Life and Loves of a Prodigal Daughter

Being the Intimate Memoirs of Gervée Baronte

Author’s Preface

As my mind goes back over the past my life seems to have contained in experience and events enough for twenty lives. How did I ever live it all? I ask myself. Had I known I was to live it, would my courage have been sufficient to face it?

There was never a dull moment. It has been crowded, packed to the brim with excitement, misery, work, luxury and poverty. Circumstances have often demanded the last ounce of my strength; but something has reinforced me at the breaking point and driven me on. Reeling through incidents as if suffering from an attack of vertigo, I have stumbled on—events flying past like scenes from an express train. How they have flashed past—the struggles—the difficulties—the unfair opposition—the accusations—the escapes—the adventures in love and passion—the few scarlet triumphs! The giddiness of it all makes my brain reel—my alarming, impetuous brain; for ever fighting a losing battle with what tranquillity it can muster. The days have not been long enough to accomplish what had to be done. Insomnia has been a good friend, for it has given me the time and the peace to think.

You begin to doubt because the story is so overwhelming—the activity so mad—the longing so intense—the energy so extreme.

I am the grave in which all this is buried. It was buried deeply and over it I placed the stone of secrecy. I meant never to remove the stone, but others have threatened to remove it, and with their clumsy, unsympathetic hands to exhume the contents of the grave.

I prefer to conduct the excavation. I shall put everything before you and you shall judge. I cannot hesitate in the operation to show you the many sides of each experience for one presses down on the other and there are so many to unearth.

G. B.

Chapter I

I shall not begin by telling you about my family. Too many autobiographies begin with grandfather and grandmother, who, after more than one hundred and fifty pages, make room for father and mother and Uncle John. Somewhere, after the family has had its rather dull say, the person who is writing his story emerges from this welter of family bickerings and frail exposures as if he were apologizing for entering the sacred assembly.

My birth would not interest you. Birth is always the same whether it occurs in a palace or a hovel. Mine occurred in a middle-class home in England, quite by accident, and from the impatience to get things done which has never, at any moment of my life, deserted me. Mother was on her way to Rome to join my father. She had been for a few months with her family in Egypt and had broken her journey in England to visit one of her school friends. If I had waited I should have been born in the eternal city of the Duce. My birth made no difference to anyone however but the unfortunate lady whose home I had disturbed by my impatience.

One of my earliest recollections is of a vegetable shop in Rome where my nurse used to leave me standing for hours while she gazed into the eyes of her Giuseppe, as he, little heeding his customers, weighed out potatoes and onions and wrapped La Stampa round celery and fennel. I wandered round the shop nibbling at carrots and chestnuts. I bit into apples and tomatoes and turned the bitten sides down. I have often wondered since what the people thought who bought the bitten fruits and vegetables; for Giuseppe was too interested in the glowing face of his Ida to notice what he was weighing out. I think berries attracted me more than anything in the shop. I delighted in squeezing them between my fingers and watching the juice run down my hands. On days when blackberries and raspberries were temptingly offered for sale I was very thoroughly dyed by the time Ida could tear herself away from her sweetheart. I question now if Giuseppe occupied this tender position, for the barber, to whom she took me to have me cleaned up before we went home, held her hand as long and as thoroughly.

We always reached home quite breathlessly and my mother was told of the passeggiare lungo lungo. I think my mother believed (if she cared at all) the lie about the long walk. I knew Ida was lying to my mother, but I never gave the show away. Even as a little child I realized that many things were spoiled by too much talking. Then, too, I enjoyed the visits to the greengrocer and the barber. No doubt they were more amusing than being dragged through the streets by Ida’s hand. Occasionally I went to the Gardens and played with other children. I remember wettings under fountains and leanings over the marble edge of the basin to catch gold fish.

Sometimes my father took me out. He would buy me everything I asked for. I loved him as a child loves a popular hero or some great person of its dreams. Perhaps I loved him more because I saw him seldom. He did not come home for weeks on end; and when he did my mother would sit quietly crying. Sometimes she refused to speak to him, then he would give me all his attention. He threw me up in the air and caught me, played little tunes on the piano while I shuffled about the room trying clumsily to dance. Once he took me to visit a beautiful dark-eyed lady. The lady made a great fuss of me, giving me everything in the house to play with. Father was very proud of me, calling attention to all my little sayings and doings. Later he introduced me to certain of his mistresses as his little sister—but I was thirteen then, and father never got beyond his youth. As a matter of fact he was under forty when a motor-car dashed over the edge of a cliff instantly carrying him and his friends into eternity. It was a fitting death for him, for old age or disfiguring illness would have driven him mad.

My mother never understood my dashing, irresponsible father. If she had known him a little better she would not have taken me, when I was four years old, and hurried home to her parents. Mother closed her eyes when she should have opened them, and opened them when she should have closed them. Jealousy and bitterness blinded her to my father’s better qualities. She was a cold, dispassionate woman given to self-pity, considering only, what she called, “morals” important. She never understood emotions. She knew nothing of the necessity of putting new earth about your roots when you drooped and wilted. I do not wish to mislead you into believing that I did not love her. I did. I understood her more and more as the years passed. She was exact and steady. Her mind attacked everything with geometrical precision. What she knew she knew. No one could shake her belief in anything. I never knew her to he or exaggerate. She never gossiped or indulged in slander. She had a great character, but she was the woman to save a village and lose an empire. Always she remained an outsider in her immediate family.

Her father was the most lovable man who ever lived in spite of his violent intelligence which had to probe into everything. Her mother had a whimsical sense of humour which delighted everyone who knew her. Her sister—she had but one sister and no brothers—had all the warmth she lacked. My Aunt Vera was one of my dearest companions. I could tell her anything and be understood. She had none of mother’s cold chiselled beauty which occurred to you rather than startled you, but she had colouring and brilliance which were much more fascinating.

The torch which started the Roman conflagration, from which we escaped in such haste, was a letter which mother received from one of father’s kind friends telling her of certain jewels (jewels have always been the curse of my life) which father had given his then innamorata. I can still see mother standing under the light with the letter in her hand setting her face into that rigid line which meant determination to carry something through. Perhaps she ground her teeth, but she didn’t cry. She cried only when father was at home. I think she did it to shame him.

Ida put me to bed while mother was reading and re-reading the letter. The servants must have worked very fast that night for in the morning everything was ready for our departure. I was told that we were going to visit grandfather and grandmother who, shortly before we left Rome, had “taken” a house in Furness, near Barrow. I was to learn that grandfather was for ever “taking” houses and leaving them. Some he bought and some he rented; but he was like Noah’s dove, he could find no rest for the sole of his foot.

Ida accompanied us. How she tore herself away from Giuseppe and the barber I never knew. In England she became but a homesick shadow of herself, refusing to learn English and belittling English people because they couldn’t speak Italian.

One day my grandfather, sorely exasperated, gave her a sum of money and a ticket to Rome. I never saw her again. No doubt she married one of her innamorati, attracting him with grandfather’s dowry.

The journey from Rome to Furness thrilled me, in spite of my continuously asking why father was not with us. My mother did not answer me, but Ida invented some story about father coming over later. Watching the landscape flash past the train finally took my mind off father, and by the time we crossed the Channel I was too excited to give another thought to him or to anyone in Rome.

I talked in Italian to everyone on the boat. That I could not understand what they said to me made not the slightest difference. Being on the sea made me very happy. It has never failed to do so. Typhoons and the worst storms imaginable have never lessened my love of the sea. When trouble has fallen upon me like driving rain, and there seemed nowhere to turn for assistance, when my health has been shattered and pain has almost driven me insane, I have made for the sea if it were possible.

Grandfather met us at Dover. He spoke the language the people had been speaking on the boat. He took me in his arms and a friendship began which lasted as long as he lived. He was the best friend I ever had. His death prostrated me, and I have never recovered from the shock of it. I was in India when he died, and the thought—absurd, of course—haunted me that he would not have died if I had been with him to nurse him.

When he put me down, after giving me a real bear-hug, I spoke to him in Italian. “Parla lei Italiano?” I asked, too overcome by the newness of him to speak in the familiar way. He smiled and answered me in Italian. “You must learn English,” he said. “It is grandmother’s language, and it is very necessary.”

“I shall learn it at once,” I promised—and I kept my word.

But I had my own way of learning it. I learned the nouns. They meant something to me. They designated something. If I wanted anything I would mention the name of it and it appeared. When I had learned the nouns, the verbs, adjectives, and other parts of speech would slide up to the nouns and would somehow stand in their right places. I have never changed my method in the study of languages. I approached even Hindustani in the same way. I cannot say that I recommend my method; but I will say that if children are interested in their studies half the battle is won. The names of things are interesting to a child, and in his eagerness to talk about them he will discover the means. When you are familiar with a language the unclamorous, quiet words will appear—words which settle down tenderly as snow; but this never happens at first.

Grandmother fascinated me—the twinkle in her brown eyes—tawny-brown with marigold rims—and her ready laugh. I fairly burned to talk with her. Fortunately she was a silent talker. She could look things if she did not say them. My Aunt Vera spoke Italian and several other languages.

The house in Furness uprose in three floors. The ground floor, with its large drawing- and dining-room and kitchen was, with the exception of the kitchen, oak-beamed and panelled. I was astonished to learn that the ground floor in England was quite as important as the piano nobile (first floor) in Italy. In Italy the servants had the ground floor, but in England everything was reversed. The servants occupied most of the third floor. In the evening, when their work was done, they actually occupied the third floor. No one came into the drawing-room with her knitting to chat with the Signora. When I could talk with grandmother she told me that it was not customary for the servants to sit down with the family. She made no comment upon the customs of either country.

Another of my discoveries was the scullery. Meals were prepared and washing-up was done in the scullery, the door of which could be shut, making, as it appeared to me, two kitchens. The first floor leaned out over the ground floor into rooms which had nothing under them but verandas and gardens. One of the rooms, the library, came down over the garden like an eyelid lowered in a knowing wink. There was some excuse for this, for the part which jutted out and swept downward held the books which, when I learned English, I was forbidden to read. Fielding and Sterne were among them, together with books on filthy magic rites and certain colourfully illustrated medical works. I read most of them, however, by hiding them, one at a time, out of doors until I had finished with them. With the knowledge thus obtained I was able to make a very grave statement when I was nine. When one of grandfather’s guests asked me what books I liked to read I electrified him by telling him, “I have read all the profane classics.” Certain members of the family still tease me about the profane classics.

Mother had a room without a scrap of colour in it. It was as white and tight as a chrysalis. You expected to see something emerge from it—a butterfly perhaps. Thinking of mother as a butterfly, I have to laugh. Aunt Vera’s room was blue, but the colour, as in fact everything else in the room, escaped your notice, for you could see nothing but the photographs—photographs of men in all attitudes, of all ages, handsome and ugly and most of them signed with some term of endearment or friendship. Men went down before Aunt Vera like ninepins—but she married the one good-for-nothing specimen of the collection. Grandmother—with her everlasting sense of humour and her refusal to interfere with her daughter’s choice—sent her a set of binoculars for a wedding present.

Grandfather and grandmother had a large room which had broken out like a rash in chintz covered with red berries. It had two big beds with lace-bordered counterpanes. During my first impression I compared them with the peasants’ beds in Italy. Grandmother never troubled to decorate the houses grandfather “took,” for she knew he would move on to another one before she could plan any embellishment. A picture of a shepherd driving home his sheep hung over grandmother’s bed. Under it was written “The Return.” I have seen these wretched lithographs in some of the splendid old houses in England, and always with the names under them.

Ida and I shared a room next to Aunt Vera’s. It also contained beds, but smaller editions of those which were in grandmother’s room. There were two green china dogs and a five-coloured mug on the mantel. There was a wardrobe with a long mirror before which I loved to stand studying my reflection. My hair was bobbed, but it curled naturally, and it pleased me greatly when Ida—having no Giuseppe to minister to—gave her attention to fastening bows on the top of my head and fussing with my clothes.

The pride I took in my appearance had a rude shock when grandfather sent Ida back to Rome, and quiet, colourless Margaret Paine came to take her place. Margaret Paine was all that a governess—who had charge of a lively Italian child—should not be. Many were the storms that raged in our room about vanity. Once I slapped her face and I was shut up in Aunt Vera’s room until I would apologize. They had to let me out at the end of the day, but I never apologized. I was not sorry, and I refused to say that I was. To this day I am not sorry. I would do it again if the occasion were the same. I had run out of the bath dripping wet to chase after grandfather who was going out. I wanted to tell him something, and I was afraid he would get away before I could reach him. Margaret Paine was horrified and as the care of me had been almost entirely given over to her she could punish me as she thought best. The family seldom interfered, but it was grandfather, on this occasion, who ordered Miss Paine to open the door and release me. She might not have imprisoned me for my nude appearance. It was the slap which set off her sullen temper—usually concealed.

Quietly and icily she nagged me while I was dressing. Her words were like little sharp stabs. My southern nature was not incensed by angry words, screaming or cursing—had I not heard the peasants, hundreds of times, abusing each other from their windows or doorways, their hands beating the air, their heads thrust forward—but nagging was new to me. I was to become better acquainted with it later when I married. The man I was to learn was not my husband, was the only Italian I ever knew who was thoroughly conversant with the gentle art of nagging.

I cried bitterly when Ida left. I felt that my last link with Italy was being wrenched from me, for my mother had explained that father was not coming to England—in any case, not for a long time.

It was indeed a long time before I saw my father again and then he did not come to England. He came to Egypt where grandfather had taken another house to pursue the study he loved—Egyptology.

Two members of the household in Furness became my dearest companions—the cat and the dog. The dog was pure dog. He was a steel-muscled creature who expressed his intolerance of described breeds by attacking them whenever they crossed his path. Someone in an ironic mood had named him Rex. I had wild romps with him every day, and I annoyed Margaret Paine—not intentionally—by allowing him to follow me all over the house. Margaret was one of those women who think that animals should be kept in their place. I have never known just where an animal’s place is unless it is in my heart. I have used my last twopence to buy food for a stray dog in the street, and I have stayed up all night to hold a hot-water bottle on a tiger cub’s tummy when he had an attack of colic. I have—yes, let me tell it—fished the big cockroaches out of the water in India and let them get away. I have never been cruel to an animal in my life with the exception of that cat, Rex’s playmate. I cut his tail off with a hatchet. Horrible—I admit it. As I tell you about it I can see his poor stump of a tail with a bandage on it trying, pathetically, to swish about.

I was lying on the floor one day playing with Rex and the cat, when something startled the cat. He thrust out his claws, forgetting that one of his paws was on my eyelid. For a second I thought his claws had penetrated my eye. In a furious rage I jumped up, took him under my arm, and carried him out to the shed where the “handy man” chopped the wood. I plumped him down on the chopping-block and cut off his tail with the hatchet. My mother spanked me soundly while grandmother salved and bandaged the poor creature’s tail. The little scar, like a tiny white pimple, is still on my eyelid. Contrary to what people might think the cat never held it against me. We were the best of friends until he died some time later in Egypt. Grandfather always moved any animals we had when he moved the family.

Soon everything was English and I was English too. I spoke English fluently. I learned, under the instruction of Margaret Paine, to subdue my voice, and conceal, to a certain extent—I have never thoroughly learned how—my emotions. Well-bred English people did not have tantrums. If they felt deeply about anything they did not mention it. To give way to grief was almost to have hysterics. This concealment of their feelings is the reason why no Englishman can be a lover. Deliver me from an English lover. Later I acquired an English husband—as a husband an Englishman is possible—but as a lover . . .

Many of the English customs seemed strange to me at first. I never could get used to the English breakfast—I still cannot understand how people can devour eggs and bacon, or kippers, or porridge and a rack of toast first thing in the morning. In Italy I had caffè-latté (a little coffee boiled in the milk) and a roll for breakfast. When I reached the age of resistance I went back to my Italian breakfast. It has always been enough for me.

I fairly haunted the library, which became, soon after we arrived, grandfather’s study. When I finished my lessons Margaret Paine took me out. While she was putting on her hat and coat I would run into the library and plead with grandfather to permit me to stay with him. Often I was successful and he would look up over his glasses and tell Margaret that he would take me out later. He seldom kept his word, for he would become so interested in explaining to me the pictures in his Egyptian books that time would slip away unnoticed. I understood much of what he told me.

About that time, and until I was ten, I was continuously drawing the plans of buildings on every available scrap of paper. Grandfather collected the drawings and we carried them about with us for some years; but the only one which survived our wandering life is this one:

That you may understand the plan I have written the words dining- and drawing-rooms and swan canal. These were not put down on the original plan. The canal encircling the dining-room was intended for swans to swim about in. I had in my mind, although I never managed to get it down on paper, a little door opening into a passage to the cellar through which the swans could escape when they wanted to stretch their legs. The letters B indicate bridges across the canal. The letters T.D. designate a trap-door through which the servant would appear like a jack-in-the-box, with the table completely laid. When the meal was finished he would disappear through the floor and the trap-door would close over him. The circles under the dome represent windows. If any architect wishes to copy this plan I have no objection. As the patent medicines inform you on the bottles “No proprietary right is claimed.” Looking this drawing over now I think it would be a good model for some architect to follow. The circular drawing- and dining-rooms would be a change from the everlasting square and oblong rooms.

Mother and father had kept up a very animated correspondence since we left Rome. I have reason to believe that father ranged up and down the scale of entreaty, supplication, abuse and threat. Italy has no divorce law, and no doubt father ordered mother to return to the more or less conjugal bed. The upshot of the wordy war was the victory to mother. She agreed to send me to Italy for two months each year if I could be suitably looked after by some respectable member of father’s family. In fact, she thought it would be better if father did not see me while I was in Italy. Her agreement to my visits was made for the purpose of my keeping in touch with Italy and the language. I think there was something to the effect that I could decide which parent I wished to live with when I was older.

Father wanted a photograph of me, and grandfather took me to the photographer. The baby picture—there was one awful painting of a baby lying on a sofa—had been done before I could protest. I didn’t want to go with grandfather to have my photograph taken. I stormed and refused to look at the toys the photographer provided. Finally I sat down on a little stool and jammed my head against a post. A forbidding scowl must have distorted my face, for grandfather asked me, “What are you thinking about?” My answer disillusioned him if he had ever, for a moment, imagined that I was not progressing with English. “I am thinking Goddamn,” I answered. I wish I could show you the photograph of me thinking Goddamn, but I have no idea what became of it. The photographer took me with my head against the post and my brows drawn together in a straight line. No doubt he was heartily sick of me, and would have taken me in any position to get me out of his studio. Some years later, when I saw my father, he laughed about the photograph which was propped up against a vase on the mantel in his bedroom.

A box of dolls arrived one day from Rome. Their costumes were in the latest mode. They squeaked, closed their eyes, and moved their joints. I wrote a letter in English to thank father and let him see that I could write what he called “the commercial language.” The dolls gave me much to think about. I was so concerned with their anatomy that I asked grandfather why people had anything but legs. When I had explained my question and had praised the neater, more compact appearance of dolls, grandfather told me about sex. Poor man, I can see him now pulling flowers to pieces, making little designs, pointing things out on a medical chart in a sputtering effort to teach me about sex. The story of reproduction did not startle me; in fact, somewhere in my mind—rather nebulous—was the thought that grandfather was mistaken, and that people would have been better off had they been simply furnished with legs.

About this time I had one little playmate—Chester Doull. He lived near, and his Nanny (Margaret Paine would never have permitted me to call her Nanny) used to bring him to us when I had finished my lessons. I was responsible for much of Chester’s education. I used to plan the mischief and dare him to carry it out. Once, when I suggested removing the upper pastry from a prune pie and scooping out the prunes before carefully replacing the pastry, I had to bolster up Chester’s courage. I found a knife with a sharp point to operate on the pie while Chester stood at the kitchen door watching for the cook who might return from the market unexpectedly. With my grubby little fingers I scooped out the prunes and put them into a bowl, stuffing the largest ones into my mouth during the process. The bowl I carried out into the garden where Chester and I, standing behind a tree, devoured the prunes. I managed to put the bowl, hurriedly washed under the tap, back on the cupboard shelf before the cook returned. The empty pie collapsed on the luncheon table when grandmother started to serve it. “Cook has forgotten to put the prunes in,” grandmother said. Grandmother never made unpleasant inquiries at inopportune times. Later she might question the cook, but she would never have dreamt of doing so at the table. I never knew what she said to the cook—if anything; but the epilogue of the pie episode was tiresome enough. There was a dish of prunes on my supper tray (my supper was prepared by grandmother, and eaten in the room I shared with Margaret Paine) every evening until I hated the sight of a prune.

There were very few children in the neighbourhood, so I invented a family of children to play with Chester and me—perhaps I should say to act as scapegoats for our naughtiness. The family name was Makaksy, and the seven children were named as the days of the week. Wednesday Makaksy was the most unruly. In fact, he stopped at nothing, from stealing the icing off cakes to playing rather disastrous jokes on the family. The cook told me that “if ’e came into ’er kitching a’ stealing she’d smack ’im good and propper.” But she never caught him; Wednesday saw to that. Sunday Makaksy was a sweet, spineless child who never dirtied her clothes, and who went to church with her father and mother and actually put her penny on the plate. We had very little use for her however. We called her a tell-tale, for one so perfect must have “told on” Wednesday. Monday, Tuesday and the others simply followed Wednesday. He was the ringleader. His Atlas shoulders must have ached under all the blame we put upon him. Mr. and Mrs. Makaksy were shadowy beings necessary only as parents for their calendar seven.

One rainy day, when I was kept indoors because I had a slight cold, something occurred which was supposed to throw a light—not by any means a rosy one—on my character. I was in the library with grandmother. Grandfather had gone to London with mother and Margaret Paine. I had helped to wind wool, to thread needles, to match buttons from a helter-skelter assortment of buttons and hooks in a box. I was aching to go out. I had suggested all manner of excuses for going out. They were promptly turned down by grandmother. Wearily I wandered over to the window where big drops of rain had caught on the casement like a string of crystal jewels. One big raindrop trickled slowly down the pane. In it, tiny, infinitesimal, the garden lay. I followed it down the pane with my finger, excited about the garden tucking itself into such a small mirror. At the lower sill the garden slid out of the drop and disappeared. I told grandmother about the little lost garden and she told me a fairy story about a water sprite. When she had finished the story I said: “Do you want me to tell you a fairy story?”

“Yes, dear,” she said, “tell me a fairy story.”

I began: “Once upon a time there was an angel who lived in a beautiful garden of apple and pear blossoms. The garden was all blossoms and the angel was very proud of it. There were two children, a little boy and a little girl, who loved the blossoms because they were so beautiful. One day the blossoms were more beautiful than ever and the children had to have some of them. They climbed the trees and picked some, but when they were getting down the angel came from behind a cloud. She had a pail of water in her hand, and she threw it on the children.” Then I asked grandmother: “Don’t you think the angel was very wicked to throw the water?”

“Yes,” grandmother said, “she should have allowed the children to take some of the blossoms.”

She changed her mind a few days later when old Mrs. Angel, who lived on the next road, complained of Chester and me stealing the blossoms from her fruit orchard. It was not the theft which grieved grandmother so much as the cunning way I made her commit herself in advance. She had placed me beyond punishment by saying the angel should have allowed the children to take some of the blossoms. “A child who can tell a story like that will bear watching,” Margaret Paine said when she heard about it. Although grandfather said nothing I am sure his respect for my intellect increased, for he took much of my education upon himself after that. “The child is quick,” I used to overhear him telling grandmother, “quick on the uptake.”

I am sure mother thought—while she never admitted it—that all my devilry was a gift from father. The apple blossom episode was not indicative of my character, for many times I have taken the full brunt of circumstances which I could have avoided by seeing to it that people show their hands in advance.

The day came when I had to go to Italy to fulfil the agreement made between father and mother. The entire family came to London with me. Margaret Paine was to have a holiday until I returned, and was to stay on in London. There were tears in grandfather’s eyes when he said good-bye to me. At that moment my heart sank and I clung to him begging not to be sent to Venice. Then I saw him smile determinedly and he told me not to be silly. I made a brave front for something in me always sought grandfather’s admiration.

It had been decided that I should visit my father’s two aunts who lived together in Venice. I had never seen them, but I imagined—and rightly, as it turned out—that their home would be deadly dull. They sent their solicitor’s clerk to fetch me. He made very clumsy attempts to help me dress and undress the day and night he had me in his charge, until I rose in my wrath and told him that girls of five could dress themselves. My attempt at my own hairdressing rather gave my brave words the lie, and he had to get the parting straight in my defiant mop. One thing I shall always remember him kindly for was allowing me to eat all the things I was not supposed to have. I had a wonderful tuck-in on the train.

The gondola fascinated me. In fact, I had insisted upon it when he tried to steer me into a motor-boat to save time. I remember wishing that Chester was with me to enjoy the fun.

The aunts lived in a palazzo on one of the smaller canals. How thrilled I was to see boats going right up to the front door. How wonderful, a city without streets. I was to learn later that Venice had streets, if narrow, and that one could walk all over the city.

The aunts were waiting on the steps when the gondola glided up. They kissed me effusively in the Italian way, and discussed between themselves my resemblance to father. Father was one of the very fair Italians. His family had married into fairer nations and father, in appearance, was like his blond relations. I also am blonde; a fact I have detested in adult life. I began to detest blondness in childhood when I discovered that all father’s beauties had glorious dark eyes and midnight hair. Father’s beauties, however, have nothing to do with my present dislike of the fair. I think of blonds as red people, too highly-coloured, too obvious, too pitiful when Time tramples them under his feet. Many a night I have sat on the roof of the Peking Hotel and watched the West dancing—the reddish-skinned West, big-footed—big-handed—rather breathless—too excited. Then I have watched the slender, graceful Chinese gliding through the dance—their ivory hands like long-petalled flowers—wax-white jasmine in the blueness of their hair. Then against an over-florid Dutch background I have watched the dark, pointed, witch-like beauty of Java moving mysteriously, scarcely touching things—like the curl of incense smoke. You get what I mean, don’t you? You may not agree with me; but let me tell you, gentlemen do not prefer them. I should know. The only thing I am thankful to the blond colouring for is a good skin. Truly I have that. No amount of abuse can hurt it. I could wash it with Rinso or “monkey soap” without injuring it. On my body it is of the same texture as on my face. I promised to tell you everything; but I must get back to the aunts.

You may see a thing with rapture or disgust, it is the way you see it that counts. There was something wrong with the way I saw the aunts. I thought they were about a hundred. Actually they were not much over fifty, but they seemed years older than grandmother or grandfather. They had practised nothing but austerity and the art of prayer and it had given them that smug, righteous look than which there is no whicher. The house also was smug and righteous. The first thing they showed me was a stained-glass window which had just been installed half-way up the stairs as a sort of monument (there were others in the cemetery) to their brother who had recently passed on, leaving them the family fortune. In all the colours of the rainbow a shepherd stood beside his flock, holding a lamb in his arms. His long crook rested against a slender tree which looked but little larger than the crook. The sunlight streamed in through the bits of glass, touching the stairs and the reception-room below with multi-coloured rays. “Che bella—bellisima!” one of the aunts exclaimed. I could see nothing beautiful about it. The two women stood on the stairs and literally raved about the beauty of the window. They explained it to me. The stories of the Good Shepherd and Christ blessing little children were somewhat mixed in their endeavours to impress me with its beauty. Child that I was I realized there was no getting up the stairs until I admired it. I began to lie about the beauty of it; but I hated it from that moment. I had no idea then that it was going to release me from the purgatory of visiting the aunts for all time. We three passed it with something akin to reverence. Theirs genuine. Mine feigned.

They took me into a big bedroom, furnished, as most Italian rooms are, with but little furniture. A huge bed, very carved, very heavy, very stiff, waited, all made up with fat be-laced pillows for my little body. It looked so big and lonely I wanted to cry. I remember biting into my lower lip to keep from sobbing. One of the aunts decided that I must have a bath after the journey. The other one went downstairs to talk with the solicitor’s clerk who was still waiting.

When I was undressed the aunt looked at me in amazement. “They are not allowing you to wear the scapular—or anything,” she said. It was my turn to look astonished. “After your bath,” she promised, “I shall get you one.” She did. She got me three as a matter of fact, the scapular and two little medals. As she hung them round my neck she told me father would be shocked if he knew I wasn’t wearing them. I almost laughed in her face. I knew my father didn’t wear them, and I also knew—or perhaps I felt—that religion, or anything pertaining to it, left my father cold. When she told me that Saint Anthony would help me find anything that was lost, if I wore him, I wondered if he would help me find my way back to grandfather. I asked her if father would come to see me. She told me what I already knew, but didn’t want to believe, that it had been decided father would not see me while I was in Italy. Of course, when I was older, no doubt I would come to Italy and live with father—she hoped.

When I was dressed I was taken downstairs. We halted again before the window to admire it. The aunt pointed out new beauties and embellished the stories they had already told me. She told me about her brother, my great-uncle, who had died without seeing me. He would have been so happy if he could have seen me. Just why she didn’t say.

I arrived on a Saturday afternoon. I sat in the reception-room with them—the solicitor’s clerk had gone—listening to the virtues of my departed great-uncle, hearing about St. Mark’s Cathedral where they would take me the next day. What could I tell them about God? Nothing, of course. I have always thought that it is easy to believe in God if you don’t have to explain Him. As I look back on that conversation one of the aunts seemed to have been controlled by someone very far away as the tides are controlled by the moon. I suppose it was God. I kept trying to get them to talk of my father. But they were evasive. Father was away—travelling—they were not quite sure.

Perhaps he had gone with one of his many mistresses. I know now that he had quite a number at that time; but I doubt if he ever kept his word to any of them—his word given in passion. He inspired so much passion, but—excepting my own devotion—I think he inspired little love. It was natural for such a man to be unhappy in marriage. No woman, equally frivolous, can cover as much ground as a roué. There are more hidden traps in her personality—more longings to capture her. There was nothing frivolous about mother and no passionate longings. Mother travelled a very straight road, but nowhere on it could she and father meet.

The aunts questioned me about life in England, about grandfather and grandmother, and very tactfully about mother. To some of my answers they looked at each other and nodded their heads.

I had supper with them. It was served by an old woman I wanted to run to and put my arms about—yes, and cry. Old Bianca seemed to be the one really human person in the house. She had the ample peasant bosom which children like to cry on and the kind eyes which children trust. I was hoping she would put me to bed; but instead it was one of the aunts who tucked me up, kissed me, and criticized ever so slightly the prayer which Margaret Paine had taught me, and which, hastily, I tried to translate into Italian. I had a good cry when she left me, and with St. Anthony pressed into my neck I implored to be allowed to find my way home at once.

St. Mark’s interested me. I loved its bizarre Oriental appearance; its gilt horses and lions all out of proportion because, as an aunt explained, the Venetians had never seen animals. In later years, when I have visited St. Mark’s, I have looked in vain for the screen with the Virgin painted on it before which I stood taking in every detail of her costume and wondering if I could have a dress like that when I got married. I suppose the screen is still there, but I have not rediscovered it. The aunts tried to amuse me. I am sure they did their best. They walked me through the narrow streets pointing out interesting buildings, and telling me bits of their histories which they tried—and, worse luck, I knew they were trying—to adapt to my understanding. I have always had a high opinion of my own intelligence and I am intolerant of those who try to prepare their statements for me. This sugaring of the pill, more than anything else, turned me against the aunts. From the first moment they had undertaken to give me a bath, to help me dress, to treat me as if I were a baby. My recently acquired knowledge of fastening hooks and snaps, getting the seams of my stockings perfectly straight, understanding although I didn’t quite believe it—about sex, fiercely resented the attitude of the aunts. When I was in the house I made little models of the buildings I had seen out of cardboard. Some of them I coloured with a box of paints one of the aunts gave me. One day, speaking about colour, she told me I could learn how to blend colours by studying the window. The window never got very far from our conversation.

One aunt played the ’cello. Her music—I have since heard that she might have been a famous player had not the death of her maestro, with whom she was in love, put an end to her serious study—was the only thing in the place I liked. I used to plead with her to play; and when she agreed I would sit at her feet, forgetting for the moment my homesickness.

It occurred to me that St. Anthony was going to do nothing for me. I thought of getting sick but I didn’t quite know how to manage it. One day out of a clear sky my release came. Impulse has always served me well. It is only when I plan too carefully that I fail in my design. I have taken some desperate chances, but I was desperate when I took them. Homesickness, the dull routine of the aunts’ house, and, above all, the window, acted upon me like the stinging lashes of a whip. Daily they goaded me on to desperation.

Let me arrange the scene for you as it was on that day of days. We were sitting in the reception-room waiting for Bianca to tell us that supper was ready. The late afternoon sun came in through the shepherd and his flock and crept down the stairs. It touched the hair of one of the aunts. I can see it now—the light on her head. The other aunt knitted some blue woollen thing. I was sitting on the floor making little gondolas out of cardboard. Once in a while one of the aunts would look up at the window and call attention to something she hadn’t noticed before. “I am glad we could have it placed so low, so near the landing,” was the last thing I heard about it.

Suddenly I dropped the scissors, flung away the cardboard, dashed up the stairs and kicked my foot through the window. For a second I stood there trembling, frightened out of my wits, then I turned on them like an animal at bay. I have no idea what I expected them to do. They were speechless. One of them worked her mouth like a fish out of the water. No words came. From that inarticulate state she promptly screamed her way into hysterics. The other aunt was sobbing loudly as only Italians can sob. They fell on each other and wept into each other’s necks. “Povero fratello!” (poor brother!) they kept repeating. When the storm subsided, they spoke to me. They told me I had no respect for the dead. My poor unfortunate father would die of grief when he heard of it. My mother would know at once what I had done. They would telegraph her. Their abuse left me cold, but I pointed my ears when they threatened to telegraph.

One of them managed to pull herself together and call for the gondola. She started for the telegraph office while the other one told the servants, who were standing in the doorway waving their arms about, of the curse I had brought upon the house. I think I wondered what Margaret Paine would have thought of the emotional show.

Old Bianca took me upstairs and brought me some supper. She kissed my cheek when she set the tray down. I am sure she thought me very depraved, but she was sorry for me. I took my clothes off and got into the big bed. Soon I was asleep. Childhood doesn’t worry over its depravity.

I was awakened in the morning by the aunt who had gone to the telegraph office. Leaning over the bed, she hissed, “Your grandfather is coming to fetch you. We have had an answer.” I could have kissed her. I could have screamed for joy. Grandfather was coming. I would have kicked out all the windows in St. Mark’s to see grandfather again—to go home with him. Perhaps, after all, St. Anthony had his own way of answering prayers.

Grandfather lost no time in getting to Venice. It was his turn to erect the departed uncle’s memorial. He settled with the aunts for the havoc I had wrought. The settlement must have been arranged quite amicably, for the aunts stood on the steps while the gondola bore us away smiling and waving their handkerchiefs.

Grandfather never mentioned the window until we were in the train, and then he said: “ Gervée, why did you do it?”

I put my head down on his shoulder and said—was I always the coquette?—“Because I wanted to be with you again.” He hugged me and patted my head.

Utterly spoiled, you will say. Yes, no doubt I was utterly spoiled; but I loved him with a love the years cannot dim, and this is not because he let me have my way in most things—others have done that but, with few exceptions, I haven’t loved them. My stormy heart has often been in love, but that is not the same thing.

I had stayed less than one month of the three I was to spend in Italy. I was never sent back. I believe, down in her heart, mother was glad I broke the window. I have always liked fine terminations, but the window was the most definite ending I have ever put to anything.

My mother caused the disappearance of St. Anthony, the other medals and the scapular. I never knew what became of them.

Chapter II

When I was nine, grandfather took a house in Egypt—in Aswan. He had been travelling back and forth to Egypt for years to pursue his studies in Egyptology. He had rented the house before on previous occasions and some of his furniture, which survived the comings and goings of other tenants, still remained there.

Aunt Vera did not accompany us. For some time she had had her mind set upon going to Canada to live on a ranch with a woman friend who held out glowing possibilities of she and Aunt Vera managing the ranch together. Aunt Vera was the last person in the world to consider farming of any sort, but she had to learn her limitations by experience. She left all the suitors—one followed her later, the one she married—and started out in a whirl of excitement about the fortune to be made in grain, apples and poultry.

The library, which belonged to grandfather—everything else in the Furness house belonged to the owners who had rented us the place—was packed into boxes. Crates were made for Rex and the cat, and we were ready for the journey. We were always ready to fold our tents like the Arabs and quietly steal away. We travelled light unless our animals were too numerous. Often when I have gone about the world with the fatigue of four or five huge wardrobe trunks, I have longed—but not enough to achieve it—for the simplicity of the early days.

I was bursting with excitement about going to Egypt. I would ride on a camel out into the desert. I would see a mirage—what a lot of them I have seen!—and beautiful ladies who looked like Cleopatra. I would climb the pyramids, inside and out. I would see the sphinx by moonlight. No one had ever seen it by any other lighting in the novels I had read. I lived in a dream scarcely hearing what anyone said to me.

Margaret Paine stayed in England. She was of the sort who never could live out of England. Like many of the good old Islanders, she had no use for a foreigner. I bade her good-bye with something approaching rapture. I had never liked her and I was glad to see the last of her. Mother seemed pleased to put greater distance between herself and father. She had told me, soon after I returned from Italy, that it was not necessary for me to keep up my Italian. I kept it up, however. I used to go out alone in the garden or for walks and talk to myself in Italian. I taught Chester to speak it after a fashion and we used to tell each other secrets in it. I didn’t want to leave Chester. I begged grandfather to take him with us. I even went to his mother and asked her to let us have him. He cried bitterly when his mother would not consent. He gave me five little turtles as a parting gift. Fearing that grandfather, at the last moment, would find no way of moving them, I put them in grandmother’s trunk under a lace dress. I was to learn later that turtles, in such close confinement, did not travel very well. The odour they left after them clung to the trunk for years, and grandmother’s lace dress had to be burned.

The Mediterranean reminded me of a big bowl of setting jelly. I knew that if I had a spoon and could bend way over I could dip up thick wiggley spoonfuls of it. Breathlessly I rushed from one side of the ship to the other, hoping some big fish might poke his head up through the jelly. I never tired of watching the flight of the sea-gulls and the way they could sit on the water, tossing up and down as if they were on little springs. The only passenger I remember was a lady who let me exercise her dog on the forward deck before breakfast. No matter how many chocolates she ate she seemed always to have a full box. She was very generous with the sweets and I liked her accordingly.

Port Said was like a fairy tale. Its dirt and cheap bazaar streets were enchanted. I knew genii would run out of some doorway and turn into animals or birds right before my eyes. Grandfather bought me a pair of sandals and a box of the inevitable turkish delight, which mother promptly took possession of, to deal out in small doses. I was disappointed at not finding the pyramids at Port Said. I had some vague idea that all the wonders of Egypt were huddled together in one spot. I was not to see the pyramids for some months, for grandfather hurried us through Cairo, as he had hurried us through Port Said. We stayed one night at Shepheard’s Hotel. What impressed me then about Shepheard’s was the size of the rooms and the corridors. The size of the veranda, where all the world meets, was to occur to me later.

The train journey up to Aswan was thrilling—the desert and the Nile. Lines of camels passed along the desert. They were caravans with hidden treasure going to some beautiful princess. Perhaps a barge would come floating down the Nile with a silver sail like Cleopatra’s.

Our house in Aswan was an old rambling affair. A rich merchant had built it for his son who had little use for it, preferring to live in Europe. It had some gorgeous carpets on the floors and walls. Some of the walls were covered with the Bedouin hiam (tent cloths). The rooms seemed to be all hangings and coverings. The furniture was of the inlaid, pettily-carved Arab sort which I have learned to despise. Even then I resented its fussiness. The beds were big divans with good mattresses. Grandfather had bought them on a previous visit. Bookshelves waited empty, round the walls of one huge room, for our library. There were bathrooms without hot water; but hot water was never lacking. The boys were for ever heating it on kerosene stoves. The servants, who greeted grandfather and grandmother with their hands on their foreheads and their hearts, were unloading furniture from a cart when we arrived. It was the extra furniture grandfather had ordered before leaving England. It seemed to consist of tables, writing-desks and dishes. The house soon filled with Arab servants. They appeared almost to be in each other’s way. When I got to know them and where each belonged, they fitted perfectly into the routine.

A room on the first floor was fitted out as a schoolroom. There were a large desk with a chair before it, a small desk—it also had a chair pushed in under an extension—a long table, several maps which shared the walls with a blackboard, and a book-case which turned round on a pivot. On the train grandfather had told me that I was to have a tutor from Cairo; an old friend of the family, a certain Mr. Vanburgh, who, no doubt, temporarily pinched by poverty, was willing to undertake my education.

There was a garden with a wall round it. The Nile mud had been brought to it and put down over the sand so flowers and small shrubs could grow. In one corner, tall date palms plunged their feet into the sand until they could feel the moisture below.

We had been in Aswan but two days when Mr. Vanburgh arrived. I have never seen anyone since so haggardly handsome. His face had passed through all the phases of decadence. There was something about him which spoke of spiritual assassination. Of course I had no idea of all this at the time. His face simply fascinated me then because it was so different from any face I had seen. He had strange dark eyes and an exaggerated charm. For women his appeal had been swift—so I heard mother tell a lady who visited us later. Even as a child I felt that he would always be master of the situation—that he might make intelligent mistakes but not foolish ones. I wondered if he would be victor in a clash of wills and how I was to get my way with him. Looking back at him I think he was a man who could unhesitatingly commit a murder, but who would consider for some time which woman he would go to bed with. His voice was rich and deep. It seemed to bore down through his words. He had never tutored anyone before. He had been married twice, but he never spoke of his wives. I think they had shuffled off this mortal coil and left him free. He was just under forty when he came to us.

He, with grandfather’s help, educated me. They had their own very definite ideas about my weird education. Their interest in Egyptology was so intense that sometimes they forgot me entirely. Mr. Vanburgh—the name did not belong to him, he used it for reasons of his own—would forget to come to the schoolroom. I would wait a reasonable time, and then, knowing Egyptology had first place, I would go out into the desert. Grandfather used to send me out to walk to cultivate my observation. I had to write down what I had seen during my walks, and the impressions caused by what I had seen. Little rewards were given me for learning chapters from the Bible, and pages from the Vedas and the teachings of Buddha, the rewards were given for my memory and not for learning the religious teachings. As a matter of fact Mr. Vanburgh frequently made fun of the teachings. He cursed me, very elegantly, when my mind refused to absorb as much as he thought it should. They kept me up all hours of the night—regardless of mother’s protestations—teaching me Egyptian history.

Grandfather, with all his colourful imagination, reconstructed the tombs and the temples. Mr. Vanburgh insisted upon rather difficult mathematical problems. The simple arithmetic which Margaret Paine had taught me in no way fitted me for the demands of Mr. Vanburgh; but somehow I managed to stumble through what he required. He gave me lessons in Latin and he threatened me with Greek. I invented little ways of learning Latin because I could not, under his direction, learn the nouns first. I also invented rhythms for adding up columns of figures. I still use them. They are composed of beats and stops, but to save me I cannot explain them.

Grandfather and Mr. Vanburgh decided to write a book about Egyptian sculpture. When either thought of something concerning it he would rush to the study, leaving whatever he happened to be doing, and make a note of it. This happened sometimes when they were at the table. When they returned later, sometimes an hour after jumping up and running out, they expected to find their meal still waiting for them. The servants were usually prepared for these flights and returns. One evening when Mr. Vanburgh was greatly inspired, the servant, thinking he would not return, because he delayed much longer than usual, threw his food—the inevitable Egyptian mutton and braised tomatoes—into the garbage pail. When he returned the servant smiled, as only an Egyptian can on such an occasion, and explained that he had taken the food out to the kitchen to keep it hot. I followed him out and watched the cook fish it out of the garbage pail, and titivate it a little with some fresh parsley.

I sat at the table and laughed inwardly while Mr. Vanburgh ate it, wondering what he would say if he knew where it had been. I remember the little thrill I had thinking how neatly he had been tricked.

The book on Egyptian sculpture was privately printed by them and given to their friends.

I learned Arabic from the servants and the Arab children. I learned it in my usual way by acquiring the names of things and learning to describe them afterwards. Grandfather, who spoke fluent Arabic, often corrected me; but I don’t believe he knew how I acquired the language. He was never concerned with the why and the wherefore of things. If they happened, why worry about their instigation?

I was lonely for companions of my own sort. The Arabs were very interesting but I longed for Chester. I wrote letters to him almost every day and told him with a certain amount of pride about my studies and the progress I was making. But I was not to be left long without companions. Grandfather’s house soon became a caravanserai for all sorts of wandering people. They came singly and in groups. They brought their children and their servants. When the house would not hold them grandfather hired a place nearby. Grandmother for ever played the rôle of hostess. Several men made languishing eyes at mother but they made not the slightest impression. Mother was like a certain religious cult of India; she retained her magnetism by permitting no one to contact it.

A French lady, Mme. Devereaux, came to visit us and brought her son and daughter, Georges, a boy of twelve, and Azele, a girl of ten. Georges kissed my hand and clicked his heels together when he met me. I had seen the men in Italy kiss the ladies’ hands hundreds of times but I had never seen little boys kiss the hands of little girls. It did not embarrass me—nothing has ever done that but squeaky shoes—but I wrote Georges off as a “sissy.” Azele was very pretty, very charming, very intelligent, but destined never to catch the eye.

Mme. Devereaux was a widow. Her hair was slightly bleached, her face was slightly made up; everything about her seemed slightly done. Her voice dripped like honey in a thin, sticky smear. She gave the impression of being very frail, very helpless; but, judging from what I have heard of her since she must have been as calculating as a harlot. Then she seemed as cool and dispassionate as a pearl and she reminded my childish mind of a picture I had seen of a saint.

Georges and Azele told me about Paris. There was no city like it in the world. They had been to a dancing school. I insisted upon their teaching me to dance. We would take the gramophone into the library when my lessons with Mr. Vanburgh were finished, and Georges would teach me the steps while Azele put on airs and criticized my movements. What she said made no difference to me. I was going to learn to dance and learn I did—all that Georges could teach me. In exchange for his dancing lessons and Azele’s hints on how to wear my clothes to the best advantage I told them about Hadrian’s visit to Egypt in A.D. 130. I made much of the story of Antinous, Hadrian’s beautiful youth who threw himself into the Nile as a sacrifice to the River god. I pictured Hadrian as inconsolable until he erected temples and renamed the old city of Besa, Antinoöpolis in memory of his favourite. When I told them there was a bust of Antinous in the Louvre, they said there was no such thing or they would have seen it. Then I told them that Queen Hatshepset had married her brother, Thotmes 2nd. Azele said there was nothing wonderful about that, why shouldn’t you marry your brother if you wanted to marry him?

I showed them grandfather’s collection of ushabti, libation cups, funerals jars and scarabs. I took down a strigel from its place on the wall and explained to them that it was used to scrape the hair off the body during the Greek period in Egypt—I insisted upon showing them just how it was used, and Georges extended his leg—putting his foot in my lap—for the operation. The instrument was too dull to shave the hair off his leg, which was as well, for had I been able to use it, I would have done a thorough job while the mood to demonstrate was upon me.

Sufficiently to impress them with their own ignorance—and no doubt to get my own back on Azele for laughing at my dancing—I recited the longest chapters I knew from the Bible. In a way, I felt very superior to them. Their knowledge seemed very frivolous to mine.

I had an Arab pony whom I used to ride into the desert, and when I was far enough away from the village I would cease to control him and let him gallop wherever he liked. We would fly like the wind over the sand, he snorting and drinking the wind, I screaming to him to go faster. Why I was never thrown is a mystery. Perhaps my utter fearlessness saved me.

Grandfather got a pony for Georges and one of the Arab boys taught him to ride; but I don’t think he enjoyed it. Conventional riding in his beloved Paris might have appealed to him, but a frisky Arab pony on the desert was too uncertain. Azele was afraid of horses and nothing would induce her to mount.

Before Georges left he told my mother how I rode and she forbade me to ride unless Mr. Vanburgh accompanied me. Inwardly I resented this; but I soon won Mr. Vanburgh over to my desert gallops. Then we would race each other, making bets on which horse would arrive first at a certain place. I usually won for I had the faster horse.

Grandfather planned a visit to the pyramids for all his guests. A desert sheikh who owned a dahabeeyah offered us the boat for the journey down to Cairo. We stopped on the way down the Nile to visit Luxor. Grandfather had taught me to call it El-Aksur as the Arabs did. His guests followed grandfather like a lot of sheep in and out of the Theban ruins. He explained the festal scenes which are depicted on the walls of the great colonnade. He stood before Amenhotep’s temple, telling us that the building had been rather neglected during Akhenaton’s revolt—when he refused to worship the sun as his ancestors had done—and Tutankhamen had to take a hand in it. I hung on his words like a spider to his thread, but some of the others, almost baked under the hot rays of the sun, had tried to find a meagre shelter behind the broken columns.

For some obscure reason I thought that the great statue of Rameses would move if I watched it long enough. I stood staring at it until one of the ladies told my mother I would surely have a sunstroke. Mother knew better, but she suggested our getting back to the boat.

Mr. Vanburgh had suddenly become very attentive to mother to save himself from the vamping of Mme. Devereaux. Mother, not knowing what inspired his sudden interest, was rather impatient with him. His gallantry would have passed me by too, had not Georges whispered to me that his mother had her eye on Monsieur.

Cars—summoned by a telegram to Cook’s—were waiting for us at Cairo to take us out to the Mena House where grandfather—with the aid of another telegram—had ordered dinner. The garden of the Mena House impressed me then as it has always impressed me—an oasis on the edge of the desert—a cool, green haven where the sting is taken out of the sun by the palm trees and the flowers, and the blossoming shrubs make you forget the miles of trackless sand which lie just over the wall.

We had dinner in the garden on small tables under the trees. An orchestra was playing on the veranda. It all seemed very theatrical, like a painting hung up somehow on the wall of night. Outside the wall it was dark, that blue dark of Egypt. The painted garden seemed to make a hole in the depths of it.

After dinner we went to the pyramids. I could see nothing but a vague outline of them in the dark. There was to be none of the customary moonlight to light up the sphinx. Someone, less romantic than myself, had known that if there was no moonlight to shine on anything else, there would be none to shine on the sphinx, and had brought along a magnesium flare. He touched a match to it and suddenly the sphinx rose out of the desert. It seemed to stride towards us through the shadows. Behind it there was a blue drop with yellow stars sprinkled on it. I saw the great stone face with its broken nose, its full negroid lips, the flush on its cheeks which time cannot obliterate, the reverie in its eyes, the scars on its chest where the excavations had wounded it—and then it was gone—gone back into its mystery.

I was crying. I felt the tears cold on my face. I slipped down on the sand and sobbed. I knew that no one who had seen it under the moon had seen it as I had—for just as it vanished it was opening its lips to say something. I was roused by a voice saying: “Madame wants her fortune told?” Right near me, I could have touched them, Mme. Devereaux and an Arab, Abu Bakt (a fortune-teller, literally the father of luck) were standing.

“How can you tell it here?” she demanded.

“I have the candle,” he said.

He raked the sand into a little heap with his hand and set the candle on the top of it. He crouched down and poked holes in the sand with his finger. “Your husband will be very rich,” he said, “and you will have many children. All will be boys. One will be rich like his father and travel to far lands.”

“You silly fool!” Madame said, “here are two piastres, quite enough for you.” She threw the coin. He found it in a second.

I sought grandfather and soon he shepherded us back to the hotel. Camel boys and dragomen followed us back, hoping we would engage them for the next day.

All night I dreamt of the sphinx. Once it was dancing on the desert with one of the pyramids, its scarred chest bleeding profusely. I must have been talking in my sleep for my mother—I had a bed in her room—woke me and asked me what was the matter. I sat up in bed and told her about my dream, and I tried to explain to her how I had felt when I saw the sphinx. She told me not to be silly. At such times I used to hate her when I was a child. I know better now. Who can change the temperament of another?

The next day I rode a camel. I felt a little sick from the swinging motion, but not for the world would I have admitted it. Georges sat on another gaily-bedecked camel also trying to pretend the motion did not upset him. Azele rode a donkey whose fleas kept her occupied with scratching. Grandfather and Mr. Vanburgh, on camels, accompanied us. A camel-boy walked beside my camel telling me how easy it was to climb the big pyramid (Cheops) on the inside. After riding round the pyramid we got down, or the camels did. Snorting and sputtering, mine lowered himself ever so slowly. Unpleasant things should be done quickly, but he believed in drawing out the agony. I have often wondered why these beasts can get up so much faster than they can get down.

After a lot of persuasion grandfather consented to allow Georges and me to climb the pyramid, the camel-boy going ahead to show us the way. We carried lighted tapers. Much of the way we had to crouch down and almost go on all fours. The chamber of the king being about eighty feet above the chamber of the queen was as nothing to our curiosity. Eagerly we took it in our stride—or rather our crouch. We were disappointed in the chambers. I am a little uncertain as to what we expected to see. The camel-boy explained that the chambers were empty because the king and the queen had been taken to the museum. I scratched my name on one of the stones of the queen’s chamber with the snap that kept my hair out of my eyes. Georges scratched his name with the same instrument. The stone was very hard. I could write only on the very surface of it. Its resistance was recalled to me six years ago when I tried to rent a house in Misr-el-Ghedideh (Heliopolis). Thinking the stones of the floor looked a bit crumbly I asked the Egyptian owner: “Will the floor last?”

“It should,” he answered, “as the pyramids were made of the same.”

Georges and I made up a story, as we crawled down the pyramid, to tell Azele. The mummies of the king and queen were to be in their chambers, with the mummies of their court wearing gorgeous dresses and jewels. They were to have hands and faces of solid gold. Later in the day we told her this story. She insisted upon going back to see the dresses and the jewels. She would endure the climb to see them. She went to grandmother about it. Grandmother, who never in her life failed to see a joke, told her that she must take advantage of things as they came along and not be so frightened of soiling her dress.

I have reason to think that the French family was beginning to get on grandmother’s nerves.

The next day there was a trip planned to Bed Rachine. We children were not taken because grandfather wanted to visit a famous psychic who could extend his vision round the world and lay bare all the hidden secrets. Later, on one of my many journeys to Egypt I visited him. I saw nothing remarkable about him. If he had any power he concealed it the day I saw him.

Mr. Vanburgh stayed at the hotel with us. Towards evening he took us to El-Ahram, the little village near the pyramids. An Arab came out of his tent and made coffee for us in the sand. He dug a hole, made a fire in it, and set the coffee-pot over it. His wife, who wore a yashmak of gold coins, stood in the opening of the tent holding the dirtiest child you can imagine. The poor little mite had sores all over his body—a rash brought out by filth—and matterated eyes on which the flies had settled.

In spite of the gold cascade the woman told us they were very poor. She tried to beg a dress for the baby who had no clothes. How the fastidious Mr. Vanburgh managed to drink the coffee I can’t imagine. He rinsed the cup out well with the boiling mixture before he swallowed any. The Arab brought out two boxes and they sat themselves down and discussed politics. Mr. Vanburgh was a sly old dog who nosed out information from all sorts of sources.

Georges tried, unsuccessfully, to wedge his way into the tent while Azele stood off holding her nose. I asked the woman how old she was. She told me she was fourteen and that she had had another baby. It was dead. She let me pass inside the tent. I suppose this was because I spoke Arabic and she wanted to question me. I answered all her questions and then I decided to question her. “Does it hurt much to have a baby?” I asked her.

She shrugged her shoulders. “Not too much,” she said. She made confinement something quite commonplace and uninteresting. There and then I decided not to have children.

Mr. Vanburgh, having squeezed the Arab dry, called us and we went back to the hotel. My mind still hovered round what the Arab woman told me. Having a baby should at least be dignified by joy or suffering; but instead it was like putting on an old shoe. No wonder the Arabs had so many children. There was nothing to it. When grandfather had explained sex to me he had failed to tell me how easily you had a baby.

That night we watched the dancing in the dining-room. We lingered over dinner as Mr. Vanburgh said nothing about us going to bed early. He, too, seemed to be interested in the dancers. I watched girls in the arms of their partners and wondered if they loved the men they were dancing with, if they would marry them and have babies.

We were in bed and asleep long before the others returned from Bed Rachine. I had intended asking mother about the Bed Rachine pyramids when she came up to bed. Never would I have dreamed of asking her to corroborate what the Arab woman had told me—but I slept soundly and didn’t know she was in the room until the boy brought our tea up in the morning.

We returned to Aswan by train. Grandfather’s guests left singly and in little groups as they had come. Mme. Devereaux, Georges and Azele were about the last to leave.

The house was quiet for a while and then a new assortment of people arrived. They brought no children with them. The youngest of the new guests was a Russian named Peter Evenoff. He was probably about twenty. I fell in love with him, not because he attracted me, but because I thought I should be in love with somebody. No doubt the almost child marriage—although nothing like India—of the Arabs made me think I should give some thought to marriage. I was not very keen on it. I thought it rather foolish; but remembering what the Arab woman told me, I thought, even if humdrum, it would not be difficult.

The Arab women preserve the evidence of their virginity. In fact, this piece of a torn sheet, is usually their most cherished possession. I saw one of these sacred relics at one of the Arab houses. When it was explained to me, I wanted to know if every woman was a virgin until she was married. On being told by an Arab woman that this was a fact, I asked her if she thought I was a virgin. She assured me that I was. I became rather interested in myself and I wondered if Peter Evenoff had any idea of the mystery I concealed. I am sure Peter thought of me as a precocious child—if he thought of me at all. I used to imagine myself kissing him, but I never got to the actual experience. With the exception of a few wild gallops across the desert we were never alone. He rode as I did, without a thought to consequences.

About this time I was very much interested in feet, hoofs and paws. I felt over the extremities of every statue I saw. Even now I never pass a statue representing strength—a lion or a horse—without touching it. Several times I have felt all I could reach of the lions in Trafalgar Square. I have covered with my hands the entire anatomy of the two bronze lions outside the Hong-Kong and Shanghai Bank in Shanghai. Potty? Oh, no; just a peculiarly sensitive sense of touch, which even if blind, would give me pleasure in definite contours.

Can’t you hear the psychologists saying she has some sort of fetish. She has nothing of the sort. The psychologists must have a hidden reason for everything. My interest in feet and my pleasure in feeling the contours of statues, no doubt indicate that I have a secret wish to live with a negro, or to watch the mating of animals or any other desire equally ridiculous. I have often wondered what the psychologists would do without the word complex. That poor old word can carry more on its back than a camel.

Grandfather gave me some modelling clay, and I copied the feet of statues, human feet, the hoofs of the horses, Rex’s and the cat’s paws. I had given up drawing the buildings I saw and the plans of imaginary buildings.

Rex died during our second year in Egypt. I resented his death. I could see no sense in life if death was to be the end. I thought of God as a monster who perpetrated hideous jokes. I left off saying my prayers after Rex’s death.

When I was twelve I began seriously to take an interest in literature, especially French literature. I still prefer it to any other. The French have graceful, bendable minds, which can curve round anything. I read Anatole France’s “Penguin Island” seven or eight times until I was quite familiar with the Penguins. In fact, I made a little penguin out of black and white velvet which I called Anatole. I took Anatole to bed with me every night for some weeks.

Mr. Vanburgh gave me the best of his whimsical original mind during my studies—but along the lines I was going I had to travel alone. I had to think my way through—to get my own impressions. I studied English literature too. Trollope, Bunyan, Swift, the Brontës; then Hardy, Shaw, Wells, Bennett. Shakespeare I came to slowly because Mr. Vanburgh was always talking him up to me. I never liked Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot or Meredith.

I put all the authors away one day and decided to read nothing but poetry. I wanted to soak in the colour of it, for the poets belong with the painters and not with the authors. I read Villon, Blake, Shakespeare’s sonnets, Walt Whitman and Byron. Later I discovered Edgar Allan Poe and I read him for hours on end. I loved poetry then more than anything in the world. I tried to think of poetic words to describe everything I saw. What poetry would fittingly describe the desert, the sunset, the tombs. I was to know later that poetry needn’t describe anything, that the most helpful things must be said in prose, for poetry cannot be expected to turn her beauty to service. I had none of the so-called modern ideas about poetry. Every age produces its moderns. They are as old and as young as Time. While it lasts each group thinks it has the ultimate word. The only thing which makes literature different from the stringing together of words, which to-day is called writing, is the poetic ingredient. I am not saying that much of the writing of yesterday was better than the writing of to-day, but this feverish desire to be what is known as modern, this ridiculing of romance and sentiment, is only the striving to be different. A lot of the present clever writing is such tiresome bunkum! The wish to be sprightly overshadows everything. The poets, on the other hand, are a long way from being sprightly. They wallow in transcendental gush and rare erotic states, insisting that poetry cannot be explained. Rubbish! Poetry is as simple as the smile on a baby’s face and as universal. We find it in all sorts of situations. Why make such a mystery of it? It is quite true that much of what is now called poetry cannot be defined. But is it poetry any more than crooning is singing? It all comes from the wish to own something. Each generation wants its own stamp; something which makes it special and sets it apart from all previous generations. Each age must, willy nilly, do the modern thing. The poets themselves and certain lovers of poetry are trying to keep up this Hindu attitude of secrecy towards poetry. They want it to belong to the few initiates. Poetry is an emotion. Anyone, according to his emotional nature, can get the feel of it as he can get the feel of love and passion. In speaking of the modern writing I have nothing to say against stark naked prose. Often it exposes lovely flesh tones, graceful curves; in short, poetry. I object to the writing which is neither naked nor dressed but which aims at being so damnably clever.

Anatole France said that great writers wrote badly. How can they write any other way? Great thoughts rush out in a torrent. Only the little colourless thoughts trickle out in an orderly stream. Some great writers try to tinker their thoughts. They pull them into line, touch up their faces and make them quite unnatural. Then the harm is done. Better do as the old writer did—I forget which one—let a man ride along on a donkey who had died two or three chapters back. How the reviewers must have crowed over this if there were any at that time! If you can resurrect an animal by the rush of your thoughts without knowing it you are writing as you should write. The opposite of this is what makes Dostoevsky so exhausting. He takes his characters out on a leash like a lot of dogs. Never for one second does he let them have a run on their own.

I am digressing again. Sorry! After reading all the poets we had in the house for months on end I decided to write verse—notice my modesty. Keeping step with my desire to write was a dream lover—an ancient Egyptian ruler who occupied quite a space in my imagination. I had lived with him through many incarnations in different countries. I had learned about reincarnation in my Egyptian studies, and I believed it. The following poem was an attempt to write verse and to describe my shadowy lover at the same time.

Waiting

I saw you in that Temple old
 Lead priestly train with slow advance,
Your hands outstretched to Merodach.
 I dared not raise to you a glance.

When in the greatest Pharaoh’s troops
 I saw your mystic face again
You laid a siege—but to my heart—
 And took me willing captive then.

I still recall the buried day
 With memory I’ve carried o’er,
Our home beneath the desert palm,
 Our life upon the Theban shore.

While Athens with the laurel crown
 Paid homage to her mighty men,
You watched with weary sated mien
 Your happy dancing slave-girl then.

With the masonic Socrates,
 If virtue be but knowledge true
You did discuss; but failed to see
 The burning flame that leaped to you.

Across the Pincian Hills you gazed,
 As the immortal city passed
With mournful dirge. Your vision cleared
 You saw your soul revealed, at last.

