U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [128]
"They put on a better show out here than they do on the stage," said Robbins.
"Don't you like the production. . . . I think it's a magnificent production."
"Wel , I suppose looked at from the professional point of view. . . ." Eveline was watching Eleanor, she was being introduced to a French general in red pants; she looked handsome this evening in her hard chil y way. Robbins tried to pilot them in through the crowd to the little bar, but they gave it up, there were too many people ahead of them. Robbins started al at once to talk about Baku and the oil business.
"It's funny as a crutch," he kept saying, "while we sit here wrangling under schoolmaster Wilson, John Bul 's putting his hands on al the world's future supplies of oil . . . just to keep it from the bolos. They've got Persia and the messpot and now I'l be damned if they don't want Baku." Eveline was bored and thinking to herself that Robbins had been in his cups too much again, when the bel rang.
When they got back to their box a leanfaced man who wasn't in evening clothes was sitting in the back talking to J.W. in a low voice. Eleanor leaned over to Eveline and whispered in her car, "That was General Gouraud." The lights went out; Eveline found she was forgetting herself
-301-in the deep stateliness of the music. At the next intermis-sion she leaned over to J.W. and asked him how he liked it. "Magnificent," he said, and she saw to her surprise that he had tears in his eyes. She found herself talking about the music with J.W. and the man without a dress suit, whose name was Rasmussen.
It was hot and crowded in the tal overdecorated lobby. Mr. Rasmussen managed to get a window open and they went out on the balcony that opened on the serried lights that dimmed down the avenue into a reddish glow of fog.
"That's the time I'd liked to have lived," said J.W. dreamily. "The court of the sun king?" asked Mr. Ras-mussen. "No, it must have been too chil y in the winter months and I bet the plumbing was terrible." "Ah, it was a glorious time," said J.W. as if he hadn't heard. Then he turned to Eveline, "You're sure you're not catching cold
. . . you ought to have a wrap, you know."
"But as I was saying, Moorehouse," said Rasmussen in a different tone of voice, "I have positive information that they can't hold Baku without heavy reinforcements and there's no one they can get them from except from us." The bel rang again and they hurried to their box.
After the opera they went to the Café de la Paix to drink a glass of champagne, except for Robbins who went off to take Miss Wil iams back to her hotel. Eveline and Eleanor sat on the cushioned bench on either side of J.W. and Mr. Rasmussen sat on a chair opposite them. He did most of the talking, taking nervous gulps of champagne between sentences or else running his fingers through his spiky black hair. He was an engineer with Standard Oil. He kept talking about Baku and Mohommarah and Mosul, how the Anglo-Persian and the Royal Dutch were getting ahead of the U.S. in the Near East and trying to foist off Armenia on us for a mandate, which the Turks had pil aged to the last blade of grass, leaving nothing but a lot of starving people to feed. "We'l probably have to
-302-feed 'em anyway," said J.W. "But my gosh, man, some-thing can be done about it, even if the president has so far forgotten American interests to let himself be bul -dozed by the British in everything, public opinion can be aroused. We stand to lose our primacy in world oil pro-duction." "Oh, wel , the matter of mandates isn't settled yet." "What's going to happen is that the British are going to present a fait accompli to the Conference
. . . findings keepings . . . why it would be better for us for the French to have Baku." "How about the Russians?" asked Eveline.
"According to selfdetermination the Russians have no right to it. The population is mostly Turkish and Armenian," said Rasmussen. "But, by gorry, I'd rather have the reds have it than the British, of course I don't suppose