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vain. Here was Hansi twenty-five, and his brother only two years younger, and instead of
calming down they appeared to be acquiring a mature determination, with a set of
theories or dogmas or whatever you chose to call them, serving as a sort of backbone for
their dreams.
To the Jewish couple out of the ghetto the marriage of Hansi to Robbie Budd's
daughter had appeared a great triumph, but in the course of time they had discovered
there was a cloud to this silver lining. Bess had caught the Red contagion from Hansi,
and brought to the ancient Jewish idealism a practicality which Johannes recognized as
Yankee, a sternness derived from her ancestral Puritanism. Bess was the reddest of
them all, and the most uncompromising. Her expression would be full of pity and
tenderness, but it was all for those whom she chose to regard as the victims of social
injustice. For those others who held them down and garnered the fruits of their toil she
had a dedicated antagonism; when she talked about capitalism and its crimes her face
became set, and you knew her for the daughter of one of Cromwell's Ironsides.
Lanny understood that in the depths of his soul Johannes quailed before this daughter-in-law.
He tried to placate her with soft words, he tried to bribe her with exactly the right motor-car,
a piano of the most exquisite tone, yachting-trips to the most romantic places of the seven seas,
and not a single person on board who would oppose her ideas; only the members of her own
two families and their attendants. "Look!" the poor man of nullions seemed to be saying. "Here
is Rahel with a baby who has to be nursed, and here is the lovely baby of your adored brother;
here is this ship of dreams which exists for the happiness of all of you. It will go wherever you
wish, and the service will be perfect; you can even break the rules of discipline at sea, you and
Hansi can go into the forecastle and play music for the crew, or invite them up into the saloon
once a week and play for them—in spite of the horror of an old martinet trained in the
merchant marine of Germany. Anything, anything on earth, provided you will be gracious, and
forgive me for being a millionaire, and not despise me because I have wrung my fortune out of
the toil and sweat of the wage-slaves!"
This program of appeasement had worked for four years, for the reason that Bess had laid hold
of the job of becoming a pianist. She had concentrated her Puritan fanaticism upon acquiring
muscular power and co-ordination, in combining force with delicacy, so that the sounds she
produced would not ruin the fine nuances, the exquisite variations of tone, which her more
highly trained husband was achieving. But Johannes knew in his soul that this task wasn't
going to hold her forever; some day she and Hansi both would consider themselves musicians—
and they meant to be Red musicians, to play for Red audiences and earn money for the Red
cause. They would make for themselves the same sort of reputation that Isadora Duncan had
made by waving red scarves at her audiences and dancing the Marseillaise. They would plunge
into the hell of the class struggle, which everyone could see growing hotter day by day all over
Europe.
X
Besides Mama, the only person to whom Johannes Robin unbosomed himself of these anxieties
was Lanny Budd, who had always been so wise beyond his years, a confidant at the age of
fourteen, a counselor and guide at the age of nineteen. Lanny had brought Johannes together
with his father, and listened to their schemes, and knew many of the ins and outs of their
tradings. He knew that Johannes had been selling Budd machine guns to Nazi agents, to be used
in the open warfare these people carried on with the Communists in the streets of Berlin.
Johannes had asked Lanny never to mention this to the boys, and Lanny had obliged him.
What would they do if they found it out? They might refuse to live any longer in the Berlin
palace, or to travel in the hundred-dollar-an-hour yacht. Bess might even refuse to let it carry
her name. Thus Jascha Rabinowich, standing in front of his private wailing wall. Oi, oi!
He was in the position only too familiar to the members of his race through two thousand
years of the Diaspora: surrounded by enemies, and having to play them one against another, to
placate them by subtle arts. Johannes had risen to power by his shrewdness as a speculator,
knowing whom to pay for inside information and how to separate the true from the false.
