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the East Prussian aristocrat; old-time enemies, now both nearing their graves; each thinking
about his country's safety, and helpless to secure it. Der alte Herr talking about the menace of
revolution in Germany; not the respectable kind which would put the Kaiser's sons on the
throne, but a dangerous gutter-revolution, an upsurge of the Lumpenproletariat, led by the
one-time odd-job man, the painter of picture postcards, the "Bohemian corporal" named
Schicklgruber. Briand demanding the dropping of the Austro-German customs-union project,
while Hindenburg pleaded for a chance for his country to sell goods.
Briand denouncing the Stahlhelm and the new pocket-battleships, while Hindenburg
complained that France was not keeping her promise to disarm. Hindenburg begging for
loans, while Briand explained that France had to keep her gold reserve as the last bulwark of
financial security in Europe. No, there wasn't much chance of their getting together; the only
one who could hope to profit by the visit was the aforesaid "Bohemian corporal," whose papers
were raving alike at the French visitors and at the German politicians who licked their boots to
no purpose.
Adolf Hitler Schicklgruber wouldn't attack Hindenburg, for Hindenburg was a monument, a
tradition, a living legend. The Nazi press would concentrate its venom upon the Chancellor, a
Catholic and leader of the Center party, guilty of the crime of signing the Young Plan which
sought to keep Germany in slavery until the year 1988. Now Hoover had granted a
moratorium, but there was no moratorium for Brüning, no let-up in the furious Nazi
campaign.
Lanny Budd knew about it, because Heinrich Jung had got his address, presumably from
Kurt, and continued to keep him supplied with literature. There was no one at Shore Acres who
could read it but Lanny himself; however, one didn't need to know German, one had only to
look at the headlines to know that it was sensational, and at the cartoons to know that it was a
propaganda of cruel and murderous hate. Cartoons of Jews as monsters with swollen noses
and bellies, of John Bull as a fat banker sucking the blood of German children, of Marianne as
a devouring harpy, of the Russian bear with a knife in his teeth and a bomb in each paw, of
Uncle Sam as a lean and sneering Shylock. Better to throw such stuff into the trash-basket
without taking off the wrappers.
But that wouldn't keep the evil flood from engulfing Germany, it wouldn't keep millions of
young people from absorbing a psychopath's view of the world. Lanny Budd, approaching his
thirty-second birthday, wondered if the time hadn't come to stop playing and find some job to
do. But he kept putting it off, because jobs were so scarce, and if you took one, you deprived
somebody else of it—someone who needed it much more than you!
10
Conscience Doth Make Cowards
I
OCTOBERand early November are the top of the year in the North Atlantic states. There is
plenty of sunshine, and the air is clear and bracing. A growing child can toddle about on lawns
and romp with dogs, carefully watched by a dependable head nurse. A young mother and
father can enjoy motoring and golf, or going into the city to attend art shows and theatrical
first nights. Irma had been taken to the museums as a child, but her memories of them were
vague. Now she would go with an expert of whom she was proud, and would put her mind on it
and try to learn what it was all about, so as not to have to sit with her mouth shut while he
and his intellectual friends voiced their ideas.
This pleasant time of year was chosen by Pierre Laval for a visit to Washington, but it wasn't
because of the climate. The Premier of France came because there were now only two entirely
solvent great nations in the world, and these two ought to understand and support each other.
Germany had got several billion dollars from America, but had to have more, and France didn't
want her to get them until she agreed to do what France demanded. The innkeeper's son was
received with cordiality; excellent dinners were prepared for him, and nobody brought up
against him his early Socialistic opinions. Robbie Budd reported that what Laval wanted was for
the President to do nothing; to which Robbie's flippant son replied: "That ought to suit
Herbert Hoover right down to the ground."
