Ever so lovely are the young men of Cuna-Cuna--Juarez, Jotifa,
Enid--(these, from many, to distinguish but a few)--but none so
delicate, charming, and squeamish, as Charlie Mouth.
“Attractive little Rose....” “What a devil of a dream ...” the avid
belles would exclaim when he walked abroad, while impassioned widows
would whisper “Peach!”
One evening, towards sundown, just as the city lifts its awnings, and
the deserted streets start seething with delight, he left his home to
enjoy the grateful air. It had been a day of singular oppressiveness,
and not expecting overmuch of the vesperal breezes, he had borrowed his
mother’s small Pompadour fan.
Ah, little did that nigger boy know as he strolled along what novel
emotions that promenade held in store!
Disrelishing the dust of the Avenida, he directed his steps towards the
Park.
He had formed already an acquaintanceship with several young men,
members, it seemed, of the University, and these he would sometimes
join, about this hour, beneath the Calabash-trees in the Marcella
Gardens.
There was Abe, a lad of fifteen, whose father ran a Jazz Hall on the
harbour-beach, and Ramon, who was destined to enter the Church, and the
intriguing Esmé, whose dream was the Stage, and who was supposed to be
“in touch” with Miss Maxine Bush, and there was Pedro, Pedro ardent and
obese, who seemed to imagine that to be a dress-designer to foreign
Princesses would yield his several talents a thrice-blessed harvest.
Brooding on these and other matters, Charlie found himself in Liberty
Square.
Here, the Cunan Poet, Samba Marcella’s effigy arose--that “sable
singer of Revolt.”
Aloft, on a pedestal, soared the Poet, laurel-crowned, thick-lipped,
woolly, a large weeping Genius, with a bold taste for draperies,
hovering just beneath; her one eye closed, the other open, giving her
an air of winking confidentially at the passers-by: “Up Cunans, up!
To arms, to arms!” he quoted, lingering to watch the playful swallows
wheeling among the tubs of rose-oleanders that stood around.
And a thirst, less for bloodshed, than for a sherbet, seized him.
It was a square noted for the frequency of its bars, and many of their
names, in flickering lights, shewed palely forth already.
Cuna! City of Moonstones; how færic art thou in the blue blur of dusk!
Costa Rica. Chile Bar. To the Island of June....
Red roses, against tall mirrors, reflecting the falling night.
Seated before a cloudy cocktail, a girl with gold cheeks like the
flesh of peaches, addressed him softly from behind: “Listen, lion!”
But he merely smiled on himself in the polished mirrors, displaying
moist-gleaming teeth and coral gums.
An aroma of aromatic cloves ... a mystic murmur of ice....
A little dazed after a Ron Bacardi, he moved away: “Shine, sah?” the
inveigling squeak of a shoeblack followed him.
Sauntering by the dusty benches by the pavement-side, where white-robed
negresses sat communing in twos and threes, he attained the Avenue
Messalina with its spreading palms, whose fronds hung nerveless in the
windless air.
Tinkling mandolines from restaurant gardens, light laughter, and
shifting lights.
Passing before the Café de Cuna, and a people’s “Dancing,” he roamed
leisurely along. Incipient Cyprians, led by vigilant, blanched-faced
queens, youths of a certain life, known as bwam-wam bwam-wams, gaunt
pariah dogs with questing eyes, all equally were on the prowl. Beneath
the Pharaohic pilasters of the Theatre Maxine Bush, a street crowd had
formed before a notice described “Important,” which informed the Public
that, owing to a “temporary hoarseness,” the rôle of Miss Maxine Bush
would be taken, on that occasion, by Miss Pauline Collier.
The Marcella Gardens lay towards the end of the Avenue, in the animated
vicinity of the Opera. Pursuing the glittering thoroughfare, it was
interesting to observe the pleasure announcements of the various
theatres, picked out in signs of fire: _Aïda_: _The Jewels of the
Madonna_: _Clara Novotny and Lily Lima’s Season_.