To the cathedral’s lofty walls
 Your shaded pane, with note of rest,
Came to admit the only light
 The Christ-child at his mother’s breast.

Adown the aisle the other day
 I saw your black-robed form advance
With eyes downcast and folded hands,
 I dared not raise to you a glance.

The poem was included in a book of verse, “The Red Laugh,” which was published in America some years later.

The hasty writing, which is done to relieve an outburst of emotion, I seldom correct. “Waiting” is this type of writing. As a matter of fact my writing has always been inevitable. While certain publishers have returned it to me because it is “too knowledgeable,” “the story rather lost in good writing.” I suppose they thought I laboured over it.

“Waiting” was first published in one of the newspapers in Egypt. Grandfather read it to the family one night at dinner, without comment. The next day he called me into the study and asked if I had done anything else. I had one or two little things which I showed him. One was the following:

Finis

The girl-moon weeps through smoke-black mesh.
The stars turn away to flash their laughter
   on another planet.
The cold fingers of the hill-mist bruise
   the bosom of the lake.
The leaves faint and fall, crushed
   by the sneer in the voice of the wind.
   You no longer need my love.

He said it was much better than “Waiting.” He asked me if I liked writing better than the feet and paws I modelled. I told him that I intended from then on, to express myself in writing. He laughed and said there was no knowing what I would do next.

I continued to write. I used to wake in the morning with a complete short story in my head I filled reams of paper with these stories and with verses. Most of them have been lost, but the few I still have are very original. I worked at the writing all day and as much as I could steal—without being discovered—of the night. I kept away from the guests who continued to flock to the house—for I wanted to write down the phrases which poured into my mind.

With difficulty Mr. Vanburgh dragged me to my lessons. He tried to force Greek upon me then, to get my mind off the writing. I told him a classical education was a thing of the past—which statement I heard him and grandfather laughing about in the study.

Peter Evenoff had stayed on, waiting for his mother who was coming from Harbin with the intention of settling in Alexandria. I saw him only at meal-time, and the idea that I was in love with him had completely gone out of my mind. I was unaware of him, as of the others at the table.

Then a letter came from Aunt Vera which roused me. She was going to marry Dan Maxwell, the suitor who had followed her to Canada. She had left the ranch some time ago and had rented rooms in Montreal. She must have been at a loose end—lonely, and not caring to come to Egypt—to have married Dan Maxwell. Grandmother was inwardly furious, but she said nothing. It was then she went out and bought the binoculars and sent them to Aunt Vera as a wedding present.

Dan Maxwell was noted for being niggardly. There is a story, told in the family, that he said to Aunt Vera, soon after they were married; “I believe you can make your own clothes, Vera.” “No,” she answered, “but I can make yours.” There was no discussion about dressmakers afterwards.

Aunt Vera had an income of her own. I suppose she shared it with him, but she never turned over the management of it. She lived with him for long periods on end, but she interrupted the monotony of wedded life with travel.

Her letter contained very little about her marriage. She had been married at a registry office with only a few friends besides the witnesses. She said nothing about being happy. Grandfather looked grim for days after the news came. Vera was easily his favourite, and I believe he had something very different in mind for her.

I continued with my lessons in the mornings, and in the afternoons and evenings I read my authors—I had taken them out again and put the poets back on their shelves. I never read poetry and prose in the same week. It was all or nothing with me then, just as it has always been. I made up my mind that I must be good at something—very good. I had a horror of being mediocre. I used to sit for hours thinking over what I could do best, what I wished most to do, what would give me the greatest satisfaction. Never for a moment did I question my ability to reach the goal I had decided upon.

The house guests had brought no children for some time, so the only companions I had of my own age were Arab children. They were not quite so old as I was, for Arab girls do not play after they reach puberty. They put on the veil and become entirely engrossed with the thought of marriage. I had reached puberty. Girls mature early in Egypt. I discussed my new importance with the Arab girls, also my virginity which could not depart from me until I was married. When I told mother that I would be a virgin until I got married she was too astonished to question the sources of my decision.

One day grandmother came to the schoolroom and told me someone wanted to see me. I rushed through the corridor and straight into my father’s arms. He held me off at arm’s length and stared at me. “How you have grown,” he said, “you are almost up to my shoulders—and so weedy.” Then he put his arms round me again and kissed me. He spoke English. I had never heard him speak English before. Grandmother stood watching. There were tears in her eyes. She had to act as go-between and carry messages from father to mother.

Mother refused to see father. All the family, excepting mother, had tea with father on the veranda. Grandfather seemed quite pleased to see him. “Gervée is the image of you,” he told him. I was proud to resemble father, for I considered him quite handsome. He discussed with grandfather plans for taking me to Italy. When mother heard of them she refused, at first, her consent. It was only after a lot of persuasion on grandfather’s part and his promise that Mr. Vanburgh should accompany us that she reluctantly agreed. Father stayed at a nearby hotel until they got me ready for the journey. Mr. Vanburgh was delighted. He hadn’t been to Europe for years.

The journey down to Alexandria wasn’t specially interesting. The thought of Alexandria thrilled me. It would be gorgeous because it had been Cleopatra’s capital. My disappointment was the keener because I expected so much. I have never liked the city and I have visited it dozens of times when I have been travelling round the Near East. I think I know the Near East as well as any commercial traveller whose territory it is. Every hotel in the Levant has filled my hot-water bottle.

We had to wait two days for the boat to Naples. Father asked me what I wanted to see. I told him Cleopatra’s palace. That it was under water would take away much of its charm, but I had to see what the encroaching tides had left of it.

We drove out to it and I climbed on the rocks hoping to see something of the palace. I saw very little—a few submerged tiles. I tried to imagine it as it was when the old queen lived in it. The sea would have come right up to its alabaster stairs, on which she would have stood to wave to the departing Mark Antony when he left by galley for the battle of Actium.

We drove out past Caesar’s Camp. What names places had!—but only names. Caesar’s Camp had broken out in a running sore of ugly houses which later I heard an American refer to as “Egyptian be-Jasus.” Alexandria has nothing to offer but the museum with its relics of the Ptolemies, and that I did not see on my first visit.

*  *  *

The ship had a saloon like a Chinese joss-house. It was all red lacquer and pretention. Its decoration seemed out of place on the sea. Few people were travelling. Father taught me to play deck tennis, but I threw several of the rope-rings in the sea before I learned to use just enough strength on them to get them over the net.

I wrote a short story about the sea-gulls which Mr. Vanburgh thought better than anything I had done. At Naples I begged father to take me to Vesuvius, but he made some excuse. He consented though to my seeing Pompeii.

I wandered up and down the narrow streets of Pompeii trying to imagine how the houses looked when the people lived in them. I wondered if a shower of lava would cover us while we were there. I saw father point out the stone which has the embossed phallus on it, in the house of the courtesans, to Mr. Vanburgh, who slyly stared at it. Why do people make such a fuss about the phallus? You would think it was a rare bird or some exotic plant.

We lost very little time sightseeing in Naples. Even the Aquarium was left for a later day. Several times father had reminded me of my height and my lank appearance. “So tall, and only thirteen,” he would say. I acquired all my height at that age for I am no taller now than I was then. Father’s exclamations about my size made me feel very old. Poor father! always obsessed by youth—a big, brilliant baby snatching at whatever he wanted at the moment. He might have reached almost any height with his brain and his talents—with his charm and power over others—had he not yielded to the lusts of the body until he became their slave. If mother had possessed a little more sympathy, a little more warmth, she might have helped him to overcome his weaknesses, but mother had been educated in England. Father never met with, from mother, anything but cold disapproval. What is the good of communication unless you meet with receptiveness? For satisfactory self-revelation you must know there is to be sympathy and understanding.

I have been the victim of many things, but I have never, like father, been the victim of my senses. I do not mean that I have never been the victim of love, nor do I wish to give love any high-falutin interpretation; but in my case it must be inspired by more than a response from the generative organs.

Father had a villa in Frascati with a balcony that overlooked the Roman hills. It had a beautiful, if rather artificial garden with a fountain where a nymph stood on a rock to catch the water in a big shell and let it drip over her body. I could see the nymph from my bedroom window. I used to get out of bed at night when the moon shone and watch the slow drip of the fountain-water from her shell.

Father had two menservants. The cook was a woman. It amused me to get back to the free and easy attitude of the Italian servants, who discussed your business, shouted at you, and gave you unsought-for advice. My appearance brought forth the exclamation “La Signorina e bella.” Their eyes gleamed with astonishment. They had expected a child to look like the photograph of me thinking Goddamn. I offered to have another one taken if father would discard the early one. He looked me up and down and told me not to bother about it. The fact was I would have been a constant reminder of his advancing years.

My life in Rome was very interesting. Father or Mr. Vanburgh took me to everything. Mr. Vanburgh spoke Italian with a Tuscan accent, because he had lived in Florence when he was a boy. He took me to the Colosseum, the Forum and the Catacombs and taught me their histories on their sites. We used to drive out to the Villa D’Este in Tivoli where he would tell me about the house of the Sybil and the vestal virgins. We usually had dinner in some old osteria where we washed down our spaghetti with the good wine of Tivoli. The wine made me a little heady at first, for I was not in the habit of drinking wine. If I had been brought up in Italy I would have been quite used to it.

I remember a moonlight party at the Colosseum given by Americans. Neither father, Mr. Vanburgh nor I had been invited. I suppose we “butted in” as the Americans would express it. They had brought baskets of food and wine and had spread their contents on a canvas sheet on the ground. One of the men played a ukulele, while two of the ladies danced about singing an Hawaiian song. I never knew how it happened, but suddenly father was dancing with one of the ladies and Mr. Vanburgh was clapping his hands. When the refreshments were exhausted father went to some nearby cellar and brought back several bottles of champagne. I tasted it, but I didn’t like it. One of the Americans, whose lady father had evidently appropriated, asked me all sorts of questions about father. Some of my answers were truthful, others were lies.

I felt a little ashamed of father that night. The young American could not have been very angry with him though, for he, with the rest of the party, came out to the villa to luncheon a few days after our meeting with them at the Colosseum.

Nights when father and Mr. Vanburgh went out without me they came rolling home about two or three o’clock in the morning. When I say they came rolling home, I mean they were in the best of spirits—laughing and singing. Men do not get drunk in Italy. The Anglo-Saxon must have his alcohol—but the Latin can intoxicate himself with fun, music and love. Mr. Vanburgh, while not a Latin, was in Rome doing as the Romans do.

I never had enough of St. Peter’s. The cathedral and the music fascinated me, but mostly I was interested in the confessional boxes and in the gold foot of St. Peter which everyone kissed. I stood before it for over an hour one day trying to make up my mind to kiss it. Each time I thought I could do it some shabby person with an ugly face would stop and kiss it. I had nothing of religious fervour to help me out, so I finally decided that I couldn’t kiss it unless it were washed and my turn came first. I could see the priests’ heads over the top of the confessional boxes. One day when I caught the eye of one, I smiled. He lowered his eyes at once. I used to notice the time certain people stayed in the confessional. Those who stayed the longest, I imagined, had the most interesting sins to confess. I tried to see their faces when they came out. Mr. Vanburgh was not with me on these excursions.

Often when I was alone on the streets young men spoke to me. Greatly daring, I answered them; but when they tried to walk beside me I froze them with a look or a comment. I liked watching the long lines of young priests who continuously filed past in their black robes and violet sashes. To-day this erotic procession sickens me. If the Church hadn’t given the edge to adultery, what would we have invented to arrest nature?

One night, when we were out walking in the older part of Rome, we saw a priest talking to a prostitute under a street lamp. He might have been trying to save her soul; but the scene stays in my memory. At the time I simply knew that the girl was very bold, very vulgar and very painted. I questioned father about her afterwards and he told me about prostitutes; but he said the priest might have been lecturing her on the error of her ways. The dancing girl of Egypt is the same he explained. I suppose I knew that in the deeper part of my mind—the part we do not use every day—but the dancing girls I had never talked with, and the young married women had so extolled virginity that my mind connected its loss only with marriage.

I do not blame the priest even if he were trying to persuade the girl to entertain him, for the ostriches have made his life so unnatural and absurd. I mention this—not to throw any mud at religion—for one religion is as good as another—but to tell of something which made an indelible impression on my young mind. Please do not get the idea that because I do not believe in any creed I have no use for God. I have faith in myself, and somehow God connects up with my idea of myself. Peter could not walk upon the water because he lost his faith. The moment his faith deserted him he began to sink. The other apostles could walk upon the water because they were upheld by their faith. It is the same with every act in life. The moment our faith lets us down we begin to sink. We must know that we can achieve our desires no matter what they happen to be. Faith is an emotion which thrills us to the accomplishment of them.

Before we get too far away from the subject of priests I must tell you what I saw at the flat which father’s mistress occupied. On her wall hung the rope a monk wears to confine his robe. A strange thing for a woman to possess. The sight of it sent my imagination wandering in all directions. I couldn’t ask her how she came by it—neither could I ask father. Could a woman love a monk with a tonsured head? I could imagine no more ghastly deterrent to passion than a tonsured head.

Father introduced me to the lady as his little sister. She looked me over and commented on my resemblance to father. There her interest in me seemed to stop; but not mine in her. She was beautiful, with gorgeous dark eyes and hair which seemed to be painted on her head, so silky and sleek it was. It was parted in the centre and coiled in a simple bun at the back. In fact everything about her seemed to be coiled. Her delicate body coiled into soft languorous postures from which she could spring at a moment’s notice. When I came home I wrote this about her which I found in an old diary. “She is a poisonous tropical witch; a creature thrilling to some unknown passion like a flower which opens at night and cannot be fertilized by the bee. No doubt she dreams of her lips carved in bronze, of her form rigid on a pedestal. The thought of annihilation must drive her into a rage.” The furniture in her drawing-room was covered with flesh-pink brocade. If you had sat down on one of the chairs when you were nude, you couldn’t have told where you left off and the chair began.

Did it ever occur to you that the English and the Americans are the only people who sit on comfortable chairs? There isn’t a comfortable chair in Italy. Only the beds are comfortable. Is there something very subtle and naughty back of this fact?

I rushed to the mirror when we got back to the villa and had a good look at my face. My skin was too fair, my eyes too light—Georges Devereaux had told me they were yellow like a tiger’s—my eyebrows were not heavy enough. I was in despair. I think I cried over my appearance. Only dark women, with ravishing brown eyes and serpentine bodies, could win a place in a man’s heart. Could personality make up for the lack of beauty. If only I could cultivate charm! I would cultivate charm; it was my only hope. I would study the Italian women. I could have chosen no better teachers for they are for ever seeking some man’s approval. Latin women think there is no power like the power of sex. They were right before the war. Now it seems as if no woman is beyond consideration if she has a long stocking.

I became engrossed with love. To win a place in love I must cultivate charm. I worked on the cultivation of charm for a few weeks by studying the postures, gestures and manners of the Italian ladies. Then I tried deliberately to attract several young men. In two cases I was so successful Mr. Vanburgh had to interfere. I was not interested in the young men. I was simply testing my powers of attraction. I felt reassured after Mr. Vanburgh’s second interference. Fair women could win men’s love as well as dark women; charm, properly applied, could do as much as beauty.

Father had a talk with me one day about leaving mother and living with him. He told me to think it over. I did. I decided that father would always be chasing after some woman and I would be left alone to find my own friends. The idea did not appeal to me. I would be better off with grandfather. It never occurred to me that I would be better off with mother or grandmother.

I wrote to grandfather every day, including with my letter a little note to mother. I told him about everything but my visit to father’s lady. Sometimes I hinted that I was longing to see him. Mr. Vanburgh took me to theatres, cinemas and concerts when my lessons were finished. I liked the concerts best. Musical people often came to the villa. I like musical people; they are so irresponsible. They never worry about what is going to happen. Of all the artists they are the most carefree. They have grasped the idea of living from moment to moment; the only sensible way to live. So many people plan to stay here for ever. They arrange long dull futures full of physical and spiritual security. The arrangement of futures does little but allow Governments to swoop down, like a flock of vultures, on carcass after carcass. There is something so obscene about death taxes.

I never tired of the street scene in Rome, the gay young dogs sauntering along, their hats at an angle of forty-five degrees; the women beautifully dressed with their flashing make-up, or their faces innocent of anything but a little powder, the children over-dressed and over-mannered, the self-satisfied strut of the uniforms, the peasant women, their aprons tied round their waists, going to market with their shopping baskets. How the shopping baskets vary in each country! In Italy a long loaf of bread always protrudes; in England the purchases are well tucked in, nothing leans over the edge and tries to look down at the street. The French basket resembles a brimming salad bowl. The French garden also resembles the salad bowl. Salads pay better than flowers; n’est ce pas?

One day I found the building where we had lived before mother had taken me to England. I had been looking for it for some time. I stood on the street and stared up at the flat. It was occupied. The tenants had hung yellow curtains at the windows. I wondered what sort of people they were. I saw a man come out of the front door with a little boy. For a moment I thought of asking him if he lived in our flat; then it occurred to me how foolish it would sound.

When I had been in Rome about six months, grandfather astonished us by writing to us from Canada. The family had left Egypt and gone to Canada. They had taken a house in Charlottetown, the capital of Prince Edward’s Island. Grandfather wrote a glowing account of the Island. Evidently he had closed the Egyptian door for the present. He thought it would be a good thing if Mr. Vanburgh brought me to Canada. The Canadian residence had been inspired by Aunt Vera, who was going to have a baby and wanted to be with grandmother. Also, I think, she wanted an excuse for leaving her husband for a while.

I was very keen on going to Canada, I adored seeing new places, and above all, I wanted to return to grandfather. I loved my father but I felt his love was distributed over a very considerable area. At first he didn’t want me to go, but he soon came round to my way of thinking and started making plans with Mr. Vanburgh for our departure. We were to sail from Havre to New York. We would go on the train from New York to Boston, from which port there would be a boat going to Charlottetown.

The day before we left father referred, for the first time, to the window. He put his arm round me and said: “I hope you will like the windows in Canada. I sent grandfather a cheque for the window he replaced.” I kissed him and told him the aunts were very dull. “Your mother arranged that,” he said. “I would have had you with me, but she wouldn’t consent to it.” He spoke without resentment.

I clung to him at the station while we watched the guard stacking the luggage on to the train. Did something tell me I would never see him again? I cried for about an hour after the train left. I can still see him, the sun glinting on his hair as he waved his hat to me.

The journey to Havre was depressing. No doubt I carried the depression with me. I remember hazy wet landscape flashing past. I would turn from it to the notices in three languages reminding you that a lavatory was provided. The Continental trains make such a fuss about announcing their lavatories!

The depression left me before we sailed. I wrote several short stories and a poem on the boat. There were no young people on her and the patronage of older people left me cold. Such an opportunity for writing! I seldom left the writing-room only to go to the saloon for meals.

Mr. Vanburgh had a serious flirtation. The lady was a widow, a little fat but quite pretty. I think he proposed to her. If he did she turned him down, for I heard no more about her. He seemed quite cut up when he bade her good-bye, and rather preoccupied during the rest of the journey.

I think he had many infatuations which ended up in the air and never got down to brass tacks like father’s affairs.

The journey from Boston to Charlottetown was more interesting. We saw several whales and I was thrilled going through the Bay of Fundy, which has the highest tides in the world. The ship climbed the mountainous waves, then plunged down in the green valleys. It seemed she would never come up—then, staggering as if she were drunk, she would pull herself together and ascend the next one. Most of the passengers were seasick. Finally Mr. Vanburgh left me, and went below looking very white. I leaned against the taffrail, plunging and mounting with the ship.

We were soon through the bay. The passengers began to appear again and I rushed below for some dry clothes. I was wet to the skin.

We got to Charlottetown at night. The little city was ablaze with light. Grandfather was waiting for us, and as soon as the formalities were over he came on board. With a bound I had my arms round his neck, pouring a stream of questions into his ear. He could scarcely disentangle himself to shake hands with Mr. Vanburgh.

It was not until we were in the carriage—grandmother had insisted upon a carriage with two horses because she was sick of cars—that he had a chance to answer some of my questions. He told me how they had left the house in Egypt with old Abdul—one of the servants—and his son as caretakers. He was still paying the rent for the house. The curios had been packed in camphor-wood boxes. One of the neighbours was looking after my pony. He described the new house in Charlottetown. Said how glad he was to have Aunt Vera home again. I kept asking questions and scarcely noticing his replies. The new city had most of my attention. It was English, but so different from England. The people were quite handsome, tall with good physiques. The shop windows looked quaint and old-fashioned compared with the window displays of Rome, which were fresh in my mind.

Would I like it here? What was going to happen to me in this new country?

Chapter III

We stayed in Charlottetown only long enough for Aunt Vera’s baby to be born. It was born three months after I arrived—and what an impression its birth made upon me. Doctors and nurses rushed about the house, which smelled of disinfectants and diapers for days.

The baby was a girl. She smiled and wiggled her toes all day and cried all night. Someone, grandmother or a nurse, was for ever warming a bottle for her. She looked very red and wrinkled. There is something positively senile in the appearance of an infant. It doesn’t begin to look like a baby until it is a few weeks old. Aunt Vera looked at it in a puzzled way, trying to achieve the usual amount of maternal feeling. I decided never to have any children. They were so ugly and made such a disturbance in the house. I asked grandmother if all babies were as ugly as ours. She told me that ours was a beautiful baby.

Soon my mother undertook the care of my little cousin. The child seemed to fill some place in her life which I had never filled. Looking back on it I think her unfortunate experience with father so embittered her while I was a child she never knew the real state of her feeling for me.

The house we had in Charlottetown was an uninteresting barn of a place. I met no one there, for Aunt Vera’s condition made entertaining impossible. We had two servants, who divided the work between them. Neither of them could cook satisfactorily. Grandfather, in despair, cooked his food and mine in a chafing dish. What messes! I should have preferred the inevitable joint and potatoes turned on by the servants for the rest of the family.

Aunt Vera’s doctor said the country would be much better and he suggested a place called Great Trackedy Beach. Aunt Vera was up again, looking very frail but with her usual determination to have what she wanted. She went out in the carriage to visit railway offices and tourist bureaux, but she had no intention of taking the doctor’s advice. She wanted to be quiet and live out of doors. Great Trackedy Beach sounded like a first-class hotel with crowds of people littering the promenades. Someone told her of a place called St. Peter’s Bay. It was quiet, as a matter of fact no one ever went there. There was no hotel. Some farmer might take us in.

I don’t know how she managed to talk the family into such a wild journey. We were little better than gipsies at any time; but we usually knew where the caravan was going to rest.

We started for St. Peter’s Bay, baby and all, not knowing where we would spend the night. We arrived towards evening at the Bay and after a lot of persuasion the man who kept the general shop allowed us—all but mother and the baby, who had the vicar’s “best bedroom”—to sleep upstairs over the shop.

The next day Aunt Vera and I hired the only thing on wheels which we could find at the Bay and started out to have a look at the place. There was only one road and we were told by the shopkeeper that when we came to the end of it the only thing we could do was to drive back. Grass grew in the middle of the road. The road looked as if it were never used. We drove to the end of it, meeting nothing all the way. As we were about to turn round and go back we saw an old man leaning on a gate looking at us. “Is there anything but this road? “ Aunt Vera asked him.

“There is the road through the woods on my place out to the Gulf” (the Gulf of St. Lawrence), he answered. He was opening the gate as he spoke. We drove in. He told us to follow him and he would show us where the road started. The old horse plodded along after him to the edge of a spruce forest. He pointed out the road and said: “It be four miles to the Gulf.”

We plunged into the wood. I have seen some virgin forests in my life, but never any to compare with that one. It was almost as dark as night. The interlacing branches were so dense we could scarcely see anything of the noon sun. Spruce needles made a thick carpet under the horse’s hoofs. His movement made no sound whatever. Little cones fell every now and then, making a little singing noise in the air. Insects shrilled and a brook gurgled in the distance. Thousands of tiny flies danced down the only shaft of light that crawled through the branches. It was a fantastic, unreal forest filled with strange perfume and mystery.

Suddenly we came out on the beach. It might have been the dawn of creation. There wasn’t a sign of habitation as far as the eye could see. Little sand dunes overgrown with wild wheat dotted the beach for miles like green puff-balls. Great lazy combers rolled in, tossing their spume in the air, where it glittered in a crystal shower. My mind passed into a trance. I flung myself out of the cart and ran down the beach, shouting. I felt utterly liberated. “I shall never leave this place, I cried; “never.” I threw myself down on the sand and refused to move. In vain my Aunt Vera reminded me of the dark forest. Perhaps animals came out at night. We had no lantern. They would come looking for us. I wasn’t listening.

Presently the sun, a huge ball of flame, sank into the Gulf, staining the dusk with red. Stars winked themselves out from rags of pink cloud. Leisurely a little sand got up from the dunes and whirled away. The forest started her evening song. A young moon got up and tried to stand on one of the tall spruces. I was taking in every detail of the scene, intending to write a poem about it. In fact I had written several lines of it in my mind, when I heard a man’s voice saying, “I thought you were lost.” The farmer, on horseback with a lantern hanging to his saddle, came out of the forest. Aunt Vera said something about always causing other people trouble. She was angry with me. She did not speak to me until we got back to the farmer’s house.

We followed him through the forest, the light of his lantern looking like a light at the end of a tunnel. We met the family in the farm-house kitchen; the old lady his wife, two sons who worked on the farm, and three daughters who, as it proved later, did a large part of the house-work and looked after the dairy. Very tactfully Aunt Vera asked them if they would take us to board. We were very easily suited, we didn’t care what we had to eat, the baby never cried—in fact, ours was an ideal family. They agreed to take us. They would give us five rooms at the end of the house. Fortunately the rooms were far enough from their quarters, so the baby’s howling would be somewhat deadened by the intervening rooms. The arrangement of the price Aunt Vera left to grandfather. She was so pleased with herself, and the wonderful time she would have living out of doors, that she forgot to find fault with me for staying on the beach.

The following day we moved into the farm-house. Mr. Sanderson, the farmer, had a dispute with grandfather about the charge. The dear old patriarch didn’t want to charge us for the rooms, and for the food only about half as much as it was worth. Grandfather insisted upon paying him the usual rate for such accommodation. The old dear’s pride was hurt, but he reluctantly agreed to take the amount grandfather suggested. He was rich—as riches matter. They raised almost everything they used. For the few necessities which the land did not yield, they exchanged their produce.

Grandfather and Mr. Vanburgh occupied one room, my mother and the baby another. Grandmother had a room to herself, Aunt Vera and I shared a room; this arrangement left us a sitting-room. Beds—it seemed to me dozens of them—appeared from a loft. We chose the best of them. We put two in each room, excepting grandmother’s—where there was already a big four-poster with a canopy over it.

A life of wonder began for me—the wonder of the eighty odd milch cows whose milk was collected into long cylinders, which stood in the spring to separate the cream from the milk until the man from the cheese factory came to take away the cream and leave the milk for the pigs—the wonder of the pigs, with their little pink babies, who ate bushels of mashed potatoes with the milk from the cylinders. The wonder of the big iron pot, which I could stand in, which rested on bricks in a shed, where a fire was made under it to boil the potatoes for the pigs. The wonder of the threshing machine which stood in another shed where the grain was carried to it, and the wonder of the harvesting of the grain. The wonder of the sheaves of golden wheat—I was allowed to coil strands of the wheat together, making a belt to put round the sheaves—the wonder of the sheep who were dipped one by one in a great vat of disinfectant to kill the ticks on them before shearing—the wonder of carding the wool and watching Mrs. Sanderson spinning it on her spinning wheel, and then weaving it on a loom into a coarse fabric, called drugget, which one of the daughters made into coats and trousers for the men to wear on the farm—the wonder of seeing straw plaited into the big shady farmer-hats to wear in the sun—but above all the wonder of having everything you wanted without spending any money.

I went with the daughters to the general shop—where we had stayed—while they exchanged eggs for sugar and tea and cloth to make their Sunday frocks. I became so excited choosing the cloth for them I would dance round the shop holding bolts of various materials against their faces. I would choose stockings and lace collars for them, promising more eggs the next time we came to the shop. One of the daughters was fresh and pretty in an uddery way. I turned out my trunks and got mother to turn out hers to find little things—artificial flowers, scarfs, belts and beads—which would do on her. She adored our gifts because they came from “foreign parts.”

Mrs. Sanderson taught me how to weave the drugget. The spinning I did very badly. I couldn’t keep the yarn from knotting. I was permitted to skim the heavy clotted cream off the pans of milk which stood on benches in the earth-floored dairy for the use of the family. We each had a jug of cream with our porridge at breakfast. I used to run to the kitchen and “put the kettle on” if I saw anyone coming down the road. The house kept up its tradition of hospitality; every one who entered the gate—if only a pedlar—must have a cup of tea and a slice of bread and butter.

I liked working in the fields—raking together what they missed when they loaded the hay on the carts. With big splashers over my shoes, sowing seeds in the furrows after the plough. I learned how to plough a straight furrow. One of the sons—a huge boy of seventeen, with muscles like steel and long-lashed grey eyes, tried, in a very clumsy way, to make love to me. No doubt he judged me to be older than I was. I had no time for him. I have never been a Lady Chatterley.

Grandfather had a second blooming. He insisted upon working in the fields with the farm hands, who were recruited from all over the island and lived in a house by themselves. Years dropped from him like discarded clothes. His eyes shone, his hair became vital, standing up on his head like the needles of a porcupine. His body seemed to be tireless. He was up at cock-crow and in bed at dark. Grandmother became the life of the house with her witty sayings. She made everyone laugh; it was always like that with grandmother. She died with a joke on her lips—but I shall tell you about that later. What grandmother had said about the baby was true—she was beautiful and she continued to grow more beautiful each day, until, as a girl of twenty, she died suddenly of double pneumonia.

She had stopped crying. She slept all night without waking for bottles. Everyone loved her. Grandfather got her a pram from the general shop and mother took her out in the woods and the fields. As a matter of fact she came inside only to sleep. Mr. Vanburgh, quite at a loose end after stuffing me each day with Canadian history and legends of the North American Indians—thank God he never put me through the conventional mind-drill—followed mother and the pram about. Mother still pretended to be unconscious of his attentions. Unlike the rest of us he seemed not to like farming. At times he took care of a little flower garden which Mrs. Sanderson had made in the corner of a field. It was filled with old-fashioned, homely flowers and bordered with red geraniums. You always see geraniums in respectable places. I wonder if Beverley Nichols has them on the garden path.

Aunt Vera stayed out of doors, her nose stuck in a book—she had books sent down from Charlottetown—or a bit of knitting in her hands. She seemed to be quite contented to laze in the sun. She wrote to her husband twice a week, telling him how the baby was thriving and hinting that she might not do so well if she left the island.

Sometimes we would all go out to the Gulf and have lunch on the beach. A little cart would be loaded with lunch baskets which Mrs. Sanderson had prepared for us. Aunt Vera drove the cart; she and mother and the baby occupying the one and only seat. Grandmother went on horseback, Grandfather (he would have disdained the assistance of any sort of vehicle in those days), Mr. Vanburgh and I walking. I remember sitting on the beach one day and looking at mother’s face. Her fine profile was outlined against the sun, her hair reddish-gold in that dazzling light went back from her brow in big loose waves; her neck was firm as a little rounded column. I wondered why it had never occurred to me before that she was much more beautiful than the woman father had taken me to see in Rome. That woman had to be made up to the nines to emphasize what beauty she possessed. Here was mother, without even powder on her face, looking like a goddess risen from the sea. But what good was her beauty! Poor mother, she could never get over the failure of her first surrender. I suppose Mr. Vanburgh was fascinated by her beauty and perhaps the utter waste of it made him furious.

Mr. Sanderson had a sailing boat on the Gulf. Sometimes he came out with us, and after sharing our picnic on the beach, he and grandfather would go fishing. Fishing there was almost too easy. They usually caught two or three big fishes which Mrs. Sanderson baked in the oven with pounds of butter over them.

There were two streams on the place into which no one had ever thrown a line until we arrived. You may think this a fish story, but actually mother and Aunt Vera caught forty trout one day in one of the streams. They were frightfully disappointed when Mrs. Sanderson, who had undertaken to prepare the fish for us, pickled them in a barrel of brine—because, as she explained, “they were too small for anything else.” They were as large and as pink as the trout you see in New York or London, but she was used to the big cod and haddock from the Gulf, one of which would have fed half a dozen people. We were also disappointed when we brought home big luscious crabs from the Bay, for Mrs. Sanderson would say: “Don’t eat them things, We never do.” Grandfather—fearing they might have the same fate as the trout—would bring out his famous chafing dish, which he had stuffed into the laundry bag when he was packing—and proceeded to “devil” them. He devilled and bedevilled them with red pepper until no one could touch them. Mrs. Sanderson got her own back when she saw the devilled crabs which were a “a great delicacy” thrown out on the ground.

I don’t think the Sandersons really liked me. Simple people do not like me. I think it is because I am naturally secretive. Even as a child I kept a lot to myself. Traits which we are to need as we grow older are apt to develop in childhood. Even now as I am telling you my secrets there are moments when the old habit of silence tempts me to put down my pen; for often in my life the only thing which stood between me and disaster was my habit of secrecy. But I must get it all down on paper. I must tell it myself and not have others telling it by piecemeal—so out with it, Gervée all of it—tell it all. The Hindus are right to have their Fagwa. At Fagwa they swear, they say all sorts of dirty words, they squirt red ink at each other. This yearly explosion purifies the system.

Sometime every day I walked out to the Gulf. I went alone. If anyone suggested going with me I made some excuse. I wanted to stand alone in the forest listening to the silence. I used to sit down on the spruce needles and feel the forest close round me like a cloak. I wrote a poem about it. It also was published in “The Red Laugh.” On the beach I would run wild, jumping over the little sand dunes, trying to send my voice far out across the sea, swaying as the trees did, pretending my arms were the branches. When I was thoroughly tired I would throw myself down on the sand and let the stories and verses tumble out of my head. The stories were too easy, but when I tried to put a conventional polish on them they became stiff and ridiculous. Sometimes I took paper and pencil with me to write the verses. Some verses came out as little buds. When I couldn’t make them open out I tore them up. You can’t rewrite a poem. I believed then that words were like the Arab songs; that they had their time and place. There were words to sparkle in the sunlight, and words, strangely intimate, to be spoken at night.

Several times I thought of sneaking out to the Gulf at night; but there was always someone about, or I fell asleep and forgot about it.

We used to go to church with the Sandersons. Grandfather always accepted the religion of the people he visited. If he happened to be visiting a Buddhist or a Mohammedan he would go along with him to the temple or the mosque; and grandfather was the bell-wether of the family. We followed him wherever he led. The church was known as St. Peter’s, and quite appropriately, as it was situated at the head of St. Peter’s Bay. The farmers looked comic as they filed into church wearing their Sunday clothes and Sunday manner, which were less becoming than the clothes they wore in the fields.

Before we were aware of it autumn had sloped into winter. Winter resembled Whittier’s “Snow Bound.” “We sat the clean winged hearth about,” until we were utterly sick of it; but before we arrived at this state I had been enchanted with the new wonders of the winter. The cows and horses had stoves at either end of their long stables. I used to visit them watching the steam arise from bodies as they munched their grain and hay. I tried to learn to milk a cow but I never could get the hang of it.

The Sandersons stored the winter vegetables in a pit under the ground; the pit was covered over with bricks and cement. A trap door was raised to disclose the steps which went down to the pit. Often several feet of snow had to be shovelled off the door before it could be lifted. I liked going down into the pit to bring up the yellow turnips and the potatoes.

I used to stand at the windows watching the snow fall. There is something hypnotizing about gently falling snow. But you can have too much of it when it piles itself up as high as the tops of the windows. Making white tunnels through the snow was great fun—at first. The winter pleasures soon palled. We got on each other’s nerves. The baby became restless because she couldn’t go out. Mr. Vanburgh—who believed he had done as much for me as he could—was longing for his home in Egypt. He owned a little place in Ein Shems, which he had rented when he came to us. It had been unoccupied for some months, and he was afraid it would go to rack and ruin if he didn’t get back to it. His desire to leave was emphasized by mother’s indifference. Aunt Vera said awful things about the country and she threatened to become potty if we didn’t leave. Even grandmother’s gay spirit was drooping its head.

We decided to return to Charlottetown. Grandfather was still paying the rent for the Charlottetown house. He was for ever paying the rent of two or three houses; not knowing which one he might wish to pop into. He said we could stay at the hotel until he found servants and got some heat in the house. We left in a howling snowstorm. How we ever got to the station God alone knew. The baby looked like a little snow man before we shook the snow off her at the station. Her poor little face was drenched with snow. It lay so heavily on her eyelids she couldn’t open her eyes.

Mr. Sanderson and one of his sons drove us to the station in their two “wagons.” Sometimes we had to shovel places in the road before we could get through. When I saw them put the snow shovels on the wagons I knew we were in for it. Several Indians passed us wearing snowshoes, their forms looking like heaps of snow.

The Sandersons thought we were quite mad. I was not so keen on leaving as the others. I had visions of myself out in the forest where the snow could scarcely penetrate. How I could have got through the snow to the forest had not occurred to me. I thought we might endure the winter for the sake of the summer. Sometimes, when I think of that lovely beach, a longing grips me, so intense, I want to drop everything and go there! Often, in the confines of what is known as civilization, I feel that I must saturate myself with the peace of lonely places or become mad.

We spent one night in the Hotel in Charlottetown. The next day grandfather found the general maid we had before we went to the country, and she managed to produce a cook. The house had a hot-air furnace and soon it was very comfortable—so far as warmth was concerned. I hated that house. I soon hated Charlottetown. I was to hate it for four years. The people who came to the house were nice. They came from nice homes where they served nice teas in nice drawing-rooms. Cigarettes were passed in a nice conventional box with silver corners. Everybody said “quite” as they do in England. The men had minds like a Chinese box of boxes. Each box you opened contained another box. The tiny one at the centre was a box like the others. They unwrapped thought after thought from their minds, but the innermost was like the outermost. Their thoughts were one idea repeated and repeated. Do not for a moment think I am describing all Canadians, for I have been to “the great open spaces where men are men.”

Mr. Vanburgh left for Egypt. Aunt Vera’s husband came and insisted upon her returning to Montreal with him. They had a stormy session. Another storm broke when Aunt Vera said she was going to leave the baby with mother. Dan Maxwell, delighted with Natalie’s appearance (they had named her Natalie after a lot of discussion), had suddenly got the idea he liked being a father. The child was left with mother in spite of his protestations.

After Aunt Vera and her husband had departed the house settled down to dull routine. Grandfather lost the youth he had acquired in the country. Grandmother and mother found no congenial companions. The young people I met couldn’t understand me. I had lived in too many places and had too many unconventional ideas. Grandfather and I still had long discussions about Egyptology, science and religion; but I was learning to rely on myself. I wrote several poems, a number of short stories and a play which I called “The Modern Phoenix.” It was published later by The Cornhill Company of Boston.

I again began to draw, but I discovered that I had become better with colour than line. I made some weird futuristic attempts which I have lost or thrown away. I was interested in stage dancing—I have always been interested in dancing—I found a teacher who put me through a few paces, but was too inhibited to teach me very much.

I got sick from utter weariness I think. I went to a doctor who was recommended to us. He was quite young, with roguish eyes and a white-toothed smile. He asked me a lot of indecent questions. My answers seemed to interest him, so I tried not to disappoint him by having complaints that were too common. The science of medicine gives a man such privileges. Imagine any other total stranger inquiring about your ovaries! He gave me some sort of tonic which did nothing for me. I knew, of course, that no tonic would relieve boredom.

One day, near the end of our fourth year, grandfather threw in his hand: “I am sick of the place,” he said, “let us go back to Egypt.” I was keen to leave the Island, but I did not want to return to Egypt. I wanted to go to Boston or New York on my own and show my work to some publishers. I dreamed of a studio, decorated with hangings and pottery, where I could write. Somehow I would get acquainted with journalists, authors, actors and musicians.

I mentioned my desire to grandfather and we had a family conclave. Grandfather and grandmother were for me, but mother was against me. She said I was too young to live alone. I would get into trouble. Perhaps I might be ill with no one to look after me. The majority won the day and grandfather promised me a monthly allowance. I was so delighted at the prospect of running my own show I could scarcely eat or sleep.

The day I was to sail I felt a momentary sinking of heart. Could I leave them after all? I loved each one with a difference, but with intensity. I kissed them many times, wept on their shoulders, told them over and over again how I would miss them. I squeezed the baby until she cried. On the ship I had a last doubtful moment. Seeing me waver, grandfather made fun of me. What an Alexander I would make, going out to conquer new worlds when I couldn’t tear myself away from my family. I watched them until they were but tiny specks on the quay, then, my heart heavy as lead, a lump in my throat, I went to my cabin and had a good cry.

Neither the whales nor the Bay of Fundy attracted me on that voyage. I wandered round the ship like a lost soul, answering people who spoke to me but making no conversation. I did not pull myself together until Boston had been sighted.

Chapter IV

I had been in Boston some weeks before I found the studio. I was tired enough of “apartment houses” before I discovered it. Usually I rented two furnished rooms by the week in an apartment house and got my meals at any restaurant I happened to be near at meal-time. Once I tried a boarding house in Brookline, which town, I was told, had more millionaires than any place of its size in the world. There were some fine estates in Brookline, but otherwise there was nothing to indicate its great wealth. Street after street of terraces meandered in every direction. Usually there were three or four apartments in each one. Some of the houses were not divided into apartments. The tenant would rent the entire house for his private use, or to run as a boarding house.

A widow and her son managed the house in which I lived. They were smug respectable people while the boarders were about, but when they were washing up in the basement kitchen they hurled some filthy abuse at each other. The son had a robust line of profanity. There was something Elizabethan about it. I had the “back parlour,” which location gave me the full benefit of the row underneath. The front parlour was used as a dining-room. There was no sitting-room for the guests.

To overcome this deficiency the lady who had the first floor front invited anyone who wished to accept her hospitality into her room in the evenings. She served a second coffee and cigarettes. Sometimes she had to tell her visitors to clear out so she could go to bed. I went in several times. I never heard any gossip. The Americans mind their own business. They are a little exasperating, however, when it comes to giving you advice. Everyone knows just what you should do.

One woman who visited the room was a dwarf. She was not deformed. She looked like someone seen from a very high window. She was an astrologer. She had an office in Boston. She told me one night that all the trouble in my life would be caused because I had Capricorn in the mid-heaven at birth. No matter what I did Fate would play a very important part in my life. God knew she was right. She introduced me to a girl, Agnes G., who was an illustrator of fashion. She worked for several of the larger shops, copying their dresses for advertisement in the daily and Sunday papers. She also made some drawings for book wrappers. She was very different from anyone I had met up to that time. She had no beauty, yet she produced the effect of being beautiful. Studying the effect you decided it came from a vivid awareness and the knack of smart dressing. Her clothes were so simple they couldn’t be copied. She had dancing brown eyes and an unusually good complexion. She arranged her short hair to give the appearance of it never being combed.

She was in a way extravagant; but she had little provident tricks. One was keeping her best nighty in tissue paper in case she might meet some man she wanted to go to bed with. She had rooms “in town” (Boston) on Arlington Street, but she was looking for a studio. When I told her that I hoped to find a studio she suggested we share one. Each of us would buy half the furniture and we would share the expenses. I thought the plan a good one. She, knowing Boston better than I, would find a studio.

She found one in the Fenway studios in Fenway Park. It consisted of a living-room, two bedrooms, bath and a tiny kitchen. I was delighted with it. The views from the window were good and the light was excellent. I gave up my ideas of hangings and pottery when I discovered their cost. We furnished the living-room, which was to be her studio, very simply, with several occasional chairs, two long tables, a writing desk, a couch-bed—for which I bought a silk cover and some cushions—and a large mat. From her previous quarters she sent two large easels and a floor lamp. We each bought the entire furnishings for our bedrooms. As I was to write in mine I bought a roll-top desk which I could lock, a settee bed—known as a Davenport in America—two arm-chairs, a little table and a long mirror. Later I acquired two Turkish mats for the floor. Agnes furnished her room with plain deal which she painted green, and when the paint was dry she threw (literally threw) some design on it which looked like purple mushrooms upside down.

She and her friends were to furnish me with a liberal education. As soon as the studio was ready we had a party. She said it would give me a chance to meet some “regular fellows.” The fellows I met however were most irregular. They were girls, fourteen of them, dressed to look—in so far as they could manage it—like boys. They made the necessary concession to the law with their skirts. For the rest they wore boy’s coats, hats, shirts, collars and ties. They were called Sammy, Chappie, Billie, Johnnie, etc. They threw their hats on the floor, showing their very mannish hair cut. They had tried to cultivate deep voices, but in this effort they were unsuccessful. They smoked incessantly; until you couldn’t see across the room. They drank gin like water. They berated men. Men were a sort of luxury the world didn’t need. They did admit that men were necessary to keep the race going, but they thought that women who wanted to be free had a right to turn their backs on the race. They posed as Lesbians; but I am sure there was not a Lesbian amongst them. I think any serious suggestion of Lesbianism would have sent them flying to cover. They were simply would-be modern girls who had to rebel against everything that existed solely because it existed.

They tore certain artistic reputations to pieces; not to be unkind—just for the love of what they considered analysis. I learned from them that Greek was a washout—that the Greek authors were old fools who had nothing but age to recommend them—that they spoiled any decent intellect who took them seriously. Sappho was all right so far as she went, but any number of young American poets “had her left at the post.” The English poets, with the exception of the very modern ones, “spilled a lot of sap” in their efforts to become “the king’s canary” (the poet laureate).

They talked socialism, communism, sex. They had no very definite ideas about them, but they had a lot of rancour to pour out of their minds.

One girl, after several gin slings, became personal. She explained how her mother, at the age of fifty, had to marry to save the family honour. They were so in debt the mother had to do something about it. The good lady told her daughter, after her marriage to a younger man, that it was awful being pawed over at fifty when passion had deserted you. The girl concluded her story with the remark: “Some women make such foolish sacrifices for their children.” Nobody laughed. They went into a long dissertation about women and sacrifice. Two of them who had lost their powers of locomotion, were put to bed by Agnes on the couch-bed—it extended—in the smoke-filled living-room. The others jammed their boy’s hats on and left. Agnes promised two or three of them keys to the apartment so they could come in any time. I discouraged her generosity and the keys were never made. Strangely enough the girls made little impression upon me. I thought them freaks and I saw no reason for cultivating them. While I am on this subject I will mention one more incident. I was having dinner one night with Agnes in a restaurant when a person, sitting on a bench against the wall, tried to flirt with me. I thought it was a man, but when it went out it was wearing a skirt. She might have been a genuine Lesbian, but I believe she was another smart young thing. It is my conviction—with all due respect to Havelock Ellis, Kraft-Ebbing and their colleagues—that there are dozens of would-be experimenters to every congenital Lesbian.

The girls came often to the apartment, singly, in pairs and in a group. They were not the only friends Agnes had, however. Men of all ages and conditions came, mediocre, brilliant, famous in American arts, well known on the Stock Exchange, filthy from contact with politics. Each talked on his favourite subject and I learned a lot from them. They tried to make love to us frequently as if it were expected of them. When they saw there was just as much gin and just as many cigarettes without it they seemed relieved.

One of the men gave me a letter to Walter Reid, who was Director of the Cornhill Publishing Company. I made an appointment with Mr. Reid over the phone, gathered up my poems and went to see him in a flutter of excitement that almost choked me.

He was a tall restless man with the southern drawl and very piercing eyes. He cast an exploring glance at me and offered me a chair. “I know something about poetry,” he said, “I write it myself. If you care to leave your manuscript with me I will let you know our decision as soon as possible.”

How often was I to hear those same words! He asked me questions about the countries I had lived in, especially Egypt. I felt that he was leading me on. I usually get some sort of impression of the people I talk with, but I couldn’t fit him into my mind anywhere. Most of my poems—excepting those I had written at St. Peter’s Bay and the Egyptian ones—were on various phases of the war. I had seen nothing of the war, but I had heard it discussed for hours on end by my family. My childhood journeys were before the war and my later journeys had been made after the war was finished. We heard nothing of my father’s part in the war, for he wrote no letters to mother or any member of the family at that time.

I felt very bitter about the war. I could see nothing to justify the wholesale slaughter of innocent men. Can anything justify Governments for heaping up mountains of innocent dead—their blood running in rivers—their eyes set, with the fixed stare of death, in their ashen faces—their hair clotted with brains and mud—the flesh sunken away from the hideous grin of their teeth—their bodies left for pestilence to ravage—their animals, no lesser heroes, writhing in agony, dying by inches, unnoticed and not understanding; their loyalty that man has betrayed left to the crows and the rats? All the hells of all the religions are sweet havens of rest by comparison.

One of my poems, “The Institution,” was printed in many of the American newspapers. It found its way even to the Pacific Coast. Here it is:

I sit here
In the great palm-trimmed room.
At one end a fire-place
Extends yellow and blue shoots
To the darkness of the chimney.
From the windows I can see
How a landscape artist
Has exposed his genius
For the Institution.
I eat good food
And dress warmly.
My bed is a dainty white affair
Softly patted by women.
I read books and play games.
I could walk beyond the grounds—
But I must keep my poise.
Outside the Great Powers are busy,
Great Statesmen who occupy
The seats of the Mighty.
Great Men in long black robes
Who stand on platforms
Gazing at open books.
Great Men who are sweetly inconsistent,
For they call a place of kindred spirits, hell.
The Great Powers are busy, very busy,
Busy conscripting conscience,
Busy conscripting souls.
Never since this dirt-ball
Amalgamated all its particles
Has life upon it been so busy,
Or so beautifully ordered.

I sit here reading
In the great palm-trimmed room.
The world rushes by outside
Bent upon its important work.
The voices of the Great Powers
Reach the Institution
Only as a distant hubbub,
For we here are “insane,”
Thank God.

It was included in the manuscript I left with Mr. Reid.

He kept his word about letting me know his decision as soon as possible—in this he differed from many publishers I have since met. He phoned to say they had decided to publish “The Red Laugh.” I almost dropped the receiver. I began to cry and he couldn’t get any sense out of me. He hung up and wrote me a letter, with which he included a contract.

For several days I walked on air. My mind hovered over a lot of things but it wouldn’t settle on one. It had always been like a bee alighting on one flower at a time, sipping all the honey and then passing on to the next in an orderly way. Now it was like a moth fluttering foolishly round little flames that any breath of wind could extinguish.

I sent a cable to grandfather—the family had returned to Egypt—telling him my good news. Each thing; such as sending the cable—which reminded me of my good luck—made me more excited. My head was bursting with verses and stories, but I couldn’t get them down on paper. Agnes was no help whatever. She was having one of her ostrich phases. She had buried her head and left her sex appeal sticking out for contemplation. Her head was the best part of her, but she was setting her cap for an Englishman whom she had met at the Fabian Club. An Englishman can overlook brains if a woman is restful to the eye.

Someone invited me to an exhibition of painting by a Spaniard—Musaphia.

The name, also his appearance, suggested his Moorish ancestry. Most of his work left me cold, but one picture held my attention for over an hour. I sat with my eyes glued to it, unaware of anything else about me. A nude girl with a long wisp of red hair streaked across one breast stood on a floating ice pan. Beside her, passive, utterly relaxed, crouched a polar bear. Behind them, suggested rather than drawn, an iceberg caught the pink glow of a sunset. It was the pink which hesitates on the verge of white—the pink of a pelican’s neck.

When I left the exhibition I bought a post card, and on the way home on a “street car” I wrote a little poem about the picture, and posted it to Musaphia before I went into the house.

Musaphia came to see me when I was reading the proof sheets of my book. I read him some of the poems. Imagine my astonishment a few days later when I received from him a drawing for the cover of my book. The god, Mars, made of stars, looked down from the sky on a woman who held a baby in her arms. The tragedy of the war-widow was in the woman’s face. The god’s eyes were fierce and brutal—two devastating white planets. Mr. Reid liked the drawing. It went on the cover of “The Red Laugh” and later on the cover of “The Modern Phoenix,” the play, which also the Cornhill Company published.

I met William Stanley Braithwaite, a poet, who reviewed books for the Transcript. He was responsible for a poet’s anthology which appeared each year. He put two of my poems in one of his anthologies and gave one of them three stars—his mark of merit.

A woman friend of Agnes took me to the Fabian Club, where I met its President, George Grover-Mills, a gentle socialist who appealed to women. I heard a number of interesting lectures at the Fabian Club, and I met, after a lot of sifting, some very interesting people, amongst them Vennette Herron—who wrote a book of excellent short stories called “Peacocks.” I still hear from her. I shall always love her; she is a bit of my old rosy glamour—a bit of my buried treasure. I met the originators of many new schools and cults—reformers of religion, of love, of literature, of passion, of governments, of morals, of dress. An Indian once told me that environment is the atmosphere created by other people. I was in a new environment created by other people and I didn’t quite know what to make of it. The free and easy discussions I had heard at home lent me a sort of foundation for the new ideas which buzzed round my head; but the family at its damnedest seemed rather pale by comparison. Now, when I think of those discussions, I have to laugh. They were funny—funny as blazes—screamingly funny—funny as the mouth of an hippopotamus (there’s God’s humour for you), but at the time I took them seriously. I heard a lecture on the right to be lazy, which gave me much to think about. The lecturer began by saying that every country had its leisured class. England had her lords and America had her tramps; both of these classes were justified by refusing to work (his deductions here showed him better acquainted with the tramps than the lords), for why should anyone work? A lot that we called work was not work at all; it was like the itch, we must scratch and scratch, but only for a second did it allay the irritation, and it never made any difference to the itch. Nothing in life had an abiding place. Everything was temporary. Why worry about achievement?

At the Club I met a Jewess from Jaffa, who was trying (as Nathan Haskell Dole, the President of the Poetry Club, expressed it) to teach sex by the measurement of Solomon’s temple. The lady trotted about with a market basket filled with little dolls to represent the planets and the signs of the zodiac. She would arrange the dolls in a row, according to the measurement of Solomon’s temple, and they would in some vague way—a way so vague that neither she nor her audience could understand—explain the mystery of sex. Sex was a hidden mystery which the uninitiated knew nothing about.

She invited me to her house for the doll ceremony, which she hadn’t been able to arrange at the Club. A few guests were invited for whom the dolls were to go through their paces.

I fell in love with one of the guests. To express it in any milder term than falling in love would give you no idea of the depth I reached in my emotions. In a week my mind, like a burr, was sticking to him, holding fast to the way he looked, the words he said, his clothes, his amusements, his possessions, the house which contained him. He was a Y.M.C.A. secretary. His family was the usual missionary family from which most of the Y.M.C.A. secretaries are recruited. He had been in India as a secretary and expected soon to return there. He was rather handsome, quite tall, with a finely-shaped head. His dark hair was the sort of straight hair you like. His eyes were blue with long lashes. There was something shaggy and untameable in his spirit, something that couldn’t be depressed. He was one of those people you can feel so honest with. He never looked for hidden motives in what you did.

Going back over the old ground I believe I loved him more than any man who has figured in my life, in spite of the way I left him. I left him because it is not so easy to show a man the door after an intimacy of two years—and a separation was necessary.

How I managed to tear myself away from him soon after meeting him and go to New York I cannot now imagine. Perhaps I had some vague idea of enhancing my value by absence. I had been thinking for some time of seeing New York. The tiny glimpses I had of it when I went to Prince Edward Island could scarcely be counted.

Also, I wanted to see the editors of some of the magazines.

*  *  *

I arrived in New York in the late afternoon. Before I left the station I bought a return ticket. I dreaded being so tempted by the shops that I might be stranded, having spent all my money on clothes, beauty preparations and the like. I drove round in a taxi for three hours before I decided which hotel I would stop at. The taxi meter was steadily mounting. I kept my eyes off it, not wanting to string out my worry. I would let the shock I was to have at the end suffice.

The vertical city amazed me. The sky-scrapers, lighted at the very top by the setting sun, made me think of Roman candles. I admitted to myself the wonder of American architecture, but I didn’t like it. The buildings were too nervous. It wouldn’t have surprised me if one of them had suddenly stepped from its foundations and walked down the Avenue—and why not. They can open and shut their own windows, turn on and off their heat, open and close their doors, poke their heads into the clouds, and sway, ever so slightly, from their waists.

Several times I got out of the taxi to stand on the “side walk” and stare at them. They seemed to be laughing at the men who made them—men who had put their life and soul into them and made them self-sufficient.

I decided to stop at the Waldorf. (It was torn down a few years ago.) It was as expensive as anywhere and I intended to have a good fling.

I had dinner at the hotel, but I was rather disappointed. Most of the women were in street or afternoon clothes. I had hoped to see some beautiful evening dresses. I had coffee in the lobby where a man said something to me which so amused me, I had to laugh and give him the opening he was looking for. My watch had stopped. I looked at a big clock standing on the floor, intending to set my watch by it. For some absurd reason I thought it also had stopped. I went up to it and put my ear against it. The man, who was sitting beside it, looked up and said: “You seem to be used to cuckoo clocks.” He became so attentive I had my coffee taken to the other side of the room, where I still chuckled about the cuckoo clock.

The next day I bought a slinky black dress and a very sophisticated hat; then I went to the hairdresser and told him to dye my hair black. He protested that Mademoiselle would regret it. She was beautiful, with her amber eyes which matched her hair. She would be a little gauche with the black hair and yellow eyes. I reminded him that it was my hair and I would do as I liked with it. Sputtering in French and English he cut my hair—which I sold to him at his suggestion—and put a black henna pack on it. After he had removed the pack and washed my hair he curled it into what he called “a mode distingué.” I quite fancied myself. The contrast between hair and eyes was a bit startling, but, as I decided, rather arresting.

I had a beauty treatment with packs, creams and what not, after which I was made up. The girl who made me up gave me a few hints upon how to put on the make-up myself. Of course, I must have their preparations—three dollars’ worth of them.

I crowded the jars, bottles and boxes into my manuscript case and started out to visit magazine editors. I had decided to call myself Gertrude Bartlett. None of the editors would see me. They sent their secretaries—always women—down to interview me. I took my sophisticated self back to the hotel very depressed.

In the days that followed—I stayed about ten days in New York—I met the people to whom I had letters given me by friends in Boston. The City Editor of one of the “tabloid” papers penetrated my disguise and told me I should be spanked. I went to the theatre several times and to one concert. I met the Consul of an important Power who asked me to supper with him at his apartment. At the last moment I—not knowing what might happen—asked another girl to come with me. He glared at the uninvited guest when his servant showed us in, then, deliberately putting on a smile, he pretended to be charmed with the idea of having her thrust upon him.

I was very glad she had accompanied me; for while he was telling me what a dear little thing I was she wandered round the apartment. She found his bed turned down and a little silver-handled whip lying across it. She had no opportunity to tell me, until we left, that the gentleman indulged in a little flagellation. I know who would have used that whip if I had gone alone. The Bedouins hadn’t taught me osian (fencing with sticks) for nothing. This man is one of my best friends to-day. A man frustrated in passion shows his real character, he accepts the situation like a gentleman and becomes your friend or he drops you like a hot potato.

It seemed to be my time for meeting consuls. I met Signor E——, the vice-Consul for Italy. He wanted to marry me if mother could arrange a sufficiently tempting dowry. I never consulted mother about it, for I never intended becoming his signora. He carried gallantry to the highest pitch—as a matter of fact he carried it to the police station. One night he was calling on me at the hotel. We sat talking until the small hours of the morning. He was telling me about the titles in his family and about his father’s estates. When he left he must have seen the hands of the corridor clock pointing to four, and not wishing to compromise me (he told me later) he went down the servants’ stairs. Hie was stopped at the bottom by the night watchman, who thought he was a thief. The watchman whistled for the policeman, who promptly took my friend to the police station.

I was just getting into bed when my phone rang. I reached over and picked up the instrument, wondering who was calling me at that hour. “This is the police station,” said the voice at the other end.

“Please tell me if Signor E. is your cousin.”

“Yes,” I replied, without a moment’s hesitation.

“Then it’s all right?” he said.

“It is,” I said, wondering what it was. About half an hour later E. phoned to thank me for thinking so quickly. He said it was better to tell the police that he was my cousin, although the reason for such nonsense he didn’t explain.

When I left New York I had just enough money to buy some coffee and doughnuts in the station restaurant.

Agnes called me all sorts of a fool when she saw my hair. Getting more and more excited as her tirade went on she told me I looked like a “tart.” She said I must have my head shaved at once and wear a cap, a wig, anything until my hair grew out again. I didn’t shave my head for five years and then it was because I had to meet Aunt Vera. What Agnes said about my hair was nothing compared to what the man I was in love with said about it. He told me I had made a freak of myself. That floored me. There was something rather daring about looking like a tart—but a freak——. He had to reassure me over and over again that my hair made no difference—that he loved me just the same. I became rather calloused to the astonished looks of the people I had known before the transformation. The regular fellows, who were for ever in the apartment, began to get on my nerves. I never could get any work done. I arranged with one of them to take over my furniture and to share the expenses with Agnes; then I rented a furnished apartment. It had one emotional room—my work-room—with blue wall paper and rose hangings with green transfers splashed on them. You couldn’t rest in it, but your mind became active along various lines. My books, which had a big glass-fronted bookcase to hold them, ran up and down scales of red, brown and yellow, bringing more colour into the room. The room did very well for me, for I can never work at leisure. I must work without a pause while the feeling for work lasts.

My bedroom was furnished very simply with an iron bed, a dresser and two chairs. The Americans, being sensible, have done away with all eyesores such as wardrobes. The architect allows for “closets” for clothes when he is planning the house.

I wrote a number of short stories and sent them to an agent in New York. He sold a few of them to papers published in the South and Middle West. I wrote verses. All moods are useful and I made the most of my moods. Some lovely music and poetry have been made out of melancholy. Great thoughts have come out of suffering. Joy has given us the ecstasy to love widely. Pleasure—or the reaction to it—has taught us many lessons. There is no emotion of the human heart which is not creative.

I cooked my meals in my little kitchenette. Sometimes my friend—I called him Plushy—came to dinner with me. He complimented my cooking. As a matter of fact I am quite a good cook. Every member of my family has tried his or her hand at cooking. We are obsessed by the cooking mania. Most of us turn out dishes like grandfather’s chafing-dish messes, but I am one of the few who can produce an edible dish.

After dinner we went out into the Park or we read aloud from some new book or magazine. What I enjoyed more than anything were his stories of India, of its beauty, its religion, its poverty, its politics, its wild rites, its men and women who used each other biologically, the fury of its vegetation, its jungle legends. I would lower my eyelids and visions of it would go swimming back of my eyes, until I felt I was taking part in the rites, the sacrifices, the daily life.

One night he told me he was returning in a week. Before I had time to tell him how desolate my life would be without him he asked me to accompany him. I was too astonished to answer him. I knew his family—especially his father, who was something between a saint and an impostor—detested me. When I hesitated he said: “We can get married.” I thought of my parents. Father had married mother because there was no other way. It occurred to me that most men over-magnified emotions when first they were in love. They wanted to live too much—to feel too much. This condition was followed by languor and exhaustion; feeling dwindled to that state known as understanding, that state which crept into matrimony soon after marriage—or it dwindled to something worse. You couldn’t be married and in love. “If I go with you it will be without getting married,” I said.

A look of pain came into his eyes. “You won’t get tired of me?” he said. His voice trembled.

“I don’t know,” I answered.

How could my father’s daughter answer in any other way?

