Пользователь - WORLD'S END

BOOK SIX

They Shall Reap the Whirlwind

32

I Have Seen the Future

I

PARIS was dancing. It was a mania that had seized all "society"; in hotels and cafes, in private drawing rooms, wherever men and women met, they spent their time locked in one another's arms, swaying and jiggling this way and that. These modern dances seemed to have been invented to spare the necessity of any skill, any art; if you knew how to walk, if you were sober enough so that you could stagger, then you could dance, and you did.

Lanny didn't have much time for diversion, but his mother went out now and then, and when he called on her, she would tell about her adventures. More than once she had left the room because of disgusting things she had witnessed. Beauty's world seemed to be coming to an end; that world of grace and charm for which she had spent so many years equipping herself. She had learned all the rules - and the result was she was out of date. Men no longer wanted coquetry or subtlety, elegance, even intelligence; they wanted young females to hug, and that was too cheap and easy, in the opinion of Beauty. She said that apparently the real horrors of war didn't begin until it was over.

Her old friends were scattered. Sophie, Baroness de la Tourette, had lost her lover in the last dreadful fighting on the Marne, and had gone back to visit her relatives in Ohio. Margy Eversham-Watson was at her country place in Sussex, his lordship having been struck with a bad attack of gout. Edna Hackabury, now Mrs. Fitz-Laing, was on the Riviera, waiting for her husband to return from a military expedition in the Near East. All these persons were unhappy in one way or another, and Beauty, who craved pleasure as a sunflower craves the light, seemed as if trying to flee from her world. A horrible world! She told Lanny how, sitting at dinner next to Premier Orlando, that genial statesman had declared himself displeased that so lovely a woman had waited eighteen years between children. In his family it was different, he gravely assured her; his wife never got up from her accouchement bed without being pregnant again.

More and more she was coming to rely upon Emily Chatters-worth, a tower of strength in times such as these. Emily had money enough and force of will enough to make a world of her own. Emily had learned the rules, and persons who didn't know them and obey them got no share of her hospitality. In her home you met intellectual people and heard serious talk of the problems of the day, as well as of literature and art and music. Beauty would remark sadly that she was coming to an age where it was necessary for her to be intellectual; she would go to one of Emily's soirees, and listen while more brilliant persons talked, and come home and tell Lanny whom she had met and what compliments they had paid her.

Lanny accompanied her when he could find time. He realized that Mrs. Emily was performing an important service in bringing people together in gracious ways. When the American delegates and advisers met the French, it was always for business, and too frequently the discussions ended with bitterness. But in the drawing room of a woman of the world they could discuss the same problems with urbanity and humor; their shrewd hostess would be watching, ready to help the conversation past a dangerous corner. Here the women came; and the Americans found it easier to like the French when they met their women.

Mrs. Emily was fond of Lanny Budd, who from childhood had learned to behave in a drawing room. She considered him extraordinarily fortunate in his present role, and permitted him to bring members of the staff to her affairs without special invitation, an honor she granted to few. She came to have lunch with his friends at the Crillon, and this too was a distinction. Professor Alston remarked that many women had money, but few knew how to use it; if there were more persons like Emily Chattersworth in the world there wouldn't be so many like Jesse Blackless.

II

The British and the French were taking unto themselves those portions of Asia Minor which had oil, phosphates, and other treasures, or through which oil pipelines had to travel to the sea. Since the Fourteen Points had guaranteed the inhabitants of these lands the mastery of their own destinies, the subtle statesmen had racked their vocabularies to find some way of taking what they wanted while seeming not to. They had evolved a new word, or rather a new meaning for an old word, which was "mandate." The scholars at the Crillon had an anecdote with which to divert their minds from sorrowful contemplations. Some diplomat newly arrived in Paris had inquired: "What's going to be done about New Guinea and the Pacific islands?" and the answer was: "They are to be administered by mandatories." "Who is Mandatories?" inquired the newcomer.

Mister Mandatories - or was it Lord Mandatories? - was going to take over Syria and Palestine and Iraq, the Hejaz and Yemen and the rest of those hot lands which had been promised to the people of the young Emir Feisal. The brown replica of Christ had taken off his multicolored silk robes, his turban and veil, and put on the ugliest of black morning coats, in the hope of impressing the Peace Conference with his civilized condition - but all in vain. Behind the scenes Grand Officer ZaharofF had spoken, and Clemenceau was obeying; Henri Deterding, master of Royal Dutch Shell, had spoken, and Lloyd George was obeying.

One portion of the former Turkish empire had no oil or other mineral treasures of consequence; it had only peasants, who were being slaughtered daily by Turkish soldiers, as they had been off and on, mostly on, for ages. To stop this slaughter there was needed another Mandatory - a kind, idealistic, high-minded Mandatory, who cared nothing about oil nor yet about pipelines, but who loved poor peasants and the simple life. The British and French brought forward a proposal in the name of humanity and democracy: an elderly gentleman named Uncle Samuel Mandatory was to take charge of Armenia, and doughboys singing "Onward, Christian Soldiers" would drive out the Turks and keep them out.

This proposal was sprung, and President Wilson promised to consider it and give his decision promptly. There was a rush call to the staff for everything they had on Armenia, and a hundred reports on history, geography, language, population, resources, production, trade, government, had to be dug out and read, digested, summarized, headlined, so that a busy statesman could get the whole thing in his mind in ten minutes' reading. Professor Alston had to do his part, and Lanny had to help - which was the reason he missed a musical evening at Mrs. Emily's town house.

Beauty attended; and shortly before midnight she telephoned her son at the hotel. "Lanny, the most amazing thing has happened."

He knew from the tone of her voice that she was upset. "What is it?"

"I can't tell you over the phone. You must come here."

"But I'm not through with my job."

"Isn't it something that can wait till morning?"

"It's for the Big Boss himself."

"Well, I must see you. I'll wait up."

"Any danger?" His first thought, of course, was of Kurt.

"Don't try to talk now. Come when you can."

III

So Lanny rather stinted the Armenians, and maybe let more of them die. So many poor peasants were dying, in so many parts of the world - there came a time when one just gave up. He omitted from his report some of the Armenian charges and some of the Turkish admissions, and slipped into his big trench coat, ran downstairs, and hopped into a taxi.

His fair blond mother was waiting in one of those bright-colored silk dressing gowns from China - this time large golden dragons crawling clockwise round her. She had taken to smoking under the strain of the past year, and evidently had done it a lot, for the air in the room was hazy and close. Beauty deserved her name almost as much as formerly, and never more so than when tenderness and concern were in her sweet features. After opening her door she looked into the passage to see if anyone had followed her son, then led him into her boudoir before she spoke.