Vending bags of roasted peanuts, or sapadillos and avocado pears,
insistent small boys were importuning the throng.
“Go away; I can’t be bodder,” Charlie was saying, when he seemed to
slip; it was as though the pavement were a carpet snatched from under
him, and looking round, he was surprised to see, in a Confectioner’s
window, a couple of marble-topped tables start merrily waltzing
together.
Driven onward by those behind, he began stumblingly to run towards
the Park. It was the general goal. Footing it a little ahead, two
loose women and a gay young man (pursued by a waiter with a napkin
and a bill), together with the horrified, half-crazed crowd; all,
helter-skelter, were intent upon the Park.
Above the Calabash-trees, bronze, demoniac, the moon gleamed sourly
from a starless sky, and although not a breath of air was stirring, the
crests of the loftiest palms were set arustling by the vibration at
their roots.
“Oh, will nobody _stop_ it?” a terror-struck lady implored.
Feeling quite white and clasping a fetish, Charlie sank all panting to
the ground.
Safe from falling chimney-pots and signboards, that, for “Pure
Vaseline,” for instance, had all but caught him, he had much to be
thankful for.
“Sh’o nuff, dat was a close shave,” he gasped, gazing dazed about him.
Clustered back to back near by upon the grass, three stolid matrons,
matrons of hoary England, evidently not without previous earthquake
experience, were ignoring resolutely the repeated shocks:
“I always follow the Fashions, dear, at a distance!” one was saying:
“this little gingham gown I’m wearing, I had made for me after a design
I found in a newspaper at my hotel.”
“It must have been a pretty old one, dear--I mean the paper, of course.”
“New things are only those you know that have been forgotten.”
“Mary ... there’s a sharp pin, sweet, at the back of your ... _Oh!_”
Venturing upon his legs, Charlie turned away.
By the Park palings a few “Salvationists” were holding forth, while
in the sweep before the bandstand, the artists from the Opera in
their costumes of Aïda, were causing almost a greater panic, among
the ignorant, than the earthquake was itself. A crowd, promiscuous
rather than representative, composed variously of chauffeurs (making a
wretched pretence, poor chaps, of seeking out their masters), Cyprians,
patricians (these in opera cloaks and sparkling diamonds), tourists,
for whom the Hodeidah girls would _not_ dance that night, and bwam-wam
bwam-wams, whose equivocal behaviour, indeed, was perhaps more shocking
even than the shocks set the pent Park ahum. Yet, notwithstanding the
upheavals of Nature, certain persons there were bravely making new
plans.
“How I wish I could, dear! But I shall be having a houseful of women
over Sunday--that’s to say.”
“Then come the week after.”
“Thanks, then, I _will_.”
Hoping to meet with Abe, Charlie took a pathway, flanked with rows of
tangled roses, whose leaves shook down at every step.
And it occurred to him with alarming force that perhaps he was an
orphan.
Papee, Mammee, Mimi and lil Edna--the villa drawing-room on the
floor....
His heart stopped still.
“An’ dey in de spirrit world--in heaven hereafter!” He glanced with awe
at the moon’s dark disk.
“All in dair cotton shrouds....”
What if he should die and go to the Bad Place below?
“I mizzable sinneh, Lord. You heah, Sah? You heah me say dat? Oh,
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” and weeping, he threw himself down among a bed of
flowers.
When he raised his face it was towards a sky all primrose and silver
pink. Sunk deep in his dew-laved bower, it was sweet to behold the
light. Above him great spikes of blossom were stirring in the idle
wind, while birds were chaunting voluntaries among the palms. And in
thanksgiving, too, arose the matins bells. From Our Lady of the Pillar,
from the church of La Favavoa in the West, from Saint Sebastian, from
Our Lady of the Sea, from Our Lady of Mount Carmel, from Santa Theresa,
from Saint Francis of the Poor.