_La Plume de Ma Tante._ Bright green walls splashed with vermilion. A
platform at one end, whereon five blackamoors perspired. At the other, a
naked woman. She was without hips, according to the fashion for women.
Her arms were twined above her head, and raised on the tip of her
fingers was a bowl of green malachite from which pink water splashed
into a white alabaster basin at her feet. Many English people were
present. They would be going to the Riviera, then they would be coming
back from the Riviera. Colonel Duck was there, with the quality. Colonel
Duck was, no doubt, just returned from some notably swift exploits on
the Cresta Run. But he never was so talkative about his outdoor
activities. Cherry-Marvel was there, with a great big woman and a
nice-looking boy with the hands of a housemaid who was a famous boxer.
There was the usual group of Argentines, very well dressed indeed. They
talked about _le polo_. All over the room elderly women were dancing
with young men of both sexes. Mio Mi Marianne was there, sitting alone,
but I might not speak with her because I was with my sister. A
_demi-mondaine_ will feel insulted if you speak with her when you are
with your sister. Two years before Mio Mi Marianne had one night tied a
silk handkerchief round her wrist, and it became the fashion for women
to tie silk handkerchiefs round their wrists. Then Mio Mi Marianne tied
a silk handkerchief round her throat, and that became the fashion. She
thought of these things while smoking opium. She sat alone, staring into
a glass of Vichy Water. A young American polo-player called Blister went
up to her table, and maybe he asked her to dance, but she just looked at
him and he went away again. Her eyes were intent on an opium-dream, and
she was very happy in the arms of the infinite. Mio Mi Marianne will be
found one day lying on the Aubusson carpet of her drawing-room. There
will be a hole in the carpet where her cigarette has died out.
A blackamoor beat a warning roll on his drum, the dancers left the
floor, the lights dwindled and awoke again in swaying shadows of blue
and carmine. A heavily built young man with the face of a murderer
danced a tango with a lovely young girl with short golden curls. Then he
threw her on the floor, and picked her up again. Rudolf and Raymonde. He
did it beautifully. An American woman called the Duchess of Malvern
threw Rudolph a pink carnation. The Baron de Belus said harshly: “That
is a white carnation really, but it is blushing at the fuss that women
make of Dagoes.” In a cage clamped to the bright green wall near us was
a dumb nightingale. It kept pecking at the floor of its cage, looking at
nothing and nobody. I left my sister in Cherry-Marvel’s care. I said to
her that he could dance, and next day she was furious.