they never knew when there might be an uprising of the Fascists or Nazis, and "we comrades"
would be the first victims. He was shocked to learn that neither Hansi nor Freddi had ever
fired a gun in his life, and hadn't thought of the possible need. The ex-guard wanted to
know, suppose their revolution went wrong and the other side appeared to be coming out
on top?
He showed them what he would propose to do about it. He threw a corked bottle far out
into the water, and then popped off the cork with one shot from an army service revolver. He
threw out a block of wood and fired eight shots from a Budd .32 automatic, all in one quick
whir, and not one of the shots struck the water; Bub admitted that that took a lot of practice,
because the block jumped with every hit, and you had to know how far it would jump in a
very small fraction of a second. He did it again to show them that it was no accident. He
couldn't do it a third time, because the block of wood had so much lead in it that it sank.
Lanny couldn't perform stunts like that, but he was good enough to hit any Nazi, Bub said.
All the targets were either Nazis or Fascists; for the guard had made up his mind that trouble
was coming and no good fooling yourself. He wanted Hansi to learn to shoot, but Hansi said
he would never use his bowing hand for such a nerve-shattering performance. Bess would have
to protect him; she had learned to shoot when a child, and proved that she had not forgotten.
Then it was Freddi's turn, and he tried it, but had a hard time keeping his eyes open when he
pulled the trigger. The consequences of this pulling upon a Budd automatic were really quite
alarming, and to a gentle-souled idealist it didn't help matters to imagine a member of the
National Socialist German Workingmen's Party in the line of the sights.
Lanny, who had been used to guns all his life, had no idea of the effect of these
performances upon two timid shepherd boys out of ancient Judea. Hansi declared that his
music didn't sound right for a week afterward; while as for the younger brother, the experiment
had produced a kind of moral convulsion in his soul. To be sure, he had seen guns being
carried in Berlin and elsewhere by soldiers, policemen, S.S.'s and S.A.'s; but he had never held
one in his hand, and had never realized the instantaneous shattering effect of an automatic.
Calling the targets a portion of the human anatomy had been a joke to an ex-cowboy, but
Freddi's imagination had been filled with images of mangled bodies, and he kept talking about it
for some time afterward. "Lanny, do you really believe we are going to see another war? Do
you think you can live through it?"
Freddi even talked to Fanny Barnes about the problem, wondering if it mightn't be possible
to organize some sort of society to teach children the ideal of kindness, in opposition to the
dreadful cruelty that was now being taught in Germany. The stately Queen Mother was touched
by a young Jew's moral passion, but she feared that her many duties at home would leave her no
time to organize a children's peace group in New York. And besides, wasn't Germany the
country where it needed to be done?
VI
Fanny set up a great complaint concerning the heat at Bienvenu; she became exhausted and
had to lie down and fan herself and have iced drinks brought to her. But Beauty Budd, that old
Riviera hand, smiled behind her
she hoped the last—to carry Baby Frances away. Beauty took pleasure in pointing out the
great numbers of brown and healthy babies on the beaches and the streets of Juan; she
pointed to Lanny and Marceline as proof that members of the less tough classes could be
raised here successfully. Baby herself had developed no rashes or "summer complaints," but on
the contrary rollicked in the sunshine and splashed in the water, slept long hours, ate everything
she could get hold of, and met with no worse calamity than having a toe nipped by a crab.
So the disappointed Queen Mother let her bags be packed and stowed in the trunk of Lanny's
car, and herself and maid stowed in the back seat, from which she would do as much driving
as her polite son-in-law would permit. On the evening of the following day they delivered her
safely in London, and obtained for her a third-row seat on the aisle for the opening
performance of
to say so. Next day when most of the London critics agreed with her, she pointed out that
fact to the author, who, being thirty-four years of age, ought to have sowed his literary wild
oats and begun to realize the responsibilities he owed to his class which had built the mighty
British Empire. The daughter of the Vandringhams and daughter-in-law of the Barneses was
as Tory as the worst "diehard" in the House of Lords, and when she encountered a
propagandist of subversion she wanted to say, in the words of another famous queen: "Off
with her head!"—or with "his."
