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experts and have factories built, and call it a Five-Year Plan—but who was going to do any real

work if he could put it off on somebody else? And how could any business enterprise be run by

politicians? "You don't know them," said Johannes, grimly. "In Germany I have had to."

"It's an experiment," Lanny admitted. "Too bad it had to be tried in such a backward

country."

"All I can say," replied the man of affairs, "is I'm hoping it doesn't have to be tried in any

country where I live!"

IX

This was a situation which had been developing in the Robin family for many years, ever

since Barbara Pugliese and Jesse Black-less had explained the ideals of proletarian revolution

to the young Robins in Lanny's home: an intellectual vaccination which had taken with

unexpected virulence. Lanny had watched with both curiosity and concern the later

unfoldment of events. He knew how Papa and Mama Robin adored their two boys,

centering all their hopes upon them. Papa made money in order that Hansi and Freddi

might be free from the humiliations and cares of poverty. Papa and Mama watched their

darlings with solicitude, consulting each other as to their every mood and wish. Hansi

wanted to play the fiddle; very well, he should be a great musician, with the best

teachers, everything to make smooth his path. Freddi wished to be a scholar, a learned

person; very well, Papa would pay for everything, and give up his natural desire to have

the help of one of his sons in his own business.

It had seemed not surprising that young people should be set afire with hopes of

justice for the poor, and the ending of oppression and war. Every Jew in the world knows

that his ancient prophets proclaimed such a millennium, the coming of such a Messiah.

If Hansi and Freddi were excessive in their fervor, well, that was to be expected at their

age. As they grew older, they would acquire discretion and learn what was possible in

these days. The good mother and the hard-driving father waited for this, but waited in

vain. Here was Hansi twenty-five, and his brother only two years younger, and instead of

calming down they appeared to be acquiring a mature determination, with a set of

theories or dogmas or whatever you chose to call them, serving as a sort of backbone for

their dreams.

To the Jewish couple out of the ghetto the marriage of Hansi to Robbie Budd's

daughter had appeared a great triumph, but in the course of time they had discovered

there was a cloud to this silver lining. Bess had caught the Red contagion from Hansi,

and brought to the ancient Jewish idealism a practicality which Johannes recognized as

Yankee, a sternness derived from her ancestral Puritanism. Bess was the reddest of

them all, and the most uncompromising. Her expression would be full of pity and

tenderness, but it was all for those whom she chose to regard as the victims of social

injustice. For those others who held them down and garnered the fruits of their toil she

had a dedicated antagonism; when she talked about capitalism and its crimes her face

became set, and you knew her for the daughter of one of Cromwell's Ironsides.

Lanny understood that in the depths of his soul Johannes quailed before this daughter-in-law.

He tried to placate her with soft words, he tried to bribe her with exactly the right motor-car,

a piano of the most exquisite tone, yachting-trips to the most romantic places of the seven seas,

and not a single person on board who would oppose her ideas; only the members of her own

two families and their attendants. "Look!" the poor man of nullions seemed to be saying. "Here

is Rahel with a baby who has to be nursed, and here is the lovely baby of your adored brother;

here is this ship of dreams which exists for the happiness of all of you. It will go wherever you

wish, and the service will be perfect; you can even break the rules of discipline at sea, you and

Hansi can go into the forecastle and play music for the crew, or invite them up into the saloon

once a week and play for them—in spite of the horror of an old martinet trained in the

merchant marine of Germany. Anything, anything on earth, provided you will be gracious, and

forgive me for being a millionaire, and not despise me because I have wrung my fortune out of

the toil and sweat of the wage-slaves!"

This program of appeasement had worked for four years, for the reason that Bess had laid hold

of the job of becoming a pianist. She had concentrated her Puritan fanaticism upon acquiring

muscular power and co-ordination, in combining force with delicacy, so that the sounds she

produced would not ruin the fine nuances, the exquisite variations of tone, which her more

highly trained husband was achieving. But Johannes knew in his soul that this task wasn't

going to hold her forever; some day she and Hansi both would consider themselves musicians—

and they meant to be Red musicians, to play for Red audiences and earn money for the Red

cause. They would make for themselves the same sort of reputation that Isadora Duncan had