experience, but they've got vision and vitality, and they're backed by money. Rivers and rivers of money pouring in. There's been too much materialism, so we've asked for something else, and we've got it. But as its based on hate, it can't get anywhere. It can't move off the ground. Don't you remember in 1919 everyone going about with a rapt face saying Communism was the answer to everything. That Marxist doctrine would produce a new heaven brought down to a new earth. So many noble ideas flying about. But then, you see, whom have you got to work the ideas with? After all, only the same human beings you've always had. You can create a third world now, or so everyone thinks, but the third world will have the same people in it as the first world or the second world or whatever names you like to call things. And when you have the same human beings running things, they'll run them the same way. You've only got to look at history.'
'Does anybody care to look at history nowadays?'
'No. They'd much rather look forward to an unforeseeable future. Science was once going to be the answer to everything. Freudian beliefs and unrepressed sex would be the next answer to human misery. There'd be no more people with mental troubles. If anyone had said that mental homes would be even fuller as the result of shutting out repressions nobody would have believed him.'
Stafford Nye interrupted her.
'I want to know something,' said Sir Stafford Nye.
'What is it?'
'Where are we going next?'
' South America . Possibly Pakistan or India on the way. And we must certainly go to the USA . There's a lot going on there that's very interesting indeed. Especially in California –'
'Universities?' Sir Stafford sighed. 'One gets very tired of universities. They repeat themselves so much.'
They sat silent for some minutes. The light was failing, but a mountain peak showed softly red.
Stafford Nye said in a nostalgic tone:
'If we had some more music now — this moment — do you know what I'd order?'
'More Wagner? Or have you torn yourself free from Wagner?'
'No — you're quite right — more Wagner. I'd have Hans Sachs sitting under his elder tree, saying of the world:
''Mad, mad, all mad' –'
'Yes — that expresses it. It's lovely music, too. But we're not mad. We're sane.'
'Eminently sane,' said Stafford Nye. 'That is going to be the problem. There's one more thing I want to know.'
'What?'
'Maybe you won't tell me — But I've got to know — is there going to be any fun to be got out of this mad business that we're attempting?'
'Of course there is. Why not?'
'Mad, mad, all mad — but we'll enjoy it all very much. Will our lives be long, Mary Ann?'
'Probably not,' said Renata.
'That's the spirit. I'm with you, my comrade, and my guide. Shall we get a better world as a result of our efforts?'
'I shouldn't think so, but it might be a kinder one. It's full of beliefs without kindness at present.'
'Good enough,' said Stafford Nye. 'Onward!'
Book III — AT HOME AND ABROAD
Chapter 13
CONFERENCE IN PARIS
In a room in Paris five men were sitting. It was a room that had seen historic meetings before. Quite a number of them. This meeting was in many ways a meeting of a different kind yet it promised to be no less historic.
Monsieur Grosjean was presiding. He was a worried man doing his best to slide over things with facility and a charm of manner that had often helped him in the past. He did not feel it was helping him so much today. Signeur Vitelli had arrived from Italy by air an hour before. His gestures were feverish, his manner unbalanced.
'It is beyond anything,' he was saying, 'it is beyond anything one could have imagined.'
'These students,' said Monsieur Grosjean, 'do we not all suffer?'
'This is more than students. It is beyond students. What can one compare this to? A swarm of bees. A disaster of nature intensified. Intensified beyond anything one could have imagined. They march. They have machine-guns. Somewhere they have acquired planes. They propose to take over the whole of North Italy . But it is madness, that! They are children — nothing more. And yet they have bombs, explosives. In the city of Milan alone they outnumber the police. What can we do, I ask you? The military? The army too — it is in revolt. They say they are with les jeunes. They say there is no hope for the world except in anarchy. They talk of something they call the Third World , but this cannot just happen.'
Monsieur Grosjean sighed. 'It is very popular among the young,' he said, 'the anarchy. A belief in anarchy. We know that from the days of Algeria , from all the troubles from which our country and our colonial empire has suffered. And what can we do? The military? In the end they back the students.'
'The students, ah, the students,' said Monsieur Poissonier. He was a member of the French government to whom the word 'student' was anathema. If he had been asked he would have admitted to a preference for Asian 'flu or even outbreak of bubonic plague. Either was preferable in his mind to the activities of students. A world with no students in it! That was what Monsieur Poissonier sometimes dreamt about. They were good dreams, those. They did not occur often enough.
'As for magistrates,' said Monsieur Grosjean, 'what has happened to our judicial authorities? The police — yes, they are loyal still, but the judiciary, they will not impose sentences, not on young men who are brought before them — young men who have destroyed property, government property, private property — every kind of property. And why not, one would like to know? I have been making inquiries lately. The Prefecture have suggested certain things to me. An increase is needed, they say, in the standard of living among judiciary authorities, especially in the provincial areas.'
'Come, come,' said Monsieur Poissonier, 'you must be careful what you suggest.'
'Ma foi, why should I be careful? Things need bringing into the open. We have had frauds before, gigantic frauds, and there is money now circulating around. Money, and we do not know where it comes from, but the Prefecture have said to me — and I believe it — that they begin to get an idea of where it is going. Do we contemplate, can we contemplate a corrupt state subsidized from some outside source?'
'In Italy too,' said Signer Vitelli, 'in Italy , ah, I could tell you things. Yes, I could tell you of what we suspect. But who, who is corrupting our world? A group of industrialists, a group of tycoons? How could such a thing be so?'
'This business has got to stop,' said Monsieur Grosjean. 'Action must be taken. Military action. Action from the Air Force. These anarchists, these marauders, they come from every class. It must be put down.'
'Control by tear gas has been fairly successful,' said Poissonier dubiously.
'Tear gas is not enough,' said Monsieur Grosjean. 'The same result could be got by setting students to peel bundles of onions. Tears would flow from their eyes. It needs more than that.'
Monsieur Poissonier said in a shocked voice:
'You are not suggesting the use of nuclear weapons?'
'Nuclear weapons? Quel blague! What can we do with nuclear weapons. What would become of the soil of France of the air of France if we use nuclear weapons? We can destroy Russia , we know that; We also know that
