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Mr. Budd," he said, "you see what it takes to put people to work for a cause. Wouldn't you like
to come and help me?"
Said Lanny: "I am afraid I am without any competence for such a task". If there was a trace
of dryness in his tone the Führer missed it, for he smiled amiably, and seemed to be of the
opinion that he had done a very good afternoon's work.
Long afterward Lanny learned from Kurt Meissner what the Führer thought about that
meeting. He said that young Mr. Budd was a perfect type of the American privileged classes:
good-looking, easy-going, and perfectly worthless. It would be a very simple task to cause that
nation to split itself to pieces, and the National Socialist movement would take it in charge.
8
To Give and to Share
I
IN THE month of December Irma and Rahel completed the tremendous feat they had
undertaken; having kept the pact they had made with each other and with their families, they
were now physically and morally free. The condition of two lusty infants appeared to indicate
that Rousseau and Lanny had been right. Little by little the greedy sucklings learned to take
the milk of real cows instead of imitation ones; they acquired a taste for fruit juices and for prune
pulp with the skins carefully removed. At last the young mothers could go to a bridge party
without having to leave in the middle of it.
Marceline with her governess had returned to Juan at the end of the yacht cruise, and her
mother had promised to join her for Christmas. Farewells were said to the Robin family, and
Beauty and her husband went by train, taking the baby, Miss Severne, the nursemaid, and
Madame. The General Graf Stubendorf's invitation to Lanny and Irma had been renewed, and
Kurt had written that they should by all means accept; not only would it be more pleasant for
Irma at the Schloss, but it would advantage the Meissners to have an old friend return as a guest
of Seine Hochgeboren. Lanny noted this with interest and explained it to his wife; what would
have been snobbery in America was loyalty in Silesia. The armies of Napoleon having never
reached that land, the feudal system still prevailed and rank was a reality.
Stubendorf being in Poland, the train had to stop, and luggage and passports to be examined.
The village itself was German, and only the poorer part of the peasantry was Polish. This made
a situation full of tension, and no German thought of it as anything but a truce. What the Poles
thought, Lanny didn't know, for he couldn't talk with them. In Berlin he had shown his wife a
comic paper and a cartoon portraying Poland as an enormous fat hog, being ridden by a French
army officer who was twisting the creature's tail to make it gallop and waving a saber to show
why he was in a hurry. Not exactly the Christmas spirit!
Irma Barnes Budd explored the feudal system, and found it not so different from the South
Shore of Long Island. She was met at the train by a limousine, which would have happened at
home. A five-story castle didn't awe her, for she had been living in one that was taller and
twice as broad. The lady who welcomed her was certainly no taller or broader than Mrs. Fanny
Barnes, and couldn't be more proud of her blood. The principal differences were, first, that the
sons and daughters of this Prussian family worked harder than any young people Irma had
ever known; and, second, there were uniforms and ceremonies expressive of rank and station.
Irma gave close attention to these, and her husband wondered if she was planning to introduce
them into the New World.
Visiting his father's home in Connecticut, Lanny had discovered that being married to a great
heiress had raised his social status; and now he observed the same phenomenon here. Persons
who through the years had paid no particular attention to him suddenly recognized that he was
a man of brilliant parts; even the Meissner family, whom he had known and loved since he was a
small boy, appeared to be seized with awe. Whereas formerly he had shared a bed in Kurt's
small room, he was now lodged in a sumptuous suite in the castle; the retainers and tenants all
took off their hats to him, and he no longer had to hear the gräflichen ideas explained second-
hand by Herr Meissner, but got them from the horse's mouth, as the saying is.
It was unfortunate that the ideas no longer impressed him as they did in the earlier years.
