Пользователь - WORLDS END

• Название: WORLDS END
• Автор: Пользователь
• Жанр: Прочая старинная литература

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"I assure you, Monsieur," said the youth, respectfully, "I intended to do it as soon as I got to my room." This too had the light play of humor in which the French delight; so the commissaire said he hoped his guest hadn't minded his misadventure. Lanny replied that he had found the experience educational, and that stories of crime and detection would be far more vivid to him in future. The suitcase containing Robbie's papers was restored to Robbie's son, and the three officials shook hands with him - but not with Uncle Jesse, he noticed. "M. Bloc-less" was one of the "older and less scrupulous persons."

IV

Nephew and uncle stepped out into the twilight; and it seemed to Lanny the most delightful moment he had spent in Paris. Very certainly the Оle de la Citй with its bridges and its great cathedral had never appeared more beautiful than in the summer twilight. Flags were out, and the holiday atmosphere prevailed. To everybody else it was because of the signing of the treaty, but there was nothing to prevent Lanny Budd's applying it to his emergence from the Prйfecture.

The moment was made perfect when a taxi came whirling up the Boulevard du Palais, and there was Robbie Budd peering forth. "Well, what the devil is this?" he cried.

"You got my note?" inquired Jesse, as Robbie jumped out. "That - and your telegram."

"I wanted to be sure of reaching you. I was afraid they might hold me, too."

"But what is it all about?"

"Get back into the cab," said Uncle Jesse. "We can't talk about it here."

The two got in, and Lanny handed in the suitcase, and followed it. When the Prйfecture was behind them, the painter said: "Now, Robbie, I'll tell you the story I just told the commissaire. You remember how, several months back, Professor Alston sent Lanny to me to arrange for a conference between Colonel House and some of the Russian agents in Paris?"

"I was told about it," said Robbie, with no cordiality in his tone. "Don't forget that it was United States government business. Lanny did it because it was his job, and I did it because his chief urged me to. I have made it a matter of honor never to force myself upon your son. I have done that out of regard for my sister. Lanny will tell you that it is so."

"It really is, Robbie," put in the youth. "Go on," said Robbie, between his clenched teeth. "Well, this morning a French labor leader came to me. You know the blockade of Germany is still going on, the war on the Soviet government is still going on - and both are products of French government policy."

"You may assume that I have read the newspapers," replied the father. "Kindly tell me what the police wanted with Lanny."

"This labor man of course would like to have American support for a policy more liberal and humane. He brought me a bundle of leaflets presenting the arguments of the French workers, and asked if it wouldn't be possible for my nephew at the Crillon to get these into the hands of Colonel House, so that he might know how the workers felt. I said: 'My nephew has broken with the Crillon, because he doesn't approve its policies.' The answer was: 'Well, he may be in touch with some of the staff there and might be able to get the documents to Colonel House.' So I said: 'All right, I'll take them to him and ask him to try.' I took them, and advised Lanny not to read them himself, but to get them to the right person if he had a chance."

Lanny sat rigid in his seat, his mind torn between dismay and admiration. Oh, what a beautiful story! It brought him to realize how ill equipped he was for the career of an intriguer, a secret agent; all those hours he had spent in the silence of his cell - and never once had he thought of that absolutely perfect story!

"My friend told me how many of these leaflets had been printed and distributed in Paris, and I jotted down the figures on each one, thinking it might help to impress Colonel House. It appears the Prйfecture found those figures highly suspicious."

"Tell me how it happened," persisted Robbie.

"When I left the hotel I got a glimpse of a man strolling past the window and looking into the lobby. He happened to be one of the flics who had picked me up several months back. I saw him enter the hotel, and I looked through the window and saw him and another man go into the elevator with Lanny. I waited until they came down and put him into a taxi. Then I set out to find you. I was afraid to go into the hotel, so I used the telephone. When I failed to find you, I sent you a note by messenger, and also a telegram, and then I decided to go to the Prйfecture and try my luck. It was a risk, of course, because Lanny might have talked, and I couldn't know what he had said."

"You might have guessed that he would have told the truth," said the father.

"I wasn't that clever. What I did was to fish around, until they told me Lanny had confessed that he was a Red - "

"What?" cried Lanny, shocked.

"The commissaire said that himself; so I knew they were bluffing and that Lanny hadn't talked. I told them my story and they held me a couple of hours while they 'investigated.' What they did, I assume, was to phone to Colonel House. Of course they consider that most everybody in the Crillon is a Red, but they can't afford any publicity about it. That's why they turned us loose with a warning."

Robbie turned to his son. "Lanny, is this story true?"

The next few moments were uncomfortable for the younger man. He had never lied to his father in his life. Was he going to do it now? Or was he going to "throw down" his Uncle Jesse, who had come to his rescue at real danger to himself - and who had invented such a beautiful story? There is an old saying that what you don't know won't hurt you; but Lanny had been taught a different moral code - that you mustn't ever lie except when you are selling munitions.

Great was the youth's relief when his uncle saved him from this predicament. "One moment, Robbie," he put in. "I didn't say that story was true."

"Oh, you didn't?"

"I said I would tell you what I told the commissaire."

The father frowned angrily. "I am in no mood for jokes!" he exclaimed. "Am I to know about this business, or am I not? Lanny, will you kindly tell me?"

