Paris.

Of course Beauty had to see her boy; and Robbie thought it would be a good thing if she left home for a while. He didn't take much stock in her efforts at rehabilitating broken Frenchmen; that was all right for women of a certain type, but not for Beauty, who was made for pleasure. Writing to Lanny, she protested that everything in Paris would be so dreadfully expensive; and Robbie answered in his usual way, by giving their son an extra check to send her. It was one of his ways of educating Lanny, helping him to realize how pleasant it was to have money, heigh-ho!

The mother was still clinging to the hope that she might hear some word about Marcel. She told herself that she could carry on her search better from Paris; if it brought no results, she could help to promote interest in his paintings, a labor of piety which intrigued heir mind. Lanny could assist her, now that he was meeting so many important and influential persons. In short, life once more began to stir in the bosom of Mabel Blackless, once Beauty Budd, and now Madame Detaze, veuve.

She ordered her trunks packed, and oversaw the job, exclaiming over the dowdiness of everything she owned; she hadn't bought a thing for years, and would simply have to do some shopping in Paris! Should she give up hope and put on black for Marcel, and how would she look? Leese and Rosine of course had views which they expressed freely. Beauty would repeat her injunctions for the care of Baby Marceline, now a little more than a year old and safely weaned; the two servants would renew their pledges, and Beauty would by turns be grieved at leaving her new baby and excited at the prospect of meeting her old one.

Lanny was at the Gare de Lyon, and they rushed together; then they held each other apart, to see what twenty months had done. "Oh, Lanny, you're grand! What a great tall thing you've grown!" And: "Oh, Beauty, you've been breaking the rules! There are ten pounds more of you!"

She blushed as she admitted her sins. "But I'll soon lose it here in Paris, with the prices I'm told they're charging." They had lunch together at the hotel, and Beauty inspected the addition, which included fifty francs for a chicken. She exclaimed in horror, and said she would live on pear and endive salad from now on. One felt guilty to eat anything at all, with so many people starving all over Europe:

Such a myriad of things they had to talk about! Lanny had to tell about Esther and her family, and the rest of the Budd tribe, a hundred details that he had been too busy to write. He had to tell about Gracyn, that horrid creature, so Beauty adjudged her; there were women like that, and they filled a mother's heart with distress. Beauty inspected him anxiously for any signs that his life had been ruined; but he assured her that he was all right, he had learned a lot, he was wiser as well as sadder, and meant to live a strict ascetic life from now on, devoting himself to bringing peace to Europe. Beauty listened gravely; she had heard other men make such resolutions, but had rarely seen them kept.

She told him about the baby, how she looked and what she ate and the delightful sounds she made. She told him about the wounded men she had been visiting at Sept Chкnes. "I don't know what I'm going to do with them, Lanny, now that the war is over - it's just like having a lot of relatives." She told about Emily Chattersworth, whose chвteau was still given up to mutilйs . "She's living in town now, and you must go and see her - she can be so helpful to you and your professors - she knows everybody and likes to bring people together - that's really her forte, you know."

"Don't bother," smiled the youth. "My professors are meeting several times as many people as they want to."

"Oh, but I mean the right ones, Lanny. That's the way to get things done here in France. Emily will arrange to take your Professor Alston direct to Clemenceau himself, and he can explain just how he thinks the peace ought to be settled." It was going to be as simple as that!

VIII

President Wilson and his wife went shopping in Paris. She was a buxom lady who was devoted to him and took the best possible care of him, and wore in his honor a gorgeous purple gown and a hat with purple plumes. Everywhere they appeared there were ovations; the people of Europe rushed to manifest their faith in him, their hope, their adoration. It was something entirely spontaneous, unforeseen by the politicians and not a little disturbing to them. For this man talked about Democracy, and not merely before elections; he spoke as if he really believed in it - and these were dangerous times, when words were liable to explode, like the shells which were buried in the fields of France and went off in the faces of the peasants who tried to plow. This man talked about freedom of the seas which Britannia boasted of ruling; he talked about self-determination for those small peoples whom the statesmen of Europe were bent upon ruling.

President Wilson and his wife went to London, arriving on the day after Christmas, which the British call "Boxing Day." Enormous, throngs welcomed them, and the government provided a royal banquet at Buckingham Palace, making it the most gorgeous spectacle ever seen in that land of pageantry. Britain was the only country left in Europe that could put on such a show. The empire of the Tsar was now a land of starving proletarians, and the realm of the Kaiser was ruled by a saddlemaker; but Britannia still had the money, and her field marshals and generals and admirals and lord mayors still had the costumes. Before this shining assemblage the lean Presbyterian professor stood in his plain black clothes, and talked about the rights of the people; also, he failed to tell the lords and masters of the realm that they had won the war, an offense which they wouldn't forget.