The princess sighed. "I am more of an American than I supposed," she
said.
The contessa hastened to reassure her: "My dear Lisa! You! There is
nothing of it about you."
The princess was too remote from her native land to resent this
reassurance.
She continued thoughtfully: "There must be. I am a little bit kind.
Americans are, you know. If anyone runs for the doctor in the middle of
the night at a Continental hotel it always turns out to be an American.
The English think they are officious and we Italians think they are
too stupid to know when they are imposed upon, but it isn't either.
It's kindness. The English are just, and the French are clear-sighted,
but Americans are kind. You know I can't bear to think of that young
creature loving tapestries and not being able ever to see yours."
"My dear child, if you feel like that!" The contessa touched the bell,
and when in due time Luigi appeared, she gave orders that the lady
waiting below was to be allowed to see the tapestries in the dining
room and the salas. "But not in here, Luigi; no matter how much she
gives you--not in here--and let her know that these are much the best
ones. So, like that we are all satisfied."
An evening or so after this the two women met again; this time at a
musicale given by a lady as international as the socialist party.
Charlotte, still in spotless white and pearls, came quickly across the
room to thank the princess, whom she recognized immediately. She said
quite the right things about the tapestries, about Venice, about Italy;
and the princess, who was susceptible to praise of the country which
had become her own, was pleased with Charlotte.
"One is so starved for beauty in America," Mrs. Haines complained.
"I'm like a greedy child for it when I come here; you can form no
idea how terrible New York is." The princess dimly remembered rows of
chocolate-colored houses--the New York of the early '90's. She was
ready to sympathize with Charlotte.
"Why don't you come here and live--such beautiful old palaces to be had
for nothing--for what Americans consider nothing," she suggested.
Charlotte rolled her large brown eyes. "If only I could; but my husband
wouldn't hear of it. He actually likes America. Italy means nothing to
him."
Lisa was destined to hear more of Charlotte's husband before she
took in the fact that he was the president of the Haines Heating
Corporations. It made a difference. It wasn't that she didn't really
like Charlotte--Lisa would never have been nice to her if she hadn't
really liked her; but neither would she have been so extremely nice to
her if Haines had not been at the head of such a hopeful company. It
was a wonderfully lucky combination of circumstances.
And to no one did it appear more lucky than to Charlotte, to whom the
princess seemed so well-bred, so civilized, so expert and so wise--the
living embodiment of all that Charlotte herself wished to become.
And then she knew Venice so wonderfully; she was better than any
guidebook. She knew of gardens and palaces that no one else had heard
of. She knew of old wellheads and courtyards. A few people went to
see the Giorgione in the Seminario, but only the princess insisted on
Charlotte's seeing the library, with its row of windows on the Canal,
and its beautiful old books going up to the ceiling, and the painted
panel that looked like books until, sliding it, you found it was the
stairway to the gallery--all these delights Charlotte owed to her new
friend.
And as the moon grew larger--on the evenings when Charlotte wasn't
dining with Americans at the Lido or at that delightful new restaurant
on the other side of the Canal, where you sat in the open air and
ate at bare tables in such a primitive way--the two women would go
out in Charlotte's gondola--sometimes through the labyrinth of the
little canals, but more often the other way--past some tall, empty,
ocean-going steamer anchored off the steps of the church of the
Redentore--out to the Giudecca, where they could see the lighthouse at
the entrance to the port, past a huge dredge which looked in the misty
moonlight, as Charlotte said, like a dragon with its mouth open; on
and on with their two gondoliers, to where everything was marsh and
moonlight.
The princess had often noticed that Americans in Europe explained
themselves a good deal. Perhaps citizens of a republic must explain
themselves socially; after all, a princess does not need explanation.
Charlotte on these evenings explained herself. Even as a child, she
said, she had been reaching out for beauty--a less sophisticated person
would have called it culture--when she had married she had thought only
of the romance of it--she had been very much in love with her husband,
ten years older than she, already successful; a dominating nature,
she had not thought then that they were out of sympathy about the
impersonal aspects of life--art, beauty. It was natural for Charlotte
to slip into the discussion of her own problem--the problem of the
American husband--so kind, so virtuous, so successful, but alas, so
indifferent to the finer arts of living.
