“The devil you did!” said Uncle Jesse. “What then?”
“You realize that I don't know you very well — I haven't been allowed to. But I have the impression that you have real convictions, and wouldn't misapply funds that you accepted for such a cause.”
“You have guessed correctly in that.”
“No doubt you have friends who are trying to raise money for promoting your party, or whatever it is?”
“We get it by persuading poor workingmen to cut down on their food. We don't have rich people coming and dropping it into our laps.”
“Well, this is one time it may happen — if you say the word.”
“How much will it be?”
“The first payment will be ten thousand francs, in bank notes of small denominations.”
“Jesus Christ!” said Uncle Jesse. Lanny had heard that these Reds were nearly all hostile to the accepted religion, but they still had one use for its founder.
“You have to pledge your word to spend it in the quickest and most effective way to promote a popular demand for the lifting of the blockade throughout Europe. If there are signs that you are spending it effectively, more will come — as much as you can handle.”
“How will I get it?”
“Someone will knock on your door at midnight tonight. When you open the door the person will say 'Jesse,' and you will answer 'Uncle,' and a package will be put into your hands.”
The painter sat eying his young nephew. “Look here, Lanny,” said he. “The police and military are busy setting traps for people like me. Are you sure this isn't a scheme of some of the Crillon crowd?”
“I can't tell you whose scheme it is, but I assure you that the Crillon knows nothing about it, and neither do the police. They'll probably take notice as soon as you begin spending the money. That's a risk you have to run.”
“Naturally,” said Uncle Jesse, and pondered again. “I suppose,” he remarked, “this is some of the 'German gold we read about in the reptile press.”
“You mustn't ask any questions.”
“I'm free to spend the money according to my own judgment?”
“For the purpose agreed upon, yes.”
The painter thought some more. “Son, this is wartime. Have you thought what you're getting in for?”
“You take risks for what you believe, don't you?”
“Yes, but you're a youngster, and you happen to be my sister's son, and she's a good scout, even if her brains don't always work. This could get you into one hell of a mess.”
“If you don't mention me, there's no way it can get out. Wild horses couldn't drag it out of my friend.”
Again a pause; and the bald-headed painter smiled one of his crooked smiles. “Perhaps you read in the papers how Lenin was in Switzerland when the Russian Revolution broke out, and he wanted very much to get into Russia. The German government wanted him there and sent him through in a sealed train. They had their reasons for sending him and he had his reasons for going. His reasons won out.”
Lanny got the point and smiled in his turn. The uncle thought for a while and then told him how, many years ago, there had been a big fuss in America over the fact that multimillionaires who had corrupted legislatures and courts were trying to win public favor by giving sums of money to colleges. It was called “tainted money,” and there was a clamor that colleges should refuse such donations. One college professor, more robust than the rest of the tribe, had got up in a meeting and cried: “Bring on your tainted money!” The painter laughed and said: “That's me!”
30
Out of the Depths
I
ON the fourteenth of February the Supreme Council ratified the Covenant of the League of Nations at a stately ceremony; and immediately thereafter President Wilson took the night train for Brest, to return to Washington for the closing sessions of Congress. He and his purple-clad lady walked on red plush carpets spread all the way to the train, between rows of potted palms set out by a polite government. All official France attended to see him off; and thereafter it was as in a barn when the cat has departed and the mice come out to devour the stores of grain. The diplomats of the great states began helping themselves to German and Russian territory, and the reactionary newspapers of Paris declared with one voice that the foolish and Utopian League was already dead and that the problems of Europe were going to be settled on a “realistic” basis.
Professor Alston said that this was the voice of Clemenceau, who controlled a dozen newspapers of the capital and could change their policies by crooking his finger. Alston and his friends were greatly depressed. What was the use of meeting all day and most of the night, wrestling over questions of fair play and “self-determination,” when it was evident that those who held the reins of power would not pay the least attention to anything you said? The French delegates now wore a cynical smile as they argued before the commissions; they had their assurance that their armies were going to hold the Rhineland and the Sarre, and that a series of buffer states were to be set up between Germany and Russia, all owing their existence to France, all financed with the savings of the French peasants, and munitioned by Zaharoff, alias Schneider-Creusot. France and Britain were going to divide Persia and Mesopotamia and Syria and make a deal for the oil and the laying of pipelines. Italy was to take the Adriatic, Japan was to take Shantung — all such matters were being settled among sensible men.
Lanny continued to attend sessions and listen to tedious discussions of imaginary boundary lines. His chief was called in to advise the American delegates on the commission which was trying to pacify the Italians and the Yugoslavs, who for a month or two had been taking pot-shots at one another. The revolting Yugoslav sailors had seized the Austrian war vessels, and the Italians wanted them, but the Yugoslav sailors wanted the Americans to take charge of them. The Italians were trying to seize Fiume, a city which hadn't been granted to them even in the secret treaty. They were like the man who said he wasn't greedy for land, he just wanted the land adjoining his own. They made a fuss, they interrupted proceedings, they blocked decisions on other questions — and how execrable was their accent when they tried to speak French!
A pathetic victim of this system of muddle was George D. Herron. He had been formally appointed a member of a delegation to travel to Prinkipo; but now President Wilson had set out for America without even taking the trouble to let him know that the project was dropped. The poor man, whose arthritis made moving about an ordeal, was left to spend his money and time holding preliminary consultations with various Russian groups in Paris; he would convince them one day and the French would unconvince them the next. The first hint he got that he had been laid on the shelf was when his friend Alston brought him a report that the President had appointed a mission which was already on its way to Moscow, to find out the situation and report.
Watching Herron and listening to him, Lanny learned how dangerous it was to have anything to do with unpopular ideas. The prophet was called a Red, when in truth he looked upon Bolshevism as his Hebrew predecessors looked upon Baal and Moloch. He had heard about Jesse Blackless and was worried for fear Lanny might be lured by the false faith of his uncle. He told the youth, in his biblical language, that dictatorship was a degradation of the soul of man, and that anyone who took that road would find himself in the valley of the shadow of death. Either Socialism must be the free, democratic choice of the people, or it would be something worse than the rule of Mammon which it sought to replace. Lanny promised very gravely that he would remember this lesson. Privately, he didn't think he was going to need it.