The General Graf was a typical Junker, active in the Nationalist party; his policies were limited
by the interests of his class. He did not let himself be influenced by the fact that his estate was
now in Poland; that was a temporary matter, soon to be remedied. He supported a tariff on
foodstuffs so that the German people would pay higher prices to landowners. He wanted his
coal mined, but he didn't want to pay the miners enough so that they could buy his food. He
wanted steel and chemicals and other products of industry, which required swarms of workers,
but he blamed them for trying to have a say as to the conditions of their lives, or indeed
whether they should live at all.
II
Fortunately it wasn't necessary to spend much time discussing politics. There was a great
deal of company, with music, dancing, and feasting. If the country products couldn't be sold
at a profit they might as well be eaten at home, so everyone did his best, and it was astounding
how they succeeded. Modern ideas of dietetics, like Napoleon, hadn't penetrated the feudalism
of Upper Silesia. It was the same regimen which had startled Lanny as a boy: a preliminary
breakfast with Dresdener Christstollen, a sort of bun with raisins inside and sugar on top; then
at half-past ten the "fork breakfast," when several kinds of meat were eaten—but without
interfering with anybody's appetite for lunch. An afternoon tea, only it was coffee, and then
an enormous dinner of eight or ten courses, served with the utmost formality by footmen in
satin uniforms. Finally, after cards, or music and dancing, it was unthinkable that one should
go to bed on an empty stomach. That meant six meals a day, and it produced vigorous and
sturdy young men, but when they came to middle age they had necks like bulls' and cheeks like
pelicans' and eyes almost closed by fat in the lids.
One discovery Lanny made very quickly: this was the life for which his wife had been created.
Nobody shouted at her, nobody confused her mind with strange ideas; everybody treated her
as a person of distinction, and found her charming, even brilliant. A world in which serenity
and poise counted; a world which didn't have to be changed! The Grafin became a second
mother to her, and she was invited to visit so many distinguished families, she might have
been carried through the entire winter without spending any of her money. One aspect of the
feudal system appeared to be that most of its ruling members were bored on their estates, and
eager for visitors, provided they were of proper station. They all had bursting larders, with a
host of servants trained to put meals on tables. Do come and enjoy your share!
III
What Lanny really wanted was to spend the time with his boyhood chum. Kurt now lived
with his own family in a stone cottage on the outskirts of the village of Stubendorf, all of which
belonged to Seine Hochgeboren. Lanny met for the first time Kurt's gentle and devoted young
wife, and three little blond "Aryans" produced according to the Schicklgruber prescription.
Irma went along on the first visit as a matter of courtesy, and also of curiosity, for she had
heard how this wonderful Komponist had been Beauty Budd's lover for some eight years; also,
she had heard enough about Kurt's adventures in Paris during the Peace Conference to make him
a romantic figure.
Kurt hadn't changed much in the four years since Lanny had seen him. The war had aged
him prematurely, but from then on he seemed to stay the same: a grave and rather silent man,
who chose to speak to the world through his art. He worshiped the classic German composers,
especially the "three B's." Each of these had written a few four-hand piano compositions, and
in the course of the years others of their works had been arranged in this form, so now there
were more than a hundred such available. Lanny had ordered a complete collection from one of
the dealers in Berlin; not often can one make a Christmas present which will give so much
pleasure to a friend! The two of them wanted to sit right down and not get up even for meals.
Irma couldn't see how it was possible for human fingers to stand the strain of so much
pounding; she couldn't see how human ears could take in so many notes. She had to remind
them of an engagement at the Schloss; whereupon Kurt leaped up at once, for Seine
Hochgeboren must not be kept waiting, even for Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.
In return for his pension and his home it was Kurt's duty to play for his patron, and to
assemble, rehearse, and conduct a small orchestra for special occasions such as this Christmas
visit. He did this with scrupulous fidelity, as the young Haydn had done for the great Prince
Esterhazy of Vienna. It wasn't an onerous job, for of late years Seine Hochgeboren came only
rarely. To his people living under the Poles he made a formal address, full of Christmas cheer,
but also of quiet unbending faith that God would somehow restore them to their Fatherland.
