expect success. But instead, he would pick out some diplomat or man of affairs and disappear
into the library to discuss the problems of Europe. These gentlemen were impressed by a
young man's wide range of knowledge, but they thought he was unduly anxious concerning
this new movement of Nazism; they had learned what a French revolution was, and a Russian
one, but had difficulty in recognizing a revolution that happened in small instalments and under
ingenious camouflage. Hardly a man of wealth and importance in France who didn't accept
Nazism as a business man's answer to Bolshevism. When they read in the papers that
Communists were being shot pretty freely throughout Germany, they shrugged their French
shoulders and said:
Lanny ran up a large telephone bill calling his friends in Berlin. It was his one form of
dissipation, and Irma learned to share it; she would take the wire when he got through and
ask Rahel about the baby, or Mama about anything—for Mama's Yiddish-English was as
delightful as a vaudeville turn. Lanny was worried about the safety of his friends, but
Johannes said:
about. I wear the Tarnhelm."
He would retail the latest smart trick of those Nazis, whose cleverness and efficiency he
couldn't help admiring. "No, they will not outlaw the Communist party, because if they did,
the vote would go to the Sozis, and there would be the same old deadlock in the Reichstag. But
if they let the Communist deputies be elected, and then exclude them from their seats, the
Nazis may have a majority of what is left! What is it that you say about skinning a cat? There
are nine ways of doing it?"
How long would a Jew, even the richest, be allowed to tell the inmost secrets of the Führer
over the telephone to Paris? Lanny wondered about that, and he wondered about the magic
cap which Johannes thought he was wearing. Might he not be fooling himself, like so many
other persons who put their trust in political adventurers? Who was there among the Nazi
powers who had any respect for a Jew, or would keep faith with one for a moment after it
suited his purpose? To go to a rich
one thing; but to pay the debt when you had got the powers of the state into your hands—that
was something else again, as the Jews said in New York.
Lanny worried especially about Hansi, who was not merely of the hated race, but of the hated
party, and had proclaimed it from public platforms. The Nazi press had made note of him;
they had called him a tenth-rate fiddler who couldn't even play in tune. Would they permit
him to go on playing out of tune at Red meetings? The Stormtroopers were now turned loose
to wreak their will upon the Reds, and how long would it be before some ardent young patriot
would take it into his head to stop this Jewish swine from profaning German music?
Lanny wrote, begging Hansi to come to Paris. He wrote to Bess, who admitted that she was
afraid; but she was a granddaughter of the Puritans, who hadn't run away from the Indians.
She pointed out that she and her husband had helped to make Communists in Berlin, and now
to desert them in the hour of trial wouldn't be exactly heroic, would it? Lanny argued that a
great artist was a special kind of being, different from a fighting man and not to be held to the
military code. Lanny wrote to Mama, telling her that it was her business to take charge of the
family in a time like this. But it wasn't so easy to manage Red children as it had been in the
days of Moses and the Ten Commandments.
However, there was still a Providence overseeing human affairs. At this moment it came
about that a certain Italian diva, popular in Paris, was struck by a taxicab. The kind
Providence didn't let her be seriously hurt, just a couple of ribs broken, enough to put her out
of the diva business for a while. The news appeared in the papers while Lanny and Irma were
at Bienvenu, having run down to see the baby and to attend one of Emily's social functions.
Lanny recalled that the diva was scheduled with one of the Paris symphony orchestras; she
would have to be replaced, and Lanny asked Emily to get busy on the long distance telephone.
She knew the conductor of this orchestra, and suggested Hansi Robin to replace the damaged
singer; Mrs. Chattersworth being a well-known patron of the arts, it was natural that she
should offer to contribute to the funds of the symphony society an amount equal to the fee
which Hansi Robin would expect to receive.
The bargain was struck, and Lanny got to work on Hansi at some twenty francs per minute,
to persuade him that German music ought to be promoted in France; that every such
performance was a service to world culture, also to the Jewish race, now so much in need of
international sympathy. After the Paris appearance, Emily would have a soiree at Sept Chênes,
and other engagements would help to make the trip worth while.
