Пользователь - WORLD'S END

"Dear Mister Lanny Budd: My papa has maled the letter that you sended. I am lerning to right the English but not so good. I have the picture that you sended my papa and feel that I know you and hope that I meat you when no more it is war. Yours respectful Hansi Robin. P.S. I am twelve and I practice now Beethoven's D-major romance for violin."

IX

The end of the year 1916 was a time of bitter discouragement for the Allied cause. Rumania had come into the war and been conquered. Russia was practically out, and Italy had accomplished little. The French armies were discouraged by having been too many times marched into barbed-wire entanglements and mowed down by machine guns. And on top of all that came the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare. The German high command had made up their minds that even if America came in, the destruction of Allied commerce would be so great that Britain would be brought to her knees before America could do anything effective. At the end of January notice was given that all shipping in British and French waters, and in the Mediterranean, was subject to attack without warning. In January the total destruction of shipping was 285 000 tons; in the following April it rose to 852 000.

It was plain to everybody that Britain could not stand that rate of loss, and the American people had to face the question whether they were willing to see the British Empire replaced by a German one. At least everybody whom Lanny knew said that was the question, and no use fooling yourself. The youth found it a hard problem to think about, and wished more than ever to have his father at hand. He read bits of the speeches which President Wilson made, and the notes which he wrote to the German government, and it seemed to him that the only way he could comply with his father's orders was to start a new and determined campaign of sight reading at the piano.

The U-boats began sinking American ships; and then came the publication of an intercepted letter from the German government, inviting the Mexicans to enter the war on the German side, and promising them a handsome reward, including Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. That helped Americans to understand what the war was about, and there was a general movement of the country to get ready.

An exciting time for Americans in France, and for none more than Lanny. Would his father expect him to be neutral now? Or was he going to be free to feel the way everybody else did, and the way he wanted to - or at least thought he wanted to? Kurt Meissner seemed farther away, and the voices of Mozart and Beethoven grew fainter; France was all around, and its questioning was incessant: "Why don't you Americans help us?" Lanny heard it so often that he didn't' go out any more, but became a sort of youthful hermit, swimming and fishing by himself, and reading books about other times and places. He wrote his father concerning these troubles, and added: "Tell me if America is coming in, and if so what I am to do."

Then one day late in March came a cablegram - one of the old-style ones such as Lanny had not received for more than two years and a half. "Sailing for Paris tomorrow wish you to join me there will wire upon arrival Robert Budd."

17

A Man's World

I

LANNY spent a whole week thinking about submarines. It was the time when the German campaign reached its high point; they were sinking thirty thousand tons a day, and one of every four vessels which left the British Isles never returned. Lanny didn't have to imagine a submarine rising from the sea - he had seen it. From eyewitnesses he had heard how torpedoes exploded, and people rushed into lifeboats, and men gave their lives to save women and children. Robbie was the sort of man who would do that, and Lanny felt as if he were tossing a coin every hour for his father's life.

At last a telegram from Le Havre. Thank God, he was on land! He was writing; and next day Lanny received the most important letter of his young life. Robbie was proposing to take him to Connecticut!

"I think the time has come when you ought to know your own country," wrote the father. "It appears certain that we are going into the war, and whatever part you take ought to be in America. My wife invites you to stay with us this summer; I will get you a tutor and you will study hard, and be able to enter prep school this fall and get ready for college." That meant Yale, which was Robbie's own college, and that of his forefathers for a hundred years or more.

There was a letter for Beauty also. Robbie hoped she would agree with him that a lad ought to have a chance to know his own people. Beauty had now had him to herself for thirty-two months - Robbie had an arithmetical mind. He said that if the war lasted, it would be better for Lanny to be in Connecticut, where Robbie could arrange for him to render service in the production of munitions. "You may put your mind at ease on one subject," he wrote. "Lanny will not go into the trenches. He is too valuable to me, and I will be valuable to the government." Bella gerant alii!

"What do you want to do?" asked the mother, after they had shared these letters.

"Well, of course, I'd like to see America," said the youth; and the mother's heart sank. Such a lovely safe nest she had made here, but of course he wouldn't stay in it; the last thing in the world that men wanted appeared to be safety.

"I suppose I'll have to give you up," she said. "The cards are all stacked against a woman."

"Don't worry, Beauty, I'll take good care of myself, and come back when the war's over. I don't think I'll want to live anywhere but here."

"You'll meet some girl over there, and she'll tell you what to do."

"I'm going to get tough," replied the boy; but he didn't look it.

"I knew this had to come, Lanny. But I hoped Robbie would wait till the sea was safe."

"Plenty of people are getting through; and he and I are pretty good swimmers." Lanny thought for a moment, then added: "I wonder what he's going to do about telling his friends the bad news about me."

"He told his wife about us both before they were married. I imagine he'll tell other people that you're his son, and let it go at that. Don't let it worry you."

"If anybody doesn't want me around," said the boy, "I can always go somewhere else. Shall you miss me too terribly, Beauty?"

"It'll be all right if I know you're happy. I ought to tell you a bit of news that I've just learned - I'm going to have a baby."

"Oh, gosh!" A wide smile spread over Lanny's face. "That's grand, Beauty! It will tickle Marcel, won't it?"

"Frenchmen are like that," she answered.

"ALL men are, aren't they?" After a while he inquired: "Was it another accident, or did you decide to do it?"

"Marcel and I decided."

"It's a grand place to bring up a child, Beauty - I can tell you that." He kissed her on both cheeks until she cried with happiness and sorrow mingled.

II

It seemed cruel that a youth should be so excited at the idea of leaving his mother; but he couldn't help it, and she understood. To be with Robbie in Paris, and travel on a great steamer, and see that city of New York which he knew from motion pictures, and the marvelous plant of Budd's, the economic foundation of his life. It was a center of his imaginings, a forge of Vulcan a million times magnified, a Fafnir and Fasolt cave where monstrous forces were generated. And to meet that mysterious family, so many of them that you couldn't keep their names straight, and all different and queer. Robbie didn't often talk about them, but behaved as if they were a dark secret. Or perhaps it was Lanny who was the dark secret!

He packed the few things he would take with him; that required only a couple of hours, and he was ready to go on the evening train. Beauty broke down and wept - it was such short notice. He was a mother's darling; and who else would love him as she had? The world was cruel, so many wicked people in it, women especially - she understood their hearts, the cold and selfish ones, the gold diggers, the harpies! So many things she ought to have taught him, and now it was too late, he couldn't remember them; he was crazy with eagerness to get out into that world which seemed to her so full of pain. She gave him many warnings, extracted many promises - and all the time aware that she was boring him a little.