A few days later came the general elections in Britain. Ramsay MacDonald appealed to the
country for support, and with all the great newspapers assuring the voters that the nation had
barely escaped collapse, Ramsay's new National government polled slightly less than half the
vote and, under the peculiarities of the electoral system, carried slightly more than eight-
ninths of the constituencies. Rick wrote that Ramsay had set the Labor party back a matter of
twenty-one years.
Robbie Budd didn't worry about that, of course; he was certain that the rocks had been
passed and that a long stretch of clear water lay before the ship of state. Robbie's friend
Herbert had told him so, and who would know better than the Great Engineer? Surely not the
editors of Pink and Red weekly papers! But Lanny perversely went on reading these papers,
and presently was pointing out to his father that the British devaluation of the pound was
giving them a twenty per cent advantage over American manufacturers in every one of the
world's markets. Odd as it might seem, Robbie hadn't seen that; but he found it out by cable,
for the Budd plant had a big hardware contract canceled in Buenos Aires. One of Robbie's scouts
reported that the order had gone to Birmingham; and wasn't Robbie hopping!
II
Mr. and Mrs. Lanny Budd took passage on a German steamer to Marseille; a spick-and-span,
most elegant steamer, brand-new, as all German vessels had to be, since the old ones had been
confiscated under the treaty of Versailles. One of the unforeseen consequences of having
compelled the Germans to begin life all over again! Britain and France didn't like it that their
former foe and ever-present rival should have the two fanciest ocean liners, the blue-ribbon
holders of the transatlantic service; also the two most modern warships—they were called
pocket-battleships, because they weren't allowed to weigh more than ten thousand tons each,
but the Germans had shown that they could get pretty nearly everything into that limit.
This upstart nation was upstarting again, and outdistancing everybody else. The Germans
filled the air with outcries against persecutions and humiliations, but they had gone right
ahead borrowing money and putting it into new industrial plant, the most modern, most
efficient, so that they could undersell all competitors. You might not like Germans, but if you
wanted to cross the ocean, you liked a new and shiny boat with officers and stewards in new
uniforms, and the cleanest and best table-service. They were so polite, and at the same time so
determined; Lanny was interested in talking with them and speculating as to what made them
so admirable as individuals and so dangerous as a race.
Right now, of course, they were in trouble, like everybody else. They had the industrial plant,
but couldn't find customers; they had the steamships, but it was hard to get passengers! The
other peoples blamed fate or Providence, economic law, the capitalist system, the gold standard,
the war, the Reds—but Germans everywhere blamed but one thing, the Versailles Diktat and the
reparations it had imposed. Every German was firmly set in the conviction that the Allies
were deliberately keeping the Fatherland from getting on its feet again, and that all their
trouble was a direct consequence of this. Lanny would point out that now there was a
moratorium on all their debts, not only reparations but post-war borrowings, so it ought to be
possible for them to recover soon. But he never knew that argument to have the slightest effect;
there was a national persecution complex which operated subconsciously, as in an individual.
Since there were so few passengers, Lanny had a week in which to study the ship and those
who manned it. Knowing Germany so well, he had a passport to their hearts. He could tell the
officers that he had been a guest of General Graf Stubendorf; he could tell the stewards that
he had talked with Adolf Hitler; he could tell the crew that he was a brother-in-law of Hansi
Robin. The vessel was a miniature nation, with representatives of all the various groups in about
the right proportions. Some of the officers had formerly served in the German navy, and some
of those who tended the engines had rebelled against them and made the Socialist revolution.
In between were the middle classes—stewards, barbers, clerks, radio men, petty officers—all of
whom worked obsequiously for tips but would work harder for love if you whispered: "Heil
Hitler!"—even though you said it in jest.
Irma couldn't understand Lanny's being interested to talk to such people, and for so long a
time. He explained that it was a sociological inquiry; if Rick had been along he would have
written an article: "The Floating Fatherland." It was a question of the whole future of
Germany. How deeply was the propaganda of Dr. Joseph Goebbels taking effect? What were
the oilers thinking? What did the scullery men talk about before they dropped into their
bunks? There were dyed-in-the-wool Reds, of course, who followed the Moscow line and were
not to be swerved; but others had become convinced that Hitler was a genuine friend of the people
and would help them to get shorter hours and a living wage. Arguments were going on day and
night, an unceasing war of words all over the ship. Which way was the balance swinging?
