Lanny was changing: the things which had satisfied him as a boy didn't necessarily do so when
he had passed his thirty-second birthday, and when the capitalist system had passed its
apogee. He would come home from one of Emily's soirees and open up a bunch of mail which
was like a Sophoclean chorus lamenting the doom of the House of Oedipus. The front page of a
newspaper was a record of calamities freshly befallen, while the editorial page was a betrayal
of fears of others to come.
For years the orthodox thinkers of France had congratulated that country upon its immunity
from depressions. Thanks to the French Revolution, the agriculture of the country was in the
hands of peasant proprietors; also the industry was diversified, not concentrated and
specialized like that of Germany, Britain, and America. France had already devalued her money,
one step at a time; she possessed a great store of gold, and so had escaped that hurricane
which had thrown Britain off the gold standard, followed by a dozen other countries in a row.
But now it appeared that the orthodox thinkers had been wishful. Hard times were hitting
France; unemployment was spreading, the rich sending their money abroad, the poor hiding
what they could get in their mattresses or under the oldest olive tree in the field. Suffering and
fear everywhere—so if you were a young idealist with a tender heart, how could you be happy?
Especially if your doctrines persuaded you that you had no right to the money you were
spending! If you persisted in keeping company with revolutionists and malcontents who were
only too ready to support your notions—and to draw the obvious conclusion that, since your
money didn't belong to you, it must belong to them! As a rule they asked you to give it for the
"cause," and many were sincere and would really spend it for the printing of literature or the
rental of meeting-places. That justified them in their own eyes and in yours, but hardly in the
eyes of the conservative-minded ladies and gentlemen whom your wife expected to invite to a
salon!
Some five years had passed since Lanny had begun helping workers' education in the Midi,
and that was time enough for a generation of students to have passed through his hands and give
him some idea of what he was accomplishing. Was he helping to train genuine leaders of the
working class? Or was he preparing some careerist who would sell out the movement for a
premiership? Sometimes Lanny was encouraged and sometimes depressed. That is the fate of
every teacher, but Lanny had no one of experience to tell him so.
Bright lads and girls revealed themselves in the various classes, and became the objects of his
affection and his hopes. He found that, being children of the Midi, they all wanted to learn to
be orators. Many acquired the tricks of eloquence before they had got any solid foundation,
and when you tried to restrain them and failed, you decided that you had spoiled a good
mechanic. Many Were swept off their feet by the Communists, who for some reason were the most
energetic, the most persistent among proletarian agitators; also they had a system of thought
wearing the aspect and using the language of science, and thus being impressive to young minds.
Lanny Budd, talking law and order, peaceable persuasion, gradual evolution, found himself
pigeon-holed as
"you feel that way because you have money. You can wait. But what have we got?"
This was true enough to trouble Lanny's mind continually. He watched his own influence
upon his proletarian friends and wondered, was he really doing them good? Or were the
preachers of class struggle right, and the social chasm too wide for any bridge-builder? What
community of feeling or taste could survive between the exquisite who lived in Bienvenu and
the roustabout's son who lived in the cellar of a tenement in the Old Town of Cannes? Was it
not possible that in coming to the school well dressed, and speaking the best French, Lanny was
setting up ideals and standards which were as apt to corrupt as to stimulate?
His friends at the school saw him driving his fancy car, they saw him with his proud young
wife; for though she came rarely, they knew her by sight and still more by reputation. And
what would that do to youths at the age of susceptibility? Would it teach them to be loyal to
some working-class girl, some humble, poorly dressed comrade in their movement? Or would it
fill them with dreams of rising to the heaven where the elegant rich ladies were kept? Lanny,
surveying his alluring spouse, knew that there was in all the world no stronger bait for the soul
and mind of a man. He had taken that bait more than once in his life; also he knew something
about the four Socialists who had become premiers of France, and knew that in every case it
had been the hand of some elegant siren which had drawn him out of the path of loyalty and into
that of betrayal.
VI
