Пользователь - WORLD'S END

The painter was moved to remark: "You may hang on to your dream of keeping modern thought from your son; but I assure you, Robbie, the forces against you are stronger than you realize."

To which the man of business was moved to answer, with scorn: "Leave that to my son and me, if you please! When Lanny learns that 'modern thought' means class hate, greed, and murder, he may decide to remain an old-fashioned thinker like his father."

"The fond father's dream throughout the ages!" exclaimed the other, in a tone of pity, even more exasperating than one of ridicule. "Let my son be exactly like me in all things! Let him think exactly what I think - and so he will be perfect! But the world is changing, and not all the fathers leagued together can stop it, or keep the sons from knowing about it."

"My son has his own mind," said the father. "He will judge for himself."

"You say that," answered the revolutionist, "but you don't feel nearly as secure as you pretend. Why else should you be so worried when someone presents a new idea to Lanny's mind? Don't you suppose he notices that? Don't you suppose he asks himself what it means?"

That was touching Robbie Budd on the rawest spot in his soul. The idea that anybody could claim to know Lanny better than his father knew him! The idea that the youth might be hiding things, that doubts and differences might be lurking in his mind, that the replica of Robbie's self might be turning traitor to him! In the father's subconscious mind Lanny remained a child, a budding youth, something that had to be guarded and cherished; so the feelings that stirred the father's soul were not so different from the jealous rage of the forest monarch over some sleek and slender doe.

"You are clever, Jesse," said he; "but I think Lanny understands the malice in your heart.",

"I'm sorry I can't call you clever," retorted the other. "Your world is coming to an end. The thousands of your wage slaves have some other purpose than to build a throne for you to sit on."

"Listen, Uncle Jesse," interposed Lanny. "What's the use of all this ranting? You know you can't convince Robbie - "

But the stags brushed him aside; they weren't interested in him any more, they were interested in their battle. "We'll be ready for them any time they choose to come," declared Robbie. "We make machine guns!"

"You'll shoot them yourself?"

"You bet your life!"

"No!" said the painter with a smile. "You'll hire other men, as you always do. And if they turn the guns against you, what then?"

"I'll be on the watch for them! One of them was fool enough to forewarn me!"

"History has forewarned you, Robbie Budd, but you won't learn. The French Revolution told you that the days of divine right were over; but you've built a new system exactly like the old one in its practical results - blind squandering at the top, starvation and despair at the bottom, an insanity of greed ending in mass slaughter. Now you see the Russian revolt, but you scorn to learn from it!"

"We've learned to shut the sons-of-bitches up in their rat-holes, and let them freeze and starve, or die of typhus and eat their own corpses."

"Please, Robbie!" interposed the son. "You're getting yourself all worked up - "

Said the painter: "Typhus has a way of spreading beyond national boundaries; and so have ideas."

"We can quarantine disease; and I promise you, we're going to put the right man in the White House, and step on your Red ideas and smash the guts out of them."

"Listen, Robbie, do be sensible! You're wasting an awful lot of energy."

"Stay in France, Jesse Blackless, and spit your poison all over the landscape; but don't try it in America - not in Newcastle, I warn you!"

"I'm not needed there, Robbie. You're making your own crop of revolutionists. Class arrogance carries its own seeds of destruction."

"Listen, Uncle Jesse, what do you expect to accomplish by this? You know you can't convert my father. Do you just want to hurt each other?"

Yes, that was it. The two stags had their horns locked, and each wanted to butt the other, drive him back, beat him to the earth, mash him into it; each would rather die than give an inch. It was an old, old grudge; they had fought like this when they had first met, more than twenty years ago. Lanny hadn't been there, Lanny hadn't been anywhere then, but his mother had told him about it. Now it had got started again; the two stags couldn't get their horns apart, and it might mean the death of one or both!

"You and your gutter-rats imagining you can run industry!" snarled Robbie.

"If you're so sure we can't, why are you afraid to see us try? Why don't you call off your mercenaries that are fighting us on twenty-six fronts?"

"Why don't you call off your hellions that are spreading treason and hate in every nation?"

"Listen, Uncle Jesse! You promised Robbie you'd let me alone, but you're not doing it."

"They don't let anybody alone," sneered the father. "They don't keep any promises. We're the bourgeoisie, and we have no rights! We're parasites, and all we're fit for is to be 'liquidated'!"

"If you put yourself in front of a railroad train, it's suicide, not murder," said the painter, with his twisted smile. He was keeping his temper, which only made Robbie madder.

Said he, addressing his son: "Our business is to clear the track and let a bunch of gangsters drive the train into a ditch. History won't be able to count the number they have slaughtered."

"Oh, my God!" cried Uncle Jesse - he too addressing the youth. "He talks about slaughter - and he's just finished killing ten million men, with weapons he made for the purpose! God Almighty couldn't count the number he has wounded, and those who've died of disease and starvation. Yet he worries about a few counter-revolutionists shot by the Bolsheviks!"

VII

Lanny saw that he hadn't accomplished anything, so he sat for a while, listening to all the things his father didn't want him to hear. This raging argument became to him a symbol of the world in which he would have to live the rest of his life. His uncle was the uplifted fist of the workers, clenched in deadly menace. As for Robbie, he had proclaimed himself the man behind the machine gun; the man who made it, and was ready to use it, personally, if need be, to mow down the clenched uplifted fists! As for Lanny, he didn't have to be any symbol, he was what he was: the man who loved art and beauty, reason and fair play, and pleaded for these things and got brushed aside. It wasn't his world! It had no use for him! When the fighting started, he'd be caught between the lines and mowed down.

"If you kill somebody," Uncle Jesse announced to the father, "that's law and order. But if a revolutionist kills one of your gangsters, that's murder, that's a crime wave. You own the world, you make the laws and enforce them. But we tell you we're tired of working for your profit, and that never again can you lead us out to die for your greed."

"You're raving!" said Robbie Budd. "In a few months your Russia will be smashed flat, and you'll never get another chance. You've shown us your hand, and we've got you on a list."

"A hanging list?" inquired the painter, with a wink at the son.

"Hanging's not quick enough. You'll see how our Budd machine guns work!"

Lanny had never seen his father in such a rage. He was on his feet, and kept turning away and then back again. He had had several drinks, and that made it worse; his face was purple and his hands clenched. A little more and it might turn into a physical fight. Seeing him getting started on another tirade, Lanny grabbed his uncle by the arm and pulled him from his seat. "Please go, Uncle Jesse!" he exclaimed. "You said you would let me alone. Now do it!" He kept on, first pulling, then pushing. The uncle's hat had been hung on a chair, and Lanny took it and pressed it into his hand. "Please don't argue any more - just go!"