He put his arms round me and begged me never to tire of him. I had to make the decision quickly, for if I pondered over it I would change my mind. It was a mad thing to do, but I wanted to do it. We couldn’t make any plans until I promised to go. “I will go,” I said, “if I can raise the money from my family.”

“Don’t worry about it if you can’t. I can manage it,” he said. I had no intention of permitting him to pay my passage.

I knew grandfather would send me the money. We discussed plans. He had to go by the Pacific route because he must see one of the secretaries who was in Shanghai. We would sail on one of the Empress ships from Vancouver. It would be best to cross the continent by the Canadian Pacific. Leaving Boston I could get on the train first and he would get on at the last moment, having said good-bye to his family at the iron gate. It all seemed so simple.

When he had gone I began to think how foolish I had been. Would I ever be able to discipline myself. I would go out and get on a subway train. When I feel that I am getting soft I discipline myself with tunnels. I am afraid of them. I am never in one but I think what if this caved in and buried us like rats in a trap! I have been in hundreds of tunnels all over the world and each time the train emerges I feel a glow of satisfaction as if I had performed some heroic deed. I have—heroic for me. I have been in earthquakes, typhoons and fires and I can truthfully say I have not been frightened, but there is something about a tunnel which takes all the prop out of my spine. That is why I make myself go into them. If ever I feel that I am getting too flabby I shall make for the Simplon, or the London tube. I have never yet got up sufficient courage to submit myself to the deeper tunnels in London. I have been in the upper tunnels many times, but the lower strata, which I call the bowels, I have never dared.

Even my dread of the subway left me quite undisciplined. I rushed out of the subway and into one of the cable offices which remain open all night. I sent a long cable to grandfather. It took every cent I had. I told him I wanted to go to India, that life was just as cheap there as in Boston, that passage money was the only extra money I needed. I would write and explain. I said nothing about Plushy.

Grandfather cabled me the money for my passage. Several times as I packed my clothes and books I tried to change my mind, but it wouldn’t change. When I brought my reason to bear on the situation I saw no argument against my going, but I suppose there was some tiny fragment of what I then called mother’s morality which was trying to hold me back.

Agnes came over to help me pack. She saw only the adventure in what I was doing. She thought it was wonderful. She said she was going to cultivate men who were not such stay-at-homes and see if she could arrange a journey.

I had signed a lease for the apartment. We discussed how I could get out of payment for the six months to which I was still entitled. Then Agnes was very helpful. She suggested taking the janitress out to lunch while I had my luggage moved to the station, where I could pay twenty-five cents a day on it until it was put on the train. The janitress had an apartment in the basement of the building. I knew none of the other tenants; in fact I had never seen any of them.

I took Agnes downstairs and introduced her to the janitress. We decided to let circumstances take care of the invitation to lunch. I had very little hope of Agnes finding an opportunity to wedge it into our conversation without making it too obvious. The janitress spoke of another apartment house on the next street which she had the renting of. It seemed that Agnes had always wanted to live on that street. Could she see some of the apartments on the following day. Unfortunately she had only her lunch hour, but if the janitress would consent to have lunch with her they could see the apartments immediately after.

The janitress was pleased to have lunch with Agnes; then my conscience began to smite me, and it was not until I visited an estate office and learned from the manager that a janitor was not responsible for the rent if a tenant left without paying it, that I felt reconciled to kidnapping the janitress. I told the man in the estate office that I knew a poor man, a janitor, who was worried because a tenant had left with his belongings without paying his rent. “The man must be a fool not to know that he couldn’t be held responsible,” he said. I had no compunction about doing the syndicate—which owned the building—in the eye. The Fabians had given me a few ideas to be going on with.

I engaged an “Expressman” to call for my luggage the next day at 12.30. I couldn’t have it ready before that time, I told him, but as I had to leave on the one o’clock train for New York, he must be on time.

Nothing interfered with my departure, but, in a state of panic, I watched from the window until I saw the janitress go out to meet Agnes. At 12.40 the Expressman had taken my luggage downstairs and disappeared with it.

I left with my small case, which I carried to the corner, where I hailed a taxi. I had decided to go to the Plaza Hotel for the night. The following day we were to start for India. I phoned Agnes and she came over to the hotel and had dinner with me. She, like the man in the estate office, assured me that the janitress was not responsible for what the tenants did.

Chapter V

Crossing the continent was not so interesting in spite of the gorgeous scenery—the Rocky and Sierra Nevada mountains, the huge timber forests, the Indians who came to the train from their reservations to offer moccasins and beaded bags through the windows—because I am never comfortable on trains. I hate the restrictions of movement, the dirt, the cat-bath (dabbing a little water on your face with your hand). We spent most of the time on the observation platform.

The Canadian sleeping accommodation leaves a lot to be desired in the way of privacy. I managed to dress lying down, for I couldn’t dress standing up behind the curtains. Neither did I care to be one of a dozen in a small dressing-room.

My head and heart were in a whirl. I had decided to be frank at whatever cost to myself. Few women are honest with their lovers. There is so much to mitigate against honesty—the desire to please, to be always interesting and attractive, to monopolize and retain the lover’s affection. Love can stand very little abuse; friendship a great deal. Frankness might drive my love into friendship, but I knew I would prefer it to a love always in its best dress. A Russian once told me that a man who was in love didn’t require friendship. The poor fool thought that love was nothing but a sex engagement. Passion’s requirements can be met and performed; but you cannot, so easily, dispose of the requirements of love.

Plushy was an ideal lover. No Latin could have mastered the technique of love any better. His attentions were not cloying however for he wasn’t tiresomely on the job.

I was glad to see the hotel in Vancouver, where I had three consecutive baths. I let the water run out of and into the tub three times for a good rinse.

Canada has a strange law about drinking. You are not permitted to drink in public. You must buy a licence, which entitles you to buy bottled alcohol and drink it privately. We could get no licence, for we arrived late at night and sailed early next morning. I don’t think either of us cared. I had no time for the beauty treatment I had been planning on the train.

I was glad to be on the boat—a Japanese boat—the Kotarie Maru. She was crowded with Europeans and Japanese. The little Japanese women began to attract me on the boat. They attracted me much more in their own country.

We had separate cabins. Our passports did not admit of too much intimacy. I shared a cabin with the wife of an hotel manager in Victoria who was going to Tokio to visit her sister. I saw very little of her, for she was engaged in a full-time flirtation with an engineer who was going out to Amoy. Sometimes we met at night, for we were usually the last on deck. She got up very early in the morning and I stayed in my berth until lunch time. Our habits gave each of us the entire cabin to dress in.

I talked with very few passengers. When a man brought his deck-chair near mine Plushy would come over and sit on the foot-rest of my chair. The usual games were played, which I put my name down for, for the lack of exercise was getting on my nerves. There was one dance, a masquerade. I borrowed a kimono from one of the men, which made Plushy angry. He said if I intended to wear a kimono I should at least have borrowed the women’s costume.

My first glimpse of Yokohama enchanted me. I grudged every moment the officials kept us to inquire about our grandfathers, and any ancestors about whom we could enlighten them. At last, after all sorts of hieroglyphs were added to our passports, we were permitted to land at the honourable port. I had never seen a rickshaw before. I stood on the street watching one after another go past. Plushy told me that people with luggage usually went to the hotels in taxis. After a lot of argument—during which our luggage was put into a taxi—we went to the hotel in two rickshaws. We stayed at the Oriental Hotel, by no means the best, but very amusing and Japanese. Plushy had to send off some letters and a cable. He promised to take me out the moment he finished. He went downstairs to the writing room. I waited until he was out of the way, then I started out alone to “do” Yokohama. What a time I had! I tried to see everything at once. I bought damascene, ivory (which was bone), tortoiseshell (which was horses’ hoofs), fans, a houri coat, a nightie in a gaily flowered cloth bag, all the junk which is displayed for the tourist who is visiting Japan for the first time. I went into a shop where a little doll of a woman sold me a pair of getas (sandals). I took off my shoes, and when I couldn’t get my toe under the strap I took my stockings off. I managed to stand on the getas and clatter along on the floor, while the woman—true to Japanese tradition—tried not to laugh. Her husband and children poked their heads round a screen. I took off the getas and she packed them in a gay box. When I had paid her—a sum far in excess of what it should have been, I discovered later—she bowed three times very solemnly. Not to be no outdone, I returned the salute in true Japanese fashion.

I packed my purchases into my rickshaw, and my puller trotted off again. He was very happy, for he intended to collect a good fee from me. I found I could spend my money just as well without knowing the language—simply by pointing to the things. Before starting out on our shopping expedition, the rickshaw coolie had taken me to a money changer.

When I returned to the hotel I met Plushy coming down the stairs. He had looked everywhere for me, and was just going out to visit the hospitals and the police station. He said I had given him an awful shock. When I laid my purchases out on the bed he roared with laughter. “I thought you had some sense,” he said, “but I see you’ve fallen for the usual stuff. In fact you’ve fallen harder than most, for no one buys the sandals.” I didn’t tell him how I had tried them on in the shop.

We stayed in Japan three weeks. We went to Kyoto, Nikko and Nara, we visited the huge Daibutsu, the temples, the silk factories, the ivory and lacquer workers. I got lacquer poisoning on my neck and hands. Some people are very susceptible to it. I thought it was leprosy. I went to the doctor with visions of spending the rest of my life on some leper island. He laughed when I told him of my diagnosis, and said two or three applications of vinegar would make short work of the leprosy.

A strange thing happened to me in Nara. We were visiting a Buddhist nunnery—Plushy waited for me in the garden—when one of the nuns asked me if I wanted to see the ancient embroideries. Without answering her I pushed back a shoji, entered another room, and lifted the lid of an old chest. I began to take the embroideries—they in were in frames—out of the chest before it occurred to me that I was acting very strangely. I turned to look at the nuns. They were standing in the opening made by the shoji, their eyes protruding from their faces, as far as Japanese eyes can protrude. They knew I had never been there before. To this day I cannot explain it. A friend told me I was a Buddhist nun in a previous life, and that I had lived in that nunnery. I think her explanation is rather fantastic. It may be that one of the nuns suggested to me where I would find the chest, and I might have been in a very receptive mood.

In Kyoto we saw the real art of Japan—pieces of pottery and embroidery on which the dear dreamers of old Japan had left love and pain and the feel of a wind-swept garden. What masters they were, leaving their emotions on the old silk, to bring tears and laughter to the coming dreamers, who, like them, would know the language of flowers, the caprice of the wind. We hear a lot about the Japanese who suffers from national phobia, who would tear the world to shreds at a word from his Emperor—but what of the other Japanese who makes cake offerings to the stars, who hangs little poems on the trees, who understands each expression on the face of a flower? Is he less Japanese than the soldier who says: “We have never felt the pressure of a Western hand. We never shall”? He doesn’t care who governs him if he is left with his dreams. I think he will still be there in his garden when soldiers are no more—lighting his candle before Sui-Getsu, who is seen only by them who understand love.

And what of the women of Japan who stay in their high-walled gardens with the miniature hills, the miniature trees, the little bridges which arch their backs over a little stream, the stone lamps, moss-green with age—watching for a bud to open on some beautiful plant; still watching in the rain with umbrellas over their heads, for if the bud should open when they were not there to see, it would be a sweet calamity. What of them? Won’t they still walk in their enchanted gardens when the “modern” Japanese woman, with her motor-cars, her aeroplanes, her Western education, has gone the way of all that is temporal? Isn’t she the soul of Japan? Hasn’t she made Japan? The nation can play with all the Western inventions while she remains in her garden.

I made a rice offering at the gate of one of the temples to two sinister foxes of grey stone—the servants of the rice god—and we left for China. I love idols. Naturally I don’t believe in them—but I love them and I often give them a candle, some food or a few flowers.

*  *  *

The boat for Shanghai, Hong-Kong, Singapore and Colombo had few passengers. We booked through to Colombo, where we intended to tranship for Calcutta. There being few passengers, we got acquainted with most of them—all but two, a man and a woman, who walked past everyone with their noses in the air. Once the woman actually condescended to waste a few moments’ conversation on me. She told me she disliked the free and easy attitude of people on journeys. They should behave as they did at home. Travelling was no excuse for weakening the moral fibre.

She weakened it a bit, however, in Hong-Kong. The morning we left Hong-Kong she and the man—who was supposed to be her brother-in-law—were sitting on their deck chairs with their feet stretched out. On the soles of their shoes the number 21 was chalked. The Chinese boys at the hotels always chalk the number of your room on the soles of your shoes when they take them away to be cleaned. One of the other passengers—John M. (he figures, with certain changes, in one of my novels)—went for his camera and, daring to stand in front of the two exclusive beings, said: “You do look so comfortable, I must have a snap of you.”

Later he showed me the photograph. He had retouched the number on the shoes, leaving nothing to the imagination.

One of the other passengers was for ever talking of the money he had made by his own efforts. He was a director of this, that and the other. I think he was quite average. There are few successes in the world and few magnificent failures. Most people just miss the mark. Plushy disliked him; he would lead him on and then laugh at him.

How many kinds of dark there are on the sea—a black dark, a blue dark and a dark that is faintly silver. I sat in them all, looking out across the water, holding Plushy’s hand, saying almost nothing, letting verses take shape in my mind.

One night, the boat like a great sleigh slid through something that looked like snow touched with fire. It was phosphorus, an unusual display of it, so the first officer told me.

In Shanghai Plushy left me to visit the Y.M.C.A. secretary. I taxied out to Bubbling Well. Everyone who goes to Shanghai goes to see that little spring of filthy water bubbling up from the earth. One of the women on the ship had told me that I should go to Lai Kai Fook’s silk shop.

I went there after the well. There is no shop like it in the world, and there is no silk such as you can buy there. Just to feel the surfaces of some of the brocades is real pleasure. I bought some brocade for slippers and dancing shoes, some green silk streaked with gold like flashes of lightning for an evening dress, and some very thin silk for undies. I like the chiffon feel on my skin, and this silk was almost as soft as chiffon. I stayed more than an hour in the shop, letting my mind run riot with the patterns on the silks—patterns of pagodas, temples, dragons and birds flaming to rest across sunsets.

I had tea at the Majestic Hotel—it has since been sold to a Chinese who, I was told, had bought it for his mistress. I am not sure if this is true, for rumour is often a false jade. It was a beautiful building, having once been the private residence of the McBain family. It had marble staircases as delicately veined as the Pearl Mosque Sha Jehan gave the beauties of his harem for their petitions to the Prophet.

After tea I drove round the city, wondering what made it feel so vital, so compelling, when it was so ugly and flat. I thought it would be just the place to work, and I wanted to come back to it sometime. I did; and stayed five years. I spent so much of my time driving round, I had just twenty minutes to get to the boat before she sailed. I should have missed her if the chauffeur hadn’t said: “More better Missie go ship side, ship makie leave.”

He went all out to reach her, turning corners on three wheels, flashing through back streets. I was getting out something to pay him with as we flew along. I had changed some money with a money-changer on the boat. It occurred to me that Shanghai currency wasn’t used in Hong-Kong. I took all the Shanghai money I had and thrust it into his hand as we pulled up—two minutes before the boat sailed—on the quay. From the chauffeur’s exclamation I knew that one coolie’s family would have plenty of rice for about a month.

Plushy was frantic. He met me on the gangway.

“What happened?” he shouted. “I didn’t know whether to stay here or sail.” When I told him I had forgotten how the time was slipping past he began to sulk. He didn’t speak to me until dinner-time, and then only to break into a conversation I was having with John M. After dinner we sat on the deck as if nothing had happened, and I told him what I had done in Shanghai.

At Hong-Kong I found a cable from grandfather wishing me luck, and saying that Aunt Vera was with them. I answered by cable telling him I had just posted a letter to him. His cable made me so happy I could have danced through the streets. In my unglamorous moments—they were few, I admit—I missed him desperately.

Plushy took me up to the Peak on the cable car. The view of the harbour from the Peak is one of the finest in the world. We didn’t come down on the car; we walked part of the way; then we got into the chairs which were supported by bamboo poles resting on the coolies’ shoulders. It took us hours to descend, for we kept stopping to look at things. One was the crescent moon on the very tip of a pine tree. We pointed to it and made a wish. We tried to guess each other’s wishes—our laughter trailing out over the sea. How beautiful the world really is when you are in love! We went to dinner at the Hong-Kong Hotel, for the boat was not sailing until after midnight. There were parties at some of the tables. Most of the women were overdressed. Jewels flashed on arms, necks and hair. Some were frankly bored, others wore those smiles which disguise weariness. Looking at them, you wondered if the spirit could ever really triumph over the body.

The Chinese do anything that occurs to them at any time. They had brought a little cart out with felt polishers on the bottom. A small boy sat in it to weigh it down, while two other boys, one pushing and the other pulling, ran it over the floor between the dances. It must have been a common sight, for none of the bored diners noticed it. We, not being at all bored, laughed until eyebrows were raised and looks of pity were cast at our table.

We danced; but Plushy was not a good dancer. He danced like a missionary—about the only thing he did like a missionary. He improved as time went on, but he never learned to dance well.

It was late when we returned to the boat. We sat on deck. The moon and stars stared down at us—the tiny shadow of our little wishing moon was trembling on the sea. I was not sharing my cabin with anyone. I could go to bed as late as I wished. There was no one to wake and glare at me.

We decided to stay up until the ship sailed, and see the last of that sparkling cluster of jewels which is Hong-Kong at night. We discussed what we would do when we reached Calcutta. Plushy spoke again of marriage. He told of the people he would have to work with in India. They would be very unsympathetic to such an arrangement as ours. We had better be married in Singapore. For the first time I mentioned my family. I told him about father’s mistresses. I gave father his full quota of them. Somewhere in my mind was the idea that I would be like father—that I would tire of men as he tired of women. My life so far has proved the contrary; but at that time I believed I could not escape what I considered my destiny. Plushy laughed at my fears. He said he was willing to take a chance. I told him that I must test myself first, and I brought out my plans for our life in Calcutta. I would rent a flat and he could board with me. I would have a woman in one of the rooms if I had to let her come rent free. He could bring his friends to the flat whenever he liked. They need not see the landlady. Thinking of me as a landlady, he laughed. He said he must have his friends to dinner, and I of course must attend the dinner. We decided to let things take care of themselves. There would be time enough to make arrangements when we arrived at Calcutta.

About two o’clock we left Hong-Kong. We watched it until the last glimmer of the Peak faded, and there was nothing behind us but the inky black of the sea.

*  *  *

Singapore looked like a rainbow on the ground. There was so much colour I couldn’t see anything clearly at first. This place had smouldered in my mind, tormenting my imagination, and here it lay before me under the blazing sun—a city stuffed with fortune for those who could wrest it from her.

Delicate women stood on the quay wearing silk sarongs shot with gold stars and silver moons, plastered with jungle scenes and grotesque figures. Little gauze jackets, frail as pleated air, stopped just short of the sarongs. Their hair, like black lacquer, was fastened with clusters of jasmine. The men wore stiff white drill, which was very unbecoming. The coolies were much more picturesque than the gentlemen. They wore cloths of all colours twisted round their heads; and their manhood. What bodies! Their muscles seemed to be run through with whalebone or flexible steel, so supple they were. In the distance I could see the palm trees and the causarinas. The smell, the rhythm, the feel of the East was all about me. There was a caress in it like the hand of a lover.

John M. was still with us. He had decided to go along with us before we left the Empress boat at Yokohama.

He had a house in Singapore. Years ago he had taken his bride there. She had been burned to death before they had been married a year. At that time he operated the Singapore end of an English firm which he still represented, but in the home country. Once in two or three years he travelled through the East, inspecting the various branches of the business. To a friend he had rented his house in Singapore, reserving certain rooms which he occupied when he visited the city.

He asked Plushy and me to have dinner with him and spend the night, as the ship was not sailing until the next morning. A car, with a very gaily-dressed Malay chauffeur, was waiting for him on the quay.

We drove round the city before going to his charming bungalow in Tanglin—called by the inhabitants Singapore’s “best residential section.” We fed the monkeys in the gardens with bananas and nuts. They were utterly unafraid. Several got into the car, and one sat on the hood leisurely peeling his banana. Their antics were so amusing I got out of the car and played with them. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. John M. presented me with a monkey when we were leaving. Plushy was furious, but I was delighted. I named her Gwendolyn Ermyntrude. She is the monkey of my book, “Dying Flame.”

In the garden the aromatic perfume of flowers was like a heavy perfume of some mysterious blend. As we drove along the evening breeze got up—a breeze scented like the breath of love. Singapore is a very clean city. The luxuriant jungle has fallen back, making room for gardens just as luxuriant. The little native houses are well looked after and not too huddled. Frequently they stand quite alone, sheltering under coco-nut palms.

Most of the business is in the hands of the Chinese, who live in imposing houses on the main streets. You like Singapore until you live in it. Then it is nothing but English suburbia in a tropical setting.

John M.’s passion was orchids. He loved orchids as some men love women. He had several orchid houses in his garden, which his friend looked after. He had transplanted some of his choicest blooms only to have them die in his home climate. He would never transplant another. His friend, a surly old chap called Max, said that John came to the East only to visit his orchids. He showed them to us, telling us their names and their habits. Some of them were positively temperamental. Unfortunately we had to see them under the electric light, which was then ablaze in all the conservatories.

Dinner was a real pagan feast. The Chinese cook had let his most extravagant mood into it. Orchids of all colours and descriptions stood in three huge silver vases on the table. Buddhas of bronze, silver, porcelain, ebony and lacquer watched the meal from their places round the wall. My mind was so taken up with them I didn’t notice anything else in the dining-room until the servants began bringing in the food which was made into various shapes. There were houses, bridges, towers and boats of vegetables, fish, fruit and ices. The only display of architectured food I have seen to equal it was at a dinner in Shanghai, when one of the American judges asked his wife to get up something original for a dinner he was giving—and she turned the table into a cemetery, serving the food in mounds to represent graves, and writing the menus to represent miniature gravestones. The wines we had were quite in keeping with the food. I drank very little. I have never cared to drink. If it is necessary I can act the fool just as well sober as some of my friends can drunk.

John told us some very choice bits about the residents of Tanglin. Max sat in a conceited calm, rather tolerating the conversation than entering into it. Once in a while he corroborated something which John said, and sometimes he nodded his head. Let John say what he liked, Max would not elaborate.

After dinner we had coffee on the veranda. It was then John went out into the garden and came back leading Gwendolyn on a chain. He told me she was mine. She had no objection to travelling—in fact she had done some travelling already. She got up on my lap and I fed her with lumps of sugar. Plushy said nothing at the time. It was later he asked me why—yes, missionary as he was, I think he said in hell—I had accepted her.

John went to the boat with us in the morning. She sailed very early—about six o’clock. The captain was not too pleased to meet Gwendolyn. After a lot of fault-finding, and telling me how a monkey once escaped on his ship and destroyed everything she could lay her hands on—he said there was a dog-kennel aft which she could occupy. I have often wondered if John had been waiting for just such an opportunity to say cheerio to Gwendolyn. I grew very fond of her, as I do of all animals. I was to learn in hotels and pensions in Calcutta that others did not feel for her as I did. She destroyed nothing on the boat but Plushy’s silver-backed hair-brushes. These she threw out of the port-hole the only time Plushy, in a very friendly mood, took her to his cabin. The brushes had been his mother’s parting gift.

We acquired two new passengers at Singapore. One, a man who was going to Colombo, and the other was a young French girl who was going out to India to marry a tea-planter whom she had met in Paris. She had arrived in Singapore on a French liner, the day before we arrived. She was very smart. The Rue de la Paix was written all over her. She told me, soon after we got into conversation, that she knew I was French. When I told her I was not, she said: “Well, you’re Continental anyway.” I said I was cosmopolitan rather than Continental, for I was beginning to wonder where I did belong. We became quite good friends. In fact I was her bridesmaid when she gradually married another planter, having decided against the one she came out to marry, finding his friend more interesting and better equipped with this world’s goods. She was one of those women—a bit like myself, perhaps—who had an iniquitous desire to see what would happen if she stepped out of the conventional pathway. Plushy’s liking for her was rather moderate. He thought her too artificial, too flashy. She was tall and quite slender. She knew how to harmonize herself with her clothes and her ornaments. Her face was very irregular, but she covered the defects of ugly features by calling attention to better ones. For example, she made her eyes up until you forgot how out of drawing her nose was. Sometimes I wondered how she could raise her eyelids with the weight of mascara that was on them. Her smile was always painted on with an orange lipstick. She was gorgeous before she got seasick, then she disappeared until the boat decided to behave herself.

We stayed in Colombo but a few hours. Plushy wanted to take me to Kandy, but there was a boat leaving for Calcutta and he thought we had better sail on her. We had just enough time to drive out to the Galle Face Hotel and to Mount Lavinia. There is nothing unusual about the Galle face but its location, which is almost on the beach. Seven palm trees stand in front of it, looking worn and battered from their encounters with monsoons. There is no mistaking the palm trees. They look like lone sentinels between the hotel and the sea. At that time the hotel at Mount Lavinia was well kept up. Fashionable people sat under gaily-coloured umbrellas in the garden. The veranda was filled with tea guests and with laughter. Bathing costumes made patches of colour along the beach.

Plushy and I had cool drinks on the veranda, a hasty look at the beach and garden, then we hurried back to the Calcutta boat. Cook’s had transhipped our luggage. We saw the girl who was to marry the tea-planter on the street in Colombo, and said good-bye to her. She also was going to Calcutta but on a later boat, as she wanted to have a look at Ceylon. We gave each other Cook’s in Calcutta as an address where letters would be sure to reach us.

The Calcutta boat was dirty and smelly. I think it frequently carried cargoes of copra, than which nothing can smell worse. The few passengers on her were men who never left the bar.

The sunsets over the Bay of Bengal are as theatrical as those over the Red Sea. I wrote a poem about one of the sunsets which was published later in the Modern Review, Calcutta—the paper which publishes many of Tagore’s writings.

A few hours before we arrived in Calcutta Plushy had a talk with me about religion. When Plushy got right down to it he could put more different faces on platitudes than anyone I ever knew. You thought you were meeting something new until you saw the old familiar face under the disguise. Then it occurred to you what a lot could still be done with the old stuff. He reminded me of the fact that he was a Y.M.C.A. secretary. He said it was necessary to have some religion—almost any religion was better than none. I told him that youth must be served—and with emotion.

It was not until the autumn of our days that we could comprehend the spiritual value of life. He urged me to go to church—to various churches if necessary until I found the one in which I cared to worship. I told him that too many religions made the soul blasé. I know that Plushy was not keen on my accepting religion. He was not religious himself. He thought if I started going to church I should be more apt to agree to his proposal of marriage.

I hated Calcutta at first. Someone had taken the lid off “those spicy garlic smells” which Kipling talks about. I had fairly to hold my nose—and then I realized it was the smell of the East and that I was going to love it. I do love it. What would I give for a whiff of it now! When I sit at my desk writing on a grey English day I like to close my eyes for a moment and imagine myself in the East—imagine I feel the warmth of the sunlight on my back like a dog who stretches out in the sun. I can smell the perfume of Eastern flowers. I can hear the songs of rainbow-plumaged birds. I can feel the wind, soft as down against my face. All of me that counts is sitting on my veranda in Mysore staring up at the red blaze of the gulmohar trees. My longing for open spaces, where the sky and the earth meet in yellow and red in the evenings, engrosses me. Does anybody hate cities as much as I do? I hate the resistance of a pavement under my feet. I want to feel the spring in the earth and the little earthy sag as I step. Indian and Malayan feet know all the moods of the earth; they know what I mean. I am living on made-up dreams, but I feel utterly demagnetized—drained. Something seems to be devouring my nerves and my brain. What gives me this feverish energy to bear all sorts of suffering? I am never exhausted. I never collapse into a dear state of relaxation. I am always tense, always strung up. My body has been in Western countries for short periods—but my soul and my mind never. In the face of this, publishers ask me to write books with a Western locale because you like them. Do you like them so much? If only I knew what is really in your hearts!

We went to the Grand Hotel in Calcutta, the Great Eastern having refused to welcome Gwendolyn.

Chapter VI

Gwendolyn disgraced me at the Grand Hotel by tearing all the green felt off the writing-table. Before going out I had chained her to the leg of the table, never dreaming that she could work her fingers in under the felt; in fact the felt looked as solid as the wood. She tore it off in little strips, and had a nice tidy pile of it waiting for me when I returned. I called the clerk because I knew the room boy would report it. The clerk looked perfectly blank—then disappeared to add twenty-five rupees to my bill. Plushy told me to send Gwendolyn to the Zoo, to chloroform her, to sell her. Instead I took her with me and started out to look for rooms.

Calcutta would not consider boarders, but she would take paying guests. In most of the houses a refined atmosphere and tennis were offered. I could do without either if someone would consent to having Gwendolyn. Had I known then what I discovered later I would have rubbed a little opium on her gums; doing as much for her as the ayahs did for howling infants in their charge. To every landlady who asked me if she were destructive I answered “No” in an astonished manner, as if destruction was the last thing to enter her mind. When I said I had a friend, a man, who also wanted a room they feared the refined atmosphere might be strained, so they questioned me accordingly.

A lady on Theatre Road, Mrs. Dee, offered to take us. She couldn’t put Plushy and me on the same floor—but there were two drawing-rooms. There was a little veranda to the room she offered me where Gwendolyn could stay—or I could keep her out in the garden. I decided on the veranda, where I could watch her. We moved in—Gwendolyn and I immediately, and Plushy the next day.

I found a bearer, a handsome Pathan, who used to go through the motions of spitting whenever he spoke of a Bengali. I couldn’t have found a better servant. He stayed with me until I left India at the end of my first visit. Since, when I have lived in India for years on end, I have tried to find him, but without success. From him I learned to speak Urdu, and by myself I picked up Hindu, using my old method of nouns first.

The people in the house looked as tired and bored as the diners at the Hong-Kong hotel. Everyone kept “fit” with tennis—but it was rather a forlorn fitness. Plushy was engaged all day. His work was more in the line of teaching than the usual mission work.

A few months after we arrived he came up to my room and said: “Behold a business man!” He explained: “I’ve chucked the Y.M.C.A. and I am now selling Remington typewriters.” He sold them—any number of them. As a matter of fact there was nothing he couldn’t sell. No would-be purchaser could protect himself against his method of salesmanship. Like the Archduke Leopold he was for ever offering someone the dotted line for signature. Leopold called it the dated line, and he never forgot it when he was talking business.

Plushy bought a second-hand car—a battered, dilapidated thing that suffered from asthma and flatulence—and we started out to sell typewriters to the tea-planters of Assam. Plushy and I and the latest model in typewriters sat in the front seat; the bearer, Gwendolyn, two bed rolls, our suitcases, several pots and a frying-pan occupied the back seat. Part of the journey we made on a river boat. I thought Gwendolyn could sleep in the car while we were on the river—as the captain had given us permission to keep it on the deck—but she had ideas of her own and she had learned to unfasten the buckle of her belt. She visited the cabins and the galley. I captured her before she had done much damage and took her to my cabin, where I chained her to my ankle, knowing any movement of the chain would waken me. You can imagine how much I slept.

There were no hotels in Assam. We had to stay at the Rest Houses unless the planters took us in. Most of them offered the utmost of hospitality. I think they welcomed us as a break in their lonely lives. I caught a cold which I neglected, and before I realized how ill I was I went down with pneumonia. One dear planter—I will not mention his name; he lives in England now—turned his bungalow over to us and sent for the doctor. I was unable to travel for two months. While I was convalescing my friends would take my bed out to the veranda and prop me up with pillows. From my position I could see the snow-capped Tibetan mountains, the jungle and the tea gardens shaded by the gentle acacia trees. Before I had recovered I had written most of the poems for my book, “The Scent of the Aloe,” which was published later by Messrs. Selwyn & Blount. My bearer had charmed Gwendolyn. She behaved quite decently while I was ill. When I was out of danger—I think the crisis occurred in six or seven days—Plushy went merrily on selling typewriters.

When I could travel we left at once for Calcutta. In the Statesman—which I found on the boat—several flats were advertised. I selected three which I meant to see as soon as we arrived in Calcutta.

I went first to Cook’s for my mail. I found a letter from grandfather and one from Aunt Vera. They knew nothing about my illness. I had written to grandfather as soon as I could sit up, telling him that I was travelling through Assam. He wrote that father had been inquiring about me. It was useless trying to keep in touch with father. My letters would remain at his permanent address in Rome for weeks without being answered.

The first flat we saw proved to be just what we wanted. It was in the Chowringhee Mansions in Chowringhee—the principal street in Calcutta. We were to share it with the lady who rented it to us. She was a divorcée. Her husband, many years younger than herself, had left her owing, she said, to incompatibility. They had agreed upon a divorce, which had been granted a short time before we met her. Our part of the flat consisted of a large drawing-room and two bedrooms. You could step on to four balconies from the drawing-room windows. As the building was on a corner, two balconies gave on either street. Gwendolyn occupied all of them according to the shade, but in spite of moving her from one to the other, she had one slight sunstroke and had to go to the hospital.

We told Mrs. Y. (the lady with whom we were to share the flat) that we were Mr. and Mrs. Douglas from America. Plushy had become very brave since he had decided upon business as a career. He said if any of the secretaries visited us they would think we had quietly married somewhere. They saved themselves the tax on their credulity by staying away. We did not lack friends, however. We met a number of interesting people amongst the English and the Indians. Several Americans, who were engaged at the Angus Jute Company, came often to see us. One of the directors wrote poems to me and never forgave me—after his discovery—for not telling him the truth about my marital relations with Plushy.

Soon after we settled in the flat I began to write articles and poems for the newspapers and for the Modern Review. I got acquainted with Tagore, and I was invited to Tagore Castle on Sundays, where the poet, in bare feet and long robe, read his poems in Bengali. He was handsome with his height, his mystic dark eyes and his white curls which almost rested on his shoulders. The Indians sat about him on the floor looking up to him—he sat on a chair—hanging on his every word. The women of his household sat on a large bamboo bench. They were his nieces, his cousins, the wives of his brothers and nephews. They looked like a tropical garden in their multi-coloured saris with gold and silver borders. They were some of the loveliest women in India.

On Fridays the Indians came to the flat and we discussed everything under the sun. One of them, a young Brahmin who posed as being very “modern,” had a very jealous wife. She wrote me a letter accusing me of alienating her husband’s affection. At first I treated the letter as a joke, then I realized that she was making herself unhappy. After considerable difficulty—I didn’t care to ask her husband where they lived—I sought her out in one of the crowded parts of the city. She refused to see me at first, but finally my insistence and her curiosity brought her into her little sitting-room. She told me—while tears stood in her eyes—that she had no son. As a matter of fact she hadn’t even a daughter. Being sterile, she was no better than a criminal in a Hindu household. Her barrenness was getting on her husband’s nerves. He might take another wife. While he hadn’t selected me for this honour, he had spoken to her about me in the most complimentary terms—and he visited me every week. I told her the Indians were in the habit of coming to see me on Fridays, but that her husband had always come with several others. At the end of our talk she was weeping on my outcaste shoulder—to a Brahmin everyone is an outcaste—and asking me if I could manage somehow to have her come to my house on Fridays. I managed it by asking her husband to bring her—by letting him see that he would not be so welcome without her. Her gratitude took the form of sweets, boxes and boxes of them which she made for me herself. I gave them to my Hindu cook, who enlarged his family so persistently that all the gods must have been satisfied.

I wrote a poem for the Indians which was published in the Modern Review. Some of the Indians cut it out of this magazine and tacked it up on the walls. Others put a little tune to it and sang it in the streets. I received a letter from the person in authority asking to see my passport and hinting at deportation. I replied by taking my passport to the gentleman who had written to me. He was very kind. If I would promise to behave I would be permitted to stay in India. I promised, but he kept his eye on me for some time.

My ideas about India have undergone many changes since I wrote that poem. I do not mean that they have gone to the other extreme—far from it—but I think differently now about many things which are happening there. The Indian ghost will always walk. No politics will ever exorcise it—but it is with understanding, not maudlin sympathy, that conditions should be met.

When everything was running smoothly in the home of the jealous wife, Gwendolyn again disgraced me. As the Brahmin husband was passing the bench where she was sitting—sometimes she came in from the balconies and sat on a little bench in the drawing-room—she reached out and tore a long rent in his dhotie. I had to sew it so he could walk through the streets without attracting a crowd. That was too much for his wife. All amicable relations ceased between us. There were no more sweets to delight the cook’s numerous children. The husband continued to come on Fridays, but he never mentioned his wife.

I decided to write a novel. The outline of it had been in my mind for some time. I went to work with a rush, stopping for nothing but my evening meal with Plushy. I worked from about nine in the morning until nine in the evening. We had our evening meal at nine. Sometimes Plushy brought me a cup of tea when he came to tiffin. I was writing in my bedroom, and I had forbidden the bearer to come in no matter what he wanted. In about a week Plushy lessened my speed. He came after me at tiffin time, and refused to leave until I went out to the drawing-room and had tiffin with him. He repeated the interruption at tea-time. I soon decided to work five hours a day—three in the morning and two in the afternoon.

Shortly before my novel was finished, someone in New York sent Plushy a book called “Damned.” I dipped into it here and there, and made up my mind that I would ask the publisher (Macaulay) to consider my novel. I was fed up with Mr. Reid because—since leaving America—he would not reply to my letters. Once in desperation I wrote to a florist I knew in Boston, enclosing my card, and asking him to send Mr. Reid a little pot of forget-me-nots, and to tie my card on it. In a very dignified note Mr. Reid thanked me for the flowers.

When my novel was finished I called it “Eyes of India.” I sent it to Macaulay in New York. They answered me by cable with one word “accepted”—and followed the cable up with a contract which gave me what was left when everything that could be thought of had been considered. Plushy told me that the contract was rather one-sided, but I was too happy to care. I never had any trouble placing my early work. It is only now that I have become “too knowledgeable.”

The bearer came in one day with a letter of introduction from a friend in Boston. The lady to whom the letter introduced me was waiting in the hall. Immediately I was interested in the lady who had wormed my address out of Cook’s. She came in smiling, hoping I wouldn’t mind the way she had “butted in.” She was Marjorie Barstow—since Mrs. Greenbie, having married one of the editors of the Japan Chronicle—and she had come to India to write a pageant which was to be given the following summer in a park in Colombus, Ohio. The pageant, she said, must carry Indian history back one hundred years. I told her she should study the Mutiny country, and she agreed with me.

She was quite attractive—tall and slender and very blonde. My admiration for blondes was a little scant—but I had to admit that the word “stunning” would describe Marjorie. She wore a thin white dress which an Indian dursi (tailor) had hastily made for her, and a blue felt hat instead of the usual topee. As we talked about the places she should visit I suddenly had the idea that I would like to accompany her. Plushy was too immersed in work to show me much of India, and I didn’t see any fun in travelling round alone. I decided to mention my idea to Plushy before mentioning it to Marjorie. She had tea with me, and promised to come to tiffin the following day. She said she had no idea I was married. I could see she was wondering why I had not told my friends in Boston. I turned her astonishment off somehow. There was no reason why I should take her into my confidence.

When I told Plushy about her he said, “Murder would out,” and I would have to get married. He was pleased with my wish to travel round India with her. He thought it an excellent opportunity to see the country. We could take the bearer and he would get a budlee (substitute: in this case a temporary bearer).

He liked Marjorie. She knew certain friends of his who had been at Harvard with him. At tiffin I asked her if she would like me to travel with her. She was very enthusiastic. If only I would come. She didn’t know a word of Hindustani. I mustn’t change my mind. She looked at Plushy appealingly. We marked out a route on the map. Plushy helped us. We would go to Delhi, Cawnpore, Agra and Lucknow. She wanted to visit Benares—no one should come to India without visiting Benares—so we might as well go there first.

I happened to mention Tagore, and she asked me if I knew him. When I said “Yes,” she hoped I would arrange for her to meet him. Could I arrange it? I promised to do what I could, and we walked back to the hotel with her.

I wrote to Tagore asking him if he would see her. He answered, inviting us to visit him at his school at Bolpur—his Shantinekaten (the home of peace).

The bearer’s eyes glowed like stars when I told him he was going with us. He would see his beloved Northland again, and his little son who lived in Delhi. We decided to go to Bolpur first and then to Benares. Plushy took us to the station in the wheezing old car. Several times he had threatened to get a new one—but the sputtering old thing still did for taking typewriters about, so he carried on with it.

C. F. Andrews met us at Bolpur. Since living at Bolpur with Tagore he had worn the dhotie and sandals. He looked at our luggage and said something about coming to stay for the winter. I explained to him that we were starting out on a long journey, and had stopped first at Bolpur. He had brought a bullock cart. After a lot of stacking and re-stacking, our luggage was at last on the cart and we were on top of it. The expressions which flitted across Marjorie’s face as the bullocks jostled us and the luggage to the school, made a futuristic study of fortitude. It was amazing to see how the features of a face could shift into such unbelievable shapes while striving to remain calm. Mr. Andrews told us that he would walk back. His decision was of necessity, for he couldn’t have got on the cart with a shoe-horn.

We saw nothing of Tagore that day. During the three days we stayed at Shantinekaten he came over to our bungalow several times and had tea with us. He is very witty in conversation, and always sees the fun in anything. He detests publicity, and goes into the silence if he thinks people are going to quote him. He told us about the school where the pupils do exactly as they please, studying only what appeals to them. He hated the conventional training which his parents tried to force upon him when he was a child, and rebelled against all cut-and-dried methods when he was thirteen. He takes no thought of the morrow, letting others attend to all business arrangements. In fact, when he visited me later in Shanghai, he let me attend to his oculist’s bill. I mention this only to show you how carefree he is. He has taken the vow of poverty, which is the noblest gesture of the Hindu. We had a palm-thatched bungalow at the school, with a dining-room and a bedroom in which two large beds stood. I remember the beds better than the other furniture because they were draped in enveloping red counterpanes. The fastening of the door was very simple, being a big stick which we propped up against it at night.

The bullocks jostled us back to the station and we left for Benares; it being the evening of the third day.

Chapter VII

We stayed at Clarke’s Hotel in Benares. Miss Clarke gave us comfortable rooms, told us what to see in Benares, and sold Marjorie her old clothes. The clothes came from Paris. They were still in the boxes in which they arrived. That they had arrived about three years before we went to Benares made no difference to Marjorie. They were much too large and much too fussy for her, but she would have them. She never wore them while she was in India.

Quite by accident we had arrived in Benares during the yearly puja—when everything is worshipped from the Ganges to the tulsi plant. The people drowsed through the day and worshipped at night. The Ganges looked like a river carnival. It blazed with lighted boats and with floating lamps—gifts to the holy mother of the Ganges. Every temple on the banks of the river was alight. The gods stared at the festivities through a curtain of incense smoke. Before Siva’s temple lanterns gleamed on long bamboo poles. Under them Siva’s phallus dripped melted butter and coco-nut oil.

The bearer hired a flat-bottomed boat for us, which was poled through the glittering crush by one squirming boatman. We sat on our dilapidated chairs and watched the unbelievable scene. The scent from the surrounding gardens and the flower stalls seemed to float like oil on the water. Something of the phantom of past pageants mingled with the pageant which was being enacted, like some especially golden note in music. In the burning ghats, corpses sat on their pyres of twigs ready for the flame to run up the wick of them like fever in the veins. There was nothing real about it all. It was made of superstition, sound and flame. But somehow, as all mad, beautiful things, it seemed to exalt the forces of life like some heroic dream. Trees and hills and temples stood out as if they were embossed on the shadows. Night could take nothing to herself. As our boat moved along, the odours of unwashed men and women, and the odour of stale butter on the phallus, blotted out the scent of the flowers. In a temple the sticky fluid on the golden breasts of Kali made the goddess look as if she were perspiring. The gold of the gods was untarnished. What must it have been when it was fresh from the beaters, before filthy offerings had brought layers of dust to coat it? The pillars of the temple courts had been streaked with cow-dung and vermilion, obscuring the carvings which portrayed Siva’s passionate fife with his consorts. The holy men, wearing a costume of ashes, vomited at will to evoke sympathy. Women, eager to produce the male child, walked about with little pots of fire on their heads. Rice and fruit were thrown on the ground—offerings to the ghosts and demons—for the river banks had been used for ages as a burning ground for the dead so they must be spectre-infested. Sometimes cries came from the temples like the shrill scream of women in labour. Before the monkey temple men prayed for the power to wrestle. The groan of passing animals was followed by the scent of blood where Siva received the sacrifices in his name. Outlined against the moon, vultures waited patiently for the moment to descend from the trees. On balconies, high-pitched on the walls, women peered through the curtains. The lacework marble of windows broke the moon’s reflection into little squares of light that lay along the ground in definite shining patterns. Men sitting on the ground over little fires carried out the ritual of chewing betel and spitting it out. Everyone was talking or chanting. The buzz of it sounded like animals quarrelling in some not too far distant jungle. “This pageant would carry history back a good many thousand years,” Marjorie said. I think she was regretting being sent to India to write a pageant of the Mutiny.

We told the boatman to return to the landing. It seemed to take hours to get through the jam of boats.

The next day we visited Siva’s Well, but the stench kept us from peering into it. The carvings on the walls of the Nepalese temple—men in union with beasts—bored us. Far from getting any thrill out of them, you can’t even find their naughtiness. They are not disgusting—they are simply ridiculous. They are supposed to identify man’s brotherhood with all forms of life. The Indians never quite emerge from the fog of religious legend.

Marjorie suggested that, having seen Benares she might as well play truant a little longer, and have a look at Budd Gaya. I wrote to Plushy telling him of the change in our plans and trying to set before him the scene from the boat on the Ganges.

Miss Clarke tried to prolong our visit with the enticement of the brocade shops. Plushy had told us they were the finest in India. We decided not to visit them. We knew we couldn’t resist the gold-bordered saris and scarfs; so Marjorie packed up her second-hand clothes and we delivered ourselves from temptation.

Buddha must have been the only one to receive “enlightenment” at Budd Gaya. The place was utterly dead—in fact its little row of whitewashed huts looked—in the moonlight, when the village was asleep—like tombs in a cemetery.

We arrived in the afternoon. There was no hotel—there is one now, I believe. We went to the Rest House which had but two bedrooms and one was already occupied. Before leaving the station we had inquired about the trains for Cawnpore. There was one at four o’clock in the morning and one at eleven. We meant to leave at eleven—until we saw the accommodation at the Rest House. Then we decided to leave at four. The Rest House cook told us he could cook anything. After showing us his chits and telling us how much the sahibs liked his cooking he cooked us a tin of beans and a tin of peaches.

We went to the old temple where Buddha in his various attitudes—meditation, renouncing the world, etc.—stood in all the niches. There was no one in the temple. It seemed never to have been aired. A descendant of the famous budd tree still stands in the temple compound. I took some leaves from it and pressed them in my address book. When I was in Shanghai I gave one of the leaves to a Buddhist who had it mounted on black velvet and framed in ivory. There are few Buddhists in India. Buddha’s teachings appeal much more to the Chinese and Japanese than to his own countrymen.

We got into bed about eight o’clock—there were two beds in our room—intending to get what sleep we could before leaving for Cawnpore. About ten o’clock the man who had the other room came in and started to undress. I could hear him dropping things on the floor. No sooner was he in bed than he began to snore. I never heard such snoring in my life. It fairly shook the Rest House. We couldn’t sleep so we sat up in our beds and talked. When we left at three-thirty he was still snoring. Getting up at three-thirty in the morning, after having no sleep, its not conducive to amiability. I went into his room—his door was open—reached in under his net and gave him a good shaking, then I ran out and climbed into the gharry before Marjorie knew what I had done. It was then, as we rattled along to the station, the sleeping village looked Eke a cemetery under the moon.

I found a letter from Plushy at Cawnpore. He said that Gwendolyn, being lonely, had taken to visiting Captain Banfield—a friend in the Indian Army, whom she tried deliberately to flirt with when he came to the flat. He had taken her to his house one day and she had found her way back there whenever she could get her belt off. Typewriters were still selling and the car hadn’t collapsed yet. He hoped I was enjoying myself and liking India. A little sigh seemed to come from the letter.

Had I been selfish, leaving him alone while I travelled about India with Marjorie? On the other hand wasn’t he being a little selfish? After a sleep at the hotel I wrote a long letter telling him about everything we had seen and done—everything but shaking the man in the Rest House at Budd Gaya; for jealousy was one of his favourite subjects.

It was good to get to an hotel and have a cleanup. I hadn’t opened my jar of face cream since we left Tagore’s. My face felt stiff with dust and soot and Marjorie said she was beginning to look her age—which would have made little difference in the early twenties. She had a horror of getting small pox, and every place we went she discussed with me the possibilities of vaccination. I told her she should worry more about sunstroke for she still wore the blue felt hat insisting that a topee would be unbecoming.

She thought we would save time at Cawnpore by having a guide. The bearer found one who was willing to pilot us round the city for one rupee and his food per day. He took us to the well where General Wheeler’s small force had been thrown after the massacre. He emphasized the fact that women and children had been massacred. The mention of it gave him a sort of macabre satisfaction. He admitted that General Havelock occupied the city after defeating the mutineers, but he had arrived too late to save the women and children under General Wheeler’s protection—again the satisfaction—the licking of lips—the shifting of the betel cud. Marjorie took some photographs of the well. She inquired where she could find some old prints of Cawnpore and the guide took us to his cousin, who lived in a dirty street behind a row of dirtier shops.

Cousin brought out his prints and his obsequious manner. Perhaps the lady would buy the prints, he was a poor man and the prints were very cheap. Marjorie looked through them but found nothing very helpful. She inquired about the costumes worn in 1857. Didn’t the Memsahib know that the costumes of India never changed. She gave him two rupees for showing us the prints.

When we came out of the shops she looked disappointed. I told her she could expect to get nothing but the feel of the place. The rest was a matter of studying the history of the Mutiny and trying to reconstruct the scene at the well. We went to the Cawnpore industries and saw some interesting silver cutlery and some beautiful teakwood furniture. Driving back to the hotel she said she would soon get an idea for the beginning of the pageant.

We stayed three days in Cawnpore, and while she sought everything she could relating to the Mutiny, I searched the shops for materials to dress the pageant.

On the train going to Lucknow a man shared our carriage. He smiled at us and started the window conversation. I talked with him, but Marjorie froze. When we arrived at Lucknow about midnight the only thing at the station on wheels was the man’s car. He offered to take us to the hotel. Marjorie had to thaw and accept his offer. He put his arm round me as soon as we were seated in the car. Only once have I been angry at this familiar gesture; that was in Japan. I was driving with a man who had his top light on. I asked him to turn it off. He did: and immediately put his arm round me. When I asked him why he had suddenly become so affectionate he said: “I thought you expected it.” At the hotel I thanked the man who had driven us to the hotel and declined an invitation to dinner with him the following day.

Marjorie had an idea for the pageant. She talked it over with me and we decided that she had better go about alone, so there would be nothing to interfere with her impressions. She said guides were useless. They recited the usual patter. She might as well have a parrot with her.

She took the bearer and started out for the Residency, where that gallant troop with its handful of loyal Indians battled against overwhelming odds for 140 days, making an epic in military history. I also went out alone. The City of the Great Moguls fascinated me. I went to a gallery where portraits of the Great Moguls hung on the walls. You had only to stand in the centre of the room and keep turning round to see the fall of an empire. The first Emperor had the face of a tiger. The second was a trifle weaker. As you turned, a little more weakness was written on each face until you came to the last Emperor. A curtain was drawn over his portrait to cover such decadence even the Mohammedans couldn’t calmly bear. It was a strange feeling I had—standing in a room, looking at the fall of an empire, I went to the mosques and the shops. I found things which would do for Marjorie’s pageant—things she could buy later if she wanted them. I drove round the city seeing dozens of Kims and, while not quite agreeing with Kipling that Lucknow is the most beautiful city in India, admitting it was the only one which suggested space.

I had tea alone on the hotel veranda. Any number of people looked at me out of the corner of their eyes which is the nearest the English ever come to staring. That night, when I was sitting alone on the veranda, after dinner—Marjorie was making notes on her Lucknow impressions—a very important lady came and sat herself down beside me and began to ask me veiled questions. Seeing I had an Italian name she told me that, unlike most ladies in India, she had no objection to foreigners. I looked her straight in the eyes and told her that I had. I have never seen a better concealment of rage in my life. I don’t believe she had ever been snubbed before. She was the wife of a colonel, and while she stayed at the Carlton she owned the place. I heard afterwards that a man had put her up to pumping me.

In Delhi we carried out the same plan—going about on our own. Marjorie had a letter to a lady—I forget her name—and she thought it would be as well to present it at once as the lady might give her a few points about Delhi. The lady replied to the letter with an invitation for us—Marjorie told her she was travelling with me—to have tea with her the following day. It turned out to be the usual weekly tea fight. About twenty women were there. They pecked at each others’ faces as they came in. The subject of conversation was a woman who had just arrived. Some man had married her while he was home on leave. They put her on the dissecting table and proceeded to hack her to pieces. Soon there was nothing left of her—or her family. Later, when she arrived, they got up and kissed her. Women were staying on because they didn’t dare to leave. Marjorie and I, very daring, got up to go. The hostess and several others said it had been so nice seeing us. I suppose they had a good go at us so soon as we were out of the way. The lady had given us some points on Delhi but not the ones Marjorie expected.

Standing in the palace of Sha Jehan it occurred to me that being one of the 750 wives of the old Emperor might have been very interesting. To have sat on a marble lotus in a marble bath and have my body sprayed with rose water from the little taps under the petals would have worked like a charm when I was feeling a bit riotous. I wonder if women can be happy in a country where men have entire control of sex. Countries where women run everything breed a race of slave men. Which is worse? In our struggle for equality we are breeding effeminate men—or is it that we have discovered man’s weakness?

There is a legend in India that there will be nine Delhis before the gods are satisfied. The seventh city was built by the Great Moguls. The eighth is English Delhi with its English architecture and modern drainage. I wonder what the ninth will be?

I had a good scare in the Kutb Minar, the tower which reaches a height of 238 feet. I was coming down the narrow stairs and an Indian was coming up. I think we were absolutely alone in the tower. As I met him he put out his arms and barred my way. I couldn’t descend without throwing him backwards. How quickly you think in an emergency! I realized I could not prove that I had killed him in self-defence. To try to overpower him without throwing him would have been impossible. I stood perfectly still and glared into his eyes. My only fear was the fear of consequences if I should suddenly raise my knee and send him flying. Soon he put his arms down and let me pass. I think he was only trying to frighten me for only an idiot would have attempted anything at the top of narrow stone stairs which wound down over two hundred feet.

Marjorie bought some carpets in Delhi. Before asking to have them delivered at the hotel she took out her pen and initialled them on the borders. She was learning a lot in India besides the tragedies of the Mutiny.

In Agra there was a letter from Plushy telling that Gwendolyn hadn’t been home for a week and asking me what was the feminine of roué. The letter was very cheerful, nothing like the one I had received at Cawnpore. Two of the men who had bought typewriters had had him to dinner and Mrs. Y. had had him to tiffin. He thought Marjorie might as well have a look at the Black Hole of Calcutta—while it had nothing to do with the Mutiny it was rather in her line. Calcutta was delightful in November. The mornings and evenings were quite fresh and the middle of the day wasn’t too hot. I am not including his letters in my memoirs. It would seem like betraying a trust—and I doubt if they would interest you. Letters are such damning documents. You dash them off without thinking that you are giving yourself into the hands of the recipient. Having your letters read in court is a horrible experience. It reminds you of vultures attacking the dead body of a jackal. You have no defence. There is nothing between you and the hastily-formed opinions of biased people. My letters were read in court when the famous necklace case (Napoleon’s necklace) was tried in America. I did not hear the reading of them, but you always have friends (?) who are afraid you will miss something.

Agra, to me, is one of the most interesting cities in India. It is iridescent with romance and beauty. I never go to it without seeing Sha Jehan sitting on his jasmine balcony dreaming his Taj—a beauty beyond criticism—beyond judgment—beyond dimension or form—a beauty to last as long as the world lasted, for it was to be her monument. I see his head buried in his hands for she is dead—his pride of the palace—his heart of a rose. Flashes of memory bring back delights and he weeps—his body is shaken with grief. Tears filter through his fingers.

The Taj is a monument to Love—perhaps the only one in the world. Don’t worry, I am not going to write about the Taj, I am going to write about love—the love of an old Emperor who had loved one woman in spite of his lust—in spite of the fact that no woman of his court was safe from his passion. His brain was for ever weaving a fabric of beauty and sex, but his love of one woman was the thread of gold in the material.

There are many things more passionate than love—truth is—beauty is—courage (when you are eaten up with fear) is. Love can be very steadying. It can deaden the senses and deliver you from passion. Hate and jealousy may be two of its ingredients—but it is the only remedy for a sick soul. Now that science is trying to take the place of feeling we are dreadfully shaken up, and we shall continue to be until science finds its feet and love has positively refused to be ousted. Perhaps I shall be ridiculed for what I am saying, I don’t care. Perhaps, as my memoirs go on, I shall be called inconsistent; again I don’t care, for I know that everything in my changeable, tragic life somehow hangs together. My life so far has been a fabric of destiny and every thread that has gone into it has helped to weave the fantastic pattern.

While Marjorie went to the Fort I went to Fatehpur Sikri, the city where Akbar realized his chief ambition; for his son was born there. Again I was impressed by the extravagance of Oriental despots when it came to pleasing their favourite women. I sat on stones in the houses of Miriam and Jodhbai dreaming of their glorious captivity, for who wouldn’t be deprived of liberty to live in a “Golden House” and look out at the wanton beauty of the desert? In my mind I wrote a story about Jodhbai, the mother of Sha Jehan. It was all flamboyance—volume—extravagance—as colourful as a temple harlot—but I never got it down on paper.

Our last night in Agra I went to have a final look at the buildings. The night was beautiful—clear as a crystal. Just as I was leaving the hotel a man stepped up to the taxi and said: “You have taken the only taxi. If you’re going near the station do you mind giving me a lift.” He got in. Then he told me that he had seen me at the hotel in Cawnpore and he felt he knew me slightly. He wanted to know me better and had made the station an excuse for getting acquainted. He looked like a big baby. I couldn’t imagine how he got up the courage to stop me. We drove round for about two hours. I tried to put him at his ease for his boldness had waned. He was an engineer. He had been out only a year and he found India deadly dull. His ideas were all of the utilitarian sort. Beauty had no place in them. His comments on the lyric monuments of Sha Jehan were rather flat. I took him back to the hotel. His burst of courage had been wasted.

*  *  *

Plushy met us at the Howrah station and wheezed us back to the flat. Marjorie had dinner with us. She thought of staying at the hotel until she finished the pageant. As a matter of fact she wrote about half of it in Calcutta.

Gwendolyn was still visiting Captain Banfield.

While Marjorie was in Calcutta I arranged for her to meet some of the men of the Angus Jute Company. They were Americans, for much of the company’s capital, at that time, was American. One of the directors, I will call him M. S., had us—Plushy also when he could spare the time—to his house on the Hoogli. It was a charming place, and his cook was one of the best in Calcutta. Sometimes he took us on the river in the company’s launch. The banks of the Hoogli are not very interesting, but in the evening, when the little cooking fires are alight and the people are preparing their spicy evening meals before the doors of their huts, the scene is fascinating.

Marjorie came in one day and told me that she was going back to New York. She had bought everything she would need for the pageant, and she would finish the writing at home. I went to the station with her when she left for Bombay.

I saw her only once afterwards; and on that occasion we sat up all night talking in the National Hotel in Cairo. Her husband was then manager of the Floating University, which was financed by an American to give a portion of American youth the chance to travel round the world while acquiring an education. It was said that whoopee was more in evidence than education on the University. The ship was in the harbour at Alexandria—and Marjorie, who did something on her, I am not sure what, had brought some of the students up to Cairo to see the Pyramids.

While I am mentioning the National Hotel I must tell you a story about it. One winter the management engaged a former cinema star and her cabaret company. The proprietor of the hotel, a Greek, lost his heart to her at once; possibly because the glamour of the films still clung to her. One evening a party of Cairo’s young bloods attended the cabaret. One of them was the son of one of the richest Greeks in Egypt. He started a desperate flirtation with the former cinema star. The proprietor, his jealousy completely out of hand, ordered the young man to leave the hotel. He left; but he bought the hotel next day, so rumour says, and then it was the proprietor’s turn to leave. The cinema star seemed to go with the turn over, for the young man took her under his protection, to the tune of villas, cars, and thousands of pounds.

There is another story of this cinema star in which I was concerned. I was asked to offer her a rose diamond from the collection of the Sultan Abdul Hamid. I phoned and asked her if she would care to see it. The conversation on the phone was as follows:

Miss Star: “How big is it?”

I: “Seventeen carats.”

Miss Star: “Not big enough.”

I: “It is large as rose diamonds go.”

Miss Star: “Save yourself the trouble. I’m not interested in ’um under thirty-five carats.”

After Marjorie left I began again to write. I wrote for three hours in the mornings and studied the Eastern religions for three hours in the afternoons. I gave Gwendolyn to Captain Banfield, for it was impossible to keep her at home. It seemed cruel to tie the little animal up when she was so happy with the Captain. Plushy was glad to see the last of her, but I missed her funny antics.

Grandfather wrote that Mr. Vanburgh was visiting them at Aswan. Aunt Vera had gone back, but to Detroit, as her husband had moved his business from Montreal to the Lake City. They sent me a photograph of Natalie. She was a beautiful child. I could see nothing of the howling baby in the dreamy young face with its long almond-shaped eyes. I knew Aunt Vera would not stay with her liege lord very long without a break. Mother wrote occasionally, but her letters were bits of advice strung together with the daily happenings at Aswan.

I had an Indian teacher who came in to help me with the teachings of the Vedas and the Upanishads. I became very interested in the legends and the doings of the gods. With my teacher I used to visit the temples, where animals were sacrificed. Sometimes we went to the burning ghats and watched the cremations. My nerve must have been pretty good then, for one day, while I was watching the flames of a funeral pyre, the coolies brought a body on a stretcher and put it down immediately behind where I was standing. Intent upon the fire I did not know it was there, until I happened to step backwards—and fell over it. I had a feeling of horror and disgust right down to my soul, but the Indians were standing about expecting to see me go to pieces. I got up as if it were my habit to fall over corpses every day.

There may be something deep, perverted, contradictory in my character, but instead of seeing the filth and degeneracy at the temples, I saw the drama. I shuddered only when the drama took the form of sacrifice—then I became furious. I wanted to draw the knife across the priest’s throat as he drew it across the throats of the dear, unsuspecting animals. Once seeing the stark fear in the eyes of a goat I made a dash for the sacrificial block with no definite idea of what I meant to do. I was surrounded in a second by fanatics who kept closing in on me until I found myself outside the temple door.

I could watch old men throw themselves downward and lap the stones where the sacrifice had been. They would raise their faces dripping with blood, a horrible grin fixing their features—but I thought of the scene as of a masque in hell. They were not human beings I watched, but devils of some lurid Hindu rite. The stench of blood and filth obliterated my senses and I felt that I had been wafted to the region of some prehuman forgotten moloch. I could watch stale ghee dripping from Siva’s phallus and think of the drama of the old pagans, knowing that it would never do for the new pagans. I knew that cults were understandable while they remained the property of the age for which they were due. It was when other ages used them they degenerated. I attended puberty ceremonies, and the marriage of trees, feeling that I had found the springtime of a simple, more childlike Greece.

