I
There was also a Younger.
He had just come down from Florence, where a white umbrella was no
longer proof against the August sun, and where even the secular shades
of the Uffizi had grown intolerable. But whether Viareggio were an
effective substitute was a debatable question. To have sought refuge
from the dim-roomed palaces above the Arno in a pink casino required
other justification than that of greater security against the attacks
of Phœbus, while the charms of a ragged pine wood and of a dubious
monument to Shelley hardly threw the scale against the Piazza della
Signoria. But there was their Ligurian Sea, as absurdly overcoloured as
a lithograph, which one might splash in all day long, whereas in all
Tuscany was there scarcely water enough to wet your finger withal. And,
too, there were people.
So the Younger stood in the doorway of the Casino terrace and smiled.
For while the _Stabilimento_, like all respectable _Stabilimenti_,
was rigidly divided into two equal halves, with the dressing-rooms of
the sheep on the right hand and those of the goats on the left of the
central café, it was noticeable that the spectators tended to scatter
themselves in precisely the opposite sense. What chiefly caused the
Younger to smile, however, was that at the extreme right-hand corner
table he recognised the back of the Elder. This personage, upon whom
time had already impressed a seal only too legible, was what it pleased
the Younger to call a type; and in types he conceived that he found
a peculiar profit. Since the Elder, despite his worldly degree, was
known in Florentine circles for his assiduity among the studios--not so
much in the quality of patron of the arts as in that of amateur of the
society to be found therein--what could be more in character than his
present post? And if the Younger happened to be better acquainted with
the back which he now beheld than with its patrician obverse, he found
in that circumstance nothing to prevent his edging through the crowd to
the extreme right-hand corner table.
“Ah, the long American painter!” cried the Elder, greeting him with the
effusion whose secret is alone to the Latin race. “You have come to
look for models, eh?” He waved his hand toward the more or less exposed
forms disporting themselves on the sands below.
The Younger laughed.
“Your opportunities are limited here,” he said. “You should go to an
American watering-place. There young men and maidens, old men and
children, dressed and undressed, sport together with a promiscuity! You
would imagine yourself by the waters of Eden.”
“_Cosi?_” The Elder looked up a moment. “But after all, a little
formality is better--a little illusion.”
“Illusion!” cried the Younger. “In the red and white stripes so
bountifully provided by the _Stabilimento_! I can conceive of no surer
cure for love than to chain the unhappy victim to this corner and force
him to behold his inamorata in the full horror of her dishabille. It
would be a disillusionment which no passion could survive.”
“On the contrary,” rejoined the Elder, “you will shortly behold a
vision whose like you might seek in vain beside your waters of Eden.”
The Younger laughed again.
“There is already a vision, is there? In red and white stripes?
You must be worse off than usual, for this spectacle is positively
indecent. It is more. It is revolting. There ought to be a law
limiting public bathing to persons between the ages of--say--three and
thirty-three, with special clauses excluding individuals of inadequate
or intolerable dimensions!”
The Elder laughed in turn.
“That is why I am too vain to expose myself. There is an irrepressible
democracy of the flesh which is fatal to the most exclusive triumphs of
the tailor. But wait till you see Dulcinea.”
“Who is she this time?” inquired the Younger airily.
The Elder turned upon him a reproachful but an unoffended monocle:
“If she were respectable I would marry her to-morrow.”
“Ah!” uttered the Younger, slowly. “And are you respectable? Not, of
course, that I mean to imply anything against a Marquis of Tuscany.”
The Elder dropped his monocle.
“What will you have? Things are like that. Besides, women don’t care.
In fact they are all the more flattered to have been chosen last. It
proves their pretensions.”
“O!” grinned the Younger. “And who is the last?”
“Nobody knows. Some say she is a diva from Paris; others that she is a
_danseuse_ from Vienna; and others--But she is here on some caprice.
She is waiting for someone. I have tried to make her think it was for
me. I have made eyes. I have smiled. I have sighed. I have wept. I have
sent flowers. I have written poems. I have thrown myself in her path.
But she does not look. She goes about like anybody. She has her--you
know--with her----an old fat one.”
“But how do you know that she is not somebody?” demanded the Younger.
“Wait till you see!” admonished the Elder darkly. “Does anybody _flâne_
about alone and refuse to speak? Does anybody wear diamonds in the
day-time? Does anybody drag frills from the Rue de la Paix over the
sands of the sea? Does anybody come to a hole like Viareggio when they
might be at Venice or Scheveningen or Deauville?”
The Younger, highly entertained by this impassioned picture, was on
the point of pursuing his inquiries when the Elder evinced a sudden
excitement.
“Look!” he whispered, replacing his monocle.
The Younger looked. He saw a woman, extremely young, extremely pretty,
extremely self-possessed, and even extremely chic, in her surrender of
the red-and-white stripes of Viareggio for a bathing dress more modish,
advance slowly toward the water. She was followed by an older lady, who
had long since capitulated before the stoutness of middle life.
“Do you see?” cried the Elder. “Can anybody look like that and be
respectable?”
“Of course,” laughed the Younger. “Why in the world haven’t you
guessed?”
“Who, pray?” the Elder demanded.
“Why, who but an American?”
“O-o-o! I never thought of that.” And in the light of a new hypothesis
he began to examine Dulcinea afresh. After a prolonged scrutiny he
spoke again: “What do you make of the old one then, on your theory?”