Having made huge sums out of the collapse of the mark, he had bought up concerns which
were on the verge of bankruptcy. To hold them and keep them going meant, in these days of
governmental interference with business, some sort of alliance with politicians; it meant paying
them money which was close to blackmail and became ever closer as time passed. It meant not
merely knowing the men who were in power, but guessing who might be in power next week,
and making some sort of deal with them.
So it came about that Johannes was helping to maintain the coalition government of the
Republic and at the same time supporting several of the ambitious Nazis; for, under the strain
of impending national bankruptcy, who could tell what might happen? Knowing that his
children were in touch with the Reds, and continually being importuned for money—who
wasn't, that had money?—Johannes would give them generous sums, knowing that they would
pass these on to be used for their "cause." Yet another form of insurance! But do not let any of
these groups know that you are giving to the others, for they are in a deadly three-cornered
war, each against the other two.
All this meant anxious days and sleepless nights. And Mama, from whom nothing could be
hidden, would argue: "What is it for? Why do we need so much money?" It was hard for her
to understand that you must get more in order to protect what you had. She and the
children would join in efforts to get Papa away from it all. For the past three summers they had
lured him into a yachting-trip. This year they had started earlier, on account of the two young
mothers, and they were hoping to keep him away all summer.
But it appeared that troubles were piling up in Berlin: business troubles, political troubles.
Johannes was receiving batches of mail at the different ports, and he would shut himself up with
his secretary and dictate long telegrams. That was one of his complaints concerning the Soviet
Union: letters might be opened, and telegrams were uncertain; you paid for them but couldn't
be sure they would arrive. Everything was in the hands of bureaucrats, and you were wound up
in miles of red tape—God pity the poor people who had to get a living in such a world. Johannes,
man of swift decisions, plowman of his own field, builder of his own road, couldn't stand Odessa,
and asked them to give up seeing the beautiful Sochi. "There are just as grand palaces near
Istanbul, and the long-distance telephone works!"
XI
The Bessie Budd returned in her own wake, and in Istanbul its owner received more
telegrams which worried him. The yacht had to wait until he sent answers and received more
answers, and in the end he announced that he couldn't possibly go on. There was serious
trouble involving one of the banks he controlled. Decisions had to be made which couldn't be left
to subordinates. He had made a mistake to come away in such unsettled times!—the Wall
Street crash had shaken all Europe, and little by little the cracks were revealing themselves.
Johannes had to beg his guests to excuse him. He took a plane for Vienna, and from there to
Berlin.
It had come to be that way now; there were planes every day between all the great capitals of
Europe. You stepped in, hardly knew that you were flying, and in a few hours stepped out and
went about your affairs. Not the slightest danger; but it tormented Mama to think of Jascha up
there amid thunder and lightning, and so many things to bump into when you came down.
They waited in Istanbul until a telegram arrived, saying that the traveler was safe in his own
palace and that Freddi was well and happy, and sent love to all.
It was too late to visit the coast of Africa—the rains had come, and it was hot, and there
would be mosquitoes. They made themselves contented on the yacht, and did not bother to go
ashore. The dairy farm prospered; the ample refrigerators provided the two young mothers
with fresh foods, and they in turn provided for the infants. The grandmothers hovered over the
scene in such a flutter of excitement as made you think of humming-birds' wings. Really, it
appeared as if there had never been two babies in the world before and never would be again.
Grandmothers, mothers, babies, and attendants formed a closed corporation, a secret society, an
organization of, by, and for women.
It was a machine that ran as by clockwork, and the balance wheel was the grave Miss Severne.
She had been employed to manage only Baby Frances; but she was so highly educated, so
perfectly equipped, that she overawed the Robins; she was the voice of modern science,
speaking the last word as to the phenomena of infancy. Equally important, she had the English
manner, she was Britannia which rules the waves and most of the shores; she was authority, and
the lesser breeds without the law decided to come in. What one grandmother was forbidden to
do was obviously bad form for the other to do; what little Frances's nursemaid was ordered to
do was obviously desirable for little Johannes's nursemaid to do. So in the end Jerusalem
placed itself under the British flag; Rahel made Miss Severne a present now and then, and she
ran the whole enterprise.