I became interested in Theosophy, especially the idea of reincarnation. By studying my ancient books I learned that the idea of reincarnation had no place in them. The earliest reference to it occurs in the Chaandogya Upanishad. The ancient community was responsible for the actions of its individuals. It is later Hinduism which built up the law of Karma, but built it up in such a way that were it to knock down the idea of reincarnation the whole structure would crumble. The Theosophists have a poetic idea of reincarnation due to egotism and the infiltration of Western teaching. It is easier to bear a dull, humdrum existence when you know you were a king or a queen in some previous life. I used to sit and wonder who I had been in a former life. I stared at the candle flame for hours on end, hoping my mind would become blank, and that into the void would flash the knowledge of my previous lives. I never got the least glimmer of intuition, so I chose my previous personality. I decided that I had been Octavia, for I had met hundreds of Cleopatras but not one Octavia. I never told Plushy about my previous life. His wish to have me believe in something did not extend beyond my present existence. I enjoyed living in my dream although I knew it to be quite absurd.

I longed desperately to believe in something, for no matter what any atheist may say to the contrary, belief in something is necessary for happiness. God has a great range—but somewhere up or down the scale you must accept Him or life is not worth living. Now that science has started out to prove religion we shall all find ourselves believing and wondering why we ever doubted. A great religious revival is on the way for people are utterly sick of the way everything has been going to hell since the war. Business men, who a few years ago, would have laughed at anything but their pursuit of the pound, are attending psychological lectures and even séances in their endeavour to crack the plating of materialism which has been hardening on them for years.

My early studies in Hinduism laid the foundation for the book I wrote some years later when I lived in India. I refer to the “Land of the Lingam” which I wrote under the pseudonym of Arthur Miles. I shall mention it again when I tell you about my home in South India.

My writing, while I was in Calcutta, was as colourful as an Arabian sunset. I was building the fantastic images of my brain into cities, temples, tropical landscapes. I read books with homely Western settings—books of the soil—to see if I could cool down my writing a little: but it was useless. I could work no grey into the flame. I sold some of it to Indian papers. Much I still have. I have no desire now to take the heat out of it, for it has all the glamour of my first impressions of India.

I had been in Calcutta about two years when I received the cable telling me of grandfather’s death. For days I felt stunned. Something within me seemed to have turned to ice. I paid no attention to anything that was said to me. If food appeared before me I ate it mechanically. I moved about like a toy that was wound up with a key. One day something snapped and I began to cry. I would sit crying for hours; I couldn’t stop. I wanted to get away. I felt that everything was closing in on me, crushing me. I could feel all sorts of thoughts whirring about me like a flock of birds. You can never dodge the force of other people’s thoughts. They attack you like disease germs and lay you out. Then you blame the weather, your state of health, your financial condition, for your encounter with despondency. I felt Plushy’s thoughts. They were touching me every moment and I wanted to get away from them. Everyone I knew in Calcutta wrote me condolatory letters. I had to escape from it all—I had to. I loved Plushy but I wanted to leave him. I talked with him about it. He couldn’t understand me. I told him there were things you must confront alone, no one could help you.

The days passed and I received letters from mother and grandmother. They urged me to come home. There was no home now that grandfather had gone. I couldn’t face them. I couldn’t live there where I had lived with grandfather. He had died suddenly of some obscure heart trouble. We never knew he had anything the matter with his heart. If he knew he never mentioned it. He left no will. Grandmother said she would continue my allowance, and if I needed extra money at any time to let her know. Aunt Vera and Natalie were on their way to Egypt.

In a dazed condition I went out and bought a ticket to Singapore. I had a hazy idea that I would eventually arrive at one of the South Sea Islands and stay there. Plushy told me I was mad. Then he tried to plead with me. I didn’t love him. I had never loved him or I couldn’t leave him. Would I write to him? Of course I would write to him; but I must get away; I must be alone. I think the happiest days of my life I spent with Plushy in India; but I had to leave him; fata viam inveniunt (Fate finds our path).

Chapter VIII

I went to the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. I made no acquaintances on the boat coming down; neither did I care to make any in Singapore; but you can’t be alone always, and the edge of your grief does not remain keen for ever. I met people at the hotel and they talked with me at the dances on the veranda. I had teas and dinners at their tables and several took me for drives round the City. Soon I knew a number of people. Mostly their minds had gone tropical and their conversation were all alike. One brilliant exception was Roland Braddell, the best known lawyer of the Straits. Usually the legal mind leaves me cold, but Mr. Braddell was more than a lawyer; he was an artist. He painted and he wrote poetry—not in an amateurish way, to kill time, but as well as many of the exponents of the two arts.

There was an Arab, named Alsagoff, at the hotel, who threw money about in all directions. One night when Sir Hugh Clifford, who was then Governor, was presiding at an auction in aid of one of the King’s charities, Alsagoff paid a thousand dollars for a cushion. Later he went to England seeking more scope for ridding himself of his money. After making a complete job of it he put his head in a gas oven somewhere in London.

The foundations of the Alsagoff fortune had been laid by the grandfather in the pilgrim trade. He dispatched Mohammedan pilgrims to Mecca and collected his agency fees. Between Jeddah and Mecca the pilgrims had to travel by land through bandit-infested country. The bandits who infested it were relatives of the former Alsagoff. When the pilgrims arrived destitute in Mecca, Alsagoff’s partner would advance them money against their lands in Malaya. In these circumstances foreclosure was not difficult.

There was a Norwegian woman at the hotel who, being very democratic, gave her favours to the night watchman, an Indian Sikh. The manager, insisting that he must control the servants, asked her to leave.

Singapore had a club called the Egg Club. It met in the middle of any street where the traffic would not interfere. Chairs and tables appeared somehow in the street—taken no doubt from the little shops—and the club members occupied them from midnight until sunrise. I went to the Club with a large party. One of the ladies was making a desperate effort to retain her youth. Age was a very sore point with her and no one dared mention it to her. During the evening—I should say the morning—a drunken sailor from a near-by table came to our table and sat down beside me. He told me between hiccoughs and bleary stares that he admired me greatly. As a matter of fact I was just his sort. He asked me to meet him at the Club the following night. I told him I would if he would leave the table. He stood up at once, and putting his hands on the table to steady himself, he grinned at the youthful lady and said: “Bring your mother too, if you like.” Needless to say the lady hated me after that.

The liveliest one of our party was a Frenchman, who got up on the table, put a basket of flowers on his head, and made a speech. Whatever he had meant to say hesitated between his broken English and the Japanese beer. Someone helped him down and flopped him into a chair, where he proceeded to unbutton his shirt and show a lady the growth of hair on his chest—which, he said, had any ape beaten. There were other features resembling his ancestor which he might have mentioned.

I met a lady at a tea who knew Max, John M.’s tenant. She invited me to dinner at her house. During the meal someone got the impression that I was in favour of the Soviet. They got up in a body and left the table, saying they could not eat with a person who was in favour of Red Russia. In my childhood I had been sent away from the table for various reasons, but it was something new having the others file out and leave me alone. I was too amused to be angry—and to flabbergast them I finished my dinner.

An Italian couple I met suggested that I go along with them and have a look at Penang. I was eager to see something more of the Straits, so I accepted. Socially Penang was a smaller edition of Singapore, but the island is beautiful, and the drive round it, with the sea always in view, is charming. The colours of land and sea merge into each other like the colours of the sunset. Rice fields stretch out for miles, emerald under the sun. Ferns creep down over the rocks like the drip of green water. Flowers ooze their perfume and die exhausted. Trees gleam with red, purple and yellow—storms, if ever they occur, are like the petulant wrath of a pretty woman—an extravagant unbelievable land—a beauty to trance the senses—to destroy initiative.

I stayed at the Runnymead, a bizarre hotel, where money is more evident than taste. I had a letter of introduction to Dr. Savage—now deceased—and his wife, who was very interesting. She was one of the very few different women I met in the Straits. She introduced Captain Lindsay-Vares, aide-de-camp to the Sultan of Perak. Later I met the Sultan, who invited me to an entertainment in the heart of the jungle.

Few Eastern rulers are content with such simple amusement as that which the Sultan of Perak furnishes for his guests. Usually Eastern rulers stage something like Nero’s lion parties. The ruler of a nearby state, a friend of the Sultan, presented such bloodthirsty performances the British Government had to interfere. To stop tiger and elephant fights in one of the Malay states the Resident had to put a stop to all the sports of the Ruler.

The Sultan of Perak’s entertainment was given in honour of Sir Ormsby-Gore. We motored out, twenty of us, to the road where the Sultan stood under a huge orange umbrella, waiting for us. Men of the Court and servants had gone ahead to the clearing, where we were to be entertained. Twelve elephants waited in line with double baskets slung across their backs to carry us to the clearing. A temporary stage had been erected to enable us to climb into the baskets, which were lined with grass and wild flowers and—the basket I occupied—with leeches. One after the other the elephants came to the stage guided by their mahouts, who rode on their necks. We slid into the baskets with the help of the mahouts, and the elephants joined the waiting line ready for their march into the jungle. The Sultan, with Sir Ormsby-Gore, led the procession on the smallest elephant. I rode with the Sultan’s aide-de-camp, on the largest elephant, which, the mahout informed me, when the beast was wading a jungle stream, had never been ridden before by white people. This news was rather disconcerting, as elephants are temperamental people who take sudden notions to do things not on the cards. On the return journey this elephant treated his riders—I didn’t return on him—to an experience which left nothing to be desired in the way of thrills.

There was no pathway through the jungle. The procession literally ploughed its way through dense undergrowth and long creepers, which would have thrown animals less ponderous. While I was digging the leeches out of my thighs the aide-de-camp looked the other way until they became so attentive I couldn’t cope with them. Then he struck matches and held them under the pests until they dropped off. Frequently the elephants coiled their trunks round the bushes, uprooting and eating them. When we came to rocks they either stepped over or broke their way round them. Into some of the streams they plunged to their middles, never slipping, but carefully picking their steps until they reached the other side. Occasionally our elephant lowered his trunk to drink, which made me fearful that he would spray us to show his contempt for his white cargo.

I was not sorry when we came to the clearing where the Sultan was to show us the old sport of Perak. Holding on to a basket, picking leeches out of your flesh and brushing the limbs of trees away from your face, can mar even the joys of anticipation.

In the clearing we saw a huge rock, down which water raced, two palm-thatched shelters and a large canvas tent. In the tent servants were cooking curries, preparing mango phule, and mixing delicious drinks known only to Malaya.

The Sultan told us we would find bathing costumes in the shelters. One shelter was for women and the other for men. I found a bathing suit which more or less fitted me. An ayah anointed me with iodine where the leeches had fastened.

A servant passed each of us a long banana leaf. The Sultan climbed the rock down which the water raced. There were two pools at the end of the cascade, one lower than the other. We followed the Sultan, Sir Ormsby-Gore climbing immediately after him. At the top the Sultan turned to explain that the idea was to reach both pools, especially the second. He sat down on his banana leaf, holding it front and back by the stalk. Down he slid over the rock, the water splashing on his head and shoulders. He made the first pool—slid gracefully out of it and down into the second. He had managed to stay on his leaf all the way.

Sir Ormsby-Gore sat down, grasped his leaf, gave two little pushes with his heels and was off. Half-way down the slide he lost his leaf, but the Colonial Secretary was game. He made the first pool. Two ladies followed him. One stretched out on the leaf and went down head first. She made the second pool, going completely under water. I put my leaf down, shut my eyes and started. Half-way down I lost my leaf and the skin off my back, but I made the second pool. I stood at the bottom watching the others coming down. If only I had had a camera to have caught the expressions of men and women gone momentarily mad from the Blackpool stunts of little boys. Over and over again they attempted the slide with or without leaves in their determination to make the second pool. Sir Ormsby-Gore’s expression told how he was progressing. The tight-lipped smile gave way to a happy giggle—he had made the second pool. I think the Sultan was the only one with his skin intact.

Tiffin was served below the pools by boys who moved as easily over the stones and creepers as they did over the Persian carpets of the palace. The drinks which had been cooled in the springs were poured into thin glasses. Then the miracle was performed—the serving of such a tiffin in the virgin jungle of Malaya. Nothing was missing. Delicate napery covered the temporary table, and palace cutlery marked each place. Bunches of mysterious orchids, never seen outside that impenetrable jungle, were placed in brass bowls with ferns as rare as themselves. We ate and drank and toasted the Sultan until shadows slanted downward through the trees.

The cooking staff came out and danced for us, punctuating their jerky steps with a mournful wail. Squatting with instruments which resembled the primitive ancestors of all violins, young boys sang something between a dirge and a foxtrot while they scraped out the accompaniment on the strings with pieces of bamboo. The Sultan said it was a love song. Shy birds who never leave the jungle came to see what was going on. I had a glimpse of the Argus pheasant, the most beautiful bird in the world.

Bruised but joyful we again mounted the elephants and ploughed back without excitement until a swarm of golden hornets—the most dreaded insects of the tropics—tickled the ear of my former mount. He trumpeted with such a blast it fairly shook the jungle. Then he bolted. His riders were thrown. We traced them by their cries for help. Somehow the Sultan was back, although he must have been well out of the jungle, as he was leading. With much difficulty they helped the man who had been thrown to remount and sit between the baskets. The lady was pulled up on to the elephant I was riding. She said she was so bruised from the sliding she couldn’t tell whether she had received any further injury. We left the Sultan at the edge of the jungle, where we had met him—again standing under his orange umbrella. My body was sore for days afterwards in spite of applications of “new skin.”

I returned to Singapore, with the idea in my mind of going to Java. I stayed in Singapore about a week, having a few more dinners, going to a few more dances, hearing a little more scandal; then I sailed on a Dutch boat for Java.

I must tell you an amusing story about the Malay language which I heard in Singapore. There is a place on the sea, a short distance from the heart of the city, call the Gap. Weary dancers and imbibers drive out there when the festivities have ceased at the hotels and when the Egg Club can find no street to occupy. It is then the men, with their ladies, call the chauffeurs and say “piggie gap”—which means, go to the Gap. A tourist who was making desperate efforts to learn enough of the language to procure necessities, asked a chauffeur what “love” was in Malay. Immediately the man replied “piggie gap, sir.”

Batavia was a relief after Singapore. The Dutch were very easygoing. No one worried about letting down Dutch prestige before the natives. As a matter of fact the Dutch marry the natives and go about everywhere with them. The women make no attempt at slimming. Many of them were colossal. One day I saw a colossus fall on a little boy. She had the child by the hand leading him down the steps of the hotel. Her heel caught on something and threw her on the child. I knew the boy would be perfectly flat when two men, who had rushed to the scene, had removed her. He was not flat but he was so badly hurt one of the men had to carry him into the hotel. It is not surprising the size the women achieve when you think what they eat. At rice taffle a plate is heaped with rice until you can scarcely see over it. Then boys bring trays of meat, fish, eggs, savouries, potted things and fruits. You are supposed to put some of everything on top of the rice, and then, with a big spoon, shovel it down. The meals in Java used to make my tummy turn over. Often I went all day with nothing but the coffee essence, boiled milk and a bit of bread which they serve in Java instead of early tea.

During the heat of the day men sit about on the verandas in sarongs—their feet bare—their hands resting on their hips—or raising the inevitable gin to their lips—their minds entirely at peace. The scene is very languid, very inert. When the evening breeze cools the place they return to their offices. The women slumber under their nets or laze away the hours with a bit of needlework. They saunter through life doing only what is absolutely necessary.

I stayed at the Netherlands. It looked quieter and cooler than the Des Indes. Its garden, in spite of restraint, blazed and rioted and climbed over the fence to wander along the street. There are no frail flowers in the East. Every one has its own voluptuous beauty. My room was dark and badly furnished, but you are not supposed to stay in your rooms in the tropics. You live on the veranda, going inside only when the sun blazes down on you. I love the sun. What a passion I feel for it! It can cast a spell over the most dreary looking country. A lovely sunset can make me forget any sort of misery. I can put everything horrid behind me until the last red streak fades from the sky. I never go inside to get away from the sun.

The people at the hotel spoke to me. The Dutch and the Malayans never worry about introductions. There were two Hungarian women staying at the Netherlands. One, I think, belonged to the oldest profession. The other was a dancer. While the dancer was out keeping an engagement at one of the restaurants, the other used to sit with me on my veranda. After a certain amount of gin she would become dreamy and poetical. One night she told me how she sat at the window of an hotel in Semarang in the dawn, watching Nature stretch and open her eyes. The man she had spent the night with—and whom she had never seen before—still lay on his back in bed, his mouth open, snoring. Deliberately she had turned away from him and watched the sun tinting the hills, heard the birds chattering, saw Malays and animals slip into harness for the day’s work. She fixed her mind on the scene from the window. She wouldn’t allow herself to think of the night she had spent with the man or the body which frustrated her soul because it was necessary to use it to live. I pitied her. I rummaged round my mind for a way to help her out of the degradation she hated. I might have done something for her if she hadn’t called me into her room while she was entertaining a man. She and the man sat at a table with the gin bottle between them. She told him of her family—of her heartless mother who had made her scrub floors when she was ill enough to be in bed—of her father who used to beat her—of her brother who kicked her downstairs. This last brutality had driven her out into the world to seek employment. Nothing but tragedy had dogged her while she tried desperately to be a “good girl.” Tears were running down her face and falling into her glass of gin. The man reached over and pressed her hand. When he left she jumped up and danced round the room shouting, “Wasn’t that a good show. I could give the cinema points. Believe me, that little act will bring me a few guilders, he’s rich.”

I met another woman who sold Paris frocks. She travelled through the Far East every year with frocks. She told me that one of the Dutch architects went to her to buy a dress for his wife. When she asked him what sort of dress he wanted he said: “Any sort, I don’t care.” She found a frock for him and because he didn’t care she also sold him two hats. A few days after he had bought the clothes he asked her to dinner at a friend’s (a bachelor’s) flat. After dinner they went to his office. She saw the parcel she had given him lying under his desk. He gave it back to her and told her to sell the clothes again. She was very pretty and I suppose it was worth the trouble he took to meet her.

I wrote to Plushy from Batavia telling him about my experiences, but nothing about myself. I was taking a more sensible view of my misfortune. I was beginning to realize that the only way to overcome anything is to accept it—to take it into your life—live with it and it would change. Pain, physical or spiritual, couldn’t last for ever, but fighting it prolonged it. It was selfishness that made me regret grandfather’s death. I knew I had lost my best friend—and I thought only of myself.

I went to Semarang, the little town which clings to the side of a hill and the place my friend Venette Herron lived when she married Java. The man she married didn’t count. It was this gorgeous tropical land with its heart-twisting beauty, its tinkling bells, the aromatic scent of its vegetation, that she married. Before that she had been married to Brazil.

From my window in the hotel I climbed all the hills, finding little houses on the top of each—little houses under enchantment. In that moment of dusk, just before the sudden night, I liked to sit on my veranda and listen to the little tinkling noises which close the Malayan day. Lights would appear in the kampongs, palms would sway in the breeze and on the road down the hill-side there was one garden which seemed entirely to be made up of big white flowers, like stars. There were only three guests in the hotel. I made the fourth. One was a planter who told me a story which would have delighted Somerset Maugham. It was about a doctor who had been very ill of some mysterious disease which none of his colleagues could diagnose. He was rapidly sinking and it seemed as if only death could be expected. The mother of the half-caste girl he had been going about with went to his house one day and told him that if he would marry her daughter he would recover his health at once. She threatened that if he refused to marry the girl he would die. He thought it over and decided that if there was any chance—however slim—he was going to take it. He sent for the woman and agreed to marry her daughter. The next day he was up and as well as he had been before his illness. He married the girl. Then he went to Holland and got a divorce. You may be sure he never went back to Java.

I asked the planter if he believed in Malay magic. He said he wouldn’t dream of doubting it. He took me to a rite on the edge of the jungle. I saw nothing but an elf-locked witch stirring a pot which was boiling on a wood fire. Once in a while she added a few drops to the pot from a vial which she took from some mysterious pocket of her slendong. The drops looked like blood. She was chanting something. About twenty men and women sat in a circle round the pot. They paid no attention to us. The planter said that anything could happen outside the circle, but if we dared to approach the pot they would cast a spell on us. He said their powers were black and always used for evil. I am inclined to think that much of the Malay magic is done with poisons—poisons which leave no evidence. This fact does not make the effect any less horrible. I have seen magic rites in India and Egypt which were performed by spells and weird formulae—rites entirely out of the range of human explanation—awful rites performed without the help of poisons or effigies.

The trains in Java run only in the day time. The interior country is as beautiful as any in the world. I saw some of its mountains, its volcanoes, its strips of golden desert, the savage grandeur of its marvellous vegetation.

I went to the Barabudur, the most important monument in Java. It is what remains of the largest Buddhist temple in the world. It rises in a terraced mound surrounded by long galleries carved with Sanskrit texts. A Dutch painter has since told me that it was made to represent the lotus or inner soul. He admitted that this was his own idea which had occurred to him because the galleries from the base to the fourth stage resembled the petals of a lotus. The Javanese are supposed to be Mohammedans, but the word of the Prophet is overlaid with primitive animism and superstitions handed down from former days when they worshipped Hindu deities. Very little remains of the teachings of Buddha. In wandering round I met my old friends Siva and Vishnu. More or less intact they stood on their pedestals before the ruins of their temples. There was even a temple to Nandi, Siva’s Bull. I wrote two articles on the Barabudur. One I sent to the Modern Review of Calcutta and the other to the Pioneer of Allahabad. As I could give these publications no address I never knew what became of the articles.

After my journey into the interior I went to Surabaya. The ports of Java have very little natural beauty. Surabaya was ugly and dirty, and to add to the dirt a steam train rushed up and down the main street belching smoke. The Hotel Orania (I am not sure that I spell the name of this hotel correctly) was all verandas and bathrooms. My cubicle had both attached to it.

I hadn’t been in Surabaya more than three hours when I received a love letter. It was written in French and tucked in under my door. The man who wrote it had placed everything, even his heart, at my feet. He said he would come to my table on the veranda when I went out to dinner—and if I would permit him he would have dinner with me. I can’t say that I was touched by the gentleman’s declaration—but I was curious. While I was having tea on my veranda a man came over and introduced himself. He was Mr. Sweeney of Shanghai. He sold Dodge motor-cars. He explained that Eastern sales of the Dodge cars were put through Shanghai. He was very pleasant and very American. He asked me if I had received a letter from “Silky.” I answered: “If Silky writes ardent love letters, I have.” He said that Silky was a Dutchman in the import and export business. He kept his eye on all the hotels and when a good-looking woman arrived—here Mr. Sweeney gave me, what he would have called, the once over—he wrote her a letter and tucked it in under her door. He wore a beard which he said women loved to stroke. It was because he was for ever calling attention to the charm of his beard he had been nicknamed “Silky.” My interest went out when I heard that Silky had a beard. I hate beards. I never see one without wanting to shake Keatings on it.

Silky came to my table. as he had threatened. He stood waiting for an invitation to sit down. I didn’t speak to him. He stood there making watery “sheep’s eyes” at me until people at other tables began to giggle—then he went away with his tail down.

Soon after I arrived at Surabaya it occurred to me that I was broke. I knew I was going to be broke, but I had tried not to think about it. My grandmother didn’t know I had left Calcutta. I couldn’t cable her from Java and ask for money without an explanation. The explanation by cable would cost more than I had left. I tried to think my way out of the difficulty. I had visions of myself under Silky’s protection.

I took my courage in both hands, together with a diamond pendant which grandfather had given me, and went to Mr. Sweeney’s verandah. I held out the pendant and asked: “Won’t you lend me 350 guilders on this?” Mr. Sweeney never batted an eyelash.

“I’ll give you the money without the trinket,” he said.

I dreaded to think what security he was going to ask for—but he didn’t ask for it. Be it to his credit he took no advantage of the situation. Later, when I paid him back in Shanghai, he said he had never, for a moment, doubted that I would “pay up.” Often I have thought of Mr. Sweeney’s belief in me when people have accused me of knavish tricks. I don’t pretend that I have never been the knave—but also I have been the victim.

I had to find a cargo boat, for the 350 guilders wouldn’t go far on any of the passenger liners. I knew it was useless to go to any of the offices and ask the agents to find a place for me on one of their boats. I tramped round the docks, going on the most likely looking boats and interviewing the captains. I wanted to go to Shanghai. Mr. Sweeney had told me it was the only city in the East to live in; and I was inclined to agree with him, judging by the glimpse I had when I was rushing through it in the taxi. None of the captains wanted to take me. They made all manner of excuses. I was at my wit’s end when I saw a lady coming down the quay to get into a launch. She pointed to a cargo boat and asked the man on the launch to take her out to it. While she was bargaining with the man about the fare I asked her if she knew of any cargo boat which would take me to Shanghai. She said she was going to Shanghai herself—but in a round-about way. The cargo boat she was sailing on had first to go to the Celebes and to North Borneo. If I didn’t mind the round-about way she would take me out to see the captain. She was just going out to talk with him about some birds she wished to take. We got into the launch. I insisted upon paying half the launch fare. On the way she told me that her name was Klingen, and that she was a dressmaker in Tokyo. She was going to Shanghai to visit her mother before going to Japan. As we drew nearer the boat I saw it was flying the Japanese flag. We had a little difficulty in getting on the gangway as it was quite high out of the water.

The captain, a small Japanese in a kimono, eyed me and asked me no end of questions. The Japanese, of his class, always believe you are a spy until you can satisfy them to the contrary. He agreed to take me if Mrs. Klingen would share her cabin. She was glad to share it; in fact she told me afterwards that she had dreaded being the only passenger.

Two days later Mrs. Klingen, two white cockatoos, four green parrots, two cages of love birds, a toucan and I sailed for Shanghai and points South.

Chapter IX

A perfume, certain strains of music, a familiar landscape often recall some friend to our mind. It is a bottle of Eno’s fruit salt which brings the face and form of Mrs. Klingen before me. I can see her now standing at the side of my berth, Eno’s in her hand. I can hear her saying, “I have just mixed a dose for the captain. I shall mix one for you. It is the only thing to keep you fit on the sea—especially on a cargo boat which gives you no opportunity to exercise.”

I think one of her trunks must have been packed with Eno’s. No matter how much we took—the captain and the crew had their daily supply—we could never come to the end of it. It was always bubbling in a glass ready for one of us to swallow. The sharks might have followed our course by the bottles in our wake. It got on my nerves. I hated to open my eyes in the morning and see her standing looking down at me, shaking the bottle in my face. Is there anything worse than the good intentions with which Hell is paved! I might have risen in my wrath and smashed the bottle. I might have thrown Mrs. Klingen into the sea and Eno’s after her; but I did none of these desperate things. I drank the stuff and thanked her for looking after me.

After the daily dose had been passed round and the bottle went over the side or returned to the base of supplies, Mrs. Klingen was quite charming. She was French. She had married a Dutchman, because, as she expressed it, Madame sounds so much better than Mademoiselle if you are in business. She had lived in the French concession of Shanghai, where her mother kept a pension, before she married the Dutchman and went to live in Tokyo. She told me he was Holland Dutch—not Java. She was very emphatic about this. She almost dared me to contradict her. Her husband was working in a shipping firm in Yokohama. He went home once or twice a week to their house in Tokyo. She made frocks for the élite of Tokyo—Oui, oui, ma chère.

She was as thin as a sword and about as sharp. To cover the deficiencies of a flat chest she wore a little false bust which she took off one day and dangled in front of me. “Look, mademoiselle, this bust, it is so hot, but men prefer women who have the bust—to have nothing in the front—Oh, la la!” We discussed men’s preferences for the female protuberances. We discussed men nationally. Did the Englishman like a bust, the Frenchman, the German? She consulted the poor embarrassed captain about the Japanese preference. She told me the Malay women rubbed the juice of a root on their busts to make them round and firm. She had some of the juice with her, she would try it when she got home. She had lively brown eyes and upcurling eyelashes. The colour of her skin, which was very pale, she did nothing to correct. The vivid red smile she wore accentuated the pallor of it. Her hands were beautiful and she knew how to use them. They fluttered through her conversation like little white wings.

The birds had been distributed round the deck, the two cockatoos stood on rings which depended from the awning beams. The parrots’ cage hung from projecting hooks on the mast, the love birds had a table for their long cage and the toucan, gloomy and morose, stood beside them in a cage several sizes too small for him. One of the cockatoos was a darling. Every time you passed him he said hello or ohio, the Japanese greeting he had learned on the boat. He would push his head out to be scratched and sometimes he would make a little noise which sounded like a kiss. I quite lost my heart to him, a fact which sent me into a fury when his life ended so tragically.

One morning Mrs. Klingen came running to my berth—she got up as soon as it was daylight—crying and wringing her hands. “ h, Mademoiselle . . . come, come, it is the cockatoo, my cher cockatoo. He has lost the eyes.” I put on my dressing-gown and rushed out on deck. Someone had gouged the eyes out of the poor bird. He was screaming. The pain of his poor mutilated face must have been awful. “Kill him at once,” I said. “Get someone to do it quickly.” I saw red. The very devil took possession of me at that moment. I denounced all Japanese. I told the captain what I thought of him. I said I would find the swine who had done it, and with my own hands I would feed him to the sharks. I was almost frothing at the mouth. Mrs. Klingen stared at me, horror in her eyes, her face ashen. The crew seemed to be struck dumb. I almost collapsed afterward in the cabin. During the rest of the voyage I watched the men closely trying to find the coward who had done such a beastly act. Mrs. Klingen was afraid someone would try to injure me—but I think I must have put the fear of Buddha into them.

We had a ghastly thrill just before we reached Macassar. The captain had a little Chinese junk made of cloves which he was showing Mrs. Klingen and me and pointing out the amazing craftsmanship of the Chinese artisans, when we felt the boat scratch on something. He dropped the junk and fairly flew to the bridge. One more scratch and we were off a coral reef. The bottom of the boat wasn’t punctured, but it was a close call.

Macassar seemed to be made of jungle, a herd of water buffalo and the smell of copra. No one needed to tell us that it was an important copra port. You couldn’t get a breath of air untainted by the pungent odour of decaying coco-nuts.

There was a pub which called itself an hotel. It was utterly deserted. The proprietor looked as if he hadn’t left his chair for days. It seemed to be part of him. He got up reluctantly, sighed, and asked us what we would drink. On the boat Mrs. Klingen had been talking of cold drinks and hoping she could get one at Macassar. The gentleman of the chair had never heard of cold drinks. He explained the refreshing quality of his warm beer and sat down again. We ordered some tea which he told a boy to bring, and then we went out on the beach. I saw the water buffalo in the sea for the first and only time in my life. It may be that fresh streams are few in Macassar; but it seemed that such a low sweating land must have plenty of fresh water. But there they were in the sea with just their noses sticking out.

Several bronze cupids, wearing nothing at all, were playing on the sand. I had a game with them of seeing how far we could throw pieces of coral. Mrs. Klingen finally came into the game and we romped up and down the beach getting enough exercise—I hoped—to forgo the Eno’s the following morning. I gathered several pieces of coral which later I gave to friends in Shanghai. We went to the former king’s palace—a huge wooden barn with absolutely nothing in it. I tried to picture it before the Dutch had taken the island. It would have had some grass mats, a few spears, a quantity of feathers and beads. The court would have stood about in their little grass skirts—their faces painted—their hair be-feathered, waiting for their orders from the king who would be sitting cross-legged on an animal skin. My idea of ending my days on one of the South Sea Islands was waning. There was such a difference between my beloved silence and stagnation. There were some lovely silent places which bristled with life. I had seen such places in India.

We saw no one on the one and only road. There was nothing to do but go back to the boat. She sailed that evening with a full cargo of copra flies, whose bite made little red spots on my skin like the sting of mosquitoes.

Nothing happened on our way to Borneo—not even a storm to break the monotony. The usual food and the Eno’s made their appearance—otherwise nothing but the opening and closing of days.

Sabatic, North Borneo, is a British coaling port. There was only one white man living there, Mr. Clarke. His office was on the quay, where the engineers signed for their coal. His bungalow stood on the beach, sheltering under enormous trees, which rose straight as masts almost to the clouds. Strangely enough I met a man the other day in London who knew Mr. Clarke.

Mr. Clarke was pathetic. Loneliness was driving him mad. He spoke his own language only when an English boat stopped to coal, and then with a slight accent owing to the lingo he had, of necessity, to speak so fluently. He invited Mrs. Klingen and me to see his bungalow. We had dinner with him, not such a bad dinner, considering he could get little besides fish.

I shall never forget the orchestra I heard in that Borneo jungle. For a moment the prelude chanting came from the night depths of the forest which surrounded the bungalow—you could feel the presences in it—the throbbing invisible life—then suddenly the air was a-quiver with joy—then a complaint crept into it—a second later, crashing crescendos mounted to the slanting shafts of the moon—then it sobbed itself into a little minor wail, ending with a tiny solo scarcely louder than the rustle of a leaf. The insect orchestra had ceased. The jungle was silent. The darkness would belong now to strange rites which no human could watch. Like the orchestra they would be invisible. We had finished dinner and were sitting on the veranda. No one spoke until the orchestra had ceased; then I exclaimed: “What music I I never knew insects could put on anything like that.”

“It would drive you mad if you had to listen to it every evening,” Mr. Clarke said. He told us how it got on his nerves, how, at times, he had stuffed his ears with cotton. That was when he had letters to write and the insect accompaniment pounded on his ears, driving what he wanted to say out of his mind. His nerves were dreadfully shattered. The hand which held his whisky and soda shook as if with palsy.

Sometimes his voice broke on a word and went down into a little smothered catch in his throat. He told us that the natives, when not driven to work, spent their time gambling. They paid their gambling debts with shells, which they would exchange in the bazaar shops for food.

We sailed about ten o’clock with a full moon like a big brazen shield lighting our pathway. Mr. Clarke looked so forlorn I felt like weeping on his poor lonely shoulder.

The following day the Captain told us we were going right through to Shanghai without another stop. During the journey I tried a little of everything—one of the sailors taught me to speak Japanese—I have since heard that my Japanese is extremely colourful. I wrote three short stories and a little poem about Mr. Clarke. I darned Mrs. Klingen’s stockings and my own. I patched the Captain’s kimono. I even helped to polish the brass. When the sea grew colder I began to shiver. I danced and skipped-rope up and down what little deck there was. Mrs. Klingen spent a lot of time in her berth hugging a hot water bottle. We were sailing almost directly north and each day the weather was a little colder. Every night I looked for the Southern Cross. I had decided that when I could no longer see it, I would unpack my warmer clothes. I got them out when we were off Hong Kong. Mrs. Klingen told me they were quite passé. Of course they were. Most of them I had bought in Boston. I had never needed anything heavier than a tweed costume in Calcutta. Mrs. Klingen remodelled a coat for me, telling me with each stitch she put in it, that it wouldn’t do for Shanghai. I must buy a new one at once—the Shanghai ladies had always the dernier cri. I told her I couldn’t buy a coat or anything else until some money was cabled from Egypt.

When I said I had no idea where I was going to stay in Shanghai, she didn’t offer to take me to her mother’s pension. Instead she gave me a letter to a woman in Hong Kew—the east end of Shanghai—who, she said, would give me food and lodgings very cheaply. She was fed up with me because I was obliged to go to Hong Kew. Later, when I became the fashion in Shanghai, she tried to crash the gate of my salon. I let her in—while I ordered two dresses and a hat from her.

It was pouring with rain when we sailed up the Whangpoo and waited for the launch which was to take us to the quay. Mrs. Klingen said her mother’s car would meet her. She was one of those women—I have met a number in the East—who travel on cheap boats so as to save their money to make a splurge in the ports. She waved to me from mother’s car which stood on the side of the road while she watched a coolie load her luggage and the birds on to a hand-cart.

I went to Hong Kew in a rickshaw to see if Mrs. Winters—that was the landlady’s name—could put me up before doing anything about my luggage.

Chapter X

Mrs. Winters was a motherly sort of woman, upon whom I made a better impression than the letter I brought. She sent her number one boy for my luggage and led me up two flights of stairs to show me the room I was to have. It had dingy curtains at the windows, a torn carpet on the floor, a few pieces of rickety furniture—one of those awful rooms which announce the comings and goings of down-and-out tenants. Each despondent wretch who had occupied it had left it a little more battered and worn.

I sat down at the dilapidated desk to write a cable to grandmother. I wrote it about a dozen times before I got it right. How much explanation could I afford—that was the question. I thought of shortening it to eke out enough money to cable Plushy; but that wouldn’t do for I had to tell grandmother as much as possible. Mrs. Winters offered to send her number two boy with me to the telegraph office. I wouldn’t hear of it. I had found my way about in many places; Shanghai was not to be the exception.

I changed my guilders at the bank and sent the cable. I had six Shanghai dollars left. I decided to do nothing more that day because it was raining, and I hated getting in and out of the wet rickshaws. I soon discovered that the rickshaw coolies knew what you meant when you told them to go or to stop; but they understood nothing in between.

I saw none of the guests at Mrs. Winters’s house during the week I was there but a sodomite, who tried to smuggle a rickshaw coolie in for intimate purposes. On that occasion Mrs. Winters’s denunciation took such a threatening form that I ran downstairs to see if I could prevent a murder. The man was just going out of the door, and trying to tell her, when he could get a word in edgeways, that he would send for his belongings.

I had my meals in my room. The smiling number one boy brought them. With every meal he told me that he could “pay” me one soda “if Missie have got whisky.” Missie had no whisky, neither did she want any.

Two days after I arrived the Hong-Kong-Shanghai bank had an order to pay me £500, and I had a cable with grandmother’s love, urging me to send them full particulars at once. I cabled again to say that I had written everything. I cabled Plushy also, and Cook’s in Calcutta, asking them to forward my mail, with which there would be several allowance cheques. With my allowance and what grandmother had sent me I could pay Mr. Sweeney and move into a decent place. I might even buy a coat, although I was as well dressed as any of the women I had seen on the streets. When I became better acquainted with Shanghai I discovered that the women you see on the streets are not the dernier cri.

In the North China Daily News, the leading newspaper of the Far East—a paper I was to know much better later on—I saw an advertisement which I decided to answer at once. The Far Eastern Review wanted an assistant editor. No doubt a man was wanted, but they might take me. Perhaps it was not so easy—finding an assistant editor in Shanghai. It never occurred to me that I had no experience.

I went to the office of The Far Eastern Review. It was on Jinkee Road—first I had to find the street, which took quite a time, for in Shanghai everyone looks blank when you ask to be directed somewhere.

I saw the editor after telling a young man, who tried to interview me, that my business was very personal.

That was my first meeting with W. H. Donald—the brain behind so many political deals—the dark horse of the Northern Party—the man who came to England two years ago with Marshal Chang-si-Liang and ninety million taels, to buy aeroplanes for China. Behind a big black cigar and a swirl of smoke I saw a pair of eyes narrowed to slits—eyes which saw everything in a flash and could shut with an almost audible snap. He flung a chair towards me and barked “sit down.” When I told him what I came for he closed his eyes entirely and roared with laughter. When his laughter subsided he asked me what I had done in the writing line, as he expressed it. I mentioned poetry and he was off again. When he had finished another laugh he started a series of little chuckles. He reached for his magazine, which was lying on the table he had sat on when he flung me the chair. He passed it to me. “Have a look at this rag,” he said. “Does it look as if poetry and short stories were in my line?” I had to admit that it didn’t.

I knew I must, as the Americans say, sell myself to this man. I began to talk about my ability. I never hesitated for a moment for fear he would wedge his way into my tirade. On and on went my voice. I was amazed at my fluency. I talked myself into the job. When Mr. Donald could get the floor he said: “All right, young fella, me lad, take a shot at it. That’ll convince you you can’t do it.”

It was Friday. He told me to come to work the following Monday at nine. The last thing I heard was his laugh as I went out. Outside his door I too laughed. Could I ever fill such a position? His paper dealt with politics, industry and finance.

I went to the Astor House and engaged a room. I had paid Mrs. Winters for a week. I would move when the week was up. My new room had a couch bed. It looked quite like a sitting-room. The dresser and chest of drawers were in the bathroom. There was nothing but a wardrobe to make it look bedroomy. It had a balcony which would be very pleasant in the spring—if I stayed until spring.

Monday morning at nine I went to my office—I was already thinking of it as my office. Mr. Donald showed me where I was to work. Beside my desk stood the largest waste-paper basket imaginable. I think it was a soiled-clothes hamper. “It is for your copy,” he explained. I could feel my back arch like a cat’s. I turned on him. “Can you afford to pay for your little jokes?” I asked. “If you think I am a fool why do you risk it? I might spoil your magazine.” He thumped me on the back and said: “I’m going to call you Bill.” He did. He never called me anything else in the two years I wrote, interviewed, made designs, and sold advertising space for his paper. Once in a burst of confidence, when I was asking him how he ever dared to engage me, he said: “You were so damn sure of yourself, I knew it couldn’t be all bluff.”

The newspapers in China copied my articles almost from the first. I became interested in Chinese politics, the good roads movement, imports and exports. C. T. Wang, who has been Financial Minister at various times since, used to come to the office every day and together we would arrange the articles which I wrote for his Party. They were usually copied by all the papers.

I had to stand for the students or the elders. I chose the students, and almost every day some wild—although the Chinese are outwardly calm—radical would come to the office with his story and his grievance. Then young China knew what she wanted. There have been times since when I have doubted her judgment. Let me be a prophet for a moment. Time will prove if I am right. China and Japan will stand together if either is attacked by Western Powers. The present apparent hatred between these two nations will cease if the Mongolian blood is threatened. I do not say the Mongolian civilization—that can endure many changes—what I mean goes much deeper.

My interest in politics—I really hate politics, but I studied them as if my life depended upon the knowledge I could absorb—brought me into touch with all sorts of people. The different Nationals were all interested in China. Each wanted to get as much as she could give him—or he could wrest from her—for his own nation.

It occurred to me some time after I started to work for the Far Eastern Review that I had more energy than the paper was using. Another might have been content to work as I did and not look for anything more to do; but work acts as a tonic with me. The more work I have to do the more I seek. I went to the North China Daily News and asked to be taken on the staff. Mr. Green, who was then the editor, knew I was working for Mr. Donald. He told me he would talk with Mr. Donald and let me know. I talked with Mr. Donald first. After a lot of argument we decided that I should work for the Far Eastern Review in the mornings, and the North China Daily News in the afternoons. This arrangement lasted until Mr. Donald sold the magazine to Bronson Rae. I had been on the staff of the Far Eastern Review—all day or half-day—for about two years.

The first thing Mr. Green asked me to write was the “Day-by-Day” column. He soon took me off this work, for my impish sense of humour—I can never get it under control—was causing a lot of comment. He told me that the “Day-by-Day” column was supposed to be serious. I wrote articles for a while after that. One of these—I called it “The Tyranny of Words”—brought Mr. Hoderoff, the Soviet Minister’s secretary, down from Peking with an offer for me to edit a newspaper for the Soviet. I didn’t know what to say, so I told him I would think it over.

While I was thinking it over, Mr. Green asked me to edit the Woman’s Page. I called myself Cleopatra and set to work. I wrote about dresses, undies, hair, make-up, cooking, dancing, famous women and near-famous women. Once in a while my perverse imp got into the writing. I wrote articles for shops which advertised with us. Buyers would meet me on the street and thank me for increasing their sales.

Mr. Yurin, the Soviet Minister, sent me an invitation to a dinner at his Legation in Peking. The invitation was for the following week. I replied accepting it. I knew that if I promised at once some way would open for me to get to Peking. I prepared two pages—the Woman’s Page appeared twice a week—and asked Mr. Green for a holiday. He made no objection, so I bought a new evening dress and left for Peking.

I arrived in the morning. The dinner was the same night. I went to the Peking Hotel, plastered my face with cream, and got into bed. I slept until tea-time. I knew if I went out and became interested in the city I might be late for dinner. I ached to go to the Forbidden City and to prowl round the Tartar City, the roofs of which I could see from my window.

The dinner was a gala affair. The Legation blazed with light; the tables were decorated with huge bowls of flowers; two orchestras furnished the music. It differed from old Russia—here I lean on hearsay—only in the manner of dress. The ladies’ frocks were very simple. No one was décolleté. Several ladies wore long sleeves. One lady wore sleeves of exaggerated length—as a matter of fact they had lace attached to them to accentuate their length. I am describing the sleeves of Miss Black (now Lady Russell). Her costume was quaint, sixteenth century—very prim—very plain—very becoming. Her hair was plaited and twisted round her ears. I thought her very attractive. She had come to the dinner alone. Sir Bertrand Russell, for whom I believe she acted as secretary, was in the hospital. He was recovering from an attack of pneumonia. The Minister, Mr. Yurin, was very fair. He had large blue eyes and babyish skin. I felt like stroking his face to see if hair had ever sprouted on it. If I had drunk all the vodka he had wanted me to drink I might have done so.

I sat next to him at table, and he kept asking me why I didn’t drink my vodka. He told me that he read two poets every day—Omar Khayyam and Ella Wheeler Wilcox. During dinner he disappeared long enough to put on a pair of seven-leagued boots—then he taught me the Russian valse with all its movements. We skated, slid, jumped at each other, pulled apart and rushed together. Just as I was wondering if he meant to throw me, the music stopped with a crash. Mr. Hoderoff, whose penetrating eyes had been watching us, told me I danced like a Russian.

After dinner we three—the Minister, Mr. Hoderoff and I—went into a small room to talk business. The Minister spoke English and French fluently; but he refused to speak either language when it came to discussing the newspaper which his government meant to publish. He spoke in Russian to Mr. Hoderoff, who translated what he said into English. Their programme was very one-sided; but there was to be no shortage in funds to support it. As they talked, the Woman’s Page grew more and more attractive. Undies and the necessary amount of sugar in jam might not be very interesting subjects, but at least you could discuss them without a muzzle. I told them the position they offered was beyond me—I could never fill it. They spoke of my article—the one which had attracted them; it was the Soviet idea—the Soviet policy. I told them it was an accident. They looked neither pleased nor disappointed. They smiled and we returned to the dining-room.

I watched the dancing, had a little talk with Miss Black about her visit to Moscow, and left.

I had time to see but one thing before leaving Peking. I chose the Temple of Heaven. The following day I went out to it in a taxi. A sandstorm was doing its best to hide the city. As I crossed the open space which leads to the temple, the sand beat against my face with such force it fairly bruised my skin. There wasn’t a soul in the temple. I sat down on the dusty floor with my back against the wall. The four winds of heaven blew about me, each whistling in a different key. Sand came in the open spaces under the tiles and rained down upon me. I tried to catch the music of the wind and put it into words in my mind. It was impossible. Who could find words for the long-drawn, melancholy sound which rayed out in all directions and passed into echoes? How stark and simple it was—stripped of everything but its direful truth. It roared over me—it whispered into my ears—then with a deafening shriek it flew out through the open spaces to drive the sand before its fury. I couldn’t wait until the storm was over. It might last all day—it might go on for days. There was nothing for it but to protect my face as well as I could and run to the taxi. I got no definite idea of the Temple on that visit.

Back in Shanghai I found a letter from Plushy. He had come to Shanghai and got himself a job selling insurance for the Sun Life Insurance Company. He was living in the French Concession and wanted to know where he could see me. I replied, telling him to come to the Astor House. I was torn between two emotions—I loved him, but I was angry with him for following me. Such an arrangement as we had in Calcutta wasn’t possible in Shanghai. If it were possible I didn’t care for it. Marriage was out of the question. No sane woman marries a lover and watches love peter out.

There was also a letter from Aunt Vera which was not very cheerful. Grandmother’s health had been wretched since grandfather’s death. There seemed no sense in two women living on the edge of the desert, so grandmother and mother were going to England. Aunt Vera was coming out to China to see me before going home to America. For the present Natalie would go to England with grandmother. Later she would return to America, where she would be sent to school. As I raised my eyes from the letter, I saw my reflection in the mirror. I mustn’t meet Aunt Vera with black hair. I had been keeping up the black henna packs. Some of the applications had been awful, especially one I had had in Java. It burnt the ends of my hair.

I went to a hairdresser and asked him if he could do anything to remove the henna. He told me nothing could be done but to shave my head. He would give me an ointment which would hasten the growth of my hair. He had only one wig in the place, a red one. It wouldn’t do. I would be obliged to wear a cap until my hair grew. He had no appointment for an hour, so I asked him to shave me at once. I was wearing a cloche which came down over my head like a bell. I knew I could jam it on so as to hide my bald appearance. He shaved me. When he had finished I cried—then I laughed. I was almost hysterical when I pulled my hat on—it quite hid my head—and started out to buy a cap. I could find nothing such as I wanted, so I bought ribbon of various shades and sat up most of the night making caps. Two of them were very smart. At that time every woman was wearing a hat which entirely hid her hair, so the caps were quite in keeping with the style. When Plushy came to see me he told me that any sort of head-dress was better than black hair.

About that time I met Adolfo Bena. He had an import and export business—every second man in Shanghai had—and he was also the secretary of the Italian Chamber of Commerce. He was a rabid patriot—such a patriot I had never seen before and I have never seen since. He talked of nothing but his country. He sang only Italian songs. He made speeches plastered with great gobs of Italian politics. He wrote articles about Italy. He would work himself into such a state of emotion about Italy the tears would run down his face. His voice would mount and mount until it was shrill as a flute; then it would end on a howl of triumph. His right arm would shoot out in the Roman salute. He was magnificent. Italy will never be unsung while there is one person who will listen to him in the piazza. How he ever found time to ask me to marry him I can’t imagine even now. I married him because Plushy was annoying me—pestering me to listen to reason.

Signor Bena arranged the wedding. He turned it off as he would a political speech. What led up to it was also arranged by him—between patriotic outbursts. The night before the wedding I had to go to confession. The Signor never asked me if I were a Catholic. He told me we would be married in the cathedral—and I must confess the night before the ceremony. I went to confession thinking of the confessions I had watched in St. Peter’s when I was a child. The priest was an old man. He looked very tired and very worn. I made my sins as scarlet—I invented a few. When I had finished he told me to say ten Paternosters and ten Hail Marys. Having no idea how long it would take to say ten of each, and not knowing what a Hail Mary was, I knelt down in the church where I could see the clock. I decided to give two minutes to each prayer. I can see myself now watching the hands of the clock and ticking off the Hail Marys and the Paternosters. I tried to count the number of things I could see in the two minutes, before turning my eyes back to the clock. I could take in everything in about a minute, even to counting some of the tiles on the floor. I tried to keep my eyes closed for the second minute. Sometimes the priest, who was somewhere behind me in the church, coughed.

Having finished my prayers, I went back to the hotel to try on my dress. It was the conventional white satin. One of the French dressmakers had made it. With it I would wear the blue cap—my best effort.

The wedding was very solemn. No one had been invited. The Signor told me he wanted it to be very quiet. I had one lady with me, Mrs. Lane, who lived in Shanghai. The Signor had one man with him, Signor Del’Oro, of Tokio. I stood beside the Signor while the priest read the Latin ceremony. When he had finished he took a spoonful of holy water and sprinkled me with it. One more spoonful and the Signor was sprinkled —then all was over.

We had a little breakfast at a friend’s house. Eight friends came to the breakfast. One lady, Madame Camera, I shall always remember because she could write as well with her left hand—she was writing on the back of a Chinese picture which was on the table—as she could with her right. Strange what things stick in your mind! Madame Camera gave me a huge green feather fan. It was the only wedding present I received besides a pendant from the Signor.

I didn’t cable my family the news of my wedding. I wrote it. I could explain better. I knew my mother would be furious because the man was an Italian. It turned out as I expected—mother was furious. She wrote me a letter leaving nothing to the imagination. She said she never wanted to see him. In the same letter she told me of my father’s death. She referred to it as she might have mentioned the death of a total stranger. Father had been dead almost two years before mother knew—and then she had discovered it quite by accident. The news came through a friend of Mr. Vanburgh’s. Father, with one of his friends—another one had been badly injured—had been killed in a motor-car accident in Palestine. Father had always been in debt, so she was sure he had left nothing. If I cared to investigate I could, but she advised against it. She and grandmother were going to England in a month, and taking Natalie. It had taken longer than they expected it would to close the house and settle their affairs in Egypt. She would send me an address later.

Poor father; I wondered how he had felt at the last. His life had been such a pathetic imitation happiness. Was the friend who died with him one of his women? From the tone of mother’s letter I concluded it was a woman. No doubt mother knew. It was like her not to mention it. For days I couldn’t get my mind off father. Whenever I was alone, I cried; I wouldn’t allow myself to cry before the Signor, who had reminded me of the fact that he hadn’t demanded a dowry with me. He mentioned it only to show his large-hearted gesture, and not because he wanted a dowry. To give him his due he wasn’t mercenary. He could be exceedingly generous.

We had no honeymoon. No one could take his place as secretary of the Chamber of Commerce. We rented a furnished house on Route de Mare. It belonged to a lady who had spent her entire inheritance—quite a large one—to create and furnish it. It looked more like a Mohammedan mosque than a house. From its sturdy middle—which might have held the word of the Prophet—it flung its rooms out like arms outstretched to embrace the Faithful. It was surrounded by fifteen mow of land. I believe a mow is one-fourth of an acre. The lack of trees was quite noticeable in such a large place, but the flowers tried to make up for it. They ran up the fences, crept along the ground and huddled together in colourful patches.

The house had been furnished by English firms, French firms, Italian firms—any firm that could produce something showy. An upright piano stood with its back to the archway which gave on the drawing-room; but its back was a large mirror. At the base of the mirror a box had been fastened for ferns. As you entered the room you thought of a pond with ferns growing on the edge. The carpets were Persian and Turkish, the furniture massive and upholstered with pale blue brocade. The velvet curtains were lined and interlined until they were as thick and stiff as boards. The dining-room had seventeen glass-fronted cabinets containing silver and glass which the owner—who followed us over the house when we first inspected it—pointed out as Mappin & Webb’s contribution. The table could stretch itself out like a piece of elastic to accommodate dozens of guests. The kitchen was the delight of Chinese servants. It was tiled clear to the ceiling, and had drains round the edge of the cement floor. The stoves could be covered with pieces of zinc, and the entire room washed down with the hose. There was a sun-parlour behind the dining-room where a hundred people might have sat without feeling crowded. The hall was as large and as elaborate as the drawing-room. A friend told me that he felt, when he came to see us, as if he were entering a theatre where the stage was always set for a society play. The bedrooms and dressing-rooms were in the outstretched arms. My suite was of green and gold. The Signor had a suite in the same wing; it was rather flamboyant with orange and mauve. He said only a fool of a woman could have furnished it. The decoration of the main rooms appealed to him, however, for his friends were struck by their bizarre splendour. There was but one room on the first floor. It was enormous. It stretched across the entire centre of the house. It would have done as a hospital ward. It was arranged as a double bedroom. There was also a roof-garden.

We sat down with the owner, Miss W., before tiffin to make out the inventory. She said: “Wait until after tiffin”—she was staying to tiffin with us—“there will be less dishes to count. The servants break something at every meal.” Miss W. had a lofty contempt for her possessions. She referred to them with an airy wave of the hand, as “my few things.” I have met only one woman more contemptuous. She was an American who invited me—when I was in America—to her “tiny cottage; her tiny shack.” The shack consisted of thirty-five rooms. Miss W. took no interest in the inventory. Her manner was just as indifferent when the Signor asked her what she would charge per month. Another wave of the hand, another bored flutter of the eyelids, and she said: “Oh, four hundred dollars (£40) would do.”

Miss W. was going to Europe with Signor Musso—the Italian lawyer, who was taken by the bandits in the Lynching affair when the Blue express train was derailed—and his family. To say Signor Musso was a clever man is to give you no idea of his cleverness. He was more adroit than the Chinese and they are more adroit than the Jews. The last I heard of him, he was living in Rome, having bought Queen Margherita’s palace.

In Miss W.’s house I started my famous salon. I had left the Woman’s Page and, as always, I became bored with inactivity. My house was the meeting-place for any group with an idea. On Wednesdays a hundred to a hundred and fifty people would come to tea. After tea there was always a speaker. Every subject you can think of was thrashed out—from the very latest inventions of science to free love. After the talks, questions were asked and answered. I was the chairman. I had the reputation of allowing people to say anything, and then of taking the sting out of what they had said. It was said that the people who wanted to fly at each other’s throats smiled into each other’s eyes when I had finished my little talk which always followed the questions. To guests who showed no inclination to go home we served cocktails. Others, who simply couldn’t tear themselves away, stayed on to dinner. The more guests there are the more the Chinese servants are pleased. A good number one boy becomes restless when master “no have got flends.”

Sometimes the Signor would look in at my guests, but not often. He would stand in the archway, a tolerant smile on his face, telling us how busy he was. His time was so taken up; something new at the Chamber every day. Italy was exporting such quantities of merchandise to China. Many people I didn’t know came to my salon. My Wednesdays were the fashion. Managers of theatrical companies and impresarios who were trying to launch singers and dancers cursed my salon. I became so well known I received letters with no address but China on them. I engaged the Town Hall and gave dances for the Navies. I invited the commanders of the ships which were off Shanghai to come and bring their men. The municipal band—Pacci’s splendid orchestra—played for us. At one dance eighty cases of champagne—besides whisky, beer and cocktails—were consumed. The men enjoyed themselves, and they don’t get too many opportunities for a little pleasure when they are on the ships.

A friend came to see me one day and told me my house was haunted. Didn’t I know that Miss W. had built over Chinese graves? I asked her if there was anything in China which was not built over Chinese graves. My number one boy came to me with a story of having seen “one piece devil dining-room side.” I discovered, after a little investigation, that Miss W. was very eccentric. She had behaved very strangely after a disappointment in love. It turned out that the wraith in white who used to walk in the garden was Miss W. herself, whose nerves were so frayed she couldn’t sleep. The haunting occurred some time before we rented the house. I doubt if Miss W. gave another thought to her previous infatuation; but Shanghai likes the inexplicable.

I collected a library, lining the walls of the big room upstairs with bookcases to hold it. Eugene Chen—Eugene of the Southern party, of the Oxford drawl—used to borrow books from me. One day I loaned him James Joyce’s “Ulysses.”

He returned it with a chit saying he wouldn’t have believed I could own such a book. I might spend my time to better advantage by reading something decent.

I began to write another book. I finished it only last year. It is the best thing I have done—but it is “too knowledgeable.” I wrote enough poems for a book. I also made the cover for the book of poems. I call it “Grey Walls and Blue Cotton,” but I have never shown it to a publisher. Some of the poems are very well done. They are delicately coloured—for there is no orange or crimson in China’s blue-grey heart.

The Princess Der Ling used to come to see me very early in the mornings. Sometimes before I was up. She was married to an American, Mr. White. She had written several books. I found her very interesting. Her mind was very alert, and she had very decided opinions. She had been one of the ladies-in-waiting at the Empress Dowager’s Court. She wrote a play about the Empress Dowager which she was invited to Hollywood to direct. She left the studio one day in high dudgeon after speaking her mind to the producer. She was disgusted with the films the West made of China—and rightly, too. Bandits—opium—selling of slave girls, are all the Western producers seem to know of China. What angered the Princess mostly was the scene where courtiers knelt to kiss the hand of the Empress. Again and again she told them that even the doctor had to count the beats of the royal pulse by a silk thread which was tied to the Empress’s wrist and passed through the door into the next room. They wouldn’t listen. She demanded her play back and returned to China.

It was worth going to Peking to see Princess Der Ling’s sister wave a fan. Dressed in the gorgeous satin of the Ming Dynasty, with tiny shoes trimmed with ostrich feathers and a feather fan with tortoiseshell shafts, Madame Don, the Princess’s sister, would glide over the floors of the Peking Hotel. She was as graceful and ethereal as a curl of incense smoke. There are few women who stay in the minds of other women by the sheer force of their charm and personality. Madame Don is such a woman. I have heard women all over China speak of her grace and charm. She must have been fifty when I knew her. She looked about twenty-five. What is the secret of this perpetual youth—this rare charm which burns—a steady flame—without a flicker? How pale and insignificant real youth looks beside it—youth that flares and gutters and dies down in a few short years. Is it after all the real youth that we have lost by some careless misadventure?

About six months after my wedding the riots started. The volunteers got into their uniforms to defend the city. The Signor was in his element. He fancied himself in a uniform. He used to stand at the foot of my bed waving his khaki-clad arms and telling me how we had seen to the barbed wire fortifications—how we had the whole show in hand—how we could defend the city against all China if necessary. He read his speeches to me. Walking up and down the width of my bed, like a caged lion, he would bellow them at me. Sometimes the sound of his voice had a mesmeric effect upon him and he would stand gazing straight ahead for a moment, then with a shout he was at it again, tearing the air to pieces with his vehemence—until the little porcelain ornaments on the mantel would vibrate. I used to look at him and wonder how ever I thought I could stand him. Under the noise of the speeches I heard the dreadful beat of the words Italy has no divorce. Italy has no divorce. These words became a dirge which beat on my mind. I heard it under the conversation of my friends. It echoed through the discussions of my salon. It tortured my ears when I was writing.

A friend came and asked me to serve on the canteen. This lady, the wife of Arthur Sowerby, the naturalist, had borrowed a covered lorry from one of the everlasting import and export firms, and had got the American Woman’s Club to stock it every night with urns of coffee, tea and cocoa, sandwiches and doughnuts. Soft drinks were given by one of the shops. The lorry made two rounds, from nine until twelve, when it returned to the Club to be restocked, and from one until four. Mrs. Sowerby said I could go on either round. I astonished her by saying “I shall go on both.”

The idea was to stop whenever we saw the volunteers and feed them. The lorry carried two gunners who sat on the front seat. The volunteers were very grateful for the hot drinks. Sometimes it was difficult to keep them off the back of the lorry. Scotsmen defended the gas works. I could never keep them on the ground. One night a man jumped up and said: “Give us a wee kiss, lassy.” He was so surprised when I reached right up and kissed him he could scarcely drink his coffee.

I fed Plushy one night. He tried to be cheerful, but his eyes—under the light of a street lamp—looked misty. I tried to press down the lump in my throat with questions about the riots. I felt like jumping out of the lorry and running away with him.

There was always some man waiting at the Club to take me home. I wasn’t afraid; but they said anything could happen if I went home alone at four in the morning.

One night I asked a friend to take my place on the lorry and I went to the Opera with a lady who was visiting us at the time. When we returned home I found my night-watchman lying in the pathway just inside the gate. He was drunk. I was furious. I dragged him to his feet, and hooking my hand inside the collar of his coat I marched him to the police station, which was about two miles from the house. My guest came along with us protesting—“Didn’t I know how dangerous it was to interfere with the Chinese at such a time.” If I needed anything to enforce her words the howling mob which soon began to follow us would have furnished it. Whenever the mob got too boisterous I tightened my hold on the watchman’s collar.

When we arrived at the station the sergeant told me I was asking for trouble. He gave me the watchman’s keys and flopped him into a cell. I told him to give the man a scare and to send him back to the house in the morning. “How are you going back?” the sergeant asked me. When I told him in a rickshaw he looked terrified. He knew the mob was waiting. He offered us the hospitality of the station for the night. I asked my guest if she was afraid to return with me. She assured me she wasn’t. We climbed into two rickshaws and started back, the mob still following. To say I was afraid gives you no idea of the way I felt. I was trembling right down to my heels. I expected to be pulled out of the rickshaw and kicked to death. Once inside the gate my knees gave way. They felt like jelly. My friend was just as frightened. When I got the door open I heard the phone ringing. It was the sergeant. I could hear the relief in his voice when I answered him. He said he was sending a Sikh policeman to act as watchman. We plumped down on two chairs waiting to hear the Sikh rattle the chain at the gate. He arrived almost at once with his gun over his shoulder and a club in his belt. I didn’t run out to let him in. I was still too weak in the knees to run. We went to bed; but it was daylight before we could close our eyes.