“Why, who should she be but the girl’s mother?”
“Do mothers let their daughters go like that--even in America?”
“Like what? Her mother seems to be going farther than she.”
“Ah, yes; you haven’t seen,” rejoined the other. “But I don’t believe
it,” he burst out. “How do you know?”
“How do I know?” mused the Younger. “How could I help knowing--after
one look. Blood is thicker than water: an electric sympathy assures me!”
“Yes, an electric sympathy--when it is that one!” grinned the Elder.
“Well, then, look at their hair. Haven’t all Americans the same hair?”
The Elder glanced at him.
“You have, it is true. The mixture of races, I suppose. But that is not
enough.”
“If you absolutely demand conviction, then, I know because they have
been pointed out to me in Florence by other Americans.”
“Florence!” exclaimed the Elder. “Impossible! I would have seen them.”
“My dear Marquis,” retorted the Younger, “why should you have seen
them? Do I have to inform you that Florence is one of the most
considerable American cities on this globe? There are many people in
Florence whom you do not see. As a matter of fact, I happen to know
that they live there--in a _villino_ outside the Porta Romana. I
can even tell you that they have no contract for it--so complete in
Florence is our knowledge about each other! They came more than a year
ago, saying that they were to leave the next day. They have said so
every day since; but the landlord is as sure of them as if he had a
ten-year lease.”
“Who are they, then?” persisted the Elder. “What else do your friends
say about them?”
“Who are they! That is the one thing that nobody knows,” replied the
Younger.
“Ah, I told you they were not respectable!” proclaimed the Elder in
triumph.
The Younger was touched in his country’s honour.
“My dear sir,” he objected warmly, “allow me to inform you that you
entirely misconceive the case. I have not the slightest reason to
suppose them other than the perfected bloom of respectability. Have
you heard of our American inventions? Well, they are one of them--a
mother and daughter, unattached. There are thousands in Florence. Rome
is full of them. Certain Swiss and German cities contain only enough
other inhabitants to lodge, feed, clothe, educate and divert them. In
America you meet them on every corner. They have always emerged from
some pre-existent, perhaps some inferior state of being, but without
scandal; which, of course, is not to say that they are immune from the
frailties of the race. But never be deceived by them again.”
The Elder smiled. “Must it be always that--a mother and a daughter?
Can’t there be two daughters? Or another mother?”
“Never,” replied the Younger firmly. “If there are, then it’s another
invention.”
“But there must be a man,” objected the Elder.
“No,” insisted the Younger, “there isn’t. There never is. You might
ransack the universe and you wouldn’t find him. It’s like spontaneous
combustion--and just as respectable.”
The object of this discussion being now indistinguishable in the dazzle
of the Mediterranean, the Elder pursued his inquiry.
“If these ladies are of origin and habits so out of the ordinary, do
they have names?”
“Rather! They are called Perkins, I believe. The young lady is
Susannah. Her mamma is known behind her back as The General.”
The Elder repeated these soft appellations to himself. Then he asked:
“What do they do with themselves? Why have I never met them in the
world?”
“For the excellent reason that they don’t go. They know no one. They
see the dressmaker and a few other Americans, and _basta_.”
“Ah! There must be something queer!” burst out the Elder. “You haven’t
told me all. Otherwise how could they help not knowing everybody and
going everywhere?”
The Younger let out an exaggerated sigh.
“That is precisely what I have been trying to explain to you,” he
answered. “But it is true,” he added; “I haven’t told you all.”
“Ah, I knew! What is it?” The Elder was hectic in his eagerness.
“Well,” replied the Younger, looking for his effect, “Susannah is
one of your literary ladies. She writes a novel. Not novels, you
understand, but a novel. Some ladies keep house. Other ladies embroider
tea-cloths. A few occupy themselves with dogs, or reforms. Susannah
writes a novel. She is a portentous blue-stocking.”
“Blue stocking! On that leg! Never!” exploded the Elder. “I would give
a thousand francs to know her!”
The Younger regarded his companion quizzically.
“Would you really?”
“O you young men!” cried the Elder. “I don’t know what you are made of
nowadays. In my time there was more fire. I repeat it--I would give a
thousand francs to know her, and it would be nothing.”
“All right,” smiled the Younger. “I’ll take you.”
“Take me? Where?” asked the mystified Elder.
“Why, to Susannah--for a thousand francs.”
“To Susannah! My poor young man, little you know about it. I have been
here a month, and it isn’t so easy as you think.”
“On the contrary,” contradicted the Younger suavely, “it is far easier
than you think. I happen to know a good deal about it, for I am
personally acquainted with her. I have shaken her hand, I have dined at
the _villino_, I----”
“Mother of Heaven!” The Elder furiously clutched his arm. “You know
her, and you talk like this! You sit here calmly! You laugh! You lead
me by the nose! You----”
Words failed him, and he could only work his fingers into the Younger’s
muscles.
That young man tasted of his advantage.
“You see in America they are all like that.”
“And you are here to say so? Then you are either a monster or a liar.”
“Also,” continued the Younger placidly, “you must remember that I am a
poor devil of an artist, while Susannah----”
“Ah, I will marry her yet!” cried the Elder with a new enthusiasm.
“Take me! Take me!”
“To Susannah, you mean? For a thousand francs? I will. But wait till
she comes out of the water.”