House of All Nations Read Online Free PDF

country appeals to me.’
    â€˜Fermin Galan and Garcia Hernandez,’ Alphendéry emended.
    â€˜The revolution began in Spain already with Fermin and Garcia Hernandez on the border: that’s a great country. I’d put my money there any day, when it quietens down a bit, if those boys look as if they can hold the—reins of power,’ stoutly continued Léon. ‘Any day. My boy!’
    Alphendéry began a conversational oration: ‘A country that’s entering into revolution is a great country: stocks fall, landlords sell, dowagers shriek and depart, squires fly, but the land continues to bear in the old, golden way, olives grow, there’s electric light to sell: socialist municipalities need whitewash for the cabins and stones for the roads, there’s medicine, cosmetics, hairwashes, Woolworth dodges to sell. When the permanent moneybags fly, there’s the place for new wealth. When others go like this’ (he stuck out his absurd little hands and shook them violently), ‘that’s the time I move right in.
    â€˜You’re right, Mr. Léon: your instinct’s perfectly right. Supplies are cheap, consumption is never as low as it seems, and a new market is worth a ton of money today. The Spaniards have nothing: then you have everything to sell them. It’s the new colony. Life goes on, doesn’t it? Everyone has an infinite capacity for consumption. Especially the Latins!’
    Léon nodded energetically, his face drawn a little from a too fatiguing day and night, his eyes no longer dancing, but serious and absorbed. Aristide saw this close attention to Alphendéry, and approached with his solemn authority. ‘Léon, I—’ Léon waved him aside. ‘Léon—’
    â€˜Wait, wait, Aristide: this is—’ He actually held Aristide off with his large hand, made a half-turn to shut Aristide off from the colloquy: ‘Interested!’ was the word that tumbled out of his mouth.
    Alphendéry went on instantly, ‘Life goes on! Life went on under the corruption of the Roman Empire. These ages look like acts of a historical drama to us, but they were sewed together by the little Andrés and little Maries who set up house together, had children and bought gadgets for the home all through the Dark Ages and today. A few go revoluting but the girls buy rouge to attract the boys and the mothers look for cheaper zippers to put on François’ pants.’
    Restlessly Léon egged him on to the more serious part: ‘And, yes—and—but the—Coty—’
    Joyfully, Alphendéry took him up, ‘Life went on under Attila, went on in the Dark Ages. These will be the ages of night looking back from the days to come, but we’re alive: we can’t go dead dog. This is a new Napoleonic age, a new Commune age. Revolution! Why, it always produces new markets! All new money is made through the shifting of social classes and the dispossession of old classes. Today we have it. Property is changing hands, losing its old owners all the time. This is the time to move in.’
    Léon rolled a fierce look round the people scattered near, wanting to get Alphendéry away to privacy.
    At this moment, a fragile, tall, elegantly dressed young man, with a bowler hat, a fur collar, and an antique Dutch face, with long nose tip biting the air, approached nonchalantly.
    â€˜Jules,’ caroled Alphendéry, ‘meet Henri Léon, a grain—’
    â€˜We’ve met,’ said Léon.
    â€˜Hullo, Léon,’ said Jules Bertillon. ‘What have you been saying, Michel? That now is the time to make money? It is.’
    â€˜I was saying that few old fortunes survived the war: you must make new money to swim through a social crisis. The old goes rusty.’
    â€˜Like the General Strike,’ said Léon. ‘In the General Strike I—did I ever tell you that story, Aristide? I must tell it to