World's End (The Lanny Budd Novels) Page 6

  There came a tinkling of the bell, and Lanny went to the front gate and was confronted by his Uncle Jesse, his mother’s brother. Jesse Blackless was a painter of a sort—that is to say, he had a small income and didn’t have to work. He lived in a fishing village some distance to the west, a place where “nobody ever went,” as Beauty phrased it. But it was just as well, because Jesse didn’t seem to care about visitors, nor they about him; he lived alone in a cottage which he had fixed up in his own fashion. Lanny had been there once, when Uncle Jesse was sick and his sister felt it necessary to pay a duty call, taking along a basket of delicacies. That had been two or three years ago, and the boy had a vague memory of soiled dishes, a frying pan on the center table, and half a room filled with unframed paintings.

  The artist was a man of forty or so, wearing a sport shirt open at the neck, a pair of linen trousers, not very well pressed, and tennis shoes dusty from his walk. He wore no hat, and his hair was gone entirely from the top, so that the brown dome was like a bronze Buddha’s. He looked old for his years, and had many wrinkles around his eyes; when he smiled his mouth went a little crooked. His manner was quizzical, which made you think he was laughing at you, which wasn’t quite polite. Lanny didn’t know what it was, but he had got the impression that there was something wrong about his Uncle Jesse; Beauty saw him rarely, and if Robbie spoke of him, it was in a way implying disapproval. All the boy knew definitely was that Uncle Jesse had had a studio in Paris, and that Beauty had been visiting him at the time she met Robbie and fell in love.

  Lanny invited him into the court and got him a chair and, as Uncle Jesse looked hot after his walk, called Rosine to bring some wine. “Mother’s gone to the ball at Mrs. Dagenham Price’s,” said the boy.

  “She would,” was Jesse’s comment.

  “Robbie’s gone to Marseille,” Lanny added.

  “I suppose he’s making lots of money.”

  “I suppose so.” That was a subject Lanny did not discuss, so the conversation lagged.

  But then Lanny recalled the Salon des Indépendants, and said he had been there. “Are they spoofing, or aren’t they?” he asked.

  “No doubt many of them are,” said Uncle Jesse. “Poor devils, they have to get something to eat, and what do critics or buyers know about original work?”

  Lanny had picked up ideas concerning the graphic arts, as well as all the others. Many painters lived along the Côte d’Azur and reproduced its charms; a few were famous, and now and then someone would persuade Beauty that it was a cultural action to invite one to a tea party, or perhaps be taken to his studio to inspect his work. Now and then she would “fall for” something that was especially praised, and these hung as showpieces in the home. The most regarded was a blazing sunrise painted by a certain van Gogh, who had lived at Arles, which you passed when you motored to Paris; in fact he had gone crazy there and had cut off one of his ears. Also there was a pond covered with shining water lilies by Monet. These canvases were becoming so valuable that Beauty was talking about having them insured, but it cost so much that she kept putting it off.

  VII

  There was, of course, a limit to the amount of time that a specialist in the art of painting cared to devote to exchanging ideas with a youngster; so presently the conversation lagged again. Uncle Jesse watched the bees and the hummingbirds in the flowers, and then his eyes happened to fall upon Lanny’s book, which had been laid back up on the grass. “What are you reading?” he inquired.

  Lanny handed him the volume, and he smiled one of those twisted smiles. “It was a best-seller many years ago.”

  “Have you read it?” inquired the boy.

  “It’s tripe,” replied Uncle Jesse.

  Lanny had to be polite at all hazards, so after a moment he said: “It interests me because it tells about the slums, which I don’t know about.”

  “But wouldn’t it be better,” asked the uncle, “if you went and looked at them, instead of reading sentimental nonsense about them?”

  “I’d be interested,” replied the lad; “but of course there aren’t any slums on the Riviera.”

  Uncle Jesse wanted to laugh again, but there was such an earnest look in his nephew’s eyes that he checked himself. “It happens that I’m going to pay a visit in a slum this afternoon. Would you like to come?”