"What are we to do, we American women?" Charlotte wailed. "We grow
up, we educate ourselves to know the good from the bad, the ugly from
the beautiful--and then we fall in love and marry some man to whom it
is all a closed book; who is sometimes jealous of interests he cannot
share. Sometimes it seems as if we should crush all that is best in
us in order to be good wives to our husbands. You Europeans are so
lucky--you and your men have the same tastes and the same interests."
"At least," said the princess politely, "your men are very generous in
allowing you to come abroad without them. Ours wouldn't have that for a
minute."
Charlotte laughed. "Our men would rather we came alone than asked them
to go with us. You can't imagine how bored my husband is in Europe.
He speaks no language but his own, and instead of meeting interesting
people he goes to his nearest office and entirely reorganizes it."
The princess had always wanted to know whether these deserted American
husbands had other love affairs; or, rather, not so much whether they
had them as whether they were permitted to have them. Here was an
excellent opportunity for finding out. She put her question, as she
felt, delicately, but Charlotte was obviously a little shocked.
"Oh, no!" she said quickly. "At least Dan doesn't. Dan isn't a bit
horrid in ways like that."
Lisa felt inclined to disagree with the adjective. Human, she would
have called it. At the same time she felt extremely sympathetic with
Charlotte's situation. She knew how she herself would have suffered
if she had married a competent business man who lived in a brownstone
front with a long drawing-room like a tunnel, and talked nothing but
business at dinner. She inquired whether Mr. Haines was in Wall Street,
and heard that he was the head of the Haines Heating Corporations. Then
making more extended inquiries in her practical Latin way, she saw that
she had found the right opening for Raimundo.
Before Charlotte left Venice she invited the princess and her son to
pay her a visit in New York that winter; she urged it warmly. For to
be honest Charlotte was in somewhat the same position in regard to the
princess that the princess was in regard to Charlotte. The fact that
she was a princess warmed the younger woman's liking.
Lisa did not jump at the invitation. It was her duty to accept it, but
she was not eager.
"I haven't crossed the Atlantic since I was eight years old," she said.
"Besides, how would Mr. Haines feel about us? If Italy bores him,
wouldn't two resident Italians bore him more?"
"You would start with the handicap of being my friends," Charlotte
answered, "but he'd be perfectly civil, and in the end he would learn
to appreciate you. He's not a fool, Dan. He's wise about people, if he
can only get over his prejudices. But he'd be away most of the time.
He always goes to California in January to look after his oil wells or
something."
It was not quite the princess' idea that Dan Haines should be away all
the time. He must see Raimundo, and be charmed by his youth and gayety,
while she, the princess, would provide a background of solidity and
Old World standards. She talked the matter over with her son--a thin,
eagle-nosed boy of twenty. He was enthusiastic at the prospect, but
more, his mother feared, because he had fallen in love with Charlotte's
niece, whom he had met at the Lido, than because he took his future in
the Haines Heating Corporations seriously. Nevertheless Charlotte's
invitation was accepted.
Yet many times before January came she woke up in the night, cold
with horror at the idea of this journey to an unknown land. She had
hardly been out of Italy for twenty years. And even after she had
actually sailed, walking the inclosed deck at night, while Raimundo was
playing bridge, she shrank from the undertaking. She was very lonely,
the poor princess. She and the prince had had their own troubles and
disagreements, but these had gradually passed, and she had come to
look forward to his companionship for her old age--a quiet prospect of
settling their children and bringing up grandchildren, and making two
ends meet at the dilapidated Sangatano villa. And then he had failed
her; he had died during the war; and the princess had found that all
her little world died about the same time. The old circle in Rome was
gone, ruined, embittered, changed and scattered. The pleasant clever
friendly educated group of her friends were a group no longer. And she
was changed too. The war--or, rather, the aftermath of war--had brought
out in her something different from her beloved country of adoption.
She was not willing to sit down and lament the passing of her own
order. She could not weep because the peasants no longer rose as you
passed their houses. She had even a suspicion that the new order was
not so terrible, and this put her old friends out of sympathy with her.
They remembered that she was, after all, an American. Perhaps it was as
well she was going away that winter, for she was very lonely at home.
