the other ladies coaching her, she played her part with dignity and success; everybody liked
her, and the most fastidious denizens of St. Germain,
wasn't presuming to attempt a salon—that would take time, and perhaps might grow as it were
by accident. Meanwhile she gave elegant entertainments with no sign of skimping, at a time
when all but a few were forced to that least pardonable of improprieties.
For three years the business prophets had been telling the world that the slump was only
temporary, that prosperity was just around the corner. But apparently it was a round house.
Apparently some devil had got into the economic structure and was undermining it. In Wall
Street, at the culmination of a furious political campaign, there was a new wave of bank
failures; dividends seemed to have stopped, and now interest on bonds was stopping. Irma's
income for the third quarter of the year had fallen to less than a hundred thousand dollars.
She said to her husband: "We'll have a splurge for the rest of this lease and then go back and
crawl into our stormcellar."
He answered: "All right," and let it go at that. He knew that he couldn't change Irma's idea
that she was helping to preserve the social order by distributing money among domestic
servants, wine merchants, florists, dressmakers, and all the train that came to the side-door of
this palace—as they had come in the days of Marie Antoinette a hundred and fifty years ago.
It hadn't succeeded in saving feudalism, and Lanny doubted if it was going to save capitalism; but
there was no use upsetting anybody ahead of time!
Lanny worried because his life was too easy; he had worried about that for years—but how
could he make it hard? Even the harsh and bitter Jesse Blackless,
sooner or later he would have to be elected again. Even Jean Longuet, man of letters as well as
Socialist editor, didn't presume to question the judgment of a wealthy young American who
brought him some drawings by a German art student. He said he would be delighted to use
them, and Trudi Schultz was made happy by a modest honorarium from
no idea that the money came out of a contribution which Lanny had made to the war-chest of
that party organ.
XI
Hitler's program of "opposition to the last ditch" had forced the dissolution of the
Reichstag, and a new election campaign was going on. It was hard on Adolf, for he couldn't
get the money which such an effort required, and when the election took place, early in
November, it was found that he had lost nearly two million votes in three months. Johannes
Robin was greatly relieved, and wrote that it was the turning of the tide; he felt justified in his
faith in the German people, who couldn't be persuaded to entrust their affairs to a mentally
disordered person. Johannes said that the Führer's conduct since the setback showed that he
couldn't control himself and ought to be in an institution of some sort.
Two days after the German elections came those in the United States. Robbie Budd had his
faith in the American people, and he clung to it up to 7:00 p.m. on the Tuesday after the first
Monday of November 1932, but then it was completely and irremediably shattered. The Great
Engineer, Robbie's friend and idol, went down in ignominious defeat, and "that man
Roosevelt" carried all the states but six. One that he failed to carry was Robbie's home state,
and a rock-ribbed Republican could thank God for that small atom of self-respect left to
him! Adi Hitler might be a mental case, but he had the wisdom of Jove compared with
Roosevelt as Robbie saw him; a candidate who had gone on a joy-ride about the country,
promising everything to everybody—completely incompatible things such as the balancing of the
budget and a program of government expansion which would run the public debt up to figures
of the sort used by astronomers.
Both Robbie and Johannes made it a practice to send Lanny carbon copies of their letters
containing comments on public affairs. For the first time since the World War the Jewish
trader was the optimist. He repeated his favorite culinary formula, that no soup is ever eaten
as hot as it is cooked. He offered to prove his faith in the land of the pilgrims' pride by letting
Robbie buy more Budd shares for him; but Robbie wrote in the strictest confidence—typing
the letter himself—that Budd's might soon be closing down entirely; only Hoover's wise and
merciful Reconstruction Finance Corporation had kept it from having to default on its bonds.
Under the American system, four months had to elapse between Roosevelt's election and his
taking of power. Robbie thought that would be a breathing-spell, but it proved to be one of
paralysis; nothing could be done, and each side blamed the other. Herbert was sure that