Every morning Marceline was in Miss Addington's cabin, reciting her lessons. Mr. Dingle was
in his cabin thinking his new thoughts and saying his old prayers. Madame Zyszynski was in hers,
playing solitaire, or perhaps giving a "sitting." That left Hansi, Bess, and Lanny in the saloon,
the first two working out their interpretation of some great violin classic, and Lanny listening
critically while they played a single passage many times, trying the effect of this and that. Just
what did Beethoven mean by the repetition of this rhythmic pattern? Here he had written
sforzando, but he often wrote that when he meant tenuto, an expressive accent, the sound to
be broadened—but be careful, it is a trick which becomes a bad habit, a meretricious device.
They would discuss back and forth, but always in the end they deferred to Hansi; he was the
one who had the gift, he was the genius who lived music in his soul. Sometimes the spirit caught
them, they became not three souls but one, and it was an hour of glory.
These young people could never be bored on the longest yachting-cruise. They took their art
with them, a storehouse of loveliness, a complex of ingenuities, a treasure-chest of delights
which you could never empty. Lanny had stabbed away at the piano all his life, but now he
discovered that he had been skimming over the surface of a deep ocean. Now he analyzed
scientifically what before he had enjoyed emotionally. Hansi Robin had had a thorough German
training, and had read learned books on harmony, acoustics, the history of music. He studied
the personalities of composers, and he tried to present these to his audiences; he did not try to
turn Mozart into Beethoven, or Gluck into Liszt. He would practice the most difficult Paganini or
Wieniawski stuff, but wouldn't play it in public unless he could find a soul in it. Finger gymnastics
were for your own use.
XII
Every afternoon, if the weather was right, the vessel would come to a halt, and the guests, all
but Mama Robin, would emerge on the deck in bathing-suits; the gangway would be let down
over the side, and they would troop down and plunge into the water. A sailor stood by with
a life-belt attached to a rope, in case of accident; they were all good swimmers, but the efficient
Captain Moeller took no chances and was always on watch himself. When they had played
themselves tired, they would climb up, and the yacht would resume her course. The piano on
little rubber wheels would be rolled out from the saloon, and Hansi and Bess would give an al-
fresco concert; Rahel would sing, and perhaps lead them all in a chorus. Twilight would fall,
"the dusk of centuries and of song."
There was only one trouble on this cruise so far as concerned Lanny, and that was the game
of bridge. Beauty and Irma had to play; not for money, but for points, for something to do.
These ladies knew how to read, in the sense that they knew the meaning of the signs on paper,
but neither knew how to lose herself in a book or apply herself to the mastering of its
contents. They grew sleepy when they tried it; they wanted other people to tell them what was
in books; and Irma at least had always been able to pay for the service. Now she had married a
poor man, and understood it to mean that he was to keep her company. In the world of Irma
Barnes the nursery rhyme had been turned about, and every Jill must have her Jack.
Lanny didn't really mind playing bridge—only there were so many more interesting things
to do. He wanted to continue child study with the two specimens he had on board. He wanted to
read history about the places he visited, so that a town would be where a great mind had
functioned or a martyr had died. But Beauty and Irma were willing to bid five no trumps while
the yacht was pass~ ing the scene of the battle of Salamis. They would both think it inconsiderate
of Lanny if he refused to make a fourth hand because he wanted to write up his notes of the last
seance with Madame Zyszynski. Lanny thought it was important to keep proper records, and
index them, so that the statements of Tecumseh on one occasion could be compared with
those on another. He had the books of Osty and Geley, scientists who had patiently delved into
these phenomena and tried to evolve theories to explain them. This seemed much more
important than whether Culbertson was right in his rules about the total honor-trick-content
