Afterward they had lunch in the garden, the visitors, the teachers, and the children. “Lohengrin” was pouring out this prodigality, and to Lanny the place seemed a sort of artists' heaven. The children, boys and girls of all ages, wore tunics of bright colors; they lived on vegetarian foods, but it didn't keep them from having bright cheeks and eyes, and hearts full of love for Isadora, and for the beauty they were helping to create. Lanny exclaimed: “Oh, I'd like to come here, Beauty! Do you suppose Isadora would take me?”
“Perhaps she would,” said Beauty; and Mrs. Emily said she would ask her, if they meant it. Mrs. Emily had helped Isadora to become known, and the lovely white feet had danced more than once on the lawn under the chestnut trees at Les Forêts.
But suddenly Lanny thought, was he free just then to think about dancing? Didn't he have to stay with Beauty, and watch over her, and try to save poor Marcel from having his happiness ruined? Oh, this accursed sex problem!
Artists came to Bellevue, and sat upon a platform in the center of the hall and made sketches of the dancing children. At Meudon, not far away, was the studio of a famous sculptor, Auguste Rodin; a sturdy son of the people with a great spade beard, broad features, and ponderous form. He was an old man now, becoming feeble, but he could still make wonderful sketches. He sat near Lanny and, when the dancing was over, talked about the loveliness of it, and wished he could have had such models for all his work — models who lived, and moved, and brought harmony before the eyes in a thousand shifting forms. Lanny thought that this old man himself had been able to make marble and bronze live and move; he tried to say it, and the sculptor put his big hand on the boy's head, and told him to come to the studio some day and see the works which had not yet been given to the world.
Driving into Paris, the ladies talked about Rodin, who also was providing evidence about the love life! He was getting into- his dotage, and had fallen prey to an American woman, married to a Frenchman who bore one of the oldest and proudest names in history. “But that doesn't keep them from being bad characters,” said Mrs. Emily. She told how this pair had preyed upon the old artist and got him to sign away much of his precious work.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear!” exclaimed Beauty Budd. “What pitiful creatures men are!” She meant it for Harry, of course; but Lanny heard it and agreed. People wished to take love as a source of pleasure, but it seemed to bring them torment. The primrose path had thorns in it, and as time passed these thorns became dry and hard and sharper than a serpent's tooth.
They came into Paris at the hour when the shops and factories were closing, and the streets swarming with people. The crowds did not seem to be hurrying as usual; they would form groups and stand talking together. The newsboys were shouting everywhere, and the headlines on the papers were big enough so that motorists could read without stopping. La Guerre! was the gist of them all. Austria had that day declared war upon Serbia! And what was Russia going to do? What would Germany do? And France? And England? People stared at one another, unable to grasp the awful thing'that was crashing upon the world.
C'est la Guerre
I
BEAUTIFUL flowers bloomed in the garden that was Europe. They spread wide petals to the sunshine, trusting the security of the warm and sheltered place. Over them fluttered butterflies, also of splendid hues and delicate structure, loving the sunlight, floating upon peace and stillness. But suddenly came a tempest, harsh and blind, tearing the fragile wings of the butterflies, hurling them against the branches of trees or into the sodden ground; ripping the petals off the flowers, stripping the foliage, leaving bare wrecked limbs to mock the lovers of beauty. So it was with Lanny Budd during the next dreadful week, and so with all the persons he knew, and with countless millions of others, from Land's End to Vladivostok, from Archangel to the Cape of Good Hope. It was the worst week in the history of Europe — and there were many more to follow.