  The boy was much excited. It was exactly what he had been longing for, though without having formulated it. A “cabbage patch” in Cannes—imagine such a thing! And a woman who lived there for the same noble and idealistic reasons that Lanny had been dreaming about! “This woman is poor,” his uncle explained, “but she doesn’t need to be. She is highly educated and could make money, but she prefers to live among the working people.”

  Leese gave them some lunch, and then they walked to the tram and rode cheaply into the city. When they got off, they walked into the “old town,” picturesque and fascinating to tourists. They turned into a lane where the tall buildings came closer together at the top, and very little light got down. There are thousands of such tenements in towns all along the Mediterranean shore; built of stone, several stories high, and having been there for a hundred years or more. There will be steps in the street, and many turns, and archways, and courts with balconies above, and at the end perhaps a dead wall, or a glimpse of an old church, prompting the tourist to unsling his camera.

  Of course Lanny knew that people lived in such tenements. Babies swarmed on the steps, with flies crawling over their sore eyes; chickens dodged beneath your feet, donkeys jostled you with their loads, and peddlers shouted their wares into your ears. But somehow when you were thinking about antiquities you forgot about human beings; things that are ancient and artistic are lifted into a different realm. The son of Beauty Budd might have walked through such “old towns” for years and never once had the idea of going inside for a visit. But now Uncle Jesse turned into one of the small doorways. It was dark inside, no electric light, not even gas; the steps felt as if they were made of rotten boards, and the odors seemed as old as the house. Doors were left ajar and fresh smells came out; food cooking, and clothes—“Let’s hope they’re in separate kettles,” said the sardonic visitor. Babies squalled, and one very nearly got caught between their legs. Yes, it was a “cabbage patch”!

  VIII

  The man knocked on a door, a voice called, and they went in. There appeared to be only one room; it had one window, and a woman was sitting near it. She seemed to be old, and was wrapped in a shawl; the light made a silhouette of her face, which was emaciated, and yellow in hue, as happens when the blood goes out of the skins of these swarthy Mediterranean people. Her face lighted when she saw who it was, and she greeted Jesse Blackless in French and held out to his nephew a hand in which he could feel all the bones.

  The woman’s name was Barbara Pugliese; pronounced Italian fashion, Pool-yay-say. They were evidently old friends, but had not met for some time. Uncle Jesse was anxious about her cough, and she said it was about the same; she was well taken care of, since many here loved her, and brought her food. She asked about Jesse’s health, and then about his painting; he said that nobody paid any attention to it, but it kept him out of mischief—but perhaps that was just his way of making a joke.

  They talked part of the time in Italian, of which Lanny understood only a little; perhaps they thought he didn’t understand any. He gathered that they knew the same persons, and talked about what these were doing. They discussed international affairs, and the diplomats and statesmen, of whom they thought badly—but so did most people in France, the boy had observed. He knew the names of many politicians, but was hazy about parties and doctrines.

  His eyes roamed over the room. It was small, the furniture scanty and plain. There was a single bed, or perhaps it was just a cot, with a couple of worn blankets on it; a chest of drawers; a table with odds and ends piled on it, mostly papers and pamphlets; a lot of books on a trunk—apparently no other place for them; a curtain covering one corner, presumably with
clothes behind it. This was how you lived in a slum!

  Lanny found himself watching the woman again. He had never seen so much grief in a face. To him suffering was a theme for art, so he found himself remembering Christian martyrs as painted by the Italian primitives; he kept trying to recall one of the saints of Cimabue. The woman’s voice was soft and her manner gentle, and he decided that she was truly a saint; yes, she lived in this terrible place out of pity for the poor, and must be an even more wonderful person than Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch.

  When they went out Lanny hoped that Uncle Jesse would tell him about her; but the painter was an unsatisfying sort of companion. All he said was: “Well, you’ve seen a slum.”

  “Yes, Uncle Jesse,” replied the boy humbly. Presently he added: “Don’t you think we ought to take her some food, or something?”