Important also was what Capain Rundgasse said. As the physician has a bedside manner, so the
captain of a passenger liner has what might be called a steamer-chairside manner. He talked
with two wealthy and fashionable young Americans, saying that he could understand why they
were worried by the political aspect of his country; but really there was no need for concern.
Fundamentally all Germans were German, just as all Englishmen were English, and when it was a
question of the welfare and safety of the Fatherland all would become as one. That applied to the
deluded Socialists, and even to the Communists—all but a few criminal leaders. It applied to the
National Socialists especially. If Adolf Hitler were to become Chancellor tomorrow, he would
show himself a good German, just like any other, and all good Germans would support him
and obey the laws of their country.
III
Bienvenu seemed small and rather dowdy when one came to it from Shore Acres. But it was
home, and there were loving hearts here. Beauty had spent a quiet but contented summer, or
so she said. That most unlikely of marriages was turning out one of the best; she couldn't say
enough about the goodness and kindness of Parsifal Dingle—that is, not enough to satisfy
herself, although she easily satisfied her friends. She was trying her best to become spiritual-
minded, and also she had the devil of embonpoint to combat. She consoled herself with the
idea that when you were well padded, you didn't develop wrinldes. She was certainly a
blooming Beauty.
Madame Zyszynski had been two or three times to visit Zaharoff at Monte Carlo; then he had
gone north to the Chateau de Balin-court, and had written to ask if Beauty would do him the
great favor of letting Madame come for a while. She had spent the month of August there, and
had been well treated, and impressed by the grandeur of the place, but rather lonely, with those
strange Hindu servants to whom she couldn't talk. When she was leaving, the old gentleman
had presented her with a diamond solitaire ring which must have cost twenty or thirty
thousand francs. She was proud of it, but afraid to wear it and afraid it might be stolen, so she
had asked Beauty to put it away in her safe-deposit box.
Lanny took up the subject of child study again. He would have liked to find out if Baby
Frances would discover the art of the dance for herself; but this was not possible, because
Marceline was there, dancing all over the place, and nothing could keep her from taking a tiny
toddler by the hands and teaching her to caper and jump. Every day the baby grew stronger,
and before that winter was over there was a pair of dancers, and if the phonograph or the
piano wasn't handy, Marceline would sing little tunes and sometimes make up words about
Baby and herself.
Sophie and her husband would come over for bridge with Beauty and Irma; so Lanny was left
free to catch up on his reading or to run over to Cannes to his workers'-education project. The
workers hadn't had any vacation, but were right where he had left them. Intellectually they had
gained; nearly all could now make speeches, and as a rule they made them on the subject of
Socialism versus Communism. While they all hated Fascism, they didn't hate it enough to
make them willing to get together to oppose it. They were glad to hear Lanny tell about the
wonderland of New York; many had got it mixed up with Utopia, and were surprised to hear
that it was not being spared by the breakdown of capitalism. Bread- lines and apple-selling on
the streets of that city of plutocrats— sapristi!
IV
Another season on the Riviera: from the point of view of the hotelkeepers the worst since
the war, but for people who had money and liked quiet the pleasantest ever. The fortunate few
had the esplanade and the beaches to themselves; the sunshine was just as bright, the sea as
blue, and the flowers of the Cap as exquisite. Food was abundant and low in price, labor
plentiful and willing— in short, Providence had fixed everything up for you.
When Irma and Beauty Budd emerged from the hands of modistes and friseurs, all ready for
a party, they were very fancy showpieces; Lanny was proud to escort them and to see the
attention they attracted. He kept himself clad according to their standards, did the. honors as