A strange assortment of women stayed nights with me while the Signor was defending the city. Confidences were poured into my ears, amusing, tragic, pathetic and grim. I wasn’t afraid to stay alone. Most of the women came because they were lonely, or they thought I was.

When the riots were over the Signor was at a loose end for a while. He had taken off his beloved uniform and his civil clothes seemed no longer to fit him. He became very irritable. When he wasn’t talking politics he was finding fault with me. I could do nothing to please him. When he couldn’t think of anything else he accused me of never going to church. Women should pray, they needed the assistance of God. Didn’t I know that he had never turned his back on his early teaching. He didn’t consider himself too modern to say his prayers. He might have prayed. I don’t know, but the only time he got down on his knees was to chase elusive shirt studs under pieces of furniture. He walked round and round a subject with his tail in the air, sniffing at every possible opening. If I let a careless word fall he would rush in, and then, gathering momentum, he would scream at me and wave his arms about and end up by giving me hell. He cursed my parents. He sneered at what he called their cloudy grandeur. He didn’t curse my ancestors as the Orientals do. I suppose it hadn’t occurred to him.

We had a salt cellar in the form of a parrot. If it were not on the table he would say: “Where is the salt? Are people expected to eat without salt?” He never used any salt, but he used the salt cellar to prop up the newspapers during meals. I tried to cultivate indifference. Grandfather had taught me that there is no weapon against indifference. I tried to find the courage to ignore him; I have had to find so much courage to cope with things, I am for ever clawing over my mind to find some little scrap of courage I might have overlooked. My marriage had been a miserable failure. I tried not to take it seriously or truly I think when we cease taking our failures seriously we shall have conquered fear. I was deceiving him by my attitude; and we can never enjoy the friendship of persons we are deceiving. He had no idea how I felt towards him. He thought I accepted him as he accepted me—irrevocably; like the idea of death.

We had been back but a short time when the Vice Commission started a crusade against the prostitutes. The poor girls were driven from their usual haunts on Kiangse Road. As is always the case when such women are hounded out of their quarters, they were engaging flats wherever they could. This arrangement did very well for the girls who could afford the change; but there were girls who were driven from pillar to post with no place to stay. Much of the Kiangse Road property was owned by the Spanish Fathers. These good men could not be expected to do anything for their tenants. None of the women’s clients could say a good word for them—that was out of the question; so I became their champion. I fought their case in a paper called Lloyd’s Weekly. I fought it with such intensity, the girls, when they saw me on the street, would stop me to tell me I was a damn good sport. Everyone thought of me as the saviour of the glee girls. My novel, “Eyes of India,” had become a best seller in China; but one bookshop refused to stock it because I was “becoming so notorious with her defence of the prostitutes.”

Even the San Francisco newspapers mentioned my challenge to the Vice Commission. The Signor tried to dissuade me. He saw I was determined to carry on so he refused to discuss the subject. When the Vice Commission had worked itself up to the highest pitch of moral frenzy the crusade took on a humorous turn. The shroff of one of the “hells” lost a bag of chits in a bank. He had put the bag on a table while he cashed a cheque, and it had disappeared. He was in a panic. He searched high and low—assisted by several of the bank clerks—but the bag wasn’t found. It contained chits which had been signed by many of Shanghai’s leading lights, for men could sign a chit for services rendered at the “hells.” The Commission put its tail between its legs and gave up the chase. The girls went back to their former residences, and the Fathers collected their rents once more.

Not long after the crusade had faded out I received an anonymous letter. It was brought by a Chinese coolie and handed to my number one boy. It was full of abuse, and threatened me with “the long silken cord of silence.” It had nothing whatever to do with the crusade. I thought it was written by some insane person, and I wouldn’t have given it a second thought had it not been for the fact that letters of the same sort were thrown in—they were usually found on the floor—at the rate of one or two a week. Each letter threatened me with “the long silken cord of silence.” I took the letters to the police station and gave them to Mr. Jack Sullivan, who was in charge of the criminal investigation department. He thought they were being written by some society. He was quite worried about my safety; but his investigation revealed nothing. Later, in America, I received another chain of these letters—still harping on “the long silken cord of silence,” and printed—with the alphabet cut from newspapers—on telegraph forms. As they were posted at the main post office they could not be traced. The American postal authorities told me they could do nothing about it as the letters didn’t demand any money—they simply threatened my life.

We had lived in Miss W.’s house a year when she wanted to return to it. We went to Peking while the Signor’s shroff found us another place. I promised my friends to continue my salon so soon as we were re-established.

We had a suite at the Peking Hotel. The hotel is directly opposite the Italian Legation. The Signor would stand at the window looking over at the Legation and then swing round—his eyes resting on me with a dull unseeing stare—and say: “I am the one who should be Minister. I know more about China than any of them.” He worked himself to such a pitch of belief in this idea that he wrote to Rome telling his Government what they were losing by not appointing him. He accomplished nothing outside of making himself ridiculous.

The Minister at that time was the Marchese Durazzo, whose wife, the Marchesa, created such a scandal she was obliged to leave Peking under arrest. She was a beautiful woman with fair hair and very dark eyes. Her tall slender figure was always perfectly dressed. Her chief occupation was love, and it was for ever getting her into trouble. The inception of the famous scandal which created such a stir in Peking came from Count Campalataro, whose seventy years in no way interfered with his gallantry. He was in love with the Marchesa, who preferred the younger—and to her more attractive—Commercial Attaché of the Legation. The Attaché’s name was Pitri. He took his affair with the Marchesa very seriously. To him it was an honour not to be thought of lightly. His manner, as well as his love for the Marchesa, aroused the Count’s jealousy—aroused it to such an extent he could think of nothing but vendetta. He went to Italy to overhaul Pitri’s past. Somewhere in the love archives of the younger man he found the history of a previous affair, and the name of the lady who at that time shared Pitri’s home. He travelled about Italy until he found her; and offered her a robust sum of money to go to China and remind Pitri that once he had promised to marry her. The lady, whose name was Curci, saw then that she had been wronged, and started for China to charge Pitri with breach of promise. Someone advised Pitri that she was on the way, and while he couldn’t imagine what had caused her to follow him when he had settled with her, he left Peking for Shanhaikwan.

When she arrived at his house in the Legation Grounds, she managed to convince his number one boy that she was his master’s fiancée. The boy let her come in, and she searched the house. She found what she was looking for, the letters which the Marchesa had written to Pitri. Possessed of them she went to the Wagon Lits Hotel and notified the Marchesa that she was going to publish them in the Italian newspapers. The Marchesa, having lost her head, went to the hotel and demanded the letters. When the woman refused to give them to her, she picked up a water jug and hit the woman on the head with it. The woman fell to the floor, cutting her wrist as she fell on the broken glass. The Marchesa took her letters and left.

Some time later a soldier from the American Legation heard the woman moaning as he was walking along the corridor. He went into her room, and seeing her condition, he phoned the American Hospital to send an ambulance. This good intention of his complicated matters. When the American doctors—after much difficulty—because of the loss of blood and the injury to her head—brought her round no one could question her. They sent for an Italian doctor. She told him that the Marchesa tried to kill her. The doctor went to the Legation and was told that the Marchesa was resting; then, he went in search of the Minister.

The Marchesa, fearing the worst, had got into touch with Pitri, who returned at once to Peking. He went to the hospital and told the woman that he would marry her if she signed a paper which he would write. For some obscure reason, possibly because of their past attachment, it suddenly occurred to the woman that she wanted to marry him. She agreed to sign the paper, which exonerated the Marchesa; and accused her (the Curci woman) of making up the story out of spite. Pitri, thinking her signature removed all blame from the woman he loved, sent it to the Minister, and returned to his house, where he shot himself through the head. His magnificent gesture was useless. The woman, realizing that she had lost the man, took back what she had said under coercion. The Minister cabled his resignation to Rome and the Marchesa was arrested and taken to Lucca, where she had three years in which to meditate on love and its consequences.

I danced with Pitri the night before he went to Shanhaikwan. I had no idea what tragic arms held me, or what a storm raged in his heart. I liked the Marchesa. She was a good woman’s friend. I wrote to her several times while she was in prison. Her life moves on now quite serenely. She has returned to her husband and children. What lessons we have to learn!

Mr. Donald had gone to Peking and opened an office to furnish “economic information about China.” Several secretaries furnished the information while Mr. Donald pursued Chinese politics. I went to see him. He narrowed his eyes, chuckled, and said: “Well, Bill, how are you getting on with the dagoes?” I ignored the dagoes and we talked about his new office. He offered me his temple in the Western Hills for a holiday. Later I accepted his offer and I went to the temple with Mrs. Dallas, a lady I met in Peking. The Signor stayed at the hotel. He saw no reason why he should bury himself in the hills. I could go if I liked.

Mrs. Rupert Hughes was staying at the hotel. She was very ill at the time. Later her friends found a house for her, but her health was so shattered she had to give up the house and go into the hospital. Pain was the reverse side of everything she encountered—love—joy—pleasure. She didn’t discuss her suffering, a fact which made it all the more difficult for her friends to offer their sympathy. What a number of people are given to reticence, when if they opened their hearts and minds they would be understood at once!

The Spanish Chargé d’Affaires, Signor Acol, used to ask me to go to walk with him in a motor-car. His English was most original but he insisted upon using it. When I made appointments with him I used to stay upstairs in my rooms and let him wait for me in the lounge. He soon got sick of it and that was the end of the invitations.

There were many weird characters in Peking at that time. Mr. Munchausen, a journalist on one of the American newspapers, used to entertain the whole lounge with stories about his wife—how they argued that morning about the coal bill—what she had said to him the previous evening at dinner. Considering that his wife had been gone from Peking for two years, his stories hadn’t the ring of truth.

We had dinner at several of the Legations. In most cases everyone at the table spoke a different language, so French was the medium of conversation. This was rather awkward when certain of the guests couldn’t speak French. I went to the Great Wall with two ladies and a gentleman I met at the hotel. We left the train at the nearest station to the Wall, where a sort of hotel furnished donkeys for the rest of the journey. Riding along, the man was telling us about his fur-lined sleeping bag which he had carried all over China with him, when one of the ladies asked him, quite innocently, how many could sleep in it. Without batting an eyelash he explained to the lady, who must have weighed twelve stone, that a sleeping bag was rather a tight fit for one.

We arrived at a part of the Wall which was very broken. The two ladies sat on their donkeys while the man and I climbed. On the top of the broken Wall, with the wind blowing round us about ninety knots an hour, he tried to make love to me. I had to remind him of Confucius’s words—“there is a time for everything under the sun.”

The Signor went out a lot with the Chinese. He enjoyed their long-winded dinners when only men were present; they afforded excellent opportunities for spell-binding.

I went to the Summer Palace and sat on the marble boat which stands in the miniature lake. It thrilled me to think how the Empress Dowager had collected the money from the rest of the world to buy China a navy. She had built the Summer Palace with the money she obtained—and the marble boat was the navy. I always associated her in my mind with Queen Elizabeth. They were two marvellous old girls. They knew what they wanted.

Sitting on the marble boat I wrote a poem about the Summer Palace. It is with my collection, “Grey Walls and Blue Cotton.” I went to the Jade Fountain. The prow of a sunken boat projected out of the jade-green water. Green slime covered it with a lacey pattern. Did you ever see filthy decay and beauty embrace? It did that day in the old fountain. I had another look at the Temple of Heaven, this time from the outside, where I stood and stared at the blue tiles of the dome. There is no such blue anywhere else in the world, and there is no such amber as the tiles of the Summer Palace. Legend says that jade and lapis lazuli were used in their construction. It must be true.

I went to Peking many times before I left China—as a matter of fact it was as familiar to me as Shanghai—but my first impressions I have put away in a little urn in my memory.

The shroff wrote to say that he had managed to rent the house the Signor wanted. It was furnished—ready to step into. It was a large house on Jessfield Road which belong to an English family. The family was going to England for a year and the house was available for that time.

We returned to Shanghai. The servants had moved our belongings and the library I had collected into the new house. I liked the place, especially the garden. Later, when it cost us seven dollars a months for Flit to cope with the mosquitoes, the garden and the veranda lost some of their charm. I started the salon again. On occasional Wednesdays, when we could get the garden sufficiently Flitted to repulse the too intimate attentions of the insects, the late stayers would cook sukiyaki over charcoal fires under the trees. Sometimes we had as many as ten fires. The cook brought out bowls of rice and we ladled the sukiyaki into them and ate it in the light from Chinese lanterns. I was delighted with the trees in the Jessfield Road garden. Somehow Miss W.’s garden never seemed complete without trees.

Aunt Vera came soon after we returned. She had got very thin. She looked almost anaemic. She had been rather ill on the voyage and had had to see a doctor in Colombo. It was like reopening a wound hearing about grandfather’s death. He must have had a presentiment about the end, for he gave Mr. Vanburgh his curios a few days before he died. Aunt Vera was quite worried about grandmother. She had taken very little interest in anything since grandfather died. That was the reason Aunt Vera wanted Natalie to go with grandmother and mother. They couldn’t be too gloomy before the child. There was no love lost between Aunt Vera and the Signor. They disliked each other from the first. She told me one day that the women of our family always blundered when it came to marriage. That was the nearest she ever came to telling me what she thought of the Signor. She was interested in the salon and thought the talks very amusing. Some of my friends she called specimens, and she mimicked them until even my amah had to laugh.

I had a Japanese masseuse at that time who called herself Buffalo San. She always had a whisky and soda before she began to massage me. All the time she worked on me she told me scandals about her other clients. She had nicknames for all of them. I often wondered what she called me and what she said about me in other houses. She massaged Aunt Vera also, and her massage had considerable effect, for Aunt Vera looked much better after a few treatments.

My hair distressed Aunt Vera. She said the family had only two things to boast of in the way of looks, my hair and her ankles. Now that I had spoiled my hair there was only her ankles.

She stayed with us two months. During that time I took her to Peking and Hankow. She bought enough silk and ivory to delay her some time in the American Customs. Before she left she told me she was going to insist upon grandmother and mother accompanying Natalie to America, so she could keep an eye on them. If they got in the doldrums it wouldn’t be her fault.

She sailed on one of the President boats for San Francisco. Fifteen of my salon friends—mostly men—came to the boat with me to see her off. Men hovered round her all her life. She was never too old to arouse the interest of some man. It might have been the ankles which attracted them, but I think it was the talent for making people laugh. We don’t realize what a blessing such people are until we are surrounded by the sullen or too serious.

After she had gone Tagore came. Mr. Elmhurst, who was then living with him, came also. Tagore had been invited by the Chinese to tell the universities and the schools about his school in Bolpur. There was an Indian—who was married to an English lady—living in Shanghai at that time. He went with me to the boat to meet Tagore. The moment he caught sight of him he rushed forward, threw himself down on the deck, and kissed Tagore’s shoes. The poet hated such exhibitions. He looked at the sea and pretended not to see the man who grovelled at his feet.

I gave my cook a holiday while Tagore was with us and engaged a man who could cook Indian food. Tagore, who was a vegetarian, told me that he ate anything while he was travelling. “I mustn’t be a nuisance,” he said.

The cook produced vegetarian dishes so satisfactorily the Signor had serious intentions of becoming a vegetarian. Tagore had one preference where food was concerned—it amounted almost to a passion—it was for mangoes. I scoured Shanghai the day he left for Japan looking for belated mangoes, as the season was well over. The mango season of India has been known to govern his decision when he has been invited to visit other countries.

He was up in the morning as soon as it was daylight. He sat on the veranda outside his room to watch the paradise flycatcher who had a nest in one of our trees. He became so enamoured of this bird he discussed with us the possibilities of putting it into a cage so that he might take it back to India. It would have been as easy to catch a flash of lightning as that silver streak which darted through the air after flies. No one, to my knowledge, has ever put salt on the tail of a paradise flycatcher.

Tagore talked at my salon, about his school. A reporter who happened to be there made him rather angry by reporting what he said in one of the dailies. A woman phoned me one morning and asked if she could come to the house just for a moment to have a look at him. Naturally I turned down her request. When I mentioned it to him he asked me if we were running the zoo. A Jew wanted to capture him for a visit. He even hinted at a donation to the school in Bolpur with his invitation. Tagore was never caught by such bait, his whimsical sense of humour would save him if nothing else would.

One of the Japanese steamship lines gave him the suite de luxe on one of its boats, and he left for Japan giving no thought to any of his luggage but the little basket of mangoes.

Towards the end of his visit I could see something was worrying the Signor. While he talked politics to me till he dropped of exhaustion, he never mentioned his business. If I asked any questions he told me that he talked business only in the office. He began to leave his remarks half finished. He would stop in the middle of a phrase and stare at me; then he would rush out of the house. One day he said; “I wonder how you would bear a shock.” I told him I preferred to know the worst. I asked him to tell me what was worrying him and let us see what could be done. He didn’t tell me that day and I did a little investigation. So far as I could discover nothing was wrong with the business or at the Chamber.

One evening we were sitting on the veranda waiting to be called to dinner. In every crisis of my life there has always been something quite apart which I remember. That evening I was watching a tree filled with crows. There were hundreds of them, every branch bent under their weight. On the very top of the tree one tiny green bird stood. He looked so lonely, so out of place, I thought he must be lost. I wondered if the crows would scare him off if they saw him. My mind was called back from him with a bang. The Signor was blurting out the strangest things; for a moment I thought his reason had snapped. “Yes, it’s true,” he was saying—“Seems impossible—can’t see why he didn’t tell me at first—useless in church—should have been civil.”

When he became coherent he told me that our marriage wasn’t legal—that the Consul should have told him in the first place. There should have been a civil marriage, as the church marriage wasn’t binding outside Italy. I was speechless. I had grown cold all over, my spine was tingling and my arms were covered with goose flesh. He stared at me. “I know it’s awful for you,” he said. “Do say something. I was afraid the shock would be too great.” I couldn’t tell him that joy sometimes kills. I pulled myself together. I was so happy inside. I was afraid it might become evident. At all costs I must ward off any idea of a civil marriage.

He brought out the conventional side of it—what would people think? What would my mother say? I almost laughed thinking how astonished he would be if he knew what mother would say. His mind was very conventional, socially. He trimmed it like a hedge in case it might grow out of the conventional line. If only he had let it have a few woodsy places where it could have tangled and leaned over to the sun! If he hadn’t lopped it off so carefully it might have had as many wild spots as his political mind. At that moment I saw the advantage of conventionality and I played up to it. I said that even if we had a civil marriage we should be talked about. People would always remember how we had the trial marriage first. I must go away. I must leave China, it was the only thing. I mentioned the old bromide that a man could do anything, but it was quite different with a woman. He agreed with this. He spoke of my espousing the prostitutes’ cause—that would be counted against me now.

We went in to dinner. During the meal we discussed ways and means of playing into the hands of conventionality. Not a word was mentioned of love. The affections had received no shock. His face looked like a mask. It had about as much expression as a glass eye. Quietly and calmly we discussed my departure. Of course he would support me. I could always count on him. I let that pass. Later he would know that he couldn’t give me a penny. He believed there was nothing that was not negotiable in the market place. Every damn thing had its price.

We got up from the table. He said he was going out. Already he was thinking of me as a stranger. I went out on the veranda to try to work out a plan. There was another bridge to burn. I thought of Plushy, but his bridge was burnt. I had always burned my bridges and used a new one for each crossing. The garden was full of soft sounds. I could hear the servants making little symphonies as they clattered the dishes in the kitchen. There was one lotus in the little pond. I remembered wondering if a lotus felt tired at night when it closed its petals. It had been doing nothing but watching all day; but how tired watching can make you. I would remember it—and I would remember the garden—which sometimes was made of fire-flies and the scent of jasmine. I would remember the trees and paradise fly-catcher—and some of the dear faces that came to the salon—for these were the things I loved.

There was no sleep for me that night. My mind wouldn’t relax long enough to let me sleep—I planned a journey to Europe. I would go to Venice and leave the rest to Fate. I didn’t want to go to mother. She would want me to stay with her now. Our two unfortunate marriages—hers and mine—how they would link us together—our heads on each other’s shoulders weeping into each other’s collars—pitying ourselves because two Italians had let us down. What a picture we would make!

Sometimes during the night the enormity of my foolishness came over me—then I thought I was mad not to stay in one place—not to put men out of my mind and settle down to some definite work. I would always be shunted off the main track of life by love—living with it, or protecting it from annihilation. I had passed over the Signor’s life like a ripple over the surface of a lake; for a few years I had been considered, not with, but after politics. I hated myself as I thought of it. In spite of my glorious release my self-esteem was suffering. The Signor had never loved me and it hurt my pride. I admit it was rather beastly of me to want a man to love me whom I didn’t love—but I ask any woman who can pretend her pride would not have been hurt to meet me on the summit of Truth.

The following day I started to pack. I had collected over two thousand books. I decided not to take them with me, so I sent for a friend and asked him if he thought I could sell them. He said he would sell them for me, and he did, two days later, for four hundred American dollars.

In a week I was ready to leave. The Signor and a few friends came to the launch. I had asked them not to come out to the boat with me. I made some excuse about getting settled into my cabin before the boat started. As we left the quay the Signor waved both arms. A moment later he was driving away—his disappointment—if you could call it that—rather gaily borne.

Chapter XI

As the boat crept through the Suez Canal I knew I would leave her at Port Said. I was homesick. Every camel that plodded through the sand—every Bedouin who stared as us from the banks—called me. I didn’t want to go to Venice. I wanted to stay in Egypt. Grandfather’s face floated between me and the sand—somewhere out there in the glare. I couldn’t go to Aswan—I would go to Cairo. I found the purser and asked him to have my luggage put off at Port Said. He looked at me strangely. I suppose he thought I was leaving with some man. Such departures are not uncommon in the Near East.

Port Said was wide open as it was February, the height of the tourist season. An Arab sat in front of every little shop trying to induce people to go in and buy. The cafés buzzed with talk. Boys turned somersaults and threw knives about hoping the tourists would fling a piastre to them. A perfume man followed me saying he had a perfume for every woman’s personality. Getting tired of his patter at my ear I said: “M’hymnish” (it doesn’t interest me). Such colloquial Arabic brought a laugh from him. He touched his forehead and disappeared.

I phoned the station and asked about the trains to Cairo. There was one in an hour. I went back to the quay, had my luggage examined and put into a taxi, and left at once for the station. There was nothing to see in Port Said. I sat outside the station and soaked in the sun I loved—I was getting the feel of Egypt again. I had no idea what I was going to do. I would just drift with the tide and see what would happen. My mind seemed to be tranced—and I think I indulged in a little self pity. I told myself that I was alone in the world and nobody cared what became of me.

I arrived in Cairo about five in the afternoon. I was feeling quite economical, so I decided to go to the Victoria. The evening was rather chill and my room was cold and cheerless. There was no heat in the hotel. Occasionally—if the guests could persuade him—the manager had a fire made in the drawing-room.

I put my fur coat on and went over to Shepheard’s veranda. It was packed. I found a table near the railing where I could watch the street. It is a colourful pageant you see from Shepheard’s veranda. All nationalities pass. Sellers stood about with their metal-weighted shawls, fly switches, beads, genuine (?) scarabs, cigarette cases, prayer mats from Manchester. I bargained with a seller for a cigarette case. It was enamelled in turquoise-blue with a camel painted on the enamel. You could buy it anywhere in England for ten shillings. The man wanted one hundred piastres (£1) for it when I bargained in English. I bought it in Arabic for a real (four shillings). A dragoman asked me if I wanted to engage him to show me the Pyramids the following day. The seller who had sold me the case whispered something to him, and he left before I had time to answer him.

I went back to the Victoria. I couldn’t change in my cold room, so I went in to dinner wearing my fur coat. I put it on the back of my chair, and had a look at the other guests. There was someone at every table. I judged most of them to be tourists. One man was evidently not a tourist. The Egyptian sun had tanned him, and he had that look which people acquire who stay long in the Near East. He kept his eye on me without staring. He had almost finished his meal when I came in. When he got up to go I had a good look at him. He was tall, very thin, and his walk suggested the Army. I saw him again in the drawing-room. He wanted to speak to me, but he didn’t know how I would take it. There was no fire in the drawing-room that evening, and I decided that bed would be the most comfortable place.

In the morning I went to the steamship office to see if they would refund the fare from Port Said to Venice. They did—about three months later—and then their cheque followed me another two months before I received it.

When I returned to the hotel, the man I had seen in the dining-room was sitting in the writing-room reading a newspaper. I saw that uncertain look—“Shall I speak to her or not?” “Good morning,” I said. He was startled. He jumped up and offered me a chair. He began the usual conversation on such occasions. “You arrived yesterday? Have you been in Egypt before? Shall you stay the rest of the winter? The climate is delightful now.” The preliminaries over, he said his name was Townsend. He had been in Egypt for years. He had gone home to England occasionally, but the climate, after long residence in Egypt, didn’t suit him, so he always came back. When he got to this point in disclosure he stopped and studied me with his piercing brown eyes, which seemed to look right through you. I found out afterwards that they didn’t look through you. It was a trick they had of focusing on one spot while thoughts, which had nothing to do with the thing they fixed on, were wandering through his mind. Italian men have this trick with their eyes. They can look at you with slavish adoration while they are calculating your financial status.

He asked me to come for a drive in his car. We would go to the Barrage or the Pyramids. I thanked him and said I would like a drive. That was the beginning of the misery which followed—the misunderstandings—the loss of friends—the threat of prison—the living in obscurity—the poverty. The man couldn’t be blamed for any of this. His destiny was linked with mine in some strange way. He had returned to Egypt three days before I arrived. I had left the boat at Port Said when my plans were made to go to Venice. My life has convinced me that we have no control over our fate. There is something which stands at the rudder of our lives, steering us this way and that without our volition. To blame the man for what happened would be weak and cowardly. I am as much to blame for what happened as he was. And we were both puppets whose strings were pulled by an unseen hand. Don’t think I refer to any avenging God—the hand which pulled our strings was quite tangible.

We drove out to the Barrage. He talked about his life in Egypt—the changes in the twenty years he had lived there—how the country prospered under the Khedive—how it was getting on now under King Fuad—but nothing about himself. I got the impression that his life had been very unhappy and that he didn’t care to talk about it.

He took me for a drive every day for two weeks. We had lunches, dinners, teas together. We went to the theatre and to the Pelote Basque, where we bet on the handsome Spaniards who tossed the ball about. He introduced me to Egyptians, Syrians and Europeans.

One of the Egyptians invited me to go to the Meglis-el-Nawab (House of Parliament), and pointed out a man on the platform, who was talking about Egyptian agriculture, as one of the men who, rumour said, had something to do with the Sirdar’s murder. I believe the man had been falsely accused and had some difficulty in proving his innocence.

I met a Syrian Christian, N. M., who seemed to be an old friend of Mr. Townsend. He invited Mr. Townsend and me to visit him in Damascus, his home city. At first I took his invitation as a joke, but later I accepted it. It happened in this way: Mr. Townsend was going to Jerusalem, and he asked me if I would like to go along. I had met a girl, Helen Langermann, a few days before Mr. Townsend’s suggestion, who was also going to Jerusalem. She had asked me to go along with her and have a look at Palestine. She was an American from Portland, Oregon, who was travelling about on her own—she had been travelling then for two years—because she couldn’t get on with her stepmother. N. M., who thought the more the merrier, extended his invitation to her, and we three started for Jerusalem, while he left for Damascus to prepare for our visit.

To show you how quickly things happen to me sometimes, I had been in Jerusalem only half an hour when I broke a mirror, lost ten pounds and was almost knocked down by a motor-car.

We did—Helen and I—all the things the tourists do. We went to Omar’s tomb, the Mount of Olives and the Wailing Wall. We tramped up and down the stone stairs of the narrow streets, and poked into dozens of Arab and Jewish shops. Jerusalem is an interesting place to live in, but not to rush through. Mr. Townsend took us to two dances. Both were frightful crushes. The people were packed in until there was no space to dance.

When Mr. Townsend had finished whatever he went to Jerusalem for, we left by car for Damascus, going first to Haifa. I had a letter to Choji Effendi, of Haifa—who was President of the B’Hai movement—which I wanted to present. The life of the founder of the B’Hai movement, Abdul Baha, had always fascinated me. He was one of the martyrs—so different from the fanatics who like to pose as martyrs. He had spent forty years in a Turkish prison for his convictions, and he had accomplished the unbelievable by getting Brahmans, Untouchables and Mohammedans to sit down together at his table. His tomb was almost on the summit of Mount Carmel and the head-quarters of the order he had founded just below it.

Choji received us very graciously, and asked us to have some of the stickiest cake I have ever handled, and a syrupy drink almost as sticky.

The building was surrounded by white roses—growing on bushes and climbing over structures built for their accommodation. From the windows we saw the Mediterranean—lazy, blue, almost holding its breath—at the foot of the mountain. It was so still the boats seemed to be painted on it. The view from Mount Carmel is one of the finest in the world. In places the Lebanon cedars lean over and make frames through which you look at the sea.

We stayed at a little hotel down in the town. When I asked for a bath, the servant made a roaring wood fire in a stove in the bathroom and filled the tub with hot water. Between the fire and the water I was almost parboiled. When I pulled the plug out there was no pipe to receive the water. It rushed out of the tub and lay on the floor about a foot deep. I couldn’t dry myself, so I was obliged to run through the corridors, dripping wet, with a towel wrapped round me. I am sure the people who stayed there never worried about a bath.

We arrived at Damascus about ten o’clock at night. An address in Damascus is quite useless. You need a guide if you ever expect to find the place you are seeking. In the middle of the “Street Called Straight,” which is very narrow but not straight, the chauffeur stopped to ask the people who were passing if they knew N. M. After several inquiries we found a man who knew him. Him we asked to direct us. He stood on the running-board of the car while we snaked in and out of any number of tiny winding streets on our way to N’s. We left the car in front of a gate which opened on N.’s courtyard.

Once inside the gate there was no lack of space. Rooms opened on four sides of the courtyard, where sweet lemons and oranges grew. N. came out of a room, followed by two servants, who went out to the car for our luggage. He took us into a great barn of a room hung about with departed M.’s. Soon he had a fire made and we took off our coats. The people of Damascus never bother about fires unless someone visits them and interrupts the even tenor of their lives. N. got some hot drinks for us, and then a servant showed Helen and me to our room.

It had two beds in it with huge eiderdowns on them. There was no heat in the room. Just outside our door were two lavatories, one native and the other European. The drainage in the European one was out of order—if it ever had worked—and we were obliged to use the native one. Helen told anyone who happened to be listening what she thought of Syrians and Damascenes in particular. I told her N. would hear her. She said she meant that he should. When we were in our beds she told me her method of dealing with Eastern people. “Treat ’em rough,” she said—“that’s the only way to make ’em respect you.”

The following day she won N.’s respect by insisting that he have his plumbing overhauled and by striking all the Oriental dishes off his menu. She even sent him to the market to buy a chicken which she watched the cook prepare under her direction. Her method was effective in N.’s house. I have reason to believe it might not have been so successful in other Eastern homes.

N. had little use for soap and water, but he kept forty-eight kinds of perfume in a glass case. The chemists of Damascus had orders to inform him when they received any new perfume.

He showed us everything there was to be seen in Damascus. He told us the history of the city as the Arabs tell it. He gave us photographs of the Great Mosque where Christians and Mohammedans have worshipped side by side. He presented us with bottles of perfume, and he had a party for us to which half Damascus was invited. Among the guests was Mr. P., the British Vice-Consul, who concealed a mind as keen as a rapier under a lot of silly buffoonery.

We stayed two weeks with N. When we left he gave me a letter to Abdel Rahman Charbandar, the former Minister of Finance to King Feisal during the short time he was king of Independent Syria—before the French bombarded Damascus. Abdel Rahman Charbandar was then living in Bagdad from necessity, for various French courts-martial had put a price on his head.

Helen and I decided to go on to Bagdad. When we told Mr. Townsend our plans he insisted upon accompanying us. We hired another car; the first having returned to Jerusalem.

Our first halt was Palmyra, the ancient capital of Queen Zenobia. Crossing the desert I developed a dust fever and I had a temperature of one hundred and two when we arrived at the little mud hut, with its one bedroom, which served as an hotel until Naim’s transport, a year later, built a place a bit more pretentious. There were three beds in the bedroom. Sex is no excuse for dividing sleeping quarters in any number of out-of-the-way places in the Near East. I got into one of the beds, and Mr. Townsend started out to see if there was a doctor to be found in such an out-of-the-world spot. He returned with the doctor of a French encampment stationed somewhere on the desert. I know the doctor must have seen women in his life, but he had forgotten about them. Utterly bewildered, he stood and stared at me. He diagnosed my complaint all right, but he said he had nothing he could give me. I said he would have to give me something to stop my headache or I should go mad. He was out of everything. It developed that he had nothing but heroin, which he didn’t advise. I insisted upon the heroin, and he left me some tablets. I took one, which made me very drowsy and relieved my head.

I remember very little until I opened my eyes next morning to see Helen standing over my bed. Mr. Townsend had got up and gone out. “I must leave you,” she said. “No one knows what may happen to you, and I don’t care to be left here on the desert with Townsend.” Helen never minced matters. I told her I would be up in a day or two, but that made no difference. She said that Lady Gould had stopped to have a look at the ruins, but that she was continuing her journey at once to Aleppo. She had asked Lady Gould to take her back. Lady Gould had consented. She was sorry not to see Bagdad, but some other time she would see it.

She left me to my fate and the care of Mr. Townsend—but not until he had told her what he thought of her. To me he was kindness itself. He ordered my food. He even cooked it. For two days the sight of food was enough for me; and then I had some very good chicken broth which Mr. Townsend had made for me.

I got up before the fever was gone and insisted upon going to Bagdad. I had started out to see Bagdad, so I might as well continue the journey. Turning back would have solved no problem. There was nothing for me in Damascus or Jerusalem—or in Cairo. If Mr. Townsend turned back I would go on alone; but he had no idea of turning back. I didn’t analyse my feeling towards him. I doubt if he had any definite interest in me at that time. We were both lonely. If anything bound us it was the tie of companionship.

I swallowed two of the heroin tablets and climbed into the car. The journey from Palmyra to Rutbah, the next stopping-place, made but a hazy impression. The sky seemed to come down to meet the desert. Sometimes the car seemed to be whirling through space like the magic carpet.

I went to bed at once when we reached Rutbah, which is a good station, with decent bedrooms and a well-managed restaurant.

I had slept from about six in the evening until ten, when Mr. Townsend woke me to say that we must continue our journey if I felt able, as we had to travel with convoy from Rutbah because the Druzes were in rebellion and the desert beyond was not safe. The convoy was leaving at ten. God knew when another one would leave. I told him I would be ready at once. Strangely enough, I was feeling better. My head felt burning when I touched it with my hand, but it didn’t ache. I dressed and got into the car. The desert was very cold—it is always cold at night—I thought I would freeze. My body, which a short time ago was burning, was now freezing.

The cars kept stopping while the pilot had a look round. During one of these stops a man from one of the cars ahead opened the door of our car and wrapped me up in a huge sheepskin coat. I think he saved my life, for I believe the chill following the fever would have finished me off if the coat hadn’t arrested it. Mr. Townsend gave me a drink of brandy, and I snuggled down in the big coat for the night.

At daylight someone had the bright idea that if we stopped we might shoot a gazelle. The convoy stopped, and several men got out of the cars carrying rifles. Fortunately there was no sign of a gazelle, and we continued our journey. During the halt I saw the man who had loaned me the coat. He came to the car to ask if I had been warm enough. He was an aviator, the pilot told me. He seemed embarrassed when I told him he had saved my life. In spite of the shaking-up I had—the roads we had travelled during the night had been full of holes and bumps—I was feeling much better. I had no fever, and my head had ceased to ache. We were about one hundred and fifty miles from Bagdad when we stopped to look for a gazelle. It was about one o’clock in the afternoon when we reached the city.

Just as we entered the city—before the cars had passed through the Customs—I had a few words with Mr. Townsend. I became very angry, and I told him to stop the car and let me get out. He did, and I stood alone in Bagdad without a penny, for I had forgotten my purse and left it in the car. The car drove away with the rest of the convoy to pass through the Customs. The humour of the situation appealed to me. I didn’t know a soul in the place. For a moment I thought of going to Abdel Rahman Charbandar—the man to whom N. had given me the letter—and telling him how I had arrived in Bagdad. I put that thought out of my mind and called an arabeah (carriage) and told the driver to take me to the Hotel Maude. Mr. Townsend had told me—before our quarrel—that we would go to the Maude.

I went into the office of the hotel, and I asked the man behind the desk to pay my driver, who was waiting outside. The man followed me out, asking all manner of questions. “Who was I? Where was my luggage? Where had I come from?” I stood my ground. I kept repeating that everything would be all right. He was getting ready to refuse me when Mr. Townsend drove up. At once he became the obsequious, salaaming servant when Mr. Townsend told him to call a boy and have the luggage taken in. I found my purse and paid the driver.

I had the choice of two rooms, one on the first floor and one on the ground floor. I chose the upstairs room because it overlooked the Tigris, and Mr. Townsend had the room on the ground floor. Two days after we arrived Mr. Townsend had an attack of ’flu and I had to nurse him for a week. When I wasn’t sitting by him or preparing his medicine I used to go out on a little strip of land—the Maude had neither garden nor any place where guests could sit outside—and watch the strange craft on the Tigris. An enchantment seemed to rest on the muddy water—an enchantment evoked by its name. The Tigris—what memories it conjured up! It had flown past the splendours of Haroun al-Raschid and his glittering, bejewelled harem—past the once-gorgeous gardens of Mesopotamia—past the Mongol and Turkish domination of Bagdad—past the kingly Caliphate and the Arabian Nights of old Islam. Perhaps Hafiz had sat on its banks at the very spot where I stood to write some of his ghazals—why not? it was so near his Persia. Dilapidated boats plied for hire up and down the river as I watched. There were round boats like big flat tubs, in which men sat and paddled along with wide blades, making almost imperceptible headway. Often, looking at the scene, I asked myself why I was in Bagdad. What had I come for? Then I would tell myself one place was like another. I might as well be in Bagdad as any other place. I got into conversation with some of the guests in the hotel. There was an American couple by the name of Winthrop. The man was eager to talk about his business. His wife was very aloof. Her desire to impress everyone she met was amusing. She told me about their beautiful home in California, where they had entertained a crowd of titles and celebrities. She was rather bored with travelling; she had seen “so much.” One night, when her husband was talking with me on the rickety projection which served as a veranda, she called to him and asked him to come to their room. He didn’t go at once, so she came after him. She spoke very sharply to him, hinting that he had no time for her if any other woman would listen to him. He followed her into their room, but he came back in a short time and plumped down again beside me. “What do you think of my wife?” he asked. I hadn’t given her a thought, so I didn’t reply to his question. “She puts on a lot of airs,” he said, “but I want to tell you that she was a chambermaid in an hotel where I was a waiter when we got married. I scraped a little money together and bought some sugar land in Cuba.” He told me how lucky he had been. He made good, as he expressed it; then he sold at the peak of the market, and they had been travelling ever since—“off and on” about twenty years. If his wife thought he couldn’t talk to me if he wanted to, he would show her. I saw to it that he had no opportunity to be alone with me after that.

There was another American lady at the hotel—Marion P. Her countrymen would have called her “a scream.” Her conversation consisted of one wisecrack after another. She and I poked round the bazaars together when I could leave Mr. Townsend. Pieces of carpet and palm-thatch were stretched across the narrow streets to make the bazaar and create a cool shelter for the sellers. The place reeked of stale vegetables and fruits. Some of the sellers slept on their wares during the heat of the day. One day I saw a man jump up from a pile of dates and hack portions off the dates for customers. We never bought anything in the bazaar.

Miss P. asked me, during one of our prowls, if Mr. Townsend was my uncle or my “sugar daddy.” When I told her “neither” she said: “You’ve got me guessing.” I kept her guessing.

When Mr. Townsend was well again I went to the New Moon Hotel and sent the letter which N. had given me to Abdel Rahman Gharbandar. I waited for him in the lounge. When he came in I knew why the French had a price on his head. You might have loved or hated him—you could never have liked or disliked him. He was a man to reckon with, and one, I was certain, mightily to be envied. He would have been a help or a danger to any cause. He was handsome, and when an Arab is handsome he is handsome. He stood well over six feet—straight as a palm tree. He had that supple, elastic look which the desert gives. His skin was fair. His eyes were dark blue—those eyes which became almost black in intense moments. His hand felt like steel when he shook hands with me—not that he had that objectionable grip which passes in some places as an indication of character—it was more the quality of his hand. We sat down and he ordered some cool drinks. He never mentioned N. He questioned me about myself. My answers seemed in some way to reassure him. He told me something about his work with the desert tribes—not too much. I doubt if he ever told anyone too much. Certain of the desert tribes waited for his orders before they would do anything. I could believe that.

When I left he promised to come to the Maude to see me. He did, the following day; and my stock went up when the hotel staff saw who was visiting me. Everyone gave me the Arab salute after that—from the proprietor down to the boy who cleaned the shoes. Mr. Townsend enjoyed meeting Abdel Rahman Charbandar. He had heard a lot about him. He was as impressed by his appearance as I had been.

The day after his visit Abdel Rahman Charbandar took me to the Palace to see King Feisal. The King received us in his private sitting-room. He was charming. If I hadn’t known he was the King I should have thought he was a private individual entertaining two of his friends. We stayed over an hour, talking about all sorts of things—the climate, the Babylonian relics in the little museum, the Bedouin folk-tales, his country’s new irrigation schemes. (It is true, if the Iraq were to harness her two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, the country would be much more fertile than Egypt. It was much more fertile when Babylon flourished on the shores of the Euphrates—it could be again. Iraq is doing a lot to reclaim the land; but it is nothing compared with what could be done.) The King spoke of the Iraquian wheat, and the exportation of dates. His brother, the King of Transjordania, came in wearing the Arab dress—King Feisal wore European clothes. There wasn’t the slightest hint of ceremony. The King of Transjordania sat down and we talked of the Arab civilization. King Feisal predicted an Arab empire. He said all the Arab peoples must unite. Of course they must, as peoples belonging to each of the other races must unite when we learn that there is something greater behind the scheme of the universe than dividing the earth up into portions for governments to haggle over. When we left King Feisal shook hands with us, and the King of Transjordania gave us the Arab salute.

As we drove back to the hotel Abdel Rahman Charbandar told me that he was going to introduce Mr. Townsend and me to Madam Sato, the wife of the Minister of Education, who received at the Palace receptions for King Feisal. The Queen never attended anything. She was strictly purdah and she seemed to be as obscure as the King of Italy.

A few days after my visit to King Feisal, Abdel Rahman Charbandar brought Madam Sato to have tea with Mr. Townsend and me. She was a Turkish lady who seemed, judging by her comments, to be anti-English. There was no venom in her remarks. She expressed more impatience with English rule than actual dislike of the English. She was rather small, and she had a mop of curly hair. It made you wonder how she ever got a comb through it. As a matter of fact she had a rakish style which kept you from seeing—until you suddenly became aware of it—how really well dressed she was.

It occurred to me, the night we dined at her house, that her husband was much older than she was. He had very little to say. He seemed preoccupied, permitting his wife—unlike the Arab—to do most of the talking. She told us a very different story of Mustapha Kemal’s divorce from the usual story you hear. You never know what to believe in such cases, but here is her story for what it is worth. Mustapha Kemal Pasha had a mistress whom he loved more than any woman who figured in his life. Soon after his marriage the woman had a serious illness. He sent her out of Turkey to be cured. She was away for two years, and when she returned she wanted to go to the palace and thank him. He asked his wife to receive her. His wife refused, widening the breach which already existed between them. He delayed about informing his mistress of his wife’s attitude and she came to the palace. When she was told she couldn’t be received she shot herself just inside the palace door. According to Madam Sato, Mustapha Kemal Pasha refused to have anything further to do with his wife and she left Turkey. Her husband said nothing while she was telling the story, neither did he make any comment when she had finished. I concluded he must have agreed with what she said. She saw no reason why the wife of Mustapha Kemal should have refused to meet his mistress. It was an ill-bred thing to do. Neither Mr. Townsend not I offered any opinion.

Abdel Rahman Charbandar, who was always planning some sort of entertainment for me—and frequently for Mr. Townsend—invited us to a reception on the desert about twenty miles from Bagdad. A desert sheikh and his two brothers were giving a party for Abdel Rahman Charbandar, Haidar Bey, the King’s Secretary, and their friends.

We left Bagdad in two cars; four Syrians (two ladies and two gentlemen) in one car, and Abdel Rahman Charbandar, Haidar Bey, Mr. Townsend and I in another. About ten miles from Bagdad we were met by the Sheikh’s tribe. The tribe rode bare-back, their guns slung across their shoulders. Their riding was superb. Horse and man looked like one continuous bronze sculpture. They formed in line and Abdel Rahman Charbandar got out of the car and saluted them. Returning the salute they rode back across the desert, leaving us to eat their dust.

A huge square tent had been pitched near the Sheikh’s eating-houses, with one side left open. The floor of it was covered with Persian mats and goat skins. At the opening the Sheikh and his two brothers stood, saluting. When we were inside and seated on the mats, the tent filled up with members of the tribe. The Sheikh and his brothers made rather long-winded speeches. When they had had their say Abdel Rahman Charbandar stood up. Everyone present became part of an instrument on which he played. He struck chords of mirth, sorrow, revenge, hope, fear, courage defiance—there was perfect at-onement between him and his instrument. It vibrated to every sound. I never saw such a performance. When he finished the place was struck dumb—for the Oriental is never noisy when he is really stirred. That is why he wails in grief and is silent in love.

We went into the eating-house—a long mud-baked structure—where the meal was to be served. There were three long deal tables laid with plates and glasses. Knives and forks lay at a few of the places. There was a lamb on the centre table which had been roasted whole, in the Arab way—with the fatted tail. On either side of it were platters of some steaming mixture which was piled into mounds about two feet high. Boys were bringing in a further supply of the mixture and putting it down on the other tables. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to sit at the table with the lamb, but that was the guest table and I couldn’t ask to be put with the tribesmen. I sat beside Abdel Rahman Charbandar. I had a knife and fork, which consoled me somewhat for having to sit in front of the lamb.

On the opposite side of the lamb sat Haidar Bey, the King’s Secretary. One of the Sheikh’s brothers sat on either side of him. The Sheikh was serving, for an Arab host does not eat with his friends—he serves them. Haidar Bey was the only one on that side of the table using knife and fork. The others stuffed their food into their mouths with their fingers. No matter how carefully you feed yourself in this manner there is no graceful way of doing it—especially if the food is hot and moist. I was relieved to see that Abdel Rahman Charbandar and Mr. Townsend, who sat on the other side of him, had knives and forks. The Syrian ladies sat at the farther end of the table with the two men who had accompanied them. I didn’t see them eating with their fingers. As a matter of fact they seemed not to be eating at all. I made up my mind to follow their example. It was rather difficult to put my resolution into effect, for Abdel Rahman Charbandar kept putting food on my plate. He had given me a portion of the lamb’s fatted tail, which the Arab considers the most delicious dish. I took a bite of it and decided I would as soon eat a tallow candle. While preparing the mixtures the cook had been far too generous with the garlic. I suddenly remembered that I was a vegetarian and I whispered this fact to Abdel Rahman Charbandar. He told one of the boys who was serving at our table to bring the fruit. I ate two oranges, heartily sick of myself for not being able to do justice to the Sheikh’s bounty.

I detest anything greasy. I can never eat fat meats or dishes which are prepared with much lard or butter. When I was a child grandfather’s Arab cook always made a special dish for me when the family had anything containing suet or greasy sauces.

Mr. Townsend was doing his best to make up for my failures. He ate the fatted tail and the meat mixtures as if he liked them—no doubt he did. Not only had I to refuse the food but I had nothing to drink, for the piece of paper which announced the price of my glass was still sticking to it. The glass hadn’t been washed since it was bought; in fact, there was a little of the sawdust used in the packing in the bottom of it.

After luncheon we went back to the big tent for coffee and cigarettes. Both were excellent. One of the Syrian ladies sang some Syrian love songs without accompaniment. Her voice was neither good nor bad, but hesitated between the two. Her low notes were colourful and full of power, but her voice flattened whenever she tried to take a high note.

The Sheikh asked the tribesmen to dance. They went out and danced on the sand before the open side of the tent. It was a dance of strength. Boxers might have put on such a dance to exercise their muscles before going into the ring. It showed their marvellous bodies to advantage. Their muscles rippled. There was no tensing their limbs or backs until great knots showed under their skin. In a tussle they would depend upon the leap which was as sudden as a panther’s.

When they had finished their dance the Sheikh asked me if I would like to see his wives. It was the invitation I had been hoping for. He pointed out the women’s tent. I had been watching a finger holding back the flap of that tent just enough for an eye to see through the opening. The Sheikh had eight wives. They were all inside the tent. Two were sitting on the edge of an iron bed and the others were sitting on the floor. The tent swarmed with children. Some of them were crawling over their mothers, others were being suckled, the larger ones were squatting down amusing themselves with toys and pieces of string. The chief wife told one of the others to drag a velvet cushion out from under the bed for me to sit on. When I was down on the cushion I could see the beady eyes of a rat staring at me from under the bed. The tent smelt of rancid oil. The women were plastered with it, and with barbaric jewellery. They asked me how many children I had; as they would have had no further use for me if I had answered them truthfully, I told them five—all boys. They surrounded me then and looked down at me with admiration. I told them about my boys, especially about the baby. They told me about their children. Seven of them had children. The youngest wife would have a child in three months—“walad insha’llah” (a boy, by the will of God). As they crowded round me the smell of the stale oil was almost overpowering. They wanted to know what I thought of the luncheon. One said she had heard the Syrian lady singing. She, the wife, wouldn’t like to sing before so many men—and with a bare face—— She wondered if I liked having my face bare. Why didn’t I make my eyes up with kohl. When I left the tent they praised me—I was a great mother, “hamseh wilad” (five boys) were the last words I heard.

The sun had set before we left the desert. The Sheikh pointed to the new moon and the evening star. The Faithful had taken that moon and star from the heavens for their banners. Abdel Rahman Charbandar looked up as the Sheikh pointed and they touched their foreheads and their hearts. I don’t think they were saluting the emblem of the Prophet. It looked more like remembering an oath. The Sheikh and his two brothers stood at the tent salaaming as we drove away.

Haidar Bey suggested that we call on one of the Ministers. I have forgotten the Minister’s name, but I shall never forget his garden. Through dim stone archways you half glimpsed statues and broken bridges over little pools. Lights pierced the pools from windows almost concealed by the trees—I think they were windows of the women’s quarters. Enormous stars winked at us through the branches of the trees. The scent from the orange blossoms hidden in the shadows mingled with the scent of the roses which grew round the veranda where we were sitting. The blend produced a maddening perfume—you could feel your senses sway. I don’t remember a word that was said on the veranda, but I remember that perfume.

*  *  *

Back at the hotel, Mr. Townsend asked me what I thought of going on to Persia. “We can go on by car,” he said. I answered that I might as well see Persia. I might never be within motoring distance again. I was at a loose end and I believe Mr. Townsend was also. How many times in my life I have meant to tie up loose ends! One night when we were sitting on the shore watching the night craft on the Tigris, he told me a little about himself. He was living apart from his wife. She was in England. They had nothing in common. He didn’t say how long they had been separated and I didn’t ask him. He was becoming interested in me, but proximity is to blame for a number of attachments. At that time we were both lonely and we decided to pool our loneliness and go on together. But nothing ever remains stationary. We began to depend upon one another. An affection grew up between us, not stingily given on either side. Every emotion ebbs and flows. I try to remember this when I am happy or very sad. If a happy hour could only stay with us—but we must move on. It is only one of the twenty-four—of the hundreds and thousands of twenty-fours. We are alone at birth and we shall be alone at death—and all the time in between we are alone—but love takes the sting out of this fact—it allows us sometimes to forget it. There was never any such obliterating love between Mr. Townsend and me, but there was an affection which took much of the sting out of the tragedies and misfortunes we faced together.

My allowance had been accumulating while I was with the Signor in China. I had also the money which I had received from the sale of the books. The Signor had paid for my ticket to Venice, and the money I had spent since my arrival at Port Said was not very much. I could travel for a while yet before settling down to live on my allowance.

When I told Miss P. we were going on to Persia she asked if she could join us. Mr. Townsend said he hoped she would not behave as Helen Langermann had behaved. We engaged a car to take us to Teheran. I mention this because of what happened later. We each paid a third, but the car was hired in Mr. Townsend’s name. Our first stop was to be at Khanikin, the last town before the Persian border. Abdel Rahman Charbandar told me that King Feisal had offered me his rest house at Khanikin.

We arrived at the last outpost before Khanikin too late to continue our journey. Owing to brigands, who were terrifying the district, no cars were permitted to continue after sundown. When we explained to the patrol that we had hoped to go on to the king’s rest house he took us back to a village, from which the desert police sent us to Khanikin under guard.

We were tired and hungry when we arrived, so we decided to stay at the first inn we came to, and not to go to the king’s rest house. It was an unfortunate decision. Like Palmyra, the sleeping accommodation consisted of but one bedroom with three beds. Miss P. and I chose the beds by the window, leaving the bed in the corner for Mr. Townsend. We paid for our selfishness by sitting up all night killing bed bugs. Mr. Townsend’s bed was quite free of bugs, for most of the guests chose the beds under the windows. The servant said dinner was over, but he would cook some eggs for us. I asked him to bring me a plate of dates and Miss P. and Mr. Townsend went downstairs to eat the eggs. The meal made Miss P. quite sick. She said she had to hold her nose while she ate it as the stench in the dining-room was overpowering.

In the morning as I was sitting on the edge of my bed trying to use the bottom of a metal tray as a mirror while I combed my hair, the King’s representative came. He sat on the chair while I finished combing my hair. Miss P. was only half dressed so she had to get into bed again. He was very sorry we had stayed at the hotel as he called it. He asked us to go to the rest house for breakfast. We thanked him but said we would go on as we hoped to get to Kermanshaw before dark. Neither Miss P. nor I had any breakfast. I wanted a cup of coffee but after she told me about the stench I knew I couldn’t swallow it. Further, to add to the pleasure of our visit, the hens had slept in the car. No one knew which hen had opened the door of the car. Mr. Townsend told a servant to sweep it out.

The sun was blazing when we left Khanikin, but it began to rain as we climbed the mountains. It started with a drizzle, then it poured. The heavens fairly opened. We could scarcely see the road through the hanging curtain of rain. The air was soaked with the smell of wet earth, the deluge seemed to scar the earth to the bone; trees creaked in all their joints and the wind lamented like paid mourners at a Chinese funeral. Our roof began to leak. We were soon drenched to the skin.

The mountain air was very cold. The change from the heat of the desert, together with the wetting, fairly congealed me. Through the poles of rain—like prison bars—I saw a soldiers’ hut. I called to the chauffeur to stop and I ran into the hut. I saw nothing but a bed with a red blanket on it. In a second I was under the blanket shivering as with ague. Then I knew that a soldier was making a fire and another was putting a kettle to boil on an oil stove. By this time Miss P. and Mr. Townsend were in the room. A soldier put another blanket round Miss P. Soon there was a roaring fire and we were drinking hot tea with Mr. Townsend’s brandy in it. I got out of bed and stood steaming before the fire. The chauffeur had gone round to the back and was drying himself by the cook stove. The soldiers told us we couldn’t go on because the roads had been washed away. It didn’t look as if we could turn back. We had been with the soldiers about two hours when the rain began to let up and the wind died down a little. We said we would try to go on and two soldiers went out and repaired the roof of the car as well as they could with some tar paper. We put newspapers on the wet seats and started again, while the soldiers kept harping on the fact that the road was washed away. Our luggage was strapped on the back of the car, but it would have been useless if we could have got to it for it also was soaking wet. I had a rain coat in my case which was a sorry looking sight when I saw it in Kermanshaw. Most of the clothes I had with me had to be thrown away, for one colour had run into another.

Fortunately I had left all my luggage but one case—the one I had with me—at the hotel in Bagdad.

The soldiers were right. Not only was the road washed away but a roaring torrent rushed across the place where it had been. Peasants carried Miss P. and me through the swirling water on their shoulders. Mr. Townsend and the chauffeur managed, in some unbelievable way, to get the car through.

Kermanshaw was very drab. A few dilapidated buildings looked as if they had been thrown down in one spot and no further attention paid to them. In several cases the masonry had crumbled away and the holes left by its departure were stuffed with rags, which after the downpour must have been soaking wet. We saw nothing very distinctly, for Kermanshaw spends little on street lighting.

The hotel was the usual sort—larger and more pretentious than the Khanikin inn, but just as dirty and smelly. We were not obliged to share the same bedroom, which was something to be thankful for. With the exception of a good carpet my bedroom was poorly furnished. Most of the furniture had been broken and tied up with ropes. There was a tiny stove, about the size of a Standard oil tin. I ordered a fire to be made in it and I draped the wet clothes from my case on chairs round it. My clothes were ruined. A white evening dress had been well batiked with a pot of wet rouge.

The main room of the hotel did for a drawing-room, dining-room, billiard-room and bar. We had something to eat in it while a game of billiards, trick-track (played with dice) and a quarrel were going on. The food was disgusting. Tea, the only redeeming feature of the meal, was served in glasses. Russian fashion. I broke my glass and paid for the damage at the rate of four shillings.

My bedroom door had no key. This did not worry me until the manager—he was a mixture of Persian and Greek—came to my room three times after I was in bed to ask if he could do anything for me. The third time he came over to the bed, bent over and tried to kiss me. Buffalo San hadn’t taught me certain movements of jiu-jitsu for nothing. I had him on the floor in a moment, and I was standing over him. When he had recovered from the surprise, I dragged him on to his feet and forced him down on a chair. “You will listen to me,” I said. I told him I would say nothing about what had happened, that he was a damned fool whom no woman would have her name linked with—that he should be operated upon—that if he went into Miss P.’s room I would kill him. He was sobbing and trembling like a leaf when he left my room, but I think I knocked a little sense into him. When I was back in bed and had calmed down a little I was glad I had made no scene. No doubt he had a house full of children who might have been deprived of their daily eish (bread) by his foolishness. I saw them, not him, in that moment I had him on the floor when I stood over him.

With the exception of the carpet weaving, Kermanshaw had nothing interesting to offer. The town was crazed by the spy mania when we were there. Mr. Townsend had to send a telegram and we walked through all the little streets looking for the telegraph office, the location of which seemed to be a secret. We discovered it at last by the tapping of the machines. There was no sign on it. A man in red broadcloth and gold braid, who looked as if he were just going on the stage to play some part in comic opera, met us at the door. He rattled his sword while we told him that we wished to send a telegram. He took us upstairs, where another gorgeous individual inquired the nature of the telegram. After Mr. Townsend convinced him that we were quite harmless the telegram was sent.

On the way back to the hotel Miss P. tried to take some photographs. We were immediately surrounded by the police and a crowd of lookers on. A policeman explained that taking photographs wasn’t permitted. Miss P. managed to get a photograph of him while he was explaining. We stayed three days. There was nothing to do but walk through the drab little streets and poke into some of the smelly shops. Miss P. found out where the post-master lived; she went to his house and got him to open the post office and sell her a stamp.

She and I visited an American missionary because, as she put it, “I’m so hungry I can eat anything that doesn’t bite me first.” I remember nothing definite about the kind people who had us to tea. I can recall nothing they said; but I can see, whenever I think of the incident, a big three-layer cake with jelly dividing the brown pink and white of it; the sugar on the top like a gentle fall of snow; and a glass tea-pot filled with amber-brown tea. We each had two pieces of the cake and two sandwiches. I tried to think of a way to pinch a piece of cake, but it was too soft and the jelly might ooze, so I stole two sandwiches for Mr. Townsend. The same idea had occurred to Miss P. When we got outside she took a paper serviette from her pocket and showed me two sandwiches. “I wanted to sneak some cake,” she said, “but there wasn’t a hope.”

It was useless trying to go on to Teheran. The bedraggled occupants of a car which came from there told us the roads were washed out in several places. We decided to return to Bagdad in spite of the chauffeur’s protestations. A few hours before we left I asked the manager of the hotel if it were possible to have a bath. He said he would send a tub up to my room and the water would be brought up when it was heated. I had no idea what an ordeal it was to be. A boy brought up the tub and made a fire in the little stove. Later—much later—when I thought the manager had changed his mind, two men came with jugs of water. They said more water was being heated; I must be patient. They showed no inclination to go downstairs again. After a while two others appeared with two more jugs of water. They, too, poured their libations into the tub and stood beside the first two. When six men were in my room and six jugs of water had gone into the tub they told me that no more water was being heated, as six jugs held enough water for the size tub I had. It was beginning to dawn on me that the men were not servants. I don’t know what they expected, but what they got was an invitation to leave at once. By this time the water was tepid so, with Miss P.’s help, I put the tub on the stove to heat. The bath, which I was obliged to have in sections, was not worth the trouble. I think the men simply wanted to stand about and chat with me, but they might have chosen some other time to get acquainted. Their visit proved that the manager had said nothing about what happened the night he came to my room. Had he spoken about it they wouldn’t have dared to come in and stand round my bath tub—wide grins on their faces.

The manager and about twenty of the guests, all men—I don’t think there was a woman in the place—stood about the car when we left, telling us how happy we had made them by our visit to Kermanshaw.

This time Miss P. and I stayed in the car while it ploughed its way through the racing water where the road had been washed away. No need to worry about weighing the car down and getting our luggage wet. Our clothes were already ruined. I had left most of mine in Kermanshaw. We had tea and some tinned biscuits—which was a godsend—with the soldiers. We decided to go through to Bagdad without stopping at Khanikin even if it meant travelling all night.

We discussed what we should do after we got to Bagdad. There was nothing more to see. The hotel was impossible. I expected to hear Mr. Townsend say he was returning to Cairo, but he seemed to be waiting for my decision. Miss P. informed us she had some money to spend before she went back to God’s country. She had played the market successfully and had made enough, on margin, to pay for a look at the world, and she intended to have it. After a discussion which lasted most of the way from the soldiers’ hut to Bagdad we concluded that we would go to Beirut by car and then cruise the Mediterranean. We could go to Naples on one of the Lloyd Triestino boats which stopped at Cyprus, Constantinople, the Piraeus for Athens and a number of smaller ports.

We arrived in Bagdad round about two in the morning. We were given the same rooms in the hotel, as they had not been rented during our absence. We arranged that Mr. Townsend would pay for the car we had taken to Persia and that Miss P. and I would pay him our shares. When he went up to the garage to settle they refused to accept the fare to Kermanshaw and back because we had ordered the car for Teheran. Mr. Townsend explained that the roads were impassable. They were obdurate. We had hired the car for Teheran, so he must pay the fare he had agreed to pay. He refused, and they summoned him into court. At the hearing he saw at once that everything was going against him. The judge was unsympathetic, and he put an injunction on our departure until the case could be thrashed out.