  “It wouldn’t do any good. She’d just give it away.”

  The man appeared to be wrapped up in his own thoughts, and Lanny hesitated to disturb him. But finally he asked: “Uncle Jesse, why do there have to be poor people like those?”

  The other replied at once: “Because there are rich people like us.” That was confusing to the boy, who had always been led to believe that it was the rich people who gave the poor people work; he knew of cases in which they had done it out of kindness, because they were sorry for the poor.

  Lanny tried again. “Why doesn’t somebody clean up places like that?”

  “Because somebody is making money out of them.”

  “I don’t mean the landlords,” Lanny explained. “I mean the city officials.”

  “Maybe they’re the landlords; or else they’re collecting graft.”

  “In France, Uncle Jesse?” Lanny had been given to understand that that happened only in America.

  The painter laughed one of his disagreeable laughs. “They don’t publish it here,” he said. They were in front of the Mairie, and he waved his hand toward it. “Go dig in there, and you’ll find all you want.” As they walked on, he added: “As much as in the munitions industry.”

  Of course Lanny couldn’t discuss that, and perhaps his uncle knew it. Perhaps Uncle Jesse had argued too much in his life, and had grown tired of it. Anyhow, they had come to the tram, where their ways parted. The boy would ride home alone, because his uncle’s home lay to the west, and a long way off. Lanny thanked him and said he had enjoyed the visit, and would think over what he had seen and heard. Uncle Jesse smiled another of his twisted smiles, and said: “Don’t let it worry you.”

  IX

  Walking from the tram in Juan, Lanny had got to the gate of his home when a car tooted behind him, and there was Robbie just arriving. They greeted each other, and Robbie said: “Where have you been?” When Lanny replied: “I went to Cannes with Uncle Jesse,” the father’s manner changed in an unexpected way.

  “Does that fellow come here?” he demanded. The boy answered that it was the first time in a long while. Robbie took him into the house, and called Beauty into her room, and Lanny also, and shut the door.

  It was the first time the boy had ever seen his father really angry. Lanny was put through a regular cross-examination, and when he told about Barbara Pugliese, his father exploded in bad language, and the boy learned some of the things that Uncle Jesse had not chosen to explain to him.

  The woman was a prominent leader of the “syndicalist” movement. That was a long word, and Lanny didn’t know what it meant, until Robbie said that for practical purposes it was the same as anarchism. The boy had heard enough about that, for every once in a while a bomb would go off and kill some ruler or prime minister or general, and perhaps some innocent bystanders. It had happened in Russia, in Austria, Spain, Italy, even in France; it was the work of embittered and deadly conspirators, nihilists, terrorists, men and women seeking to destroy all organized government. Only last year a band of them had been robbing banks in Paris and had fought a regular battle with the police. “There are no more depraved people living!” exclaimed the father.

  Lanny broke in: “Oh, surely, Robbie, she isn’t like that. She’s so gentle and kind, she’s like a saint.”

  Robbie turned upon the mother. “You see! That snake in the grass, imposing upon the credulity of a child!”

  He couldn’t blame Lanny, of course. He controlled his anger, and explained that these people were subtle and posed as being idealists, when in their hearts were hatred and jealousy; they poisoned the minds of the young and impressionable.

  Beauty began to cry, so the father talked more quietly. “I have always left Lanny’s upbringing to you, and I have no fault to find with what you’ve done, but this is one thing on which I have to put down my foot. The black sheep of your family—or perhaps I had better say the red sheep of your family—is certainly not going to corrupt our son.”

  “But, Robbie,” sobbed the mother, “I hadn’t the least idea that Jesse was going to call.”

  “All right,” said Robbie. “Write him a note and tell him it’s not to happen again and Lanny is to be let alone.”

  But that caused more weeping. “After all, he’s my brother, Robbie. And he was kind to us; he was the only one who didn’t raise a row.”

  “I’ve no quarrel with him, Beauty. All I want is for him to keep away from our son.”