"Yes, Robbie," replied the youth. "The truth is "

"The fault is entirely mine," broke in Uncle Jesse. "I brought Lanny those papers for a purpose of my own."

"He is going to try to take the blame on himself," objected Lanny. "I assure you - "

"He can't tell you the real story, because he doesn't know it!" argued the painter.

"Nobody really knows it but me," retorted Lanny. "Uncle Jesse only thinks he knows it."

Robbie's sense of humor wasn't operating just then. "Will you two please agree which is going to talk?"

Said Lanny, quickly: "I think we'd all three better wait until we get back to the hotel." He made a motion of the ringer toward the taxi driver in front of them. To be sure, they were speaking English - but then the driver might have been a waiter at Mouquin's on Sixth Avenue before the war. The two men fell silent; and Lanny remarked: "Well, I heard the guns. Has the treaty really been signed?"

V

When they were safely locked in their suite, Robbie got out his whisky bottle, which the flics hadn't taken. He had been under a severe strain, and took a nip without waiting for the soda and ice; so did the painter. Lanny had been under a longer strain than either of them, but he waited for the ginger beer, for he wasn't yet of age, and moreover he thought that his father was drinking too much, and was anxious not to encourage him. Meanwhile the youth strolled casually about the suite, looking into the bathroom and the closets and under the beds; he didn't know just how a dictograph worked, but he looked everywhere for any wires. After the bellboy had departed, the ex-prisoner opened the door and looked out. He was in a melodramatic mood.

At last they were settled, and the father said: "Now, please, may I have the honor of knowing about this affair?"

"First," said Lanny, with a grin, "let me shut Uncle Jesse up. Uncle Jesse, you remember the Christmas before the war, I paid a visit to Germany?"

"I heard something about it."

"I was staying with a friend of mine. Better not to use names. That friend was in Paris until recently, and he was the man who came to call on you at midnight."

"Oh, so that's it!" exclaimed the painter.

"I gave him my word never to tell anybody. But I'm sure he won't mind your knowing, because you're likely to become his brother-in-law before long - you may be it now. Beauty and he are lovers, and that's why she's gone to Spain."

"Oh, my God!" exclaimed Jesse. And then again: "Oh, my God!" He was speaking English, in which these words carry far more weight than in French.

"I told Robbie about it," Lanny continued, "because he has a right to know about Beauty. But I didn't tell him about you, because that was your secret. May I tell him now?"

"Evidently he's not going to be happy till he hears it."

Lanny turned to his father. "I put my friend in touch with Uncle Jesse, and my friend brought money to help him stir up the workers against the blockade. I thought that was a worthy cause and I still think so."

"You knew you were risking your life?" demanded the shocked father.

"I've seen people risking their lives for so long, it has sort of lost meaning. But you can imagine that I felt pretty uncomfortable this afternoon. Also, you can see what a risk Uncle Jesse took when he walked into that place."

Robbie made no response. He had poured out the drinks for the red sheep of his former mistress's family, but not an inch farther did he mean to go.

"You see how it was," continued Lanny. "When my friend stopped coming, Uncle Jesse wanted to know why; he brought me some literature so that this friend might see what he had been doing. He asked me to pass it on if I got a chance, and I said I would. He suggested that I didn't need to read it. I didn't say I wouldn't - I just said that I understood. Uncle Jesse has really been playing fair with you, Robbie. It was my friend and I who planned this whole scheme and brought it to him."

"I hope you don't feel too proud of it," said the father, grimly.

"I'm not defending myself, I'm trying to set you straight about Uncle Jesse. If I've picked up ideas that you don't like, it hasn't been from him, for he's avoided talking to me, and even told me I couldn't understand his ideas if I tried. I'm a parasite, a member of the wasting classes, all that sort of thing. What I've had explained has been by Alston, and Herron, and Steffens - "

"Whom you met in Jesse's room, I believe!"

"Well, he could hardly refuse to introduce me to his friend when I walked in. As a matter of fact I'd have met Steffens anyway, because Alston's friends talked a lot about his visit to Russia, and he was at the dinner where they decided to resign. So whatever I've done that was wrong, you must blame me and not Uncle Jesse. I don't know whether he hasn't any use for me, or whether he just pretends that he hasn't, but anyhow that's the way things have been between us."

Said Robbie, coldly: "Nothing alters the fact that he came to this hotel and brought a swarm of hornets down on both of us. Look at my room!" Robbie pointed to his effects strewn here and there. "And my business papers taken by the police, and copies made, no doubt - and sold by some crook to my business rivals!" Robbie knew how such things were done, having done them.

"You are perfectly right," said the painter. "It is my fault, and I am sorry as can be."

"All that I want to know is that I don't have to look forward to such things for the rest of my life. You are Beauty's brother, and if you decide to behave yourself as a decent human being, I'm ready to treat you that way. But if you choose to identify yourself with the scum of the earth, with the most dangerous criminals alive - all right, that's your privilege, but then I have to say: 'Keep away from me and mine.' "

"You are within your rights." Uncle Jesse spoke in the same cold tones as his not quite brother-in-law. "If you will arrange it with your son to keep away from me, you may be sure that I will never again invade his life, or yours."

VI

That was a fair demand and a fair assent; if only those two could have let it rest there! But they were like two stags in the forest, which might turn away and walk off in opposite directions - but they don't! Instead they stand and stare, paw the ground, and cannot get each other out of their minds.

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!"