I went to Abdel Rahman Charbandar and asked him what was to be done. “Leave it to me,” he said. “I will arrange it.” He did, the same day, and in the most original manner. He asked the judge and Mr. Townsend to go to a café with him. The case was settled then and there without the complainant being present.

We went to Beirut by the Hoss transport. We stopped at Rutbah and Palmyra again; but nothing unusual happened until we were near Damascus, when a French plane came down to ask us if we had seen anything of a car which was reported missing from a previous convoy.

We stopped at the Oriental Hotel in Damascus for tea. N.’s cousin owned the hotel, and he wanted us to wait while he sent for N. The transport couldn’t wait. I told the cousin to tell N. that I should always feel indebted to him for giving me the opportunity of meeting Abdel Rahman Charbandar.

It was frightfully cold crossing the Lebanon mountains. There were places so narrow the car seemed fairly to hang on the side of the mountain. Was it here, and not in Palestine, I asked myself, that father and his friends shot over the edge into eternity—and again at another hair-pin—was it here—was this the spot?

I could smell the sea long before we got to Beirut. I liked to think that I would soon be on it again.

Many people like Beirut; but to my mind it is only a place to start from when you want to go to interesting places like Damascus and Baghdad. There is an American university there—quite a famous one. Miss P. visited it while Mr. Townsend and I went to the circus. B. T. Barnum, who was supposed to take every trick in the circus business, could have learned something from that circus. It never occurred to Barnum to get the audience to feed the animals. It took the person responsible for the Beirut circus to think of it. Before the elephants came out huge loaves of bread were sold to the people in the audience. A man had bellowed through a megaphone the joys of feeding the elephants. The people who had bought the bread stood at the ropes which divided off the ring while the elephants passed round taking their loaves. Sea-lions and bears were fed in the same manner. Mr. Townsend suggested that we leave before the lions and tigers were brought out for their daily rations.

We stayed two days in Beirut waiting for the Polaki, which was to stop at several ports on her way to Naples. Ever since I arrived at Port Said I had meant to write to grandmother and Aunt Vera. Each place I went to I thought now here I shall write to them. At the hotel I sat at a desk fully determined to write—but how to begin? I could explain the strange termination of my marriage better than I could account for my wanderings. I got up from the desk without writing a word and went out to the bookshops to find something to read on the journey. There is seldom anything worth reading in a ship’s library. I wanted to find a Barrie book. I love Barrie; I adore him. He always puts me right when I don’t know what to do. I found “The Little White Bird,” the only Barrie book they had.

Chapter XII

Miss P. and I had separate cabins on the Polaki. Mr. Townsend shared a cabin with an American Jew, who, we soon found out, judged the ports we stopped at by the size and quality of the cigars he could purchase.

I hoped no one would want to share my cabin; but when we got to Constantinople a veritable fury got on who was supposed to occupy the other berth. She stamped up and down the deck, telling the purser and any of the passengers who were standing about that she would have no one in the cabin with her. They had promised that she should be alone. She would write to the Lloyd Triestino and mention how their office in Constantinople had misled her. Miss P. nodded her head towards the lady and said: “She’s your stable mate. I saw her luggage being taken into your cabin.” The news wasn’t very comforting, but I went up to the lady and said in my very calm voice—my oil-on-troubled-waters voice: “Madam, I am in the cabin with you, but I have a friend on board who will share her cabin with me, so that you can be alone.” Then she did an amazing thing. She eyed me up and down, her expression changing from hatred to entreaty, and said: “I’ll share the cabin with you if you don’t mind.”

We went below together. She hooked her arm in mine and told me her tragic story. She apologized for being rude. But how did she know that the person they had put her with might not have been some horrible unsympathetic tourist. Now everything was all right.

When I knew the mission she was on I forgave her the row. The poor woman was a nervous wreck. For twelve years she had been trying to get up enough courage to visit her daughter’s grave in Sorrento. Her daughter had died in a suicide pact with an Italian. The Italian was married and she had forbidden her daughter to go about with him. Driven to desperation, the lovers had gone to Sorrento and shot themselves. The lady seemed to think she was directly to blame for her daughter’s death. If she hadn’t forbidden her to see the man! She, who understood love, why had she been blind? Now, after twelve years, she was going for the first time to her daughter’s grave. I offered to go with her to Sorrento if it would help her any, but she said she must go alone. She had made up her mind at last and now she would go through with it. But she got on at Constantinople, and I haven’t told you what the man who shared the cabin with Mr. Townsend said soon after we left Beirut. That was amusing.

He had seen Mr. Townsend talking with me on the deck, and so soon as they were in the cabin together he said: “Who’s the blonde baby? That’s not the stuff for you. Cut it and run, and run damn fast.” Mr. Townsend told him he was quite capable of looking after himself; but he thought it was a good joke when he repeated it to me. I wonder if Mr. Townsend ever thought that his guardian angel spoke to him that day through his cabin mate. Later on, when the man and I had a few talks together, I think he changed his mind about the blonde baby.

The late Doctor Arnold, who was professor of Oriental languages at Harvard University, was one of the passengers. Before I knew who he was I had heard him talking perfect Arabic—the cultured Arabic—the language you never hear colloquially. He was a handsome man, with fair curly hair and very regular features. He looked about forty, in spite of (he told Mr. Townsend) his sixty odd years. In Athens he had an argument with a rascal who was trying to rob him, and his Greek was as perfect as his Arabic.

The food on the boat was very good. It had been so long since we had had any decent food we looked forward to each meal.

I didn’t go ashore at Cyprus. Mr. Townsend and Miss P. went. They brought me back a lovely bunch of roses.

I wondered a lot about Mr. Townsend during our first journeys together. I couldn’t make him out. There were times when I thought I was furnishing him with a personality. He seemed so like me when he was with me. I wished he would go away somewhere and write me letters; then I would know what he was like. Later, when I knew him better, I saw that his way of submerging himself under others was only his fair-weather manner. He was really as stubborn as a mule. No amount of argument could move him when he had made up his mind about something. Some time in his life, I think, he had been quite dissipated; but dissipation doesn’t make such a wreck of a man as it does of a woman, because his conscience and his sub-conscience are more definitely separated.

The boat stopped at the little Turkish port, Adalia. We didn’t go ashore, although Dr. Arnold offered us seats in his boat. I was afraid of being disillusioned if I went ashore in Adalia. Little Turkish towns are lovely from a distance, but you mustn’t get too near. Adalia was beautiful from the deck of the Polaki. A lot of tiny waterfalls tumbled down over moss-green rocks into the indentation which made the little harbour. A few buildings and the dome of the mosque could be seen behind the waterfalls. Everything was covered with a soft violet haze.

I found a quiet place on deck for my chair where I could read “The Little White Bird.” Only Barrie can make a perambulator into a golden chariot by the wave of a wand. When I read him I can hear him saying to me: Don’t think you would find life uninteresting or dull if you got down to the bones of it? Every bare little fact of life is beautiful. You are afraid of losing your illusions, for you think there is nothing under them; but there are a lot of little paradises underneath, and out of these little paradises you can create something worth while—not out of the illusions. Why will Barrie live? Why will people love him when all the tiresomely-clever writers are dead as last year’s mutton? Because he lives with the little paradises.

There is nothing finer in the world than Constantinople viewed from the sea. Anyone with a sense of beauty must be struck by it as Constantine was when he first beheld it. No wonder he chose it for the site of his capital. As we approached it the Sea of Marmora was still as glass. Sometimes when I look at the sea it angers me with its complete indifference to our life. I hate its monotonous constancy in which we can have no part. I think of certain people who are dead—I think how they loved the unconscious sea. At such times I want the sea to have a concrete personality so I can kick it for its unresponse. The nearer we get to Constantinople the more it looked like an enchantment conjured from colour and sun-haze floating between sea and sky.

We went ashore in a small boat. I was to realize one of the dreams of my life—I would see San Sophia. I admit its dirt and its gloom and its certain tawdriness, but I love it. I could spend whole days in it tracing the weird devil faces on the columns made by the veins in the marble, poking my finger into the hole in the column (the wishing hole) and making a wish—getting the feel of the mosque when it was used as a place of worship. We had a guide, as Mr. Townsend thought it would save time. When we were in the Mosque of Suleiman—which is really a gem—the guide told me, if I would get rid of the other two, he would get me a very rich man. His interest in me was quite touching, as he renewed his offer several times during the day.

We went to Pierre Loti’s house. It looked like a stale cake. After seeing the usual sights in Stamboul we went over to Pera and had some delicious food at a Turkish restaurant. I had the address of a Turkish lady who used to visit us in Egypt. When we left the restaurant I got “rid of the other two”—and the guide also—and started out in a taxi to find her. I had a little difficulty, as she had moved.

She received me in a room which had lost the lattice from its windows. Mustapha Kemal Pasha had done away with so much of the old secrecy—it might have been better if he had left it. The room was furnished with three chaise-longues, a sofa and the inevitable coffee tables. Hadigeh Shamashergi sat on one of the chaise-longues, some soft black material wrapped round her, her little feet in red mules. I was struck with her beauty. As a child it had never occurred to me that she was beautiful. How different our impressions are when we are older. Her eyes were large and very dark with lids which half hid them as the lattice had hidden the windows. Her blue-black hair was brushed back from her forehead and coiled low on her neck, but what impressed me most was the dazzling quality of her skin. It had the creamy smoothness of a fully-opened magnolia.

“How is Vanburgh?” was her first question. When I had answered it she said: “He is a skunk.” She wondered why grandfather had him about the place. Mr. Vanburgh wasn’t unique, for she told me that all men were skunks. There was one skunk in Constantinople whom she intended to settle with. When she spoke of him she raised her half-closed eyelids and let her eyes blaze with passion. A woman brought in coffee and Hadigeh got up from her chair and fluttered round me like a little blackbird. I must have sweetmeats—Turkish sweetmeats made of rose petals; I must try some orange peel done in the Turkish way. Her gestures were fascinating. She seemed barely to touch things. I hoped she would forget about the skunks.

I told her of grandfather’s death. Her sorrow was very genuine. She went back to her chair and kicked off her mules. All huddled up, with her arms round her knees and her eyes half closed, she talked of the futility of life. We lived such a few years. We hadn’t time to do anything. Religion was humbug. Mahomet was the only Prophet who had got anything right—and the only truth he had taught was maktoob (fate, literally it is written). There was no such thing as free will. There were moments when she seemed to be talking to herself, as if she had forgotten me.

I was keeping my eye on my wrist-watch. I had promised Mr. Townsend and Miss P. that I would meet them at the Pera Palace at five. When I got up to go it seemed to occur to Hadigeh that I had said nothing about myself. She asked me how I happened to be alone in Constantinople. I told her friends were waiting for me at the hotel. She wanted to know if they were friends of the family, and I said they were—to save explanations.

I had tea at the Pera Palace with Mr. Townsend and Miss P. They had the tea. I could eat nothing after my tuck-in of rose-petal sweetmeats.

The guide was still waiting outside for us. He was hoping to take us shopping where he could collect commission from his cronies; but we returned to the boat to find the lady I have already mentioned arguing with the purser about the cabin.

Every port we stopped at the passengers talked of the wonders of St. Paul. One place he had done this, another place he had done that. At Ephesus he had preached the gospel. No one went to Ephesus because the temple of Diana had been there, or because Cyrus or Xerxes or Alexander had been there. They went because it was there Paul read his epistle to the Ephesians.

I had made up my mind to get off at The Piraeus and stay in Athens for a while. I wanted to get my mail. I had told the Signor to send it to an address in Venice. I had cabled Venice to forward it to Athens. When I told Mr. Townsend and Miss P. what I thought of doing, Mr. Townsend said he would get off if I did. Miss P. said she would go on to Naples.

Mr. Townsend and I left the boat at The Piraeus. Miss P. was rather angry with me, but my cabin mate was relieved. We went to the Petit Palais in Athens. It was once the home of Prince Nicholas. The hotel was serving nothing but breakfasts at this time, and there wasn’t a decent restaurant in Athens. I was having one of my economical turns, so I decided to find a cheaper hotel. A man on the boat had told me about an hotel which, he said, was very cheap. Mr. Townsend went with me to have a look at it. Most of the rooms were occupied, but the smiling manager said we could have any rooms we liked. He would arrange it. He showed us three rooms. In each of them a fountain syringe hung on the wall. One of the syringes was full of water. I believe in being ready for any emergency whenever possible, but those syringes were a little too apprehensive. We returned to the Petit Palais, my economy being for the time in abeyance.

We went every day to the Acropolis. I have stood before some of the statues in the Acropolis museum until I could almost see them come to life. The three-bodied demon is one of my favourites, and I adore the horse who has no hindquarters. I have seen the veins of his neck stand out—I think I have seen him breathe. I wrote a lot about him in a book I called “The Broken Toy.” In it I said that one of my characters threw her arms about the horse’s neck and kissed him; but it was I who did that one day when I was alone in the museum. My poor book will never see the light of day, for publishers think that one of my characters is Mussolini. The character has nothing to do with the Duce; but you can never convince publishers.

I would sit for hours on the wall of the Acropolis looking across the Attic Plain—along the way to Eleusis—watching the lights change on the Trigania Mountains. Mr. Townsend took me to dinner at the Cecil, in Kefisia. The food was awful, but the international crowd was interesting. All languages were spoken and all sorts of steps were attempted in dancing. A singer sang two or three songs, but her voice was so packed away in fat I couldn’t look at her.

My mail arrived. An envelope, with Aunt Vera’s writing, had a black border. What had happened now? I sat staring at it for some time before I could open it. My hands were trembling, there seemed to be a piece of ice on my heart but I had to open that letter first. Grandmother was dead. She had died in England. Aunt Vera and mother had been with her. She had been delirious the last three days of her life. The doctors, knowing the end was near, said she could have anything she wanted. They thought she would want black coffee. All her life she had a passion for it. She had drunk it at all hours of the day and night. When they gave her her last cup Aunt Vera had asked her if she knew what she was drinking. Grandmother looked up at her, smiled, and said: “Yes—very poor coffee.” Her last words had been so characteristic. Aunt Vera had sent me two cables when grandmother died. When I didn’t reply they cabled the Signor. He had written them everything, mentioning the date I left Shanghai. They were worried to death—where was I?—what was I doing?—why didn’t I go to them? Grandfather hadn’t been as well off as they thought. Grandmother had kept up my allowance; but now it was necessary to talk things over. Would I go to England and see Aunt Vera and mother?

The two I loved so much had died without seeing me. Had I wanted to see them at the last—to see their bodies? What a curse the body is—what a damnable curse! There is no beauty in death. Much of the repellent horror of it is physical. It means a body that can end in nothing but putrescence—a damnable body that has frustrated some beloved him or her who might have stayed but for its passion for decay. Yet we cherish it. We put it away beautifully when we should hate it for what it has done to Love. Isn’t it awful, when you come to think of it! Do we really believe in anything if we strip our souls bare? Is there any God to rest our souls upon if we are violently honest? We have made everything we have got and none of it is permanent. We make no progress. We repeat stupidities and dispositions. Progress would be something holy and free. How terrifying it is—the stark futility of it all—so terrifying that you must have your God and I must have my God.

Mr. Townsend was very kind when I told him of grandmother’s death. His tenderness was uppermost then, as it had been at Palmyra when Helen Langermann deserted me. He said I had better go to England. He would go with me in case I needed him. We left Athens the following day.

Mother and Aunt Vera had rented a house in Richmond. I gave Mr. Townsend the address so that he could let me know where he was stopping. The house mother had rented was one of a terraced. Sudden little terraces of houses rushed up and down both sides of the street. They had spawned like mushrooms. Of course they were not there a few days ago. They looked frightened like a lot of ugly children who feel they are intruding. Everyone on the street, with the exception of mother, owned a mushroom. Each family paid a little at a time for its mushroom, and felt proud with the pride of possession. The street had cut its way through an old farm-yard. It looked like a wound. The only thing which took the horror out of it was an old cedar tree which had baffled the builders. The street had to turn out of its way for the cedar tree. Two of the terraced houses had to crouch down behind it and stare out from under its branches. It was as unconscious of its environment as an Indian sadhu meditating upon the centre of the universe. Every woman on the terrace had a pram—or expected soon to have one. Creation flamed through the street like a fire. Every house had two flower beds before the door with a walk dividing them; every one had a clipped hedge. Most of them had the inevitable blue curtains. If you came home drunk you wouldn’t know which door to put your latchkey into.

Inside, mother’s house was as ugly as the outside. She or grandmother had bought the necessary furniture. I told her that to have everything in order she should have bought it on the never-never plan. No wonder grandmother had died in that house—grandmother who so loved space and beauty. In all grandfather’s moves he had remembered space and beauty. When our houses had been ugly inside there had always been some good views from the windows. Mother and Aunt Vera were glad to have me with them; but mother couldn’t keep off my marriage. Mother was always taking the colour out of life. I might have known when I married an Italian. What did I expect? Her predictions had been right. When I left Prince Edward’s Island to go to Boston she knew what would happen. I hoped she would get everything said, and finish, but she didn’t. Every day she thought of something more to say to me. All the pent-up venom she had been storing during grandfather’s life came out in a ceaseless stream. Aunt Vera warned her. I was too much like my father to stick it long, she said. Mother paid no attention.

Aunt Vera told me that money wasn’t so tight, but that mother was panicky. Of course there was nowhere near so much as they had believed, but mother feared that it wouldn’t see her through. Grandmother had left Aunt Vera’s share—at Aunt Vera’s request—to Natalie. Natalie was in America at school. Her father had come for her when they realized that grandmother wouldn’t be able to travel. Aunt Vera said that mother could look after me if I lived with her, but she didn’t think she could support me separately. She explained that the house we were living in was only a temporary arrangement. She knew that mother would get a nice flat either in England or Canada.

I could never live with mother. It would be useless to try. Neither of us would really like it. I must do something. I must get down to serious writing. The thought of another marriage didn’t appeal to me.

There was another woman living with us, a friend of mother’s, Mrs. M. We all crowded into the little house like slum-dwellers. I disliked Mrs. M. intensely, for she kept her dog on a chain in a cramped kennel in the back-yard. He would look at me with sad, appealing eyes which said: “Take me out. I’m so cramped in this position. Never mind the fool I belong to. She will do nothing for me.” I used to take him for walks down by the river. Our house wasn’t far from the river. Mr. Townsend often met us. I would phone him from a phone on the corner of the street, and he would come out. He was living in an hotel in Kensington. We would sit by the river while Jack waded in and played about with the swans. Sometimes he would get so covered with the brown-satin slime of the river I would have to give him a good wash before I could take him back.

I told Mr. Townsend how unhappy I was, and he suggested that we go away together. I had to think it over. I couldn’t decide in a minute. I had still quite a lot of the allowance I had accumulated in China. When it was finished I would get a job somewhere. I could work on a newspaper or I could be a secretary if my writing didn’t plan out. A lot of my trouble was inaction. Mother could settle down with nothing to do, but I couldn’t. I was like a fish out of water. I loved my beautiful solitudes—solitudes filled with the music of the sea and the terrible beauty of savage vegetation—where Nature was such wonderful company where she gave you everything you could take; but that was quite another thing. There was no stagnation in my solitudes. They were filled with energy and beauty. Mother was closing in on me. I was being suffocated by her thoughts.

Then there were days on end when it rained or drizzled. I wondered the English hadn’t become web-footed.

You can see that I was getting ready to run away; and you think perhaps that I am trying to excuse myself. I am not. I told Mr. Townsend I would go away with him. We decided to go first to Vienna. I asked him if he had any friend in the country who would take Jack and give him the freedom he needed. He had a friend in Devonshire who would love to have him—he was sure of it. The man lived on Dartmoor—just the place for Jack. He wrote to his friend who, it turned out, was delighted to have Jack. I took the dog out to walk one day, and Mr. Townsend took him to Devonshire. Mrs. M. couldn’t understand how I had lost him. It seemed impossible.

I told Aunt Vera that I was going away. She said she could see that mother and I could never hit it off. She told me if ever I needed a home to let her know. She would send for me if I couldn’t get to her. She died a year later, quite suddenly, as grandfather had died; and with her went any inclination—if I ever had any—for returning to my family. I told her I would keep her informed as to my whereabouts. I said nothing about Mr. Townsend. I figured now in all Mr. Townsend’s calculations. I think in his way he had begun to love me. I filled some place in his life which had never been filled before. He was a wonderful friend. I could talk to him as I could talk to another woman—and how rare this type of man is! So many things get in the way of frank conversation between men and women. Perhaps the greatest barrier is passion. Women are seldom truthful to men they love passionately. Jealousy or the desire not to cause suffering gets in the way of truth.

I told mother I was leaving. I didn’t tell her why or where I was going. She looked at me as she used to look at father, and started to cry. I knew I would stay if she kept that up; but suddenly she stopped crying and turned on me. She completely emptied her mind. Grandfather had stood between me and that torrent. It had been dammed up while he lived. Now the floodgates were open and it washed over me. That was the last time I saw mother. I heard from her twice afterwards—letters of denunciation which I never answered. Don’t think I am blaming her. People who make a fetish of goodness often become tyrannical; but we let them get away with their tyranny because their determined narrowness has given them a place apart. Mother had always stood apart from the rest of us. Her goodness made her remote.

Mr. Townsend and I went to Vienna. Mr. Townsend stayed at the Imperial and I took lodgings in a pension. We were not living together at that time. That came later—in Italy.

We met every morning and walked in the Ring or the Park. Sometimes we hired a car and drove out of the city, or we would sit in front of the Grand Hotel bar watching the street scene, which was always interesting. Elizabeth Duncan would sit with us sometimes, telling us of her school in Salzburg. She was very different from Isadora—not so colourful, much more conventional.

I spent the afternoons writing. I was working on the book I had begun in China. I wrote short stories also and poems. One of the poems—a long one—I called “A Chinese Pageant” was published in the Tientsin Times. I am never happy very long unless I write something. Why is it that I must write? The world will not care—or will it? just a tiny bit. I think I write because I must break through something—I must shake off something—like the chick who must get out of the egg. He pecks and pecks with his little bill until the shell falls about him. My ideas fall about me like bits of shell; but I must gather them up. I collect them quickly—too quickly, you may think; but I am always in a hurry. When I finish writing I rush to something else. There is always a storm raging inside me. Sometimes I don’t know what I write. I know only what I love. I love the earth, the sky, the moon; but when I see what I have written about them it wasn’t what I felt.

The Princess Elizabeth Windischgratz invited me to tea at her place on the outskirts of Vienna—the place where she was a prisoner after the Armistice, when an English guard kept her under surveillance—the place where Jerome Buonaparte was a prisoner for three years. The estate was a gift to Princess Elizabeth from her grandfather, the Emperor Francis Joseph. Once the grounds were beautiful—when the Habsburgs could pay for their upkeep. Now the walks are full of weeds and the grass is seldom cut. Only the magnificent old trees retain their beauty. The house is almost as forlorn as the grounds. To say it is cheerless would not be true, for no place where Princess Elizabeth is could be cheerless. Two peasant women look after it for her, and perhaps she is as happy as she would be if she were back in Schönbrunn with the pomp of the Court about her. Everyone knows that she has become a socialist. Some say it was force majeur, others say that her decision was a matter of conviction. Perhaps gratitude had something to do with it. When her husband, Prince Windischgratz, who lives apart from her, sent his men to take their children, who were living with her, by force, it was the peasants, armed with pitchforks and shovels, who repulsed the attack. She is criticized by the royalists for her socialistic tendencies; but that after all is only natural. Not long ago an English lady asked me for a letter of introduction to her, but when she learned that Princess Elizabeth was a socialist she decided that she didn’t care to meet her.

She had none of the lust for prestige which seemed always to urge the Habsburgs on—and while the army supported them they went on. The army and the navy did everything with overbearing precision—even to renting houses of prostitution and marching the men to these houses in naval formation, under the direction of a medical officer and marching them back again after manoeuvres. This happened when the Austrian Navy was in Alexandria. Rigidity often disguises itself as power in governments which are riding for a fall. What a lot of trouble in the world has been caused by the fools who have stood pat when opposition was the only road to progress. The world is no worse off since the downfall of the Habsburgs, the Hohenzollerns and Romanovs. Nothing could have saved them—a few clever dodges might have delayed their fall. The doom of Europe was sounded when Francis Joseph, with his Habsburg almightiness, declared war on Serbia with nothing to back up his daring but the tradition of his House.

Princess Elizabeth sent her car for me. I stopped to pick up Mr. Townsend. When I told him where we were going he was quite thrilled. “How shall I address her?” he asked. I told him she liked to be called Madame Windischgratz—but when we arrived he addressed her as “Your Highness.”

She was standing on a balcony when we drove in and she nodded her head towards Mr. Townsend; then her eyes questioned me, as if to say: “Who have you brought with you?” I don’t think Mr. Townsend saw her: he was looking the other way.

While I was upstairs taking off my hat, her Alsatian, Lux, got Mr. Townsend behind a sofa. The Princess had to run and call him off. He was a magnificent animal, but he hated strangers and motor tyres. Whenever he got near a car—other than the Princess’s car—he would bite pieces out of the tyres.

We had tea in the garden. I remember we had strawberries. It was early for them—a fact which always gives them a delicious flavour. The Princess wore a long coat and a scarf, for it was quite cool. She is tall and slender, and looks like her father, Rudolph. Her daughter, Fay, who was then about eighteen, had tea with us. Fay resembles her great-grandmother, the Bavarian beauty, Elizabeth, the wife of Francis Joseph. Fay had just returned from school in Belgium, where she had shocked the Queen by refusing to attend something to which she had been invited.

The Princess enjoyed Mr. Townsend’s stories about Egypt. Travel was the passion of her life, and she was always eager to visit new countries and to hear about them.

After tea she took us through the house. The walls of one of the corridors were lined with stuffed birds which Rudolph had shot. The feathers of a number of them had fallen off, exposing their shrivelled skin. Most of the furniture had linen covers drawn over it. The covers saved brushing the upholstery, but they gave the house a deserted appearance. One of the rooms was supposed to be haunted by Ludwig. His ghost, dripping wet—Ludwig’s death, as you know, was caused by drowning—came to the room, and you could hear water dripping on to the floor. The Princess asked Mr. Townsend if he could hear it. I hoped he could, for Princess Elizabeth has, besides her socialistic tendencies, a leaning towards occultism. Mr. Townsend could hear nothing, which was rather a disappointment.

We went into the suite which used to be occupied by the Archduke Otto—the suite in which he died. It was furnished with inlaid mahogany and two yellow-tiled stoves. It also is said to be haunted. A lady who slept in it one night told me she heard an awful row going on just outside the door.

In the gallery generations of Habsburgs hung about the walls. Everything was portrayed there—the crimes, the madness, the energy and dullness of the Habsburgs. There were faces in which cunning was whittled down to insanity—faces which seemed to have given no thought to the world in which they lived—faces like pallid masks. The Archduke Maximilian had most of the Habsburg peculiarities, the breed showing plainly in his face, the clumsy refinement, the avenging cruelty—a man to fall from the sheer dizziness of the heights he had reached.

The portrait of Princess Stephanie—Princess Elizabeth’s mother—hung there, her blonde fairness lighting up a dark corner. Mr. Townsend admired the portrait. Princess Elizabeth told him it was the portrait of her mother; but she didn’t tell him that she hadn’t spoken to her mother for fourteen years. Princess Elizabeth had loved her father. She knew the truth about him. She knew that people saw him through the eyes of the Court only. They believed the stories written for their benefit. He was known because of his connection with Mary Vetsera—because of his tragic death at Meyerling—but his daughter knew that he was a simple man with an inclination towards journalism. She knew that if a kinder fate had given him a peaceful life and a woman he loved, the world would never have heard of his tragedy. She knew that writers liked to talk of his insane ideas—liked to make him the scapegoat for the stupidity of others. She knew also that the Habsburgs always covered their tracks as their Spanish ancestors had done before them.

We went back to the city in the Princess’s car. Certain of the professors of the International University had invited us to a heuriger in the evening. I wanted to write a few letters before going and to get thawed out—the evening was quite chill—before facing a garden party which might last all night. When it comes to resisting cold the Viennese are even better than the English.

Mr. Townsend called for me later in a taxi packed with an hilarious crowd of guests for the heuriger. I managed to squeeze in and sit on a man’s lap.

New wine is always drunk at the heuriger, and I began to realize, before the evening was very old, how true it is that you can’t put new wine into old bottles. Some of the older professors became very gay. One old dear got up on a table with me and danced. While we were dancing, a psychologist—a dreamy-eyed Jewess—told Mr. Townsend, who was sitting beside her, that I was inhibited—that I suffered from sex repression. Mr. Townsend told her that I didn’t understand the word inhibition, but she informed him that she was a psychologist and knew what she was talking about. Their conversation was reported to me by a lady who overheard it.

There was an amazing person amongst the guests—a woman who had been rejuvenated by one of the famous gland specialists of Vienna. If you can imagine a woman of sixty looking as vital as a woman of thirty you will have some idea of this woman’s appearance. Her front hair stood up defiantly like the needles of a porcupine. It seemed to be charged with electricity. Her eyes sparkled and her skin glowed. Her figure left a lot to be desired, but her movements were so sudden and tireless you didn’t notice her size. Her favourite phrase was “What are we going to do next?” She was still saying it at eight o’clock the following morning, when she whizzed away in an aeroplane for Venice. She took my breath away and my energy is said to be inexhaustible.

When all the wine had been consumed, I wouldn’t attempt to say how much, we went to the San Soucis to dance. The party I was with knew the people who were already at the San Soucis, so we joined forces. This merger brought in an American lady who was very intoxicated and soon very interested in Mr. Townsend. Mr. Townsend was supporting his new wine rather badly, and the brandy he had had at the San Soucis did nothing to improve his locomotion. He and the American lady locked horns. This is not a figure of speech. They put their heads down and ran at each other. Their arms and their legs somehow intertwined and their jungle contortions began. The muscles of her back rippled as her polished claws dug into his coat. Their nostrils quivered as thigh pressed thigh. His eyes, an infuriated gleam in them, bore into hers. She shook her short mane and tightened her hold. Her back was streaming—her mouth was open—you could hear her panting as she passed the table. Then something broke—her bust rose like foam on the black lace edge of her dress. She screamed and flung away from him. He leaped, claws extended, eyes suffused with blood—you could hear the rip of creepers in the jungle—but she got away—into the ladies’ room. One of the professors took him back to his chair.

A Russian choir came in and sang. Their voices were glorious—natural, true, not too trained. There were more women than men in the San Soucis. There are always more women than men in the cities. It seems that huddling breeds the female of the species. Most of the women drank very little.

A painter sat himself down beside me and asked me if he might paint my portrait. I told him I couldn’t afford to have my portrait painted. He said he didn’t want me to buy it. He gave me an address and I went to his studio three times. He made something he called a portrait of me, but it looked like a wooden doll.

The rejuvenated lady invited us all to a Russian place where vodka was served. I had sipped vodka in Peking and I didn’t intend to take the lining off my stomach. I watched the others gulp it down. Our hostess forced hers down. She didn’t want it, but the devilry of drinking it went with her youthful rôle. I think we visited all the places in Vienna that night.

Mr. Townsend, after one or two visits to the vomitorium, was trying to pull himself together. It was the only time I ever saw him drunk. He never drank more than one whisky and soda. It was the first time he had been to a heuriger, and I don’t believe he ever went to another one. The professors were getting their second wind, and someone had taken the American lady home.

We finished, rather bedraggled, but fairly respectable, in a restaurant at seven o’clock in the morning, where we had ham and eggs for breakfast. The rejuvenated lady was the liveliest one in the party. She seemed quite thrilled with the idea of her flight to Venice. I went home—and so to bed.

I have spent very few nights in my life in carousal. I detest smoke-filled rooms and people in various degrees of intoxication. My stomach turns over—I have only experienced it once—at a drunken kiss. I can stay up all night any time, but it must be out of doors.

Mr. Townsend and I usually had luncheon somewhere after our morning walk. One day we were in a little Italian restaurant, and a lady at another table smiled and waved her hand to us. “Who is she?” Mr. Townsend asked. She was the American lady he had danced with at San Soucis. She was very ugly in street clothes. The two women with her were painfully plain. We seem to get uglier every year. The other day I read—in one of the daily papers—Professor Jean’s essay on the huge animals of the past—misfits that couldn’t endure and had to be shuffled off the earth. God seemed to make so many mistakes at first with his animals! Why should we think He is not still making mistakes? You have only to ride in a bus, walk along the street for half a mile or sit in one of the Continental restaurants. Mr. Townsend usually walked home with me after luncheon. I meant to write in the afternoons no matter what happened, but sometimes I went out when there was something interesting going on or when I thought I should show up for one reason or another.

One afternoon, we—Mr. Townsend and I—went to a garden party given by the family—Americans—who occupied the property where Mozart wrote the “Magic Flute.” Before starting we had lunch at the Imperial—this hotel was once owned by the Habsburgs. When we were finishing our lunch Mr. Townsend’s cabin mate in the Polaki came to our table. He said he had just arrived in Vienna. He had gone to Naples on the Polaki and had been travelling round Italy ever since. He looked so lonely I asked him to come along to the garden party. The party was given for charity, so I had no hesitancy about asking him. He took the inevitable big cigar out of his mouth and thanked me. He said I had saved him from “the blues.” I think the Jewish psychologist, who was at the garden party—the one who said I was inhibited—had more to do with saving him from depression, for she disappeared with him after the party and no one saw either of them for two weeks.

I met a young Irish lady at the party, who told me she wanted to write a book about Frau Schratt, the mistress of Francis Joseph. The young lady was quite thrilled because she had seen Madame Schratt on the street feeding stray dogs and cats, and she had heard that Madame Schratt’s house was full of beautiful things the Emperor had given her. She thought she could catch some of the glamour of the old days. She might if there had been any glamour to catch, but can anyone ever think of Madame Schratt as a king’s mistress? She was, of course, so far as the position she occupied was concerned, but who can think of the nice old lady who played Joan to Francis Joseph’s Darby as the mistress of a king? At the end of their thirty-one years together they were a nice old couple in their garden chairs. The mistress was more the choice of the Empress than of the Emperor. As a matter of fact, the mistress reinforced the wife. Together they went to the Emperor to break the news of Rudolph’s death. If Katharina Schratt hadn’t been the mistress of the Emperor she might have been the wife of a country squire, or a nun, wiping the noses and feeding the tummies of homeless children. No, Katharina, you are not the stuff that mistresses are made of and you have about as much glamour as a maiden aunt.

Just before the party broke up, long after sunset, when the light was beginning to make everything look freaky, a man auctioned the food and the wine which was left. About twenty-five bottles of wine and a dozen cakes brought a good price. Besides the money realized from the auction, several guests donated to the cause, among them the cabin mate with the smiling Jewess on his arm.

That night after dinner, which we had at the Italian restaurant where we had seen the American lady, Mr. Townsend came up to my rooms. In my little sitting-room, stretched out in a chair, his feet on a floor cushion, a halo of cigarette smoke round his head, he leant quite a domestic aspect to the place. I could see that he had something on his mind which he didn’t quite know how to lead up to. He made two or three beginnings, but they petered out. He didn’t try any of the conventional love making, Gott-sei-danks. When he got to it, whatever it was, it would be calm and peaceful. He flicked the ash from his cigarette and said: “I love you, you know. I have loved you for quite a time.” I laughed. He stared at me and his quiet voice went on: “I can’t marry you. There is my wife.”

“Reason enough,” I said.

“Be serious,” he said. We discussed the pros and cons of living together. He was sure he could make me happy. When I told him that that sort of talk wasn’t necessary between us, we talked as we had always talked, frankly, without deception. We arranged to live together. We would leave Vienna and go to Italy. I had had love in my life, now I would have friendship. I couldn’t have both. I felt at peace. Our relationship would allow us freedom. No complications would hem us in. There was no masquerade of passion. It wouldn’t last—of course not; neither does passionate love last. And what is this perfect understanding we hear about but the heart’s defeat?

The look I had seen in his eyes at the San Soucis when the American woman had flung away from him was a flash of delirium—something summoned quickly by occasion—and as quickly lost. I have seen it in the eyes of hundreds of men who have looked at me—that flash so quickly gone. It is the flash of Italy—the flash of the south in men. It isn’t the look of that dear passion—that different passion, which for an instant is all of life. I never thought of Mr. Townsend as my lover. He was my friend—my very dear friend. Loneliness had brought us together in the first place. It had kept us together. Out of proximity an attachment had grown. Perhaps it is as good an introduction to partnership as passion. Who shall say?

“If you want to write you will never do it in Vienna,” he said. There were too many distractions—too many invitations. He reminded me that we had been in Vienna two months, and what had we done—been on a round of tiresome parties, that was all.

*  *  *

We went to Florence and rented a villa at Fiesole. The villa was perched on the very eyelashes of a hill. The back of it, in fact, was almost part of the hill. Just below it there was a deserted garden, a tangle of everything. Beyond the garden the valley stretched out as far as a little silver thread. The silver thread was the Arno. One of the old Medici palaces stood alone in the valley. Its top row of windows looked like squinting eyes under the projecting brows of its roof. There was never a light in it. Its only inhabitant was a caretaker who lived in the basement. On the one street which trailed across the valley eight lights would appear each night. They would flash out, one at a time, until the eight were alight. On festa nights the Palazzo Vecchio would blaze with fights in all its windows, and the Duomo would wear red lights round her dome like a necklace of giant rubies. I never tired of the view. You could see so much Italian history from the windows—but so little of modern Italy. Nightingales and fire-flies put an enchantment on our little garden every night. We would lie in our beds and listen to the nightingale. To sleep would have been sacrilege.

Mr. Townsend—I shall call him Carlo after this as it sounds rather ridiculous to live with a man and call him Mr.—occupied himself with Florentine history—you can spend years on that if you do it thoroughly—while I worked on my book. He poked round the galleries, the churches, the ancient buildings. He studied Italian. He had a flair for languages. He spoke fluent French—even if he did speak it with the accent of Marseilles. His Arabic was excellent, but that was to be expected after his long residence in Egypt. When I had finished my daily work on the book—I was writing in the mornings now and part of the afternoons—we went out to walk, or to a concert or a cinema. We tramped over the hills of Fiesole, through the woods—miles and miles in every direction. Sometimes we walked over to Florence and back. Often we took our supper in a basket, or had it in some restaurant. Then we would stay out until the nightingales put on their concert.

Our first maid, Emma, was a devil. She was a high-handed wench who managed everything without consulting us. She worked her family in—Italian fashion—for all sorts of extra work. We went to Sienna for three days and, having a free rein, she got her brother—who was out of work—in to paint all the furniture. Mahogany, Florentine antiques, enamelled pieces—he painted everything. When we returned she presented us with a bill for four hundred lire for spoiling the landlady’s furniture. I told her to pack her things and to leave at once or I would have her arrested. She screamed and cursed and refused to go. I gave her five minutes to start packing. She hissed at me. I could almost see her arch her back like a cat. After she left her mother came and stood outside, looking in at the windows, while she cursed us. Her brother came also. In fact there was a string of her relations who came, one after the other, to curse us.

Our next maid, Louisa, was a simple peasant girl who was willing to work under direction. She was a good cook—all Italians are good cooks—and she soon learned to wait at table and answer the door without shouting at callers. She had a passion for flowers and when we forgot to buy them she stole them from other people’s gardens. She would bring the loot to me, a sly smile spreading her lips a little: “Ecco Signora, e bella?” I had to admit they were beautiful, but I would scold her for stealing them. The stolen flowers usually appeared on my desk. She was continuously burning candles before her favourite saint. She burned them for Carlo and for me also. What a lot of warmth, colour and passion are offered up in prayer! Could they be put to a better use?

Occasionally we visited friends in Florence. There was an etcher whom we dropped in to see if we happened to be in Florence in the late afternoon. She had that brittle charm which is so delicate and so French. She had learned to do things perfectly whether she was serving tea, accepting admiration for her etchings, or flavouring her remarks with just enough venom to get a point home without offending anyone. Various languages were spoken at her flat. Sometimes her guests spoke French, sometimes German, Italian or English. Whichever language was chosen, everyone spoke it. I have heard everything discussed there from incest to the proper payment of undertakers. Sometimes a lot of young men came, intrigants, hanging to the fringe of Florentine society. Mussolini’s purity drives floated strange driftwood in and out of the Italian cities. Women came with their husbands or their lovers—occasionally with both.

I met a very interesting journalist there. He is one of the few men who travelled, on foot, through the hinterland of Aden. He told my fortune with tarot cards on the tower of the building in which the etcher had her flat. She rented the tower also. From it she made sketches of the Arno for her etchings. It was amazing the amount of truth the Signor found in the tarot cards. Some of his prophecies were quite accurate.

There was another friend in Florence, an interior decorator, whom we looked in on occasionally. He was an American carrying on his profession in Florence. He had an interesting house. Each room was decorated to represent some period of history. He had an adopted son and daughter, both Italians. He was considered quite mad by the Italians for acquiring a family without a wife. The daughter was making good on the operatic stage and the son was pottering round the house. An unbelievable affection existed between father and son.

My friend Vennette Herron was in Florence at that time. She was in love with a painter, who wasn’t worth a second thought. They were for ever quarrelling. Jealousy inspired one of the quarrels. Sometimes the trend jealousy took was comic, like one day when she asked the man who came to read the electric light meter to move the piano for her. The painter, calling at the villa later on, asked her who moved the piano. When she told him it was the man who read the meter, he spent the following day tramping round after the man to have a look at him. Fortunately he was no Adonis.

We stayed in Florence until the autumn, then, after paying for the furniture which Emma’s brother had ruined, we went to the Island of Ischia.

The boat which plies between Naples and Ischia stops at several small ports on the island. We left her at Casamiccola. The hotel there is called Piccolo Sentinelli (the little sentinels). It rests on the brow of a hill overlooking the Bay of Naples. From the terrace you can see Vesuvius sending up her smoke, and the funicular which ascends to her crater. At night when the lights are on the funicular looks like a double row of diamonds. You can see Sorrento pushing out from the mainland and that shadowy something in the distance which is Capri. At the bottom of the hill on which the hotel stood the bay came in like the curve of an eyebrow. Fishing boats dotted it at night, fishing for octopi (the ink fish of Italy) with big lights; a cruel business, as it gives the creature no chance to get away, it being so blinded by the lights, but these men must wrest their living from the sea and ink fish sell well in the Italian market.

Our rooms overlooked the Bay. They were not well furnished, but the view from the windows was so distracting you didn’t notice the leg of the wash-stand which was made of match-boxes, or the string which held the soap-dish together. There was no bath-room in the hotel. The bath-tub stood outside under the water-spout to catch water for the garden. Water wasn’t plentiful in Ischia. Stored rain-water supplied the Island, and when rain was scarce the situation became desperate. The one lavatory was flushed with sea water. A picture of Raffaello’s Madonna and an old telephone book hung in the lavatory. The book had got to the letter “M” when we arrived. The only redeeming feature in the dining-room was its long row of windows where the tables stood. The food was homely and plain, but quite good. There was one waiter, Raffaello. Carlo called him the Newspaper, for he bent over our chairs every day and told us the gossip about every guest in the place. I don’t know what Raffaello would have done if every room had been occupied. I suppose somehow he would have managed to serve and report at the same time.

I used to make sketches of the guests on the table-cloth with lead-pencil. This was not to satisfy my artistic craving, but to see that the tablecloth was changed. My sketches served two purposes. Raffaello, seeing them, would say “Ah, la principessa”—then he would bend over my chair and say: “You see that young man sitting beside her? He is her illegitimate son. Oh, the poor princess, she had the great amore.” Then sucking his breath in through his teeth: “Oh, love—love—what is there but the love, Signora?”

The guests got acquainted with us at once. They asked us to play cards with them in the evening to have a glass of wine with them on the terrace. The illegitimate son asked Carlo to give him boxing lessons, because he had seen Carlo fooling with a punch-bag.

One of the men tried to make love to me. He wrote me little notes asking me to meet him in Naples. I paid no attention to him until one night he pinched me—then I slid my foot out and tripped him. Pinching is an Italian compliment. One night, on the short train journey from Pisa to Florence, one of my hips was black and blue from the compliments of a Marchese.

I went to the baths before breakfast, and Carlo went down to bathe in the sea.

The chambermaid, Rosa, was a pathetic-looking slattern. Her elbows, red and blotchy, stuck out through her sleeves. Her dress was torn in several places, showing the dirty slip she wore under it. I had a simple beige silk frock, with a slip to match, which I knew would fit her. I called her into my room one day and gave it to her, asking her, for heaven’s sake, to have a wash and put it on. She was very grateful. Tears stood mistily in her eyes when she thanked me. The following day she stole my beige shoes and stockings which matched the frock I had given her. The Latin woman is always keen on the ensemble. Soon after this Rosa was discharged for stealing a man’s diamond pin. When she left I was on the same boat with her going over to Naples. She was wearing my dress and shoes and stockings. Somehow she had got a bit of beige silk and made herself a little hat. I had to admit that the ensemble was quite chic.

I had a friend on the Island who owned a beautiful place—a walled garden containing two villas and various quarters for servants. One villa, called the guest-house, stood on one side of the garden. The other villa, where my friend and her husband lived, stood on the other side. The wall which gave on the Bay opened in archways from which you could descend to the sea. The Islanders say the property is cursed. It is the Maledetto (the cursed) of my book, “The Broken Toy,” which I mentioned before. The surrounding wall separates in one place to allow the belvedere—of white marble, with columns and a dome—to jut out, on its rocky foundation, well into the Bay. At night, when you sit on the belvedere, the villas and the garden are lost behind you in shadow. It is like sitting on a boat. The tide is lapping beneath you, and you hear the songs and talk of the fishermen as plainly as if you were down below with them. It is a strange feeling. You seem to sail along behind the lights of the little fishing-boats.

Not far from the property the Castelo rises like a threat out of the sea. The Castelo is a huge rock, now covered with ruins and a few dilapidated buildings. In the old days the city of Ischia was built on it. As a matter of fact it was Ischia, for the present Ischia seems in some way to have descended from its rocky forefather.

The property of the Maledetto and my friend seem, in some inexplicable way, to belong together. I can’t think of one without seeing the other. There seems to be a sly wink between them. One seems to respond to the whim of the other. She is the only person I have known who has managed to give property her own personality. The place is sensual; demanding—so is the Signora. It is filled with amorous hunger and at the same time with relaxing peace—so is the Signora. Sensuous urns stand about the garden, letting languid flowers trail over them. You can almost feel the hypnotic touch of a vine as its tendril fingers move up the spine of a statue.

The Signora asked me to stay with her for a while—to live in her sensuous guest-house, which was furnished with couches and red lacquer beds from China, and hangings and brocades from Persia, Turkey and Morocco—to feel the cool water of the Mediterranean in the marble bath—to lie on a chair in the garden and stretch out like a cat in the sun. It was too much for me. How could I resist it?

I went to the guest-house and Carlo stayed at the hotel. He came to the villa every day to one of the meals. Sometimes it was dinner, sometimes luncheon. The Signora fascinated him as some beautiful poisonous flower fascinates. He didn’t understand her at all, but he liked listening to the soft tones of her voice, watching her gestures as she told him stories about the Island. The Signora was rich. Her money relieved her husband from working, and gave him the opportunity every Italian awaits of serving his country in some special way. She had a private staircase which connected her bedroom with the garden. For one reason and another she spent many nights in the garden. One night she got the idea that her husband was watching her. She went quietly up the little staircase and along to the glass partition which divided her quarters from her husband’s dressing-room. Her husband, on his side, was quietly approaching. As they put their faces to the glass to peer into each other’s rooms, their noses met. Naturally they had to laugh. The Signora came down to the guest-house and roused me to tell me about it.

As she sat there on the edge of my bed we heard the soft plash of an oar. She listened as it grew fainter and fainter. Then she apologized for wakening me, and said she hoped I could sleep until lunchtime.

I met a friend of the Signora’s, a Countess, who also had an interesting property on the Island. The Countess had bought an old monastery. She had the steeple taken off the chapel and the roof changed. Extensions had been built out from under the monks’ dormitories, and the buildings had been connected by passage-ways. A garden had been planned which would in time enclose the buildings. A pathway wound down from it to the sea. She had taken the place with the idea of inaccessibility. You could approach it only by walking. The Countess had that sort of beauty which made you think how tiresome physical beauty can be. It started you off remembering somebody’s colouring as if it were a beautiful dish. It made you think the latest styles of hairdressing silly. You couldn’t tell what colour the Countess’s eyes were; you were not sure about the colour of her hair. Was her dress old-fashioned? It might have been. You realized that she had unusual charm; that you would never forget her, that her beauty was something deep down which you felt.

Carlo and I climbed the extinct volcano—Epemeo. We had donkeys which we walked until we were almost at the top of the mountain; then, nearly exhausted, we mounted them for the last steep mile. A servant at the hotel had prepared a lunch-basket for us, which we had tied to the saddle of my animal. The Signora wouldn’t go with us. She never left her beloved garden unless to make long journeys to the other side of the world.

There is a chapel on the top of the mountain where a service is held once a year so the wine-press which is in a room behind the altar can avoid paying taxes. Only the Italians would think of running an osteria under the protection of the Church. There were heaps of straw before the Virgin and St. Joseph. Two boys were plaiting it into covers for the bottles. We had a bottle of the wine with our luncheon. It was a clear amber. I think a connoisseur might have considered it worth the climb. An insolent-looking brigand found two glasses for us to drink it out of. We ate our luncheon under a tree where we could look down on the Bay. In the harbour the Naples boats looked like children’s toys. After luncheon I had a sleep on the straw in front of the altar. On the way down Carlo took some photographs of the little lava houses.

I soon had enough of the indolent life at the villa. I went back to the hotel and started to write “The Broken Toy.” I had such a feel of Ischia I had to write about it. I put my other book away for the time being. I couldn’t keep away from the new book. Since the trouble I have had with Napoleon’s necklace I am happy only when I am deep down in a book. It is when I come up for air that things worry me. Then I am conscious of poverty. I brood over it until I plunge down again into the book.

While I was working at fever-heat I had a telegram from the Princess Elizabeth asking me to meet her in Athens. I wired back that I couldn’t possibly meet her. She had told me before I left Vienna that she intended going to Athens and Cyprus.

Carlo and I quarrelled one day. It was the termination of a lot of little bickerings and disputes. The fact that I gave so much time to my book and so little to him had something to do with it. He got rather nasty and I threw the inkpot at him. Fortunately my aim was wide of the mark. I decided to leave him. He told me to think it over and not to be too hasty. I am not the sort of woman who threatens but never does anything—who ends her threat with tears and “making up” caresses. I never draw a gun unless I intend to use it. I left Carlo, but not in anger. He said he was going back to Egypt, and he gave me an address which would always reach him.

I bundled the two manuscripts into my trunk and threw my clothes in on top of them. I wanted to go somewhere and be quiet until I finished the books. I had the idea that I could finish them only if I were alone. I don’t know why I thought of God-forsaken Albania as the place I wanted to go to. I had some vague idea of that country being peaceful.

I went to Bari on the train. The boat for Albania left from Bari. Carlo came to the station with me. He said he would see me again soon. He seemed to be quite sure of it. My financial condition wasn’t very secure; but I always believe that something will happen to pull me out of a tight place. This belief has let me down many times, but I go on believing. The boat for Durazzo was dirty and the food impossible; but neither interested me much.

The Albanian navy was in the harbour of Durazzo. It consisted of one boat which looked as if a good gale would blow her over. As to hotels, there was the same choice as there was with battleships—there was one. There seemed to be but one of everything in Albania. During the week I stayed at the hotel one dish was served three times a day—stuffed tomatoes. I had them for breakfast, dinner and supper. If a tomato appeared looking a little different from its fellows in the dish, and you thought here is one with its interior economy intact, you had only to cut it to see the inevitable hashed meat.

My room screamed with red. Somebody had let himself go completely with a pot of red paint and a bolt of red cotton. The wise ones who deal in colour vibration say that red is the lowest of the colours. I felt that this was true when I tried to capture the beauty of Ischia and set it before me in that room.

Like the Piccolo Sentinelli, the hotel had no bath-room. Water was drawn from a well, and I don’t suppose anyone ever wanted to draw enough for a bath. I had a bathing costume with me. I put it on and went down to the sea. The Albanians thought me mad, I imagine, for glasses were levelled on me at some of the windows while I had my dip. The weather was quite cold, and I was pretty well frozen when I got back to the hotel.

One day I went to Tirana, the capital, in the only taxi in Durazzo. Tirana reminded you of an ugly stone in a beautiful setting. There were mountains to the right of it and mountains to the left of it—wooded, hazy in the soft blue shadows—but somehow it had settled down with unpardonable ugliness in the valley. I went to the one restaurant which served Europeans hoping for something besides stuffed tomatoes. The manager refused to serve me because I wasn’t known in Tirana. The fact that I was to pay him for the meal made no difference. I have always found that when you are in a strange country—and Albania was strange in more ways than one—the only way to get anything done is to go to someone who is really in authority. I went to the Italian Minister, and told him how hungry I was. He was charming. He was sorry his own meal was finished and his servants gone for the afternoon; but he gave me a letter to the manager of the restaurant. The manager changed his tune when I went back with a letter from the Minister. The best was none too good for me then. I actually had the breast of a chicken, a dish of vegetables and some rice pudding. I remember this meal because I had such difficulty in getting it.

Driving back to Durazzo I passed Rose Wilder’s house. I don’t know whether she is an English or an American author. The driver told me she was an author who lived in Albania because it was so beautiful. There is no disputing taste.

I saw a boat in the harbour. I pointed her out to the driver and asked him where she went. He said she was the Corfu boat. That was the place for me—Corfu—the very place. I bought a ticket to Corfu before I returned to the hotel. Casanova had met his Waterloo in Corfu, but I would be more fortunate.

*  *  *

The boat, which had a name something like the parrot disease, had one cabin. When I went into it I saw two bed-bugs having a frolic on the thing which served as a cover for the berth. I sat on the deck all night, my luggage beside me. The distance between Durazzo and Corfu is nothing very much, but the slow old boat snailed and wheezed along, making very heavy weather of it. I walked round the deck once in a while during the night to get the cramp out of me; for a cold wind was blowing, and there was no protected spot for my chair. On one of my prowls I had a look at the bell. Engraved on it was the name “John Bunyan” and the date “1870.” Evidently it was an old Channel boat which had been rechristened.

We arrived at Corfu at daybreak. I went to the hotel. I told the clerk that I didn’t want to stay—that I wanted to find a villa. He lost interest at once. I said I would leave my luggage in the corridor while I had breakfast—then if I couldn’t find a villa I would have to stay at the hotel.

I found a villa. A lady who heard me talking to the man in the estate office followed me out and said she knew the place for me. I had told the man I wanted an old house as far as possible from the city. “It is the oldest villa on the island “ she said; “it was built in 1542. It belonged to the Pieris family.” She would take me to Madame Pieris.

Madame Pieris tried to form some estimate of my financial condition. She asked me leading questions which I pretended not to understand. After a lot of beating about the bush she said she would take me out to the villa, and if I liked it she would rent it to me for six hundred drachmas a month (then about £5). The villa was on one end of the island in a place called Ipso. We drove out in a rickety old carriage. Madame Pieris explained to me that her son lived in the villa. As a matter of fact the property really belonged to him. He was a law student at the University of Athens. He was at the villa at the time because he had been ill; and of course he stayed there during the summer holidays. I must know that a room must always be kept for him, no matter who rented the place.

The villa stood in about thirty acres of olive grove. The roads of the estate were bordered with cypress trees. We turned in at one of them. The villa was a good half-mile from the road. Each Pieris—it had been in the family since 1542—had allowed the property to go a little more to rack and ruin. The walls which separated the house from the olive grove were broken to pieces. The stones which had fallen from them remained where they had fallen. The archways, under the wistaria vines, had crumbled badly. A little more and they would fall. The cypress paths were overgrown with weeds. The olive trees were never pruned. Nothing but a few foundation-stones remained of the old landing which once ran out into the sea. Grass had grown up through the stones on the terraces. The villa itself showed great cracks in its walls. Its doors had separated from its floors. Many panes of glass were missing from its windows.

Inside, the floors had humped and moved away from the walls in several places. The present furniture, Madame told me, had been placed there during the English occupation. It had been good in its day, but now it was in conformity with the villa. The lining hung down under the damask upholstery like underwear on careless women. The sofa screamed when you sat on it. Tables were battered, and pieces had been whittled out of them. But in spite of its derelict condition the place was magnificent. Weeds could encroach upon it, its terraces could slip down the cliff—it would still face the Ionian Sea with its beauty. It had known the tragedies and the joys of every Pieris; it had tolerated foreign tenants, but it had never flinched. It had never closed round its occupants with loving shelter. It had observed all; but it had associated with nothing. Where the olives and cypresses receded from it, they seemed to be bowing themselves out of its presence. If I had searched all over Greece I couldn’t have found a place I would have liked better.

The last of the Pieris family came in while we were talking. Marius Pieris was nineteen. He looked old and extremely sophisticated. His rather handsome face was touched with cruelty. He had the irritability of delicate health; it showed in every gesture, in every word. When his mother explained that I was going to rent the villa he looked at me intently; then he smiled. I smiled too, but inwardly. He told me of one Pieris who had tried to sell the villa to the King, but the King had refused to pay the price he had asked. He pointed to a pair of gloves which had been framed in glass case and hung on the wall. “They belonged to the Empress of Austria,” he said. He explained how Elizabeth, when she was building the Achillion on Corfu—which she later sold to the Kaiser—called one day at the villa to have a talk with its owner, and had forgotten her gloves. A picture of her also hung on the wall, showing where Fay, Princess Elizabeth’s daughter, got her unusual beauty.

Madame Pieris said it would not be necessary for me to go back to the city. She promised to send my luggage from the hotel. I paid her a month in advance. Evidently Marius was not yet attending to the business affairs of the family.

When Madame rattled off in the old carriage Marius and I sat down to have a talk. I asked him if he had anyone to “do” for him. He said there was a peasant woman—whom he called Fanny—living in the basement. She got him something to eat when he wanted it. He didn’t eat much—didn’t feel like it. Fanny brought the water from the well. Her husband, whom he called Horace, lived in a little shanty on the estate. He looked after the cow. Fanny and her husband didn’t live together. She had found him in a compromising position with one of the village girls. She wouldn’t work for me, Marius said. I would have to get my own servant. Horace would find someone for me.

Later, when I knew Horace and Fanny better, I found out that she slept in the basement with the turkey for fear someone would steal it, and he spent the nights in the shanty with the cow for the same reason.

Marius told me about his ancestors. One of them was responsible for a double murder on the place. That ancestor had worked for a Turkish pasha. Later I wrote a story about him which called “The Amber Box.” The cinema seemed to be interested in it at one time but it never came to anything. One Pieris, one of the later ones, had shot himself after a quarrel with his wife who refused to collaborate with his passion after a separation of seven years. Lying beside her in the bed—the bed in the room I was to sleep in—he had blown his brains out. Marius got up and walked over to a door and knocked a panel out of it. For a moment I thought he had broken it, and then I saw that the panel hung on some invisible hinge. He explained that through that opening one of his ancestors was fed when he became insane. It was his room now. He reiterated what his mother had said about keeping a room for himself. He told me of the loves and hatreds of the Pieris men. His female ancestors must have been very colourless. He never mentioned them. The Pieris men had been in the Army, the Navy, the Church. Evidently they had never soiled their hands with business. The place was haunted, he said, especially was this true of the old oil press. I was to discover that he entertained girls in the disused oil press which he could enter with a rusty key. He had no illusions. He took favours as he took his food, indifferently. There were two girls who visited the wine press with him. They were heavy, voluptuous girls, large eyed, full lipped, soft and smooth. They reminded you of the proverbial sultan’s favourites who sat on cushions and ate sweets until they were ordered to their lord’s couch.

After I had been there a while and Marius was convinced that I could keep my mouth shut, he told me that the oil press was “haunted” for his mother’s benefit. She would never go poking about a haunted place, and consequently she would know nothing about his entertainments.

There was nothing to eat in the villa but some ripe olives, some walnuts, a loaf of bread and a jug of milk. These Marius shared with me. We ate them on the terrace overlooking the Ionian Sea and the Albanian Hills. There was a chest of linen which he ransacked to find sheets and pillow slips for my bed. I didn’t ask him if the mattress I was to sleep on was the same which the suicide had used. I am sure it was, but I didn’t want him to tell me so.

He went after Horace and sent him to the village to find a servant. I unpacked my luggage and put my manuscript on a table in a room overlooking the sea which a former Pieris had used as a writing-room.

Marius promised to teach me modern Greek in exchange for English. He spoke good French and a little Italian. It turned out that the shepherd to whom he rented grazing land taught me more Greek than he did. Sitting on a stone wall while his sheep wandered all over the place, the shepherd taught me Greek with the Corfiote accent. I learned to swear and to ask for bare necessities.

Horace returned with a Greek boy who spoke Italian. His name was Stephano. If he had any other name I never heard it. He had wild-looking dark eyes and black oily hair which crept into his eyes to be continuously put back with a toss of his head. His body was emaciated, and his corduroy trousers and flannel shirt looked very dirty. He said he was a good cook—a talent which I learned was quite unnecessary in Corfu, where you could get very little to cook. I engaged Stephano at four hundred drachma a month. I gave him some money to buy a pair of new trousers and some aprons. He said he had some clean shirts. I asked Marius—speaking French so that Stephano wouldn’t understand—if he could suggest a bath. He answered that Corfiotes went into the sea only in the summer. As a matter of fact, Marius thought it a strange request.

Stephano came to work the next day. During the three months, he was with me he stole everything from my knickers to my face powder. What a range in tastes he had! I had to discuss it with him. I told him that, while I could do without face powder in the wilderness, I couldn’t do without my knickers. He swore by the patron saint of the island—Saint Spiridon—that he was innocent. I found it necessary to lock Stephano out of the villa if I went out simply to sit in the garden. He would go out without complaint like a dog you shut out in case it wets the floor.

A leaky boat was our only means of getting to the city. After my first experience with it I decided that the village would have to supply what I needed. As a matter of fact the food you got in the city was not much better than that which you could get in the village. A baker brought me coarse brown bread, which wasn’t too bad when it was covered with honey. Greece excels in two commodities, brandy and honey. I didn’t worry about the brandy, but I ate thirty-three pounds of honey in a month. Marius helped me a little with it and I suppose Stephano took some of it home with him, but I consumed most of it myself. I couldn’t get any decent sugar, so we sweetened everything with honey. Stephano used it in puddings and in the occasional cakes which he made. Vegetables were difficult to find, as the Corfiotes seldom troubled to raise them. Fanny used to gather wild things—leaves and roots—which Stephano would cook with bacon. I ate these messes sometimes when we couldn’t get eggs. You could always get tomatoes, but after Albania I didn’t want to look a tomato in the face. Marius got me a barrel of walnuts. We all dipped into it. Horace’s cow supplied me with a quart of milk a day. There was no butter in the village. Stephano used olive oil instead. There is nothing better than pure olive oil for cooking. Even the cakes made with it were far better than those made with lard and margarine.

Stephano’s kitchen was in the basement next to—but definitely separated from—the bedroom which Fanny shared with the turkey. Fanny refused to bring the water for me. Stephano had to go to the well for my supply. Marius said that Fanny told the peasants that I was immoral because I had a bath every day. I had found a wooden tub in the kitchen which I removed to a little shed where I took a bath in sections, with water which Stephano heated for me in two big tins.