Deutsche Treue und Ehre acquired a special meaning when used by those living in exile.
That was what the National Socialist movement meant to Kurt Meissner. He and his young
wife listened with eager attention while Lanny told about his meeting with Adolf Hitler; then
Herr Meissner asked to have the story told to his family, and later on the lord of the Schloss
wanted his friends to hear it. They questioned the visitor closely as to just what Adi's program
now was; and of course Lanny knew what was in their minds. Had the Ftihrer of the Nazis
really dropped that crazy Socialist stuff with which he had set out on his career? Could he be
depended upon as a bulwark against Bolshevism, a terror so real to the people on Germany's
eastern border? Would he let the landowners alone and devote himself to rearming the
country, and forcing the Allies to permit the return of Stubendorf and the other lost provinces,
the Corridor and the colonies? If the Germans in exile could be sure of these things, they
might be willing to support him, or at any rate not oppose him actively.
IV
Kurt had composed a symphony, which he called Das Vaterland. He and his adoring wife
had copied out the parts for an orchestra of twenty pieces, and Kurt had engaged musicians
from the near-by towns, of course at the Graf's expense. They had been thoroughly drilled, and
now played the new work before a distinguished company on Christmas night. This was the
high point of Lanny's visit, andindeed of his stay in Germany. In his boyhood he had taken
Kurt Meissner as his model of all things noble and inspiring; he had predicted for him a shining
future, and felt justified when he saw all the hochgeboren Herrschaften of Kurt's own district
assembled to do him honor.
During the composer's time in Bienvenu his work had been full of bitterness and revolt, but
since he had come home he had apparently managed to find courage and hope. He didn't write
program music, and Lanny didn't ask what the new work was supposed to signify; indeed, he
would rather not be told, for the military character of much of the music suggested it was meant
for the Nazis. It pictured the coming of a deliverer, it portrayed the German people arising and
marching to their world destiny; at its climax, they could no longer keep in march tempo, but
broke into dancing; great throngs of them went exulting into the future, endless companies of
young men and maidens, of that heroic and patriotic sort that Heinrich Jung and Hugo Behr
were training.
The music didn't actually say that, and every listener was free to make up his own story.
Lanny chose to include youths and maidens of all lands in that mighty dancing procession. He
remembered how they had felt at Hellerau, in the happy days before the war had poisoned the
minds of the peoples. Then internationalism had not been a Schimpfwort, and it had been
possible to listen to Schubert's C-major symphony and imagine a triumphal procession shared
by Jews and Russians, by young men and maidens from Asia and even from Africa.
Irma was much impressed by the welcome this music received. She decided that Kurt must be
a great man, and that Beauty should be proud of having had such a lover, and of having saved
him from a French firing-squad. She decided that it was a distinguished thing to have a private
orchestra, and asked her husband if it wouldn't be fun to have one at Bienvenu. They must be
on the lookout for a young genius to promote.
Lanny knew that his wife was casting around in her mind for some sort of career, some way
to spend her money that would win his approval as well as that of to point out that this was a
difficult thing to do, for it was better to have no salon at all than to have a second-rate one, and
the eminent persons who frequent such assemblages expect the hostess not merely to have read
their books but to have understood them. It isn't enough to admire them extravagantly—
indeed they rather look down on you unless you can find something wrong with their work.
Now Lanny had to mention that musical geniuses are apt to be erratic, and often it is safer to
know them through their works. One cannot advertise for one as for a butler or a chef; and
suppose they got drunk, or took up with the parlor-maid? Lanny said that a consecrated artist
such as Kurt Meissner would be hard to find. Irma remarked: "I suppose they wouldn't be
anywhere but in Germany, where everybody works so hard!"
V
Among the guests they had met at the Schloss was an uncle of their host, the Graf Oldenburg
of Vienna. The Meissners had told them that this bald-headed old Silenus was in financial
