o 3b3e7475144cf77c

even write to Irma's mother and urge her to come to Berlin and help in this task; there must

never be any rivalry or jealousy between them; on the contrary, they must be partners in the

duty of seeing that Irma got everything to which her elegance, charm, and social position—Beauty

didn't say wealth—entitled her.

Lanny, of course, had to play up to this role; he had asked for it, and now couldn't back out.

He had to let the tailors come and measure him for new clothes, and stand patiently while

they made a perfect fit. No matter how bored he was, no matter how much he would have

preferred trying some of Hindemith's new compositions! His mother scolded him, and taught

his wife to scold him; such is the sad fate of kind-hearted men. When he and Irma were invited

to a dinner-party by the Prinz Ilsaburg zu Schwarzadler or to a ball at the palace of the Baron

von Friedrichsbrunn, it would have been unthinkable to deprive Irma of such honors and a

scandal to let some other man escort her.

It wasn't exactly a scandal for Johannes Robin to escort the elder Frau Budd, for it was

known that he had a wife who was ill-adapted to a fashionable career. Beauty, on the other

hand, had taken such care of her charms that you couldn't guess her years; she was a

gorgeous pink rose, now fully unfolded. Fashionable society was mistaken in its assumptions

concerning her host and her self, for both this strangely assorted pair were happy with their

respective spouses, and both spouses preferred staying at home—Mama Robin to watch over the

two infants whom she adored equally, and Parsifal Dingle to read his New Thought

publications and say those prayers which he was firmly assured were influencing the souls of

all the persons he knew, keeping them free from envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness.

Parsifal himself had so little of these worldly defects that he didn't even know that it was a

humiliation to have his wife referred to as the elder Frau Budd.

The Jew who had been born in a hut with a mud floor in the realm of the Tsar was proud to

escort the Budd ladies about die grosse Welt of Berlin. He told them so with a frankness

touched with humor and untouched with servility. He said that when he was with them his

blood was pure and his fortune untainted. He said that many a newly arrived Schieber was

paying millions of marks for social introductions which he, the cunning one, was getting

practically free. He could say such things, not merely because Bess and Hansi had made their

families one, but because he knew that Robbie Budd needed Johannes in a business way as

much as Johannes needed Robbie's ladies in a social way. A fair deal, and all parties concerned

understood it.

So the former Jascha Rabinowich of Lodz gave a grand reception and ball in honor of the

two Damen Budd. Decorations were planned, a list of guests carefully studied, and the chefs

labored for a week preparing fantastical foods; the reception-rooms of the marble palace

which looked like a railway station came suddenly to resemble a movie director's dream of Bali

or Brazil. Anyhow, it was a colossal event, and Johannes said that the magnates who came

wouldn't be exclusively his own business associates, the statesmen wouldn't be exclusively those

who had got campaign funds from him, and the members of the aristocracy wouldn't be

exclusively those who owed him money. "Moreover," added the shrewd observer, "they will

bring their wives and daughters."

XII

Lanny Budd, in his best bib and tucker, wandering about in this dazzling assemblage, helping

to do the honors, helping to make people feel at home; dancing with any overgrown Prussian

Backfisch who appeared to be suffering from neglect; steering the servitors of food toward any

dowager whose stomach capacity hadn't been entirely met. Dowagers with large pink bosoms,

no shoulder-straps, and perfectly incredible naked backs; servitors in pink-and-green uniforms

with gold buttons, white silk gloves and stockings, and pumps having rosettes. Lanny has

dutifully studied the list of important personages, so that he will know whom he is greeting

and commit no faux pas. He has helped to educate his wife, so that she can live up to the

majesty of her fortune. Never think that a social career is for an idler!

"Do you know General Graf Stubendorf?" inquires one of the enormous elderly Valkyries.

"I have never had the honor," replies the American. "But I have visited Seine Hochgeboren's

home on many occasions."

"Indeed?" says Seine Hochgeboren. He is tall and stiff as a ramrod, with sharp, deeply lined

features, gray hair not more than a quarter of an inch in length, a very bright new uniform with

orders and decorations which he has earned during four years of never-to-be-forgotten war.

Lanny explains: "I have been for most of my life a friend of Kurt Meissner."

"Indeed?" replies the General Graf. "We consider him a great musician, and are proud of him

at Stubendorf."