The Corfiote peasants have vile tempers. There is always someone or something they must wreak their vengeance on. They live on bread and cheese during the week. On Sundays they celebrate by having green vegetables and eggs. It is not poverty which keeps their noses on the grindstone. It is laziness. Anything will grow on the island, but why cultivate vegetables when the yearly rain brings out the wild vegetables—such as Fanny gathered for me—under the olive trees. Every peasant knows these vegetables and he can gather them without ever getting a poisonous leaf.

Marius asked me what I was writing. I explained my novel to him. He didn’t think much of women or what they could do, but he did admit that a woman who could sell a book might be worth a little consideration. He talked of women as if he were a tired roué. Women were for distraction, amusement; why be faithful to them? They were made to appease the desires of man and to work for him. Man—if he had any sense—married a woman with a large dot.

At first I resented the way Marius looked at me. His mind seemed to say, there is a woman and there are six hundred drachma a month, which shall I choose? Being Greek he chose the money and the look of indecision gradually faded from his eyes.

The peasants bought no firewood. At night they stole what wood they needed from the estate. Their thieving made Marius furious. He would hide behind the trees all night to see if he could catch them. They managed to cut down several cypress trees one night when he was out drinking ouzo with his cronies. Sickness always followed his drinking bouts. He would remain in bed the following day, and I would pass him some food through the panel of his door. He was racked with remorse on such occasions—the only time he was young. He was sorry in an irritable way like a child who had made himself sick with a box of stolen chocolates.

His mother sent a man out one day to talk with him about buying the property. The idea of selling it put him into a rage. He refused to talk with the man. It wasn’t love of the place which kept his tenacious grip on it. He feared that his future practice of law might not yield him a living. He said that, when he finished his studies at Athens, he would go to Italy and study olive cultivation with the idea of the extensive export of oil. Sometimes he mentioned a highly-powered car which he meant to have in any case.

There were days when I wrote for hours on end and then at the point of exhaustion I would rush out and tear round the estate. I discovered an old well quite near the villa, and Stephano hired a man—the village priest—to clean it out. The man told me that the water, once the well was cleaned, would be as good as the water of the well—a quarter of a mile away—from which Fanny and Stephano brought the water. I hadn’t figured on peasant fraternity—Fanny hated me and the priest was her brother. He cleaned the well out, but he blocked the source. I paid him one hundred and fifty drachma for the lesson.

Often I would sit on an old broken deck-chair on the terrace too tired to read. It was then, in my mind, I restored the villa. I changed its appearance by spending huge sums of money on it. I repaired it by spending very little. I altered it a hundred times in a hundred ways. I built on here and there, made new openings for windows closed up existing ones. I ordered Fanny and the turkey out of the basement, while I performed wonders with the lower floor, by extending its old stone rooms out under the terrace to the sea.

Having restored the villa I would look across to the other end if the island where the Achillion stood which the Empress Elizabeth had built. She had ridden all over the island on a horse studying sites and views. How permanent the Achillion looked—but Elizabeth was gone. So many inanimate things endure to flout us! We die and leave our clothes hanging in the wardrobe—even our chiffon things. Somewhere in the water round the island Elizabeth had occasionally dropped her pearls—leaving someone to watch them—believing that sea water restored their beauty. They too existed. Someone wore them—someone who, like Elizabeth, must leave them. The Kaiser who bought the Achillion from Elizabeth was marooned in Holland, but there stood the Achillion serene in its beautiful garden, accepting all changes as the Pieris villa accepted them, with supreme indifference.

Sometimes the sea was utterly relaxed—not a ripple on its face. It was then that the Albanian hills on the opposite shore seemed to creep up nearer, stealing a march on the sea’s drowsiness. On a curve of the island which jutted out before the villa was Epirus, full of brigands, waiting for someone to pounce upon. They started the trouble which caused the Italians to occupy the island for two weeks.

Half-way up the nearest hill lay the little village, Spartilas. Often I would lock Stephano out and walk up to Spartilas. The village was just a handful of houses with the inevitable church. The villagers would drag their chairs into the narrow streets to engage in the one discussion dear to the Greeks, politics. The Nationalists would glare at the Royalists. The Royalists glared back at the Nationalists. On went the talk and the arguments. It never ceased. Wild shouts flashed in and out of the monotony. Black eyes blazed with a fierce light. The olives were rotting on the trees. The gardens were choked with weeds. The sheep’s wool—fully a year’s growth—dragged on the ground—but politics must be discussed, for the coming elections meant so much to the country. Next year they could work. Didn’t everybody know that it was each second year which counted with the olives. Next year they would have some system for gathering the honey. Next year the gardens would be weeded—but now—why now there was the election coming on.

The aristocrats of ancient Greece couldn’t work, for labour was beneath their contempt. The slaves did everything. The descendants of the slaves have inherited the disdain of their ancient masters. Nobody works now. It is strange how the Greeks become rich in foreign lands. They can work when they leave their own shores. Away from their beloved discussions they can work.

The costume of the women was picturesque, but never—with the exception of on festa days—clean. They wore a white starched head-dress which hung down over their hair. Their hair was plaited and wound round their heads. Sometimes, especially on festa days, strips of red flannel were plaited in with the hair. A woollen jacket, long in the back and open in the front, went on over a white blouse. Very full skirts, covered with gaily-coloured aprons, hung down to their ankles. Their feet were bare on weekdays, but they wore heavy shoes to church.

I have observed that, in all countries where the national costume is cumbersome, the people never wash.

The men of the island were pasty-faced and anaemic, under-sized and weak. In the streets you looked in vain for a healthy specimen. Many of the children appeared to be idiots. They looked as if their only inheritance was some offshoot of syphilis. You often wondered if the stories of the Turks loosing infected women upon the captured men were true. The island has been Venetian, Russian, Turkish and English—to say nothing of it first being a Corinthian colony. But the people show no trace of anything but what is known as modern Greek. They are all of a pattern. Even the Levantine Jew is modern Greek.

If the city of Corfu had a few canals it would look like Venice. Water should lap the first floors of the buildings, so Venetian they are in appearance. The two forts at the entrance of the harbour are Venetian. The Venetian occupation gave the island anything it has to be thankful for. It gave the Greeks a certain sum for every olive tree they planted. There are over seven million trees on the island. The cultivation of olives is still the principal industry—when any work is done. England built a few roads, but she didn’t stay long enough to accomplish much. The roads have been spoiled by the heavy traffic of the troops which occupied the island during the war. No repairs have been made since, consequently the roads are in a horrible condition. In spite of all this the island is beautiful. The hills raise lovely wooded heads to the sky. Olives and cypresses make a two-toned green most restful to the eyes. Wild flowers grow everywhere. With every few steps you come upon a view of the sea through the trees which halts your walk.

Saint Spiridon has been a great benefactor to the island. He wiped out cholera by chasing the cholera wraith into the sea. As he drove her through the last door she made a mark on it promising that she would never return. The mark is still to be seen on the door. The island is now free from cholera. So much for Saint Spiridon—for it wasn’t cleanliness that wiped out the disease.

Marius returned to the University and left me to the tender mercies of Fanny and Horace, Stephano and the shepherd. It was the shepherd who told me—with a little Greek and a lot of signs—about the well. He had no use for Fanny. I think she had once spurned his love. I needed as many eyes as Siva to watch Stephano. I finally gave it up and let him steal to his heart’s content.

I finished my book—the one with the scenes laid on Ischia. I hadn’t touched my book, “Merry Masques,” on the island. It travelled about with me a lot before I finished it. It doesn’t stick to the story, the publishers tell me. I read so many books that do—and God, how they bore me! They are like fabrics, all woven the same with just a little change in the design. They tell stories—stories that amount to nothing. They keep to their theme—but why keep to a theme—life doesn’t. It digresses, changes, wanders down all sorts of paths. Why not let life write the books?

I had a letter from a friend in Vienna asking if I could sell Napoleon’s necklace—the diamond necklace Napoleon had given Marie Louise at the birth of their son, “The Little King of Rome.” It was now the property of the Archduchess Marie Therese, widow of the Archduke Karl Ludwig, and daughter of Prince Michael of Portugal. It was a circular necklace of graduated diamonds, from which hung pendants and drops of larger diamonds forming a deep collar. While the stones were graduated in size no stone in its composition could be called small. It consisted of forty-seven diamonds. Originally there were forty-nine, but Sophia, mother of the Emperor Francis Joseph, had taken two of the drops for ear-rings. The Archduchess was asking for it—together with papers from the Habsburg archives to prove that it was the genuine Napoleon necklace—£80,000. This price, she said, was for the history as well as the intrinsic value of the jewel. I was to discover that the history hindered the sale of the necklace almost as much as the colossal price. Like all famous jewels, it was supposed to have a hoodoo attached to it.

I paced up and down the olive groves, wondering if I could sell it. It was a terrific undertaking.

I wasn’t more fortunate than Casanova in Corfu, for it was there that I, too, gambled and lost. I decided to sell the necklace. Famous jewels had been sold in spite of their reputations. I had to work out a plan. Who could I sell it to? I turned the question over in my mind for several days while I ate my solitary meals, while I stood gazing at the sea, while I watched the peasants—without seeing them—stealing Marius’s wood. At last I had an idea. I would go to Egypt and show the necklace to the King.

I wrote to Carlo and told him I was going to Egypt, and for what purpose. I wrote to Vienna asking to have the necklace sent to Cairo. I discharged Stephano after giving him as much money as I could spare above his salary. When he had gone I packed the few things he had left me. I was delighted in having one book finished. Only God knew when I would get time to finish the other one.

The shepherd found a carriage to take me to the city. I took the key of the villa to Madame Pieris. It was a huge brass thing weighing over a pound. There was a boat sailing the next day for Athens, where I could get another boat for Egypt.

Chapter XIII

In Cairo I went again to the Hotel Victoria. It would do until I could have a look round. I would be in Cairo for some time, so I wanted to find a good pension or a furnished flat.

Carlo came to see me. He was living in Heliopolis. He advised me to look for rooms outside Cairo, in Ein Shems, Mardi or Helouan. These places would be much cheaper and they were all quite accessible. He offered to look for me. He thought I had bitten off more than I could chew if I expected to sell Napoleon’s necklace for such a price. The price was fantastic, he said.

The Archduchess was sending a courier to Egypt with the necklace. He was expected to arrive in a day or two. I wrote to a few friends telling them I was again in Cairo. I mentioned what I had come for, and the story spread like wildfire. Stories always spread in the East. There seems to be an invisible telegraph in Eastern countries. It was the same in India and China.

The morning after I arrived I had my breakfast sent up to my room. I was sitting up in bed eating it when I saw an eye looking at me through the wall. The eye was almost even with the top of the door. Whoever was watching me was standing on something. At first I thought it was someone who had heard about the necklace and was watching me to see if I had it with me. Then I decided it was simply the Berberine servants’ interest in white skin. When the eye disappeared I got up and had a good look at the walls. I found five peep-holes, evidently made with gimlets. I told the proprietor when I went downstairs. He pretended to be astonished, but he must have known the character of his Berberine servants.

Carlo phoned to say that he had found rooms in Helouan. He had engaged a room for himself in the same house. Would I come and see the place.

The place was the Villa Wanda, then the property of a Polish lady. She had named it after herself—her name also was Wanda—and had decorated the front of it with pages of Egyptian history. All the Egyptian gods, demi-gods and servants of gods glared garishly from the walls and columns of the facade. Colours ran riot in their costumes and head-dresses.

Inside the desire for decoration had spent itself in borders of huge lotuses which flamed on the walls. The villa was the proper setting for Madame Wanda. She was an incurable romantic with an unquenchable love of drama; the last person in the world to run a pension, but one of the most lovable who ever tried to.

My room overlooked the desert. It had a little balcony where I would sit after dinner to enjoy the beauty of the Helouan nights. Night is always dry and clear in Helouan. and completely a-glitter with stars.

Madame Wanda had a strange assortment of guests when we were with her. They consisted of various nationalities, classes and tastes. Many people who are ill go to Helouan. The very air is supposed to have healing properties. Some go there for the sulphur baths; others just to live in the dry air and get the rheumatism out of their joints. It was amusing to sit in the villa dining-room and watch the guests come in. One man always kissed his wife’s hand before they sat down at their table. There was a young Pole whom I called the reporter. He ran to Madame Wanda with everything that happened, no matter how trivial. He always came into the dining-room with a large cigarette box under his arm. It might have been empty, as he was never known to offer anyone a cigarette out of it, but it seemed to be part of his costume. There was a Jewess who never finished her meal at one table. She hopped from table to table, sitting with anyone who would talk with her.

On Sunday afternoons Madame Wanda gave dances in one of her drawing-rooms. The guests she collected then were even more unusual than the guests you saw in the dining-room.

The Archduchess’s courier arrived with his wife. The necklace, which his wife had carried in her purse, without mentioning it to the Customs, seemed to be her excuse for visiting Cairo. The courier was thrilled with the idea of staying at Shepheard’s Hotel and seeing the Pyramids. Carlo and I went to Shepheard’s with them while they selected a room and put the necklace in the hotel safe.

The following day I got the necklace and took it to Neguib, one of the leading jewellers of Cairo. I walked through the streets of Cairo with it under my arm in the same manner as the reporter walked his cigarette box up and down the dining-room. I wanted to get a jeweller’s reaction to it. I put it down on Neguib’s counter and opened the box. There it lay on its blue velvet bed blazing like headlamps on a row of parked cars. Neguib stared at it, but he never batted an eyelash. “It is Napoleon’s necklace,” I explained. Then he drew away from it as if it had stung him. “I hate famous jewels,” he said. His voice sounded like the hiss of a cobra. He launched into a tirade about the bad luck which followed famous jewels. He advised me to tell no one that it was Napoleon’s necklace if I wanted to sell it. It never occurred to him to ask me how I happened to have it in my possession. I asked him how much he would be willing to pay for it. He looked me right in the eye and said “wallah millieme” (not a farthing). “I wouldn’t have it in the place.” Then I asked him to value it. He told me he would have to examine each stone before he could appraise it.

It was rumoured in Cairo that he had bought the Russian Crown after the stones had been removed from it and sold. Rumour also said that he had fitted his own stones into the setting and exhibited the “Russian Crown” in his window. Perhaps this was as near as he could come to entertaining famous jewels. I saw him once after that when I again asked him to value the necklace, and he again refused. He told me then that his grandfather had been sold as a slave to one of the Khedives. The Khedive had had him taught to value and cut out precious stones. He became an expert at his craft. His opinion was sought by the Court and the wealthy Pashas, who never bought a jewel unless he approved of it. Like himself, Neguib’s father had followed his father’s calling.

It was the custom, under the former regime—before the present monarchy—to recapture the affections of an irate wife with jewels. The more expensive the jewels, the more willing the wife to welcome her repentant lord. The men of the Court and the wealthy Pashas were in the habit of showering their favours on the beauties of the Italian opera during the season. When the opera season was over they could not return to their conjugal beds unless—like the Medes and Persians seeking favour—they were bearing gifts. No doubt the ex-slave Neguib knew which jewels would reestablish his clients on their former footing in the harem. Unfortunately there was no lady now to demand the necklace as indemnity.

The Archduchess had given the courier a letter for King Fuad. I telephoned Hassaneen Bey, Chamberlain to King Fuad, and asked him if he would show the necklace to the King. He told me to bring it to Abdin Palace and he would see that it got to the King.

The courier, his wife and Carlo went with me to the Palace. I asked Hassaneen Bey if he would meet them. He sent his morasleh out to say I might bring them in. We went in and I gave Hassaneen Bey the necklace and the letter. We talked with him for a while, and then we went back to the drawing-room. About an hour later the morasleh came out and asked me to go in alone.

Hassaneen Bey had shown the necklace to the King. I was amazed to hear that the King and Neguib had the same aversion to the necklace. The King said the evil eye was on it. He wouldn’t so much as touch it with his finger. I asked Hassaneen Bey if he also believed in the evil eye. He admitted that he did. At the time I couldn’t understand how Hassaneen Bey—one of the most intellectual men in Egypt—could believe in anything which I then thought so absurd. I knew him quite well, and I was inclined to argue with him about it. Since then I have come to believe as he does. Bad luck can attach to inanimate objects if they have belonged to tragic people. Later, in America, I put the necklace round my neck to show a man the effect when it was worn. Think me mad if you like, but misfortune of every sort has dogged my footsteps since that day. I told Hassaneen Bey that I was very disappointed. He said quite frankly that if he were in my place he would have nothing to do with the necklace. I said I had made up my mind to sell it, and sell it I would.

The following day I took it to Prince Michael Loutfallah. He lived in Ghezireh Palace, one of the palaces of a former Khedive. It was his brother Habib who tried to make himself king of Syria after King Feisal had quarrelled with the French.

The Ghezireh Palace screamed its blatant perfection to passers-by, but the inside was charming. The room in which I waited for the Princess—the Prince was out, but he would be back in a moment, the servant told me—had a wide marble staircase coming down into it, some magnificent old paintings and unobtrusive furniture covered with neutral brocade. There was a large bowl of red roses in a corner which gave the sombreness a touch of flame—almost of passion.

When the Princess came down the stairs it occurred to me that only a graceful woman like herself could make a good impression on the people waiting in the room below. No unattractive woman whose carriage was faulty could afford to walk down that staircase while the people below stared up at her. The Princess bent her attractive dark head over the necklace. Here eyes glowed. She took it out of the box. She was almost breathless from excitement. “Napoleon’s necklace!” she exclaimed. “Think of having it here in my house!” The Princess wasn’t worrying about the evil eye.

The Prince came in while she was looking at it. He, too, was charmed with it. But, like Carlo, he thought the price excessive. I mentioned the papers which would go with the necklace. He wasn’t interested. Such things were for collectors of signatures—not for people who might buy jewels. I could see that the Prince wouldn’t dream of paying the price the Archduchess was asking.

I went back to Shepheard’s on the bus. I wondered what the people on the bus would say if they knew what I had in the box.

I told the courier that people thought the price exorbitant. He was inclined to agree with the Archduchess that history should be well paid for.

There was a letter waiting for me at the villa from a man by the name of Meyer. He wanted to see me about the necklace. Could I go to his rooms—which were in a slummy part of Cairo—as he was not very well and found it difficult to get about.

I went to see Mr. Meyer a few days after I received his letter. I was curious about him. I couldn’t see how any man living in the slums could buy the necklace; but I knew a lot of big business was done in the dives and bazaars of Cairo. Not knowing what I might be letting myself in for, I didn’t take the necklace with me. I took a photograph of it, and certain papers to prove I had the authentic jewel. I climbed two flights of dirty stairs and knocked on a door on which Mr. Meyer’s card was nailed.

A frowzy Jewess opened the door and gave me a suspicious look when I asked for Mr. Meyer. She showed me into an almost bare room where a man sat in an arm-chair. She placed a chair for me in front of him. Here was old Shylock ready to step on to the stage without any make-up. He sat on his chair rigid as an effigy. Only his eyes and lips moved. The withered shelf of his chin projected over a sunken neck from which the collar stood away. His eyes rested on you with the unblinking attention of a bird’s. You wanted their stare removed. You felt that you would do almost anything to have them shifted away from you. His bony hands remained folded in his lap. They were hands for sly movements, for handling secret documents, for feeling the contours of precious stones when there was no one to observe the pleasure they got from the contact. You felt that his was an unbodied mind driven by will out into space. You were sure he knew it all—the whole wide range of silence.

Almost the first words his thin querulous voice uttered were, “I will give you £10,000 if you will permit me to sell the necklace.” He told me there were people in Antwerp—it was evident he had got into touch with them—who were interested in the necklace. They would break it up and sell the diamonds. The money above a certain price which they received for the stones would be paid to me in addition to the £10,000. He said he considered the offer very “palatable.” He thought that any proposition should be palatable. He said “palatable” dozens of times during our conversation. His thin lips loved the feel of the word. I told him I was selling Napoleon’s necklace, not a collection of diamonds which the cutters of Antwerp might find buyers for. He had an answer ready for anything I said. He was surrounded by a wall of carefully thought-out replies. You couldn’t pierce such a barrier. You sensed its defence at every point. He also mentioned the misfortunes that clung to famous jewels. I told him his proposition was not “palatable” enough for me, and I left. I didn’t wait for the Jewess to show me out.

I heard from him several times afterwards. He kept harping on the offers of the diamond cutters and my foolishness in not accepting them.

There was still another chance of selling the necklace. It occurred to me on the way home from Mr. Meyer that I should take it to the Khedevial Mother—the mother of Abbas Helmi Pacha, the last of the Khedives. She could buy it if she cared to. She was very rich, and she spent money lavishly. When she went to her summer palace in Constantinople she chartered one of the liners of the Khedevial Mail and presented every member of the crew with gold watches or something of value. All her expenditures were in the same vein.

Carlo was at the villa when I got back. I told him about my interview with Mr. Meyer and of my intention to take the necklace to the Khedevial Mother. He said the Mother wouldn’t look at it. Like the King, she would at once think of the evil eye. I would have a try anyhow, so I phoned the courier, and told him I wanted the necklace on the following day.

The Khedevial Mother’s Palace seemed deserted. A servant asked me to wait in a drawing-room and he would send my card to the Mother. He didn’t believe she would see me because she was ill. In a few moments her chief eunuch came down. He was a large negro—judging by his appearance, a Sudanese. He said the Mother was sorry she couldn’t see me, but really she was quite ill. Was there anything he could do? I asked him to take the necklace to her and tell her I wanted to sell it. I mentioned the price the Archduchess was asking and the history.

The Khedevial Mother kept no secrets from her chief eunuch. If she had seen me we would, no doubt, have discussed the sale before him. In any case, he would have been told about it. He was gone about fifteen minutes. When he returned he said the Mother didn’t care for diamonds. She preferred pearls. I could see he was not being quite truthful, so I asked him if the Mother believed historic jewels to be unlucky. A slow smile appeared on his thick lips and he nodded his head.

We talked for a while about conditions in Egypt. He regretted the decline of the harem, which meant the passing of the eunuch. He was the last eunuch in his family; there would be no others.

I was quite depressed when I left the Khedevial Mother’s Palace. It was useless showing the necklace to anyone else in Egypt. Few individuals could pay the price asked for it, and those who could were afraid to own it. I had pinned my faith to the King, and when he refused I felt that the chances of selling it to an Egyptian were rather slim.

I told the courier he might as well take it back to Vienna and arrange to have it sent to America later on when I could go there and again try to sell it.

Carlo tried to dissuade me from making another attempt. He said the days had gone when people paid such large sums for history. He wanted me to go somewhere with him and continue my writing. Why not return to the villa in Corfu if it was such a beautiful spot! He would enjoy Corfu. We could get a car to run up to the city from Ipso and the food question wouldn’t be so difficult. I was almost tempted to do as he said, but I hate to give up anything I have started.

He planned a little jaunt for us every day. We would see the places we hadn’t seen when I was in Egypt before. He referred to the time immediately after we met at the Victoria Hotel. He knew more places to see than a guide. We went to the Tombs of the Caliphs, the sweetmeat factories, an Arab furniture factory where the relics from Tutankhamen’s tomb were being copied for a wealthy American. We sauntered through the little hidden streets which Sax Rohmer so graphically describes and no tourist seems to know. We had a look at the bazaars of the Mousky. We went to Mehemet Ali’s house at the Citadel. There is a window in the house which overlooks all Cairo. As a matter of fact it overlooks many things which you cannot find in Cairo. I have prowled round the city for hours looking for places I have seen from that window, but I have never been able to find them. It was at that window Mehemet Ali used to sit to watch men, who had forfeited the royal favour, take the jump which meant death. The men, mounted on horses, were encouraged to jump from the edge of the parade ground. This meant a fall of over three hundred feet. Only one ever survived the jump.

We went one day to Marg to see Abu Sibah (the father of beads), who was supposed to work with the powers of darkness. Like all quacks, Abu Sibah had heaps of testimonials. He was literally surrounded with beads. They hung round the walls of the room where he sat, crossed-legged in the centre of a bed, to evoke the nether powers; they hung on the several pieces of broken furniture; on the head and foot of the iron bed on which he sat; they lay across the table; they almost clothed Abu Sibah, winding about him like litters of sombre and gaily-coloured snakes. He was a descendant of the Tantawie family. For generations his ancestors had been priests or hangers-on of the Tantawie Mosque. He told fortunes with the beads. Looking at you intently with his ferret eyes, he would select a string of beads and measure your head, your waist and the palm of your hand with it. He would then hold the beads in his hand and, assuming a sing-song, highly-pitched voice, he would reveal your past and predict the future. I have no idea how he did it, but he read a letter which Carlo had in his pocket. He told me I would have much trouble with a big jewel. He didn’t get all his power from beads. With fires, postures and blood he worked his charms. Carlo induced him, by crossing his beaded palm with more than one piece of silver, to permit us to witness one of his magic rites. He told us to come back at midnight about a week after our first visit.

At midnight the little village of Marg was utterly deserted. The white horse, on which Abu Sibah told us he rode to Mecca in the Mahmal-es-Sherif (the yearly parade when the faithful take the Holy Carpet to Mecca) was still standing before the door. His daughter answered our knock. We followed her up to the roof, where she left us, saying her father would be up in a moment. There was a couch on the roof which had been draped with beads. Incense fumed in a brass pot.

Abu Sibah came up completely draped with beads. He chanted something while he threw his body into weird postures. He took two pieces of string from the couch and made knots in them. One of the strings was much longer than the other. After knotting them he laid them on the floor in the form of a cross. He pranced round them, chanting and shaking his beads. Then his daughter brought up a pot of blood and a tuft of coarse black and white hair. The hair was placed at the spot where the strings crossed, and some of the blood was poured over it. Abu Sibah then whirled about like a dancing dervish, screaming and making signs with his fingers. Gradually his fit lessened in fury and finally he stood still. Then he explained the rite to me. He had chased the demon of disease out of a very sick man into a goat; the goat had been killed. Someone downstairs—I shuddered to think it might have been his daughter—had killed the goat while he was ordering the demon to depart from the man—evidently the first part of the rite when he was chanting and posturing. The two strings represented the length and breadth of the man who was ill. The hair and blood of the goat were put on the string to keep the demon from reentering the man’s body.

I felt sick when we left the house. I told Carlo that if I had known a goat was to be killed I would never have gone to the rite. Carlo laughed. He said no goat had been killed. The rite had been staged for our benefit. The blood was a pot of red dye.

I had an accident one evening which some of my friends said was the first thing to happen after handling the necklace. They spoke as if they expected a chain of mishaps to follow in rapid succession. I was running down the steps of the villa which led from the veranda to the street when I missed one and landed on the pathway; my knees bent under me. At the moment a priest was calling the muezzin from the mosque, and the faithful were kneeling in prayer. As Carlo helped me up I said something about it being an appropriate time to fall. I didn’t realize then how badly my knees were hurt. They soon became so painful I couldn’t walk, and Carlo insisted upon turning back—we had been going out to dinner—and sending for the doctor. When the doctor saw that my knees were abraded he said the dirt from the street had got in under the skin, and he must give me injections against tetanus. I insisted that all I needed was a little iodine, but he wouldn’t listen. Didn’t I know that Helouan was a dirty place, and almost any germ could be picked up there. There was nothing for it. I had to go to bed and have the injections.

That was the beginning of excruciating pain, and of a condition resembling arthritis which I have had, whenever I am a bit run-down, ever since. I had to stay in bed with bandages on my knees. I was utterly depressed, as I have always been when anything interfered with my freedom. My body felt as if it were strung on live wires, and all the wires had short-circuited. It is awful to feel as if your legs belong to someone else, and you have borrowed them and they don’t fit. Pains ran up and down my legs all day and all night horrible pains shaped like curling snakes. Sometimes they would hiss themselves together into a pile in in my knees, and nothing I could do would separate them. I couldn’t walk when they were tangled like that. I could only stay in bed or sit on something with my feet up. I often wondered if I should ever feel comfortable again in the whole of me. Can any woman love who is always in pain? I am sure she can’t. Pain dims the highest moments of ecstasy—tinges everything with regret—makes you into a sneering cynic. It is awful to feel you are a hundred when you are not old.

About two months ago I again had a lot of trouble with my knees. I could think of nothing but a wheel-chair. Would anybody push me about in a wheel-chair who wasn’t hired to do it? Has any man ever loved a woman in a wheelchair? There are some women—I can think of two—whose personality and charm would dominate the situation if they had to get about on a steamroller. But such women are rare, and men are not very patient with the infirm. I have noticed that helpless women arouse two emotions in men—pity, or the desire to escape. Carlo was very kind and patient. I was very irritable and I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had walked out. Instead, he took on the duties of a nurse day and night. He massaged my knees; he went down to the kitchen and told the cook how to make tempting dishes for me; he wrote and answered my letters; nights, when my body wouldn’t relax enough for me to sleep, he read to me.

I kept turning my failure over in my mind. Why hadn’t I succeeded with the necklace? I would succeed. I would go to a country where no one bothered about the evil eye. America was the only place. The American millionaires could afford to pay for their fancy. Some American might buy it and donate it to a museum. I talked it over with Carlo. He said that American millionaires were not throwing their money away.

I argued the point. Hadn’t huge sums of money been paid for things which had belonged to famous people? What about letters, manuscripts, even clothes? He said reasonable prices had been paid for such things, sometimes exaggerated prices, but there was a limit to what people would pay for history. I said I had made up my mind to go to America and try to sell the necklace. He asked me if the Archduchess would finance the journey. I told him that was impossible, as the Archduchess was broke.

Carlo said nothing more that day; but a few days later—the day I got up and stood on my feet—he said he had decided to accompany me to America. He would finance the journey. He knew it would be time and money wasted, but as I was determined to do it nothing would dissuade me.

My body seemed to be weighted with lead when I first stood up. My inclination was to limp because the pain cut my knees like a knife. But I wouldn’t limp—I wouldn’t. I would make myself walk without limping if every step stabbed me to the heart. I wouldn’t hobble about like a hag. There was nothing I didn’t know, during the month after I got up, about Hindu self-torture.

I don’t want you to think that I talked Carlo into selling the necklace. It never occurred to me to do so. I had decided to sell it myself.

One day Carlo told me, while we were walking across the desert (I was able to walk again, the pain having left my knees), that it would be better if he sold the necklace. He said there would be a lot of trouble about it in America. Perhaps the gangsters might like to inspect it.

It was then the Archduchess arranged to give him power of attorney. He could expect to receive the papers giving him such power when he arrived in America. You can see by her statement that he could have sold the necklace for a dollar if he had wished. The power of attorney imposed no restrictions whatever. Later, when he and Leopold sold it, and the hue and cry were raised, this fact seemed to be overlooked by people, seeking commission, who came to America and charged Carlo, the Archduke Leopold and me for acting without authority. When I tell you that the Archduchess gave Carlo full power of attorney without ever having seen him you will think I am romancing, but such was the case.

Chapter XIV

In New York we rented a furnished flat in Greenwich Village, on McDougall Street. I wanted to see something of the Village. I had heard it referred to as New York’s Latin quarter. I might have known that no city has a Latin quarter to-day. The Village was squalid, uninteresting and drab. If artists had ever lived in it they had gone and taken any bohemian atmosphere the place might have possessed with them. Small business men, shop assistants and mediocre gangsters lived in it when we were there.

The flat belonged to a lady whose range of talents supported herself and her little daughter. She made jewellery, gave marionette shows and wrote books for children. She was a widow. She wanted to rent the flat for three months to someone who would share the kitchen with her father-in-law.

Her father-in-law was the liveliest man of seventy-odd I ever knew. Only the rejuvenated lady of Vienna could have kept his pace. He had the habit of disappearing for several days on end and giving his much younger wife a lot of trouble to locate him. She would come to us in tears, telling us he had gone again and begging us to phone the hospitals and police stations. She always brought a list of friends he might be with. We never discovered his whereabouts. He would reappear when it suited his purpose with a broad grin and a box of chocolates. When he was at home he did the cooking. His daughter-in-law knew his mania for mixing up little messes when she asked us to share the kitchen with him. I was always glad when he played truant, and I hoped that whoever detained him would continue to do so.

The necklace was on its way to a New York bank, where Carlo would show it to would-be clients. It never got to the Bank it was addressed to, for the Customs detained it. After miles of red tape were unrolled, the Customs informed Carlo that it would have to be sent back to Austria and readdressed to him if he intended to sell it. We employed lawyers and Customs declarers, but their efforts were useless. Back the necklace went, to be readdressed to Carlo.

While we waited for its second entry into America we got into touch with possible purchasers. Even the Americans had been bitten by the hoodoo idea. Two ladies told me that nothing would induce them to touch the necklace. The newspapers interviewed us and wrote stories about the jewel. One paper sent a photographer who wanted a photograph of me wearing the necklace.

When the necklace arrived the second time there was another reason for detaining it. The Customs said the setting wasn’t the original one. It looked too new. Carlo employed a lawyer, Garfield Hays, who had made quite a reputation by defending Sacco and Venizetti. Mr. Hays and his partner, Mr. Strubel, tried to tell the Customs that the setting had been well looked after. How could they expect it to be scratched and battered? The Habsburg jewels were not thrown about; they left their boxes only on special occasions. Mr. Strubel reminded them, in his breezy American way, that the Archduchess didn’t wear the necklace when she was pottering about the kitchenette. The Customs were adamant. The fact was that the American jewellers had formed a ring round the necklace. Why should they let it come into the country and spoil their own sales? They hammered its faults into the ears of the Customs officials whenever they were called in to give expert advice. Carlo thought of returning to Europe and giving up the idea of selling it, when Mr. Strubel decided to bring in a lawyer who was an expert in the circuitous labyrinth of Customs law. He advised getting into touch with the Archduchess and asking her to go to the American Consulate in Vienna and testify to our and the necklace’s bona fides. She went and made the declaration; but in the meantime—while the statement was on its way to America—she cabled the Customs, overlooking the fact that she had given Carlo power of attorney, and said that I was representing her in America. The Customs changed their tune when the cable arrived, and when they received her statement the necklace was released; for the whole question had been whether the necklace was over one hundred years old, and entitled as an antique to come into the country free of duty.

The day it was released, several very agitated Customs officials asked us to get an armoured car to take it to the Bank. I said too much attention had been called to it already, and if they would give it me I would take it to the Bank. They passed it over and I tucked it under my arm as I had done in Cairo, and took it to Harriman’s Bank—on a subway train. Any gangster who reads this will wail over a lost opportunity.

All sorts of people phoned us and asked if they could see it. They all knew someone who might buy it. What chances we took—although it never occurred to us at the time—of being knocked over the head by people we took to the vault! The papers which accompanied the necklace seemed to interest the Americans almost as much as the necklace itself. There were several letters written by Marie Louise to Napoleon. They missed being in the collection which was sold not long ago at Christie’s—for they were turned over with the necklace. There was a photograph of the Archduchess, during her early married life, wearing the necklace. She was twenty-two years younger than her husband, Karl Ludwig, who was very jealous of the admiration she excited at Court. In order to ward off her admirers he would follow her about, pretending her health was delicate and he must look after her. She was not very enamoured of her husband. You couldn’t expect her to be. Love has no place in politics.

The necklace was always in trouble. Mrs. Graham (whose husband was the architect of the famous Flat-Iron Building) said she owned the only Napoleon necklace. She had bought it from the Spanish Habsburgs. The Archduchess was at that time visiting the Empress Zita, who was the guest of the King of Spain, and she could say that the necklace had never been owned in Spain. The newspapers made much of Mrs. Graham’s story and Carlo’s contradictions of it.

In the midst of the Graham story my Aunt Vera arrived, and asked me to go home with her and give up the idea of selling the necklace. She was living in Detroit then. Had I known how soon my darling Vera was to be snatched away by death I would have dropped everything and gone with her. She saw that Carlo and I were living together. She might not have approved, but she understood. Her mind moved with the times. There was no place in it for archaic morality. She liked Carlo. She said he was a good friend. She thought few men gave women their friendships. Any man could give his passion. She returned to Detroit and I went on meeting people who might buy the necklace.

I met Beatrice Beecher—the granddaughter of Henry Ward Beecher—who suggested that I show the necklace to Marjorie Hutton, who had inherited many millions from the fortunes made in Postum—a substitute for coffee—and several sorts of breakfast foods. Miss Beecher took Carlo and me to Mrs. Hutton’s house—I think she had two flats in the building—on Fifth Avenue. Mrs. Hutton had bought, three or four years before I met her, Marie Louise’s wedding veil. She had bought it from Baroness Eisenmenger, wife of the physician to Francis Joseph. It was then on loan to some museum. Her daughter had recently been married in it.

Mrs. Hutton was wearing a string of pink pearls and a large square diamond the day I met her. The square cutting was fashionable then. Like Cleopatra, time couldn’t wither Mrs. Hutton. In spite of the married daughter she looked very young. In fact everything about her looked very new—as if it had just been purchased. Even the old paintings on the walls looked new. A very ugly and expensive dog kept snorting his displeasure at our intrusion. Mrs. Hutton told us of an early pet she had owned before Postum and Cornflakes became best-sellers. The pet was a hen who used to sit on her lap like a dog. She became reminiscent; a touch of what America calls human interest stuff came into the story—“Once the hen laid an egg in my lap,” she said.

I kept looking from Mrs. Hutton to Miss Beecher. Mrs. Hutton looked so fresh, so amazingly youthful; there sat Miss Beecher, weary of the struggle for existence, tired, paying the forfeits you must pay—if poverty has a grip on you—to New York; but she wore that something which money can never buy like a rose in her hair.

Mrs. Hutton thought the price we were asking for the necklace exorbitant. She laughed about it. She said it was far too much for unlucky history. I think she had consulted her jeweller, Cartier, before giving us the appointment, and asked him the intrinsic value of the jewel. She wanted to see it, however, and the following day she came to the Bank with her secretary. Her secretary tried to persuade her to buy the necklace, telling her how well it would look on her. Mrs. Hutton had no fear of famous jewels, but she told me of her friend, Mrs. McLean of Washington, who owned the Hope Diamond. Mrs. McLean never had any luck since she bought it.

Every day jewellers phoned to ask if they might see the necklace. One jeweller, Mr. Plimpton, who had a shop on Fifth Avenue, was interested in it for certain of his clients. He tried several times to sell it, but always the price asked for history stood in the way of the sale.

The lady we had rented the flat from came back and wanted her flat. Her father-in-law—who had been behaving quite well for some time—told me of a flat next door which an Italian woman wanted to rent. We had no time to look for a flat, so we decided to take the one next door. Mrs. Balardi, the Italian landlady, had rented the front room of the flat to one of the New York University fraternities. This left two rooms and a kitchen. It was an unfortunate move for us. Our telephone line was tapped; someone listened to every word we said. One day when we were out at lunch thieves broke in through the door of the fraternity-room and stole our clothes after cutting our luggage to pieces. We sent for the police. The officer who came to investigate went into the fraternity-room and finding a man in there he knocked him about. That was all that ever came of it. The thieves must have been mad to think we would have kept the necklace in our rooms, but evidently that was what they thought or they wouldn’t have destroyed our luggage in their hurried search for loot.

We had to take the time to move from the Village. Anything could happen on McDougall Street, and thieves might break in again, and the thought that they might come while we were there terrified me. We moved to the Mount Clair Hotel on Lexington Avenue. The district was much better than the Village and the hotel was quite comfortable. Miss Beecher said she had wanted to speak to me about leaving the Village but she wasn’t sure how I should take it.

Miss Beecher had spoken to a Wall Street broker about the necklace and he wanted to meet Carlo and me. I asked her to arrange an appointment, which she did. He was to see us one evening at his flat. He lived in the same building where Marion Davis lived. Someone told me that Marion Davis owned the building.

The Wall Street broker had an idea—shared by many Americans—that nothing can be done without a cocktail party. Prohibition had not then thrown a number of worthy bootleggers out of employment, and one of them had supplied the broker with “hundred per cent. stuff.” He had invited several friends. One after the other went out to the kitchen and made a cocktail. They brought the mixture into the drawing-room in a large glass jug. When it was emptied, another guest would go out to the kitchen and replenish it. I sat near a rubber plant, and when no one was looking—several couldn’t have seen if they had looked—I threw the cocktails on the plant. Carlo said he was a teetotaller. His sober condition made him rather unpopular. I heard a man asking him, “What’s eatin’ yuh, Limie?” Limie in the American language is synonymous with Englishman. Carlo wasn’t taking any chances with bootleg. He said the only decent liquor he had in America was at the Customs and he didn’t want to spoil the taste of it.

It was my turn to go to the kitchen and make a cocktail. I had never mixed anything with bootleg liquor and I hadn’t the slightest idea about the proportions. Several bottles stood on the table. There were no labels on them. Some were half and others quarter full. I dumped the contents of the lot into the glass jug and stirred in some orange juice and syrup. My cocktail was the last. Everyone passed out of the picture after drinking it. They lay about the floor in various poses. Others, who couldn’t navigate, were vomiting into the bath tub. As we were leaving I saw a lady trying to take her clothes off. I don’t know what she intended to do. Her expression was very serious. Deliberately she placed her garments on the backs of the chairs. She had decorated several chairs. If Miss Beecher and Carlo hadn’t been half-way down the stairs calling to me, I would have waited to see which gave out first, her clothes or the chairs. The broker, steadying himself by the door frame, held up his hands and murmured something as I left. It might have been a curse or it might have been a blessing. The language we use for either is much the same.

I never saw him again, and I never knew what he thought of the necklace. It hadn’t been mentioned during the evening.

An Italian jeweller came to see us. He had invented a stone which he called a doublet. The top of it was a genuine diamond and the bottom was some sort of paste. He told us his invention had fooled many experts. He said we didn’t know how to sell the necklace. He admitted there had been a lot in the papers about it, but we should launch it in some unusual way. Nobody paid any attention to the cut and dried methods. Had we heard of the large ruby which belonged to one of the Indian Maharajas? It wasn’t a ruby, of coarse. Someone had found a piece of red glass on a cargo boat just before she arrived in New York from India The person who found it had the bright idea of advertising it as a ruby and inventing an interesting history for it. He charged fifty cents to see the jewel. The trick made thousands of dollars. You might get the impression that the Italian doubted the authenticity of the necklace and wanted to tell us how a fake could be foisted on the American public. This wasn’t his idea. He knew the necklace was genuine, but he thought some scheme was necessary for stoking public interest to a white heat. Some Hollywood star lost a wonderful publicity agent when that gentleman decided to make the doublets.

A man came to us very excited about an auctioneer who could sell anything. Think of it, he had sold a mausoleum for a family who no longer cared to bury their dead in it. Any man who could sell a mausoleum could sell anything. We had to admit that this was true, but we didn’t think the necklace had reached the mausoleum stage.

I phoned Mabel Bole, who was. known as the Diamond Queen, and asked if she would care to see the necklace. Her taste was much the same as the cinema star’s in Cairo. She liked large single stones.

Archduke Leopold arrived. He had a diplomatic passport given him, so he said, by the King of Spain. He had two other passports which he showed me one day. I asked him if he were collecting passports. He said they were useful things to collect. He wanted to help with the sale of the necklace. He knew the Archduchess wouldn’t mind. If he sold it he wanted a commission. He was rather vague about the amount he wanted. Carlo rather liked the idea of Leopold helping, so Leopold began to introduce possible clients. He was staying with a French Count who was an interior decorator. Interior decorators were as numerous in New York as fleas on a dog. Leopold was in love with some woman to whom he phoned every fifteen minutes. He liked women older than himself. He was about thirty-six then. He used to tell me about the beautiful grey streaks in ladies’ hair. The one he was in love with at that time had “such soft grey hair.” He had a very familiar manner with women. He spoke to every woman he met as if she had once been his mistress. He made quite a stir in the drawing-rooms of certain New Yorkers.

There was a Jewish lawyer, Mr. Berenson, who was interested in the necklace and in Leopold. He gave a tea one Sunday to which he invited all the Wyzanskis, Levys and Applebaums in New York to meet Leopold. Leopold wasn’t in very good humour that day and he wanted at the last moment to back out of going to the tea. Reluctantly he finally consented to go along with us. The ladies present made a great fuss of him, which rather annoyed him. He came over and whispered in my ear: “I’ve had enough of this, do come along.” I think he wanted to get out and telephone to his grey-haired lady.

On the way to the hotel we saw a dress in a shop window. Leopold stopped and pointed to it. “Why don’t you wear things like that?” he said. “I hate the way you dress.” I suggested that if he would like me to wear the dress in the shop window he had better buy it for me. He didn’t promise to buy that one, but he said he would like to go with me when I bought my clothes. I never asked him to go, for I considered my taste in clothes as good as his.

Mr. Berenson asked Carlo to move the necklace from the Harriman Bank to the Sterling Bank. He was interested in it. Carlo thought that, with a little encouragement, he might buy it. One of the Boston papers, the Transcript, I believe, printed a story saying that Mr. Berenson had bought the necklace. Mr. Berenson had lived in Boston before he came to New York. He told me he had no idea who could have circulated such a story.

Carlo and I took the necklace over to the Sterling Bank in a taxi. The manager’s eyes fairly protruded from their sockets when he saw it. It was in his office I put the necklace on to show someone how it looked when it was worn.

Carlo received a telegram from the Prince of Liechtenstein telling him that if the necklace was sold the money should be sent to him. Carlo had no idea what this meant. I talked it over with Leopold. He said the Archduchess had borrowed money on the necklace from the Prince. He also said that she had borrowed money from all sorts of people. He seemed to think it was a good joke.

He suggested that he and I write a book together to be called “Only a Habsburg.” We asked a literary agent to come to the hotel and we discussed it. The agent thought there might be a good chance for such a book. Leopold had these bright ideas but they never amounted to anything.

I used to get very tired. My knees troubled me sometimes and my body ached frightfully when the weather was damp. I often felt as if I were at the bottom of a deep well and I couldn’t crawl up the sides. There was no way out of all my difficulties unless someone threw me a rope. Nights I would lie awake wondering how Napoleon had managed to make people either fight him or serve him. What was the secret of his power? What glaring mistakes he had made, but everyone who came into contact with him had to cater to his egotism. Was this the secret of his greatness? For personal success you had to be a despot. The great saints and prophets were as despotic as the men at the head of governments. They enforced their will to satisfy their ego. Whoever uttered “Follow me” led the way to an impasse. What had become of all the people who had followed the leaders? Like Napoleon, they were in their graves. Sometimes I wished Napoleon had taken his necklace with him to the grave.

Mr. Furman, director of the Macaulay Publishing Company, sent Carlo and me an invitation to a reception which he was giving at the Ritz Carlton for Miss Peggy Joyce, who had written a book called “Men, Marriage, and Me.” All the reviewers and gossip writers were at the reception. Punch bowls stood on the tables. They were continuously surrounded by groups of people. Everybody seemed to be talking at once. I was introduced to a lot of people, but I have no idea what their names were. Miss Joyce was very simply dressed in a black frock and a little black hat. I had heard so much about her I was eager to see her. I had a good look at her face as it rose above a punch bowl, when the crowd about her was not too dense. It was an unusual face. There was something in it—not exactly a blend—of Pierpont Morgan and Ninon de L’Enclos. It was shrewd and seductive, calculating and reckless. It was the face of a woman who would reach her goal and then wonder if the goal had really been what she wanted. She left long before her guests had lost interest in the punch bowls.

A day or two after the reception I phoned Miss Joyce and asked her if she would like to see the necklace. She said she was leaving for Paris and had no time to look at it.

Leopold’s clients said the price of the necklace was absurd and he—quite frankly agreed with them. He was getting rather fed up because people were inclined to laugh when history was mentioned. He told me he wouldn’t speak to any of the damn fools he was meeting if the Habsburgs hadn’t crashed. This wasn’t true however. He was very democratic and liked all sorts of people, but when he was irritable he was apt to say anything that came into his mind. He had tried to sell the necklace to certain of the Hollywood stars, but they were not eager to part with such a large sum of money.

I met a painter who had painted the portraits of several of the stars. This lady—let us call her Madame I.D.V.—was a little uncertain about her husbands. One night when we were discussing archaeology she said: “One of my husbands was an archaeologist—let me see” (brows drawn together trying to remember)—“the second.” She told me it was useless to try Hollywood with the necklace, as the stars never parted with any money until they were forced to.

Miss May Mott Smith appeared on the scene with a jeweller who wanted to buy the necklace. Miss Mott Smith was herself a jeweller, a painter, a globe trotter and a lecturer. The jeweller, Mr. Michael, said the necklace was worth 60,000 dollars—and not a cent more. He offered to pay this amount. This, by the way, was the price the Customs had put on it. I asked Mr. Berenson—whose mind was for ever changing about the necklace, wanting it one day and not wanting it the next—what he thought of Mr. Michael’s offer. He said no one would offer more than Mr. Michael. How could we expect anyone to offer more than the price the Customs had valued it at? Hadn’t we shown it to every likely purchaser in America and hadn’t they all said the same thing when we mentioned the price? Hadn’t people come from the southern and western states and from New England and hadn’t they lost interest when the price was mentioned? Didn’t I know that what we were doing looked as if we were trying deliberately to fleece the American public? My mind caught on that statement. I hadn’t thought of that. Why should the Americans pay for history if it came to that—Austrian and French history?

I told Carlo and Leopold what Mr. Berenson had said. I hated telling Carlo, for he had spent so much money. The Archduchess had never contributed a penny to the expenses. Leopold said we should accept Mr. Michael’s offer or return to Europe with the necklace. I didn’t know what to say. You must be indifferent to see things clearly. If you take sides or feel deeply about anything you can’t understand it. If I could become utterly indifferent to what was going on I could see both sides of the argument. But how to become indifferent long enough to judge when so much was at stake? There is something incorruptible at the centre of consciousness, but you can’t let it have its say when all sorts of conflicting suggestions are beating down upon you from outside. After all, Carlo had power of attorney; he must decide what to do.

I would shut myself in the room at the hotel and try to get my mind on other things. I had an idea that if I could forget the necklace for a while I could return to it with a fresh outlook and decide what was the best thing to do. I tried to write something on my book. I would write two or three lines—which I would tear up—and then I would get up from the desk and walk the floor.

I went out to lunch or dinner with some of the men I had met. They tried to make love to me—very shrewd love. There is something practical under American passion. It always leaves a loophole for escape. I am not sure that I like American men. I adore the women. Their wits are sharpened on a much keener stone than the women of Europe. They are as lively and cheerful when men are not present as when they are strewn all over the place. Their appeal is swift and their humour spontaneous. But better than all, they are not cats.

The anonymous letters I mentioned before began to arrive, still threatening the long silken cord of silence. It sounded like some silly threat in a lurid melodrama. I went to the Federal Authorities about the letters. A certain Mr. Doyle told me that the Post Office could do nothing about it, because the letters hadn’t demanded money. In the East I hadn’t worried much about the letters, but in America they gave me many uneasy moments.

Carlo thought we had better sell the necklace to Mr. Michael. Mr. Berenson would never buy it; that was certain. He liked to think that he might, but he had no real intention of doing so.

We talked about Mr. Michael’s offer with Carlo’s lawyer, Mr. Strubel. He didn’t wish to advise us. He said the case was so unusual. History was worth something, no doubt, but the Customs valuation stood in the way of getting much for it. We would have to decide if we would sell for a price near the Customs estimate or take the necklace back to Europe. We decided to sell.

The sale took place in one of the rooms of the Sterling Bank. Mr. Michael brought his lawyer. I shall never forget that day. There were several smaller rooms opening out of the large room where the necklace lay on the table in its blue velvet box, with the men grouped round it. Every five minutes Leopold would jump up and run into one of the smaller rooms and ask to speak to me for a moment. When I followed him he would slam the door behind us and say, “This is the right price”—then in another moment, “This is not the right price.” One moment it was let us sell it. The next moment we must not sell it. When I tried to stop the sale of it he stopped me. When I said nothing he asked me to stop the sale. The lawyers turned lazy, cynical sneers on him. Everything that was happening about me seemed to be unreal—like something that was happening in the theatre. Soon the play would end and we would all go home.

The lawyers were drawing up the papers. I could see that they wanted to present Leopold with a fait accompli or they would never get the business done. Carlo sat like patience on a monument. He seemed so detached. I wondered if he realized the enormity of what he was doing. Mr. Michael kept turning over the papers which proved the necklace genuine. I saw signatures of various Habsburgs as he shuffled them. He looked at the paper which mentioned that the little King of Rome, Napoleon II, had been given the title Duke of Reichstadt by way of compensation when Vienna decided that he couldn’t succeed to the duchies of his mother Marie Louise. This decision had placed him below the Austrian Archdukes.

The lawyers picked the necklace up, one after the other, and held it in their hands, letting the facets of the stones catch the light. How they haggled over the jewel which represented the greatest moment of Napoleon’s life—the birth of his son. What did his greatness amount to now? Where were his dreams? Where was the will which had intimidated Europe. His last possession—the world had somehow disposed of all the others—lay there on the table while men to whom he would never have given a second thought belittled its historic value.

It was sold. Mr. Michael was wrapping it up with the papers and the photograph of the Archduchess and the silly little letters of Marie Louise. It had caused almost as much trouble as the necklace of another Austrian—Marie Antoinette.

I look back on that day as you look back on some incredible illness you have survived, something you might have caught by your own carelessness, but you were quite unconscious of contacting it. Do we really know why we do things? Are we sure of the motive behind our actions? I think if we had courage to say that we hadn’t the slightest idea why we do certain things at certain times we would be taking a step forward into Truth.

Carlo went out to change one of the bank-notes Mr. Michael had paid over in order to pay Miss Mott Smith her commission. Leopold insisted upon having his commission paid to him at the office of his lawyer, Mr. Millikin.

After Miss Mott Smith was paid Leopold, Carlo and I went to Mr. Millikin’s office in a taxi. Mr. Millikin looked like an Adyar theosophist, a mystic, a psychic—not the least bit like a legal person. He was tall and thin, with bushy white hair and dreamy blue eyes. He smiled as he talked. If he had recited a poem or talked of the migration of the soul it wouldn’t have surprised me.

We sat down and a boy came in to black Mr. Millikin’s boots. Before we left the boy came in again and dusted Mr. Millkin’s boots with a rag. I studied the boy closely, for his sustained attention to the boots aroused my curiosity. Whatever he was besides a boot polisher I had no time to discover, but I was inclined to think that that wasn’t his only mission in life.

Leopold’s commission was paid. An appointment was made for the following day when Leopold and Carlo were to see Mr. Millikin again about something further to the commission and other expenses.

We went to the hotel. Carlo and Leopold urged me to leave New York. I couldn’t understand them. Why did they want me out of the way? I refused to go, and then Leopold said that the Archduchess never did anything in a sane business manner. She gave out power of attorney as you would deal a hand at bridge. Nothing was ever cancelled. Dozens of people held her power of attorney. They would all show up now and raise hell. Anyone who had a remote chance of getting it would demand commission. All the people to whom she owed money would appear. I was inclined to doubt his statement about the Archduchess being so lavish with the power of attorney. Then he began about the American courts and the way they tried cases. The American lawyer roared at you to intimidate you. He thought if he frightened you enough you would agree to anything—like flogging a man to make him believe in God. Lawyer roared at lawyer, until they completely neutralized each other in a game of sound. Then the judge took the two arguments which had been shouted down and asked a jury to consider them. How could anyone judge a fellow-being when his mind and his body were a-quiver from sound? In terror pronouncements were made—in a kind of utter dismay.

I asked Carlo why he hadn’t thought of all the outstanding powers of attorney before. He said he hadn’t known of them, but he was convinced that the history ramp had been started by the people who held them and not by the Archduchess. He also believed that the necklace was worth no more than the price which had been paid for it. After arguments which lasted for hours—Carlo steadily backing up Leopold’s attitude—I consented to leave.

I was angry with Carlo. I felt that he was letting me down. I ordered them out of the room, and I threw a few things into my case. They waited in the corridor. I could hear them talking. I went out, carrying my case. Carlo took it from me and said he would go with me to the station or wherever I was going. I didn’t speak to him. We got into a taxi; then I said I wanted to go to a telegraph office. I telegraphed my aunt and asked her to meet me in Chicago. I had decided in the taxi what I was going to do. I would put distance between Carlo and myself. We went to the station and I bought a ticket for the night train to Chicago. Carlo offered me money, but I refused to take it. I asked him to send my trunk to my aunt’s address. The trunk was never sent.

I felt as I had when grandfather died. I must go as far as I could. My aunt told me I had been very foolish. Why would I never listen to people who really wanted to help me? Why was I so stubborn? I had got Carlo into trouble. He would never have been such a fool if it hadn’t been for me. Leopold was a devil and Carlo should never have listened to him. I broke down and cried. I cried for hours. Only people I love can hurt me, and I loved Aunt Vera. I told her I would go to India. I belonged in the East. I had never been happy in the West. I never wanted to see Europe or America again.

She took me to a friend’s house. She kept imploring me to come to Detroit with her. I told her I couldn’t. I must go to India. In the taxi driving from the station to her friend’s house she put her arm round me and pulled my head down on her shoulder. I was utterly worn out; but no amount of rest—if I could have rested—would have helped me. My body was filled with that trembling of utter exhaustion; but action was the only thing for me. I have always turned to action in crises. I had no idea of escaping from consequences. Carlo and Leopold hadn’t alarmed me.

I knew only that I must put action over stillness—that I must keep moving. I stayed one night with Aunt Vera and her friend Mrs. B. The next morning Mrs. B. cashed Aunt Vera’s cheque for four thousand dollars. Aunt Vera gave me the money, and I bought a ticket for Vancouver.

Chapter XV

I read no newspapers on the train. What was the use of knowing what was happening to Carlo and Leopold? They had dismissed me. I could do nothing for them now. I sat with my hands folded in my lap, trying to become interested in the journey. I spoke to no one. I ate my meals in the dining-car and returned to my seat by the window. I dressed and undressed like a mechanical toy which had been wound up to go through the movements. When we crossed the snow-capped Rocky Mountains I knew only that I was cold. I sat staring at the great peaks without seeing anything of their beauty.

We arrived in Vancouver early in the morning. I went to an hotel—I can’t remember the name of it—and had a bath and some breakfast. Then I went out to the shipping offices to inquire about boats. The first boat leaving Vancouver was a Japanese cargo-boat going to Yokohama. She was sailing in two days. I sailed on her—the only white person on board.

I have been in some frightful storms—on some very unseaworthy old tubs—but that was the worst experience I have had on the sea. We encountered two typhoons. How we survived the second one is a mystery I have never understood. The boat rose in the air and whirled round; then she would plunge, it seemed, to the bottom. The sea would close round her, rushing in torrents down the funnel and pounding on the deck. I lay on the floor in the saloon. It was impossible to stand or sit on anything. The crew kept passing in and out of the saloon. Their faces were frozen with terror. They looked like ghosts moving about without any apparent reason. Once the captain came in. He was dripping wet. Water ran down his oilskins and made little rivulets on the carpet. Somebody got him a hot drink. Nobody spoke, but everyone was alert to hear anything there was to be heard. I saw the captain’s face under his nor’wester. There was no fear in it. He was doing his utmost. He would keep afloat if it were humanly possible; if not, he would go down without a murmur. The men looked at him and their faces unfroze. They, too, would share anything that Fate meted out to their leader. We might go down; it was quite possible; but I could never go to my death with a more gallant assembly.

Often, when I hear people talking about putting the Japs in their place, I see that little captain in his life-and-death struggle with the storm, and I wonder who is going to put who in his place.

When we got out of the typhoon the cabin-boy brought me a piece of cold meat and two slices of bread. When he put them on the table he said: “The stove, he have lay down.” He continued to lay down for four days. When they got him on his feet again we made up for the cold meals we had had. The cook dried out his stores—evidently the salt water hadn’t hurt them much—and produced delicious curries, meat pies and sweets. The Japanese, with the exception of two or three, ate European food.

I did nothing on that boat but walk round the deck and eat my meals. I had made an utter failure of my life and I had no idea what was to become of me—neither did I care.

At Yokohama I heard of a German cargo-boat going to Bombay. The agent told me there was no room on her. I went out to the boat to see if the agent could be mistaken. He was. The captain said that, after a little shifting round he could put me into a cabin with another lady.

I had to wait about a week in Yokohama. I spent most of the time over in Tokio, poking about the silk shops, watching the artists painting exquisite obis—some of which would sell for as much as three or four hundred pounds. I saw Mrs. Klingen’s sign on a dressmaker’s shop. I wondered if she were still turning out the dernier cri.

I was breaking my heart a little more each day about my stupidity. Why had I ever thought I could sell the damn necklace? Why had I ever wanted to sell it? And why, above all things, had I allowed Carlo and Leopold to talk me into leaving New York without any definite plan? Nothing happened out of a clear sky. Everything was the result of a chain of causes. Whatever caused me to sell the necklace—to live like a nomad—to be born, in fact? To revenge myself on Fate would be a triumph; but there was no way. I felt like an old harlot walking through a street that had lost all its possibilities. I was not so much living as avoiding death. Why was I avoiding it? There were moments when I thought I might as well end it all. My knees were troubling me because I was so miserable. If only I could get well and happy inside, then my body would heal itself. It usually responded to happiness or work.

I got on the boat the night before she sailed. She was to sail at daybreak. At the top of the gangway I saw a large Alsatian dog. I rushed up to him and threw my arms round his neck. Somebody shouted for me to be careful. I heard someone say the dog was cross. What a lie! He licked my face and nuzzled my neck with his cold nose. He was my friend all the way to Bombay. I fed him, brushed him, washed him, and took him entirely into my confidence. His name was Karl. He was going out to the captain’s brother, somewhere in North India.

My cabin mate was a fat woman, who suffered terribly when we got to the tropics. She carried her fat as a weary animal carries its burdens. She seemed to be exhausted under it. She was for ever panting and steaming. Her husband was in Calcutta. She was returning to him after visiting her sister in California. She had crossed the Pacific about the time I had crossed, but she had come by the southern route and escaped the typhoons.

There was a German couple going to Hong-Kong and a rubber-planter going to Singapore. Whenever I saw the planter he was drinking, or just about to drink, a glass of beer. We had a few conversations on the deck. He stood, so he told me, midway between a doting wife and a fault-finding mother-in-law. He was never sure which side he should take for the sake of peace. One night he tried to feel my legs. I told him it bored me and he stopped.

After a few days I got my book out and tried to work on it. It was impossible. I couldn’t write a word. Karl sat beside my chair. He always sat beside me when I was on the deck. He wasn’t allowed inside. I knew my energy—that furious, inexhaustible energy of mine—would return with a rush; but when? I tried to read some of the books on the boat, but they were too awful. I played poker-solitaire with the planter. The lady with whom I shared the cabin showed me how to knit lace.

I stayed on the boat at Shanghai, for I thought I might meet Adolfo, and I didn’t care to. In fact, I didn’t want to meet any of my Shanghai friends, for they would ask all sorts of questions. I went ashore at Hong-Kong with the planter and Karl. The captain didn’t want me to take Karl because he thought I would have trouble getting permission. The trouble wasn’t very serious, and the planter was quite helpful. I tied Karl’s muzzle to his collar so anyone in authority could see he owned one. I walked the legs off the planter to give Karl exercise. We had tea at the Hong-Kong Hotel. When I saw the table where Plushy and I had sat I felt like crying and making an utter fool of myself. Instead, I tried to listen to what the planter was saying. He talked about Chinese politics, the price of rubber, the passengers on the boat, a girl he had been going about with at home. He asked me leading questions which I answered with anything that came into my mind. We went back to the boat and he ordered a glass of his beloved beer. He said he would be sorry to leave the boat because German beer was the best in the world.