Her steamer chair was next that of an American gentleman, a short, fat,
round-faced man, who bore out her theory that Americans were kind, by
the most careful and unobtrusive attention. The name of Haines was
introduced into the conversation, and evidently inspired the fat man's
interest. She asked if he knew Mr. Haines. No, not really. She saw
that he would like to have been able to say that he did. He knew a
great deal about Haines, which he was more than ready to tell. Haines
was a man whom many people thought dangerously liberal in his ideas of
handling his labor, and yet ultra-conservative in his investments. His
ideas worked out, though--a brilliant man--creative--and then the usual
story of having begun life on nothing.
"Really?" murmured the princess, not at all surprised, because she
supposed all rich Americans began life on nothing.
Still, she was glad of this increase in her knowledge of her host. He
was evidently one of these tremendous commercial powers. Charlotte's
account had hardly prepared her for this, but then, she supposed
Charlotte lived so surrounded by these vigorous fortune-makers that she
had lost her sense of proportion about them. The possibility pleased
the princess. After all, there were other heads of large industries
besides Haines.
She conveyed her extended hopes to Raimundo when about noon he appeared
on deck, having had already a game of squash, a swim, and a turn on
deck with a very pretty opera singer.
"This is a great opportunity, Raimundo," she said, "if you take it in
the right way."
"Oh, I shall take it right," said the boy, sitting down beside her and
studying his long, slim foot in profile. "I shall, of course, make love
to the beautiful Charlotte."
"You will do nothing of the kind."
"For what are we crossing the ocean?" replied her son. "Oh, I have
read transatlantic fiction. American men do not mind your making love
to their wives--because it saves them the time it would take to do
it themselves; and then also it confirms their belief that they have
acquired a valuable article."
"You must not talk like this, even to me," said his mother. "You are
quite wrong. Charlotte, like most of the American women I have met, is
extremely cool and virtuous."
"Of course," said Raimundo, "you offer them only a dumb doglike
devotion." And looking into her face he sketched a look of dumb doglike
devotion at which she could not help laughing.
Charlotte was at the wharf to welcome them, accompanied by a competent
manservant to do the work of the customs. Mr. Haines, it appeared, was
in California. The princess expressed polite regret at hearing this.
"Oh, he'll be back," answered his wife, and if she did not add "quite
soon enough" her tone conveyed it, and Raimundo darted a quick impish
glance at his mother.
As they waited while the princess' maid put back the trays of the
trunks Lisa tried to convey her admiration of the harbor. Of course a
great deal has been written about the approach to New York by sea, but
as the princess, like most Europeans, had never read anything about
America, it all came as a great surprise to her. It seemed to come as a
surprise to Charlotte too.
"Beautiful?" she said incredulously. "After Venice?"
"Different," answered the princess.
"I should say it was different," said Charlotte. "There--I think those
horrible men have finished mauling your trunks, and we can go."
It was on the tip of Lisa's tongue to say that she found the American
customs officials perfectly civil, and that her experiences on European
frontiers had been much more disagreeable, but as she began to speak
she was suddenly conscious that Charlotte did not really want to think
well of her native land, and she stopped.
"Oh, I say," cried the little prince as they came out of the cavelike
shadow of the pier into the cloudless light of the winter day, "what a
jolly day! I shan't be responsible for anything I do if you have many
days like this."
"Oh, we have lots of these," returned Charlotte, signaling to her
footman. "We have nothing else--no half lights, no mists, no mystery."
And they got into her little French town car and started on their way
uptown.
The princess stared out of her window in silence, noting the
disappearance of the chocolate-colored houses, the beauty of the
shops--and yes, even of the shoppers. But her son was not gifted with
reticence. If his impressions had been disagreeable he might have been
silent, but as they were flattering he saw no reason for suppressing
them. He thought Fifth Avenue wonderful.
"And, my eye," he kept saying--an expression he had learned early in
life from an English groom--"what a lot of pretty girls, and what a lot
of cars! I did not know there were so many motor cars in the world."
Charlotte smiled as if she knew he meant to be kind, and suddenly
laying her hand on the princess' knee, she said, "Oh, I'm so afraid
you're going to hate it all, but you don't know what it means to me to
have you here."
The princess was touched.
