Пользователь - WORLD'S END

The council hall was splendid and impressive, having on the floor a heavy Aubusson carpet, pearl-gray with large red roses; red damask curtains at the windows, superb Gobelin tapestries on the walls. The ceilings were high, and the lights were set in enormous chandeliers. A great many tables were laid end to end in the shape of a square U, covered with green baize, and pink silk blotters which were changed every day. The chairs were gilded, with silk upholstery, and all this splendor was guarded by huissiers wearing silver chains.

At the bottom of the square U sat Georges Clemenceau, Premier of France, a squat little figure with a strange head, bald and flat on top. He had broad humped shoulders, a short neck, sallow complexion, white walrus mustaches, thick, shaggy eyebrows, and a long, square-tailed black coat. At his back was a fireplace with a crackling fire - you would always find that wherever he sat, for he was seventy-eight, and diabetic, and his blood was growing chilly. Over the fireplace was a figure of Peace holding up a torch - perhaps to warm his soul, which may also have grown chilly. Always he wore gray silk gloves on his hands, because he suffered from eczema.

Near him sat President Wilson, stiff and erect, with lean ascetic face and shining glasses. Beyond him was the Prime Minister of Britain with pink cherubic features and a little white mustache. Next to him was Balfour with his air of aristocratic boredom, cultivated not for this occasion but for life. The other personages tapered off down the line. In the background were generals wearing uniforms and medals, and potentates in the varicolored robes of the East. Marshal Foch was there, and General Pershing, and other military men, because the first matter in hand was the renewal of the armistice, which was for a month at a time, and each time the Marshal had thought of some new ways to tighten the screws upon the hated foe.

After that they took up the question of representation at the conference, and the future methods of procedure. It was supposed to be a deliberative assembly, but after a few sessions it became apparent that everything had been fixed in advance. Someone would make a proposal, and while he was speaking Clemenceau would sit with hands folded and eyes closed, and no one would know whether he was asleep or not. But the moment the speaker finished, the chairman would raise his heavy eyelids and say: "Any discussion?" - and then, before anybody could get his wits together to answer, he would bring down his gavel and snap out: " Adoptй !" Said Professor Alston to Lanny: "He's fighting the next war."

V

At the head of President Wilson's Fourteen Points stood the phrase: "Open covenants of peace openly arrived at." Taking this statement at its face value, American press associations, newspapers, and magazines had sent their correspondents to Paris, and there were now a hundred and fifty of them in a ravenous condition, having waited a whole month for something to happen. The rest of the world had contributed twice as many; and now they were informed that no press representatives would be admitted to sessions of the conference, but that they would get "handouts" from a press bureau. When they got their first one they found that it contained exactly forty-eight words.

A howl went up that was heard, quite literally, all the way around the world. The hundred and fifty Americans appointed a committee and stormed the American press bureau; a war began that did not end with the Peace Conference, but was continued into the history books. Men took one side or the other - and from that choice you could know what part they were going to play, not merely in this particular melodrama, but in all the others which were to follow upon its heels.

France had been at war for four bloody years, had suffered grievous wounds, and now stood with one foot upon her deadly foe. During these four years the people of France had been under a complete censorship; officials and military men between them had decided not merely what should be done but what should be said and thought. Now suddenly it was proposed to lift this censorship and turn people loose to reveal secrets and criticize policies - in short, to say what they pleased, or what the enemy might hire them to say. "What?" cried the shell-shocked officials. "Open the sessions of the conference, and let newspaper men hear the wrangles of the diplomats, and tell the whole world about national ambitions and demands? If you do that, you will have a series of new wars on your hands - the Allies will be fighting among themselves!"

To this the believers in open covenants openly arrived at replied that the affairs to be settled by the conference were the affairs of the people, and the people had a right to know what was being planned and done. Democracy could not function unless it had information. The only way of lasting peace was to turn the conference into a means of education, an open forum where problems were threshed out in the sight and hearing of all.

So the debate raged; and like everything else with which the assemblage dealt it was settled by compromise and evasion. It was agreed that the press should be admitted to the "plenary sessions"; whereupon these were turned into formal affairs to ratify decisions already worked out by the so-called "Council of Ten." When the press took to clamoring against the secrecy of the "Council of Ten," the real work was transferred to a secret "Council of Four." Presently this became a "Council of Three," and this holy trinity not only told no pressmen what it was doing, but to make sure that they couldn't find out, it employed but one secretary and kept but one record.

VI

Of course only a small portion of the people of Paris were occupied with the Peace Conference. The common people, mostly women and elderly men, worked at their daily tasks, and gave their thoughts to getting food with prices steadily rising. The well-to-do had their cares also, for it was a violent world, exposed to sudden unforeseeable changes. Only speculators throve; and whenever Robbie met his son he had stories to tell about what these were doing.

The munitions industry was shot to pieces, reported the salesman. Budd's had been forced to close down; all that magnificent plant which had been like a beehive - its chimneys were empty and its gates were locked. "But I thought we still had contracts with the government!" exclaimed the youth. The father answered that it didn't pay to run big plants for a few orders, and they had canceled the contracts on the basis of part payments.

"But what will all those working people do, Robbie?"

"I hope they saved their money. For us the war ended too soon. Nobody could foresee that Germany, was going to collapse like that."

"We still have those fine new plants, haven't we?"

"What are plants if you can't run them? They're just a drain; upkeep, insurance, and taxes - the government soaks you as hard whether you're making anything or not."

"I never thought of that," confessed Lanny.

"Your grandfather isn't thinking about anything else very much."

Robbie was sending home long reports, mostly without a gleam of hope. There were plenty of people who wanted to go on fighting, but where were they to get the money? Who would want to finance new wars? And, anyhow, the fighting would be done with munitions already manufactured. There were mountains of it piled up all over France, and on the Italian front, and the Balkan front, and the Palestine front - everywhere you looked on the map. It could be bought for almost anything you wanted to offer.

"I've been trying to interest Father in buying some as a speculation," added Robbie. "But he says we're not going into the junk business. I can't very well do it myself while I'm the European sales agent of our firm."