I couldn’t take Karl for a run in Singapore, so I stayed on the boat with him. Two men and a woman met the planter. I think the woman was the doting wife, although it is not customary for a man to leave his wife in Malaya while he goes on holiday.

When we left Singapore I got my book out again; but it was no use, I couldn’t write. Perhaps I would never write again. I had heard of writers believing they never could write again. I believe Rupert Brooke frequently felt like this. Perhaps it was only a phase I was passing through. All my life I had wanted to write something very pure and very simple—something you could hear the trickle of clear water in; but when I tried to do it, before I knew it I had the palette out and I was flinging the colours about. Suddenly I would realize I had put a gob of red or orange on something I had intended to leave pale grey or white. I couldn’t fling the colours about on the boat; even the power to do that had deserted me. I was completely surrounded with colour. The boat was sliding along a radiantly blue sea as if she were a toy sliding on glass. The sky was a deeper blue, and between sea and sky hung a thin veil of opalescent colours. I can see it all now and I can describe it; but then my mind was asleep. I could feel nothing. I lay on my deck-chair with my hand on Karl’s head thinking of only one thing: was Karl going to people who would love him? The captain had a kind face. No doubt his brother would be kind. He must love dogs, or he wouldn’t have had Karl brought out to him.

We arrived in Bombay in the morning. The German couple had dragged their luggage up on deck. As a matter of fact, they had done a lot of their packing on the deck. My cabin mate was buzzing about like some huge restless fly. She couldn’t alight anywhere. While we were getting through the landing formalities I watched the people on the quay. There was a dear little old lady with a man who was evidently the captain’s brother. I saw her point to Karl and speak to the man. I got Karl to put his paws on the railing so she could have a good look at him. Her dear little face beamed. She looked like the good godmother of the fairy tale. I knew Karl would be happy. I sneaked down the gangway when he wasn’t looking. I would have blubbered if I had said good-bye to him.

I went to Mrs. Scott’s house. She had known my family for years. She had lived in Egypt when she was a girl. The boy told me she would be down in a moment. I waited for her on the veranda. While I waited I wondered why I had come to her. I think I had some idea she would recommend a good pension.

When she saw me she drew back, her hand went down to her side. “The boy didn’t get the name,” she said. She was terribly embarrassed. She sat on the very edge of a chair and stared at me. It was impossible to lead the conversation into any of the usual pathways. I couldn’t say I had just arrived, and I thought she might tell me where I could stay. “What is the matter?” I blurted out. She asked if I had seen the American newspapers. Her sister, who had married an American, had sent them to her. I explained that I had come the long way round—by China and Japan. I had seen no papers. I didn’t tell her that I had made up my mind not to look at the papers. She went and got them and put them on a table in front of me. She said she was going out to the market and she would see me when she came back.

I read the story of Leopold’s arrest. There were big headlines and photographs of Leopold. He had been right when he told me that the Archduchess had dished out the power of attorney to all and sundry. The Baroness Eisenmenger, who had sold Marie Louise’s wedding veil to Mrs. Hutton, had gone to America with her power of attorney and had Leopold arrested. The court released him on 7,000 dollars bail until the case could be heard. On the advice of his lawyer he had surrendered to the Tombs to expedite his trial. In the meantime the Baroness Eisenmenger had returned to Austria. She went again to New York at the expense of the American Government to give evidence in the case. Everything had been thrashed out in the courts. Leopold’s past—made much more colourful than it really was—certain choice bits in the lives—many of the accusations I had never heard before—of the principal actors in the drama—statements which had been made by Carlo, Leopold or me—and statements which had never been made. The Baroness told of Leopold’s visits to the night clubs. He was a dissolute character. No decent person would have anything to do with him. She had gone looking for him at the night clubs. Here there was malice in her statements. She was not clever. She could not be an unbiased witness simply stating facts. Every letter I had written to her on any subject had been read. All the dirty linen they could collect had been washed in public.

Mr. Strubel, Carlo’s lawyer, had appeared. I suppose he had been instructed by Carlo, who seemed to have vanished into thin air. He might have been in New York, but some of the papers said he couldn’t be found. Mr. Strubel was criticized for some laxity in making out the deed of sale. It was all very sensational. The papers fairly gloated over it.

The Baroness Eisenmenger had lost the case and Leopold was acquitted. When he left the prison the reporters flocked about him to interview him. He gave a story to a tabloid paper—either the Mirror or the News. As usual, Leopold said nothing definite. He could talk all round a subject without touching upon it. I laughed as I read his inane story about his likes and dislikes, his friends and acquaintances—and nothing about the necklace. One of the papers said he had returned to Austria. An American lady was one of his staunch supporters. I forget her name, but I hope she was the lady with the “soft grey hair.”

What a long time it had taken me to reach Bombay! The week I had spent in Yokohama and the long stops at the various ports—not to mention the slow cargo boat—had all added to it. The Baroness Eisenmenger had had time to make two journeys to New York. Of course there was very little time between them. Naturally the papers had been sent to Mrs. Scott by the shorter route, through Europe.

Mrs. Scott returned from the market. She asked me if I was married to Mr. Townsend. When I told her I wasn’t she asked me why the papers insisted that I was. I said: “I suppose it was because I lived with him.” She was speechless for a moment and then she let fly at me. I had ruined Carlo’s and Leopold’s life. I had to laugh at that. Perhaps I might be to blame for what had happened to Carlo, but Leopold’s ruin could never be laid at my door. I had brought disgrace upon my mother and Aunt Vera. I had always thought of myself, never considering other people. Morality was degenerating all over the world.

I didn’t defend myself. It would have been useless. I delivered one last cutting remark. I admit it was nasty, but I let her have it right between the eyes. I said: “It is a sign of age to bay about morality. It isn’t done any more.” I walked down the steps and slammed myself out of the gate. I wasn’t sorry I had said it. I was glad. I wanted to hurt her. It cut her like a knife, for she worked overtime to appear younger than she was. She did everything to produce the illusion of youth. Perhaps you will think I am a cat. Let me meow honestly, anyhow.

I went to a pension on Cuffe Parade. My room had a little balcony overlooking the sea. I could sit on it and watch the gorgeously dressed Parsee women taking their evening stroll. I wrote to Carlo at the address he had given me in Egypt which he said would always reach him. He didn’t receive my letter. He wasn’t in Egypt. The first time I saw him after I left him in New York was last winter in England—and then I had removed myself beyond his confidence, for I was married. I met him at a tea. We never mentioned the necklace. He said he was going to Japan, and I believe he went soon after.

I wrote to a number of my friends in a feverish desire to see if they would take the attitude Mrs. Scott had taken. Many of them did. Some wrote very curt letters letting me see that they thought I had become too notorious. Aunt Vera wrote encouraging letters. She wanted me to get interested in something. Why not write even if I didn’t want to until I felt the old urge come back. It would. She was quite sure. I didn’t write to mother. I don’t believe Aunt Vera told her where I was. If she knew she never wrote to me.

There were several guests in the house. One was an Englishman who was travelling through the East with motor supplies. His name was Charles Breckenridge—“Smoky” to his friends. He was a chain smoker. He would light one cigarette from the other, and he always had a tin of cigarettes in his hand. He was forever dodging the landlady. She would buttonhole him in the hall or on the stairs, and he would invent all manner of excuses to get rid of her.

I was sitting on a bench one night on the parade, watching the sea, when he came and sat down beside me. I remember only one thing he said that night. It was: “If ever I get money enough I’m going to Vienna and have myself rejuvenated.” I think we discussed monkey glands. I could have told him about the lady I met in Vienna who had been rejuvenated, but I am quite sure I didn’t mention her. He wasn’t a young man, neither was he in need of rejuvenation.

I saw him often after that. He would come to my table and have his meals with me while the landlady, who really admired him, glared at us. We drove round Bombay in his car. Sometimes he would stop at a garage and try to sell his motor supplies. I would wait for him in the car. He introduced me to a number of Parsees, who asked us to their houses to dinner or tiffin. We went to the Towers of Silence where the vultures consume the dead Parsees according to the law laid down by Zoroaster. The day we visited the towers two bodies were brought up. I saw a ring of vultures standing round the tower into which the bodies were carried. The ring flopped down inside the tower the moment the bodies were placed in it as if it had been worked by some mechanical device. One moment it stood on the tower, the next it had disappeared. Smoky kept his eye on his watch. When the ring rose again he said: “Just twelve minutes; rather quick work.” I felt nauseated.

He took me to Poona when he went there for business and to dozens of places in the Bombay Presidency. I drove somewhere with him every day. We had tea at the Taj Mahal Hotel or at an Italian restaurant. We sat on the parade in the evenings and watched the colourful pageant which Bombay puts on after the heat of the day.

I wasn’t writing a word. I didn’t feel like a woman any more—not even a middle-aged one or an old one. I felt like something that had been forgotten—something that was just hanging about waiting for nothing in particular. Sometimes this useless drifting was interrupted by moments of intensity when I would sit before my life reviewing it—cursing it—hating it like hell. I would look in the mirror hating my face. Trouble and care were showing on it. It was a coward’s face. It had lost its defiance. You can’t remember moments of great intensity any more than you can remember violent pains—but your face doesn’t forget them.

One night when we were sitting on the parade Smoky asked me to marry him. Night stirs something in man as it does in animals. It is Nature on the prowl—the old instinct of the chase—of hunting the prey. It was a beautiful night. The full moon flung a golden ladder on the sea; the palms tinkled in the breeze; little intimate sounds came from the houses along the parade. Smoky puffed away at his cigarette and told me he had no money—not a dog’s chance of ever having any—but the feeling he had for me he knew must be love. He would be in India for some time. We could have a house. He could run to that if I didn’t want too much. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I told him about myself; not with any idea of confession—I haven’t the fool notion that matrimony is a reason for pawing over the rubbish heap of your past. I wanted to talk about myself and hear how it sounded. I painted myself as black as possible. I got a diabolic pleasure out of doing it. When I had finished Smoky said: “By God, you haven’t lost any time, have you?”

He said he couldn’t see how I had let the Archduchess down. If she was asking a lot more than the jewel was worth she couldn’t expect anyone would be fool enough to pay it. The Customs were pretty fly. They usually knew the value of things. I told him not to try to defend me. I didn’t see the way to defend myself. It wasn’t so much the Archduchess as Carlo I had let down.

I promised to marry Smoky before we left the bench. I told him I might never love him—and that I might love somebody else some time. He laughed and said he would chance it. His saying that he would chance it wasn’t because of his belief in his power to hold me. When I came to know him better I saw that he never thought of consequences. He did whatever he wanted to do at the moment and left the rest to fate.

Sitting on the edge of my bed that night I wondered if I had done the right thing. I had made so many mistakes, one more wouldn’t make much difference. I felt reckless. There was no such thing as happiness. There was only the longing for it. There was no such thing as attainment. There was only longing for one thing after another. If we got to Paradise wouldn’t we find it less than our dream of it?

We were married at the registry office. Our wedding breakfast was nothing more exciting than our usual dinner at the pension. We left for Madras the following day after paying our separate bills. We had said nothing at the pension about our marriage.

We rented a furnished house in Madras. American missionaries had built it. It would have done very well in some American suburb, but it wasn’t the sort of house for Madras. We had a good staff of servants. There was a pretty garden full of flowers and birds out of catalogues; they didn’t look real.

Dreamful and drowsy I lay on the veranda day after day watching my servants work; seeing their huge families pass in and out of the compound. How well India obeys Siva’s injunction to worship his phallus! I named all the trees in the compound. The trees which the Indians tap for toddy I named after friends I had known who were always drunk. I felt as reluctant to leave my slumber as India herself. She drowsed with her gods and her lingam and I drowsed in the enchantment of it all. I watched modernity turn tail and flee without a regret. I watched the Indian girls—mere children—playing with passion and lust as other children played with their dolls. There was nothing carnal in the game. I saw how happy the Indian woman was doing nothing but giving life. She had no desires but the desire for male offspring.

Western life must have love and hate and jealousy. If some sentimental goodness ever weeded these out of the world—the Western world—it would be a dull place, but the East could be happy without them. In the West love keeps the body young but makes the face old. In the East the body and face age equally. In the West it was the worthless women who made slaves of men. In the East man was free of the ties of love. The followers of Vishnu wore two white lines on their foreheads with a red line in the centre. The red line showed that woman had come between God and man. Did she ever come between God and man in the East? It seemed impossible.

Holy men came into the compound sometimes, begging. They could vomit at will to arouse sympathy. At first I gave them anything so they would go away. Then I learned to harden my heart. There was a little shrine at the end of the compound where the servants prayed. It was plastered with cow dung and the marks of bloody hand-prints. Inside, a root usually burned in front of a picture of Kali. A short distance down the road was the grave of a holy man. At night a tiny light burned on it. It was at such shrines some political lunatic would become possessed and deliver a message from the holy one, upon which other lunatics would act. There was a Shivaite temple near the grave. It was filled with the scent of blood, jasmine and Eastern dirt. From the veranda I could see the god in the dim interior. A little palm-thatched village huddled round the temple. It was very noisy at night; the sound of the tom-toms, the guttural voices of the men and the thin pipings of the women were all intensified in the night.

The monsoon took the country by storm and suddenly the compound was washed by a green sea. The heat and the rain brought everything to a luxuriance which was suffocating. The earth fairly staggered under the colour and perfume.

Smoky went out every day to sell his motor supplies. Sometimes I went with him. A few people called. It is customary in India for the new arrivals to call on the old residents. I didn’t follow the custom, so only the really curious called.

The only person I really cared for in Madras was Mother Anthony, the Mother Superior of a convent. No starched head-dress or wimple or nun’s robe could disguise Mother Anthony’s beauty. There was no getting away from it. Nothing could have hidden it. Her skin was like pale ivory faintly tinted with pink. Her eyes were large and very dark. Her lashes, long black crescents, fairly swept her cheeks. Her teeth were perfect, and Leonardo might have painted her smile. Sometimes I was so fascinated watching her exquisite hands—calm hands of beauty and power—moving over the black beads, I wouldn’t hear what she was saying. I wanted to take her out and show her to the world. I suggested it once and was sharply reprimanded. Next to God she loved music. We met because of music. I would go to the convent and listen to the girls playing the music she had taught them. Afterwards I would sit on the veranda with her and we would discuss music and poetry.

In the evenings Smoky and I went out to drive on the Marina, the road by one of the loveliest beaches in the world.

One morning I wrote a poem before I got up. I called it “Exiles.” It was published in the Madras Mail. I felt the old urge was coming back. The poem was a forerunner of it.

Smoky finished his work in Madras and we went to live in Mysore. Some of the servants wanted to come with us. Others didn’t. We decided not to take any of them. Mysore is an Indian state. The city of Mysore is one of the most beautiful spots in India.

We rented a place called the White House. It also belonged to a mission. We had to stay at the hotel until we got it furnished. Smoky let himself go in furnishing. He sent to Madras for rosewood tables and floor lamps. I told him it was foolish to buy such things when we would be leaving the house in a short time. He said he could sell them for as much as he paid for them. He did as a matter of fact. He sold our furniture to the nephew of the Maharajah of Mysore.

I interviewed servants at the hotel, and we moved into the house as soon as it was ready. There was a large compound which had never had much done to it. It was quite weedy and the hedges and bushes hadn’t been cut back for years. Our gardener planted flowers, which were in bloom almost at once—everything grows so rapidly in India.

One day when I was walking through the bazaar I saw a deer tied to a post with such a short piece of rope he could scarcely move his head. After a lot of bargaining I bought him from the silk merchant who owned him for thirty rupees. I took him home and turned him loose in the compound. The gardener looked very distressed when he saw us coming in at the gate. He said the deer would ruin all the flower beds.

Denis—I named the deer Denis—had no wish to ruin the flower beds. He was more interested in the drawing-room. He was determined to come into the house and lie down on the mats. The first time Smoky met Denis he was lying on a mat in the front hall. Smoky called me and said: “Do you see what I do?” When I assured him that Denis was a member of the household he said he thought he was seeing things—people did get queer sometimes in India. We had to measure off a place for Denis with wire net. When we left Mysore the man who bought the furniture took him. Most of the inhabitants—I think they were all on the street—will remember me coaxing our very reluctant Denis to follow me and a dish of beans to the man’s house.

Not long after Denis came to live with us I bought an Airedale. Her name was Betty. She had a pedigree and points, neither of which made the slightest difference to me. I can love a mongrel as much as a well-bred dog. As a matter of fact a mongrel is often more intelligent. Betty grew very fond of Denis. She would take a banana out to him every morning—held very daintily in her teeth so as not to pierce the skin. I have seen her licking his face and sleeping beside him in his shelter. There were only one or two Europeans in Mysore and we saw very little of them. I got acquainted with a high-caste Brahmin lady who used to take me to the palace in her purdah car to visit the Maharanee. I felt furious with the Indian women for submitting to purdah without a murmur. I know there is a certain amount of rebellion amongst Indian women, but it doesn’t seem to reach the higher castes. I am not speaking of the women who have been educated in Europe, and who are, of necessity, in the minority. I described my visits to the Maharanee in my book “Orange Marigolds,” not yet published. The Maharanee, during her married life—over twenty-five years—hadn’t spoken directly with her husband. Anything she wished to say to him had to be passed on by his mother.

In the evenings Smoky and I would sit on our upstairs veranda and watch the lights appear in the Maharajah’s palace. We would listen to the temple bells. How many silvery voices they had! Each one had its own particular tone in the twilight. Some were languid, some a little petulant, some mournful, some impatient. One always seemed louder than others. It would swing out on a note of joy. The air still warm from the afternoon would lie caught in the bushes in the compound.

In spite of the heat and the indolent life about me, my energy came back like an explosion. I was reading a book in my dressing-room when all of a sudden I knew I must work. I threw the book across the room and jumped up. I must write a book about Hinduism. It had been simmering in my mind for years, ever since I lived in Calcutta with Plushy. I must get my facts from the very source. I must witness things before I could write about them—secret things—things most people accepted on hearsay or pieced together from tales heard and bits borrowed from ancient writings. I talked it over with Smoky. He thought I was letting myself in for cholera, plague, and Heaven knew what if I went poking round the villages hoping to witness the secret rites. This is just what I did, however. I borrowed a car from an Indian friend—Smoky needed the car we had—and I took our bearer, who was a loyal servant and quite intelligent. I spoke fairly good Tamil. I had been studying it every day, and my bearer spoke a little English. I also spoke Hindustani which I had learned in Calcutta, but it was very little use to me in the south. I wanted to travel through the Dravidian country. The north had borrowed much of its teaching from the south, and various Mohammedan invasions had interrupted the flow of pure Hinduism in the north. The attitude towards women in the north suggested Mohammedan influence. The great god male is worshipped in the south—but not as he is worshipped in the north. In Malabar, where the women are beautiful and very gay, man has no superior position. If he doesn’t behave the woman can order him to leave the home and she can divorce him if she likes.

During menstruation the woman of the south retires to the menstrual hut, as she is considered unclean. I discovered that this retirement is decided by the woman, who frequently retires when it is quite unnecessary, for the purpose of meeting lovers who are not welcome at her home. I watched the blood orgies of jungle tribes. From the fork of a tree I saw the female principle worshipped with all its filthy accompaniments. This takes place in the jungle at night. It is seldom done now as secrecy must be maintained. If you know where and when the rite is to be performed—getting information is difficult—you can hide yourself away quite easily. I saw a caste put meat before the tiger god, a caste which deifies the animals and trees and doesn’t worship the usual gods. I lived in rest-houses. Some of them hadn’t been opened for years. I was in terror of meeting a cobra when we arrived at night. With a torch I would inspect every nook and corner of the house. I refused to sleep on a mattress in case some creature had bored his way into it and might take it into his head to appear when I was asleep. The bearer would put my bed roll on the wire or the rope if the rest-house didn’t run to anything so elaborate as a bed-spring.

The result of my wanderings and observations was my book, “The Land of the Lingam,” which I wrote under the pseudonym of Arthur Miles. It was published in England. The following letter was written by an Indian in Bombay. What the reviewers said of the book—and they were kind—was as nothing compared to this letter. There is no higher praise than the appreciation of simple people for whom a work is due.

Ardeshir Jamshedji Changi Mistry.

B/4, New Sitaram Buildings, 282, Princess Street, Bombay, 10th August, 1934.

Arthur Miles, Esq., London.

Dear Sir,

We are perfect strangers, still I presume to address you this letter. Let me introduce myself to you. I am a Parsee born in Bombay. I have passed my life of sixty-eight years there. I had no chance of receiving University education. I have served a solicitor’s firm for more than fifty years. I take interest in learning. I had been a member of the Anthropological Society, Bombay. I have travelled in India from Calcutta to Darjeeling, to Lahore, to Cape Comorin, to Ceylon, to Madras, to Bombay. I am no stranger to your home. I have seen England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy. I stayed in London for five months.

I have read your book “ The Land of the Lingam,” 1933. I write this letter to congratulate you on writing same. I do take interest in teaching of different religions. I have read something of Hindoo Religion and of the Lingam. I know that much has been written on the subject of Hindoo Religion and they lie scattered here and there. Books on particular Hindoo religious subjects are many. I am not a scholar and do not presume to know much still I believe there is no one book which gives a complete idea of the Hindoo religion except your book “The Land of the Lingam.” I take much interest in it. Hence my wish to thank you for your trouble in gathering materials arranging them and write thereon.

The reason why I appreciate your trouble is that I myself have tried my pen over some five small books and hence have personal knowledge as how and whence to collect facts and figures to arrange them and write thereon. You being an European gentleman who do not come personally in contact with the persons of the different castes treated in the book you have to gather your information through Indians only as I know (and as you have personally stated in your book) the Hindoos are the last people in the world to give any information to an European on the subject of their religion on which they are so keen. Your book not only contains details of services performed in the temple openly but also of those performed with the greatest secrets in jungles, e.g. “Sakti Puja.”

To be frank with you, when I read some part of your book I thought you had got it written by some Hindoo scholar on a remuneration, as I have heard others do it. But after going through the whole of it I changed my thought that the book was written by you with materials gathered together from different sources. You must have employed several agents and paid them freely to collect details. The book cannot be a financial success, but you live behind the memory of your connection with India for the future. If the title page and cover is lost then your name disappears from the book and one will wonder as to who was the author thereof.

As you have taken so much trouble to write this book relating to religion in the south of India I take liberty to suggest your trying to write the second volume of the same book and treat the Hindoo religion and customs of the north of India so as to finish the whole book. The principal centres will be Benares, Puri, Dwarka and others.

I have heard that there is a regular market for sale of Hindoo girls in a village in Kathiawar. There the different developed parts of the body and the muscles of the girls are actually pointed out to would-be buyers to induce a purchase. At other places they perform “Race Lila” ceremony. The girls and married women go and throw their bodice (called “choli,” a small garment) with peculiar signs thereon in a small room pel mel. The males go pick up a bodice. The owner of the bodice enjoys with such male.

I am glad to have an opportunity to appreciate your work and once more thank you for producing same.

Yours faithfully.

(signed) Ardeshir Jamshedji Chanji Mistry.

I went home occasionally during my travels, but only for a day or two. When I finally returned, Smoky told me he found it inconvenient to work from Mysore, and he thought we had better rent a house in Bangalore. I was rather fed up, for I wanted to get to work at once on my new book. We drove over to Bangalore—about eighty-five miles—and rented a house. It was the house Winston Churchill lived in when he was with the Army in India. It stood in a huge compound full of gorgeous old trees. It was then we decided to sell our furniture and to hire furniture for the new house. It is customary to hire furniture in India; any number of people do it, especially if they are not intending to stay long in the country. We hired enough furniture for the whole house—six rooms—for twenty-five rupees (about two pounds) a month. We moved our luggage and Betty to Bangalore. Betty was very unhappy at first. She searched the compound over for Denis and then refused to eat for several days.

I got to work at once, writing feverishly, steadily, as I always do when I start any new work. I had a writing-room at the end of the house overlooking the flame of the gulmahur trees. I didn’t want to “show off” in my writing. My subject called for a little display of knowledge, and I had to be careful to state my facts as simply as possible. Writers who show off before the public with their quotations, their obvious familiarity with ancient art, their unnecessary attention to culture make me sick. Youthful writers don’t make this mistake—they make others, of course; they are not so smooth. Smooth writing is an accomplishment of the older writer; but writing can be so smooth it passes over you without you feeling it. I would write about a thousand words and then tear them up. This went on for several days before I got into the stride I wanted—then I went on like wild-fire. Writing a novel or a poem is so different. You know from the first what you want to do. I had to stop writing at tea-time, for Smoky would come in and insist upon it.

One day two Brahmans came to tiffin with us. They couldn’t eat anything which resembled Siva’s lingam (phallus). This ruled out potatoes, cucumbers and carrots. We used to eat a lot of vegetables in Bangalore because the meat wasn’t very good. We had vegetable curry and salad the day the Brahmans came. They had a plate of rice and a cup of tea while we devoured our curry.

You wonder what a nation which can’t sit at table without having its mind on its gods’ genitals is going to do in the next evolutionary shuffle. You know there is an elemental battle waging—the gods and demons in revolt against the Europeans—and you wonder what the outcome will be, because you know the gods and demons can’t lose.

One of our Sudra friends—the Sudras are the fourth in the order of castes—had refused to pay the rent of the bungalow he occupied because his landlord—a silk merchant—had slandered him. As a matter of fact, he hadn’t paid the rent for two years. The landlord, after paying his solicitor a sum far in advance of the two years’ rent, had obtained an ejection order from the court.

The Sudra found another home; but before he left his former residence he bought a god—a cheap stone god—from a maker of idols, and had it placed on an altar in the hall. The priest was called in to purify it with cow’s urine and ghee (melted butter). After this holy ceremony the bungalow became a shrine. No Hindu would dream of disturbing a shrine. A consecrated god can’t be removed for any reason. The landlord was out of luck.

I wrote this story and sold it to Nash’s Magazine. I called it “The Stone God’s Temple.” Before selling it to Nash’s I took it to a literary agency. This firm told me it would be useless to show the story in England as no magazine would take it because it was entirely “native.” I can only think that literary agents are not infallible.

In the East you are for ever becoming aware of the diversity of life. What you detest in the West is adored by the East, and the reverse is also true. It isn’t possible for Eastern and Western ideas to approach. It is quite another thing with Eastern and Western people; for at the centre of being is an undiscovered something which is the same, in all of us. It may be a tiny bit of sympathy which lives under all the perverted complexities we have built up to confound simplicity. We don’t like the simple, the direct. We want to believe that life is mysterious—that it is some peculiar idiosyncrasy we can never understand. If we could work out the problem and find that the answer was uncomplicated we would be wretched.

We were invited to a very elaborate Hindu wedding in Bangalore. Wedding ceremonies and the receptions take place in a temporary structure—called a pandal—outside the house of the bridegroom. The structure is decorated with palm branches, bamboo and green leaves, symbolic of continuous spring and tenderness. A lot of glittering green paper and lotus flowers were used to decorate the pandal we visited. At my request we were permitted to go to the pandal before the ceremony and watch the preparations for the bridegroom. He sat on a mat under a canopy of banana leaves while the women, relations of his family, anointed each part of his body with saffron water. They removed his turban and stroked his hair with their saffroned hands. Ranged round him were saucers of wheat, barley, rice, dried peas, mangoes and shredded coco-nut—these indicated continuous prosperity. After the women had finished with him he was to have an oil bath. At the bride’s house women were anointing her in the same manner; but it would have been impossible to obtain permission to witness her preparations. While the bridegroom was being attended to, dancing girls from the temple were dancing to the accompaniment of violin, harmonium and tom-toms. The tom-tom players wore white clips on their fingers. A man beat the cymbals. The orchestra sang in various keys as one girl after another put on some special dance between performances of the entire assembly—you would never dream of referring to it as a ballet. The bridegroom slipped out of his oil bath, and when he returned the dancing girls and the orchestra formed a procession, which he followed to the temple. Women trailed along at the rear of the procession carrying gaily decorated pots of grain. We followed also. The bridegroom went alone into the temple, the crowd waited outside, singing and shouting. A priest came out of the temple and gave me a champa flower from a tray of smouldering sandal-wood He took the tray back into the temple, and I could see him passing it round the god’s head. There were nine stars—grouped—at the entrance of the temple, round which some of the guests passed nine times. These were the stars of Siva.

The procession went back to the pandal, followed by the bridegroom, the women and the wailing crowd which had collected at the temple. The bridegroom stood under another canopy of banana leaves. Two men held a dhotie before his face and the bride suddenly appeared and stood on the other side of the dhotie. She was dressed in white cotton—to denote humiliation. She would be gorgeously dressed later at the reception. A priest mumbled certain mantrams—prayers—and the dhotie was lowered. They saw each other—supposedly—for the first time. The priest passed the bridegroom a string, which he knotted and passed over the bride’s head. The bride put another string on the bridegroom—and the deed was done.

The crowd threw rice in the direction of the couple. A priest passed through the audience dispensing saffron to any who held out their hands. The men who accepted it were supposed to rub it on their bodies. No woman held out her hand for saffron. The bridegroom had given the bride a garland of jasmine strung on a gold wire with precious stones—diamonds, rubies and sapphires. She had put it round her neck over the string. This was the cue for everyone to decorate himself with a garland, for which I thanked God, Siva and Vishnu, for the odours of sweat, rancid butter and cow-dung had almost asphyxiated me. Most of the men had rubbed the dung of the sacred cow on their bodies before coming to the wedding.

I had a letter from Aunt Vera. She hoped I was happy. I had written to her soon after my marriage and told her about Smoky. She said she had hoped for years that some really big love would come into my life. I was a woman, she thought, to whom love was necessary. Love or religion was necessary to all women; but there were women to whom love was the very sun of life. If it didn’t shine on them they faded and withered. Of course I had my work and she was so glad I could never leave it for very long. She had received letters from several friends—she mentioned their names—who couldn’t understand why I had left New York immediately after the sale of the necklace. Why hadn’t I stayed and faced it with Leopold? It was out at last. Aunt Vera had said it. It had never been out of my mind for a moment. I should have refused to leave. I knew it. I had known it every second since I left. It was the real reason my friends had forsaken me, and not, as they said, because I had become too notorious.

I showed Aunt Vera’s letter to Smoky. He said he wished to God she would stop writing me such depressing letters. She did. She never wrote to me again. She died five days after I received her letter. Her husband cabled me. Everything went black when I received the cable. The next thing I knew I was lying on the sofa and my bearer was fanning me. I would have gone to pieces for days if Smoky hadn’t shamed me into pulling myself together. I made myself work on my book. When my brain, eyes and hands were too weary to do any more I went out and walked for miles, scarcely noticing where I went.

One day Smoky told me that business couldn’t be any worse. The boycott was too much for British goods. It was useless to offer anything British. As a matter of fact, it was absurd our trying to stay in India. God knew when the market would revive. He had written to the firms he represented. They agreed with him that Indian business was dead. The Indians were doing any beastly act in the name of non-violence. They used that cat-call to cover some of the lowest cowardice you could imagine. For example, in one of the garages an Indian had picked up a Morris piston; when he noticed it was of English manufacture he threw it on the stone floor and cracked it. The ridiculous controversy between the Indians and the English was at its highest pitch. True, the Indians had suffered long humiliation, but their revenge was of all their sufferings the most pathetic. They had cut off their noses to spite their faces. Under their boasting they could hear the muffled voice of Truth. They knew the so-called wealth of India was a myth. The great picturesque theatre was decked out with tinsel and glitter—but her revenues were too trivial to mention. She wasn’t worth robbing. The statement made by them that they could pay England back every penny she had spent in the country—and that they would be glad to—was absurd. If England had any doubt about it let her call the Indian bluff. The Indian Princes were very rich, but that was quite another matter. God knew the Indians had a grievance, but it wasn’t the one they were howling about.

Smoky was working entirely on commission, so the sooner we left India the better. Life in India is not cheap at any time, not in any part of the country which is suitable for Europeans. If you can save on rent and furnishings, the number of servants you must keep more than makes up for it. The days are long past—long before my time—when you could get dozens of Indian servants for what you would pay one English servant. We wondered where we could go. After talking for hours about the living expenses in various countries, we decided to go to Malta. Smoky said it was the cheapest place in the world. He didn’t think there was much chance of getting a job in England—nor in Malta, for that matter; but as Malta was much cheaper than England we might go there until something turned up.

The furniture we had hired went back to the man who rented it to us on women’s heads. We packed our trunks and sent them to Bombay on the train. We drove the six or seven hundred miles in our car. I am glad we didn’t go by the railway, for our trunks cost 130 rupees—ten pounds—and we spent only, with food and lodgings at rest-houses, including a new tyre—110 rupees.

Our weeping servants garlanded us. They had bought a small wreath for Betty also. I hated leaving the poor things, for I had no idea when they could find another memsahib to employ them.

Betty enjoyed travelling. She was a social dog and she liked meeting people who made a fuss of her.

We sold our Armstrong-Siddeley in Bombay for 1,000 rupees—about £74—which Smoky said was £20 more than he had paid for it in the secondhand market in England.

Chapter XVI

What a time we had with Betty! The quarantine laws of Malta are quite strict concerning dogs, especially dogs from India. We had to leave her in quarantine with a hard-hearted peasant woman who was going to look after her. She actually cried when I left her. Every day I went to the quarantine with her food, in spite of the fact that I was paying the woman to provide it.

We had a room on the top floor of one of the hotels. It was drab and poorly furnished, with ugly old-fashioned pieces which looked as if they had stood on their same spots for generations. You knew they were never moved for sweeping. It fairly made you sneeze to look at them. But the room wasn’t as discouraging as the stairs you had to climb to get to it. There is only one place in the world where the stairs are worse than those of Malta; that is Bagdad. In both places the steps are far apart, and a comfortable slant to a staircase has never been taken into consideration. Lifts are few in Malta. My knees were troubling me again. When I got up to our room—having mounted in the dot-and-carry-one fashion—I was quite done up. If I met anyone on the stairs I would smile and try to hurry as if going upstairs was my favourite indoor sport. The pity an infirmity excites is intolerable. I had no intention of letting people know that I had injured my knees and it hurt me to walk. They told me at the quarantine office that I could take Betty if we had a house. They wouldn’t permit her to go to the hotel. I would have to bring her to the quarantine (which was the municipal slaughterhouse) for inspection twice a week for six months.

We rented the first house we could find, a dingy little box of a place at St. Julians. I brought Betty there before it was furnished. We furnished it in a day from a little shop which made furniture according to the customer’s designs. The customers who designed—and left on the shopkeeper’s hands—what we purchased had been quite conventional.

I engaged a spreading-hipped peasant girl, who lived on the same street, to come in by the day and “do” for us. She washed the dishes and the tiled floors and took anything that wasn’t nailed down. Like Stephano, the Greek boy of Corfu, she expressed no partiality. Smoky and I took turns with the cooking. Somewhere—I never inquired into it—Smoky had learned to cook. He could cook anything; even sweets. There was a good market in Malta. If you spoke Maltese you could buy things very cheaply. If you spoke Italian you were charged a little more; but English let you in for all you could pay. I shopped in Italian. The Maltese language sounds more like Arabic than Italian, but it resembles both languages.

An officer belonging to the Navy lived across the street. He was a very joyous soul. One night he brought a donkey home to dinner. From my little balcony—which was almost in his dining-room, the street was so narrow—I could see the donkey walking round the table taking food from the guests; his head decorated with flowers. When the dinner was over the host got out his bagpipes and walked up and down the street playing them, while his guests cheered him from the window. I talked with him only once. On that occasion he came to our house to borrow a bottle of whisky. Fortunately we had a bottle of Haig which hadn’t been opened.

Smoky had been right when he said that Malta was the cheapest place in the world to live in. The first house we rented cost us eighteen pounds a year. We rented a charming villa with a beautiful garden afterwards for twenty pounds a year. The first house, had we known it, was worth only about ten pounds. The servant question is difficult, but were it not for this and the restrictions put upon your movements by the size of the island—it is very small—Malta would be a charming place to live in. It is intensely Catholic. I have heard it called “the last stronghold of Roman Catholicism.” There is no doubt about the priest being a very real power in the daily life of the people. His word is law. He settles all problems from birth to death. As you drive round the island on feast-days and Sundays you are continually held up by processions of priests escorting the effigy of the local saint. The peasant bares his head and kneels until the procession passes. I saw a most impressive Good Friday parade when the utterly devout wore masks and dragged heavy iron chains through the streets.

Malta has been occupied by many nations, and each nation has left her some of its customs. Rome, Carthage, the Arabs, the Knights of St. John, France and England have contributed something to Malta. Napoleon—always true to form—took the silver doors of the island’s churches to furnish coin for his soldiers. He stayed only a week. Then he turned the island over to the man he left in charge. He lived in the present post office, which was, before his time, the palace of one of the Knights of St. John.

When we were in Malta Nationalism was as contagious as the ’flu. It was talked everywhere. The Maltese Parliament seemed to be for ever putting its house in order. The Church frequently threatened all who put their faith in Parliament with excommunication. The intelligentsia didn’t know what it wanted. The peasants were willing to leave everything to the decision of the priests. The Italian language was used in the courts. We were to know more about the courts before we left. Betty achieved fame on the island—or she had it thrust upon her. Whichever way it was, she landed us in the courts.

Our servant, Jessie, soon began to slight her work. She wasn’t naturally clean and I had to keep after her. The last straw was added to my burden when she took my toothbrush to clean the stove. In spite of her telling me that she could wash the black out of it so that I could use it again, I sacked her. Smoky and I did all the work after that. Several acquaintances promised to find us a new servant, but no servant came to ring the cow-bell above our door. I suppose Jessie told her friends that I was too particular.

Smoky tried to sell his motor supplies, but no garage was buying. He wrote to several firms in England, only to be told that England was full of unemployed, and there were dozens of applicants for every post. I felt useless. Why couldn’t I do something to help? I must make my writing less knowledgeable. I got my book out again. Would it ever be finished? I would finish it before I began another piece of work. If only I could sell it I could help Smoky. He had a small monthly income—almost nothing—left to him by his sister. I racked my brain for a helpful idea. I even thought of becoming a medium. People were so gullible when it came to messages given in trance, spiritual healing and the like. I had been to a European medium when we were in India, who was healing people and giving them messages from their dear departed. She found for me several nondescript ancestors. I have no idea where these respectable souls could have fitted into my scarlet family. She convinced me of one thing—that I could put on a show as good as hers any time.

In spite of our insecurity, we were not unhappy. My knees were better and I was walking without difficulty. With decent health you can always secure some sort of happiness. It is bodily suffering which makes every effort useless. Smoky thought we should move from St. Julians. He had never liked the street, and after he found out that we could get a better house for the same price, or a little more, he was determined to live in a less congested part of the island.

I wanted to live in Citta Vecchia. Ever since we had arrived in Malta I had had my eye on Citta Vecchia, the ancient capital. I couldn’t understand why the discoverers hadn’t found it. You know the discoverers who trail across France, Italy and Spain each year and whisper into your ear the names of little places unknown to the usual tourist. How often you meet discoverers at the foot of the Pyrenees who tell you of some Moorish interior, or of some theory, entirely their own, of the old Basque game Pelota. In the enchanted parts of France—Avignon, Orange, Arles, Carcassonne—haven’t they told you of something hidden until they came? “In a little allé behind the Cathedral, my dear, we just stumbled upon it, a bronze door, such carving; do see it.”

No one discovers Citta Vecchia. The tourists who rush out there during their few hours on shore see one more church, one more ancient battlement, one more gateway, a few more ancient palaces. The old city has its secrets, incredible, remote. It draws an ingenuous expression over its medieval face. A guide explains the Cathedral. He doesn’t tell you that it stands on the spot where the villa of Publius once stood. His words echo through the vast stillness. How often the church has heard the beat of them! “Here is an altar which survived the earthquake of the tenth century. The Knights brought those candlesticks from Rhodes. Those paintings . . .” And then an interminable list of names of the painters. What he can’t explain to you is the peace of the old church—a sturdy dimensional peace—a peace you can lean against, as against a cool marble column.

They were excavating at Citta Vecchia when we were in Malta—excavating under the ancient prison; digging up facts to enable historians to write more histories—to encourage compilers to arrange precise lists of dates for future Maltese children to stumble over and forget.

At night the old city takes you to her heart if you belong to the initiated. She lets you see the procession crossing the bridge over the disused moat and disappearing in the silent narrow streets. There go the old builders of the city, the Hebraic money-lenders of Carthage, the Romans, the Saracens, the Crusaders bearing on high their banner, the cross, their faces grim with determination; Joan of Naples and her latest favourite—Joan who gave a city for her life, only to wonder later if it were good business—perhaps that other Joan, the shadowy one, who became Zacharias to appease the conscience of Clement VIII; Napoleon on his brief visit, looking over the island he had taken. On they go; slender, graceful men in black capes, snatches of song on their thin lips, paper-thin blades in their belts—silent women, passion-pale, bent upon intrigue or prayer. When they have passed in you follow them. You feel the city enclose you like a black velvet wrap, intimate, protecting.

I tried to rent a house in Citta Vecchia; literally a piece of the ancient wall. “But it has no drains,” the bewildered agent told me. “It has no lights.” I told him I wasn’t renting drains and lights. I was renting poetry, romance, impalpable secrets of the past. A shrug was his only answer as he led the way upstairs. His further protestations were lost on me, for I stepped out on a balcony which overlooked the finest view in Malta. There was an arresting dome, roads like silver ribbons winding to the sea, colourful fields which looked like Persian carpets, and somewhere, remotely distant, Valetta and Vittorioso. After the first glamour of the picture you pick out the details—the way a steeple paints itself on the sky, the little cream-coloured houses that huddle together like happy children, the dwarfed Peter Pan vegetation which simply refuses to grow up, the terraced rock which divides the land into portions like pieces of a patchwork quilt. It is stamped on my mind like all views I have loved.

The agent said that if anyone could live in such a house he could rent it for nine pounds a year; but he would have to spend two or three hundred to have it connected with the main sewer. The balcony I had been standing on wasn’t safe. He had tried to warn me, but I hadn’t heard him.

I needn’t tell you that this house is still unoccupied. I had a letter from a Maltese friend about a month ago. She was joking about “Gervée’s House “ and saying it would be always waiting for me. Quite seriously I mean to have it if ever I can get enough money to have a little plumbing done and the balcony repaired.

Mrs. Attard, a charming Maltese lady, finally found a house for us. Her husband was Inspector of Roads. He knew of all the available places. He would tell her about them and she would look them over to see if they were suitable for us. The house was called Villa Belloguardo. It was in Casel Attard, a village in the centre of the island. It had six large rooms and a hall. The hall was really another room. There was a flat roof where we could sit in the evenings, and a walled garden.

I followed the auctions—it might be more truthful if I said I followed one of the auctioneers—until I got it furnished. The auctioneer’s name was Gingle Littlejohn. How could I resist a name like that? As a matter of fact, I liked the way he managed his auctions, and the way he knocked things down to me when he knew I really had to have them. I furnished the entire villa—we brought very few pieces from our first house—for seventy pounds.

We ate our dinners under a pomegranate tree in the garden. The stars balanced on the topmost branches like ornaments on a Christmas tree. Once a pomegranate decided to jump down on a guest’s head. It quite knocked her out for a moment. She glared at me when she recovered. I am sure she thought I had arranged it. Climbing geraniums ran up and down the walls, and rosemary bordered the stone pathways.

We had a servant who came in every day from ten until five. She could cook a little. She taught me how to make Maltese curry out of fruits. It was a delicious curry. I added the recipe to the fifty-odd curries I already knew how to make.

Vennette Herron came to visit us. John Murray had just published her book, “Italian Love.” She was interested in occult matters—intensely interested. She went in for astral flights and automatic writing. She longed to see a ghost. She would go anywhere if there was a remote chance of seeing one. I like to make my friends happy, so I produced a ghost for her. Vennette, will you ever forgive me when you read this? I wanted to tell you before, but you loved your ghost so much I hated to exorcise it.

There was an old house in Bircacara a village near Casel Attard—which had been unoccupied for years. Lord Nelson had lived in it when he had visited Malta. The peasants said the garden was haunted by a white figure. Mr. Attard got the key of the house and we went there—Mr. and Mrs. Attard, Vennette, Smoky and I—one evening in that half-hour of amber dusk before the Maltese night. It took some time to open the door with the rusty key. It was quite dark inside the house and we had forgotten to bring a torch. We got out—all but Smoky—through a window on to an upstairs veranda which overlooked the garden. As we stood there talking a white figure glided across the garden. Vennette clutched my arm and pointed to it. Her eyes were shining like two stars. “At last,” she said, “I have seen a ghost.” She gave me a little hug and said she was so happy. She had always known that some time she would see a ghost. It had been too wonderful.

Not to be outdone in the ghostly entertainment, Mr. Attard had slipped out when Smoky joined us on the veranda, and, wrapping himself in the sheet Smoky had used, he, too, crossed the garden and stood under a tree. “It is another one,” Vennette said, “not so tall as the first.” Smoky was easily four inches taller than Mr. Attard. Mrs. Attard whispered to me that her husband was a very clumsy ghost. Like most people who are determined to believe in spirit manifestation, Vennette hadn’t noticed that one or the other of the men was absent when the ghost walked.

Sometimes we had dinner on the roof, when Smoky or I felt ambitious enough to carry the dishes upstairs. The servant, Mary, left before dinner. She always washed the dinner things with the breakfast dishes in the morning. It was so restful stretched out on our long chairs on the roof in the evening after the heat and glare of the day. With a light on a little table beside her chair, Vennette would read us some of her short stories. One evening she read a story she called “The Golden Bridge.” It was fantastic, tenuous, delicate as the gauze wing of a butterfly—one of those lovely things that never can find a publisher. We are apt to doubt our inner thoughts until someone has put them down on paper. Then we realize that someone has thought as we did—that the strange ideas which wouldn’t take form in our mind have a definite existence of their own. Sometime creative art will prove that the illusions are phases of fife. I am sure Vennette found it a lot more exciting living with imaginary people than living with real ones. I know she looked right over our heads sometimes without seeing us.

We took her to the Hypogeum one day. The Hypogeum is a megalithic temple—a relic of the Stone Age. In one of the caves the oracle had stood to interpret the dreams of the Stone Age people who slept on little stone benches round the caves. Vennette wanted permission—which fortunately couldn’t be given—to sleep one night in the caves. Water was constantly dripping on to the stones; and while she might have had an interesting dream, she might also have got pneumonia. I wrote a story about the Hypogeum which I called “Hannibal’s Gold.” The fiction editor of the Evening Standard offered to publish it if I would change the ending. No new ending revealed itself to me, so the story wasn’t published.

I spoke to the librarian of the garrison library in Malta about getting my book, “Dying Flame,” for the library. He had it read, but the committee decided it was too immoral for Malta. When anything happened of this sort Smoky would say that he had been mistaken about Malta. It might be cheap, but it was a hell of a place to live in. He wished to God he had gone to England. Smoky was fed up because he was idle. It was making him bad-tempered.

My corset changed one of the laws of Malta. I sent to England for a corset, for which I paid the Customs duty at the post office. The corset was too long, so I sent it back to England. When the shorter corset arrived I had to pay the duty again, in spite of explaining to the postmaster that I had simply exchanged the goods. He told me that Malta had no law to cope with the exchange of merchandise.

I saw no reason why I should pay for the same thing twice, so I wrote to the Governor and told him that I must have a corset which fitted me even if it meant exchanging it. I pointed out that it would be very expensive to be rightly corseted in Malta unless the first garment you received was quite satisfactory. He must have agreed with me, for he wrote to the Customs. The Customs sent for me and refunded the money which had been collected upon the second arrival of the corset. The man I saw laughingly told me that my corset had changed the law.

Betty wanted to get married. I looked about for a suitable dog. A warder of the prison had a rather fine dog whom he called Biff. We discussed the possibilities of mating Betty and Biff, and the warder said he must have two puppies for the service of his dog. I agreed, and he brought Biff to our villa.

Before Betty’s puppies were born I would meet Biff on the streets, miles from the prison, wandering round like a lost soul. On these occasions I would get him some food at a butcher’s shop or take him home with me. Twice I went to the warder and asked him to look after the dog. Several friends told me he was unkind to animals. He neglected to feed them, and he was known to beat them for no offence whatever. I decided that he wasn’t to have Betty’s puppies. I went to him and told him my decision and offered him a stud fee. He refused to take it. He said I had agreed to give him two puppies and he meant to have them.

When the puppies were born—seven of them—we had to hire two foster-mothers because Betty couldn’t feed them. She treated the foster-mother dogs as if they were servants. Whenever they wanted to go out for a run she drove them back to the puppies. She reminded me of a society woman employing a wet-nurse. When the puppies were old enough to eat I gave them—all but two—to friends I knew would be kind to them. The two I kept were to be given to a friend later, when she had moved and was settled into her new house.

In the meantime a representative of the court came to our villa with an order to seize two Airedale puppies. Betty and the puppies were in the garden at the time. The two puppies I was keeping for my friend looked nothing like Betty. They grew to look like her in time, but as puppies they looked like Irish terriers. The man looked from them to Betty and asked Smoky if they were Airedale puppies. “You should know,” Smoky said. “Do they look like Airedale puppies?” The man had to admit that he knew nothing about dogs. He kept asking Smoky questions which Smoky evaded. He asked me if they were Airedales, and I said that he had better be sure they were before he took them. He couldn’t make up his mind, so he left without the puppies. As soon as he was well out of the way I took the puppies to my friend. She hadn’t moved into her new house, but she understood the situation and said she would have them looked after.

Poor Smoky was summoned to appear in court. Malta is very Oriental and a husband is responsible for his wife’s actions. I went again to the warder and asked him to accept the stud fee. He refused as before. Smoky asked to have the case tried in English. The lawyers wouldn’t consent to such a departure from custom. The case must be tried in Italian. The fact that Malta was a British possession made no difference whatever. There was an epidemic of nationalism at the time and hatred was in full blast. The opposing lawyer was very hostile. He threw his weight about better than Smoky’s lawyer, and Smoky knew from the beginning that the case would go to the opposition. It turned out that Biff belonged to the governor of the prison, and the warder simply looked after him. When the governor was asked where he got the dog he said that Biff had been left with him by a departing naval officer and never claimed.

The maid I had dismissed for blacking the stove with my toothbrush was a witness for the other side. I suppose they gave her a shilling to say something against me, although she had left us long before the puppies were born.

Smoky made a statement in English which was taken down in Italian, and the case was postponed. The reason for the delay wasn’t quite clear. Smoky’s lawyer told him that he thought he would be fined five pounds, plus the expenses of the court.

Smoky was very angry when he came home from the court. He went about the villa banging doors and ordering Betty out of his way. I told him not to take it out on the dog; if he had anything to say he could say it to me. He said it. I was so damned impulsive I was always getting someone into trouble. Why in hell hadn’t I given the warder the puppies when I had promised them? It wasn’t up to me to interfere with the way other people treated their dogs. It was none of my damn’ business. What sense was there in England pretending to govern Malta when English couldn’t be spoken in the courts? Neither could Maltese be spoken. Why didn’t Britain hand the place over to Mussolini and have done with it?

When he had got it all off his mind he refused further to speak to me for a week. During that week I got a lot of my book written. There was nothing to stop for. We were cooking and eating our meals separately. The inactive life Smoky was obliged to live was to blame for his sulking. He was hating Malta more every day. The place was getting on his nerves. Whenever I mentioned its terraced beauty or the charm of Citta Vecchia, he would say, “It’s a cheap place to live in; that’s all there is to it.”

One evening he sat watching me writing. I had felt his eyes on me for some time. They were interfering with my thoughts. Finally he said, “It’s about time you came out of the dumps.” He didn’t wait for me to say anything. His voice, which had been resting for the week, made up for lost time. He found fault with everything on the island. Why hadn’t we stayed in India? The boycott would have finished some time. Might as well mark time in India as in Malta. Of course I didn’t remind him that he had said marking time in India was much more expensive. After a while he cooled down—soothed perhaps by his incessant smoking—and talked about going to England. He might find a job if he were on the spot. Writing letters was useless. I said I would see Gingle Littlejohn and ask him to auction our furniture. We had rented the villa for six months, and our time was almost up.

Mr. Littlejohn advertised the auction in the local paper and put a notice on the villa. In three days he was sitting at a table in the hall with his hammer in his hand. The auction was extraordinary. Things which were not worth twopence brought big prices. Good things went for nothing. A collection of Hungarian etchings went for a pound, while a collection of cheap prints cut out of a Christmas annual and framed with passe-partout bindings brought seven pounds. A counterpane I had bought in India for three rupees sold for four pounds, but a water set of Bohemian glass brought no more than a glass jug which had been purchased for a shilling.

We went to stay with the friend who had taken the two puppies. She was to have Betty also. It was awful, leaving Betty, but she couldn’t have borne the long period of quarantine in England. My friend loved dogs. She had moved into her new house, and there was a room for the dogs. There was to be nothing in it but their three beds. She still has the three dogs. The puppies are bigger than Betty now.

The day before we were to leave on the Knight of Malta for Syracuse—we were going overland—the court put an injunction on Smoky’s departure because the famous dog case was still pending. Smoky was furious. He went to his lawyer and asked him if he could pay the other lawyer the five pounds he had mentioned and arrange to settle the court expenses. The lawyer told him he must wait until the case was settled.

We talked it over with our friend who had taken the dogs. She called her brother into the conference. The only thing for Smoky to do was to go as a stowaway. It was a ridiculous case, anyhow—such a lot of trouble about two puppies. Smoky had offered to pay the five pounds and to leave some money with the lawyer for the court expenses; what more did they want? Smoky said he would take a chance: he would go as a stowaway.

I sent our luggage to the boat, and let people think I was going alone. Smoky and several friends came to see me off. When our friends left, waving to me and calling good-byes, Smoky hid behind a lifeboat.

After we sailed he came out from his hiding-place. The captain of the Knight of Malta, a charming man whom we had known on the island, knew nothing about the injunction. He was quite capable of turning back had he known.

Chapter XVII

We arrived in England in the winter. The fog got into us, especially into Smoky, and we felt as grey as the country. We got Dalton’s Weekly the day we arrived and had a look at the advertisements, for Smoky thought it would be cheaper to rent a cottage in the country than to live in rooms in London. We rented a cottage on the Kentish coast. It was very ugly. It had a smoky chimney, an improvised bath-room and two kinds of cold water.

We saw the landlady who rented us the cottage only when she came to take back, piece by piece, the things which accused the cottage—in the advertisement—of being furnished. Fearing there would be nothing left but the beds and the linoleum, I refused one day to let anything more go out of the cottage. That was the last time we saw the landlady.

Nights we would sit before the smoky fire and listen to the rain beating down on the roof and the wind tapping at the windows. The sea would roar like an angry lion, while between them the sea and sky would try to crush the life out of the earth. No one came to sit by the fire with us. There was no one to come. Smoky, owing to discouragement and inactivity, was going native. He wasn’t keeping himself up to the mark. He neglected to shave daily. His collar and tie were rumpled. There was only one thing for it in a place where we didn’t know anyone: we must go to church. We must feel that at any moment someone we met at the church might call. We went to church and people came to see us. They talked about their land, their children, the price of eggs and butter. Smoky, bored stiff, but shaved, wearing a clean collar and tie, would listen, a forced smile on his face.

Poverty puts you with strange people, doesn’t it? Did it ever occur to you that poverty keeps a lot of men and women true to each other? Voltaire should have written a book about it. He would have loved the taste of this fact. Sitting by the fire in the evenings, a far-away look in his eyes, a cloud of cigarette smoke trying to blot out the smoke of the chimney, Smoky would wait for new fighting thoughts to come into his mind—how to fight the poverty of another day—of the days to come. His life was all battles and victories. There was no peace in it. When man struggles with poverty every other thought flies out of his mind. This is because the average man plans for a thousand years; not for the brief moment of life.

The inner fire never went out in me. Life was sad and mean, but you can always sail away on the wings of fancy. Only my body stayed in that ugly little cottage with the poverty. I read a lot of poetry when I wasn’t doing house-work or working on my book. Poetry can get you through any commonplace period. I wrote six poems in moments I could snatch from my work. I sent them all to Chambers’s Journal, and they bought the two I liked the least.

A most amusing couple had a cottage near us. They didn’t gravitate to us by way of the church; their dog introduced us. They had eloped several months before we met them. He had left his former wife and she had left her former husband, to whom she had been married twenty-seven years—which proves that you never know when love will assert himself. She was years older than her second husband, but she looked much younger. They also did their cooking, having a woman come in only to wash up as we did. One day she complained of his cooking everything en casserole. French people cooked en casserole. His first wife was French. Why couldn’t the joint and vegetables be cooked in the English way? Quite solemnly he gathered up all the casserole dishes—twelve of them, which cost not less than four shillings each—and broke them one after the other on his stone doorstep. She feared he was in a towering rage because she had found fault with his cooking. It wasn’t that. He broke those dishes, he explained, almost with tears in his eyes—because he loved her. The scant supply of pots which our landlady had left us had to do service in both cottages until the loved one replenished her scullery.

Smoky and the husband went coursing several times. I was glad when Smoky went for these long walks, for he would come home quite cheered from the activity. We would go for walks on the beach, the wind almost blowing our heads off; but we would get some air in our lungs to overcome the smoke of the chimney. As spring approached the landlady wrote to say that somebody wanted to rent the cottage for a year. If we cared to rent it for a year we must let her know. We didn’t, so we moved to Twickenham.

We shared a house with a couple who had rented one of the pretty-pretty boxes of a terrace—much like the terrace in Richmond, where grandmother died, only gayer—like bonbons dropped from a child’s hand. The builders entered into no conspiracy with the landscape. They defied it and made it utterly ashamed. When I look at the new estates with their tiresome sameness and tawdry appearance I try to imagine what England was like when she was merry. There was no kitchen in our part of the house, so we cooked on a gas-ring in one of the rooms. We cooked everything en casserole. The French method, which annoyed the lady in Kent, did quite well for us. While we lived in Twickenham, Smoky tried a little of everything, retouching photographs, selling brushes, writing articles and sending them to the Indian newspapers—a few were accepted, but most of them came back—and teaching French. He had a French class consisting of three typists—young girls—and five children. They came to the house twice a week for lessons.

We had an invitation to visit friends in Devonshire. Smoky didn’t want to go because he disliked a man who was staying with our friends. I wanted to go, and I tried to persuade him not to be silly and spoil our holiday. Perhaps I nagged him a little about it. The day I wrote accepting the invitation he went out and had all his teeth extracted. He was an awful looking sight when he came home. I called him a selfish brute, and he began a toothless explanation about meaning to have his teeth out for some time. The dentist had told him that he couldn’t have a temporary set, but would have to wait until his gums had settled. As a matter of fact, he threatened me with toothless companionship for three months. The temporary set appeared, however, soon after I had written to our friends saying we couldn’t visit them owing to an appointment I had forgotten when I accepted.

The lady with whom we shared the house at Twickenham wanted our part of the house for her mother. She was going to have a baby and she wanted her mother to be with her. We moved to Chiswick. I was feeling rather seedy when we moved. I hadn’t taken stock of myself for some time. My digestion was troubling me and my skin was going off. I took myself in hand in Chiswick. For some years I have gone on a mono diet whenever my appearance lets me down. Sometimes the diet consists of boiled potatoes, sometimes of raisins. There is nothing like a mono diet for getting all the poisons out of your body. I chose the raisin diet in Chiswick. I made a new stock of face creams. I always make my own face creams, and I will have them if I haven’t enough to eat. I have studied beauty preparations all over the world. I know how to revive the most jaded skin with honey as the Chinese women do. When I am sixty I shall still be looking after my appearance. The raisins and the cream did their work. I was soon renewed in body and self-respect.

Smoky’s jobs finished one after the other. He became a little more discontented as each one ended. He tried to raise a loan on his income, but what he thought was sufficient security the bank considered inadequate. I saw in one of the daily papers that Mr. Baldwin lives on an overdraft. I suppose there is some difference between Smoky and Mr. Baldwin.

The other day I went out to Richmond and had a look at the little house where grandmother died. Yes, I know I am sentimental. There was a pram in front of the house with a red-cheeked baby in it. Life and death are all the same to that little row of terraces. Coming back I walked across the bridge. Someone had put food on the wall for the gulls. They flew all round it and hovered over it; but they were too frightened to alight and eat it. While they were trying to get up their courage two sparrows came and made short work of it. Isn’t that like life?

I finished my book “Merry Masques” in Chiswick. As I said before, it is the best thing I have done; but publishers don’t agree with me. Like H. G. Wells, I have written about the life to come. The difference between us is that H. G. is very serious. He does his work without assistance—but the imp is for ever looking over my shoulder, a grin on his face, telling me what to write. I have tried to suppress him, but he won’t be suppressed. In spite of his dictation, there are readers who think that “Merry Masques” is quite serious.

*  *  *

I have told you a lot about my life, but there is a lot I haven’t told you. There have been journeys back and forth over the same ground like a shuttle in a loom—endless journeys which seemed never to come to an end. I have told you of certain things that happened on some of the journeys. Many garbled stories have been told about my efforts to sell the necklace by people who have wanted to hurt me. Don’t think I am trying to defend myself. I have put the facts before you. Judge for yourself the part I played in it.

Do we ever know how things are going to turn out? There are so many things in life that grow up and become fierce, like animals. A leopard cub is a dear little thing. You can pet him and hold him on your lap for months, then suddenly one day he turns on you and tries to rend you. He is like so many circumstances in life. You can handle them—or you believe you can—quite easily at first, and then suddenly they get out of hand, and you wonder if it is better to escape from them or face them. In either case they may rend you. I have dared and dared, but I have seldom triumphed. What a lot of doors have closed on me before I could get inside! I shall keep on daring. I shall continue to wander up and down the world looking for beauty, romance and love.

The End

---

Book Review

Life and Loves of a Prodigal Daughter

By Gervee Baronte. (Baronte Press, 12/6)

It is claimed that these are “The frankest Memoirs since Casanova’s.” They are the intimate adventures of a woman who, among other things, sold the famous Napoleon necklace in 1930.

Her tales of travel are unique in their pulsating description. She has actually lived in 11 countries. We read of her escape to India, of her study of Eastern religions, of her life in China where over 150 people congregated at her salon each week, of her meetings with Chinese leaders and the secrets of some of them, of Napoleon’s necklace and the evil eye, of how she came into contact with gangsters in America, of her meetings with a sheikh on the Iraquian desert, of black magic in Egypt, poison, threats in India . . . . . and her meetings with world-known celebrities of whom she talks most intimately and frankly.

There are sidelights on the great that show them in new aspect, delightful anecdotes of kings, princes and sultans by whom this remarkable woman has been received in private audience.

Gervee Baronte is a woman who deals in facts without gloss or pandering to the conventional. Two years ago, under the pseudonym of “Arthur Miles” she wrote “The Land of the Ungam” in much the same strain. The book excited and enraged critics, but it is claimed by the publishers that not one single fact could be refuted.

“Life and Loves of a Prodigal Daughter” may be considered strong meat for those who like their literary meals delicately served; but no one can deny its frankness, its thrills, its humour and its appeal.

The Nottingham Journal. 10 February 1936. p. 4.