  Beauty wiped her eyes and her nose; she knew that she looked ugly when she wept and she hated ugliness above all things. “Listen, Robbie, try to be reasonable. Jesse hasn’t been here for half a year, and the last time he came Lanny didn’t even know it. It will probably be as long before he’ll be moved to come again. Can’t we just tell Lanny not to have anything to do with him? I’m sure this child isn’t interested in him.”

  “No, really, Robbie!” The boy hastened to support his mother. “If I’d had any idea that you objected, I’d have made some excuse and gone away.”

  So the father was persuaded to leave it that way; the lad gave his promise that never again would he let his Uncle Jesse take him anywhere, and there would be no more slumming tours with anybody. The concern of his father, who was usually so easygoing, made an indelible impression on the boy. Robbie behaved as if his son had been exposed to leprosy or bubonic plague; he probed Lanny’s mental symptoms, looking for some infected spot which might be cut out before it had time to spread. Just what had Jesse Blackless said, and what had that Pugliese woman said?

  Some inner voice told Lanny not to mention the remark about graft in the munitions industry; but he quoted his uncle’s explanation of why there had to be poor people—because there were rich people.

  “There’s a sample of their poison!” exclaimed the father, and set out to provide Lanny with the proper antidote. “The reason there are poor is because most people are shiftless and lazy and don’t save their money; they spend it on drink, or they gamble it away, and so of course they suffer. Envy of the good fortune of others is one of the commonest of human failings, and agitators play upon it, they make a business of preaching discontent and inciting the poor to revolt. That is a very great social danger, which many people fail to realize.”

  Robbie became a bit apologetic now for having lost his temper and scolded Lanny’s mother in Lanny’s presence. The reason was that it was his duty to protect a child’s immature mind. Lanny, who adored his handsome and vigorous father, was grateful for this protection. It was a relief to him to be told what was true and thus be saved from confusion of mind. So in the end everything became all right again; storm clouds blew over, and tears were dried, and Beauty was beautiful as she was meant to be.

  4

  Christmas-Card Castle

  I

  There had come to the Frau Robert Budd a formal and stately letter, almost a legal document, from the comptroller-general of Castle Stubendorf in Silesia, saying in the German language that it would give him pleasure if der junge Herr Lanning Budd might be permitted to visit his home during the Christmas holidays. Der junge Herr danced with delight and carried the letter around in his pocket for d
ays; the Frau Budd replied on fashionable notepaper that she was pleased to accept the kind invitation on behalf of her son. The hour arrived, and Lanny’s smoking and his warm clothes were packed into two suitcases, and Leese prepared fried chicken and bread and butter sandwiches, just in case the dining car might run out of food. In a nice new traveling suit, and with a heavy overcoat and a French copy of Sienkiewicz’s With Fire and Sword, Lanny was ready for an expedition to the North Pole.

  Since Robbie had gone back to Connecticut, the mother bore the responsibility for this journey. All the way into Cannes she renewed her adjurations and Lanny his promises: he would never step from the train except at the proper stations; he would never allow anyone to persuade him to go anywhere; he would keep his money fastened with a safety pin in the inside pocket of his jacket; he would send a telegram from Vienna, and another from the station of the castle; and so on and so on. Lanny considered all this excessive, because he had just celebrated his fourteenth birthday and felt himself a man of the world.

  He brushed away his tears, and saw Beauty and the chauffeur and the familiar Cannes station disappear. The sights of the Riviera sped by: Antibes, Nice, Monaco, Monte Carlo, Menton, and then suddenly it was Italy, and the customs men coming through the train, asking politely if you had anything to declare. Then the Italian shore, and the train plunging through short smoky tunnels, and out into sight of little blue bays and fisherboats with red sails. Presently came Genoa, a mass of tall buildings piled up on a steep shore. The train went inland and wound through a long valley, and ahead were the southern Alps shining white. In the morning they were in Austria, and everywhere was snow; the houses having steeply pitched roofs weighted with heavy stones and the inns having carved and gilded signs.