Yet it must be owned that Lisa found the next few weeks
confusing--confusing, that is, if Charlotte were to be regarded as
the starved prisoner of an alien culture. They were agreeable weeks;
Raimundo was in the seventh heaven. He dined, danced, lunched, and
danced again. He went into the country and tobogganed, and learned to
walk on snowshoes. When asked how he was enjoying America he always
made the same answer: "I shall never go home. My eye! What girls!"
His mother enjoyed herself more mildly, and with certain reservations.
Erudite gentlemen were put next to her at dinner--a Frenchman who was
a specialist on Chinese porcelains; a painter of Spanish birth; and
several English novelists and poets who were either just beginning
or just completing successful lecture tours of the United States;
interesting men, in one way or another, yet--and yet--the princess
asked herself if she had crossed the wide Atlantic simply to see this
pale replica of a civilization she already knew.
And something else puzzled and distressed her. Her friend Charlotte
seemed to her the freest of created beings--freer than any woman the
princess had ever known, to make of her life anything she wanted to
make of it. But Charlotte's life seemed to lack purpose and dignity.
Charlotte liked to feel that learned men came to her house, but her
state of nerves did not always allow her to listen to what they said.
Serious books were on her table, and sometimes in her hands, and yet
her day lacked those long safe hours of leisure in which such books are
read.
There was no doubt that a realer, more vital Charlotte appeared buying
a new hat or playing a game of bridge or asking someone to dinner, than
the Charlotte who lamented the lost beauty of an old world. And yet she
wasn't just a fraud.
She was not an early riser, and if toward eleven o'clock the princess
penetrated to Charlotte's bedroom, overlooking the park, she would find
her still in bed--a priceless Italian bed--said to have been made for
Bianca Capello--propped by lace pillows, and reading a fashion paper.
And something else worried the princess--the house, the way it was
managed. It was comfortable, well heated--too well; there was always
delicious food and too much of it, but Charlotte lived in her house
as in a hotel. If butchers overcharged or footmen stole, Charlotte's
only feeling was that they were tiresome dishonest people with whom she
wished to have nothing to do. Abroad, she said, one's servants did not
do such things.
The princess disagreed. They did not have the same opportunities, she
said; the mistresses were more vigilant. The extravagance of the Haines
household actually hurt her, coming as she did from a group where
extravagance had ceased to be possible. But Charlotte would not admit
that she had any responsibility.
"Really, dear Lisa," she said almost crossly, "I have better things to
think about than housekeeping."
Well, the princess wondered what those things were.
As the days went by and as small party succeeded small party, Lisa
noted that she met no American men--or hardly any--at Charlotte's
house, and she asked finally why this was.
"Do they work so hard they can't dine out?"
"No--or, rather, yes, they work hard; but that's not why I don't ask
them. They're so uninteresting--you would be bored to death by them."
"I'd rather like to try," said the princess mildly.
Charlotte contracted her straight eyebrows in thought. "I'll try to
think of some not too awful," she said.
And a few evenings afterward the princess found herself next to a
nice little chattering gentleman who spoke Italian better than she
did, and made lace with his own hands. On the other side was a former
ambassador--a charming person, but of no nation or age. She had known
him in Paris for years. She sighed gently. She wanted to meet a
financial colossus. She liked men--real ones.
Needless to say that in the Haines house she had her own sitting
room--a delightful little room hung in old crimson velvet, with a wood
fire always blazing on the hearth. The first day when Charlotte brought
her into it she apologized for a picture over the mantelpiece.
"The things one puts in the spare room!" she said. "My husband bought
that picture at an auction once, because it reminded him of the farm he
was brought up on. I didn't dare give it away, but there's no reason
why you should be inflicted with it." And she raised her arm to take it
down.
"No! Leave it; I like it," said the princess. "It's delightful--that
blue sky and clouds."
She was quite sincere in saying she liked it. She did. Often she would
look up from her book and let her eyes fall with pleasure on the small
green and blue and white canvas, and wonder in what farming district
Mr. Haines had been brought up--and in what capacity.
The New York climate affected the princess' ability to sleep. She read
often late into the night. One night--or rather morning--for it must
have been three o'clock--she was interrupted by a visit from her son.
He often dropped in on his way to bed to sketch for her the strange but
in his opinion agreeable habits of the American girl. But this evening
he did not burst out into his usual narrative. He entered silently, and
stood for some seconds silent.